Tim Lebbon - The Cabin in the Woods

“ Dolor supervivo caro. Dolor sublimes caro,” she intoned. The words read, she closed the book.

Nothing happened.

Someone sighed, then started quietly sobbing. And when Holden gently took her arm and guided her back up the staircase, she realized that it was her.

Outside the cabin, in the forest where free will could not hold, there was movement.

The forest floor was soft with layers and layers of old leaves, those on the surface still almost recognizable as such from the previous fall, those deeper down little more than mulch. Deeper still, soil and mud, through which things crawled and ate and mated and died. There was no breeze and yet the surface leaves shifted, pushing upward in a small mound and then breaking apart as something forced through. Gray and gnarled, a hand, fisted around the haft of a rusted knife.

It rose further and bent at the elbow, lying flat across the ground as the body below heaved itself upward.

Elsewhere, rising from shallow graves, other bodies came. One, a boy, carried a scythe. Another, an obese woman, bore a broken, ragged saw. A man, followed by a huge form—a zombie, by any commonly recognized definition, dead people rising again under unnatural animation—which shrugged itself free of leaves and mud. The journey up from the ground had not been difficult. The graves were not deep, the leaves above them not so old.

A final shifting in the forest gave birth to a one-armed girl. In her one good hand, a hatchet. Anna Patience. Her eyes were far deader than those of her likeness.

They stood for a while like trees, and from a distance in the early evening darkness that was what they resembled. Dead trees, perhaps, broken off below the branching, just stumps, home to insects and spiders and slugs, waiting to rot and crumble and fall. But though some of that was true—they were home to small creatures, and all had gone some way toward eventual disintegration—the image of trees vanished quickly when they began to move.

Anna Patience was the first. A stumbling step, her one good arm swinging and slashing the air with the hatchet it bore.

Her teeth bared by the shriveling of her lips, she made for the light of the cabin.

On screen, the zombie family had come together and were shambling their way toward the cabin. They didn’t acknowledge each other, because perhaps they couldn’t. But obviously there was an instinct at play here, and perhaps a need, because as they drew closer to the cabin they started to groan and grumble… almost as if in excitement.

Sitterson shivered, then smiled. And turning away from the large viewscreen he spoke loudly.

“We have a winner!”

The crowd cheered in anticipation. They surrounded him and Hadley. Pretty much everyone was there, as always, waiting to see how the bet would play out and who would win the wad of cash even now clasped in Hadley’s hand. It was a pivotal part of each event, and once it was done they could move on.

“It’s the Buckners, ladies and gentlemen! Buckners pull the ‘W’!” Most of the crowd groaned in disappointment. Betting slips were torn and thrown, and Sitterson glanced at Lin in amusement as she watched the littering with barely restrained disapproval. They milled and muttered, shrugging and offering one another sad smiles of loss.

But at the back of Control, close to the banks of computers, several men in work clothes and with tool belts clasped around their waists threw up their hands and cheered in triumph.

“Don’t be sore losers now, folks,” Sitterson said affably. “Looks like congratulations go to Maintenance!” The guys nodded to him and grinned, and he eased back his chair and scanned the betting board.

It was the same every time—disappointment and celebration. And it was always at this moment that he drew into himself a little, backing away from his surroundings and the people filling them to muse upon what all this really meant. The betting board seemed glib and amusing, a physical acknowledgment of what they were doing here.

The first column listed every department that had chosen to bet: Electrical, Engineering, Security, Zoology, and several more. At the bottom of the column were persons whose departments declined to take part, but who as individuals couldn’t go a cycle without being a part of the big wager.

And listed in the next column, as if in a confession, were the eternal options: vampires, werewolves, floating witches, aliens, zombies, Kevin, clowns, wraiths, scarecrows, angry molesting trees, mutants…

Sitterson closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

What all this really means… he thought, and he opened his eyes again. No need to dwell on it. He had work to do. So he turned to the crowd again.

“And Maintenance split the pot with… Ronald the intern!” he continued. He handed a handful of cash to one of the cheering men from Maintenance, and Ronald the intern sauntered over from the back of the room, beaming with delight but looking shyly at his shoes, to collect the other wad.

The cheering died down, and people began filing from the room, some shaking their heads and others muttering under their breath. The excitement over, it was time to get back to work.

Sitterson and Hadley exchanged a smile. The pot had been good this year, and their ten percent commission would sit well in their pockets.

Then they turned back to their control panels. Sitterson tapped his keyboard and was just about to access a lakeside camera when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

He turned to face a short, pretty woman with brunette hair tied in a tight bun behind her head. She wore a lab coat, and a mask hung around her throat. Her striking blue eyes were wide, and the beginnings of a charming smile froze and died on his face as he sensed her simmering anger.

“That’s not fair!” she said. “I had zombies too!” Sitterson’s smile rose again, because he knew he could deal with this. And off to the side he sensed Hadley’s sudden interest. He stood and went to the betting board, even picking up a long thin pointer because he thought it would make him look more official. He heard a chuckle from his friend but chose to ignore it.

“Yes, you had ‘zombies.’ But this is ‘Zombie Redneck Torture Family.’” He tapped the board to indicate what he meant. “Entirely separate thing. It’s like the difference between an elephant and an elephant seal.”

The woman opened her mouth to protest, scanning the felt-marked phrases he was pointing to. Then her shoulders slumped and she turned to go, and Sitterson felt a pang of regret that she hadn’t argued more. She was cute. Maybe she’d have started to swear. He liked cute women who swore.

“There’s always next year,” he offered as she went. Still no cursing.

Truman stepped aside to let the woman through the door and closed it behind her, checking through the viewing port to make sure she really was walking away. By the fucking book, Sitterson thought. When Truman turned back and stared at the screen, he saw the soldier’s fear beneath the cool slick surface, and the doubts that must be plaguing him were something known to Sitterson. He had struggled through the same fears and doubts his first time. And though he might silently mock the man, right then he empathized. “They’re like something from a nightmare,” Truman said.

“No,” Lin disagreed. She’d remained in Control after everyone else had left, observing the betting and the results, waiting for the high-jinks to be over so she could get on with her job. “They’re something that nightmares are from. Everything in our stable is a remnant of the old world, courtesy of…” She pointed down. “You know who.”