Finally, vacation time!

You slide into the rental car you picked up and turn the key in the ignition. The drive through Pigeon Forge, Tennessee is a little nerve wracking. Some streets are large enough to be four lanes, but others are one lane streets that wind up and down and curve wildly with the mountainous landscape.

Downtown blossoms in front of you, with dozens of brightly lit signs proclaiming tourist attractions. Dolly Parton's Stampede, Alcatraz Crime Museum, Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum, and so many more line the road.

Finally, you exit the town of Pigeon Forge, and a big sign welcomes you to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Trees spring up on both sides of the road, dense and beautiful. The air already feels cleaner, and the sounds of nature greet you.

It's a few miles into the park before you find the rental place: Parkside Cabin Rentals.

Checking in is easy, and you're given a dozen coupons for more attractions within Gatlinburg itself. It's a bit overwhelming, but you get a nice little canvas tote bag to go with it. You glance at the directions. Your cabin is a little isolated, but that's the way you like it.

After a thirty minute drive, you find the turnoff for your cabin. A small gravel road greets you as you turn carefully onto the one lane road. It looks like a well traveled road, with a nice, panic-inducing rut in it, but you manage to navigate to the end of the road. Finally, you see the cabin come into view and it takes your breath away.

It's wood, and you can see plenty of windows, as well as a wraparound porch with a swinging bench on it. Beautiful cabin thirteen. The sun is beginning to set, and things are a little dark now, but you have plenty of time to get inside and settled in before real dark comes. You park the car and grab your bags and head up a stone walkway.

Above the door, you notice a stone marker with a carefully carved sentence: Luke's Cabin. Beneath that marker is a newer plaque, and written in elegant script is: Cabin Thirteen. The large door has a prominent electronic lock just below the knob. Carefully, you enter the passcode into the electronic lock and the door beeps at you as you hear it unlock.

Just as you reach for the handle, you hear a creaking sound inside the cabin.

You freeze.

[If you open the door anyways, go to chapter: Five ]

[If you step back from the door and try to peer into a window, go to chapter: Six ]

[If you go back to the car, go to chapter: Seven ]