THE TRAP

by Tabitha King

She clambered to the top of an outcropping of rock and stared into the woods in every direction.

  “Travis!” she shouted.

  His name echoed back at her from the woods. She slid down the rock and paced, her throat tightening.

  And then there was a low growl, and he leapt at her from behind, knocking her facedown.

  His arms around her knees told her instantly it was Travis, but it was not enough to stop her screaming, or the flare of terror in her gut. She rolled over in the snow and grabbed him under the armpits.

  “You little bastard!” she shouted in anger, and then hugged him, and laughed.

  He wrapped his arms tightly around her neck, and kissed her, and said, voice atremble, “I’m sorry, Liv.”

  She kissed him back, and sat up. “Goddamn, you scared me.”

  He grinned. “Did I?”

  She snatched off his cap and ruffled his hair. “You know it.”

  His face lit in delight.

  She pushed him off and stood up. “Let’s go sliding, kid, before this snow buries us.”

  “Woooo-eeee!” Travis shouted and tossed his cap into the air.

  The hill sloping down to the old Dexter house was nigh on to perfect for sliding. Liv was sure Miss Alden wouldn’t mind. It might be technically trespassing, but it was just sliding, as harmless a thing as a trespasser could do. The old stone house, windows blanked by its shutters, stood forbidding as a tombstone between the shore and the orchard. The snow had risen over the raw-looking bricked-up cellar windows and had erased the driveway. Clearly, no one had been around for weeks, perhaps months.

  Liv decided to drop Miss Alden a note to tell her the place was undisturbed. It might make her feel better to know the vandals hadn’t struck, at least not yet.

  An hour or so of this, she thought, pushing Travis off on his first trip down the hill, then they would have to go to the village for more milk and orange juice and a newspaper. He screamed ecstatically all the way to the bottom.

  “Here I come, Commie dog!” she shouted to him, and threw herself belly down onto her sled.

  Travis jumped up and down. “Come and get me!” he screamed.

  Chapter 10

  Screaming engines shattered the midday quiet. Roaring over the frozen lake, they threw extravagant plumes of snow into the balmy air as they chased one another in playful circles and figure eights, like skaters. The men astride them hollered and whooped. From the Narrows, the three machines raced all out toward North Bay.

  On the shore behind them remained the trailer on which they had transported the snow machines, the truck that had drawn it, and Arden Nighswander, sitting in the cab, watching them go. He cupped his hand around a cigarette to light it, though there was no breeze entering at the open window to threaten the flame of his match. Nighswander bent his head to the Camel, drew it, then looked up and around, as if he thought someone was going to try to take the cigarette away from him. The snow machines had grown small and indistinguishable in the white distance. Nighswander grunted, then started the truck and drove away, leaving the trailer on the shore. The sound of engines, truck and snow machines, faded away, and that place was quiet again.

  The snow machines sped straight up the lake for several miles, until the shore flattened and became continuous with the surface of the lake at Merrill Beach, the northerly of the town’s two public beaches. Rand Nighswander led his brother and stepbrother on their machines onto a path through the woods. Except that Rand wore an army surplus camouflage jacket, it was hard to tell them one from the other in their identical black ski masks and dark snowmobile suits, moving as fast as they were. In the depth of woods that speed also rendered anonymous, trees and brush and rock blurred into something like walls on either side of the path. The machines, too, were nearly identical, though the Nighswander brothers’ were a little heavier and more powerful than Gordy Teed’s. The trees grew younger and closer together, the brush scrubbier, the rocks bigger, so the machines were forced to slow.

  One by one they left the cover of the woods and entered the clearing that was the Winslows’ backyard. The lawn furniture and picnic table were stored away, the Winslows’ motorboat tucked underneath the porch of the cottage. The shades were drawn. The driveway had not been plowed since the first snow, as the Winslows belonged to the school of summer residents who took it as a tenant that a plowed driveway only made things easier for the thieves, and the fire department would never get there before the place was cinders anyway. The most recent snow had been tracked only by squirrels and coons and foxes passing through, though under that was buried the shuffling, heavy snowshoe tread of Walter McKenzie who had checked the Winslows’ cottage the day before yesterday.

  Rand Nighswander stilled his engine and dismounted his machine. He looked over the property as if he had just come into proud ownership.

  “Ricky,” he said, “look under the house for the motor to that boat.”

  “Asshole can do that,” Ricky said.

  Rand poked his brother’s elbow almost gently. “He’s liable to drop it and break it.”

  Gordy slouched and whined.

  Ricky Nighswander shrugged and made for the porch.

  Rand and Gordy strolled up the steps and onto the porch. Rand paused and looked around, then kicked the door in with one savage thrust. The door splintered and sagged inward. Gordy giggled.

  Irritation flashed in Rand’s eyes and Gordy swallowed hard.

  Rand stepped through the broken frame into the shaft of daylight it admitted into the gloomy interior of the cottage living room. He unzipped his snowmobile suit and fished a pack of Pall Malls from an inside chest pocket. He shook out a cigarette, inserted it between his lips, and held it there.

  The sheeted furniture on the machine-made braided rug crowded the room like boulders in shallow water. Rand strolled into the kitchen, a narrow galley across a bar at one end. A rooster with an electric clock for a body was over the range. Its greasy black cord hung unplugged from its tail like a broken and bedraggled feather. A trio of calico cozies cut in the shape of curled up cats covered a blender, a toaster, and a coffee maker. Rand opened drawers and poked around in them, until he located a box of wooden kitchen matches. Holding the box in one hand, he extracted a single match, scraped it over the abrasive strip on the side, and hunched over it to light the cigarette. He dropped the matches back into the drawer and slammed it shut, then stood, looking at it thoughtfully.

  Behind him, on the bar, a sectional candy dish formed a glass dachshund. From the other side, Gordy Teed checked each part of the candy dish carefully and found only one elderly Hershey’s Kiss that had melted in its foil wrapping, and a quantity of dead flies.

  “Check the cupboards,” Rand Nighswander told him.

  “Ayuh,” Gordy said in his high voice.

  Rand’s mouth twisted in disgust. He disappeared down a narrow hall toward the cottage bedrooms.

  Gordy cheerfully banged the cupboard doors open and closed until he found the one where the Winslows stored their liquor. Even Gordy could tell it was the liquor cabinet by the bottle rings on the plastic shelf liner. It was otherwise bare.

  “Shitagoddamn,” said Gordy mournfully.

  Rand, with his lips pinched shut on the cigarette, came out of the bedrooms dangling a gun. It was a rust-speckled, nickel-plated Smith & Wesson thirty-two. In his other hand, he cupped a faded, feather-cornered box of thirty-two slugs as delicately as if it were a woman’s breast.

  “They didn’t leave a drop,” Gordy announced. Then he noticed Rand’s find. “Hoo-eee.”

  Rand studied the thirty-two. He took the cigarette out of his mouth. “They didn’t leave anything worth shit,” he said. He shoved the gun and the box of ammo into an interior pocket of his snowmobile suit. He put the cigarette back between his lips.

  A shadow caught his eye. He dropped to his knees and reached into the back of the cupboard. “Hot damn,” he muttered, around the butt, and showed Gordy an unopened bottle of Jim Beam. “The old f
arts missed one.”

  Gordy’s face brightened and he reached for the bottle.

  Rand held it away from him. With two fingers, he removed the cigarette from between his lips, dropped it to the floor, and ground it out with his heel. “Wait a frigging minute. I found it.”

  Gordy’s face fell. “Ayuh,” he said. “That’s true. I guess it’s yours.”

  Rand opened the bottle. Gordy watched him, open-mouthed, as he raised the bottle to his mouth and knocked back a mouthful.

  “Ah,” said Rand.

  “Good, huh?” Gordy said.

  “Ass-kickin’,” said Rand.

  Gordy grinned. “Ass-kickin’,” he said.

  “Piss-cuttin’,” Rand elaborated.

  Gordy nodded and grinned wider. “Piss-cuttin’,” he said delightedly.

  “Blow me for it,” Rand said.

  The excitement went out of Gordy’s face again. He slouched and dug one heavily booted toe into the rug. “Jeez,” he muttered. “What you wanna tease me for, Randy?”

  “ ‘Cause you’re such an asshole,” said Rand. He slugged a little more of the liquor.

  There was muffled cursing and crashing from under the house, then the stomp of boots on the steps and across the porch. Ricky Nighswander thrust his head in at the broken door.

  “That motor’s a piece of shit, Rand,” he said. “I give it the heave-ho.”

  Rand grunted.

  “What’s that you got?” Ricky asked.

  Rand extended the bottle. Ricky had a turn at it.

  “I found it,” Rand said. “Asshole here missed it.”

  Gordy glowered.

  “It was way in the back,” he said.

  Ricky snickered. “So’s your asshole, and you couldn’t find that in broad daylight without a search party.”

  “Jeez,” muttered Gordy.

  “This place is a bust,” said Rand. He drew out the Smith & Wesson and showed it to his brother. “Looks like they sent away for it with them cereal box tops, don’t it? Just the kind of nigger blaster you’d expect that dried-up old cunt to have under her pillow.”

  Ricky laughed.

  Rand returned the gun to his pocket. “Not very kindly of the good ol’ Winslows to leave the cupboard so frigging bare,” Rand said.

  “Nope,” said Ricky.

  “No sirree,” agreed Gordy.

  “Shut up, asshole,” Ricky said.

  “Okay, okay,” Gordy said.

  “Go to it, boys,” Rand said.

  Ricky picked up a barstool and hurtled it through the nearest window. Gordy ducked and came up giggling.

  “Hoo-ee,” he said, and began pitching the sections of the candy dish dog against the walls.

  Rand Nighswander laughed. He lit another cigarette. Once it was pinched between his lips, he took out a hunting knife and began systematically slashing through the sheets that covered the old-fashioned overstuffed furniture and into the upholstery. Wads and tangles of stuffing flew through the air.

  Ricky went into the bedrooms. He could be heard breaking glass and wood. There was a satisfying crash as he landed with both feet on the Winslows’ double bed and it collapsed. Then there was silence.

  Gordy whooped and hurried down the hall to the second bedroom, inspired to break the twin beds that furnished the Winslows’ guestroom.

  Ricky strolled out of the Winslows’ bedroom, pulling up his ski pants. He leaned in at the guestroom door and watched Gordy bound onto the first twin bed. His weight drove the mattress and spring to the floor. The ends of the bed collapsed toward the middle. Gordy clambered out of the broken frame.

  “Left Mizz Winslow something to go with her dog turd collection,” Ricky said.

  Gordy covered his mouth and giggled.

  “Jesus,” Ricky said, rolling his eyes at the ceiling.

  “Let’s get outta here,” Rand shouted at them from the living room.

  They hurried back and found him chugging from the bottle. Motes of chair stuffing still hung in the still air, in the light of the broken door.

  Ricky repeated his remark about leaving something for Claire Winslow’s dog turd collection.

  Rand laughed and handed the bottle to his brother. “You’re a dirty little bastard, Ricky,” he said.

  Ricky grinned happily.

  Rand dropped his cigarette to the floor. He studied it a few seconds before putting his heel to it. “I’d love to leave it lay and torch this hole. Don’t need the frigging fireboys around here this afternoon, though. Not yet.” He stepped through the doorway. “It’s getting colder,” he said. “Give Gordy some of that firewater so he don’t freeze his teensy little pecker off.”

  Gordy reached eagerly for the bottle.

  Ricky held it away from him. “Blow me,” he said.

  Gordy pouted. “Rand says to give me some.”

  “Blow me,” Ricky insisted.

  “Rand,” Gordy said loudly. “Ricky won’t give—”

  Ricky stomped hard on Gordy’s foot.

  Gordy blubbered.

  “Shut up, asshole,” said Ricky.

  “Rand says to give me some,” Gordy insisted. “He says I don’t have to blow you no more.”

  “When’d he say that?” Ricky said. “I didn’t hear him say that.”

  “Rand says—” Gordy began, and Ricky stomped down on his foot again.

  Gordy squealed and danced away from Ricky.

  Rand stood in the doorway. “You jerk-offs,” he said. “Ricky, I said give ‘m some firewater.”

  Ricky passed the bottle reluctantly to Gordy.

  “Don’t get any spit in it,” Ricky said.

  Gordy chugged eagerly.

  “Come on,” Rand said. “It’s starting to snow. I told daddy we’d be back at the landing at four. We got a lot to do before then.”

  “Right,” said Ricky.

  The doorway was empty again, Rand’s boots crunching down the steps.

  Ricky grabbed the bottle away from Gordy and stepped through the doorway. “Blow me,” he said to Gordy conversationally, and was gone.

  “Meany,” Gordy complained, shuffling after him. “Meany, meany Ricky,” he called after him. “Jerk-off,” he muttered. “He’s a dirty little bastard.” Gordy stood on the top step. “I don’t have to blow you,” he shouted. “Rand says so.”

  The Breens’ cottage was much tougher to crack. It was only a few years old and constructed of first-class materials. The two doors, one on the driveway side of the house, and sliding doors on the deck, were both glass, and had bars of iron wedged in the channels to prevent them being opened. Without the police locks, of course, they would have been easy to bust, as the locks in the aluminum frames were soft as the snow.

  The windows were set high, a stretch for a grown man from the ground. On Ricky’s shoulders, Rand was able to break one with a wrench from his snowmobile toolbox and, after clearing the glass shards, boost himself through it and into the house. It felt like hard work by the time he had the police locks out of the channels of the deck doors.

  He let Ricky and Gordy in.

  “This should be rich,” he said. “Be thorough, for once.”

  The living room was a big boxy two-story room with a loft where the bedrooms were. Snow diffused the light admitted by two large skylights in the cathedral ceiling. One end of the room was set up for dining with a round glass table and bamboo-legged chairs. In the near wall was a pass-through into the kitchen. Like the Winslows’, the furniture was sheeted, but it was otherwise very different, all sleek and modern, glass where glass could be used, well-oiled hardwood, shiny chrome, and bright cushions in rough-textured cloth. The living room rug had been rolled and covered in plastic. Ricky slashed the plastic and unrolled it.

  “Nice rug,” he said.

  “Too big to move,” Rand said. “If it were springtime, and we had a truck, yeah.”

  Ricky lifted his knife over the rug and thrust down, screaming “Huh!”

  Gordy, hunkered next to the liq
uor cabinet, jumped. He hooted softly. Turning back to his work, he rummaged with both hands. He hooted again, loudly, and held up a partial bottle of vermouth and another almost full of Triple Sec.

  Rand examined them. He grunted. “They got alcohol in ‘em. That’s all you can say for ‘em.”

  Ricky gave off stabbing and slashing the rug and pounded up the spiral stairs toward the loft bedrooms.

  Gordy unscrewed the cap of the vermouth and tasted it. He rolled it around in his mouth, and swallowed it noisily.

  “It’s okay,” he assured Rand seriously.

  “Sure,” Rand agreed, “if you like that kind of dogpiss.”

  Gordy’s face fell.

  Rand followed Ricky up the spiral stairs.

  He found Ricky in the master bedroom. The bed was round, and there was a mirror on the ceiling. Ricky was alternately patting the mattress and looking at the mirror.

  Rand whistled.

  Ricky sat down on the bed. “Geez,” he said. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Nothing new,” Rand said. “You find anything?”

  Ricky flicked a glance at the mirror. “This,” he said. “Geez, Rand, you ever see yourself screwing in a mirror?”

  Rand swaggered into the room. “Sure.” He stared at the mirror and licked his lips. “Not this one,” he admitted. “I wouldn’t mind it. Too bad the pilot didn’t leave his wife here, too. It wasn’t too neighborly, when you think about it. Get me all hotted up looking at the mirror and nothing handy to screw except you two polecats.”

  Ricky chortled and then frowned. “There’s too many good places to take a dump, in this place. That glass table,” and Ricky held up one finger, “that fancy rug,” and he showed two, “and this bed.”

  Rand laughed. “So you don’t know whether to shit or go blind.”

  Ricky grinned. “Nope.”

  “I have to do all your thinking,” Rand said. “No contest, see.”

  “How’s that?” Ricky asked.

  Rand swatted him lightly across the crown of his head. “How many chances you gonna have to watch yourself shit on a round bed?”

  Ricky’s face lit up. He pounded the bed with both fists ecstatically.