The Dark Game Read online

  I doubt it, he thought. Not everyone has a reason to fear the dark.

  Rick ground his teeth, struggled against the thought, but now that it was there, it wouldn’t go away.

  Just like Raymond Eddy.

  No! He thrashed onto his other side. Don’t think of him. If you don’t know where you are, he can’t know either.

  But Raymond had found him everywhere else. Why should this be any different?

  Because I can’t take it anymore, this life of constant dread.

  A vicious voice spoke up: It’s the life you deserve.

  Scowling, Rick pushed up against the headboard. He willed his chest to stop heaving, his heart to stop jittering around like an errant firework.

  Raymond hadn’t followed him here. He was safe.

  But are you safe from Wells? the voice whispered.

  “Hell,” Rick muttered.

  He recalled how Wells’s features had transformed in the library, how the man became a leering demon before Rick’s eyes. Yet none of the others had seen it. Nor had they heard Wells’s voice when he spoke to Rick.

  There was only one explanation: it hadn’t happened.

  Maybe he was insane. If he was the only one who saw Wells change into a monster, who was to say the other horrible things he’d seen weren’t visions also?

  Dammit. Maybe what he needed wasn’t a writing teacher, what he needed was a team of mental health specialists. If he could—

  There was a familiar whine in the distance. He cocked his head, the sound growing more distinct.

  He threw off the sheet, climbed out of bed and padded over to the window. It took him a moment to operate the casement crank in the dark, but once he remembered to unlatch it, the tall pane swung outward without fuss.

  The noise came again, more insistent now. The sound reminded him of his grandpa, who’d owned a farm. Grandpa’s land was mostly cleared, rice fields dominating for miles, but there were scatterings of trees, and it was these his grandpa culled for their wood-burning stove during the frigid Iowa winters.

  Rick leaned forward, the midnight air whispering over his bare shoulders. It was still May, but the night was sultry, more like July. He surveyed the meadow, the hillside sweeping gradually down to the forest. The noise clarified.

  Someone was working a chainsaw out there. In the middle of the night.

  The vision slammed Rick like a blast of freezing air: a gigantic, uniformed man and a younger man standing in the meadow. The enormous man – it was a police uniform he wore, and a cowboy hat – was pumping the chainsaw’s trigger, the bestial drone buzzing higher and higher, the younger man – a cop too, but in plainclothes, his youthful face handsome but frozen in a look of purest terror – standing transfixed.

  The meadow was barren of life, but in Rick’s mind he watched it all with disturbing clarity: the big cop lowering the chainsaw between his legs, clamping something over the trigger to keep the machine buzzing even if the big cop let go of it. And let go he did, heaving the droning saw high into the air, the steel teeth never stopping. The big cop bellowed laughter as the young cop cowered, unable to track the chainsaw as it rose into the sky. It was a form of Russian roulette, Rick realized. If the chainsaw came down on either man it would reduce him to crimson gruel, but the big cop didn’t mind at all, appeared to welcome the agony the whirring teeth would bring. The younger cop turned to run. Rick glimpsed the chainsaw falling, falling, the smoking arm tumbling almost gracefully, and the young man was screaming, the buzzing arm tossing silvery glints as it fell.…

  Rick inhaled sharply.

  He stood there, fingers digging into the windowsill, heard the plummeting chainsaw, the young man’s screams.

  The psychotic cop’s laughter.

  John Anderson, he thought. John Anderson is the deranged cop’s name.

  Rick rushed over to the desk, clicked on the lamp, and began to scribble out the scene.

  Chapter Eight

  Dear Justine,

  As I suspected, I’m the youngest here. I figured Lucy and I would be the only agented writers, but it turns out Evan and Elaine are too.

  Lucy looks very different than she did on the inside cover of The Girl Who Died. Even less like the girl in the author photo for The Girl Who Wept. As an aside, have you ever heard a more wretched title in your life? I know it was a sequel, but Jesus Christ. I feared they’d follow it up with The Girl Who Sucked. The Girl Who Fisted. The Girl Who Never Had Any Talent in the First Place but Managed to Write One Decent Novel Before Revealing What a Raging Shitstorm She Was.

  Anyway.

  In the picture from The Girl Who Died, Lucy has that shyness, the hope that she’ll make it big. The naiveté. The photo is amusing in a fateful sort of way. The lamb before the slaughter. The bug before the windshield.

  The throat before the blade.

  The author photo from The Girl Who Wept is high comedy. On the stairs of some brownstone. I’m part of the canon now, that setting tells the reader. I’ve made it, and you’re lucky enough to read my new book!

  Lucy’s not looking at the camera; that would be too much to ask of our princess. Instead, she’s in profile, laughing and reclining on her skinny little butt, her blue jeans tastefully tattered, sporting Louis Vuitton sandals (like she didn’t give them a thought that morning – ah, the life of a critical darling!), and my favorite part, the detail that makes me want to reach into the picture and throttle that lily-white neck of hers: the exposed bra strap. Like that subtle touch of sensuality wasn’t strategic.

  The photograph from The Girl Who Wept is what motivates me whenever I miss my daily word count. I pull out that wretched sequel and study that laughing face. I want to smack the smile right off it.

  Then I remember: this is the Hindenburg. This is what brought it all crashing down. The stupid little bitch. Did she really think she’d remain the flavor of the month forever?

  My God, Justine, do I sound bitter?

  I am. I can tell you that now, but after this retreat (I still chuckle at the word ‘retreat’. Retreat from what? Civility? Why not call it what it is – a literary war) I won’t be bitter anymore.

  I’ll be famous.

  I’ll be bigger than Lucy ever was.

  Poor, poor Lucy. Her third novel was a disaster of such epic proportions that it defies metaphor. Something biblical maybe. A flood or a pestilence.

  And now look at precious little Lucy. A cautionary tale for writers, a blond-haired boogeyman to scare every talentless hack?

  I’m going to crush her first.

  And the others?

  I’ll gut them.

  Oh, relax. I don’t mean literally gut them (though I would deeply, achingly love to shove that Elaine bitch’s face into an unguarded fan and watch it cleaved into bloody ribbons). I simply mean I’m going to beat their sorry asses with my words.

  Tommy? A joke. He’ll be gone before the week is over.

  Bryan? A witless misogynist with the empathy of a hatchet. Wells will eat him alive.

  Sherilyn? Don’t like her. She could be trouble because unlike her idol, the gardening, tea-drinking Corrina Bowen, Sherilyn seems willing to, you know, work.

  Rick might be an issue too. Other than wanting to jump his bones, I find myself disliking him. He appears to have some depth, and depth, Justine, we don’t need.

  I’ll still beat him.

  Evan, Will, and Marek?

  They’d kill for the chance to lick my toes.

  It’s time to start the eradication process.

  Talk to you soon, Justine.

  Hugs and Kisses,

  Anna Holloway

  Chapter Nine

  Rick strode through the meadow, the witchgrass and goldenrod so thick he longed for a scythe to hack his way through. Fat, furry bees lit on violet thistles, their subtle burr flaring as he passed
. He wiped sweat from his temple, gazed up at the sky. He’d written until three in the morning and while he knew what he’d written was rough, gruesome, bizarre even, he also suspected it was good.

  Ahead, a forest path waited. He pitched a sigh as the shade drowsed over him, the sun sweat cooling on the instant. The fragrant aroma of honeysuckle reached his nostrils. As he meandered through the woods, which reminded him of a state park, he recalled breakfast and the wearying attempts of the others to one-up each other:

  Elaine Kovalchyk spoke surreptitiously of her idea. Her manner and hushed tones suggested she was embarking on the next American classic.

  Evan Laydon sniffed and told them his story idea was upmarket and high-concept, whatever the hell that meant.

  Bryan Clayton declared that his idea would obliterate them all.

  Moving leisurely, Rick followed the trail until it opened onto a glittering lake.

  It was enchanting. Blue-brown water, maybe a hundred yards across, ringed with fine white sand. He nudged off his sandals, approached the water. He was reminded of the time he and Sarah had vacationed in Cancun, the night he’d proposed to her.

  The night she’d nearly been strangled to death.

  “Stop it,” he muttered aloud. No more bad thoughts. The nightmares that besieged him while he slept were ghastly enough.

  Rick tightened, the hair at the base of his skull prickling.

  He was being watched.

  He swallowed, performed a slow scan of the coastline. Nothing to his right, nothing on the lake, though there was an island out there populated by several trees and more white sand. He glanced to his left and spotted it, tucked within a bay: a wooden gazebo.

  A figure reclining within its shadows.

  Terror gripped him. Rick tottered on nerveless legs. No, he told himself. It’s not what you think. It’s just one of the writers. Or Wells. Or his wife.

  It’s too big to be his wife, a voice answered. Look at the shoulders.

  Wells then. Or Bryan or Tommy.

  Or Raymond Eddy, the cruel voice whispered.

  Rick shook his head, heart pounding. He set off toward the gazebo.

  Marching to your death, the voice insisted. He’s found you again, and this time he’ll make you pay for what you did.

  No!

  As Rick neared, the shadowy figure rose. Stretched.

  Yawned.

  Rick’s shoulders slumped, the tension dissipating.

  Will Church gave a little wave.

  “What are you doing here?” Rick asked, conscious of the edge in his voice.

  Will arched an eyebrow. “Well, I’m not bird-watching.”

  Rick nodded at the notebook held loosely at Will’s side. “Pretty different writing without a computer, isn’t it.”

  Will emerged from the gazebo. “You have any idea how illegible my handwriting is?”

  “Use your laptop.”

  “I was afraid the battery would run out.”

  Will’s goatee and receding hairline were dotted with perspiration. Rick noted the dark bib of sweat around the neck of Will’s t-shirt, which featured the book cover for Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

  Will shook his head. “My hand’s already cramping up, and I’ve hardly written anything.”

  They moved toward the bay. Rick peered out at the water. “Sometimes the words are shy.”

  “You ever get writer’s block?”

  Rick bent, picked up an umber-hued stone. “Sometimes what I write is lousy, but I keep going until it’s less lousy.”

  “If that answer was meant to make me feel worse, mission accomplished.”

  Rick smiled. “What’s your story about?”

  Will crossed his hairy forearms. “What if you steal my idea?”

  Rick reared back, side-armed the rock. It skipped five times before sinking with a muted plop. “Then I’d be a real bastard.”

  Will selected a rock of his own. A poor one for skipping, Rick judged.

  “Why do you think Wells delayed me?” Will asked.

  “Maybe he doesn’t like you.”

  “Asshole,” Will muttered, but he was grinning. He hurled his stone. It promptly sank, the lake swallowing it like a hungry leviathan.

  They got moving again, headed toward a place where the shore abutted a sheer rock wall. Will asked, “You ever been to the Rappahannock River?”

  Rick nodded toward the cliff. “Let’s hug that. The sand’s so wet my feet keep getting sucked in. No, I’ve never heard of it.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Will said, “but it’s old. I know every river is old, but this one…it’s got this aura of antiquity. Dark as root beer…slow and wide. But shallow. You can walk across it even though it would take you half a day.”

  “Your story’s about the river?”

  “It’s set there,” Will said. “But…well, I have a title.”

  Ahead, the shore hooked left, the bay ending and the lake opening up again. “It’s called The Siren and the Specter,” Will said. “It’s a ghost story.”

  “That’s a good title.”

  Will looked at him. Probably wondering if he was being mocked. People frequently thought that of Rick. He couldn’t imagine why.

  “What’s yours called?” Will asked.

  “Garden of Snakes.”

  “Wow,” Will said. “You written anything yet?”

  “Some.”

  Will stopped walking. “Don’t tell me you’ve gotten your five thousand already?”

  When Rick didn’t answer, Will hurried up beside him. “How? We just started last night.”

  Rick shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “I hate that.”

  Rick raised his eyebrows in question.

  “False modesty,” Will explained.

  Rick chuckled. “Okay, I wrote something incredible last night. That better?”

  “At least it’s honest. I’d rather.…” Will halted, mouth agape. “Holy God.”

  “What?” Rick followed Will’s gaze toward the island, which was maybe forty yards from them.

  Then he spotted it. A figure, sunbathing.

  In the nude.

  “That who I think it is?” Rick asked.

  “She’s like a painting.”

  Rick couldn’t contradict him. Anna Holloway lay on her back, completely naked, her breasts round and pallid in the sunglare. A reddish tuft of pubic hair was outlined by the backdrop of chalk-white sand.

  “Holy God,” Will repeated.

  Rick scratched the back of his neck. “We should go.”

  Will nodded faintly. “Yes, we should.”

  Instead of moving, Will visored his eyes.

  Rick cleared the thickness in his throat. “I’m enjoying the view as much as you, but if she catches us spying—”

  “I know, I know. Just a few more seconds.”

  With an effort, Rick tore his gaze from Anna’s nude form and started back toward the gazebo.

  Several seconds later, Will hustled up beside him. “That was a religious experience.”

  “It was an experience.”

  Will favored him with a wondering glance. “You believe it?”

  “She’s a nice-looking woman.”

  “I’ve heard of nude beaches in Europe, but it’s different when you know the person.”

  “You think we know her?”

  Will was quiet a moment. “Guess not. But from that perspective, I don’t know you either.” He frowned. “I’m not going to discover you sunbathing naked, am I?”

  “I favor a two-piece.”

  They proceeded down the shoreline. When the gazebo came into view, Will murmured, “Son of a bitch.”

  “Something wrong?”

  “The opposite of wrong.�
� Will’s eyes were shining. “I think I’ve got a start for my novel.”

  “This have something to do with what we just saw?”

  “The Siren,” Will said. “My protagonist will find her on an island in the Rappahannock.”

  “She going to look like Anna?”

  Will nodded. “Exactly like Anna.”

  Chapter Ten

  Tommy slogged through the forest and brooded about Bryan Clayton. The fuckstick. It was early afternoon, and though Tommy had gotten off to a decent start on Flesh Diary, his progress had stalled.

  All he could think about was the way Clayton had humiliated him.

  Tommy leaned against a tree but jerked his hand away when he felt the sap. He endeavored to wipe it off his fingers but only succeeded in staining his white t-shirt.

  Tommy surveyed the pine grove, nose scrunching at the odor. Clayton would get a hard-on over a place like this, would go on about its seclusion and unspoiled beauty. Like Thoreau, that wanker Tommy had been forced to read in English 201. He remembered little from that class except a bunch of enraged Puritans railing against sex and alcohol, and others like Thoreau who found the meaning of the universe in an acorn.

  Tommy stepped through the burnt-orange carpet of pine needles, remembered how Clayton had pinned him to the grass.… Goddammit, that made him mad. He bet Lucy was impressed at how effortlessly Clayton had manhandled him.

  He realized his face had twisted into a jealous sneer, and he immediately slackened his features. That kind of expression wouldn’t do at all. Any of the girls caught him looking that way, they’d know Clayton had gotten to him. He’d have to remember that tendency – getting tight when he thought of Clayton – and suppress it in the future.

  He took a deep breath, exhaled.

  Clayton hadn’t impressed the girls yet or Tommy would’ve noticed. And no way did Clayton possess the versatility that Tommy did, Tommy who could play guitar, could sing a little. Tommy who could write poetry and make the ladies swoon. No way had Clayton bedded as many girls as Tommy had.

  Unbidden, he recalled the first time he had sex. As an eighth grader, no less. Hell, Clayton probably didn’t even know how to use his hand in eighth grade, much less where to stick his thing.