by Amy Cross
She waited for a reply, but after a moment Marit simply started shaking her head.
“What, then?” Anna asked. “Hey, seriously, you're starting to freak me out a little.” Spotting movement nearby, she turned and saw that Jennifer was storming into the cabin, leaving an exasperated Christian to turn and head back to the barbecue. When she turned back to look at Marit, Anna found that her friend was staring at her again.
“There's this video,” Marit explained. “I haven't seen it, okay, and I don't want to see it, but there are people who swear the girl in it is... Karen.”
“A video?” Anna asked, starting to wonder if she really wanted to know. “Well...” She took a deep breath. “What kind of video?”
“The worst kind.”
“What could -” Freezing for a moment, Anna began to understand, even though she didn't want to believe that such a thing was possible. “Like... Bad stuff being done to her? Bad, bad stuff?”
“Real bad stuff,” Marit replied, staring at her with wide, unblinking eyes. “It's not even on the internet, it's on, like, the other internet, the dark one that most people don't go on. If it exists at all, I mean. Not many people have seen it, 'cause apparently it's, like, really rare and people pay a lot of money to get a copy. From what I heard, it costs thousands of kroner to watch it just once, and there's all this technology that means it self-destructs after it's been seen. The people who sell this type of thing don't mess around, so the video has become, like, the holy grail of sick, messed-up shit.”
“That's insane,” Anna replied, feeling another shiver running up her spine.
“Totally, but... I'm just telling you what I heard.”
“So what exactly happens in this video?” Anna asked.
“I don't even want to know. All I heard is that it's about two hours long, and it was filmed over several days while she was being...” Marit's voice trailed off for a moment. “Apparently it's, like, one of the most disturbing videos you could ever see. This guy who knew someone who knew someone who said he'd seen it, he said the sound alone is enough to give you goddamn nightmares for the rest of your life. It's, like, the camera doesn't flinch from anything, it's just this total, sustained torture and murder of this poor girl in graphic detail. The whole thing has become kind of an urban legend except... Except people swear it's real. The police tried to look into it for a while but it's so super secret, they couldn't find a copy so they decided it was just made up. But people who know about this kind of thing? They swear it's out there.”
The two of them sat in silence for a moment, before there was a sudden thud and a crackle of sparks as Christian tossed a couple more logs onto the fire next to them.
“Not interrupting, am I?” he asked, keeping his eyes fixed on Anna.
“We're talking,” Marit snapped.
“Fine,” he replied, smiling as he turned and headed back to the barbecue. “I didn't want to join in, anyway.”
“That's really horrible,” Anna said after a moment. “I mean, I'd heard about those kinds of video before, but I didn't think they were really real. I thought they were just something people talked about to scare themselves.”
“It's like..” Marit paused, before sighing again and looking down at her bottle. She muttered something under her breath in Norwegian, as if she was frustrated. Just as at the lake earlier, there were tears in her eyes.
“So why...” Anna wasn't really sure she wanted to know any more, but she realized her mind would be racing with questions if she just left it alone. “So why were you guys talking about this Karen girl today?” she asked finally, feeling a tightening sense of anticipation in her chest. “Is it just because she came from not far away, or did something happen? Is there something you're not telling me?”
She waited for an answer, but Marit had started to peel the label off her beer bottle, and Anna knew she only did that when she was really nervous.
“Marit? Why do -”
“This guy who saw a clip,” Marit said suddenly, looking at her again as tears trickled from her eyes, “like, a clip from the video, I mean he might be full of crap but I don't think so, he said...” She took a deep breath as a couple more tears rolled down her cheek. “He said he thought he recognized the room where the stuff with Karen was filmed.”
“And?” Anna asked. “So...”
She stopped suddenly as she realized that Marit was staring at her with an expression of pure dread. Finally, slowly, they both turned at the same time and looked up at the dark cabin, which loomed over them unlit against a backdrop of pine trees beneath the night sky.
“Are you serious?” Anna whispered, her voice trembling with fear. “No way.”
“It's what he said,” Marit replied. “This guy was some friend of Joe and Jennifer's, and he'd been to the cabin a few times with them. Anyway, he saw part of the video and he swore he recognized...” She took a deep breath, as if she was about to burst into tears again. “He swore he recognized one of the upstairs rooms, he said there was no doubt about it. The police came and took a look around but, like I said, they figured the whole thing was just a lie. The guy had no proof, and he already had a bit of a reputation as a jackass so...”
They sat in silence for a moment.
“What do you think?” Anna asked finally, still watching the cabin's dark windows. “Do you think Karen Lund was murdered here?”
“I don't know, dude,” Marit replied. “I think there's some dark stuff that goes on in the world. Like, darker than any of us want to admit. To be honest, I wasn't super cool on coming up here this week at all, but I told myself not to be a pussy and to just get on with things, and that I'd feel okay once we arrived.” She paused, as if she was close to breaking down into sobs. “What I keep thinking is that if there was any truth to it at all, the cops would have been all over the damn thing. I mean, they're not idiots, are they? If they didn't find anything, that means there was nothing to find. We have to trust them.” She paused again, before sighing and raising her beer bottle, downing the contents in one. After a moment, she set the bottle aside and let out a loud burp. “God, I wish I was kidding you right now.”
“It's probably nothing,” Anna said, forcing a smile. “It's not possible for something like that to have happened without the police finding out. The whole thing must be an urban legend. There's no way some evil death video was filmed out here.”
She waited for a reply, but she could tell from the look in Marit's eyes that there was still a sliver of doubt. After a moment, she turned and looked out toward the pitch black forest, and for the first time since arriving at the cabin she felt a little cold, as if a breeze was blowing between the trees, reaching out from the darkness to brush its fingers against her bare shoulders and send a shiver running through her chest.
“And now,” Marit said finally, “I need to get really, utterly wasted. Like, oblivion-level drunk. It's party time!”
Chapter Four
Silence. And then not silence for a moment, and then silence again.
Opening her eyes suddenly, Anna tried to work out what had jolted her awake. There had been a sound, something quiet but close in the darkness of the room, but it was already gone and now she couldn't remember at all.
She waited, but all she heard now was the sound of Marit snoring in the next bed. Turning, she saw that Jennifer was completely still over on the other side of the room, apparently fast asleep. Turning again, she looked toward the window, which they'd agreed to leave open on account of the hot night air, but she couldn't hear anything outside. It was as if the world beyond the cabin, with all its trees and its lake and its wild wonders, was holding its breath. Still, she was certain she had heard something a moment ago, so she rolled onto her back (the bed creaked, of course) and waited in case the sound returned.
Having spent the evening getting mildly drunk, at least by her own meager standards, she'd managed to put the whole Karen Lund story out of her mind, even as she and the others had stumbled up to bed a little
after 3am. She'd noticed Joe loitering outside the bathroom while she was washing her face, but she'd managed to slip past him quickly without risking another awkward encounter. Now, flat on her back in bed, she took a deep breath as she tried to work out why he seemed to interested. After all, she'd long ago accepted that she wasn't especially pretty, and guys never usually made such an effort to get her attention.
Checking her phone, she saw that she'd been in bed for little more than an hour, but her head was pretty clear and she was starting to feel relieved that she'd held back on the alcohol while the others had been getting drunk (Joe, Daniel and Jennifer), very drunk (Christian) and obscenely wasted (Marit). For Anna, relative sobriety had been made easier by the fact that the sun hadn't set until well after midnight, and she already -
Suddenly she heard a scratching sound next to her head, and she immediately turned to look at the wall. Sure enough, the sound seemed to be right on the other side, almost as if it was somewhere between the wooden planks that had been used to build the cabin. Since this particular wall directly overlooked the clearing, she knew there couldn't be anyone on the other side, but just to be certain she sat up and leaned over to the window, taking a moment to look out at the moonlit forest, which seemed to be bathing in its own stillness. After a moment, the scratching sound stopped and she heard it start up again a few seconds later, a little further along the wall.
“Great,” she muttered. “Mice.”
She tried to imagine little Norwegian mice scurrying through the gaps.
Just as she was about to turn away from the window, however, she realized she could hear another sound, this time coming from somewhere outside. Turning to look down at the yard, she listened to a series of slow, shuffling creaks that seemed somehow separate from the overwhelming silence of the forest. For a moment she felt certain that she was hearing footsteps, and she looked down at one of the cabin's corners, half expecting to see someone walking into view, only for the sound to stop as suddenly as it had started. She waited, but the sound didn't return and she told herself she was just being jumpy after the crazy story Marit had told her earlier. Still, she waited at the window for a few more minutes, half watching the beautiful nighttime scene and half waiting in case there was any further hint of movement, before finally telling herself to stop worrying.
“Don't be a dork,” she heard her own voice whispering in the back of her head. “This place is beautiful, not scary.”
Realizing that her throat was dry, she considered just going back to sleep before, finally, clambering out of bed and making her way across the room. She almost tripped on a pile of clothes at the foot of Jennifer's bed, and she couldn't help cursing under her breath as she made her way out to the dark corridor and then began to fumble along the wall until she reached the top of the stairs. Unable to find a light-switch, she took care not to fall as she tried to find the bannister, and then she began to carefully make her way down to the hallway, where moonlight was streaming through one of the windows and illuminating a pair of antlers on the wall. If she'd ever needed to be reminded that she was far from home, those antlers sure did the trick.
“Welcome to Norway,” she whispered with a smile, still struggling to find her way through the darkness. Running her hands along the wall, she felt numerous framed photos but still no light-switch. A moment later, her fingers brushed against something long and hard, and she realized it was the rifle she'd noticed earlier, which she assumed (and hoped) wasn't loaded. After a few more steps she found the door to the kitchen and slipped through, determined that this time at least she'd be able to switch on the lights. Still, there seemed to be no panel on the wall, so she turned and made her way carefully toward the sink over by the window, desperately trying to make sure she didn't clatter into anything and wake the whole cabin.
And then she heard a brief, faint beeping sound coming from the far side of the room.
Turning, she saw a small red light in the darkness, and a moment later she realized she could hear someone moving. A fraction of a second after that, the ceiling light flickered into life and she saw to her surprise that Daniel was sitting at the table, aiming a video camera at her.
“Hey,” she stammered, feeling as if she was in the spotlight, “I... I came to get some water.”
She waited for a reply, but he simply kept his eyes fixed on the viewfinder.
“Are you...” She paused, staring at the lens. “I...”
She waited again.
“Are you okay?” she asked finally.
“Sorry,” he said after a moment, slowly turning the camera toward the window, “I didn't mean to freak you out. I couldn't sleep.”
“That's cool.” She paused, before heading over to the sink and grabbing a glass. As she poured herself a drink, she couldn't help glancing back at Daniel and watching for a moment as he used a screwdriver to fiddle with something on the camera's side.
“Art project,” he said finally, keeping his attention fixed on his work.
“I'm sorry?”
“It's for an art project,” he continued, setting the screwdriver aside and then easing a panel off the back of the camera. “I want to enter something in this big autumn art exhibition in Oslo, and I was thinking of doing some time-lapse work out here. Of course, the damn camera had to choose this particular moment to start acting up. I swear, it's been fine all summer and then as soon as we get up here and I actually need it to work...” He sighed, and after a moment he turned to her. “You don't know anything about cameras, do you? About the technical side, I mean.”
Stepping closer, she shook her head. “Are you sure you took the lens cap off?”
“Yes, I'm -” He paused, before smiling. “Yes, I'm sure.”
“Then I'm all out of ideas,” she told him, stopping on the other side of the table. “Why were you working in the dark?”
“I was trying out the night-light,” he replied. “For some reason, that works fine but the normal setting just produces a blank screen. I thought I'd try opening her up to see what's wrong, but I don't think I've got much of a chance. Of course, if I could go online, that might help, but good luck getting any cellphone reception up here.” He turned to her. “You haven't got any coverage, have you?”
She shook her head.
“Figures,” he muttered. “Sometimes I actually wouldn't mind a touch of the modern world in the middle of the wilderness, it'd make me feel more -”
Before he could finish, they both heard a firm bumping sound outside, almost as if someone had fallen in the yard.
“Is everyone else in bed?” Anna asked cautiously.
“It's probably nothing,” Daniel replied, setting the camera down and then switching off the main light, plunging them into darkness before brushing past her and heading over to the window. He paused for a few seconds, staring out at the clearing. “Don't worry, there's zero chance of random people coming this way. We're miles from anywhere, this place isn't even on any maps.”
Making her way over to join him at the window, Anna looked out for a moment at the moonlit scene, with the remains of the barbecue and campfire still just about visible. She waited, telling herself that the sound could easily have been an animal or maybe even some semi-burned logs collapsing in the ashes of the fire, but she couldn't help glancing at the dark trees and watching in case there was any hint of movement. Having never been in such a remote place before, she was starting to realize that years of living in London had trained her brain to always expect company. It was as if she couldn't quite believe that there was no-one else around for miles.
“So,” Daniel said finally, “I heard Marit was filling your head with nonsense earlier tonight.”
She turned to him, barely able to see him in the darkness. “Nonsense?”
“About Karen Lund. The girl who went missing around here.”
“Oh.” She paused. “Yeah, she mentioned something about it. The way she -”
“It's garbage,” he said firmly, interrupting her. “I d
on't know what the hell happened to Karen Lund, I'm sure it's tragic, but she sure as hell didn't end up getting filmed and murdered in this cabin. Marit's a cool girl sometimes, but she loves telling ghost stories and trying to freak everyone out. She takes rumors and gossip and runs with them, creating all these elaborate fantasies about things that couldn't possibly have happened. If you ask me, she should get herself a proper hobby.”
“It wasn't exactly a ghost story,” Anna pointed out, “it was just... She said some guy -”
“There was no guy,” he continued, interrupting her again. “It's all in her head. You know how these things spread, right? Idiots like Marit actually ended up spewing out so many fake rumors, the cops came to check the cabin out a couple of years ago. Do you know what they found?”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing. I don't know what the police are like in England, but they're pretty smart in Norway. They even found a copy of the supposed Karen Lund movie and analyzed it, and they proved it was a fake. It was just something a bunch of dumb-asses whipped up for a prank.”
“They did?” Anna frowned. “Marit said -”
“Marit says a lot of things,” he added, “and with the best will in the world, almost all of it is -” Suddenly he leaned closer to the window. “There!”
Turning, Anna was just in time to see a dark shape flashing across the yard, heading toward the trees.
“Damn it,” Daniel hissed, pulling the door open and racing out onto the porch, before hurrying down the stairs. He was muttering something in Norwegian now, and he sounded extremely annoyed.
Not knowing how to respond, Anna hesitated for a moment before following him, and when she caught up she found he was standing next to a pile of garbage that had been pulled out from a black sack. Beer cans, food wrappers and paper plates were strewn everywhere, bathed in moonlight.
