Blood Games

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

She found the others down at the lake, Finley bending over the knee-deep water and washing her breast, Vivian washing splatters of cat blood off her thighs, Cora picking up the block of concrete that served as the anchor for Batty’s rowboat. The ax and shotgun were already stowed in the craft.

‘We’re taking his boat?’ Abilene asked.

‘You got it.’ Cora dropped the anchor into the bow. ‘In, in, in! I’ll row.’ She held the boat steady while Vivian climbed aboard and made her way, crouching low, toward the stem.

As Finley lunged over its gunwale and the boat tipped wildly for a moment, Abilene waded into the lake. The back of Cora’s tank-top was bloody and tom. Above its low neckline and around the right shoulder strap, her bare skin was furrowed with claw marks.

Abilene tossed the sleeping bag aboard. It rolled under the center seat. ‘I’ll hold on,’ she said. ‘You climb in.’ As Cora moved out of her way, she grabbed the prow.

Twisting her head around, she gazed back at the cabin. No sign of Batty. Nor could she hear the crazy laughter.

He won’t come after us, she told herself. Not with a broken arm. Not with that gash.

Not right now, anyway.

She realized they had left their water bottle in the cabin.

It’s okay. We’ve got two more back at the car. Sure not going back in for it.

Just stay where you are, Batty. Don’t come after us.

Returning her attention to the boat, she saw Cora already seated in the center and busy fitting an oar into the metal U of its oarlock. Finley, behind Cora, sat cross-legged on the bottom of the boat and now had the shotgun. She held it straight up, the barrels rising like a mast above her head.

Cora got the other oar into position.

Abilene leaned against the prow and pushed. The boat began gliding away, stem first, and she sloshed after it, guiding it farther from shore until the water climbed to her waist. Then she boosted herself up, kicked high enough to hook a calf over the gunwale, squirmed and twisted until she dropped aboard.

She lay on her back, struggling to catch her breath. Beyond her upraised knees, Cora was rowing with a single oar to turn the boat around. Then both oars were in motion, Cora leaning forward to dip them in, coming back toward Abilene as she drew their blades through the water, and starting over again.

Abilene lifted a hand to her face. Gently, she fingered the lump of soreness beneath her right eye. Her cheekbone felt as if a golf ball were growing out of it.

I got him better than he got me, she thought. Still, she wished she hadn’t broken his arm. She had never hurt anyone like that before and the memory of it sickened her.

He was going to stab Finley, she reminded herself.

Besides, it was an accident. I only broke it because he bashed me with that skull and I started to fall.

The boat dropped abruptly, then rebounded off the water, its wooden ribs pounding against her. Enough of this, Abilene thought. Rising, she scooted across the bottom until her back met the edge of the bow seat. She clutched the gunwales, pushed herself up, and sat on the narrow bench.

The slate gray lake was choppy, but didn’t look nearly as rough as it had felt when she was lying on the bottom of the boat. The fresh breeze felt good.

Leaning sideways, she looked past Cora’s back. Finley met her eyes and nodded. Vivian was twisted around, gazing toward shore.

The limbs of the willow, hanging out over the lake, blew like green streamers.

We really haven’t gone very far, Abilene thought. Maybe a hundred feet.

And then she saw Batty come prancing down the slope stark naked. ‘Oh, my God,’ she murmured. The broken arm swung from its elbow like a dead thing. The other arm, bound with a red rag, was upraised and shaking a pale club that had a knob at both ends.

A bone?

Batty’s long gray hair blew like the willow limbs.

Her breasts bounced and flopped like loose sacks of pudding.

His erection was a rigid, jerking spike.

Abilene’s mind reeled.

Vivian pointed, swiveled her head and said something to Finley.

Finley got to her knees and turned around and shouldered the shotgun.

‘Don’t you shoot,’ Cora warned, still rowing.

Batty stopped at the water’s edge. And began to dance. Hopping from foot to foot, shaking the bone at the gray sky then bowing to dip it into the lake before thrusting it again overhead.

Finley looked over her shoulder. Abilene expected a remark about hermaphrodites until she caught the strangeness in her friend’s eyes.

Too freaked out to crack wise.

This was the thing that had grabbed her breast. A lecherous old coot but also a hag, mad and sly, a drinker of blood, a collector of body parts, a conjurer.

Freaks me out, too, Abilene thought, and I’m not the one who got groped.

Finley turned away.

Batty was still dancing, twirling and leaping, sweeping the hone from the water to the sky.

A heavy blast slammed Abilene’s ears. The shotgun leaped beside Vivian’s shoulder. Vivian jumped as if her boat seat had turned into a cattle prod. Then she grabbed the barrels and shoved them up. Her face red and twisted, she glared back at Finley.

She said nothing.

But Cora shouted, ‘Damn it!’

On the shore, Batty shook the bone and hopped with both feet, broken arm and breasts and penis bouncing up and down.

Abilene found herself wishing Finley hadn’t missed.

Finley yanked the barrels from Vivian’s grip, but she didn’t take aim again. Holding the shotgun upright, she scowled back at Cora. ‘The fuck’s putting a curse on us!’ she called.

‘Since when are you scared of shit like that?’ Cora asked.

‘Since today.’

‘Don’t worry. The creep can’t hurt us now.’

‘Should’ve cut its throat when I had the chance.’

Batty still capered about the shore, bobbing and spinning and leaping. But indistinct now. A pale, blurry shape in the distance. In the darkness.

Abilene tipped back her head.

A low, black mass of thunderheads was rushing in from the hills behind Batty. As if it carried winds of its own, the advancing range of clouds roughed up the water in its path.

‘Oh shit!’ Cora yelled, and started rowing faster.

A blinding dagger of light gashed the nearest black cloud, splitting it with a noise like ripping fabric. Then came an explosion that shook the air. Abilene felt the concussion all the way to her heart.

Batty vanished behind a curtain of rain.

Cora rowed furiously as if trying to outrace the approaching storm.

‘Should we head for shore?’ Abilene called.

‘We’ll make it!’ Cora shouted.

Twisting around, Abilene peered forward and saw that they were heading straight for the old dock at the far side of the lake. But they weren’t even halfway there.

Rain suddenly poured down, drenching her.

The boat pitched. She turned back toward the others and grabbed the gunwales. Cora’s hair was matted flat. Raindrops splashed off her bare shoulders, rinsed the blood from her skin, exposed the raw scratches. Finley was facing forward. She’d put down the shotgun. With outstretched arms, she clung to the sides of the tossing boat. Her head and shoulders jerked from side to side. Vivian, abandoning her seat at the stem, lowered herself behind Finley then reached out and held on.

The boat rocked and bounced. Abilene flinched as a wave broke over the bow, slopping her rump with water much colder than the rain.

Lightning cracked the sky. Thunder roared. The rain came down even harder than before.

A sudden lurch nearly threw Abilene overboard. With a gasp of alarm, she hunched down to lower her center of gravity.

The bottom of the boat was awash with water, a puddle erupting with tiny splashes of raindrops as it slopped from side to side, forward and back, sometimes rolling over the white toes of her sneakers. Willow leaves floated on its surface. So did a few dead worms.

Not enough water to worry about, she told herself. It’d take a lot more than this to sink us.

Shouldn’t have taken the boat, damn it.

Stepped right into Batty’s trap.

Come on, give it a break, she thought. Batty didn’t do this. It’s a storm. Storms happen. Even before we got to Batty’s place, Viv had said it was going to rain.

Man, she was right!

But what was that fuckin’ dance Batty was doing? Sure looked like some kind of ritual. A rain dance?

Bull. Batty didn’t do this.

The seat dropped abruptly out from under Abilene. She clenched the gunwales. The bench smacked her rear and she felt as if a bucketful of water had been hurled at her. It splashed high up her back but most of it hit her skirt. Some, spilling beneath her, licked between her buttocks with an icy tongue that made her gasp.

‘We’re taking in an awful lot of water! ’ Finley yelled.

‘Tell me about it! ’ Abilene called to her.

The puddle, now, was ankle deep. She knew it must be worse at the other end of the boat.

Sitting up, she leaned sideways to see past Cora. Finley sat on the bottom, knees up. Vivian had her legs wrapped around Finley’s hips as if they were riding a Matterhorn bobsled at Disneyland. The water surrounding them was high enough to slosh over the tops of Vivian’s thighs.

‘Start bailing!’ Cora shouted.

‘With what?’ Finley called.

‘Try your hands!’

‘Oh, that’ll help a lot!’ In spite of her remark, Finley apparently decided to give it a try. With both hands, she scooped up water from between her legs and hurled it over the side. Much of it blew back into her face.

Thinking that Batty might keep some kind of container aboard, Abilene slid to her knees and managed to turn herself around. Ducking, she peered under the narrow bench. The concrete anchor was there, piled with rope. But nothing that might be helpful for bailing.

It’ll help, she realized, getting rid of the anchor.

She reached under the seat with both hands and started to drag the heavy block toward her. As it skidded closer, a wave dumped water over the back of her head. She blinked her eyes clear and tugged the anchor out against her knees.

The rope was knotted to a rusty steel eye embedded in the concrete.

Hanging onto the rope as if it were the reins of a bucking bronco, she straightened up. She drew Batty’s knife from the scabbard at her hip and slashed through the taut rope. The instant it gave way, she was thrown backward. She grabbed the gunwale and managed to stay on her knees.

Trying to sheath the knife, she missed its scabbard and poked her hip bone. ‘Damn it!’ She dropped the knife into the puddle by her knee, then clutched the anchor with both hands. She lifted it, twisted sideways, and dropped it over the side. It thumped the water and flung up a cold geyser.

Good show, she told herself. She wondered if any of the others had witnessed her exploit, but decided it didn’t matter. The anchor was gone. She’d accomplished something that should help to keep them afloat. At least for a while.

Still on her knees, she leaned forward until the edge of the seat pushed against her ribs. She reached out with both arms, and hung on.

All she could see was darkness and pouring rain and leaping, churning waves capped with froth.

Are we even going in the right direction?

As the boat plummeted, she shut her eyes and mouth. The edge of the seat jammed her chest. Water flew into her face. Then the boat started to rise, so she blinked and squinted.

A flash of lightning streaked down through the clouds ahead. In its stark glare, she glimpsed something on the surface of the lake.

A thrill surged through her.

‘The raft!’ she yelled through a crash of thunder.

Doubting that anyone had heard her, she pushed away from the seat, turned around, and sat in the sloshing swamp at the bottom of the boat. She felt the knife under her rump.

Good. Wouldn’t want to lose it.

Cora was still rowing like a madwoman.

Cupping her hands to her mouth, Abilene shouted, ‘The diving raft! Dead ahead! ’

Cora glanced around.

Abilene gave her a thumbs up, and yelled, ‘Almost there! Fifty, sixty feet!’

Nodding, Cora turned away.

Abilene rolled a bit, reached down, and pulled the knife out from under her.

She realized she was grinning.

We’re gonna make it!

Another wave came down, washing over her back, but she didn’t mind. She reached under the side of her skirt and plucked the scabbard out. Carefully, her jerking hands guided the blade into the leather slot. She slid the blade home, leaned against the port side of the pitching boat and pushed the sheathed knife down the waistband at her hip.

Only then did she realize she was sitting in water up to her belly.

If it’s this high here…

She pushed herself onto the seat. Cora still pulled at the oars, but the boat resembled a kid’s wading pool, water nearly to its brim. Finley and Vivian were both on their knees, wildly hurling away handsful while more water splashed in over the sides.

Abilene twisted around. No lightning at the moment, but she could see the diving raft through the downpour.

Twenty feet away? Thirty?

She turned back to Cora. ‘We aren’t gonna make it!’

Cora kept straining at the oars as if she hadn’t heard.

We’ll have to swim for it, Abilene thought. Shit!

She knew they were all capable of swimming such a short distance, even in such rough water. But if it came to that, they’d lose the shotgun and ax.

If we could dump some excess baggage…

She tugged her shoes off. Reaching down behind the seat, she pulled the anchor rope. She found its end, drew it around her waist, and knotted it. ‘Hang in!’ she shouted, then threw herself overboard.

She plunged head first into the lake, thrashed to the surface and trod water for a moment to get her bearings. She was beside the boat, close to its bow. Turning, she spotted the raft. She swam for it. The waves shoved her upward, dropped her, tipped her from side to side. Then the slack of the rope gave out.

The line tugged at her waist, pressed into her groin. She felt as if she’d been yanked to a dead halt. But she kept on jabbing out her arms and drawing them back, kept on kicking in spite of the taut rope wedged between her legs.

She raised her head. The near end of the raft appeared to be no more than ten or twelve feet away.

She switched to the breast stroke and saw the distance close a bit.

We’re not stopped dead, she thought.

The boat seemed to be moving along sluggishly behind her.

She watched the raft as she struggled toward it. The platform was high out of the water, pitching about on the churning lake. She supposed it must be anchored to the bottom with chains. The corner on the right was higher than the lefthand one, tipped upward somewhat because of the sunken oil drum kitty-corner from it.

Attached to the right side of the raft was a wooden ladder.

Abilene swam for it, towing the boat.

The boat seemed to be moving along better, now, the rope no longer straining at her waist or digging into her groin.

She swam alongside the raft, reached out and grabbed a rung of the ladder.

Clinging to it, she looked back. Cora still sat in its center, tugging at the oars. Only the gunwales remained above the water line, and every wave flung more water into the nearly submerged craft.

Finley and Vivian weren’t aboard.

They were stretched out side by side behind the boat, holding onto its stem, kicking.

They’d been pushing it along while Abilene towed it by the rope.

Glancing over her shoulder, Cora shouted, ‘Tie it up!’