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She brought the bar up as if it were a baseball bat and leaped into the stall with shrill yell. But the stall was empty and she dropped the bar, disappointed that Shelly wasn’t there.
“I guess he must’ve left,” she said, with a shrug.
“Come on,” said Chuck, anxious to get out of there. He didn’t know why, but he had a sudden powerful feeling that they were not alone. He half expected someone—or some thing—to come leaping out at them from the shadows.
“Let’s get out of here!” he urged her.
She turned and smiled at the frightened expression on his face. She put her arm around him and hugged him close. “I’m not going to let anybody hurt you,” she said.
“Gee, thanks,” said Chuck wryly. “I feel a lot better.”
As they turned and went outside, their arms around each other, the gate to the second stall inside the barn swung open and Jason stepped out, watching them with glittering eyes. The blood was pounding in his ears, filling them with a roaring sound as he kept clenching and unclenching his fists. His massive rib cage rose and fell as he breathed heavily, gulping in deep lungfuls of air to try and ease the tightness in his chest. The blood fever was upon him once again. He seemed to hear a small, insistent voice deep within his twisted brain, a voice that commanded him to kill. He stared at Chuck and Chili with utter loathing as they walked back toward the house. For the moment, they had escaped him.
But only for the moment.
Chapter Seven
Vera sat on the edge of the boat dock, dangling her legs in the water. It was so quiet and peaceful out on the lake, she didn’t really feel like going back inside and having it out with Shelly. She sighed. Why couldn’t he simply take the hint? Any other guy would have realized long ago that she simply wasn’t interesting in him, at least not that way, but Shelly couldn’t seem to get it through his head. He kept trying to push the issue, as if he thrived on rejection.
She kicked her legs back and forth, enjoying the feel of the cool water on her bare feet. I came on this trip to get away from hassles, she thought, to just enjoy a quiet weekend in the woods. She didn’t need this crap from Shelly. He wouldn’t be such a bad guy, she thought, if he would just relax and stop trying to show off and impress people, if he would just be himself. Why couldn’t he just . . .
Something grabbed hold of her leg.
She gasped, lurching forward, almost falling off the dock into the lake as a hand sticking up out of the water clutched her around the ankle, trying to pull her down. She screamed, and clung to the dock with all her might, kicking with her leg, trying to wrench herself loose, but she felt herself slipping . . . and suddenly the hand let go.
As she scrambled panic-striken back onto the dock, looking fearfully down into the water, a large figure in a black wet suit broke the surface of the water with a loud cry, brandishing a spear gun and wearing a white plastic hockey mask. Shelly pushed the mask back on his head and grinned at her.
“You’ve just learned a valuable lesson,” he said as she stared at him with stunned disbelief. “A beautiful girl like you should never go out in the dark alone.”
“Damn it, Shelly!”
She came at him furiously, meaning to strike him. But seeing the
expression on her face, Shelly quickly backed away.
“Why do you do these stupid things,” she said, in exasperation.
“I have to,” he replied defensively, raising his arms slightly as if to ward off a blow.
“No, you don’t have to,” she said, making a face at him and mimicking his tone.
“I just want you to like me,” Shelly said dejectedly, avoiding her gaze and looking like a dog that had been kicked.
“I do like you,” said Vera, with exasperation. “But not when you act like a jerk.”
“Being a jerk is better than being a nothing,” Shelly said, in a small voice.
“I never said you were nothing,” Vera protested.
“You don’t have to say it,” he said miserably. “I can tell.”
“You’re wrong,” she said. “Shelly . . .”
He hung his head and walked away, looking like a big black seal in his wet suit. She sighed, shaking her head. God, he was truly hopeless, she thought. He acted like an insecure twelve-year-old who would do anything for attention. Like the boys who used to chase her all the time when she was a little girl. The teased her, pulled her hair, and acted like utter idiots around her because it was the only way they knew how to show they liked her. He was making her crazy. She went back to the end of the dock and sat down again, staring out at the lake and wondering if she was going to survive this weekend.
Shelly sat down on the porch swing and stared down at the dock, where Vera was sitting with her back to him. He felt like a jerk. She’s right, he thought miserably, a jerk is exactly what I am.
The idea had been to make her laugh, but it had backfired, as his ideas always did. He would imagine the whole thing in his head, the way it would go, complete with dialogue, as if it were a movie that he was directing. He would see it played out in his mind frame for frame. He would leap up out of the water in his mask and wet suit, Vera leaping back, frightened at first, then amused at the stunt and flattered by the trouble he had gone to on her account, but, of course, that was not how it turned out. These things never turned out the way he imagined they would.
