an old timer at some run down gas station sent us forty miles in the wrong direction, so it was already dark by the time we pulled into the cabin’s gravel driveway. we all stumbled out the backdoor of tyrone’s conversion van and fell into the dirt. we were four hours deep in a k-hole, so made our way to the front door like a pack of zombies, dragging our bags and gear behind us. but we didn’t even care how late we were: this was going to be the greatest weekend of our young lives, and nothing was going to stop us.

but when we got to the door, we found it hanging loose off its hinges. jagged claw marks tore through the finishing, leaving trails of blood and hair clumped along the sill. it’s just some insane bear roaming about the woods, one of us said, and that made sense to us, so we laughed and stumbled inside.

the place reeked of sulfur pits and locker room smegma. and the heat was unbearable. we wondered aloud if the cabin weren’t cooking us alive. someone had boarded up the windows from the inside and—from the look of things—in a hurry. layers of dust and debris had settled into the torn cushions of the sofa, the hobbled legs of the coffee table, the empty eye socket of an old porcelain doll. a hole had eaten its way through the roof right over the loveseat, and the entire cabin tilted westward, like a drunk old barn. you grew dizzy just walking down the hallways.

five ground floor bedrooms snaked around the living room. ludwig claimed the biggest room for himself. he strapped a duffel bag to each bicep and flexed, an open challenge to stop him. passing tyrone and trevor on his way to the back, he elbowed them both in the faces and laughed as they dropped to the floor.

i don’t remember how we came to accept such violence from one another. no one thought twice about it anymore. it was all part of the game. we spent much of freshman year in and out of emergency rooms. the boys hid razor blades in each other’s pockets and waited for them to stick their hands in. they equipped each other’s bikes with tiny explosives that blew the front axle off after a mile and sent the rider barreling face first into the gravel. they removed each other’s pinky toe nails while they slept. once they almost circumcised t sean after homecoming, but his parents walked in and said they’d have to take it outside. but it was cold, so they lost interest and moved onto something else.

i was the weekend’s only solo player. everyone else came coupled, so i volunteered to take the small room since i sleepwalked and stabbed people with my toothbrush if disturbed. my tiny room sulked in the corner. it barely fit a cramped twin bed, and the floorboards collapsed toward the middle of the room where a small crater collected water. if i wasn’t careful, i’d fall inside and drown.

after we scrambled to pick our rooms and stashed our things away, we met back in the living room. this place is disgusting, lana whined, holding up a dead phone receiver. it was true. rotten leaves huddled in soggy corners, and from piles of dried animal shit sprung fuzzy mushroom patches. someone—not us—had recently tracked in mud. big, sloppy mud prints traipsed through the red shag carpeting.

hey, look at this! lacy pulled an old battle ax out of the linen closet, the kind you’d discover on a sunken viking longship. she swung it around in the air, high above her head, but the weight was too much for her and it yanked her across the living room, almost taking lexie’s head off. typical lana: always desperate for attention. nobody likes lana, said lexie, which wasn’t true. we all liked lana, though we hated lexie. the girls would pull lexie’s hair and tweak her nipples until they were good and raw.

anyways, we all got wasted on svedka and high on crystal. we horned ourselves up and dry humped the pillows and then air fucked the sheets. this was what we came to do. this was what kids like us had been coming to cabins like this for eons to do. this weekend was going to be the greatest weekend of our young lives, and nothing was going to stop us.

so imagine our surprise when a lumbering giant in a ski mask stepped into the cabin. he wore a pair of muddy boots and in his hands he gripped one of those scythes with the shiny long blades. he stood there at first with the blade at his feet like he was teeing up on the ninth hole and then he proceeded to cut us all down like we were strands of summer wheat.

there was mayhem and glory, i can assure you, and i’m sure it’d be a crazy story to hear. but none of us are around now to tell it, buried as we are beneath the floorboards of the cabin alongside the rows and rows of those who came before us. the funny thing is, i don’t remember anyone screaming. not a sound from anyone, really, just the fascination and hushed solemnity of being caught in the eye of a stronger, more awesome force than us. we had been summoned to this place for reasons we’d never grasp. we were insignificant lambs caught between slaughters.