After the Cabin (12 page)

I sit in horrified silence, watching hand-held footage taken from a distance, showing me wandering naked and bloodied around the remains of the ruined cabin. Morning sunlight is streaming across the scene, and when I lean closer I see that I seem to be dragging a burned corpse across the grass, but...

Who was filming this?

Everyone was dead by the time the sun came out, I was alone, yet now it's clear that someone was able to keep recording me. I stare at the image as the hidden cameraman moves behind some trees, keeping the lens trained on me. I'm about a hundred meters away, stumbling past the edge of the cabin's smoking ruins. Just as I lean toward the screen to get a better look, the camera zooms in, and I watch myself dragging a charred dead body toward the treeline until, suddenly, I stop and let the corpse slump to the ground. I don't remember any of this, but I can't deny what's happening on the screen as I watch myself dropping to my knees and punching the dead body.

Jennifer.

That
must
be her.

Apparently I spent a few minutes pummeling her body. The camera remains partially hidden behind some old trees, but finally I see that part of my dream the other night was true. Apparently I really
did
pummel Jennifer's dead body with enough force to sever her head.

“Everyone thinks you're so innocent,” I remember her voice whispering to me all those times. “What if they knew what you did after the cabin burned down?”

I keep watching. The video shows me picking up Jennifer's head and then dragging her body into the forest. Once I'm out of sight beyond the trees at the far end of the clearing, the camera hurries forward, and I can hear the sound of someone breathing heavily on the soundtrack. Whoever it is, they head past the burning cabin and toward the trees on the other side. There's a sudden cut, and when the film resumes the camera is now hurrying through the forest. The image is too shaky and jerky for me to be able to see properly, but suddenly the person stops and trains the camera on the glistening lake in the distance. When the picture zooms in again, I see my naked figure silhouetted against the water.

I remember that moment.

I was thinking about just walking into the depths. I was fantasizing about how it would feel to drift away, except...

The video shows me tossing Jennifer's corpse into the lake, along with her head.

I don't remember that, but now it's clear that I must have suffered some kind of selective amnesia.

Suddenly I see myself turning and heading back into the forest, and the person holding the camera ducks out of the way, desperate to not be seen. The view stays static for a moment, partially covered by the tree behind which the person is hiding, and a moment later my footsteps can be heard coming closer. I'm shocked to see that I traipsed almost straight past the camera's hiding place, just a few meters away, but clearly I had no idea I was still being filmed. The camera turns to keep tracking me as I wander between the trees, and for the next few minutes the shot remains fairly steady, watching as I disappear into the distance. Everything seems so calm and peaceful, almost as if -

Abruptly, the image changes to the long, barren road that I eventually found. Zooming in, the camera wobbles as it films a truck stopping next to me. Whoever was watching me, they must have followed for hours while I was just stumbling along the road. I watch as I see someone getting out of the truck, and I remember that moment so well. A man from a nearby town happened to be driving past, and he wrapped a blanket around me and drove me to hospital. That was when the nightmare really ended, or at least when I
thought
it ended. Now, as I watch myself being helped into the truck, I realize that someone
must
have survived from the cabin, someone who kept filming me. A moment later the truck drives away, leaving the cameraman all alone on the deserted road. There's a pause, with the only sound now being the whirr of the camera, and then suddenly the image tilts down toward the road and then goes black for a few seconds.

Who the hell was -

Suddenly the image blinks back into life. Again, the camera seems to be hiding, this time behind a pillar. It takes a moment before I spot two figures emerging from a door, and I realize that I'm watching myself leaving the hospital with my mother. Whoever was filming me, they followed me all the way back to England and then waited three years while I was being treated. The camera remains trained on me as my mother heads back into the building. Zooming in, the image frames me as I sit in the car, staring straight ahead. I remember that moment, but in the film I look so ashen, almost ghostly. I can hear someone breathing on the soundtrack again, and the scene continues until my mother returns and we drive away. There's a brief cut, and then the screen is filled with a loud scene of drunken people in town at night. I can guess what I'm about to see even before it appears, and sure enough I see myself hurrying toward the club with Karen. Whoever's behind this, it's clear they were filming me almost continuously from the moment I was released from hospital.

For the next few hours, I sit and watch the rest of the extended edition. I see myself inside the club, with Karen and Matt, and I see myself running out a little later; I see myself walking alone along the path next to the train station, but the camera holds too far back for me to be able to see what's happening up on the walkway. This shot lingers for a few minutes, before I see the two figures heading down. Suddenly there's another cut, which leads to a shot of me sitting in my mother's kitchen at night, and after a moment I'm even shown looking directly at the camera before the figure turns and hurries out of the garden. I guess I was right, then; there really
was
someone out there that night, filming me through the window. I watch in horror as the scene cuts to me walking toward my psychiatrist's office, and I start to realize that this psychopath seems to have been determined to capture as much as possible of my life on video.

A little later, there's a shot of me walking toward the hotel with Karen, only this time the camera actually seems to linger more on
her
face than on mine. She's laughing and joking with me, and I feel a jolt of sorrow in my heart as I realize that just being my friend was enough to drag her into all of this. The film continues for another couple of hours, and as the slider gets close to the end I start wondering just how recent the final scene will be. Finally I get to a shot of myself running frantically along a dark street, and I realize that it's the night when I thought I was being chased by a headless woman. I watch intently for any sign that the woman was real but, as the video shows me hiding behind a car, I see with a sigh of relief that there's no headless woman anywhere. I already knew she wasn't real, but it's still good to have that fact confirmed, although I can't help feeling shocked as I watch myself reacting frantically to something that I thought I could see. I guess she was my mind's way of forcing myself to remember what I did to Jennifer's body. The camera manages to follow me all the way to the moment when I ran into the police car, but then the person holds back, obviously not wanting to be spotted.

The next shot shows the hospital again from the outside, with the camera focused on one particular window high up, and then the film ends. Whoever was behind the recording, at least they couldn't get into the hospital to film me. Either that, or they didn't dare try.

Closing my laptop, I sit in stunned silence for a moment, trying to process everything I just saw. Someone is still following me, still watching my every move, but suddenly I realize that I might be able to find out who. I need access to the archives from the surveillance cameras all around town, so I grab my bag and hurry downstairs, ignoring my mother as she calls through to ask where I'm going. All I can think about is the surveillance cameras, and the possibility of finally seeing who's doing this to me. And the police, I have to call the police. Reaching into my bag, I pull out my phone as I open the front door. I need to -

“Anna,” Detective Bryson says, as I bump into him. “Going somewhere important?”

Fourteen

“He can't be,” I stammer. “Not Matt as well...”

“He didn't turn up for work,” Bryson explains as he drives us along the dark street, “and no-one has heard from him since yesterday morning. His mobile phone is switched off, and he hasn't accessed his email or used his bank card. Given the circumstances, we're taking his apparent disappearance very seriously.”

“It's because of me,” I whisper, watching the lights of the busy road ahead. “First Karen, then Matt...”

“We can't be sure there's a link,” he replies. “We're just taking all necessary precautions.”

“If you don't believe me about the video,” I continue, “you can -”

“I believe you,” he adds, interrupting me. “That was the other reason I came to find you, we became aware of the extended cut that was uploaded to file-sharing sites. That's why I'm taking you to a safe location, somewhere this person can't get to you. Until we figure out exactly what's going on, we need to exercise caution.”

“But I don't know whether -” Stopping suddenly, I stare at him. I was about to point out that I don't know who to trust, but now I'm starting to realize that I can't even trust
him
. Looking down at my trembling hands, I start wondering whether I should open the car door and jump out. The handle is right next to me and I don't think its locked, but at the same time I don't want to accept that I'm in so much danger.

“It's not me,” he says after a moment.

I turn to him. “What's not you?”

“I know what you're thinking,” he continues, “and you're right not to trust anyone. Just hold tight and I promise, we'll get you to a secure location.” He takes the next left turn. “We found Karen's boyfriend, by the way. That Daniel guy? Except his name's not Daniel, it's David.”

“She told me he's called Daniel.”

“Are you sure you didn't mishear?”

I open my mouth to reply, but deep down I know it's more than possible. I can't even trust
myself
.

“He's a real piece of work,” Bryson continues, “not a nice guy at all, but he's definitely not the same person who was at the cabin. Believe me, with his record, we can trace this David guy all the way back to the age of fourteen. He's got a nasty history of punching his girlfriends, but we've got nothing to link him to Karen's disappearance.”

“We have to find her,” I whisper, taking deep breaths in an attempt to stay calm. “We have to find Matt, too.”

“There's also the matter of Jennifer Mathieson.”

I turn to him. “What about her?”

“I got a call from Oslo this afternoon,” he continues. “They never managed to identify the mysterious Mr. Cole who went to the cabin to buy the video. They found his body, though, and they have his D.N.A. on file in case they're ever able to get a match. That's not the problem.” He pauses. “As well as Mr. Cole, they also found the body of a police officer, Ole Haulen, and Joseph and Christian and Daniel, and Karen Lund as well, they were all in the ruins of the cabin, that's all cleared up -”

“What about Jennifer?” I ask.

He pauses.

“They found Jennifer's body too,” I continue, trying not to panic. “They
did
find her, didn't they?”

“Apparently there were a lot of remains to sort through.”

“She's dead,” I say firmly. “I saw her die.”

“There's no doubt that she's dead,” he replies. “They found part of her, but only an arm and some facial tissue, part of her chest, plus a whole lot of blood, more blood than she could possibly survive losing, but as for the rest of her body...” He pauses again. “Do you see how this doesn't quite fit with what you told the police? At first they thought maybe a wild animal got to her, but apparently their forensics team ruled that out. They say Jennifer appears to have been dragged from the ruins of the cabin.”

Feeling a flash of cold steel in my chest, I think back to the video that showed me hauling Jennifer's body across the grass, and the memory of attacking her corpse.

“You've claimed all along that Jennifer was stabbed,” he continues, “by... Um... Well, you said that you saw the ghosts of two of the other girls stabbing Jennifer from behind.”

“There were two knives in her back,” I tell him, still desperately trying not to panic.

“That could well have happened in
some
manner,” he replies, “but after she died, perhaps something else happened? Something that you're forgetting?”

“I think I did something to her,” I whisper.

“Like what?”

I close my eyes as I fear tears welling up.

“Anna?”

“After she was dead,” I continue, opening my eyes again as tears start rolling down my face, “I think I... It's on the extended version of the video. You can see me dragging a body away from the cabin and beating it, and then taking it into the forest. I don't remember any of that, but I think I was in such a daze, somehow I...” My voice trails off as I remember parts of my dream, the one in which I cut Jennifer's body open and then beat her until her head came away. “I can't believe anything I see anymore,” I add finally, with tears in my eyes. “I remember things that didn't happen, and I forget things that did.”

“It's okay,” he replies, “I'm going to get you to a secure location where no-one can get to you. That's the priority, and then -”

“We need the surveillance footage,” I tell him.

“What surveillance footage?”

“There's a guy who runs the control room for one of the security firms,” I continue. “If we can get into the archived recordings -”

“We'll worry about that later,” he adds, taking the next left and driving onto the forecourt of a gas station. “I just need to fill up, and then I'll get you somewhere safe.”

“Are you taking me to the station?”

“No, I want to avoid anywhere that might be too obvious.”

I sit in silence as he switches the engine off.

“You're going to be okay, Anna,” he continues. “You'll be interviewed about Karen and Matt's disappearances -”

“As a suspect?” I ask, shocked by the suggestion.

He hesitates, and in that moment of hesitation I can see that I'm right, he
does
see me as a potential suspect. “You called me,” he says cautiously, “and suggested that maybe you'd been doing things that you don't remember. It would be remiss of me, in the current circumstances, not to take those claims seriously. Do you understand, Anna?”

I pause, before nodding.

“I'm trying to do this the nice way,” he continues, “for your sake, so let's just...” He pauses. “Well, let's just get you to the hospital, and then we can go from there. The video footage alone proves that there' someone out there who's been following you.”

“So you've definitely seen it?” I reply. “I was starting to wonder whether even that wasn't really happening.”

“I've seen it,” he says firmly, “and it's real. I've also spoken to the parents of Karen and Matt, and I've seen the fear in their eyes, and I know that's real too. We're going to get all of this straightened out, it's just going to take a little time, that's all. But we
will
get to the bottom of it. Trust me on that.”

As he gets out of the car, I feel as if I need to scream. I keep replaying images from the video over and over, and as Bryson starts filling the car's tank I can't stop thinking back to every moment I've spent with him. I know there's a danger that I'm becoming paranoid, but I can't trust anyone. Hell, I've even had moments where I question whether my own mother is somehow involved in all of this, and I
know
that's a leap too far. Leaning back in the seat, I fell as if this madness is never going to end. Even if we find Karen and Matt alive and well, and even if there are no more updates to that video, I can never be entirely sure that there isn't someone out there, still filming me.

Glancing out at the darkness surrounding the petrol station, I wait to see a camera's red light, but there's no sign. I guess maybe the person, whoever it is, can't keep up with me when I'm in a car.

After a few minutes, I turn and see that Bryson has finished at the pump. I look toward the store and see him inside, but after a moment I realize that he's on his mobile phone. He didn't say anything about calling anyone, and I watch with a slowly growing sense of fear as I see that he's smiling and laughing with the person on the other end. I tell myself to keep my fears in check, but already I'm starting to imagine him telling some co-conspirator that he's managed to get his hands on me. Again I tell myself that I'm being paranoid, but suddenly it hits me that the extended version of the video never once showed me while I was with Bryson.

Why not?

Why wouldn't the video include
those
moments? I was in easy view, it's not as if there were any obstacles. My mind is racing as I think back to all the shots that were used in the footage, and finally I realize that there's only one person who links the scenes that
weren't
included.

Detective Bryson.

I look toward the store again and see that he's still talking to someone on the phone. I try to read his lips, but it's hopeless. After a moment we make eye contact and he signals for me to wait, and then he turns his back toward me, almost as if he's worried that I might be able to tell what he's saying.

Filled with panic, I unfasten my safety belt and open the door, stepping out into the cold night air. I don't know where I'm going to go, but I feel absolutely certain that I can't risk letting this guy drive me to some random location. I hurry around the side of the car and then across the forecourt, before slipping into the darkness and crouching down behind a railing just as I hear the store's door swinging open. My whole body is trembling with fear, but I know I can't just sit in that car and wait for someone to grab me.

I take a deep breath.

Is this a mistake, or -

“Anna!” Bryson shouts suddenly, his voice filled with concern. “Anna, where are you?”

I can hear my heart pounding, but I don't dare say a word, not even as I hear Bryson's footsteps hurrying this way.

“Anna,” he calls out, “whatever's wrong here, you have to trust me!”

I wait.

“Anna!”

For a moment, the only sound is traffic passing on the nearby road.

“It's me,” Bryson says finally, sounding distinctly annoyed. “I've lost her.”

Peering around the side of the railing, I watch as he heads back to the car with his phone against his ear.

“I don't know,” he continues, “but I'm at the petrol station on the corner of Lea Road and Harbour Lane, and it looks like she bolted while I was inside paying.” There's a pause. “I don't know,” he adds, “but I'm going to drive around and see if I can spot her. You need to get to her mother's house, hopefully she'll head back there.” He says something else, but he's too far away now for me to hear.

I watch as he gets into the car, and a moment later he drives away from the forecourt, making his way slowly along the next street as if he's looking for some sign of me. I know there's a danger that I'm over-analyzing things, but that snippet of phone conversation didn't sound like something official. Getting to my feet, I head to the pavement and watch as his car disappears into the distance, and then I set off in the other direction. Obviously I can't go home, since he told someone to go and wait for me, but when I get to the next corner I suddenly realize that there's still one place I can try.

I need that CCTV footage.

***

“Hello?” I call out, standing in the doorway of the building where I met Frankie before. “Is anyone here?”

I wait, but there's no reply. Glancing over my shoulder, I look both ways along the dark street, but there's no sign of anyone. Figuring that I need to just get the CCTV footage so I can try to see who's been filming me, I pull the door shut and make my way along the under-lit corridor, with the door to Frankie's office at the far end. I know that this is a huge risk, and that Frankie could just as easily be involved in all of this, but I've got a can of mace spray that has been in my bag for weeks. I'm more scared of not knowing.

“Hello? Frankie?”

When I reach the door at the far end of the corridor, I knock gently and wait, but still there's no sign that anyone's here. I try the handle and find that it turns, and then I push the door open and see the wall of monitors, each one showing a different grainy image from somewhere in town. The chair at the desk is empty, but there's a Tupperware box nearby with some clingfilm and crumbs inside, so I guess Frankie was here recently. As I make my way over to the desk, I tell myself that he's probably just in the bathroom, or maybe he got called out somewhere. I should wait for him to come back, but there's a bank of hard drives over in the corner and I know that if I can just gain access, I'll be able to search for the footage I need.

When I move the mouse that's attached to the main computer, the screen comes to life and I see that it's already logged in with Frankie's account. I check over my shoulder again, to make sure that there's no sign of him, and then I take a seat and start bringing up the archives, hoping against hope that I can get what I need and leave before he comes back. I know this is wrong, but I'd much rather not have to talk to anyone until I know for certain who has been filming me all this time. My hands are trembling so much, I can barely type, but there's a kind of nervous energy driving me to keep going.