Cabin 9

Chapter 12

A million thoughts began racing through my head. Ben turned to us and made a strangled sound.
"Girls, you need to get out of here--" he started to say. Cole turned his gun on us, forcing him to stop speaking.
"No, no, no. Now that you've joined the party, you might as well stay a while," Cole said. He sounded strange. Hoarse, bitter.
"Cole please--" Ben started.
"SHUT UP!" Cole screamed. Ben held his hands up in defeat. Cole took a deep breath in, as if he was thinking, then pressed the gun to the head of the small girl. She let out a shriek of terror, tears streaming down her face. In that moment, my heart broke.

How could someone be so monstrous, to kill their own girlfriend, to hold a gun to the head of an innocent girl? But I was too scared to say anything. Already, my life was in danger.

"So girls, I guess you've been doing some detective work with Ben. Then you'll know that two people were killed on these grounds, many years ago. You might not know that they had a son." He paused here, as if expecting a reaction from us, but we remained silent, our eyes fixed on him and his captive.
"No? Well they did. He was adopted by his uncle when his parents died. A horrible man- he wanted only his brother's properties and money. So he neglected the boy, and when he turned 18, seized the cottage land that the young boy had treasured with his parents, and sold it, leaving the boy all alone in the world with no money, no family, nothing."
So was Cole the son, and was this why he had so much hate? As if reading my mind, he continued.
"But the boy found a girl- a beautiful one who he hoped to spend his life with. Soon enough she fell pregnant. They struggled through life together, but after 5 years, she'd had enough and left him with the baby. He could barely feed himself, and now he had another mouth to fill. This turned him into an awful person. He was very abusive, my father."
So that was it. Cole had been abused, because of the rotten luck his father had received. Suddenly, Cole let out a bitter laugh, startling me.
"But did you know, even after the cottage property had been sold, they left up the little wood cabin that my father and his parents had cherished so much. And every time his fist came down on my body--"
He winced, but carried on.
"He told me that someday, we would get his cottage back. And I would do anything, anything to stop those beatings. So I told him I would get it back for him" Cole told us.
The young girl whimpered a little, and Cole pushed the gun harder.
"Cole, please, I'm sure we can work something out without these measures" Ben said, in a strained voice.
"No," Cole replied, "this is the only way"
"But why did you kill Amalia?" Nadya whispered. I'd almost forgotten she was there.
"Oh Amalia. Poor, sweet Amalia. She was the only thing I actually liked about this place. It's a shame she's gone. It was my fault really. I was stupid, stupid enough to think that she would understand. When I told her about why I had really come to this freaking camp, she wimped out on me,"
"You have to tell Ben, you can't do this," Cole says, in a crude imitation of what must've been Amalia's voice.
"No. I'm here and I'm gonna get what I want. If I have to kill a few people, so what. My grandparents were killed, why not you" he said menacingly, looking down at little Sophia. And if what had happened next hadn't occured, we might've all died that night.

Someone burst through the back door and tackled Cole, knocking the gun out of his hand. His finger must've pulled the trigger during the assault, because a gunshot was heard. I screamed and dove to the ground, while Ben grabbed Sophia and pulled her out of the way. Nadya grabbed the gun, and then dropped it unsure of what to do.
"Give it to me, Nadya," Ben said, his voice calm and even, despite the situation. She handed it over without a word, tears streaming down her face.

I looked up to see Cole, struggling underneath the body of whoever had burst through the door. I crawled across the cabin floor, and switched on the light switch, to see that it was none other than Ryan. But he wasn't be able to hold Cole off much longer. A fist swung out and knocked him to the ground, and Cole got up, but Ben was too quick. He tackled Cole to the ground once again, and while stuggling to hold him down, asked me to pass him some rope. I was still in a daze, and he had to shout my name before I could register what he meant.
"Avery, the rope!"
I looked down to see several lengths of rope that Cole must've been using to
keep Sophia captive. I handed them to him, and he tied up a still struggling Cole, who had begun to sob.

What happened next was all a blur. Loud gunshots sounded through the cabin, and I automatically dropped to the ground. Whether or not they hit anyone, I was unsure. Next I felt Ben grab me by the collar of my shirt and shove me towards the door, with the little girl in his arms. Once we were out of the cabin, he shoved the little girl at me and shouted "Run!"
Nadya and I took off, the little girl sobbing loudly as I carried her on my hip. Ben went back to the cabin.

Once we made it to the dining hall, a mess of campers and counsellors crowded us and demanded to know what was going on. As soon as someone took care of the little girl, I found myself to start crying uncontrollably. Lucy pulled me and Nadya aside, and asked me in an urgent voice,
"Avery, what went on back there?"
"C-cole...B-b-ben...in the-the cabin" I cried, unable to form words properly. Before she could ask me anything else, Ben emerged from the words, carrying someone. Through my watery eyes, I strained to get a look at who it was. But with everyone crowding around, it was hard to see.
"I need a first aid kit, right now! Someone help me carry him! And someone get back to Cabin 9 to restrain Cole!" Ben called all at once.
Various counsellors rushed away to do the jobs, pulling away campers with them. The crowd cleared a bit, and I was able to see who was in Ben's arms.
Bloody and limp, eyes closed, unmoving.
It was Ryan.