“You want to end up like Weiss?” Robbins asked.
“Long as I don’t screw ’em…”
“Shit,” Robbins muttered.
“We’re almost there,” Shaw said. “Go ahead, but don’t dawdle.”
Timmy crawled to Sherri’s head. Kneeling, he leaned over her.
“Don’t touch me, kid,” she snarled. “I’ll kill you, I swear it.”
Timmy looked at his father.
“Just shut up, sister.”
“Yeah!” Timmy said. “You’re just a big ox anyway. Who’d want to feel you up?”
He suddenly lunged onto Neala, his belly pressing her face, his hands pulling her shirt from her waist. She felt his hands rubbing her belly, pushing under the waist of her corduroys, one reaching inside her pan ties and moving in deep, fingers pressing and entering her.
With her free right hand, she hammered the center of Timmy’s back. He jerked with the impact. Then a spasm of coughing shook his body. His hand went away. So did the pressure of his belly on Neala’s face.
“Damn it, Robbins!” Shaw shouted. “You shouldn’t have let her do that!”
“She caught me off guard.”
Timmy knelt above her, shaking as he coughed.
“Goddamn bastard,” Shaw muttered.
The boy was crying, now. He suddenly gasped, “You!” and punched Neala’s face with a small, hard fist. She flung up her arm to stop the next blow, but Robbins had already shoved Timmy. The boy tumbled backward.
“That’s enough,” Robbins said.
“Dad!”
“Nobody touches my boy, pal.”
“Yeah? I do. The kid’s out of hand. He’s starting to act like a shit, and I’m not going to let it go on. Not while I’m on this run.”
The man at Neala’s feet said, “What’s got into you, Robbins? All the kid wanted was to cop a little feel. How come you’re so touchy, all of a sudden? Last week, you were helping him. You stepped on that gal’s hand, remember?”
“I don’t feel so great about that, either.”
“What the fuck, did you get religion or something?”
“Something.”
The pickup lurched as it turned onto a dirt road. Overhead, the woods closed in, shutting out the moonlight.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Who’s for a nightcap?” Lander asked, once they’d carried the suitcases into cottage twelve.
“You mean a Pepsi?” Cordelia asked.
“Whatever you like. Pepsi, 7-Up, hard stuff. We’ll hoist a couple to fortify Ben and me for the long trek back to three.”
“Dad’s trying to mollify us,” she told Ben.
Lander opened his travel bar. “Vodka for me,” he said, smiling at his daughter’s remark. After all, she was right. She may be a smart aleck and oversexed, but she wasn’t stupid. “A Manhattan?” he asked Ruth.
“That’ll hit the spot.”
“What’s your pleasure, Ben?”
Cordelia smirked at the boy. “Don’t get your hopes up,” she said. “You won’t be getting that tonight.”
Lander was pleased to see Ben blush.
“Just a Pepsi, I guess.”
“We don’t have any ice,” Ruth told them.
Cordelia smiled. “I saw a machine by the office.”
“I’ll go get some,” Ben volunteered.
“Good man.”
“I’ll go with you,” Cordelia said. At the door, she turned to Lander. “Don’t worry, Dad, we won’t indulge in sexual escapades.”
They left.
Lander poured rye into one of the glasses from his case. He opened the small vermouth bottle.
“You sure opened a can of worms,” Ruth said.
“It’s vermouth.”
She ignored his attempt at humor.
“The can,” Lander explained, “was open already. I only tried to put a lid on it. Not even that, really. If they want to have at it, let them do it on the sly. It’s more fun that way, anyhow. ‘Stolen sweets are best.’”
“I don’t know,” Ruth said. “Maybe we should let them share a room. They are eighteen, you know. In a couple of months, they’ll both be going off to Santa Barbara, and we won’t have any say in what they do.”
“All the more reason to have our say now.”
“Over here,” Cordie whispered. She pulled Ben to ward a dark path between two of the cottages.
“We’d better get the ice.”
“What’s the hurry?”
“They’ll be waiting.”
“Let ’em wait. Come on. This’ll be our only chance to be alone, to night.”
“Just for a minute,” Ben said. “We don’t want to get your dad angry.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“Did you really think he’d let us sleep together?”
“God no. Dad? Not a chance. It was worth a try, though.” She led Ben into the shadows. Wrapping her arms around him, she lightly touched her lips to his mouth. He seemed hesitant, at first—preoccupied. She kissed him more deeply, opening her mouth, sucking his tongue into her.
Ben pulled her tightly against him, and she felt his erection against her belly. If only she were wearing a skirt instead of these tight jeans! Moaning with frustrated desire, she rubbed against his shaft. His leg bent. She rode his upthrust thigh, grinding herself against it, slipping a hand down the front of his pants and stroking him. One of his hands went inside her blouse. It squeezed her breast through the thin sheath of her bra.
Abruptly, his whole body shook. He bit her tongue. His hand clenched, shooting pain through her breast. He pumped warm fluid into her hand, and dropped to his knees.
Behind him, hammer poised for another blow, stood a grinning, toothless old woman.
“It’s sure taking them a long time,” Lander complained. He swirled his warm vodka, and sipped it.
“They haven’t been alone all day.”
“You’d think they could exercise a little restraint.”
“They’re in love, honey.”
“I know, I know.”
Ruth sat down on the bed beside him. “You’re not exactly the world champ at exercising restraint, yourself. Remember the night on the porch glider?”
He laughed softly. “I thought for sure your dad would catch us.”
“And how you brought a can of oil, the next night?”
“I wonder if they ever noticed the squeak was gone.”
“I sure did.”
“I oiled you both, that night.”
“Geez, Lander!” She gave him a playful shove.
“I noticed you stopped squeaking, too.”
“You’re awful!”
They kissed. Her lips were pliant and warm and familiar. He felt the gentle pressure of her hand on his leg. “Hey,” he said, “we’d better not get started.”
“Better not,” she echoed. “Guess we’ll have to exercise restraint.”
“That’s not what I’d like to exercise,” he said.
She pushed him, laughing. “How about you getting the ice. It’ll keep you out of mischief.”
“Yeah, and maybe I’ll run into the lovebirds.” He picked up the room key, and went out the door. Outside, he tried the knob to be sure it was locked. He climbed down the wooden stairs, and scanned the three small duplexes across the driveway. No sign of Cordelia or Ben. He glanced into the car. Not there.
From the middle of the dirt driveway, he had a good view of all six cottages, the office and the main road. Turning, he looked behind him. The drive ended, and the forest began.
The forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks…
Maybe they went in there for a tumble in the hemlocks.
Joking about it didn’t help.
It’s no joke, your own daughter having a tumble.
Roll me over in the clover….
He pictured Cordelia on her back, Ben pumping. It made his stomach hurt.
Roll me over lay me down and do it again.
I’m obses
sed, he thought.
Jealous?
Crap.
Where are they?
Could they get into one of the cottages? He studied each, turning as he walked, sometimes walking backward. Six duplexes. Twelve rooms in all. Lights on in the windows of about half. Cars were parked in front of several others. Real clunkers. One, he noticed—an ancient, battered Buick Special—even had a flat rear tire. One of its windows was down.
He shook his head. No. They wouldn’t dare make out in a stranger’s car.
Stopping, he eyed each car with new suspicion. Four, not counting his own. The kids could be in any of them, rutting on the backseat.
Rutting?
Shame burned Lander’s face as he changed direction and walked across the dirt to the Buick. He moved close enough to see that the backseat was empty, then veered away and approached the next car.
A Maverick. Its right rear corner was badly bashed as if a metal-eating monster had taken a bite from it. Stepping closer, he glanced into the backseat. A dark shape jumped, and sprang through the far window. A cat. Lander laughed softly at his own fright. He patted his chest, where his heart pounded frantically, and looked again into the car. Baby shoes hung from the rearview mirror. His eyes lowered to the steering column. Something weird there. With a quick glance around to be sure he wasn’t being watched, he opened the passenger door and leaned across the seat.
On the steering column where the ignition should be, he saw only a round hole.
Strange, all right.
He climbed out, silently shut the door, and stepped to the front. His fingers searched beneath the lip of the hood. He found the latch and released it. He raised the hood, hinges squawking.
No battery.
No radiator, no fan belt, no carburetor, no air cleaner. The engine had been cannibalized.
“Jesus,” he muttered, and lowered the hood.
He ran across the driveway to a dilapidated Grand Prix. Raised its hood. Gazed into the darkness where the engine should have been, and found no engine at all. The car was an empty shell.
What kind of a motel was this, leaving useless cars in front of its rooms like—decoys?
With a sudden chill of dread, Lander wondered if the entire place was deserted: lights left on in rooms, hulks of cars rolled into place like props in a play…
The play is the tragedy “Man”—good ole Poe, popping up when you need him least—its hero, the Conqueror Worm.
A play. Its stage constructed by the smiling man in the office—by the strange person lurking behind his door.
“Cordelia!” Lander shouted. “Cordelia! Ben!” He waited, listening for a reply. He heard wind in the trees, crickets and distant frogs, the sounds of birds singing in the night as if nothing were wrong, the laughter of a television audience.
At the end of the courtyard, a door swung open. Ruth stepped out. “Lander? What’s wrong?”
He ran to her.
“For heaven’s…”
He pushed her inside and shut the door.
“What is it, what’s wrong?” Her frightened eyes begged him for a quick answer. “The kids?”
“I didn’t see them. I don’t know where they are, but something’s wrong here. All those cars, they’re fakes.”
“I don’t…” She shook her head.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but…Remember Norman Bates?”
“Who?”
“Anthony Perkins. Psycho? The hotel…”
“Lander, stop it!”
“I don’t think this is a real motel, at all. I think it’s some kind of a trap.”
“No!”
Lander leaned against the door and rubbed his face. Always a pacifist, he’d detested firearms. Now he wished to God he had one.
“What’ll we do?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Cordelia’s out there!”
“Look, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s all…innocent, and the kids are out in the woods, or something, having the time of their lives. I don’t know.”
In a quiet voice tight with control, Ruth said, “We’d damn well better find out.”
“How?”
“We’ll march ourselves right over to the office….”
“Oh, that’s a great idea.”
“What do you suggest?”
He looked at the telephone, and immediately gave up the idea. No way to call out for help, not without going through the motel switchboard. “We could go for help,” he muttered. “There must be police, a sheriff….”
Ruth reached for the doorknob.
He grabbed her wrist.
“I’m going out there and find my daughter,” she said. “Now let go of me.”
“Wait! We’ve got to think.”
“My ass! While you’re thinking, God-knows-what could be happening to Cordie.” She jerked her hand free, and gripped the knob. She tugged the door open.
Lander dropped backward, slamming it shut. “Damn it, Ruth!”
“Let me out!”
The telephone rang, its harsh clamor sending a shock of alarm through Lander. Ruth’s head snapped sideways. They both stood motionless, staring at the black instrument as it blared again.
Lander suddenly rushed to it. As it rang a third time, he picked it up. “Hello?”
“Mr. Dills, this is Roy in the office.”
“Yes?”
“Your daughter’s here with me. She would like a word with you.”
Lander waited, his eyes on Ruth.
“What is it?” she mouthed, the words barely coming out.
Lander shrugged.
“Daddy?” His daughter’s voice was shrill with panic.
“Honey, what’s wrong?”
“Oh Dad! They…Ben! I think he’s dead!”
“Where are you?”
“No. Don’t come. They’ll kill you.”
“Are you in the office?”
“Don’t let them get you!”
He motioned to Ruth. “Here, your mother wants to talk to you.”
She hurried across the room. He handed her the phone. “Hello, Cordie?”
“Keep her talking,” Lander whispered.
Ruth nodded.
He ran to the door, jerked it open, and rushed out. Something—a wire?—snagged his foot. As he pitched headlong, he glimpsed a grinning old woman sitting cross-legged on the hood of his car, cradling a hammer. He slammed into the dirt by the wheel.
With a squeal of delight, the woman pounced.
CHAPTER FIVE
The pickup truck lurched over a rough, dirt road. After the flare-up about Timmy, the men had kept a cold silence.
Neala wished they would talk, even fight. Their quarrel over the horny creep of a kid had pulled her mind away from thoughts of her own situation. Now, the distraction was gone. Her fear returned, black and paralyzing with images of rape and slaughter.
She began to cry. She didn’t want to, didn’t want the men to see her weakness, didn’t want Sherri to draw more fear from her own desolation. She couldn’t help it, though. She felt alone and helpless. Like the time she was lost in the woods.
She’d been only six, then, but she still remembered how it felt. Her family had been camping near Spider Lake in Wisconsin. Dad told scary stories by the campfire, while they all drank hot chocolate. The hot chocolate did it: she woke in the middle of the night with a horrible strain on her bladder. She shook Betty awake, but her older sister refused to budge from the sleeping bag.
Neala had to go so badly she didn’t bother to dress. Wearing only her underpants, she crept out of the pup-tent. The chilly breeze made her shake. She crossed the campsite barefoot, the ground moist and cold under her feet.
Her dad had dug a hole, off behind the camp. A “latrine,” he called it. Neala had been there several times, but not at night.
She wandered far into the dark woods, searching for the latrine. She couldn’t find it. Finally, she gave up and squatted beside a birch tree. Relieved, she headed b
ack for camp. She thought she knew just where it was. But she walked and walked. When she came to a strange, moonlit pasture, she knew she was lost. She called for Mom and Dad. She called for Betty. Nobody came.
That’s when it hit her: the awful fear of being alone and helpless in the night. She wandered the pasture, blind with tears, wailing her anguish, hoping they would hear and come for her.
But what if someone else heard, and not her parents? One of those bogey men Dad talked about at the campfire? Or the awful Windigo? Or a witch like the one that tried to eat Hansel and Gretel?
Covering her mouth to stop the squalling, she ran from the pasture. In the woods, she ran as fast as she could, not daring to look back because something horrible might be chasing her. Roots tripped her. Webs stuck to her bare skin. Switches whipped her. But she kept running until she broke into another clearing and saw the moonlit car.
Their car.
They’d left it behind, and hiked a long way before making camp. She wasn’t sure why.
The doors were locked, so she crawled underneath the car. The grass beneath it was dry. She lay there, safely hidden, and shivered through the night.
In the morning, when Dad found her, he cried. They both cried, because everything had turned out all right, after all.
And they lived happily ever after, Neala thought, until four men and a boy put the girl into a pickup truck and drove her to a secret place in the woods, and…
The truck stopped.
Robbins and Shaw climbed out. “You wait here,” Shaw told his son.
The man at Neala’s feet jumped over the tailgate, and unlatched it. The gate swung down with a groan and clank. He grabbed Neala’s ankles and pulled. She slid along the metal floor.
Timmy, crawling at her head, reached down suddenly and tore open her blouse. She tried to knock him away with her one free hand, but he was too quick. He squeezed her breasts as if he wanted to rip them off. Neala cried out. Her fist caught him in the face so hard it hurt her knuckles, and he fell backward, crying.
Then she was on her feet behind the truck, Sherri at her side.
“Are you all right?” Sherri asked.
“Shut up,” Shaw said.
“Let’s go,” said Robbins. His grip on Neala’s arm was firm, but not painful like that of the other man.
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