The Cabin in the Woods

by Tim Lebbon

  “Does anyone have a banjo I can borrow?” Marty asked. “In fact, I see one bald kid, and I’m outta here.” “It’s just a bit run down,” Holden said, but his observation was so far off the mark that no one even challenged him. “A bit run down” might mean something that needed a lick of paint, or a bit of reorganizing, or the attention of someone used to calmness and order. This place—the pumps, the building beyond them, and the surrounding area— looked as if it had been blown up and put back together again by a blind man. With no tools. Or hands. “Shit,” he whispered to himself.

  Beyond the pumps, the main building appeared to have been assembled from the tumbled remains of several others. Timber boarding didn’t quite meet flush, no corner was quite ninety degrees, and the patterns of fading the sun had left on the wall were uneven and haphazard. Many of the boards had nail holes where there were no longer nails, and in some places the bent, rusted remains of a nail still protruded, as if someone had tried to fix the boards from within. The corrugated roof covering was uneven and rusting, holes punched in two places for small chimneys.

  Windows were out of true, dusty glass hiding any view of the inside. Even in several panes where the glass had been smashed out there was nothing to be seen. Holden thought perhaps the building had been plucked from the ground by a tornado and dumped here from several miles away, and ever since it had been preparing for collapse.

  Scattered around the building, like the detritus of that same tornado strike, were all manner of objects, whole and in parts. Oil or gasoline barrels, rubber pipes twisted like long snakes in the grass, a chopping block with piles of splintered timber and a rusted axe buried in its top surface, an old cement mixer, and the carcasses of furniture now devoid of upholstery, their springs and metal bracing joining the rest of the surroundings in rot.

  “Well,” Curt said, stretching in his driver’s seat. “We still need gas. And directions.” “And I need to take a leak,” Jules said. She opened the door and stepped out, glancing back nervously as she did so.

  Holden looked at Dana and smiled, pleased to see that her nervousness lifted as she smiled back.

  “Maybe they’ll sell home-made jerky,” Holden said, and propelled by groans of disgust he followed Jules outside.

  They stood close to the fuel pumps. The smell of fuel was almost reassuring, because it meant that they were still working even though they looked like they hadn’t been used in years. Holden scraped the dusty ground and shifted aside sand that had been scattered on places where fuel had spilled. Despite all appearances to the contrary, he thought perhaps this was actually a working fuel stop.

  He just wondered what the insides of the building contained.

  “Billa bing, bing-bing, bing-bing, bing-bing,” Marty said, playing an imaginary banjo.

  “I’m thinking this place won’t take credit cards,” Curt said, touching a pump delicately as if afraid it would fall apart.

  “I don’t think it knows about money,” Marty said. “I think it’s barter gas.”

  Curt leaned left and right, stretching up on his toes, trying to see if anyone was around.

  “Well, I need to pee,” Jules said again, heading around the side of the building.

  “I’ll see if anyone’s home,” Holden said, looking across at Curt. His friend nodded, then glanced back at the Rambler. I’ll keep watch, his look said, and Holden nodded once. He was on edge... but not quite nervous enough to not watch Dana as she followed Jules around the side of the dilapidated building. She was wearing a fitted blue jacket, but it only came down just past her hips, and he could still admire the way her butt moved in her jeans.

  As they disappeared around the corner he headed for the front door. It stood ajar, and looked as if it could never close all the way. The door didn’t quite seem to fit the frame.

  It scraped across grit on the floor as he forced it open. He saw curved scrape-scars in the timber floor boarding.

  “Anyone here?” he asked. But the building’s insides swallowed his voice, offering no echoes at all. He left the door open behind him to provide more light, and because he didn’t want to hear that pained scraping again, ventured inside.

  “Hello?” Curt called outside. There was no answer from anywhere, inside or out. And as Holden’s eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, his sense of unease only increased.

  “Holy shit,” he muttered. It seemed as if he’d landed in redneck heaven.

  He thought that perhaps it had once been a shop, but he couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to buy anything from this place anymore. He couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to stand in here, for more than a couple of minutes. The smell was rank, a spiced blend of fusty age and progressing rot, and flies buzzed here and there. Why are the flies in here? he wondered, and he had a sudden image of finding the proprietor dead and decaying on the floor somewhere, maggots crawling in his eye sockets and rats gnawing at—

  “Hey!” he called, looking for movement, listening for acknowledgment. There was neither.

  Wooden shelving and tables provided perimeter storage, and there were also two island units. Tinned goods were stacked here and there, the labels so faded by damp and age that he couldn’t make out most of them. Tomatoes, perhaps? Corn? From metal poles braced across the ceiling hung several animal pelts, and one table seemed to be taken with various experiments in taxidermy. Several boxes and glass jars held what might also be a part of the experiment; in one glass jar something floated, its shape and origins vague in the opaque fluid.

  There were meat mincers and slicers fixed to another tabletop, flies dipping in and out of both, dark speckles marking the hardened remains of old meat. One shelving unit in the corner was stocked with glass jars, some containing pickled vegetables of some kind, another holding what appeared to be boiled animal bones. It was as if the shopkeeper had suddenly tired of selling food and fuel and taken to stuffing animals in his spare time.

  “Gruesome,” Holden said to no one in particular. He walked to the rear, where a glass counter displayed a selection of hunting knives. He drew his finger across the counter, leaving a clear line of glass in its wake.

  Well, this is nice, he thought. All we need now is some old fuck warning us not to go any further.

  “Thar’s danger in them thar hills,” he growled, then he laughed, but the giggle he emitted was too high and nervous for comfort.

  Fuck it. Time to go.

  •••

  “Why here?” Dana asked.

  “Because I hate going in the Rambler!” Jules replied. “And besides, the keg’s in there. I can’t piddle next to what we’re drinking. It’s just... euch.”

  She shivered. This place was spooky and grim, but exciting too. There was something about it that had her blood flowing. It was almost... exotic.

  “You think the toilet here’s gonna be any better?” Dana asked.

  “I don’t like to pee when all my friends are two feet away from me,” Jules persisted. They’d passed around the corner of the building now, and were threading their way through a scatter of old stuff lying all around. Leaning against the building’s wall to their left was a large roll of barbed wire, with some dried husk tangled in it. She tried to persuade herself it was a mass of old plant, but the tiny splayed claws testified otherwise. To their right a camper van was all but buried in a large bank of bushes. Its color was no longer discernible, the tires were smothered beneath plant growth, and the rear window was obscured on the inside by drawn curtains. The thing that spooked Jules most about it was the open side door. If it had been shut she’d have thought no more about it, but open seemed to suggest that the thing was still in use. That there might be someone in there.

  Hello? she tried to say, but no noise came from her mouth.

  “So you’re gonna pee in the Toilet From Out of Nowhere,” Dana said, a quaver in her voice.

  Jules reached for a side door in the building, assuming—hoping—that it was the bathroom. She really needed to pee.

  “I’m quirk
y,” she said, pulling on the handle. “At least this has gotta be—hoah!”

  The smell hit her instantly, then the sight of the bathroom revealed behind the creaking door, and for a moment both robbed her of words. There was a toilet. and nothing else—no basin, not even a cistern. The walls were dark and coated with slime, the floor was wet with thick brown fluid... not pure shit, she thought, but an overflow of the stuff that filled the toilet. Thick, fluid, shifting, the sludge topped the toilet and dribbled slick down its surface, turning what might have once been white a uniform brown.

  Behind her, Dana gagged.

  Jules took a small step forward, fascinated, wondering just why the sludge in the pan was moving. And then she saw the scorpion, struggling in the fetid muck, slowly drowning. And unless that thing’s full of drowned critters, it’s weird that we open the door just in time to see this, she thought. It was almost as if.

  She turned and looked around, past Dana, past the camper van buried in the undergrowth, along the lane that led away from this place up into the wooded hills, then back toward where she could just see the nose of the Rambler.

  Dana watched her with raised eyebrows. Jules opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say anything they heard a muffled, “Fuck!” from somewhere around the front of the building.

  “Seems we’ve found the attendant,” Jules said softly. Walking close together, she and Dana retraced their steps. Suddenly, her need to pee had abated.

  •••

  I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Holden thought, and he uttered another nervous giggle. Heading back outside, he saw Marty and Curt through the doorway, trying to work one of the pumps. Marty was holding the nozzle in the mouth of the Rambler’s fuel pipe, while Curt circled the pump, reaching out now and then to run his hands across the flaking painted surface. Looking for a switch or lever, Holden guessed, though he seemed to find neither.

  “I don’t think there’s gonna be—” Holden began, voice raised to carry out as he approached the door.

  Suddenly a shadowy figure filled the doorway, blocking most of the light, and a voice said, “You come in here uninvited?”

  “Fuck!” Holden gasped loudly. “Dude... ”

  “Sign says closed,” the attendant said, because that must have been what this man was. Tall and broad, old and weathered until his skin looked like a leather jacket left out in the sun too long, his left eye terribly bloodshot and swollen. His lips and chin were stained and glistening with chewed tobacco and drool, and he scowled in anger and disgust.

  He blocked the exit completely, and that was what worried Holden the most, more than his grotesque face and pissed attitude. If I want to get out and he doesn’t want me to... He was just about to start looking around for an alternative escape—jump through a window, perhaps, or maybe he’d find a door hidden behind a pile of badly stuffed animals at the back of the shop—when the attendant grunted and turned around, walking out to face the others.

  Holden let out a gasp of relief. That was when he realized he’d been holding his breath.

  “We were looking to buy some gas?” Curt said, taking a few steps toward the old man. Marty hung back, still holding the nozzle in the Rambler’s fuel pipe. “Does this pump work?”

  “Works if you know how to work it,” The attendant said. He glanced to his left and paused, and Holden took the opportunity to slip from the building. He circled around the old man until he was standing just a few feet to Curt’s right, and past the guy he saw Dana and Jules appear cautiously around the side of the building. Both were wide-eyed and slightly panicked.

  What have they seen? he wondered. Dana glanced at the attendant only briefly, then past him at Holden. They swapped nervous smiles.

  The attendant didn’t move to help Marty with the fuel. The moment felt frozen, and Holden wanted to move it along.

  “We also wanted to get directions...” he said.

  “Yeah, we’re looking for...” Curt began, frowning, looking at Jules and asking, “What is it?”

  “Tillerman Road,” Jules said, taking a step closer to the attendant. Holden could see her nervousness, but he also knew that she wouldn’t want to seem afraid. Her hands were fisted by her sides, holding on to control.

  The attendant just peered at her, but something about him changed. He’d become still—jaw no longer chewing, body no longer swaying—as if the name had hit home. He looked Jules up and down, and Holden almost saw her skin flinching back from his gaze.

  Then the attendant sighed and muttered, “What a waste.” He walked toward the pump, moving with an exaggerated gait as if neither leg belonged to him. Curt stepped aside, and the old man plucked a ring of keys from his pocket—far too many for this shack, surely?— and unlocked a latch on the pump. Marty stayed where he was, regarding the man with hooded eyes.

  Sometimes it’s good to be stoned, Holden thought, and he smiled slightly, thinking how much Marty would appreciate the sentiment. “Tillerman Road takes you up into the hills. Dead end at the old Buckner place.”

  “Is that the name of—?” Jules began.

  “There wasn’t a name,” Curt said.

  “Ready?” the attendant said to Marty, and when he nodded the old guy flicked a switch, then said, “Okay, pull the handle.” Marty pulled, the pump thunked and shook for a couple of seconds, and then the pungent smell of fuel filled the air. Holden wondered how old this fuel was, and whether it had an expiration date, and wished he were back in the city where he didn’t have to think about such things. The numbers behind the glass dome on top of the pump started turning. Holden thought he’d seen a pump like this in an old movie, once. Very old.

  “My cousin bought a house up there,” Curt said to the attendant’s back. “You go through a mountain tunnel, there’s a lake, would that be...?”

  “Buckner place,” the attendant confirmed, leaning on the pump and spitting a brown slick at his feet. “Always someone lookin’ to sell that plot.” He looked over his shoulder at Curt and smiled, exposing bad teeth stained brown, gaps here and there, and a thick gray tongue that looked to Holden like something trawled up from the bottom of the sea. “An’ always some fool lookin’ to buy.”

  “You knew the original owners?” Jules asked.

  “Not the first,” he replied, looking the girls up and down again. “But I’ve seen plenty come and go. Been here since the war.” “Which war?” she asked.

  “You know damn well which war!” he shouted. He took two steps toward Marty and closed his hand over the nozzle, Marty just letting go and stepping back in time. He caught Holden’s eye and shrugged, hands held out.

  Holden tried to smile at him, but the atmosphere didn’t feel light enough.

  “Would that have been with the blue, and some in gray?” Marty asked. “Brother, perhaps fighting against brother in that war?”

  “You sassin’ me, boy?”

  “You were rude to my friend,” Marty said, his voice level, gentle as ever.

  The attendant grew still again for a second, and Holden thought, Cogs turning in there, stuff happening, he’s processing what he didn’t expect. Then the old man looked at Jules again.

  “That whore?”

  Curt took a quick step forward but Holden was already moving, aware of what was about to happen. He splayed his left hand on Curt’s chest and held it there until his friend looked at him. He was angry but, Holden was pleased to see, also a little freaked. That was good. That would prevent this weird shit from descending into something more.

  “I think we’ve got enough gas,” Holden said coolly.

  “Enough to get you there,” the attendant said, removing the nozzle. “Gettin’ back’s your own concern.” The girls came over behind the old guy and climbed back into the Rambler. Curt threw a twenty at the old man’s feet, aiming for and hitting the slick of tobacco juice. He glanced at Holden, then nodded at the Rambler. Time to go.

  Holden couldn’t have agreed more.

  Marty was the last one to cli
mb back into the vehicle. The old man was still standing beside the fuel pump, apparently dismissing the money at his feet, still chewing, still staring at them with one good eye and one flushed with blood.

  “Good luck with your business,” Marty said, climbing the steps. “I know the railroad’s comin’ through here any day now, gonna be big. Streets paved with... actual street.” And as he started swinging the door shut, Holden heard him mutter, “Fucker.”

  Curt was already firing the engine, and even in a vehicle so large he managed to leave a wheel-spin in their wake. Now will come the joking, Holden thought. An unpleasant situation cast aside with bravado, mocking, and rude quips.

  But they drove away in silence, none of them catching another’s eye, and it was only as they turned a bend and started the long climb into the hills that the tension started to filter away.

  THREE

  Marty lit up a spliff, offering his pre-rolled joints around to everyone else. No one took him up on it, though he thought for a second Holden was going to. They smiled awkwardly at each other.

  Yeah, Marty thought, he knows too. He knows that was super-weird and fucked up back there. Like, how the hell does that dude stay in business? And where the hell did he just pop up from? And why was he...?

  “Why was he looking at Jules like that?” Marty whispered. Across the small table from him, Dana and Holden heard the question but did not respond. Probably because they’d been thinking the same thing themselves, and there was no comfortable answer.

  Bland rock played from the radio, Jules hummed in the front passenger seat, Curt cut in now and then with a few badly-sung lines from some song or another. Feigning normality.

  “Don’t give up the day job, dude,” Marty said. “At least I’ll have a day job!” Curt said. “I won’t spend my days stoned, wandering the woods, being at one with nature, and wondering how amazing it is that I’m actually alive.”

  There was silence for a few seconds, and then Marty responded, “I pity you, man.” And everyone laughed.