The Cabin at the End of the World(52)
Sabrina is gone, disappearing around the side of the cabin. Is she going to run into the woods and hide or is she going all the way out back and to the deck or up through the basement and then back inside to warn and help the others? Will the others come outside now after hearing the gunfire?
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Andrew thrashes about on the ground as though he is drowning until he muscles onto his feet. He decides he doesn’t have time to wait for the self-opening pneumatic rear gate to open or to crawl back inside the car and root around for more ammunition. He’s already left Eric and Wen alone with the others for too long. Will the others be more inclined to hurt Eric and/or Wen because they heard one if not both gunshots?
He tests a forward step on his gimpy knee. It quivers, as loose as a Slinky, but he remains upright. He takes a second step, and then a third, and he makes a deal with his knee; it will continue to function as long as he walks only in a straight line and doesn’t move brashly to either side.
Back on the front lawn and without the sound of gravel shifting under his feet, the abrupt silence is a new terror. The cabin, even with the benefit of the morning’s wholesome sunlight, appears worn, tired, and bereft. The paint on the door and trim is dulled and sun bleached. The wooden shingles are blemished with dots of mildew and are loose and as asymmetrical as crooked teeth. The cabin is now a haunted house, baptized by yesterday’s violence, and its passive accumulation of similarly vicious and desperate acts is as inevitable as dust gathering on the windowsills.
Even with the windows locked shut and front door closed, shouts, grunts, and the wooden thuds and knocks of physical struggle emanate from inside the cabin. His hybrid run/limp across the grass to the front stairs is as long and lonely as a doomed expedition. He passes Wen’s grasshopper jar; sunlight flares off the glass and aluminum lid (screwed on tightly) as though saying see me, see me. Lying on its side and sunk into the taller grass, the earth is already absorbing it, consuming the evidence of its existence. He oddly hoped Leonard wasn’t lying about setting the grasshoppers free. It’s possible he let them go and resealed the lid, but unlikely. That Andrew finds the jar glinting sunlight and most certainly containing the dead bodies of Wen’s seven named grasshoppers seems a cruelly mocking harbinger.
Andrew clambers up the cement front stairs, loading both feet on one step before moving on to the next. Lifting and bending his right knee is exponentially more painful than when walking straight and on flat ground. Once on the landing, he hears Eric yelling inside the cabin, “Stay away! Leave us alone!” and it sounds like he’s on the left side of the common room.
Andrew leans, pressing his shoulder against the doorframe, allowing his right leg to rest a moment. He wraps his left hand around the doorknob, and before turning it, he quickly attempts to work out what he’ll say or do or see after the door opens. He cannot open the door and start shooting indiscriminately. The rash first shot fired at/near Sabrina inside the SUV unnerved him as he doesn’t remember actively deciding to shoot. It just happened.
Andrew closes his eyes and flattens his body against the door; he’s as close to being inside the cabin as he can be without actually being in it. Adriane yells about not wanting to die. Leonard tells Eric to stop swinging and let’s talk. He says, “Eric, let’s talk,” repeatedly. Leonard’s voice is muffled, an echo across the canyon of the common room.
Andrew holds the gun up near his face so he can swing the arm down and instantly point it into the room. He takes a deep breath, turns the knob, and the door opens, the cabin greedy for his reentrance. Andrew lurches inside and he lowers the gun in front of him. No one seems to notice he’s there.
Eric is to his left, stationed in front of Wen’s bedroom doorway. His left leg is free, but his right leg is snared in twisted, stretched-out rope still attached to a fallen chair on the floor trailing behind him. He swings Adriane’s flower-of-hand-shovel-and-trowel-blades-tipped staff in sweeping, menacing arcs. An inefficient machine, he sweats through his shirt and breathes in gulping hitches. His shoulders sagging and his spine curved, he grimaces before and after each swipe and whoosh of the weapon.
Leonard stands in front of the couch and the darkened TV on the wall. He says, “Everyone, let’s calm down. Let’s talk, this isn’t good for anyone,” in that insufferable I’m-just-trying-to-help tone. It’s instantly clear to Andrew that Leonard—despite all the earlier talk about how they were running out of time—is perfectly content to let Eric work himself to total exhaustion. Leonard has his dual-tipped wooden staff, the one O’Bannon brought into the cabin, but he does not brandish it. It’s hidden behind his back like the world’s worst-kept secret.
If Eric is a cornered lion tamer, then Adriane is the lion, stalking, pacing, and darting forward at Eric and then skittering back when he swings what was once her staff. She has a steak knife in each hand, the blades thin but serrated. The knives appear comically small and ineffectual compared to the other weapons.
Andrew strays from the doorway, deeper into the room. Everyone else finally sees him. They stop moving and talking and they gape. Eric sways in place and he blinks like he doesn’t believe what he’s seeing or he’s seeing something that isn’t there. He lowers the bladed end of the weapon to the floor and holds his forehead with his right hand. Andrew can’t tell if this is an expression of relief or anguish.
Andrew points the gun in the general shared direction of Leonard and Adriane. He wants to yell and scream and threaten and hurt; he yearns for both of them to hurt for this.