Great, except I conked out like a wimp, then barfed right in front of everyone...
Shit..
Way to go, Ricky-babes.
Hearing movement, he opened his eyes. And figured he saw a shadow. A darting figure disappearing behind a rock.
Gone.
A scrawny leafless tree dipping over the rock made short, jagged patches of shadow.
He peered into the shimmering heat. Nothing but rock and goddamn tree. He groaned, snapped his eyes shut and shook his head. When he opened them he saw that Bonnie and Andrea were both on their feet, turning away from him. Bonnie strode up the trail toward her pack. She must have thrown it down and come running back when he passed out. Andrea’s pack was next to Bert’s, only a couple of yards away. As she went to it, Rick lifted his head off Bert’s lap, hoping to orient himself because they didn’t seem to be on the trail.
They were at one of the hairpins where the trail turned back on itself. One wing of the trail stretched downward along the mountainside, one angled upward to meet another juncture far beyond the place where Bonnie was swinging her pack off the ground. Rick raised his eyes. The side of the mountain seemed to go on forever. The higher switchbacks were barely visible, faint pencil lines zigzagging upward.
He looked at Andrea as she sat down. She leaned back against her pack and stretched out her legs. She folded her hands behind her head. The side of her gray T-shirt, from armpit to waist, was dark with sweat. Turning her head, she smiled at Rick. “Too bad you didn’t flop a little sooner.”
“I don’t think it’s something to joke about,” Bert said.
“Who’s joking? Felt like I was crawling up the bunghole of the universe. A couple more minutes, they could’ve renamed it Dead Andrea Pass.”
Rick smiled at her, then put his head down. Bert’s hip bone was against the nape of his neck. She turned slightly, and the knob went away. She felt good under his head. He pressed his face against her, then winced and turned away as the hot belt buckle stung his nose. Bert laughed softly. “Not your day,” she whispered.
Nice view, though, he thought. If her shirt was open about one more inch, he’d be able to see her left nipple. If Andrea and Bonnie weren’t around ...
You’d better just forget about the goddamn nice views, he warned himself. They get you into nothing but trouble.
Bonnie appeared. She swung her pack to the ground not far beyond Rick’s feet, then sat down on a boulder with her back to the mountainside.
“That lake does look nice down there,” she said.
“Too bad we’re not in it,” Andrea muttered. “But at least we don’t have to—”
“What?” Bonnie asked.
“Something flashed up there.”
Bonnie twisted around and tilted her head back. “Where?” “Way up. There it is again.”
Rick felt a clutch in his chest. He sat up, scooted himself around in the dust until he was beside Bert, and searched the mountainside.
He too saw the flash. It was followed by a second blink of brilliant glare. Double-barreled, he thought.
“It’s the sun hitting something,” Bonnie said.
“A piece of glass?” Bert suggested.
“How about binocular lenses,” Rick said.
Bert moaned and started to fasten a button.
“Cripes,” Bonnie muttered.
“Those fuckheads are spying on us!” Andrea blurted. “Spy on this, you jack-offs!” She jammed her middle finger into the air.
Bonnie saw her do it. “Don’t!”
“Maybe it’s someone else,” Bert said.
“I don’t care who it is,” Bonnie said. “They shouldn’t be watching us with binoculars.”
“Scumbags.”
“It’s them, all right.” Rick had hoped that the boys didn’t know about Andrea and Bonnie. But they knew. And they were very interested, or they wouldn’t be studying the group with field glasses.
Andrea got up. She walked in front of Rick and sat down near the end of the lower trail, her back to a cluster of rocks so she would be out of sight from above. “Aren’t gonna get their kicks looking at me,” she muttered.
Bonnie shoved herself off the boulder and squatted. “Maybe we ought to start down.”
Bert nodded. “I don’t like this at all.”
You and me both, Rick thought. “Let’s get moving.”
Chapter Fourteen
Gillian woke up. She was sprawled on the water bed. Lifting her head off the pillow, she looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand. Three-twenty. That left more than an hour and a half before it was time to go over to Jerry’s.
If I’m going, she thought.
She groaned as she climbed off the undulating bed. Her back ached, and her rump felt stiff and sore. Standing up straight, she turned her back to the wall of mirrors. She looked over one shoulder. Her right buttock had a three-inch band of shiny red near its top. Some curls of white skin rimmed the lower edge of the scrape. She picked at one of the larger pieces, thinking she might peel it off like the dead skin after a sunburn, but pulling it hurt so she stopped. The left buttock, now so raw, looked as if someone had taken a hard swipe at it with sandpaper. The skin around both abrasions had a rosy glow. That’s where the bruises will come, she thought. That’s where I’ll be black and blue.
Could’ve been a lot worse, she thought.
The rosy glow suddenly spread. Even her face took on a deep red hue.
God, why couldn’t I just get bashed up? Why did I have to lose my pants?
Talk about your Stupid Human Tricks.
Jerry was good about it, though. Hell, he was terrific.
He really wants me to come over.
And I told him I’d bring his robe back.
She lifted the robe off the foot of the bed where she had tossed it before flopping down. It was still damp inside. She didn’t see any blood on the dark blue fabric, but maybe she ought to throw it into the washing machine, anyway.
She tossed the robe down, stepped into her sandals, and slipped into her shirt. The shirt felt fine. The way it draped her rear end, it didn’t even touch the wounds as long as she stood very straight.
When she bent over to pick up the robe, the shirt fell lightly against the raw place. It stuck to moisture there when she straightened up. She plucked it away, thinking she had better bandage that side, at least.
First, I’ll throw this in the wash.
She carried Jerry’s robe outside.
On her way to the laundry room, she looked at the high redwood fence and listened for the splashy sound of swimming. There was only silence from the other side. Maybe Jerry had gone inside. Or maybe he was stretched out, sun-bathing.
I might still be there, she thought, if I hadn’t crashed and burned.
She saw herself lying on one of his loungers. She felt the heavy heat of the sun, and then Jerry’s hands sliding over her skin, spreading oil on her back and legs.
It might have gone that way, she thought. With a sigh, she entered the laundry room.
In spite of the light coming in through the curtained windows, the room seemed dark after the brightness outside. Next to a large basin stood a drier. On the other side of the drier was a top-loading washer. A nearby shelf held a collection of detergents and bleaches.
Gillian lifted the lip of the washing machine and peered inside. The drum appeared to be empty. She stuffed Jerry’s robe inside, sprinkled it with soap powder, and closed the lid. She changed the temperature setting to cold, and turned the dial to regular. The machine started with a rush of shooting water.
Jerry’ll think I’m terribly domestic, she thought, returning the robe to him all freshly laundered.
Smiling, she looked away from the washing machine. At the end of the room stood a white-painted cabinet. Its doors were shut.
Normally, Gillian’s curiousity would have been whetted by the sight. She would’ve hurried to inspect the contents.
But the urge wasn’t there.
She realized that she’d had enough of Fredrick. She didn’t want to inspect anymore of his possessions, didn’t care to discover anymore of his secrets.
She left the cabinet unexplored and went out the door.
Walking into the driveway, she angled toward Jerry’s fence.
Don’t be a ditz, she told herself.
Why not?
On tiptoe, she peered over the top of the fence. The pool was deserted. Jerry was nowhere to be seen. Feeling a small tug of disappointment, Gillian turned away. She cut across the driveway and entered the den through its sliding glass door.
In the bathroom, she searched the medicine cabinet. She found adhesive tape and a roll of gauze. And three straight razors, one with a scrimshaw handle depicting an old-fashioned sailing ship. She picked that one up. Holding it carefully, she fingered a trigger-like lever and the blade flashed up.
She grimaced and muttered, “Yook.”
Fredrick Holden would, she thought, have a collection of straight razors. They way his taste seems to run, he probably daydreams of slicing up naked women.
Maybe he does slice up naked women.
Goldilocks and the homicidal maniac.
Cute thought, that.
She looked closely at the white handle of the razor. Any bloodstains? Didn’t seem to be.
She set the razor down on the edge of the sink, then took off her shirt. There was only enough gauze to make a bandage for her main scrape, so she didn’t need the razor to cut it off the roll. Lucky me, she thought. She folded the netty fabric into a pad. Then she stripped off two lengths of tape to secure its edges. She used her teeth to rip the tape off the spool.
I could’ve gotten by, she thought, without even touching the damn razor.
She picked it up and carefully folded the blade. She put it back into the medicine cabinet, set the remaining tape inside, and shut the mirrored door.
Her face in the mirror looked flushed. Specks of sweat glistened on her forehead, under her eyes, over her lip. A hand towel hung from a bar beside the sink, but the thought of wiping her face on one of Fredrick’s towels was repulsive.
She used her shirt to mop the sweat off her face.
Then she stepped in front of the full-length mirror on the bathroom door. She turned around. Peering over her shoulder, she pressed the bandage into place.
She put on her shirt as she walked to the den. She went directly to the bar, opened the refrigerator, and took out a bottle of beer. After a few swallows, she sighed.
Now what? she wondered.
The washing cycle wouldn’t be finished yet.
She wished she could take her suitcase out to the car. That way, there would be no need to return here after leaving Jerry’s house tonight. But he might see her carrying it out.
I’ll get it all ready, she decided, and leave it by the door when I go over. Then I’ll just have to reach in, grab it, and take off.
Beer in hand, she stepped around the end of the bar and glanced at the digital clock on the VCR. Three thirty-eight. Christ. Only eighteen minutes had gone by since she woke up from her nap.
Give yourself about twenty minutes to get ready, you’ve still got an hour to kill.
Read? She felt too restless to read.
So watch the tube, she thought.
She wandered over to the shelves and looked at Fredrick’s collection of video tapes.
Should’ve known, she thought, as she started to read the tides: Maniac, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Friday the 13th, 2000 Maniacs, Psycho, Dressed to Kill Badlands, Visiting Hours, Mother’s Day, Body Double, Sleepaway Camp, Return to the Valley of the Dolls, Ten to Midnight, The Ripper, I Spit on Your Grave, and a lot more. Gillian had seen several of the movies in Fredrick’s collection. Most of them featured nude women and nasty murders.
This guy has a real bent, she thought.
Crouching to inspect a lower shelf, she found some tides that were more to her liking: Back to the Future, E.T., Star Wars, Alien, The Howling, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, and about a dozen others. She’d never seen The Howling. She’d enjoyed the book, and the movie was supposed to be good. There wouldn’t be enough time to watch all of it, but she could take a look at the first half, then rent the tape later and watch the rest back at her apartment. So she slipped its case off the shelf and carried it over to the television.
The VCR was a different make from hers. She studied it for a few moments, then turned on the television, pressed a button marked Power and another marked Play. The machine came on. She took her beer to the easy chair and sat down.
The movie opened with a young woman standing under a shower. She turned slowly, humming as she soaped herself and the camera roamed her body.
Werewolf victim number one, Gillian thought.
She was a little surprised by the explicit nudity. They even showed a close-up of the girl’s vagina as she stroked it with a sudsy hand. The picture quality was poor, too. It looked grainy and cheap.
Suddenly, the shower curtain shot open. The girl yelped in surprise as a hand grabbed her hair and jerked her backward. She fell over the edge of the tub and landed with a slap of wet skin against the tile floor. Kicking and whimpering, she was dragged out of the bathroom by her hair.
The screen went dark.
Against the black background appeared the words: Torture Slave.
What’s going on? Gillian wondered. She glanced at the plastic box on the floor. It clearly belonged to The Howling, not something called Torture Slave.
Credits were still showing on the television. Screenplay by Tryon Cleaver, directed by Otto Keller. Obviously pseudonyms created by guys with terrific senses of humor.
Must be some kind of porn, Gillian thought.
The credits ended.
The girl from the shower was hanging by her wrists from ropes attached to ceiling beams in the living room of a house. She squirmed and screamed while a man in black clothes stood nearby. His back was to the camera. He was facing a fireplace, holding a wrought-iron poker.
Gillian muttered, “Oh, shit.”
She rushed from her chair, stopped the tape and ejected it. Her hands trembled as she placed the cassette into the box labeled The Howling.
What kind of sick crap is this? she wondered.
She stepped over to the shelves and scanned all the titles on the three rows of video tapes. No Torture Slave in the whole collection.
She slipped the cassette back into its place and pulled out Star Wars. She opened the box. The cassette inside had no label at all.
She took it to the television. Crouching there, she inserted it in the VCR and pressed the Play button. For a few seconds, the screen was blank.
Then a young woman inside an elevator approached its opening doors. Before she could step out, two thugs in leather jackets rushed in, knocking her backward. She slammed against the rear wall of the elevator. Laughing, one of the men tore open her blouse. The other yanked her skirt up.
Gillian stopped the show. She ejected the cassette and took it back to the shelves.
Probably E.T., Back to tbe Future, and the rest of them in this section of Fredrick’s collection were more of the same. The popular titles on the containers were camouflage for his secret library of sick videos.
Where did he even get such things? Gillian wondered. Maybe he ordered them through one of those S&M magazines he kept in his bedroom. Did they come packaged as legitimate films? That hardly seemed likely. Pretty expensive, though, if he bought all those popular videos just for their cases.
The guy’s loaded. He can afford to squander money when he has that much of it.
Why would he even bother? He could keep the things in a closet, or something. Maybe he enjoys having them hidden in plain sight. His little secret.
A guy like this, his mind’s warped. He probably has plenty of strange games. I’d just as soon not run into anymore of them, Gillian thought.
She wondered if she should get her camera and snap some photos of his video tape collect
ion. She didn’t much care to have such a reminder; it would be like taking a little of Fredrick the Gross home with her. On the other hand, she already had shots of his book and magazine collection—with the exception of S&M and child porn. If she left without taking pictures of his tapes, she might regret it later. Besides, she had time to kill.
She went to the bedroom for her camera.
I don’t have to put any of these in my scrapbook, she thought. Just throw them in the back of a drawer if I don’t want to look at them. But at least I’ll have the things.
Back in the den, Gillian removed Psycbo, I Spit on your Grave, 2000 Maniacs, and several more from the shelf of legitimate videos and arranged them on the floor. She took a close-up showing their covers. As she put them away, she wondered if even these were what they seemed to be. Probably. But she opened the case of I Spit on your Grave. The label on the cassette inside had the same title. So the psycho/ slasher movies were for real. Naturally.
Crouching, she took down a dozen of the videos with the phony cases. She spread them on the floor, took a shot, and returned them to the shelf.
She wondered when she’d find time to put all this down into note form-but maybe she wouldn’t want to; the pictures would speak for themselves. She returned to the bedroom with her camera and put it into the suitcase. The clock on the nightstand showed five minutes after four.
The washing machine had probably stopped by now.
Gillian hurried through the house.
I won’t wait for five o’clock, she decided. As soon as the robe’s in the drier, I’ll come in and get ready. By the time I’m set to go, the robe should be pretty dry. Jerry won’t mind if I show up a little early.
Outside, she resisted the urge to peer over the fence again. She walked straight to the laundry room. The washing machine was silent. She opened the lid, reached inside, and lifted out the heavy, sodden robe. She dropped it on top of the drier.
Bending over, she opened the drier’s door.
And groaned.
Fredrick had gone off and left laundry in the machine.
Just what I want to do, Gillian thought. Touch his stuff. At least it looks dry.