The Cabin in the Woods

TEN

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.

“Oh, yeah,” he said softly, taking another drink of tequila and glancing around the room. People from other departments had trickled in, most of them bearing drinks, food, and a readiness to celebrate their success. The atmosphere was relaxed and jovial, but Sitterson had been here long enough to sense the air of underlying hysterical relief that most people still exuded. Laughter was a little too loud and free, drinks were drunk just a little too quickly, and there was a sexual tension in the air that would undoubtedly be drawn upon before the day was over.

He remembered the evening after his first time. He’d started in Story, and following their first scenario the party had been hard and fast, like this one, and so had the woman he’d met from Admin. She’d been giving him head in a restroom, sucking like he was the last man alive, when someone from Control walked in on them. Sitterson had frozen, expecting reprimands and instant dismissal. But the woman had just smiled softly and backed out, and the Admin girl had barely missed a stroke.

There was something animal and desperate about that act, which he sensed in the air here and now, and he knew that what they did took them all back to basics. The present existed only because of what they had done today.

It was live or die, and what better way to celebrate surviving than with sex.

On the big screens the Virgin was fighting for her life with the Matthew Buckner zombie. Sitterson watched for a moment, then looked away, across the crowd. No one else seemed particularly interested, but he knew it was something far deeper than that. It didn’t matter now whether the Virgin lived or died, and everyone in this room dealt with stuff that mattered. They no longer had control over her fate, nor did they need to.

Hadley might well be rooting for her, and perhaps some of the others too—hell, even Sitterson thought she was cute—but his internal defense mechanism was raised again. He saw her crying and screaming, he saw the monstrous zombie trying to kill her.

But now, it was all just a movie.

Truman was still watching. Of course. Eyes wide, mouth slightly open as he attached import to the girl’s life. But he’d learn soon enough.

Hadley was talking with a guy from Story and a woman from Accounts. Sitterson strolled over to hear their conversation.

“I wish I could do what you guys do,” the Accounts woman said. “It’s masterful.”

“It was good,” Hadley nodded. “It was solid.”

“Are you kidding?” the Story guy gushed. “Classic denouement. When the van hit the lake?” He raised his hands as if to say, What could be better? He was reveling in the woman’s adulation.

“Hell, I screamed!” Accounts said.

“Right?” Story acknowledged.

“The zombie, the water rushing in…”

“That’s primal terror,” Story said, as if he had invented the concept. Sitterson thought he was being a dick; he hadn’t come up with the whole scenario on his own, after all. In fact Sitterson himself had created the van-in-the-lake idea years ago, during his own time in Story

But for now, he’d let the dick have his glory.

“Woulda been cooler with a merman,” Hadley said, sounding almost wistful. He smiled at Sitterson, who laughed softly and shook his head as he strolled away.

Nodding to some people, shaking the hands of others, he edged his way toward one of their military liaisons, a big major with a clichéd moustache and hands the size of small dogs. He was talking with a werewolf wrangler—redundant during this show, unfortunately, but Sitterson had seen his sterling work before—and Ronald the intern.

From the corner of his eye he caught sight of the Virgin being pummeled by the zombie. It doesn’t matter, he thought. It would be over soon. Nonetheless, he wished regulations allowed him to turn off the screens.

“Do you know if we made the overtime bonus on this one?” the liaison asked.

“Accounting’s right over there,” the wrangler said. “Ask them.”

“I don’t need to ask them,” the major said, “I already know the answer.”

“‘We’re accountants, and we’re full of hate?’” the wrangler mimicked.

“Exactly,” the major said, and he smiled.

His moustache’s alive, Sitterson thought, amazed. It must have a life of its own. It flexed and twitched while the soldier seemed utterly motionless.

“I’m an intern,” Ronald said sadly. “I don’t qualify for overtime.”

“No big deal, Ronald,” Sitterson said. The major looked at him respectfully—moustache almost saluting—and the werewolf guy nodded a greeting. “No big deal?” Ronald asked.

“Sure. We’ve all been noticed today. You can take that to the bank.” Sitterson walked away smiling. Today had been stressful, but the outcome was good for all of them.

As he walked past a fellow from Chem, Sitterson chuckled at the guy’s efforts to get into his pretty coworker’s pants.

“Don’t worry about my eyes,” he was saying. “That’s why we have eye washes, right? And they say baking soda is good for your complexion. Anyway… it’s funny that you like the ballet, because I happened to get two tickets to… ”

The pretty woman just turned and walked away. “…your favorite…”

His voice trailed off, he looked around, embarrassed, and Sitterson made a point of pausing and smiling in his direction. The Chem guy rubbed his eyes and wandered away toward the drinks table.

And then Sitterson saw the Demolition team standing by one of the control desks. They were laughing too loudly, the desk was scattered with empty bottles, and he saw something a little too self-congratulatory about the way they slapped each other’s backs and hugged.

He downed the rest of his tequila, smacked his lips, and sauntered over to them.

“You!” he called. “Yoouuuu! Knuckleheads almost gave me a heart attack with that tunnel!”

“That wasn’t our fault,” one of them answered, and it was the guy he’d dealt with in the Demolition control room. The woman was there, too, pouting a little now as she half-hid behind her wine glass.

“I’m just giving you a hard time,” Sitterson said. He raised an eyebrow at the woman. “C’mere you, let’s have a hug.”

She snorted, glanced around at the others, and finished her full glass in one long swig. He could see that she was already drunk, glassy-eyed, and unsteady on her feet.

“No,” the guy said. “Seriously. That wasn’t on us.” Something about his voice hit home a little too hard. Sitterson was enjoying ragging on them, but—

“There was an unauthorized power re-route from upstairs,” the woman said, blinking in surprise at her empty glass.

Sitterson frowned. Then he went cold.

“What do you mean, upstairs?”

And then a shrill, loud, ringing sound shattered the atmosphere of the place, all within a split second. They all knew what it was, though they had never heard it for real. Perhaps it haunted some of their dreams, and played the theme of their nightmares. Sitterson closed his eyes, trying to hold onto that air of success for just one more second, and then looked at the phone.

It was a single telephone, sitting in an alcove at the back of Control, close to where the mahogany covers had shielded the levers and their apparatus from view. Red, an old-fashioned analogue phone with a silver metal dial, its shrill ringing came from a bell within the solid plastic casing.

The alcove echoed its call, and between each of the rings the jaunty lilt of dance music still filled the room.

Sitterson locked eyes with Hadley. They both saw each other’s fear. And then Hadley walked quickly across the room to answer the call.

“Turn that fucking music off!” he snapped. As his hand rested on the receiver the music snapped off.

He took a deep breath and picked it up.

We could run, Sitterson thought. But of course that was an utterly stupid idea. If something they’d begun was not yet finished, it was their duty to ensure that it was put right.

And there would be nowhere to run.

“Hello,” Hadley said. All eyes on him. He listened for a few seconds. Then, “That’s impossible! Everything was within guidelines and the Virgin is the only—” He winced. “No, no, of course I’m not doubting you. It’s just—”

Hadley’s face fell and he looked over the heads of the assembled observers, back at the large viewing screens.

What are we going to see? Sitterson wondered. The drink in his hand felt warm and sickly, and he noticed others putting down their bottles and plastic cups. Maybe they all sensed the work they still had left to do.

And then Hadley said something which Sitterson had guessed anyway, and there was no longer cause for celebration.

“Which one?”

He turned to follow his friend’s gaze.

Suddenly he was rooting for the Virgin like never before.

She jumped aside one more time as Matthew swung the broken bear trap. It was easy enough to dodge— however hard he swung it, she had at least a second to judge its passage and eventual impact point—but doing so was rapidly tiring her out. And each time she concentrated on the swinging trap, Matthew’s other hand lashed out and caught her across the shoulder, chest, cheek.

Several times now she’d almost backed up and jumped into the lake again, but she knew if she did that she’d die for sure. If she didn’t drown from exhaustion, Father Buckner would grab her and haul her down. He was still below the surface, she knew. Still down there somewhere, stalking the lake bottom, looking up, perhaps even seeing the blurry starlit struggle on the wooden dock. He was waiting.

She ducked to one side and felt the trap whoosh down past her ear. It snagged her jeans and tore them, scoring a cut on her ankle before embedding itself in the dock. She tried to jump sideways to avoid the zombie’s other hand, but it caught her across the nose this time, sending a flash of bloody hot pain through her head. Her vision swam, her whole face caught fire, and it was all she could do to retain her footing on the shattered, splintered dock.

Dana couldn’t run past him because he was too big. She couldn’t fight him because she had no weapons— besides, the crowbar through his face proved that fighting wasn’t even an issue. And there was nowhere else to go.

Fuck you fuck you fuck you, she thought, part of it directed at the zombie but most at the unseen puppeteers she was convinced were steering him. Whether or not they watched her now, she was determined not to give them the satisfaction.

Perhaps if she rushed him, striking at an angle, shoving him off balance and then tripping him into the lake… maybe then she could run and hide before he managed to crawl out. She spat blood, readied herself…

And then Matthew kicked out and struck her knee. She screamed and went down, spiking her hands and forearms on the splintered wood.

Crying, and hating herself for doing so, she tried to crawl, direction hardly a consideration anymore. Soon he’d swing the bear trap around and bring it down on her back, or her head, and then she’d die and join the others.

A board moved beneath her, one end shattered and sticking up from a strike from the bear trap. Maybe if she levered it up, bent it away from the nail still holding it down, stood and turned before his next strike, she could—

He brought his foot down on her arm, and she screamed. She twisted to look up and back at him, and he shifted all his weight onto that one leg. Desperate to scream again, even more desperate not to, she bit her lip until blood started to flow.

At least that’s a wound I made, she thought, and something about it gave her power.

“Fuck you,” she gritted.

He started swinging the chain around his head, picking up momentum for the final strike.

Ching… ching… ching…

I won’t look away, she thought. I won’t close my eyes, I won’t look away, the bastards won’t get that from me.

Matthew grasped the chain’s handle with both hands, let it swing behind his back, tensed, and brought it up and over his head.

This is it, Dana thought, and as she imagined kissing Holden, she smiled.

There was a loud clunk! and Matthew jerked to a standstill. He remained motionless for a moment, staring out over the lake in surprise, instead of down at Dana. And then he stumbled backward, off balance, and fell onto the dock.

Beyond where he lay, Dana saw Marty with his bong in his hands and Matthew’s chain wrapped around it. His clothes were torn and covered in blood, and he stood arched forward as if trying to escape a pain in his back. But his breath came thick and heavy, and she saw the hatred in his eyes.

“Marty!”

“Dana, get away!”

Between them, Matthew was already getting to his feet, and Dana could see Marty’s hesitation. He tugged at the chain but it was solid. And if he let go of the bong, it would return the weapon to Matthew.

But she wasn’t about to leave.

She pried up the broken plank, standing and levering it from the last nail. It sprung up with a jolt, she reversed it so that the unbroken end was away from her, then she held it back over her shoulder.

“Hey, stinking shithead fuck-face!” she called. Matthew turned slowly to face her. “Yeah, that’s right… I know your name.” She swung the board with all her might and smashed it into his face.

The zombie fell backward from the dock and splashed into the lake.

Dana staggered past where the thing had fallen and fell into Marty, welcoming his embrace and giving one back. They both groaned and hissed from their wounds, but the contact was essential right then, a sharing of warmth and hope that drove back some of the darkness. “Marty, I thought you were—”

“Not yet. Not quite.”

“Everyone else is…”

“Yeah.” He pulled back a little and there was little of the joker left. Dana felt her friend’s blood on her hands, from open wounds in his back.

From behind them came a splash as Matthew stood close to the edge of the lake and started striding toward them. He still dragged the chain behind him.

“You lost your bong,” Dana said ruefully.

“C’mon.” Marty grabbed her hand and they ran up the shore toward the cabin.

“Where are we going?” she gasped. She didn’t want to go back in there. That was the last place they needed to go, a warren of traps and locked doors, hidden basements and stuff meant for torture.

Anywhere but there.

But Marty didn’t reply, and when they were twenty yards from the cabin the door thudded open. For a brief, mad moment Dana thought, Jules! She’s survived too, or maybe Curt, up from the ravine and not burnt nearly as badly as—

But it was Mother Buckner who emerged onto the porch, her portly frame giving her gait a monstrous sway, and that terrible saw swinging by her side.

“This way!” Marty said, steering them around toward the rear of the building. They were still holding hands. Marty squeezed tight, and she thought perhaps he needed that contact to keep going, to help him fight the pain. Because now she’d seen the hideous puncture wounds on his back, and she wasn’t sure how he was moving at all.

Marty steered them for the treeline. Passing between the first of the trees he felt resistance from Dana, and pulled harder. There was no way they could slow down or change direction. Time was of the essence. Out here was chaos, and danger, and a plan the scope and depth of which he could barely comprehend.

But there was one place they might yet survive. They had to make it to the hole into which Judah had dragged him earlier, or they’d be finished.

“Marty, wait!” Dana said, pulling back harder.

Behind them, he heard a terrible scraping sound as Mother Buckner rounded the corner of the cabin, saw dragging across the ground. It would still have wet flesh between its teeth.

“Dana, c’mon!”

Moments later they reached the hole, a dark wound in the land where Marty had been dragged and from which he had emerged again, rebirthed and enraged. It was darker than the shadows, foreboding, but he knew it was their only hope of survival.

“We’re going in there?” Dana gasped.

Marty glanced toward the sounds of the scraping saw and wet footsteps. Behind Mother Buckner, Matthew had emerged from the lake and was slogging toward them, hauling the bear trap behind him. “I need you to keep the faith right now, sister,” he said, gripping Dana’s shoulders. She frowned, and then past the hole a shape pressed through a mass of undergrowth.

Anna Patience Buckner, her single arm swinging by her side as she walked quickly toward them. Marty saw doubt disappear from Dana’s eyes as she considered their predicament.

She nodded and went for the hole.

Of all of them I thought she’d be the first to die, he thought, but he instantly regretted it. Dana had surprised him with her strength and determination; he’d seen her fighting the big zombie as he’d crept up behind it. He’d never believed that he judged by appearances, and he never would do so again.

Marty knelt by the hole and reached in, grasping around for the ring he knew was there. He found it quickly, curved his hand through and pulled, and the hatch—like a storm door, only hiding something more than just a shelter—hinged up easily. Leaves and soil slipped away from its upper surface, and the stars reflected on the smooth, clean metal underneath.

Dana held back for only a second. Around them sang the sounds of pursuit—Mother’s saw, Matthew’s bear-trap, Anna’s inexorable footsteps. Then she nodded to Marty and slipped down through the hatch.

He followed her and slammed it closed behind them, turning the handle and hearing the satisfying clunk of locks engaging. Moments later he heard scratching from the other side. The ring on the topside flipped over and hit the lid, something scraped the metal, and then came a faint, chilling cry of zombie frustration. It was the kind of sound never meant for human ears, and Marty and Dana quickly backed away.

The sound of their breathing echoed from the metal walls of the small, poorly lit chamber. It was barely tall enough to crouch in, but a good twelve by twelve feet square, with another metal hatch in the middle of the floor. A faint light came from a panel in the metal ceiling that had been removed to reveal several glowing cables. Hanging down from the panel was a spaghetti of wires, some stripped and spliced, others disconnected.

“What is this place?” Dana asked.

“You better—” Marty began, but then Dana stepped on Judah’s mewling face. She stumbled back from the pile of zombie parts, and Marty held her hand and guided her away. Each part was moving, twitching, throbbing with unnatural life.

“Yeah, I had to dismember that guy with a trowel,” he said. “What’ve you been up to?”

Dana stared at him in despair. Her mouth opened but nothing came out, and he saw the terrible truth in her eyes.

“Nobody else, huh?” he asked. She shook her head, and he added, “I figured.”

“You figured everything,” she said.

“Not even close,” he said. “But I do know some stuff. Check this out.” He went to the hatch in the floor and slid it open. The faint whiff of antiseptic he’d caught the first time he’d done so came again, reminding him of hospitals and endless echoing corridors and places that people only ever wanted to visit when there was something wrong.

Dana’s mouth hung open. She shook her head and looked at him, her expression saying, What?

“It’s an elevator,” he said. “Two sides metal, but two are thick glass. You can’t tell unless you… dangle your head in there. Somebody sent these dead fucks up to get us. There’re no controls inside, but there’s maintenance overrides in there.” He nodded up at the dislodged panel. “I’ve been playing around. I think I can make it go down.”

“Do we wanna go down?” she asked.

“Where else we gonna go?” He glanced at the closed ceiling hatch in the corner. “Sure as fuck don’t wanna go back up there.”

“But down there must be… ”

“Whoever’s done this to us? Yeah.” He moved to her side and they both knelt, arms around each other. What has she seen? he wondered. Curt and Holden were dead and gone, and it must have been terrible. He could ask her, but he didn’t really want to know. The terror came off her in waves, but also the defiance that he himself had been feeling ever since taking Judah’s head off. That brief triumph had given him power, and he felt the power thrumming in both of them.

He’d already destroyed one of the puppets. Perhaps it was time to find the puppeteers.

“Okay,” she said, nodding. “Okay. We got nothing else going for us, I guess.” “Only our anger,” he said.

“I thought you couldn’t get angry on dope.” “Haven’t had a smoke in over an hour.” They grinned at each other, then Dana dropped down into the small elevator.

Marty moved to the open ceiling panel and the mass of wires that hung from it.

“Get ready,” he said. “The timing on this might be pretty tight.”

He wound two wires, flicked a switch, then slid across to the elevator. The hatch was already sliding shut and he fell in just in time, the metal brushing his head as he landed next to Dana… and something else fell in with him.

Dana screamed and kicked him in the shin. The elevator started to drop. Something grabbed his leg, and he looked down to see Judah’s arm flexing as its fingers squeezed against Marty’s leather boot.

“Ah! Fuckin’ zombie arm!” He kicked and stamped, and for a moment he thought it was his movement shaking the elevator. But then he stopped, the arm trapped beneath his foot, and instead of dying away the tremors increased.

“Now what?” he shouted.

“Another earthquake,” she said.

“Yeah, and you think it’s not connected?”

From above them came the sound of wrenching metal, and then a loud crack as something broke. Yet the elevator continued down at a slow, steady rate, apparently unhindered. “Something up in the room,” Dana said.

“Yeah.”

“Almost like they’re following us, driving us toward—”

“Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “I should be dead. And so should you. Whoever’s been fucking with us, I’ve got a feeling we’ve stuck a monkey wrench into the works.” The thought made him smile grimly.

They descended for almost half a minute, then jolted to a halt. Marty turned full-circle to see which wall would open—one of the metal sides, or one of the glass—but then they started moving again. Only this time the movement felt different, and it took a moment for him to realize why

“Are we moving sideways?”

“Yeah…” Dana said, leaning against the glass wall. Marty looked around the elevator. The faint illumination came from behind an opaque screen in the ceiling, and there were similar panels spaced at regular intervals along the shaft. He looked down at Judah’s arm still flexing beneath his foot.

“You’re going home, dude.”

Then the elevator stopped. Behind Dana, Marty made out something strange. Another elevator? They were pulling alongside of it, and then—

The enraged werewolf smashed against the glass wall of its own enclosed box, mere inches from their own. The impact was loud, and Marty saw the glass flex, distorting both its appearance and the reflected image of Dana’s terrified face. She fell back into him, screaming, as the creature scrabbled and scratched at the glass. An inch of air and two glass walls was all that lay between them.

It was drooling. Its eyes were intelligent, and starving. Its teeth…

“It’s a fucking werewolf,” Marty said, but voicing the fact made it no easier to believe. “So… no.” He shook his head, and Dana turned to him and held his cheeks.

“Marty?” There was something about her voice, something calm and in control, to which he so wanted to submit.

Far too much bad dope, he thought. I’ll wake up in the Rambler in a minute with Curt driving and Jules preening in the front seat, Dana and Holden flirting and acting coy, and I’ll scream myself awake and they’ll laugh at me, laugh because…

He laughed then, high and hysterical, and the elevator started moving again. Another vaguely lit blank metal wall, and then the light from behind them changed. He and Dana turned together to see a second identical elevator revealed. This one contained a grotesque alien, straight out of the movie, all sickly suckers and flailing limbs. It leapt at the glass and stuck there, its grotesquely sexual mouth sliming and sucking as it tried to probe at them, impregnate them, and then they moved on again, descending before jerking to the side once more.

“Dana. ” he said, but she was already holding him, huddled in the center of the elevator, because they both knew what was to come. They’d seen two, and wagered that there would be many, many more.

And they were right.

On Marty’s side they saw a little girl in a ragged ballerina outfit. Her skirt was limp and torn, as if handed down from every little ballerina ever, and she had no face. In its place was a circular mouth, red-raw and ringed with vicious teeth. She stood on tiptoe and performed a surreal curtsey as they passed her by.

Next to her was a white-faced woman with smashed glass shards for hair and melting hands. She flickered at them in monochrome, flicking in and out of view as if seen on an old, old film.

On Dana’s side was revealed a tall man in a long leather coat. His skin was completely white and hairless. Across his scalp in a neat row were spinning buzz-saws, his forearms were ringed with tightly wrapped strands of barbed wire, and his teeth were spinning drill bits. He was all metal and blades, and he grinned at Dana, holding out his hand above which a strange wooden sphere flexed and warped.

“We chose,” she said softly, a note of understanding entering her voice.

“What?” Marty asked, but he was already making the connections, and they threatened to overwhelm the last dregs of sanity he had left.

I’m fine, I’m fine! he thought, but he didn’t think that was quite true. If he was fine—if madness hadn’t touched him—he wouldn’t have been able to do all the things he’d done. He’d be up there now, dead in the woods with Jules and Curt and Holden, not still alive down here with Dana. A little bit of madness never hurt anyone, one of his dope suppliers used to say.

In this case, maybe it had saved his life.

The elevator moved back into the shaft, sideways, down, and he readied himself for the shock of what might be revealed next.

“In the cellar,” Dana continued. “All that shit we were playing with. They made us choose. They made us choose how we die.”

“Yeah,” Marty said, remembering how nervous he’d been at the prospect of Dana reading the Latin in that little old diary. If he had stopped her, maybe Jules would have solved a kid’s puzzle and brought werewolves upon them. Or Holden might have smashed a bottle and brought them girls with teeth instead faces.

Holy fucking shit.

Dana started smashing at the glass with her fists. Her blows did no damage—they’d have to make the glass incredibly strong to contain all these things, he realized—but still she pounded, kicking as well, thrashing, and he had to hold her tight to stop her from hurting herself.

And it was like that, arms wound around each other, sharing the warmth of their bodies and the pain of their wounds, that they emerged into a huge underground space like a warehouse where countless elevators shifted left and right, up and down, running on almost invisible rails and columns and passing soundlessly across junctions, swapping position constantly. In each elevator was something of shade or light, and whether dark or light, it was always horrible.

Vampires, not of the limp, fluffy-collared variety, but with pale skin and too many teeth.

Three people—two adults and a child—with horribly cracked, blistered skin, beneath which lava seemed to boil.

A gorgeous naked woman with teeth in place of a vagina.

A man with six arms, each of the hands replaced with a grafted weapon of some kind, from a knife to a shotgun.

A screaming banshee with hair flowing around its head as if in slow motion.

Six elevators contained small babies that seemed to explode again and again, scattering bladed blood-red shards. A giant rabbit with oversized teeth, a woman with a scorpion’s sting curved from the small of her back, a child with three heads—vampire, zombie, werewolf—a shade of something terrible, a ghostly figure surrounded by fumes that must be toxic, a minotaur with a monstrous phallus, a woman with writhing snakes instead of pubic hair, a man with steaming pipes inserted into his chest and flames in his eyes, a dog with the head of an alligator…

The horrors were endless and almost beyond imagining, and Marty and Dana held each other tighter as their elevator was carried through the impossible space.

The creatures known and unknown seemed to recognize the intruders for what they were. Marty didn’t see them leaping or scratching at their glass walls to get at one another, but whenever he and Dana drew close they tried to attack.

We’re their meat, he thought, and though it was a horrible idea it stuck. Perhaps they were kept here like this, forever hungry, and when it came time to hunt…

The basement had been filled with lots of old, random stuff. And every shred of it had been linked somehow to something down here. He had no idea what it could mean, other than some sort of monstrous entertainment. But what lengths to go to. It was beyond belief.

“As soon as we stop,” he said. “We’ll get out as soon as we can.” Still they held each other, but they were beyond comforting. Their world had changed, not only their personal place in it, but their understanding of the wider reality.

Nothing could ever be the same again.

Control had cleared quickly. He hadn’t needed to shout at anyone to leave. As soon as Hadley replaced the receiver and muttered those few words, glasses and bottles were dropped, and everyone raced to try and put right whatever had gone wrong.

Sitterson could smell spilled champagne and there were potato chips crushed across the floor. Truman stood on guard by the door, upright and proper, and perhaps not really comprehending. All seemed normal.

Sitterson held back a giggle.

All seemed normal!

Lin was down in the lower area of Control, earpiece in place, tapping frantically on a keyboard and muttering to someone unheard. Sitterson and Hadley, chairs pulled closer than before, were scanning through the entire complex on their screens, moving quickly and efficiently. Hadley was checking corridors and stairwells, while on Sitterson’s screens were nine constantly changing views of the interiors of the elevators. He’d seen many of these things before, but some were new even to him. Still, he refused to let curiosity overcome the prime purpose of this search.

Survival, he was thinking. Of everything. It’s all at stake here.

So he checked all nine images, then tapped a button that would present nine more. How the Fool had been missed, how no one had noticed, how they’d overcome Matthew Buckner, how the fuck they’d managed to get down into the complex… all these were questions for later.

If there was a later.

“We saw them go down the access drop,” he said into his microphone. “They have to be in one of these! Internal security should be able to—”

“That’s not protocol,” a static-filled voice said into his ear. Static? That was unheard of. Their systems were perfect.

“I don’t care if that’s not protocol!” he shouted. “Are you fucking high?” He looked to Hadley, hand held up in a what the fuck? gesture.

“It’s the Fool!” Hadley shouted into his own microphone. “No, you can’t touch the girl. If he outlives her, all this goes to hell! Take him out first.” He shrugged back at Sitterson. Fucking amateurs!

There were security teams sweeping the complex, cameras everywhere, the creatures were contained… things would settle, everything would work out okay. But none of this was in the Scenario. Hell, the Scenario was fucked. Sitterson only hoped…

“Hope they’ll accept our apology,” he whispered. Hadley heard him, but said nothing.

Lin stood and turned to look up at them.

“Clean-up says the prep team must have missed one of the kid’s stashes. Whatever he’s been smoking has been immunizing him to all our shit.” It was a startling admission from the Chem team leader, but this wasn’t a time for cover-ups. Later they’d rag her on it, if they had the opportunity. And if she wasn’t executed for incompetence.

“How does that help us right now?” Hadley said. Then he spoke into his mic. “What? Yes. If the Fool’s a confirmed kill, you can take her out too. But for fuck’s sake… for all our sakes… make sure it’s a confirmed kill on him first. Dead. Headless. Blown up. A confirmed… fucking… kill.”

“There!” Truman snapped. He’d walked over from the door to stand behind Sitterson, and Sitterson couldn’t shake the irony that it was the newbie who saw them first. But that was good, that was fine. He’d buy him a drink if this all turned out okay.

He froze the current crop of nine elevator images and spotted them instantly.

“Thirty-six-oh-six. Gotcha.”

“Bring ’em down,” Hadley said.

Sitterson did so. No relief yet, no sigh of satisfaction. Too much had gone wrong to assume that everything would go right from here.

Every single detail, every single second, had to count.