The Cabin at the End of the World(77)
The rain is falling heavier now, turning the red clay of the road to dark brown. The blood on Sabrina’s shirt runs, becoming pink.
She says, “You have the keys. You should go, please. Just go. Drive, away from here, and then you’ll—” She pauses to allow herself to cry, openmouthed and silent. She presses the back of her hand over her mouth and then says, “I’m so sorry. I wanted to help you. I tried to help you, help you more than this.”
Andrew says, “Put down the gun and you can still help by coming with us to the police and telling them everything that happened. We need you to do that for us.”
Sabrina shakes her half-obscured head. “I want to, believe me. But I can’t. I won’t be allowed to.”
Eric bends and reverently lays Wen’s body on a bed of fernlike plants. He kneels next to her, and fat raindrops darken her shroud. The bandage on the back of his head finally gives way and slides off.
Sabrina swings the gun up in a smooth and precise motion. Her left arm is animatronic. The arm moves like it is not of her. She presses the muzzle against her temple. Her right arm waves and flutters, a confused mash-up of go away and please help me gestures. She is still crying with her mouth open, now wide enough to fit a scream.
Andrew points the gun at her left shoulder and cocks the hammer back. “Put it down, Sabrina! Don’t do this!”
Eric stands up too rapidly, and his vision fills with stars that turn into oozing inkblots of light. He closes his eyes and takes three deep breaths. When he opens them again, Sabrina is turned toward him and whispering, in an almost comically open manner. “You still have time to save everyone. Eric. You still have a chance. Even after. But you have to do it quick.” Sabrina shakes her head no, disagreeing with what she just said. Then she says, “You are—” and her gun goes off. The bullet plows through her head and exits with a ribbon of blood. Her body collapses against the fir tree and lands with her torso partially propped up. Her head lolls to her right, conveniently allowing its contents to empty through the exit wound.
Andrew shouts, “Fuck!” and spins away. He screams the curse repeatedly and bends over, his hands on his knees. Rain beats down on his head and back. He delicately uncocks the hammer of his gun.
Eric walks through the brush to Sabrina’s body, and he takes the gun from her hand, which is open. The gun is lighter than he anticipated. The forest darkens; there’s no end to how dark it can get. Flies swarm Sabrina’s body, crawling over her mask and in and out of her uncovered and open mouth. Their buzzing adds an undercurrent to the thunder, which he realizes isn’t thunder, not anymore. He’s hearing ancient gears grinding and clicking into place, and perhaps irrevocably turning.
Andrew remains bent over and facing away from Eric. Should Eric do it before Andrew turns around? It would be easier that way. He prays silently, fills his broad chest with air, and says, “She said I could still save everyone.”
Andrew straightens and finds Eric in the woods and standing in front of Sabrina’s body. He has her gun in his right hand and his arm is angled across his chest.
“Eric . . .”
“She said I have to do it quick.”
Andrew asks, “Where is Wen?”
“She’s right there. Close by. I wouldn’t leave her. I didn’t want to put her down, but I had to.”
Seeing her on the ground alone is like seeing her on the cabin floor all over again. “Maybe I should carry her now.”
“I think you might have to. Sabrina said the truck isn’t far.”
Andrew doesn’t move. He’s afraid to move. “Hey, I didn’t get to finish what I was going to say about Wen because Sabrina took off running and then—” He stops talking and points at Sabrina’s body.
“What were you going to say about Wen?” Eric understands what the others were experiencing when they kept telling us that time was running out. It’s a physical sensation; he can feel it splashing in his blood.
Andrew says, “Forget O’Bannon, Redmond, and all the coincidences and the rules and everything else. Focus on this: they expect us to believe that Wen’s death isn’t a good-enough sacrifice for their god. So you know what? Fuck them and their god. Fuck them all.” He says it all in one breath and then gives in to full-on sobbing. Tears and rain mix and wash down his face, blurring Eric and the forest.
Before today, Eric has only seen Andrew cry once. It was when Andrew returned to their apartment after the two-day hospital stay, post–bar attack. Eric sat next to Andrew on the edge of the bed and wrapped his arms around him. No one spoke. Andrew cried and he cried, and when it was over he said, “That’s enough of that.”
Eric says, “You’re right. You are. And I know you can give a reason for everything that happened, that’s happening, but—” He waits and gives Andrew a chance to say the right thing, the impossible right thing that would make this all go away and take us and Wen back home safe.
Andrew doesn’t know what it is Eric needs him to say, so he’ll just keep talking until he lands on it. “I’m really sorry about the Christian crack earlier.” He sputters a half cry, half laugh and Eric only blinks at him. “But you—”
“I saw something in the cabin you didn’t see, Andrew. I think I was supposed to see it. And I felt it, too. I experienced it. It was real and it was made of light and it was there when they killed Redmond, when they were pushed to kill him. And then it was—it was all light the next time and I closed the door to keep it out.”