Sutton, Cassie, Alex, and Tom were out on spring break headed towards Virginia to stay at a log cabin Airbnb in the woods. The four had met at college in the fall and bonded quickly since they were the same age and a few days ago, Sutton brought up the idea to head out for spring break so they could have some fun together without classes and homework preventing them from hanging out with each other. This brings us to now, where Alex is driving his car with Cassie sitting next to him in the front passenger seat, looking out the window,  and Sutton and Tom in the back on their phones. 

Since the four decided to arrive in the dead of night, they all decided to head over to the place where the owners said they would give them keys. 

“Thank you so much, Mr. and Mrs. Harrison,” Cassie said, handling the keys gently before handing them over to Sutton. 

“No worries, deary,” Mrs. Harrison said, “Oh people always tell me to say that the cabin’s haunted, but for all the 30 years when I stayed there nothing strange has happened, so don’t take it to heart.” 

“Thank you?” Alex said, now slightly less reassured by Sutton’s plan to stay at a log cabin anymore since for all they knew could be a ghost living in the cabin. 

With that, Tom decided to head out to the town, with the car,  to find the nearest Walgreens, while Sutton, Cassie, and Alex walked back to the log cabin to get their stuff inside and then finally get some sleep. 

Sutton pulled out the keys from her pocket and headed up the steps of the log cabin while Alex and Cassie waited. Sutton was struggling with putting the keys into the lock and kept twisting and turning the keys. Meanwhile, Alex was getting irritated with Sutton not being able to open the door for the past three minutes.

‘It's unlocking a door, not rocket science,’ Alex thought, just wanting to get some sleep after the long drive. 

Cassie was just bored and looked everywhere and started praying that Sutton would hurry up, just in case someone was watching them. 

Alex then whispered to Cassie, “I’m helping her. I’m not waiting forever.”

Cassie whispered back to Alex “I wish you the best of luck.”

Alex went up to Sutton, “Hand me the keys,” he said firmly and Sutton dropped the keys in his hand. When he inserted the keys into the lock and then pushed the door hard, it opened.

Alex then walked in and flopped on the couch. 

“Hey some of us could use the help of a strong man,” Cassie said, carrying in some of the luggage.

“I drove the whole way, therefore I don’t have to do this,” Alex said. 

Cassie gave him a death glare and Alex got up and went to the car. 

“You’re so mean to me,” Alex said, dramatically. 

“And I don’t care,” Cassie said. 

Sutton, Cassie, and Alex quickly put all the luggage inside the cabin, Alex immediately heads to bed, his exhaustion taking over his body. Sutton and Cassie waited until Tom arrived from the store and they all finally went to sleep.

The next day, the four friends decided to head into the woods, after breakfast, since they had nothing planned that morning. Cassie and Tom brought backpacks filled with plenty of safety supplies and snacks.

  After a while of trekking the group made their way to a clearing. Right in the center was an old well that had all sorts of plants and moss growing around it. 

“So it’s a well. Great. What are we supposed to be looking for, Sutton?” Alex asked. 

“I told you we’re here to explore. Let’s see if there is anything inside the well,” Sutton responded. 

“It’s probably gross water from 1867 that’s never been used and just sitting there or there will be absolutely nothing,” said Cassie, having no faith that anything in the well could be slightly interesting.

While Cassie, Alex, and Sutton headed over to the well to see if there was anything inside. Cassie was gripping the edge of the well to see what was inside, only because she didn’t want to feel left out, and the stone under her hand slipped out. Luckily, she moved quickly and the stone fell to the ground hard, but only made a thump sound. Tom was looking around the well trying to find something interesting. 

“Hey stop looking at the broken well and look what I found!” Tom announced, giddy from his small achievement. 

“What is it?” Sutton said, running to Tom, while Alex and Cassie followed.

“It’s an old box, looks like it’s been here for a while. Here for at least a hundred years by the looks of it. Also, it seems like it’s been untouched for a long time,” Tom explained his observations, “There’s an old coin from a while ago, a book that I think is written in Yiddish, and a silver key.”

“How do you know it’s Yiddish?” Alex asked. 

“I don’t, it honestly looks like gibberish,” Tom stated, matter-of-factly. 

“Also I’m pretty sure whatever the key went to is destroyed by now,” said Cassie. 

“What about the coin,” Sutton said, “Do you think we could use it or at the least sell it if it’s worth anything.”

“It might be counterfeit from back then and since we don’t even know ourselves, if it does happen to be valuable, we might be scammed out of the actual price of the coin,” Cassie said, worrying slightly. 

“How about for Cassie’s wellbeing and mine, we just leave the box here and go back to eat and explore the town for a bit,” Alex said. 

“That sounds alright,” Sutton exclaimed, happy to explore as always. 

Sutton, Cassie, and Alex walked together while Tom followed them a few paces behind, being weighed down by something, and the others were none the wiser.

The four sorted out the rest of their belongings before heading out into the small town where they were staying. They headed to a diner and ate lunch there and grabbed one of the brochures they had for what tourists could explore, so they spent the next two hours visiting some of the different spots and locations. They either had some history behind them or new facilities. Then they marked out some places that they wanted to go tomorrow before driving back to the cabin to spend the rest of their day. 

However, when they arrived, things didn't go as anyone could have expected.

“Why are the last three graham crackers gone. Alex you said that I could have them,” Sutton said. 

“I didn’t eat anything except lunch and the waffles that we had for breakfast,” Alex said, confused, 

“Well, then who ate them?” Sutton demanded, desperately wanting an answer for her missing food. 

“Nobody’s been in the kitchen, except you and Alex,” Tom said, relaxing on the couch and reading something on his phone. 

“Sutton, did you steal my hair ties, all three I packed?” Cassie asked.

“No, but I think I packed some in my suitcase,” Sutton said, offering a solution. 

“Sutton, why do you only have 3 shirts and no other tops?” Cassie asked. 

“Number 1, you’re supposed to be looking for hair ties. Second of all, I packed six shirts! You’re clearly blind,” Sutton said. 

“I think you’re the blind one,” Cassie muttered to herself before yelling at Sutton, “Well then check your suitcase.”

Sutton was extremely upset at Cassie and headed to the bedroom and looked into the suitcase and there were only three shirts. 

“Okay, I know this looks bad, but I swear there were six shirts in there,” Sutton countered. 

Meanwhile, in the living room, Alex was headed to the bathroom when something under the bed in Cassie and Alex’s room glinted from the sunlight pouring out of one of the windows. Alex then crawled to the side of the bed frame, reached his arm under and grabbed the box, the very box that he thought they had left in the woods. 

“Hey, who brought the box back,” Alex asked entering the living room, at this point when everyone was back there. 

“I did,” Tom admitted casually to his little crime. 

At that moment, the other three went all kinds of rants about how dumb Tom was. At one point, even Tom was so confused about what he had done since the rants became so off-topic. When they all finished talking, they agreed to return to the box and the four scrambled hastily out of the cabin and headed into the woods with only the box. Tom speedily placed the box where he found it, everyone hoping that nothing else bad would happen…

“Hey! Which one of you pushed me, it isn’t funny,” Sutton said, glaring. 

“We aren’t even close enough to push you. Besides if we were you would have heard us run away,” Tom pointed out. 

“I think we should head back to the cabin and have some hot chocolate,” Cassie said, shakily. 

With that the group headed back to the cabin, extremely tired from the day's excitement one could say. They headed inside to have a summer cup of hot chocolate, which was fine since honestly, the clearing was quite chilly despite it being summertime. 

Cassie started calming down and the group just started to talk about new dorms and everything for next year and the finals they had to do when they got back, then the fire inside the cabin went out. 

“Guys, the fire went out,” Cassie said. 

“The gas for it probably went out. I’m sure if I just turned the gas up a bit, it’ll turn back on,” Alex said and like his words he started hitting the remote to turn up the fire, but it wouldn’t light up again. 

“Cass, why don’t you and me head to bed,” Alex said, gently moving her to a bedroom so she could calm down or fall asleep whichever came first. 

Alex came from the bedroom around 15 minutes later, “Hey so I think we should cancel this trip. Cassie and I are getting really creeped out and just feeling uncomfortable in general,” Alex said. 

“That’s fine, we’ll have another time to go on a vacation together,” Sutton said, hiding her disappointment. 

“I’m fine with it,” Tom said. 

With that the three went to bed peacefully, planning to leave in the morning. However, in the middle of the night, there was banging. It was all over the walls and it was so loud, you could feel the vibrations of the sound. Cassie and Alex left their bedroom and went to the living room where Sutton and Tom happened to be. They gave each other a look and Alex ran to the car to start while Sutton and Cassie were shoving clothes and anything into their suitcases and Tom got everything else. They shoved everything into the trunk of the car and got in the car and Alex sped off, all of them glad to be away from the cabin.