The Cabin at the End of the World

by Paul Tremblay

Leonard says, “You are a beautiful person, inside and out. One of the most beautiful people I’ve ever met, Wen. Your family is perfect and beautiful, too. Please know that. This isn’t about you. It’s about everyone.”

Leonard is on his knees with his great and terrible arms outstretched. His face is big and sad in the way all honest faces are sad. He says, “None of what’s going to happen is your fault. You haven’t done anything wrong, but the three of you will have to make some tough decisions. Terrible decisions, I’m afraid. I wish with all of my broken heart you didn’t have to.”

“Your dads won’t want to let us in, Wen. But they have to. Tell them they have to. We are not here to hurt you. We need your help to save the world. Please.”

I can only imagine how nervous you all are, and understandably so, at our arrival on your doorstep. This isn’t easy for us, either. We’ve never been in this position before. No one has, ever, not in the history of humankind.”

Leonard says, “Your family must choose to willingly sacrifice one of your three in order to prevent the apocalypse. After you make what I know is an impossible choice, you must then kill whoever it is you choose. If you fail to make the choice or fail to follow through with the sacrifice, the world will end. The three of you will live but the rest of humanity, seven billion plus, will perish.” Leonard’s mannerless, reading-the-high-school-morning-announcements tone becomes the breathless impassioned entreaty of a zealot. “And you will only live long enough to witness the horror of the end of everything and be left to wander the devastated planet alone, permanently and cosmically alone.”

Andrew wants to believe there’s an opening, a crack, through which he and Eric (it would’ve most certainly been Eric if he hadn’t sustained a concussion) could talk the four out of whatever they have planned after he reiterates their answer to this lunacy is of course no. However, Andrew is not good at mollifying, at saying what people want to hear. He excels at saying what he wants people to hear. That is not the same as telling-it-like-it-is, a folksy descriptor that is spin for being an entitled asshole. It’s more like he tells-it-like-it-should-be backed with an impeccably logical through-line.

Adriane’s panic twitches below her eyes and tugs at the corners of her mouth. “We’re not fucking around. You don’t think we’re not sacrificing anything to be here? We dropped our lives and came all the way out there for this, man. Came out here for you. We had to. Unlike you, we had no choice. You have to believe us. You have to.” She pushes off the armrests and straightens up.

Leonard claps his hands once, as loud as a slamming door. “Okay, you need to listen to this part, too. I’ve been shown exactly what will happen if you choose not to make a sacrifice. We’ve all been shown.” He spreads his arms out wide across the cabin. Adriane bites the back of her knuckles, shrinks away from Eric and off into the kitchen. She circles around her weapon. “I’ve been made to watch the end, over and over. Since last Monday. It started as a nightmare and whenever I closed my eyes, the end was there, and as we got closer to this day, the visions started happening when I was awake. I couldn’t escape it. I didn’t want to believe it. I thought there might be something wrong with me but the visions were so strong and so specific, so real—” Leonard pauses and wipes his face. “Sabrina, Adriane, and Redmond all saw the same things, too. They saw the exact same things I was seeing. And we were led to each other and we were led here. I don’t think you’re getting that we don’t want to be here, don’t want any of this to happen, but we have no choice. The choice is yours.”

“Shown by who? By what? Are you going to answer that?” Leonard bows his head and doesn’t say anything. Neither does Sabrina, Redmond, or Adriane.

“Who is making you do this to us?” “God.” Leonard says the one-syllable word sheepishly and he has a strange look on his face. Speaking the word aloud brings him both great relief and terror.