Weekend (17 page)

"Do her," Shani said.

"You'll get bitten," Lena told Flynn. "Get Shani loose. Any snake that bites me is going to poison himself."

Flynn wasted no time in indecision. "Pull away from the wall, Shani!" She leaned towards the shattered Plexiglas. Flynn wound up. His blow wrenched her wrist. He struck a second time, tearing into the panelling. She fell on her side, free. The last of the exiting snakes disappeared into the basement hallway.

He pulled her up, hurrying to where the others had gathered, not far from the door. "Find an unoccupied room!" Flynn ordered. "Shut yourselves in."

"What about Lena?" Sol asked.

"I'll get her," Flynn said.

Sol surveyed the situation. There was a snake on Lena's right, another on her left, and two inching towards her feet. He was no coward but he was also no fool. He nodded. "You get her."

However, none of them left. Where they were was relatively safe, and to leave would be like abandoning their friend. Even Kerry was sweating over Lena's fate. Moving swiftly, Flynn seized one end of the door Bert had knocked down and toppled it through a hundred and eighty degrees. Two crushed snakes flew off the back. Two others were pinned beneath the descending board. Like a cat, he sprang onto his self-made moat and in a single, perfectly aimed swing, broke the ring pinning Lena to the wall.

Taking her outstretched hand, he helped her to her feet. But because one of her feet was asleep as a result of the cold, or simply because she was in too great a hurry, Lena stumbled. Flynn lost his hold. She fell back, directly on top of two snakes. She was wearing shorts. The serpents sank their fangs deep into her left calf.

"Lena!" they screamed, as she threw her head back in pain. A third snake, half dead beneath the door under Flynn's feet, reached forth and fastened onto her left arm. Blood spurted over her skin.

"Lena!" Sol cried, rushing forward. But Flynn purposely blocked his path, frantically hewing at the snakes with the poker. Two rolled over with fatal injuries, but the third had a hard hide and liked the taste of Lena. Dropping the bar, Flynn leaned over and grabbed the snake by its rattle, hurtling it against the opposing wall, its implanted teeth ripping a gruesome gash in her leg on the way out. Sol took her in his arms, carrying her towards the door. But Flynn remained crouched, studying the spot where Lena had fallen.

"Come on!" Shani cried. "What are you waiting for?"

"Coming," Flynn nodded, glancing over his shoulder, reluctant to leave.

The hallway and stairs were clear, but the living room droned with hidden rattlers. Veering into a nearby bedroom, they turned on the light and shut the door. Park checked under the bed. Sol laid Lena on the mattress. Blood soaked through the sheets, dark and thick. Angie brought a roll of toilet paper from the nearby bathroom and began to wrap it tightly around Lena's leg and arm. Sol stopped her.

"Let her bleed the poison out," he said. "Lena! Where do you keep a snake kit?"

"Kitchen… under sink," Lena whispered, her teeth and eyes clenched.

"All of you, stay here," Flynn said firmly. "I'll get Robin and the kit."

"There must be someone else in the house," Sol said. "I'll come with you."

"No, if they come here, you'll have to protect the girls." Flynn cracked the door, peered out. "I'll be back in a minute." He left.

In the madness, Shani tried to put her illness on hold. They gathered about Lena as she lay shaking on the bed. Her toughness still intact, she refused to cry. Sol squeezed the muscle surrounding her wound, encouraging the bleeding.

"Stop that," she whispered.

"We've got to get the poison out, babe," Sol said.

"If I bleed to death, what will it matter? Stop it, I say."

A rifle in one hand, Robin in the other, Flynn reappeared. Robin hurried to her sister's side. "What's happened?" she cried, pale and confused.

"That was smart, Flynn," Park said, "getting that gun."

Flynn shut the door, moved a chair in front of it, and sat down. He had the cassette player she had noticed earlier in the recording studio. Pulling a box of shells from his pocket, he began to load the rifle.

"Did you get the kit?" Sol asked.

"No," Flynn said, methodically sliding in the bullets, his face grim.

Sol stood. "I'll get it."

"No," Flynn said.

"But we need it imme—" Sol stopped short in front of Flynn's pointed barrel.

"No," he said again, cocking his rifle.

"What's this?" Sol demanded angrily. "Lena needs—"

"Sit down," Flynn interrupted, his voice cold. Sol backed up. Kerry made a dash for the bathroom.

"Stop!" Flynn shouted.

"But I'm going to be sick," she pleaded.

"Be sick on the floor."

"But I—"

"Sit down! All of you, sit down!"

They did as he wished. Lena sat up weakly, leaning against her sister, each holding the other up. Of them all, Shani was the least surprised. In a sense, she had been expecting this. "At least let us get the antidote for the snake venom," she said. "I can get it. I promise I'll come—"

"Shut up," Flynn said.

"But she'll die!" she cried.

"So what?"

Sol could contain himself no longer. Springing to his feet, he charged, sweating, "Why, you bastard, I'm going to kill—"

Flynn raised the rifle. Shani covered her eyes. The explosion was deafening. Cold wind whipped her face. Rain sprinkled her hair. Peeking through her fingers, she saw Sol sit down again, unhurt. Flynn had blown out the window at her back.

"Understand clearly," he said. "That was my last warning."

"Has my sister been poisoned?" Robin asked softly.

"Snakes bit her," Park said.

"I see," Robin whispered. She was not strong enough for this.

Flynn smiled. "You've all been poisoned. That's why you're all sick. I slipped a very special concoction in your dinner last night. It takes twenty-four hours to take effect. After forty-eight hours the damage is irreversible. Don't start crying, Kerry. I'm getting more than a little tired of your blubbering. This poison probably won't kill you. But it does have nasty side effects: bleeding ulcers, blindness, severe kidney damage — we all know how bothersomethat can be. I won't tell you exactly what poison it is just yet, but I will reassure you that it has an antidote." He pulled a prescription container of orange pills from his shirt pocket. "Two of these every two hours for a day and the majority of the damage can be avoided.

That is, if you take them in time. Any questions?"

Shani shivered in the damp draught. "Where's your partner, Michael?"

"Michael?" Robin winced. She had found a handkerchief and was holding it over Lena's wound.

"That's my real name." Michael pointed the cassette's microphone towards them. "And as far as my partner is concerned, I don't have one. I don't operate like that voice in the room. I don't have the time; neither do any of you." His voice was savage. "You'll be given no chance to 'piece things together.' I will ask a question and you will give an immediate response. If I'm satisfied, you'll get a pill. If not, you'll get a bullet through your brain." He pressed the RECORD button on the cassette player. "You're first, Bert.

Where have you been?"

Bert went to wrap a blanket around his soaked, practically nude body, but changed his mind, probably thinking Michael wouldn't let him. He did not appear frightened, more amazed. "I was surfing and then I got lost in the dark," he said. "Are you going to kill me, Flynn Michaels?"

"Start from when you were drinking in the van," Michael said.

"Gotcha. Sol had to go to the bathroom. I dropped the tequila bottle on the garage floor and it broke. I tried to clean it up but I didn't want to cut my hands. Sol was gone a long time. I decided to go surfing again. Am I doing okay?"

"Go on."

"The rip-tide pulled me far away, far out. When I got to shore, I couldn't see the house. Then I guess I started walking the wrong way. My arm got real tired carrying my board. It got dark. I tried walking the other way. It started raining. Finally, I saw the house. I thought it was the house, but it didn't have a garage like the other one. I walked around it a lot of times before knocking on the door. No one came to let me in, and I was cold, so I just came in and found you guys playing with the snakes. What happened to the garage?"

Any other time, Shani would have laughed in joy and relief at Bert's story. But Michael would not have allowed that. Ignoring Bert's question, he pointed the rifle at Park. "Your turn."

"What do you want to know?"

"You insisted that Robin drink the beer. You knew she hated alcohol. What was your motive?"

"I was drunk."

"That's not good enough."

Park sized up the diameter of the barrel, glanced at Angie, and put his hand on Robin's shoulder. "I'm a horny teenager. Angie offered to go swimming naked with me. Then Robin showed up. I thought the beer would put her to sleep and I could slip off with Angie. Skinny-dipping with a girl has always been a fantasy of mine."

In the middle of tying the handkerchief over her sister's cut, Robin stopped. Her hurt was painfully obvious. "Why didn't you swim naked with me?" she asked.

"I didn't think that you would have wanted to."

"I would have. We had a big pool at our house. We—"

Michael interrupted. "Any other confessions, Park?"

Park was angry now. "Yeah, I have something else to tell Robin. But it's none of your business. Shoot if you want; I don't care."

Michael was amused. "Famous last words. You're next, Sol."

Sol was bitter, but more than any of them, he respected a gun. "I've already said my piece."

"So you did. Lucky for you that Bert got out of that garage when he did or you would be up for manslaughter. Carting around that dynamite was pretty irresponsible of you. But you'll end up paying, one way or the other. How about you, Angie? Tell me your piece."

"I didn't poison Robin!"

"Didn't you?" He let the question hang, shifting his gun as Angie shifted anxiously.

"This is crazy," Shani blurted. "What's happened to you, Michael? No one will confess. You'd just kill them."

Michael ignored her. She was not sure that he had even heard her. Except for a slight sneer on his mouth and a thin glaze over his eyes, his face was blank. She was right. This was crazy, for he was.

"You wanted Robin out of the way," he said. "You wanted Park. And it was your house, your poison.

You had the motive and the murder weapon. How convenient."

"I didn't do it!" Angie shouted.

"But you must have done something. Why, just this afternoon, when I caught Shani going through my luggage I saw you through the window throwing a burning stick at a blackbird as it ran into the garage.

That stick must have touched Bert's tequila; it started quite a fire. And what did you do? Did you try to put it out? No, you ran the other way. And then, of course, there was that awful explosion. I didn't say anything at the time because I didn't know about the M80s and I wanted to give you a chance to confess.

But you never did. In fact, you lied. And to tell you the truth, Angie, I think you lie a lot." He hardened his voice. "The tape is running. I'm getting impatient."

"All right, so I wanted Park! What's wrong with that? Is that such a great sin that you're going to kill me?

Why was it that only Robin was supposed to have him? She's so—" Angie stopped, horrified at her slip.

"I'm so what?" Robin asked meekly, having to take another sharp stab of pain. Angie would not look at her. She spoke to Michael instead.

"She's sosweet . So cutesy. So Miss Saintly. So virginal. She's worse than the worst jerk. If you said anything bad about her, everyone would jump on you. It made me sick."

"And you wanted to change that?" Michael said.

"I didn't put the poison in the beer!"

"Answer me!" He sweated over the trigger. "What did you do?"

"I… I…" Angie bowed her head, rain — maybe tears — rolling down her cheeks. "I planted the paper dance pants in Robin's locker. I wanted to embarrass her. But it all got messed up. I only found out afterwards that Kerry was using Robin's locker because she had lost the key to her own. When I went to sneak in the paper panties, there were two uniforms, but I thought they were both Robin's. Her family's so rich, they always buy two of everything. I swear, once the pep rally actually started, I was praying that Robin had put on her good dance pants. But Kerry had on the other ones. What can I say? I'm sorry, Robin."

"What about me?" Kerry complained.

"Shut up," Michael said. "Lena's next."

With the toilet paper and the handkerchief combined as a bandage, Lena had control of her bleeding.

But her breathing was laboured and sweat poured from her flushed face. Nevertheless, she remained indomitable. "I'll answer none of your questions. I don't give a damn about your antidote pills. I'm sure they're as phoney as you."

"Please cooperate with him," Robin pleaded. Lena shook her head.

"But you've been poisoned! You need the antidote!" Robin turned to Michael. "Please, I beg of you, help her. You were my friend. I liked you. Please help her."

Michael's cruel armour cracked at the edge. Swallowing thickly, he fidgeted in his chair, relaxing the grip on the rifle. But it was a brief lapse, a brief moment of sanity. Then a ruthlessness seemed to stir inside, like the memory of a bitter vow once sworn to for good or ill, and his eyes blazed.

"Phoney!" he spat. "Who could deserve that title more than you, Lena? Look at you sitting there, basking in the sympathy of the others because of the poison in your veins. But why aren't you worried?

We both know, don't we? You would never have released the snakes unless you knew that none of them could poison you!"

"What?" Park asked, for all of them. Michael jumped up, knocking over his chair and pressing the door with his back and the butt of his rifle.

"How much do non-poisonous rattlers cost each?" he shouted. "Probably a lot less than a voice synthesizer to distort your recorded voice." He mimicked the sound: " 'We must have the truth of that night.' What about the truth of tonight?"