Blood Games (18 page)

    ‘Shhhh.’

    They went silent, stood motionless.

    ‘Somebody’s in here,’ Cora whispered.

    Helen made a whimpery sound. Her fingers dug into Abilene’s arms.

    And Abilene heard it, too. A single, soft flop of water somewhere in the blackness to her left.

    Her bowels squirmed. Shivers scurried up her back. In spite of the water’s heat, she felt her skin go stiff with goosebumps.

    Cora’s calm, quiet voice said, ‘Let’s just get out of the pool.’ The words were followed by a flurry of lapping, splashing sounds from her direction.

    Abilene clutched Helen’s wrists and forced her hands away.

    ‘Don’t leave me!’

    ‘Come on! ’ Clinging to one wrist, Abilene lunged past Helen. Pulled her around. Towed her. The sounds of their own rush through the water masked whatever noise the intruder might be making.

    Making as he hurried closer to them in the darkness.

    The water felt like a strong, hot wind thrusting against Abilene, trying to slow her down.

    She wished she could let go of Helen. She could slip beneath the surface and swim silently to the other side. But she kept her grip on the wrist of the terrified, whimpering girl, and kept trudging forward.

    ‘What’s going on?’ Cora didn’t sound so calm, now.

    ‘We’re coming.’

    ‘Hurry.’

    'Jesus!’

    ‘I’m right here,’ Cora said. Straight ahead. Close.

    ‘Are you out?’

    ‘Yes.’

    Helen squealed, ‘Yeeahhh!’

    ‘It’s me. Just me.’ Cora.

    Helen jerked her hand free. Abilene heard water suck and splash and drip. She reached out to the side and felt a slick, bare leg. Though she could see nothing, she pictured Helen scrambling out of the pool, being helped by Cora.

    Nobody in here now but me and him.

    Abilene flung herself forward. Her hands slapped the rim of the pool. Kicking at the water, she boosted herself up. She expected a hand to grab one of her ankles and jerk her down. Then her knees met cool hardness of the pool’s edge. She scurried through the darkness, hands and knees sliding. From off to the side came sounds of slapping feet.

    ‘Where are you?’ A whisper. Cora.

    ‘Over here.’ She stopped. ‘Helen with you?’

    ‘Yeah. Don’t move. Quiet.’

    Silently, Abilene got to her feet. She put out her hands and crept forward. She thought the stairway should be straight ahead of her, but it wasn’t. Instead, she met a wall. Turning around, she leaned back against it. The wall felt cool and slippery against her wet skin.

    She was breathless, her heart slamming. She struggled to stop gasping.

    The only sounds she heard were her own heartbeat, her own breathing, and the faint lapping sounds of water. Nothing from her friends. Nothing from anyone moving about in the pool.

    That doesn’t mean he’s gone, she thought. He might be swimming under water. Coming closer. Or standing motionless, listening and waiting.

    She gazed into the blackness. She couldn’t see the pool. Nothing at all was visible except the gloom of the high windows and the pale archway. She realized that the archway with its curved top and vertical sides was shaped like a headstone.

    A headstone. A marker for the grave of the headless body found in the pool twelve years ago.

    She imagined the body floating there now. And wondered if that was what they’d heard. Not an intruder at all, but the decapitated corpse of…

    Bull.

    There’s no damn stiff in the pool.

    Maybe there’s no one at all, she told herself. Maybe what we heard was nothing. Maybe currents from the hot spring had simply disturbed the surface and made those splashy sounds.

    Abilene’s heart lurched as she heard a quiet, groaning creak.

    Someone stepping on a floorboard?

    That didn’t make sense. The pool’s apron was granite, not… the stairs.

    A beam of light, angling downward, swirled through the darkness just to her right. It cast a bright disk on the floor. Scooted about. Settled on the extinguished lantern.

    A second beam started flitting around.

    Two people with flashlights?

    And Abilene almost laughed as she remembered Finley and Vivian.

    What if it’s not them?

    ‘Who turned out the lights down here?’

    It was them, all right.

    ‘Get down here quick!’ Cora called.

    Abilene turned her head. Though the flashlight beams were on her other side, they provided enough brightness for her to make out the dim shapes of Cora and Helen. The two stood only a few feet to her left, just in front of the wall, Helen hanging onto Cora’s arm.

    She gave the pool area a quick scan, saw no one, then watched as Cora pulled away from Helen.

    ‘Do you think it was a false alarm?’ Abilene asked.

    ‘I don’t know.’ Cora watched the water as she hurried toward Abilene. Helen, right behind her, kept a hand on Cora’s shoulder.

    ‘What’s going on?’ Finley asked. She was still out of sight, but the light beams were jumping around and Abilene heard feet thumping down the stairs.

    ‘Is everything all right?’ Vivian asked.

    Abilene rounded the corner just as Finley and Vivian, side by side, stepped off the bottom of the stairway.

    Cora rushed toward them, leaving Helen behind. ‘What took you guys so long?’

    ‘I thought we were pretty snappy about it. Why’s the lantern out?’

    ‘Somebody’s here.’

    ‘Holy shit. Someone’s here nowV

    ‘Think so.’

    ‘Oh my God,’ Vivian said.

    Cora snatched the flashlight from Finley’s hand and swung around. Rushing toward the pool, she flicked the beam to the right and left, making sure nobody had followed them out.

    Abilene went after her. She heard the others approaching as Cora began to sweep the light over the water’s surface.

    She saw cut-off jeans.

    With a gasp, she lurched backward. Collided with someone. Dry hands grabbed her sides. She felt skin against her back. Bare breasts. Finley.

    Then she saw that the cut-off jeans were empty.

    Nobody in them.

    Another flashlight joined Cora’s. Both beams searched the water.

    As Finley stepped around to her side, Abilene saw that the pool was littered with floating and submerged garments. The cutoffs that had given her such a fright were her own, sinking toward the bottom. Finley’s safari shirt drifted nearby. Deep beneath the water were Vivian’s sundress, Cora’s shorts, Helen’s blouse and her own. Cora’s T-shirt, puffed with air, bobbed on the surface like a Portuguese man-of-war beside a floating bra. Panties hung suspended like flimsy, limp rags. Finley’s tan shorts lay at the bottom, along with several shoes and socks, towels and the three flashlights that they hadn’t taken with them when they entered the pool.

    Except for the lantern, everything they’d left behind now seemed to be in the water.

    The flashlights searched the rest of the pool. Farther away, the beams weren’t powerful enough to penetrate the depths. They lit little more than the surface as they skimmed the middle, darted into the corners, and swept along the far side.

    They criss-crossed again and again.

    ‘If he’s still in here,’ Cora whispered, ‘he must be holding his breath.’

    ‘He might be anywhere,’ Abilene said.

    Vivian turned, swinging her light toward the open space and bar beyond the end of the pool.

    ‘Want me to check back there?’ Finley offered.

    ‘No,’ Vivian said.

    ‘We stay together,’ Cora said.

    Vivian, stepping back away from the edge of the pool, turned completely around as if to make sure nobody was sneaking up on them.

    ‘He didn’t go up the stairs,’ Finley said. ‘We would’ve run into him. Might’ve ducked into one of the dressing rooms, though.’

    ‘I don’t think he left the pool. Not over here, anyway.’

    ‘Yeah,’ Cora said. ‘We’d have heard him.’

    Both flashlights returned their beams to the water.

    ‘Maybe he snuck out through there,’ Cora said, pointing her light at the archway to the outer pool.

    ‘We’d better check behind the bar,’ Abilene said.

    Cora and Vivian led the way, continuing to play the beams of their flashlights over the water. The others followed close behind them. When they reached the bar, Cora knelt on one of the stools. She stretched over the counter top and shone her light down behind it.

    ‘Not here.’

    ‘So he’s either still in the water,’ Abilene said, ‘or he’s gone.’

    Cora climbed off the stool.

    For a while, they all stood motionless at the end of the pool. They listened and watched as Cora and Vivian swept the surface again and again with their flashlights.

    ‘I think he’s gone,’ Finley said.

    ‘Guess so,’ Cora finally agreed.

    ‘Are we still planning to spend the night?’ Vivian asked.

    Cora let out a sigh. ‘No. I think this does it for me.’

    ‘Same here,’ Helen said.

    Abilene felt almost giddy with relief.

    ‘Let’s get our stuff and hit the road,’ Cora said.

    They started to walk back along the side of the pool, it was probably that kid,’ Finley said. ‘He must’ve come back, after all.’

    ‘Why’d he want to throw our things in the water?’ Abilene asked.

    ‘Pissed off at us?’ Finley said.

    ‘Maybe to scare us away,’ Cora suggested.

    ‘Glad it worked,’ Vivian said. ‘I might’ve done it, myself, if I’d thought of it.’

    ‘God,’ Helen muttered. ‘How creepy. He must’ve been sneaking around in here while we were right outside.’

    ‘I wonder where he came from,’ Abilene said.

    ‘He could’ve been in here all along,’ Cora pointed out. ‘Even before we came down, you know? Maybe he was in the water and we just didn’t spot him.’

    ‘Wonderful,’ Vivian said. ‘Watching us undress.’

    ‘Nothing he hadn’t seen already,’ Finley told her.

    They lined up along the rim of the pool. Cora and Vivian aimed their lights into the water. Everything except the air-bloated T-shirt had sunk.

    ‘There’s no point in all of us getting wet,’ she said.

    ‘We’re the dry ones,’ Finley remarked, and clapped a hand onto Vivian’s shoulder.

    ‘Yeah. I'm not going in.’

    ‘We’ll hold the lights,’ Finley said, ‘while you three bring up the stuff.’

    Helen moaned. ‘Don’t let anybody sneak up on us.’

    ‘Just hurry,’ Vivian urged.

    ‘Maybe we should light the lantern first,’ Abilene suggested.

    Cora crouched, picked it up and shook it. Fuel sloshed in its tank. ‘Didn’t run out,’ she muttered. She twisted a knob at its base. There was a brief hissing sound, then silence. ‘He shut it off.’

    ‘Figures,’ Finley said.

    ‘The matches are upstairs.’

    ‘We could go get them,’ Abilene said. ‘It’d be a lot better if we had some decent light.’

    ‘Geez,’ Helen said, ‘I hope he didn’t bother the stuff up there.’

    ‘Didn’t look like it,’ Vivian told her.

    Cora set down the lantern. ‘Let’s just get this over with. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.’

    She stood, stepped over to the pool and jumped in.

    Abilene considered going after the matches herself. Finley would probably be glad to accompany her. But the thought that someone might be up there changed her mind.

    She sat on the edge, lowered her legs into the water, and hesitated. She scanned the pool. The flashlights brightened only the small area surrounding Cora, who had already grabbed her T-shirt. The rest of the pool was shrouded in darkness. A beam shone on Cora’s gleaming buttocks as she curled forward, kicked and plunged.

    Abilene pushed off. She dropped, the heat rushing up her body. Peering down through the clear water, she saw towels and flashlights, shoes and a few garments near her feet. She ducked under and started to grab for them.

    A heavy splash thudded in her ears. Currents buffeted her. Helen coming in.

    Struggling to keep herself close to the bottom, she snatched up a towel, a flashlight, three socks and a pair of panties. She sprang to the surface. Cora was already turning away, having deposited a heap of sodden clothes in front of Vivian.

    Abilene set her load onto the edge, then waded past Helen’s submerged body. She spotted her cut-offs. They were down near the bottom, quite a distance from the side of the pool, barely visible in the murky light. She dove. Swimming toward them underwater, she glided past Finley’s shirt. She grabbed it, continued on her way, and finally snatched up her jeans. She was about to rise with them when something ahead caught her attention. She could hardly see it through the gloom of the poorly lighted water. But it seemed to be fabric undulating near the bottom, very close to the bars of the grate that covered the hot spring.

    Had she strayed that far from the poolside?

    She suddenly felt very alone and vulnerable. She ached to turn back. But the thing near the grate was probably clothing. And she was almost close enough to grab it.

    Though her lungs were starting to bum, she swam forward and reached down. Her fingers snagged fabric. She clenched it, kicked to the surface and stood up. Gasping for air, she twisted around.

    She was alone in the middle of the pool, surrounded by darkness. Neither of the flashlights were on her; they were aimed down at Cora and Helen.

    ‘Hey!’ she called.