Blood Games

    ‘I think it was gone,’ Finley said. ‘I checked around on the way out. Unless it was hiding pretty good…’

    ‘Who gives a rat’s ass about the cat, anyway?’

    ‘I don’t think it’s the cat we’re worried about,’ Abilene said.

    ‘Well then, what the…?’ She suddenly looked sick. She stopped and turned around and scowled up the driveway toward the lodge.

    Abilene looked, too. The lodge was out of sight beyond the slope.

    ‘Come on, guys,’ Finley said. ‘It’s probably not in there.’

    ‘Maybe we should go back and make sure,’ Cora said.

    They all knew Helen’s story about the cat woman. The woman’s name was Maggie and she had lived with a houseful of cats a few blocks from Helen’s childhood home. ‘She was so husky she made me look positively svelte,’ Helen had explained. ‘But she was a real spook, a refugee from the funny farm. Anyway, she ended up croaking. Her body wasn’t found for a really long time. She was dead in that house with all those cats. And they couldn’t get out. When the cops finally went in, she was nothing but bones. The cats had licked her clean, and all of them were fat and sassy. Except for one. This big tomcat, they found it dead inside Maggie’s ribcage. Apparently, it had crawled in there and choked to death eating her heart. It was wedged in so tight that they couldn’t get it out, so Maggie’s skeleton was finally buried with the cat’s corpse still in her chest.’ Finley had said that was bullshit. Helen, grinning, had said, ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’

    And now, staring up the driveway, Abilene supposed that everyone was probably thinking about Helen’s cat-woman story.

    ‘Should we go back?’ she asked.

    ‘I really hate to think she might be shut up in there with the cat,’ Cora said.

    ‘We don’t want to run into the killer,’ Vivian said.

    ‘He’s probably not around. And even if he is, he wouldn’t try to take on all of us. He’s already had plenty of chances. He only got Helen because she was by herself.’

    ‘It must’ve been that kid,’ Vivian said. ‘God, we should’ve gotten out of there yesterday.’

    ‘If I hadn’t lost the keys…’ Abilene muttered.

    ‘They wouldn’t have gotten lost if we’d left as soon as we spotted him.’

    ‘Everything’d be fine if we’d stayed together,’ Cora told her. ‘Helen shouldn’t have gone off by herself.’

    ‘But she did,’ Abilene muttered. ‘All she wanted to do was help.’ Her throat tightened and tears came to her eyes. ‘She just wanted to find the keys.’

    Vivian put an arm around her.

    Finley looked at her strangely. Glaring. As if betrayed and outraged that Abilene was starting to fall apart again.

    But that wasn’t it.

    She kept on glaring as Cora said, ‘Maybe we’d better forget about going back. The cat’s probably not in…’

    ‘Fuck the cat,’ Finley said. ‘Let’s go back and waste the bastard that killed her.’

    They stared at Finley.

    They stared at each other.

    Abilene wiped her eyes. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

    ‘She was one of us. Shit, look what we did to Wildman after he hurt her. All he did was punch her a little. And somebody murders Helen and here we are, walking away.’

    ‘This is different,’ Cora said.

    ‘Fuckin’-A-right, it’s different. This guy killed Helen. He made her dead. He grabbed her and took her into that room and cut off her suit and put her through all kinds of hell. Can you imagine? Think about it. I mean, Helen was always a scared kid and a guy did that to her. God knows what he must’ve done before he killed her. Can you imagine what it must’ve been like? And we’re just gonna walk away?’

    ‘That’s the idea,’ Cora said. Turning around, she continued down the driveway.

    Finley hurried after her, Abilene and Vivian following.

    ‘You always talked big about taking risks!’ Finley blurted. ‘Helen’s dead, you idiot! It isn’t a game anymore.’ She scowled over her shoulder. ‘This isn’t Wildman. This isn’t what’s-his-face getting carried away pretending he’s The Reaper. This is real. The guy’s a killer. You want to go back to the lodge and nail the bastard. So do I. I’d love to make him pay. But I don’t want to see you get your guts ripped out. Or Abilene or Vivian. Do you? We’ve lost Helen, for Godsake. We aren’t gonna lose anyone else. Not while I’m around. We’ll get out of here and we’ll let the cops take care of it.’

    ‘The cops won’t take care of shit!’

    ‘They wouldn’t do it right,’ Vivian said. Abilene looked at her, stunned. Vivian, of all people, was taking Finley’s side? She couldn’t want to go back. Not Vivian. ‘Even if they catch the guy and he gets convicted and everything, he’d only end up in prison.’

    Cora gave Vivian an odd look as if she couldn’t believe her ears, either. ‘Have you lost your mind?’

    ‘I’ve lost Helen.’

    ‘Hunting down the killer won’t change that. She’ll still be dead. And maybe some of us’ll be dead, too.’

    They came to the bottom of the driveway. Cora, stopping, looked up and down the road. ‘The nearest town’s that way, isn’t it?’ she asked, nodding to the left.

    ‘I think so,’ Vivian said. ‘That’s the way we came. I don’t know what’s in the other direction.’

    ‘We should’ve grabbed the map,’ Cora said, and headed to the left.