Because I Can

I awoke as Connor’s SUV turned onto the long, gravel driveway to the cabin. Jolted awake by the vehicle’s wheels, I sat up to see the surrounding forest as we travelled the final short leg of our destination. Yawning, I stretched as best as I could in the cramped backseat.

“Hey, Jen, welcome back to the land of the living,” Maria said as she leaned forward to look at me past my boyfriend Sam. Sam seemed to be reading the mystery novel he had been working on for the past three weeks.

“Looks like I woke up just in time,” I said as the cabin came into view.

“Yep, we’ve reached our destination,” Connor interjected as he turned the vehicle around, parking so that the rear hatch was closest to the door.

Connor’s girlfriend, Julie, was the first one out of the car. “Look at this place,” she exclaimed as she took in the cabin and the surrounding scenery, “it’s beautiful!”

“Just like you, babe,” Connor replied as he exited the vehicle.

“Let’s all go in and check the place out,” I suggested.

As we entered the cabin, I noticed deep scratches in the floorboards on the porch near the front door. I pointed it out, but Sam reassured me that it was likely caused by a bear or someone’s dog. I hesitated for a few moments, but I decided to trust his explanation.

The cabin’s interior gave off more of a rustic hunting cabin vibe than a fun weekend getaway for college students. A stone fireplace stood at the far end of the large common area. Next to it sat a rack for stacking logs and a large taxidermied bear standing on its hind legs in the corner. An L-shaped sectional sat in front of the fireplace which had a television mounted above it. The rest of the décor was rustic as well, save for the modern kitchen through the doorway to the left.

We all chose our bedrooms next. Sam and I chose the concrete basement – thinking that it would be the best place for us to get a little freaky without disturbing the others. Connor and Julie chose the upstairs bedroom, likely for the same reason. Maria didn’t mind taking the bedroom next to the kitchen because it was on the opposite side of the house from the other two bedrooms.

By the time I finished exploring the cabin, Sam and Connor had carried all of our luggage in and were stocking the refrigerator with beer, wine, liquor, and lastly, our food for the weekend. Julie and Maria had taken their suitcases to their rooms to unpack and “freshen up.” I grabbed my luggage and carried it down to the basement to do the same. The basement was finished and sported its own private bathroom. The bed was big. As I flopped backward onto it, I couldn’t help but let out a deep, satisfied sigh. If only our bed at home was this comfortable.

After a few relaxing minutes, I stood up and began unpacking. I undressed, hoping none of our friends decided to explore the three-story outdoor patio, and put on my white bikini and a pair of denim shorts. We all planned to drink and spend a lot of time in the hot tub this weekend, so we agreed the dress code would be “swimwear casual.” I could have sworn I saw something moving in the forest out of the corner of my eye. There was movement just past the woodline, but I couldn’t see anything when I turned to look. “Probably just a deer,” I said to myself as I turned to trot up the stairs.

Everyone else had changed as well, and the boys were setting up the small beer pong table we’d brought. Maria sat comfortably on the couch, reading a book. She wore a black one-piece swimsuit beneath a sheer white cover-up that complemented her olive skin tone. Julie was dressed similarly to me, though she wore a pale pink bikini with sporty shorts instead of denim. The guys were in plain swim trunks and tank tops.

“Hey, babe, ready to get this party started?” Sam asked as he approached and pulled me into a tight hug. “You look amazing.”

I rolled my eyes, “Flattery will get you everywhere tonight.”

The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon now. I went into the kitchen to pour another glass of wine for myself. The guys had started a game of beer pong. I sat down beside Maria and turned on the television. The screen flashed to life, but it didn’t show a menu like most smart TVs. Instead, I saw an image of the downstairs bedroom.

“What the f—” I began, as I heard the phrase repeated from behind me. When I glanced over my shoulder, I saw Connor staring at the television from the opposite side of the beer pong table. Sam turned around to see what was going on. A grim expression crossed his face as he turned toward the basement doorway.

We saw Sam step into view on the TV screen. He glanced around the room, trying to locate the camera. Once he spotted it, he climbed onto the dresser and tried to rip it from the wall. When it refused to come loose, he began yanking at it violently. Even then, it stayed firmly attached to whatever it had been mounted on, so he started smashing it with his fist in a desperate attempt to destroy it. The image blurred, flickered, and eventually cut out altogether.

Sam returned a few moments later with something in his hand. “It’s the damn smoke detectors,” he said as he entered the large common area.

I clicked the channel button on the remote a few times. “Look at this,” I said breathlessly as I scrolled through several more camera feeds, including one looking down on us from the high, vaulted ceiling.

“Connor, what the hell?” Sam asked accusingly. “You booked this cabin. Did you know about this shit?”

“N-no . . . hell no, dude! It’s probably just the owner’s security system,” Connor stammered. He was clearly as shocked as the rest of us were. “Where’s Julie?”

I clicked through the channels as fast as I could, trying to see if Julie appeared on one of the camera feeds. Finally, we spotted her in one of the bathrooms, sitting on the toilet and staring at her phone. We watched as she laid her phone down and reached for the toilet paper. I quickly switched the channel again to preserve Julie’s privacy.

The next image on the screen sent a wave of terror through me. Maria and I screamed while both guys recoiled, swearing under their breath. My heart skipped a beat, and my stomach twisted into knots. Every hair on my body stood on end. The television showed the front porch, where a man stood directly outside the door wearing what appeared to be a crudely-crafted mask made of burlap. The only notable features of the mask were two eye holes that had been cut out of the stained fabric.

Our screams seemed to alert the man. He slowly turned his masked face toward the camera and stared at it as though he could see us through the screen. Without a word or gesture, he turned and descended the front porch steps, disappearing from the camera’s view. We watched in shock as he calmly left the frame. I frantically clicked the buttons in a futile attempt to find him on a different camera feed, but most of the cameras were inside the cabin.

“What’s going on?” Julie asked as she entered the room, noticing our terrified expressions.

“Someone’s watching us,” I explained, “he was at the front door just now. He was just standing there.”

“You’re just being paranoid,” Julie laughed, “I’m headed to the hot tub.”

“You can’t go outside, Julie,” I said firmly.

Sam interjected, “Maybe she’s right. The guy left, right? Maybe he was just trying to spook us. We should pretend to go about our night as normal while remaining vigilant. We’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

I shook my head in disbelief, “No, we should leave right now.”

“Think about it for a minute, Jennifer,” Maria said. “We don’t know where the guy went, and it’s dark outside.”

Julie had slipped out of the room while everyone was distracted. Connor went to check the hot tub to make sure his girlfriend was safe. I continued flipping through the television channels, hoping to locate the masked man again. To my dismay, we had lost sight of him. Was he hiding somewhere watching us on the cameras?

A scream pierced the tense silence and sent all of us running toward the hot tub. Julie stood beside it hyperventilating as Connor attempted to console her. Pink water dripped from her hair and swimsuit.

“Something’s in there,” she gasped as she began to cry. “Something’s in the water!”

Sam grabbed a bug skimmer and fished around in the hot tub until it found purchase on the object. He scooped the heavy thing up and dropped it onto the deck boards with a wet plop. Julie vomited at the sight of the dead, beheaded raccoon. She stood, wiping the remaining puke from her mouth, and stormed into the house saying that she was going to take a shower.

“I don’t blame her,” Maria said. “That’s absolutely disgusting.”

Sam scooped up the bloated corpse and tossed it over the railing of the deck before saying, “We need to lock all the doors and windows – now. Then we need to find weapons.”

We scrambled into action, checking and double-checking the exterior doors and windows. I grabbed a knife from the kitchen, noticing that one was already missing from the knife block. Assuming someone else had taken it, I searched the cabinets until I found a cast-iron skillet. I carried my weapons into the main room, where my friends were already gathering. Sam had found a shotgun beneath the bed, and Connor had broken a wooden chair apart, now wielding one of the legs like a bat. Maria hadn’t found anything, so I gave her the cast-iron skillet to hold onto.

Silence settled over the cabin, broken only by the sound of the shower running upstairs. We stood in a tight circle, backs turned toward one another, aware of how vulnerable we were. In truth, the raccoon corpse in the hot tub had unsettled us more than anything else so far. Something about seeing the decapitated body of an animal made everything feel suddenly too real.

“I’m going to check on Julie,” Connor said.

“We should all go,” Maria suggested.

Sam and I nodded in agreement.

Connor led the way up the stairs while Sam brought up the rear with the shotgun. We approached the bathroom door, looking out for any signs of danger as we went. Connor knocked on the bathroom door and called out to Julie, but she didn’t answer. He knocked again before opening the door. Connor’s scream shattered the silence.

The gruesome sight turned my stomach. Tears welled in my eyes as I stared at Julie’s motionless body sprawled across the floor. She had been stabbed at least a dozen times – the missing kitchen knife jutted out of her chest. How had we not heard her? Had she screamed in agony while she was being attacked, or had she never even gotten the chance? Questions flashed through my mind in a frantic blur, each one sharper and more terrifying than the last, until a single realization silenced them all:

He’s inside the cabin.

I repeated that thought over and over, my voice rising to a panicked crescendo as Sam pulled me out of the bathroom and into a tight embrace. Maria sobbed frantically. Connor had sunk to his knees beside Julie’s body, choking out broken words through his sobs. The sound of a single floorboard creaking transformed our grief into sheer terror.

“Sam,” I whispered, my voice crackling with fear, “he’s in here with us.”

Sam stepped in front of me and shouldered the shotgun. The rest of us followed, attempting to maintain our composure, as Sam led the way down the stairs. An odd, pungent odor was coming from the kitchen. Connor and I slowly crept toward the open kitchen while Sam kept the shotgun trained on the other doorways. Maria stood frozen in terror on the foot of the stairs. I could tell that she was staring at the front door, which was still deadbolted shut.

A lidded pot simmered on the stove, steam curling from beneath the edges of the lid. Connor and I exchanged uneasy glances as I slowly reached out and lifted the lid. The moment I saw – and smelled – what was inside, the lid slipped from my hands and clattered to the floor. I gagged, nearly puking, and stepped backward in horror at the sight of the raccoon’s severed head bobbing in the boiling water.

Suddenly, the massive taxidermied bear lurched forward and crashed to the floor. In that instant, two horrifying truths were revealed: the bear was hollow, and the masked man had been hiding inside it. Everyone screamed. Sam raised the shotgun to his shoulder and fired once, striking the man in the chest. The shot sent him stumbling backward, his body slumping down to the floor in the corner.

We ran for our lives. Maria unlocked the deadbolt and we sprinted to the SUV as Connor fumbled for his keys. He clambered into the driver’s seat and fumbled around until the key found purchase in the ignition. The engine cranked, but it did not start. Connor tried several times before cursing at the top of his lungs. “Just give me a few minutes,” he said as he popped the hood and slid out of the seat. Sam followed with the shotgun. Maria and I stayed in the backseat, both of us shaking violently with adrenaline and terror.

Connor called for me to try starting the vehicle, and I scrambled over the center console into the driver’s seat. The engine cranked a few times and started. Maria and I shared a brief celebratory cheer as the hood came down. Three silhouettes stood in the darkness in front of the vehicle – not two. The masked man was standing behind Sam. I opened my mouth to warn him, but it was too late.

The knife slid across his throat, opening a thin, red seam. Blood seeped from the wound and began to spurt out as Sam fell against the hood of the vehicle. Connor swung his makeshift bludgeon at the masked man, but he missed. “Go,” Connor groaned as the killer plunged the knife into his stomach. I slammed the vehicle into reverse and stomped the gas pedal, creating distance. Connor’s body fell limp as I turned the steering wheel toward the driveway.

I mashed the accelerator to the floor, sending Maria crashing back into her seat as the tires kicked up a spray of gravel behind us. I fumbled in the darkness for the headlights and flipped the switch just in time to see something stretched across the road. All four tires blew at once. The top-heavy SUV lurched violently from side to side as I fought to regain control. In the panicked moments before impact, we never saw the tree.

I raised my head, dazed from the airbag deploying in my face. Maria was frantically shaking me, but her voice sounded so far away that I could not make out what she was saying. It was only when I tried to move that a sharp pain in my leg snapped me back to reality. I tried to move again, gritting my teeth against the pain, but it was no use.

“Maria, listen to me,” I said in as calm a tone as I could muster. “You have to go. I think my leg is broken, and I’m pinned in the car. You have to run.”

“I’m not leaving you, Jen,” Maria protested, tears streaming down her face.

“Please, Maria, please,” I pleaded. In the rearview mirror, I could see the masked man slowly approaching the mangled vehicle. “Maria, he’s here—you have to go now!” I screamed. Maria finally seemed to understand, and she began frantically pushing on the rear passenger door.

“It won’t open,” she sobbed.

“The window,” I replied as the masked man’s knife scratched against the driver’s side of the vehicle.

Maria scrambled out the broken window of the wreckage, no doubt slicing herself on shards of broken glass as she went. Her feet hit the ground, and she ran into the forest as the masked man stopped outside my window. He stood there in silence for a long moment while I sobbed, shaking my head and whispering the word “no” repeatedly.

“She won’t get far,” he said in a gruff tone. “They never do.”

Maria had not even made it out of my sight when I heard the sickening crunch of a bear trap closing on her leg. With her stride broken, she stumbled and fell forward onto another one. The blood-curdling scream that followed pierced the quiet night atmosphere. I felt a chill creep up my spine as I listened to my friend’s final, desperate pleas for help.

“Why?” I asked. It was the only word I could muster.

“Because I can,” the man replied as he slid the knife into my throat.