Blood Games

    They started forward again, moving at a normal speed but staggering and weaving as if drunk. Finley returned to her seat on the corner of the bed.

    ‘We looked pretty sharp,’ Abilene said.

    ‘God, I was so scared,’ Helen said.

    ‘You and me both. I wanted to hightail it.’

    ‘Shhh,’ Vivian said when the door opened. Her voice from the TV slurred, ‘Do y’know who I am?’

    They watched.

    They watched and commented and laughed, distracting themselves again and again from the scenes of their past so that Finley kept bouncing up to rewind. Often, they asked her to go back so they could take a second look. They ended up missing nothing, but saw much of the epic two or three times.

    They watched themselves dance for the Sigs, dump their bottles of gasoline on the carpet and flee as the flaming bills fluttered down. They watched themselves party in Hardin’s office and paper it with the glossy nudes. They watched Vivian vomit on the floor. They watched Cora make her phonecall to Hardin’s home. They watched themselves attack Wildman and leave him tied beneath the bridge in Benedict Park. They watched the antics of the Merry Halloween Team, and Abilene got a special kick out of witnessing her first encounter with a zombie named Harris. Then they were trashing the house of the mean guy who’d yelled at the kids.

    And Abilene found herself looking at the horror in the wheelchair.

    ‘You were gonna erase this,’ she said.

    ‘Couldn’t. It was too weird, you know?’

    ‘Jesus,’ Vivian muttered.

    ‘That fella’s mother definitely hit him with an ugly stick.’

    ‘It’s not funny,’ Abilene said. She shut her eyes as the camera lingered on the hideous face.

    Then came Finley’s voice, ‘Say cheese.’

    And the low voice answering, ‘Cheese.’

    ‘The good, the bad and the ugly,’ Finley said.

    Abilene got over feeling sick when she saw herself with Harris in Benedict Park. They were pretending to be those characters in the ‘Mess Hall’ story. Soon, she was down on the ground with Harris on top of her.

    She was there again, feeling the twigs and leaves under her back, feeling the weight of Harris’s body, feeling the way his trapped erection prodded her through her panties.

    ‘You should’ve gotten an Oscar for this,’ Vivian said.

    Cora laughed. ‘That’s not acting.'

    Helen nudged Abilene. ‘Getting hot?’

    ‘I was till the peanut gallery chimed in.’

    ‘Want me to rewind?’ Finley asked.

    Cora chuckled. ‘We’ll promise to be quiet. We’ll just sit here and watch you pant. ’

    ‘I could be home with him right now.’

    ‘Getting a taste of the real thing,’ Finley said.

    ‘Here comes that asshole, Baxter,’ Helen said.

    Abilene watched, growing apprehensive, as Baxter killed Harris and took her away in the car, as he dragged her into a clearing and tied her under a tree, as he tormented her with the knife.

    ‘Couldn’t you maybe fast-forward through some of this?’ she asked when Baxter started licking her chest. ‘This is a stroll down Memory Lane I could do without.’

    ‘Yeah, but you really nailed him good,’ Finley said as Baxter started kissing Abilene. ‘You wouldn’t want to miss that, would you?’

    ‘Finley.’

    ‘Okay, okay.’

    Finley was on her way to the TV when Baxter broke the strap of Abilene’s bra and grabbed her breast and she kneed him in the thigh.

    In fast-forward, Baxter pulled her skirt up, yanked her panties down, was flung backward by Helen, and barely hit the ground before Helen, Cora and Vivian, dressed as zombies, pounced on him.

    ‘Hey,’ Helen protested. ‘We’re missing the good part.’

    ‘Fine with me,’ Vivian said. ‘It was awful, beating up on him like that.’

    ‘Fucker deserved it,’ Cora said.

    But Finley didn’t stop fast-forwarding until the TV showed their farewell party at Belmore. They were lounging around the living room of their apartment on Spring Street, dressed for bed and holding champagne glasses. ‘Just act natural, babes,’ Finley advised them. ‘You look great. What was your big idea, Viv?’ Later, she said, ‘One of these days, we’ll get together and watch all this stuff and have a few laughs.’

    ‘Was that a threat or a promise?’ Cora asked.

    ‘I came through, right?’

    ‘I wouldn’t have minded missing some of this,’ Abilene said. ‘I think it’s great,’ Vivian said. ‘Most of it, anyway.’

    ‘Come on,’ Helen protested, ‘we’re missing stuff.’

    Finley got up and rewound.

    The farewell party came to an end. Then it was the next morning, and they watched tape of their tearful departures.

    Finley appeared on the screen. She had removed the gorilla head, but still wore her formal green gown. ‘And thus ends,’ she said, ‘the saga of the Belmore girls. But it was not the end of the Daring Young Maids, or our adventures. True to our word, we gathered one year later. This time, we were far from the hallowed halls of the university, and eager to take our bites out of the Big Apple.’

    ‘What com,’ Cora said.