The Cabin in the Woods

something else. Something that didn’t have doors.

Their footsteps echoed dully, and around the corner sat three golf carts, their “charged” lights blinking green. The wider corridor before them was just as bare and featureless, its far end swallowed by perspective. Sitterson had walked it a few times. But why walk when there were wheels?

As usual, Hadley took control of the cart, with Lin and Sitterson sitting in the back.

“Yeah, cutting it close,” Hadley said, dropping his vending machine haul onto the seat beside him. “And that’s why it’s in the hands of professionals.”

“They hired professionals?” Sitterson asked, grinning at Lin’s sour face. “What happens to us?”

“You guys better not be messing around in there,” Lin said. “Does this mean you’re not in the betting pool this year?” he asked, raising an eyebrow and smiling. He liked to think that was his finest feature, a mischievous look that women found irresistible.

Statistics had yet to prove him right.

“I’m just saying that it’s a key scenario.” Damn, she really was the Ice Queen. Sitterson wondered idly whether her face would slide off her skull if he were to surreptitiously sever her hair band and relieve the pressure.

“I know what you’re saying,” Hadley said, pushing the electronic ignition. The cart started to purr beneath them. “But remember ’98? That was the Chem department’s fault. And where do you work again, Lin? Wait, it’s coming back to me…” He accelerated away, and Sitterson half-stood to avoid spilling his coffee.

“Gonna be a long weekend if everybody’s that puckered up,” Hadley continued, quietly. Then he seemed to liven up, weaving the cart back and forth across the corridor, narrowly avoiding striking both walls several times.

“Damn it!” Sitterson said as he lost the battle and spilled coffee on his sharp-creased trousers. Wiping it with a napkin, he rolled his eyes at Lin, who regarded him coolly. He glanced down at the front of her lab coat. She always wore it large and loose, and he always wondered…

But when he glanced up again, her expression forbore any wondering. He rolled his eyes again. She blinked slowly and looked away. Later, he thought. When all this is over and the celebrations are starting, maybe—

“Hey, you want to come over Monday night?” Hadley called back to him. “I’m gonna pick up a couple of power drills and liberate my cabinets.” He laughed like a banshee, and barely slowed the cart to take the first ninety- degree corner.

Sitterson gave up and tipped the rest of his coffee out of the cart.

Monday, he thought. This’ll all be over by then.

“Sure,” he said.

•••

Dana Polk loved to rock and roll. Most girls her age were into some of the softer, safer, middle-of-the-road rock music that the new millennium had brought. She could listen to Coldplay if she had to, but for her they lacked edge. She could put up with Nickelback, if they were forced on her. But her preference as a thoughtful—some would say sexy, though she still had trouble applying that word to herself—sophomore, was music with… well, balls.

She loved to rock out, feeling the music driving her blood and increasing her heartbeat, and sometimes she thought that was part of the reason she stayed so fit. The best workouts she’d ever had—well, the second best—were in the mosh-pits at rock concerts.

And so what better music to pack to than the Foo Fighters. Dave Grohl… now there was a man. Her friend Jules would issue an Ewww whenever Dana mentioned him. He’s too old for you by far, and too… hairy. But he was a guy with edge. He had, as Dana’s mother liked to say, “The Grrr Factor.” He was also happily married, but that never stopped Dana’s mind from wandering his way now and then.

She bopped and skipped as she packed, shirt flapping around her bare thighs, swinging an invisible microphone stand in front of her and launching into a chorus just when a guitar solo burst in. Whoops, she thought, feeling a blush of embarrassment even though she was on her own. Perhaps for now she should concentrate just on filling her weekend bag.

Dana glanced around her room, wondering what else she should take. She’d miss this place. The room was neat and restrained; books stacked mostly in alphabetical order, CDs stored in tidy piles. Unlike some students, she’d quickly imprinted her personality on the place, displayed most prominently in the several sketches and watercolors about which she’d been confident enough to frame and hang.

Most of them were portraits, or pictures of imaginary people, but a few were more abstract landscapes which Jules said she sometimes found spooky. Forest scenes with ambiguous shapes suspended in high branches. Fields of corn with shadows where there should be none. Dana thought they were just offbeat, but she supposed someone who wasn’t living in her mind could justifiably see them as weird. She ran her fingers along the bookshelves and pulled out a few political science textbooks. No harm in taking some reading, in case things were quiet this weekend. She threw in some art supplies, as well—stuff she never traveled anywhere without, including pencils and charcoals. Picking up her sketchpad, she started flipping through the pages.

Like any naturally artistic person she was eternally self-critical, but she could also remove herself to a distance and view the work objectively. And she knew that some of what she did wasn’t at all bad. Sure, she could find something to criticize in everything she sketched, but that was the curse of a true artist. She flipped the pages, musing more upon her passion for art than the pictures themselves, until—

There he was. The son-of-a-bitch.

Gorgeous. Longish hair, glasses… the very epitome of a college lecturer. Damn it, if only she hadn’t been so fucking stupid. But he was so handsome. Bastard.

She sighed, thought about finding a pair of jeans, and—

“What a piece of shit!”

Dana gasped, letting out a little shriek. She hadn’t even heard Jules approaching.

“I rushed it,” Dana said, recovering quickly and not taking her eyes from the picture.

“You know what I mean.” Jules’s voice was low and sultry, a natural attribute which she put to great use. “Why haven’t you stuck that asshole’s picture on the dartboard yet?” “It’s not that simp—” Dana began, but as she turned around, shock cut her off. For a second confusion overwhelmed her.

“Oh my God, your hair!” she gasped.

Jules struck a pose that would have made lesser men weep, and even strong men quake in their boots.

“Very fabulous, no?”

“I can’t believe you did it!” Her friend certainly did look very fabulous. She’d been talking about going blonde for months now, but Dana had never believed she’d actually go through with it. Brunette had served her well, but Jules was nothing if not experimental. She sometimes called Dana “rock chick,” but she was far from the stereotype that usually went with that term. Rock yes, chick no. Out of the two of them, it was Jules who wore that badge with pride.

“But very fabulous, right?” she asked again, scowling a false frown. “Hurry up with the very fabulous, I’m getting insecure about it.”

“Oh God, no,” Dana said, “it’s awesome! It looks really natural, and it’s great with your skin. I just didn’t think you were ever gonna—”

“Impulse,” Jules said. “I woke up this morning and thought, I want to have more fun. Who is it that has more fun?” Still posing, she ruffled up her hair and pouted. “Marilyn, dahling.”

“Manson?”

“Monroe! Imbecile.”

“Curt’s gonna lose it,” Dana laughed.

“He’ll have more fun too,” Jules said. “And so will you… ” She snatched the sketch pad from Dana and stared at it, scowling at the image. “…while we are burning this picture.”

Dana grabbed the pad back, her good humor slipping just a little. She understood that Jules was being protective of her, and angry at the man who’d hurt her. But really, it was only Dana who knew everything that had gone on.

“I’m not ready to,” she said. “And seriously, this isn’t all his fault.”

“What’s not his fault?” Jules asked. Her posing and pouting was over now, and she stalked Dana’s room like a