Blood Games

    ‘She might’ve already fished them out.’

    ‘Yeah, but maybe she didn’t. Who knows? We’re here. We might as well look.’

    ‘Okay. Over this way.’

    Abilene in the lead, they pushed through the water toward the center of the pool.

    The mist parted around them like smoke stirred and tattered by the mild breeze of their movements.

    Peering down through the water, Abilene soon located the dark, barred mouth of the hot spring. As she stepped closer to it, she felt the hot currents roll against her legs and rub her panties. ‘I picked up the shorts right near here,’ she whispered.

    ‘Oh, great. What if the keys fell through?’

    ‘I know. I already thought of that.’ She took a long stride to the other side of the bars. ‘Right here,’ she said. She pressed the front of her skirt against her thighs, bent over, and lowered her face into the water. Her legs looked distorted: strangely white, bent at odd angles, undulating as if their bones had turned to squirmy soft rubber.

    She could see the pale floor of the pool just fine.

    She couldn’t see a key case. Not between her feet, or for a yard in front of her feet, or off to either side. Coming up for air, she glanced over her left shoulder and found Cora hunched down with her face in the water.

    She pivoted to the right, ducked under again, and searched a different section of the bottom.

    Still no luck.

    For a long time, she and Cora hunted in the area surrounding the spring. They even searched the darkness below the crossed bars, diving down and grabbing hold, peering into the mouth of the pit. If the keys were there, however, they were out of sight and beyond reach.

    They fanned out and continued looking. Later, Abilene made her way gradually toward the side of the pool, thinking that the keys might’ve dropped out of the pocket while she was returning with the shorts. She reached the wall without finding them. Standing there, she checked the granite in hopes of spotting wet footprints left by Helen.

    The granite was wet all right. Puddled. And there were countless footprints. After a moment of confusion and excitement and fear, she realized that she was looking at the water they’d all left on the pool’s apron last night. It simply hadn’t dried.

    Out of breath, Cora asked, ‘Anything?’

    ‘She might’ve climbed out over here, but I can’t tell for sure. It’s still all wet from us.’

    ‘But where the hell are the keys? Maybe we oughta get the other two in here for some help.’

    ‘Why bother? The keys just aren’t here. Either Helen already found them or they went down the hot spring.’

    ‘We’d better keep looking.’

    ‘We should be looking for Helen, not the keys. If she hasn’t got them… we can’t leave, anyway, until we find her.’

    ‘Helen!’ Cora shouted. ‘Helen!’

    In the silence that followed the boom of her voice, Finley called from outside, ‘Did you find her?’

    ‘No, damn it!’

    ‘Find the keys?’ Finley asked.

    ‘No!’

    ‘Why don’t you come on out?’ Vivian called.

    ‘We’re on our way,’ Abilene answered. To Cora, she said, ‘Hey, for all we know, Helen might be back at the sleeping bags and wondering what happened to us.'

    ‘Fat chance.’

    Abilene didn’t believe it, either.

    It was about as likely, she thought, as waking up and discovering that Helen’s disappearance had been nothing but a bad dream.

    They made their way slowly back through the pool, studying its bottom. Then they passed under the archway. Abilene felt guilty about quitting the search, but it was good to be in the sunlight again and very good to see Finley and Vivian. She climbed out. The morning air felt cool after the heat of the water.

    ‘Helen might’ve already found the keys,’ she said.

    ‘Unless they fell down through the grate,’ Cora added.

    ‘Maybe the guy took them,’ Finley said.

    ‘Anything’s possible,’ Abilene said.

    ‘They might even still be in the pool,’ Cora explained, ‘and we just couldn’t find them. Maybe later we should all go in and do a really thorough search.’

    ‘The main thing’s finding Helen,’ Vivian said. ‘We can get by without the keys, if we have to. We can walk out. But… God, where is she?’

    ‘Somebody must’ve grabbed her,’ Finley said.

    Though Abilene had already suspected as much, the words struck her like a blow. ‘There’s gotta be some other explanation. ’

    ‘Like what? She left her shoes here. And the chips. Obviously, she went in the water to look for the keys. But she didn’t come out.’

    ‘How could she go in there?’ Vivian sounded as if she might start crying. ‘Was she out of her mind?’

    ‘Took a lot of guts,’ Cora muttered.

    ‘I’m sure she thought she’d let us down,’ Abilene said. ‘Wanted to make things right.’

    ‘But God!’

    ‘The thing is,’ Finley said, ‘her shoes are still here. And the chips. So she didn’t come out this way. Unless she was taken out by someone.’

    ‘No footprints,’ Abilene said.

    ‘She could’ve been taken out this way,’ Finley said. ‘The sun’s pretty damn hot. Footprints wouldn’t have lasted all that long.’ Turning around, she gazed across the field. ‘Maybe took her into the woods. If it was that kid we saw yesterday.’