The Cabin at the End of the World

by Paul Tremblay

  Leonard says, “Wen told me. So which one of you is telling the truth?”

  “Both of us. I’m telling you what happened and what she told you is what I told her.” Andrew says to Wen, “I didn’t want you to know that a terrible, awful person did this to me. I didn’t want you to know there were those kinds of people out there.” Andrew makes sure to dramatically glare at each of the three others before continuing. “Not yet, anyway.” He’d planned on telling her the truth about his scar when she was older, when she could understand. He’d irrationally hoped he could somehow put off indefinitely the future day on which she would recognize cruelty, ignorance, and injustice were the struts and pillars of the social order, as unavoidable and inevitable as the weather.

  Leonard says, “I get it and I don’t blame you at all. And listen, I believe you’re not making it up. But isn’t it possible that Redmond only resembles—”

  “No. It’s him. I guarantee it.” Andrew can see that ratty, skinny weasel he watched squirm in the courtroom, grow older and bulk up before his eyes, transforming into the troll-like Redmond. There is no doubt. He will not allow for it.

  Andrew closes his hands into fists, clenching some of the rope, hopefully giving the appearance his restraints are still tight and secure should one of them walk behind him.

  Adriane says in a lowered voice, like she’s trying it out, “I guess Redmond got his then.”

  Sabrina groans and goes chest to chest with Leonard. “Fuck. Fuck! Jesus, Leonard, did you know this, any of this about Redmond?”

  “What? No. No, of course not. And I’m not calling Andrew a liar but maybe it’s not—”

  “What do you know about him?”

  “I know as much as you do. I know him as well as I know you two. And I thought—we really don’t have time for this.” He pauses and Sabrina doesn’t move, doesn’t release him. “I thought like you thought: he was rough around the edges and stuff but was basically a good guy.”

  “Seriously? It was pretty obvious he wasn’t. At best he was an obnoxious dick,” Adriane says.

  Sabrina says, “You and him were there on the message board before I found it, before Adriane got there—”

  “A message board?” Andrew shouts and he means it to sound like an aha accusation or vindication. A fucking online message board. Maybe the others aren’t religious lunatics and maybe they are, but they are certainly regular, nondenominational lunatics with—as Eric had phrased earlier—a shared delusion. Andrew recalls reading about a uniquely twenty-first-century mental-health crisis with a growing population of people suffering from clinically paranoid, psychotic delusions deciding to ignore professional help and cut themselves off from friends and family. These people are instead seeking emotional support online where they have found hundreds, even thousands, of like-minded people (many of whom refer to themselves as “targeted individuals” or “TIs”) on social media and yes, on message boards. Online, the delusion sufferer is not told what she is experiencing is a chemical lie or the result of misfiring synapses and she is not accused of being crazy. The online groups reinforce and validate the delusions because the same thing is happening to them. There was a man who recently shot and killed three people on an army base in Louisiana; he had been part of a large online group of TIs who blogged and posted YouTube videos explaining how a shadow government was stalking them and using mind-control weapons in an attempt to destroy their lives.

  Andrew wonders if proving to the three intruders that Redmond isn’t who they thought he might be, that he isn’t like them, isn’t one of them—them being some quasi-pious, noble group of would-be humanity savers—would allow doubt to create cracks and fissures spidering through the group delusion? All three of them are clearly unnerved by the bar-attack accusation, and Sabrina and Adriane appear to be openly struggling with what they’ve done and whatever it is they are supposed to do next. Doubt is good, right? Or will it make them more desperate and dangerous, more likely to become violent and lash out in defense of their beliefs? Andrew loosens his fists and lets the rope out of his clenched fingers for a moment, double-checking that he will indeed be able to free his hands.

  Sabrina says, “Yes, a message board.” Then to Leonard, “How long were you—?”

  Leonard says, “I set it up, like one of my visions told me to, and Redmond was the first to get there but he was there only, like, a few hours before you. We didn’t talk about anything you couldn’t read yourselves after you joined. And he never said anything outright hateful.”

  “Did you and him talk on the phone or anything?”

  “No, never.”

  Adriane says, “Redmond was the one who first said he had the vision of the name of the lake and the town.”

  Leonard asks, “Maybe, okay, I guess so, but what are you saying? What are you implying?”

  Eric, who has been conspicuously silent, raises his voice to interrupt, and winces as he does so. “She’s implying that your Redmond picked out this place purposefully.”

  Andrew adds, “And he picked it out because Redmond knew we were going to be here. Or most importantly to him, that I was going to be here.”

  Leonard says, “That’s impossible. Even if—how could he find that out? It’s not like that. We all had the visions. Sabrina, Adriane, me: we saw this cabin, too. You saw it, didn’t you? You both said you did.”

  Sabrina and Adriane nod their heads affirmative and then peel away from Leonard’s orbit and away from each other, spreading into the room.

  Leonard says, “We saw the lake, this little red cabin. We saw where this place was.” He pauses and points at the front door. “I saw the dirt road and the front of the cabin; I even saw the grain of the wood on the front door. It was like I’d known it my whole life, and I knew there would be a family here, a very special one. And the family would have to make the choice, would have to make a sacrifice to save us all.” He ping-pongs between looking at Sabrina and Adriane. “Now don’t let it get all turned around. I know, this sucks, all of it, and I’m sick to my stomach over it. But we’ll all get past it because the suffering here is not eternal. It’s a test. We were chosen and we’re being tested. All of us. You, too, Andrew, Eric, and Wen, and if we don’t pass this most difficult and important of all tests, the world is going to end.

  “And as far as Redmond goes. Maybe”—he turns and holds a hand out to Andrew—“maybe it’s not him. You said yourself thirteen years have passed and he’s, what, more than fifty pounds heavier?”

  “I know it’s him! I’m not—”

  “I know, I know, and maybe it is him. I don’t know if Redmond is his real name or not, and I don’t mean to belittle what happened to you, but does it matter in terms of what we have to do here?”

  Sabrina goes red-faced and shouts, “Of course it matters! If I had known he’d done that to Andrew or to anyone, I wouldn’t have—” She stops.

  Eric says, “You wouldn’t have what?”

  “I was going to say that I wouldn’t have come here. But it’s not true because I didn’t choose to come here. This is not my choice. I—I already tried to ignore the visions and messages and I tried to stay home and I tried not to come out here and it didn’t work. The day before I was supposed to fly out I didn’t set my alarm or pack or do anything to get ready. I didn’t even tell work I was going to be out. And then it was the next morning and there I was sitting in a cab halfway to LAX.”

  Adriane says, “Same,” and laughs an odd little laugh, high pitched and chittering. “Isn’t this a fucking pickle?”

  Eric says, “You don’t want to be here, so let us go. You don’t have to do this anymore. You know you don’t.”

  Sabrina lifts her weapon, recalibrating, reconsidering. It rises like a buoy in an ocean swell.

  “Sabrina,” Leonard says, “I know you are not who O’Bannon was—regardless if Redmond is the same guy—and Adriane is not O’Bannon, and I am not O’Bannon. We were called to be here as a force of good. I know this to be true. I feel
it in my cells. I think you do, too. I said it before, we are not here with hate or judgment in our hearts. We’re here with love for everyone, for all humankind. We’re willing to sacrifice our own lives in the hope that we might save everyone else.”

  Eric says, “No,” repeatedly, and then, “Just let us go. Please? Let us go . . .”

  Andrew stares hard at Eric and Eric stares back. Can Andrew somehow communicate that the ropes are loose around his wrists with a look?

  Leonard says, “I only said it doesn’t matter if Redmond was Andrew’s attacker because what any of us might’ve done in the past will not change this moment or what happens next. The past, all of our pasts, will be wiped away. What matters is we’re here now and why we’re here. What matters is passing this test. We were chosen, all of us, for a reason. That is what matters and I’m not going to question that. We can’t.”

  Eric says, “No, you should be questioning it. That’s exactly what you should be doing.”

  Andrew says, “Don’t you recognize how wrong this is? Look at us tied up here. Really look at us. Is this right or normal? Is this what young nurses, chefs, and guys right out of college do on the weekends? How about you go have a look at the guy you mashed to a pulp out on the deck, tell me that’s not wrong.” He regrets mentioning their killing Redmond/O’Bannon, as though not speaking of the act prevents them from more killing.

  Leonard says, “If you and Eric can find a way to make the right choice, sacrifice one of yourselves, then the world will live and that means Wen will live, too. Don’t you want her to—”

  Eric says, “Enough, that’s enough. Stop talking. I can’t, just stop . . .”

  The room goes quiet, as though the silence is planned, allotted. Outside the cabin, unseen birds chirp and sing their evolutionary songs as the sun creeps higher in the blue morning sky that keeps watch over the lake and its still, dark, and cold water. Andrew knows he must make a move to escape from the chair soon. But with hands that are stiff and numb, he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to untie his legs before the others descend upon him.

  Sabrina coughs. “I think we’re running out of time.”

  “It’s me running out of fucking time.” Adriane bends forward, and each percussive sob is leaden with grief, a hidden scream. “We have to do something to get them to choose and choose now.”

  Leonard says, “I know. We’re trying—”

  “Try more! Try fucking harder! Threaten to hurt one of them, bust a knee, take off a finger, something. Not seriously hurt them, but enough to know this is serious!”

  “Adriane!” Sabrina steps between her and Andrew and Eric.

  Andrew’s sour and curdling stomach plummets through the floor, to the center of the shrinking earth, as his traitorous head fills with images of them cutting off Eric’s fingers or Wen’s, one by one. He looks at Wen and she remains huddled on the couch, half covered by a blanket. She has shut down. Perhaps she’s in shock.

  “It’ll be the only way!” Adriane is full-throat yelling. “We have to get this shit done! They’ll just wait us out until all of us die if we don’t!”

  Leonard strides forward, a rolling boulder filling a narrowing cave. “We can’t let you hurt them. You know we can’t. It’s not allowed.”

  “Fuckin’ easy for you to say. You’re not next, are you? I don’t want my body stuffed under a blanket and stacked next to that piece of shit out there. I don’t want to die!”

  Sabrina crouches and calmly says, “They’ll believe us. They will.”

  “No, they don’t, and they won’t. Not ever.”

  “Shh, they will. You’ll see. They will.”

  Adriane’s words come in clipped bursts between hitching inhales. “The worst part is I knew I was dead as soon as I started seeing all this shit. I knew I was dead already.”

  Adriane is still bent over and crying. Sabrina crouches and whispers and cajoles. Leonard checks his watch, and while he utters vague reassurances to them, he has the resigned, desperate, and committed look of a person who knows everything is going poorly and will continue to go poorly no matter what.

  Adriane straightens up, pushes Sabrina and Leonard away, and wipes the tears off her cheeks violently. “Okay. I’m okay. I lost it, but I’m good.” She takes two steps toward Eric and Andrew. “Hey, so you know I’m dead meat—”

  Leonard says, “Adriane, you can’t—”

  She turns on Leonard and snarls at him. “Shut your fucking mouth. It’s my turn. It’s up to me and I’m going to do it my way. All right? Is that all right?” She doesn’t give Leonard or Sabrina a chance to respond. “So what’s it going to be? Another calamity like the earthquakes and tsunamis and hundreds, thousands more people dying, this time by plague. That’ll be fun, yeah? Plus the bonus of the unpleasant sight of little old me getting bashed like a piñata. Or will you stop it all from happening and sacrifice one of yourselves?” She pulls a white mesh mask out of a back pocket. It looks exactly like the one Redmond pulled over his own head. Unhinged and wild-eyed, she shakes and dangles the mask in front of Andrew and Eric. “Come on. What’s it going to be? You want me to put it on first?” She stuffs her right fist inside and holds it like a puppet that’s going to say something obnoxious, scandalous, something only a puppet would be allowed to say. “There you go. You pick. One of you sacrifices yourself or all kinds of other people die.” She makes crashing noises and pantomimes striking the mask-covered fist.

  Andrew shakes his head and groans because he thinks he has waited too long to free his hands. So does he wait even longer? Wait them out like Adriane intimated? Are they really going to kill Adriane like they killed O’Bannon? Are they that committed to their obviously Revelations-inspired rituals? He still doesn’t know why they are killing themselves. And at some point they would have to stop killing each other and turn on Eric or Andrew or Wen, wouldn’t they?

  Eric says, “Hold on! Wait, wait, wait!” He’s loud enough that Adriane slows her cricket’s bounce from her heels to her toes. She takes the mask off her hand and hides it behind her back, like no one was supposed to see it. He says, “Let’s just keep talking, okay? Adriane, tell us about the restaurants you worked at. I want to hear about them.”

  Sabrina says, “Guys, this is it. You have to choose.”

  “There’s time, there’s time. Come on, let’s talk a little while longer, okay?” Eric’s deep, smooth voice has the faintest waver. He is obviously stalling with how he’s trying to engage the others into talking about themselves and their old lives. They aren’t answering him and they close in toward one another, clustering like molecules.

  Andrew imagines everyone in the cabin is visualizing the same blow-by-blow transgression of violence to come, an act of collective foretelling, or summoning. The room feels like it did in the moments before the others killed O’Bannon. Andrew experiences an animal foreboding and an instinctual compulsion to flee from the inevitability, as well as an unsettling, vertiginous itch to become a willing participant. If the others swing their weapons again, even if only against Adriane, he will raise his hands and fight.

  Andrew says, “Wen, you should come be with one of us now, I think.” Wen is on the couch not looking at anyone or anything.

  Leonard turns and says to her, “You can stay there, too. You can cover your eyes with your blanket. You’ll be okay.”

  Andrew shouts, “Right, it’ll all be fine! After a little bludgeoning, maybe you’ll let her go outside and play with the grasshoppers.”

  Adriane says, “Our last chance, fellas. What’ll it—”

  Wen erupts into high-pitched screams of the kind she’s only ever unleashed when suffering great, incomprehensible pain. “The grasshoppers! The grasshoppers! The grasshoppers!” She kicks away the blanket and spasms off the couch. She stands and trembles with her arms held out begging for someone to hold her, to take her. After the initial torrent, she is crying so hard no sound comes out; silent open mouth, wet cheeks, beseeching eyes. She remains soundless long enough
for Andrew to worry she’s stopped breathing, as he unconsciously holds his own breath. Then, finally a guttural, gasping inrush of air and she resumes screaming.

  “They’re in the jar! I left them! In the sun! They’re gonna die! They’re all gonna be dead! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I forgot. Daddy, I forgot! I forgot!” She runs unsteadily to Eric and scrambles into his lap.

  Everyone says her name and there’s a group murmur asking her to slow down and tell them what’s wrong. The others form a semicircle around Wen and Eric, but none of them reach out for her, as though she’s not safe to touch.

  Wen grabs fistfuls of Eric’s T-shirt and yells into his face. “I left it on the grass and ran inside because I was scared! The jar is still out there! You have to let me go get it! I have to check. Let them out if they’re still alive. Maybe they’re still alive! Let me go get them please, please, please!”

  Leonard bends and leans forward, trying to get in her sight line. “Wen? Wen, honey? It’s okay. I let them out. I did. After you ran inside, I let them out of the jar. They all hopped away. They’re all happy.”

  “Daddy, he’s lying. He’s a liar. They’re still there. There are seven in the jar. I wrote down their names. We have to let them out! I don’t want them to die! I don’t want them to be dead! Please! Let’s go! Now! Please, Daddy!”

  Wen dissolves in teary pleases and Daddys, and pounds on Eric’s chest, her fists demanding why isn’t he up and going outside with her already? Eric says, “Okay, okay,” and wiggles and shifts his seated position, struggling to keep her balanced on his lap, and then his arms hesitantly appear from behind the chair, unfurling like great, unused wings. The skin of his hands and wrists is red, excoriated, and raw. He wraps his arms around her quivering form, and he kisses the top of her head and is crying now himself.

  The others do a group double take at Eric’s arms releasing from the ropes and releasing so casually. Sabrina and Leonard lay their weapons on the floor and share quizzical looks.