The Cabin in the Woods

might kick himself later.

Three buttons, four, that smooth plane of skin flowing from her neck down to her chest…

He had to make up his mind quickly, in the next couple of seconds, otherwise—

Five buttons, and the shirt fell open to reveal her tan bra, and if he waited another few seconds…

Holden cursed silently and banged on the wall. Dana froze, head cocked to one side, and Holden took that second to just look at her before calling through the wall, “Hold up!”

“What? Holden?”

“Dana… I just saw… come into my room. Bring the others.”

Dana closed her shirt and redid a couple of buttons, frowning as she left her room. Holden heard her calling their friends, and he backed away from the wall and turned to the door, preparing to greet them and feeling more ashamed than he should have. He’d told her, hadn’t he? Some guys would have watched all the way, jerked off and re-hung the picture, keeping the whole thing their dirty little secret. And some guys would have done that, then gone across the hallway to tell Marty.

He wasn’t some guys.

But I waited a few seconds longer than I had to…

Dana stuck her head around his door and smiled uncertainly. She entered, and Holden pointed at the window into her room just as Jules came in, Curt and Marty following her.

“Tan bra,” he said softly.

Jules got it first. She coughed surprised laughter and said, “You have got to be kidding me!”

“That’s just creepy,” Dana said as she caught on.

“It was pioneer days,” Marty said. “People had to make their own interrogation rooms. Out of cornmeal.”

Holden shrugged and ran his hands around the rough one-way mirror frame. “This is from the… seventies, judging by the weathering. Who did your cousin buy this place from, Curt?”

“We should check the rest of the rooms,” Curt said, ignoring the question. “Make sure this is the only one. You know Marty wants to watch me and Jules pounding away.”

“I didn’t even like hearing that,” Marty said, wincing as he turned and left the room.

“Beer,” Curt said, eyebrows rising, false realization dawning on his face. “Beer! Beer is the only answer!” He turned and dashed from the room, Jules rolling her eyes and following him.

“Don’t be an ape, Curt.”

The brief silence after the others left was a little awkward, and it needed more than a smile to break it.

“How about we switch?” Holden asked Dana. “Not that I’d… I mean I’ll put the picture back but you might feel better if we switched rooms.”

“I really would,” Dana said, leaving his room.

Holden cursed silently as he grabbed his bag, following her out into the hallway.

“Thanks for… being decent,” she said over her shoulder.

“Least I could do, since Curt and Jules have sold you to me for marriage.” Holden cringed a little; said too much? Dana cringed, too, but then her soft laughter made it all right.

“They’re not subtle,” she agreed ruefully.

“I’m just here to relax. And so can you.”

“Yeah, I’m not looking for… But I’m still grateful that you’re not a creep.”

“Hey, let’s not jump to any conclusions there,” Holden said.

“Tan bra?” Dana said softly, and though he couldn’t see her face he knew that she was smiling.

Don’t want to play this too cool, he thought, and on the back of that, So am I a creep after all?

“I had kind of an internal debate about showing you the mirror,” he said. “Shouting on both sides, blood was spilled… ”

They entered Dana’s room—his room now—and he dumped his stuff on the bed.

“So you’re bleeding internally,” she asked, mock-serious. “Pretty bad.”

“Well, Jules is the doctor-in-training. You should probably talk to her.”

“Yeah.” He smiled, Dana grabbed her bag, and as she turned and left he saw an expression on her face that he thought was similar to his own. Cursing herself, he thought. She wishes this chat had gone one step further.

Smiling as the door swung shut behind her, Holden thought that he and Dana would get on very well indeed.

•••

Shit shit shit that was lame, Dana thought. But she couldn’t help smiling. Even with a closed door between them, she could sense Holden behind her. Unsubtle though Jules and Curt had been about her and Holden, it seemed as if they might yet finish this weekend pleased with their powers of matchmaking.

In her new room she closed the door and dropped her bag onto the bed, wincing at the creaking of springs. Hope Curt’s and Jules’s bed isn’t that bad, she thought. Then she picked up the picture Holden had removed from the wall, turned it around… and it was unbelievably gross. She had no idea why someone would want that hanging above them in bed. Maybe there was more to it. The artist might have been a local celebrity, or something. But though she looked closely for a signature she could find none, and it had the sort of paint-by-numbers feel of a mass-produced image. It was spooky, but she had to re-hang it.

Otherwise—

She saw Holden in the next room, her view darkened just a little by dust on the one-way mirror. He wore an enigmatic smile, and was slowly pacing back and forth at the foot of his bed. Distracted, he pulled his shirt over his head and then stood there again, apparently unmindful of the fact that he was now in the viewable room.

He was in pretty good shape, for sure. Dana was holding her breath. The moment seemed to stretch, and then Holden dropped his shirt on the bed and pulled his swimming shorts from his bag, and began unbuttoning his jeans.

“Uhhh… ah!” Dana muttered. “God!” She was where he had been and, though she could stay here for another ten seconds to see what he had, he had only watched for so long.

Long enough to see my bra, she thought, and as she caught sight of Holden’s briefs she hung the picture, obscuring the window and making sure it banged against the wall. He’d hear it and know that she’d covered the one-way mirror again… but he’d also know that she’d paused just for those few seconds, watching him strip off his shirt.

“Fair’s fair,” she said softly, grinning.

She took one last look at the grim print, and on the wall it seemed even worse. But it was part of her room now.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” she said, plucking a knitted throw from the bed and hanging it over the picture.

That was better.

Now, time to strip in private and slip into that sexy red bikini.

•••

Their whole world in my hands, Sitterson thought. Their every private moment under my scrutiny. And he giggled to himself, because he was starting to sound like that crazy fuck Mordecai.

“What’s so funny?” Hadley asked. He was working at his own control panel, sugar from a recent doughnut speckling the skin around his mouth.

“You,” Sitterson said with as much seriousness as he could muster, “and the joke that is your life.”

Hadley muttered something as he turned away smiling, and Sitterson pushed his chair back so that he could view every display at once.

On the bedroom monitors, the college kids were all changing into their swimming costumes. He’d seen this enough times before, but the voyeuristic delight had never quite left him, and neither would he wish it to. He regarded it as a perk of the job, and knew that Hadley did as well. They didn’t make it obvious, but neither did they purposely look away from the screens.

There was no privacy here; that had been denied these kids the second they drove through the tunnel, and in