Tim Lebbon - The Cabin in the Woods

“Oh, are you feeling lonely, Marty?” she asked. She plucked the joint from his fingers and sucked hard. “Marty and I were sweeties in our freshman hall,” she said over her shoulder. “We made out once,” Marty said. “I never did buy that ring.”

Jules pouted.

“But we’re still… close.” She blew smoke in his face, lips close to his, and then handed him back the joint. She’d smoked a third of it in one hard puff, and he wondered how the hell she wasn’t coughing her guts up on the floor. She danced away, back to the open area between sofa and dining table, where Curt awaited her with his questing hands.

“You know, I have a theory about all this,” Marty said.

“That’s our cue to bail!” Curt cried out, throwing up his hands and showing the sweat patches on his tee-shirt. “Tommy Chong has a theory. You can tell it to Egghead Holden here, if he’s not too busy devirginizing Dana.” Dana pressed her lips together, stood, and dropped the book on the couch. She paused for a second, looking into the fireplace at the fire that was burning down because no one had thought to add any more logs.

We can’t look after ourselves, Marty thought. Dana shot a quick glance in his direction, then turned to her roommate and spoke up.

“Jules, do you want to lie down?”

“That’s exactly the point!” Curt said, shoving Jules toward the door. “Mush! Mush!”

“Don’t push me around,” Jules protested, but she wasn’t upset, and she even made her objection sound suggestive.

“Not around, baby,” Curt said. “Straight line. Right there. Out there. Pretty stars!” He reached around her and tugged the door open, and the breath of air made the dying fire glow brighter for a few seconds. The two of them left the cabin and it suddenly became motionless, music still blasting, a knot in the fire popping.

Then Dana sighed and crossed to the kitchen to pour another beer.

Marty hauled himself up from the chair. Holden was still on the couch, avoiding his eyes, tapping his fingers on his knee.

“Hey…” Marty began, but Holden picked up the leather-bound diary and started flicking through it, pausing here and there as if he’d found something interesting. “Dude, it’s cool,” Marty said, but walking across to Dana he felt the lie in that.

Reaching the place where she stood, he handed her his own beer cup and she started filling it. She didn’t look at him or speak.

“Do you seriously believe that nothing weird is going on?” he asked, surprising himself with the bluntness of the question.

“A conspiracy?” she asked wryly. She smiled, but it was without humor. He saw the strain in her beautiful face.

“The way everybody’s acting!” he said.

“I’m sorry about downstairs,” she sighed, waving at Holden and the diary.

“It’s cool, it’s not…” Marty shrugged. “I mean, when did Curt start with this alpha male bullshit? He’s a sociology major; he’s on a full academic scholarship! Now he’s calling his friend an “egghead,” whose head in no way resembles an egg…” He looked over at Holden. “Except… ahhh. Okay, kinda, from this angle, it’s…” He smiled and held his own head in an effort to keep it from becoming egg-shaped.

“Curt’s just drunk,” Dana said.

“I’ve seen Curt drunk,” Marty said, serious again. And serious hurt his head. “Jules, too. And this ain’t them.”

“Then maybe it’s something else,” she said, pointing at his joint with one hand and taking a sup of beer with the other. She had a line of foam settled across her top lip, and Marty found it unbearably cute.

“My secret secret stash is a gateway to enlightenment,” he said. “It’s not a devolvafier.” He glanced at the stuffed wolf’s head, still unreasonably disturbed by the terrifying growl it had found for eternity. “Moose, back me up on this. Dana, you’re not seeing what you don’t wanna see—the puppeteers.”

“Puppeteers?” That caused him to toss her a puzzled look.

“Pop-tarts?” he asked, frowning, putting one hand to his head and wondering what he was on about. Backtrack a little here, he thought. “Er… did you say that you have pop-tarts?”

Dana laughed.

“Marty, I love you, but you’re really high.”

“We are not who we are,” Marty said, deadly serious. He closed his eyes and tried to find where that had come from, but there was a part of him removed now, conducting this conversation and tweaking his emotions while the real Marty sat back in the armchair, chilled and smoking and without a care… “I’m gonna read a book with pictures.” He ambled down the corridor to his room, feeling Dana watching him go.

What does she think, the gorgeous Dana who can never be mine? He wasn’t sure. Wasn’t even sure what he thought. A lie down, that’s what he needed. A rest. Rest those eyes, that mind.

Rest.

Dana watched him go. Marty. He was sweet, and a great friend. She’d never wanted to spoil their friendship with anything more, and she never really thought of him that way. But usually when he was high he didn’t freak her out so much. The few times she’d tried pot she’d gone pale and sweaty, her heart-rate had increased, and she’d ended up puking or lying on her bed for the next three hours while it left her system. Marty was a pot veteran; she’d never seen or heard of anyone smoking as much as him, without it seeming to impede his judgment or consciousness. Not too much, at least.

Alone in the room with Holden, it felt peaceful at last. She turned down the music and glanced over to see if he had noticed, but he seemed involved with the diary. So she took over two beers and sat beside him again, holding one out for him. He took it and nodded his thanks, but still didn’t take his eyes from the book.

When he did speak, it wasn’t anything Dana was expecting to hear.

“‘The pain outlives the flesh. The flesh returns… or re… has a meeting place… towards the pain’s ascension.’” He was obviously reading from the diary, brow furrowed, one finger following the words.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“The Latin. That you—”

“You speak Latin?” she asked, surprised.

“Not well, and not since tenth grade. Weird how it comes back.” He sipped his beer, frowning at the book a little longer before closing it and tossing it to one side. It landed on the sofa and flopped open again, to the exact page he’d been reading. Dana noticed, but Holden didn’t seem to.

Finally, he only had eyes for her.

“Well, it’s been a weird time. I’m so sorry about… tonight.” She shrugged. “You know. Everybody.”

“Do I lose points if I tell you I’m having a pretty nice time?” he asked.

“No, you can tell me that. No points lost.” She sipped her own beer, and watched Holden get up and stoke the fire. He threw on more logs and used the poker, rooting around and blowing gently on the glowing embers until the crackle of flames rose again. They were small to begin with, but they would spread. Warmth bled outward from the fire again, and Dana relaxed deeper into the sofa.

Holden sat back down beside her, closer than ever, and placed his arm across the back of the sofa behind her. It wasn’t a secretive move, and his hand rested easily on her shoulder. Dana leaned sideways until her head touched his shoulder and thought, Maybe it’ll be an okay evening after all. Maybe Curt just needs to get laid, and Jules is drunk on first-night excitement, and Marty… Marty’s just high.

But then as the flames sparked higher she thought of Holden’s translation of the Latin she’d read out: The pain outlives the flesh. And even through the fresh heat she felt goosebumps prickling her arms.