The Secret Cottage

Amber lived in a sleepy little town in the Northeast of America. She didn't have many friends. There wasn't more than a dozen kids her age in town. There wasn't many kids at all, maybe a dozen of each age group. She generally spent her time either helping take care of her brother or exploring the woods around their sleepy little town.

Generally, she didn't really find anything that would get people talking. Every once in a while, she would find arrowheads or broken pottery. She would turn those pieces into the little museum they had in town. If they were determined to be of some historical importance, they would give her $50.00 a piece. If not, Amber would make some kind of jewelry out of the pieces; then sell them at $5.00 a piece.

Either way, she always had money and went to school full time. The other kids in her highschool had part time jobs at the one fast food restaurant or at the local fish market. Most of them didn't like Amber. She didn't really know why, but suspected it was because she found better and more interesting ways to make money. There wasn't much for ambition in the teens of that town, so when one teen did show ambition; they got jealous and deemed that teen a pariah.

Amber didn't mind though, she didn't find much use for them either. Her brother was disabled and she often helped her mother with caring for him. Her mother always insisted she go be a teenager and Amber rarely understood what that meant. She just did what she liked when she wasn't needed at home. School was a breeze to her, sometimes extremely boring.

One day, a few days before Halloween; she was exploring in the South part of the woods behind the town. This was a area she had not explored yet. Only because her mom told her it was closed to the public due to the dangerous paths in that area. She finally decided it was time to explore that area. She told her mom she was going to the movie theater, because it was in the general area.

That day, she left school a little early and went to the south end of town. There she found a overgrown path that led into the woods behind the movie theater. She locked her bike up at the bike rack; hoping that would be enough to convince her mother she was there. She knew her mother would probably come check to see if her bike was there. Seeing her bike parked would generally work.

She walked down the path for ten minutes and came to a fork in the path. There was three other paths one could take. One that led south in front of her, one that led east and another that led north behind her. She chose the South path in front of her. She strolled down the path, stopping to look through a bush every few minutes.

She found a old brush in the first bush she found, with a broken mirror next to it. She pocketed the items and moved on. As she moved on, she noticed the environment around her getting darker. It was only four o clock, so it definitely shouldn't have been getting darker. She moved on cautiously, watching her step with each movement because of how dark it was getting.

Suddenly, after what felt like forever, she saw a patch of light opening up ahead of her. She stepped through it and found herself in a beautiful meadow. There was beautiful cherry blossoms lining the outside of the meadow and wildflowers everywhere. She looked down and found herself on a red brick path. She continued down it for twenty minutes and came to a beautiful little secret cottage.

She went through the little swing gate in the front and walked up the cobblestone path to the front door. She knocked three times and no one answered. She leaned to the right window and peaked in, and saw no movement. She went down the front steps and around the corner of the house. She found the back door was unlocked and went inside.

She realized there was no lights, so she got out her flashlight and scanned the room she was in. She soon found she was in a kitchen. It was rather small, but big enough for two people to be in at the same time. There was a old wood stove and a icebox next to it. To the right side, there was a small wooden table with two wooden chairs. A electric lamp was sitting in the middle of the table.

Amber flipped the switch on the back and it came on. She put her flashlight away and went on into the living room. There was a old tv and a rocking lounge chair. A tall lamp stood to the right side of the chair and Amber flipped it on. She turned around and saw there was a small hallway that led to two other rooms.

The first room was a small bathroom with a sink and a shower. She closed the door and went to the other room. This one was a small bedroom. It had a single bed, a dresser and a fireplace with a tv above it. This tv looked brand new. Which really threw off the rest of the flow of the house.

She realized someone had been there recently. There was clothes in the dresser and the TV was too new for someone to have not been there for a while. She decided it was best to go on home and come back the next day. She gathered up her stuff and went out the way she came. She left the lights on; she wanted to see if someone came while she was gone.

She took a picture of the cottage before she left and went to the picture shop in town as soon as she could. After picking up the pictures the next day, she realized the cottage was not in any of the pictures. She didn't understand how that was possible. She knew she took pictures of it. The absence of the cottage in the pictures left her bewildered.

After school that day, she had to help her mother with her brother. By the time she was done, it was already getting darker. She made up a story of how she was invited on a camping trip and took a bag and a tent to the secret cottage. She planned to camp out by it and watch to see who showed up. She wasn't disappointed.

A few hours later, a dark figure came walking into the gate and up the front steps. She watched as he pulled a key out of his pocket and unlocked the door. He went in and she grabbed her binoculars and watched his movements. For a while, he didn't take his long black hooded coat off, but when he did; everything went dark. She adjusted her binoculars to night vision and saw what looked like a very hairy six foot tall man.

He moved like a creature more than a man. Suddenly, the creature turned around and looked out the window. It looked as though he had seen her, but she thought that was impossible. Then, he disappeared from the window. She frantically scanned the windows to find him, but she could not see him anymore.

She panicked, thinking maybe he did see her and was coming after her. She packed up her stuff and ran back to the movie theater. As she was running, she could have sworn she heard footsteps behind her. However, she was too scared to turn around and find out. She jumped on her bike when she came to it and rode as fast as she could, fearing the creature would show up behind her at any moment.

When she arrived home, her mom was sitting outside having a cigarette. She went white as a ghost when she saw Amber. Apparently her back was bleeding. Amber was so scared, she hadn't noticed she had gotten scratched by something. It had sharp claws, judging how long and deep the scratches were.

Her mom took her to Boston, the city was the only place that had a hospital. They were a hour away, so it was a long ride. Seemed too long now that Amber could feel the pain of the scratches. As soon as they arrived, her mom ran inside and got two nurses to help her get Amber inside. The doctor took one look and asked Amber if she had run into a bear or a mountain lion.

Amber told him what she saw and how she heard it chasing her. She didn't realize until she got home that she had been injured. He stitched them up and gave her a prescription for pain. They discharged her and her mom and her went back home. She fell asleep on the way back and didn't wake up again until the next afternoon.

Her mother had carried her in the night before and had done all her chores for her by the time Amber woke up. Her mom told her to take the day to just relax and heal. A few hours later, her mom left for the store and she called the neighbor to watch her brother. She wanted to find out what was at that cottage. She decided to take her dad's old pistol with her, just in case she had another altercation.

Before she loaded the gun, she thought about what she saw the night before. She wondered if the legends of werewolves were true. She took off her silver necklace and went to the shed in their backyard. Her dad had really been into making his own ammunition, so she thought she could turn her necklace into a silver bullet. She melted the necklace, poured it into her dad's bullet maker and pressed down on the lever.

She waited until it cooled off and loaded it into the gun. She clicked the gun chamber shut after loading it and put it in the holder on her belt. She grabbed her flashlight and walked out the front door. She got on her bike and rode quickly to the movie theater. Once there, she locked her bike and ran down the path to the secret cottage.

She wanted to get inside and hidden before nightfall. She thought if she had a chance to sneak up on the creature, she might be able to kill it. She was convinced by this point, this thing was nothing natural. She understood this would be her only chance until the next full moon. She was determined to get this done tonight.

She hid herself in the bedroom closet and eventually fell asleep from waiting so long. When she woke up, she could hear someone moving around in the house. She waited silently until she heard the click of the living room lamp come on. She crept out and snuck around the corner of the door. She looked and saw a furry head with pointed ears standing straight up.

She quietly snuck up behind the head, aimed her pistol and pulled the trigger. The bullet came out with a bang and the furry head disappeared from her sight. She walked around the chair and found a large wolf like creature lying bleeding at the foot of the chair. A loud and painful mourn came from the creature, almost making Amber feel sorry she shot it. She shot three more times, to put the creature out of it's misery.

She looked up and saw a dozen spotlights coming from out of the woods, floating towards the cottage. She ducked down and barely peered out the window. It was her mom, the sheriff and a few police officers. She quickly got up and waved them down through the window. The sheriff saw her waving and ran to the cottage.

The sheriff busted in the front door, her mother following close behind. He asked if she was okay as her mother ran over to her and hugged her. She kept turning Amber around, checking her out. Amber begged her to stop and look at the floor. Her mother did just that and freaked out when she saw the creature on the floor.

It was slowly turning human as they stood there looking at it. Suddenly the sheriff shouted out he knew the creature, whom looked like a man now. It was his deputy. The sheriff said he had been missing for months and this was not the conclusion the sheriff expected. Amber nodded in understanding and told him she didn't care what he said happened, she just wanted credit for being the hero and killing it. The sheriff assured her she would get the credit.

Once in town, the sheriff cooked up a story how the deputy was found out to be a serial killer. He was the reason for so many missing tourists over the last several months. The town celebrated that night, never knowing the truth of the matter. To them, he was evil and he was extinguished and that's all that mattered. To Amber, however she would always remember the time she faced down a werewolf and lived to tell her kids and grandkids about it for years to come.