Julie slipped in sideways between two trees, and vanished. Rick stayed with his father. Together, they inspected a silver spruce to see if it had any bare spots. It looked good. “Go find your mother,” Dad said. “We’d better get her approval.”
Rick squeezed his way through the trees, smelling their rich scent, feeling their limbs run like soft, cool brushes against his body. He came out the other side.
And almost tripped over Julie’s leg. She was sprawled on the ground of an aisle between the rows of Christmas trees, naked except for a single knee sock. Bert lay nearby, the handle of a knife standing upright in the center of her chest Reeling, Rick staggered sideways. His bare foot (why was he naked?) came down on Bonnie’s belly, slipped into a gash and sank deep into her warm guts. With a gasp, he pulled his foot free and stumbled to the other side of her body before falling. He landed on his hands and knees between Andrea’s spread legs.
Jase and Luke were on each side of him, holding Andrea by the ankles. Wally was sitting on her face.
“Go to it,” Jase urged him.
“You killed her! You killed them all!”
“You did,” Luke said.
“All your fault,” Wally said, and bounced on Andrea’s face, his blubber shaking.
“No!” But Rick looked down at himself. His body was slick with blood, his penis erect.
“What are you waiting for?” Jase asked. “Go to it, pal.”
“Don’t worry about Bert,” Luke said. “She’ll never know.” He chuckled.
NO!
Rick was on his knees, doubled over, his forehead pressed against the cool damp mat of the forest floor. He pushed himself up. The revolver was clamped between his thighs. He wrapped his hand around its grips, and stood up. His legs had pins and needles, and he was barely able to keep himself up.
The campfire had burnt down to a heap of glowing embers. He looked at Bert’s tent, then at the girls’ tent. Then he scanned the dark trees surrounding the camp.
He wondered how long he’d been out of it.
Must’ve been a long time, or his legs wouldn’t have fallen asleep like that.
What if Jase and Luke and Wally had come while he was ... was what?
What the hell was all that, anyway? he wondered.
An hallucination? A nightmare? A premonition?
And Angus, the mad preacher. A fantasy? Or the real thing?
His heart started thudding hard. He licked his dry lips.
He walked to the remains of the fire, crouched there and tossed sticks onto the embers. White smoke rose off the sticks like thick steam. The wind shredded the smoke and cast it away.
With a sudden whup, flames erupted.
Firelight shimmered on the front of the girls’ tent.
Rick stood up, trembling. He switched the revolver to his left hand and wiped his right hand dry on the leg of his pants. He fingered the handle of the knife sheathed at his hip.
He glanced at Bert’s tent and half hoped to see the flaps bulge and Bert crawl out, ready to join him on the watch—and in time to stop him.
He turned toward the other tent.
Were they both asleep in there? Or was Andrea still awake, waiting for him?
He pictured the way they had looked on the ground in the Christmas tree lot, all three of them, and Juiie—naked and dead. Go for it, Jase whispered.
Taking the revolver into his right hand again, Rick stepped around the fire and walked away from its heat.
Chapter Nineteen
Monday June 23
Jerry had said, “Why don’t you stay here tonight? We’ll get your stuff out of your uncle’s place and bring it over.”
“Right now?” Gillian had asked.
“Maybe not right now.”
They were both naked in bed. He was lying on his side, propped up on an elbow, looking at her body in the candlelight while his other hand rested open on her hip, fingertips moving ever so slightly in the curls of her pubic hair. Gillian was on her back, hands folded beneath her head. She felt worn out and wonderful.
“In a little while,” Jerry said.
“I might not be able to walk,” she told him.
He laughed softly.
“I’m serious. You ruined me. I might need a wheelchair.”
Gillian wished, now, that she had taken him up on the offer. She didn’t want to leave her suitcase in Fredrick Holden’s house overnight, and now Jerry was asleep.
But she had been lying there, peaceful and weary, his fingers toying with her hair, feeling too good, too full, too ruined to move—even the short distance toward his side of the bed so she could get away from the cool, wet place on the sheet.
We should go over now, she had thought. Get it over with. Then I’ll never have to set foot in that maniac’s house again.
She had been about to tell Jerry, but his hand moved. His fingertips slid and her breath snagged.
“Are you really ruined?” he whispered.
She took a hand out from under her head. She touched him. Then she rolled toward him, smiling, shaking her head, nudging him onto his back. Straddling him, she held his shoulders and eased herself slowly down. His warm thickness spread her, slid in deeper and deeper, filled her. She sighed and shut her eyes. She felt his hands close gently over her breasts.
All thoughts of going next door for her suitcase were gone.
When the thoughts came back, she was lying on top of Jerry. Her cheek was against his shoulder. She felt spittle at the corner of her mouth. Lifting her head, she wiped her mouth and saw a shiny area glimmering in the candlelight where she had drooled on his shoulder in her sleep. She rubbed it off gently with the heel of her hand. He didn’t wake up.
He’ll probably wake up when I climb off, she thought.
His arms had been around Gillian just before she’d fallen asleep, but now they were out to the sides, as if they had simply dropped onto the mattress when he’d conked out.
His legs were still straight together between her legs.
His penis had been inside her, and she could feel that it was still inside her, but not very far.
Pushing at the mattress with her hands and knees, she carefully raised herself.
She felt a pulling sensation.
Permanently stuck, Gillian thought, and smiled.
Though it still took a slight pull that stung Gillian and must’ve hurt Jerry as well, she freed herself without waking him.
Maybe I should wake him up, she thought. He said he’d go over with me.
Working her way slowly backward, she stopped when his penis was just below her face.
I could wake him up in a way he wouldn’t mind at all, she thought.
Just let him sleep. I can take care of this myself.
She kept backing up until her knees found the end of the bed. Then she climbed off.
Only stubs were left of the candles on the dresser and on the nightstands to either side of the bed. Gillian tiptoed from candle to candle, and puffed out each flame.
She entered the lighted hallway and followed it to the kitchen. A clock on the kitchen wall showed 2:38.
Lord, Gillian thought. How did it get so late?
She slid open the back door. The pool still shimmered pale blue in the darkness.
How did it get so late, indeed?
We must’ve been in the pool more than an hour after the Tarzan Jane business.
Gillian walked to the far side of the pool. Squatting there, she picked up her bra and panties, Jerry’s briefs. They were still wet.
She remembered how the garments had hit the concrete deck with sodden splats when they were tossed from the pool. And the feel of Jerry when she first embraced him naked in the water. And the sudden urgency, and how he had entered her and she had wrapped her legs around him and he had walked her to a corner of the shallow end and she had stretched out her arms and hung onto the edges of the pool until it ended fast with a quaking inside that made her cry out.