The Rules

by Nancy Holder

  The other hunters were busy: hair-raising screeches were followed by raucous laughter echoing over brick and stone; the fog paced and shifted, alternately obliterating the cannery and then focusing the moonlight on new sets of details. Robin stared up at the bell tower and jerked; she was pretty sure someone was up there, and she squinted hard to see if she could tell who it was. One of August’s spies, she supposed. She gave the figure a wave. It didn’t wave back, and with the next roll of fog, there was no one there.

  “I hate this,” Thea muttered.

  “Grand prize,” Beth said. Robin tried not to react and Beth chuckled. “Test answers.” She grinned at Robin. “Or limo.”

  “Test answers,” Thea said. “I’m only in it for that.”

  “But the Rolling Stones are so cool,” Beth said. It was obvious to Robin that Beth was just messing with Thea. She wanted the test answers, too.

  “I don’t think we should go in there,” Robin said, studying the mouth of the large cave.

  “Maybe there’s another cave?” Beth suggested.

  “Like a sea cave?” Robin asked.

  “Yeah.”

  It could be. Of course, if they were wrong and this really was the cave they were supposed to go into, they’d just be delaying the inevitable and wasting precious minutes. She took another step and the smell of blood hit her hard. She backed away. “Let’s check just to be sure. We can come back if we have to.”

  They made it to the beach quickly, and as they walked toward the redwood pylons of the dock, half a dozen things burst from beneath the sand and stood fully upright. They moaned and gyrated as Thea shrieked, running smack into Beth and falling on her butt. Beth grabbed on to Robin and Robin’s flashlight panned across their clump of attackers. Their rotted faces glowed in the dark, their eyes shining with crimson light. They began to groan and claw at the fog with their arms.

  “Help! Help!” Thea hollered, crabwalking away from them, and Robin and Beth doubled over with laughter.

  “They’re zombie robots,” Beth said. “Halloween zombies.”

  The zombies stopped moving. They were truly hideous, with hacked-up plastic fingers and eyeballs dangling from beneath matted gray hair. Their clothes were tattered, “bloody,” and covered with dirt and cobwebs. Bones protruded from shoulders and legs. One zombie was dressed like a bride. A shriveled bouquet was laced through skeletal fingers.

  Robin darted forward and waved a hand in front of the bride zombie’s face. The zombie’s eyes lit up and her jaw clacked open. She swayed from side to side and moaned.

  Robin took several steps back and the zombie stopped moving.

  “Motion-controlled,” she confirmed. “I don’t see any cords. They must be battery-operated.”

  “Oh my God!” Thea cried in disgust. “That’s it! I’m going!”

  “Wait! Look!” Beth shouted. She darted forward, weaving in and out of the cluster of undead to the figure farthest away from Beth. Human-shaped, it was standing just inside a large hole in the cliff. Another cave. A faint light shone behind the figure, impossible to notice except at a precise angle.

  A dummy was wearing a tattered khaki jacket and pants and a big-game hunter-style pith helmet. It was aiming what appeared to be a real rifle straight at them. Robin reflexively put her hands on Thea’s shoulders and moved her out of the line of fire.

  “That’s not a real person,” Thea said uncertainly, and Beth laughed.

  “Are you kidding? Does that look real?” She looked expectantly at Robin, and Robin trotted around the zombies, joining Beth in front of the thing. It didn’t move and somehow that made it creepier.

  It wasn’t as real-looking as the other zombies. It appeared to be made out of some kind of rubber, its decaying features dotted with tiny mushrooms and velvety blotches. One eye was blank; a brown iris and ebony pupil were chipped and fading in the other. As Robin cocked her head at it, a spider crawled up the side of its face.

  Robin spotted the black hilt of a knife positioned behind the upraised hands that were holding the rifle.

  “When you give in, you cave. You can cut the tension with a knife,” Beth whooped, rising on tiptoe and patting the mannequin on the head. “Sorry about that, old chap.”

  “Gasoline, rope, knife…okay, this is completely deviant,” Robin grumped.

  “So where’s the clue?” Thea asked, hugging herself and staying well away. “Let’s just get the envelope and get out of here!”

  “We have to take the knife to August,” Robin reminded her. “So we have to pull it out of his chest.”

  “Yucko.” Beth made a face. “You do it, Rob.”

  “It’s going to move or something,” Thea warned. “Or something else behind it will leap out at you.” She took two steps back.

  Robin raised her brows questioningly at Beth, who moved her shoulders and gave her head a shake.

  “Don’t touch it!” Thea said. “Something bad will happen!”

  “The Penalty Babes are not big babies,” Beth said.

  Kyle, whispered Robin’s inner voice. Coffee with Kyle. With a red velvet cupcake and a make-out session on the side. Kyle and his adorable dimples.

  Then she clamped both her hands possessively around the knife. Taking a deep breath, she slowly drew out the blade.

  There was a sucking noise as blood gushed down the statue’s chest. Robin steered clear of the spray, almost landing on her own butt. Thea let out a shriek and Beth swore.

  The knife dripped bright red liquid onto the sand, barely missing the toe of Robin’s boot. Of course, it wasn’t blood, but she had no desire to find out what it actually was. Instead, she wiped the blade on the dummy’s filthy clothing. The sleek shank was maybe eight inches long and very shiny—in other words, new. August must have bought it and planted it just for tonight.

  Then she peered at the mannequin’s chest. A clear plastic bag had been taped such that when she had pulled out the knife, the sharp edge had sliced open the bag, allowing the contents—the fake blood—to spill out.

  “He should have at least put this thing in a sheath so we wouldn’t hurt ourselves when we found it. I could have cut myself,” Robin said, gingerly clutching the knife as if it might bite her.

  “Or cut one of us,” Thea whined. “Are all the hunts this violent?”

  Beth didn’t reply as she tugged at the dummy’s khaki shirt. Slashed nearly in two by the knife, an envelope was taped to the chest. She grunted with satisfaction and dislodged it, coating her fingertips with “blood” in the process. “I think this is colored corn syrup. That’s how they make fake blood in the movies. I read about it.”

  Robin reached into the pocket of her bomber jacket and pulled out a couple of paper napkins from McDonald’s. She handed one to Beth, who began to wipe her fingers. Robin wrapped the other napkin around the hilt of the knife.

  “Sticky. Corn syrup,” Beth confirmed. “It’s all in fun, Thea. C’mon.” She dropped the dirty napkin in the sand. “Let’s go inside while we’re here.”

  “Are you nuts?” Thea said. “Do you want me to die of a heart attack?”

  “We have what we came for,” Robin pointed out. “We should hustle back to August as fast as we can.”

  Beth crept forward and peered into the cave. “Hellloooo?” she called in a singsong voice. “Anybody in there? Oh my God!”

  “What? What?” Thea covered her eyes.

  “Nothing, you big baby.”

  Beth dissolved into helpless laughter. Thea crossed her arms, whirled around, and started heading in the direction they had come, toward the path.

  Robin sighed. “Must you?” she said to Beth. “Hey, it’s okay, Thea,” she called after her.

  “Stop laughing at me!” Thea yelled.

  “I’m not laughing at you,” Robin yelled back.

  “Hey, wait,” Beth called. “Wait, I think someone really is in…Hey…what’s this?”

  The zombies began to moan and clank and whirr. Robin rolled her eyes and bounded a
fter Thea as she picked up speed. Beth stayed behind.

  “You can’t fool us anymore!” Thea said. She started up the path.

  “Robin. Oh my God, Robin,” Beth said. Her voice was strained; she sounded genuinely frightened.

  Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me, Robin thought, and she kept going.

  “Robin!” Beth shrieked.

  Robin slowed. Then she turned around. Beth was cowering beside a boy zombie that was wearing a do-rag, a basketball jersey, and enormous polyester shorts. There was something in his mouth, and when Robin’s flashlight passed over it, a reflection glinted off something small and metallic.

  Beth was staring at the object; then she shifted her gaze to Robin. She was silent, wild-eyed. As Robin drew near, the boy zombie writhed and moaned, the object in his mouth tumbling to the ground.

  Robin bent over and shined her flashlight. The yellow cone of light caught the glitter of a ring whose rhinestones spelled MVP, and below the V, a shiny enamel C gleamed.

  It was Cage Preston’s ring.

  Firmly lodged on the pinky finger of a bloody, severed hand.

  NEW RULES

  BETH’S RULE #2: Make people feel special and you’ll gain the upper hand.

  “Robin!” Beth shouted. They had bolted together but after a few steps Beth had stopped running. Within seconds, Robin and Thea both were scrabbling up the path to the top of the cliff like a pair of mountain goats.

  And in those seconds, Beth had time to process. To think about what she had really seen. A prop. A fake. Just one of the many melodramatic pranks. A typical August prank, actually. She and he used to pore through special effects catalogs the way some people drooled over fashion magazines. A corner of August’s bedroom was piled with computer parts, servos, soldering equipment, bottles of corn syrup and red food coloring, rubber shrunken heads, tarantulas, and snakes.

  “Thea! Robin! It’s a joke!” she yelled.

  Beth heard the crash of a wave and then frigid water swirled around her ankles. She squeaked, running toward the big-game hunter and the cave. The foamy surf bubbled around her.

  Robin had the flashlight, but by the dim light positioned inside the cave, Beth could watch the water recede into the ocean. One or two of the zombies jerked their heads and arms, but then they tipped over, clattering facedown into the water and the moans died out.

  She tried to see if the hand had washed away as well, but the light was too weak. Even now, accepting that it had been a planted joke, she shuddered. It had looked so real.

  A chuckle bounced inside the cave and she turned around. Larson was leaning against a stack of wooden crates, mischief twinkling in his eyes.

  “Boo!” he said.

  Her heart skipped a beat. She darted a quick glance around for Praveen but didn’t see her. She crossed her fingers mentally that Larson was alone.

  He ambled toward her, lanky and broad-shouldered, and her knees turned to rubber. She was so glad to see him that she couldn’t hide a genuine smile, and he grinned at her in return.

  “I scared the crap out of you,” he preened.

  She gave her head an imperious toss. Time to turn on the hard-to-get vibe. She hadn’t forgotten the way he’d pushed past her on the way into the party. Larson had to know he couldn’t take her for granted.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but it was August’s zombies that scared us. More like they scared Robin and Thea and just startled me.”

  He bent down and picked up a piece of seaweed, shaking it at her. He snickered when she wrinkled her nose and let it fall to the ground.

  “Actually, the hand scared them,” she said.

  He waited a beat, then shrugged. “What hand?”

  “August keeps leaving us these gory presents,” she said, debating the wisdom of revealing anything more. She didn’t want to give him an advantage in the hunt.

  Unless he fully appreciated such generosity and reciprocated his knowledge.

  He raised his brows. “Like what?”

  “Why should I tell you?” she challenged.

  “Because I’m nice?” he asked, walking closer, and she made a show of snorting with derision. In reality, though, little tingles of excitement were practically electrocuting her as she stood there. Larson was so hot. She knew he was a player, but there had to be one special girl who could tame him. Where chicks were concerned, Larson had a little ADHD problem. The trick was in getting him to focus.

  “You are not nice,” she said flatly.

  “Oh, Beth, Beth, you know me too well.” His smile was slow and sly. “Okay, how about this? We could form an alliance. I’m pretty much on my own at this point. Praveen is a complete psycho and I think she decided to go home. I’m hoping, anyway. She threw a brick at me.”

  Beth’s lips parted as she filed this choice bit of gossip under usable. “No way.”

  “Okay, she didn’t throw it, but I think the only reason she didn’t was because I was out of range. Seriously, Beth, I always knew she was wound pretty tight but damn. If we ever have another hunt, don’t even invite her, okay?”

  We. It was her new favorite word. The tingles became sparklers of joy that skittered over her nerve endings. Larson obviously assumed she had helped to organize this hunt just like all the other ones. He didn’t realize that August had broken the Pact. But she knew she needed to maintain her advantage in the eternal battle of the sexes. Playing hard to get was the only way to convince Larson to focus.

  “That settles it,” she said. “August and I were discussing her last night. We almost didn’t invite her this time.” She mimicked drawing a line through a name. “Next year when I run the hunts by myself, she’s deleted.”

  “You don’t need to do this one by yourself,” he said.

  “An alliance.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “I believe that would be cheating.” She put a challenge in her voice.

  She knew from the other hunts that Larson lived for cheating. He really shouldn’t have won first prize last time, but August told Beth privately that Larson had cheated the least. Except for Kyle. He and his little-miss-whoever date hadn’t cheated one jot.

  Which is why they hadn’t completed the hunt when August called time three hours later than scheduled.

  Now Larson tsk-tsked and rose to the bait. “No one would have to know that we cheated.”

  “But if August’s spies see us together, we’ll be busted,” she argued, but then Larson wove his arms around her waist, making her unable to think straight.

  “We can make them think we’re hooking up.” He moved a step closer. “There’s nothing in the rules about that. Just no maiming.”

  Maiming. An image of the hand flashed through her mind. August had truly outdone himself with the realism. And the ring had looked exactly like Cage’s. A tour de force. She should have been there when he’d had it made. Shared in the accomplishment. The gloating.

  “Are you okay?” Larson asked, and she caught herself.

  She thrust out her lower lip, giving him her cutest pouty face, and said, “I was just thinking about the hand. It was freaky.”

  He let go and moved past her toward the mouth of the cave. “Cool. I want to see.”

  “No,” she said breathlessly. Not in her game plan. “It got washed away by the tide.” She looked back over her shoulder; the light in the cave glowed from one of the portable lanterns, which Larson must have brought with him from the warehouse. There were splotches of something dark around the lantern’s base. Probably more candy blood.

  “If we go back via the beach, we’ll get washed away, too,” she said. “Where does this tunnel go?”

  He lingered just inside the mouth of the cave, framed in the soft light as if he were a model in a photograph for some sexy men’s fragrance. “There’s more than one tunnel, and they go all over the place. One of them was really nasty. The other one…” He made a face. “I’m wondering if someone’s using it to smuggle drugs or something. There are boxes from floor to ceiling.
Did you guys check this place out? I mean, what if the cannery is being used by a Mexican drug cartel or something? And they find us all here?”

  “What?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I mean, they might shoot us or something, you know? Or hang us. They’re totally into that. I saw it on the news the other night. They hung some American undercover guys from a bridge in Tijuana. You did check it out, right?”

  Are you kidding? Beth thought. Check out a scavenger hunt location to make sure there weren’t any drug lords? Was he just trying to scare her?

  “I want to see the boxes,” she said. “The ones you think mean there are smugglers.”

  Shaking his head, he moved into her way. “The tunnels are way too gross. And I got lost at least three times. It’s like a big maze.”

  He was actually blocking her. Was there something he didn’t want her to see? Her stomach knotted. Was some other girl down here with him already? Not Praveen. Praveen was too weird and too prissy. But Heather maybe.

  He laced his nice strong fingers through hers. “Let’s go out this way.” He looked down at her feet. “The water doesn’t matter. Your shoes are already soaked.”

  That was true. Not only soaked, but her feet were also freezing. Why had she worn her good boots? Because she was used to orchestrating the hunt, not playing in it. She’d wanted to look fabulous. The last hunt. The last chance to make a fantastic impression.

  Larson was wearing sneakers that were already fairly trashed. He extended one long, muscular leg out of the mouth of the cave and onto the sopping beach, then the other, sucking his breath between his teeth as the breakers splashed his jeans. He hunkered down and stretched his arms behind himself, like a diver about to bounce off the board.

  “Here, I’ll carry you. Take the lantern and climb on,” he told her.

  She didn’t need to be asked twice. Her face went hot and then she was hot all over as she put her hands on his shoulders and he bent lower, catching her around the thighs as she saddled up piggyback style. His fingers gripped her for balance while she maneuvered the heavy lantern so that it rested at an angle against his shoulder, casting light downward like a desk lamp. She wanted to feel his skin against hers; she was sorry she was wearing tights, especially since they were soaking wet from the backs of her calves on down.