59

Young, Impressionable Women

A heavy thump woke her. Kelly’s eyes flickered, fell shut again. For a moment, she caught sight of something big and black moving past her.

Then consciousness fled again as if it was too scared to stick around.

Angel pressed her face against the slats in the rails, a last tear trickling absently down her face. She pushed away, gripping the bench behind her when her legs threatened not to take her weight.

She looked up. Across the lake.

The boat bobbed up and down, blurred by the now furious rain. She wiped hair and water out of her face, staggering backward until her shoulder crashed into the side of the door.

Sidling inside the lakehouse, she drew her hair back against her scalp, urging as much water from it as she could manage.

The door — she had to bar it.

The police were on their way; she just had to make sure she was still alive by the time they arrived. No one could get up on the deck, so that was fine. But the front door posed a massive risk.

She dragged the dining room table over the living room’s shag carpet, wincing at the scream of wood on wood when she got closer to the door. She wedged the back of the chair under the door, giving it a kick for good measure, and stepped back.

A shiver tore through her, clattering her teeth together before departing.

The kitchen window.

Out here, there weren’t burglar bars. The house might have an alarm system, but it would take her longer to figure the thing out that to make sure no one could get in through the kitchen.

The problem with the kitchen door, she realized after dragging another dining room chair across the living room, was that it opened into the kitchen.

“Shit!” She gave the chair a kick and stared at the closed kitchen door with the heel of her hand pressed hard over her mouth.

Think, Angel. Fucking think!

Something thumped against Kelly’s leg. She groaned and shifted less than an inch. Pain blossomed like someone had set off every single Fourth of July firework in the state. In her head. Simultaneously.

The ground canted under her. There was the sound of metal against metal. Something rolling.

Her fingers dug into plastic flooring, and she tried to urge herself onto her elbows.

Nothing worked.

Her body lay like a damp rag on the floor, spineless, immobile.

The floor seesawed back.

Behind her, the scuba cylinder rolled back across the slanting floor.

Angel had the bench halfway through the deck’s sliding door when an inexplicable urge overtook her. She paused, wiping a mixture of sweat and rain from her forehead as she glanced over her shoulder at the distant boat.

It hadn’t moved.

At least, it wasn’t any closer.

It just bobbed up and down, seeming otherwise indifferent to the gusting wind and the small swells that pitched it left and right.

Angel shrugged her shoulders, trying to get rid of a curious tension building between them. Of that crawling sensation that was slowly making its way up her spine.

Then she ducked down, gritted her teeth, and put her shoulder to the bench.

The cylinder struck Kelly’s ankle this time, hard enough that the small jolt of pain forced her eyes open all the way. It took a few seconds, but she could eventually focus on the ground in front of her.

It was white. It was also red with blood. Her blood, it was clear, after a tickle worked its way down her temple, over her eyebrow, and fell from the bridge of her nose.

She brought a cautious hand up and flinched at the pain a single feather-light touch brought to her skin.

The floor slanted under her. She reached out instinctively, found someone else’s hand. Clinging to it, she slowly got her elbows under her, and then her knees. She retched at the agony that brought to her head, and almost lost consciousness again.

The hand she held felt wrong. Heavy and cold. She turned her head muzzily toward it.

A man’s hand. Limp.

Her eyes traveled up a dark, damp jacket. To black, tousled hair. To a slack, dead face with a small, burgundy starburst just above the left eye.

She fell away with a cry, ending up against the small, padded dinette behind her. The galley was small, to begin with, now cramped with her, a corpse, and everything else that had been tossed inside. She clapped a hand on her head and shuddered in pain. Her world became dark and dim as if the last of the light was leaking from the sky.

Someone let out a rough, tattered sob.

It might have been her.

Kelly fumbled with the door and managed to get it open without having to turn her eyes from Bryce’s face. Because something had her convinced that, the second she turned away, the man would push himself to his feet and come after her.

Irrational.

He was quite obviously dead.

But every time the boat pitched forward or rolled back, he would shift slightly.

And then he didn’t look all that dead anymore.

She fell out through the door, her feet refusing to find purchase on the wet deck. Or perhaps her muscles just wouldn’t cooperate.

Stars littered her vision when she thumped onto the deck. She would have howled at the pain, but the fall snatched her breath and left her incapable of speech. Incapable of thought.

For a few seconds, incapable of sight.

When she forced her eyes open again, everything was smudged. Rain fell into her narrowed eyes, stinging. There was something wrong with her legs — that, or she’d completely exhausted her resources.

Through the incessant clatter of rain, another sound drew her attention.

Then movement, blurred at it was.

A shape, a few feet away. Slinking through the premature night like a demon in human form.

She cowed from it, lifting her hands in front of her face as if her feeble limbs could somehow offer protection.

The thing turned then, perhaps having become aware of her presence. It stared at her, clothed midnight blue, before perching on the side of the boat. And then it disappeared over the side of the boat, the rain masking its fall.

Kelly stared at it, hands still raised, and tried desperately to think.

But something caught her eye. A flicker of bright light, licking the air close to the edge of the sink.

A birthday candle.

A solitary stick, neon-green, in grave danger of guttering out.

Was the candle for her? A belated birthday surprise? Then why did that tongue of flame look so sinister, so agitated, so bright?

There was a lull in the rain as if the clouds above were holding their breath.

The candle spluttered out.

The bench thumped against the kitchen door. Angel looked up, panting and blinking sweat from her eyes. She turned, exhaling hard as she sank to the floor.

Now no one could get in. And she wouldn’t let anyone. Not unless she saw a police badge and heard sirens and red and blue lights painted the house like an dance club.

The urge to close her eyes and give in to the aching, leaden exhaustion that draped her was intense. But she fought back by forcing herself to her feet.

Her teeth chattered hard for a second.

She was freezing. Had to find warm clothes. Perhaps even a blanket. Because the cops would be here any minute, and then she’d want to be able to speak without stuttering. Without her teeth chattering—

Outside, something exploded.

Angel’s feet tangled under her as she twisted to the door.

Full night streaked the land a sullen purple-gray.

It made the orange blaze in the middle of the lake that much more spectacular.