The Last Trapper’s Ledger

The ice had barely surrendered to the spring thaw when Marcus and I decided to break out the canoes. We’d been aching for the water all winter, and the early warmth was a siren’s call we couldn’t resist. Our usual spot, a chain of three kettle ponds carved by glaciers, was a two-hour drive north of the city, far from the new suburban sprawl that had swallowed our childhood haunts. The largest, Lake Verity, had a small island at its center, a tangle of pine and underbrush, and on it stood the remains of a trapper’s cabin, abandoned since the late sixties. Marcus and I had explored it a dozen times over the past few summers, marveling at the rusted traps, the hand-hewn beams, the old wood stove still waiting for someone to light it. But this year, we had a new companion: Jake, Marcus’s college buddy, a city kid who’d never seen a loon or paddled a canoe. He was eager, if a bit clumsy, and we looked forward to showing him the relics of the north woods.

The day was perfect, a cloudless sky and a cool breeze. We launched our canoes at the public access, the hulls scraping on sandy gravel, and pushed off into the stillness. The water was shockingly clear, showing the sandy bottom and the occasional flash of a sunfish. About halfway to the island, the sun climbed higher, and we shed our jackets. Jake was grinning, taking photos with his phone. I aimed the bow at the island, my arms finding the rhythm of the paddle, and for a moment, everything was pure, uncomplicated joy.

We beached the canoes on the island’s only sandy stretch, near a fallen birch. The cabin stood a few yards back, its roof gabled, its windows black and empty. A weathered porch wraped around three sides, and the door hung crooked on its hinges, as if it had been violently kicked open. Marcus and I had always been drawn to the mystery of it, but this time, something felt off. A sour smell lingered in the air, like old blood and decay, though we’d never noticed it before. We chalked it up to the damp spring, and Jake, ever enthusiastic, bounded ahead and pushed the door inward. It groaned, and we stepped inside.

A single room greeted us, with a loft above. The floor was littered with leaves, bird droppings, and what remained of a mattress in the corner. But what stopped me cold was a rough, hand-carved table in the center, and on it lay a thick, leather-bound book, its pages yellowed and warped. Marcus and I exchanged glances—we had never seen a book here before. It was as if it had been waiting for us. I opened it. The pages were filled with spidery handwriting, entries dated from the late 1960s. The first few were mundane: weather observations, trap lines, notes on animals. Then, an entry from February 1968: ‘Took a deer on the west ridge. Strange, it had no eyes. No holes where eyes should be.’ I read it aloud, and Jake laughed nervously. We kept reading. The entries grew more erratic, the handwriting shakier: ‘The lake sings at night. It calls me by my name. I buried the traps in the cellar, but they dig themselves out.’ The last entry, dated March 18, 1969, was a single line, written in panic: ‘I saw what lives in the deep. It wears my face. It waits for the thaw to come to the island.’

We all fell silent. The wind outside suddenly felt colder, and the cabin seemed to creak around us. Jake tried to lighten the mood, ‘Creepy, right?’ But Marcus was staring at a hatch in the floor, half-hidden under a dusty rug. ‘There’s a root cellar,’ he said. He knelt and pulled the hatch open. A fetid breath of air wafted up, making me gag. Below, in the dim light, I could see a collection of old traps—and what looked like a pile of animal bones, but the skulls were all wrong, elongated, with eye sockets empty and smooth. ‘We should get out,’ I said, but my voice was barely a whisper.

As we backed toward the door, I heard a sound from outside: a faint, rhythmic splashing, like oars striking water. But we had left our canoes on the shore, and no one else was out here. We peered through the grimy window. A figure was emerging from the water onto the beach, silhouetted against the sun. It was human-shaped, but its movements were jerky, wrong, as if it didn’t know how to control its limbs. It wore what looked like a trapper’s coat, rotted and dripping, and its head was held at a strange angle. We watched, paralyzed, as it straightened and began to walk toward the cabin. Then it stopped and tilted its head, as if listening. And then, in a voice that was too deep and too wet, it called out: ‘Jake.’

Jake went pale. ‘How does it know my name?’ He began to back away, but the figure was already at the door. It pushed the door aside, and I got my first clear look: its face was a patchwork of mismatched features, as if someone had tried to reconstruct a human face from memory and failed—eyes of different colors, a mouth that was too wide, and skin that didn’t quite fit. And then I saw that it was holding something in its hand: a rusty trap, its jaws gaping. ‘We need to go. Now!’ I shouted, and we scrambled for the back window.

We burst through the rotten frame, hit the ground, and sprinted for the canoes. Behind us, I heard the trap slam shut with a sickening metallic clang. We pushed the canoes off the sand, jumped in, and paddled with frantic, clumsy strokes. The figure stood at the water’s edge, watching us, its head tilted. Then, slowly, it raised a hand and pointed at us, and I could have sworn its lips moved in a whisper, ‘You’ll be back.’ We didn’t stop paddling until we reached the opposite shore, hearts pounding, lungs burning. We didn’t speak until we had loaded the canoes onto the car and were driving away, the sun lower now, the sky bleeding orange.

I drove in silence, my mind reeling. Marcus finally broke it: ‘That ledger… we have to tell someone.’ But Jake said, ‘Who would believe us?’ We agreed to never go back, to forget what we saw. But as we pulled onto the highway, I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the lake behind us, glittering in the fading light. And for a moment, I thought I saw the figure standing on the shore, impossibly small, yet still watching.

It’s been two weeks now. The police found our abandoned first canoe, but they couldn’t explain the strange claw marks on the hull. Marcus has started sleepwalking, mumbling about the lake. Jake hasn’t answered his phone in days. And last night, I found a book on my doorstep—the same ledger. Its pages were wet, and there was a new entry, dated today, in handwriting that looked like mine.

It read: ‘They came to the island. The traps are baited. I will wear them soon.’