Tim Lebbon - The Cabin in the Woods

“Jesus, what happened?” Holden asked.

Curt’s eyes rolled in his head, and he seemed unable to focus on either of them.

“Door!” Marty screamed, skidding through the door as he attempted to slow and slam it behind him. He spilled to the floor, but Curt had already turned and kicked the door closed.

What the hell is this? Dana thought. For a moment she wondered if it was a joke, and that they’d all start cracking up soon, pointing at her and Holden and rolling around on the floor. But she didn’t think that for long. Not with the way blood was pulsing from the slash in Curt’s scalp. And not from the terror in Marty’s eyes.

“Anna Patience,” he muttered. “Her. Her!”

Dana darted to Curt’s side.

“Where are you hurt? Is all this blood yours? Where’s Jules?”

Curt pushed her hands away, shaking his head. He stood slowly, shaking, glancing around as if any shadow could hold danger. He zipped his fly, and firelight reflected in his eyes, dancing shapes. Dana thought he was crying, but she wasn’t sure.

“It’s okay, Curt. You’re okay…” Holden tried to calm him, holding his upper arms and catching his eye.

“No,” Marty said, gasping for air. “We’re not okay. What’s the opposite of okay?”

“What are you talking about?” Dana said, because they were scaring the shit out of her now. “Curt, where’s Jules ?”

Curt shook his head. Blood spattered his shoulder and the floorboards, but he didn’t notice. His eyes still seemed to be looking elsewhere.

“She’s gone,” he said, remembering something terrible. “We gotta get out of here!” He started toward the corridor leading to the back of the cabin. “There’s a window back here, we go through there, into the woods, run like fuck and—”

“No!” Dana said. “Wait!” This was madness. She knew she should listen to Curt and Marty, but she… wanted to open…

I need to see for myself .

She reached for the front door, turned the handle and started to pull it open.

“Dana, don’t open that!” Marty shouted. She had never heard Marty shout before, and in a way that scared her more than anything. Marty losing control was just not right.

“I’m not leaving here without Jules,” she said. And it was that simple. She swung the door open.

Standing on the porch, framed by the doorway, was the biggest, deadest man she had ever seen.

“Big-zombie,” Curt whispered, saying it like one word, as if he’d already had cause to name this thing.

The huge man—big-zombie—stared for a few seconds, and no one reacted. His eyes are rotten things, Dana thought, and then she noticed that he was holding something in his right hand. It didn’t register for a moment what it was, but perhaps that was only because of the blood. Then he threw it at Dana, she caught it, felt the wetness, the tangle of blood-and gore-knotted hair, blonde hair… and she looked down into Jules’s battered face.

Jules, her face, her head, it’s heavy, her eyes, she’s damaged… she’s bruised her eye, it’s sore, and her lovely lovely hair, very fabulous, no? No longer fabulous because of the blood and leaves and…

She screamed and dropped the head. It seemed to fall in slow motion, and if seemed as if her own scream was issuing from the grotesquely open mouth, turning as it fell so that Jules’s accusing eyes focused on the shape blocking the doorway. The head bounced from her foot and rolled back toward the door, and then big-zombie kicked it back into the room as he took a lumbering step forward.

He’s going to get in and —Dana thought, but Holden’s fear galvanized him. He dove forward, balance unsettled but using his momentum to shoulder into the door, his right foot tangling in Jules’s hair and swinging her head across the floor in a blood-smearing arc. He slammed the door shut again, falling against it just as the thing smashed into it, rattling the frame, splintering wood.

Holden slipped the bolts and fell back, kicking his foot frantically to dislodge it from the head’s hair.

Big-zombie slammed into the door again. Timber splintered and fell away from the frame, and Dana actually heard the creak of bending metal as the bolt warped under the immense pressure.

A few more like that… she thought, and then Marty was at the door with Holden, helping him throw the top and bottom bolts as well. They wouldn’t hold for long, but perhaps they’d give them some time to—

She saw her friend’s head from the corner of her eye. Jules was staring at her. Dana sucked in a few deep breaths to try and calm herself, but all they did was feed the scream building in her lungs once again. Holden and Marty leaned against the door, grimacing with each impact. The air in the room seemed to vibrate every time big-zombie struck.

Dust was in the air, and most dust is human skin, and the scream was coming.

She opened her mouth—

“Dana! C’mon!” She turned away from Jules, and Curt had heaved the couch over onto its back. He was trying to shove it across the timber floor to pile it behind the door, and in his grimace of effort she saw the first glimmer of madness. His eyes kept flickering to Jules’s head, and the blood still glistening around his right eye emphasized its size and deepness.

He’s losing it , Dana thought, and she swallowed her scream.

They pushed together, neither commenting when the couch knocked the head aside. Marty and Holden pulled back at the last moment, and Dana and Curt shoved the couch until it was wedged just beneath the doorknob. Flush with the wall and door, it would provide some small measure of barrier.

But not for long.

Wham! Big-zombie struck again, and the whole cabin seemed to shake and creak. More dust drifted down from the ceiling, hazing the air and dancing in candlelight. Five minutes ago this light was so romantic , Dana thought. She glanced at Holden, he threw her an uncertain smile, and she realized how shocked they all were.

Fisting her hands, she felt the tackiness of Jules’s blood between her fingers and on her palms.

“What is that thing?” she cried.

“I don’t know,” Curt said. “But there’s more of them.”

“More of them?” she asked, glancing at Marty.

He nodded.

“I saw a young girl. All… zombied up. Like him.” He nodded at the door, seemingly unembarrassed by his choice of words, and no one mocked him. “And she was all ‘Little House on the Prairie,’ too, but she’s missing an arm…” He trailed off, frowning. Even another impact from big-zombie couldn’t upset that brief, loaded moment of silence among the four of them.

It can’t be , Dana thought, but at the same moment she knew it was.

“Oh God,” she said. “Patience. That diary we found… ”

“‘The pain outlives the flesh,’” Holden quoted. “She must have… bound a mystical incantation into the text so someone would come along, read the diary aloud and—”

“And I did it,” Dana said quietly. She glanced at Marty. “You told me not to, but I did it.” Marty only shook his head, his expression sad, not accusing. But she didn’t need someone else blaming her in order to feel the sudden flush of guilt.

“Look, brainiac,” Curt snapped at Holden, aggression hiding his terror. “I don’t give a limp dick why those things are here. We gotta lock this place down!”

“He’s right,” Marty said, nodding. Shivering. Dana could see them all shivering now, and she felt it in herself. For now it was adrenalin coursing through them, and they had to take advantage of that. Once the shivering became due to fear and pain, their bodies would grow cooler, their muscles would weaken, and whatever chances they had at survival would grow much less.