Blood Games

CHAPTER THREE

The Wagoneer stopped in front of Abilene and Finley. The others climbed out.

Helen’s head tilted back and rolled as she surveyed the lodge. Her eyes were wide. Her mouth hung open. She might have been standing for the first time at the feet of the Statue of Liberty, gazing up at the monument with awe and delight.

‘Why don’t we leave everything in the car,’ Cora suggested, ‘until we’ve looked the place over?’

Vivian, nose wrinkled, said, ‘Why don’t we not look the place over and drive back to Burlington instead?’

‘Where’s your sense of adventure?’ Abilene asked.

‘It lost out to my sense of self-preservation.’

‘No risk, no thrill,’ Cora said.

Helen, still gaping at the lodge, said, ‘Isn’t this place just fabulously eerie?'

‘I just hope it’s fabulously unoccupied,’ Abilene said. ‘God only knows who might’ve decided to take up residence in a place like this.’

Helen grinned. ‘Yeah.’ She sounded tickled by the possibility of encountering a hermit or axe-murderer inside the ruin. ‘Let’s go in and check it out.’

She hurried up the porch stairs, Cora at her side, Vivian following. Before stepping through the doorway, Vivian looked over her shoulder. ‘Coming?’

‘I wouldn’t miss it,’ Finley said and shouldered her camera. ‘Go on ahead,’ she told Abilene.

Abilene climbed the stairs and strode across the porch. The boards wobbled and squeaked. Even though they’d been strong enough to support Helen, she feared breaking through and was glad to reach the safety of the foyer’s marble floor.

The others hadn’t ventured off the marble. They stood at its far edge as if the foyer were an island and they weren’t ready to get their feet wet. Nobody spoke. Only their heads moved as they looked around. Abilene supposed they were listening, wondering whether the lodge was truly deserted. She halted beside Vivian.

‘Bitchin’ joint!’ Finley yelled.

Abilene flinched. Vivian gasped. Helen twisted around, scowling, pressing a finger to her heavy lips and letting out a long ‘Shhhhhhhh.’

A grin spread across Finley’s face. Obviously, she had meant to startle them and was pleased by her success. ‘Okay,’ she mouthed, not making a sound. She came forward ever so slowly on tiptoes, lifting her knees high, setting her feet down gingerly, her lips pursed — a parody of silent sneaking.

She stopped next to Abilene. She turned slowly, panning the room with her camera. Its automatic focus made quiet humming sounds as it adjusted to changing distances. Then she lowered the camera to her side and stood motionless.

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.