Blood Games

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The explosion must’ve been a gunshot. From the noise of it, Abilene figured it had been fired from only a few feet away. During the moment between the blast and the door flying shut, however, she’d seen none of her friends react as if hit.

‘Is everybody okay?’ she whispered.

‘Just fine,’ Finley muttered.

‘What was that?’ Cora asked.

‘Sounded like a shotgun,’ Vivian said.

‘We’re in deep shit,’ Finley said.

Abilene flinched as something — probably the butt of the shotgun — crashed against the door.

‘Whatcha doin’ in there?’ called a high, scratchy voice. It sounded as if it came from someone old, but Abilene couldn’t tell whether it belonged to a man or a woman.

‘We aren’t doing anything,’ Cora answered. ‘We were just looking around.’

‘ Snoopin’!’ He — or she — struck the door again. ‘I don’t abide no snoopers!’

‘We’re sorry,’ Cora said. ‘We didn’t mean any harm. We’re looking for someone.’

‘Y’found someone. Me!’

Abilene turned around slowly to look at the door. She stepped on an eye. It popped and squished under the soft sole of her moccasin. She groaned.

‘Who are you?’ Finley asked.

‘Who y’lookin for?’

‘A friend of ours,’ Cora said. ‘Her name’s Helen.’

‘Ain’t me.’

‘She’s twenty-five,’ Cora said. ‘Dark-haired, pretty husky.’

‘A fatty?’

‘Have you seen her?’

‘Ain’t in there.’

‘Do you know where she is?’

Silence.

‘Gonna letcha out. I got my over-’n-under here, so come out easy ’r I’ll blow y’innards out her backside.’

‘For Godsake,’ Vivian whispered, ‘drop the ax, Fin.’

‘We’d better all empty our hands,’ Cora said.

Abilene let her rock fall. It clinked against some glass in the darkness. She heard soft thuds as the others discarded their weapons.

The door swung wide. Abilene squinted into the brightness. Standing just outside the shed, aiming a shotgun at her belly, was a short, skinny man — or woman. Abilene still couldn’t tell which. The person had wild gray hair. The wrinkled, leathery face bristled with stubble, but Abilene had seen old women who had similar whiskers.

‘C’mon out.’

Finley raised her hands overhead and stepped through the doorway. Abilene did the same, followed by Vivian and Cora. Just in front of the shed, they spread out. They stood abreast, their arms high.

A quick look around satisfied Abilene that their captor was alone.

One is all it takes, she thought. One lunatic with a shotgun. And the person in front of her did look like a lunatic.

Both earlobes were adorned with small tufts of bright red and yellow feathers. Not earrings, but fishing jigs. Flies. Fixed to the ears by tiny, barbed hooks. From a rawhide thong around the stranger’s neck dangled a pendant of dry, white bone. It looked like the skull of a rodent. The leather strip passed through the skull’s earholes. The jaw hung open, showing a snout packed with sharp little teeth.

The skull rested against tawny skin between the edges of a rawhide vest. The vest, loosely tied with a couple of thongs, was open a couple of inches all the way down its front but revealed no hint of cleavage. Low on the stranger’s hips hung ragged jeans with their legs cut off, their sides slit nearly to the waistband. Cinched around the waist of the jeans was a belt that held a hunting knife in a wide leather scabbard. The knife had a staghom handle. Its blade reached halfway down the side of the stranger’s thigh.

Both feet were bare and filthy. The small toe of one foot was missing.

While Abilene inspected this peculiar person, he or she slowly swept the shotgun down the line, pale blue eyes studying all of them.

‘Yer a handsome pack, gals.’

‘Do you know where Helen is?’ Cora asked.

A smile. Brown teeth and gaps. Then the pale eyes fixed on Vivian. ‘What kinda shoes y’ got there?’

‘They’re Reeboks.’

‘Land, ain’t they somethin’? Give ’em t’old Batty.’

Bending down slightly, Vivian lifted a foot off the ground. She crossed it over her knee. Cora grabbed her shoulder and held her steady while she pulled off the shoe, tossed it toward Batty, then switched legs and removed the other. An underhand throw landed it on the ground in front of Batty’s feet.

‘I getta keep ’em.’

Vivian said nothing.

Cora said, ‘You’re the one with the shotgun.’

‘Ain’t no thief.’ Batty braced the shotgun with one arm, crouched and picked up the shoes. ‘I don’t work free. Got my pay here. Y’lookin’ for Helen, old Batty’s gonna point y’where to-look.’

‘You know where she is?’ Cora asked.

Batty answered with a wink, then shouldered the shotgun, turned around, and strode toward the back door of the cabin. Nobody else moved.

They looked at each other. Abilene saw surprise and confusion on their faces.

She looked again toward Batty. Without so much as a glance back, the old weirdo climbed the stairs and swung open the screen door and vanished into the cabin.

‘Jesus H. Christ,’ Finley muttered. ‘What was that?’

‘Batty,’ Abilene said.

‘Appropriately named.’

Vivian stayed on her feet, but sagged as if she’d lost the strength to hold herself upright. ‘God,’ she said. She bent over and grabbed her knees.

‘I guess we’re free to leave,’ Cora said. ‘But maybe we’d better go inside and see what he has to say.’

‘He?’ Abilene asked.

‘Whatever.’

‘I don’t think he’s got Helen,’ Vivian said, still holding her knees.

‘But he’s got your shoes,’ Cora told her.

‘He’s welcome to them.’

‘She,’ Finley said. ‘It.’

‘Sounded like Batty considered them payment for services,’ Abilene said. ‘I think he’s planning to help us find her.’

‘I think Batty’s batty,’ Finley said. ‘Probably doesn’t know shit.’

‘There’s only one way to find out.’

‘What else have we got to go on?’ Cora asked. ‘Hell, he lives here. Even if he hasn’t seen Helen, he might have some ideas about who took her.’

‘Besides,’ Abilene said, ‘if nothing else, this’ll give us a chance to check out the cabin.’

‘Enter the lair,’ Finley said, grinning slightly.

‘It isn’t as if he’s forcing us.’

‘Yeah,’ Cora said. ‘He had us and walked away.’

Vivian stood up straight. She shook her head. She said, ‘Let’s do it. What’s the worst that can happen?’ With that, she walked toward the back of the cabin.

The others followed.

Finley, striding along beside Abilene, said, ‘What’s the worst that can happen? Let’s see. We might all end up in jars.’

At the top of the stairs, Vivian rapped on the door.

‘Come into my parlor,’ whispered Finley.

‘Can it,’ Abilene said.

Vivian pulled open the door. She stepped over the threshold and paused, an arm stretched back to hold the door open for the rest of them.

Entering, Abilene found herself in a long, narrow kitchen. She saw cupboards, a black iron stove, a small pump over the sink that looked like a smaller version of the pump she’d seen outside. No refrigerator, not even an old icebox. A gas lamp hung suspended from the ceiling, and another rested atop a small wooden table in one corner.

‘Batty?’ Vivian called.

‘Waitin’ for ya.’

They stepped through a doorway into the main room of the cabin. It wasn’t as brightly lit as the kitchen, its few windows apparently hidden from the sun by overhanging trees. In the center of the room, Batty was leaning over a table, spreading out a leathery scroll.

Vivian’s Reeboks looked enormous on the lunatic’s small feet.

‘Come over and sit.’

On her way to the table, Abilene took a quick look around. Except for the kitchen, this seemed to be the only room. A bed along the right wall was neatly covered with a quilt. The shotgun was propped against the wall near its head. At the foot of the bed was a steamer trunk, lid shut. In the room’s far corner was a pot-bellied stove. There were a few chairs scattered about: straight cane-backs and one rocker. She spotted a few gas lamps on small tables. Every wall had shelves laden with bulky old tomes and an odd assortment of nicknacks: wax figures, candles, crucifixes, pictures of saints, bones and feathers, stuffed birds and squirrels, bowls, every size and shape of clear glass jar — from which Abilene quickly averted her eyes.

Only to notice a stuffed bat, wings outspread, nailed above the front door.

From the general size and shape of the creature’s ugly head with its stubby snout and pointed teeth, she realized that Batty’s necklace ornament must be the skull of a bat.

Charming, she thought.

I’m in a madhouse.

Clearly, Helen wasn’t here.

Unless in that trunk…

She glanced again at the trunk beyond the foot of the bed and decided it wasn’t large enough for Helen. Not unless…

‘Are you some kind of a witch?’ Finley asked.

‘Some say so.’ Cackle. ‘Some say I’m batty.’

‘What do you say?’

‘Old Batty sees the unseen, knows the unknown. Sit sit sit.’

They pulled out chairs, and sat around the table. Most of its top was covered by the mat that Batty’d been unrolling when they came in. It looked like tanned animal hide, stained dark brown. A wiggly oval outline about the size of a football was faintly visible near the center.

The wood of the table showed through a hole near one end of the outline.

Coming up behind Abilene, Batty poked the hole with the point of his knife.

‘Batty’s place.’

‘This is a map?’ Cora asked.

‘Oughtabe.’

Cora reached out and touched an edge of the oval. ‘And this is the lake?’

Batty, scurrying away, didn’t answer.

‘You’re going to show us where Helen is?’

Batty came back from a shelf, cupping an earthenware bowl.

Off in a corner, something creaked. Abilene flinched. She shot her eyes in the direction of the sound, and saw the rocking chair teetering. For just a moment, her mind was stunned by a memory of the hideous deformity they’d encountered one Halloween night a few years ago. In a chair in a corner. Unseen at first. Just like now.

Then she saw the snow-white cat crouching on the seat of the rocker.

She let out a shaky sigh of relief.

The others, as startled as she by the unexpected disturbance, also seemed glad to find nothing worse than a cat in the chair.

‘Amos,’ Batty informed her guests.

The cat switched its tail.

‘Figures,’ Finley said. ‘A witch, a cat.’ Smirking at Batty, she asked, ‘Do you know where Helen is? Have you seen her? Or are you just planning to divine for us?’

Abilene grimaced. Was Finley nuts? How could she talk this way to a lunatic?

‘I’ll know,’ Batty said, and placed the bowl on top of the map.

‘If this is gonna involve chicken heads…’

‘Can it!’ Abilene whispered. ‘Okay? Just cut it out.’

Finley tilted one corner of her mouth and rolled her eyes upward.

Vivian seemed to be in her own mind, ignoring the exchange, gazing across the table with narrowed eyes. Her lips were stretched back, baring her teeth.

Cora looked intense. As if she were scrutinizing Batty, wary but fascinated.

Abilene flinched as Batty reached around from behind and slapped the huge knife on the table in front of her.

‘Part y’flesh and give.’

Abilene twisted her head sideways and stared up at the wizened, whiskered face.

‘What?’

‘In the vessel.’

‘I don’t get it.’

Finley grinned. ‘I think you’re supposed to cut yourself and bleed in the bowl. That right, Batty?’

‘All ya.’

‘Whoa, boy. I knew this’d get queer.’

‘It’s the way.’

‘Might be your way. That’s why they call you Batty.’

‘Shut up!’ Cora snapped.

Finley flinched as if stunned by the loud rebuke. Face red, voice soft, she said, ‘You don’t believe in this stuff, do you?’

‘It’s worth a try.’

‘This androgynous loony tune wants us to cut ourselves.’

‘Stop it, Fin,’ Vivian said gendy. ‘I think we should do what Batty asks. If it helps us find Helen, that’s all that really matters.’

‘I want to find her as much as anyone. But going along with this crazy…’

Abilene snatched up the knife and slashed the edge of her left hand.

Finley gasped, ‘Shit!’

Abilene stretched out her arm in time for the blood to spill into the bowl. The wound stung, but didn’t hurt as much as she’d expected. She watched the bright streamer of blood fall, heard quiet, plopping splashes.

A hand squeezed her shoulder. Batty’s hand.

‘Yer a shiny soul.’

She passed the knife to Finley, who sat to her right.

‘I’m sure,’ Finley muttered. She glanced at the others. She scowled at Abilene’s bleeding hand. Muttering, ‘We’ll probably end up with gangrene and lose our arms,’ she sliced herself. She reached out, and her hand joined Abilene’s above the bowl.

She passed the knife to Cora. Without a moment’s hesitation, Cora gashed her hand and put it over the bowl. She gave the knife to Vivian.

Vivian inspected her left arm as if searching for the best place to cut it. Then she settled, like the others, for the edge of her hand. As she slid the blade against it, her lips pursed and she murmured, ‘Ooooo.’

There was silence as they all sat around the table, their left arms outstretched, their blood splashing into the bowl.

Finley broke the silence.

‘Can’t wait to see what comes next.’

‘Nuff,’ Batty said.

They pulled in their arms.

‘I don’t suppose you provide bandages,’ Finley said.

Batty didn’t answer.

Abilene pressed her cut against her skirt. Blood seeped through the denim, hot against her thigh. Finley grabbed a handful of shirttail and clutched it to her wound. Cora’s hands were out of sight beneath the table, so Abilene couldn’t see what she was doing, but Vivian kept her arm far to the side and bent down low. She pulled off her right sock, then wrapped it around her left hand.

Batty stepped to the corner of the table between Abilene and Vivian, picked up the knife, then reached out and slid the bowl in front of Abilene.

‘Drink.’

‘Oh boy.’ From Finley.

Abilene stared down at the bright red fluid. She felt as if her brain was shrinking and going numb. Her cheeks tingled. Saliva flooded her mouth, the way it sometimes did when she was on the verge of vomiting.

It’s only blood, she told herself. Nothing to freak out about.

She’d tasted blood before. Licking or sucking on tiny wounds after hurting herself. It wasn’t awful.

But it was only my own.

So what? This is just mine and Finley’s and Cora’s and Vivian’s. They’re like family. They’re like part of me.

And it’s for Helen.

Gulping her saliva down, she lifted the bowl with her uninjured hand. She tilted it to her mouth, shut her eyes to avoid looking at the crimson fluid, and sipped. It rolled in, warm against her gums and tongue, thicker than she’d expected. Her throat squeezed shut. She forced herself to swallow.

She was about to lower the bowl when Batty said, ‘More.’

Quickly, she tipped the bowl for another drink. Too quickly. Too carelessly. Her trembling hand, not quite in control of the heavy bowl, flooded her mouth with blood. She gulped it down. She gagged. Her eyes brimmed with tears. But she didn’t vomit.

She passed the bowl to Finley.

‘This gonna turn us into vampires?’ Finley quipped.

‘Just drink some,’ Cora said.

Finley raised the bowl close to her face. ‘Through the teeth and over the gums, watch out, stomach — here it comes.’ She drank. She took two big gulps. As she swallowed, she had a frantic look in her eyes. A look that made Abilene think she might suddenly hurl the bowl away and scream.

Then Finley finished. She had a mustache like a kid who’d just polished off a glass of milk. But this mustache was red. She gave the bowl to Cora, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Cora took two sips of blood in the same way she had slit her hand — fast and determined. Then she sat very rigid for a moment. She shuddered. She passed the bowl to Vivian. She rubbed the shiny crimson from her lips.

Vivian stared into the bowl. Her face looked unnaturally pale and slack. ‘I don’t know if I can,’ she muttered.

‘It’s not so bad,’ Abilene said.

‘Zee blood is zee life,’ Finley said.

‘Just don’t think about it,’ Cora advised her. ‘A couple of sips and you’ll be done.’

‘It’ll put hair on your chest,’ Finley added.

‘Just what I need.’ Vivian managed a sickly smile. Then she took a deep breath, sighed, raised the bowl to her mouth and drank. She swallowed twice. Lowering the bowl, she gasped as if she’d finally come up for air after nearly drowning. Blood dribbled down her chin. Before she could wipe it away, a drop fell onto the front of her white, knit shirt.

Batty stepped up between Vivian and Abilene, lifted the bowl and drank. Gulp after gulp. Swallowing. Seeming to relish the taste. Then, lips tight, cheeks bulging, the old lunatic removed the bat-skull necklace. Held it high by its leather thong.

Head tipped back, Batty opened wide and lowered the dangling skull. It went in white. It came out red. Batty’s lips wrapped around the base of the skull. Sucked off some of the excess blood before swallowing the mouthful and easing the necklace away.

Like a pendulum, it swung across the leather map. Back and forth. Slowing down. Beginning to drift in lazy circles.

A drop of blood gathered on the hanging jaw. Bloomed. Fell. And splashed the map midway between Cora and the edge of the lake.

‘Ah!’

The single red bead was all that fell before Batty slipped the necklace back on. The skull made a smudge on the skin of the old lunatic’s chest.

Batty aimed a finger at the spot of blood on the map.

‘That’s where you think Helen is?’ Cora asked.

‘Ghost Lodge.’

‘The Totem Pole Lodge?’

‘Call it whatcha want.’

Stunned, Abilene stared at the dot of blood. Its position, in relationship to the outline of the lake and the hole marking Batty’s cabin, actually did seem to be in the vicinity of the Totem Pole Lodge.

Finley murmured, ‘Holy shit.’

Vivian gazed at the spot. Her head shook slowly from side to side.

Looking up at Batty, astonishment in her eyes, Cora said, ‘That’s where we were. That’s where she disappeared.’

‘She’s there.’

‘Is she all right?’ Abilene asked.

‘Can’t say.’

‘Do you know?’

Not answering, Batty picked up the bowl and set it on the hardwood floor beside the table. A creak sounded in a far corner of the room. Abilene turned her eyes to the rocking chair. The cat was gone.

Vivian groaned. She was looking down. Abilene followed» her gaze and found Amos hunched over the bowl. Tail twitching, the cat lapped away at the remaining slick of blood.

‘Y’ain’t from these parts,’ Batty said. ‘Don’t know better. Get y’Helen ’n get back where y’come from. ’N praise the Lord it’s old Batty y’run into. Some folks nearby, they’duz soon kill y’dead as spit on y’feet. Now scat.’