Creepypasta: Nightmare Fuel

66: John

John by Erin Bates

I first knew something was wrong when John didn't return before the first snow. I woke up and looked out the dull, pitted glass window to see white clinging to tree limbs and dusting the barn roof. The image of him smiling as he slung his rifle across his back came to me unbidden. "I'll be back before the first snow," he promised. "Might as well fill up the smokehouse before winter. Got to take care of the both of you." He laid a warm hand on my belly, and I had smiled while rolling my eyes. I'd thought he worried too much about this winter, that spring would be the time that tried us most when the baby came. Looking at the snow, though, I felt as if a cold fist had closed over my heart. The unquestioning faith I had in my husband suddenly seemed that much less stable.

Days passed, and I kept as busy as possible. I saw to our livestock, I preserved some of the fruit from our garden, I darned socks and mended fences and knit and chopped firewood and checked our supplies again and again and again. No matter how I busied myself, though, I looked past the line of trees, willing him to return.

Thoughts returned to me as I went about my chores and even created new ones to busy my hands. When John suggested staking out a claim on the frontier, I had been excited. It wasn't that I didn't like our life in the city, but there was adventure in my blood. My father had been a trader, and my memories of childhood were in traveling with him. John wanted a bit of land to call his own, to work and make his own way, and he practically split his face grinning when I was so enthusiastic to the suggestion. "I married a tough woman," he'd said proudly. "She's not afraid of anything."

At the time, it'd been true. I took on each of the new hardships with ease, helping John as he built our cabin and searched deep in the woods for logs to fell. I learned all the things a proper frontier wife should know to keep the farm working on my own while he was off hunting or away trading with the natives or in town. His plot was nearly a whole day's travel from town, and even then the little village was hardly a match for the city where we met. I didn't care at the time. I liked the quiet. There was something about watching our cabin and farm grow and knowing that it was our achievement alone. We could take a trip into town every month or two and show off our crops or buy some new amenity with pride. We were happy.

The quiet and isolation I'd loved made things worse now. As the days passed and nights grew longer, I longed for something to occupy my thoughts other than the gnawing worry in my heart. I wasn't worried for myself, mind, or the baby. If I was in danger, I knew the way to the road and always was a strong rider. Not only that, but if we didn't make it into town after a couple months, I knew someone would come check on us. I had food aplenty to last until then. But what of John? What of my husband? It had been weeks, and I was running out of excuses for why he hadn't come back yet. Maybe the snows came earlier than he anticipated and were slowing his progress, I thought as I knit next to the fire. Maybe game was harder to find than he thought, I reasoned as repaired a hole in the chicken coop. Maybe he'd fallen and injured himself, I began to fret as I shoveled a path between the cabin and the barn. Maybe I was now and forever alone.

It was late at night that I first smelled it. It was a clear night with a full moon, and I awoke in the darkness of our cabin to the scent of fragrant wood smoke. My heart jumped in my chest, daring to believe my prayers had been answered as I ran to the window. I could see a shadow moving outside near the smokehouse, and when he turned I felt the tears run down my cheeks. It was John.

I wrapped myself in a shawl and ran outside in bare feet, heart racing, as I ignored the cold and ran to his side. I made such a racket in my enthusiasm that he heard me coming, and shut the door to the smokehouse to greet me halfway across the yard. "Go back inside. It's too cold out here for you," he started to say, but I flung my arms around him nonetheless. Finally, I could rest. Finally, I could relax.