The Cabin at the End of the World(72)
Andrew stalks back to the center of the cabin’s common area but slows down when there’s a hiccupping click in his right knee, a warning from his shifting bones to slow down. He navigates more carefully over the blood-slicked floor. Sabrina stands with her back against the front wall, and Eric is on the couch with Wen’s body across his lap. It’s as though the trip to the deck didn’t happen and no one has moved and nothing has changed. And just like that Andrew’s energy dissipates and a near-incapacitating sadness and despair swells at the realization that even after we walk out the front door, part of us will be trapped in the cabin and in these positions forever.
Andrew says to Sabrina with his best impersonation of his own stern, professorial voice, “Turn around, drop to your knees, and put your hands behind your back.”
Sabrina does as is instructed. Facing the wall, she says, “You don’t have to hurt me. I’m going to help you as much as I can.”
Eric asks, “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to tie her hands together and then we’ll all walk to the keys.”
Andrew saws lengths of rope away from Leonard’s bound legs. The size of the chef’s knife makes it unwieldy for the job. He accidentally pokes and jabs Leonard’s body twice. Red beads leak sluggishly from the puncture wounds like sap from a tree. He manages to cut four arm-length pieces of rope loose. He carries them over to Sabrina, who is still on her knees, waiting. He considers threatening her with consequences if she doesn’t comply but instead simply tells her not to move. He squats behind her. His swollen right knee is a bowling ball. Sabrina’s fingers and hands are pink with memories of blood. The back of her shirt is as white as a single puffy cloud in summer.
Andrew doesn’t say anything to her and she doesn’t say anything to him. He does a quick and rough job of tying her hands and wrists together with the first rope length. It will keep her bound long enough for him to take more care with the reinforcement lengths. If any of this process is uncomfortable or painful, Sabrina doesn’t react to it. When he finishes, her hands and wrists are all but swallowed up by a thick dual spindle. He tries to pull her forearms apart and there’s no movement, no give in the rope.
Eric is off the couch and standing behind Andrew. He looks at the door and is as afraid of what’s outside as he is afraid of what’s inside. He says, “We’re doing the right thing.”
Andrew does a double take because he thinks he hears We’re going to do the right thing. He says to Sabrina, “Okay, you can stand up. Do you need help?”
“No, I don’t.” She lifts her right knee until her foot is flush against the floor and she stands smoothly and without much effort. She turns and flashes a friendly, I’m-on-your-side smile that slides into pity, an ugly transformation familiar to us both.
She says, “I’m ready.”
Andrew walks to the front door and swings it open on creaking hinges.
Eric holds his breath and prays, asking for the light and whatever entity might be housed within to not be outside waiting for us. That there hasn’t been another sighting of the shimmery figure only convinces him it will return. The cabin interior brightens by a few shades, enough to wash out color and add more shadow. This light is from a nowhere time, neither before nor after the golden hours of dawn and dusk. Nothing in the cabin moves; even Eric’s flies are stilled.
Andrew stands in the open doorway and glances back inside the cabin. With bent metal pieces of the television frame and wires hanging limply from a splintered, jagged hole in the far wall and the blood on the floor congealing into colossal scabs. The room was thrashed and scored from within by parasites so greedy as to have killed the host.
Andrew waves his knife and says, “Come on.” Sabrina is the first to walk outside, and she does so silently. Eric and Wen are next with Eric walking dutifully and with his head down. Andrew thinks about reaching out to touch his husband’s shoulder as he passes, but he fails to lift his free hand in time. Eric is already down the stairs and to the grass. Andrew is the last to leave and he closes the door behind him, keeping whatever is left inside the cabin from following.
It’s darker outside now than it was only minutes ago, and windier. The cloud cover is charcoal tinted. The cabin and surrounding trees block any attempt at distance viewing. At least from the deck, we could see across the lake to the forest and mountains and more easily imagine the wider world beyond us, beyond what we saw on the television. Without the elevated perspective, the front yard is the bottom of a grasshopper jar.
We walk across the lawn and to the gravel driveway. Our footsteps are loud and grinding. We don’t feel safe. We’re exposed and vulnerable, and we suppress the urge to run back inside the cabin and hide from this world.
Andrew says, “Hold up,” and stops at our SUV. The passenger-side rear door is open, shark-tooth-shaped chunks of glass clinging stubbornly to the frame. The slashed tires have melted into pools of rubber. The vehicle is lopsided, a sunken derelict ship. “We can’t drive it. It’s not going anywhere,” he says as though having to explain or excuse leaving behind anything that belongs to us. He opens the rear hatch, which hisses as it lifts over his head.
The hissing is a shriek in Eric’s ears and it echoes through the woods, stirring up a susurrus similar to but not the same as the mocking chorus of flies in the cabin; it’s a deeper sound, the humming of power lines. Maybe it’s a mistake to be outside, attempting to leave, acting like we can simply go on.