The Cabin in the Woods (23 page)

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.

She breathed in and tasted Holden’s mysterious, lightly spiced breath; glanced at the treeline to her left and saw Curt’s eyes peering over the trees, blood on his temple and cheek, confident smile on his face as he revved the dirt-bike; moved her hands across the rough, dry wood and felt the warmth of Jules’s blood on her skin. And Marty, dragged off and killed; sweet innocent Marty who’d had a crush on her which she had never truly acknowledged. She had enough memories for
a million nightmares. If she could only keep them at bay a little while longer, she might have a chance to get away from here.

Through the woods,
she thought. As
far and fast as I can. Or back to the tunnel, see if I can climb up and over the mountain or down and across the ravine.
Or... or... and what she’d said to Holden echoed back to her now, about how there would always be something in their way. Or someone. The puppeteers would see to that.

But by not giving in and drowning to steal Buckner’s bloody victory from him, she had decided to fight those fucking puppeteers. And she would continue to fight them, every step of the way.

Her breathing became more regular, her determination grew. She saw a point of light moving slowly above her and thought perhaps it was a satellite. Her paranoia rich and hot, she gave it the finger.

Something smashed into the wooden dock right beside her head. The impact thumped into her skull, the noise shocking, her hair flicking up, a breath of displaced air giving her ear an intimate caress. She sat up and turned onto her hands and knees, ready to leap aside, and saw Matthew looming over her. The crowbar was still sticking through his face.

“Come on then, fucker!” she shouted, and found that she was hardly surprised. But terrified, she realized that she’d wet herself with fear. And that made her fury grow into something blazingly hot. “Come on, come on, come
on
!”

He came.

TEN

S
itterson worked the room.

He could see the glances he was getting and they made him smile, but only slightly. If he beamed they’d see him reveling in his success. He wanted to be more aloof than that. Just a
little
more. That way they’d all find him more interesting, and there were a few women in here he’d never tried it on with yet. He always liked to end these events with a blow job at least, and up to now he had an unbroken record.

Today, buoyed by his vague celebrity status after the close call and his rapid thinking, he’d set himself a much higher target. And there she was, Lin, standing over by the opened mahogany panels and actually leaning against the last closed one, as if she was ready to pull the lever herself. She chatted with a male colleague without smiling. There was another drink in her hand. And by the end of the day, Sitterson wanted her writhing beneath him with her tight hair
released over a plump, fresh pillow.

“Oh, yeah,” he said softly, taking another drink of tequila and glancing around the room. People from other departments had trickled in, most of them bearing drinks, food, and a readiness to celebrate their success. The atmosphere was relaxed and jovial, but Sitterson had been here long enough to sense the air of underlying hysterical relief that most people still exuded. Laughter was a little too loud and free, drinks were drunk just a little too quickly, and there was a sexual tension in the air that would undoubtedly be drawn upon before the day was over.

He remembered the evening after his first time. He’d started in Story, and following their first scenario the party had been hard and fast, like this one, and so had the woman he’d met from Admin. She’d been giving him head in a restroom, sucking like he was the last man alive, when someone from Control walked in on them. Sitterson had frozen, expecting reprimands and instant dismissal. But the woman had just smiled softly and backed out, and the Admin girl had barely missed a stroke.

There was something animal and desperate about that act, which he sensed in the air here and now, and he knew that what they did took them all back to basics. The present existed only because of what they had done today.

It was live or die, and what better way to celebrate surviving than with sex.

On the big screens the Virgin was fighting for her life
with the Matthew Buckner zombie. Sitterson watched for a moment, then looked away, across the crowd. No one else seemed particularly interested, but he knew it was something far deeper than that. It didn’t
matter
now whether the Virgin lived or died, and everyone in this room dealt with stuff that mattered. They no longer had control over her fate, nor did they need to.

Hadley might well be rooting for her, and perhaps some of the others too—hell, even Sitterson thought she was cute—but his internal defense mechanism was raised again. He saw her crying and screaming, he saw the monstrous zombie trying to kill her.

But now, it was all just a movie.

Truman was still watching. Of course. Eyes wide, mouth slightly open as he attached import to the girl’s life. But he’d learn soon enough.

Hadley was talking with a guy from Story and a woman from Accounts. Sitterson strolled over to hear their conversation.

“I wish I could do what you guys do,” the Accounts woman said. “It’s masterful.”

“It was good,” Hadley nodded. “It was solid.”

“Are you kidding?” the Story guy gushed. “Classic
denouement.
When the van hit the lake?” He raised his hands as if to say,
What could be better?
He was reveling in the woman’s adulation.

“Hell,
I
screamed!” Accounts said.

“Right?” Story acknowledged.

“The zombie, the water rushing in...”

“That’s
primal
terror,” Story said, as if he had
invented the concept. Sitterson thought he was being a dick; he hadn’t come up with the whole scenario on his own, after all. In fact Sitterson himself had created the van-in-the-lake idea years ago, during his own time in Story

But for now, he’d let the dick have his glory.

“Woulda been cooler with a merman,” Hadley said, sounding almost wistful. He smiled at Sitterson, who laughed softly and shook his head as he strolled away.

Nodding to some people, shaking the hands of others, he edged his way toward one of their military liaisons, a big major with a clichéd moustache and hands the size of small dogs. He was talking with a werewolf wrangler—redundant during this show, unfortunately, but Sitterson had seen his sterling work before—and Ronald the intern.

From the corner of his eye he caught sight of the Virgin being pummeled by the zombie.
It doesn’t matter,
he thought. It would be over soon. Nonetheless, he wished regulations allowed him to turn off the screens.

“Do you know if we made the overtime bonus on this one?” the liaison asked.

“Accounting’s right over there,” the wrangler said. “Ask them.”

“I don’t need to ask them,” the major said, “I already know the answer.”

“‘We’re accountants, and we’re full of hate?’” the wrangler mimicked.

“Exactly,” the major said, and he smiled.

His moustache’s alive,
Sitterson thought, amazed.
It must have a life of its own.
It flexed and twitched while the soldier seemed utterly motionless.

“I’m an intern,” Ronald said sadly. “I don’t qualify for overtime.”

“No big deal, Ronald,” Sitterson said. The major looked at him respectfully—moustache almost saluting—and the werewolf guy nodded a greeting. “No big deal?” Ronald asked.

“Sure. We’ve all been noticed today. You can take that to the bank.” Sitterson walked away smiling. Today had been stressful, but the outcome was good for all of them.

As he walked past a fellow from Chem, Sitterson chuckled at the guy’s efforts to get into his pretty coworker’s pants.

“Don’t worry about my eyes,” he was saying. “That’s why we have eye washes, right? And they say baking soda is good for your complexion. Anyway... it’s funny that you like the ballet, because I happened to get two tickets to... ”

The pretty woman just turned and walked away. “...your favorite...”

His voice trailed off, he looked around, embarrassed, and Sitterson made a point of pausing and smiling in his direction. The Chem guy rubbed his eyes and wandered away toward the drinks table.

And then Sitterson saw the Demolition team standing by one of the control desks. They were laughing too loudly, the desk was scattered with empty bottles, and he saw something a little too
self-congratulatory about the way they slapped each other’s backs and hugged.

He downed the rest of his tequila, smacked his lips, and sauntered over to them.

“You!” he called. “Yoouuuu! Knuckleheads almost gave me a heart attack with that tunnel!”

“That wasn’t our fault,” one of them answered, and it was the guy he’d dealt with in the Demolition control room. The woman was there, too, pouting a little now as she half-hid behind her wine glass.

“I’m just giving you a hard time,” Sitterson said. He raised an eyebrow at the woman. “C’mere you, let’s have a hug.”

She snorted, glanced around at the others, and finished her full glass in one long swig. He could see that she was already drunk, glassy-eyed, and unsteady on her feet.

“No,” the guy said.
“Seriously.
That wasn’t on us.” Something about his voice hit home a little too hard. Sitterson was enjoying ragging on them, but—

“There was an unauthorized power re-route from upstairs,” the woman said, blinking in surprise at her empty glass.

Sitterson frowned. Then he went cold.

“What do you mean,
upstairs
?”

And then a shrill, loud, ringing sound shattered the atmosphere of the place, all within a split second. They all knew what it was, though they had never heard it for real. Perhaps it haunted some of their dreams, and played the theme of their nightmares.
Sitterson closed his eyes, trying to hold onto that air of success for just one more second, and then looked at the phone.

It was a single telephone, sitting in an alcove at the back of Control, close to where the mahogany covers had shielded the levers and their apparatus from view. Red, an old-fashioned analogue phone with a silver metal dial, its shrill ringing came from a bell within the solid plastic casing.

The alcove echoed its call, and between each of the rings the jaunty lilt of dance music still filled the room.

Sitterson locked eyes with Hadley. They both saw each other’s fear. And then Hadley walked quickly across the room to answer the call.

“Turn that fucking music off!” he snapped. As his hand rested on the receiver the music snapped off.

He took a deep breath and picked it up.

We could run,
Sitterson thought. But of course that was an utterly stupid idea. If something they’d begun was not yet finished, it was their duty to ensure that it was put right.

And there would be nowhere to run.

“Hello,” Hadley said. All eyes on him. He listened for a few seconds. Then, “That’s impossible! Everything was within guidelines and the Virgin is the only—” He winced. “No, no, of course I’m not doubting you. It’s just—”

Hadley’s face fell and he looked over the heads of the assembled observers, back at the large viewing screens.

What are we going to see?
Sitterson wondered.
The drink in his hand felt warm and sickly, and he noticed others putting down their bottles and plastic cups. Maybe they all sensed the work they still had left to do.

And then Hadley said something which Sitterson had guessed anyway, and there was no longer cause for celebration.

“Which one?”

He turned to follow his friend’s gaze.

Suddenly he was rooting for the Virgin like never before.

•••

She jumped aside one more time as Matthew swung the broken bear trap. It was easy enough to dodge— however hard he swung it, she had at least a second to judge its passage and eventual impact point—but doing so was rapidly tiring her out. And each time she concentrated on the swinging trap, Matthew’s other hand lashed out and caught her across the shoulder, chest, cheek.

Several times now she’d almost backed up and jumped into the lake again, but she knew if she did that she’d die for sure. If she didn’t drown from exhaustion, Father Buckner would grab her and haul her down. He was still below the surface, she knew. Still down there somewhere, stalking the lake bottom, looking up, perhaps even seeing the blurry starlit struggle on the wooden dock.
He was waiting.

She ducked to one side and felt the trap
whoosh
down past her ear. It snagged her jeans and tore them, scoring a cut on her ankle before embedding itself in the dock. She tried to jump sideways to avoid the zombie’s other hand, but it caught her across the nose this time, sending a flash of bloody hot pain through her head. Her vision swam, her whole face caught fire, and it was all she could do to retain her footing on the shattered, splintered dock.

Dana couldn’t run past him because he was too big. She couldn’t fight him because she had no weapons— besides, the crowbar through his face proved that fighting wasn’t even an issue. And there was nowhere else to go.

Fuck you fuck you fuck you,
she thought, part of it directed at the zombie but most at the unseen puppeteers she was convinced were steering him. Whether or not they watched her now, she was determined not to give them the satisfaction.