The Cabin in the Woods

“And that, she did,” he said with genuine respect. Truman might never understand. The drink was a celebration, and an expression of relief. But it was also a toast to the swimming girl and her four dead friends.

“I’m actually rooting for her, believe it or not,” Hadley said. “The kid’s got spunk, which is more than-”

“This where the party’s at?” someone said. The door was wide open now, and several people were peering inside with huge grins on their faces.

“Hey, thank god,” Hadley called. “Tequila! Get in here!” The people entered-lab smocks, suits, uniforms-one of them carrying a huge bottle of tequila. The new arrivals milled and shook hands, laughed and clapped each other on the back, and even Truman smiled when a cute lab tech started chatting with him, handing him a plastic cup half-filled with booze.

Sitterson watched them all and acknowledged the congratulations that came his way, smiling when a woman flirted mildly with him, laughing when someone from Story said he should go work for them. And all the time his eyes kept flashing back to the big viewing screens that continued to show what was happening down by the cabin in the woods.

I’m actually rooting for her, Hadley had said. Sitterson was too. But he knew that her death would be slow, painful… and soon.

Somehow she found the energy needed to swim. In high school she swam for her school in the state championships, helping them streak to a win in the four-by-one-hundred meter freestyle. The year before, she’d taken part in a sponsored swim in her local river, covering three miles and raising over a thousand dollars for charity. It had always been easy for her. It had always been a pleasure.

Now it was neither.

She slapped at the water instead of slicing her hands through it, her breathing was labored, and she kept her head above the surface, afraid of what she’d see or what would see her if she turned her face beneath. The dock was close, but with every stroke she took it seemed further away than ever. The water was cold, but felt warm and slick as blood. It tasted clean and pure, but she smelled only entrails and death.

Swim, she thought, trying to give herself a regular rhythm. Swim… swim… swim…

She didn’t know if zombies could swim. She didn’t even think these were zombies, not really, not according to the pop-culture use of the word. They seemed to walk and work with intelligence, their only aim to trap and kill her and the others, and she’d seen no evidence of eating… no blood on their jaws. They wanted to kill in the most painful ways, and make them suffer, and she let out a sob as her hand struck a wooden post of the dock.

She was the last one left alive, which meant that she had suffered the most. And when they finally held her down and slashed her throat or plunged a blade into her eye, it would be the memories of her dead friends that would accompany her into death.

She hung on for a few seconds, trying to regain her strength. But her muscles were knotted and ice-cold, cramps throbbed in her calves, and the longer she hung here the less chanced she’d have of ever hauling herself out.

So she started climbing. She gasped in effort as she pulled herself from the lake, then screamed in frustration as she fell back in. She clung onto the post but it was coated in slime and moss, and her nails scored fresh trails as she was pulled below the surface. Kicking, coughing water, she pushed back up and tried again. Every time she went back under she expected to see Father Buckner advancing on her, walking across the lake’s bed and grinning, the scythe in his hand ready to part her skin as he had done to Holden-

But she wouldn’t think of Holden. Not yet. She couldn’t.

At last she pulled herself far enough up to reach onto the dock’s surface and curl her fingers in between boards. She waited there for a while, catching her breath and listening for the sounds of anything breaking surface close by, and then with one final massive effort she tugged, raised a leg, and then rolled onto her back.

Dana coughed up water and gasped as she stared at the stars. Beyond exhausted, beyond terrified, she spread her hands on the wood and relished its solidity. She was afraid to close her eyes in case she saw things she didn’t want to see in there, sights that would haunt her for the rest of her life, however long that might be. And there would be such sights.