The Cabin in the Woods

by Tim Lebbon

  And now here she was, hand resting gently against his husband’s bulge and the night ahead of them alight with possibilities.

  The door smashed open. Dana and Holden knocked teeth as they sat up, and she was about to shout at whoever was fucking around when she saw Curt. He was on his hands and knees inside the door, and she had never seen him like this before. Never seen him looking so scared. “Curt!” she gasped. She and Holden went to him, and the blood and wounds registered instantly. Blood streaming down his arm, a gash in his head. And his hands... it looked like he’d been digging.

  “Jesus, what happened?” Holden asked.

  Curt’s eyes rolled in his head, and he seemed unable to focus on either of them.

  “Door!” Marty screamed, skidding through the door as he attempted to slow and slam it behind him. He spilled to the floor, but Curt had already turned and kicked the door closed.

  What the hell is this? Dana thought. For a moment she wondered if it was a joke, and that they’d all start cracking up soon, pointing at her and Holden and rolling around on the floor. But she didn’t think that for long. Not with the way blood was pulsing from the slash in Curt’s scalp. And not from the terror in Marty’s eyes.

  “Anna Patience,” he muttered. “Her. Her!”

  Dana darted to Curt’s side.

  “Where are you hurt? Is all this blood yours? Where’s Jules?”

  Curt pushed her hands away, shaking his head. He stood slowly, shaking, glancing around as if any shadow could hold danger. He zipped his fly, and firelight reflected in his eyes, dancing shapes. Dana thought he was crying, but she wasn’t sure.

  “It’s okay, Curt. You’re okay...” Holden tried to calm him, holding his upper arms and catching his eye.

  “No,” Marty said, gasping for air. “We’re not okay. What’s the opposite of okay?”

  “What are you talking about?” Dana said, because they were scaring the shit out of her now. “Curt, where’s Jules?”

  Curt shook his head. Blood spattered his shoulder and the floorboards, but he didn’t notice. His eyes still seemed to be looking elsewhere.

  “She’s gone,” he said, remembering something terrible. “We gotta get out of here!” He started toward the corridor leading to the back of the cabin. “There’s a window back here, we go through there, into the woods, run like fuck and—”

  “No!” Dana said. “Wait!” This was madness. She knew she should listen to Curt and Marty, but she... wanted to open...

  I need to see for myself.

  She reached for the front door, turned the handle and started to pull it open.

  “Dana, don’t open that!” Marty shouted. She had never heard Marty shout before, and in a way that scared her more than anything. Marty losing control was just not right.

  “I’m not leaving here without Jules,” she said. And it was that simple. She swung the door open.

  Standing on the porch, framed by the doorway, was the biggest, deadest man she had ever seen.

  “Big-zombie,” Curt whispered, saying it like one word, as if he’d already had cause to name this thing.

  The huge man—big-zombie—stared for a few seconds, and no one reacted. His eyes are rotten things, Dana thought, and then she noticed that he was holding something in his right hand. It didn’t register for a moment what it was, but perhaps that was only because of the blood. Then he threw it at Dana, she caught it, felt the wetness, the tangle of blood-and gore-knotted hair, blonde hair... and she looked down into Jules’s battered face.

  Jules, her face, her head, it’s heavy, her eyes, she’s damaged... she’s bruised her eye, it’s sore, and her lovely lovely hair, very fabulous, no? No longer fabulous because of the blood and leaves and...

  She screamed and dropped the head. It seemed to fall in slow motion, and if seemed as if her own scream was issuing from the grotesquely open mouth, turning as it fell so that Jules’s accusing eyes focused on the shape blocking the doorway. The head bounced from her foot and rolled back toward the door, and then big-zombie kicked it back into the room as he took a lumbering step forward.

  He’s going to get in and—Dana thought, but Holden’s fear galvanized him. He dove forward, balance unsettled but using his momentum to shoulder into the door, his right foot tangling in Jules’s hair and swinging her head across the floor in a blood-smearing arc. He slammed the door shut again, falling against it just as the thing smashed into it, rattling the frame, splintering wood.

  Holden slipped the bolts and fell back, kicking his foot frantically to dislodge it from the head’s hair.

  Big-zombie slammed into the door again. Timber splintered and fell away from the frame, and Dana actually heard the creak of bending metal as the bolt warped under the immense pressure.

  A few more like that... she thought, and then Marty was at the door with Holden, helping him throw the top and bottom bolts as well. They wouldn’t hold for long, but perhaps they’d give them some time to—

  She saw her friend’s head from the corner of her eye. Jules was staring at her. Dana sucked in a few deep breaths to try and calm herself, but all they did was feed the scream building in her lungs once again. Holden and Marty leaned against the door, grimacing with each impact. The air in the room seemed to vibrate every time big-zombie struck.

  Dust was in the air, and most dust is human skin, and the scream was coming.

  She opened her mouth—

  “Dana! C’mon!” She turned away from Jules, and Curt had heaved the couch over onto its back. He was trying to shove it across the timber floor to pile it behind the door, and in his grimace of effort she saw the first glimmer of madness. His eyes kept flickering to Jules’s head, and the blood still glistening around his right eye emphasized its size and deepness.

  He’s losing it, Dana thought, and she swallowed her scream.

  They pushed together, neither commenting when the couch knocked the head aside. Marty and Holden pulled back at the last moment, and Dana and Curt shoved the couch until it was wedged just beneath the doorknob. Flush with the wall and door, it would provide some small measure of barrier.

  But not for long.

  Wham! Big-zombie struck again, and the whole cabin seemed to shake and creak. More dust drifted down from the ceiling, hazing the air and dancing in candlelight. Five minutes ago this light was so romantic, Dana thought. She glanced at Holden, he threw her an uncertain smile, and she realized how shocked they all were.

  Fisting her hands, she felt the tackiness of Jules’s blood between her fingers and on her palms.

  “What is that thing?” she cried.

  “I don’t know,” Curt said. “But there’s more of them.”

  “More of them?” she asked, glancing at Marty.

  He nodded.

  “I saw a young girl. All... zombied up. Like him.” He nodded at the door, seemingly unembarrassed by his choice of words, and no one mocked him. “And she was all ‘Little House on the Prairie,’ too, but she’s missing an arm...” He trailed off, frowning. Even another impact from big-zombie couldn’t upset that brief, loaded moment of silence among the four of them.

  It can’t be, Dana thought, but at the same moment she knew it was.

  “Oh God,” she said. “Patience. That diary we found... ”

  “‘The pain outlives the flesh,’” Holden quoted. “She must have... bound a mystical incantation into the text so someone would come along, read the diary aloud and—”

  “And I did it,” Dana said quietly. She glanced at Marty. “You told me not to, but I did it.” Marty only shook his head, his expression sad, not accusing. But she didn’t need someone else blaming her in order to feel the sudden flush of guilt.

  “Look, brainiac,” Curt snapped at Holden, aggression hiding his terror. “I don’t give a limp dick why those things are here. We gotta lock this place down!”

  “He’s right,” Marty said, nodding. Shivering. Dana could see them all shivering now, and she felt it in herself. For now it was adrenalin
coursing through them, and they had to take advantage of that. Once the shivering became due to fear and pain, their bodies would grow cooler, their muscles would weaken, and whatever chances they had at survival would grow much less.

  Wham! Another impact against the door. The frame shook, wood cracked, but the sofa was wedged tight beneath the handle.

  “We’ll go room by room,” Curt said. “Barricade every window and door.” He headed toward the back of the cabin, alone, then turned and waved them to him. “Come on! We gotta play it safe. No matter what, we have to stay together!”

  Damn right! Dana thought. The thing outside impacted the cabin again, and again, and she couldn’t imagine being alone.

  Crash... crash... crash...!

  Dana turned her back on her friend’s dead stare.

  SEVEN

  Sitterson knew that Hadley would be panicking right now. That was just his style. Once the real game began, he became edgy and nervous, seeing the few obscure ways things could go wrong, instead of the many ways they were going right. It was Hadley’s way of working, that was all. How he kept focused, maintained his composure.

  But that still didn’t prevent it from pissing off Sitterson.

  Least they could do was enjoy themselves a little.

  Hadley slumped down in his chair, one hand to his forehead.

  “Calm down, I got it,” Sitterson said as he tapped some keys. “Watch the master work.” He brought up three new windows on his computer, then tapped a switch on his control panel array.

  “There.” He sat back in his chair, hands laced behind his head, and glanced across at Hadley. “What?” Hadley asked.

  Sitterson sighed and nodded at the large displays.

  “Eyes on the screen,” he said. “The camera never lies.”

  •••

  This is so fucked up, Marty thought. Things had gone from laughter to panic in a matter of minutes, and now there was running and shouting and screaming and dying, and he wasn’t sure just when things had changed. Seeing Curt outside, of course... bleeding, panicked raving... that had been when reality had become more terrifying for him. But he had a feeling that everything had begun to change much earlier than that.

  Curt’s behavior with Jules had been so unlike him, and even earlier, down in the basement when they’d been looking through all that weird old stuff, something had seemed not quite right. The stuff down there was stacked and piled and stored so haphazardly that Marty couldn’t help but see some order in it all, as if it had been placed that way. Maybe he was the only one who could see that, and it was his laid-back approach to life that encouraged him to find order in chaos, but he thought not. Not completely, at least. There had been something more.

  Something like design.

  Now Curt was leading them to the back of the cabin to make sure all the doors and windows were secure and blocked up. And though Curt was the jock everyone looked up to and respected because he was cool, good-looking, and generally a great guy... even that felt wrong.

  Holden and Dana moved close together, not holding hands but touching fingers as they walked. Marty coveted their security.

  Thump! The thing hit the cabin again, and Curt came to a halt just at the beginning of the corridor, looking around as if suddenly lost.

  “What’s the matter?” Dana asked, her voice terrified.

  Curt seemed confused. He shook his head, frowning, running one hand through his hair and spattering a dozen tiny blood droplets onto the cabin floor.

  “This isn’t right...” he muttered. Then he looked at the others almost as if he no longer trusted them, face hard but eyes afraid. He settled on Marty. “This isn’t right. We should split up. We can cover more ground that way.”

  Hold on now... Marty thought.

  Holden and Dana swapped a glance, and Marty saw something change in their stances. The fear was still there, the tension, but for a few seconds... it looked as if they were listening to something else. Some inner voice that whispered things they did not understand.

  Are they hearing voices too? Marty thought, but even thinking it made him feel slightly ridiculous. He was the dope-head, as Curt was always so keen to tell him. He was the one who heard the fucking voices.

  “Yeah...” Holden said, and Dana nodded at him. “Yeah, split up. Good idea.” “Really?” Marty asked. And behind them, the living room window exploded inward. He ducked and span around in time to see glass slivers jingling to the floor and timber frame shards spiking inward. And through the ruin of the window protruded big-zombie’s arm. His fist was clenched around a handful of glass and wood, but there was no blood.

  Beyond, his shadow pressed close.

  “I got it!” Curt shouted, running at the window. “You guys get in your rooms!” He shouldered into a bookcase and it started sliding toward the window, screaming across the floor, books tumbling, while the zombie’s arm thrashed to clear more broken glass and framing.

  “Wait...” Marty said, but his voice was lost amid the chaos.

  Dana and Holden shared a glance, a nod, and then Dana said, “Let’s go!” They headed for their separate rooms on the left, parting without even a hug, and for a moment Marty couldn’t move.

  This isn’t right, he thought. He looked back at Curt, who was now shoving against the bookcase while big-zombie leaned in the window and pushed back, seeking entrance even while Curt strove to prevent it.

  “Go!” Curt screamed at Marty, angry at his indecisiveness. So Marty went, because there was little else he could do. Maybe Curt was right. Maybe they should all check their windows and doors individually, then go back and help him fight that big fucker.

  But even as he entered his room and dashed to the window, it was almost as if he could foresee what would happen next. We’ll be locked in, he thought. And he turned back to his door.

  •••

  “Told you,” Sitterson said, perhaps a little too smug.

  “Yeah, okay,” Hadley said. On the big monitors they saw the three kids dashing into their rooms as the fourth tried to hold back Matthew. Sitterson, humming, tapped a couple of keys and the views changed without a flicker, shifting to inside each room.

  Dana entered her own room and dashed to the window, Holden stood in the center of his and took a few deep breaths, and Marty was the last, frowning, head shaking.

  Curt was still battling Matthew the zombie.

  Well, let him. Sitterson wasn’t concerned. His placing right now didn’t matter too much, and if things went too far at that end of the cabin, he could still be lured across to the other.

  “Peas in separate pods,” Sitterson said, raising his hands in triumph.

  “Lock ’em in,” Hadley said, and he was smiling as well. For now. He’d find something else to stress about soon.

  Sitterson tapped a key and—

  •••

  —Marty’s door slammed shut behind him. After the slam came the slide and thunk! of locks ramming home—not just in his door but in the others, as well.

  He gasped and held his breath, listening for more. Weak light from the single light reflected from one half of the window, making the darkness outside even more complete. The other half stood wide open. He’d unlatched and opened it earlier when he was laid back on his bed smoking pot, having some vague idea that the fumes could spread through the air outside and chill the forest. It had been a little too looming for his liking, a little too forceful. Trees should be just trees, and shouldn’t wear the shadows of guardians.

  Locked in, he thought. We’re all suddenly locked in. And glancing down at his door handle he couldn’t even see a keyhole. There was a handle, that was all. So the locks must be.

  “On the outside,” he muttered. But that felt wrong, too. He tried to recall what the doors looked like from out there, and he was pretty sure they were the same— just a handle, nothing else.

  No keyhole.

  No lock.

  In which case...

  The cabin shook again with another t
errible impact. Curt cried out from somewhere and more glass broke, and Marty’s window suddenly seemed larger than ever. He moved then, slowly to begin with, two small, quiet steps, and then in his mind’s eye he saw zombie-girl’s face intruding through the window. He leapt the last few steps, grabbed the handle and pulled it close, flicking the latch to secure it shut. Something shattered behind him and he shouted, turning around and hardly prepared for what he might see.

  He must have knocked the table with his leg as he rushed by, and the lamp on top had wobbled and smashed after he’d turned the latch.

  Not that glass and thin wood will do much good against—

  He looked down.

  What the fuck is that?

  It was a moment that punched him in the gut. Amongst all the chaos, thumping, shouting from outside, and his own terrified panting, it was the sight of the smallest thing that finally succeeded in knocking Marty’s breath out of him.

  The remains of the china lamp were splayed across the floor, and from its plastic heart a white cable led to the plug socket in the wall. The bulb had survived— shielded from impact by the bent-out-of-shape shade— and in its glare he saw a second wire.

  It was thin and black, and there was something about it that seemed all wrong.

  The wire snaked through the remains of the broken lamp, its end pointing directly at him. An end? Shouldn’t it be plugged in somewhere? Shouldn’t there be a fixture? But Marty’s bullshit detector was on full, and he knew this was something that shouldn’t be there.

  He bent and picked up the wire, squinting at its end, and thought, fiber optic. The sense of being watched was suddenly very real. His place in things shrank to an almost infinitesimally small point. And he stood and looked around the room, thinking of the one-way mirror.

  Curt’s weird behavior.

  Jules’s brutal death.

  “Oh, man,” he muttered.