The Cabin in the Woods

TWO

Haven’t seen this one before, Gary Sitterson thought. I wonder if he has any fucking idea what to expect?

The thick metal door had just wheezed open as he and Steve Hadley approached, a soft breath of air wafting out around them as pressures equalized. The control room was always kept slightly pressurized, though he’d never been given a believable reason as to why. Some said it was to preclude the risk of chemical or biological attack, but that idea was countered by the fact that there were no air locks for entry or exit. And besides, who could attack them when no one knew they existed?

Others suggested that it was because people worked better and became less tired at slightly higher air pressure. Sitterson wasn’t sure about that one, either. He guessed it was just a design aspect of the facility. Maybe a fuck-up with the ventilation system.

He held his breath until the soft gasp had passed, then smiled at the slightly nervous soldier who was standing upright in front of them.

“Identification, please,” the soldier said stiffly, holding out a handheld card reader.

Sitterson and Hadley plucked their ID cards from chains around their necks and passed them to the soldier, who bent slightly and swiped them over the reader. Soft beeps and a gentle green glow marked them as safe and known. Sitterson had always wondered what noise and color the reader would emit should a card not be recognized. Probably a loud siren and a blast of red.

And then the bullets would come.

“Mister Sitterson, Mister Hadley, thank you.” The soldier stood straight again, and for a stunned moment Sitterson thought he might actually be about to salute. But perhaps he saw the look on Sitterson’s face because, after a pause, he said simply, “Please come in.”

They entered the control room, known generally, and unimaginatively, as Control. The soft whirr of machinery and air conditioning welcomed them, along with the occasional blip or beep from one of the many computers it housed. Where they stood, down in the room’s lower level, there were two large tables with built-in monitors and phones, several closed files placed neatly on each surface. The chairs were identical, and tucked beneath the desks.

To their right as they entered, the upper level resembled a scaled-down version of a Houston control room, with banks of computers, flashing lights, switches and dials. Two large desks contained a riot of communication equipment and computer monitors, and two other desks housed a swathe of smaller computer screens, wires and cables snaking out of sight like a strange sea-creature’s tentacles. Two comfortable wheeled chairs sat side by side not far from the doorway, ready for Sitterson and Hadley to occupy. They, too, were of identical design, but Sitterson could already tell that the one on the left was his. He’d sat in it enough to know it by sight.

On the far wall at the other end of the lower space, three huge screens hung side by side, with digital time displays and blank flat screens above, each empty at the moment, glowing a faint silver as they awaited the power surge and the images that would tell their story for today.

Hadley led the way up the short curving staircase, Sitterson behind him carrying a small cooler. The soldier followed them, obeying regulations to the letter. He had to see them sat down and plugged in before he would be permitted to return to the door.

He even walked stiffly, Sitterson noticed.

Maybe it’s time to start fucking with him, he thought, but Hadley beat him to it.

“What’s your name, soldier?”

“Daniel Truman, Sir.”

“Well, this isn’t the army, Truman, so you can drop the ‘sir’ shit. But Sitterson likes to be called ‘ma’am.’”

They’d reached the top of the stairs, and Sitterson slid the small cooler beneath one of the communications desks. “Or ‘Honey Toes,’” he said.

“Yes, he will also answer to Honey Toes.” Hadley wheeled Sitterson’s chair over to him and took his own across to the other sizeable desk. He fiddled with the height lever and back regulator, as always, and returned them to the exact same position they’d been in when he first touched them. As always. “Are you clear on what’s gonna be happening here?” he continued.

“I’ve been prepped extensively,” Truman said. Still very formal, still very military. This’ll be an easy one to crack, Sitterson thought.

“And did they tell you that being prepped is not the same as being prepared?” Hadley asked, not looking at the soldier. He tapped a touchpad and lights flashed on his panel.

“They told me,” Truman said. “I’ll hold my post Mister Hadley. I’ll see it through.”

“Not much else you gotta do,” Hadley said. “Stand watch, check IDs, shouldn’t be a lot more than that. And you have to get us coffee.”

There was a pause for a couple of seconds, and Sitterson couldn’t help but glance back at the soldier standing behind them. He was smiling uncertainly.

“They also told me you would try and make me get you coffee,” Truman said.

“Balls,” Hadley said. Sitterson giggled, attracting his friend’s attention. Hadley pointed at him then, speaking from one side of his mouth back over his shoulder, asked the soldier, “Can you make him get us coffee? With your gun?” “And that you would try to make me do that,” Truman said, his tone remaining unchanged.

Well I’ll be damned, Sitterson thought. He’s not as uptight as he looks. “It wasn’t funny last time, either,” he said aloud.

Hadley moved over to a bank of electronics, flicking switches all across the face, seemingly at random. The hum in the control room rose in volume and tone, becoming something like a soft moan, and the click and beep of electronic activity erupted around them.

Sitterson tapped away at his computer, the familiar tingle of excitement blossoming into a vague burning sensation that coursed through his body. It was all about to begin, and here at his fingertips sat the heart of everything that was to come. He accessed his internal emails, and confirmed that the clean-up had already been done. That was step one complete.

Glancing across at Hadley, he nodded once so that his companion—his friend—knew to initiate his own systems. In this room where so much was computerized, mechanized, and recorded, it was often the understanding between these two men which ensured that everything ran smoothly from beginning to end. Any monkey could press buttons, but it took someone special to understand the implications of each pressing.

Sitterson pushed away from his desk and swung around as he went, landing perfectly against one of the rear control panels. He felt Truman’s eyes on him, and flushed with a flicker of pride. He shoved that down quickly. This is nothing to be proud of, he thought, and he frowned, not sure where that had come from.

Screw it.

He lifted the cover from a row of three buttons and rested his thumb against the first.

“Let’s light this candle up, boys,” he said. “Up is go on your command.” He flicked the buttons.

The three screens across the room came to life. Pale gray at first, and then a glaring white that lit the room to uncomfortable levels. Then they settled, each of them showing the initial image they’d been programmed to show: approach, outside, inside. This was the default setting.

“Lovely,” Hadley said.

Sitterson wheeled back to his desk and thought about that coffee.

Soon, it would begin.

She was taking things slowly, but it felt like they were moving faster than that. The air between them sizzled. She’d caught him looking at her a couple of times now, but not in the way most guys looked at her. It never hurt to be given a compliment, even though sometimes those compliments were silent and communicated through glances and smiles.

She suspected that he’d spotted her looking at him as well. That was why the game was so thrilling.

With Holden, though, he was looking at her with a combination of interest and… what, bemusement? It must have been that; a tiny frown, eyes open in perpetual surprise. She’d only just met him, so she couldn’t claim to read him just yet, but she hoped he was feeling the same as her. Interest, and surprise at how deep that interest already was.

Just another ploy to fuck you, Jules would say. He’ll act interested and deep, but in the end he just wants you to hold his dick. But hey, look at him—why not?

“It’s different,” Dana whispered, and Marty looked up from rolling a selection of elegant joints.

“Huh?”

“Nothing, Marty,” she said, and she nodded toward the objects of his labors. “They’re nice. Anyone who didn’t know you would think you’re a dope fiend.”

He grinned, ran his tongue along another paper and added another to the selection. They were all the same length and thickness, and she couldn’t help but be a little bit impressed.

Curt was still driving, nodding his head lightly to the middle-of-the-road rock station they’d found on the radio. Dana had offered to bring along a handful of CDs, but Jules’s wrinkled nose had persuaded Curt to decline. Jules was still riding shotgun, her attention flicking back and forth between the GPS and an open map book on her lap. An empty plastic cup was propped between her legs, and Holden was in the bathroom filling four more cups from the keg.

Dana found it fascinating watching him. He didn’t spill a drop, even though the Rambler was now bouncing along an old road wounded with potholes and last maintained, she guessed, just after the Civil War. When the vehicle jumped he’d follow the motion of the jog with his hand, cup of beer rising or drifting left or right, foamy head licking at the lip but never quite slipping over. It was quite a talent.

He caught her watching him and smiled.

“Like steering into a skid,” he said, offering her a cup.

Dana chuckled softly and took the drink, their fingers touching briefly. The Rambler bounced, Dana grimaced, and beer splashed onto her jeans.

“Shit.”

“I hope this is the right road,” Jules said. “‘Cause right now it looks like the only road.”

“What about that road-like thing we crossed back there?” Curt asked.

“Doesn’t even show up on the GPS. It’s unworthy of global positioning.”

“It must feel horrible,” Dana said distractedly, dabbing her jeans with a cloth.

“That’s the whole point!” Marty shouted, startling them all. “Get off the grid! No cell phone reception, no markers, no traffic cameras… Go somewhere for the goddamn weekend where they can’t globally position my ass. This is the whole issue.”

“Is society crumbling, Marty?” Jules asked without looking up from the map. She was teasing him and, Dana thought, mocking him a little. Marty was too kind or too obsessed to notice. “Society is binding. It’s filling in the cracks with concrete. No cracks to slip through anymore. Everything is recorded, filed, blogged, chips in our kids so they don’t get lost… What’s the use of free will when nothing you do is your own anymore? Society needs to crumble. We’re all too chicken-shit to let it.”

“I’ve missed your rants,” Jules said. Dana was pleased to see her throw Marty a smile. He grinned back and held up a beautifully rolled joint for her perusal.

“You will come to see things my way,” he said.

“I can’t wait,” she said. “Is that the secret stash?” “The secret secret stash.” I haven’t told my other stash about it because it would become jealous.”

“A sign,” Dana said, suddenly excited. “Up there!” Jules turned to look back through the windscreen, then examined the map again quickly.

“Yes. And… okay, left. Bear left.”

“You sure?” Curt asked.

“Not even a little bit.”

Holden edged forward with more beers, taking Dana’s half-cup and replacing it with a full one. She smiled her thanks, but didn’t catch his eye.

It was Jules’s voice in her head, though: Make him work.

Holden drank most of his cup of beer in one swig. He’d already had two when he was filling the others, and was feeling a pleasant buzz. He didn’t usually drink so quickly. It was weird. But then again, so was what he felt happening here.

He had never, ever been so attracted to a girl whom he didn’t want to instantly fuck.

Oh, he did want to, at some stage. Without a doubt. Dana was gorgeous—beautiful brunette hair he could get lost in, blue eyes, soft skin, and a scintillating, gentle smile that didn’t say, Look at how beautiful I am. She was nothing like the girls he usually went for, and she was suddenly everything he wanted. So there was the sex thing, yes… but there was also something else. There was a need to know her, unlike anything he had ever felt before.

And they were off together for a weekend in the wilds.

“So what is this place exactly?” he asked.

“Country home my cousin bought,” Curt said. “He’s crazy for real estate, found this place in the middle of nowhere, it’s like Civil War era, really. Said it was such a good deal he couldn’t let it pass.”

“There’s a lake, and woods everywhere,” Jules said. “We saw some beautiful pictures.” She turned in her seat and looked at Dana. “You will be doing some serious drawing. No portraits of pedophiles…”

Holden glanced at Dana just in time to see the end of the “shut up” frown she’d given Jules. He’d heard a bit about her from Curt, about how some slimy bastard shithead had used and dumped her. He didn’t understand how someone could do that to a girl like this. Taking a chance, heart thumping, he sat down on the seat next to her, holding his breath just a little when their legs pressed against each other. A silence fell then, not intentional but awkward nonetheless.

Across the table the guy they called Marty hummed some nameless tune as he packed his rolled joints. Curt and Jules looked ahead along the tree-lined road. Holden wondered whether he was the only one who could feel the atmosphere thickening, though he wasn’t quite sure what it carried.

“You’re an art major?” he asked, breaking the silence and using the question as an excuse to turn to Dana.

“Art and political science,” she said. Those eyes…

“Oooh, triple threat,” he muttered.

A frown, a smile. He liked both.

“That’s only two things,” she said quizzically.

“Yes, a double… threat. That sounds weird. Let’s just say I find you threatening.”

“I thought you were dropping art?” Curt asked.

“Uh, no, never mind…” Jules said, slapping Curt’s thigh and glaring at him.

“I’m switching a few courses,” Dana said coolly.

“How come?” Holden asked, and then he twigged it. Oh, so slimy bastard shithead had been a lecturer?

“For no reason!” Curt blurted. “For very good reasons that don’t exist.” Then he pointed. “Hey look, trees!”

“We have patterns,” Marty said, and Holden felt the pressure lift. He’d only known him for a couple of hours, but he liked Marty already. A chilled dude. “Societally. The beautimous Dana fell into one of the oldest patterns and we are here to burn it away and pour ash into the grooves it has etched in her brain. Cover the tracks and set her feet on new ground.” Holden leaned sideways in his seat until his and Dana’s shoulders were touching, and he felt her hair on his cheek and neck. “Is it okay if I don’t follow that?” And she actually leaned back into him before saying, “I’d take it as a favor.”

“Gas!” Curt shouted. Through the windscreen, Holden caught sight of a ramshackle building beside the road. “Gas,” Curt repeated, quieter, “and maybe someone who knows where we actually are.”

The five friends fell silent as he brought them to a standstill beside two ancient fuel pumps. The red, rusting hulks stood on a crumbling concrete pedestal, a bucket of sand sitting between them, a rickety-looking tin sheet canopy above supported by weathered timber posts. It looked as if the slightest breeze would knock the whole thing over, and Holden thought vibrations from the Rambler might just do the job.

“Does anyone have a banjo I can borrow?” Marty asked. “In fact, I see one bald kid, and I’m outta here.” “It’s just a bit run down,” Holden said, but his observation was so far off the mark that no one even challenged him. “A bit run down” might mean something that needed a lick of paint, or a bit of reorganizing, or the attention of someone used to calmness and order. This place—the pumps, the building beyond them, and the surrounding area— looked as if it had been blown up and put back together again by a blind man. With no tools. Or hands. “Shit,” he whispered to himself.

Beyond the pumps, the main building appeared to have been assembled from the tumbled remains of several others. Timber boarding didn’t quite meet flush, no corner was quite ninety degrees, and the patterns of fading the sun had left on the wall were uneven and haphazard. Many of the boards had nail holes where there were no longer nails, and in some places the bent, rusted remains of a nail still protruded, as if someone had tried to fix the boards from within. The corrugated roof covering was uneven and rusting, holes punched in two places for small chimneys.

Windows were out of true, dusty glass hiding any view of the inside. Even in several panes where the glass had been smashed out there was nothing to be seen. Holden thought perhaps the building had been plucked from the ground by a tornado and dumped here from several miles away, and ever since it had been preparing for collapse.

Scattered around the building, like the detritus of that same tornado strike, were all manner of objects, whole and in parts. Oil or gasoline barrels, rubber pipes twisted like long snakes in the grass, a chopping block with piles of splintered timber and a rusted axe buried in its top surface, an old cement mixer, and the carcasses of furniture now devoid of upholstery, their springs and metal bracing joining the rest of the surroundings in rot.

“Well,” Curt said, stretching in his driver’s seat. “We still need gas. And directions.” “And I need to take a leak,” Jules said. She opened the door and stepped out, glancing back nervously as she did so.

Holden looked at Dana and smiled, pleased to see that her nervousness lifted as she smiled back.

“Maybe they’ll sell home-made jerky,” Holden said, and propelled by groans of disgust he followed Jules outside.

They stood close to the fuel pumps. The smell of fuel was almost reassuring, because it meant that they were still working even though they looked like they hadn’t been used in years. Holden scraped the dusty ground and shifted aside sand that had been scattered on places where fuel had spilled. Despite all appearances to the contrary, he thought perhaps this was actually a working fuel stop.

He just wondered what the insides of the building contained.

“Billa bing, bing-bing, bing-bing, bing-bing,” Marty said, playing an imaginary banjo.

“I’m thinking this place won’t take credit cards,” Curt said, touching a pump delicately as if afraid it would fall apart.

“I don’t think it knows about money,” Marty said. “I think it’s barter gas.”

Curt leaned left and right, stretching up on his toes, trying to see if anyone was around.

“Well, I need to pee,” Jules said again, heading around the side of the building.

“I’ll see if anyone’s home,” Holden said, looking across at Curt. His friend nodded, then glanced back at the Rambler. I’ll keep watch, his look said, and Holden nodded once. He was on edge… but not quite nervous enough to not watch Dana as she followed Jules around the side of the dilapidated building. She was wearing a fitted blue jacket, but it only came down just past her hips, and he could still admire the way her butt moved in her jeans.

As they disappeared around the corner he headed for the front door. It stood ajar, and looked as if it could never close all the way. The door didn’t quite seem to fit the frame.

It scraped across grit on the floor as he forced it open. He saw curved scrape-scars in the timber floor boarding.

“Anyone here?” he asked. But the building’s insides swallowed his voice, offering no echoes at all. He left the door open behind him to provide more light, and because he didn’t want to hear that pained scraping again, ventured inside.

“Hello?” Curt called outside. There was no answer from anywhere, inside or out. And as Holden’s eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, his sense of unease only increased.

“Holy shit,” he muttered. It seemed as if he’d landed in redneck heaven.

He thought that perhaps it had once been a shop, but he couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to buy anything from this place anymore. He couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to stand in here, for more than a couple of minutes. The smell was rank, a spiced blend of fusty age and progressing rot, and flies buzzed here and there. Why are the flies in here? he wondered, and he had a sudden image of finding the proprietor dead and decaying on the floor somewhere, maggots crawling in his eye sockets and rats gnawing at—

“Hey!” he called, looking for movement, listening for acknowledgment. There was neither.

Wooden shelving and tables provided perimeter storage, and there were also two island units. Tinned goods were stacked here and there, the labels so faded by damp and age that he couldn’t make out most of them. Tomatoes, perhaps? Corn? From metal poles braced across the ceiling hung several animal pelts, and one table seemed to be taken with various experiments in taxidermy. Several boxes and glass jars held what might also be a part of the experiment; in one glass jar something floated, its shape and origins vague in the opaque fluid.

There were meat mincers and slicers fixed to another tabletop, flies dipping in and out of both, dark speckles marking the hardened remains of old meat. One shelving unit in the corner was stocked with glass jars, some containing pickled vegetables of some kind, another holding what appeared to be boiled animal bones. It was as if the shopkeeper had suddenly tired of selling food and fuel and taken to stuffing animals in his spare time.

“Gruesome,” Holden said to no one in particular. He walked to the rear, where a glass counter displayed a selection of hunting knives. He drew his finger across the counter, leaving a clear line of glass in its wake.

Well, this is nice, he thought. All we need now is some old fuck warning us not to go any further.

“Thar’s danger in them thar hills,” he growled, then he laughed, but the giggle he emitted was too high and nervous for comfort.

Fuck it. Time to go.

“Why here?” Dana asked.

“Because I hate going in the Rambler!” Jules replied. “And besides, the keg’s in there. I can’t piddle next to what we’re drinking. It’s just… euch.”

She shivered. This place was spooky and grim, but exciting too. There was something about it that had her blood flowing. It was almost… exotic.

“You think the toilet here’s gonna be any better?” Dana asked.

“I don’t like to pee when all my friends are two feet away from me,” Jules persisted. They’d passed around the corner of the building now, and were threading their way through a scatter of old stuff lying all around. Leaning against the building’s wall to their left was a large roll of barbed wire, with some dried husk tangled in it. She tried to persuade herself it was a mass of old plant, but the tiny splayed claws testified otherwise. To their right a camper van was all but buried in a large bank of bushes. Its color was no longer discernible, the tires were smothered beneath plant growth, and the rear window was obscured on the inside by drawn curtains. The thing that spooked Jules most about it was the open side door. If it had been shut she’d have thought no more about it, but open seemed to suggest that the thing was still in use. That there might be someone in there.

Hello? she tried to say, but no noise came from her mouth.

“So you’re gonna pee in the Toilet From Out of Nowhere,” Dana said, a quaver in her voice.

Jules reached for a side door in the building, assuming—hoping—that it was the bathroom. She really needed to pee.

“I’m quirky,” she said, pulling on the handle. “At least this has gotta be—hoah!”

The smell hit her instantly, then the sight of the bathroom revealed behind the creaking door, and for a moment both robbed her of words. There was a toilet. and nothing else—no basin, not even a cistern. The walls were dark and coated with slime, the floor was wet with thick brown fluid… not pure shit, she thought, but an overflow of the stuff that filled the toilet. Thick, fluid, shifting, the sludge topped the toilet and dribbled slick down its surface, turning what might have once been white a uniform brown.

Behind her, Dana gagged.

Jules took a small step forward, fascinated, wondering just why the sludge in the pan was moving. And then she saw the scorpion, struggling in the fetid muck, slowly drowning. And unless that thing’s full of drowned critters, it’s weird that we open the door just in time to see this, she thought. It was almost as if.

She turned and looked around, past Dana, past the camper van buried in the undergrowth, along the lane that led away from this place up into the wooded hills, then back toward where she could just see the nose of the Rambler.

Dana watched her with raised eyebrows. Jules opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say anything they heard a muffled, “Fuck!” from somewhere around the front of the building.

“Seems we’ve found the attendant,” Jules said softly. Walking close together, she and Dana retraced their steps. Suddenly, her need to pee had abated.

I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Holden thought, and he uttered another nervous giggle. Heading back outside, he saw Marty and Curt through the doorway, trying to work one of the pumps. Marty was holding the nozzle in the mouth of the Rambler’s fuel pipe, while Curt circled the pump, reaching out now and then to run his hands across the flaking painted surface. Looking for a switch or lever, Holden guessed, though he seemed to find neither.

“I don’t think there’s gonna be—” Holden began, voice raised to carry out as he approached the door.

Suddenly a shadowy figure filled the doorway, blocking most of the light, and a voice said, “You come in here uninvited?”

“Fuck!” Holden gasped loudly. “Dude… ”

“Sign says closed,” the attendant said, because that must have been what this man was. Tall and broad, old and weathered until his skin looked like a leather jacket left out in the sun too long, his left eye terribly bloodshot and swollen. His lips and chin were stained and glistening with chewed tobacco and drool, and he scowled in anger and disgust.

He blocked the exit completely, and that was what worried Holden the most, more than his grotesque face and pissed attitude. If I want to get out and he doesn’t want me to… He was just about to start looking around for an alternative escape—jump through a window, perhaps, or maybe he’d find a door hidden behind a pile of badly stuffed animals at the back of the shop—when the attendant grunted and turned around, walking out to face the others.

Holden let out a gasp of relief. That was when he realized he’d been holding his breath.

“We were looking to buy some gas?” Curt said, taking a few steps toward the old man. Marty hung back, still holding the nozzle in the Rambler’s fuel pipe. “Does this pump work?”

“Works if you know how to work it,” The attendant said. He glanced to his left and paused, and Holden took the opportunity to slip from the building. He circled around the old man until he was standing just a few feet to Curt’s right, and past the guy he saw Dana and Jules appear cautiously around the side of the building. Both were wide-eyed and slightly panicked.

What have they seen? he wondered. Dana glanced at the attendant only briefly, then past him at Holden. They swapped nervous smiles.

The attendant didn’t move to help Marty with the fuel. The moment felt frozen, and Holden wanted to move it along.

“We also wanted to get directions…” he said.

“Yeah, we’re looking for…” Curt began, frowning, looking at Jules and asking, “What is it?”

“Tillerman Road,” Jules said, taking a step closer to the attendant. Holden could see her nervousness, but he also knew that she wouldn’t want to seem afraid. Her hands were fisted by her sides, holding on to control.

The attendant just peered at her, but something about him changed. He’d become still—jaw no longer chewing, body no longer swaying—as if the name had hit home. He looked Jules up and down, and Holden almost saw her skin flinching back from his gaze.

Then the attendant sighed and muttered, “What a waste.” He walked toward the pump, moving with an exaggerated gait as if neither leg belonged to him. Curt stepped aside, and the old man plucked a ring of keys from his pocket—far too many for this shack, surely?— and unlocked a latch on the pump. Marty stayed where he was, regarding the man with hooded eyes.

Sometimes it’s good to be stoned, Holden thought, and he smiled slightly, thinking how much Marty would appreciate the sentiment. “Tillerman Road takes you up into the hills. Dead end at the old Buckner place.”

“Is that the name of—?” Jules began.

“There wasn’t a name,” Curt said.

“Ready?” the attendant said to Marty, and when he nodded the old guy flicked a switch, then said, “Okay, pull the handle.” Marty pulled, the pump thunked and shook for a couple of seconds, and then the pungent smell of fuel filled the air. Holden wondered how old this fuel was, and whether it had an expiration date, and wished he were back in the city where he didn’t have to think about such things. The numbers behind the glass dome on top of the pump started turning. Holden thought he’d seen a pump like this in an old movie, once. Very old.

“My cousin bought a house up there,” Curt said to the attendant’s back. “You go through a mountain tunnel, there’s a lake, would that be…?”

“Buckner place,” the attendant confirmed, leaning on the pump and spitting a brown slick at his feet. “Always someone lookin’ to sell that plot.” He looked over his shoulder at Curt and smiled, exposing bad teeth stained brown, gaps here and there, and a thick gray tongue that looked to Holden like something trawled up from the bottom of the sea. “An’ always some fool lookin’ to buy.”

“You knew the original owners?” Jules asked.

“Not the first,” he replied, looking the girls up and down again. “But I’ve seen plenty come and go. Been here since the war.” “Which war?” she asked.

“You know damn well which war!” he shouted. He took two steps toward Marty and closed his hand over the nozzle, Marty just letting go and stepping back in time. He caught Holden’s eye and shrugged, hands held out.

Holden tried to smile at him, but the atmosphere didn’t feel light enough.

“Would that have been with the blue, and some in gray?” Marty asked. “Brother, perhaps fighting against brother in that war?”

“You sassin’ me, boy?”

“You were rude to my friend,” Marty said, his voice level, gentle as ever.

The attendant grew still again for a second, and Holden thought, Cogs turning in there, stuff happening, he’s processing what he didn’t expect. Then the old man looked at Jules again.

“That whore?”

Curt took a quick step forward but Holden was already moving, aware of what was about to happen. He splayed his left hand on Curt’s chest and held it there until his friend looked at him. He was angry but, Holden was pleased to see, also a little freaked. That was good. That would prevent this weird shit from descending into something more.

“I think we’ve got enough gas,” Holden said coolly.

“Enough to get you there,” the attendant said, removing the nozzle. “Gettin’ back’s your own concern.” The girls came over behind the old guy and climbed back into the Rambler. Curt threw a twenty at the old man’s feet, aiming for and hitting the slick of tobacco juice. He glanced at Holden, then nodded at the Rambler. Time to go.

Holden couldn’t have agreed more.

Marty was the last one to climb back into the vehicle. The old man was still standing beside the fuel pump, apparently dismissing the money at his feet, still chewing, still staring at them with one good eye and one flushed with blood.

“Good luck with your business,” Marty said, climbing the steps. “I know the railroad’s comin’ through here any day now, gonna be big. Streets paved with… actual street.” And as he started swinging the door shut, Holden heard him mutter, “Fucker.”

Curt was already firing the engine, and even in a vehicle so large he managed to leave a wheel-spin in their wake. Now will come the joking, Holden thought. An unpleasant situation cast aside with bravado, mocking, and rude quips.

But they drove away in silence, none of them catching another’s eye, and it was only as they turned a bend and started the long climb into the hills that the tension started to filter away.