Richard Laymon: Blood Games

All five women looked around and listened.

Other than the quick pounding of her own heartbeat, Abilene heard nothing but sounds from outside: birds chirping and squawking, the sigh of leaves stirred by breezes.

Enough daylight came in for her to see the staircase to her left, an open room beyond it, and the lobby and lounge area to her right. Except for the L-shaped registration desk and the numbered cubby-holes behind it, the huge room was bare.

She supposed that its dark, panelled walls had once been decorated with the heads of deer, with mounted fish and paintings of rustic scenes. There had probably been stuffed raccoons, and such, perched atop the broad wooden rafters. And furniture scattered about. Easy chairs, lamp tables. Maybe even sofas and a rug in front of the broad, stone fireplace. The fireplace, she noticed, was still equipped with andirons, a screen, and a set of fire irons.

Surprising that scavengers hadn’t made off with them, sold them as antiques or taken them home.

She wondered what else might’ve been left behind.

Plenty of time to find out, she thought.

If they wound up spending four whole days here, as planned, they’d get to know this place from top to bottom.

‘It’s pretty decent,’ Cora said, not only breaking the silence but leaving the foyer and walking over the hardwood floor toward the registration desk. ‘It’s not nearly the shambles I expected. Figured there’d be crap all over the place, from the looks of the outside.’

‘Could’ve been a lot worse,’ Vivian admitted. ‘It’s still pretty creepy, though.’

‘It’s supposed to be,’ Helen informed her.

‘I know, I know.’

Cora leaned across the registration desk, stretching over its counter, one leg rising high behind her as she strained to see what was on the other side. She pushed herself away and shook her head.

‘Nothing.’

‘The more nothing, the better,’ Vivian said.

As Cora walked alongside the desk, she glanced down at the front of her white T-shirt and brushed it once, just once, with her open hand. Turning toward the others, she frowned. She plucked at her shirt, pulling it away from her body. She gazed at the taut, slanted cloth.

It didn’t look particularly dirty to Abilene — just a trifle dusty — so, what could be bothering… ‘Uh-oh,’ she muttered.

‘Hey, Viv,’ Cora said. ‘Guess what? You don’t have to worry about soiling your clothes around this place. Not much, anyway.’ She brushed her shirt a couple more times, and the traces of dust vanished. ‘That counter should’ve been filthy.'

‘The maid service must’ve been by,’ Finley said.

'Somebody’s been by,’ Abilene said. ‘From my vast experience with house cleaning, I’d say Cora mopped up less than a week’s worth of dust.’

‘Should’ve been twelve years’ worth,’ Helen pointed out. A corner of her lip curled up.

‘If it’d been that dirty, I would’ve stayed off.’

Abilene turned around, studying the floor. Near the door and windows were some leaves. But not many. And she saw no broken glass, at all, beneath the windows. ‘The floor’s clean, too,’ she said.

Vivian nodded. ‘Obviously, this place isn’t as abandoned as it looks.’

‘The Three Bears must be out for an afternoon stroll,’ Finley said.

Spread out and walking abreast, the five women made their way through the room, skirting the occasional support beams. As she neared the fireplace, Abilene saw that it was clean inside. The stones were black with soot, but there were no ashes or chunks of burnt wood.

Several yards past the end of the registration desk, the room branched out to the left.

‘Must be the dining area,’ Cora said, stepping around the corner.

‘This is where it happened,’ Helen said.

‘Where what happened?’ Vivian asked.

Helen grinned and wiggled her eyebrows up and down. ‘Later. After dark. I’ll tell you all a bedtime story.’

‘We might not be here after dark,’ Vivian said.

‘As long as nobody’s around,’ Cora said, ‘we might as well stay.’

‘Somebody has been here,’ Abilene reminded her.

‘That doesn’t necessarily mean anyone’ll show up while we’re around. And whoever it is might be perfectly harmless.’

‘Well, we’re trespassing.’

‘Just doing some innocent exploration. And the door was open, after all. It’s not as if we broke in.’

‘Besides,’ Helen said, ‘it wouldn’t be fair to quit. This is my choice, and I’ve always gone along with you guys — whether I wanted to or not. I didn’t complain all the time, either,’ she added, eyeing Vivian.

‘I’m still here,’ Vivian pointed out. ‘I’m not a quitter.’

‘Just a complainer,’ Cora said.

‘We do have to be realistic,’ Abilene said. ‘I mean, it’s great to have our little adventures, but on the other hand we don’t want to get our asses killed. Things do happen, you know. And this place looks a little hinky to me. I’m not saying we should call it quits, but we’ve gotta be damned careful. Someone was here within the past few days. Someone might be here right now.’

‘Oh, I hope so,’ Helen said, leering.

This from the gal, Abilene thought, who is petrified by the idea of taking a shower alone .

Helen hadn’t changed much, in that regard, since her encounter with the phantom hand in her freshman year at Belmore.

After the night of Finley’s escapade, Helen had taken showers frequently. Not always with Abilene, but always with someone. Often, she’d returned dry, having turned back after discovering the shower room to be deserted. Better to wait than to risk the lights going off, an extra hand touching her in the dark.

Later, during the three years when they all share a rented house on Summer Street, she hadn’t insisted on having a companion in the tub with her. She hadn’t even asked. It would’ve been tight quarters, for one thing. She’d admitted it. And she’d always locked herself in the bathroom.

Even last night at the Wayfarer’s Haven in Burlington, Helen had insisted that either Abilene or Finley remain in the room while she bathed. Abilene had stayed behind. Finley had gone ahead without her to have drinks and snacks in the room shared by Cora and Vivian.

So she was a young woman pursued by terror, and yet here she was, putting on a show of bravado about the more immediate threat of running into a stranger in a desolate lodge in the middle of nowhere.

Well, Abilene thought, there are five of us. She damn sure wouldn’t be acting this way if she were alone.

But Abilene wondered if any of this was real to Helen. The phantom hand in the shower room had been very real. Whenever Helen was in the midst of an adventure, however, she behaved as if she considered the dangers imaginary. As if she were a character in a movie or something, and nothing bad could actually happen to her.

As Abilene entered the kitchen behind Cora and Helen, she realized that Helen wasn’t the only one with a carefree attitude about the adventures.

Finley, too, seemed cheerfully reckless.

In Finley’s case, however, it was more than empty bravado. The girl was audacious, intrepid to the bone.

‘Now let’s calm down, everyone,’ Finley said as Cora grabbed the front of her tank top and yanked her up.

‘No need for violence,’ she said as Cora drove her across the room and rammed her back against a wall between two of the showers.

‘Is my camera okay?’ she asked as Cora clutched her throat.

Abilene had picked it up.

She located Cora and Finley in the viewfinder. ‘I guess it’s all right,’ she said.