I Hid the Fugitive Biker in My Cabin

Chapter 5

Audrey

The sound of that groan cut through the air and lodged itself directly in my spine. It was not an animal. Animals growl, howl, or whimper in very specific ways, but that… that had the painful, drawn-out cadence of a human voice.

I stepped back two full paces from the window, my hands trembling so violently that I had to grip the edge of the wooden table to keep from falling. The cabin, which only moments earlier had felt like a welcoming refuge, transformed instantly into a glass cage standing alone in the middle of nowhere. I looked around wildly, searching for anything that could serve as a weapon. A bread knife rested on the kitchen counter. The iron poker leaned beside the fireplace.

I snatched my phone from the table. The screen lit up, casting a cold glow across my pale face. A frustrated sigh escaped me when I saw the signal bar just one weak line, flickering agonizingly in and out.

Without hesitating, I dialed Mr. Arthur’s number. The phone rang three times, then four. With every unanswered ring my eyes flicked back and forth between the glowing display and the darkness outside, half-expecting a hand to slam against the glass at any second.

“Hello?” The old man’s sleepy voice finally came through the line.

“Mr. Arthur! It’s me, Audrey. From the cabin,” I whispered, trying to keep my voice steady even though panic made my chest rise and fall in rapid, shallow bursts.

“Miss Audrey? Did something happen? It’s past midnight…”

“There’s something in my backyard. I heard noises… branches breaking near the toolshed. And then… I heard a strange sound. It sounded like a person. Someone moaning in pain.”

A brief silence stretched on the other end of the line, broken only by the faint static of the poor connection.

“Miss, calm yourself,” Arthur said, his voice now a little firmer, trying to project a confidence I did not feel. “I told you the forest is dense back there. Wild cats fight at night and the sounds they make can seem almost human they’re terrible to hear. Or it could be an injured deer that came down from the mountain looking for shelter from the cold.”

“It didn’t sound like an animal, Mr. Arthur. I’m certain…”

“Look, the property is fenced and the forest always plays tricks on people who aren’t used to the isolation,” he interrupted, his tone pacifying yet faintly condescending. “Lock the doors well. The cabin is safe. If the noises continue and you truly believe you’re in danger, call the local police or let me know and I’ll drive up in the truck. But I guarantee you it’s only the animals in the yard. They always show up around there at night.”

“All right…” I murmured, realizing he thought I was just another big-city girl frightened by the sound of the wind.

“Rest, Audrey. Dawn will be here soon.”

The line went dead. I ended the call and pressed the phone tightly against my chest. Animals. I wanted so badly to believe him. I wanted it to be nothing more than a coyote or some other creature of the night.

I walked over to the fireplace and picked up the iron poker. The heavy, cold metal gave me the smallest trace of courage. I returned to the back window. The mist outside seemed to have swallowed the rest of the yard, but when I focused my vision in the direction of the toolshed I noticed something different.

The dark silhouette of the shed now had an extra volume on the ground, leaning against the wooden door. A dark mass that had not been there in the afternoon.

The sound stopped. Silence returned, absolute, heavy, and suffocating.

I stood frozen there for what felt like hours, torn between pure terror and a morbid curiosity that began to seep into my mind. If it were an intruder, a criminal, he would already have tried to break the window or force the door. But that shape remained motionless at the base of the shed, blended with the shadows.

I had two options: lock myself upstairs under the covers with the iron poker in my hand and pray for the sun to rise quickly, or discover exactly what or who was dying in my backyard. And for better or for worse, fear had never managed to defeat my need for answers for very long.

The groan still echoed inside my skull long after the night had gone quiet again. I could not shake the way it had sounded—ragged, human, full of a pain that refused to be mistaken for anything else. My fingers tightened around the poker until the metal bit into my palm. The cabin’s familiar creaks and the soft crackle of the dying fire suddenly felt too loud, as if every small noise might mask the approach of whatever waited outside.

I forced myself to breathe more slowly. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The air smelled of woodsmoke and cold glass. Beyond the window the fog pressed close, turning the yard into a blurred stage where that dark shape remained stubbornly present. It did not move. It did not make another sound. Yet its very stillness felt deliberate, almost accusing.

Arthur’s words replayed in my head, calm and dismissive. Wild cats. An injured deer. The forest playing tricks. Part of me wanted to accept the explanation and retreat to the mezzanine, pull the heavy quilt over my head, and wait for morning light to erase the night’s uncertainties. Another part the part that had driven me to this isolated place in search of truth for my writing refused to look away.

I lifted the phone again and checked the signal. Still only a single flickering bar. Calling the local police would mean explaining a possible emergency to strangers who might take twenty minutes or more to climb the winding road. By then whatever lay against the shed door could be dead, or gone, or something worse. The thought of leaving a living person out there in the freezing dark twisted something sharp inside my chest.

My gaze returned to the mass on the ground. From this distance it was only a deeper shadow against the already dark wood, but the outline suggested a human form shoulders, the curve of a back, perhaps a head slumped forward. The longer I stared the more certain I became that it had not been there when I returned from town. The yard had been empty. The shed door had stood clear.

A fresh wave of cold swept through the room as the fire settled lower. I tightened my grip on the poker and took one careful step closer to the glass.

My own reflection stared back at me for a moment wide eyes, pale skin, the iron rod held like a weapon I barely knew how to use. Then I pressed my face nearer and cupped my free hand around my eyes, blocking the interior light that remained.

The shape did not stir. No breath clouded the air near it. No shift of weight betrayed life. Yet the memory of that low, guttural moan refused to fade. It had come from that direction. It had been close enough to reach through the walls of the cabin and lodge itself in my bones.

I thought of the warnings from the grocery store earlier that day the cashier’s talk of bears and wolves, the woman in the shawl urging me to stay inside after dark. Those words had felt like local color then, the kind of stories small towns tell to keep outsiders cautious. Now they pressed against my ribs with new weight. Still, neither bears nor wolves moaned with the cadence of human suffering.

The conflict inside me sharpened. Terror insisted I climb the stairs, lock the bedroom door, and wait with the poker across my knees. Curiosity the same relentless need that had always driven my writing whispered that turning away would leave the question unanswered forever. And unanswered questions had a way of growing teeth in the dark.

I remained at the window longer than I should have, measuring the distance between the back door and the toolshed, estimating how many steps it would take, how exposed I would be under the open sky. The fog offered partial cover, but it also hid whatever else might be moving among the trees. My heart hammered against my sternum. Each beat felt loud enough to give me away.

Finally the silence itself became unbearable. The absence of further sound pressed harder than the earlier noise had. If someone was dying out there, every minute I spent debating was another minute stolen from them. If the shape was a trap, then staying inside offered no real safety either glass could break, locks could fail.

I drew a slow breath, tasting woodsmoke and fear in equal measure. The poker felt heavier now, its cold weight a small anchor against the rising tide of uncertainty. Outside, the dark mass waited without movement.

And somewhere beneath the terror a single clear thought took root,I had come to this mountain for answers. I would not find them by hiding.