The Resort

by Bentley Little

  She walked down the gravel path between landscaped barrel and saguaro cactus, past a burbling fountain that reminded her that she was thirsty. She quickened her pace. From around the thick trunk of a cottonwood tree up ahead, another woman came toward her on the path, a haughty, ferret-faced woman of approximately her own age whom Rachel had seen cheering fiercely for Blodgett’s team yesterday at the volleyball tournament. The woman met Rachel’s gaze, then looked disdainfully away. You’re here for the off-season bargain rate just like we are, Rachel thought, but smiled agreeably as the two of them approached each other, the same way she would smile at any person she happened to meet.

  The woman stopped walking for a second as Rachel passed and purposely stuck out a foot to trip her. Rachel stumbled, almost fell, but caught herself and whirled to face her attacker, who was now calmly walking away.

  “Bitch!” Rachel yelled, and instinctively reached down to pick up a stone. She threw it as hard as she could, and was gratified when it slammed against the woman’s upper back, just above the U of her tank top, and drew blood.

  The woman screamed and dropped the oversized bag she’d been carrying, crouching to grab a small rock of her own, which she heaved at Rachel, hitting her tennis shoe. Seconds later, they were in the midst of a full-fledged rock fight, and even as she dodged incoming pieces of sandstone and threw semisuccessful salvos of her own, Rachel wondered how it had come to this. This was insane. Two grown women throwing rocks at each other in the middle of a luxury resort? How could something like this happen?

  She didn’t know, but as crazy as it was, it felt good, it felt right, and she whaled away with a windmilling arm, going for quantity not quality, aware that many of her throws were missing completely, but certain that enough of them were hitting their target to inflict damage. A small piece of gravel winged the woman’s cheek, and a bigger rock smacked into her left breast, eliciting a gratifying cry of pain.

  A stone thrown by the woman hit Rachel’s arm, a surprisingly solid blow that was felt all the way down to her bone, but then Rachel in her indiscriminate frenzy happened to grab a rather large rock the size of a baseball, which sailed fast and true and connected with the woman’s exposed forehead, opening up an instantly bleeding gash. A wave of red gushed down over her right eye, onto her cheek, onto her clothes.

  The woman quit, running away, crying and holding a hand to her bleeding head. Rachel dropped the stone she’d been about to throw. “Take that, bitch,” she said.

  Smiling, she continued up the path toward their suite.

  “What do you mean it won’t start?”

  Laszlo shrugged. “Electrical problem, I think.” He gestured around the auto shop. “We don’t have right tools here. You must call dealer in Tucson, tow it there.”

  It was all Lowell could do to keep from punching the man. “I was told my car would be ready by noon today! Why couldn’t you have told me this earlier? Why didn’t you know yesterday?”

  He held up his hands in a gesture of defeat. “We don’t have right tools.”

  “Have you tried . . . everything you can?”

  Laszlo nodded, wiping greasy hands on a rag.

  Lowell stared at the open hood of his car, wondering what could possibly go wrong next. He supposed he should thank the mechanic for trying, especially since he only had to pay the wholesale price for the battery and nothing at all for labor, but the truth was that he didn’t feel very grateful. In fact, deep down, he blamed The Reata for the problems with his car.

  How had it come to this? How had one of the Southwest’s most famous and exclusive vacation spots shifted in his mind from the beautiful exotic luxury resort they’d seen on the Internet and in brochures to some sort of haunted hotel responsible for tampering with his car?

  Because.

  It was as good a reason as any and better than most. Sure he could cite examples of weird experiences they’d had here—this morning’s “church” service was exhibit number one—but it wasn’t empirical evidence that had convinced him there was something fundamentally wrong with The Reata. No, that was knowledge he possessed on a gut level, something he just knew, not merely something he believed.

  “We can keep it here until you call tow truck,” Laszlo said.

  “Thanks,” Lowell told him, though he didn’t really mean it.

  Rockne was waiting for him outside the auto shop. The activities coordinator was wearing a red baseball cap, and had a whistle around his neck and a basketball in his hand. He threw the ball at Lowell, who caught it easily.

  “Good reflexes,” he said. “Are you signed up for our basketball tournament?”

  Lowell threw the ball back. Hard. “I’m busy.”

  “Too busy to help out your team?”

  “They’re not my team, and yes, I am.”

  “Busy doing what?” The activities coordinator spun the basketball on his finger.

  “We’re leaving this afternoon,” Lowell said. “We’re checking out today.”

  “That’s funny. I thought the schedule said you were booked for five nights.” He didn’t sound in the least concerned, and that made Lowell think about his car again—and think that it most likely had been sabotaged.

  But sabotaged just so he would have to stay here and play basketball?

  That was too much of a stretch even for him.

  “Not interested,” Lowell said and pushed past the activities coordinator.

  “We’ll be practicing in the gym!” Rockne called after him. “Hope to see you there!”

  Their suite was still empty when he returned. His anger flared for a second, but beneath it lurked an unfocused fear and the nagging feeling that he should go over to the exercise pool and make sure Rachel was there and that she was all right.

  A moment later, she walked into the room, sweaty and safe. “Is the car ready?” she asked. Apparently they’d both decided to ignore their earlier argument and pretend nothing had happened.

  “It wasn’t the battery,” he told her.

  “What does that mean?”

  “The car won’t start. The mechanic thinks it’s something to do with the wiring or the electrical system. We’ll have to get it towed to Tucson.”

  The blanched expression on her face probably mirrored the one on his own when he’d first heard the news. “You mean we’re trapped here?”

  “No. I’m going to call Triple A right now, get someone to tow us to Tucson. We’ll stay there tonight.”

  “There are five of us,” she pointed out. “We can’t all fit in the front seat of a tow truck.”

  “We’ll figure something out. Where are the kids?”

  “At the pool. Where else?”

  He met her gaze. “Do you think that’s . . . safe?”

  For a moment it appeared she was about to argue with him, to tell him nothing had happened to her, he was just being paranoid, the kids were fine. Then that defensive shell cracked and she shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know. I’m going to go over to the pool and check on them.”

  He nodded. “I’ll find out about the car.”

  Lowell thought for a second that she had something else to tell him. She paused, opened her mouth as if to speak, but then changed her mind and turned.

  “What?” he said.

  “Nothing.”

  After she left, he unplugged his cell phone from the recharger and called AAA. He gave the representative on the other end of the line the required information, but after an unusually long wait, the man informed him that a tow truck would not be available for several hours.

  Lowell sighed. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

  He clicked off, and a second later the room phone rang. His heart lurched in his chest. Something’s happened to the kids, was his first panicked thought. But when he answered the phone it was Rand Black. After a desultory greeting, Black awkwardly announced, “We’re practicing for the basketball tournament right now.” The Cactus Wrens’ captain sounded weary and discouraged. “I already
talked to that jackass who calls himself the ‘activities coordinator, ’ so I know you don’t want to do this, but I thought I’d give it a shot. We really need a center.”

  “We were planning on leaving today . . .” Lowell began.

  “Yeah, he told us you can’t get anyone to come out here and tow your car until later this afternoon.”

  How did he know?

  “Yeah,” Lowell admitted.

  “I know you don’t want to do this, and I don’t blame you. Hell, most of us don’t either. But we could really use your help. Again.” Black paused. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’re prizes for the winners this time. Real prizes. Comped vacation, the entire stay. Dinner at the Saguaro Room.” And here the man’s voice sounded wistful—or was it only Lowell’s imagination? “Night on the town at Tucson’s hottest spots.”

  Lowell chuckled. “What about a prize for my usual place? The loser?”

  “Consequences,” Black said shortly, and there was a soberness to his tone that wiped the smile off Lowell’s face.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m not sure. That’s all we were told. Winners would get prizes and losers would face consequences. That’s why we need your help.”

  Lowell didn’t know what to say.

  “We’re afraid of the consequences,” Black said softly.

  A suffocating feeling of entrapment and obligation settled over him. He didn’t want to be drawn into this. But he couldn’t let the Cactus Wrens suffer . . . consequences . . . if he could do something to help them. He was pretty good in basketball. He might be able to push them to a win. “Okay,” he agreed.

  “Thank God.” Black’s sigh of relief was nearly audible.

  “You’re at the gym?”

  “I’m calling from the phone outside, but, yeah, we’re practicing right now. We get another hour, then it’s the Roadrunners’ turn.”

  “I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Lowell promised. “After my wife and kids get back.”

  “Thank you,” Black said honestly. “I appreciate it.”

  “I’ll meet you there,” Lowell said.

  They were lost.

  Curtis didn’t know how it had happened, or how it could happen, but somehow they’d gotten turned all around and had ended up on a sidewalk that took them to a laundry and storage building. From there they’d only gone further astray, walking down paths that meandered around desert brush and trees and wound up at locations with which they were completely unfamiliar.

  Like now.

  They stared at the fenced-in garden.

  “This is impossible,” David said for the fifth or sixth time, and for the fifth or sixth time he was exactly right. The Reata wasn’t that big. The resort was not a mazelike warren of interconnected buildings, it was a terraced hotel, with everything spaced out far enough to be easily distinguishable. And no matter where one was at the resort, bearings could always be taken from the mountains behind it.

  But . . .

  But the buildings didn’t look right somehow. It was as if they were always coming in from an odd angle that made even familiar sights unrecognizable. Each time they went down a sidewalk or one of the gravel paths, they always wound up either turned around and back at the same location where they’d started, or at a spot where they didn’t want to go.

  Twice they’d found themselves at the exercise center, once in the front of the building, once in the back.

  Now they were staring at this garden, probably the same one where their mom had taken her cook’s tour, and the full fruit trees and heavy tomato vines only served to remind them that it was nearly lunchtime. “I’m hungry,” David said, looking through the bars of the metal fence. “I’m gonna get me an apple.”

  That sounded good to all of them, and since there was no one to kick them out, they quickly found the gate and slipped inside. A lot of the plants growing here were weird, Curtis thought as they walked down the slight slope to where the fruit trees were. He saw a bush with black leaves and a vine with some sort of triangular vegetable that smelled like fish. Ryan must have sensed the same thing, because when he spoke his voice was low and worried. “Let’s hurry up and get out of here.”

  They reached the apple tree, and he, Owen and David each picked a piece of fruit. Ryan stood nearby. “I’m not hungry,” he said.

  David took a bite, then heaved the rest of the apple as hard as he could toward the back of one of the buildings. It fell far short of its mark and bounced on the dirt.

  “Rotten?” Curtis asked.

  “No. It tasted good.” David grinned. He picked another apple, took a bite and threw it. Soon all three of them were flinging fruit as far as they could, and it felt good, felt like they were striking a blow against . . . something. Ryan stood by quietly and watched.

  “What do you boys think you’re doing?”

  They all whirled around at the sound of the rough voice. A man was standing in the middle of a bunch of tomato plants. He couldn’t have walked in there without them hearing or seeing him, Curtis thought. He must have been sitting in the plants all this time, watching, before deciding to stand up and confront them. He looked like a farmer, with his checkered shirt and cap, and Curtis wondered if this was his garden.

  “We’re—” David started to say. And ran.

  The rest of them were caught by surprise, but before they could follow suit, the man shouted “Stop!” in an angry authoritative voice that made David halt in his tracks.

  The man pushed his way through the tomatoes onto the open ground. He was old but powerfully built and probably could have kicked all of their asses at once. “I asked what you boys thought you were doing.”

  “Nothing, sir,” Owen answered for them.

  “I saw you picking those apples. I saw you throwing them away.” He looked from Owen to Curtis to David to Ryan, glaring. “Those were perfectly good apples.”

  “I’m sorry,” David said.

  “You’d better be.” The man withdrew a rag from his back pocket, using it to wipe the sweat from his forehead. Only it wasn’t a rag. It was a pair of women’s underwear. Curtis had a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  “Boo!” the man screamed at the top of his lungs, and they all jumped.

  He laughed, a deep rumbling laugh that sounded like the noise a tree would make if it could express amusement. The man suddenly turned and shoved his way back through the tomato plants. He crouched down for a moment, then stood again, holding a trowel in one hand and a pair of clippers in the other. He banged them together over his head, then leaped up, dancing.

  The man was insane, Curtis realized.

  He looked at David, at Owen, at Ryan, saw from their faces that they understood his plan instantly, and with a nod, they all started running.

  There was no shout to stop this time, no angry pursuit. As far as he knew, the man just continued to dance. But he did not turn around to check. None of them did. They stared straight ahead, slammed open the gate and dashed out, still running, not slowing until they were sure the garden was far behind them.

  Twenty-nine

  There were women in the game this time, and while Lowell had always considered himself modern and open-minded, he didn’t think women should be here. Play or no play, fun or no fun, this was a man’s sport, and if bitches wanted to get involved, well then they should start their own tournament. Luckily, Rachel had no interest in participating. In fact, she looked very feminine this afternoon, sitting in the bleachers wearing a tight top and a short skirt that showed her off to best advantage. She may have had three kids, but she still looked damn good.

  Lowell stopped himself. Bitches? What was he thinking? This train of thought was not even remotely connected to his own beliefs and opinions.

  Only these were his own beliefs and opinions. They may not have been before, but he certainly believed them now.

  How was this possible? How could he suddenly start thinking things that he never would have considered before
? The only conclusion he could come to was that his mind was not his own—and that was the scariest notion he could ever conceive. Physical restraint or intimidation was one thing, even that strange emotional damper that had been placed on him since arriving at The Reata he could deal with, but to have his thoughts altered, to be corrupted from within so that his core convictions were no longer his own . . .

  What was the next step? he wondered. Not caring that he was harboring idiotic opinions? Not knowing?

  Maybe he would become a totally new person living in the outer shell of his old body.

  The idea made him want to kill himself to keep it from occurring.

  That was a completely alien thought.

  The stands were full, and Lowell recognized a lot of people from the sunrise service. People who had walked out offended, people he would have thought would check out and leave immediately afterward, were in the bleachers waiting enthusiastically for the first basketball game to start.

  The two teams—the Wrens and Coyotes—had been warming up at opposite ends of the court, but at the sound of the buzzer, they broke for their respective benches. “We can do it,” Rand Black said as the team gathered around him, and the funny thing was, Lowell thought they really could. Black had said the same thing before the volleyball tournament and was obviously saying it now to boost their spirits and give them confidence, but Lowell had been eyeballing the other team and the truth was that the Coyotes didn’t seem to have any really strong shooters, and the Wrens easily had them on height. Most importantly, the Coyotes team was half chicks this time out, many of their other players having quit or checked out this morning. The Cactus Wrens were all men.

  If they played their cards right, this could be a blowout.

  As the center, Lowell was called upon for the tip-off, and he found himself facing an old lady who glared at him with beady eyes. “Fuck you, Mr. Fuck,” she said softly, the words all running together. “I call you Mr. Fuck, you fucker. Fuck you. Mr. Fuck.”