Flesh Read online

  “So what’s her car doing out there?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “So? Spill it.” Jason opened his bag, removed a pint flask, and took a swig. “Hair of the dog,” he muttered.

  “She’s probably all right,” Roland said.

  “Yeah? What do you mean, probably?”

  Roland got up. He found the newspaper story about the killings at the Oakwood Inn, and handed it to Jason. “Read this.”

  Waiting, Roland glanced at the clock. Almost noon. He’d been asleep for nearly six hours. He felt good.

  Jason looked up. “Yeah? What’s this got to do with Dana?”

  “We went over there last night. To the restaurant.”

  “For dinner?” He looked at the paper. “Who opened it?”

  “No, it wasn’t open. It was deserted, locked up.”

  “Then what were you doing there?”

  “Dana got this thing into her head about me not having any guts. She dared me to spend the night in the restaurant. She bet me a hundred bucks I wouldn’t.”

  A grin spread over Jason’s face. “Yeah, that’s Dana, all right. I was gone, so she figured she’d use the opportunity to stick it to you.”

  “She doesn’t like me much.”

  “Sure she does. She just gets a kick out of tormenting you, that’s all.”

  “Well, whatever. Anyway, I said I’d spend the night there, and that I had more guts than she did.”

  “Wrong move, buddy.”

  “So the way it turned out, we both went into the place. The deal was, whoever chickened out first and split, would lose.”

  Jason shook his head slowly. “Christ, and to think I missed out on all this. So what happened, you turned tail, she stayed, and you drove her car back here?”

  “There was more to it than that.”

  Jason took another drink from his flask.

  “Around midnight, we heard a noise. Kind of a bumping sound. Scared me shitless.”

  “Yeah, I bet it did.”

  “I was ready to get the hell out, and Dana told me to go ahead and kiss the hundred bucks good-bye. So I stayed. She went exploring to find out what made the noise.”

  Jason began to look concerned: “You let her go off alone?”

  “I told her not to.”

  “You could’ve gone with her.”

  “Anyway, the thing is, she didn’t come back. I stayed by the front door, near the bar. I heard her wandering around. After a while, she called out and said she’d found the wine cellar. I guess she went down there. I waited a long time, Jase, but she didn’t come back.”

  “So you ran off and left her?”

  “No. Not then, anyway. I went to the kitchen. It was…that’s where those two people got killed. There was blood. Lots of it.”

  “You must’ve felt right at home,” Jason muttered. There was no humor in his tone. He sounded annoyed and worried.

  “It was pretty disgusting. Anyway, I found an open door with stairs leading down to the cellar. I shined my flashlight down, but I couldn’t see her. Then I called her name a few times. She didn’t answer. Finally, I started to go down. I was pretty damn scared, but I’d made up my mind I had to find her. I’d just gone down a couple of stairs when I heard someone laugh. It was a real quiet, nasty laugh. That’s when I got the fuck out of there.”

  Jason’s mouth hung open. He gazed at Roland with wide, bloodshot eyes.

  “I ran out and got in the car. She’d left the keys in it. I thought I’d go for the police, and then I realized it must’ve been Dana who’d laughed that way.”

  “Did it sound like her?”

  “God, who knows? When I heard it, I thought it sounded like a man. Then I got to thinking, and I was sure it must’ve been Dana. She did it to scare me off. You know? To win the bet. So I was sitting in her car and she’d won the hundred bucks by pulling that stunt and scaring me off, so I got kind of pissed at her and I figured it’d serve her right if I just took off with the car and left her there. So that’s what I did.”

  “Jesus.”

  Roland shrugged. “It’s just a few miles out. I figured, let her walk. She’s probably back at her dorm by now.”

  Jason got up without another word and left the room. Roland went to the door and watched him stride down the corridor—heading for one of the pay phones near the exit door.

  Roland sat on his bed and waited. His story had sounded quite convincing, he thought. He forced his smile away in time to greet Jason with a somber face.

  “I talked to Kerry. Dana isn’t back yet. She sounded pretty worried.”

  “Maybe Dana got a late start. Like I said, it’s a few miles. If you want, we could drive out that way and give her a lift.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Jason’s car was low on gas, so he said they should take Dana’s Volkswagen. He told Roland to drive. Then he settled in the passenger seat and shut his eyes. “Tell me when we get there,” he said.

  He wished he’d taken it easy on the booze, yesterday. All that champagne at the reception, then dinner with his folks—cocktails, more champagne, brandy afterward. Great fun at the time, but now he had a headache and his stomach felt as if he’d been eating rotten eggs. And his body seemed to buzz.

  Should’ve skipped the whole deal, he thought. Could’ve been here last night, instead, making it with Dana. Then none of this would’ve happened.

  What did those two think they were doing, going out to some damn empty restaurant like that?

  Easy to figure. Dana wanted to mess with Roland’s head. Never could stand the guy. As for Roland, he probably had some fancy hopes of putting it to her. Lotsa luck on that one, pal. You were the last guy on earth, you wouldn’t stand a chance. Hates your guts, pal.

  What if he tried and she told him to fuck off and he went ape and nailed her?

  The thoughts made Jason’s heart pound harder, sending jolts of pain into his head.

  Roland might be a little peculiar, he told himself, but the guy wouldn’t pull something like that. He might want to, but he didn’t have the guts. Especially not with Dana.

  But it could’ve started with a small disagreement. Dana turned mean, lashed out at him with that tongue of hers. Next thing you know, Roland strikes back.

  If he hurt her, I’ll kill him.

  Jason rubbed his temples. He remembered a talk with Roland, late one night in the darkness of their room when they both were lying awake.

  Jason: If you could fuck any girl on campus, who’d it be? Aside from Dana.

  Roland: I don’t want to fuck Dana.

  Jason: Oh, sure.

  Roland: Geez, I don’t know.

  Jason: Just one. Who’d it be?

  Roland: Mademoiselle LaRue. (His French teacher.)

  Jason: You’re joking. She’s a bitch.

  Roland: She’s a real piece.

  Jason: She’s a bitch. What are you, a glutton for punishment? Roland: First, I’d tie her up. I’d throw the rope over a rafter or something, so she’s hanging there. Then I’d take out my knife and cut off all her clothes. When she’s all naked, I’d start cutting on her.

  Jason: Pervert. I said “fuck,” not “torture.”

  Roland: Oh, I’d get around to that. Eventually. But I’d want to have some fun with her, first.

  Jason: Fun? You are warped, man. Definitely warped.

  Just a fantasy of his, Jason told himself. The guy’s a chicken. He’d never actually try to do anything like that, not with Mademoiselle LaRue or Dana or anyone else. All just talk.

  Better be.

  He opened his eyes and looked at Roland.

  “Almost there,” Roland said. “I’ve been watching the road. Surprised we haven’t run across her walking. But you know, she could’ve been getting back about the time we started out. Maybe we just missed her.”

  Or maybe she’s at the restaurant, tied up and hanging from a rafter, stripped and cut up…

  “She better be all right,” Jason muttered.<
br />
  “God, I hope so,” Roland said. “I keep thinking about that laugh I heard in the cellar. I mean, suppose it wasn’t Dana?” His lips pulled into a tight line. He looked in pain. “If anything happened to her, it’s all my fault. I should’ve gone down there. I should’ve.”

  Ahead, on the right, was a sign for the Oakwood Inn. Roland slowed the car and swung onto a narrow road in front of the sign.

  “What if someone was down there?” he said. “Like a pervert or something, and he got her? Maybe he hangs around the place, just waiting for people to come along.”

  “You’ve seen too many of those splatter movies,” Jason told him.

  “That kind of thing happens, though. In real life. Look at Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. They were both based on real life, on that Ed Gein guy in Wisconsin. Know what he used to do, he used to dress up in the skins of his victims—wear ’em like clothes.”

  “Hey, come on. I don’t want to hear this.”

  “All his neighbors thought he was a real neat guy because he’d bring them gifts of meat. What they didn’t know, the meat was human.”

  “For Christsake, cut it out.”

  “I’m just saying it’s not just in movies. Weird shit happens.”

  Roland stopped the car in front of the restaurant. He turned off the engine. He frowned at Jason. “Wish I’d brought my knife,” he whispered. “I mean, there’s probably nobody in there, but…”

  “Wait in the car if you’re scared.” Jason threw open the door and climbed out. He walked straight to the porch stairs. He took them two at a time.

  Bad enough, he thought, without Roland talking about that stuff and acting like he’s scared some nut might be hiding in the restaurant.

  In front of the door, Jason hesitated. Nobody’s in there, he told himself. Except maybe Dana.

  She’ll be standing inside, a hip thrust out to the side, hands on her hips and a smirk on her face. “So, my ride is here at last. Took you dorks long enough. If you thought I was gonna walk back, you were nuts.”

  She won’t be in there.

  Maybe her body. Hanging naked, all cut up.

  She’s probably back on campus by now.

  She’ll get a big laugh when she hears about this. Our rescue mission.

  She won’t get a big laugh. She’s dead.

  Jason looked over his shoulder. Roland was coming, so he waited. He rubbed his sweaty hands on his jeans. He tried to take a deep breath, but there was a hard, tight place below his lungs that wouldn’t let them expand enough.

  Roland climbed onto the porch. Crouching, he picked up a board with nails at both ends. There were several such boards lying around. Apparently, they’d been used to barricade the door. “Why don’t you get one?” Roland whispered.

  Jason shook his head. He didn’t need a weapon unless he believed there was danger inside; he didn’t want to believe that.

  He pushed on the door. It swung open. Cool air from inside breathed on him, raising goose bumps. He took a single step forward.

  Enough light entered the restaurant through the doorway and windows for him to see the cocktail area to his right, the big dining area to his left. He stepped toward the dining room. It looked empty except for a ladder, an open toolbox, some cans and jars, a vacuum cleaner and broom, all clustered near the right wall. Nothing moved.

  “Dana!” he called out. His voice sounded hollow, as if he’d yelled the name into a cave.

  No answer came.

  Did you really expect one? he thought.

  He looked to the right. On the floor in front of the long bar was an empty vodka bottle. Had Dana and Roland been drinking? Maybe they both got drunk. Maybe that’s how it started.

  He could ask Roland about the bottle. But he didn’t want to hear his voice again—didn’t want anyone else to hear his voice again.

  With Roland at his side, he walked into the dining area. Along the wall beyond the ladder was a double door—the kind that saloons always had in westerns. He pushed through it and entered the kitchen.

  The linoleum floor had footprints, maybe a dozen of them, rust-colored stains made by a bare left foot. A small foot. Dana’s foot? The tracks began at a dried puddle of blood near the far side of the kitchen and became fainter as they approached the place where Jason was standing.

  Near the blood puddle was a sack of flour. The floor directly behind the sack was coated with the white powder.

  “What’s all this?” Jason whispered.

  “The blood’s from those two who were killed Thursday night.”

  Christ, he thought, don’t the cops clean it up? If they don’t, who does?

  “What about the flour?”

  “It was here when we came,” Roland answered in a voice as hushed as Jason’s.

  “The footprints?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “They weren’t here?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Was Dana wearing shoes?”

  “Sure. Anyway, she had shoes on last time I saw her.” Roland pointed with his board at an open door. “The cellar’s down there.”

  Jason walked slowly toward it, rolling his feet from heel to toe so he wouldn’t make any noise though he knew that anyone down there—anyone alive—would’ve heard him call out Dana’s name and maybe even heard the quiet conversation in the kitchen.

  He peered down the steep wooden stairway.

  Dark as hell down there.

  He hoped that the restaurant had electricity, then recalled that there’d been a lamp and vacuum cleaner with the ladder and things in the other room. He flicked a switch on the wall beside the door. A light came on below.

  “Want me to stay up here and keep watch?” Roland whispered.

  “Keep watch for what? Come on.”

  He started down the stairs. They groaned under his weight. He pictured breaking through one, falling. Worse, he pictured someone hiding behind the stairway, grabbing his ankle from between the boards.

  Partway down, he stopped and ducked below the ceiling. From here, he could see most of the cellar. Straight ahead were several sections of empty shelves, some made for holding wine bottles and others apparently intended for the storage of other restaurant supplies. Off to the left was a vast area with pipes running along the ceiling, a furnace near the far wall.

  No Dana.

  No one else.

  That he could see.

  Jason rushed to the bottom, got away from the staircase and looked back. Nobody behind it.

  His tension eased a little. Even though the cellar had plenty of places where someone might be hidden, he doubted that anyone, alive or dead, was down here.

  Just me, he thought. And Roland.

  Nevertheless, he began to search. Roland stayed behind him as he walked through the aisles between the shelves.

  Roland. Behind him. Carrying that board with the nails in it.

  And I’m probably the only one who knows he was here last night with Dana.

  If it was Roland who…

  He could almost feel those nails piercing his skull.

  He turned around. Roland, with the board resting on his shoulder, raised his eyebrows. “You want to take the lead for a while?” Jason whispered.

  Roland’s lip curled up. “Thanks anyway.”

  “I’m going first, I ought to have the weapon.”

  “Could’ve got one for yourself.”

  “Don’t give me shit.”

  “What’ll I use?”

  “Don’t worry about it, huh? Anything happens, I’d be better with that thing than you.”

  Roland’s eyes narrowed. For a moment, Jason half expected Roland to swing the thing down at him. Wouldn’t dare, he thought. Not with me facing him. Knows he wouldn’t stand a chance. I’m bigger, stronger, quicker. By a long shot.

  “Guess you’re right,” Roland said, and handed the board to him.

  They resumed the search. Now that he had the weapon, Jason wondered about himself. He must’ve be
en crazy to think that Roland might try to kill him.

  The kid’s more scared than me about being down here.

  He didn’t lay a finger on Dana.

  He’s sure, in that twisted mind of his, that some maniac right out of a slasher movie was down here last night and did a number on Dana.

  What if he’s right?

  No, please. Nobody got her. She was down here alone, she did that laugh herself to scare Roland off, she’s probably back at her dorm by now.

  She’s dead, whispered Jason’s mind.

  But he didn’t find her body in the cellar. He didn’t find a pool of blood. He found none of her clothes. He found no signs of a struggle. He found nothing at all to indicate that Dana had ever been in the cellar, much less murdered there.

  He was glad to get out of the cellar. He shut the door and leaned against it.

  “What do you think?” Roland asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t we get out of here?” Without waiting for a reply, Roland walked to the rear door of the kitchen and swung it open. He stopped. “Hey.”

  “What?”

  “Take a look at this.”

  Jason hurried over to him. Roland was fingering the edge of the door. The wood on its outside, near the latch, was gouged and splintered. “Someone broke in,” Jason said.

  “Not me and Dana. We came in the front way.”

  “Christ.”

  Roland whispered, “There was someone else.”

  Jason tossed the board aside and stepped through the doorway. Beyond the rear of the restaurant a vast, rolling, weed-covered field stretched to the edge of a forest.

  He stepped down from the porch. He walked through the tall grass and weeds of what had once been a lawn. The edge of the lawn blended in with the start of the field, only different in that the lawn was flat and the field began with a small rise. He climbed the rise.

  Roland came up behind him and stood at his side while Jason shielded his eyes against the sunlight and scanned the area.

  “What now?” Roland asked. “Search in the weeds?”

  “I don’t know.” There were acres and acres, and then the forest. The idea of trying to find Dana out there seemed overwhelming and futile.

  If she’s in the weeds, he thought, she’s dead.

  “Maybe the guy has a place in the woods,” Roland said. “A shack or something, you know? That Ed Gein I was telling you about—”