The Cabin in the Woods Read online

  THE CABIN IN THE WOODS

  Sarah Alderson

  Copyright

  Published by AVON

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2022

  Copyright © Sarah Alderson 2022

  Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2022

  Cover photographs © Louis Renaudineau on Unsplash (log cabin), Michael Benz on Unsplash (trees), Luke Stackpoole on Unsplash (foreground) and Shutterstock.com (mist)

  Sarah Alderson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780008531584

  Ebook Edition © July 2022 ISBN: 9780008531591

  Version: 2022-05-10

  Dedication

  For Alby

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  ‘Police are using …

  Chapter One: Present

  Chapter Two: Past

  Chapter Three: Present

  Chapter Four: Past

  Chapter Five: Present

  Chapter Six: Past

  Chapter Seven: Present

  Chapter Eight: Past

  Chapter Nine: Present

  Chapter Ten: Past

  Chapter Eleven: Present

  Chapter Twelve: Past

  Chapter Thirteen: Present

  Chapter Fourteen: Past

  Chapter Fifteen: Present

  Chapter Sixteen: Past

  Chapter Seventeen: Present

  Chapter Eighteen: Past

  Chapter Nineteen: Present

  Chapter Twenty: Past

  Chapter Twenty-One: Present

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Past

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Present

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Past

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Past

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Past

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Present

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Past

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Present

  Chapter Thirty: Past

  Chapter Thirty-One: Present

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Past

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Present

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Past

  Chapter Thirty-Five: Present

  Chapter Thirty-Six: Past

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: Present

  Chapter Thirty-Eight: Past

  Chapter Thirty-Nine: Present

  Chapter Forty: Past

  Chapter Forty-One: Present

  Chapter Forty-Two: Past

  Chapter Forty-Three: Present

  Chapter Forty-Four: Present

  Chapter Forty-Five: Present

  Chapter Forty-Six: Present

  Chapter Forty-Seven: Present

  Chapter Forty-Eight: Past

  Chapter Forty-Nine: Present

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One: Past

  Chapter Fifty-Two: Present

  Acknowledgements

  Keep Reading …

  About the Author

  Also by Sarah Alderson

  About the Publisher

  ‘Police are using cadaver dogs to scour several square miles of woods in the Hardscrabble Wilderness Area. Officials have not yet commented on whether a body has been found, but a team of forensic specialists was spotted removing what looked to be several trash bags from the area and tagging them as evidence.

  ‘A source within the Westchester police department has revealed that the Reids’ eight-bedroom home is currently being cordoned off, as police prepare to conduct a thorough search of the house and grounds.

  ‘Detective Lim, who has been leading the investigation into Rose Reid’s disappearance, has so far refused to comment on whether they are any closer to finding her or a body.

  ‘While too early to speculate, it seems that the search for Rose Reid, who vanished without trace two days before Christmas, could finally be over.’

  ALASTAIR BALL

  OPR NEWS, LIVE BROADCAST

  Westchester, NY

  Chapter One

  Present

  Someone is watching me. Like a deer with a gun trained on it, I freeze, the axe dangling from my hand, half-expecting to hear a shotgun blast ring out and to find myself flung forwards onto the frost-speckled ground.

  My ears strain to catch the cock of a gun or the snap of a twig, but all I can hear is my own quick, shallow breathing and the hush of leaves in the highest branches of the trees. My senses are blaring a five-alarm warning that someone is out there, lurking in the forested dark, spying on me – but a voice in my head tells me that I’m being paranoid. The nearest neighbor is a couple of miles from here as the crow flies and no one should be hiking or hunting in the area, thanks to the ‘Private Property, No Trespassing’ signs, which are posted so frequently throughout the woods that you’d have to be blind to miss them.

  I spin around and scan the forest behind me, but it’s impossible to make anything out beyond the thick tangle of trees. It would be easy enough for someone to take cover out here, to hunker down among the bushes and foliage and watch from afar. I used to spend whole days like that with my grandfather when I was a kid, squatting inside his hide, passing a dented flask of black coffee laced with bourbon back and forth, as we cradled our guns and waited for a deer to wander by.

  Missourian hunters were only permitted to shoot two un-antlered deer a year, but my grandfather believed it was his God-given right to shoot as many as he liked, which meant we spent a lot of time in that hide. But I didn’t mind; even as a child I had an affinity for silence and for being outside in nature. I appreciated the grandness of it, the vastness, and how it made everyone small and insignificant, not just me. I also understood that the woods were a perfect place to disappear. So long as you had survival skills, that is, and knew how to hunt, kill and dress animals. My skills are a little rusty after years of neglect, but I know if I’m to survive out here, I need to hone them fast.

  The feeling of being watched vanishes like my breath into the cold air. Perhaps it was an animal. Or maybe it was nothing at all. My mind is playing non-stop tricks on me these days: I’ve started hearing things. Not just the usual sounds you get out in the woods – bird calls and creaking tree limbs – but voices, sometimes so real that I could swear someone is standing right beside me, whispering into my ear.

  Last night I startled awake having heard someone call my name. I sat up in the dark, heart hammering, convinced I could hear footsteps pitter-pattering away across the wooden floor of the cabin. In the daylight I’ve seen things out of the corner of my eye – flashes of movement that make me whip my head around – though never in time to catch sight of anyone.

  Maybe it’s an angry ghost, haunting me.

  Or I
could just be paranoid.

  The wind whips up and I bend quickly to gather an armful of the wood I just chopped. I hurry back to the cabin with it, slowed by my aching knee and sore back. There’s snow on the way: I can taste it like iron, like blood on my tongue. I step carefully over the string of empty, rusting cans that I’ve hung between two trees as a rudimentary alarm system, and head toward the cabin. Nudging open the creaking screen door with my foot, I shoulder my way inside, shivering even more as I enter the chilly interior. Winter is closing in, and the place is full of cracks, through which the wind whistles and the cold creeps like a witch’s fingers. The furnace is ancient and doesn’t work.

  I throw the wood down and then check the little box beside the stone fireplace. Inside I discover an empty packet of firelighters and a pile of yellowing newspaper. The date on the newspaper is March 2006, and the headlines are all about the Iraq War.

  The newspaper helps explain the years of dust and cobwebs decorating the cabin and I wonder why the place has been left to decay for so long. Tired, I drag myself to my feet and trudge through into the kitchen.

  I open the cupboards despite already knowing what I’ll find inside: cobwebs, instant coffee, a bag of sugar, packets of noodles, a kilo bag of rice and several boxes of spaghetti. I reason that I could last for a couple more weeks – I’m barely eating anyway – but, as I gaze through the window at the lake glinting through the trees, I know it’s too risky: if I don’t make the journey soon, I will shortly have no means of getting any supplies at all. This morning when I went down to the lakeshore I noticed that the water had turned syrupy, thickening toward ice. It won’t be long before it freezes over and then I’ll wind up stranded, unless I want to hike the twenty-three miles around the lake’s circumference to the nearest store.

  Even so, I hover by the front door, chewing a fingernail. I’m nervous to venture beyond the strict boundaries I’ve set for myself – roughly two hundred meters beyond the front door in all directions – but needs must. It’s not just food; without matches or firelighters I won’t be able to light the fire, and without heating I could easily freeze to death out here. My grandfather taught me how to strike together two rocks to get a spark, but it’s difficult and I’d have to find some rocks. Matches and firelighters will make things a lot easier. The batteries on the flashlight are running low too. I don’t want to be left in the dark, especially not at night, when the nightmares come. Out here, away from the city, it gets so blindingly dark that it’s like startling awake from one nightmare and finding yourself in another.

  After dithering for a few minutes, I take down the hunting jacket from the hook beside the door. It’s a man’s jacket and far too big for me but it’s warm and waterproof. I dig a woolen hat and a pair of old fleece-lined gloves from the pockets and pull them on too.

  Glancing in the dirty mirror hanging on the wall, I am relieved to see that I look nothing like my old self, and I’m amazed how a few months can make such a difference: my cheeks are hollow, and my cheekbones have sharpened and are blotched red from the cold; my eyes are sunken and ringed by such dark circles that even if I had foundation and concealer I would still struggle to hide them. My skin is pale and dry, my lips cracked. My eyebrows are no longer carefully tweezed but have grown out and now form two strong dark arches. I look less like the groomed, perfectly coiffed, designer-clad woman I was six months ago, and more like the grubby, dirt-poor and starving child that I used to be. It almost makes me smile to see the remnants of my scrappy younger self staring back at me. Almost.

  A few strands of hastily bleached white-blonde hair poke out from under my hat and I tuck them out of sight. I may not be that recognizable facially, but there’s nothing I can do to hide my height. At five foot ten I’ve always stood out in a crowd.

  Being recognized will depend, I suppose, on if I’m still making headlines and if the police are still looking for me.

  Chapter Two

  Past

  Twenty-Two Years Ago

  ‘Where are you?’

  My head flies up and Daisy’s eyes go round with fear. Her body, scrawny as a scarecrow’s, starts to quiver.

  ‘Girls?!’ our dad yells. There’s a loud crash as he trips over something. ‘Damn!’ he curses.

  He’s heading this way. I leap to my feet and snatch Daisy’s hand, yanking her up out of the nest of dirty blankets, and shoving her into the closet. Moving quickly, I push her down and pile clothes on top of her, then I press my finger to my lips in warning, but she doesn’t need telling. Though her bottom lip trembles, she doesn’t make a peep.

  ‘It’ll be OK,’ I mouth but I am shaking too.

  Our dad found some work today, helping shift gravel and rocks at the quarry. I thought that would mean Daisy and I would have a whole day to ourselves, that we could relax, but something must have happened as he’s home early. Dread fills me. If he’s been fired then he probably hasn’t been paid, which means he won’t have enough money to buy drugs, which means he’s now likely on a comedown. And when he needs a fix is when he’s most dangerous.

  ‘Where are you, Rose?’ my dad shouts in a singsong lilt. He’s outside the door to the small bedroom Daisy and I share at the back of the trailer.

  As I go to close the closet door on Daisy, ready to face my father – to take whatever is coming in order to protect her from it – she reaches out and yanks me back inside.

  I barely manage to slide the closet shut before the bedroom door flies open. Holding my breath, Daisy’s sweaty, grubby hand in mine, I stare through the louvered slats, as our father scans the room, looking for us.

  Like an ogre from a fairy tale, he stops and sniffs as if he’s trying to hunt us down on scent alone. But the trailer is full of ugly smells: stale beer, cigarettes, a blocked toilet and an overflowing septic tank, burned crumbs, urine-soaked sheets that have dried stiff and yellow and now stink. Two unwashed girls amongst all that are hard to sniff out.

  I can read his body language enough to know I was right about him being on a comedown. His eyes are glittery with rage. He’s jitterbugging away, his foot tapping, and his hands scratch at invisible fleas. He wants something to take his mood out on. He wants us.

  He glances at the unmade twin bed Daisy and I share, and kicks at the pile of blankets on the floor where we were just playing cards, before his head swivels toward the closet. His eyes seem to lock on mine and I feel my heart drop out of my chest and hit the ground.

  Daisy’s hand grips mine even tighter in terror. I squeeze back. My mouth is dry as I watch my father step closer and closer. I decide that when he opens the door, I’ll throw myself forward, push him with all my might, and hopefully buy us enough time to escape, or at least Daisy. But just a few feet from us, he gets distracted by something he’s noticed sitting in the detritus. I curse to myself as I follow his gaze to the photograph in the silver frame lying on the ground; I should have hidden it again after I took it out to show Daisy. It’s too late now. He’s picking it up, frowning at it. It’s a photo of our mom, her arms around Daisy and me. He’s probably wondering where I got it. The truth is I stole it off the coffin at her funeral and I’ve kept it hidden from him for the last three years, knowing he would hawk the silver frame if he ever found it. I watch him stare at the photograph for a few moments longer, then he turns, muttering to himself, and slinks out of the room with it.

  I want to run after him and demand he give it back. It’s the only photograph we have of our mom. Daisy was three when she died, and I was six. I barely remember her – only as a vague shape in my mind – and Daisy doesn’t at all. I take it out often, whenever Dad isn’t around, and tell my little sister stories about our mom; about how she was the best mom in the world, and loved us more than anything. I sing the songs she used to sing to us, stupid made-up songs, and describe the grilled cheese sandwiches she’d make for us, and the beautiful flower crowns she’d weave for us in the summer. I tell Daisy about all the adventures we went on before she died in a car crash
, including the time she took us to Disney World.

  It’s all lies of course. We never went to Disney World. We never went anywhere outside the trailer park. She never sung us so much as a nursery rhyme and I was making my own grilled cheese from when I was old enough to haul a chair to the stove and lift a frying pan. My mom was definitely not going to win the world’s best mom award. She was strung out all the time and she died of an overdose, not in a car accident. Even though the adults around me tried to tell me she had gotten sick and died from a fever, I knew the truth. I wasn’t blind; I had seen her and my dad crushing up small white pills into a powder and snorting it. I had seen them both passed out on the sofa, so out of it I couldn’t even wake them when the toaster oven caught fire one time. Five years old and I put the fire out myself with a bottle of Kool-Aid. I had watched my mom shoot up heroin many times and had learned to keep the syringes away from Daisy’s roaming toddler hands.

  But Daisy doesn’t need to know any of this.

  I sink down to the floor beside her in the closet, my shoulders hunched, and I punch my knee with my fist. I don’t know why I care that he took the photo. It’s not like I have good memories of our mom. But I wanted Daisy to and now she’s upset, tears streaming down her face.

  ‘Why did he take it?’ she asks.

  He’s probably going to take it to the pawn shop, get whatever dollars they offer him for it and then trade them for a baggie of heroin. The photo will end up tossed in the trash. I don’t tell her that. I reassure her that we’ll get it back.

  A minute later we hear the door to the trailer slam and a few seconds after that I let out the breath I’ve been holding.

  ‘Rose?’ Daisy whispers.

  ‘What?’ I answer, trying to keep my anger out of my voice.

  ‘I did a pee.’

  I look down at the patch of urine that’s darkened her pajama bottoms and I sigh.

  ‘It’s fine,’ I tell her, the acrid smell of it hitting my nostrils. ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says again, her voice quavering.