Blood Games by Richard Laymon Page A

have been unbearable, but fresh air came in along with daylight from broken windows near the ceiling on two sides of the pool. One row of windows, which she’d noticed from outside while standing under the porch, stretched along the back wall. Another several windows crossed the shorter wall at the north end of the room. Those weren’t sheltered by a porch, and narrow strips of sunlight, golden and swirling with dust motes, slanted down from them at sharp angles. The bright strips lighted only one corner of the pool, and the water at that corner glowed like honey.
        ‘Did you get that?’ she asked Finley, pointing.
        ‘Yeah. Incredible.’
        Their voices, though hushed, resounded off the walls and floors and ceiling.
        Helen turned around. She looked very pleased with herself. ‘All this was worth the trip, huh?’
        ‘I sure think so,’ Abilene said. ‘It’s fantastic down here.’
        ‘It’s pretty dam neat,’ Vivian admitted.
        ‘It’ll be great at night,’ Cora said.
        ‘It’ll be dark at night,’ Vivian said, some of her enthusiasm gone. She tipped back her head and scanned the ceiling. ‘If those lights worked…’
        ‘It’ll be better without them, anyway.’
        ‘It’ll be real creepy,’ Helen said.
        While she looked at the lights Vivian had mentioned, Abilene noticed that the ceiling tiles over the pool slanted upward at right angles to a rectangular gap in the center.
        She hoped for a better view of the opening, so she made her way forward. As she neared the middle of the pool, currents began to rub the front of her body. The water’s temperature seemed to rise. Then she stepped on something that wasn’t granite. Iron bars? She lurched back to get away from them, and gazed down through the water.
        Set in the floor of the pool, like a trapdoor, were crosshatched bars a yard long. They covered a square opening. Below them, she saw an orifice surrounded by rough stone. The hole seemed to narrow, farther down. Then darkness obscured its depths.
        She tested the strength of the bars with one foot, found them solid, and stepped onto the middle of them. Hot currents climbed her legs, fluttered against her groin and rump, caressed her belly and sides and back. She crouched enough to let the water massage her breasts.
        A few moments later, she remembered why she’d come here to the middle of the pool. She tipped back her head. She was directly underneath the gap in the ceiling. It looked like a chimney that ran all the way to the roof. Far up there, she saw a gray smudge of daylight.
        ‘What do you suppose that is?’ Finley asked, coming up beside her.
        ‘A vent?’
        ‘Looks like it.’
        ‘I guess you’d need something like that, you build a lodge on top of a hot spring.’
        Finley tilted her camera high. ‘You’d think snow and crap would fall in.’
        ‘I think it’s covered. You can’t see sky, just a little light. The sides are probably open. The spring’s right here, by the way.’
        ‘Yeah?’ Finley looked down.
        ‘Here, stand on it.’ Abilene moved aside.
        Finley stepped onto the bars, and her eyes widened. ‘Hey, now,’ she said, ‘I might just stay right here.’
        ‘I’m getting out before I melt down to nothing.’ Abilene left her there.
        Cora, arriving at the far side, tossed her bundle of clothes to the tile floor. She boosted herself onto the edge, stood up and turned around. Feet apart, hands on hips, her skin shiny and dripping, she waited for the others.
        And saw Finley, still on the grate, taping her.
        ‘Damn it, Fin!’
        ‘Hey, come on, you look great. Just like Tarzan.’
        A corner of her mouth curled up. ‘Like Tarzan?’
        ‘Tarzan with tits,’ Abilene said.
        And Cora began bellowing like the apeman, drumming her