Too freaked out to crack wise.
This was the thing that had grabbed her breast. A lecherous old coot but also a hag, mad and sly, a drinker of blood, a collector of body parts, a conjurer.
Freaks me out, too, Abilene thought, and I’m not the one who got groped.
Finley turned away.
Batty was still dancing, twirling and leaping, sweeping the hone from the water to the sky.
A heavy blast slammed Abilene’s ears. The shotgun leaped beside Vivian’s shoulder. Vivian jumped as if her boat seat had turned into a cattle prod. Then she grabbed the barrels and shoved them up. Her face red and twisted, she glared back at Finley.
She said nothing.
But Cora shouted, ‘Damn it!’
On the shore, Batty shook the bone and hopped with both feet, broken arm and breasts and penis bouncing up and down.
Abilene found herself wishing Finley hadn’t missed.
Finley yanked the barrels from Vivian’s grip, but she didn’t take aim again. Holding the shotgun upright, she scowled back at Cora. ‘The fuck’s putting a curse on us!’ she called.
‘Since when are you scared of shit like that?’ Cora asked.
‘Since today.’
‘Don’t worry. The creep can’t hurt us now.’
‘Should’ve cut its throat when I had the chance.’
Batty still capered about the shore, bobbing and spinning and leaping. But indistinct now. A pale, blurry shape in the distance. In the darkness.
Abilene tipped back her head.
A low, black mass of thunderheads was rushing in from the hills behind Batty. As if it carried winds of its own, the advancing range of clouds roughed up the water in its path.
‘Oh shit!’ Cora yelled, and started rowing faster.
A blinding dagger of light gashed the nearest black cloud, splitting it with a noise like ripping fabric. Then came an explosion that shook the air. Abilene felt the concussion all the way to her heart.
Batty vanished behind a curtain of rain.
Cora rowed furiously as if trying to outrace the approaching storm.
‘Should we head for shore?’ Abilene called.
‘We’ll make it!’ Cora shouted.
Twisting around, Abilene peered forward and saw that they were heading straight for the old dock at the far side of the lake. But they weren’t even halfway there.
Rain suddenly poured down, drenching her.
The boat pitched. She turned back toward the others and grabbed the gunwales. Cora’s hair was matted flat. Raindrops splashed off her bare shoulders, rinsed the blood from her skin, exposed the raw scratches. Finley was facing forward. She’d put down the shotgun. With outstretched arms, she clung to the sides of the tossing boat. Her head and shoulders jerked from side to side. Vivian, abandoning her seat at the stem, lowered herself behind Finley then reached out and held on.
The boat rocked and bounced. Abilene flinched as a wave broke over the bow, slopping her rump with water much colder than the rain.
Lightning cracked the sky. Thunder roared. The rain came down even harder than before.
A sudden lurch nearly threw Abilene overboard. With a gasp of alarm, she hunched down to lower her center of gravity.
The bottom of the boat was awash with water, a puddle erupting with tiny splashes of raindrops as it slopped from side to side, forward and back, sometimes rolling over the white toes of her sneakers. Willow leaves floated on its surface. So did a few dead worms.
Not enough water to worry about, she told herself. It’d take a lot more than this to sink us.
Shouldn’t have taken the boat, damn it.
Stepped right into Batty’s trap.
Come on, give it a break, she thought. Batty didn’t do this. It’s a storm. Storms happen. Even before we got to Batty’s place, Viv had said it was going to rain.
Man, she was right!
But what was that fuckin’ dance Batty was doing? Sure looked like some kind of ritual. A rain dance?
Bull. Batty didn’t do this.
The seat dropped abruptly out from under Abilene. She clenched the gunwales. The bench smacked her rear and she felt as if a bucketful of water had been hurled at her. It splashed high up her back but most of it hit her skirt. Some, spilling beneath her, licked between her buttocks with an icy tongue that made her gasp.
‘We’re taking in an awful lot of water! ’ Finley yelled.
‘Tell me about it! ’ Abilene called to her.
The puddle, now, was ankle deep. She knew it must be worse at the other end of the boat.
Sitting up, she leaned sideways to see past Cora. Finley sat on the bottom, knees up. Vivian had her legs wrapped around Finley’s hips as if they were riding a Matterhorn bobsled at Disneyland. The water surrounding them was high enough to slosh over the tops of Vivian’s thighs.
‘Start bailing!’ Cora shouted.
‘With what?’ Finley called.
‘Try your hands!’
‘Oh, that’ll help a lot!’ In spite of her remark, Finley apparently decided to give it a try. With both hands, she scooped up water from between her legs and hurled it over the side. Much of it blew back into her face.
Thinking that Batty might keep some kind of container aboard, Abilene slid to her knees and managed to turn herself around. Ducking, she peered under the narrow bench. The concrete anchor was there, piled with rope. But nothing that might be helpful for bailing.
It’ll help, she realized, getting rid of the anchor.
She reached under the seat with both hands and started to drag the heavy block toward her. As it skidded closer, a wave dumped water over the back of her head. She blinked her eyes clear and tugged the anchor out against her knees.
The rope was knotted to a rusty steel eye embedded in the concrete.
Hanging onto the rope as if it were the reins of a bucking bronco, she straightened up. She drew Batty’s knife from the scabbard at her hip and slashed through the taut rope. The instant it gave way, she was thrown backward. She grabbed the gunwale and managed to stay on her knees.
Trying to sheath the knife, she missed its scabbard and poked her hip bone. ‘Damn it!’ She dropped the knife into the puddle by her knee, then clutched the anchor with both hands. She lifted it, twisted sideways, and dropped it over the side. It thumped the water and flung up a cold geyser.
Good show, she told herself. She wondered if any of the others had witnessed her exploit, but decided it didn’t matter. The anchor was gone. She’d accomplished something that should help to keep them afloat. At least for a while.
Still on her knees, she leaned forward until the edge of the seat pushed against her ribs. She reached out with both arms, and hung on.
All she could see was darkness and pouring rain and leaping, churning waves capped with froth.
Are we even going in the right direction?
As the boat plummeted, she shut her eyes and mouth. The edge of the seat jammed her chest. Water flew into her face. Then the boat started to rise, so she blinked and squinted.
A flash of lightning streaked down through the clouds ahead. In its stark glare, she glimpsed something on the surface of the lake.
A thrill surged through her.
‘The raft!’ she yelled through a crash of thunder.
Doubting that anyone had heard her, she pushed away from the seat, turned around, and sat in the sloshing swamp at the bottom of the boat. She felt the knife under her rump.
Good. Wouldn’t want to lose it.
Cora was still rowing like a madwoman.
Cupping her hands to her mouth, Abilene shouted, ‘The diving raft! Dead ahead! ’
Cora glanced around.
Abilene gave her a thumbs up, and yelled, ‘Almost there! Fifty, sixty feet!’
Nodding, Cora turned away.
Abilene rolled a bit, reached down, and pulled the knife out from under her.
She realized she was grinning.
We’re gonna make it!
Another wave came down, washing over her back, but she didn’t mind. She reached under the side of her skirt and plucked the scabbard out. Carefully, her jerking hands guided the blade into the leather slot. She slid the blade home, leaned against the port side of the pitching boat and pushed the sheathed knife down the waistband at her hip.