The Stake Read online

  “So much for that,” Larry said when he saw the padlocked hasp across the double doors of the Sagebrush Flat Hotel.

  Pete fingered the lock. “Doesn’t look very old.”

  “Maybe someone’s living here,” Barbara said.

  “Hey, Sherlock, it’s locked from the outside. What does that tell you?”

  “Tells me we’d be trespassing.”

  “Yeah,” Jean said. “The doors are locked, the windows are boarded. Somebody’s trying to keep people out.”

  “Kind of sparks my curiosity. What about you, Lar?”

  “Sparks mine, too. But I don’t know about breaking in.”

  “Who’s gonna find out?” Pete turned away from the doors. He stepped off the sidewalk, bent over and swept his head slowly from side to side in a broad pantomime of scanning the town’s only road. “I don’t see anyone. Do you see anyone?”

  “We get the point,” Barbara told him.

  “I’ll just mosey on over to the van.” He started across the pavement, walking at an angle toward Holman’s.

  “What’s he got in mind?” Jean asked.

  “God knows. Maybe he’s planning to ram the doors open.”

  “That’d be rather drastic,” Larry said.

  “It’s a matter of pride, at this point. A challenge. Pete wouldn’t be Pete if he let a little thing like a lock keep him out.”

  Jean rolled her eyes upward. “I guess this means we’re going to explore the hotel whether we want to or not.”

  “Just consider it an adventure,” Larry suggested.

  “Yeah, right. Jail would be an adventure, too.”

  Pete climbed into the rear of the van. A few seconds later he jumped down, swung the door shut, and waved a lug wrench overhead. It had a pry bar at one end. In his other hand was a flashlight.

  He’s really going to break in, Larry thought. Good Christ.

  Barbara waited until he was closer, then called, “We’ve been having some second thoughts about this, Pete.”

  “Hey, what’s life if you don’t take a little chance now and then. Right, Lar?”

  “Right,” he answered, trying to sound game.

  “You’re a lot of help,” Jean muttered.

  Pete bounded onto the sidewalk, grinning and brandishing his tire iron. “Got my skeleton key right here,” he announced. “Fits any lock.”

  “Anybody want to wait in the van?” Barbara asked.

  “Ah, pussy.”

  “Well, I guess I’d like to have a look around,” Larry said.

  “Good man.”

  Pete gave the flashlight to Larry. Then he rammed the wedge end of the bar behind the metal strap of the hasp. He yanked with both hands, throwing his weight backward. Wood groaned and split. With a sound like a small explosion the staple burst out of the door, bolts and all. “Well, that was a cinch.”

  He shoved the bar under his belt, turned the knob on the right and pulled the door open.

  “I suppose we could always say we found it like this,” Barbara muttered.

  “You won’t have to sayanything. Half an hour or so, we’ll be long gone.”

  “If we don’t get shot for trespassing.”

  Ignoring her remark, Pete leaned into the doorway and called, “Yoo-hoo. Anybody home?”

  Larry winced.

  “Here we come, ready or not!”

  “Cut it out,” Barbara whispered, slapping the back of his shoulder.

  “Nobody home but us ghosts,” he said in a low, scratchy voice, and turned around grinning.

  “Real cute.”

  “So who’s coming in?”

  “I think we should all go in or none of us,” Larry said, hoping Pete wouldn’t figure him for a pussy. “I don’t think we should split up. I’d be worried the whole time that something might happen to the gals while we’re in there looking around.”

  “Good man,” Barbara said, and patted his back.

  “Guess you’re right,” Pete admitted. “If they got themselves raped and murdered while we were in there, boy would we feel like a couple of heels.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Real cute,” Jean said, borrowing not only Barbara’s phrase but also her disdainful tone.

  “What do you say?” Barbara asked her.

  “They’ll hold it against us forever if they can’t go in on our account.”

  “Admit it,” Pete said. “You’re dying to come with us.”

  “Let’s get it over with,” Barbara said.

  Larry gave the flashlight back to Pete and followed him into the hotel. In spite of the closed doors and boarded windows, sand had found its way into the lobby. It made soft scraping sounds under their shoes.

  “We probably shouldn’t leave the door open,” Jean said. There was a tremor in her hushed voice. “In case someone comes by.” Without waiting for a reply, she closed the door, shutting out most of the daylight.

  Light still came in around the doors, spilled through cracks and knotholes in the planks across the windows — pale, dusty streamers that slanted down to the floor. Pete turned his flashlight on, its beam pushing a tunnel of brightness into the gloom. He swept it from side to side.

  “Boy, there’s a lot to see in here,” Barbara whispered. “What a find!”

  The lobby was bare except for a registration counter. On the wall behind the counter were cubbyholes for mail or messages. Over to the left a wooden staircase rose steeply toward the upper floors.

  “Should we check in before we have a look around?” Pete asked.

  “Probably no vacancies,” Larry whispered.

  “A couple of real comedians,” Jean muttered.

  Pete led the way to the counter, pounded its top and said in a loud voice, “How does a guy get some service around here?”

  “Creep. You want to hold it down?”

  “What’s everybody whispering for?” He vaulted the counter, dropped into the space behind it and ducked out of sight. He reappeared, rising slowly, the flashlight at his chin to cast weird shadows up his face. Where the beam touched him, his skin gleamed with sweat.

  Goofing off like a kid, Larry thought. But he sometimes pulled the same gag, especially around Halloween, more to amuse himself than to frighten Jean or Lane. They had come to expect such antics. The old flashlight-on-the-face routine hadn’t scared Lane since she was about two.

  It did make Pete look strange and menacing. Larry knew that if he let his mind go with it, he wouldget a shiver. “Mmm-yes?” Pete asked, pitching his voice high. “May I help zee veary travelers?”

  “God, it’s hot in here,” Jean whispered.

  “A damn oven,” Barbara said.

  “Anything back there?” Larry asked, carefully avoiding his friend’s face.

  “Only me and zee spirit of zee night clerk, who hung himself many years ago.”

  “If we’re going to look around,” Jean said, “why don’t we, and get out of here?”

  “I’d like to have a look upstairs,” Larry said.

  “Vait. Let me ring for zee bell captain.”

  “Oh, the hell with him,” Barbara muttered. “Come on.” She turned around and headed for the stairs. Jean went after her, and Larry followed. Barbara’s legs and the bare part of her back were nearly invisible in the darkness. Her white shorts and blouse, pale blurs, seemed to float above the floor on their own. Jean, in darker clothes, was a faint smudge in front of him.

  He heard Pete strike the floor and stride up behind him, sand crunching under his shoes. The flashlight beam flicked across the backs of the women, swung over to the staircase and swept upward, skimming past balusters, tossing their long shadows against the wall. Midway up was a small landing. The remaining stairs rose to the narrow opening of the second-floor corridor.

  “You don’t want to go first, do you?” Pete asked in his normal voice as Barbara started to climb.

  “If I wait for you, we’ll be here all day.”

  The light moved downward, gliding just above the stair
treads, and something touched by the low edge of its aura winked like gold. A small, questioning breath of surprise came from Pete. The light skittered backward and down. Its bright center came to rest on a crucifix. “Christ,” he whispered.

  “That’s right,” Larry said.

  The crucifix, directly below the landing, was attached to wood paneling that closed off the space beneath the staircase.

  “What is it?” Barbara asked, leaning over the banister near the bottom of the stairs.

  “Somebody left a crucifix on the wall,” Larry told her.

  “Is that all?” She leaned farther out, then shook her head. “Big deal,” she said.

  Jean stepped around the side of the staircase for a closer look.

  “Anybody want a souvenir?” Pete asked. He strode toward the crucifix.

  “No, don’t,” Larry warned.

  “Hey, somebody just forgot it here. Finders keepers.”

  “Leave it alone,” Barbara said from her perch on the stairs. “For godsake, you don’t go around stealing crosses. That’s sick.”

  The cross was made of wood. The suspended figure of Jesus looked as if it might be gold-plated. Pete reached for it.

  “Please don’t,” Jean said.

  He looked at her. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, yeah.” Apparently he had just remembered that Jean was Catholic. He lowered his hand. “Sorry. I was just kidding around.”

  “Reason prevails,” Barbara muttered. She pushed herself away from the banister and resumed climbing.

  She got as far as the landing.

  The wood creaked under her weight, then burst with a hard flat crack like a gunshot.

  Barbara sucked in her breath. She flung her arms up as if trying to find a handhold in the dark air as she dropped straight down.

  Four

  “My God!” Pete shouted.

  Jean, racing up the stairs, called out, “Hang on!”

  “I’m slipping! Hurry!”

  Larry dashed toward the foot of the stairs. He didn’t hear Pete coming. “Where areyou, man?”

  “Get up there and grab her!” Pete snapped.

  “Oh shit,” Barbara groaned.

  Larry swung himself around the newel post. As he rushed up behind Jean he saw the hazy glow of Pete’s flashlight ahead and to the right of the stairs. Hadn’t the guy moved? Was he still down there in front of the crucifix?

  Jean sank to her knees at the edge of the landing.

  Barbara, her back to the lower stairs, looked like someone being swallowed by quicksand. She was hunched forward, pressing her chest against the remaining boards, bracing herself up with her elbows.

  Jean crawled aside to make a space for Larry, then hooked an arm under Barbara’s left armpit. “Gotcha,” she gasped. “I gotcha. You’re not gonna fall.”

  “Are you okay?” Pete called up.

  “No, damn it!”

  Larry dropped against the landing and stairs, looked down into a six-inch gap between the broken planks and the white of Barbara’s blouse. Blackness.

  A bottomless pit, he thought. An abyss.

  Ridiculous, he told himself. Probably no more than a six— or seven-foot drop, all told, from the landing to the lobby floor. She was already about halfway there.

  What if the floor doesn’t extend under the staircase?

  Or she breaks through that, too?

  Even if she had only a four-foot fall, she would end up trapped under the staircase. And the broken boards might scrape her up pretty good on the way down.

  He squirmed forward until his face met the hair on the back of Barbara’s head. He wrapped his arms around her. They squeezed her breasts. Muttering “Sorry,” he worked them lower and hugged her rib cage.

  “Pete!” he yelled.

  “You got her?” Pete’s voice still came from below.

  “Just barely. If you’d give us a goddamn hand!”

  He heard a crack of splitting wood. For a moment he thought that more of the landing was giving out. Nothing happened, though.

  “Yah!” Barbara yelped, jerking in Larry’s embrace. “Something’s got me!”

  “It’s just me, hon.”

  For an instant a pale tongue of light licked the darkness beside Larry’s right shoulder. It had risen through the broken boards.

  Pete’s under us, he realized.

  “How’d you get down there?” Jean asked. She sounded amazed, relieved.

  “Tire tool magic,” Pete said. “Okay, I’ve got you, hon. Let’s lower her gently.”

  “No no no, don’t! I’ll fall.”

  “We gotta get you down outa there.”

  “Well, boost me up, okay?” Her voice was controlled, but tight with pain or fear. “If I try to go down, I’ll get wracked up even more.”

  “All right. We’ll give it a try. You guys ready up there? On the count of three.”

  “You gonna push her up by her legs?” Jean asked.

  “That’s the idea. One. Two.”

  “Take it easy,” Barbara urged him, “or I’ll end up with a bunch of wood in me.”

  “Okay. One. Two. Three.”

  Barbara came up slowly through the break as if she were standing on an elevator. Still hugging her chest, Larry struggled to his knees. She swayed back against him. He slid a hand down the slick, bare skin of her belly. She gasped and flinched. Then he grabbed her belt buckle, yanked upward, pulled her hard against him, and she came to rest sitting at the brink of the gap.

  “Okay,” she gasped. “I’m okay. Give me a second to catch my breath.”

  Larry and Jean held onto her arms.

  “All right up there?” Pete asked. The beam of his flashlight swept back and forth through the break in front of Barbara’s knees.

  Barbara didn’t answer.

  “She’s safe,” Jean called down.

  The beam slid away and only a faint glow drifted out of the opening.

  “I want to go home,” Barbara muttered. Larry and Jean held her steady while she leaned back and drew her legs up. She planted her shoes against the rim of splintered wood at the gap’s far side.

  “Jesus!” Startled, scared.

  Barbara went rigid. “Pete! What’s wrong!”

  “Holy jumpin‘... Oh, man.” Not quite so scared now. Amazed. “Hey, you’re not gonna believe this. Honest to motherin’ God. Larry, get down here.”

  “What?”

  Barbara leaned forward and peered between her spread legs. “What is it?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “This is no time for games, Peter.”

  “You’re just damn lucky you didn’t wind up down here.”

  For a moment no one said anything.

  Then Pete’s voice came up through the crevice. “You would’ve had company.”

  Shivers ran up Larry’s back.

  “There’s an old stiff in here.”

  He’s kidding, Larry thought. But his body knew that Pete was telling the truth. His cheeks suddenly felt numb. He had trouble getting enough breath. His bowels went shaky. His scrotum shriveled up tight, as if someone had just grabbed it with a handful of ice.

  “Oh jeez,” Barbara muttered. Jean and Larry got out of her way as she twisted around, grabbed the banister, and struggled to her feet. They followed her down the stairs. She held the railing and moved slowly, hunched over just a bit. Her blouse now hung all the way down her back.

  “I knew I didn’t like this place,” Jean whispered.

  Barbara went straight to the hotel door and threw it open. Daylight flooded in. She stopped in the doorway and turned sideways. She was squinting. Her teeth were bared. Though Larry was several feet away, he could see her trembling. Her hands shook as she pinched the edges of her blouse and spread its front wide. She gazed down at the raw band of skin across her belly.

  Her breasts looked very white through the open patterns of her bra. Larry glimpsed the darker skin of her nipples. She was too hurt and dazed for modesty, and Larry felt like a cheap voyeur t
aking advantage of her carelessness. In spite of the guilt, he didn’t want to look away. There was a dead body under the stairs. Somehow, the sight of Barbara’s skin through the black lace bra eased his sick dread.

  But he forced his eyes lower. The right leg of her shorts was rucked up higher than the left. Both thighs were scraped, her shins bleeding. The right was worse than the left, but both legs had been abraded in the fall.

  Jean went to her. “You really didget wracked up.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “Where is everyone?” Pete called. His voice sounded muffled.

  “Barbara’s really banged up,” Larry answered. “Come on out of there and let’s go home.”

  “You’ve gotta see this! It’ll just take a minute.”

  I don’t want to see it.

  “Man, your wife is hurt.”

  “What’s one more minute or two? We’ve got a dead bodyhere. You’re a writer, for godsake. A horrorwriter. I’m telling you, this isn’t something you want to miss. Come on.”

  “Go ahead if you want,” Jean told him. “We’ll start on over for the van.”

  Larry wrinkled his nose.

  Barbara nodded, still grimacing and shaking. Her face and chest were shiny with sweat. Larry found himself looking again at her breasts. “Go on,” she said. “It’ll make him happy.”

  “You gals don’t want to see it?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Jean said.

  “Just make it quick,” Barbara told him.

  He turned away from the door. He walked slowly across the lobby floor. Glancing back, he saw Jean and Barbara step outside.

  He felt abandoned.

  I don’t have to be here, he thought. I could be out there with them.

  He did not want to see a damn corpse.

  But his weak legs kept moving him away from the sunlight.

  Alongside the staircase a wide section of paneling had been ripped loose and gaped open a couple of feet. The glow of Pete’s flashlight showed through the space. Larry turned sideways and stepped into the enclosure.

  “Thought you were going to chicken out on me,” Pete said.

  “Can’t miss a chance like this.”

  He found Pete standing on a couple of boards that had fallen from the landing. He looked frozen there, back rigid, his right arm straight out, aiming the flashlight almost as if it were a pistol. Aiming it at the coffin that was jammed headfirst against the underside of a low stair.