The Trip

by Aaron Niz

  “Where is Reyes?” I ask the group.

  Nobody knows. They look around at one another and shrug. He’s not here.

  Somehow we completely lost track of him. Another brother who’s managed to vanish into thin air.

  Everyone’s starting to talk now. There’s a frantic energy in the group that scares me. It’s one thing to be afraid of murderers out in the woods, but now I’m starting to become afraid of the people in this very cabin, the same people I’m depending on to help me survive.

  I try and quiet them but people are talking over one another, arguing about where Reyes is, whose fault it is that we’re dropping like flies, and what we’re going to do about it. It feels like I’ve totally lost control of the situation, if I ever had it in the first place.

  Tyler comes over to me and leans close. “I’m going with Hetridge. Come with me, Gabe.”

  I shake my head. “Do what you have to do.”

  He grabs Neil’s discarded baseball bat and starts out toward the deck. Randall looks at him, then back at me. “Where’s he going?” I shrug. I don’t want everyone to go with him. I think it’s a horrible idea for brothers to simply run into the woods without any idea who or what they’re going to find there. And I don’t trust Hetridge’s story at all. Hetridge has officially lost the plot as far as I’m concerned, and it seems like maybe Tyler has as well.

  “Dude, we can’t let them go,” Randall pleads.

  “I’m not going out there.”

  Vinnie shakes his head. “I must be an idiot, because I’m going too. Fuck it.” And with that, Vinnie and Randall leave together.

  The only ones left are Neil, Stutty and me. It’s not exactly a who’s who of courageous brothers.

  The three of us are standing in the kitchen, staring out towards the blackness of the night.

  “Goddamn it,” I hiss. It doesn’t even sound like my own voice, as if it’s coming from somewhere outside of me. Or maybe I’m outside of my body. I don’t know what’s happening, but maybe this is the beginning of some sort of nervous breakdown.

  “What do we do now?” Stutty whines.

  “I think we hide,” I tell him.

  “Hide? Are you serious Gabe?”

  “I am. There’re only three of us left. If the bad guys win—assuming there are any bad guys out there—we don’t stand a chance against them.”

  “Hide where?”

  “I don’t know. Start looking for a place and make it a good one.” So the three of us begin walking through the house, looking for places to hide.

  There’s a large closet off the main living room area where blankets and linens are kept. “Neil, why don’t you climb in here?”

  He looks at me nervously, licks his lips. “What if they search the closet?”

  “I’m hoping they don’t look too hard. Or better yet, maybe they never even come in here. Just get in. This is a good spot and they could open it and never see you if you stay under the blankets. At least you won’t get too cold.” Neil doesn’t smile. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him go this long without grinning at least once.

  When he looks at me now, his lips are quivering. “Are we going to die?”

  “No. This is just a precaution. Staying back here was the right move.”

  “But what if they need us? Never leave a brother behind—“ Stutty says.

  I spin on him. “They left us behind. They left us.” His shoulders slump. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess they did.” Neil climbs into the closet and Stutty and I pile the blankets on top of him.

  Then I close the door and it’s just Stutty and me standing together in front of the linen closet. Stutty’s trembling and as much as I might hate him for his demonstrations of weakness, at this moment I just feel pity for him. After all, Eli was his friend and Eli’s the only one we know for sure is dead. I met Eli for the first time today, I haven’t really lost someone the way Stutty has.

  “We…we should have gone with the others,” he says, but without any energy.

  “Now we’re alone.”

  “Come on,” I say lightly touching his shoulder. “Let’s find you a safe place, man.”

  He follows me obediently, like a puppy. We go downstairs. It occurs to me that the last place most people would hide is near a dead body. So I head for the basement near the back door. Stutty moans softly. “No, no, no. I can’t be near Eli. I can’t stand it.”

  “It’ll be safer this way. Come on.”

  As we’re walking I hear a series of screams from outside. It’s hard, once again, to judge distance; to tell who it is or what kind of threat it presents. All I know is it doesn’t sound good. Not at all. I start moving faster. “Hurry,” I shout.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “I don’t know, but whatever it is—“

  More screams. Some of them sound aggressive, for lack of a better word. Almost primal. There’s a fight going on outside, and I can only assume that means the brothers are actually fighting the enemy. Or maybe the enemy is kicking their ass. It sounds like one heck of a struggle.

  When we get to the basement where Eli’s body lies, I point to the large sectional couch against the wall. The couch is only a few feet from Eli.

  “Help me pull it back a little from the wall.”

  He does, and quickly we’re able to adjust the spacing so that Stutty can squeeze behind the couch. I move back a few paces and look at it, trying to tell whether it looks odd in any way. Would someone suspect that there’s a man hiding behind it?

  “I think it looks good,” I tell him.

  “It’s tight,” he gasps, but his voice is muffled slightly.

  “Can you stay back there for a few hours if your life depends on it?”

  “I—I think so.”

  “Good. Don’t move unless you have to. Just stay calm and hopefully—“ Another shout. Another scream. They sound closer now, but I’m hoping it’s just my imagination.

  “We should have gone with them,” Stutty cries again.

  “Shut up and stay put. Don’t come out no matter what you hear,” I say, and move out of the room as fast as I can. I still have no idea where I’m going to hide. I run into one of the bedrooms but find no good places there. No real furniture, no nooks or crannies. Just open territory.

  Panic is starting to overtake me. I have a sense that the danger is impending and if I don’t get under cover soon, I’m going to be the only one left in plain sight.

  I run upstairs to the kitchen and that’s when I hear voices outside. Male voices, talking. Someone screams, a wailing, moaning sound. It sounds like a dog dying after being hit by a car. It’s enough to raise the hairs on the back of my neck.

  Jesus. Jesus Christ Almighty. Now they’re actually coming inside.

  In fact, from the sound of it, they’ll be back in the house in a matter of seconds. I run to the cabinets and on a whim, open one of the larger bottom cabinet doors. It seems absurd to think I could fit in there, but in my momentary insanity I don’t know what else to do.

  I’m out of options.

  Surprisingly, when I peer in there, I see that the space is much larger than I would have thought. It seems to have been a cabinet that housed specialty pots and pans or something, because there’s an enormous pot stashed away in the far back, but that’s about all that’s left.

  I take the pot out and place it on the counter on the other side of the kitchen, then run back and start to contort myself in such a way that I’m able to just barely squeeze inside. I’m guessing that a performer in Cirque De Soleil would have been hard pressed to fit into this space. In fact, it’s so confined that I’m completely unable to move once I cram my body into it. The cabinet door is still open and my hands can’t actually reach it, since I went in head-first. One of my feet is still sticking out.

  I hear the downstairs sliding glass door opening. Feet stomping. Muffled voices.

  I can’t tell who they are, the sounds below are far too obscured by me being upstairs, stuffed in this cabinet.<
br />
  Please let it be the brothers coming back. Please god. Don’t let it be some maniacs intent on killing everyone who’s left in the cabin.

  I need to get that damn cabinet door closed and my left foot inside. Right now if anyone comes in this kitchen, they’re going to immediately drag me out and probably stab me to death.

  Meanwhile, my right arm is trapped beneath my torso and is completely asleep already. I scoot my butt back another few inches and slowly drag my foot inside the cabinet.

  Thank God. The vision of someone seeing my lone foot hanging out of that door is almost too much to take.

  Having solved one problem, I’m immediately confronted by another. The door is still hanging open.

  I was hoping it might fall shut on its own, but no such luck.

  There’s a shout from downstairs and some banging and thumping. It sounds like a pretty serious scuffle. It goes on for maybe half a minute, followed by some high-pitched shrieks.

  I wiggle my left arm free enough to reach close to the opening, but my hand’s still a few inches short from being able to reach the door.

  Now I hear steps and it seems like someone’s coming up the stairs. In a matter of seconds they’re going to be here. They’re going to see me.

  “Hey!” The voice yells.

  I practically unhinge my shoulder joint in order to grab the door with the tips of my fingers and close it.

  In fact, it’s not totally closed, but ever so slightly ajar. A small sliver of light pours through the tiny crack.

  There’s the unmistakable sound of shoes on the tile floor in the kitchen. “Hello?” God, I still can’t tell who that is but they definitely saw me. And now I’m defenseless in here.

  Next thing I know, the door is thrown open and the person drags me out of the cabinet by my feet. My left elbow smashes hard against the wood framing and I shout.

  My shirt pulls up to the top of my shoulders. Any moment I’m going to feel the blade of a knife in my stomach. Or my back. All I know is I’m going to die here, now, this moment. It’s over. All I feel is shock.

  No blade comes slicing through the air and when I turn to my back and look up at the figure towering over me, I can barely believe it.

  I practically cry in relief. “Tyler. Jesus Christ, dude. I thought you were one of them. One of the--”

  “You dumb motherfucker.” He shakes his head and his eyes grow colder and colder as he looks at me. I’m still lying on the floor, trying to recover from the shock of it all. His face contorts into a grimace of rage and disgust. He starts kicking me in the ribs and stomach. “You little bitch! Hiding in the fucking kitchen?” The kicks are vicious and I feel a stinging pain in my balls as he connects with them. Another kick lands across my cheek. For a moment, I lose consciousness. When I come to, it’s just seconds later and he’s staring down at me, his face red. He’s got blood splattered on his hands and neck.

  I roll onto my back. “Please. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry? You hide in here while we fight for our lives in the woods? Is that what you’re really made of?” He sneers and spits on me.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” It’s all I can say. I don’t even move.

  “You’re sorry. Would you be sorry if we died out there defending ourselves?”

  “Yes. Of course I’d be sorry.”

  “No you wouldn’t. As long as you stayed safe, right?”

  “Can I get up now?”

  He gives me a long, cold stare. “Yeah, why not. You’re not even worth the effort.”

  He turns around and starts to leave the kitchen. “Where’s everyone else?” I ask him.

  Tyler looks over his shoulder at me and stops momentarily. “We got them by surprise, luckily. But one of them stabbed Vinnie in the throat. He’s dead.”

  “No. No way, dude. He can’t be.” Vinnie is like my little brother. Images of hanging out with him on campus, laughing over cereal at the dining hall, shooting the shit about girls, flashing through my mind at light speed.

  “Maybe if we’d had two or three more brothers with us it wouldn’t have happened.”

  I ignore the latest verbal attack. “Did anyone else get hurt?”

  “The fuck do you care, Gabe? You’re safe and sound now.”

  “I care. Just tell me if everyone—“

  “We killed three of them but there’s still one guy left. We brought him back with us to the cabin.”

  “Why?”

  “Just leave it, dude. Leave it alone.”

  He walks downstairs again.

  I watch him go with a feeling of disbelief. Yesterday afternoon Tyler and I drove up here together as close friends with nothing on our minds but having some beer and hanging out with our fraternity brothers at this cabin. Since then, people have been murdered and Tyler is acting like he’d just as soon I was one of them.

  Unsure what to do next, I figure I might as well free Neil before the others find him and he gets similar treatment.

  I move to the linen closet and open it. Throw the blankets off Neil. He lets out a strangled shout but I put my finger to my lips. “Shhhhh…I don’t want them hearing you and coming back up here.”

  “What’s going on?” he gasps in a choked voice.

  “I don’t know exactly.”

  He stands up, shakes out one of his legs that must have fallen asleep. When he looks at me again. “Your—your nose is bloody.”

  “It is?” I wipe at my nose and a big smear of blood trails across the back of my hand. “Huh. Well, Tyler kicked the crap out of me a minute ago.”

  “Why?”

  “You couldn’t hear it?”

  “I’m half deaf and I was buried under a pile of blankets,” he says, a touch of his old grin returning. “I didn’t hear shit.”

  “Well, he was pretty ticked off that we stayed back. He caught me hiding in the kitchen.”

  “They came back?”

  “Yes. There was some kind of big fight and the brothers won it, at least that’s how Tyler told it to me. I didn’t get many details, since he was pretty busy beating the shit out of me for the most part.”

  “Is everyone okay?” he says, following me as I head back toward the stairs.

  “Vinnie’s dead.” I stand at the edge of the stairwell and listen, not sure whether to go down there or not.

  “Someone killed him?”

  “Someone stabbed him during the fight. At least, that’s what Tyler said in between kicks to my ribs.”

  “I felt vibrations from the floorboards a minute ago,” Neil says, “and I thought there were people coming inside the cabin. I thought for sure we were going to get murdered.”

  Just then, there’s another shriek from downstairs followed by a ripple of laughter.

  The two sounds are odd coming one after the other like that. I can’t imagine what about this situation could be so funny.

  Neil turns and looks at me. He gulps visibly. “What’s going on downstairs?”

  “Something bad. Something really bad, I think.”

  “Bad in what way?”

  “Tyler told me they brought a guy back to the cabin. There was one survivor and they dragged him back and now they have him down there.”

  “I don’t want to see it,” Neil says, as we both stand at the edge of the stairs. “I don’t want to know what’s happening in the basement.” I go to the living room and sit down on an easy chair. “Fuck it. We’ll wait it out up here.”

  Neil comes in and sits down next to me. “Maybe we make a run for it? Just get out of here and try to make it back to the main road by ourselves.”

  “If we go out there now, there’s still a chance we could run into somebody. We don’t know for sure who’s in those woods. Let’s just hang tight. When the sun starts to come up, we get the fuck out of Dodge.”

  “Okay.” He sighs.

  For the next half an hour or so, we sit there and listen to the muffled sounds of torture from downstairs. I can occasionally make out Hetridge’s v
oice. Mostly the house is silent, but occasionally the silence is disturbed by a scream of pain, a shriek of fear, sometimes a laugh or what can only be a demand. Everything is muffled, seeping up through the floorboards, and yet enough noise gets through that the imagination conjures up the worst scenarios imaginable.

  Online I’ve seen those famous pictures of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Men being led around by leashes, stacked like cordwood, humiliated, beaten. If that’s what’s going on in our basement—or worse—than it needs to stop.

  Eventually, I can’t stand it anymore. “I’m going to see what the fuck they’re doing. You coming with me?”

  Neil shakes his head. “I don’t want to know anything. I just want to go home.”

  “Okay then.” I go downstairs on my own. On the bedroom to the left, I see Randall sitting on the ground with his head resting against the wall. He glances at me.

  “Come to see the freak show, Gabe?” He smiles, but it doesn’t touch his eyes.

  I enter the room a few paces. “What the fuck happened?” He opens his pack of cigarettes that lie next to him on the floor and takes one out.

  Clears his throat. “We followed Hetridge into the forest. After a little bit, we spotted three dudes and a chick camped nearby, just like Hetridge told us. One guy had one of those hunting bows with him, one had a machete and the other had a knife. Oh yeah, the girl was that chick you hooked up with.”

  “She was in the woods? Are you sure?”

  He nods. “She’s dead as shit, by the way.”

  “You guys killed her?”

  “They were all armed, so yeah. We had to. We took them by surprise, just bum rushed them,” he says, the cigarette hanging from his mouth.

  “Tyler told me that somebody killed Vinnie.”

  Randall nods and the cigarette shakes between his lips. “The guy carrying the knife stabbed Vinnie in the throat and then Hetridge took him down. Sliced him open from ear to ear.” Randall mimes a slicing motion across his own neck.

  “Jesus.”