Tim Lebbon - The Cabin in the Woods

He chuckled and drank more beer.

“I still don’t understand,” Truman said quietly.

Sitterson pointed at the large monitor, on which a bloodied, exhausted Dana could be seen swimming toward the wooden dock.

“Yeah, but she’s still alive,” Truman said. “How can the ritual be complete?”

“The Virgin’s death is optional,” Hadley said. “As long as it’s last.” He watched the screen for a moment, nursing his beer in his lap. “All that really matters is that she suffers.”

Sitterson stood and leaned on the back of Hadley’s chair.

“And that, she did,” he said with genuine respect. Truman might never understand. The drink was a celebration, and an expression of relief. But it was also a toast to the swimming girl and her four dead friends.

“I’m actually rooting for her, believe it or not,” Hadley said. “The kid’s got spunk, which is more than—”

“This where the party’s at?” someone said. The door was wide open now, and several people were peering inside with huge grins on their faces.

“Hey, thank god,” Hadley called. “Tequila! Get in here!” The people entered—lab smocks, suits, uniforms—one of them carrying a huge bottle of tequila. The new arrivals milled and shook hands, laughed and clapped each other on the back, and even Truman smiled when a cute lab tech started chatting with him, handing him a plastic cup half-filled with booze.

Sitterson watched them all and acknowledged the congratulations that came his way, smiling when a woman flirted mildly with him, laughing when someone from Story said he should go work for them. And all the time his eyes kept flashing back to the big viewing screens that continued to show what was happening down by the cabin in the woods.

I’m actually rooting for her, Hadley had said. Sitterson was too. But he knew that her death would be slow, painful… and soon.

Somehow she found the energy needed to swim. In high school she swam for her school in the state championships, helping them streak to a win in the four-by-one-hundred meter freestyle. The year before, she’d taken part in a sponsored swim in her local river, covering three miles and raising over a thousand dollars for charity. It had always been easy for her. It had always been a pleasure.

Now it was neither.

She slapped at the water instead of slicing her hands through it, her breathing was labored, and she kept her head above the surface, afraid of what she’d see or what would see her if she turned her face beneath. The dock was close, but with every stroke she took it seemed further away than ever. The water was cold, but felt warm and slick as blood. It tasted clean and pure, but she smelled only entrails and death.

Swim , she thought, trying to give herself a regular rhythm. Swim… swim… swim…

She didn’t know if zombies could swim. She didn’t even think these were zombies, not really, not according to the pop-culture use of the word. They seemed to walk and work with intelligence, their only aim to trap and kill her and the others, and she’d seen no evidence of eating… no blood on their jaws. They wanted to kill in the most painful ways, and make them suffer, and she let out a sob as her hand struck a wooden post of the dock.

She was the last one left alive, which meant that she had suffered the most. And when they finally held her down and slashed her throat or plunged a blade into her eye, it would be the memories of her dead friends that would accompany her into death.

She hung on for a few seconds, trying to regain her strength. But her muscles were knotted and ice-cold, cramps throbbed in her calves, and the longer she hung here the less chanced she’d have of ever hauling herself out.

So she started climbing. She gasped in effort as she pulled herself from the lake, then screamed in frustration as she fell back in. She clung onto the post but it was coated in slime and moss, and her nails scored fresh trails as she was pulled below the surface. Kicking, coughing water, she pushed back up and tried again. Every time she went back under she expected to see Father Buckner advancing on her, walking across the lake’s bed and grinning, the scythe in his hand ready to part her skin as he had done to Holden—

But she wouldn’t think of Holden. Not yet. She couldn’t .

At last she pulled herself far enough up to reach onto the dock’s surface and curl her fingers in between boards. She waited there for a while, catching her breath and listening for the sounds of anything breaking surface close by, and then with one final massive effort she tugged, raised a leg, and then rolled onto her back.

Dana coughed up water and gasped as she stared at the stars. Beyond exhausted, beyond terrified, she spread her hands on the wood and relished its solidity. She was afraid to close her eyes in case she saw things she didn’t want to see in there, sights that would haunt her for the rest of her life, however long that might be. And there would be such sights.

She breathed in and tasted Holden’s mysterious, lightly spiced breath; glanced at the treeline to her left and saw Curt’s eyes peering over the trees, blood on his temple and cheek, confident smile on his face as he revved the dirt-bike; moved her hands across the rough, dry wood and felt the warmth of Jules’s blood on her skin. And Marty, dragged off and killed; sweet innocent Marty who’d had a crush on her which she had never truly acknowledged. She had enough memories for a million nightmares. If she could only keep them at bay a little while longer, she might have a chance to get away from here.

Through the woods, she thought. As far and fast as I can. Or back to the tunnel, see if I can climb up and over the mountain or down and across the ravine. Or… or… and what she’d said to Holden echoed back to her now, about how there would always be something in their way. Or someone. The puppeteers would see to that.

But by not giving in and drowning to steal Buckner’s bloody victory from him, she had decided to fight those fucking puppeteers. And she would continue to fight them, every step of the way.

Her breathing became more regular, her determination grew. She saw a point of light moving slowly above her and thought perhaps it was a satellite. Her paranoia rich and hot, she gave it the finger.

Something smashed into the wooden dock right beside her head. The impact thumped into her skull, the noise shocking, her hair flicking up, a breath of displaced air giving her ear an intimate caress. She sat up and turned onto her hands and knees, ready to leap aside, and saw Matthew looming over her. The crowbar was still sticking through his face.

“Come on then, fucker!” she shouted, and found that she was hardly surprised. But terrified, she realized that she’d wet herself with fear. And that made her fury grow into something blazingly hot. “Come on, come on, come on !”

He came.

Sitterson worked the room.

He could see the glances he was getting and they made him smile, but only slightly. If he beamed they’d see him reveling in his success. He wanted to be more aloof than that. Just a little more. That way they’d all find him more interesting, and there were a few women in here he’d never tried it on with yet. He always liked to end these events with a blow job at least, and up to now he had an unbroken record.

Today, buoyed by his vague celebrity status after the close call and his rapid thinking, he’d set himself a much higher target. And there she was, Lin, standing over by the opened mahogany panels and actually leaning against the last closed one, as if she was ready to pull the lever herself. She chatted with a male colleague without smiling. There was another drink in her hand. And by the end of the day, Sitterson wanted her writhing beneath him with her tight hair released over a plump, fresh pillow.