The Dark Game

by Jonathan Janz

  But that didn’t make it hurt any less when the Nachzehrer sank its teeth into her throat.

  Chapter Six

  Elaine stood outside the library, suitcase at her heels. She knew The Stars Have Left the Skies had potential, but writing it – or writing it here – no longer seemed important.

  It was time to end this. The retreat had seemed like an incredible opportunity, but with every passing day the sense of wrongness increased. She wasn’t a prisoner here, for Christ’s sake, she was a guest. And guests were allowed to come and go as they pleased. She’d thank him for the opportunity, but.…

  But what?

  But I’ve decided I’m not ready for the big stage yet. I won’t tell anyone of your location, so that shouldn’t be a concern. Actually, I’m not at all certain of where I am right now.…

  Elaine bit her lower lip. It wasn’t very good.

  But it would have to do.

  She entered and strode over to where Wells sat with his back to her, the wing-backed chair and the top of his slick hair limned by the fire.

  “Mr. Wells,” she said.

  Wells didn’t answer. She edged around his chair. Why was she shuddering so violently?

  “I couldn’t find Wilson.…” Elaine tried to smile. “Actually, it’s Wilson I want to talk to you about. I figure he goes to town for provisions.…”

  “Sit,” Wells said.

  She didn’t like that, not one bit. With a please it would have been demeaning enough, but without one.…

  “Mr. Wells,” she began.

  But before she could continue, he leaned forward and looked at her. The firelight flickered in his slag-colored eyes, but his gaze wasn’t cruel. His smile was open and solicitous. Distant alarms went off in her mind, but she ignored them. He gestured toward the ottoman near his knees, so she sat there with the fireplace warming her back and felt her disquiet ebb.

  Maybe, she decided, she’d been wrong about Wells. He could be a demanding teacher, but hadn’t his methods proved effective? Look at Corrina Bowen. A novice when she arrived, and bam, within a year of the contest, she had book deals, adulation, a robust readership. Wasn’t that why Elaine came? Wasn’t that why they’d all come? Was she really going to bail out so the others could.…

  “Mr. Wells,” she said, “Corrina Bowen was your pupil?”

  “Why, Ms. Kovalchyk, you know she was.”

  He sat back in the chair, his legs crossed, one hand resting on the other. Her dream crept up on her, the surreal, alcohol-fueled nightmare of a naked Wells and a forest of pulsing lights. Unexpectedly, her body responded to the memory, to the dream Wells. The hard, bulging islands of his chest; the abdominal muscles standing out in sharp, moonlit relief; the smooth pillars of his quadriceps; his sex, large and tumid.

  His hand covered hers. “Miss Kovalchyk – may I call you Elaine?”

  She swallowed. The hives were creeping up her neck, as they always did when she was embarrassed, but she scarcely noticed them. Wells’s hand was strong, warm, gently stroking her bare knee. She decided she was glad she’d worn her pink shorts rather than black Capri pants. His touch on her flesh was soothing.

  “This experience has been hard on you, Elaine.” He searched her eyes, his eyes empathic, profound. “Hasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she admitted.

  “Do you realize how far you’ve already come, Elaine?”

  Unexpectedly, she felt a surge of emotion. “I…when I came here.…”

  “You were overconfident then, and I admit I was a demanding teacher.” His fingers moved in feathery, insistent circles. Heat spread from her knee up her thigh. “But I only invest my time and talent in those with a rare gift.”

  Through the thickness in her throat, she said, “Really?”

  He cocked his head, his eyes lowering to her chest. “Is that a butterfly, Elaine?”

  She glanced down at her tattoo as if to confirm its existence. “I got it when I graduated from NYU.” She smiled, gave a little shrug. “You know, to show how I was transforming, spreading my wings, that sort of thing.”

  “Lovely metaphor,” he said, his strong, gentle fingers reaching out and tracing the design on her flesh. “Butterflies are fascinating creatures, Elaine. Not unlike yourself.”

  She was blushing furiously, and though she knew she should pull away, she found she wanted him to touch her, yearned for him to trace the butterfly down to the cleft of her breasts.

  “In every part of the world,” Wells said, his fingers caressing her, “butterfly legends abound. In some Native American cultures, the insect brings sleep. Blackfoot women used to create an image of the butterfly and twine it into their infants’ hair so their children would be more restful.”

  A languid heat, feverish but not at all unpleasant, had taken hold of her. The warmth from the fireplace enveloped her, the aroma of the burning wood mingling with Wells’s subtle, summery cologne. She stared into Wells’s face, took in every detail. An older man, no doubt, but not nearly as old as she had once believed. He wore his age in experience, in knowledge. His body, as she had seen in her dream—

  (it wasn’t a dream)

  —was marvelously preserved, the body of a much younger man. But a younger man endowed with the experience of many years, of

  (eons)

  a lifetime, and she allowed her gaze to crawl over his skin, his sensuous mouth, as he said, “Other legends center on rebirth. The first Christians viewed the butterfly as a symbol of metamorphosis, of renewal. In early Mexican culture and in ancient Greece, the butterfly was associated with the human soul.”

  She looked into his eyes and read nothing but comfort there. Nothing but wisdom and virility and infinite power. She leaned toward him, willing him to reciprocate, hungering for his mouth, his tongue.

  His fingers slid away from her, the spell broken. She tried but failed to conceal her disappointment.

  He smiled at her with a father’s understanding. “You’re seeking help, are you not, Miss Kovalchyk?”

  She noted his return to formality with a pang of frustration. “I am.”

  He spread his arms, smiled his charming smile. “And I’m here to give you anything you need.”

  She rushed on, fleeing the undertow of desire. “I was asking you about Corrina Bowen.”

  “I remember,” he said, still smiling.

  “Everybody knows about Corrina, but she wasn’t the only one to come here seeking your help. Was she, Mr. Wells?”

  He watched her silently, his handsome face relaxed in the pumpkin-colored glow of the fireplace.

  “There were others. Just like there are now.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “But only one can win the contest,” she said. “Only one of us is going to…”

  Elaine noticed something about Wells she hadn’t before.

  “…is going to.…” she started to say, but the necklace Wells wore and the object lying against his chest stole her breath.

  “Is something wrong?” He shifted in his chair, the necklace shifting into full view.

  Elaine shrank from him, a hand pressed to her mouth in horror.

  “What is it?” Wells asked in the same pleasant voice.

  Elaine couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She rose unsteadily. Somewhere beneath the strata of shock, she could hear herself moaning.

  Wells only watched her, the object on his necklace small but unmistakable in the orange light. He called after her, but she didn’t answer. She lurched toward the door, wrested it open, and in a nightmarish fog hastened down the hallway and out the front door.

  She staggered through the meadow, still moaning, and though she fought against the memory of that awful night last summer, it recurred, unbidden and infinitely monstrous.

  Chapter Seven

  Three hours later, Elaine was hopelessly lost. Ne
ttle-whipped, moaning, she stumbled through the forest and recalled the night last summer. She’d downed tequila shots until early morning, and despite everyone’s urgings, she climbed into her Camry. She was cautious, for once ignoring the stereo, for once not texting or checking her phone. She made the longest stretch of the drive without issue, and maybe that’s why she was so mellow by the time she made it to Brooklyn.

  So mellow she caught herself nodding off at the wheel.

  Elaine jerked awake and goggled at the road in disbelief. She gripped the wheel in the ten and two o’clock positions and threw a quick glance at the green digital clock on the dash.

  Four-thirteen a.m. Was it any wonder she was exhausted? She considered pulling over and sleeping, but that was an invitation for trouble. If a cop discovered her asleep, wouldn’t he wonder why she’d chosen a Camry over a bed? He’d ask her questions, and once he did that, he’d be sure to notice her slurred speech.

  She swallowed, made a face at the fulsome taste in her mouth. She wasn’t merely inebriated, she was entering the first hairy stages of a savage hangover. Her tongue felt furry, her eyes itchy and dry. There was a whanging throb in the back of her skull, and she had to go to the bathroom, numbers one and two, and where the hell was she supposed to go? There wasn’t a gas station nearby and her apartment was a good ten minutes away. She imagined herself squatting in an alley, but that was not only degrading and messy, it was downright dangerous.

  She was imagining herself squatting in some seedy back alley when a police cruiser drifted by in the oncoming lane.

  Her stomach clenched. She shot a look in the overhead mirror, furious with herself for losing focus. She watched the cruiser as it diminished in the mirror, the red taillights glowing but not flaring brighter, the ghastly red-and-blue cherry lights remaining dormant. Please don’t turn around, she thought. I’ll never drink and drive again.

  The cruiser described a gradual left turn, disappeared from view.

  The Camry jolted as she slammed into something.

  Her face swung back to the road, and the car jounced again, its suspension bellowing.

  Numbly, she stomped on the brakes and rocked forward, her seatbelt biting her skin. There was a heat in her abdomen, her bladder having let go.

  Cold rivulets of dread trickling down her back, Elaine peered at the road behind her to see what she’d run over.

  A human body. Facedown, unmoving.

  Her gorge clenched. Jesus God no, she thought. Jesus God Jesus God it can’t be. She began to sob silently, her body shaking, her mouth full of bile and tequila. She knew she should do something, but she could only stare at the rumpled thing and sob.

  There were streetlamps, but none were positioned to cast their luminance over the body. The car windows had begun to steam up.

  She was surrounded by apartment buildings. All but a handful of their windows were blackened rectangles. As her eyes swept the mirror she caught sight of herself, her face chalky and blank.

  Behind her, twin headlamps appeared.

  Elaine froze. It was the cop, she was sure of it. Maybe she’d been weaving.

  The headlights swelled, coming nearer.

  Even if it wasn’t the cop, whoever drove the car would no doubt spy the motionless hump beside the road and stop. The Good Samaritan would call for help.

  Go!

  She couldn’t drive away. Not because of any moral obligation. She was simply incapable of moving. The twin halogen pinpricks grew into harsh orbs. The car approached, its headlamps now spotlighting the body in a fierce white corona. Elaine commanded her nerveless fingers to grip the gearshift, to get the hell out of there, but she remained frozen.

  Then, amazingly, the car turned and disappeared.

  Elaine stared after it, unable to accept her good fortune.

  Now go. You’ve been blessed with a second chance. Take it and never mention this to anyone.

  But her hand was betraying her, opening the door. Her legs swung out over moist asphalt. Her whole body thrumming, she stepped closer to where the unmoving heap lay. Though she did not want to, she noticed the folds of what looked like a beige overcoat.

  Weeping into her hands, she circled the rumpled shape until she could see the man’s face, half-buried in the crook of an arm. His eyes were closed. A smear of blood spread like a fan at the corner of his mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” Elaine whispered into her hands. “I’m so sorry.”

  The eyes opened. Elaine clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream. The man, his whiskered jowls streaked with blood, pushed up on an elbow, and as he did, the necklace with its gleaming pendant slithered out of his shirt. A Star of David with some greenish stone in its center.

  “I need.…” the man croaked, but he coughed, a gout of blood splashing over his chin. He opened his mouth again, but the blood choked him, doubled him over.

  Elaine had no notion of fleeing until she bumped her still-open door. Automatically, she dropped inside, didn’t look back as she shifted the Camry into gear, motored away from the dying man.

  In Wells Forest, Elaine remembered all this, remembered reading about the senseless death of Harry Yudkin, a distinguished professor at Touro, a Jewish grad school.

  She staggered through the trees, blood and sweat slicking her skin.

  It was possible the necklace Wells wore in the library had been mass produced. Maybe the world was full of sterling silver Stars of David with green opal insets. But she was pretty sure Wells wasn’t Jewish, and if that were true.…

  “No,” she whimpered.

  Ahead, she glimpsed a narrow filament of dirt, not wide enough to be a trail, but a hell of a lot better than bulldozing her way through the underbrush the way she was now.

  Elaine thought of her nightmare, Wells’s naked form kneeling in the meadow, the pulsing lights and black liquid feeding him, revitalizing his body.

  Moaning, she sprinted toward the path.

  And skidded to a halt when she saw the humped shape crouching before her.

  Chapter Eight

  Wilson’s words echoed in Bryan’s brain: Kill if you want to see another sunset.

  Bryan peered into his bathroom mirror, noticed the purple half-moons under his eyes, the accumulated stubble. He never skipped a shave, was disdainful of men like Rick and that slob Will Church, who treated shaving like an optional thing rather than a facet of good grooming.

  Still.…

  Bryan thought he looked rather menacing with the five o’clock shadow.

  His grin faded when he remembered what he’d seen just minutes earlier.

  He’d decided to enlist Anna’s help. After all, they’d formed an alliance, hadn’t they? Maybe she’d help him eliminate one of the other writers.

  He’d been on the way to Anna’s room to talk things over when he glimpsed Wilson at the end of the hallway, descending the third-story stairs and carrying something on his shoulder. Bryan had hustled after Wilson, peered over the edge of the handrail, and froze.

  A body. The object slung over Wilson’s shoulder could only be a human body.

  “Wilson!” he called down the stairwell and then regretted it when Wilson stopped.

  Slowly, Wilson’s head swiveled up to stare at him. “Yes?”

  Bryan glanced at the body. Its face was mercifully concealed, but he didn’t need to see the attractive features to know it was Anna Holloway. The red hair and shapely body gave her away.

  Anna wasn’t moving.

  “What’s…”

  …wrong with her, he was about to ask, but decided he didn’t want to know. Instead he said, “Where are you taking her?”

  “She suffered an accident,” Wilson said.

  At his words, Bryan noticed the droplets of blood on the carpeted risers. He glanced at Anna’s inert body and discovered something that made his gorge clench.
/>   Three fingers of her right hand were missing.

  Wilson’s grin spread. “I suggest you follow my advice, Mr. Clayton, before you suffer a similar accident.”

  Bryan had fled.

  Now, remembering Anna’s limp body and Wilson’s savage grin, Bryan stared into the bathroom mirror and told himself he had to do it. If he wanted to win – hell, if he wanted to live – he had to go through with it.

  He was on the way to Lucy’s room when Will rounded the corner. He saw Will before Will saw him, and in that instant he noted Will’s gnomish belly beneath the sloppy button-down Cubs jersey. The faded khaki shorts, the scuffed sandals. Slovenly. Soft.

  Okay, then, Bryan thought. I’ll kill him instead of Lucy.

  “Hey,” Bryan said, mustering a smile, “just the guy I want to see.”

  Will scowled at him. “What do you want?”

  “Someone to guide the boat while I check my trout lines.”

  Will looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “Trout lines?”

  “Come on,” Bryan said, ushering Will along. “I tried to do it earlier, but the current was too swift. It won’t work unless I have another body.”

  “I need to write.”

  Dammit. Not only was Will walking away, but the longer this took, the greater the chances of someone seeing them. His idea had been to lure Lucy outside by praising her reading. Writers loved to hear praise. Plus, of the remaining competitors, she’d be the easiest to overpower.

  Will was almost to his room.

  “Okay,” Bryan said, hustling to rejoin him. “I’ll tell you the truth. It has nothing to do with trout lines.” A pause. “I’m worried about Anna.”

  “What about her?”

  Other than the fact that she’s dead?