Okay... some of you may have heard about this little thing called the World Series. Some of you may have also heard that the Philadelphia Phillies are playing the New York Yankees, leading to a significant amount of drinking and raging on my part. And you know what sucks? I kinda like the Phillies. They’re a great ball club and I think Charlie Manuel seems like an awesome fucking dude. He actually reminds me a lot of Tom Coughlin… but fatter and drunker, with bigger jowls.
“So what does this have to do with your retarded little story, Jim?” Thanks for asking! Well, because of my avid love for the Yankees, I have spent two nights this week drinking and screaming as opposed to writing. But a deadline is a deadline, so I wrote the last three pages after the game last night, drunk on victory (and beer) at around 1 in the morning, finishing things up a short time after 2. Why? Because I love you guys and I like to think there are at least 7 or 8 (million) people looking forward to the conclusion of this story.
And here we are. Despite the impending obligation and increasing length of this story, I had a blast writing it. Buuuut, as a result of all my work this month, I do think I’m going to be stepping away from the horror genre for a little while. So for all of you reading this that have stuck with me through the whole month, thanks! I hope you’ve enjoyed yourselves.
Obligatory disclaimer: This is the third part of a three-part story. If you haven't already, please read the first two parts (posted on this blog) before reading this one.
And without further adieu… the final chapter of Happy Campers.
Happy Campers (Part III)
...And I watch helplessly as Karen’s blood seeps into the dirt of this goddamn forest.
“Oh God... Karen,” I put my hand on her neck to check for a pulse, but before my fingers graze her skin, her eyes open slowly and sleepily. She looks at me with a combination of confusion and contempt.
“Karen, I'm so sorry. I thought you were attacking me. I didn't know who you were.”
She moves her lips in an effort to speak, but closes her mouth before any words can escape.
“Just lay still,” I tell her. I look towards the expanding stain that's turning her t-shirt into a crimson Rorschach test, fighting the blood and the forest's darkness to find the wound itself. After a few moments I locate the deep gash on the side of her torso, just above her hip. “Karen, are you having trouble breathing? How much pain are you in?”
She looks at me accusingly, tears welling up in her eyes. “You stabbed me,” she manages to mutter. “You... stabbed me.”
“Jesus, I'm so sorry baby,” I'm using my hand to apply pressure to the wound in an effort to slow the bleeding. “I thought you were someone else. I thought you were trying to kill me.” She screams as my hand presses on the gash. Blood flows through my fingers like water through a collapsing dam. “I'm so sorry, Karen. God, I'm so sorry. But you're going to be okay. We're going to get you help.”
She looks at me with a lazy kind of glare. “It's going to be okay? I'm bleeding to death in the middle of nowhere because my boyfriend stabbed me and you're telling me it's going to be okay?”
“Karen, I don't know how to explain it, but some seriously fucked up shit is going on and...”
She cuts me off, her voice rising above her previously passive and disdainful tone. “Oh I'll say some seriously fucked up shit is going on; I just got stabbed by my fucking boyfriend with a knife that looks like it could have belonged to Crocodile Dundee.” She's yelling now. “I'd say that's some seriously fucked up shit.” She starts coughing hard and relaxes her body a little bit, conceding that the effort she just exerted to scold me wasn’t worth it.
“I wish I could explain it, but,” I pause, not wanting to say the words. “But I'm starting to think these woods are haunted.” It's painful to say and sounds even more ridiculous than I would have expected. I picture Shaggy from Scooby Doo trembling and screaming “like zoinks” as he jumps into the waiting arms of his Great Dane companion. I try to defend myself before she even says a word. “And I know how fucking insane that sounds, but in the past hour or two I've seen and heard some things that I just can't explain.”
She smiles a thin sarcastic smile. “Haunted,” she says dismissively as her eyes close for a brief moment. “I want to think this is some bad joke, but I'm in way too much pain to even entertain the idea.”
“Okay... Andrew and Dillon are somewhere along this path and they couldn't have gone too far. I was yelling for them and...”
She cuts me off again. “I know you were yelling for them. That's how I found you. I heard you screaming like you...” she pauses and looks at me. “Well, like you'd seen a ghost. I don't think I've ever heard you sound so terrified.”
“I know this is an impossible situation, Karen, but you have to believe me. At least for now. I need you to bear with me. Do you think you can walk?”
She grimaces at the proposition. “I'm not sure,” she says. “I feel like I'm in shock. In your pack, do you have a first aid kit or bandages?”
“Holy shit, I think I actually might.” I pull the bag off my back and start rummaging through its contents. Finally, in the outside zipper compartment I find some bandages and disinfectant. I do my best to treat the wound, but I can see a brownish stain building on the bandage almost immediately. “That should help, but we're going to need to change that pretty regularly. Now, can you stand up?”
“You need to help me.”
“Of course.” I put my hands under her armpits and lift as she pushes with her legs, letting out an exasperated growl of pain as her torso straightens and she leans against me.
“Fuck, that hurts.”
I wait for her to adjust to her new position. After nearly a minute, she finally says, “Alright... let's give this a try.”
We walk slowly up the trail in the direction Andrew and Dillon were heading. “How did you get out here?” I ask her.
She breathes and winces. “I don't know. I woke up in the middle of the woods.”
“What?”
“Just like I said. When I woke up, I wasn't in the tent anymore; I was totally alone in the woods. Like I had just been sleepwalking and ended up in the underbrush.”
“But you don't sleepwalk.”
“I know I don't fucking sleepwalk,” she responds with a hefty dose of annoyance. “And you typically don't stab me either, but I guess some things about this trip just aren't operating according to the status quo. I had no idea where anyone was, or where I was for that matter. After almost an hour of wandering and panicking, I heard you screaming. I couldn't believe it. None of it made any sense, but I found you.” She stops as a hint of affection begins to creep into her voice. She snuffs it out quickly and returns to her more callous, accusing nature. “And then you stabbed me.”
“Baby, I'm so sorry. But something attacked me.”
“Wait… hold on one second. You said Andrew and Dillon are on this trail somewhere. What about Eve? Where is she?”
I stop walking and stare into the darkness. I'm caught off guard. I'd completely forgotten Karen’s clueless as to Eve's unfortunate condition. After a moment, I turn to her. “Eve's dead, Karen.”
She looks at me with disbelief, staring in silence as the news sinks in. “She's what? How... how did it happen?”
I sigh. “Andrew kind of killed her.”
She pushes me away and nearly falls over. “What are you saying?”
“Andrew and Dillon thought she was trying to kill them so Andrew... he killed her.”
I move towards her but she shoves me away again, doubling over in pain and eventually dropping to her knees. I go to help her, but she pushes me back. “Just stay away from me!” she screams. “Don't fucking touch me. I'm out in the goddamn woods with a pack of fucking murderers. Was this your plan? Did you all conspire to lure Eve and I out to the middle of fucking nowhere just to kill us?”
“Karen, you can't be serious. You know that's not true.”
“Do I?” she's crying now, spitting the words through choked sobs. “Do I really? Because I'm lying in the dirt bleeding from a stab wound you gave me! And now you tell me you're two friends killed the only other girl out here! What am I supposed to think?”
“It's not like it sounds,” I plead with her. “Something is out here. Something is doing things to us. Fucking with us. It's the only explanation. Andrew, Dillon and I all had dreams, Karen. Really fucking vivid dreams where you and Eve were killing us. Since then, since we woke up, nothing has made any sense.” I let out an exasperated grunt. “Look, what if I told you that before I stabbed you, you had attacked me? Only it wasn't you. It was some kind of creature trying to kill me. Some kind of hallucination or something. I don't know what it was, but it was trying its best to end my life. When I swung the knife I thought I was defending myself from whatever the fuck had just tried to choke me to death.” I squat down and put my hand on her back. She doesn't fight me. “Something is affecting us, Karen. And I don't know how, but nobody from our group is in their right mind now. Nothing makes sense. We're all seeing things and experiencing things that just can't be real. But something's happening to us and...” I pause, contemplating. “It's turning us against each other.”
“And you know how crazy that sounds, right?”
“Of course I know how crazy that sounds. But I think at least part of you believes it. I mean you can't explain how you managed to end up out of the tent in the middle of the woods, can you?”
“That's not all,” she says sheepishly. “I had a nightmare too.” She takes a deep breath, looking somewhat defeated, and continues. “There’s something I didn’t tell you—something I really wasn’t planning on ever telling you.” She pauses again, her eyes refusing to look into mine. “Two weeks ago I had an abortion. I got pregnant and I was afraid to tell you, so I kept it a secret and took care of it myself.”
My mouth drops open as I search for words. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I knew you didn't want it. And I knew how thin the chances were of our relationship surviving something like that. I just didn't want to lose you.”
“Karen, you should have told me. How could you be so sure I didn’t want it?”
“It was no secret,” she snaps back at me. “It's not like you were quiet about your feelings towards children.”
“Well maybe my feelings would have changed when faced with the actual situation. It’s not something you should have gone through by yourself, Karen.”
“Oh don’t even give me that crap. If I had told you, we’d just be in the same place we are right now. I was trying to save our relationship. I didn’t want us burdened with the weight of that kind of decision.”
I let out an exaggerated sigh and consider jumping down her throat, screaming frantically as I badger her for her hasty decision. But I know she’s right; I would have pushed her in the same direction she chose. So as she sits there, fatigued and bleeding, I do my best to appreciate her course of action. “Okay… and what does this have to do with your nightmare?”
She takes a deep breath and begins. “I wasn't in the tent anymore. I was on the ground in the middle of the woods. But the forest seemed brighter somehow—an eerie kind of brighter though. I don't know if I'd call it unnatural, but it wasn't the moon or the stars providing the light. Actually, as I looked up, I couldn't see a single star. It's like there was a tarp of blackness connecting the tops of the trees.” She swallows hard and closes her eyes momentarily, continuing the story as she slowly reopens them. “I was lying on my back, feeling kind of paralyzed. I could move my limbs a little, but it took so much effort just to wiggle a finger. I was weak and disoriented, but I could hear something—voices circling me and getting closer. I couldn't hear words though or any kind of language, just mutterings and rustling. I tried to lift my head to look around, but it felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. I couldn't see anything besides the trees and the black. And that's when I felt strong, rough hands grab my neck.” She winces, either in physical pain or from her recollection of the story.
“You okay?” I ask, exhibiting a sense of concern I wish I could downplay.
She nods with a mild whimper and continues. “I was totally helpless. I could tell I was completely surrounded, but I couldn't see any faces or bodies, just hands—dirty, stained hands with long jagged fingernails that reached for me. I tried to move but I couldn't. All I could do was shift my eyes from one gnarled, trembling hand to another.” The tears start again and she sniffles as she wipes the moisture from her eyes. “All at once there were five or six hands on me, their arms reaching into a dark sort of oblivion. No bodies. Nothing to even suggest the arms were attached to anything. The hands pulled my shirt up around my neck, leaving my stomach exposed. I could only shift my eyes enough to watch... as their awful, crooked nails dug into my skin.” I can see her trying admirably to restrain her emotions, but she's trembling now, her eyes puffy and waterlogged, her voice strident and unsteady.
“And they kept coming,” she continues, fighting through the sobs. “More and more hands, each one with five fingers digging into my stomach with their nails. God, I could feel the pain. I could feel the blood slipping down the side of my body. And all I could do was watch as the hands just burrowed into my stomach for minutes and minutes. I screamed and howled and begged, but they just kept digging. And after a while, I could feel them slowing down. They were less frantic and more—God, I don't know—surgical maybe.” She stops to wipe the mucus from her nose with the top of her shirt, her eyes brimming with tears. “And I watched as they pulled it out of me. It took me a second to realize the cries and sobs weren't mine anymore. They had it by its tiny feet, extracting it from the gaping hole in my stomach—a baby. A bloody newborn kicking and screaming, dangling from some wretched hand like a fish snatched from the ocean.” Finally, her eyes move towards me, their wet, red intent burning a hole into me. “That's when I saw you. You moved from the edge of the trees, into the light. And you took the screaming baby from their hands. You took it in your arms and you looked down at it; you glared at it like it was some kind of monster. And then you positioned its tiny little neck in between your fingers and you snapped it like a twig. The crack echoed through the trees and silenced the forest. Then you dropped the baby on the ground like a piece of garbage and you disappeared back into the woods.” She steals her eyes away from mine, that haunting glare of hatred moving from my face to the palms of her hands. And then she sobs outwardly, her shoulders heaving, her body a fault line omitting convulsions and tremors so violent, for a moment I think she could break her own spine.
“You killed him!” she screams into the night air. “You killed my baby!” She loses control and rolls over onto her side.
I'm at a loss. I move to console her and I'm not surprised when she pushes me away. But I persist, wrapping my arms around her, exploiting her weakness until she can't resist anymore. “It's okay,” I say softly into her ear, doing my best to banish the not-so-obscure truth behind her accusation. “It was just a nightmare. We've all had them here. But it wasn't real, Karen. I promise you, it wasn't real.”
I hug her and kiss her forehead, letting her warm tears massage the skin of my cool face. “It's okay, Karen,” I say with as much sincerity as possible. “We're going to be okay.”
***
Karen leans on me as we stumble along the trail. It took nearly twenty minutes to calm her. And after I changed her blood-soaked bandage, I convinced her that we had to continue. We had to persevere. She was reluctant and insisted I leave her. But I implored and eventually she gave in.
“Andrew!” I scream into the echoing woods. “Dillon!” My voice is getting sore from shouting and I begin to feel like it's futile anyway. If these woods don't want Dillon or Andrew to hear us, they won't.
“How are you?” I ask Karen, doing my best to keep a pace conducive to her weakened state.
“Surviving,” she replies, offering a pathetic little cough as accompaniment.
“We'll come across them, baby. I promise. We can find them if we just stick to the path.”
She offers a low grunt that could imply anything from legitimate agreement to complete pandering.
By now our eyes have adjusted to the darkness as much as possible. We do our best to stick to the dizzying and often-elusive trail, but find ourselves wandering off occasionally into rough terrain. We double back and find the outline of a path, but I don't want to tell Karen what I'm thinking: that it's completely possible we've meandered off our original trail and stumbled upon another. We could even be walking in circles for all I know. But I keep these fears to myself in a somewhat half-assed attempt to keep Karen's spirits up and her panic down. I'm actually about ready to tell her it might be a good place to stop and change her bandage again, when I see what appears to be a distant light through the thick horizon of trees.
“Karen, do you see that?”
She peers off into the darkness, her feeble, disenchanted expression contorting into something mildly hopeful. “Oh my God... it looks like some kind of light.”
“It could be Dillon or Andrew.”
“But what if it's not,” she says with a sharp tone of paranoia as she digs her fingernails into my supporting arm. “What if it's another trick? Another hallucination or something?”
“Sounds like you're starting to become a believer in this sick little ghost story.”
“Well you're right,” she whispers to me. “I can't explain anything that's happened and I'm scared shitless right now, okay? I'm scared out of my goddamn mind and I don't know what to believe.”
“Okay, I understand. But we can't just ignore it, Karen. That could be help up there. It's a good idea to approach with caution, but we need to see what that is. C'mon baby, we need to be strong through this. Agreed?”
She looks up at me with big frightened eyes and nods. “Do you still have the knife?” she asks.
“Fuck!” I realize almost immediately that I've left the knife at the spot where I mistakenly stabbed Karen. “I'm sorry, I left it behind. There was too much going on—I just didn't even think to pick it back up.”
She slumps with disappointment. “Okay,” she says. “That's okay. You're right though. We need to see what's up there. Let's go.”
We move forward and she leans against me as we make our way closer to the mysterious light, doing our best to creep quietly. Despite the cool air, I can feel the perspiration on her skin as it moistens my own. She’s trembling softly, undoubtedly fearful of the ambiguity of the impending situation. As we close in, I can hear a low hum. Karen turns to me with a questioning expression. It gets louder as we near the light, which appears to be suspended in the air. Another few steps and I can place the sound, silently mouthing the word to Karen: “generator.”
From our position, it becomes clear that the light is hanging from a tall pole. Behind it is the outline of a cabin. The structure is draped in fog, emitting a ghostly hue behind the hazy illumination.
We’re about fifty or sixty yards from the suspended light, our location concealed by a thick tree trunk. “Jesus, do you think that could be Dillon’s cabin?” Karen asks me.
“I don’t know,” I whisper back. “It’s totally possible. If not, it might be someone that could help us.”
She looks at me anxiously. “I guess we’re out of options,” she says. “It could be miles to another cabin. I vote we check it out.”
“I agree.”
We move slowly towards the cabin. As we pass under the hanging light, Karen nudges me silently and calls my attention to an old shovel leaning up against the light’s pole. Her intentions are obvious. I grab the shovel with my free hand and we continue on. After a few more slow, labored paces, we’re standing in front of the cabin’s old, wooden door.
I look to Karen and she nods at me, raising her fist to knock on the door. I tighten my grip on the shovel, attempting to cool my nerves slightly. I don’t want to be taken by surprise, but I don’t want to scare some redneck with a shotgun either. As her fist bangs on the door, I feel my heart beat faster and harder. On the other side of the door, I hear motion. There’s definitely someone inside and they’re moving toward the door. In another second we hear a lock click and the door swings inward, revealing nothing more than a dim room and Andrew standing in the threshold, looking dazed and haggard. He eyes us with some suspicion, which melts away quickly. “Well look what you found,” he says to me, a peculiar smile spreading across his face. He looks down to Karen’s bloody shirt and then back to me. “Well I guess you guys probably wanna come in, huh?” He steps away from the entryway, offering a silent invitation. I leave the shovel outside as we stumble in past him.
“Karen’s hurt,” I say as we make our way down a short entrance corridor, wood-paneled walls on either side of us. At the end of a corridor we can see a kitchen table. The room looks poorly lit. We walk in and I pull a chair out from the table for Karen. The small kitchen is typical, but old and dusty. The only light comes from a small lamp positioned on a counter opposite the sink. Karen sits and I call back to Andrew who’s following a few steps behind us. “She’s cut pretty bad. Are there any first aid supplies?”
“I’d imagine so,” he says scratching his head, moving into the kitchen. “Probably in the bathroom down here or the one upstairs.”
“Can you take a look, man? I want to stay with Karen.” I pause, scanning the kitchen and the adjacent living room. “Where’s Dillon?”
“Upstairs,” he says pointing to a staircase next to a pantry. “He’s pretty shot—probably sleeping by now.”
“Is there a phone in here?” Karen asks.
“Not one that works,” Andrew replies. “That was our first question too.”
I look to Karen who’s eyeing Andrew with evident suspicion. She’s creeped out and I can tell. I’m sure the knowledge that he’s largely responsible for her friend’s death is a big part of her distrust. She’s finicky and uncomfortable. Her eyes dart from me to Andrew wildly, like she’s expecting him to take some kind of violent action. There’s a long awkward pause, which Andrew eventually breaks. “Well, I’ll take a look upstairs for some first aid gear. There’s running water and it tastes pretty clean, so if you guys are thirsty, help yourselves. There are cups in the cabinets.” Then he disappears up the narrow stairs.
We can hear his footsteps on the floorboards above our heads. “Something feels really off,” Karen whispers to me as I kneel to remove her bandage. She groans and pulls away as I pull the bloody gauze from her side. “You can’t tell me something about Andrew doesn’t seem… well… totally disturbing. I’m sorry, but I’m having a hard time trusting him.”
“After what I told you, of course you are.” I toss the soiled bandage to the ground. “And I know, out of context it sounds totally fucked up. But you weren’t there, Karen. Eve was…” I stop as I realize I didn’t actually see Eve until Dillon had already beaten her nearly to death with the flashlight. In fact, at that time I had surmised Dillon had just reacted very poorly to a totally vivid nightmare. But within the circumstances of our fucked up situation—with talk of vengeful ghosts, possession and the girls trying to kill us—Andrew and Dillon’s actions had, at the time, seemed somewhat justified. Looking back on it with a different perspective and a seemingly clearer head, I have no defense for their actions. “I don’t really know what to say.”
She looks at me with feral eyes. “Find a weapon,” she whispers quickly, “Hurry, before Andrew comes back down.”
I stand up and run quietly over to the counter. I can still here Andrew’s footsteps overhead. I start pulling out drawers, looking for a knife or something sharp enough to use as a weapon. I hear Andrew’s hiking boots stomping. They start to move back in the direction of the staircase. “Fuck,” I whisper to myself as I start shuffling through drawers more frantically. They’re all empty or full of plastic utensils and paper plates.
“Hurry,” Karen whispers from the kitchen table. “He’s coming back.”
I turn around and start rummaging through the other side of the counter. Finally, underneath the sink I find an old rusty meat thermometer. I figure there must be something more efficient, but as I hear Andrew’s footsteps at the top of the stairs, I realize I’m out of time. I stick the thermometer in my back pocket and head back over to Karen.
Andrew enters the kitchen as I return to my position by Karen. I pretend to fumble with the discarded bandage while I feel the sharp spike of the meat thermometer poke into my ass. Andrew has a small first aid kit in hand. He looks at us with a muddled air about him. “All I could find,” he says as he tosses the kit onto the floor in front of me.
I nod towards him—meant as a signal of acceptance, I suppose. I open the kit and pick through the old rolls of gauze and expired antibacterial cream.
That painful, suspicious silence falls on us again. I feel obligated to break it.
“How long have you guys been here?” I ask as I tend to Karen's wound. The question sounds falsely casual, like I'm trying too hard to assuage the unspeakable tension.
“I really don't know,” Andrew replies absently as he makes his way over to the sink. “I feel like I've totally lost track of time.”
“I screamed for you guys,” I challenge him. “You really managed to disappear quickly.”
He just gives a half nod as he takes a cup from one of the cabinets and fills it with water. I look at Karen who stares at me with a sort of questioning anxiety. Andrew fills the cup and looks out the window over the sink. It would be impossible to see anything through the darkness. There are no lights in the backyard, at least none that are lit. I can only assume he's thinking, contemplating, considering options of murder or salvation or heroism.
I line Karen's wound with disinfectant I can only hope is still effective. “She needs stitches,” I say, covering the gash with the provided gauze.
Andrew doesn't even acknowledge the statement. He continues to stare absently out the window, sipping his water.
“I'm no surgeon,” I say, trying to push the issue. “I have no idea how to...”
I stop as I hear a loud thump from the room above us. The sound seems to break Andrew from his hypnosis and he looks towards us and then the stairs.
“What was that?” I ask him, my available hand reaching slowly towards my back pocket.
He looks at me with a frenzied, panicked expression. Then his eyes dart towards the stairs. It takes him a moment to respond. “Sounds like Dillon fell out of bed,” he says, his voice taking on an apprehensive sort of pitch.
“Maybe we should check on him,” I respond, standing from my crouched position, leaning in the direction of the stairs, the fingers of my right hand slowly removing the meat thermometer from my back pocket.
Suddenly our eyes lock. Understanding confirms our respective paranoia and we both dash to the stairs. We reach them at almost the same exact moment and as he shoots his arm out to grab the banister I pull the meat thermometer from my pocket and dig the spiked end deep into his outstretched hand. Andrew snarls with pain as he yanks his hand back. I take the opportunity to punch him in the face, knocking him back from the stairs. He stumbles and loses his balance, falling hard into the old linoleum countertop. I shoot a quick look to Karen and watch as she gets to her feet. With a motion that’s swifter than I would have expected, she drags one of the chairs over to the still-dazed Andrew, lifts it quickly and brings it crashing down on his head with a remarkable amount of force. Andrew falls to the floor in a heap, his head smacking the tile. Karen limps over to me and I take her hand, offering support as we make our way up the stairs.
“Pretty impressive,” I say as we reach the hallway at the top.
“You know I’m a real firecracker,” she responds.
I peer back down the stairs and see Andrew still unconscious on the kitchen floor, the splintered pieces of the chair scattered around him.
“Is that a meat thermometer?” Karen asks.
I lift the bloody utensil to eye level. “Beggars can’t be choosers. It sounds like the noise came from that bedroom.”
We both walk cautiously over to the closed door only a few feet down the hallway. Almost on cue, there’s another loud thump from behind the door. It startles Karen and she jumps back then looks at me, cheeks reddening with meek embarrassment. I put a reassuring hand on her arm and reach for the doorknob with the other. I turn the knob and begin to open the door. Before I can even call Dillon’s name, the door swings open with enough force to knock both Karen and I back. Dillon emerges from the dark room and, with the power of his own momentum, trips over the hallway rug and lunges headlong into the wall across the corridor. Once again, he’s naked except for his boxers. There’s duct tape over his mouth and around his hands. It’s pretty clear he had been bound to the bed and managed to free himself somehow. As he regroups from his tumble into the wall, he looks up at us with astonishment. Karen leans over and peels the tape off his mouth.
“Jesus Dillon,” I say helping him with the tape around his wrists. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Andrew,” he says frantically. “The kid’s lost it. He’s all fucked up in the head. I swear, I thought he was going to kill me; I’m sure he would have if you guys didn’t show up. Where is he?”
“He’s knocked out in the kitchen,” Karen replies.
“Where?” Dillon asks, peering past us down the stairs.
I swing around to see Andrew’s gone.
“Shit!” I exclaim. “Alright Dillon, try to explain to me what the hell is going on.”
“Andrew’s been drugging us,” he says as he gets to his feet.
Karen and I stare at him blankly—our silent attempt at encouraging elaboration.
“We got to the cabin and we were both all fucked up,” he starts. “I hadn’t even realized that we’d left you behind. I was concentrating so hard on finding our way through the woods and Andrew hadn’t said anything about you stopping to take a piss. ‘Slipped my mind’ is what he told me when we got to the cabin. Like how the fuck does it slip your mind? So, we get to the cabin, start up the generator and Andrew goes into the bathroom to take a piss. I’m hoping he has a bottle of water or something in his bag—I wasn’t sure how clean the tap water was—and what do I find? Drugs. Like legit drugs. I approach him about it when he gets out of the bathroom and he fesses up. That pot we’ve been smoking—not just pot. He’s been packing bowls laced with DMT and a little PCP. We’ve been smoking hardcore fucking hallucinogens and Angel Dust since we set up camp in that goddamn clearing!”
“Are you kidding me?” Karen asks with disbelief.
“He told me the whole fucking story,” Dillon continues. “He called it ‘a psychological experiment’—an attempt to get us all fucked up on heavy drugs, get us creeped out with a scary story in the middle of the woods and see how we react. But he’s off the deep end now. We’ve only smoked the DMT and Dust when he’s given it to us. But he’s been smoking it this whole fucking trip—while we were sleeping, on the trek back to the cabin and since we’ve gotten back here. He’s completely lost touch with reality. And when I tried to call him on it, he went fucking nuts. Said there really were spirits in these woods—that he could feel them and they were hunting us. When I told him he was just strung out, he attacked me. He came at me and he was so Dusted up, I couldn’t stop him. He beat the shit out of me. Knocked me unconscious. I woke up taped to the fucking bed in there. He’s loony as a goddamn toon, guys. We need to get the fuck out of here.”
Suddenly the lights go out. I listen for the sound of the generator, but there’s nothing.
“Ohhhhh…. we are so fucked,” Dillon says and he moves away from the stairs. “I’m telling you guys, he has completely lost it. He thinks we’re out to get him. He thinks we’re fucking possessed. He’ll kill us all before he lets us leave this cabin.”
And just like that, the cold, coarse hum of the generator starts up again. But the lights don't turn back on. And something's different. The sound of the machine is more rugged—rustier and threatening.
“I don't think that's the generator,” Dillon says softly, almost wanting to keep the realization to himself.
The machine revs angrily, the abrasive climax of its frightening soundtrack cuts through the immersive silence like a blood-curdling scream. And it doesn't take a detective to place the familiar backyard mainstay that anyone who's lived in the suburbs at some point in their life knows.
“We need a weapon,” Dillon says. “Tell me you have a fucking weapon.”
I show him the meat thermometer with a telling amount of shame. He looks at the bloody edge and gives a shallow chuckle. “Yeah... we're fucked.”-
We can all hear the crash downstairs as the front door swings inward and smashes against its nearest wall. The pulse of the machine grows violently louder, its crescendos and decrescendos thriving melodically, ebbing and flowing with seemingly purposeful articulation.
The three of us are frozen solid, frightened to the point of immobility, like cowering, breathing statues. It's not until Andrew appears at the bottom of the stairs, chainsaw in hand, that we smell gasoline panic and split up to opposite sides of the hallway—Dillon fleeing to the right while Karen and I sprint to the left.
We duck into the nearest bedroom and Karen rushes to the window while I stop to hold the door closed. The immense sound of the chainsaw climbs the stairs and clearly veers right. Somehow the echo of hungry, rusted metal teeth cutting through the wooden door is slightly more excruciating to listen to than the sound of the saw ripping its way through Dillon's flesh—I suppose it’s the torturous expectation of what you know is coming next.
Dillon lets out an inhuman howl as the chainsaw revs its appreciation for the sacrifice.
“We can't just leave him,” I scream to Karen who's already opening the window.
“He's gone,” she says with a matter-of-fact tone that chills me. “It's only us now. We need to move.”
As a gruesome exclamation point, Dillon releases another piercing scream that brings the hair on my arms to a brittle, frozen point. I look away from Karen and push the bedroom door open, brandishing the meat thermometer like it's some kind of secret weapon. I rush into the hallway just in time to see Dillon falling through the bedroom doorway, his right arm hanging on by a thin thread of flesh, his chest a minefield of exploded gashes; an illustration of a rotten pulled pork sandwich without the bread. His waning yelps of pain cease only as Andrew emerges from the bedroom and runs the chainsaw blade through Dillon's neck, his blood splattering the walls like a sloppy impressionist painting. It's only a matter of seconds before Dillon's head is on the floor and his neck is a rugged volcano spewing dark crimson onto the hallway rug.
Andrew sees me and revs his weapon, miniscule puffs of smoke wafting into the scent of gas, disappearing into the abandoned darkness of the claustrophobic hallway. “I know those fucking Indians turned you,” he says to me, his voice concealing any hint of a connection with reality. “This is Custer's last stand!” he exclaims as he marches towards me, a sick, warped grin slashing across his face. “Cept I'm not losing this battle!” He roars with a gut-wrenching battlecry and sprints at me, chainsaw poised artistically in front of his face.
I rush into the room and slam the door, placing my body in front of it in a futile attempt at additional resistance. Seconds later the saw blade is ripping through the wood, forging a splintery path that showers my face with sawdust. I look to the window and find nothing but curtains billowing in the cool breeze from outside.
The saw hits a knot and struggles momentarily. I rush towards the open window and look down at the twenty-foot drop that seems less imposing than it should. I grab the inner windowsill and hang myself outside, creating as little space as possible between my lanky body and the ground below. My eye level is below the window, but I can hear the bedroom door bust open. I relax my fingers and I fall to the hard ground below, my right ankle screaming as it meets the less-than-forgiving earth.
I stare up, a combination of pain and helplessness keeping me in place. Andrew appears through the window, chainsaw first, the swinging, unwieldy blade slicing the air. He looks down at me, but the chainsaw's weight and momentum pull him through the window further than he'd like. The chainsaw falls from his hands and lands inches from my leg; Andrew follows shortly after, his attempt to grab the falling weapon leading him on a disastrous course to a headfirst collision with the ground.
I grab the handle of the still-running chainsaw and spin the blade like the lightening-quick carousel of bloody carnage that it is. Andrew lies helplessly, his neck positioned at an impossible angle, his frantic eyes darting back and forth like seizure-inducing strobe lights. I hang the spinning chainsaw over his neck and he manages to speak.
“You're as fucked as I am,” he says, spitting blood through his teeth. “It's not just drugs, man. Those ghosts are pissed.”
“You're insane,” I reply, the weight of the chainsaw prying my fingers loose as the blade dances over Andrew's head.
“Maybe,” he spits. “But they're turning us against each other. That’s what they do. They know shit they can’t possibly know. They knew about Karen’s abortion, didn’t they?”
My grip tightens. “What are you talking about?”
Andrew gives a self-assured chuckle. “Oh yeah... she kept you in the dark.” He can't move his head, but his eyes shift up to meet mine. “That's my baby, man. It’s mine. And she used it against you. She didn't tell you the full story. She made you feel like shit for pressuring her into an abortion. But that's not even your baby.” And he laughs, a grinding hysterical laugh. “Where’s that bitch that left you in the bedroom anyway?” he asks. “Where's the beloved cunt that left you to get chewed up by a chainsaw?” He's hysterical now, laughing like a clown at a child's birthday party. And as sweat greases my fingers, I lose my grip on the handle and the machine plunges into Dillon's neck, chomping through his skin and offering a bloody offshoot that leaves me wiping the gore from my face with my sweatshirt.
And then she appears around the corner of the house. Almost prophetically. She watches as the chainsaw powers through Andrew's neck and falls onto its side. She doesn't say a word as she walks up beside me and grabs my hand gently.
“The baby?” I question without a second of delay. “It was mine?”
She hesitates. “Of course.”
***
Her head rests against the tree trunk, her neck bound with duct tape that wraps around the tree, her hands taped helplessly behind her back.
“It's the woods,” she mutters to me weakly. “Andrew was right. He was strung out as fuck, but he was right. They know things.” She’s sobbing now. “They're turning us against each other. You said it yourself!”
I ignore her and swing the shovel into her skull, sandwiching it between the tree and the shovel's heavy metal edge. The side of her head caves in and she spits blood and teeth fragments onto the dirty forest floor. “Think about what you’ve seen,” she says drunkenly through a mouthful of blood, her jaw almost certainly broken. “It can’t just be drugs. It can’t just be drugs.”
I stop for a moment and consider. Something about her pleas strike a chord and I relax my body, my mind once again returning to the image of Karen stepping into the clearing, her love and affection and honesty practically tangible. But a cool wave of assuredness drowns the scene, yanking it from my mind like a furious, violent undertow. “You're a liar,” I say to her, my distracting sense of paranoia melting into certainty. I raise the shovel in preparation and follow through with an immense homerun swing. The sick reverberation makes me wish I had batting gloves.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!!
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