The Dark Game

by Jonathan Janz

Bryan remembered her limp body, her missing fingers.…

  He shoved away the image and put on what he hoped was a pensive expression. He knew Will worshipped the scarlet-haired girl. If he played this right.…

  “She’s up to something dangerous.”

  Will searched his face, no doubt scouring for the lie. “Like what?”

  “Like I don’t know. She goes into the forest every day, and when she comes back, she’s.…”

  Will gestured impatiently. “She’s what? Covered with burrs? Rashy?”

  Bryan exhaled. “Look. You get the feeling the eliminated contestants never made it home?”

  A veiled expression came over Will’s face. “I have to write.”

  “Don’t you think it’s strange that no one who leaves says goodbye?”

  “Maybe they’re embarrassed.”

  “You’d leave all your stuff behind?”

  Will frowned. “Wilson probably sent it to them.”

  Bryan shuddered at the mention of Wilson. Because Wilson wasn’t really Wilson, was he? Bryan had an idea of who the groundskeeper really was, yet he refused to accept the notion. Because if it was true, this whole retreat was.…

  “See you at supper,” Will said, reaching for the knob.

  “I think she’s leaving,” Bryan said quickly.

  Will’s hand stopped six inches from the knob. “Anna?” he asked without looking up.

  “Uh-huh. That’s where she’s been going. She gets further and further each time, trying to find her way out. I’ve been following her.”

  Will arched an eyebrow. “Stalking her?”

  “Tracking her. Look, I’m just…worried about her.”

  Shit. The excuse rang hollow even to Bryan’s ears.

  “Worried about her? Hell. You’d give her a piggyback ride to the limo, man. Who do you think you’re fooling?”

  Bryan opened his mouth, shut it. Will could see he was full of shit. Best to let it go and find someone else. Pick Lucy after all.

  If he didn’t, he’d be dead by sundown. And it was already late afternoon.

  He was turning to go when Will said, “Hold on, man. I think I see what’s happening here.”

  Bryan eyed him without much hope.

  “You like her,” Will ventured.

  “I do,” he admitted. “I’ve…had a crush on her since the first day.”

  Will was watching him now.

  “And maybe I have been stalking her a little,” Bryan said sheepishly. When Will’s frown deepened, he hastened to add, “But I’d never harm her. I just think she’s, you know, fed up with things.”

  “She’s not in her room?”

  “She was heading toward the forest when I passed her. She looked really…I don’t know. Melancholy?”

  “That doesn’t sound like her,” Will said, more to himself.

  “I think she’s serious this time.”

  Will got moving. “You said she was heading toward the woods?”

  “About ten minutes ago,” Bryan said, hurrying to catch up with him. “I know the path she takes too.”

  “Hope you’re wrong,” Will muttered as they descended the stairs.

  “We’ll talk some sense into her,” Bryan said. If they passed anybody on the way out of the mansion, he’d have to abort the mission. He could feel the weight of the buck knife in his ankle holder.

  Three hours. He had three hours to commit murder. He’d missed his chance that day with Evan in the forest. He should have gutted the pompous bastard like a carp.

  He eyed Will’s white shirt with the tiny blue pinstripes, felt his pulse quicken. Imagined the bloom of red after he stabbed him.

  Face grim, he followed Will out of the mansion.

  Chapter Nine

  They reached the lake in fifteen minutes. On the northern shore loomed the beech trees, Bryan’s first indication that something was wrong here. It messed with his sense of order, so he faced the lake, visored his gaze from the sunglare, and thought of Wilson, that phrase Wilson had uttered: ‘tupped by torment.’

  Bryan hated the classics. One that especially drove him insane was by none other than Roderick Wells.

  The Seer.

  What distinguished it from other novels, Bryan’s English 201 professor had claimed, was its use of the negative hero to illustrate man’s innate savagery. Or some such bullshit.

  The novel had contained a freaky protagonist, there was no arguing with that. The Seer was a handwriting specialist who received impressions from the samples he was given, and then, in cases where guilty people were acquitted, the Seer would visit them and read their sins through their handwriting. ‘The echoes of their damnation’ – a phrase that had jumped out at Bryan when slogging through the book. The Seer was an avenging angel of sorts, or an avenging demon, rather, since he murdered people for sins they’d committed long before.

  Now that Bryan thought about it, what made him hate the book wasn’t the complex language, but rather the idea that no one can ever really be forgiven for a sin that remains secret.

  The notion hit too close to home.

  They paused at the lake’s edge. Will said, “What now, Deerslayer?”

  “We need to probe the shoreline. We find her tracks, we can follow her.”

  “What makes you so sure she was running away?”

  Bryan shrugged. “I could be wrong. But she seemed desperate. Kind of frayed around the edges.”

  “That doesn’t sound like her.”

  “Exactly what I thought.”

  Lips pressed together, Will set off along the shoreline. Bryan moved in the opposite direction. The lake was maybe two hundred acres all told, the shape of a kidney bean. On the eastern shore the hills rose dramatically, resulting in numerous crags and inlets.

  Plentiful hiding places.

  Bryan would take his time, meet Will halfway around the lake. Conceal himself in the shadows. Something near the water to make it easier to wash the blood away.

  He shot a look over his shoulder to see if Will was watching him, but no, Will was studying the sand like a lovesick puppy.

  Bryan’s upper lip curled into a sneer. Fool.

  To imagine a goddess like Anna Holloway would ever dream of fulfilling Will’s prepubescent fantasies.…

  He began the arduous climb up the boulders, into the encompassing veil of forest. He clambered over a massive boulder, mounted a second. Scaled that one effortlessly. Leaped over a gap of perhaps five feet, feeling good now, all thoughts of Wilson and his resemblance to the Seer shunted to the back of his mind. He paused to calculate his next move, and spotted something below that made his heart gallop.

  No way, he thought.

  There was someone down there.

  He’d been sure it was just a trick of the shadows. Or merely an old heap of refuse. But now, screwing up his eyes to penetrate the gloom, he realized it was no trick, and it certainly wasn’t a pile of trash.

  It was a person.

  Forgetting for a moment about Will Church, Bryan lowered himself down the curving rock face until he was low enough to jump onto the sand. He inched closer to the gap between the rock formations and realized he’d been correct: this was a human being. Before dying, the person had commandeered an old brown blanket and now lay beneath it, bare feet poking out.

  He crept closer and thought of The Seer. Impossible as it seemed, he was convinced that Wilson was none other than the eponymous character in Roderick Wells’s novel. Which unleashed a world of frightening possibilities. Had Wilson merely inspired the character, or had Wells created Wilson? And what of Wilson’s age? Christ, what about that? Wilson didn’t look a day over fifty. Yet The Seer was written more than sixty years ago.…

  Bryan thrust the thought away before it undid him. He was losing his edge. He was supposed to be plotting a murder no
w, not investigating a moldering pile of bones. He reached out, chiding himself—

  —and gagged when the corpse swiveled its head toward him, the face mottled with dirt and old blood. Sprawling on his side, Bryan pleaded with the thing rising from the sand to leave him alone, yet even as he gibbered and flapped his hands to ward the thing off, he registered the corpse’s eyes, so familiar, and the corpse’s teeth, which were not decaying nubs after all, but straight and white.

  “Elaine?” he whispered.

  She closed her eyes, weeping silently, and dropped to her knees. “Help me,” she begged. “Oh God, I never thought I’d see anyone again.”

  Bryan barely heard her. He shot looks around the shadowy embankment. Fifteen feet away a creek trickled. Beyond that, forest. Behind them, rock formations loomed.

  Elaine had only been gone since morning, yet in that short time, she’d become a total mess. It disgusted him.

  He blew out a pent-up breath. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  He rose, brushed the sticky sand off his arms. She was crying. She’d shed the smelly brown blanket, but the sight of the snot creaming her upper lip was revolting.

  “Thank you so much for helping me,” she said, getting unsteadily to her feet. Her clothes, he realized, covered very little of her. Short pink shorts and a tank top that might once have been white. There were blotches on her skin; perhaps she’d contracted some disease? Thank God he hadn’t touched her.

  “I’ve been wandering all day,” she explained. She sank at the edge of the creek and palmed water into her mouth.

  Her slurping noises made him sick.

  Remember the man you were supposed to murder? a voice reminded him. Will’s going to be circling the lake soon. How will you do it with Elaine around?

  She splashed water over her hair, which was matted with substances he didn’t care to identify.

  “What happened to you?” he asked.

  “I can’t believe how big this place is,” she said. She swept her hair to the side, revealing a gash the size of an earthworm below her ear. “I tried to find my way back, but I got lost. I’ve been trying to find you guys…my throat’s raw from screaming.…”

  He took in the weals on her calves. “How the hell did you get lost?”

  She rocked, made pathetic humming noises.

  “Don’t freak out on me,” he said.

  “They come alive.”

  He couldn’t keep the irritation from his voice. “I know that.”

  She turned, gazed up at him with wide eyes. “You do?”

  “I can’t believe none of us figured it out earlier. The Seer is one of his most famous books.”

  Her expression clouded. “What are you talking about?”

  He looked away. There’d been snot bubbling from one of her crusted nostrils.

  “Whatever Wells writes becomes reality,” he said. “At least, the Seer did.”

  She was washing her arms now, the wounds garnished with caked blood. “You think Wells brought him to life?”

  He scowled. “Isn’t that what you’re talking about?”

  Her lips trembled, that mad glitter seeping into her eyes. “Our pasts. They followed us here.”

  Bryan stared at her a long time. He was dimly aware of the creek, the rustle of leaves in the late-afternoon breeze.

  “Don’t you see?” Elaine demanded, unwilling to leave it the fuck alone. “I killed him.”

  He made to move away, but she followed him, raving, “I didn’t mean to, I swear.…”

  She stank like a homeless person.

  “It was so dark,” Elaine said, her fetid breath reeking of sewage.

  “Shut up.”

  She was tugging his arm, babbling something about drunk driving. He tried to dance away from her, but she clung to him, her talons hooked in the front of his shirt.

  “It’s why they chose us,” she said, half-sobbing now.

  He was dragging her along the wet sand, trying to pry off her fingers, then wringing her goddamn wrists. She cried out, hit the sand mouth first, lay weeping. He stumbled sideways, his shorts splashed by the shallow water, one of his shoes going completely under. She kept coming, begging him to help her. She grabbed his wet shoe, and in desperation he kicked out at her, cracked her in the nose. Her sob was replaced with a braying wail, one loud enough to hear from half a mile away.

  “Shut up,” he said between clenched teeth.

  Her bloodshot eyes flared in anger, and she lashed out.

  Bryan grabbed for his ankle, saw blood on his palm.

  “Stupid…cunt.” He kicked at her face, missed. Despite her wretched state, she no longer looked so helpless. Her voice was a growl, and she was swatting at his kicks, her broken nails flashing.

  He swung at her, but his punch went wild. She fell against his legs, spitting curses. He tumbled backward, in desperation swinging a fist straight down at her. It connected with enough force to clip her teeth together. She came with him as he fell, her talons carving up his calves. Yelping, he reached down, grabbed her temples, and twisted. It elicited a cry, but still she clawed at him.

  He snapped open the ankle holder, jerked out the buck knife.

  Her eyes went huge. “Oh don’t you—”

  He pumped it into her Adam’s apple. A gurgle sounded in her throat, a gush of hot blood squirted over his wrist. She craned her face toward his, their eyes locking, and he slapped his other hand over her face to cover those staring eyes. He shoved sideways on the knife, unzipping her throat, and the sound grew worse, like an old man’s phlegmy cough.

  Will could arrive at any moment. Bryan dragged her toward the water and rolled her in. Her limbs convulsed but she wasn’t dead, not yet, so he plunged her face into the water, only six inches deep, but enough to swamp her gibbering mouth. Blood billowed around her head in a crimson penumbra, but thankfully, her screams were replaced by the fat burble of air popping on the creek’s surface.

  There was no resistance now, but Bryan kept her pinned to the creek floor, willing her lungs to fill with water.

  He stared down at her body.

  Her body. What the hell was he to do with her body? He couldn’t leave it in the creek. It would float unless he weighted it down, and he didn’t have time for that.

  Casting frightened glances into the forest, Bryan dragged her toward the rock wall. She left a bloody trail in the sand, not to mention heel marks. He might as well erect a flashing neon sign that said MURDER SITE. If Will appeared now, Bryan was well and truly fucked.

  He looked down at her. Elaine’s eyes stared sightlessly up at him. Glassy. Dead.

  A voice yelled, “Bryan?”

  “No,” he whispered, the fear encircling his throat like a noose.

  “Hey, man,” Will called from somewhere above, “I haven’t seen a thing. You?”

  Bryan didn’t dare breathe. No, he thought. I haven’t seen anything, haven’t killed anyone.

  “What’s wrong?” Will shouted.

  His body encased in ice, Bryan peered up and saw Will staring down at him. He couldn’t make out Will’s expression – the slob was too high up for that – and what was more, he didn’t think Will could see Elaine’s body from where he leaned out on the rock formation.

  “I’ll catch up with you in a minute,” Bryan answered.

  “You sure Anna ran out this way?” Will asked.

  Bryan’s lips twitched, and he suppressed an insane urge to laugh. “Pretty sure.”

  “Well, I can’t find her,” Will said. “I’m heading back.”

  “You do that,” Bryan murmured.

  He stood there, his pulse beating in his ears. Another minute passed, and he realized Will had gone.

  The tension bled out of his shoulders. He stepped away from Elaine’s body and trotted toward the woods.

  The
unpleasantness was over. And he was still in the game.

  His eyes widened. He realized he’d done it. He’d killed someone, and even if he hadn’t plotted Elaine’s murder, it counted, didn’t it?

  Of course it counted. He was safe from Wilson.

  Bryan ran harder, his face splitting in a cruel grin. It hadn’t been easy, but he’d done it. And something told him the more he did it, the easier it would become. He hadn’t planned on killing Elaine, but it had proved necessary.

  If Bryan could kill one writer, he could kill another.

  His grin widening, he pounded through the forest.

  Chapter Ten

  From Garden of Snakes, by Rick Forrester:

  “No more,” Jimmy whimpered. He couldn’t look at the body lying next to him on the ground. “Please, no more.”

  “No more?” Anderson said. “Jesus Christ, boy, we’re just starting the home stretch.”

  “I didn’t wanna…didn’t wanna—”

  “Didn’t wanna what?” Anderson said, hurrying over to crouch beside him. “Didn’t wanna die, so you took out this poor piece of shit instead?”

  Jimmy squeezed shut his eyes and wondered how much worse death could be. Or hell, if there was such a place.

  Anderson reached down, smacked his cheek. “Don’t lie to yourself, kid, we’re way beyond all that. You know you could’ve put a scare into this sorry son of a bitch instead of killing him.”

  Jimmy wailed.

  Anderson smacked him, harder this time, Jimmy’s brains banging around his skull.

  “Evolve, you little shit, evolve,” Anderson growled.

  Jimmy thrashed his head, muttered that he wanted to be done.

  He was lifted into the air, and when he opened his eyes, his feet dangled a foot off the ground.

  Anderson held Jimmy with his mad gaze. “Look at me, you little worm.”

  Jimmy tried to, but evidently it wasn’t good enough. Anderson shook him as though rattling a chain-link fence. When the world stopped swooping, Jimmy poured his concentration into meeting the chief’s insane eyes.

  “Now or never, son. It’s now or never. You either get with the program or I’m gonna make you as dead as this dude beside you. It’ll be a suicide, and not one soul will doubt you ate your gun.” His body suspended in the air, Jimmy was drawn nearer the chief, so close he could have kissed the psychotic bastard if he’d pooched out his lips. The smell of the enormous man enclosed him, the days-old sweat, the woodsmoke from the house they’d torched last night. Jimmy even fancied he could smell the scorched meat of their victims, the husband and wife whose only sin had been looking out their window when Anderson was killing that jogger, another poor soul who happened along at the wrong time, a night when the chief’s bloodlust was roused.