Tim Lebbon - The Cabin in the Woods

“ Fuck away from her!” he screamed. The mother-zombie fell aside, saw twanging/ at the air. Jules’s scream had died out and she was leaning forward, but as he turned to help her the kid-zombie’s arm swung and the knife’s rusted blade buried itself in Curt’s arm.

He roared in fury, shock keeping the pain at bay for the precious few seconds it took him to try and pull it out. He couldn’t, so he grabbed the kid-zombie’s arm instead and tugged hard. The thing came close, no expression at all on its face—and that was the worst thing right then, worse than the shock and Jules’s crying and the idea What the fuck is going on here ?— the complete lack of expression on the faces.

No signs of life, Curt thought, and he grimaced as he punched the kid-zombie in the face with his left hand.

He felt the nose give way and parts of it crumbled off. It didn’t seem to faze the kid-zombie at all, but it did shove him back so that he let go of the blade.

Curt stepped in front of Jules and tugged the blade free of his arm, screaming as he did so, bending to see how bad the damage was, mind working at twice its normal speed as he tried to figure out just what the fuck he was going to do next. Carry her no can’t carry her too slow fight them all maybe but that punch didn’t —

He heard a chain rattle, looked up, and saw that big-zombie had arrived. He was maybe six and a half feet tall, almost that around, and unlike the others he did exhibit some basic human emotion.

He grinned.

Something dropped from his hand and hit the ground at his feet, connected to his hand by the chain Curt had heard rattling. It was heavy, and metallic, and though the trees filtered the moonlight Curt could still see the ugly teeth of an old-fashioned bear trap, broken, just one jaw left. As he wondered what had happened to the other jaw, big-zombie swung the makeshift mace and chain with terrifying speed. Curt fell forward and tried to protect Jules, but the heavy metal whacked the side of his head. He fell, grunting, seeing the shadow of the weapon pass by above him as it ricocheted from his skull. Flat side not teeth side , he thought with vague relief, trying to rise to protect himself from another blow. But dizziness hit him and he stumbled, blinking blood from his eye and mumbling, “Ju… Jules…”

“Curt!” she shouted, and her throat sounded raw.

In front of him, Curt saw Jules trying to stand, reaching for him with one hand while the other clasped the bloodied mess of her throat. Her nudity made her pathetic now, and their loving seemed a million years away as he watched the bear trap swing around again and bury its teeth in her back.

She screamed and arched forward, reaching back to try and pry the thing loose, blood spewing from her ripped throat and down across her chest and stomach. And when she fell forward Curt thought it was because she was trying to walk toward him, but her legs would not obey

He shook his head and cleared his vision, dashing forward to grasp her hand but only just missing as big-zombie started to haul her backward.

Her fingers dug into the earth and rucked up furrows of rotting leaves and damp soil.

Curt lunged forward again… and then felt the cool sharpness around his throat. He snapped his head back from the blade, connecting with something dry and soft that crunched as it broke, and then the blade was pulled tight against his throat, something hard pressed against his back, and he was pivoted from his feet. He struggled and thrashed, thinking of Jules’s gashed neck and trying to protect his own, but there was nothing he could do.

Not even scream.

He could only watch as big-zombie stomped on Jules’s back and pried the bear trap from her flesh, blood gouting into the night air. She was pleading and whimpering now, bubbles forming at her throat as she did so, and as the kid-zombie grabbed her hair and pulled back her head, she was looking directly into Curt’s eyes.

It’s holding me so I can see this, and then it’ll kill me.

Mother-zombie held the broken saw blade against Jules’s throat again, and Curt thought, This is when it ends, the joke, the trick, some freakish new TV show maybe, and the guys will come out from the cabin laughing at how easily we were taken in by a bunch of fucking zombies coming out of the woods and —

Mother-zombie began sawing at Jules’s throat. She struggled, her eyes rolling back and mouth working but saying nothing, but she was held fast. The saw hacked through skin and flesh, and Curt heard the flow of blood as her carotid artery was severed. Then he heard the first hard scrape of rusted metal teeth against bone.

“Oh God,” Curt whimpered, unable to close his eyes however much he tried, “oh God, oh God, oh—”

“—God,” Truman said, “oh God, shit, shit, shit…”

The sounds coming through the speaker were turned up, because it had to be that way. Wet, tearing sounds. The bubbly hiss of the girl’s last breath. The saw tearing into bone, catching, jarring.

From Hadley and Sitterson, only the uncomfortable shuffling of men who had seen this before, but who could never quite get used to it. Sitterson was looking down at his hands, which were hovering above the keyboard in case any last-second tweaks needed performing, though he knew from all he had seen and heard that all was going well.

The girl had stopped making those noises because her throat and windpipe had been cut through, and now came only the terrible scraping sound.

“This we offer in humility and fear,” Sitterson intoned, “for the blessed peace of your eternal slumber. As it ever was.”

“As it ever was,” Hadley echoed softly.

Sitterson pulled at the thin leather thong around his neck, lifting the pendant from beneath his shirt. It was made from white gold, cast into the shape of a five-pointed symbol. Not a pentagram, but something more arcane, something older. He glanced at it briefly, concentrating on one small arm of the deformed star, and then kissed it before dropping it against his chest once more.

From the corner of his eye he could see Truman watching, but he did not turn to face the young man. Why should he? There was nothing on offer there.

Behind him, Hadley had crossed to the mahogany panels at the far end of the room, built into the plain concrete wall and the ancient rock of the ground behind them. Sitterson turned slightly and watched his friend open the first panel, sliding it back on smooth runners, to expose the ornate brass apparatus. Without hesitation Hadley grasped the lever and eased it downward, pushing against pressure, and kept his hand on it until it clicked into place against the lower pin.

And deeper down in a place that could never be seen Sitterson knew what was happening: in the mechanism older than Man, a small metal hammer struck a glass vial, cracking it from top to bottom and releasing the blood retained inside. The blood ran into a brass funnel that extended into a long, long pipe, running even deeper through rock and dark spaces, emerging eventually into a place deeper still.

Here, the blood poured onto a slab of marble leaning against the wall, and in the total blackness it began to fill the intricate image carved onto the marble slab’s surface.

Sitterson opened his eyes, not aware that he’d been daydreaming. His heart was thumping.

I mustn’t go down there, he thought, not even in my dreams!

“The boy,” Hadley said, and Sitterson nodded, sniffed, wiped his hands across his face. He had to get himself together. This had only just begun.

Calm, Curt thought, looking down at the blood-spattered leaves at his feet, and realizing with detached shock that his dick was still hanging out of his trousers. That seemed somehow sad. Stay calm, stay still, let them think I’ve given in, that’s my only chance…