The Cabin in the Woods (25 page)

“Dana. ” he said, but she was already holding him, huddled in the center of the elevator, because
they both knew what was to come. They’d seen two, and wagered that there would be many, many more.

And they were right.

On Marty’s side they saw a little girl in a ragged ballerina outfit. Her skirt was limp and torn, as if handed down from every little ballerina ever, and she had no face. In its place was a circular mouth, red-raw and ringed with vicious teeth. She stood on tiptoe and performed a surreal curtsey as they passed her by.

Next to her was a white-faced woman with smashed glass shards for hair and melting hands. She flickered at them in monochrome, flicking in and out of view as if seen on an old, old film.

On Dana’s side was revealed a tall man in a long leather coat. His skin was completely white and hairless. Across his scalp in a neat row were spinning buzz-saws, his forearms were ringed with tightly wrapped strands of barbed wire, and his teeth were spinning drill bits. He was all metal and blades, and he grinned at Dana, holding out his hand above which a strange wooden sphere flexed and warped.

“We chose,” she said softly, a note of understanding entering her voice.

“What?” Marty asked, but he was already making the connections, and they threatened to overwhelm the last dregs of sanity he had left.

I’m fine, I’m fine!
he thought, but he didn’t think that was quite true. If he was fine—if madness hadn’t touched him—he wouldn’t have been able to do all the things he’d done. He’d be up there now, dead in the
woods with Jules and Curt and Holden, not still alive down here with Dana. A little bit of madness never hurt anyone, one of his dope suppliers used to say.

In this case, maybe it had saved his life.

The elevator moved back into the shaft, sideways, down, and he readied himself for the shock of what might be revealed next.

“In the cellar,” Dana continued. “All that shit we were playing with. They made us choose. They made us choose how we die.”

“Yeah,” Marty said, remembering how nervous he’d been at the prospect of Dana reading the Latin in that little old diary. If he had stopped her, maybe Jules would have solved a kid’s puzzle and brought werewolves upon them. Or Holden might have smashed a bottle and brought them girls with teeth instead faces.

Holy fucking shit.

Dana started smashing at the glass with her fists. Her blows did no damage—they’d have to make the glass incredibly strong to contain all these things, he realized—but still she pounded, kicking as well, thrashing, and he had to hold her tight to stop her from hurting herself.

And it was like that, arms wound around each other, sharing the warmth of their bodies and the pain of their wounds, that they emerged into a huge underground space like a warehouse where countless elevators shifted left and right, up and down, running on almost invisible rails and columns and passing soundlessly across junctions, swapping position constantly. In each
elevator was something of shade or light, and whether dark or light, it was always horrible.

Vampires, not of the limp, fluffy-collared variety, but with pale skin and too many teeth.

Three people—two adults and a child—with horribly cracked, blistered skin, beneath which lava seemed to boil.

A gorgeous naked woman with teeth in place of a vagina.

A man with six arms, each of the hands replaced with a grafted weapon of some kind, from a knife to a shotgun.

A screaming banshee with hair flowing around its head as if in slow motion.

Six elevators contained small babies that seemed to explode again and again, scattering bladed blood-red shards. A giant rabbit with oversized teeth, a woman with a scorpion’s sting curved from the small of her back, a child with three heads—vampire, zombie, werewolf—a shade of something terrible, a ghostly figure surrounded by fumes that must be toxic, a minotaur with a monstrous phallus, a woman with writhing snakes instead of pubic hair, a man with steaming pipes inserted into his chest and flames in his eyes, a dog with the head of an alligator...

The horrors were endless and almost beyond imagining, and Marty and Dana held each other tighter as their elevator was carried through the impossible space.

The creatures known and unknown seemed to
recognize the intruders for what they were. Marty didn’t see them leaping or scratching at their glass walls to get at one another, but whenever he and Dana drew close they tried to attack.

We’re their meat,
he thought, and though it was a horrible idea it stuck. Perhaps they were kept here like this, forever hungry, and when it came time to hunt...

The basement had been filled with lots of old, random stuff. And every shred of it had been linked somehow to something down here. He had no idea what it could mean, other than some sort of monstrous entertainment. But what lengths to go to. It was beyond belief.

“As soon as we stop,” he said. “We’ll get out as soon as we can.” Still they held each other, but they were beyond comforting. Their world had changed, not only their personal place in it, but their understanding of the wider reality.

Nothing could ever be the same again.

•••

Control had cleared quickly. He hadn’t needed to shout at anyone to leave. As soon as Hadley replaced the receiver and muttered those few words, glasses and bottles were dropped, and everyone raced to try and put right whatever had gone wrong.

Sitterson could smell spilled champagne and there were potato chips crushed across the floor. Truman stood on guard by the door, upright and proper, and
perhaps not really comprehending. All seemed normal.

Sitterson held back a giggle.

All seemed normal!

Lin was down in the lower area of Control, earpiece in place, tapping frantically on a keyboard and muttering to someone unheard. Sitterson and Hadley, chairs pulled closer than before, were scanning through the entire complex on their screens, moving quickly and efficiently. Hadley was checking corridors and stairwells, while on Sitterson’s screens were nine constantly changing views of the interiors of the elevators. He’d seen many of these things before, but some were new even to him. Still, he refused to let curiosity overcome the prime purpose of this search.

Survival,
he was thinking.
Of everything. It’s
all
at stake here.

So he checked all nine images, then tapped a button that would present nine more. How the Fool had been missed, how no one had noticed, how they’d overcome Matthew Buckner, how the
fuck
they’d managed to get down into the complex... all these were questions for later.

If there
was
a later.

“We saw them go down the access drop,” he said into his microphone. “They have to be in one of these! Internal security should be able to—”

“That’s not protocol,” a static-filled voice said into his ear.
Static? That was unheard of. Their systems were
perfect.

“I don’t care if that’s not protocol!” he shouted.
“Are you fucking high?” He looked to Hadley, hand held up in a
what the fuck?
gesture.

“It’s the Fool!” Hadley shouted into his own microphone. “No, you
can’t
touch the girl. If he outlives her, all this goes to hell!
Take him out first.”
He shrugged back at Sitterson.
Fucking amateurs!

There were security teams sweeping the complex, cameras everywhere, the creatures were contained... things would settle, everything would work out okay. But none of this was in the Scenario. Hell, the Scenario was fucked. Sitterson only hoped...

“Hope they’ll accept our apology,” he whispered. Hadley heard him, but said nothing.

Lin stood and turned to look up at them.

“Clean-up says the prep team must have missed one of the kid’s stashes. Whatever he’s been smoking has been immunizing him to all our shit.” It was a startling admission from the Chem team leader, but this wasn’t a time for cover-ups. Later they’d rag her on it, if they had the opportunity. And if she wasn’t executed for incompetence.

“How does that help us
right now
?” Hadley said. Then he spoke into his mic. “What? Yes. If the Fool’s a confirmed kill, you can take her out too. But for fuck’s sake... for
all
our sakes... make sure it’s a confirmed kill on him first. Dead. Headless. Blown up. A
confirmed... fucking... kill.”

“There!” Truman snapped. He’d walked over from the door to stand behind Sitterson, and Sitterson couldn’t shake the irony that it was the newbie who
saw them first. But that was good, that was fine. He’d buy him a drink if this all turned out okay.

He froze the current crop of nine elevator images and spotted them instantly.

“Thirty-six-oh-six. Gotcha.”

“Bring ’em down,” Hadley said.

Sitterson did so. No relief yet, no sigh of satisfaction. Too much had gone wrong to assume that everything would go right from here.

Every single detail, every single second, had to count.

ELEVEN

M
aybe it was the screaming and the thumping against the toughened glass that had vented her terror and calmed her a little. Or maybe she’d just seen so much that there was really no alternative other than to remain calm. Her heart still thrummed faster than usual, but she felt removed from the reality she’d always been a part of and comforted by. Talking boys with Jules, going out for a drink with friends, running each morning around her neighborhood, college, exams, worrying about how she looked and whether she needed a haircut and what shoes to wear to the party next Saturday... this was all from a world so distant to her now that she could barely comprehend it anymore.

Everything that was safe and normal had been blown away, and Dana could not imagine it ever settling down again.

I’ll always know,
she thought.
This will always be
here, whether we get out or not
. The puppeteers had their hooks in her now, and even if she did manage to escape she suspected the strings stretched too far for her to break.

Marty was still holding her tight. She looked over his shoulder, and knew that he looked over hers. They had each seen things that the other hadn’t, but she didn’t want to know. Maybe much later, if they survived, when they huddled together in dorm rooms while their new, distant friends enjoyed themselves and lived normal lives... maybe then they’d talk of what they’d seen, and try to make some kind of sense.

But not right now.

The elevator was descending again. The walls visible through the thick glass walls were now rough stone. As they jarred to a halt and a mechanical whirring noise sounded somewhere far away, Dana wondered just how the hell any of this was possible.

Comprehension hit her like a brick.

This was
not
possible.

And was it really the first time she’d allowed herself to think that?

The door slid open onto a small, metal-lined lobby. Clean, unfurnished, clinical. A guard was aiming a gun at her face. He shifted quickly until he aimed at Marty, and jammed his foot in the door. He wore a black suit, black mask and goggles, and his mouth and nose were enclosed behind very modern-looking breathing apparatus. It gave his voice an electronic taint.

“Out of the elevator!” There was a pause, a quiet
moment when everything was held suspended. Then, “Step
out
of the
elevator
!”

“Why are you trying to kill us?” Dana asked. It was a helpless, hopeless question, and she imagined him saying,
I’m only following orders.
But the guard just acted as if he hadn’t heard.

“Step
out!
Just the girl!”

“Just me?” she asked. Marty’s hand tightened around hers, their fingers interlocking. He squeezed as if to say,
No fucking way.
She squeezed back.

“Do it!” the guard shouted. He stepped forward, edging into the elevator, and Dana heard Marty shifting slightly behind her.

Something scrabbled across the floor, moved between her feet and grabbed the guard’s foot.

Judah’s arm!

The guard jumped, looked down, and shot at the arm. The explosion was staggering in the enclosed space, and Dana’s hearing was blasted to little more than a faint, distant hum. But she took the moment and used it, and while the guard’s gun was aimed down she shouldered into his chest and drove him back against the metal door jamb.

His head swung up and back and cracked against the metal, and he slid down slowly to lean against the elevator’s side wall.

Marty snatched the gun from the guard’s hand and picked up Judah’s blade.

“Good work, zombie arm!” he shouted, and his voice was fading slowly back in. Dana could see from
his pained smile that his hearing had been numbed by the gunshot, as well.

A steady hum was growing. She rubbed at her ears, and it sounded as though she was doing it from the inside.

“Won’t last long!” he shouted. “Come on.”

The small lobby opened out to house seven other elevator doors. Dana shivered as she thought about what might have entered or exited those doors, but they were all closed and silent for now, and the panels above them remained unlit. There was a small, abandoned guard’s station just along from the elevators, and past that a corridor led off to a right-angled turn.

From beyond there, Dana was sure she could hear several sets of heavy footsteps approaching.

Marty pointed that way, then to his ears. She nodded. There was no escape route, other than back into the elevator in which they’d descended... or into a new one.
But where the hell might
they
all lead?
she wondered.

Before they could decide which way to go or what to do, a voice came from a speaker built into the wall above the elevators. It was clear and calm, surprisingly intimate. And it started to explain.

“I am The Director,” it said, “and this has gone terribly wrong. I know you can hear me. I want you to listen.”