The Cabin in the Woods

“Hey, you want to come over Monday night?” Hadley called back to him. “I’m gonna pick up a couple of power drills and liberate my cabinets.” He laughed like a banshee, and barely slowed the cart to take the first ninety-degree corner.

Sitterson gave up and tipped the rest of his coffee out of the cart.

Monday, he thought. This’ll all be over by then.

“Sure,” he said.

Dana Polk loved to rock and roll. Most girls her age were into some of the softer, safer, middle-of-the-road rock music that the new millennium had brought. She could listen to Coldplay if she had to, but for her they lacked edge. She could put up with Nickelback, if they were forced on her. But her preference as a thoughtful-some would say sexy, though she still had trouble applying that word to herself-sophomore, was music with… well, balls.

She loved to rock out, feeling the music driving her blood and increasing her heartbeat, and sometimes she thought that was part of the reason she stayed so fit. The best workouts she’d ever had-well, the second best-were in the mosh-pits at rock concerts.

And so what better music to pack to than the Foo Fighters. Dave Grohl… now there was a man. Her friend Jules would issue an Ewww whenever Dana mentioned him. He’s too old for you by far, and too… hairy. But he was a guy with edge. He had, as Dana’s mother liked to say, “The Grrr Factor.” He was also happily married, but that never stopped Dana’s mind from wandering his way now and then.

She bopped and skipped as she packed, shirt flapping around her bare thighs, swinging an invisible microphone stand in front of her and launching into a chorus just when a guitar solo burst in. Whoops, she thought, feeling a blush of embarrassment even though she was on her own. Perhaps for now she should concentrate just on filling her weekend bag.

Dana glanced around her room, wondering what else she should take. She’d miss this place. The room was neat and restrained; books stacked mostly in alphabetical order, CDs stored in tidy piles. Unlike some students, she’d quickly imprinted her personality on the place, displayed most prominently in the several sketches and watercolors about which she’d been confident enough to frame and hang.

Most of them were portraits, or pictures of imaginary people, but a few were more abstract landscapes which Jules said she sometimes found spooky. Forest scenes with ambiguous shapes suspended in high branches. Fields of corn with shadows where there should be none. Dana thought they were just offbeat, but she supposed someone who wasn’t living in her mind could justifiably see them as weird. She ran her fingers along the bookshelves and pulled out a few political science textbooks. No harm in taking some reading, in case things were quiet this weekend. She threw in some art supplies, as well-stuff she never traveled anywhere without, including pencils and charcoals. Picking up her sketchpad, she started flipping through the pages.

Like any naturally artistic person she was eternally self-critical, but she could also remove herself to a distance and view the work objectively. And she knew that some of what she did wasn’t at all bad. Sure, she could find something to criticize in everything she sketched, but that was the curse of a true artist. She flipped the pages, musing more upon her passion for art than the pictures themselves, until-

There he was. The son-of-a-bitch.

Gorgeous. Longish hair, glasses… the very epitome of a college lecturer. Damn it, if only she hadn’t been so fucking stupid. But he was so handsome. Bastard.

She sighed, thought about finding a pair of jeans, and-

“What a piece of shit!”

Dana gasped, letting out a little shriek. She hadn’t even heard Jules approaching.

“I rushed it,” Dana said, recovering quickly and not taking her eyes from the picture.

“You know what I mean.” Jules’s voice was low and sultry, a natural attribute which she put to great use. “Why haven’t you stuck that asshole’s picture on the dartboard yet?” “It’s not that simp-” Dana began, but as she turned around, shock cut her off. For a second confusion overwhelmed her.

“Oh my God, your hair!” she gasped.

Jules struck a pose that would have made lesser men weep, and even strong men quake in their boots.

“Very fabulous, no?”

“I can’t believe you did it!” Her friend certainly did look very fabulous. She’d been talking about going blonde for months now, but Dana had never believed she’d actually go through with it. Brunette had served her well, but Jules was nothing if not experimental. She sometimes called Dana “rock chick,” but she was far from the stereotype that usually went with that term. Rock yes, chick no. Out of the two of them, it was Jules who wore that badge with pride.

“But very fabulous, right?” she asked again, scowling a false frown. “Hurry up with the very fabulous, I’m getting insecure about it.”