Blood Games

  They both stepped backward away from the body. They turned around.

  ‘We’d better get out of here,’ Cora said. ‘Whoever…’ She halted in mid-stride. The tire iron dropped from her hand and clamored on the floor. She stood motionless as if frozen stiff. Then, hunching over slightly, she squeezed her arms against her chest, buried her chin against her crossed wrists and shuddered.

  Finley put an arm around her.

  Turning her head, Abilene saw Vivian standing rigid, fists pressed tight against her thighs.

  Finley’s flashlight, in the hand she wasn’t using to hold Cora, shone its beam near Vivian’s feet. Abilene’s flashlight, on the floor beside her, made a bright path across the floor to Helen.

  Helen seemed to be watching her.

  Just look at me, Abby. Look what happened to me.

  Wanting her to do something about it. Make it all right. Make it go away.

  Too late for any of that. Way too late.

  Abilene felt a hand stroking her hair. Raising her head, she saw Vivian beside her. She picked up the flashlight. As she stood, Cora came unfrozen and bent down like a palsied old woman to retrieve the tire iron she’d dropped. Finley kept an arm around her and, together, they staggered out of the shower room.

  Vivian took Abilene’s hand, squeezed it.

  They got as far as the threshold. Abilene stopped and looked back. She couldn’t see Helen. Only darkness.

  ‘We can’t leave her alone in here.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Vivian murmured.

  ‘She’s… scared of shower rooms.’

  Finley came back. Her light made Abilene squint and look away. ‘Helen isn’t scared of them any more. Nothing can scare her now. Okay? We need to get out of here.’

  In silence, they returned to the car. It seemed like the only place to go. It was a rental car, but it was theirs. It was loaded with their things. It gleamed in the sunlight. It felt to Abilene like a sanctuary. They were safe here. Nothing could get them.

  Cora sat on the rear bumper and lowered her head. Abilene sat beside her and watched Vivian lie down on the sloping pavement and fold her hands under her head and stare at the sky.

  Finley stayed on her feet. She paced around, taking deep breaths. Then she stopped and reached into a pocket of her shorts and pulled out the package of hot dogs. She raised it in front of her face. ‘Anybody want one?’ she asked.

  Nobody answered.

  ‘Helen won’t be…’

  With such sudden violence that Abilene flinched, Finley hurled the package down. It smacked the pavement, wieners blasting apart, juice and pink mush exploding from the wrapper. She stared down at the mess. Then her face turned scarlet and crumpled, eyes squeezing shut, mouth stretching as if invisible fingers wrenched her lips. Abilene leaped up. She rushed to Finley, bursting into tears herself as she hugged her stricken friend.

  Some time later, she realized that Cora had her arms around them both. Then Vivian was with them, embracing them, crying. They all were crying. Huddled together, hot arms around quaking backs, faces dripping sweat and tears as they gasped and sobbed and sniffled and whimpered and blubbered.

  ‘Sounds… like a fuckin’ barnyard,’ Finley cracked after a while.

  Abilene laughed once and choked. Her face was tight against the side of Finley’s head. She eased back. Finley’s hair, sticking to her itchy wet cheek, pulled away. She met the girl’s eyes and saw such misery there that she murmured, ‘Aw, Fin,’ and stroked her face with both hands and kissed her eyes.

  ‘Break it up, you guys,’ Cora whispered. She rubbed the back of Abilene’s head, kissed her ear, pressed her lips briefly against Finley’s cheek, then backed away.

  ‘Gettin’ awful smoochy around here,’ Finley muttered.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Vivian said, her voice high and shaky. ‘I’m not about to…'

  With a quick turn of her head, Finley kissed her full on the lips. Vivian didn’t pull away. As she caressed Finley’s hair, Abilene pressed her mouth to Vivian’s wet cheek. It slid, and Vivian’s lips were there against hers, soft and comforting.

  ‘Come up for air, guys,’ Finley said.

  They parted. Abilene gave Finley a gentle punch on the shoulder. She felt exhausted, drained.

  Everyone stood around, sniffing and sighing, wiping sweat and tears and slobber from their faces.

  The pack of hot dogs, dashed at Finley’s feet, had been trampled flat.

  Cora was the first to start picking up clothes and towels and shoes that they had set out on the pavement to dry. The rest of them joined in.

  It’s something to do, Abilene thought.

  Before we do what?

  The clothes she gathered were stiff and dry. She took off her filthy, damp blouse, used one of the towels to rub herself dry, then put on the blouse she’d worn yesterday. She was about to button it when she noticed her wadded bra under the waistband of her skirt. She’d forgotten about putting the bra there. She tugged it out. The bunched fabric had been pressed tight against her low belly, leaving the skin marked with a pattern of seams and folds and wrinkles. She loosened the belt of her skirt and slipped a hand under the waistband.

  Rubbing the irritated skin, she watched Finley change blouses. Yesterday’s looked the same as the one she removed, but its tan fabric wasn’t dark with moisture and didn’t have blood all over it from her cut hand.

  Though Vivian’s white knit shirt and shorts were filthy, she didn’t change.

  Neither did Cora. They were both busy carrying things to the car.

  Abilene buttoned her blouse, then slipped off her moccasins and sat on the pavement and pulled on her socks and sneakers.

  She picked up the moccasins, some scattered garments and towels, and took them to the car. Cora, inside, dumped them behind the back seat.

  ‘Is that it?’ Cora asked.

  Abilene thought of Helen’s shoes at the edge of the outside hot pool. She decided not to mention them.

  Vivian came along with her arms full. ‘Nothing else.’ Abilene took the load from her and handed it in to Cora.

  She handed out their purses. ‘You want your camera, Finley?’

  ‘What are we doing?’

  ‘What do you think? Getting away from this damn place.’

  ‘I’d better take it, then.’

  Cora crawled out with the video camera and gave it to Finley. Vivian let the door drop shut.

  ‘Maybe we’ll be able to hitch a ride,’ Cora said, ‘once we get down to the main road.’

  ‘Are we just going to leave her?’ Abilene asked.

  ‘We can’t take her with us,’ Vivian said.

  ‘We could bring her outside. It doesn’t seem right to leave her down there.’

  ‘It’s a crime scene,’ Cora said. ‘We might screw up evidence for the cops if we move her.’

  She was right. And Abilene felt too dazed and weary to care much one way or the other.

  They were silent for a while as they walked past the front of the lodge and headed down the long driveway toward the road.

  Then Finley said, ‘Do you think Batty had anything to do with it? He knew where Helen was.’

  None of the ‘he, she, it’ business.

  ‘He couldn’t control where the blood dropped,’ Cora said.

  ‘Pretty damn weird,’ Abilene said, ‘how the cat led us to her. It had to be Amos. Almost as if Batty sent it along… like a guide, or something.’

  Cora shook her head. ‘It smelled the blood, that’s all.’

  ‘Fuckin’ beast,’ Finley said.

  ‘I hope we didn’t shut it up in there with her,’ Vivian said.

  ‘It' was long gone,’ Cora told her.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m not sure of a damn thing,’ she muttered. ‘You wanta go back and check?’

  ‘You don’t have to get huffy.’

  ‘I think it was gone,’ Finley said. ‘I checked around on the way out. Unless it was hiding pretty good…’ r />
  ‘Who gives a rat’s ass about the cat, anyway?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s the cat we’re worried about,’ Abilene said.

  ‘Well then, what the…?’ She suddenly looked sick. She stopped and turned around and scowled up the driveway toward the lodge.

  Abilene looked, too. The lodge was out of sight beyond the slope.

  ‘Come on, guys,’ Finley said. ‘It’s probably not in there.’

  ‘Maybe we should go back and make sure,’ Cora said.

  They all knew Helen’s story about the cat woman. The woman’s name was Maggie and she had lived with a houseful of cats a few blocks from Helen’s childhood home. ‘She was so husky she made me look positively svelte,’ Helen had explained. ‘But she was a real spook, a refugee from the funny farm. Anyway, she ended up croaking. Her body wasn’t found for a really long time. She was dead in that house with all those cats. And they couldn’t get out. When the cops finally went in, she was nothing but bones. The cats had licked her clean, and all of them were fat and sassy. Except for one. This big tomcat, they found it dead inside Maggie’s ribcage. Apparently, it had crawled in there and choked to death eating her heart. It was wedged in so tight that they couldn’t get it out, so Maggie’s skeleton was finally buried with the cat’s corpse still in her chest.’ Finley had said that was bullshit. Helen, grinning, had said, ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’

  And now, staring up the driveway, Abilene supposed that everyone was probably thinking about Helen’s cat-woman story.

  ‘Should we go back?’ she asked.

  ‘I really hate to think she might be shut up in there with the cat,’ Cora said.

  ‘We don’t want to run into the killer,’ Vivian said.

  ‘He’s probably not around. And even if he is, he wouldn’t try to take on all of us. He’s already had plenty of chances. He only got Helen because she was by herself.’

  ‘It must’ve been that kid,’ Vivian said. ‘God, we should’ve gotten out of there yesterday.’

  ‘If I hadn’t lost the keys…’ Abilene muttered.

  ‘They wouldn’t have gotten lost if we’d left as soon as we spotted him.’

  ‘Everything’d be fine if we’d stayed together,’ Cora told her. ‘Helen shouldn’t have gone off by herself.’

  ‘But she did,’ Abilene muttered. ‘All she wanted to do was help.’ Her throat tightened and tears came to her eyes. ‘She just wanted to find the keys.’

  Vivian put an arm around her.

  Finley looked at her strangely. Glaring. As if betrayed and outraged that Abilene was starting to fall apart again.

  But that wasn’t it.

  She kept on glaring as Cora said, ‘Maybe we’d better forget about going back. The cat’s probably not in…’

  ‘Fuck the cat,’ Finley said. ‘Let’s go back and waste the bastard that killed her.’

  They stared at Finley.

  They stared at each other.

  Abilene wiped her eyes. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  ‘She was one of us. Shit, look what we did to Wildman after he hurt her. All he did was punch her a little. And somebody murders Helen and here we are, walking away.’

  ‘This is different,’ Cora said.

  ‘Fuckin’-A-right, it’s different. This guy killed Helen. He made her dead. He grabbed her and took her into that room and cut off her suit and put her through all kinds of hell. Can you imagine? Think about it. I mean, Helen was always a scared kid and a guy did that to her. God knows what he must’ve done before he killed her. Can you imagine what it must’ve been like? And we’re just gonna walk away?’

  ‘That’s the idea,’ Cora said. Turning around, she continued down the driveway.

  Finley hurried after her, Abilene and Vivian following.

  ‘You always talked big about taking risks!’ Finley blurted. ‘Helen’s dead, you idiot! It isn’t a game anymore.’ She scowled over her shoulder. ‘This isn’t Wildman. This isn’t what’s-his-face getting carried away pretending he’s The Reaper. This is real. The guy’s a killer. You want to go back to the lodge and nail the bastard. So do I. I’d love to make him pay. But I don’t want to see you get your guts ripped out. Or Abilene or Vivian. Do you? We’ve lost Helen, for Godsake. We aren’t gonna lose anyone else. Not while I’m around. We’ll get out of here and we’ll let the cops take care of it.’

  ‘The cops won’t take care of shit!’

  ‘They wouldn’t do it right,’ Vivian said. Abilene looked at her, stunned. Vivian, of all people, was taking Finley’s side? She couldn’t want to go back. Not Vivian. ‘Even if they catch the guy and he gets convicted and everything, he’d only end up in prison.’

  Cora gave Vivian an odd look as if she couldn’t believe her ears, either. ‘Have you lost your mind?’

  ‘I’ve lost Helen.’

  ‘Hunting down the killer won’t change that. She’ll still be dead. And maybe some of us’ll be dead, too.’

  They came to the bottom of the driveway. Cora, stopping, looked up and down the road. ‘The nearest town’s that way, isn’t it?’ she asked, nodding to the left.

  ‘I think so,’ Vivian said. ‘That’s the way we came. I don’t know what’s in the other direction.’

  ‘We should’ve grabbed the map,’ Cora said, and headed to the left.

  ‘Just a second,’ Abilene said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Maybe we’d better think about this.’

  ‘We’re not sure what’s the other way…’

  ‘That’s not what I mean.’

  ‘You want to go back, too?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  Frowning, Cora folded her arms and leaned back against one of the old totem poles. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Just… I don’t want him to get away with it.’

  ‘Right on, Hickok.’

  ‘I don’t know about killing him, either. He sure deserves it, but… maybe we don’t want that on our consciences.’

  ‘I could live with it,’ Finley said.

  ‘The thing is, the cops might never even get their hands on the guy. I mean, twenty-eight people were slaughtered at the lodge and the killers got away with it. So what are the chances of the cops nailing whoever murdered Helen?’

  ‘Slim to none,’ Finley said.

  ‘If the cops can’t get him,’ Cora said, ‘what makes you think we can?’

  ‘He’ll come to us. He’ll come for us. So far, he’s stayed away because we’ve all been together. It’s like you said, he doesn’t want to take on all of us.’

  ‘Which means it’s probably just one guy,’ Vivian added. ‘But if he finds one of us alone…’

  Cora nodded. ‘And the rest of us are out of sight.’

  ‘Right. We put out the bait. When he goes for it, we jump him.’

  ‘It’s still awfully risky,’ Cora said.

  ‘We’ve taken plenty of risks before. And I know, I know, it was never like this. But… what he did to Helen. We’ve always taken care of each other and we let her down, but the least we can do is make sure the bastard pays the price.’

  Cora looked at the others. ‘You all want to do this?’

  Vivian nodded.

  Finley said, ‘Fuckin’-A.’

  ‘I’ll go along with it on one condition,’ Cora told them. ‘I’m the bait.’

  ‘You got it,’ Finley said. ‘And I’m gonna get it.’ With that, she set her camera on the ground and stepped to the other side of the driveway entrance. There, she wrapped her arms and legs around the leaning totem pole and began to shinny up it The post wobbled a bit.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ Vivian asked.

  ‘Trying not to fall.’

  Watching, Abilene half expected Finley’s weight to uproot the pole and send it slamming to earth. ‘We’ll end up with another casualty before we even get started,’ she muttered.

  ‘If she gets crunched,’ Cora said, ‘we can use her as the bait.’

&
nbsp; ‘You guys are a laugh riot,’ Finley called down. Then, reaching overhead, she stretched her right arm toward an outspread wing of the strange, birdlike creature at the very top of the pole. She grabbed the hilt of the hunting knife that someone had embedded there. She worked the knife up and down. She jerked on it. The post shuddered.

  Then the blade seemed to leap from the old, weathered wood. It came out with such a sudden release that Finley’s arm shot back. She yelled, ‘Aw, shit!’ as she slid sideways. She dropped the knife and hugged the post.

  The others rushed forward. Cora rammed her back against the totem pole to brace it. Abilene and Vivian positioned themselves under Finley to catch her.

  Finley dangled by her arms.

  Abilene and Vivian reached high and grabbed her feet.

  ‘I’m okay. Just let go.’

  They did as she asked. She kicked and swayed, and finally wrapped her legs around the post Then she began to work her way slowly downward, clinging to its underside.

  ‘Watch my face,’ Cora warned as the shoes neared her.

  ‘Can’t even see it.’

  ‘You’re low enough.’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ Finley’s legs released the pole. She swept back and forth like a pendulum until Abilene caught her around the thighs. Once she was steady, Abilene stepped away. Finley let go and dropped to the ground. Her face was red, shiny with sweat. ‘Thanks, guys.’

  ‘Dork,’ Abilene said.

  ‘Yeah, but I’m a dork with a weapon.’ She hunted around for a moment, found the knife and picked it up.

  ‘Everybody better stand back,’ Cora said.

  They stepped clear of the totem pole, and Cora lurched out from under it. Without her back to support it, the pole stayed put.

  ‘Could’ve saved your energy,’ Finley told her.

  Cora shrugged. ‘You never know.’

  ‘Anyway, thanks. I could’ve got turned into mashed potatoes.’

  ‘No sweat.’

  With her empty hand, Finley brushed dirt and flakes of wood off the front of her clothes. Then she held up the knife. ‘It was worth some trouble, huh?’

  The grimy blade, specked with rust, was at least eight inches long.

  ‘Quite a toad-sticker,’ Vivian said.

  Cora walked back to the other totem pole. She’d dropped her tire iron there before rushing to Finley’s rescue. She picked it up. ‘If we’re really going through with this,’ she said, ‘we’d better lay our hands on some more weapons.’