by Max Barry
“Trade cycles,” he said, and smiled, and was cute, in this moment, with the orange sun softening his skin, his hair matted, his silly green swimming shorts clinging to his legs. Maddie was still fuzzy from the O-gasm, not a lot, just enough to make things more fluid, and she was stretched out in a towel on a carpet of warm sand. Maybe this was her ground. This right here, with the water and the seabirds and the rest of the world so far away she couldn’t even hear it.
Zar screamed and pelted by, her feet digging into the earth, Jorge pursuing. Both were laughing. They passed close enough to spray Maddie and Liam with sand, then vanished into the path through the woods. Soon they were swallowed by the shadows, which had become impenetrable since the sun had dipped below the tree line.
Liam brushed away sand. “Should we go back?”
“No,” she said, speaking and deciding at the same time. She shuffled closer, moving awkwardly on her elbows. Then she was against him. She tipped back her head. His lips were soft and tentative. It was a kind of kiss she hadn’t experienced in so long, she’d forgotten it existed: exploratory, reverent. She had become accustomed to late-relationship Trent kisses, which were perfunctory, or else demanding. Oh, my, she thought. She hadn’t intended for this to be anything—hadn’t any plans beyond the moment—but that was rapidly changing. She might actually do more of this. His fingers brushed her shoulder, and the sensation was electric. She smiled, but that broke it, her silly stretched lips.
She took the opportunity to push herself up on her arms and look both ways to make sure they weren’t scandalizing any impressionable lake-goers. To her right was empty gleaming sand. To her left, at the edge of the woods, stood a man.
She sat bolt upright. The man disappeared. It was dark; he’d been a hundred yards away. But he’d been watching, she was sure.
Liam sat up, twisting to follow her gaze. “What is it?”
Just a random person at the lake, she thought. Not the same guy. People come and go; there’s nothing unusual about a man stopping to—
“Did you see something? Was it the guy who’s been following you?”
“No,” she said, although she wasn’t a hundred percent sure. “I don’t know.”
Liam’s eyes searched hers. “Let’s go back to the house.”
He stood and offered her his hand. She took it, feeling bad about this, as if she really were a teenager again. You can’t lead a boy on, they had believed back then: If you got a boy excited, you were responsible for what happened next. They get blue balls, a girlfriend had told her during a sleepover, in complete seriousness. She still remembered the girl’s somber face. It’s like a serious medical condition. She wanted to go back in time and shake that girl, and herself, until they gained some sense.
The path was steep, slipperier than it had been earlier. Liam toggled his phone light and still she couldn’t see more than twenty feet into the woods. On the way down, she had delighted in the isolation, but there was another aspect to that, she was appreciating now: There was no one around to help you.
A light bobbed toward them. “Is that you guys?” came Zar’s voice. Maddie called back, full of relief, but when Zar stepped into the light, her expression was flat and scared. “What color was the car you saw? With the man inside?”
“Light blue.”
Zar took her hand. “I think he was here.”
What? Maddie tried to say, but the word didn’t go anywhere. Zar began to lead them up the hill.
“We came up the path and he was backing out. Like he didn’t realize there was a house at the end of the drive. We didn’t get a good look at him, the lights were in our eyes, but it was a big dude, with a thick beard. Is that the guy?”
“Yes,” Maddie said. Something had settled badly in her gut. Something she had carried with her, maybe, but maybe not: She was starting to think that this was less a case of carrying her fear and more a case of being rightfully terrified that someone was after her.
The house appeared in bright, cheery slices through the trees. Inside, Zar and Maddie went to the gray sofa. “You want me to call the police?” Zar said.
Another super situation: A cop looking at her while she explained, I saw a man, and then I think I saw him again, and my friend saw a man and maybe he was the same one? But that was better than huddling here as the night closed in, hoping she was wrong. She nodded.
Zar fetched her phone. “Hello,” she said, her voice calm and measured. Zar was good with voice; it was an underrated part of acting. “We have a little situation here.” As she began to explain, every word made Maddie feel better. We have a little situation. Yes. That was what it was. They were informing the police. All of that was fine and reasonable.
There were thumps on the front steps and Jorge clattered inside, his hair wild, eyes wide. Zar covered the phone. “Did you find him?”
Jorge shook his head. “Who are you talking to?”
“The cops.”
“You called the cops?”
“Shh,” said Zar. She spoke to the phone again, then put it down. “They’re sending someone around.”
“Thank you,” Maddie said.
Zar nodded. “Crazy bearded stalkers following you from the city? We can’t have that.”
“You saw a beard?” Jorge said. “I didn’t see a beard.” He walked to the kitchen, retrieved a beer, and opened it. A bottle cap fell somewhere.
“You didn’t see a beard?” Zar said. “I saw a beard.”
Jorge set down his bottle and went into the hallway. When he returned, he had a blue baseball bat. “For if he comes back.” He flipped it left and right.
“You’re about to break something,” Zar said.
“I’m going to go see if he’s out there.”
“No,” said Zar. “The cops will show and you’ll be waving a bat around in the dark. Sit down.”
Jorge dropped into a chair, the bat across his thighs.
“Let’s just chill. This is not the time for you to go acting the hero. Look how freaked out she is.” She flapped a hand at Maddie.
“It is like a movie,” Liam said suddenly. “It’s . . .” He trailed off, embarrassed.
“What?” said Zar.
Liam shook his head. “Just something we were talking about earlier.”
Zar looked from Liam to Maddie. “What’s like a movie?”
“This is,” Maddie said. “Four people go to the lake and there’s a psycho.”
“Oh, shit,” said Jorge. “A slasher pic!”
“Do you mind?” said Zar. “Shame on you. And you, Liam.”
“Sorry,” Liam said, and he did look shamefaced.
“No more of this talk. Have some sympathy for my girl.”
“It’s fine,” Maddie said. The movie talk was her fault, after all; she had brought it with her from Brooklyn. And better to have it out; it sounded less plausible from other people’s lips. It sounded as ridiculous as it was. In real life, people weren’t pursued by random psychopaths they didn’t know. They weren’t chased and killed for no reason.
“We’ll play Boggle or something,” Zar said. “Don’t tell me there isn’t a cupboard filled with puzzles and shit in here.”
We’ll play Truth or Dare, Maddie thought helplessly. Or a drinking game or strip poker. Then we’ll split up to explore and—
“We have Parcheesi,” Jorge said, rising from the chair. His eyes shifted over Maddie’s head and froze.
She turned. Beyond the glass was the empty porch, the Jeep parked sideways on a patch of scrubby grass, trees moving in the night. Nothing else.
“I just saw him,” Jorge said. “The fucker is out there.”
He sprang to the door and wrenched it open. Zar cried out. Maddie heard Jorge’s footsteps pound across the porch, then a thump as if he’d leaped the railing and landed on the grass. Zar ran outside, Liam followed, and al
l of a sudden Maddie was alone on the sofa. She went after the others and found Zar leaning over the porch railing. Liam was on the grass. Jorge was nowhere. In the trees, she heard crashing and breaking of twigs.
“Liam!” Jorge roared from somewhere in the dark. “Liam, I got him!”
Maddie didn’t call him back, didn’t say anything at all, and Liam ran into the darkness, and she should have tried to stop him, she thought. But events were moving on a track, beyond her control, like frames in a film. Liam called Jorge’s name. Then someone cried out, a male voice, but belonging to whom, Jorge or Liam or a third person, Maddie couldn’t tell. The noises quieted, becoming a rustling.
“Jorge?” Zar called. “Liam?” She threw a helpless look to Maddie. But Maddie was no help; she was stuck in the frames.
The rustling is the man walking toward us. He steps out of the darkness, holding something, an ax or a knife. He is no one I know, but still, he wants to kill me.
Liam emerged from the trees. Flushed with relief, Maddie started down the porch steps. But by the time she passed the Jeep, she could see that something was wrong. His head was tilted. He was holding his neck. There was a darkness splashed across his chest, stomach, and shorts. He was bleeding, she saw. He was bleeding everywhere.
Behind him, in the woods, the crack of breaking twigs.
“Run,” Liam croaked.
Fear spiked her limbs. The Jeep was right beside her, unlocked, most likely, but the keys could be anywhere: on a countertop, in a drawer, on a shelf beside the conch shell, wherever Jorge had left them, even in his pockets, in the dark. The house was bright and tempting, but she had seen that movie, the one where the girl cowered in the tasteful bathroom, trying not to whimper, as the killer moved about the house, trying doors one by one, and as Zar clattered down the steps, Maddie caught her hand and pulled her in the opposite direction, away from the trees, away from the sounds, from Liam, toward the road.
A branch reached out and brushed her cheek. Zar was screaming, a raw, animalistic noise of fear, and some part of Maddie’s brain tucked this away for future reference: This is what real fear sounds like. She stumbled over something unseen, and Zar hissed, “Go,” as if Maddie were hesitating, as if she’d been about to say, I think we should go back for Liam, and she had not; she had definitely not; she was very, very much being a coward on that score. She ran with Zar until they broke onto paved road, where the trees parted to permit starlight. A hundred yards ahead stood a yellow streetlight. There were mailboxes and driveways, and were there people at the end? She couldn’t be sure.
“Go,” Zar said again, tugging her up the road.
She had the idea that Zar was thinking of the police. There was only one road: If the police were on their way, they would meet. The road curved uphill. She began to tire. Her teeth chattered.
“Come on,” Zar said. She was fitter than Maddie, apparently. “We have to keep going.”
She could see all the way back to the first streetlight. The road was clear. She should have been able to see anyone chasing them. Maybe she could go back to Liam.
“Come on,” Zar said, pulling at her. “Come on, come on, come on.”
They reached the main road. She saw two cars pass by, one after the other, and Zar hollered and waved her arms and gave a shriek of frustration when they didn’t stop. She chased them down the road. Maddie went after her, her lungs burning. After a few minutes, Zar began to glow, and Maddie turned to see headlights blooming. They stopped and waved, but the car only moved to the opposite side of the road and flew by.
Maddie took Zar’s hand. They were playing it wrong, she realized. For a car to stop, Maddie had to be Regular Young Woman in Need of Some Assistance, not what she and Zar had played thus far, which was something like Crazed Female Drug Addict Wants to Attack Your Vehicle. When the next car approached, she pulled Zar to the side of the road. She paused and raised one arm, adopting what she hoped was a plausible mix of entreaty and embarrassment.
The car slowed and stopped twenty feet ahead. Zar gave an exhalation like a sob and began to run toward it, but Maddie held her back, because Regular Young Woman had no motivation to run. They reached the passenger door. A horrible thought flashed across Maddie’s mind: At the wheel would be the bearded man. But the car was not light blue and the driver was not bearded. He was perfectly regular-looking: young, surprised, wearing long pants and a button-up shirt. He peered at them. “Are you guys okay?”
“Not really,” she said, and was relieved at the timbre of her voice, which was steady and not too full of panic. “Do you mind giving us a ride?”
“Where to?”
She didn’t know the name of the next town. She pointed the way the car was going. “That way.” He looked unsure, so she added, “We’re really cold.”
That part didn’t require acting; they were both shaking. The guy nodded. There was something on the passenger seat, some kind of crate, but that was fine; she wanted to sit in the back with Zar anyway. She pulled open the door and piled inside. The guy checked his mirrors. She wanted to tell him to drive, please, go, but Regular Young Woman had no motivation to say that. Zar turned in her seat to stare out the rear window.
“Seat belts on, thanks,” said the guy.
“Oh,” Maddie said. “Yes.” She nudged Zar, who started. “Seat belt.” Zar’s fingers were shaking so badly that Maddie had to help her. “It’s okay,” she murmured. “We’re okay.”
The car pulled out. “Guy trouble?” said the guy. His eyes met hers in the rearview mirror.
She nodded. “Thank you so much for picking us up.”
“No problem.” He looked at her again in the mirror. “Were you on the lake this afternoon? I think I saw you earlier.”
“Yes,” she said, although she didn’t remember him. She had clocked a middle-aged couple, a family, a dog, and some teenagers. Not this guy.
“You and your boyfriend,” he said. “On the sand.”
This was the man she’d seen watching her from the tree line, she realized. At the time, she’d suspected it was the bearded man who’d followed her in the city. But no. Just a random dude. Watching her and Liam. “Is it possible I could use your—”
“Was that you? With your boyfriend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she said, thrown.
“Oh. My mistake.” He was silent. “So I guess you’re just kind of a slut.”
She felt poleaxed. Like he’d driven something through her. Not a completely unknown sensation. She was ten years old, dancing outside with her friends; a boy they encouraged to join in but instead chose to sit stewing on the grass: Everyone could see your underpants. Sixteen, a house party; a girl rolling her eyes: Madison is flirting with evvv-ery-body. Twenty-one, tottering in heels and a sparkly dress to a bar with two friends; a man old enough to be her father watching them pass: Whores. Each time, that feeling of being punctured. Was that where the expression came from, to burst your bubble? It felt that way: like a bright clean exterior dissolving in a heartbeat. It wasn’t air that came out, though, but something sick and small and dirty.
She said, “What did you say?”
“I just don’t think girls should act like that with a guy who isn’t their boyfriend.” His eyes flicked to hers in the mirror. “If you want my opinion.”
A piece of her brain broke. Now? Here? She was fleeing for her life and Liam was badly hurt, stabbed, she thought, and Jorge as well, and this guy wanted to shame her? She glanced at Zar, but Zar was staring out the rear window, paying no attention to the conversation. The guy’s eyes were assessing her in the mirror. She needed to keep her mouth shut; needed to nod and say, Yes, you’re right, until they reached a town, with light, and people, and safety. But it was too much. It was too fucking much. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Our friends have been stabbed. Someone’s after us. A man. He called my apartment and follo
wed us from the city.”
“Hugo,” the driver said. “You don’t need to worry about him anymore. We lost him.”
She froze. He knew the other man? She couldn’t imagine how.
Although . . .
You never saw who stabbed Liam.
Jorge had seen a face through the window. A bearded face, Maddie had assumed. But that wasn’t necessarily true. Jorge could have seen this guy, the guy driving the car she was in right now. He could have stabbed them both, walked back to his car, and driven after her and Zar.
“Stop the car, please,” she said.
The guy exhaled through his nostrils. “Really?”
Zar clutched at her. “No. Maddie. What are you doing?”
“I want you to stop the car,” she said, using her assertive voice, which she more commonly deployed for queens and family matriarchs. Occasionally for an imperious southern lady.
“I mean, I will if you want,” he said. “Are you sure?”
“No!” Zar’s fingers tightened on Maddie’s forearm. “Maddie, no!”
“Let us out.”
“Okay,” said the guy. The indicator began to flash. The car slid to the right and the tires began to chew stone. “It’s your choice.”
“Listen to me,” Maddie told Zar, trying to untangle her fingers. “Zar. We have to go.”
Zar’s eyes searched hers. She didn’t understand what was happening. She was scared as shit, Maddie saw. But she was going to trust her.
“I mean, it’s your funeral,” said the guy.
There was a soft noise: clank. Maddie turned. A silver tray jutted from the passenger seat. The crate she’d glimpsed earlier on the passenger seat was a box, with levels. On some of the levels lay mundane objects: hair, ribbon, earrings, a dull metal block. The guy turned and pushed a bright knife into Zar’s chest as easily as if he were posting mail.
The blade came out red. Maddie screamed. Zar looked down at herself. Blood pulsed from a thin incision. Her mouth worked. She tried to cover it and blood flowed over her hands. She turned and tried to work the door handle. Her hand slipped. She looked back at the guy and then at Maddie and her eyes were full of confusion and fear but also, it seemed to Maddie, betrayal, as if Maddie had done this somehow. She tried to speak and blood burst on her lips in a fat red bubble.