The Cabin in the Woods

by Tim Lebbon

“The Rambler’s a mile away from the tunnel,” his friend said softly.

  “Okay. Okay.” Sitterson scanned the mass of boards and chips, wires and fuses, circuit connectors and relays. A flush of utter hopelessness hit him, but he shoved it aside with an angry growl. He applied the voltmeter here and there, noting where power had failed but also knowing that in each of these places, it shouldn’t really matter. It was the relay to the detonator that mattered, and he’d just replaced...

  “Is the detonator button still lit?”

  “Yes,” the woman said, “but I told you, it’s just—”

  “Local,” Sitterson said. He shuffled further beneath the unit and probed with his penlight, sniffing, smelling burnt plastic.

  There!

  He held the penlight in his teeth.

  “Gary, we don’t have long,” Hadley said in his ear.

  “Uh-huh.” He pulled the melted mass of wires apart.

  “I mean it.”

  “Uh-huh.” In the artificial light, orange and red were too close, indistinguishable, so he stripped all four wires with his thumbnail.

  “They’re approaching the last bend. Damn, that kid can drive.”

  “Shud the huck up!” Sitterson growled, and he touched wires. Sparks flew, he flinched, and then from above he heard a brief, victorious yelp.

  “We’re up!” the man said.

  Sitterson spat the torch aside and held the wires together.

  “Blow it!” he shouted.

  The woman smacked the big demolition button and Sitterson winced as he was shocked. Been sweating, wet, this might kill me. But the pain was brief, and when it passed he called out.

  “So?”

  “We’re good,” the man said.

  “We’re good,” the woman echoed.

  Sitterson twisted the wires and snaked his way out from beneath the unit. The guy and woman were staring at him, faces slack with almost unbearable relief. The man actually held out his hand to help him up. Sitterson stood on his own, wiping imaginary dust from his sweat-soaked shirt. He examined the burns on his thumb and forefinger, pus-blisters already forming there. That was going to hurt, but all was still.

  Downstairs, all was still.

  “Wipe your ass,” he said and, leaving them to their shame, he smiled and left the room.

  NINE

  Back up back up back up!” Holden shouted, and Curt slammed the Rambler into reverse, stomping on the accelerator and not even bothering to look in the mirror because he wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway.

  Holden and Dana crouched close behind Curt’s driver’s seat. We should get in back and hide, Holden thought, but that would have been unfair to Curt. Something kept them together. United by their near-escape, perhaps now they would all die together. At least being crushed by falling rocks was better than—

  This is beyond the zombies, and we all know that now.

  Ahead of them the tunnel was in chaos—ceiling falling, slabs of rock pounding down, walls blasting out, dust and grit billowing and scraping against the Rambler’s chassis and windscreen. Visibility was quickly reduced to zero, and their only hope of survival would be if Curt steered them back out into the open air.

  A big rock scraped down the front of the vehicle, fracturing the windshield and tearing metal. Nevertheless, Curt held the wheel straight, foot pressed all the way down on the gas. The engine screeched in protest. They shook from side to side, and at the rear of the Rambler one of the sunroofs shattered and let in a shower of stinging debris.

  Holden twisted to look and winced as his wounds distorted, and fresh blood flowed.

  Through the back of the Rambler he saw a flash of trees.

  “Almost there!” he shouted.

  The roof was being battered now, dented and ripped where rocks struck. If the whole mountain comes down into the tunnel we’ll be squashed without even knowing what happened, he thought. He held Dana and kissed her, one hand around the back of her neck, another cupping her breast, and he felt her own desperate realization of their predicament.

  If there was any way he’d wish to go...

  And then they were out, and it was as if the weight of the world had been lifted from around them. There were no more impacts, and Curt looked back past them as he steered the vehicle far from the collapsing tunnel and up against the wall of the roadside cliff. He left the engine running and pulled on the parking break.

  Their gasps mingled, and Holden did not let go of Dana’s neck. Given a choice, he never would again.

  “Well... ” Curt said. He got up from his seat and kicked the door open. Bent metal shrieked in protest. Dana followed, and she reached back for Holden’s hand as they all exited to stand beside the battered Rambler.

  Rumbles still issued from the tunnel’s mouth, and a pile of debris had spilled out across the road. Dust rose in billowing clouds. Grit rained down around them like hard rain.

  “They might be following,” Dana said, glancing around nervously. Holden looked as well. The road was bathed in moonlight, but beneath the trees lurked the gloom that might hide anything.

  “We drove really fast,” he said. “Even if they can run they’ll be a mile or two back, easy.”

  “Yeah,” she said uncertainly, squeezing his hand. “No!” Curt shouted. “No fucking way! This isn’t happening! It’s right there! He gestured across the ravine at the ground beyond, and freedom. They could even see the road curving out from the tunnel, and a ponderous cloud of dust was making the onward journey that now eluded them.

  Holden scanned the cliff face opposite, then walked to the edge on their side. The bottom of the ravine was hidden in darkness. There could be anything down there, but then... there was anything up here, too. There were fucking zombies up here.

  “You got any climbing gear?” he asked Curt. “Ropes?”

  “Yeah, in my fucking dorm room.”

  “We can’t climb this. This is limestone, it’s slippery and it’ll crumble under pressure.” “We can’t go back,” Dana said, standing beside them at the cliff’s edge. “There’s no way across?” “What are we gonna do, jump?” Holden said, closing his eyes, shaking his head. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Dana said. “Not in the mood for a jump anyway.”

  “No? Zombies don’t do it for you?”

  “Dude,” Curt said quietly.

  “What?”

  Curt nodded back at the Rambler.

  “The dirt bike on the back,” he said. “I’m good.” For a few seconds Holden didn’t really comprehend what he meant. So he was good on a dirt bike, how did that help them if...?

  “You’re serious,” Dana said, and then Holden got it. He looked from Curt to the other side of the ravine, then back again.

  “You really think you can...?”

  Curt shrugged, frowned then nodded. Nodded again, harder. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah I can. Now help me get the thing ready, will you?”

  The three of them lifted the bike from the rack, and Curt checked it over to make sure it hadn’t been damaged in the rockfall. All we need now’s a puncture, Holden thought, but the bike had survived in good shape, protected by the bulk of the larger vehicle. Curt sat astride, fired it up and did a couple of gentle circuits around the Rambler, making himself comfortable and spinning the rear wheel a few times.

  “Holden, we should stop him,” Dana said. “You think he’ll listen to us?”

  “No, but we should try.”

  Holden knew she was right. But at the same time he was looking at the jump and trying to judge the distance, the arc the bike would take, and the chances of Curt making it across. And the more he looked, the more he thought it looked good. There was a decent rise on this side just before the drop-off, and the other side was clear of trees and boulders. A good place to land, so long as he stopped before the cliff face over there. And then if the bike made it in one piece he could go for help, be back here within a couple of hours with cops and the army and—

  But what if Curt did
n’t make it in one piece? What if he made it across but spilled, broke both legs? Would they really have to watch each other die?

  “I dunno...” Dana said, shaking her head. And Holden knew that she was thinking the same thing. She hated Curt risking this, but she also knew it might be their only chance at escape. Even now back there in the forest, things would be coming for them.

  “Okay,” Curt said, skidding to a stop beside them and eyeing the ravine.

  “Curt, are you sure about this?” Dana asked.

  “I’ve done bigger jumps than this.”

  “You’ve got a smooth run,” Holden said. “A slight rise here, and maybe a five foot differential on the other side, which is good. But you gotta give it everything.” “You know it.”

  “Curt...” Dana said. He came down off his adrenaline kick for a moment and looked at her. He’s already lost so much, Holden thought, and he wondered how a guy like Curt could still function having seen his girlfriend’s head kicked around by a zombie. But it was precisely a guy like Curt who would continue to function after such a terror. Functioning—doing something—helped him forget, at least for a time.

  Sitting by, doing nothing... that would eat him up.

  “When I’m across and gone, you guys stay in the Rambler,” he said. “If they come, just keep driving away from ’em. I’ll get help. If I wipe out I’ll fuckin’ limp for help, but I’m coming back with cops and choppers and large fucking guns and those things are gonna pay.” He glanced aside. “For Jules.”

  Dana leaned across and kissed him on the cheek.

  Curt gunned the bike.

  “Don’t hold back,” Holden said.

  “Never do.” Curt grinned at them and ran the bike back along the road a little, standing in the saddle and leaning to curve around to the right. He didn’t wait and rev up, but let go instantly, knowing that even that small bit of momentum could give him the added speed he needed when he hit the drop-off.

  Go on, Holden thought, go on, you’re the jock, the good-looking guy every girl wants to go out with and every guy wants to be. It’s only right that you’ll be the one to save us. And as Curt powered past them on the dirt-bike Holden knew definitely, absolutely, that he would succeed. He hit the slightly raised lip of the drop-off with the front wheel high, speed good, and Holden punched the air and yelled, “Yeah!” because the jump could not have been performed any better, it was perfect, when they got back to the world Curt would be able to make a profession as a stunt—

  The bike struck something and exploded in mid-air.

  “Noooo!” Dana screamed.

  The fire and burning fragments spread far and wide as if he’d struck something solid, and beyond the extremes of the flames, sparking blue lines flicked into and out of existence. Straight lines, perfectly vertical and horizontal like a grid.

  What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck—?

  Curt didn’t make a sound, and Holden hoped that he was already dead as he fell. Because he was on fire. His clothing was splashed with fuel, his hair singed away, his face aflame, and he twisted slowly as he plummeted into the ravine like a living flare, lighting the cliff walls all the way down. And all the way, those severe blue lines flickered in and faded out all around him.

  “Oh God, oh God...” Dana chanted, and when Holden grabbed her arm her muscles were hard as steel, fists clenches so tight that he felt a dribble of blood issue from beneath her fingers.

  “He hit something!” Holden gasped. “There’s nothing! What’d he hit!”

  The flames had fallen away now, going down with the remnants of the bike and his dead, still-burning friend. But between them and the other side of the ravine, something stood guard. Curt, he thought, and his face crumpled as he thought of his friend’s ready smile and friendly manner. He took a couple of steps and saw a faint glow somewhere far below. But then he stopped, because he didn’t want to see what gave that glow.

  “Puppeteers...” Dana said softly. He’d never heard her sounding like this before. Tender, yes, and shy, and scared and terrified. But her voice now was tinged with defeat.

  “Did you see it?” Holden asked. “What’d he hit?”

  But she was looking at something far more distant than either of them could see.

  “Marty was right. God.”

  “Get in the van!” Holden said urgently. There was just the two of them now, and if those zombies could run—

  “Marty was right...”

  “Dana, get in the fucking Rambler! We can talk about this later, but right now we have to get away from here. They’ll be attracted by the...” Explosion, he thought. Our shouting. The impossible explosion, and our useless shouting, because whichever way they turned—

  But he would not be defeated. Curt would have snorted even at the thought of defeat. He had died trying to save them all, and Holden would run and fight and do every single thing he could to honor his friend’s sacrifice.

  He grabbed Dana’s hand and pulled her toward the van. She was slow—he was almost dragging her—and he wanted to shout and rage at her to not give up, never give up. But when they reached the Rambler she let go and opened the door, holding it open for him to jump in first. And though distracted, he could also see something new appearing in her eyes: anger.

  Holden jumped into the driver’s seat and Dana sat beside him. She was deliberate, almost calm. All the fear had dropped from her face. And she’d been talking about... puppeteers?

  He gunned the engine and swung the Rambler around, away from the tunnel and back the way they’d come. Perhaps he’d pick out one of those fucking zombies in the headlamps and be able to run the thing over. Then reverse. Then run it over again.

  “You’re going back,” she said.

  “I’m going through,” he said. “We’ll just drive. There’s gotta be another road, another way out of here.” “It won’t work,” she said. “Something will happen. A bridge will collapse, a road will wash away. We’ll fall into a sinkhole.”

  “Then we’ll leave the roads altogether!” he said, unreasonably angry at her sudden sense of defeat. “Dana, we’ll drive as far as we can into the forest, go on foot from there—”

  Dana shook her head.

  “You’re missing the point.”

  “I am?” He hated her fatalism; he was trying to help them here. And he had never seen that in her before. I thought I was getting to know her, he thought, glancing at her sidelong. “Hey,” he said. “Look at me.”

  She looked. She even smiled a little, but it was one of the saddest smiles he’d ever seen. “This isn’t your fault,” he said.

  She laughed softly but it did nothing to lift the sadness.

  “I know. It’s the puppeteers.”

  “Please don’t go nuts on me, Dana,” Holden said. Puppeteers? What the...? “You’re all I got.”

  She continued staring at him. He glanced at the road, back at her, and her relaxed, sad expression did not change. She looks as far from mad as I’ve seen her since this began.

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  “Good. ’Cause I need you calm.” He took a tight bend, fighting with the wheel, unused to the big vehicle and almost letting the rear end swing out from behind them. He’d have to go slow—if he wrecked or rolled the van that’d be it for them. The thought of being trapped inside while those zombie bastards bashed and hacked their way in... “No matter what happens, we gotta stay calm.”

  A rush of optimism hit him. He didn’t know where it came from but he grabbed on, relishing the way it brightened his view a little, and made Dana feel just that little bit closer. They drove on, sweeping around bends and making their way back toward the cabin. And still flushed by optimism he smiled and opened his mouth to say, “Everything’s—”

  Something pressed against his throat. His voice ended. And the newly enlightened world grew suddenly dark.

  Dark red.

  •••

  She’d sensed a changed in Holden, but she knew it was nothing like the s
ense of doom that had settled over her. They could drive, they could run, they could hide, but the Puppeteers would find them. They’d find them because they were controlling this, and perhaps even now they were being watched by someone or something she couldn’t understand. In a way she hoped it was something, because if someone was responsible for all this... how sick must they be? How twisted?

  She glanced at the road ahead of them, then looked back at Holden in time to see the shadow moving behind him. He was smiling as the scythe curved around his throat and flicked, opening his skin, tearing the meat of him, spraying the windscreen with a splash of blood, and she screamed, falling from her seat and pressing back against the side door as she saw who was there.

  Father Buckner. The family killer, the murderer, the zombie, pressing his knee to the back of the driver’s seat as he tried to tug the scythe free.

  Holden’s hands were still on the wheel, his eyes wide, body pulled back tight against the seat by the rusted blade buried deep in his throat. Blood bubbled there as he tried to scream.

  Dana screamed for him, high and clear. Buckner did not even look her way. He tugged and shook and growled, throwing Holden’s body around in the seat like a— —like a puppet—

  —and then the scythe came free with a wet sucking sound, and arterial blood geysered from the wound as Holden’s terrified heart thumped and pummeled, splashing the windscreen and spattering across Dana’s face and throat. She held up her hands and felt its warm impact, soft as a wet kiss across her wrist, and she screamed again because she knew what was to come.

  Holden’s hands lifted from the steering wheel as he tried to hold in his blood. They pressed to his ruined throat, finding meat and bone and gristle instead of skin, and the big wheel jerked and spun unchecked.

  We’ll hit a tree, Dana thought, and Father will go through the windscreen and I’ll pull Holden aside and—

  But the Puppeteers would never allow that to happen.

  As she wiped thick arterial blood from her eyes a shadow whipped through the air and she heard thwack! as Buckner buried the scythe’s point into the side of Holden’s head.

  Dana gasped at what had been done to the man she had kissed and caressed just hours before. His throat was open and spewing, one eye had erupted from its socket, and his face was distorted by the metal buried deep behind it.