The Cabin in the Woods

TWELVE

He grabbed the pendant around his neck before he died.

Dana bent to the dead man and turned his hand so she could see it. A weird, five-pronged thing, it stirred something in her that she couldn’t quite understand.

“Come on!” Marty said.

Dana looked down at the knife still in the guy’s stomach. She’d done that. However accidental, it was her hands on the knife when it had gone in. She closed her eyes but felt no shame.

I should, she thought. I should feel—

“Hey! We have to find a way out before everything else finds a way in.” Marty touched her arm but she couldn’t take her eyes from the dead man’s face. He looked almost relieved.

Dead puppeteer, she thought.

“Dana!”

She looked up at him and nodded, and they started again along the tunnel. They passed a ladder that led up, but there were sounds coming from there that they had no wish to put a name to. Further along the tunnel lay the remains of a dead woman. Parts of her had been eaten and then apparently regurgitated, and in the six globs of chewed material small shapes squirmed, busy gathering bloody flesh to their infantile mouths.

The route curved down and to the left, sometimes with rough steps carved into the floor. Other times they had to hold each other to prevent themselves from slipping on the slick, smooth rock. They were far from the metal-lined corridors now, but there was still a string of bare bulbs dangling from the rough stone ceiling.

We’re going deeper, that’s all, Dana thought, and she felt the weight of the world around her. There was no sense that they were escaping the complex they had entered, only that it was changing. They no longer heard the sounds of monsters running and people dying, but in some ways what replaced that was worse.

The air around them was a held breath.

The ground shook again, a single violent shrug. Dana slipped and fell on her side, bringing Marty down with her. He landed on his back and cried out, and she noticed just how much he was still bleeding. He looked pale.

“None of us deserved this,” she said, and Marty only shrugged.

“Only the good die young.”

“Are you good Marty?”

“Yeah,” he said, frowning slightly, then nodding firmer. “Yeah, I think so. And so are you.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know you well enough.” His face softened, and she could almost have loved him then. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s see what we can find.”

They went deeper, and at the end of the rocky tunnel was a heavy wooden door.

We don’t want to go through there, Dana thought, but Marty started trying to turn the handle. It moved a little both ways, but he groaned as his wounds pained him.

“Here,” he said, handing her the gun. She took it. It was warm from his grip. She hated guns and had never held one before, but she remembered the mutant he’d shot, and knew that they’d be dead without it.

“Let me,” she said, but Marty grunted with effort.

“Nah. Got it.” The handle slipped and something in the door rumbled and clicked, and Marty tugged it open.

A breath of air washed out over them, warm and damp and stinking of something she could not identify. Something living, she thought, but that wasn’t quite right. It had the scent of potential; of something not quite living, whether that meant newly dead or yet to be born. She shook her head. Weird thoughts.

And Marty took her hand and led her inside.

They passed through another tunnel and descended a dozen deep steps, emerging into a stone chamber thirty feet across and seemingly without a ceiling. Darkness hung heavy above them, and the chamber was lit by five large flaming torches fixed equidistant around the walls.

Dana gasped.

“This is somewhere we should never see,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” Marty said. “I feel the same. But check the freaky stonework.” Below each torch was a large stone slab, free-standing, maybe twelve feet square and inlaid with intricate carvings. The etchings of four slabs glittered with reflected light, and Dana identified at least part of the scent that troubled her: blood. They paused in the center of the chamber and she turned a full circle, and as she saw each carved stone a sickening dread settled deeper over her.

“Oh, and…” Marty said, nodding down. “Look familiar?”

It did. Inlaid into the floor in different colored stone was a representation of the five-armed pendant. The guy she’d stabbed had made an effort to grab that before he died, and she’d seen the tension on his face as he willed himself to remain alive long enough to hold it in his hand. It had eased him into death, that pendant, and now they were standing at the place on the floor where the five arms merged.

Each arm pointed at one carved slab, and each slab was lit by a burning torch. But Dana knew that this chamber was more than just a place for display

It was much more important than that.

“Oh, suddenly I feel a bit seasick,” Marty said, glancing over his shoulder. “Look, back where we came in.”

At the bottom of the stone staircase they’d crossed a small bridge that spanned a space maybe four feet across, and that space circled the rest of the chamber. Even behind the upright slabs there seemed to be no connection between the floor and the walls.

“I’m liking this less and less,” Dana said, edging over and peering down into the void. The flaming torches lit the rough rock wall a little way down, but beyond that was deep, heavy darkness. It looked solid, almost as if she could fall in and it would ease her fall, holding her suspended like a cartoon cloud in a kid’s imagination.

She closed her eyes, swayed, and stumbled a few steps back.

“Deep?” Marty asked.

“Can’t see the bottom,” she said. “But there seemed to be something…”

“Don’t tell me,” he said.

“Something moving down there.”

“Okay. That’s it. I officially want to cut this vacation short.”

“I don’t think we ever could have, even if we’d wanted to.” She turned a slow circle again.

“No way out,” Marty said.

“Look at these. Five of them.”

“Weird. What are they?”

“Us,” Dana said. “I should’ve seen it like you did. All of this: the old guy at the gas station, the out-of-control behavior, the monsters… this is part of a ritual.” “A ritual sacrifice? Great! You tie someone to a stone, get a fancy dagger and a bunch a robes. It’s not that complicated!”

“No, it’s simple. They don’t just wanna see us killed. They want to see us punished.”

“Punished for what?” Marty asked, and then there was movement on the stairs. Dana gasped and raised the gun, wondering what monstrosity they’d see coming through… demon or zombie, alien or mutant.

“For being young?” the woman said. She was tall and elegant, calm and reserved. She might have been beautiful, but Dana sensed a pressure of responsibility on her shoulders that seemed to crush her sense of self. She was like a mannequin given life, her beauty a suggestion rather than something she carried well. “Who’re you?” Marty asked.

“The Director,” Dana said, answering for her. “It’s you we heard over the speakers.”

The Director nodded affirmation, then continued. “It’s different for every culture. And it changes over the years, but it’s very specific. There must be at least five.” She pointed to one of the slabs, the blood-filled carving showing a woman standing erect, holding open her robe to reveal her nakedness. “The Whore.”

“That word…” Dana muttered, remembering the way the spooky gas station guy had muttered it when he looked at Jules.

“She is corrupted, and she dies first.” She pointed to the other slabs one by one, naming them. “The Athlete. The Scholar. The Fool. All suffer and die, at the hands of the horror they have raised. Leaving the last, to live or die as fate decides.” She pointed at the last slab, and this one looked different, the etching there not so defined.

Unmarked by blood, Dana realized.

“The Virgin.”

“Me?” Dana snorted. “Virgin?”

“Dude, she’s a home-wrecker!” Marty said.

“We work with what we have,” the Director said, shrugging. “It’s symbolism that’s important, never truth.”

“What happens if you don’t pull it off?” Marty asked. He’d twigged it, but Dana knew that he’d had more of an idea than any of them. His humor was his own defense mechanism, the same as Jules used her overt sexuality, and Curt hid behind his machismo. Or used to.

“They awaken,” the Director whispered. And she looked utterly, insanely terrified.

“Who does? What’s beneath us?”

“The gods. The sleeping gods, giants that live in the earth, that used to rule it. They fought for a billion years and now they sleep. In every country, for every culture, there is a god to appease. As long as one sleeps, they all do. But the other rituals have all failed.” She shook her head, frowning. “All at once, all the failure. never like this before.”

There was another huge rumble. The floor bucked beneath them, and two of the huge slabs seemed to rock on their foundations. Dust filled the air, grit pattered down from the shadows above them. Dana wondered how high the ceiling was, then doubted there was a ceiling at all.

“The sun will rise in eight minutes,” the Director said, her voice firm once more. She turned to Marty, the Fool. “If you live to see it, the world will end.” “Right,” he said. “That’s harsh.”

“Marty—” Dana said.

“But maybe that’s the way it ought to be,” he said. “Maybe it’s time for a change.”

“We’re not talking about change,” the Director spat. “We’re talking about the agonizing death of every human soul on the planet. Including you. You can die with them, or you can die for them.”

“Gosh, they’re both so enticing…” he said, rubbing his chin, and it took a moment for him to notice what Dana had done.

Maybe this is all one final trick on their part, Dana thought. But can I really take that chance?

She aimed the gun at Marty’s face and squeezed her finger against the trigger.

“Wow,” Marty said. Those guards had been blasting at him for all they were worth, but this was so much worse. This was Dana aiming a gun at him. He stared at its tiny black mouth and wondered if he’d see movement there before his eyes were ruptured, skull shattered and brain spread to the darkness. He looked past the gun to her face, disturbed to see how determined she appeared. “Marty,” she said, “the whole world.”

“Is in your hands,” The Director said to her. Right then Marty wanted to strangle the tall, pompous, self-righteous bitch.

Dana glanced at The Director, shaken, and Marty saw the weight of the world crushing down on her slender shoulders. She sure was foxy; he’d always thought so. And though he was sure she knew what he thought, he’d just never had the balls to tell her. Look at her, after all—gorgeous.

And he was the Fool.

“There is no other way,” The Director said to the girl. “You have to be strong.”

And then Marty caught movement from the corner of his eye. A shadow, crossing the small bridge onto the strangely carved platform, barely seen, but it resolved into something solid when the scent hit his nose. Wet dog, he thought, and from the smell it must have been wet with blood.

“Yeah, Dana,” Marty said. “You feeling strong?”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” he said softly

As she leveled the gun again and her face tensed with concentration, the werewolf leapt at her. The gun went spinning and the creature crushed Dana to the floor, claws slashing, teeth snapping at her face as she ducked her head left and right.

Dana kicked and bucked, and the creature shifted its weight and balance to remain pinning her to the ground. Fighting to the last, Marty thought, then he saw The Director going for the gun.

He jumped, sliding across the stone floor toward the dropped weapon.

Dana screamed, the werewolf howled. Good. If she was screaming, it meant she was still alive.

As his fingers brushed the gun’s grip, The Director landed on his back, jarring his chin against the floor and sending spikes of pain up through his jaw and into his brain. He tasted blood and the grit of a broken tooth.

The woman clawed at his back, trying to pull herself over him to the gun, but Marty punched up and back over his shoulder. His fist hit her jaw and he heard a gentle crack. She moaned. But she never stopped pulling and kicking, and in seconds she’d be at the gun that lay just beyond his reach.

One chance, he thought. The Fool has to fool her. He went completely limp, resting his face against the cold stone and letting out a deep breath. The Director paused in surprise… and Marty pushed up with all his might, spilling her from his back and flipping over so that he landed atop her. Her head thunked against the stone and breath puffed from her, and he stood and fell onto the gun.

He turned and knelt, aiming at the flailing mess, knowing that if he took too long to aim it might mean the difference between Dana living or dying. He fired three shots and the werewolf reared up on its hid legs, its chest red with blood. It turned to him and he fired again, hitting it in the face. It screeched and ran from the chamber, a howl retreating into the tunnel beyond.

Dana rolled over, eyes wide and white in the bloody mask of her face. She held her hands up, as if afraid to touch any part of herself, and her breath came in rapid, short gasps.

“Dana…” Marty breathed, and The Director tackled him from behind. He flipped up and back, the gun flying from his hand, and he struck the floor hard enough to wind him. He was aware of a terrible space, and depths that he hated to imagine, and as blood dripped from his face into the abyss he was sure he heard an excited intake of breath.

Movement in the chamber again…

The Director fell on him, fists pummeling at his face, long nails raking his skin. He punched back and raised one knee, trying to shove her aside. Then she was going for the gun again.

More movement… the rustle of clothing… but he couldn’t look…

He heaved her up and to the side, turning with her and using the momentum to sit astride her, his arm pressing down hard on her throat. Her eyes swelled and her tongue protruded, and she tried shaking her head. She’s pleading! he thought. And for just a second he considered everything this woman had said, and what Dana had been prepared to do.

Footsteps… slow, methodical, soft…

He eased back slightly.

“Marty!” Dana said. He turned to look at his dying friend, but instead he saw Anne Patience Buckner standing right behind him. Her little girl’s rotting face held no emotion, and as she swung the hatchet instinct took over. He fell to the side and brought The Director up on top of him again, and the hatchet struck the back of her skull.

Bone broke. Metal scraped. Her eyes went wide, mouth hanging open, and a line of blood ran across her lowered face.

The ground shook again, thudding as if echoing with the memories of huge impacts far below. Anna Patience was trying to tug the hatchet from The Director’s head, making the woman seem to nod up and down as if in response to some internal dialogue.

Marty heaved backward and kicked The Director out over the gap. The zombie girl, unwilling to let go of her precious hatchet, went with her, and Marty rolled onto his stomach to watch them fall. The torchlight lit them for a couple of seconds as they spun together, bouncing from the rough wall and falling quickly, soundlessly into the darkness.

He watched for a moment more, listening for the sound of them hitting bottom. But nothing came. Perhaps the noise was swallowed by the receding grumble of the latest tremor. Or maybe they were still falling.

Then he stood unsteadily and limped over to where Dana lay bleeding. He sat by her side, brushing bloody tears from her cheek. She smiled. Her chest and stomach had been shredded by the werewolf, and there was a bite mark on her throat that must have been one move away from ripping it open. But she was still alert, and she grabbed onto his hand.

“Hey,” he said.

“You know… I don’t think… Curt even has a cousin.”

“Huh. How are you?”

“Going away… ” she said softly, but her grip never lessened.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m so sorry I almost shot you… I probably wouldn’t have…”

“Hey,” he whispered, “shh, no… I totally get it.” With one hand he felt around in his shirt pocket and brought out three ready-rolled joints. He chose the least damaged one and put it in his mouth. Then he found a book of matches from another pocket and lit one, inhaling. It had never tasted so sweet. Perhaps if he smoked enough if would make all this go away. But somehow he doubted that.

“I’m sorry I let you get attacked by a werewolf and then ended the world,” he said. He took another long smoke and held the joint out to Dana. She took it with a shaking, blood-spattered hand.

“Nahh, you were right,” she said. “Humanity…?” She blew out the smoke in a cynical puff, waving the joint at the air in a single dismissal of all they had known. “It’s time to give someone else a chance.”

“Giant evil gods.”

“Wish I coulda seen ’em.” And she actually managed a smile, even as the light in her eyes—the sparkling light, the joy of life that for Marty had set her above all the rest—started to fade.

“I know!” he said, trying to hold back his tears. The last thing he wanted her to see was him crying. “That would be a fun weekend.” He took the joint before she dropped it and lay down beside her.

The chamber shook, the stone slabs cracked, dust filled the air from above, and then something else crashed down and exploded across the slab: a battered suitcase, its innards consisting of old 8 mm film reels. They rolled in ever-decreasing circles and then came to a stop.

“Oh,” Marty said.

And something was rising. Thumps came from far below, distant at first, and then closer and closer, and to Marty they sounded for all the world like something climbing the walls of that bottomless hole.

Taking another drag on his joint he turned away from Dana, because he didn’t want to see her die.

They still held onto each other, and always would. They waited for the end.

No human eye bore witness to the cabin exploding apart, nor the giant, gnarled hand that emerged from its splintered heart, nor the arm that powered it a hundred feet into the air, fingers flexing and scratching at the night.

But that would change soon enough.