The Cabin in the Woods

He started swinging the chain around his head, picking up momentum for the final strike.

Ching… ching… ching…

I won’t look away, she thought. I won’t close my eyes, I won’t look away, the bastards won’t get that from me.

Matthew grasped the chain’s handle with both hands, let it swing behind his back, tensed, and brought it up and over his head.

This is it, Dana thought, and as she imagined kissing Holden, she smiled.

There was a loud clunk! and Matthew jerked to a standstill. He remained motionless for a moment, staring out over the lake in surprise, instead of down at Dana. And then he stumbled backward, off balance, and fell onto the dock.

Beyond where he lay, Dana saw Marty with his bong in his hands and Matthew’s chain wrapped around it. His clothes were torn and covered in blood, and he stood arched forward as if trying to escape a pain in his back. But his breath came thick and heavy, and she saw the hatred in his eyes.

“Marty!”

“Dana, get away!”

Between them, Matthew was already getting to his feet, and Dana could see Marty’s hesitation. He tugged at the chain but it was solid. And if he let go of the bong, it would return the weapon to Matthew.

But she wasn’t about to leave.

She pried up the broken plank, standing and levering it from the last nail. It sprung up with a jolt, she reversed it so that the unbroken end was away from her, then she held it back over her shoulder.

“Hey, stinking shithead fuck-face!” she called. Matthew turned slowly to face her. “Yeah, that’s right… I know your name.” She swung the board with all her might and smashed it into his face.

The zombie fell backward from the dock and splashed into the lake.

Dana staggered past where the thing had fallen and fell into Marty, welcoming his embrace and giving one back. They both groaned and hissed from their wounds, but the contact was essential right then, a sharing of warmth and hope that drove back some of the darkness. “Marty, I thought you were-”

“Not yet. Not quite.”

“Everyone else is…”

“Yeah.” He pulled back a little and there was little of the joker left. Dana felt her friend’s blood on her hands, from open wounds in his back.

From behind them came a splash as Matthew stood close to the edge of the lake and started striding toward them. He still dragged the chain behind him.

“You lost your bong,” Dana said ruefully.

“C’mon.” Marty grabbed her hand and they ran up the shore toward the cabin.

“Where are we going?” she gasped. She didn’t want to go back in there. That was the last place they needed to go, a warren of traps and locked doors, hidden basements and stuff meant for torture.

Anywhere but there.

But Marty didn’t reply, and when they were twenty yards from the cabin the door thudded open. For a brief, mad moment Dana thought, Jules! She’s survived too, or maybe Curt, up from the ravine and not burnt nearly as badly as-

But it was Mother Buckner who emerged onto the porch, her portly frame giving her gait a monstrous sway, and that terrible saw swinging by her side.

“This way!” Marty said, steering them around toward the rear of the building. They were still holding hands. Marty squeezed tight, and she thought perhaps he needed that contact to keep going, to help him fight the pain. Because now she’d seen the hideous puncture wounds on his back, and she wasn’t sure how he was moving at all.

Marty steered them for the treeline. Passing between the first of the trees he felt resistance from Dana, and pulled harder. There was no way they could slow down or change direction. Time was of the essence. Out here was chaos, and danger, and a plan the scope and depth of which he could barely comprehend.

But there was one place they might yet survive. They had to make it to the hole into which Judah had dragged him earlier, or they’d be finished.

“Marty, wait!” Dana said, pulling back harder.

Behind them, he heard a terrible scraping sound as Mother Buckner rounded the corner of the cabin, saw dragging across the ground. It would still have wet flesh between its teeth.

“Dana, c’mon!”

Moments later they reached the hole, a dark wound in the land where Marty had been dragged and from which he had emerged again, rebirthed and enraged. It was darker than the shadows, foreboding, but he knew it was their only hope of survival.

“We’re going in there?” Dana gasped.

Marty glanced toward the sounds of the scraping saw and wet footsteps. Behind Mother Buckner, Matthew had emerged from the lake and was slogging toward them, hauling the bear trap behind him. “I need you to keep the faith right now, sister,” he said, gripping Dana’s shoulders. She frowned, and then past the hole a shape pressed through a mass of undergrowth.