Sam’s Journey, Part 3: Cabin in the Woods (1/2)

(Note: I had to split this into 2 parts due to Tapas' limits for story episodes! This is part 1 of 2)

CW: Vomit, blood, violence vs women, car accidents

~ 6 Weeks since Day 0 ~

Sam had managed to stay out of sight from any living soul in the two weeks since she had left Prisha, but in doing so, she had gotten herself hopelessly lost in the woods. Sam noted that in the movies, traveling through the forests was always an easy and pleasant thing to do. Hollywood forests had perfectly groomed terrain with no undergrowth. The forests of Tennessee, where she assumed she still was, were covered in thick layers of thorny undergrowth, vines, shrubs, and other natural obstacles. The tigress found herself tripping and getting caught in the sharp thorns regularly. Luckily, aside from her tender palms, the fur covering her body mostly protected her from scratches. She wished that she were in a Hollywood movie, with easy forest paths and a guaranteed happy ending. 

Prisha had packed enough supplies to last a week, however Sam, not being of the survivalist sort, didn’t think to ration them very well. The last thing she had eaten was a poptart, and that was five days ago. She’d never gone this long without food, and wondered if her newfound variant powers were the only reason she was able to keep moving forward. She decided it was time to try and find something to eat in the woods. The temperature was dropping by the minute, and she feared that if she didn’t find some sort of food and shelter things wouldn’t end well for her.

 Sam picked a single, random direction and started walking. She only had a few hours of sunlight left before the threat of a cold night fell on her. It was almost dark by the time she found the river. It was running water, not fully frozen yet, Sam stopped for a quick drink before resuming her brisk pace. “Just keep going,” she muttered through her clenched teeth, “There’s got to be something out here.” Her determination paid off when, right when she was about to give up and rest under a tree, she found a small hunting cabin by the river. It wasn’t abandoned, it looked well kept, but the cabin had been boarded up and there appeared to be nobody home. She carefully walked around the cabin, taking mental note of the outhouse situated to the left side of the small building. Sam blew warm air into her numb hands and flexed them before shakily reaching out and grabbing the boards on the door. They came off easily with a crack as the metal nails screeched out of the wood. The inside of the cabin was just one room, small and dark.. It was at least better than the bitter wind and snow that was starting to pick up outside. There was a cot set up in the corner with a cedar chest at the end, a small wood-burning stove on the back wall, some cobweb-covered shelves filled with books and nicknacks, two small cabinets, a crate being used as a dining table, and a worn, stained carpet in the middle of the room.

The first thing Sam did, aside from closing the door and latching it shut, was to rush toward the cabinets and raid them for any food she could find. Thankfully, whoever had left this cabin hadn’t cleaned out the pantry in a while. The cabinets contained a couple of cans of beans, one small, squat can of pre-cooked chicken, two jars of peach preserves (one of which had cracked open and looked spoiled), a good supply of bottled waters, and a bag of potato chips that had already been opened. Without a second’s hesitation, she ripped open a can of beans with her bare hands and began to guzzle it down. She stopped mid-way and reminded herself to try and slow down this time and ration some for later.

She battled her roaring stomach for a few minutes, and then finally resolved to save the remaining half of the can of beans for later. Her focus shifted getting the stove going. Thanks to Prisha’s gas station lighter, the fire eventually caught and the cabin slowly began to warm up. She raided the cedar chest, pulling out some blankets and an old brown leather coat. Sam inspected the jacket, wondering who the owner of it was and if they would make their way back soon. Taking another look around, it did seem as if it had been boarded up for a few years at least. But it was well-maintained too. She figured the worst case scenario was that someone would show up tonight and she would just run for it. Still, the thought of being on the run in the snow made her shiver a little. She wondered also if this was going to be her life from then on: Hidden away in a cabin somewhere without ever seeing another human again. She pulled the cot a little closer to the wood stove and laid down. The thought of being alone forever startled her. As she pulled the blankets up around her body, she tried her best to swallow the hard lump in her throat. “Just get through tonight,” she muttered to herself, “For now, just survive tonight.” Eventually, she fell asleep.

Sam slept the whole night, thankfully uninterrupted by the cabin’s owner. Feeling more confident with her temporary homebase, Sam took time to ration out the canned food in the pantry. She figured she could get several days worth of food out of it, if she was careful and conservative. Finished organizing the food, she visited the outhouse and found that the ground was completely covered in snow. She stepped outside carefully, the snow went all the way up to the middle of her shin. It was technically safe for her to travel but, never being a fan of the cold, she opted to stay in her new hideaway for as long as she could.

There wasn’t much to do in her new forest home. The books on the shelf were all about hunting and survivalism, which was useful but not exactly high-quality entertainment. She did find a vintage playboy tucked under the cot, though. After boredly flipping through the old magazine for a few minutes, she tucked it away in her backpack before pulling out her throwaway phone in hopes of there being a signal. There wasn’t. She sighed and decided to write an email to Prisha anyway, hoping that it would automatically send as soon as she got reception..

“Prisha,

Sry I haven’t txted yet. Been trying to find my way back to the road but I got lost :( I ran out of food--”

Sam paused and frowned.

“No…” she said quietly to herself. “I don’t want her to worry….”

She started over:

“Dear Prisha,

I miss u. Thx again 4 helping me. Im doing well. I found a place 2 crash and it has lots of food+water. I will b fine so I hope u rnt worrying about me 2 much. Sry if i caused u any trouble with those guys chasing me. I hope that they r leaveing u alone.

When all this blows overr, lets meet up again!

Love, Sam”

She hit send. A notification popped up saying that the email would send as soon as she got a signal.

On the third day early in the morning, Sam woke up feeling a sharp and violent pain in her stomach. She let out a groan and stumbled as fast as she could outside. The door had barely opened up before she vomited into the snow. She held onto her stomach and heaved again, retching onto the ground once more. Her body shook and she swayed unbalanced as she tried to stand upright.

“Eaugh...” She groaned and leaned back against the door frame. “Seriously?” she sighed, exasperated.

The fresh cold air soothed her stomach, but just for a moment. She leaned against the doorframe shakily as she emptied the contents of her stomach. Finally, when the nausea had passed, she shut the door and stumbled back into the cot.

The cycle of getting up to vomit and then crawling back into bed continued several more times before she finally gave up and grabbed a rusty bucket from outside. She stayed curled up in bed, leaning over to use the bucket when she needed to. She occasionally would get up and try to eat something, but it was difficult to keep anything down. Beans and canned chicken didn’t help her stomach, and she suspected that they were the cause of whatever was happening to her anyway. Water was all she could think to ingest, but even that was difficult to keep down.

Later that night, after exiting the outhouse and following her stomped down snow path back to the cabin door, Sam thought she heard the sound of something moving out in the snow.

“H-hello?” She said weakly, her voice cracking as she strained to talk through a swollen throat. She listened for a moment but there was nothing. It was the woods after all and there had been deer tracks around the cabin every now and again. It was probably just another doe looking for food. “Guess it was nothing” she thought to herself as she closed the door behind her.

She sat down on the bed and wrapped herself up in the old worn leather coat and a pile of blankets. After a few minutes of getting settled, she started to close her eyes once more.

Suddenly her ears twitched to the sound of fast running footsteps. Before she could will herself out of bed, the door crashed open, breaking into several pieces and clattering violently all over the room.

A large man stood in the splintered doorway. Confused and foggy, she tried to focus and see who this threat was. He was wearing what looked like a tattered high school letterman jacket over a dark grey hoodie, a pair of ripped jeans, and a t-shirt that fit snugly on his strong chest. As he entered the room, the hood that was covering his head fell backwards and Sam could see his face. His skin was green and scaled, almost as if he were a reptile. On top of his head was short blond hair, littered with the occasional bone-like spike that protruded from his skull and forehead. His hands were large and his fingers had long, pointed claws at the ends. Behind him, a long spike-covered dragon-like tail swayed back and forth. He was young, like her, maybe 17 or 18 years old?

“W-who are you?!” Sam stutters and untangled herself from the blankets. Anyone willing to smash down a door to get to her was probably bad news.

“You’re, uh, Samantha Johnson, right?” The variant dusted some snow off of his jacket and smirked. “I’m Pound. And I’m taking you with me.” and with that, he lunged toward her. In an instant, he grabbed her with one powerful movement and hoisted her up onto his shoulder.

“LET ME GO!” Sam feebly flailed her arms and legs but her efforts were in vain, the food poisoning having weakened her.

“Stop kicking me, you crazy bitch!” Pound growled, tightened his hold on her, and continued outside of the cabin. “You’re coming with me and you can’t do shit about it!”

“NO!” Sam roared and outstretched her hands, her claws growing out of her fingers until they were a good inch in length. She stabbed them hard in between his ribs.

With a loud yell, Pound didn’t drop her but instead threw her hard into the ground. The impact momentarily knocked the breath out of the tigress. He reached around and grasped his ribs where blood was starting to stain his clothes.

“You fu--” Before he could let out another word, Sam grabbed a nearby cinder block and threw it hard at Pound’s head. The block hit its target and Pound fell backwards against the cabin.

Using what strength she had, the tigress stumbled to her feet and began to run as fast as she could through the woods. She could hear the angry variant yelling and cursing behind her as he ran, catching up quickly. Within a few seconds, he caught up to her and tackled her into the snow.

“GOTCHA!” He grinned and grabbed the back of her head, pulling it up and then smashing it back down into the snow. “STOP MOVING OR I’LL RIP YOUR HEAD OFF!” He growled.

Sam’s heavy breaths choked into a sob. “Please let me go!”

“Nah, I don’t think I will!” He held his hand on the back of her head and growled. “You’re coming with me, and you’re gonna stop fighting!” He flipped her over and held her down, pinning her wrists to the ground with his thick, scaly hands. “They want you alive but they didn’t say in one piece. Try me again and I’ll--” Flipping her over, Pound learned, was a mistake. Sam rammed her knee upwards and drove it hard into his groin.

As Pound fell over onto the ground, he grabbed his crotch and yelled a number of obscenities Sam didn’t even know existed. She scrambled to her feet once more and began to run away as fast as she could manage. Before she could get very far, she felt a familiar stab of pain in her stomach. She stumbled forward and fell to her hands and knees, vomiting in the snow.

“N-not now…” She groaned as she heaved once again. Finally, after the second retch, she felt able to stand.

As she looked around, everything was either doubled or blurry. The stinging pain in her gut was even worse than before. Still, she carried on, stumbling around as well as she could. Pound was finally standing up, her ears told her that. She could hear him closing in on her and there wasn’t anything she could do about it. He caught up and rammed her hard into a tree. This time, she felt a sharp searing pain in her side. Her vision focused for a brief moment; she swore that what stabbed her was something protruding out of the reptilian man’s forearm. It wasn’t there before, she was sure of it! He must have grown it. She let out a loud yell of pain and misery.

“I told you, bitch!” He growled and reached his fist back. His knuckles were now covered in sharp spikes. Before he had a chance to throw a punch, however, Sam vomited forward onto his neck and shirt. “SICK!” He dropped her and stumbled backwards, temporarily shocked and disgusted by what had happened.

Before the reptilian man could process what had happened, Sam took off running. Pound followed her, ripping off his shirt and wiping his neck, cursing under his breath as he resumed the chase. Sam looked back at him, her fuzzy head scrambling to come up with some kind of plan.. Suddenly, the ground beneath her feet seemed to vanish, replaced by rushing wind and the feeling of falling fast. She turned her head and saw the blurred figure of Pound skidding to a stop at the edge of what looked to be a cliff that grew taller by the second as she fell..

“This is it...” She thought as she closed her eyes and clenched her fists tightly. “I’m going to die!” The sound of traffic could be heard below. It felt like she had been falling forever, even though it must have just been a few seconds. With a loud crash, she landed on top of an SUV driving along the wintery road. It screeched to a stop, the two smaller cars behind smashing into it and then each other. She bounced off of the SUV and before she hit the ground, she was struck by a truck in the other lane. It slammed her forward and she rolled on the road for what felt like eternity before she finally came to a stop. She laid unconscious in the middle of the road, bleeding out onto the pavement.

After several more car wrecks, traffic finally halted. Drivers exited their vehicles, confused, shaken, angry, and scared. They rushed to what looked like a dead girl bleeding on the road.

“Somebody call an ambulance!” A driver yelled. As he began to inspected her, he pulled back a little and frowned. “A...a variant?”