The Cabin in the Woods

“She’s gone,” he said, remembering something terrible. “We gotta get out of here!” He started toward the corridor leading to the back of the cabin. “There’s a window back here, we go through there, into the woods, run like fuck and-”

“No!” Dana said. “Wait!” This was madness. She knew she should listen to Curt and Marty, but she… wanted to open…

I need to see for myself.

She reached for the front door, turned the handle and started to pull it open.

“Dana, don’t open that!” Marty shouted. She had never heard Marty shout before, and in a way that scared her more than anything. Marty losing control was just not right.

“I’m not leaving here without Jules,” she said. And it was that simple. She swung the door open.

Standing on the porch, framed by the doorway, was the biggest, deadest man she had ever seen.

“Big-zombie,” Curt whispered, saying it like one word, as if he’d already had cause to name this thing.

The huge man-big-zombie-stared for a few seconds, and no one reacted. His eyes are rotten things, Dana thought, and then she noticed that he was holding something in his right hand. It didn’t register for a moment what it was, but perhaps that was only because of the blood. Then he threw it at Dana, she caught it, felt the wetness, the tangle of blood-and gore-knotted hair, blonde hair… and she looked down into Jules’s battered face.

Jules, her face, her head, it’s heavy, her eyes, she’s damaged… she’s bruised her eye, it’s sore, and her lovely lovely hair, very fabulous, no? No longer fabulous because of the blood and leaves and…

She screamed and dropped the head. It seemed to fall in slow motion, and if seemed as if her own scream was issuing from the grotesquely open mouth, turning as it fell so that Jules’s accusing eyes focused on the shape blocking the doorway. The head bounced from her foot and rolled back toward the door, and then big-zombie kicked it back into the room as he took a lumbering step forward.

He’s going to get in and-Dana thought, but Holden’s fear galvanized him. He dove forward, balance unsettled but using his momentum to shoulder into the door, his right foot tangling in Jules’s hair and swinging her head across the floor in a blood-smearing arc. He slammed the door shut again, falling against it just as the thing smashed into it, rattling the frame, splintering wood.

Holden slipped the bolts and fell back, kicking his foot frantically to dislodge it from the head’s hair.

Big-zombie slammed into the door again. Timber splintered and fell away from the frame, and Dana actually heard the creak of bending metal as the bolt warped under the immense pressure.

A few more like that… she thought, and then Marty was at the door with Holden, helping him throw the top and bottom bolts as well. They wouldn’t hold for long, but perhaps they’d give them some time to-

She saw her friend’s head from the corner of her eye. Jules was staring at her. Dana sucked in a few deep breaths to try and calm herself, but all they did was feed the scream building in her lungs once again. Holden and Marty leaned against the door, grimacing with each impact. The air in the room seemed to vibrate every time big-zombie struck.

Dust was in the air, and most dust is human skin, and the scream was coming.

She opened her mouth-

“Dana! C’mon!” She turned away from Jules, and Curt had heaved the couch over onto its back. He was trying to shove it across the timber floor to pile it behind the door, and in his grimace of effort she saw the first glimmer of madness. His eyes kept flickering to Jules’s head, and the blood still glistening around his right eye emphasized its size and deepness.

He’s losing it, Dana thought, and she swallowed her scream.

They pushed together, neither commenting when the couch knocked the head aside. Marty and Holden pulled back at the last moment, and Dana and Curt shoved the couch until it was wedged just beneath the doorknob. Flush with the wall and door, it would provide some small measure of barrier.

But not for long.

Wham! Big-zombie struck again, and the whole cabin seemed to shake and creak. More dust drifted down from the ceiling, hazing the air and dancing in candlelight. Five minutes ago this light was so romantic, Dana thought. She glanced at Holden, he threw her an uncertain smile, and she realized how shocked they all were.

Fisting her hands, she felt the tackiness of Jules’s blood between her fingers and on her palms.

“What is that thing?” she cried.

“I don’t know,” Curt said. “But there’s more of them.”

“More of them?” she asked, glancing at Marty.

He nodded.