The Cabin in the Woods

Dana screamed and dropped the torch, scrabbling to snatch it up again and backing against a wardrobe, its corner and joints soft and weakened by decay. Something fell inside the wardrobe-it sounded wet-and she slid away, torch and attention still fixed on the face.

Those eyes so probing so harsh so knowing!

“Dana?” Holden called from above. Footsteps rang on the stairs and timber creaked, and it sounded as if his voice and steps were coming in from a great distance, not just twenty feet away. Even as she realized that the glaring face was a portrait she was willing Holden to her, and hoping he would make the journey in safety.

Weird idea, she thought, and then Holden was by her side, holding her arm and looking at the portrait as well. It was actually a daguerreotype, she saw, of a young woman maybe fifteen years old. Her clothes were turn-of-the-century, and she stared with a grimness that typified portraiture of the time.

“You okay?” Holden asked. More clattering and creaking, and the others arrived behind him, even Curt looking concerned. Changed his tune, she thought. “Yeah. Sorry. I just… scared myself. It was stupid.”

“You called for help,” Curt said. “Voids the dare. Take your top off.”

Marty struck a match and lit an old oil lantern hanging on the wall, adjusting it so that the flame burned bright. It smoked for the first few seconds, burning off oil that had been coagulating for years, and then the orange light diffused through the room.

The others all gasped, and Dana caught her breath.

It’s even more amazing than I thought.

“Oh my God,” Holden muttered.

The basement occupied at least the floor area of the cabin above, perhaps more, and every dark corner seemed to be filled with creepy clutter.

“Look at all this,” Jules said, and she was the first to slowly start examining the piles of stuff.

“Uh, guys,” Marty said, “I’m not sure it’s awesome to be down here.” He stood at the bottom of the staircase, the oil lamp back on the hook beside him, and he looked as if he’d be darting back upstairs at the slightest provocation.

But the others weren’t paying any attention. Jules and Curt were off on their own, each focusing on different parts of the basement, and Holden still stood beside Dana, peering around in wonder. He took a step and picked up an ornate music box from the pile of children’s toys. Removing his glasses from his pocket and slipping them on, he turned the box this way and that before pausing, seemingly holding his breath.

“Dude, seriously, your cousin’s into some weird shit.” Curt was across the basement holding a conch shell in his hands, turning it this way and that, and he brought it halfway to his ear-You can hear the sea if you press an old shell to your ear-before changing his mind and quickly putting it back down. He picked up a melon-sized wooden sphere that lay behind it. It was inlaid with dusty brass rings and lined with angular joints, and he turned it in his hands as if trying to find a way in.

“Pretty sure this ain’t his,” he said. “Maybe the people who put in that window… ”

Dana couldn’t take her eyes off the portrait of the girl. It was propped on a hardwood stand, and a black sheet hung over the portrait’s frame as if it had once been concealed from view. On the small vanity table that stood before it was a variety of personal effects: an old hairbrush; a silver mirror; and a leather-bound book. “Some of this stuff looks really old,” she said. “Look at this,” Jules said. She had moved across to the dressmaker’s mannequin, less spooky in the lamplight but still strange with the unfinished garment still tight upon it. She touched something hanging around its neck, an amulet, and as she held it in her hand she said, “It’s beautiful.”

“Maybe we should go back upstairs,” Marty said. He was still standing at the bottom of the staircase, looking around nervously, hands clasped in front of him. He’s actually scared, Dana thought, and the idea disturbed her. When no one answered him he said, “I dare you all to go upstairs?” And then Marty froze, and a small smile crept through his fear.

“Oh wow, take a look at this,” he said, and he walked a few steps to where a bunch of old film reels were stacked. Beneath them was a super-8 projector, and piled beside it several small suitcase-style containers that Dana thought might contain more reels. The plinth they stood on was circular and built up of regular stones, its tabletop a board of thick, roughly cut wood. It looked like an old capped well.

Dana frowned, wondering what a well was doing in the basement of a house; or rather, why a cabin would be built around a well.

Marty plucked a reel from its rack and started examining it.