After the Cabin, Page 2

“You remember Karen, don't you?” she asks. “You went to school with -”

  “Of course I remember Karen,” I reply, bristling at the suggestion otherwise. “I'm not brain-damaged.”

  Sighing, I realize that I'm being way too harsh. The last thing I want is to turn into some kind of resentful bitch.

  “Sorry,” I tell her. “I didn't mean to snap.”

  Mum smiles at me as she heads to the fridge. She's trying so hard to act as if nothing's wrong, but I can't stop thinking about that very first day at the hospital when she came to see me, just after she'd found out what had happened to me at the cabin. She was sobbing, she was in a worse state than me, and she hugged me so tight that it actually hurt. I've never seen so much mascara run down one face before. Now she's back to how she used to be, albeit with an edge of discomfort. Sometimes I wonder whether she knows all the gruesome details about what happened to me, or whether she chose to focus on the bigger picture.

  As she opens the fridge door, I briefly get a sense of someone standing next to her, but I turn and of course there's no-one there.

  Don't go crazy, Anna.

  Keep it together.

  Christian smiles as he starts drilling through my breast-bone. I can hear myself screaming.

  Stop it.

  Stop thinking about that.

  “I think you'll like this one,” Mum says, setting two tea-bags into the cups. “I've started drinking green tea now. I didn't like it at first, I thought it was far too bitter, but now I reckon it's rather nice with a bit of lemon. Do you want to try, love?”

  “Sure.”

  She smiles again. That was the right answer.

  “Hey,” I tell her, stepping over to join her, “do you want to see something cool?”

  “Um...”

  Without waiting for a reply, I reach up and remove my prosthetic nose. “How -”

  “Stop!” She immediately turns away. “Anna, put that thing back on!”

  “I was only -”

  “Put it back on!” she shouts. “Please!”

  I pause for a moment, shocked by her reaction, before settling the nose back in place. In the old days, she and I shared the same sense of humor, but she seems to have tightened up while I was in hospital. “Sorry,” I reply, “I was only trying to make you laugh.”

  “Why would that make me laugh?” she asks, slowly turning back to me. Her eyes are filled with fear, as if she expects me to suddenly do it again. “Anyway, this tea is really rather nice once you get used to it. The bitter notes are still there, but the lemon makes it all somehow okay. Plus, the anti-oxidants...”

  She keeps talking about tea as we sit at the kitchen table. I don't really interrupt, except to ask the occasional question just to show that I'm paying attention. There's something kind of calming about being here with her like this, and I'm mildly shocked that one person can say so much about tea. Still, as the minutes drag past, I can feel my thoughts drifting. I want to talk to Mum about what happened to me, to make sure that she's okay, but I know that kind of topic is off-limits. Finally, I realize that there's only one way I can satisfy my curiosity.

  ***

  “A British girl has flown home from Norway just days after being rescued from a remote cabin,” I read, having brought up yet another online article on my laptop. “Twenty-one-year-old Anna Matthews is believed to have spent several days being tortured by a group who, according to police, were intending to sell a video of the ordeal to the highest bidder.”

  I can hear Mum pottering about in the kitchen downstairs. Up here in my bedroom, however, I'm finally reading the news articles that were kept from me at the hospital.

  Scrolling down, I find a photo of myself as I was back then, just before I left for Oslo. The picture shows me standing in a departure lounge at Heathrow, smiling happily. I look so carefree, it's almost impossible to believe that I was once so confident and brave. I want to reach through the screen and tell that twenty-one-year-old that it's a trap, that she mustn't get on the plane, but I know I can't change the past. Scrolling again, I find another photo, this one showing Jennifer and Joe.

  A shiver rushes through my chest and I quickly switch to another tab.

  “Anna Matthews,” I read, “now twenty-four, endured a nightmarish ordeal three years ago when she was lured to a Norwegian cabin and tortured. Now her ex-boyfriend Max Walters has written a book about his own reaction to the horrifying incident, including his time with Anna before she was kidnapped and also his attempts to come to terms with what happened. In an exclusive interview, he tells us why Anna's ordeal shocked him to his core, he explains his sadness that she refuses to let him visit her in hospital, and he defends himself against accusations that he's cashing in on her ordeal.”

  “I hope you choke on the money from that book,” I mutter, scrolling down and seeing a photo of Max sitting with a somber expression, holding a book titled 'Horror at the Cabin: The Boyfriend's Story'. I want to say that I can't believe he'd stoop so low as to put his name on something like that, but deep down I guess I always knew Max was a loser. He soaked up every minute of fame he could get from what happened to me, and he even ended up as a contestant on a couple of reality TV shows, but the last I heard he'd spent every penny he earned and now he's back working at the supermarket.

  Good. Let him rot.

  Tucking the knife under my left breast, Jennifer maintains eye contact with me as she starts to cut. I scream and try to pull away as I feel the blade slicing through my flesh again and again, tearing a little further each time. Finally I feel the knife break through just below my shoulder-blade, and Jennifer holds the breast up for me to see before tossing it aside like a lump of old, wobbly meat.

  Instinctively, I reach under my shirt and touch the patch of scarred, flat skin on my chest.

  And then someone laughs outside.

  Getting to my feet, I hurry over to the window. A couple of local kids are walking past the house, talking excitedly about something, and for a moment I feel a rush of anger at the idea that they might be making fun of me. I've been prepared for this, I steeled myself for the inevitability of jokes and ridicule. After a moment, however, they take the next turn and walk along another street, and I realize that they weren't talking about me at all. I'm sure there are a few people who think of me as the local celebrity, but Doctor Larkin warned me that I mustn't let myself become paranoid, and I guess I still need to focus on following that advice. Heading back over to my laptop, I tell myself to calm down. It would be so easy to become a paranoid wreck.

  “What about the other one?” Jennifer asks with a smile, stepping back toward me with the bloodied knife in her right hand. “Can't have you looking lop-sided, can we? Or maybe we can save that for another day.” She pauses, with a hint of anticipation in her eyes. “My, what a pretty nose you have.”

  “What's the difference between Anna Marshall and Peppa Pig?” I read out loud, as I find a joke about me on social media. “One's a squealing pig that needs slicing up, and the other's a character in a children's show.”

  ***

  “That's sick!” Karen laughs. “Doesn't it hurt?”

  “Nope,” I reply, taking a moment to put my nose back on. “Mum almost had a fit when I showed her. I guess it's kind of childish, I should stop, but I love seeing people's reactions. Is that really so awful?” I pause for a moment. “When I describe it like that,” I add, “it doesn't really seem very healthy. It's almost needy. Okay, I definitely won't do it again, I just... I guess my sense of humor got a little dark in hospital.”

  “Show me again,” she says with a faint smile.

  I briefly take my nose off before setting it back in place.

  “Don't take this the wrong way,” she says, “but next Halloween, you could have the greatest costume of all time!”

  “Wanna help me with it?”

  She grins. “You bet.”

  I smile, but deep down I feel that it's wrong to keep making these jokes. It's a kind of defense mechan
ism, a way to talk about what happened without really talking about it. Then again, I should probably stop over-analyzing things and just go with the flow.

  “What about -” She stops, as if she's decided against asking.

  “What about what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Come on.” I glance at my bedroom door again, just to make sure that there's no hint of my mother hovering outside. “You can ask anything,” I continue, turning back to Karen. “Seriously, I don't mind. I'd rather people ask if they want to know. You know it's impossible to offend me.”

  “I was just wondering if you're going to have any more surgery.”

  I shake my head.

  “But you had quite a lot already, didn't you?”

  “You'd be surprised how many bits of me aren't as real as they look,” I tell her. “I had to have a lot of skin grafts, some prosthetic fingers, stuff like that. Plus there's...” I pause for a moment. “I mean, I keep debating whether to get a new boob. It feels kind of vain to care about that, but at the same time -”

  Suddenly Karen lunges at me, pulling me into a tight hug. I open my mouth to ask her what's wrong, but after a moment I realize that she's crying so hard, her whole body is shaking.

  “I'm so sorry that this happened to you,” she sobs. “It's like, I can't even imagine what you've been through, it's amazing that you can sit here and talk about it. If it had been me, I'd be a total wreck.”

  “No,” I reply, genuinely shocked by her sudden outburst. “you wouldn't. Trust me, we're all tougher than we realize.”

  “But they tortured you!”

  Jennifer holds up Marit's severed head, with blood dripping from the bottom. Marit's eyes are wide open, almost staring at me, and her mouth is open too. I can see her tongue.

  “They're all gone now,” I whisper, blinking a couple of times to get the image out of my mind. “When I was at the hospital, I decided early on that I wasn't going to let them haunt me for the rest of my life. I'm not going to give them that satisfaction. I'm going to be normal.”

  I wait for her to let go of me, but she's still gently crying. Finally I put my arms around her. This feels slightly odd, but I guess I have to go with it.

  “It's okay,” I say finally. “Don't worry, there's no need to cry.”

  I wait for her to say something.

  “So can you feel my lop-sided chest?” I ask. “Is it weird hugging a girl who only has one boob?”

  “This is ridiculous,” she continues, pulling back and wiping her eyes. “Why am I the one who's crying and getting all upset? It was you who went through it and got all cut up.” She sniffs back some more tears. “It just makes me so mad that there are people out there who'd do something like that. They should've survived so they could end up facing justice. I swear to God, I don't believe in the death penalty, but for people who do that kind of thing...” Her voice trails off, and there's real anger in her eyes. “I'd pull the lever myself.”

  “No you wouldn't,” I tell her.

  “I would watch the bitch fry!”

  “Karen -”

  “Sorry, it's just -” Sighing, she leans back. “I hate it. I hate that there are people like that in the world. And Max too, that goddamn pig of an ex-boyfriend you had. Did you see that he wrote a book about you?”

  “I saw.”

  “Did you read it?”

  I shake my head.

  “I did,” she continues, her tone filled with anger. “God, it was a pile of garbage. At least it didn't sell many copies, so I doubt he made much money. Haven't you had book offers, stuff like that?”

  “I'm not interested.” I wait for her to reply, before seeing a hint of discomfort in her eyes. “Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask.

  “I just think people'd really like to read your side of it,” she explains after a moment, with a hint of added intensity. “Like, I'm not just saying it, I think people would benefit from a book like that. Nothing exploitative, nothing gross that goes into the sick details, no-one wants to read stuff like that. I just mean something tasteful, something that puts the human side across. It could be, like, uplifting.”

  “I'm really not interested in going over the past,” I tell her. “It's over. I'm moving on.”

  As her phone briefly buzzes, she pulls it from her pocket and takes a look at a message. “I can't believe Marit was in on it, either,” she continues, sniffing again. “I remember her vaguely from when we were all really young. I mean, I didn't know her that well back then but...” She starts tapping at her phone's screen, sending a message back to someone. “But seriously, don't you hate her even more than the others? It's like, she actually claimed to be your friend but she just tricked you into going out there. The whole thing was just so pre-meditated. Like, they must have been planning it for months, luring you into their trap!”

  “I haven't thought about it much,” I lie. “I'm certainly not going to think about it in the future.” That, at least, is true.

  “Sorry,” she continues, still typing, “I just need to reply to this guy Matt. He's dragging a few of us out to the Rebellion club.”

  “Is that place still going?” I ask.

  “Go figure. There's some local band playing tonight, I don't even know if I want to go.”

  “Does it still stink of stale beer in there?”

  “Totally.”

  “And are the bands still rubbish?”

  She nods. “If anything, they're worse than ever.”

  I pause for a moment. That brief conversation, just a few lines long, was the first time I've felt truly normal since everything that happened at the cabin. “Can I come?” I ask, before I can stop myself.

  She turns to me, clearly shocked.

  “Can I?” I continue, forcing a smile. “I mean, it's okay if you don't want me to, I just -”

  “No,” she stammers, “I mean yes, of course you can come, I just never thought to invite you, that's all. I mean, I thought...” Her voice trails off, and it's clear that she's still surprised. “Anna, don't take this the wrong way, but do you really think it's a good idea?”

  “Why not?”

  “You've been home for about five hours,” she points out. “Shouldn't you be way, way more cautious about, like, easing yourself back into things?”

  I know she's right, but I want to prove that I'm not this fragile little thing.

  “What did your doctors say?” she asks.

  “To take it easy.”

  “And your mother?”

  “The same.”

  “Maybe they have a point, Anna. Honey, it takes time to adjust to being out again.”

  “So I'm supposed to just to sit around in my room?” I ask. “I'm not going to turn into some kind of shut-in, Karen. I want to get back out into the real world, and a night at a grotty little local bar sounds just about right. I won't drink alcohol, I won't dance or stay out too late, but I'd like to be around people for just an hour or two.” I wait for her to reply. I know she's right, I know I should take it easy and protect myself, but at the same time I'm absolutely desperate to prove that I'm not some pathetic little cripple. This is my first chance to do something normal, and I can't let it to go waste. “So how about it?” I continue. “Do you mind if I tag along?”

  Three

  “This place is even worse than I remembered!” I shout, trying to make myself heard over the noise of the sound-system as I take a sip of cola. “I swear, it's like they never clean anything!”

  “Wait 'til the band starts,” Karen replies. “I heard them once before, they're not exactly good. I swear, the drummer can't even keep time! Still, I guess I'd hate it if this place actually changed. Bad music and a terrible smell are kind of its soul, right?” She fiddles with her straw for a moment. “So how did your mother react when you told her you were coming out tonight?”

  “About how you'd expect. For a moment I thought she'd bolt the door and I'd have to climb down the drainpipe from my room.”

  Smilin
g, I look out across the crowd. The club's lights are constantly flashing and changing, and there's a part of me that expects to suddenly spot Jennifer or Christian or one of the others staring this way, like some kind of cliched nightmare dredged up from my subconscious mind. I guess coming here was a way of challenging myself to see if I can be normal, but so far I actually feel better than I felt at home. At least in the club I'm not constantly flashing back and seeing brief moments from my time at the cabin. I haven't had one of those moments since I got here.

  “I think Matt and the others just arrived,” Karen says, waving at someone I can't see. A moment later, however, I spot a hand waving back from the far side of the crowded room. “Come on,” she adds, “let's go find some seats. If you're up for it, I mean.”

  “Why wouldn't I be up for it?”

  “I don't know, just...” She pauses, before offering a smile. “Sure. Sorry, I'll try to stop doing that.” She turns to push through the crowd.

  “Do they know about me?” I ask, grabbing her arm. “About what happened, I mean.”

  “I haven't told them,” she replies, glancing back at me. “I wondered whether I should, but I figured it wasn't really my place. I mean, the whole thing was pretty big news when it first happened, everyone was talking about you, but most people have the attention scan of a goldfish's scrotum. I could give them a head's-up, though, if you want to make sure no-one says anything dumb. Wait here and I'll just -”

  “No, it's cool,” I continue, glancing down at my chest to make sure the stuffed bra is still in place beneath my shirt. Such a stupid, vain thing, but it makes me feel better. “It doesn't really bother me either way. I just wondered. I don't want any special treatment or weird looks.”

  “They're really laid-back,” she tells me, as we fight our way through the crowd. “Don't worry, I think -” Before she can finish, there's a burst of loud guitar feedback from the stage. “Oh God,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Brace yourself. Here comes the so-called music!”

  ***