Apeshit (5 page)

“There’s a ton of guns at the cabin,” Jason says. “No-

body’s going to fuck with us.”

Stephanie brushes her teeth again as they drive down

the road. She is more shaken up from the incident than any

of them, even though she was the only one who stayed in the

van the whole time. Everyone else is laughing and joking

about it. They all agree, now that it’s over, that it was more

exciting than scary.

“At first, I thought he was a zombie!” Kevin says.

“Me too!” Desdemona says.

“I thought all the other dead animals were going to

get up and attack us, too,” Kevin says.

“What do you think’s going to happen to him?” Rick

says.

“He’s dead, for sure,” Jason says. “Did you see those

wounds? I don’t think the poor bastard is going to survive

the night.”

“It’s pretty sad,” Desdemona says. “He’s sick in the

head. He probably doesn’t realize that he’s so messed up.

The cops really should get him help.”

“Yeah, but the cops don’t give a fuck,” Crystal says.

“They’re probably going to just let him die out there.”

“Fucking assholes,” Desdemona says.

“Who cares?” Jason says, cracking another beer. “The

guy
needs
to die. He needs to be put out of his misery.”

“Don’t be such a dick,” Crystal says. “What if that

was your dad out there? Or you out there?”

“I’ll never end up like that guy,” Jason says.

“You never know,” Crystal says.

They turn off the country road onto a dirt path. The

terrain is rugged and overgrown with large roots and bushes.

“It’s still another five miles,” Jason says. “This dirt

road winds up the mountain.”

“You sure this is a road?” Kevin says. “It doesn’t

look like it was designed to be driven on.”

“This road probably hasn’t been driven on for years,”

Jason says. “The only thing up this way is grampy’s cabin

and nobody in my family’s been up here for a long time. I’m

surprised this road is still here at all.”

“Is this place some kind of craphole?” Desdemona

says. “I’m not going to have to use an outhouse or anything,

am I?”

“My grandpa was a rich bastard,” Jason says. “The

place is pretty sweet. There’s a generator, plumbing, heat-

ing, he’s probably even installed a jacuzzi since the last time

I was here.”

“When was the last time you came here?” Rick

asks.

“Not since I was a kid,” Jason says. “My grandpa

and my dad stopped speaking to each other years ago. My

grandpa was kind of a drunk and said something to my mom

that pissed her off. They got into an argument and my dad

threw him out on his ass. That was the last time any of us

saw him. He died last year and I inherited the cabin. I in-

herited all of his cool shit. This is the first time anyone’s

been up here in God knows how long. My dad hasn’t seen

the place in forever. He refuses to come out here for some

reason. I guess he doesn’t want to see anything that reminds

him of grandpa.”

“So you own this place?” Kevin asks.

“Yep,” Jason says. “It’s all mine.”

“
Sweet
,” Kevin says.

“Maybe I’ll move up here after graduation,” Jason

says. He looks at Crystal. “What do you think? Want to

move out here and be a mountain man with me?”

“Uh,
no
,” Crystal says. “I don’t
think
so. You can

live out here by yourself.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” Jason says.

She shakes her head. Jason pinches her thigh.

“Quit it!” she shrieks, as if his pinches were razor-

edged.

He pinches her again and smiles.

After a mile, the dirt road gets really rough and steep

as it winds up the mountain. They slow down to about five

miles per hour. On the left side of the trail, there is a drop-

off. It starts off as only about ten feet, but as the road as-

cends the drop-off becomes twenty, then thirty feet high.

“This looks kind of dangerous,” Crystal says, as they

ascend another twenty feet.

“Yeah, I was always scared of this part when I was a

kid,” Jason says. “But I don’t remember the road being this

thin.”

Rick sticks his head out of the window. The left side

of the car is so close to the edge of the cliff that he can’t see

the ground anymore. He looks down. The drop is nearly

sixty feet into an ocean of pine trees. There is a loud scrap-

ing noise that makes Rick jump and hit the back of his head

against the window frame. He looks out of the right window

and notices that the other side of the van is only inches away

from a rock face. Branches from trees growing out of the

earth are scratching across the doors.

“Be careful, Jason,” Rick yells over the scraping

noise. “We fall off this and we’re dead.”

“Yeah,” Kevin says. “Even if we survive the fall,

we’d never be able to get help from way out here.”

The scraping is interrupted by a loud
clunk
as a rock

jutting out of the ground hits the bottom of the van, bouncing

them up and down.

“I’ve got my cell phone,” Crystal says, holding up

her phone. “We could just call for a rescue helicopter or

something.”

She looks at her phone.

“Damn,” she says. “There aren’t any bars.”

“There wouldn’t be any bars way out here,” Kevin says.

The road gets even thinner. The ground gets rockier

and bounces them higher.

“Can you guys shut up,” Jason says. “I’m trying to

concentrate here.”

“You mean we’re completely cut off?” Crystal asks.

“Completely,” Kevin says, smiling.

At the top of the slope, the path turns right. It heads

uphill, away from the cliff. The scraping stops and the road

becomes less bumpy.

“We made it!” Kevin says. “Booyah!”

“The way back is the dangerous part,” Jason says.

“You have to turn at just the right angle or you’ll go straight

off the cliff. I’ll probably need you guys to get out of the van

and navigate me.”

“Shouldn’t you have rented something with four-

wheel-drive?” Desdemona asks.

“Nah,” Jason says. “My family used to come up here

all the time and we never had four-wheel-drive.”

“Well, it wouldn’t have hurt would it?” Desdemona

says.

“I guess it wouldn’t have.”

After another mile of slow driving through thick

woods, they come to a dead end.

“Here we are,” Jason says.

The others look around. They are surrounded by

nothing but trees.

“There’s nothing here,” Crystal says.

“Follow me,” Jason says.

They get out of the van and follow Jason through

the trees. Kevin stays behind to check out the side of the

van and laughs at the large sections of paint that have been

stripped away by the trees.

“Ah,
dude
!” Kevin calls, chuckling. “You fucked it

up!”

But Jason doesn’t care. He just says, “Fuck it.”

They take a stone path through the overgrown pine

trees until they come to a small clearing. On the other side

of the clearing, hidden away from the rest of the world, is

the cabin.

It is a lofty three-story wooden structure that looks

like it had been designed by Dr. Suess. Its frame is distorted

and curved like melted plastic, at least a third of the build-

ing is dangling off of a cliff. The wood of the building is

weathered and splintered. The windows are caked in mud.

Several shingles are missing from the roof. It is dead quiet.

“This place is a dump,” Crystal says.

“Yeah,” says Desdemona. “I thought this was going

to be cool.”

“It is cool,” Jason says.

“It looks like the cabin from
Evil Dead
,” Kevin says.

“Only twice as big and twice as freaky.”

“It’s cool, trust me,” Jason says, as he steps onto the

porch and puts his key in the door.