The Cabin in the Woods

by Tim Lebbon

  Now Dana started kicking at the door’s wooden panels, aiming the heels of her trainers at the corners. The feel and sound of each kick was all wrong, as if the wood was simply a veneer, and beneath lay something solid, like metal. She felt panic starting to well up— Keep calm, calm, I’ve come this far—

  —and then the dresser tilted against the bed, scraping it across the floor with its leaning weight, and around the side of the dresser she saw Mother’s gray weathered hand clasping at the room’s air.

  Dana had to make a quick choice: stay and fight with the door, hoping she could get out before Mother got in; or try to kill the zombie before it killed her. How the fuck do you kill a zombie? she wondered, and a hundred images from a hundred horror movies flashed across her mind. Destroy their heads, destroy their brains, burn them, decapitate them, take off their arms and legs and they’ll still come at you, jawing themselves along the ground in their search for your flesh, your heart, your braaaainnnns.

  She plucked up a bedside lamp and, as Mother peered from behind the leaning dresser, smashed it across her face. The zombie barely seemed to notice. She looked at Dana and continued working her way from behind the tilted furniture, two hands free now, torso, and one leg lifted clear and planted against the bed, ready to kick up and launch herself through the air.

  Dana backed against the wall, because she was out of options. She closed her eyes briefly and thought of Jules, and wondered how much it would hurt.

  Something thumped with a loud impact, and a shower of glass scraped across her shoulder and past her face. She gasped and jumped, looked down, and saw the bizarre hunting picture, face up on the floor. Then she heard Holden’s gasps and grunts.

  She pulled back a little and he knocked out the rest of the glass from the one-way mirror, using a lamp base as an impromptu club. He didn’t smile when he saw her, only looked past her at Mother. From his room Dana could hear thumping, as well, but there were no zombies in there.

  Not yet.

  She let out an explosive sob and Holden looked at her at last, offering a brief smile. “My door’s stuck,” he said.

  “Mine too!”

  “Come on.” He held out his hand and Dana took it, and as she climbed through into his room she expected to feel Mother’s hand clasping her ankle at any moment, the skin cold and rough, the strength impossible. But she fell through onto Holden’s floor, wincing as errant glass shards sliced her scalp and scratched across the bridge of her nose. Holden slipped on something and went down with her, and for a moment they were close and she could taste the panic on his breath.

  She checked out his room and saw the pile of furniture stacked against his own window.

  “That didn’t do much good for—” she began, and his wardrobe tilted inward and crashed to the floor. It threw up clouds of dust and shook the floorboards, and as she and Holden helped each other up she saw big-zombie standing in the shattered window frame.

  “That’ll be Matthew,” she said, and giving the thing a name seemed almost stupid enough to laugh. Almost.

  “Well he’s big enough to—”

  “The bed!” Dana said. And as Holden tipped it on its end and she helped him shove it against the window, she knew that it was futile. Matthew thumped at the mattress as they pushed it close, and she thought he was perhaps being playful, like a cat knocking a mouse around with only a shred of its full strength before killing it.

  They leaned against the upended bed, looking at each other, and the sense of hopelessness was shattering. I haven’t even had a chance to take a breath, she thought, and for a moment she almost kissed him. But that, too, would have felt so stupid, and so final.

  So instead she looked around for something else they could use—as a weapon, or to help secure the bed against the wall—and that was when she saw the trapdoor.

  “Er... Holden,” she said, nodding to the side. It had been hidden beneath the bed up to now, and already she was thinking of all the stuff down there in the basement that they could use as weapons. Those tools, the chains, maybe even something from Roberto the Limbless Man’s circus. And all the other stuff, the weird stuff.

  That picture of Patience staring with dead eyes...

  Mother appeared at the shattered mirror. She stood there for a moment, hands clasping at the jagged glass still stuck in the frame’s sill, staring in at them. Don’t let her smile, Dana thought. I don’t think I could handle a smile.

  But Mother did not smile. She started to climb instead, clumsily trying to shove one leg and her head through the small gap at the same time. It wouldn’t take her long to figure it out.

  “Go,” Holden whispered, and Dana went to the trapdoor. She grabbed the small rusted handle set in one edge and pulled, fearing it would be jammed tight, and falling back in surprise as it swung up and open without even a squeak from the hinges.

  Oiled recently, she thought. There was nothing but blackness below, and the smell of age. She looked up at Holden.

  “Better or worse, you think?” she asked.

  “Lamp,” he said, nodding at the small table beside where his bed used to be. It was still plugged in, so Dana leaned out and grabbed its shade, glancing back over her shoulder as she did so. Mother now had both legs over the mirror’s sill and was trying to press her head through, as well, straggly hair caught on glass shards above. She was growling and keening.

  Dana lowered the lamp, holding the cord and letting it dangle when it reached its extreme. She leaned down and looked into the basement. It was empty, just a dirt-floored space below the room. Maybe it connected to the main area they’d been in, somehow, or maybe not, but right then it seemed not to matter. She didn’t think they had any choice.

  “It’s empty,” she announced.

  Holden shoved the bed into place one last time, glanced across at Mother still struggling at the smashed hole in the wall, then moved to his door.

  “Curt!” he shouted. “Curt!”

  Moments later the door knob twisted left and right, the door not moving at all. “Unlock your door!” Curt called, and Dana never thought she’d be so glad to hear his voice.

  “I can’t, it’s locked!” Holden shouted. “Got Dana in with me. Get down to the basement, we’ve got a way down from here!”

  “Okay!” Curt called, and Dana saw the doorknob fall still as he let go. Holden took a quick look down into the barely-lit blackness, sat on the edge and tipped forward, holding the floor and flipping himself over to land on his feet. For a moment Dana was left alone in his room, Mother halfway through the jagged mirror and forcing herself past the remaining spears of glass, and Matthew shoving at the bed, its metal frame scoring the timber floor as it shifted with each impact.

  Then Holden called to her and she sat at the trapdoor’s edge, easing herself down into his arms.

  It was suddenly quiet in that dark part of the basement, as if the noise from above was meant only for the bedroom. She heard Holden’s breathing and felt his thumping heart next to her own, and he was holding her tight even though her feet were on the floor. She was glad. And then she looked around and saw why he was holding her, and knew they had made a terrible mistake.

  The only light was from the lamp still dangling to their left, and it was barely bright enough to illuminate the whole room. But it showed them enough.

  It was a torture chamber. A chair stood against one wall, fixed with rough metal clamps to the wall and floor. Thick leather straps protruded stiffly from the arms and legs. Chains and shackles hung from metal rings in the floor joists that made up the low ceiling. Several chains ended in cruel hooks, and others bore manacles, some of them set swinging by the sudden invasion of this place. The chair’s seat seemed stained dark, though that might have been the light. Against one wall stood a table, and on the table was a vast array of terrible, brutal tools and implements of pain. Saws, hammers, hooks, knives, chains, wooden stakes, pliers, branding irons, axes, cleavers, nails, bolts. A fine film of dust lay over everything, blunting the kn
ives and dulling the intended use of some instruments, yet the small underground room seemed to echo with the horrors it had seen.

  “This is the Black Room,” Dana whispered. “What?” Holden asked.

  “From the diary. Remember? This is where he killed them.” She was shaking now, not cold but terrified, because everything was coming together. Guilt made her feel sick, and the fear of what was to come strove to empty her of hope. “This is where he kills us.”

  “What are you talking about?” Holden asked. “This is just some sicko’s—”

  “I brought us here,” she whispered, and the weight of responsibility was crushing. She could hardly breathe, thinking of Jules’s head in her hands. Her vision swam as she replayed Marty’s screams. “I found the diary, read from it, conjured them, and... you’re all gonna die because of me.”

  Holden grabbed her upper arms and shook slightly until she looked at him. So strong, so solid, so there, even behind his fear she saw determination and strength. For a second she almost let it make her feel better.

  “Nobody did this,” he said. “Okay, it’s bad luck. Horrible fucking luck. But I’m not gonna die and neither are you. We just gotta find the door.” “There isn’t one,” she whispered, and even though she hadn’t looked she knew she was right. This wasn’t part of the basement. It was a different place, and the distance between here and Holden’s bedroom above seemed endless.

  He glanced around, and Dana watched him searching for the door. Bet he wishes he’d never tagged along now, she thought, but she couldn’t even smile. He turned back to her and nodded.

  “Yeah. Nothing obvious. But there must be something in the wall. Just look.”

  His optimism shook her a little, and she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  Maybe he’s right, she thought. Maybe we can’t just give in. And she moved to the table. She didn’t want to spend too long looking at the tools and dwelling on their uses, so she picked up something that looked like a small crowbar and started running it along the walls, tapping. She listed to the sounds it made to see if they changed—anything that might indicate an alternative material in the construction could mean something different beyond.

  She tapped and tapped, but found nothing.

  “Curt?” she shouted. If he’d made it down into the basement by now, perhaps he was on the other side of one of these walls. She concentrated, trying to position herself in relation to the outside wall of the cabin, but the geography of the room above them had become confused.

  One or both of them will be down here soon, she thought, and the seconds seemed to tick away like memories of her life.

  “Anything?” Holden asked.

  Dana shook her head.

  “No.”

  He crossed the room toward her. He’d been tapping, too, and she saw a shadow fall over his face even though he tried to fight away his own desperation. He’s doing it for me, she realized. He’ll never say it’s hopeless.

  “Hidden rooms were a staple of post-civil war architecture,” Holden said. “There’s gotta be a—” And when he was directly below the trapdoor a shadow swung in, a spiked metal smile on the end of a long chain, catching him beneath the left arm and across the back of his shoulder.

  Holden’s eyes went wide and he screamed.

  Dana reached for him as the slack chain tightened and he was lifted from the floor. He swung a little as his feet left the dirt and knocked her back, and she clasped his hands and pulled. Above and behind him she saw up through the trapdoor where Matthew’s huge shadow loomed, shoulders flexing and arms working as he pulled. The rusted teeth of the bear trap were embedded, it was only going to take a couple of seconds to haul Holden from the basement room, and then...

  And then there’ll just be me, Dana thought. She did not want to die alone.

  She tugged at Holden’s hands, knowing that each movement would be jarring those cruel metal teeth gripped within his flesh. But if she let the zombie drag him up and out he was finished, and Holden knew this as well.

  Teeth gritted and bared he jerked his shoulders, stretching forward to help Dana each time she tugged. On their third try the shadow above them slipped and fell forward, and Holden dropped to the floor.

  Matthew’s girth lodged him in the trapdoor, his upper body hanging in the basement, hands still reaching for Holden where he’d fallen. The lamp swung wildly beside him, and the shifting light danced shadows across his face, almost as if he had expression. But there was no expression there. He moaned slightly, but that was the only sign of effort as he twisted and turned, futilely reaching for his prey.

  Holden had managed to tug the broken bear trap away from his back, dropping it to the floor and slumping over weakly, when one of Matthew’s questing hands snagged a fold of his ripped pullover. Holden’s eyes went wide as he was snatched backward, and Matthew hissed in triumph.

  “You like pain?” Dana asked. She stepped around Holden and stabbed hard with the crowbar. It punctured Matthew’s face amidst the remains of his nose, driving him against the wall and pinning him there. Dana screamed into his face, “How’s that work for ya?”

  Holden fell free.

  Matthew’s hands grasped at the bar and started pulling, and Dana heard the sound of metal scraping against bone.

  He’s not dead, she thought, bar through his head and he’s not dead, not yet, not dead, not yet—

  She plucked a long carving knife from the torture table and stabbed at Matthew’s chest, neck, throat, face, head, hacking at him a dozen times, shaking with rage. She went for his heart, not knowing for sure that it beat; his brain, uncertain of whether he even thought in the normal sense. His hands finally swung down and he hung limp, but she kept stabbing anyway. She was furious at his lack of blood. If he’d bled, perhaps she would have felt... happier?

  She wasn’t sure; didn’t think she could ever be happy again. She buried the knife deep in his left eye and hung on, exhausted.

  “Remind me... never to piss you off,” Holden said. And through everything, Dana finally managed a smile.

  EIGHT

  Hadley was standing behind Sitterson, watching the action on the giant screens that rose before them. He’d been pacing nervously for the last couple of minutes, and Sitterson had to resist the urge to swivel in his chair and tell him to sit the hell down. Things were going to be okay. The kids were doing pretty well in comparison to other occasions, true. But they’d gone from outside to inside, and inside to down, just as was intended.

  And now that they’d got the better of the huge zombie Matthew, their defenses would be lowered for a while. They’d feel a flush of success, celebrate their resilience, rejoice in their humanity. Who knew, they might even fuck. It had happened before.

  “Oh yeah,” Hadley said. “Nothing to worry about. He looks dead... ”

  Sitterson smiled, worked at his keyboard, and turned a dial a quarter-clockwise. A graduated display on the small screen beside the dial showed a steady increase in power.

  “And what do we do when the dead guy stops moving?” Sitterson asked. He was aware of Truman standing off to their left, more enrapt than terrified now by proceedings.

  That’s good, Sitterson thought. He’s learning fast.

  He pushed the button beside the dial. The charge peaked, then purged and dropped to zero. And on the screen—

  •••

  —Dana jerked her hand back from the knife, staring at her fingers and palm. Holden could hardly blame her. The damage she’d done to that thing, that zombie, was sickening. Whatever it was now, it had once been human.

  She turned to him with a frown, hand still held out, and she was about to say something when he took her in his arms and held tight. He felt tears burning but swallowed them back. She relaxed into his embrace, her face slick with sweat and a sheen of blood down her left cheek, and he took as much comfort from the contact as she. Even the pain where her hand pressed against his injuries was refreshing, because it made him so alive.


  “You smell good,” he said, remembering their tender kisses and tentative caresses.

  “I stink of blood and sweat,” she mumbled against his neck. “Yeah. Blood. Sweat. Mmm.”

  She felt good, as well, but he didn’t need to tell her that. Her hands pressed against his back, never quite still, and she was feeling the solidity of him just as he was with her.

  “Holden...” she said, her voice quivering, and she started to shake.

  He should have comforted her. The words came to his lips but when he tried to speak they emerged as a sob, and in this silent pause when violence was no longer upon them, he felt his barriers beginning to tumble.

  “Come on,” she said, edging him toward the back of the room. “Come on.”

  The hanging shape of the slashed-up zombie was starkly illuminated by the dangling lamp, casting a horrific shadow against the far wall. His big hands almost touched the torture room’s dirt floor. The chain wrapped around his wrist bit in deep, and the half-moon curve of the broken bear trap glistened and glimmered with fresh blood.

  Holden frowned, because he wasn’t aware he’d been injured that badly. There was so much blood on there.

  “Come on,” Dana said again, “we’ve got to try and—”

  A rumble came from the wall, and for a moment Holden through it was another of those troubling earth tremors. But then he felt the vibration through his feet and heard the sound coming from a very definite direction.

  Then a section of the wall started to fold away. “Back!” he shouted, hauling Dana behind him in some deep-set belief that he should be protecting her. She’s the one who killed the zombie, he thought, and he barked a brief, mad laugh as Dana dashed to the table and brought up a heavy, curved hatchet.

  “You feint left, and I’ll get it when it goes for you,” she whispered. Holden nodded, tensed, and when the wall was fully open and the flashlight blinded him he darted to the left... straight into the thing’s arms.