Abilene considered mentioning this to the others, but decided to keep quiet. They would only point out flaws in her reasoning and depress her again.
As she followed them across a bright pasture, the sunlight baked the last of the lingering coolness out of her wet clothes and skin. Hot and sweaty, she realized her hopeful scenario about Helen was probably ridiculous. Nothing more than wishful thinking. She tried to hold onto it, but just couldn’t.
Helen didn’t wander off and fall asleep. She was grabbed and taken away.
We might never find her.
We might never see her again.
What’ll we tell Tony? The hell with Tony. He gave her all kinds of crap. He’ll probably be glad to be rid of her, the bastard. We’re the ones who care about her. We’re the ones who love her.
What’ll we do if…?
Cora suddenly leaped sideways and crouched against a tree. She raised a hand to warn the others. They rushed up behind her. Huddling near her back, they peered around the trunk.
At first, Abilene saw only more trees and rocks and bushes in the gloom ahead. Then she noticed some sort of platform surrounded by a railing of split wood. A rocking chair sat empty on the platform. Wooden stairs led down to a sloping ground. A porch? That’s what it was all right. And now that Abilene recognized it, she was able to make out the vague shape of the log cabin that hovered in the shadows behind it.
The bark of the cabin’s walls blended in with the trunks of the nearby trees. Its roof - if it had a roof - was hidden under a canopy of branches and leaves. The cabin seemed almost to be a natural part of the forest. As if it hadn’t been built by humans. As if it had simply grown there.
‘I don’t see anyone,’ Cora whispered. ‘Let’s check it out.’
Abilene half expected her to stride straight over to the cabin, but she didn’t. Instead, crouching low, she rushed forward about fifteen feet and ducked behind another tree. The others followed.
From there, Abilene could see a couple of old sheds behind the cabin. They were surrounded by a lush, sunlit garden. In front of the cabin, some distance beyond the end of its porch, was a long-handled water pump. The ground sloped down about fifty feet to the lake. A weathered rowboat, moored to the shore by a block of concrete serving as an anchor, floated under the droopy limbs of a willow. Its oars lay across the bow and center bench seats.
‘What do you think?’ Abilene whispered.
‘Sure looks like someone lives here,’ Vivian said.
‘It’s like a place out of one of those damn slasher movies Helen’s so crazy about,’ Finley said. ‘Where the crazy guy with the machete hangs out.’
‘Hope she’s in there appreciating it,’ Cora said.
‘Let’s find out,’ said Finley. She set down the water bottle and chips, studied the ground for a moment, then picked up a chunk of rock the size of a hardball.
Abilene’s stomach seemed to drop.
Cora had been lugging around the tire iron all morning, and Abilene had seen that merely as a sensible precaution. But now, Finley had found herself a weapon.
We aren’t just searching anymore, she realized.
Jesus.
This might be where Helen is. We might be about to find her. And we might be about to face whoever took her. A minute from now, we could be fighting for her life - and for ours.
Suddenly trembling, she glanced around the base of the tree. She spotted a rock half-hidden under the matted leaves and grabbed it. The chip of granite was as large as her hand, shaped roughly like the head of a hatchet.
Vivian picked up a broken limb. It was two inches thick and nearly a yard long.
‘Everyone ready?’ Cora asked.
‘Let’s rock ’n roll,’ Finley said.
They stepped out from behind the tree. Abilene was relieved to see that Cora, leading the way, wasn’t heading for the front of the cabin. The plan, apparently, was to circle around its rear and check things out before going in.
The wall of the cabin had a single window. It was open, but Abilene could see nothing through its rusty screen or the glass panes at the top.
She kept her eyes on it, fearing that a face might suddenly loom out of the darkness and push against the screen.
Finley, hunched over, broke away from the line and took one step toward the window before Abilene clutched the damp collar of her shirt. Finley glanced back at her. Abilene shook her head. Frowning, Finley shrugged. But she said nothing, and resumed her position behind Vivian.
They passed the rear corner of the cabin.
There were two windows, one on either side of the back door. Wooden stairs descended from the door to a path which led through the center of the garden and into the woods. Scanning the area, Abilene saw no one.
She watched the door and windows, only turning away from them when Cora halted in front of the first shed. It looked to Abilene like an outhouse. Its flimsy door had no handle and was latched shut by a hook and eye.
Cora reached for the hook.
My God, Abilene thought, does she think Helen’s in there?
Cora flicked up the hook. The door swung open, groaning on its ancient hinges. The draft of its opening swept out a miasma of hot, foul air.
Nothing inside but a bench with a hole in it, and a swarm of buzzing flies.
While the others stepped away from the foul aromas, Cora closed the door and hooked it shut.
They followed a path through the garden to the other shed. It was three times the size of the outhouse - a more likely place for keeping a prisoner. Abilene could picture Helen inside, sprawled on the dirt floor, bound with ropes, a gag in her mouth.
But Cora opened the door and nobody was there.
Peering into the gloom, Abilene saw shovels, rakes, hoes, a scythe, fishing gear and an ax. Shelves laden with bottles and jars.
‘Jeez,’ Finley whispered, ‘we can sure improve on our weaponry.’
They stepped into the shed. The hot, heavy air smelled sweet and musty.
Finley dropped her rock and picked up the ax.
‘I don’t know if you should do that,’ Vivian whispered.
‘Christ on a crutch,’ Cora gasped. She took a jar down from a shelf and looked at it more closely. ‘Chicken heads.’
‘What?’
They gathered around her.
In the dim light from the doorway, Abilene saw that the heads of at least half a dozen chickens were drifting about in the jar’s murky yellow fluid. She glimpsed their tiny black eyes, their open beaks. Then she looked away fast.
Vivian gagged.
‘Why would anyone want to save chicken heads?’ Cora asked.
‘Appetizers?’ Finley suggested.
Cora replaced the jar on its shelf. She lifted down another and held it toward the light. ‘Oh my God.’
Abilene took a quick look.
The things suspended inside the bottle looked back at her.
Eyeballs.
‘Holy shit,’ Finley said.
‘They probably aren’t human,’ Cora whispered. ‘Maybe from pigs or…’
The crash of an explosion slammed Abilene’s ears. She jumped. They all jumped. Cora dropped the jar. Ears stunned by the blast, Abilene didn’t hear the jar shatter. But it did. Warm liquid splashed her ankles. Eyeballs rolled.
The door of the shed slammed shut.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The explosion must’ve been a gunshot. From the noise of it, Abilene figured it had been fired from only a few feet away. During the moment between the blast and the door flying shut, however, she’d seen none of her friends react as if hit.
‘Is everybody okay?’ she whispered.
‘Just fine,’ Finley muttered.
‘What was that?’ Cora asked.
‘Sounded like a shotgun,’ Vivian said.
‘We’re in deep shit,’ Finley said.
Abilene flinched as something - probably the butt of the shotgun - crashed against the door.
‘Whatcha doin’ in the
re?’ called a high, scratchy voice. It sounded as if it came from someone old, but Abilene couldn’t tell whether it belonged to a man or a woman.
‘We aren’t doing anything,’ Cora answered. ‘We were just looking around.’
‘ Snoopin’!’ He - or she - struck the door again. ‘I don’t abide no snoopers!’
‘We’re sorry,’ Cora said. ‘We didn’t mean any harm. We’re looking for someone.’
‘Y’found someone. Me!’
Abilene turned around slowly to look at the door. She stepped on an eye. It popped and squished under the soft sole of her moccasin. She groaned.
‘Who are you?’ Finley asked.
‘Who y’lookin for?’
‘A friend of ours,’ Cora said. ‘Her name’s Helen.’
‘Ain’t me.’
‘She’s twenty-five,’ Cora said. ‘Dark-haired, pretty husky.’
‘A fatty?’
‘Have you seen her?’
‘Ain’t in there.’
‘Do you know where she is?’
Silence.
‘Gonna letcha out. I got my over-’n-under here, so come out easy ’r I’ll blow y’innards out her backside.’
‘For Godsake,’ Vivian whispered, ‘drop the ax, Fin.’
‘We’d better all empty our hands,’ Cora said.
Abilene let her rock fall. It clinked against some glass in the darkness. She heard soft thuds as the others discarded their weapons.
The door swung wide. Abilene squinted into the brightness. Standing just outside the shed, aiming a shotgun at her belly, was a short, skinny man - or woman. Abilene still couldn’t tell which. The person had wild gray hair. The wrinkled, leathery face bristled with stubble, but Abilene had seen old women who had similar whiskers.
‘C’mon out.’
Finley raised her hands overhead and stepped through the doorway. Abilene did the same, followed by Vivian and Cora. Just in front of the shed, they spread out. They stood abreast, their arms high.
A quick look around satisfied Abilene that their captor was alone.
One is all it takes, she thought. One lunatic with a shotgun. And the person in front of her did look like a lunatic.
Both earlobes were adorned with small tufts of bright red and yellow feathers. Not earrings, but fishing jigs. Flies. Fixed to the ears by tiny, barbed hooks. From a rawhide thong around the stranger’s neck dangled a pendant of dry, white bone. It looked like the skull of a rodent. The leather strip passed through the skull’s earholes. The jaw hung open, showing a snout packed with sharp little teeth.
The skull rested against tawny skin between the edges of a rawhide vest. The vest, loosely tied with a couple of thongs, was open a couple of inches all the way down its front but revealed no hint of cleavage. Low on the stranger’s hips hung ragged jeans with their legs cut off, their sides slit nearly to the waistband. Cinched around the waist of the jeans was a belt that held a hunting knife in a wide leather scabbard. The knife had a staghom handle. Its blade reached halfway down the side of the stranger’s thigh.
Both feet were bare and filthy. The small toe of one foot was missing.
While Abilene inspected this peculiar person, he or she slowly swept the shotgun down the line, pale blue eyes studying all of them.
‘Yer a handsome pack, gals.’
‘Do you know where Helen is?’ Cora asked.
A smile. Brown teeth and gaps. Then the pale eyes fixed on Vivian. ‘What kinda shoes y’ got there?’
‘They’re Reeboks.’
‘Land, ain’t they somethin’? Give ’em t’old Batty.’
Bending down slightly, Vivian lifted a foot off the ground. She crossed it over her knee. Cora grabbed her shoulder and held her steady while she pulled off the shoe, tossed it toward Batty, then switched legs and removed the other. An underhand throw landed it on the ground in front of Batty’s feet.
‘I getta keep ’em.’
Vivian said nothing.
Cora said, ‘You’re the one with the shotgun.’
‘Ain’t no thief.’ Batty braced the shotgun with one arm, crouched and picked up the shoes. ‘I don’t work free. Got my pay here. Y’lookin’ for Helen, old Batty’s gonna point y’where to-look.’
‘You know where she is?’ Cora asked.
Batty answered with a wink, then shouldered the shotgun, turned around, and strode toward the back door of the cabin. Nobody else moved.
They looked at each other. Abilene saw surprise and confusion on their faces.
She looked again toward Batty. Without so much as a glance back, the old weirdo climbed the stairs and swung open the screen door and vanished into the cabin.
‘Jesus H. Christ,’ Finley muttered. ‘What was that?’
‘Batty,’ Abilene said.
‘Appropriately named.’
Vivian stayed on her feet, but sagged as if she’d lost the strength to hold herself upright. ‘God,’ she said. She bent over and grabbed her knees.
‘I guess we’re free to leave,’ Cora said. ‘But maybe we’d better go inside and see what he has to say.’
‘He?’ Abilene asked.
‘Whatever.’
‘I don’t think he’s got Helen,’ Vivian said, still holding her knees.
‘But he’s got your shoes,’ Cora told her.
‘He’s welcome to them.’
‘She,’ Finley said. ‘It.’
‘Sounded like Batty considered them payment for services,’ Abilene said. ‘I think he’s planning to help us find her.’
‘I think Batty’s batty,’ Finley said. ‘Probably doesn’t know shit.’
‘There’s only one way to find out.’
‘What else have we got to go on?’ Cora asked. ‘Hell, he lives here. Even if he hasn’t seen Helen, he might have some ideas about who took her.’
‘Besides,’ Abilene said, ‘if nothing else, this’ll give us a chance to check out the cabin.’
‘Enter the lair,’ Finley said, grinning slightly.
‘It isn’t as if he’s forcing us.’
‘Yeah,’ Cora said. ‘He had us and walked away.’
Vivian stood up straight. She shook her head. She said, ‘Let’s do it. What’s the worst that can happen?’ With that, she walked toward the back of the cabin.
The others followed.
Finley, striding along beside Abilene, said, ‘What’s the worst that can happen? Let’s see. We might all end up in jars.’
At the top of the stairs, Vivian rapped on the door.
‘Come into my parlor,’ whispered Finley.
‘Can it,’ Abilene said.
Vivian pulled open the door. She stepped over the threshold and paused, an arm stretched back to hold the door open for the rest of them.
Entering, Abilene found herself in a long, narrow kitchen. She saw cupboards, a black iron stove, a small pump over the sink that looked like a smaller version of the pump she’d seen outside. No refrigerator, not even an old icebox. A gas lamp hung suspended from the ceiling, and another rested atop a small wooden table in one corner.
‘Batty?’ Vivian called.
‘Waitin’ for ya.’
They stepped through a doorway into the main room of the cabin. It wasn’t as brightly lit as the kitchen, its few windows apparently hidden from the sun by overhanging trees. In the center of the room, Batty was leaning over a table, spreading out a leathery scroll.
Vivian’s Reeboks looked enormous on the lunatic’s small feet.
‘Come over and sit.’
On her way to the table, Abilene took a quick look around. Except for the kitchen, this seemed to be the only room. A bed along the right wall was neatly covered with a quilt. The shotgun was propped against the wall near its head. At the foot of the bed was a steamer trunk, lid shut. In the room’s far corner was a pot-bellied stove. There were a few chairs scattered about: straight cane-backs and one rocker. She spotted a few gas lamps on small tables. Every wall had shelves laden with bulky old tomes and an od
d assortment of nicknacks: wax figures, candles, crucifixes, pictures of saints, bones and feathers, stuffed birds and squirrels, bowls, every size and shape of clear glass jar -from which Abilene quickly averted her eyes.
Only to notice a stuffed bat, wings outspread, nailed above the front door.
From the general size and shape of the creature’s ugly head with its stubby snout and pointed teeth, she realized that Batty’s necklace ornament must be the skull of a bat.
Charming, she thought.
I’m in a madhouse.
Clearly, Helen wasn’t here.
Unless in that trunk…
She glanced again at the trunk beyond the foot of the bed and decided it wasn’t large enough for Helen. Not unless…
‘Are you some kind of a witch?’ Finley asked.
‘Some say so.’ Cackle. ‘Some say I’m batty.’
‘What do you say?’
‘Old Batty sees the unseen, knows the unknown. Sit sit sit.’
They pulled out chairs, and sat around the table. Most of its top was covered by the mat that Batty’d been unrolling when they came in. It looked like tanned animal hide, stained dark brown. A wiggly oval outline about the size of a football was faintly visible near the center.
The wood of the table showed through a hole near one end of the outline.
Coming up behind Abilene, Batty poked the hole with the point of his knife.
‘Batty’s place.’
‘This is a map?’ Cora asked.
‘Oughtabe.’
Cora reached out and touched an edge of the oval. ‘And this is the lake?’
Batty, scurrying away, didn’t answer.
‘You’re going to show us where Helen is?’
Batty came back from a shelf, cupping an earthenware bowl.
Off in a corner, something creaked. Abilene flinched. She shot her eyes in the direction of the sound, and saw the rocking chair teetering. For just a moment, her mind was stunned by a memory of the hideous deformity they’d encountered one Halloween night a few years ago. In a chair in a corner. Unseen at first. Just like now.
Then she saw the snow-white cat crouching on the seat of the rocker.
She let out a shaky sigh of relief.
The others, as startled as she by the unexpected disturbance, also seemed glad to find nothing worse than a cat in the chair.
Blood Games Page 21