Cabin In The Woods

by Kristine Robinson

  “Shoot her if you have to. But, obviously, only if you have to.”

  For just a fleeting moment, a strange look crosses Veronica’s face but I have little time to wonder about it. I hurry out into the storm, desperately hoping to return with law enforcement so that I no long feel responsible for keeping the peace. What was that look? I wonder about it as I trudge through the snow. Is she squeamish about shooting people? No, it looked more like the opposite. Her eyes lit up. Did I see that right? No, it was probably just a trick of the light and my own tired mind playing tricks on me.

  Veronica

  It takes all of my self-control to wait for Leigh to close the front door behind her before heading upstairs. My mission is almost complete. I’m so close to getting revenge for my poor, sweet babies. The monsters who callously placed profit and their inestimable reputations over the health of children need to pay for their crimes. I narrow my eyes and hurry up the stairs, bursting through the door with every intention of raining justice upon my enemy. Instead, I find an empty room and an open window. Snowflakes blow into the room like ashes, sifting through the warm air to land on the windowsill and carpet. Running to the window, I see Simone limping off through the snow. Propping the barrel of the rifle on the windowsill, I take aim and fire. The figure flinches, but continues undeterred. She’s too far away.

  Turning from the window, I run downstairs and fling the back door open. Simone must have injured herself jumping from the upper story. She’s moving slowly. I should be able to track her down. The snow is swirling around my bare head and quickly accumulating in Simone’s tracks. Shivering, I Glance behind me and realize that I can’t even find my own tracks. There’s a dark figure approaching through the snow. Perhaps Simone got disoriented in the storm and is blundering right into my waiting arms. I take aim with the rifle and fire. The figure drops to the ground and adrenaline shoots though my body. I did it! I got her! Running over to the figure, I peer down through the swirling snow and frown with irritation. It’s Leigh, not Simone. She’s lying on her back in the snow with her eyes closed. She looks dead. I chalk it up to collateral damage and continue in my pursuit of Simone.

  Simone

  Limping through the snow, I wince in pain every time my right foot touches the ground. My wrists are sore as well. Leigh could have made the bindings tighter. She was surprisingly gentle which makes me think that she didn’t want to hurt me. Once she locked the door, I was able to wriggle out of the binding, but lost quite a bit of skin in the process. Getting from the window to the ground was the real challenge. I’m not afraid of heights, per se, but I am afraid of the sudden and terrible impact at the bottom. I dangled from the windowsill, my fingers numb and scrabbling in the icy wind, searching blindly with my feet for anything like a toehold. I found what felt like the top of the living room window with my toe. A drainpipe gave me support, temporarily. Clutching the drainpipe with one hand, I transferred my weight to it slowly until I passed the point of no return. I couldn’t climb back up. Unfortunately, the pipe was not strong enough to bear my weight and inexorably peeled away from the house, taking me with it. I fell into a snowdrift. It certainly could have been worse than a twisted ankle and some bruises.

  But the situation could also be better. I could be enjoying my winter getaway, decompressing and gaining much needed perspective. Instead, I’m freezing, confused, and terrified, limping through a blizzard while somebody shoots at me. I heard two shots and only one sounded like it was aimed at me. I don’t know where the other shot was aimed. But even one shot is one shot too many. I don’t want anybody trying to kill me, not anybody, not even once! Why is this happening? And what is the connection between me and the professor? Why would anybody want to kill both of us? I start shivering uncontrollably, my teeth chattering loudly. When I first climbed out of the window, adrenaline kept my body warm. But exposure is starting to take its toll. I was not wearing a coat or hat when Leigh locked me in my room. I’m just lucky that I had pulled my boots on before Leigh came back in and told me about the body in the cellar. I had been sitting in the kitchen with the rifle, thinking about slipping out to scout for clues when Leigh found me.

  The ground under my feet changes and I realize that I’m standing over the fruit cellar. I know that I need to get out of the storm. It’s not safe to be out in this weather under the best of circumstances; this hardly qualifies. I’m injured, underdressed for the weather, and someone is trying to kill me. The snow on top of the cellar door is less deep than elsewhere, presumably because Leigh scraped it off when she peered inside earlier in the day. Struggling with my hurt ankle, I manage to heave the door open and climb inside. I step down in the dim light and, when I turn to close the hatch behind me, realize that I barely missed stepping directly on a bear trap. My heart skips a beat when I see how close I came to those steel jaws snapping around my tender ankle. She didn’t think to mention that she set that here…talk about a safety hazard!

  Scanning the interior of the cellar, I see the dead body of my old college professor frozen solid and I hesitate. I don’t know if I can stand to hide in a small space with the dead body of a man I knew well and cared for. My heart is pounding and my breath comes in shallow rasps. I feel like I’m having a nervous breakdown. I’m frozen at the entrance to the cellar, unable to take a step closer to the violent death represented by Dr. Ross’ body waiting at the back. Another shot rings out and the spell is broken. I scrabble awkwardly forward, limping and crouching in the confined space. I huddle at the very back of the cellar, behind Dr. Ross’ body. I bury my head in my arms, shuddering and weeping uncontrollably, overcome by the inexplicable fear and loss of the past 36 hours. I feel so alone and unimaginably frightened.

  Suddenly, the cellar door explodes open. I cower behind Ryan Ross’ dead body, keeping my head down. It feels like my heart is in my throat. Surely, they can hear it pounding! I have never considered myself religious, but I find myself mentally babbling every prayer and promise I can think of, shamelessly sending entreaties to a god that I do not ordinarily believe in. Maybe somebody was listening. Whoever opened the door apparently does not see me or hear my pounding heart. The door closes and the fruit cellar is once again dark and quiet, just me and the dead sharing close quarters.

  I bide my time in the cellar. It’s hard to know how long I’m down there waiting. It feels like an hour or so. Crawling out from behind Dr. Ross, I stretch my stiff neck and back as much as possible with the low ceiling, then cautiously open the cellar door a few inches and peer outside. The light is fading. Night comes early in the Winter, earlier still in the Northern woods. The dense cloud cover makes it even darker. It feels like the end of the world, I think, shivering. Seeing no sign of the murderer, I decide to make a break for the lodge. I clamber out and start hobbling towards the back door. A form materializes out of the flurries and I recognize Leigh, also struggling towards the lodge. Her body is turned in on itself at an odd angle and her right arm is holding her left. I’m trudging behind her and she does not hear me over the wind. Catching up to her, I hold my hands up and out to her, trying to communicate without words that I mean her no threat. I don’t know what she knows about the truth of the situation. She may still believe that I’m the killer.

  As soon as I see her strained face, I know that she believes me innocent and the most important thing is getting her inside and treating her gunshot wound. We lean on each other for the rest of the trek to the back door and she tells me haltingly, clearly in a great deal of pain, about the woman who shot her.

  “She pretended to be a housekeeper. I let her in, gave her the gun and told her to keep an eye on you. Sorry about that, by the way,” She smiles sideways, with evident difficulty.

  “It’s okay. I understand,” I tell her truthfully.

  She grunts in thanks and continues with the pertinent details. “I believed her, obviously. She said there was a truck I could use to bring the police out here to deal with the situation. But when I got out there, it was just a c
ar stuck in the snow. She could have just misspoken, but my instincts said she meant to get me out of the way for some reason.”

  “Something she said?”

  “No. It was her face. The look on her face when I told her to shoot you if she had to. She looked…happy. It was unnerving as hell.” We’ve reached the steps to the back door and we clamber up, pushing open the back door to step with relief into the warm kitchen. I’m so deeply chilled, I feel like I will always be cold.

  “Anyway,” she continues, “on my way back from the snow buried car, she shot me in the shoulder and left me for dead. So, yeah, not a nice lady as it turns out.”

  We stand exhausted and shivering in the kitchen. I’m desperately hoping for a respite from the horrors. But before Leigh can continue her account, Veronica steps out of the pantry attached to the kitchen. She is holding the hunting rifle. The shock of seeing Dr. Ross’ wife here in a cabin in Alberta in the middle of snow storm has me completely flummoxed for a moment. For a heartbeat, I think only what is Veronica Ross doing here? But then I really look at her; her clothes are disheveled and bloodstained and there’s a maniacal glint in her blue eyes. It slowly dawns on me; she’s the killer. She murdered her own husband. She’s going to shoot me.

  “Mrs. Ross, don’t shoot! Why are you here?...”

  “Shut up, Simone,” she cuts me off coldly. “You don’t get it, huh? Well, you should. Ryan was so proud of himself, and you,” she spits. “Such a boon for his career, that poison you call ‘medicine.’ Didn’t even care that it made our own children sick.”

  I shake my head in confusion while Veronica Ross continues her tirade. She doesn’t look at me directly while she speaks. Her eyes are fixated on a seemingly random spot on the kitchen cabinets while, in reality, she is fixated on the past. It’s all she sees now. In her mind’s eye, her children grow pale and lethargic all over again. They sicken before her eyes and she is helpless to nurture them back to health. All the while, her cruelly indifferent husband and his callous minion self-aggrandize over the pharmaceutical developments that brought this torment on her and her innocent babies. The movie playing in her head lies just underneath her words and actions. It sickens me to be perceived in this way.

  “I took care of him already. But you…It was your faulty research that allowed the FDA to approve the drug. It was Ryan’s fault you were allowed to contribute to the study, but it was your own hand that fed those lies you call ‘science’ to our government which allowed them to manufacture poison packaged as medicine. Your fault! You were the head of the research team, oh not on paper, he told me that. But in practice. He trusted you. The blind leading the blind.”

  “But, Mrs. Ross, I begged the FDA not to approve the medicine. It needed more research! I told them that! But no one would listen to me.”

  “Liar!” she snarls and lifts the rifle, preparing to shoot Simone at point blank range.

  Suddenly, there are terrible scrabbling, clawing sounds at the back door. Veronica turns. Heavy, snuffling breathing can be heard coming from the back door. Leigh catches my eye and gives a slight shake to her head. As Veronica approaches the back door, Leigh and I edge away from the sound. Veronica reaches for the door handle and turns it, effectively unlatching it. She is suddenly thrown backwards along with the door itself as a Grizzly bear crashes into the kitchen amid splintering wood and the shriek of protesting hinges.

  I run as fast as I can on my injured ankle, just hoping to put a wall between myself and the bear. I assume that Leigh and I have the same idea and, at first, she is running along with me. But then I see her duck into the side room where she stored her hunting paraphernalia when she first arrived. She reappears with her hunting rifle and heads back without hesitation, directly towards the Grizzly bear. Without a second thought, she raises the rifle and shoots in one fluid motion, hitting the bear with 2 shots to the gut and 1 to the head. The bear falls, midstride, mouth still gaping in a snarl. Leigh looks around, panting and gripping her damaged shoulder, but does not see Simone or Veronica.

  Veronica

  Crawling through a window in the pantry, the window frame scrapes me and I feel the sting where the Grizzly raked my back with its 4-inch claws. Earlier today, when I climbed in this very same window, it didn’t hurt nearly as much as it does now. I drop down into the snowy yard and run around to the front of the cabin. Just in time, I see Simone limping away into the snowy woods. I take off after her. Gaining on her, I raise the rifle, aim, and fire.

  I hit her in the side. She staggers, clutching her side, and I see blood seep through her fingers. As I’m closing the gap between us, intending to finish the job at close range, I see her disappear seemingly into the earth itself and I realize that she must have dropped down into the fruit cellar. There’s nowhere to hide little girl, I crow ecstatically. Reaching the fruit cellar door, I peer inside and see Simone. She looks to me like a wounded animal who has crawled off into a cave and is preparing to die.

  She peers up at me with big, sad eyes and starts babbling all over again about pleading with the FDA to not approve the medicine that caused her children to become ill. I’m incensed anew at her lies and her self-centeredness. This isn’t about her! This is about Ollie and Christian, how they suffered and how I suffered watching them flounder. Justice is so close, I can taste it. She can hardly move, she’s in so much pain from the bullet in her side. I step down into the pit, intending to finish off my late husband’s lying little accomplice once and for all.

  Suddenly, she darts forward, still on her knees, and grabs my leg as I descend the rickety steps, knocking me off balance. I tumble forward, out of control, and have just enough wherewithal to recognize the steel jaws of a bear trap speeding towards my plummeting face, before I feel excruciating pain. And then there is nothing.

  Simone

  I take no relief that Veronica is dead. I truly do not know how to feel about it. Mostly, I feel excruciating pain from being shot and intense concern over Leigh. Last I saw, she was running into the kitchen into the waiting claws of a Grizzly bear. I dare not hope that she escaped unscathed. But I do hope it, with all my heart.

  First things first: I need to get out of this accursed fruit cellar of death. I am now underground with two dead bodies and a freely bleeding gunshot wound. I need to make some dramatic changes, and soon. I gingerly step around Veronica, trying not to look at her ruined face. I may not appreciate her choice of scapegoat, but I do understand her frustration and rage. She was right about the fact that there is not enough accountability in research and medicine. I have often thought that this was the case. Her kids are just one example of big pharmaceutical companies placing profit over human lives. I have no wish to see Veronica dead, especially in the brutal way that it happened.

  Taking a deep breath, I crawl out of the cellar and find Leigh striding towards me. The moment she sees me, relief floods her face. She extends her good arm to squeeze me in a partial bear hug. I wrap both of my good arms around her muscular torso and squeeze her back, equally relieved to find her still standing after fighting a Grizzly bear in the kitchen.

  “You’re a gladiator,” I tell her, my voice muffled, face pressed into the front of her coat.

  “So are you,” she tells me quietly.

  I vow in that moment that I will be a gladiator. I’m not a violent or competitive person. But I am tenacious. I will battle the FDA and have the medicine that harmed Veronica’s children taken off the market if it’s the last thing I do. The first thing I do, though, will be to get Leigh and myself to a doctor.

  A month later, my side still stiff and painful, I visit Veronica’s two children. They are orphans now that their mother and father are both dead. They are being raised by Ryan Ross’ sister, Angela. She invites me in, looking dubious. She heard a rough account of what happened in the woods and seems surprised that I would want to have anything to do with her family after what Veronica did to me. I explain that, despite the pain that Veronica caused me, I fundamentally agree with he
r point, if not her execution of justice. I wish to speak with the children. I don’t want them to have the burden of having their mother who loved them so much be vilified and dismissed as a psychotic killer. I want to help them remember her as the woman who nursed them and loved them so tremendously that the thought of them suffering drove her over the edge.

  Angela agrees and takes me see Ollie and Christian. They are watching TV in the playroom. I switch off the television and tell them who I am. Their eyes widen when I tell them my name. I’m sure Angela and her husband protected them as much as possible, but details of the strange murder case were all over the news for a full week. Local stations covered it longer, since Dr. Ross was faculty at a prestigious university.

  “Your mother loved you very, very much,” I begin. “I just want you to know that she was not a monster. It’s not that simple. She was not in her right mind when she did the things that she did, but she was driven by love of her children.”

  I tell them the story of their mother’s death. The whole story. They listen attentively, their little faces grave. I promise them that I will fight the people who were truly responsible for making them ill. I depart feeling a little lighter for having done the right thing. Little do I know that Christian is not angry with the faceless government agency that made him sick. He is angry at the person who took his mother away. He blames me entirely for his mother’s death and he will seek revenge at the first opportunity.

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