“Fuck me!” he muttered through clenched teeth, kicking the glass door shut. He went back to the front, hoping to flag down a car, and spotted an older model pickup in the parking lot. He opened the door and a gray-bearded man in stained coveralls spilled out onto the dirt and gravel.
“Sorry, fellow. I need your truck.” Sidestepping the old man who stared up at Warren with dumb, drunken perplexity, Warren pulled himself into the cab, turned the key, pumped the gas, and started it up with a few chugs. A right-wing talk show blasted from the radio.
He silently thanked Peter for teaching him to drive a standard shift as he slammed the gears into reverse and grinding just a bit turned a hard right to face the road. With a thrill blazing in his heart—it felt great to be mobile again—Warren peeled out of the parking lot.
Spitting out a mouthful of gravel, the old man got to his feet and chased after the truck a few paces. Warren caught of glimpse of him—fist in the air and cursing—in the rearview mirror as he barreled down the road towards the camp entrance.
* * *
Jenna watched the treetops, holding onto the last of the sun’s warm colors, as they swayed across the orange streaked sky. The wound Karla had inflected with the meat cleaver, running across her clavicle and cutting deep into the flesh of her upper chest, was swelling rapidly, making it hard for Jenna to even move her fingers on that arm.
She closed her eyes tightly and breathed deeply, employing one of the few useful techniques she’d gleaned from an acting class. But as hard as she tried to focus on her breath, the scents all around her—the sweet grass and the bitter earth beneath it, the faintly fishy odor wafting from the lake—hurled every thought back to the accident thirty years ago.
Her parents, Stella and Leo, had taken out their new sailboat for its maiden voyage that morning, to test its safety before allowing the older kids to man it. Her mother had roused her early that morning and told her to look after Chrissie, who was just a toddler. Jenna remembered how rude she had been to her mother, displaying a twelve-year-old’s hormonal attitude.
When the storm started she had roughly pulled Chrissie into the cinderblock playroom without a thought of the danger to her parents as the small craft foundered in the lake’s deep waters. But not Karla; she was on the pier with her boyfriend, Dave, when the sudden storm erupted and saw what was happening. He tried to stop her, but she dove in and swam to the boat just before it capsized. Dave went out after her in the dinghy he’d kept tied to the pier. He was able to save Karla, pulling her from the water to safety, but not her parents. They drowned, their bodies sinking to the black depths of the lake, never to be recovered.
I’m sorry Mommy, she whispered to the breeze, I’m sorry. As she let the tears flow, she thought about how her mother would sometimes stroke her cheek when she was upset. In her half-awake state she could feel the hand now—only it wasn’t warm and comforting and filled with love and tenderness. This hand was rough and pawing—cold. She opened her eyes and saw that it was Karla who leaned over her and touched her face.
“Hello Jenna,” The scratchy voice whistled through the pale mask of Bianca’s flesh. “It’s been a long time.”
* * *
Warren turned a hard left into the camp driveway, the low branches scratching the roof of the truck as it flew past the totem poles topped by the twin wolves, their teeth bared, ready to attack.
“Hold on, Jenna.” Warren bounced around inside the whiskey and tobacco-scented cab. “I’m coming.”
The orange circle of sun poised low in the sky, casting long, black shadows across the lawn as Warren hopped out of the truck and ran up the wooded path where he’d left her. He found the stained towel on the ground, but no Jenna. Then he spotted a track of dime-sized dollops of fresh blood leading up the path.
He followed it to clearing that opened on the bluff, and from his hiding place behind a boulder, he saw Jenna kneeling close to the edge with Karla standing over her. Karla clasped the handle of the meat cleaver with two hands, holding it chest level near Jenna’s head.
I need a weapon, he thought, and quietly retraced his steps back to the truck. He flipped the seat and found a good-sized wrench tucked between two Farm-Girl porn VHS cases.
Two can play at this game, bitch, he thought as he quietly returned to the wooded path.
* * *
“Please let me help you, Karla. Whatever happened in the past is done,” said Jenna.
Karla’s croaked out in a hoarse whisper. “I want to show you something.”
“Huh?” Jenna’s voice quaked.
“Stand up,” Karla commanded.
“I…I…I”
“I said stand up!”
Jenna obeyed, rising on trembling legs. Bianca’s flesh mask now hung slack on Karla’s face, the blond wig slightly askew, as she gestured toward the lake with the cleaver. Peering over her injured shoulder, Jenna saw that she was only a few steps from the edge of the bluff.
“The lake? Is that what you want to show me, Karla?”
“Uh-huh,” came the sinister whisper, her voice the texture of gravel.
“Mitch is out there isn’t he, Karla?”
“Yup.” The jagged-edged mask, falling slightly from her face, twitched when she spoke.
It revolted Jenna to look at her, but she tried to keep her engaged, to reason with her in some way.
“Guess who else is in the lake?” Karla’s black mules inched forward through the tall grass, pushing Jenna closer to the edge.
Jenna cast her eyes again over her aching shoulder, then back at Karla. “Our…our…” she stammered. “…our parents. Their bodies were never found. That gave you a horrible trauma, Karla, which is why you became...” She hesitated.
Reasoning how any slight against Karla’s sanity or ravaged beauty might provoke her, she switched tactics. “But that can be healed, right? You said so yourself.” Or was that Bianca who said it?
Jenna looked out to where the soft, slippery grass gave way to sky, wondering in a mad moment whether she should just jump and get it over with.
“Some things can never be healed,” said Karla, now so close to her that Jenna could feel the heat from her body radiating through her chiffon gown. In her peripheral vision she spotted Warren crouching low through the tall grass, creeping up on them slowly.
“You think our parents’ death was an accident?” Karla continued, a low laugh issued from behind the mask. “Oh Jenna, you were always so gullible.”
“What…what do you mean?”
“Want to know the truth?” A breeze picked up the skirt of Karla’s gown, swirling it around her like a black cloud.
Jenna didn’t want to know, although in her heart she already did. She had always known it; perhaps they all had—a truth too horrible to contemplate. Jenna’s knees buckled and she sank to the ground. She couldn’t bear to hear what was coming next.
“Karla, no,” Jenna whispered. “You couldn’t have…not even you.”
“It’s true, Jenna,” Karla said, her voice calm, wistful. She lowered the heavy meat cleaver and rested it against her thigh. “I was poking around in their papers one day—remembering that filing cabinet that was off-limits to us? Well,” She snorted. “Nothing was off-limits to me. A few weeks before we left for camp I found something very, very special: a life insurance policy for one hundred thousand dollars naming me, the oldest, as the beneficiary.”
Karla looked out over the lake, the surface now tinted blood red as the sun hovered low on the horizon. “I heard the weather report on the radio, and waited for the right moment and then it came…just like magic. I swam out to the boat. I left a paddle there for that express purpose. I hit father first.”
“Oh my God!” Jenna sobbed from the ground.
Karla continued as if in a trance. “He fell in the water, unconscious. Mother came next. She begged for her life. I laughed and hit her as hard as I could. I felt her head cave in. Then I cut the sail into the wind and the boat capsized…It was all so ea
sy.”
“No, Karla.” Jenna’s voice was a tremulous whisper.
“I knew that horny fool, Dave what’s-his-face, would fish me out. Remember him, Jenna? I know you do.” Her voice was mocking, horrible. “It all worked out just like I planned and everyone believed me.” She turned to Jenna again, her voice vulnerable suddenly, almost a plea. “You see. I am a good actress.”
From the corner of her eye, Jenna saw Warren moving closer, but trained her eyes, forcibly back to Karla. “I…I…I know you are. You’re a star. The biggest star in the world.”
Karla’s nodded solemnly at Jenna’s reassurance, as if it were a given fact and said, “I got the money. And I learned I could get anything I want with money, with power. I got away from all of you. And with that money I made a life for myself. No one ever knew about it. Not our stupid aunt and uncle, not our family attorney...I let him do things to me…” Karla chuckled to herself as she casually waved the meat cleaver like a scythe across the blades of tall grass. “Men are so easy to control once you understand that it’s all about their dicks.” She choked out a laugh, then addressed Jenna as if she were imparting an important slice of wisdom on her younger sibling. “You never learned that, Jenna…it’s not rocket science.”
Another ugly laugh transformed into an agonized groan as Karla let the cleaver drop to the soft ground, and bowing her head said, “I thought I could buy everything…except…except…”
“Except goodness, Karla. You can’t buy that.” Warren stood in the grass behind her. “Now your outside is as rotten as your insides always were.”
Karla spun towards him with a growl and reached for the meat cleaver, but this time Warren was quicker. He swung the large wrench, striking her in the upper chest. Stunned, she staggered backwards towards the drop. With a instinct she didn’t know she possessed until that moment, Jenna kicked with both legs from the ground, hitting Karla square in the abdomen. Karla teetered on the edge for moment—her hands clawing at the air—before she disappeared into the orange sky.
Seconds later they heard a loud splash. They looked down from atop the steep bluff and saw Karla struggling in the water, her arms frantic, making choppy white circles all around her. Her head slipped below the water. When she resurfaced seconds later, the wig and mask were gone and her true face was exposed. Only it wasn’t a face. Just a skull with a few pieces of skin tightly stretched over its surface, her once luxurious hair now a few thin yellow strands, wet and flattened against her bony knob of bald skull.
From the lake they heard a shrill scream. “Jenna! Warren! Help me!”
Warren fought back a surge of admiration for her fighting spirit. He had heard Karla’s confession, and although it pained him to see any living thing suffer, he realized with a sobering decisiveness that he did not want her to live anymore.
Karla disappeared again; neither of them breathed. When she resurfaced, Jenna screamed—Karla had somehow shed the gown that was pulling her under. Naked now, she knifed through the water with strong strokes towards the edge of the lake.
But just as she reached the shallow water and was struggling to stand, Mitch’s bloated body surfaced—the outstretched arms pushed Karla from behind, causing her to topple backwards into his stiff embrace.
Then came a screech so loud and shrill that Jenna placed her palms over her ears to blot it out. Two skeletons, pure white against the dark water and cleaned of all flesh, had appeared on either side of Mitch’s body. The grinning skulls that were once their parents’ loving faces moved in on Karla, catching their favorite daughter in a net of bone and rotting flesh.
A swift current moved them out to deep water, and the three corpses slowly pulled her under.
Karla, fighting and screaming all the way, shot one white hand towards the sky, then disappeared. A few bubbles rose to the surface. Then silence.
Warren and Jenna fell to the ground, weeping in each other’s arms as the last sliver of red vanished on the lake’s horizon and the cool night rolled in.
18
The stolen truck brought the local police; and once Jenna’s condition was noted, an ambulance. She was taken to the nearest hospital, ten miles from White Wolf Camp into the town of Danbury.
Warren stayed to explain—attempt to anyway—exactly what had happened. After the first dispatch went out, a county detective name Robert Duffy who’d been called in during a hunting trip immediately took control of the scene. Within an hour, the camp was overrun with squad cars from several neighboring counties and two rescue boats from across the lake to assist with the search. The bright floodlights mounted on top of trucks dotted the perimeter of the lake, and the sirens, radios, and general noise sent the birds and other wildlife deep into the forest.
Warren was astounded by the response. Where the hell were these assholes when we needed them?
Observing Duffy's double chin, thin mustache and greasy hair parted low on one side of his head, Warren summed him up as a hillbilly Hitler—the type of local specimen conceived after a night of binge drinking at Tappy’s. But, seeing how the man was heavily armed—one pistol on his belt, the other peeking out from a shoulder holster beneath a camouflage jacket—Warren cooperated politely, informing him that it was probably best to show him what happened rather than attempt to explain. Eying him with cold suspicion, Duffy instructed Warren to lead him and several of the officers to the lodge.
Wolf House, now encased in complete darkness and disquieting stillness—its spires jutting into the nearly black night sky—appeared more sinister than Warren had ever seen it. Putting his fears to rest, he crossed the dark threshold and led the officers inside.
Using their flashlights, they immediately located the fuse box near the kitchen and with the flick of a switch restored the lodge to its previous warmth and color. Under the lights, Duffy noted Warren’s disheveled and bloodstained appearance and instructed an officer to wait by the door while Warren changed into slacks, sneakers, and a sweater. Another cop collected the discarded articles of clothing and placed them in a plastic bag while Warren gave Duffy and his men a tour of the carnage, starting in the basement.
One of the officers whistled through bucked teeth at the grisly tableau inside the operating room. The commencing hours had caused the blood surrounding the bodies of Dr. Weiss and Jan to coagulate, and their skin to change from pink to sickly gray. Warren explained how he and Jenna had found them like that, and offered his theory about what happened.
“So you say?” Duffy snorted, exchanging glances with the men whose rank seemed to multiply as time went on. Biting his tongue, Warren continued the tour leading Duffy and the other officers to the stretchers where the bodies of Anne and Chrissie still laid.
A lank-haired woman in a black pantsuit appeared on the scene and began taking photographs. Warren noted the way she deferred to Duffy, lightly touching his arm when she spoke to him, and guessed they were a couple or at least secretly fucking, but quickly banished the repulsive thought from his mind. He bristled when a cop pulled back the sheet and the woman began photographing Anne’s body. He noticed the smell of rot and moved to the hall to keep from vomiting.
“The others are in the west wing suite,” Warren said weakly, after the officers cleared the room.
“You mean there’s more?” Duffy said, with a short, ugly laugh.
Warren nodded, his face blanching. All he wanted was to get this over with and get home to Peter. Peter! He would call him the first chance he got. He’d need a week to explain it all. They would take an extended vacation, relax in the sun, eat great food, and talk about all the things Warren wanted to tell him. It would all work out for them because he was free. Yes, finally free of Karla. The thought made him laugh out loud.
“Something wrong, there, Mr. Mancusi?” Duffy moved in close, the remnants of a recent junk food meal evident on his breath.
“Uh no, sorry. I’m just tired,” Warren answered, suppressing his gag reflex.
Warren brought the burgeoning group to the
secret door in the west wing, which inspired a ricochet of furtive glances among them, then to Karla’s suite where they found the bodies of Bianca and Jorgé. One cop and the photographer stayed to examine the room.
Ten minutes later Warren was standing by the edge of the lake with Duffy and crew, pointing to the bluff from where Karla had fallen and drowned. The area was by now brightly lit, some spots roped off with yellow tape. A general feeling of chaos and excitement permeated the cool night air.
“You’ll find my brother Mitch in the lake as well,” Warren said, lighting a cigarette he had bummed from one of the older female cops, the only kind face he detected in the bunch. It was the first time he had smoked in years and, despite the dizzying head rush, he welcomed the sudden jolt of chemical energy.
“So, how’d ya get that cut on your hand again?” Duffy asked, his tone mocking, his eyes never leaving Warren’s face.
Warren took a long drag on his cigarette and turned to meet Duffy’s gaze, holding it steady. “I told you. I cut my hand when I broke the window trying to get to the basement.”
“Uh-huh.” Duffy looked back over the lake, “And the two drowned in the lake there…”
“It’s four actually.”
“Four!”
“You’ll find my parents there too. They died over thirty years ago. Karla killed them.”
“And this Karla person is your sister, the ‘big pop star’,” Duffy stated, using his fingers to make quotes in the air. “That Karla is in the lake.”
“Yes! Yes! For Christ’s sake, how many times do I have to tell you?” Warren flicked his cigarette into the weeds.
“Now calm down, Mr. Mancusi. I’m just trying to get all the facts here. Now, can you tell me again…”
* * *
Warren woke the following morning on the same sofa he had drunkenly occupied two nights before, although it seemed like a century ago and he certainly felt a century older. Duffy had kept him up most of the night barraging him with the same questions, and always returning to the cut on his hand. A woman officer who had slipped him a cigarette the night before now handed him a cup of coffee with a wink. He smiled at her and sipped it gratefully. The hot brew and the cheerful morning sunlight spreading over the floorboards warmed him instantly.
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