He closed his eyes, dozed off again, and when he awoke it was past eight o’clock. He felt good. Playing hooky agreed with him, always had, and he felt the way he had when ditching a class in high school or calling in sick to work: free. He turned on the television for background noise, showered and shaved, then took an orange juice and an apple from the minibar. He wasn’t a breakfast person, and figured that would tide him over until lunch.
He had finished eating and brushing his teeth, and was trying to decide whether he should watch a Dinner for Five marathon on IFC or spend the morning soaking up some rays by the pool. What he should be doing was finishing up his second article on yesterday’s festival festivities, but he’d already decided to postpone that until the afternoon. Let Townsend squirm.
There was a knock at his door. He started across the room, wondering who it could be. Someone finally come to check on the party noise that had continued almost all night long? Doubtful, since he hadn’t bothered to complain this time. He opened the door. Vicki was standing there, dressed in shorts and a cutoff T-shirt, holding a white piece of paper in her hand. “I’ve been looking all over for you,” she said. “I know you told us your room number last night, but I forgot it, and those jerks at the front desk won’t give out any personal information. So I’ve been walking up and down in front of different rooms, hoping one of the numbers would ring a bell.” She smiled sheepishly. “This is the fourth door I’ve knocked on.”
When he didn’t say anything right away, she jumped in, speaking quickly. “I’m sorry about last night,” she said. “I apologize. I don’t know what happened. Things just seemed to get out of hand.”
“It’s okay,” he said stiffly.
Her expression darkened. “I think it was that damn pool. The one in the fitness center. Something about it . . .” She shook her head, forced out a laugh. “And here I am talking in bad movie clichés.”
They were clichés, but there was a reason they were clichés. Because they held truth. Patrick stepped aside. “Would you like to come in?”
She smiled gratefully. “Yes.” She walked past him into the room, her nipples jutting against the T-shirt. “There’s a theater here at the resort,” she said. “Did you know that?”
Patrick shook his head. “No,” he admitted.
“I just found out about it this morning.” She handed him the paper she’d been holding. “This came on the tray with my breakfast, and of course I immediately thought about you.”
He scanned the printed sheet. This couldn’t be. The Reata Summer Film Series, the headline read, and below it was a list of films to be shown in the theater each Sunday for the next two months. Today, at ten and two, were two of his favorite movies, El Topo and Eraserhead, neither of which he’d seen since his college days. Thank God he had decided to skip the Tucson festival today. “Wow,” he said, looking up. “This is—” He broke off.
She had removed her shirt and was standing there topless, looking at him, waiting for him. She met his eyes and then pulled down her shorts.
He took her in his arms.
In the middle of everything, he thought he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, a black scuttling on the floor near the minibar—the spider?
—but then she was grabbing him where she shouldn’t and he was thrusting deeper and harder, and the scuttling thing was forgotten in the mad rush to orgasm.
Afterward, while dressing, he talked to her about El Topo, which she not only had never seen, but had never heard of, and by the time they were all dressed he had gotten her nearly as excited about the film as he was.
“Now where’s this theater?” he asked.
“It’s in that main building, down the hallway where those conference rooms are, in back of the lobby.”
He glanced at the clock. “The movie starts in twenty minutes, I doubt there’s going to be a big crowd for this, but let’s try to get a good seat.”
She seemed happy just to be coming along with him. “Okay.”
Patrick took two Evian bottles out of the minibar, handed one to her, and they stepped out of the room.
“Mr. Schlaegel!”
He turned to see the activities coordinator running down the causeway toward them. Patrick started walking, pulling Vicki with him.
“Mr. Schlaegel! Patrick! Wait up!”
The activities coordinator reached them, out of breath, at the end of the corridor just as they were about to head up the sidewalk. “Mr. Schlaegel! I’m glad I caught up with you. Since you’re going to be staying at The Reata today instead of going back to Tucson, I thought you might want to help out the Coyotes. They weren’t so hot yesterday in the volleyball tournament . . .”
Patrick frowned. How did the man know he was going to be staying here today? Was his room bugged? Had someone from the resort heard him talking to Vicki about it?
Had someone watched them?
He felt cold.
“It’s Sunday. B-ball day. We’re going to be playing basketball in the gym this afternoon, and the Coyotes are practicing there right now. I thought you might want to stop by, get in the game, help them out. They’re still one man short.”
“One man short or one person short?” Vicki asked.
He spread his arms. “We’re open here.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
“If you want to play—”
“I don’t,” she told him. “I was just checking.”
“I don’t either,” Patrick said, and started walking toward the lobby, his hand around Vicki’s, hurrying her along.
The activities coordinator accompanied them, and Patrick remembered the dark expression he’d seen yesterday on the man’s face when he’d declined to participate. “I think you ought to rethink—” the activities coordinator began.
Vicki turned on him. “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand? We’re busy, we have plans, we don’t want to play in your stupid game. Get a life. Jesus!”
Patrick kept walking, afraid to look at the man, prepared for any reaction, his hand in Vicki’s tightening. The activities coordinator still seemed to him unstable, potentially dangerous, and the last thing Patrick wanted was to irritate or provoke him.
Then, suddenly, he was gone. Vicki’s outburst must have done the trick, because when the sidewalk curved, he saw no one beside or behind them in his peripheral vision, and when he turned to look, they were all alone. “Where did he go?” Patrick asked.
“Maybe he took the hint.”
If it was good enough for her, it should have been good enough for him, but he felt uneasy as they headed up the sidewalk toward the main building, passing the spot where he’d seen the wolf and the snakes Friday night.
In the lobby, a freestanding sign with magnetized letters announced THE REATA SUMMER FILM SERIES, and an arrow pointed down the corridor to the right, away from the gift shop. Behind the front desk, a cute girl smiled at them, nodded a greeting, and Patrick smiled back. Vicki ignored her. It was quite possible, he thought, that they’d be the only people in the theater. The movie hadn’t been well-advertised—hell, he hadn’t even known about it until Vicki told him, and his radar was attuned to anything film related—and El Topo was not exactly a big draw these days.
They stepped out of the lobby into the high, wide corridor, passing underneath a computer-generated banner that read: WELCOME HOLLINGER AND ASSOCIATES.
“Oh my God,” Vicki breathed.
“Wha—” he began. And then he saw.
It stood at the end of the hallway. A small thin man with an overgrown child’s head, a simple, innocent, too-happy face wobbling on the end of a long skinny neck. It was a figure out of a nightmare, and it made Patrick stop in his tracks. There was something about the little man that seemed familiar, that rang a bell somewhere deep in his brain, and though he couldn’t place it, the association was not a good one.
Vicki recovered her equilibrium almost instantly and kept walking, but Patrick grabbed her hand and held her in place. He coul
d not walk past that thing to go into the theater. There was no logical, physical reason . . . he was simply afraid.
The idiot head bobbled on its impossibly thin neck, smiling at him, and Patrick had to fight the urge to turn tail and run.
“You know,” he said, feigning bravery, not wanting her to know how truly frightened he was, “I think I will check out that basketball game. It sounds like it might be fun.”
“Are you kidding? I thought this was, like, one of your favorite films of all time. And I’ve never seen it.” But she kept glancing over at that odd wobbling figure.
He, too, looked down the hallway. “Yeah, I know. Watching movies is my job, though. I’m taking a break today.”
“I thought you wanted to—” The creature took a step forward, and she jumped, letting out a short sharp gasp. She felt it, too. Vicki nodded nervously. “Okay, yeah. Maybe it would be fun to, uh, play basketball. Or watch you play. My friends would like it, too.”
They turned, hurrying back toward the lobby. Patrick hazarded one last glance behind him and saw the door to the theater closing, the figure disappearing into the auditorium. He shivered, chilled by the thought that they could have been trapped with that horror in the dark. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself sitting in a theater seat while that big child’s head rose like a moon above the chair in front of him, grinning in the gloom.
And he did not relax until they were through the lobby and out of the building, heading for the gym, that terrible creature safely behind them.
Twenty-six
They were in the Jacuzzi again, seemingly the only safe place in this treacherous resort, and there was no sign of last night’s horrors. Pretty women and handsome men went about their duties cleaning the pool, setting up chairs and sweeping the cement. The storm had blown leaves and bugs in the water, and they had not entirely been scooped up, but several kids were still sliding happily down the slide while their mothers staked out preferred seats along the pool’s edge.
David reached for his Coke and took a sip. It was watered down, the ice having melted and created a layer of water atop the heavier thicker syrup. The drink felt cool and good, but it wouldn’t much longer. A little more time under this sun and it would be the temperature of hot tea.
So why the hell were they sitting in this warm jet-propelled water?
Comfort, habit, stupidity. Take your pick.
He looked across the roiling water at Ryan and Curtis who were staring tiredly back at him, Owen’s attention was elsewhere as he scanned the sidewalk outside the fence for any sign that Brenda was on her way.
Where were his parents? David wondered. Back at the driving range? He had the utmost disrespect for his mother and father, and usually he wished them nothing but ill will. That was under ordinary circumstances, however. Here at The Reata, he found himself thinking about them, worrying about them, hoping they were all right.
He stood, getting out of the Jacuzzi. He’d had enough of this. He was starting to feel like a boiled lobster.
“Where’re you going?” Curtis asked. Owen finally turned his attention away from the area outside the fence.
David didn’t answer. He simply picked up his plastic cup and walked over to a nearby table with an umbrella. After a moment, the brothers followed. “I’m sick of this place,” he told them as they sat on chairs around him. “It feels like a fucking prison. I used to think it would be crazy-fun to, like, live at a hotel. You know, have maids make your bed and clean up your mess. Eat out all the time. Have a pool to swim in and cable TV with every channel on the planet.”
They were nodding.
“But it sucks. I’m bored. I feel like I’m trapped here. There’s nothing to do, just the same old shit day after day, and . . .” He trailed off. And there’s the S&M driving range and the disappearing body at the bottom of the pool and the rain that turned hot chicks into old hags, he’d been about to say, but something kept him from it.
“I know something we can do,” Ryan said.
They all looked at him suspiciously.
“Go back to Antelope Canyon. To the old resort.”
Curtis and Owen looked at each other, and David picked up on their frightened reluctance because he was feeling exactly the same thing. Last night, he had dreamed about the old resort, and he’d awakened shortly past midnight drenched with sweat, heart pounding, the images and emotions engendered by the nightmare still fresh and clear in his mind. In the dream, he’d walked alone down the Antelope Canyon trail at night, moonshine illuminating the way ahead, bathing the path in a bluish glow and throwing the mountains into darkness. The ruins of the old hotel had not been off to the side as they were in real life but at the end of the trail, its ultimate destination. He had not wanted to go there, had wanted to turn back, but he sensed a presence behind him, a being so dark and terrifying that he was afraid even to turn around and look at it. So he pressed forward, walking, then running, and soon he was at the empty resort. It looked more like a fortress now, like the ragged remnants of a Wild West stronghold. He walked through the open gates, past a guard hut and a one-room jail, to a large crumbling structure in the center of the fort. There were no windows in the dilapidated building, but a section of the roof had collapsed and moonlight shone through the hole, allowing him to see a shabby throne surrounded by rubble and bones. On the throne was a man so old it was nearly impossible to tell he was human, a skeletal figure with long scraggly hair who looked at him with cold dead eyes and said in a voice like amplified sandpaper, “Bring them to me.”
“Who?” David had asked, his voice a fearful, barely audible whisper.
The ancient man pointed behind David and smiled, revealing long yellow teeth. “Them.”
And he’d awakened.
The dream remained with him even now, but he wasn’t about to admit that, especially to a kid like Ryan, and he nodded indifferently. “Sure,” he said.
Curtis and Owen, caught in the same trap, acquiesced as well, and in a matter of minutes they were in their tennis shoes, shirts on, walking past the tennis courts on their way to the trailhead. Brenda wasn’t with them this time, and for some reason Owen was glad of that. He liked her and all—she was pretty nice, and of course hot as hell—but she was one of those people who belonged in a city, who weren’t cut out for the wilderness, and it had been weird to have her along last time. Uncomfortable.
They reached the start of the Antelope Canyon trail.
PLEASE STAY ON THE PATH.
Owen didn’t like that sign. He hadn’t liked it when he’d first seen it, and he liked it even less now. There was something about that simple, ostensibly innocent message that hinted at a deeper darker meaning and sent chills cascading down his spine. He wondered if anyone else felt the same way, and though he wanted to ask, he didn’t.
It had been Ryan’s idea to come here, but since David was the eldest, he led the way. They hiked up the incline and between the bluffs. Noise echoed and was amplified in this narrow part of the ravine, and to David it seemed like they were passing through a portal into another time or another dimension. It seemed symbolic, this entryway into Antelope Canyon, and he didn’t like that either.
“We never found the hot springs,” Ryan said. “Last time.” His voice doubled back, altered and faint.
Curtis snorted. “What hot springs? If they were there at all, they’re dead. That pool hasn’t had any water in it since your grandma gave BJs to dinosaurs.”
“She’s your grandma, too,” Ryan pointed out.
“It’s just an expression.”
None of them seemed to like the strange whispery quality of the echoes, and conversation died out until the canyon opened up before them. There are ghosts here, Ryan had said last time, and remembrance of the words made David shiver.
“Why’d you want to come here?” Owen asked Ryan, taking off his T-shirt and using it to wipe the sweat off his face. David had been wondering the same thing.
“Yeah,” Curtis said. “It’s hot as a bast
ard in this damn desert.” But they all knew that wasn’t the real reason for his discomfort.
“I thought we might . . . find something.”
Now it was David’s turn. “Find something?”
“Remember what happened last night? We’re all pretending it didn’t happen, and I think something’s making us pretend it didn’t happen, but it did, and we all know it.” He paused, took a deep breath, said it fast, “The rain made the people who work at the resort turn old.”
Chills surfed down David’s arms at him hearing those words said aloud.
“I don’t know how it happened, but we saw it and so did everyone else there.” He looked at Owen. “Brenda, too.”
Owen’s voice was quiet. “What does that have to do with this?” He gestured around them, although mostly toward the ruined hotel up ahead and off to the left.
“I don’t know,” Ryan admitted. “But I think it does.”
David did, too. And it was probably why he wanted to turn back around and hide in his room watching television until it was time to go home.
What were his parents doing now?
They walked the rest of the way in silence, none of them wanting to either agree with Ryan or challenge him, all of them wanting to just pretend none of it had happened and they were simply on an interesting nature hike.
They reached the mount with the buckboard, left the trail.
Please stay on the path.
David sucked in his breath as they passed over the rise. His heart started pounding. This was impossible. It had only been a day, less than twenty-four hours, yet the abandoned hotel was no longer in ruins. It was still deserted, still in a state of serious disrepair, but the complete destruction that had previously existed had been tempered somewhat and now there were full-sized walls where before there had been only vestiges of the foundation. The formerly roofless restaurant now had a roof, and the faded paint on the cracked chipped cement looked a little brighter, a little less faded. On a broken wall, he could see two letters: R and E.
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