Blood Games (28 page)

    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.