Richard Laymon - Blood Games

Nothing to do now but wait, she thought.

It felt good to be lying down.

If I could only fall asleep. Get away from all this. At least for a while .

‘Maybe we should have Jim tell us about Helen,’ Cora said.

‘What about her?’ Finley asked.

‘Hank told him… how he got her.’

‘Jeez,’ Finley muttered.

‘I don’t think I want to know,’ Vivian said. ‘We saw what he did to her. We don’t have to hear about it.’

‘Not sure I wanta talk about it anyhow,’ Jim said. ‘Made me just sick, him tellin’ me. Had me lickin’ his eyes, ’n he was moanin’ ’n rubbin’ me the whole time. It was awful. But that’s when I made up my mind I had to save the rest of ya. I’ll help ya kill him, if ya let me.’

‘We’ll do the killing,’ Finley said.

‘You’ve already helped us a lot,’ Vivian said. ‘Just by telling us about him. Now we know who we’re up against.’

‘Especially about his eyes,’ Cora added. ‘It’s good to know he can’t operate in light.’

‘He can see like a cat in the dark,’ Jim said.

‘We oughta go for his eyes with the flashlights,’ Finley suggested.

She really does believe, Abilene thought.

And pictured herself and Finley shining flashlights into Hank’s eyes. He is a huge man, pale in the darkness. Very pale. An albino. Did Jim say he was an albino? And hairless. And holding a big knife. He is wearing a loincloth. Like a redskin from the movies, but he’s white, not red. White as the belly of a fish.

When they shine the light in his eyes, he roars and staggers backward and flings up his arms, trying to block the painful brightness. He acts… like The Thing. Not The Thing from the remake, but the real one. James Amess. When he’s being zapped. Bellowing with rage and pain, writhing and twitching like a lunatic dancer.

Doing the Mash.

The Monster Mash.

‘The Monster Mash is a graveyard…’

Abilene flinched awake, opened her eyes, and what she saw made her insides shrivel.

Vivian. Crouched beside her. A hand on her shoulder.

Vivian. But not the way Abilene wanted to see her. Not at all.

Her tangled hair, usually auburn gleaming with red and gold highlights, looked dull brown. The whites of her eyes were blue like snow in evening shadows. Her sunburnt face was dusky, her white polo shirt gray.

But not as gray as the sky.

‘It’s time,’ Vivian told her.

Not what Abilene wanted to hear.

‘Time to rise ’n shine, Sleeping Beauty,’ Finley said.

Abilene groaned. She pulled her hands out from under her head. They felt lifeless. So did her rump. Even her feet, crossed at the ankles, were a little numb.

She uncrossed them, sat up and shook her arms and legs.

‘Guess I conked out for a while,’ she muttered, and felt shivery as hot, prickly sensations spread through her feet and fingers and buttocks.

‘More than a while,’ Cora said.

‘You didn’t miss much,’ Vivian told her, standing up.

Abilene got to her feet. She hopped a few times, wincing. She rubbed her rump through the damp denim skirt. ‘I don’t recommend falling asleep on concrete,’ she said.

‘Pins and needles?’ Vivian asked.

‘With a vengeance.’ Also, her skin felt itchy under the knife scabbard. Even though she hadn’t been sleeping on it, the moist leather had been tight against her hip and thigh ever since she’d taken it from Batty.

She drew out the big knife. Its sheath remained against her skin as if glued there. She reached beneath her skirt and pulled, grimacing as it peeled away.

She slid the blade into its holder, then rubbed her irritated skin.

‘At least you got some rest,’ Vivian told her.

‘Wish I could’ve fallen asleep,’ Finley said. She was sitting on the hood of the Wagoneer, her feet on the bumper. The shotgun rested across her lap.

Who let her have the shotgun? Abilene wondered.

‘I guess I must’ve missed something,’ she said. She shoved the covered knife under the waistband at the other side of her skirt. Its tip caught her panties and pushed them down. Turning away from Jim, she hitched them back up. Then she frowned at Finley. ‘How come you’ve got the gun?’

‘Just lucky.’

‘I’m a bit handicapped,’ Cora explained. ‘Wouldn’t make sense for me to be the shooter. Vivian doesn’t want to be.’

‘Screwed her up just chopping the cat,’ Finley said.

‘I’m not sure I could shoot at a person,’ Vivian said.

‘Whereas,’ Cora added, ‘Finley has already shown herself capable of that. Even if she did miss.’

‘Hey, I was in a moving boat, for Godsake. Batty was probably out of range, anyway.’

‘And Finley wants to be the one,’ Cora said. ‘Fuckin’-A-right.’

‘So unless you want to do it…’

Abilene shook her head. She rubbed the sore backs of her hands.

‘Didn’t think so,’ Finley said. ‘Besides, it was my idea from the start — sticking around to bag the bastard. I wanta do the honors.’

‘Fine,’ Abilene told her. But she didn’t like the idea. Finley had shown herself, more than once, to be a hothead. With the shotgun in her hands, no telling what she might do. The weapon should be kept by someone with better self-control.

Who, though? Cora was right. With her ankle broken, she wouldn’t be able to maneuver worth a damn. Vivian didn’t want to shoot Hank or anyone else, and neither did Abilene.

Certainly can’t give the shotgun to Jim, even if he does claim to hate his brother.

That leaves Finley. Like it or not.

‘What else did I miss while I was snoozing?’ she asked. ‘Any other major decisions?’

‘Don’t get so huffy,’ Finley said. ‘You were zonked. We didn’t want to wake you up.’

‘You know the balcony that overlooks the lobby?’ Cora asked. ‘We figured we’d position ourselves up there. It’ll give us a good field of vision, and we’ll be hard to get at. Hank would have to come upstairs.’

‘He couldn’t possibly sneak up on us,’ Vivian added.

‘Jim’ll be our bait,’ Cora said. ‘He’ll be down in the lobby in plain sight. When Hank goes over to him…’

‘Bang!’ Finley blurted.

‘It sounds like a good plan,’ Abilene admitted. She liked, very much, the idea of being above it all. Out of reach. Even if Finley should miss, she’d have plenty of time to reload before Hank could climb the stairs and get to them — especially if they were all the way at the far end of the balcony.

‘The trick,’ Finley said, ‘will be getting Hank into the line of fire.’

Cora nodded. ‘We’ve got no idea where he might enter the lodge. He might come in anywhere; through the pools or even on the second floor. But we want to get him down there in the lobby area.’

‘I’m gonna call out to him,’ Jim explained. ‘Soon as I figure he’s around, I’ll start callin’ out. I’ll get him to come on over to me.’

‘And then it’s adios, asshole.’

‘Sounds really good,’ Abilene said. ‘If it works.’

‘It’ll work,’ Finley said.

‘What if he has a gun?’ Vivian asked.

The question stunned Abilene. She hadn’t even thought of that.

From the looks on the faces of her friends, they hadn’t either.

After a moment, Finley said, ‘I’ll just have to nail him before he brings it into play.’

‘Will he have a gun?’ Abilene asked, frowning at Jim.

‘Maybe. We got us some rifles. But he didn’t take one along last night. Just went out with his knife, is all.’

‘And he left that in Helen,’ Cora said, her voice grim.

‘Oh, he’s got more. He’s got lotsa knives. That’s what he likes… to cut on folks. I don’t spect he’d wanta ruin all his fun by shootin’ any of ya.’