The Cabin

Ronnie blinked in the sudden brightness, black spots clouding his vision as his eyes adjusted. When they cleared, a man only a little younger than him was standing with his back against the wall, eyes widened in fear.

“Stay away!” he demanded, inching away from them along the wooden wall. “What do you want with me?”

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Ronnie started in what he hoped was a calming voice. The man froze, which he took as a good sign. He took a step towards him. “We’re stuck too.”

“What do you mean, stuck?!” the man asked in panic. “There has to be a way out.”

“There isn’t,” Danny said from the top of the stairs. “And we have no fucking idea where we are either.” Ronnie felt a twinge of annoyance. He tried to focus on the problem at hand rather than his irritation.

“Don’t listen to him. We’re getting out, we just haven’t found how.”

“How long have you guys been here?” the man asked, glancing between their faces with eyes shining with fear.

“No idea, there’s no clocks,” Ronnie said.

“Why are we here?”

“Again, no idea.”

“Who are you?” It seemed that the man was calming down now as he realized that the three men hadn’t harmed him yet and didn’t pose a threat. He slowly moved away from the wall, taking a step towards them.

Each of them introduced themselves.

“I’m Jack,” he said as he slowly sank into a cracked and worn leather armchair. “This is fucking insane. I’m dreaming.”

“I wish.” Kellin said as he sat cross legged on the couch across from him. “I’ve been hoping to wake up since I got here.”

A temporary, palpable silence settled over them. There were so many questions everyone wanted to ask the newcomer, and Ronnie was positive that the newcomer had a million questions of his own. Finally Jack looked up.

“So what’s the plan?”

“Have any good ideas?” Ronnie asked. “We already searched everywhere, the door’s hidden good.”

“So we’re really trapped,” Jack said slowly.

“What do you remember?” Kellin said suddenly, causing Jack to look at him in confusion. “You know, before you woke up here.”

Jack nodded slowly. “I was watching TV in my basement and I heard someone come in. I figured it was one of my friends or something. Obviously I was wrong.” He shook his head a little and smiled sadly. “They grabbed me from behind and started choking me. Then I blacked out. I woke up when they were dragging me in here.”

“Did you see where they brought you in?” Kellin asked.

“No, it was too dark...”

“What about their faces, did you see what they looked like?”

“Just their hands for a brief instant. But they just looked like hands, nothing weird,” Jack said as he rubbed his eye.

“Well fuck! You mean to tell me the bad guy has hands?” Danny widened his eyes and hung his mouth open in mock excitement. “What a lead!”

“Hey, fuck off,” Ronnie said as he stood up. The disrespect and cockiness that Danny managed to slip into everything was getting to be too much. He was sick of holding his tongue. “You haven’t done shit besides act like a fucking douche and complain.”

“Come on, it’s not that big of a deal,” Kellin said. Ronnie felt a bit of annoyance towards him as well; he didn’t need a referee, and he knew Kellin was most likely just as peeved as he was. “We’re all stuck, we don’t need to be fighting too.”

“Yeah, calm the fuck down.” Danny smirked and started climbing the rickety staircase. “You guys keep playing at detective, I’m going back to sleep.”

Ronnie took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He wasn’t sure how far his willpower would stretch, under both the ever growing strain of imprisonment and Danny’s lack of concern.

“I heard them talking to each other though,” Jack said, dismissing the tension in the room.

“What did they say?” Kellin asked. Ronnie inhaled deeply again and turned his attention to the newcomer.

“That we’d ‘be fun.’”