The Resort (31 page)

“We're telling Mom and Dad,” Curtis repeated. “We have to tell Mom and Dad.”

“If we can remember,” Owen said quietly.

“We'll remember,” Ryan said. “We just might not
want
to tell them. We might not care.”

It was an acknowledgment of what all of them knew but had not until this moment articulated.

“Why does that happen?” Owen wondered.

“Why does any of it happen?” David said. “Why is that old resort fixing itself up? Why did the rain turn those people old?”

“But why are we just sitting there like bumps on a log watching it happen, not doing anything?”

“We
are
doing something,” Ryan pointed out. “That's why we're here.”

“Not enough,” Owen told him. “Not enough.”

By the buckboard wagon, now filled exclusively with human skulls from what he could only assume were severed heads, David turned around. From this angle, he could see a square frame looming over the roof of the restaurant, a frame that he would have sworn was not there five minutes before.

It looked like a gallows.

 

They reached The Reata and stopped in front of the tennis courts, trying to decide where to go next. Some of the urgency they'd felt at the abandoned resort had slipped away, but they still wanted to tell their parents what had happened, what they'd seen, and Ryan thought they should do so right away, before that desire faded away completely. All four of them agreed, and they decided to try to find their parents first, then go after David's, and then try to find Brenda and her family.

He felt like they were the Hardy Boys. Well, maybe not the Hardy Boys because they were kind of boring and lame, but
one
of those groups of mystery-solving teenagers. It was spooky what was happening. Terrifying. But it was exciting, too, and part of him wanted it to last for a while because he knew that nothing like this would probably ever happen to him again.

But that was dangerous thinking, and like too many other things the past few days, it made him second-guess himself, made him wonder if that thought was his own or if it had been imposed on him. Either one was possible, and that was part of the seductiveness of this whole thing.

One thing he wanted to do for sure, after they found their parents, was go back to the exercise pool. Other than his brief encounter with the broken mirror yesterday at the ruined restaurants in Antelope Canyon, it was the only place his ESP had worked, and Ryan needed to find out if that had been a fluke, a rare confluence of circumstances, or if it was a legitimate response that could be counted upon to occur every time, some sort of chemical reaction that happened between himself and the exercise pool. Of course, he could not go back alone. Too dangerous. Besides, he wanted someone else there as a control, to see if it was the pool, himself or a combination of the two that sparked those horrific scenes.

First things first, though. They hurried down the gravel trail, then down the cement sidewalk to their suite. Curtis had one of the keys with him and used it to open the door. “Mom?” he said. “Dad?” There was no response, and they didn't see either of their parents on the bed or the couch, but just in case they checked both bathrooms and the other bedroom. Nothing.

“Where now?” Owen said. “The pool?”

It was as good a place as any, but they weren't there either. They also weren't in the lobby, in the Saguaro Room or the Grille.

“Let's check my room, see if my parents are there.”

“Sure,” Curtis said.

The maid's cart was outside David's room when they arrived, and as soon as he saw it, David stopped and tried to turn them around. “My parents aren't here if they're cleaning the room.”

“We might as well check,” Owen said.

They walked in, David first, nervously tugging on his earring as he entered the sitting area. They walked past the unmade bed, around the corner to the bathroom.

There, an overweight maid, her skirt hiked up, was removing a toothbrush from the crack of her ass. She saw them and smoothed down her uniform as she replaced the toothbrush in its holder next to the sink. She should have been embarrassed, but she wasn't. She was defiant. And she swore at them in Spanish as she shoved her way past them and slammed the door on her way out.

They couldn't help it: they all burst out laughing.

“What the hell was that?” Curtis said.

David looked embarrassed, but he was laughing as hard as the rest of them. “Luckily, that's my dad's toothbrush.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

He grinned. “No.”

Ryan still wanted to check out the exercise pool, though the impulse was much less personal and more rational than it had been a few moments ago, more like wanting to find out the answer to a troubling math problem than anything else. “Maybe our parents, or your parents, are in the fitness center,” he suggested.

“Let's check it out,” Curtis agreed easily. The search had become fun.

Owen giggled. “Don't use
your
toothbrush tonight either,” he suggested to David.

“Or yours,” David responded.

As before, the weight room was empty. But there was someone swimming in the pool, a lone fat man who was totally naked and looked like Jabba the Hut. He grinned at them in a suggestive way that made Ryan feel dirty, then rolled onto his back.

“Dude has a boner,” Owen whispered.

David and Curtis turned and walked out of the room. Owen started to follow them, but Ryan grabbed his arm. The scenes were coming to him again, superimposed on the real world just as they had been last time, just as they had in the mirror, and an electric thrill went through him, an excited recognition of the power he possessed, as the pool darkened and a white figure appeared against the far wall. “Do you see that?” he asked.

“What?” Owen said, still whispering.

The figure came into focus. It was a man in a chef's outfit, and he was flanked on both sides by a dozen or so well-dressed men and women. This image definitely took place in the past. The men were all wearing old-time suits, and had thick beards and hats, the women wearing big dresses and elaborate hair styles. They all had the same expression on their faces, an excitement that bore a very close resemblance to insanity. They were watching the chef, who was dropping severed arms and legs—
human
arms and legs— into the pool, then using a rakelike instrument to press them down and push them out into the water.

It looked like he was making soup.

The scene shifted, and now there were candles on the cement around the pool and a flickering shadow on the wall that looked like that skeletal, scraggly-haired old man. This, Ryan knew, was the future. He recognized Mr. Blodgett, that asshole who'd stolen their room, and saw a couple of other familiar faces as well. They seemed to be baptizing themselves in the water, using a hand to press down on their own heads, and then popping up with identically deranged expressions that were an eerie echo of their earlier counterparts'.

Why was he being shown this? he wondered. To scare him off or to fire him up? To warn him of what might happen if something wasn't done to stop it?

What
could
he do, though? What could
anyone
do?

Owen grabbed his arm and the visions disappeared. “Come on,” he said in an annoyed voice, as though he'd said it several times before to no effect. “Let's go.”

The fat man grinned at them, his erection quivering.

Ryan started to turn but caught movement out of the corner of his eye and looked down. The hose of the pool cleaner had snaked out of the water and was touching his shoe. Ryan jumped back, but the plastic tube whipped around his leg, grabbing him. He felt a strong tug as it yanked, trying to pull him in.

“Help!” he yelled, although Owen was already holding on to his arm in order to keep him out of the water. Curtis and David raced back into the pool room, saw what was happening, and reacted immediately, Curtis grabbing him around the middle to anchor him in place, David dropping to his knees, using his pocket knife to cut the hose.

At the first touch of the blade, the hose retreated, like a living creature that had been hurt, snapping back into the water so fast its tapered end drew blood through Ryan's pant leg.

“Go!” Owen screamed, and Ryan was nearly pulled off his feet by both of his brothers as they made a mad dash out of the pool room.

Behind them, the fat man was laughing in a deep booming voice that echoed off the pool tiles.

They ran down the corridor, through the weight room and back outside, where they practically collapsed. Ryan glanced fearfully behind them as they stopped farther down the sidewalk to catch their breath, but the door to the exercise center remained closed. They were not being chased.

“We have to find Mom and Dad,” Curtis said adamantly. “We have to tell them what happened.”

“Yeah,” Owen agreed.

David nodded.

“Let's go then,” Ryan said, and started walking. Because he knew that if they didn't find their parents fast, they soon wouldn't care, and everything that had just occurred would be a faint meaningless memory.

Patrick sat in the bleachers, watching basketball practice. The teams had uniforms, for God's sake, and if he'd ever needed a metaphor for American society's overplaced emphasis on sports, this was it. Next to him, Vicki watched two Coyotes pass the ball awkwardly before the taller one tried and failed to make a layup.

“Are you really going to play in this stupid game?” she asked skeptically.

He shook his head. “I guess not,” he said.

“Then let's go. I don't know about you, but I'm bored already.”

Patrick was bored, too, but boredom was welcome after the fear he'd experienced earlier. Never was too soon to see that horrible child-headed man again. Just the thought of that wobbling head on that skinny little neck gave him shivers.

He stood, taking Vicki's hand as they made their way down the bleachers.

“Mr. Schlaegel! Didn't see you come in!”

Great.
Patrick looked over at the sound of the voice and saw the activities coordinator emerging from the open doorway of what had to be the locker room. He waved, smiled, hoping they could get out of the gym before the activities coordinator reached them.

No such luck.

He was there when they got to the bottom of the bleachers. “Glad you changed your mind! You can get suited up right in there.” He pointed back toward the doorway through which he'd entered. “Got a Coyotes uniform in just your size.”

Patrick was already shaking his head. “No,” he said. “I need to do some work.”

And he did. There were probably fifty e-mails from Townsend queued up in his in-box asking where his articles were. He seemed to have lost track of time here. And he was so unfocused. He wouldn't have thought he could be so distracted by his surroundings, but he had been.

The activities coordinator scowled, and once again Patrick sensed a seething rage that threatened to explode at any second. “I thought you came here to play.”

As before, Vicki jumped in. “Well, you thought wrong.” She took Patrick's hand and practically pulled him toward the exit. On the court, a player stumbled and fell, knocking over the man guarding him.

“This is your last chance!” the activities coordinator called after them.

Patrick did not bother to answer, and Vicki silently held up a middle finger as they walked out the door. He had no idea why she hated the man so much, but she did and he was glad of it.

It was as if she'd read his mind. “He reminds me of my ex-boss,” she said when they were outside, and Patrick thought that explained a lot.

“I really do need to get those articles done,” he said, stopping in front of a vending machine.

She nodded, understanding. “April and Madison are probably wondering where I am anyway. I told them I was just going to stop by and apologize to you for last night. I wasn't planning on . . . staying.”

He smiled. “Well, I'm glad you did.”

“Do you want to get together later?” she asked. “Maybe have dinner?”

“That would be great,” he admitted.

She kissed him in a way that promised much more. “Eight o'clock, then. At the Grille. Be there or—”

“Be square?”

“ ‘Die,' I was going to say, but that's just as good.” She smiled and waved, walking backward. “I'll see you later.”

 

The spider was back in his room.

Patrick could practically
feel
his balls retract as he saw the black hard-shelled creature lying in the center of his unmade bed, its body moving up and down as though breathing deeply. It had grown since he'd seen it and was now the size of a small cat. He froze in place, so scared he was unable to move. There was something horribly wrong and alien about a spider that size, a feeling he had never experienced in any of those giant spider movies, but that now hit home in a very visceral, immediate way.

He took a slow step backward, prepared for anything.

The spider remained in place.

He backed up again . . . then he was outside, and he grabbed the door handle, trying to pull it shut, cursing the pneumatic arm that made the door close so slowly.

But the spider didn't move, he was outside and safe, and he started running. He had no compunction this time about going back to the lobby and demanding help. Still, he was unwilling to commit himself fully to the truth and admit to the existence of a monster bug, so he lied and said his bed was infested by black widows, dozens of them, and he wanted someone from maintenance down there immediately to exterminate them.