allieoop: you forgot about the hot and stupid shirtless guys who just want to get laid
ghostwife: oh yeah, and the one nerdy friend who doesn’t have a partner.
eatersofthedead: that person is always the first to be killed
tyz7412: yeah, people on their own don’t survive these movies.
ALLIE WASN’T SURE WHAT woke her. She just knew that one minute she’d been asleep and the next her eyes were wide open. Her heart pounded hard in her chest, but she wasn’t sure if it was because she’d heard something out of place or if it was just because she’d woken up suddenly. She rolled over and stared into the dark room, looking for shadows that didn’t belong.
The curtains were drawn over the one window in the room. The window was between Allie’s bunk and the queen-size bed. No light filtered in from outside at all. The window was open. She felt the night breeze blowing in and smelled the lingering scent of the campfire.
Her eyes adjusted to the deep shadow of the room. Madison and Steve had taken their place in the queen-size bed. She could make out one big lump that looked like two bodies pressed together, and she heard Madison’s soft snore. She’d roomed with Madison for two years and she knew that sound. That wouldn’t be what woke her.
She picked up her phone, which she’d left charging on the nightstand with a portable battery. The screen glowed 3:13 A.M.
Maybe I just had a nightmare, even if I don’t remember it, she thought, scrubbing her face with her hands. There didn’t seem to be anything out of place. Everyone was sleeping, and there were no noises outside, not even the whistle of crickets.
That’s so weird, she thought again as she turned over and faced the wall. Even if Brad miraculously found some mosquito-free zone, there should be crickets chirping, and raccoons scurrying, and tree branches snapping as animals pass through the forest. Something’s wrong here. Something’s very wrong, and I’m not sure what, but I am definitely leaving as soon as the sun comes up.
Getting up that early wouldn’t be a problem. She normally rose with the sun, put in a workout before most of the people in her dorm were stirring, and got first crack at the dorm showers before everyone else made a mess of them. Her body would wake up at 5:30 a.m., even in the dead of winter, when the sun wouldn’t start lightening the sky until she was on her way back from the campus gym. She was pretty confident that she could wake up and sneak out before the rest of them realized what had happened.
Allie rolled back to face the wall, closing her eyes. She needed to get a decent night’s sleep if she was going to hike out of there in the morning.
Something scraped against the wall of the cabin outside.
Allie opened her eyes and sat up, staring at the window. The curtains fluttered, but she couldn’t tell if there was anything outside. She put on her glasses and stared hard.
It was probably just an animal.
(except there are no animals around here which you have observed repeatedly)
Then it was a tree brushing against the roof or something. No need to get yourself so worked up.
She didn’t lie back down, though. She peered into the deep shadow of the room, trying to discern any kind of motion outside the window.
She felt her blood pumping in her veins, the pulse throbbing in the side of her head. A little noise like that shouldn’t have her so alarmed, but she was alarmed. Everything had felt off since she’d climbed into the car for this trip, and now something was wrong. She knew, with deep certainty, that the noise outside the cabin was not benign.
But I am not going to get up and look, because that’s how idiots die in horror movies. They investigate a strange noise alone, or they say dumb shit like, “You go look that way and I’ll go this way.” There’s no reason for me to invite harm upon myself. I’m just going to stay right here in bed, where I belong.
A scrape sounded again, a long thin skrrrrritch that bore an uncanny resemblance to the sound of a knife being dragged across the wooden logs that made up the cabin’s exterior.
You’ve got to be kidding me, Allie thought. Then: It’s nothing scary at all. It’s just Brad being an asshole.
This idea calmed her. Of course it was only Brad being a dick. He was annoyed that she hadn’t wanted to play his stupid games earlier, and now he was trying to fuck with her, freak her out for no particular reason. Well, Allie would not allow herself to be fucked with. She was not going to engage.
Someone knocked on the wall of the cabin three times, then paused.
Madison snorted, took in a great gasp of air, and then muttered, “What?”
Allie just made out the shifting of shadow as Madison sat up.
Someone knocked again, three times.
Because three is a magical number, Allie thought, and shivered. Three wishes from the djinn, three witches around the cauldron, three cries in the night to seal your fate.
“What the fuck?” Madison said. “Steve, wake up.”
Allie heard rustling, saw the larger shape that was Steve rise up.
“What’s going on?” he said, his voice thick with sleep.
“There’s someone outside,” Madison said.
“What?”
“There’s someone outside, fucking with us,” Madison said. “They’re knocking on the cabin wall.”
“It’s probably just Brad or Cam. Or both,” Steve said. “Just go back to sleep.”
He lay back down.
The knock sounded three times once more, spaced with a breath between each.
“Okay, I guess that’s pretty annoying,” Steve said. He threw the covers back and stalked toward the window.
“Wait,” Allie said.
Steve paused in the middle of the room, his head turned toward the bunks. Allie could just make out the gleam of his eyes and the white tee shirt he slept in.
“Allie?” he said, like he’d forgotten she was in the room with them.
He probably did forget, because he only cares about my existence if someone points it out to him.
“Yes, Allie,” she said. “Who did you think it was?”
“How long have you been awake?” he asked.
“Not sure why that’s relevant, but long enough to have heard those knocks sound three times already,” Allie said. She realized she sounded bitchy, but she didn’t care. Sometimes it was exhausting to be polite to someone you really didn’t like in the first place.
“So why do you want me to wait?” Steve said.
“Because if it is Brad or Cam, they just want attention, and you’re going to give it to them by shouting out the window. And if it isn’t . . .” She trailed off, not sure if she wanted to follow that line of inquiry.
“And if it isn’t?” Madison said, her voice squeaky with alarm.
“Well, then it’s obviously someone who means us harm,” Allie said. “So I don’t think you should stick your head out the window.”
Steve was silent for a moment, clearly considering the wisdom of what Allie had said. Allie sensed the deep well of idiotic masculinity inside him warring with common sense. He wanted to prove he was bigger and tougher than whatever—or whoever—was outside, but he also realized that maybe Allie was right.
Idiotic masculinity won, as Allie expected it would.
“I’ll go outside and check it out,” he said.
“That’s even dumber,” Allie said. “Are you trying to make yourself a target?”
The scraping sound renewed, a long draw across the cabin wall. It seemed to Allie that the sound was getting closer to the window. It also occurred to her that the bedroom window was open, and if the bedroom window was open, then whoever was outside could hear everything they said.
He—and Allie felt sure it was a “he,” that it wasn’t Cam messing around out there—could also climb in the window, if he felt so inclined. The bottom sill was only about knee height for an average-sized person.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Steve said, opening the bedroom door and heading out into the main room. Madison scampered after him.
“For chrissakes,” Allie said, climbing out of bed. She didn’t like Steve, and sometimes she didn’t like Madison very much either, but she didn’t want them to get mutilated.
But she’d underestimated Steve. Instead of going straight to the front door, he went to Brad and Cam’s bedroom and pounded on the door with his fist, flipping on the main room light as he went.
“Hey, are you two in there?” he said.
Madison had paused in the doorway, and Allie stood next to the bunk, watching the window and listening hard. If Brad was outside, she expected to hear the scrape of his shoes as he climbed back into the room next door. It would be easy for him to pretend he’d been in bed the whole time, especially since all the cabin windows were open to let in the night air.
And there are no screens to slow him—or anyone else—down.
Allie didn’t hear anything from outside or any telltale bumps from next door, either. A second later, the other bedroom door creaked open and Brad said, “What the hell, man?”
His voice sounded sleepy, like he’d just woken up.
That doesn’t mean anything. It’s easy to fake sleepiness. Brad could still have been outside this whole time. Just because you didn’t hear him climb back in—
Allie’s thought stopped cold. Her breath caught in her throat.
Someone outside passed by the window, moving toward the front of the cabin.
“There’s someone out there,” she whispered.
“What?” Madison said, turning back toward Allie.
“I saw someone outside,” Allie said, coming to the doorway to stand beside Madison. The overhead light seemed especially bright after the deep darkness of the bedroom. “They’re going toward the front.”
“Allie said she saw somebody,” Madison said in a loud whisper in Steve’s direction.
“Oh, well, if Allie says she saw somebody,” Brad said, in that sneering tone that made Allie want to leap down the hall and smack him.
She didn’t have to, though, because Steve unexpectedly came to her defense.
“There’s someone out there for sure,” he said. “They were banging and scraping on the cabin wall. Didn’t you hear it?”
“No, man, my girl wore me out,” Brad said.
Allie rolled her eyes. Why do guys always, always, always have to brag about getting laid?
“I’m going to check it out,” Steve said.
“Don’t,” Allie said. “You don’t know who’s out there, or what their intentions are.”
“This isn’t one of your stupid movies, Allison,” Brad said. “Me and Steve can handle whatever’s out there.”
Brad pushed out the door past Steve, and Allie noticed that he was only wearing boxer briefs.
“You might want to put on some pants,” Allie said.
“Why? See something you like? Am I too much for you?”
“Gimme a fucking break,” Allie said. She tried to communicate with her eyes that she wouldn’t touch him if Brad were the last man on earth. He must have gotten the message, because an angry flush appeared just below his jaw.
“Brad, what’s going on?” Cam said, her voice a plaintive wail coming from the next room. Allie knew Cam was a heavy sleeper, so it would take a lot of fuss and noise for her to wake.
“Nothing to worry about. Go back to sleep, baby,” Brad said as he ducked back into their bedroom.
Allie heard the rustle of clothing as Brad dressed. It was so quiet that every noise was magnified. There was no distant, reassuring hum of highway traffic or the sound of other people. And as she’d already noted, there were no sounds from animals in the woods. It was like they were inside a noiseless bubble, sealed off from the outside world.
“Where are you going?” Cam asked.
“Just outside for a sec to check something out,” Brad said.
“What for?”
“Because your friend”—Allie heard the derisive tone in “friend”—“thinks she saw someone outside.”
“Hey, it’s not just Allie,” Madison said, indignant. “We heard the noises, too.”
“You all probably just had a nightmare,” Brad said from inside the room.
“That’s impossible,” Madison said. “You think all three of us imagined the same knocking and scraping?”
“Can’t everyone just go back to bed?” Cam said, moaning. “I’m so tired.”
At this point Allie, too, just wanted to go back to bed. She didn’t know if the shadow she’d seen was real or not, but she strongly suspected that the noises had been caused—or arranged—by Brad somehow. Maybe Brad had a friend lurking around in the woods. Or maybe there was actually another cabin nearby, despite the seeming isolation, and Brad’s coconspirator was staying there.
It would explain why Brad had wanted to play Ghosts in the Graveyard, to draw them out into the forest at night. He’d likely planned it as a practical joke. It also explained why he was so eager to head outside. He knew there was no real danger.
Which means that the noises are all a part of that joke, so we should all just stop giving oxygen to his ridiculous ploy.
“Yeah, maybe we should just forget it,” Allie said. “Whatever caused the noise, it’s gone now.”
“No way,” Steve said. “If there’s someone out there, I’m not going to wait for them to fuck with us again.”
Brad emerged from the bedroom in a gray sweatshirt and jeans. Steve already wore pajama pants and a tee shirt—a concession that Allie assumed was for her benefit, since she slept in the same room as him. It made her think more kindly of him, even if he was dumb as a post.
The two boys—men, Allie reminded herself, they are technically men—strode toward the front door.
“Wait,” Madison said, hovering uncertainly in the bedroom door. “Shouldn’t you take a kitchen knife or something?”
“Who do you think is out there, Michael Myers?” Brad said, laughing. “I’m not going to have a knife fight. It’s probably just some jerk who wandered in this direction and decided to have a laugh. If there’s anyone at all.”
“Just get back in bed, Mad,” Allie said, putting her hand on her friend’s shoulder. Madison was trembling. The noises seemed to have really scared her. “Brad’s right, it’s probably nothing.”
Allie had half-convinced herself that this was nothing but a prank. She’d only gotten worked up because it was so dark and silent, because she’d been asleep and had woken so suddenly. There was really nothing to worry about.
The ringing crash of shattering glass made her freeze.
“What the—?” Brad said, yanking open the front door. He flipped on the porch light, and swore. “My car! What the fuck happened to my car?”
He rushed outside, Steve following.
“No, Steve! Stay here!” Madison said, running to the doorway after them.
“No,” Allie said, but not because she was worried about Steve or Brad. She was worried about Madison rushing outside, following the Two Very Manly Musketeers into who knows what peril.
She hurried after Madison, grabbing her friend’s wrist before she went out the door. “Wait.”
“But—” Madison said.
Whatever else Madison was going to say was drowned in a flurry of inventive curses. Allie peeked out the doorway and saw Brad and Steve circling Brad’s car.
“Goddamned motherfucking piece of shit!” Brad shouted into the night. “If you come near here again, I will beat the ever-loving shit out of you!”
The BMW’s front windshield was shattered. That was bad enough, but Allie saw that the two tires facing the cabin were punctured. She suspected, from the angle of the car, that the other two tires had suffered the same fate.
“How are we supposed to get out of here?” Steve asked. “I mean, are we supposed to walk or hitchhike or what?”
“How the fuck do I know?” Brad said. “This is bullshit. Total bullshit.”
Brad seemed like he was shocked and angry. So maybe this wasn’t part of some big plan he’d cooked up. Or maybe it was, and he was just a really good performer. Allie would reserve judgment. She didn’t trust Brad at all. The damaged car could have been arranged in advance, and after a weekend of messing with them, his butler or whoever would show up with the family’s personal helicopter.
Besides, you were going to hike out in the morning anyway. Now you don’t have to sneak off while they’re all asleep.
Although, Allie reflected, it would be a hell of a lot easier alone.
Allie knew Cam’s bitching would be legendary if they had to hike. Cam hated walking any distance longer than from the passenger seat to the door of a restaurant, and putting up with her complaints would make any long hike irritating beyond belief.
Still, Allie hoped that this event—though potentially staged—would end the farce of a weekend once and for all. And when it was over and she was safely back on campus, Allie was going to tell Cam and Madison flat out that she didn’t want their boyfriends hijacking their plans anymore. If Brad and Steve showed up, then Allie was out.
Her chest felt heavy at the thought. There was nothing less comfortable than confronting those who were supposed to be your closest friends. It was, Allie reflected, so much easier to pretend everything was fine, to not join in with the excuse that she was so busy, had so many tests, had a lot of reading to get done. So many relationships in her life had fallen by the wayside in this easy, uncomplicated way—lack of proximity, schedules that wouldn’t mesh. Sometimes she thought about those people, wished she’d made more of an effort with some of them. And sometimes she was glad that an argument hadn’t been necessary, that everyone just quietly understood their lives were moving in a different direction.
“That’s it,” Brad said, jolting Allie back to the present moment. “I’m going to find out who did this.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Steve said. “When we find him, we can beat the shit out of him.”
“Great,” Allie said. “Will that magically bring the car back? Or will you both just end up arrested on assault charges, assuming you can actually track down this individual in the dark?”
“Yeah, don’t go tramping off into the woods,” Madison said, and her voice trembled. “It’s dangerous, and you don’t know where you’re going, and anyway, whoever would do this to the car might hurt you.”
“Aw, babe,” Steve said, and climbed the porch steps to put his arms around her. “Don’t worry. Whatever kind of asshole would pull a stunt like this is just some pathetic nothing. Me and Brad can take down someone like that easy.”
“But you can still get hurt in the woods,” Madison said, her voice muffled in Steve’s chest. “You could fall into a ravine and break your leg. And you don’t know anything about tracking.”
Brad joined them on the steps, his lip curling at the sight of Steve comforting Madison. Allie liked him less and less every minute. Steve, she supposed, wasn’t so bad. But he was a package deal with Brad, and Allie kind of hoped Brad would go tramping off into the woods alone and fall into a ravine.
“You don’t think we can find this piece of shit?” Brad asked, his gaze on Allie.
“No, I don’t,” she said. No point in lying about it. “It’s pitch-dark. You have no idea where he came from or what direction he went in. You don’t know if it was a prank of opportunity or if someone came here deliberately to cause harm. If it’s the latter, then you don’t know what intentions they might have for us, and if you go bungling through the woods, you might end up seriously hurt.”
She didn’t say “killed,” though she thought it. It just sounded too melodramatic to say out loud.
“ ‘If it’s the latter,’ ” Brad said in a mocking tone. “You don’t need to impress us with your big brain every second of the day, Allison.”
“You don’t need to let us all know you’re illiterate every second of the day, Bradley,” she said in the same tone.
Allie saw something flash behind his eyes, that deep well of mean that he kept hidden from everyone else. Except when he’s telling Cam where to go and what to do and how to do it. Except when he’s demanding she change her outfit or insisting she change her plans. Maybe he doesn’t hide his mean. Maybe I’m the only one who notices.
There was a noise behind her, and Allie turned around in time to see Cam, wearing only Brad’s tee shirt, stumble out of the bedroom. Her hair, normally blowout smooth, stuck up in the back. She rounded the long couch that had its back to the bedroom doorways and stopped in front of it, as if the effort of going just that far had exhausted her.
“What is going on?” she said, flopping on the couch with a melodramatic huff. “Why are you all out here screaming and arguing?”
“We’re not screaming,” Allie said.
“You definitely are. You’re all making a fuss and keeping me awake. Brad, come back to bed.” Cam tilted her head back and closed her eyes.
Allie saw him hesitate. If he did what Cam wanted, then he’d be giving up his moronic revenge plot. She saw the quick calculation in his eyes, the requirement that staying behind be his idea, not Cam’s. Allie wondered how he’d manage this.
“Can’t, babe,” he said. “Steve and me have to track down the fucker who wrecked the BMW.”
Cam opened her eyes. “What? Someone wrecked your car?”
She stood, crossed the room, and pushed out the doorway past Allie to stand on the porch with the other three. “What the actual fuck?”
“Yeah, exactly,” Brad said.
“But how are we supposed to get out of here?” Cam wailed. “My phone doesn’t work, and neither does anyone else’s! It’s not like we can call a cab or an Uber.”
“Need some of Matheson’s new tech,” Brad said. “The phones that directly receive a signal from a satellite instead of a cell tower.”
“That service is still in the experimental stage,” Allie said. “And Matheson is a dick; I’m not buying anything from him.”
Brad opened his mouth to respond, but as he did, Cam said, “We know, Allie. You hate tech bros. That doesn’t change the fact that our phones don’t work right now.”
“I just think we shouldn’t tell rich white men that they are visionaries when all they do is piggyback on other people’s accomplishments.”
“Anyway,” Cam said, a note of impatience in her voice. “What are we going to do?”
“We’ll have to walk to the highway,” Allie said.
“You can walk to the highway,” Cam said. “I’ll stay here and wait for rescue.”
“By yourself?” Allie asked. “With some weirdo running around in the woods?”
Cam hesitated. “Maybe the guys should go and we should stay here.”
“Not very feminist of you, Cam,” Brad said. “What was all that stuff about equality that you were telling me last week?”
“This has nothing to do with being a woman,” Cam said primly. “I just don’t like long walks.”
“And what, you three will sit here on your asses drinking wine while me and Steve flag down some local hillbilly to come and fetch you?”
“Don’t be a jerk,” Cam said. “The rest of us don’t even know where we are. We were all passed out while you were driving. And this stupid cabin was your stupid idea.”
“Yeah, well, you went along with that stupid idea,” Brad said.
Allie saw that flash of mean in his eyes directed right at Cam, and her heart did a little panic-flutter in her chest. She had to get Cam away from this guy. He was going to hit Cam one day, one day after many weeks of convincing her that he was a nice guy who sometimes lost his temper, and it wasn’t him, it was her, and if she could just be a little more careful then maybe he wouldn’t get so angry. Even though Cam would be hurt, and crying, she’d convince herself that it was her fault, that she just needed to be a little more careful like he said, and anyway it would never happen again.
Until it did.
“Oh my god,” Cam said, throwing her hands up in the air. “Fine. I agreed to come to this stupid cabin. Now let’s all agree that we need to get the hell out of here, preferably in a car.”
Allie stared at Cam. “You agreed to come to the cabin? You changed the plans without telling me?”
Cam’s eyes darted away from Allie. “I mean, just this morning or whatever.”
“Uh-huh,” Allie said.
“Like right before we got in the car,” Cam said. “Brad said he had this great place to go to that was way better than the beach house.”
“Uh-huh,” Allie said. “So all my birthday weekend plans, they just went out the window because Brad had this great idea to take us to the middle of nowhere, and you went along with it? And then you pretended to be surprised when we got here?”
“It wasn’t like that,” Cam said.
Everyone was staring at Cam now. Madison’s brows were drawn together.
“You knew we were coming here?” Madison asked.
“Oh, not you, too,” Cam said. “I wasn’t the one who knew about this place, who drove the car. It’s not my fault. I just—”
“Went along with Brad,” Allie said. “Because that’s somehow better? You were just his passive little yes-woman?”
“Wait, so that means everyone knew about this cabin except you and me?” Madison said, pointing first to Allie and then herself. Then she punched Steve in the shoulder. “Because I know that you go along with whatever this one says.”
Steve frowned. “Hey, don’t drag me into your little girl fight.”
“It’s not a girl fight,” Allie said. “I am angry—and I think rightfully so—that Cam lied to me and to Madison.”
“You’re not angry that I lied to you?” Brad said, watching her closely.
“Brad, I know you think you’re the sun around which all things revolve, but I really could not give a shit about you in any way,” Allie said.
“Hey, don’t be a bitch to my boyfriend,” Cam said.
“You’re the one in the wrong here, Cam. Don’t try to turn this around. I expect nothing from him, but I expect better from you.”
“Oh, fuck you, Allie, and your self-righteous bullshit,” Cam said. “You think I can’t see the way you look at me? The way you look at us? You think you’re better than me and Brad, better than Madison and Steve—always studying, always working, always stiff as a board and twice as virginal. I’m not even sure why I bother to keep trying to be friends with you.”
“Good question,” Allie said. Of course Cam’s words stung, of course they did, but it was better to know, it was better to have everything out in the open. Then they wouldn’t have to pretend anymore.
“Hey, guys,” Madison said tentatively. “Listen, you don’t want to do this. You don’t want to say things you’ll be sorry for tomorrow.”
“I don’t think Cam will be sorry,” Allie said, her voice steady.
“No, I won’t be,” Cam said, practically spitting the words at Allie. “I thought I was doing you a favor, trying to get you loosened up for one goddamned weekend, and you’re pissed that it wasn’t exactly the way OCD Allie planned it.”
“Like I said, you’re not turning this around. I’m not the one in the wrong here.”
“Oh, no, Allie, you’re never in the wrong,” Cam said, pushing past Allie and Madison again in a huff. “Saint Allie, patron saint of perfect girls.”
Cam stormed across the main room of the cabin to the bedroom, her blonde hair swinging in time with her angry strides. She clearly thought she’d won the night with the perfect mic drop line.
She swept into the bedroom that she shared with Brad.
And then she screamed.