Dark Mountain Page 7

  “You’re telling me.” He turned toward her and started putting on his shoes.

  She noticed, with a mixture of relief and disappointment, that the shorts had no fly. She caught herself trying to see up the leg holes, and quickly lowered her gaze. She stared at her shoes as she put them on.

  “All set?” he asked.

  Julie nodded. She stood up, feeling the cold seep into her clothes. As she tugged at the bottom of her jacket, she saw the thrust of her nipples through the tan fabric. Nick saw, too. He was staring. “Take a picture,” she muttered. “It lasts longer.”

  He met her eyes for a moment, looking stunned and hurt, then turned away. He shook his head.

  “Hey,” Julie whispered.

  “Never mind, let’s just forget it.” He knelt on his sleeping bag.

  “Come on, don’t chicken out on me.”

  “It was a dumb idea.” He reached back to pull off a shoe.

  Julie squeezed his shoulder. “Come on. I’m sorry. It wasn’t your fault. I was a jerk.”

  “No you weren’t.”

  “Hey, you can look at me all you want. I was looking at you.”

  “You were?”

  “Sure. Come on, let’s scare the crap out of everyone.”

  The flashlight no longer beamed through the side of the twins’ tent. Julie heard no talking. “Hope they’re not asleep,” she whispered.

  Nick took the lead, striding quietly across the clearing. They stopped beside the tent. He began to pound his feet on the earth. Julie joined in. Shoulder to shoulder, they ran in place, their shoes crunching the dry pine needles and twigs and pine cones. Through the noise, Julie heard frantic whispers from inside.

  In a high, trilling voice, she called, “Helllllp meee. Pleeeease hellllp meeeee.”

  Screams erupted from the tent.

  Nick slapped a hand across his mouth, apparently to hold in a giggle, and dashed into the trees just behind the tent. He cut to the left, Julie close on his heels. Running through the dark, with the girls still screaming, she felt a strange quivering tightness in her chest as if she needed to scream herself. They passed the tent of Nick’s parents, then raced toward the rear of her father’s tent.

  “Helllp meee!” she called in a shrill voice. “Hellllp meeeee!”

  Their feet crashed through the undergrowth.

  “Pleeeease hell—”

  “It’s all right,” came her father’s voice. “Julie!” he yelled. “It’s not funny!”

  “It’s Doreeeeen!” she cried, and rushed by.

  As they raced for their sleeping bags, Mr. Gordon scurried out of his tent. “What the fuck’s going on!” he bellowed.

  Julie dived for her bag. Nick hit his, laughing, and burrowed inside.

  “For Chrissake,” Mr. Gordon said. “No more of that, Nick, or you’re in for it.” He muttered, “Infantile.”

  Peering out of her sleeping bag, Julie saw him crouch at the entrance of the twins’ tent. “It’s all right, girls,” he said in a loud voice. “Just a couple of morons.”

  “He called me a moron!” Julie whispered.

  She heard Nick laugh.

  Scott listened to Benny’s slow, deep breathing. Finally asleep. About time. Julie’s stunt had thrown quite a shock into him, keeping him awake for a long while afterward.

  Good old Karen. She really opened a can of worms with that story of hers.

  Good old Karen.

  He opened the side of his bag so slowly that the zipper popped open with quiet, individual clicks. Then he silently climbed out.

  If Benny wakes up, he thought, I’ll just tell him that nature is calling. Won’t even be a lie; nature is calling.

  Naked except for his jockey shorts, he shivered as he crawled to the foot of his sleeping bag. He relaxed his muscles, and the shaking stopped. That’s it. Calm. Stay calm. He opened the mosquito screen and crept through the opening. On hands and knees, he scanned the camp. The fire was out. Except for a few pale tatters of moonlight, the area was dark. The two sleeping bags were black bulges near the low stone circle of the fireplace.

  He stood up and brushed off his knees. Then he walked quickly to Karen’s tent. He unzipped the front and crawled in. Her sleeping bag was stretched lengthwise along the right-hand side. Her face was a vague blur at the far end. Her breathing was slow and steady.

  He lay down on the cold floor of the tent, and kissed one of her closed eyes. She moaned. “It’s me,” he whispered.

  “Mmmm.” She rolled onto her back.

  Scott found the zipper at the side of her bag, eased it down, and slid his arm into the warmth. He touched her. She was wearing something loose and thick and soft. A sweatshirt? His hand moved over it, feeling her heat through the fabric, feeling the smooth curves of her belly and ribs and breasts.

  Without warning, a hand grabbed his wrist. “Password?” came a whisper.

  “‘Open sesame’?”

  “‘Pumpernickel.’ Close enough.” She raised her head. “What are you wearing?”

  “Not much.”

  “So I gather. Jeez, get in here.” She lifted the cover of her sleeping bag, and Scott crawled in. She snuggled against him. Her lips brushed his as she said, “How nice of you to join me.”

  “Very thoughtful of Julie to sleep outside.”

  “Yes.” They kissed. Karen flinched as he slid a cold hand under her sweatshirt. She pushed her tongue into his mouth. She touched the band of his shorts, slipped her hand in, and caressed his buttocks.

  She sighed when he touched her breast. He stroked its smoothness, filled his hand with it, gently squeezed. She sucked a trembling breath as his thumb pressed her nipple. Then she pulled off her sweatshirt. She was bare and warm and sleek to the waist. She squirmed, rubbing herself against him.

  His erect penis felt trapped in his tight shorts. She freed it. Her fingers curled around it, slid down the length of it and up again. Scott moaned as the sensation threatened to break his control. He moved lower, easing out of her hand. His mouth went to her breast. He kissed the rigid nipple, tasting the slight tang of salt on her skin.

  Karen rolled onto her back, and he tongued her other breast while his hand roamed down the velvety skin of her belly. He plucked at the drawstring of her sweatpants, opening the bow. He slid his hand down. He felt the soft coils of hair. Her thighs parted to make room. She was warm and slick. Her breath became ragged. She clenched his hair, forcing his mouth hard against her breast as she raised her knees and writhed under his sliding fingers. “Oh, God,” she gasped. “Oh, my God.”

  He took his hand away. She let go of his hair, and he rolled aside. While she struggled out of her pants, he shoved his shorts down and tugged them off. Then he was on top of Karen, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, squeezing a breast, pushing into her. She sheathed him, tight and slippery. She whimpered as he slid in deep. “Hurt?” he whispered.

  “Oh, Jesus!”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “No,” she gasped. “It’s a no.” She dug her fingers into his buttocks, pulled, and shuddered as he pushed the rest of the way in.

  A few endless moments of mad lunging, burying himself in her dark hugging warmth, in her and enclosed by her and part of her; she strained against him for a deeper joining as if she ached for him to penetrate a secret place just out of reach. Scott sought that place. He plunged for it. He rammed for it. Just beyond him and now he couldn’t hold back. He pumped, spurting into her, and knew that his fluid was finding that secret place, making that connection, joining them. Karen quaked under him. Then she held him motionless and tight.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Keep on going,” Ettie muttered. “Don’t you stop here.”

  Dropping to her rump, she scooted down the steep side of the boulder she’d been standing on. The granite felt like hot sandpaper through her dress. She pushed off, fell a short distance into a nook among the rocks, and stretched out flat on an uptilted slab. From there, she watched the hikers stride up the distant tr
ail.

  They were heading up toward Carver Pass. Three of them. This far off, they were no more than tiny shapes. Something about the way they walked made Ettie suspect they were girls, but she could only be sure about one; the figure of that one made it obvious.

  The person in the lead, who wore a cowboy hat, stopped and turned around, waiting for the others to catch up.

  “No,” Ettie whispered when the leader pointed down at the lake.

  The three stood close together on the trail, gesturing and nodding, apparently discussing the matter. Then the one in the cowboy hat started down the steep path toward the lake. The other two followed.

  “Damnation,” Ettie muttered.

  Squirming forward on the sun-baked granite, she spotted Merle. He was far below, seated on his favorite rock, fishing. With a high outcropping to his right, he was hidden from the intruders, at least for now. They would need to come halfway up the opposite shore to notice Merle in his recess. By then, he was sure to hear their voices and take cover.

  “You better behave, boy,” she said. “You better just leave ’em be, or I’ll skin you.”

  Before yesterday, there hadn’t been much cause to worry on Merle’s account. Folks had come down every now and again to rest by the lake, explore it, take a swim, or do some fishing, but Merle always stayed out of sight and left them alone. He’d even behaved the few times campers stayed the night. None of the overnight people had been pretty young women, though, until that last. Easy enough to behave when there’s no temptation. But the first pretty girl comes along, he rapes her and kills her and lays it on the Master.

  I offered ’em down.

  Bullsquat.

  Ettie turned her gaze to the hikers. They were already at the bottom of the slope, walking single file along the lakeshore. They were heading toward the area where Merle had buried the bodies. With its trees and shade, it stood out like an oasis in the desolate basin. No one came down without settling there.

  A fine place to plant those folks, Ettie thought. We oughta dig them up and stick them someplace out of the way.

  Sure enough, the three hikers stopped in the shadows and swung off their packs. One red pack was lowered within a yard of the graves.

  As they opened their packs, Ettie heard them talking and laughing. From the sounds of their voices, she was sure that all three were girls.

  Merle must hear them, too. She looked toward the boulder where he’d been sitting. He was on his feet, leaning out, trying to see around the jut of rock. He stood motionless for a few moments, then leaped across the narrow band of water, set down his fishing pole, and scrambled up the slope. Near the top, he crouched low, then raised his head enough to see over.

  Only the width of the lake separated him from the girls. That couldn’t be more than a hundred feet, Ettie figured. Merle could swim the distance in half a minute, if he had a mind to.

  “You just let ’em be,” Ettie whispered.

  She looked at the girls. They were sitting close together on rocks, passing a couple of small bags back and forth, eating the contents.

  Stopped for lunch, Ettie thought. She hoped that was all, that they would finish up quickly and be on their way.

  The one in the cowboy hat, who sat with her back to Ettie, took off her checkered blouse. The straps of her bra were white against her tanned skin. She stood up and stretched, as if she liked how the breeze felt. Bending over, she set her hat on a rock. She rubbed her short brown hair, then turned away from the other two girls and walked to the shore. There, she knelt and flipped a hand through the water.

  Ettie looked for Merle. He was gone.

  The girl returned to her friends. Moving her hat off the rock, she sat down again and began to untie a boot.

  “Oh, you fool,” Ettie muttered. She studied the opposite shore, but still couldn’t see Merle.

  One of the other girls, a skinny thing in jeans and a faded blue shirt, got up and stuffed a bag into her pack. Then she took off her shirt. Her breasts were small mounds, white except for their dark tips.

  “Oh, Merle, Merle.” The temptation would be too much for him.

  She considered rushing down to the girls, yelling and trying to scare them away. That might ruin everything, though. They’d be sure to tell someone—maybe a ranger—about the wild woman who chased them off. A spell might take care of that, but why take chances? A good spell’s hard to call down, and you can’t always count on one to take care of business.

  Be better off to find Merle and stop him before he did something foolish.

  She looked at the girls. The one who’d tested the water was on her feet, pulling down her shorts. The buxom one had her T-shirt off, and was reaching behind her back to unhook her bra. The skinny one sat right where Merle had planted the bodies, and tugged off her boots.

  Ettie still couldn’t spot Merle. She guessed he was across the lake from the girls, spying on them, probably hard as a club by now and going crazy.

  She scurried across the slope, staying low. She squeezed through crevices, slid down steep slabs on her rump, ducked behind every rock cluster offering any concealment, making her way slowly across the end of the lake. When she paused to catch her breath, she found all three girls stark naked. The one in the lead was knee-deep in the lake, walking backward, urging her friends to come in. The skinny one eased in a foot and jerked it out quickly. The other squatted down, breasts bulging against her knees, and tried the water with her hand.

  Ettie left the sheltering rocks. The area ahead was a barren slab of granite that angled slightly downward. It offered no protection. If the girls happened to look toward the end of the lake, they would see her crossing. She squirmed along on her belly, watching them.

  The girl in the lake had started to swim. The one crouched on the bank was scooping up water and rubbing it on her shoulders and breasts as if to get used to its cold. The skinny one, cringing and hugging herself, was wading in slowly. None of them so much as glanced in Ettie’s direction.

  She reached the end of the open space without being seen, and crawled behind a rock. She peered over its top. The small inlet where Merle had been fishing was no more than thirty feet away. Plenty of shelter between here and there. As quickly as she could, she rushed down to it. From the recessed shore, the girls were out of sight. She heard splashing and voices, then a sudden outcry that knotted her stomach before she recognized it as a shriek of laughter.

  They’re having a great time, stupid bitches. If they knew…

  She hopped across the water on stepping stones, and crouched at the base of the outcropping. Merle’s abandoned fishing pole lay against the rocks in front of her, a shriveled bit of beef jerky on its hook.

  Ettie worked her way up the slope, then peered over the top, first at the swimmers, then at the rocks along the bank. From this height, she expected to see Merle crouched behind a boulder.

  She didn’t see Merle. But she saw his scattered clothes.

  A movement caught her eye. To the left. In the water. Just below a jutting clump of rocks. All she saw, at first, were rings, rippling outward as if a stone had been tossed in. Then there was the pale blur of a body sliding along beneath the surface.

  Rage seized Ettie. She wanted to scream and yank Merle from the water. The fool! The fool!

  She scrambled to the top of the outcropping and stood up straight. The first girl was floating on her back, arms out to the sides, her wet breasts shiny in the sunlight, her matted pubic hair glistening as she kicked closer and closer to the long, gliding form of Merle. The boy couldn’t be more than a few inches below the surface, but he hadn’t come up for air, yet, and none of the girls knew he was there.

  “You!” Ettie shouted. “Girls!”

  Three wet, astonished faces snapped toward her.

  “Get out! There’s snakes! Poison snakes. Water moccasins!”

  Two of the girls screamed and started splashing for shore even while Ettie yelled. The third, the one who’d started it all by leading her friends
down to the lake, trod water and looked around. “I don’t see any,” she called.

  “There!” Ettie snatched up a stone and hurled it. The girl turned to her right as it smacked the water. Not far to her left, Merle’s head broke the surface. “Right there! See it?” His head turned toward Ettie, then quickly submerged.

  He knows he’s found out, she thought. Sure enough, the pale blur of his body turned beneath the water and started back.

  “Tracy!” called one of the girls.

  “Come on, Tracy,” yelled the other. “Let’s get out of here!”

  Both girls stood on the far shore, cowering and clutching themselves, trying to hide their nakedness from the intruder as they yelled to their friend.

  Tracy frowned up at Ettie. “You’re some kind of a nut,” she said. Then she swam casually across the lake.

  Merle, still underwater, reached the cluster of rocks where he’d started. His head popped up. “Stay down,” Ettie snapped.

  The girl waded ashore on the far side. Before rushing to join her friends, she thrust her middle finger at Ettie.

  “Mom?” Merle sounded pathetic.

  “Stay down. I’ll tell you when to come out.”

  He waited, only his head out of the water, while Ettie watched the girls get into their clothes, swing their packs on, and start toward the far end of the lake. “Okay now?” he asked.

  “No. Stay where you are.”

  The trio, often glancing back, reached the footpath and started striding toward the main trail. Ettie turned away. She climbed down the rocks, snapped the baited hook off the line, and picked up the springy stick Merle used as a fishing rod.

  She carried it up the slope. When the girls were out of sight, she stepped down and walked along the shore to where Merle was waiting. “Okay,” she said. “You can come out now.”

  “You gotta look away.”