The Cabin in the Woods

but cautious—a broken ankle now would mean the end of everything—and then back out into the corridor below. First door to the right was Sustenance, and when he drew level with the door to Demolition he kicked it open and ran inside.

There was a guard standing to the left, hand on the butt of his gun. Sitterson glared at him and rushed by. Just you fucking dare, he thought.

A second to scan the Demolition control room and he knew where the problem was. One large control panel was dark—power off—and from beneath came sparks and flashes. A man and a woman were working the panel, the man flicking a switch back and forth as if persistence could lure electricity back to him, the woman running diagnostic on a wired-up laptop.

Jesus Christ, where do we find these people?

“It’s not the breakers!” the man said, glancing up as he saw Sitterson approach.

“Fuck is going on in here?”

“We don’t know!” the guy whined. “Electrical said there was a glitch up top, one of the creatures?”

“The tunnel should have been blown hours ago!” Sitterson said.

The woman glanced up at him—pretty, terrified— and said, “We never got the order!”

“You need me to tell you to wipe your ass?” He shoved the man aside, glanced down at the laptop screen. She was stuck on the fucking password. “How do we get past this?”

“We’re fried inside,” she said, a quaver to her voice. “We need a clean connection to the detonator—” Sitterson snorted, dropped to the floor and crawled beneath the unit. If they needed a clean connection then why were they fucking around with switches and trying to run a fucking diagnostic! She was stuck on the password, for fuck’s sake! He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to chill, shedding the fearful anger and shifting focus to what needed doing and what had to be done.

After two seconds he opened his eyes again and pulled half a dozen quick-release bolts. Plastic covering fell away and a mass of wires and circuits was revealed.

“Okay, I need you to tell me exactly what went down first and how long after the other systems followed. And hand me a voltmeter.”

“Systems Tech is trying a reboot on the—” the guy started, but Sitterson cut in.

“We don’t have time. Talk me through.”

As the guy talked, Sitterson started checking boards until he found the one that had fried. He noted the number and shouted up for a replacement. It took thirty seconds for the woman to drop one in his hand, and another thirty before he’d replaced it with wire clips. Should be soldered, he thought, closing his eyes as he connected the last wire.

Something hummed, and he saw some of the surface indicators lighting up through the guts of the panel above him.

“We good?” he asked.

“No, that’s just local,” the woman said. “It’s not linked.

“Shit!”

“Lin’s here,” Hadley said through his earpiece.

“Oh, great, she’s just who we need right now. Tell her to go poison someone.”

“The Rambler’s a mile away from the tunnel,” his friend said softly.

“Okay. Okay.” Sitterson scanned the mass of boards and chips, wires and fuses, circuit connectors and relays. A flush of utter hopelessness hit him, but he shoved it aside with an angry growl. He applied the voltmeter here and there, noting where power had failed but also knowing that in each of these places, it shouldn’t really matter. It was the relay to the detonator that mattered, and he’d just replaced…

“Is the detonator button still lit?”

“Yes,” the woman said, “but I told you, it’s just—”

“Local,” Sitterson said. He shuffled further beneath the unit and probed with his penlight, sniffing, smelling burnt plastic.

There!

He held the penlight in his teeth.

“Gary, we don’t have long,” Hadley said in his ear.

“Uh-huh.” He pulled the melted mass of wires apart.

“I mean it.”

“Uh-huh.” In the artificial light, orange and red were too close, indistinguishable, so he stripped all four wires with his thumbnail.

“They’re approaching the last bend. Damn, that kid can drive.”

“Shud the huck up!” Sitterson growled, and he touched wires. Sparks flew, he flinched, and then from above he heard a brief, victorious yelp.

“We’re up!” the man said.

Sitterson spat the torch aside and held the wires together.

“Blow it!” he shouted.

The woman smacked the big demolition button and Sitterson winced as he was shocked. Been sweating, wet, this might kill me. But the pain was brief, and when it passed he called out.

“So?”

“We’re good,” the man said.

“We’re good,” the woman echoed.

Sitterson twisted the wires and snaked his way out from beneath the unit. The guy and woman were staring at him, faces slack with almost unbearable relief. The man actually held out his hand to help him up. Sitterson stood on his own, wiping imaginary dust from his sweat-soaked shirt. He examined the burns on his thumb and forefinger, pus-blisters already forming there. That was going to hurt, but all was still.

Downstairs, all was still.

“Wipe your ass,” he said and, leaving them to their shame, he smiled and left the room.

NINE

Back up back up back up!” Holden shouted, and Curt slammed the Rambler into reverse, stomping on the accelerator and not even bothering to look in the mirror because he wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway.

Holden and Dana crouched close behind Curt’s driver’s seat. We should get in back and hide, Holden thought, but that would have been unfair to Curt. Something kept them together. United by their near-escape, perhaps now they would all die together. At least being crushed by falling rocks was better than—

This is beyond the zombies, and we all know that now.

Ahead of them the tunnel was in chaos—ceiling falling, slabs of rock pounding down, walls blasting out, dust and grit billowing and scraping against the Rambler’s chassis and windscreen. Visibility was quickly reduced to zero, and their only hope of survival would be if Curt steered them back out into the open air.

A big rock scraped down the front of the vehicle, fracturing the windshield and tearing metal. Nevertheless, Curt held the wheel straight, foot pressed all the way down on the gas. The engine screeched in protest. They shook from side to side, and at the rear of the Rambler one of the sunroofs shattered and let in a shower of stinging debris.

Holden twisted to look and winced as his wounds distorted, and fresh blood flowed.

Through the back of the Rambler he saw a flash of trees.

“Almost there!” he shouted.

The roof was being battered now, dented and ripped where rocks struck. If the whole mountain comes down into the tunnel we’ll be squashed without even knowing what happened, he thought. He held Dana and kissed her, one hand around the back of her neck, another cupping her breast, and he felt her own desperate realization of their predicament.