Bad Games (18 page)

Lorraine produced a tired but genuine smile. “I suppose that would be a somewhat competent analogy. Although I could have done without ‘gory’ and ‘slice you open.’”

Amy now genuinely smiled herself and rubbed Lorraine’s knee again, keeping her hand there. “Time to change the subject?”

“Please.”

Amy kept smiling. “Maybe when this is all over we’ll all go on a trip together. Somewhere warm maybe?”

Lorraine put her hand on top of Amy’s. “Norm and I haven’t been to Florida in awhile.”

Amy closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall. She took the first peaceful breath she’d taken in hours. “Patrick and I used to rent this amazing place in Clearwater before the kids were born.”

“Clearwater? Norm brought me there once to watch the Phillies during spring training. It was absolutely lovely. Such a beautiful—”

Amy clamped down onto Lorraine’s knee with a sudden jolt.
“SHHHHH!”

Lorraine jumped then gaped at Amy. “
What?
”

Amy’s hand stayed locked on Lorraine’s knee. She held her breath, refused to even blink, afraid the wet click of her lids would impede her hearing. She eventually spoke in a dramatic whisper. “
Did you hear that?
”

Lorraine pecked her head forward, listened intently. She turned back to Amy and shook her head no.

“
The back door
,” Amy mouthed. Their previous conversation of vacations and Florida had risen pleasantly upwards into a semi-normal tone. Now it was a minute decibel above lip-reading. “
I heard something at the back door.
”

Lorraine titled an ear upward, listened again. A light rapping echoed from somewhere outside. A moan followed, low and pained.

“
What is that?
” Lorraine said.

Amy shook her head.

The rapping was louder now, the moan longer, desperate.

Amy released her grip on Lorraine’s knee. “
There’s someone at the back door.
”

Lorraine snatched Amy’s hand right back. “
Don’t you dare.
”

“
It sounds like someone’s hurt.
” She pulled her hand free from Lorraine’s. “
What if it’s Patrick?
”

“
Amy, NO.”
Lorraine’s eyes held panic.
“We don’t know WHAT that is. It could be a trap. We need to stay here.”
She reached for Amy’s hand again. Amy wouldn’t take it.

“What if it’s not a trap? What if it
is
Patrick? What if he’s hurt?” Amy’s whisper was louder now, her voice raspy.

“Amy…”

“I’m going to look,” Amy said. “I’m not going to open the door, but I’m going to go look.”

“
Amy…
”

“I’ll stay low to the ground and out of sight. When I get close to the door I can peek out through the window and get a quick look. No one will see me.”

“Amy, please…”

“Lorraine, goddamnit, if it
is
my husband then I’m going to fucking help him.” Amy’s eyes were strong and unbreakable. Lorraine’s chest sunk and she hung her head. Amy leaned in and hugged her hard. “I’m sorry. But you’d do the same for Norm, right? You’d do the same.” Lorraine lifted her head, closed her eyes and nodded. Amy nodded back and repeated, “I’ll stay low to the ground and out of sight.”

Jim rocked impatiently from one foot to the other like a boy needing to pee. He even squeezed his groin a few times. But unlike a boy who might squeeze to stifle back the sensation to pee for fear of wetting his pants, Jim squeezed because it tickled hot with anticipation.

He thought of a familiar song. Something about waiting being the hardest part. Tom Petty. Was it Tom Petty? Yeah—that’s who it was. Well Tom was right. Waiting was fucking excruciating.

He squeezed his groin again.

Amy slowly uncoiled from her ball. Her legs were tight and cramped and she gratefully extended them outward, rubbing both vigorously to get the blood flowing.

Rolling flat onto her stomach, she then began inching along on her belly. She reached the bedroom door and rolled to one side, straining an arm upward until her fingers touched the knob. She strained an inch further and gripped the knob tight. She managed a look over her shoulder before turning it. Lorraine was wincing at her, as if expecting the turning of the knob to trigger an alarm. Amy brought her head back to the door, gently turned the knob (she heard Lorraine’s breath catching behind her), and then opened the door just wide enough to maneuver herself out into the living room. She looked back at Lorraine one last time. Lorraine stared back with terrible apprehension. Amy gave a weak nod and an even weaker smile, then slithered out of the bedroom.

Amy was flat to the ground. She slithered slowly towards the back door, using muscles she never knew she had. She stopped, strained both eyes upward, and could now see the window to the back door—about ten feet ahead.

There was another groan, but weaker now.
Failing?
she thought.
Was his health failing?
Amy was filled with a dreadful sense of urgency. She slithered faster, desperately trying to resist the urge to pop up onto all fours and crawl to her target.

She was close now. A foot tops. The window was high and to the left. If she timed it right, she could snatch a decent look despite the lack of light. If it
was
her husband, she would recognize him instantly, dark or no dark.

With a swift but cautious burst, she made the extra foot to the door and propped up onto her knees. Now both feet under her butt in a catcher’s stance.

Rise slowly and ease your head up just enough to get a peak. Just a peak.
Strain your eyes until they bleed if you have to, but just take a quick peak for now, then right back down again. Just a quick peak.

Amy rose slowly. Her thigh muscles burned. Inexplicably, she quickly thought of doing squats at her gym back home. She hated squats, and she hated the Nazi fitness instructor that made her do hundreds in class. Right now she would happily do a million and
kiss
the Nazi instructor afterwards if it meant being back home.

Her head was an inch from the window. She could feel the cold radiating off the pane of glass as she neared it. She could look up and see the black sky.

Another inch. She was level with the window now.

Quick peak.

Amy popped her head up and looked down. Patrick was there. Flat on his back, eyes closed.

Amy jumped to her feet and cried out his name. She unlocked the back door, ripped it open, fell to her knees at her husband’s side.

“Patrick!” she cried again as she frantically checked his body for injuries. She bent over and pressed her ear to his chest. A powerful hand snatched hold of Amy’s ponytail from behind, jerking her backwards onto her butt. The hand yanked the ponytail down like a handle, forcing Amy’s head skyward where she was greeted to a hard, wet kiss.

The man with the shaved head licked his lips and grinned. “Hello again, lover.”

Norman Mitchell had the patience of a saint. He therefore stressed little when Carrie, who had insisted she was capable of eating the
large
ice cream sundae, projectile-vomited the entire contents of her tiny stomach into the back seat of the Volvo station wagon on the ride back to Crescent Lake.

A rest-stop-cleaning job later and they were back on the road, windows down, Carrie donning a ghostly complexion, and Caleb holding his nose from the smell of curdled cream that still polluted his memory.

“How’re you doing back there, sweetheart?” Norman called to the back seat.

Carrie was too afraid to open her mouth. She could only nod, hoping Norm would catch the quick bob of her head from the rearview mirror.

“We’re almost home, just hang on.”

“It stinks!” Caleb yelled over the rushing wind from the open windows.

Carrie, who would have ordinarily responded with an immediate swipe in Caleb’s direction, remained motionless. Nausea was in town, and gulping air and staying exceptionally motionless was the courtesy. Still, she did manage to cast a sinister glare at her brother. The second she felt better she would bop him a good one for sure.

When Norman pulled his blue Volvo station wagon into the driveway of cabin ten, his first words were, “What the heck?”

This prompted both Carrie (whose nausea was now all but gone) and Caleb to lean forward in their car seats and simultaneously ask: “
What?
”

The interior of the Mitchell cabin was dark, yet the front door was wide-open. Norm kept the car idling, his headlights the only source of light on the cabin. He clicked his high beams on hoping to get a better view of the cabin’s interior via the open front door. He also hoped the extra glare from his high beams would be a silent honk of his horn and prompt his wife, or maybe the Lamberts, to appear in that open doorway, hands shielding their eyes, waving him in.

When Carrie asked why they weren’t going up the rest of the driveway, Norman gave the little girl an honest, albeit useless answer. “I don’t know,” he said.

Carrie was eager. “Are we gonna—”

“Kids,” Norm began, “I’m going to leave the car running here, then go inside. I’m going to lock all the car doors and I want you to
keep
them locked until I come back outside. Okay?”

“Why?” Carrie asked.

“Can you just do that for me? Please?”

Both kids nodded.

“When I come back out,
then
you can unlock them. Okay? Do you understand? Keep them locked until Mr. Mitchell comes back out.”

They nodded again.

And then it was Caleb who asked, “What’s wrong?”

Norman forced a smile. “Nothing’s wrong, buddy. Silly Mrs. Mitchell just left the front door open. I want to go in first and make sure no animals got inside and started gobblin’ up all our food.” He made a silly face and pretended to nosh on something the way a squirrel might a nut.

Caleb smiled.

Carrie did not. “Where are Mommy and Daddy?” she asked.

“They’re probably next door at your cabin, sweetheart.”

Carrie looked out her car window towards their cabin next door. It was black. “I don’t think they’re home,” she said.

Norman noticed it too.
Oh please, God, let them be screwing each other,
he thought.
Please let the worst of our problems be catching them in the act.
And why not? It made sense. It made perfect sense. Time away from the kids. Romantic cabin to themselves. They’ve probably been at it all night.

But his
own
house? Pitch black with the front door wide open? His stomach swirled with adrenaline. He did not want to waste time making excuses anymore. Norm moved with an urgency that he prayed would not contaminate the children.

“Kids, can you just do as Mr. Mitchell says and wait here in the car please?”

The children didn’t nod this time; they stared back with uncomfortable wonder.

Norm took it as a regrettable yes. “Great. I’ll be
right
back. Just hold tight okay?”

Norm opened his car door and stepped out. He clicked the tiny black switch on the driver door’s interior and all four locks thumped as they shrunk into their holes. He closed the car door, waved and forced another smile at the kids, then jogged to his open front door, the high beams of his idling Volvo lighting his path.

“Lorraine?” he called the moment he was inside. He took two more steps, each one slow and delicate as though the floor might give under his weight. “Lorraine? You in here, honey?” He heard nothing but the distant idle of the Volvo outside.

Norman began to imagine the worst. He thought of the man who had accosted Amy at the market and then peeked into her bedroom window last night. Had he come back? And if he had, was he dangerous?

Norman felt his pulse thumping all over. He
was
imagining the worst. But better to imagine the worst and be prepared than to be ignorant and caught off guard, right? He scanned his surroundings, searching for a potential weapon. A sharp metal poker was leaning up against their fireplace to his left. He hurried over and grabbed hold of it. He steadied it in his hand like a fencer about to duel.
Am I really going to have to use this?

“Lorraine?” he called again. His voice cracked this time, the adrenaline sapping his saliva.

Norman took cautious steps towards the bedroom, the tip of the black poker leading the way. The bedroom door was open a crack. He placed the tip of the poker against the door and pushed slowly. The door felt heavy on the end of the poker as he pushed it open.

He took in every inch of the dark room, squeezing the handle of the poker for all he was worth. He twisted his left arm and blindly patted the wall to his left, feeling for the light switch. He found the switch and flicked it upward. The room came alive with light, and Norm blinked quickly so his eyes would adjust.

The bed was made. The closet doors were shut tight. The room looked as if he may have been the first to visit that day.

Norm let out a long, slow breath. Yes, the room was empty, and yes, he would still need to search the rest of the cabin, but the morbid thought of finding his wife murdered in their bed (a thought that had
refused
to leave his mind the second it crawled in there) had not come to fruition; and for that he felt a relief like no other.

Norm took another couple of steps into his bedroom, gave one last grateful look at their empty bed, then turned back towards the door. It was then he realized why the bedroom door had felt so heavy on the end of the poker when he pushed it open. His wife Lorraine was hanging on the back of it. Her head hung to one side, eyes open and lifeless, sagging lips already blue. Below the blue mouth her throat was slashed ear to ear, her entire torso soaked in red.

Norm dropped the poker to his side without realizing it. He didn’t cry and he didn’t scream. He could only stare. If he had found his wife dead in bed as he had feared, he would have rushed to her side and wept. After the weeping he would have righted himself and began cursing and screaming vengeance while thrashing around like a wild man with that poker as his equalizer. But this?
This
image? How could he have possibly evoked such a thing? The shock was brilliant. It made him certain his vision was a hoax, a ludicrous trick that projected a false image of his dead wife hanging before him like a giant flesh-puppet stored away on its hook.