The Dark Game

by Jonathan Janz

  Scooting in, he opened The North American Field Guide to Trees. He found what he needed right away, the confirmation that, yes, most of what he’d encountered here was indigenous to the Midwest.

  Most.

  Bryan glanced about the library and fished the objects out of his cargo shorts: a pinecone, a leaf, and a black nut roughly the size of a marble.

  He found a match for the pinecone and chided himself for not identifying it earlier. Red pine. Larger than the kind he was used to finding in Minnesota, but in essence the same.

  He examined the leaf. Frowned.

  Nothing in zones three-through-seven that resembled it. He flipped to zone two.

  Nothing.

  Nothing in zone one either. He mentally castigated himself for looking in that section. You wouldn’t find a flamingo in Alaska, would you? Then why piss away time trying to find a tree in Indiana that wouldn’t survive north of Georgia?

  Bryan flipped the pages of the Good Plant Guide, wondering why he was wasting his time. It wasn’t as if—

  “You won’t find it in that book,” a voice from behind him said.

  Bryan spun in his chair, knocking things from the table, the black nut spinning like a top on the hardwood floor before disappearing under a bookshelf.

  Wilson stared down at him impassively.

  “Jesus – where did you come from?”

  Bryan tried to push the chair from the table, but Wilson crowded him. “You mind? I’d like to pick up my things,” Bryan said.

  “A species of beech,” Wilson said.

  “What?”

  “That nut specimen is only found in the Carpathian Mountains,” Wilson explained.

  A pause. “The Carpathians.”

  “Correct.”

  “In Romania?” Bryan turned and gazed up at Wilson. “You’re joking.”

  Wilson didn’t smile. Stared down at him with eyes like tar.

  Bryan shook his head, made to slide his legs out from under the table, but a hand clamped over his shoulder, riveted him in place.

  “Let go of me.” Bryan bared his teeth. “Unless you want your ass kicked.”

  Wilson said, “I told you to be more competitive, Mr. Clayton. Can you honestly say you’ve done that?”

  “Damn you,” Bryan growled, seized Wilson’s forearm with both hands. But the fingers were implacable. Bryan grunted, thrashing now, and only by slumping all the way to the floor and twisting sideways was he able to free himself.

  Wilson was laughing.

  Motherfucker.

  Bryan squared up to him.

  Wilson’s expression remained serene. “These grounds go on forever. It’s my job to ensure they remain fed.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I wondered about you. After your application was pulled.”

  Bryan hesitated. “Who pulled it?”

  “I did. It showed me things.”

  The library suddenly seemed too dark, the lamps failing.

  Bryan worked to keep his tone neutral. “I don’t know what—”

  “Impressions, Mr. Clayton. Your handwriting leaves impressions.” He tilted his head. “Didn’t you find it strange that you were required to fill out the application by hand?”

  Bryan glanced over his shoulder, realized he wasn’t far from the door. Had Wilson locked it? Was the door thick enough to muffle screams?

  Wilson brayed laughter. Bryan nearly soiled himself.

  Bryan passed a hand over his brow. “You’re telling me you chose us by reading our applications? I mean, reading them in the psychic sense?”

  “We needed a…” his hands made little circles in the air, “…a hammer. A dissonant chord in the symphony. A spoiled ingredient in the soup.”

  Bryan’s voice was toneless. “I’m the spoiled ingredient.”

  “We knew Elaine would push people’s buttons, that Sherilyn had spunk. But we had to add someone else to the brew. It was down to you and one other.”

  “Why me?”

  “Carlsbad.”

  Bryan’s chest calcified into a hard, bony knot.

  Wilson’s grin broadened. “Did you really think I chose you because of those pitiful little yarns about hunting?”

  “My readers send me letters.…”

  “You’re the worst kind of coward, Mr. Clayton. You’re afraid of everything, most of all yourself.”

  “Don’t—”

  “Don’t what?” Wilson said, eyebrows rising. “Don’t talk about how you fantasized about other boys? How you’d sneak glances at them in the locker room?”

  Bryan shook his head.

  “And when you finally got the nerve to act on your desires, the boy you fucked had the audacity to fall in love with you.”

  “Stop.”

  “He threatened to talk, didn’t he?”

  “No.”

  “He did, Mr. Clayton. So you kept on with him, and you lived in terror of being discovered.”

  Bryan covered his face, but Wilson continued. “You tried to break up, and he went wild with rage, said he’d tell your parents, your classmates.”

  Bryan began to sob.

  “And you killed him for it, didn’t you? You used the only thing you had, a jagged rock you found in the cave.”

  Bryan ground his palms into his eyes.

  “You were bigger than he was, stronger, so you sat on his back and slashed at his throat with that rock. You slaughtered him like a pig—”

  Bryan sobbed so hard he couldn’t breathe.

  “—and that night, the tide took him out. Your family moved to Minnesota a couple months later, a stroke of good fortune. But you lay awake deep into the night. You remade your image, reshaped your body and quit choir because your father said singing was for homosexuals, and began taking an interest in outdoor sports because that was what real men did.”

  “Stop it,” Bryan wailed.

  “You’ve slept with women, but it’s never really taken, has it?”

  “Please stop.”

  “You should have accepted who you are. You and some man might have lived a happy life together. But you chose to forsake your humanity, to adopt your parents’ lies and prejudices.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “You’ve murdered before.”

  Bryan backpedaled. “I can’t hurt anyone. The last time…it really messed me up.”

  Wilson matched his steps. “There’s no use hiding.”

  “Please let me go.”

  Wilson’s teeth gleamed, the apotheosis of a smile. “Don’t grovel, you unctuous little fuck. Roderick put his faith in me.”

  Bryan lunged for the door, but Wilson pounced on him, pinned him on his back. “You were supposed to have guts!”

  “Please—”

  “Stop that, you nasty little shit.” Wilson slapped him. “You couldn’t even kill Evan.”

  Bryan shook his head. “It wasn’t right.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s not right,” Wilson shouted into his face. “That Roderick might replace me due to your ineptitude. Listen,” he commanded, his breath yeasty. “You have until tomorrow night.” Another slap. “Tomorrow. Night. If you don’t kill by then, you better take your sniveling carcass far away from this house. Because if I find you, you’re worse than dead. You’ll drown in a sea of anguish. Tupped by torment.” Wilson’s voice became guttural. “I will flense you, Clayton. I will don a coat of your flesh and caper through the forest like Puck.”

  Wilson threw open the door, planted a shoe against the side of his ass, and shoved him into the hall. “Out with you, excrement. Kill if you want to see another sunset.”

  Chapter Three

  After supper they met in the courtyard. Lucy had visited here during Corrina Bowen’s visit, and at the time her impression had been si
milar to her impression of the rest of Wells’s home: once beautiful, now fallen into disrepair.

  Looking around, she realized how much the place had changed. Evidently, Wilson and the other servants had been hard at work out here, spreading mulch, trimming shrubs, rehabilitating the entire courtyard.

  The space was enclosed on all sides by the brick and stone of the mansion. Though the sundown light was fading, several hanging lanterns cast a cheerful apricot glow over the courtyard. The ivy clinging to the walls had been restored to a deep green, and evergreen plantings abounded. The dead leaves had been removed, allowing the gardens to flourish. The seating area was festooned with boulders, over which crept phlox and thyme. The lilac bushes and jasmine imbued the space with a medley of fragrances, and the tall cascading fountain, now fixed and burbling constantly, provided a soothing backdrop. The air was damp from the downpour, but rather than rendering the air frigid, the humidity was just warm enough to make Lucy feel comfortable rather than oppressed.

  Or maybe it was Rick who made her feel that way.

  He sat beside her, frowning over his pages. Lucy’s own manuscript lay in her lap, and if Rick was to be believed, it was better than she’d believed. He’d delivered his critique a few minutes earlier, and though she’d wanted him to, he hadn’t kissed her again.

  Maybe, she decided, that was because they’d been standing in the hallway at the time. She hoped that was the cause, instead of her being an out-of-practice kisser.

  As for the manuscript, he’d been ecstatic. Her characterization, he said, was top notch, particularly her female lead. That had alleviated one of Lucy’s deepest fears, that she’d made the protagonist too sarcastic. In her experience, readers were intolerant of snarkiness in women. A male lead smarted off, he was a loveable wiseass; a female did the same, she was an unlikeable bitch.

  But Rick loved her. He also appreciated the way she’d painted her setting.

  “I’ve been to New York a hundred times,” she told him. “I should be able to describe it.”

  “Visiting and writing effectively about it,” he’d pointed out, “are different things.”

  He’d loved her word choice, her dialogue, her voice. The voice comment was what buoyed her the most, as that was what Fred Morehouse most frequently criticized. “It’s bland, Lucy Goosy. The voice here is no more distinct than what you’d find in any high school comp class.”

  According to Rick, her voice was mesmerizing.

  He only had one criticism: she sometimes got wordy.

  At that, she’d nodded. “I need to trust my audience.”

  “Trusting your audience,” he’d answered, “is a matter of trusting yourself. Of knowing you’ve conveyed the information in a way that the reader will understand.”

  She’d given him a wan smile. “Believing in myself is hard for me.”

  “It’s hard for anyone, but you know what helps?”

  “Cocaine?”

  “Can’t afford it. You ever hear of Jack Ketchum?”

  She frowned. “Horror writer, right?”

  “Sort of. I mean, he’s horror, but not of the werewolf and zombie sort. Stephen King called him ‘the scariest man in America’.”

  “That a compliment?”

  “Would you use it for a cover blurb?”

  “If you changed the gender.”

  “I’m the biggest self-doubter on the planet. When you get rejected by everybody in publishing, you tend to lose faith.”

  “It’s not much better when it happens in reverse,” she pointed out.

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  She winced. “Sorry.”

  “I met Dallas – that’s Ketchum’s real first name—”

  “Seriously?”

  He nodded. “Fascinating dude. He was Henry Miller’s literary agent.”

  “No way.”

  “And he’s a hell of a writer. His stuff is so raw and emotional, you never recover from it.”

  “That good, huh?”

  “Damned good.” He gestured irritably. “Point is, I was talking to Dallas and telling him how I get down on myself, and he shared two words that changed my life. I still haven’t gotten published, but I no longer write like I’ve got a gun to my head.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Fuck fear.”

  She couldn’t suppress a laugh.

  “No, really,” he said. “I know how simple it sounds, but when Dallas said it, I knew it was the truth. What has fear ever done for you? What constructive role does fear play in writing?”

  Lucy thought about it. “When I edit—”

  “I’m not talking about editing, I’m talking about writing without fear. About sitting in front of the keyboard, and saying, To hell with it, I’m going to do this, and it’s not gonna be perfect, and that’s fine, it doesn’t have to be. But I’m not going to sit here like a cowering dog. That’s a sure road to failure. Writing without fear doesn’t guarantee it’ll be good, but it puts you in the game.”

  “You’re fired up.”

  “Damn right I’m fired up.” He brandished her pages. “This is magnificent. And it’s only a rough draft. Imagine how good it’ll be once you sand off the rough edges.”

  In the courtyard, Lucy replayed the conversation in her head, focusing particularly on Ketchum’s advice.

  “Fuck fear,” she whispered to herself. “Fuck fear.”

  Wells entered the courtyard. He wore a burgundy smoking jacket and a gold cravat. He walked with a grace that belied his age, his movements far more assured than they’d been at the outset of the retreat.

  Lucy watched, mesmerized, as he approached his chair. His posture was more erect, his bearing undeniably regal. The worry lines and haggardness in his face had diminished, and within the smoking jacket his shoulders and arms appeared fuller. Far from the gaunt, aging writer that had greeted them upon their arrival, Wells now resembled a virile outdoorsman in his late fifties. She could easily imagine him taking on a leading role in an adventure movie. The battle-scarred but still-formidable hero returning for one final battle with evil.

  Wells sat and beamed at them. “Are we ready to begin?”

  Anna said, “Shouldn’t we wait for Evan?”

  Wells eyed her. “Why don’t you just ask if he’s left the competition?”

  Anna colored. “Well, I—”

  “He has. Miss Lafitte gave us word a few minutes ago.”

  “Was Evan hiding a cell phone too?” Sherilyn asked.

  Wells permitted himself a smile. “He was not, Miss Jackson. He wrote a weak story.”

  “He never even read,” Rick pointed out.

  “This isn’t a reality show, Mr. Forrester. Eliminations aren’t based on oral recitation. I read Mr. Laydon’s play excerpt in private.”

  “Makes sense,” Anna said. “He knew it was unsalvageable and decided to go home.”

  Lucy waited for Bryan to echo Anna’s theory, but he only stared morosely into his lap. Nor did Elaine comment. In fact, now that Lucy looked at Elaine, she noticed several changes. Her blond hair, normally stylish, had been contained with barrettes. Her clothes, though presentable, weren’t up to her usual edgy standards. Even the tattoos on her chest and ankle appeared drab.

  “At any rate,” Wells went on, “Mr. Laydon is no longer in the running, which brings our number to seven. And since we have an open chair,” Wells explained, “I have invited Wilson to take part in the evening’s festivities.”

  The French doors opened at the far edge of the courtyard, and Wilson entered.

  Lucy’s throat tightened.

  Looking more like a college professor than a groundskeeper, Wilson moved confidently into the semicircle and took Evan’s seat. Like Wells, Wilson exuded vitality. He wore a navy blue sport coat over a white polo. His jeans widened at the cuffs to accommodate
pale alligator-skinned cowboy boots.

  No one else in the group reacted to Wilson’s appearance, save Bryan, who looked even more morose.

  What’s happening to you? she wondered.

  Wells gazed upon his servant fondly. “We’re delighted you could join us, Wilson.”

  Wilson crossed his legs contentedly. “I look forward to the reading.”

  Wells watched them, steepled forefingers touching his lips. He said, “Writing is many things. It is passion. It is talent. It is love. But above all things, writing is endurance.” Wells spread his arms, glanced about the opulent courtyard. “You are all a step closer to having all of this. But all of this,” he said, grinning slightly, “is only attainable through sacrifice. Through endurance.”

  Lucy read disparate emotions on the other contestants’ faces – skepticism on Rick’s, boundless hunger on Anna’s – but no one in the courtyard spoke.

  Finally, Wells nodded and said, “Miss Still.”

  The words acted like a blow to her stomach. She’d suspected she’d be chosen tonight, but the suspicion didn’t make the reality any less terrifying.

  “Proceed,” Wells said.

  She willed her body to stand, but it wouldn’t comply. She’d always been beset by nerves at readings, but never before had it mattered like it did tonight. They were down to seven, and if Rick were to be believed, her book had real potential.

  What if Rick just wants in your pants? a voice whispered.

  Let’s hope so, she answered.

  She glanced at Rick, who smiled encouragingly. “You can do this,” he said in an undertone.

  “Miss Still?” Wells said.

  “Catch me if I faint,” she muttered to Rick.

  The walk to the fore of the group seemed to take hours. She could feel the eyes of her peers riveted on her. Wilson’s presence jangled her nerves the most. The memory of their creepy encounter in the ballroom remained etched in her mind, the insinuating way he’d spoken.

  Get a grip, she told herself.

  She glanced at Rick, whose expression also suggested she needed to get a grip.