The Cabin in the Woods

THREE

Marty lit up a spliff, offering his pre-rolled joints around to everyone else. No one took him up on it, though he thought for a second Holden was going to. They smiled awkwardly at each other.

Yeah, Marty thought, he knows too. He knows that was super-weird and fucked up back there. Like, how the hell does that dude stay in business? And where the hell did he just pop up from? And why was he…?

“Why was he looking at Jules like that?” Marty whispered. Across the small table from him, Dana and Holden heard the question but did not respond. Probably because they’d been thinking the same thing themselves, and there was no comfortable answer.

Bland rock played from the radio, Jules hummed in the front passenger seat, Curt cut in now and then with a few badly-sung lines from some song or another. Feigning normality.

“Don’t give up the day job, dude,” Marty said. “At least I’ll have a day job!” Curt said. “I won’t spend my days stoned, wandering the woods, being at one with nature, and wondering how amazing it is that I’m actually alive.”

There was silence for a few seconds, and then Marty responded, “I pity you, man.” And everyone laughed.

That’s better, Marty thought. That’s much better. Laughter’s the second-best medicine. He took another drag on his joint and held the smoke down, breathing out slowly. He was relaxed again now, leaning back in his chair with his head resting against the window. The sun caressed his scalp, and it was good. Holden had fetched them another beer each, and he felt a warm glow, starting at the center of him and reaching all the way to his fingertips and the ends of his toes.

Dana and Holden were sitting close, and though they affected indifference, Marty could see that each time the swaying Rambler nudged them into each other it sent a thrill through them.

Lucky guy, he thought. Dana was cute as hell and a lovely girl. A beautiful girl. They’d been friends for over a year, and to begin with he’d believed that she viewed him as some sort of a joke. Many people did, mostly the shallow types—the plastic people, he called them—who spent more time concerned with what the outsides of their heads looked like, rather than bothering to care for the insides. But he’d soon come to realize that, though gorgeous, Dana was not like that at all. An intelligent girl, both deep and somewhat mysterious, she kept a distance from him rather than regarding him as a joke.

Maybe her parents had had a thing about drugs of any kind, and it was a hangover from that, or perhaps… but no, he’d stopped thinking that long ago. Perhaps it was because she felt something for him and was afraid to grow too close? Yeah, right. Looking at Holden and Dana now, he could see how distant she kept from guys she liked.

But out of their awkward beginning had emerged a strange, close relationship. Marty was sure that Dana knew what he felt about her, and how intense was the first impression she’d made upon him. And Marty was getting to know her more and more every day. Of all the friendships he’d made at college, this one felt as if it would last longer than all the others.

Lucky guy, he thought again, and when Dana caught his eye he glanced away.

“Guys, take a look,” Jules said.

Marty sat up and, with the others, leaned to look out the front windshield. To their right was a steep ravine, and ahead of them loomed the dark mouth of a tunnel set in the mountainside. It looked impossibly small. The ravine ended in a sheer, bare cliff face, above which rose a steeply wooded hillside, boulders, and rock spurs protruding between greenery like boils on a craggy face. And across the other side of the ravine, another tunnel mouth emerged onto a road ledge.

Must curve through the mountain, he thought, and he wondered who would have built such a tunnel instead of a simple bridge. “Hey,” Marty said, “do we really have to go—”

“Yep,” Curt said. He slowed the Rambler as they approached, concentrating, and turned on the headlights. The darkness was pushed back as they entered the tunnel, and to Marty it felt as if they were being swallowed by the mountain. It seemed like an incredibly tight fit, but there was no scraping or crunching, and Curt steered confidently into the darkness.

Marty closed and opened his eyes again several times, enjoying the brash contrast between darkness and the artificial lights of the Rambler’s dashboard. His friends were mere shadows in the barely lit cabin, and he knew that he’d look the same to them.

Halfway through the tunnel, when the faint glow of daylight started to show ahead of them, he suddenly sat up as the hairs on his forearms and neck stood on end. A shiver went though him, like a subtle electric shock, tingling his balls and tickling the insides of his nostrils. He immediately sniffed the joint, wondering if some alien substance had found its way in, and—

Above the mountainside and ravine, a small bird’s free will took it along the route of the rough mountain track. It swept above the wooded mountainside, unconsciously following the tunnel as it rode thermals. Singing as it flew, stomach full from a recent feed, it struck something in mid-air, something that flashed into view for a second like a vast blue, pulsing grid, and with a shower of fiery sparks the bird plummeted, dead. Its wings were scorched, its insides fried. Its brain had been carbonized, and any thoughts it once held were more remote and immaterial than shadows.

Nothing made the bird fly this way, nothing urged it north instead of east or south or west, but it died nonetheless. Free will was, perhaps, its undoing.

“Oh… oh!” Marty heard someone say, and he thought it was Dana. No one else spoke, but he felt the brief, intense level of discomfort in the Rambler; people shifted in their seats, and the silence grew heavier.

Then they were out the other end and heading across the mountainside, the steep drop still to their right, and the glaring sun cleared away any dregs of darkness.

What was that? Marty wanted to say. Weird magnetic field? Radiation from the rocks? Someone walking over my grave? But when he looked around at the others he saw smiling faces, and a growing excitement that they were getting closer to their destination. Curt and Jules were singing badly again, Holden was drinking, and Dana stared dreamily from the window.

So Marty took another pull on his joint instead, and he didn’t even look back.

They drove for another ten minutes. The ledge wove upward, turning back on itself and zig-zagging them up the mountainside. The view that was revealed alternately to their left and right was staggering, opening up across the ravine to expose miles of wooded countryside, hills peeking above the trees here and there, and dark green valleys hiding their secrets from view. After a short climb they reached a ridge, and then the track weaved them into a forest of towering trees.

Curt drove, Holden and Dana pretended not to notice where their skin touched, and Marty smoked. He was thinking about dynamite and digging machines, and men working with shovels and picks, and just how long it had taken to forge that tunnel around the end of the ravine, following the natural contours of the land except deeper inside. And the road that had twisted and turned its way up the mountainside; that wasn’t an easy build, either. He thought about stuff like this a lot. And sometimes, such thoughts ended with a simple determination to smoke some more.

He lit another joint and leaned back in his seat, dozing.

Curt startled him awake with a shout.

“Behold! Our home for the weekend.” Holden and Dana went first, squatting between Curt’s and Jules’s seats, and then Marty stood behind them, one hand on each of their shoulders to hold himself up. Dana gasped, Holden hummed in appreciation, and Marty had to admit to himself that, yes, this was quite a sight.

The lake lay to their left, surrounded by trees that cast stick-like shadows across the water from the southern bank. Elsewhere the sun glared off of the water, rippling here and there where fish or frogs jumped, shimmering with a million diamonds of light. There were a couple of small, bare islands sprouting low shrub growth, and on one a solitary tree cast its shadow over the water. A wooden jetty stood out into the water, a rough but sturdy-looking structure. There were no boats moored there, and taking a cursory look around the lake Marty could see several possible hiding places among the reeds at the lake’s edge.

It wasn’t huge, but the plant growth around its edges was lush. The stretch where the Rambler was now drawing to a halt must have been artificially cleared, and Marty found his attention drawn to the right to see why.

The cabin stood maybe a hundred feet from the lake, in a clearing that probed deep into the woods. For a few seconds Marty thought, Right, that’s like a timber store or something, and the real cabin’s behind it in the trees, because if that’s the place where we’ve got to sleep. But then he looked closer and saw net curtains in the building’s windows, and its allure slowly grew on him. They weren’t coming out here for a hotel visit, after all. No room service or gourmet restaurants here.

It wasn’t the most attractive building he’d ever seen, but it could easily be home. For a couple of days, at least. Single-story, with large eye-like windows on either side of the door. Several rickety steps led up to the wide decked porch area, where a small pile of firewood was stacked beneath the overhang to dry. Tall fir trees skirted the rear and both sides of the building, hiding it away from anywhere but where they were now parked. Curt killed the engine and opened the door and, without speaking, they all climbed slowly from the Rambler.

Bird song, a gentle breeze through the trees, their crunching footsteps, something splashing out on the lake… there was no other noise. No traffic grumble or roaring of aircraft high in the sky.

Nothing.

It was, Marty thought then, idyllic.

“Oh my god, it’s beautiful!” Jules said, leaning into Curt and adding quieter, “One spider and I’m sleeping in the Rambler. I mean it. Uno spider-o.”

“This house is talking a blue streak,” Marty whispered.

“So let’s set up camp,” Holden said. “And the most important feature: keg.” He clapped Marty on the shoulder and grinned, and Curt accompanied them back into the Rambler to get the beer. They maneuvered it from the confined space and manhandled it from the vehicle, and by the time they’d deposited it on the cabin’s porch, Dana already was there, turning the knob.

The door swung open with a deep, grinding creak. You’re velcome to stay zer night, Marty thought, but as the others followed her inside he held back, appreciating the sky above him and the sense of space he still felt all around. In there they’d be… confined. He didn’t shiver—not quite—but something felt askew. Had felt that way since meeting that weird old coot at the tumble-down gas stop, then coming up through the tunnel and winding track. Shit, maybe his batch of weed was contaminated with something. He’d heard about it happening before.

Once inside and settled, maybe he’d think about switching stashes.

The main room beyond the front door was living room and kitchen combined, and Dana was walking around slowly, touching nothing, as the others entered. To the right was a dining table and chairs, and a kitchen counter featuring poorly crafted wall and floor cupboards with a retro-fitted sink, the single tap dripping steadily. At the end of the counter stood an antique wood-burning stove, probably built before Marty’s grandparents were even born. Its bulk and solidity seemed somehow out of place beside the rest of the kitchen, as if it was the only part that bled quality. “Oh, this is awesome!” Curt said.

“It is kinda cool,” Jules replied. “You gonna kill us a raccoon to eat?”

“I will use its skin to make a cap.”

To the left in the huge room was the living area, with mismatched sofas and chairs arranged around the large stone fireplace. It looked comfortable, but strangely unloved, as if it were a place used for necessity rather than desire. Hanging back in the doorway, Marty spotted a wolf’s head on the wall—courtesy of the old guy at the station, perhaps? It had been stuffed growling, and was just about one of the most vicious looking things he’d ever seen. That would get a shirt thrown over it before dusk, he was damn certain of that, by him if no one else. Its eyes seemed alive. Directly opposite the front door a bare, wide hallway ran to the rear of the cabin, with two doorways leading off from either side. Between it and the kitchen there was a rectangle in the floor that appeared to be a way into the cellar. A few worn rugs littered the floor. The window at the hallway’s end was obscured by nets and dust, and whatever lay beyond was dark, as if the woods back there cut out all sunlight.

Dana paused before the stuffed wolf’s head, then moved on. Her footsteps were soft and gentle, hardly heard, and Marty wondered what lay beneath the timber-boarded floor.

Jules strode confidently along the hallway to check out the bedrooms. She grabbed a doorknob and twisted.

“Dibs on whichever room is—OW!” She jerked her hand back and stared at the bubble of blood welling on her fingertip.

I’m still not inside, Marty thought. The others are and they’re fine, they’re at ease with the place, but I’m still not…

“Curt, your cousin’s house attacked me,” Jules exclaimed with mock severity.

“I smell lawsuit,” Curt said.

“When was your last tetanus shot?” Holden chuckled, and Marty noticed how close Dana had drawn to him. Not quite touching.

“Thanks, that’s very comforting,” Jules responded.

“Jules is pre-med,” Curt said sadly, stroking his girlfriend’s hair. “She knows there’s no coming back from this. I’ll miss you, baby. I’ll miss your shiny new hair.” Dana glanced around then and looked at Marty, drawing him into their group again. He blinked, a little startled. He’d been off in his own world again.

“Marty? Are you planning on coming in?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe.” But he waited until the four of them picked up their bags and headed down the hallway before he made his move.

Once across the threshold he sighed, looking around and listening to the others joking and chatting in their rooms.

He looked at the wolf and growled.

Holden took the first room on the left, next to Dana’s. He was excited. It had been a weird journey up from the city, the lowest point being that ignorant fuck at the gas stop. But now that they were here he could feel them all relaxing, and it wouldn’t be long before they made this place their own.

Unpack, change, get the keg into the living room, sort out food for this evening, have a few more drinks… and maybe even one of Marty’s joints… and then the weekend would really begin.

And there was Dana. He could feel the charge between them growing, and now he was certain that she felt it too. She was as keen to be close to him as he was to her. It felt a little awkward in the company of the others—he’d invaded their group, after all, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that Curt had brought him along as a potential fix-up. But he couldn’t deny the effect she was having over him.

He only hoped she’d brought a bikini.

He glanced at a picture on the wall—some old Victorian scene—then threw his bag on the bed and winced at how much it creaked. Sitting on the mattress and bouncing lightly up and down, he felt certain the resultant squeaking would attract bears from miles around. He hoped Curt’s and Jules’s bed wasn’t this bad, otherwise none of them would be getting any sleep. If what Curt claimed was true, they went at it like rabbits.

The room was an echo of the rest of the cabin— wooden walls, wooden furniture, with a few touches here and there to make it look more homey. There was a rug on the floor, one corner almost threadbare, and a woven cushion on the bed covers. He turned back the covers and shook them, pleased to see no moths exiting or spiders scuttling away. He ran his hand between the sheets and felt no dampness. At least that part of it seemed to be comfortable enough.

Looking around again, he found his attention grabbed once more by the picture hanging on the wide wall. He’d assumed it was an old horse-and-dog print, a country scene from a long time ago, maybe even imported from Britain. But looking closer, the detail started to stand out… and it was horrible.

It was a hunting party, and most of the members were shown dismounted, their faces flushed red with rage or freshly blooded, arms raised, hands bearing curved machetes that reflected gray sunlight where they weren’t also darkened with blood. At their feet were several big, vicious-looking dogs, reminding him more of the wolf’s head in the living room than the family pets he was used to. And at the focus of their attention was a lamb. Scarlet clefts had been struck into its back and flanks, and one dog had its slavering jaws clamped about the poor animal’s throat.

It was only a picture, but Holden found it repulsive.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” he said, taking the painting down. He bent and leaned it against the wall, picture now facing inward, and when he stood again Dana was staring at him through a hole in the wall.

He jumped, letting out a nervous laugh.

She stared.

“Wow,” he said meekly, “I’ve heard about the walls being thin, but—” And then he trailed off when Dana bared her teeth at him, leaning forward as if to take a bite from his face. Frozen by the strangeness of this more than afraid that she was going to bite him, he let his shoulders relax when he realized what was happening.

Dana was examining her teeth. She picked between the two front ones, turning slightly left and right to get the angle right to see toward the back of her mouth. Ran her tongue across her upper teeth, the lower. Stared again, at herself.

One-way mirror, Holden thought, and there was a creepy delight in the discovery.

He watched as she ruffled up her hair a little, pouted, and then she seemed to become distracted, staring beyond the mirror and through him as she dwelled on something for a long few seconds. A small smile tweaked her lips, then she shook herself from the reverie and returned to her bed.

She started unbuttoning her shirt.

“Oh shit, ah no, ahh… ” Holden said, torn between this golden opportunity and his common human decency. If he waited here and watched her strip, he could never tell anyone about the mirror. But if he made her aware, he might kick himself later.

Three buttons, four, that smooth plane of skin flowing from her neck down to her chest…

He had to make up his mind quickly, in the next couple of seconds, otherwise—

Five buttons, and the shirt fell open to reveal her tan bra, and if he waited another few seconds…

Holden cursed silently and banged on the wall. Dana froze, head cocked to one side, and Holden took that second to just look at her before calling through the wall, “Hold up!”

“What? Holden?”

“Dana… I just saw… come into my room. Bring the others.”

Dana closed her shirt and redid a couple of buttons, frowning as she left her room. Holden heard her calling their friends, and he backed away from the wall and turned to the door, preparing to greet them and feeling more ashamed than he should have. He’d told her, hadn’t he? Some guys would have watched all the way, jerked off and re-hung the picture, keeping the whole thing their dirty little secret. And some guys would have done that, then gone across the hallway to tell Marty.

He wasn’t some guys.

But I waited a few seconds longer than I had to…

Dana stuck her head around his door and smiled uncertainly. She entered, and Holden pointed at the window into her room just as Jules came in, Curt and Marty following her.

“Tan bra,” he said softly.

Jules got it first. She coughed surprised laughter and said, “You have got to be kidding me!”

“That’s just creepy,” Dana said as she caught on.

“It was pioneer days,” Marty said. “People had to make their own interrogation rooms. Out of cornmeal.”

Holden shrugged and ran his hands around the rough one-way mirror frame. “This is from the… seventies, judging by the weathering. Who did your cousin buy this place from, Curt?”

“We should check the rest of the rooms,” Curt said, ignoring the question. “Make sure this is the only one. You know Marty wants to watch me and Jules pounding away.”

“I didn’t even like hearing that,” Marty said, wincing as he turned and left the room.

“Beer,” Curt said, eyebrows rising, false realization dawning on his face. “Beer! Beer is the only answer!” He turned and dashed from the room, Jules rolling her eyes and following him.

“Don’t be an ape, Curt.”

The brief silence after the others left was a little awkward, and it needed more than a smile to break it.

“How about we switch?” Holden asked Dana. “Not that I’d… I mean I’ll put the picture back but you might feel better if we switched rooms.”

“I really would,” Dana said, leaving his room.

Holden cursed silently as he grabbed his bag, following her out into the hallway.

“Thanks for… being decent,” she said over her shoulder.

“Least I could do, since Curt and Jules have sold you to me for marriage.” Holden cringed a little; said too much? Dana cringed, too, but then her soft laughter made it all right.

“They’re not subtle,” she agreed ruefully.

“I’m just here to relax. And so can you.”

“Yeah, I’m not looking for… But I’m still grateful that you’re not a creep.”

“Hey, let’s not jump to any conclusions there,” Holden said.

“Tan bra?” Dana said softly, and though he couldn’t see her face he knew that she was smiling.

Don’t want to play this too cool, he thought, and on the back of that, So am I a creep after all?

“I had kind of an internal debate about showing you the mirror,” he said. “Shouting on both sides, blood was spilled… ”

They entered Dana’s room—his room now—and he dumped his stuff on the bed.

“So you’re bleeding internally,” she asked, mock-serious. “Pretty bad.”

“Well, Jules is the doctor-in-training. You should probably talk to her.”

“Yeah.” He smiled, Dana grabbed her bag, and as she turned and left he saw an expression on her face that he thought was similar to his own. Cursing herself, he thought. She wishes this chat had gone one step further.

Smiling as the door swung shut behind her, Holden thought that he and Dana would get on very well indeed.

Shit shit shit that was lame, Dana thought. But she couldn’t help smiling. Even with a closed door between them, she could sense Holden behind her. Unsubtle though Jules and Curt had been about her and Holden, it seemed as if they might yet finish this weekend pleased with their powers of matchmaking.

In her new room she closed the door and dropped her bag onto the bed, wincing at the creaking of springs. Hope Curt’s and Jules’s bed isn’t that bad, she thought. Then she picked up the picture Holden had removed from the wall, turned it around… and it was unbelievably gross. She had no idea why someone would want that hanging above them in bed. Maybe there was more to it. The artist might have been a local celebrity, or something. But though she looked closely for a signature she could find none, and it had the sort of paint-by-numbers feel of a mass-produced image. It was spooky, but she had to re-hang it.

Otherwise—

She saw Holden in the next room, her view darkened just a little by dust on the one-way mirror. He wore an enigmatic smile, and was slowly pacing back and forth at the foot of his bed. Distracted, he pulled his shirt over his head and then stood there again, apparently unmindful of the fact that he was now in the viewable room.

He was in pretty good shape, for sure. Dana was holding her breath. The moment seemed to stretch, and then Holden dropped his shirt on the bed and pulled his swimming shorts from his bag, and began unbuttoning his jeans.

“Uhhh… ah!” Dana muttered. “God!” She was where he had been and, though she could stay here for another ten seconds to see what he had, he had only watched for so long.

Long enough to see my bra, she thought, and as she caught sight of Holden’s briefs she hung the picture, obscuring the window and making sure it banged against the wall. He’d hear it and know that she’d covered the one-way mirror again… but he’d also know that she’d paused just for those few seconds, watching him strip off his shirt.

“Fair’s fair,” she said softly, grinning.

She took one last look at the grim print, and on the wall it seemed even worse. But it was part of her room now.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” she said, plucking a knitted throw from the bed and hanging it over the picture.

That was better.

Now, time to strip in private and slip into that sexy red bikini.

Their whole world in my hands, Sitterson thought. Their every private moment under my scrutiny. And he giggled to himself, because he was starting to sound like that crazy fuck Mordecai.

“What’s so funny?” Hadley asked. He was working at his own control panel, sugar from a recent doughnut speckling the skin around his mouth.

“You,” Sitterson said with as much seriousness as he could muster, “and the joke that is your life.”

Hadley muttered something as he turned away smiling, and Sitterson pushed his chair back so that he could view every display at once.

On the bedroom monitors, the college kids were all changing into their swimming costumes. He’d seen this enough times before, but the voyeuristic delight had never quite left him, and neither would he wish it to. He regarded it as a perk of the job, and knew that Hadley did as well. They didn’t make it obvious, but neither did they purposely look away from the screens.

There was no privacy here; that had been denied these kids the second they drove through the tunnel, and in some ways long before that. So while he checked readouts on his laptop and tweaked a few settings here and there, he also glanced frequently at the bank of monitors.

Just to… monitor.

The cute brunette—and damn, was she cute!— turned her back on the covered painting as she changed, which gave him a perfect view. Sweet, pert breasts, as yet defiant of gravity and not weighed down with the responsibility of childbirth. Strong limbs, long legs, a flat stomach rippled with the subtle evidence of running and other exercise. And she shaved. Most college kids her age did, he’d come to learn. That didn’t do it for Sitterson, but he knew that Hadley was a fan of baldies.

Glancing across, he grinned to see his companion’s gaze fixed on the screen.

“Cute,” he said.

“Yeah,” Hadley agreed, smiling softly. “But it doesn’t matter.”

Sitterson looked at the other screens that showed activity. The Fool was sitting on the end of his bed staring at the far wall, a joint hanging from the corner of his mouth. He hadn’t bothered changing, and most likely wouldn’t join his friends in the lake. Which was a shame, because it would necessitate a slight change from Story. But it was also allowed for.

The jock and his blonde girlfriend were fooling around naked, whipping at each other’s butts with twisted towels, wrestling, but Sitterson knew that she was teasing, putting everything on view but not making anything available. Not yet, at least. The jock didn’t seem aware of this, and when his interest started showing Sitterson turned away and checked some more readouts. Even though he had the audio turned most of the way down, he still heard the guy’s complaining voice, and the girl’s admonishment, full of control and manipulation.

Poor fuck. Didn’t he know they were all insane?

Rolling his chair back again, he checked out the other feeds: cabin, dock, lake, the RV, several views of the kitchen and dining area, four for the living room, basement, bathroom… it all seemed well, and when the kids started leaving their rooms he tracked their progress from screen to screen.

“All right,” Sitterson said, “places everyone. We are live.”

“Engineering,” Hadley said, voice calm and almost bored. “We’ve got a room change. Polk is now in two, McCrea’s in four. Story department—you copy? We’ll need a scenario adjustment… ”

Moments later a voice came over the control room’s PA.

“Have it back to you in fifteen… ”

“Oh, and the Fool’s not swimming.”

“Got that covered,” the same voice confirmed.

It’s all under control, Sitterson thought, and control was what pleased him. Outside this place he was a mess—his bachelor’s home, his history of relationships, his life—but he more than made up for it with his work. He was, Hadley had told him more than once, a pain-in-the-ass perfectionist. Who the fuck else would you want working here? That was his stock reply. And Hadley had never argued.

Footsteps sounded on the metal staircase and Sitterson glanced up.

“Ms. Lin!”

She carried a clipboard under her arm, as ever. An affectation, he knew, because everything she needed for the weekend’s activities was stored on the palm-top she carried in her lab coat pocket. He wasn’t sure whether the clipboard made her look more sexy or more terrifying, and the fact that he found both alluring sometimes unsettled him.

“We’ve got blood work back on Louden,” she said without any preamble. “Her levels are good, but we’re recommending a fifty milligram increase of Rohyptase to boost libido.”

“Sold,” Sitterson said. He always favored a bit of hot sex action before things kicked off. Another perk of the job.

“Do we pipe it in or do you wanna do it orally?” Lin asked.

Sitterson held in his laughter, closed his eyes and sighed. “Ask me that again, only slower.”

“You’re a pig,” she said. The tone of her voice didn’t change at all, and sometimes he seriously considered Hadley’s assertion that she was a robot. “Guess how we’re slowing down her cognition.”

Sitterson kept his eyes closed, knowing she’d tell him anyway.

“The hair dye.” And was that a slight smugness to her voice? He opened his eyes, impressed.

“The dumb blonde. That’s artistic.”

“Works into the blood through the scalp, very gradual.” She looked past him at Hadley, her eternal doubter. “The Chem department keeps their end up.” “I’ll see it when I believe it,” he drawled without looking away from his control board.

Sitterson started shrugging, but halfway through the PA sounded again.

“Control?”

“Go ahead,” Hadley said.

“I have the Harbinger on line two.”

Hadley looked across, but Sitterson held up his hands, shaking his head.

“Christ,” Hadley said. “Can you take a message?” “Uh… I don’t think so. He’s really pushy. And… to be honest, he’s kinda freaking me out.”

Hadley gave a defeated sigh.

“Yeaaaahh. Okay, put him through.” He hit a button on his panel and threw Sitterson one last, cutting glare: You owe me.

Sitterson finished his shrug and smiled.

“Mordecai!” Hadley said into his microphone, suddenly more upbeat and animated. “How’s the weather up top?”

“The lambs have passed through the gate,” a voice said, grizzled and grumbling—Sitterson always had been impressed by the guy’s performance. He was a true method actor—the bloodshot eye never needed encouraging, and he really was a smelly bastard. Where the hell the Story guys had found him, he didn’t know. He didn’t want to know. “They are come to the killing floor,” Mordecai’s voice continued, echoing around the control room.

Hadley nodded, hand hovering above the disconnect button. But Sitterson had taken enough calls from Mordecai before to know that this was far from over.

“Yeah, you did great out there. By the numbers. Started us off right. We’ll talk to you later, oka—” “Their blind eyes see nothing of the horrors to come. Their ears are stopped; they are God’s fools.” “Well, that’s how it works.” Hadley hung his head. His voice sounded with defeat. Sitterson chuckled.

“Cleanse them. Cleanse the world of their ignorance and sin. Bathe them in the crimson of—” He paused, then asked, “Am I on speaker phone?”

“No, no of course not!”

“Yes I am,” Mordecai said. His voice raised, from subterranean grumble to eighteen-wheeler roar. “I can hear the echo. Take me off. Now.”

Sitterson started laughing, clamping his hands over his mouth to try and hold in the mirth. Beside him Lin, ever the ice queen, was maintaining her cool. Mostly. But even her features were warmed by the subtlest precursor of a smile.

“Okay,” Hadley said. “Sorry.”

“I’m not kidding,” Mordecai’s voice grated through the speakers. “It’s rude. I don’t know who’s in the room.” “Fine.” Hadley tapped the microphone. “There, you’re off speaker phone.” “Thank you.”

Sitterson was trying not to cry, but the more he held his laughter the greater the pressure built. Hysteria is a sign of the loss of control, Lin had told him once, and he’d roared with laughter as she’d left the control room. He hadn’t disagreed; he’d merely laughed. He wished he knew how she stayed so calm. Perhaps she took some of her own chemical creations, though such indulgence was strictly forbidden.

“Don’t take this lightly, boy,” Mordecai continued from the gas station. “It wasn’t all by your ‘numbers’; the Fool nearly derailed the invocation with his insolence. Your futures are murky; you’d do well to heed my—” He paused again, then his voice lightened to a whisper; gravel on concrete. “I’m still on speaker phone, aren’t I?”

That was it. Sitterson couldn’t hold it anymore, the laughter bursting from him in an explosive cough of air. Even Lin was smiling, and from down the curved staircase Sitterson heard Truman, the stiff soldier, coughing as he tried to contain his own hilarity.

“No,” Hadley said, “you’re not. I promise.”

“Yes I am! Who is that? Who’s laughing?”

Sitterson felt tears running down his cheeks and he leaned forward in his chair, pounding his head on his console. Hysteria is the sign of the loss of control. As he glanced up at one monitor and saw two of the kids soundlessly running along the wooden dock toward the lake, he wondered how mirthful each tear really was.

Holden was racing her. It was simple fun, but for Dana, there was still that competitive edge that was a hangover from all the athletics she did in her early teens. So she ran hard, feeling the boards flexing and creaking beneath her feet, and sensing Holden’s shadow just behind to her left.

“No way you win,” he gasped, and she cried out in delight as she put on a final burst of speed, launching herself from the end of the dock and feeling one of those moments of unadulterated, ecstatic glee that comes only rarely, and never for long. She pinwheeled her arms and legs, trying to crawl further through the air before the calm waters of the lake drew her down.

She tried to take a deep breath before she entered the water, but she was laughing too much. Beside her she sensed Holden flying with her, and then the water closed completely around her. And it was colder than she had ever felt before.

Surfacing, gasping, spitting water from her mouth, it took her several seconds to find her breath.

“OH! Cold! That’s what cold feels like—”

“Fight through the pain,” Holden gasped, treading water beside her. “It’s worth it. I’m nearly convinced it’s worth it.”

Dana found her breath at last, the cold quickly numbing her senses. She turned in the water and looked back toward the cabin, where the others were approaching at a more leisurely pace along the dock. Curt and Jules were wearing their bathing suits, while Marty was still in his tee-shirt and shorts. He had a towel slung casually around his neck, but he seemed to have no intention of joining them.

Right then, she could hardly blame him.

“Does it seem fresh?” Jules asked, voice etched with concern. “Lotta funky diseases sitting in stagnant lake water.”

“What?” Dana asked, “this water?” And to emphasize her point she took a deep gulp of it, swilling it around her mouth before spitting it out in an arc. Cool and fresh, it was tinted with a tang of something wonderful. “This water’s delicious.”

“Oh my god, she’s right!” Holden gasped. He took a mouthful too, spitting it in an arc toward Dana. She flinched back and it splashed her shoulder. “It tastes like… vitamins. And hope.”

“C’mon Jules,” Dana called. “Life is risk!”

“Yeah, I might just risk lying out in the sun for a while.” She paused a few steps back from the edge, uncertain.

Curt stepped to the edge of the dock, face falling as he looked down.

“What is that?” he asked, almost to himself.

Dana, treading water, edged back from the dock and further into the lake. She could sense the depth increasing beneath her as she moved, and it was thrilling.

“What?” she asked, a hint of concern tickling the back of her neck.

“In the lake,” Curt said. “I swear to god I…” “Yeah, right,” Dana said, not willing to admit that he had her spooked. He looked so damn serious, and— But then she glanced sidelong at Holden, saw his smile, and knew that it was a game.

“No, seriously!” Curt said dramatically. Jules edged forward and stood beside him, looking nervously down at the rippling surface. “Right there. Don’t you see it? There. It looks just like—” He put his hands firmly on Jules’s back, and as he pushed and she squealed in terror, he said, “My girlfriend!”

Jules flailed at the air as if trying to hold herself back to the dock, and she went in that way, arms and legs thrashing and mouth open to scream. She surfaced quickly, spluttering and turning so that she faced the dock.

“Oh! Oh my god! I’m gonna kill you!”

His expression not breaking for an instant, Curt pointed just between where Jules had landed and Dana was still treading water, trying not to laugh out loud at her splashing, angry friend. She’ll never be angry at him for long, Dana thought, and realized how these two suited each other so well.

“Look—there’s something else in the lake—” Curt said, launching himself straight at where he was pointing, and splashing Dana and Holden as he landed. He surfaced and raised his arms, treading water just with his strong legs. “It’s a gorgeous man!” he shouted, and at the far side of the lake a small flock of birds took flight from the trees.

“You are so dead!” Jules said, still gasping against the cold. She swam to him with three powerful strokes and tried dunking him.

“Don’t kill the gorgeous man!” Curt cried. “They’re endangered!”

Dana laughed, and looked up at Marty standing alone on the end of the dock. He eyed them all warily, holding the towel splayed around his neck.

“Marty, get in here!” she said.

“Nah, man. I’m cool. Just seeing the sights.” He sat on the edge of the dock and dangled his feet, his bare toes just reaching the water. He leaned back with a joint smoking gently in the corner of his mouth, and Dana wondered how he managed to live on a permanent high. Some people chose that way, she guessed. But for her, life was a high.

Especially today

She glanced at Holden, caught his eye and smiled, turning in the water and swimming out for the lake’s center. And for a while before he followed she was all alone, and this beautiful place was her own.