The Dark Game

by Jonathan Janz

  His corpse twisted slowly toward her. Lucy covered her mouth. She saw his knobby fingers, his maroon-colored forearms. The puffy throat bisected by orange electrical cord. The body continued to revolve. It faced her.

  Rick’s face.

  The corpse opened its eyes. Lucy screamed.

  Behind her, the door rattled in its jamb.

  Bryan had found her.

  Chapter Five

  Will opened his eyes, thought, Where am I?

  The day was the color of undrained dishwater, the branches ribbing the sky like bones painted brown. Funny, he thought. I’m in a forest, but all I can see is gray and brown.

  He blinked, smiled.

  His smile faded.

  Oh hell, he thought. Bryan. Lucy. The dark game.

  The glimpse he’d caught of Bryan was fleeting. A single frame in a poorly edited film sequence. One moment Will was talking to Lucy, the next he was being waylaid with such force that he marveled his head didn’t rip free of his body.

  The pain flooded back and Will groaned. It was so much nicer without the pain. This was a shrieking orange hell. It was as though some mad forest ranger was tamping a tent spike into his spinal sheath.

  He was dying.

  At least he told himself he was. Dying meant not having to deal with Bryan.

  There was a catch in Will’s throat as he thought, Lucy.

  He couldn’t let her die.

  Will attempted to rise, but agony unlike any he’d experienced pierced his torso. He dropped, writhed. Maybe he wasn’t dying, but he was seriously injured. Severely concussed. He wasn’t a doctor, but he suspected his vertebrae had been fractured. His father had chronic back issues, and Will had never been particularly sympathetic toward him.

  But now, as he tried to rise, he rued every ungenerous thought he’d ever harbored toward his father. Because this pain was monstrous. A level of pain uncalled for. Like some dreadful gypsy curse. He imagined a knobby forefinger pointed at him, a hag’s screeching declaration: You will suffer the torment of a thousand lifetimes, wicked boy. You’ll suffer for letting that poor man die in that hole.

  The memory of Peter Bates took hold.

  Yes, Will thought. This was where it brought him.

  Bates in the hole, starving, alone.

  Will on his back. In agony.

  Was it any less than he deserved?

  He closed his eyes.

  Opened them when something pattered on his forehead. His first thought was blood. But that didn’t make sense. Unless the heavens were raining blood. Not that such an event would surprise him. There was something biblical about Wells’s estate. The sign read A PLACE OF MAGIC.

  What it really was, it was a place of judgment.

  More droplets splashed Will’s face. More indignity. Not only was he disabled, he was about to be soaking wet. He ground his teeth, watched the drops of rain tumble from the dishwater sky. Turned his head and noticed, through the now-shiny branches, a grimmer darkness. Storms coming.

  He knew he couldn’t sit up. Hell, he had trouble doing sit-ups when his back was healthy. He rocked onto his side, managed to get an elbow under him. Forced himself to sitting. The world described a delirious sideways revolution. Shit, the concussion was worse than he’d thought. Did they rate them like tornadoes and earthquakes? If so, this was a Code Red, an F7, a You’re-Seriously-Fucked concussion.

  Will pushed to his feet. Managed to stand there, miserable, as the rain accelerated.

  Lucy and Bryan could be anywhere. Back at the mansion? Deeper in the forest? Frolicking through the meadow or building a goddamned treehouse? Who knew?

  Searching for them was a fool’s errand. He knew it.

  He took a halting step toward Wells’s mansion. As he did, he felt a pressure building behind his left eye.

  That can’t be good, he thought.

  Then he heard it. Humming.

  Glenn Miller’s ‘Moonlight Serenade’.

  Will scuttled up an incline, and the world whipsawed violently. He staggered, threw out an arm, but this time he couldn’t prevent a tumble. He fell uphill, onto his stomach, and as the tune crescendoed, the voice drenched in mockery, Will knew who he’d see if he turned. His fingers sank into mud, the rain pattering faster.

  “Thought you were quits with me, didn’t you, champ?” Bates said.

  Will whimpered, dug his knees into the mud, but he was weak and the world was tilting.

  Bates’s gruff voice was very close now. “We can meet savagery with love, but do we?” A snort. “Hell no. We vent our hateful impulses. Snap at our loved ones. Shut people out. Turn our backs on friends.”

  Will collapsed on his belly, his face buried in the crook of his elbow. “You were a murderer.”

  “I needed love, champ.”

  “You killed your kids. You tortured them.”

  Footsteps squelched closer, black work boots circling his body. The legs crouched, the voice right over him. “I needed a grace note, kid. Just one kindhearted gesture in a lifetime of meanness. You ever hear about my upbringing? The kinda things I had done to me?”

  Will shook his head.

  “Ever had your genitals burned? Ever watch your kid sister get molested knowing you can’t do anything about it?”

  “Stop.”

  “I was a monster,” Bates said, “but damned if I was born that way.”

  Will could barely breathe.

  “I could kill you quick,” Bates said, “but I won’t.”

  He forced himself to gaze into the eyes of the man hunkering before him.

  Bates looked perfectly healthy.

  “You could’ve saved me, champ.”

  The ground around Will began to shift.

  “See what it’s like to get left behind?” Bates said, and Will realized Bates was rising. The entire forest was rising.

  Will threw out his arms too late. The forest wasn’t rising, he was falling.

  Sinking.

  “Let’s see how you like it,” Bates muttered.

  And as the hole sucked him deeper, Will wondered, Is this the end? Am I really going to die this way?

  He began to scream, to claw at the dirt, but his body kept sinking, and beneath his terrified voice he heard the laughter of Peter Bates.

  Chapter Six

  When the bedroom door gave way, the top hinge tore loose and the whole thing hung askew like a baby tooth clinging to its last tendril of flesh.

  Frozen, Lucy thought. Molly hadn’t even lost a tooth yet. Hadn’t ridden a bike or gone to kindergarten.

  Yet Molly had died, and Lucy had lived.

  Until now.

  Rain pattered on the window.

  Twenty-five years, Lucy thought. You got twenty-five years you didn’t deserve.

  Bryan’s eyes glittered in the gloom, his white teeth like freshly cut tombstones. Lucy retreated, terrified she’d bump into her father’s corpse, and his puffy purple hands would close around her throat. It’s no more than she deserved. A gruesome death. A lonely death. No one would know what became of her.

  Something brushed the back of Lucy’s arm.

  She flailed at the dangling corpse, but when she spun she discovered it was only a baize curtain, yellow with age.

  Bryan’s big arms enfolded her.

  Hissing, she pushed away from him. He didn’t hang on, only gusted laughter as she tumbled against the unmade bed.

  His eyes flicked to something near her waist. “That’s more than I would have expected from you.”

  She glanced down at the chopping knife in her hand.

  Raised it.

  “Good girl,” he said. He gestured to his ankle, his knife holder. “Wanna see who’s better with a blade?”

  She cast a quick glance around the bedroom, confirmed what she’d suspected.
There was no way out. Unless she leapt through the window, in which case he’d simply walk outside and put her already-broken body out of its suffering.

  He misread her look. “You think someone is coming to save you? Your boyfriend maybe?”

  “No one’s coming,” she said.

  He stepped nearer. “Well, poor fucking Lucy. Handed everything when you were a teenager.”

  “Did you murder the others?”

  He grinned. Invisible mice scurried over the nape of her neck.

  He crept closer, his bulk seeming to fill the room. “You going to use that knife or quit and let me have my way?”

  Something in his voice stopped her. She stared at him, a realization slowly dawning. From the beginning there’d been something artificial about Bryan, something forced. “You mean the way Rick did?” she said.

  All mirth drained from his face. “Shut up.”

  Her voice was a husky purr. “The things he did to me, Bryan…the way he made me moan.”

  His eyes were glittering brown marbles. He’d bunched his fists and begun tapping his upper legs with them. Like a toddler cranking toward a breakdown.

  “But never you, Bryan,” she said, edging to her right. “Even that first afternoon, my body responded to Rick. Not you. Because he knows who he is. He’s authentic. But you…you’re trying to be someone else. You’re running from yourself.”

  The corners of his mouth drew down. “You…bitch.”

  Now, she thought. Do it now.

  She swung the chopper. Bryan’s eyes flew wide. He dropped toward the bed. The chopper missed him by inches and whooshed down so hard she was thrown off balance. She stumbled forward, knowing she’d lost her chance at surprising him. Her momentum carried her toward the door. Her feet got tangled and she nearly plunged headlong – a brief image strobed through her head of her impaling herself, the blade chunking into her belly like a warrior committing hari-kari – but she righted herself before she fell, ducked under the broken door. As she thundered down the stairs she heard Bryan give chase, his footfalls like sinister tympani behind her. The kitchen table was unoccupied, the vision of her mom proving to be just that, and then she was grasping the doorknob, a surge of fear washing over her. Had Bryan locked it?

  She ripped open the door and burst outside.

  Lucy’s only hope was to find a hiding place. She still clutched the chopper, so if Bryan discovered her she might be able to make good on the death blow she’d attempted to strike in the bedroom.

  Lucy veered into the forest, sprinting wildly. She didn’t even glance over her shoulder. What was the point? If Bryan had spotted her, there was nothing she could do.

  Ahead the terrain dipped. The decline lent speed to her steps, and it took all her energy to match her body’s inertia as she barreled down the hill.

  Soon, the forest bottomed out, and she found a trail winding along a creek. If Bryan followed the same path, she’d be in a dire position. But if he didn’t track her down here, the ridge would make detection unlikely.

  She kept on, the strength in her legs flagging. The rain was frigid on her bare arms. It was chilly, like a freakish fit of winter. She considered crossing the creek. It was a risk, certainly, but so was remaining on Bryan’s side of the water. Her teeth chattering as much from fear as the cold front sweeping through the forest, Lucy splashed into the creek at a diagonal, her eyes already scanning the opposite bank for a place to clamber up.

  Her foot caught on something. Lucy pitched forward.

  The water enveloped her in a freezing blast, its depth disconcertingly deeper than she’d assumed. She opened her eyes underwater to find what had felled her, and when she saw the red coat, the skeins of light brown hair waving like kelp, she began to scream…

  …because the ice under Molly’s snow boots was cracking. In a fit of meanness, Lucy had dared her little sister out on the ice. It seemed a minimal risk. Their uncle had taken them fishing here two weeks prior, and because winter hadn’t yet gripped the land, Lucy had been able to see the pebbly bottom of the creek. It wasn’t more than three feet deep, and Molly was about that height, so even if the ice did fracture and Molly plunged through, all she’d have to do was stand up.

  But even as her sister took her first halting steps onto the ghostly white surface, Lucy knew the dare was stupid, knew she was doing this because it was stupid. The entire trip had been stupid, her parents promising the Eiffel Tower, the Blarney Stone, the Coliseum, when that stuff would only happen after they’d spent an interminable month in Poland, in a boring old farmhouse. They hardly spoke English, and Lucy knew no Polish. Molly griped incessantly, cried often, and found ways to perturb her when Lucy simply wanted to be left alone. If she discovered some interesting object, a painted birdhouse or a doll made of cornhusks, Molly simply had to hold it. And when Lucy implored her parents to intervene on her behalf, the answer was always the same: Can’t you let her have her way this once?

  This once actually meant every danged time, and Lucy took to locking herself in the upstairs bedroom to get away.

  So it was with grim anger that Lucy had exited the farmhouse that winter afternoon, her parents having ordered her to entertain her sister. She hadn’t intended to put Molly in peril, but yes, there was a slight undercurrent of meanness in her dare.

  Her chin held up, Molly had stepped onto the frozen creek and immediately begun to giggle. The ice was slippery, she informed Lucy, and Lucy, who’d been bored out of her skull, had followed her sister without considering their combined weight.

  Soon Lucy was slipping and pinwheeling her arms as Molly brayed laughter. For once Lucy didn’t mind because she was laughing too. She finally reached Molly, and in their desire to steady themselves, they grasped each other’s forearms, for perhaps the first time since they’d arrived in Poland feeling happy.

  The first crack appeared under Lucy’s right boot. She tightened, Molly not yet noticing. Lucy didn’t move for several seconds. She simply stared at the fissure, hoping it wouldn’t lengthen.

  Another crack formed, this one larger, directly between the two girls. Molly’s laughter ceased, her eyes shooting wide, and somehow they were no longer grasping each other’s arms, somehow Lucy had taken a step away. The ice was groaning and Molly was inclining her face to stare at Lucy, all the fear in the universe contained in those liquid brown eyes, her tender age showing in her still-plump cheeks and her babylike mouth.

  “Lucy.…” she started to say, or maybe that was Lucy’s imagination, because the word was lost in the cacophony of snapping ice, a whole section giving way beneath Molly, and lightning bolts zigzagging at Lucy’s boots. Her instinct was to spin away, to lurch toward the bank, and from the corner of her eye she discerned a flurry of movement, flailing red arms and gouts of freezing creek water splashing onto the frost-kissed ice. Molly barely made a sound as the hole swallowed her. Lucy reached out, but her sister was ten feet away, and even if Lucy had been able to graze the gloveless little fingers, the ice under Lucy was a chaotic grid of crisscrossing lines, and though she knew she should be rescuing her little sister, the fear of drowning seized her, the atavistic terror compelling her backward, backward, until she was huddled on the narrow bank, knees drawn in, a quivering fetus girl, and the only sign Molly had been there at all an occasional swirl within the jagged pool of floating ice chunks.

  Lucy was too frightened to form a coherent thought. Thirty seconds passed. A minute. She huddled there, shivering, and told herself it hadn’t happened. This was a bad dream, the worst nightmare of her life, and had she known how it would turn out she might have leapt into the freezing hole too, her mother hating her, her father becoming a bloodless wraith…

  …and in Roderick Wells’s forest the icy creek water rushed into her throat, dragged her under, the bottom of the creek bed dropping away. Below was a sable, watery tomb, and her sister’s tiny body, untouched by time, rose throug
h the darkness, the plump cheeks and the smooth brow pale in death, the red-coated arms splayed, the body rising to meet her, and Lucy screamed, but the water clogged her throat. The face of her sister rose to meet her, the eyes open, and though Lucy expected them to be white and pupilless, they were as they always were, Molly’s eyes. Kind, hopeful. Molly stared at her, raised a hand, and the tiny fingers caressed Lucy’s cheek.

  Her dead sister’s touch sent a shockwave through her body. Lucy spread her arms, pushed down on the freezing water, and incredibly, she rose a few inches. As the water rushed into her lungs, Lucy thrust her chin up, scissored her legs, and though her body felt inexpressibly heavy, she rose higher. She looked up desperately, her lungs shrinking. She threw her arms down, kicked, and this time her face breached the surface. She thrust against the water, summoned what strength she had, managed a sip of air. She remembered the shallower water, extended a leg, and there, blessedly, she felt rocks underfoot. Her legs buckled, her whole frame wobbly, but she fought against the lethargy. Both feet touched solid ground. Spluttering, gasping, Lucy fell sideways, and when she’d reached a place where it was only knee deep, she jackknifed, retched, the creek water spewing from her mouth like a pestilence. She coughed, wheezed, her throat aflame.

  “Who were you talking to?”

  Lucy gazed up at Bryan. “Don’t make me kill you,” she said.

  “In the farmhouse,” he said as if she hadn’t spoken. “And just now. You keep talking to someone and it’s only you and me. Why do you keep doing that?”

  There was a weird light in Bryan’s eyes, the raindrops smaller but more persistent. They stung her flesh, bit like hungry mites.

  Bryan waded closer. “Are you doing that to confuse me?” His eyes lowered, came up again. “You dropped your knife. Why do you keep confusing me?”