Panic(57)

And suddenly it occurred to her: Anne.

She looked at the cop. “Don’t I get one phone call or something?”

For the first time, he smiled. But his eyes were still sad. “You’re not under arrest.”

“I know,” she said. She was suddenly so nervous, she felt like she would puke. What if Anne didn’t care? Or worse, sided with the police? “But I want my phone call, just the same.”





dodge

DODGE HAD ONLY MADE IT HALFWAY HOME WHEN THE sky split open and it began to pour. Just his f*cking luck. Within a few minutes, he was totally soaked. A car passed, blaring its horn, sending a fierce spray of water across his jeans. He was still two miles from home.

He was hoping the storm would let up, but it got worse. Lightning ripped across the sky, quick flashes that gripped the world in a weird green glow. Water accumulated fast in the ditches, driving leaves and paper cups onto his shoes. He was practically blind; he couldn’t see the oncoming traffic until it was nearly on top of him.

He realized, suddenly, that he was only a few minutes away from Bishop’s. He turned off the road and started jogging. With any luck, Bishop would be home, and he could wait it out or bum a ride.

But when he came up the driveway, he saw the whole house was dark. Still, he went up to the porch and knocked on the front door, praying that Bishop would answer. Nothing.

He remembered the back porch was screened in, and circled the house through the slog of mud. He banged his shin against an old lawn mower and went stumbling forward, nearly face-planting, cursing.

The screen door was, of course, locked. He was wet and so miserable he briefly considered punching a hole through it—but then lightning bit through the sky again, and in that half second of unnatural brightness, he saw a kind of gardening shed, a little ways back and half obscured by the trees.

The door to the shed was protected by a padlock, but Dodge had his first bit of luck: the lock wasn’t actually in place. He pushed into the shed and stood shivering in the sudden dryness and coolness, inhaling the smell of wet blankets and old wood, waiting for his eyes to adjust. He couldn’t see shit. Just outlines, dark objects, probably more junk.

He pulled out his cell phone for light and saw the battery was almost out. He couldn’t even call Bishop and ask where he was and when he would be home. Great. But at least in the glow of the screen he could make a better scan of the shed, and he was surprised to see that it was actually wired: a plain bulb was screwed into the ceiling, and there was a switch on the wall, too.

The bulb was dim, but it was better than nothing. Immediately he saw that the shed was better organized than he’d thought. Certainly cleaner than the junkyard. There was a stool and a desk and a bunch of shelves. A bunch of betting slips, water-warped and weighted down with a metal turtle, were piled on the desk.

Next to the betting slips was a pile of old AV and recording equipment, and one of those cheap pay-per-use cell phones, the kind that required no subscription.

His second piece of luck: the cell phone powered on and didn’t require a password.

He looked in his contacts for Bishop’s cell phone number and managed to retrieve it just before his cell went dead.

He thumbed it into the keypad of the cell phone he’d found and listened to it ring. Five times, then Bishop’s voice mail. He hung up without leaving a message. Instead he flipped over to the texts, planning to shoot off a 911 to Bishop. He had to come home sometime. Where could he be in this weather, anyway?

And then: he froze. The driving of the rain on the roof, even the weight of the cell phone—all of it receded, and he saw only the words of the last outgoing text.

Time to go solo. Tomorrow night we’ll see what you’re really made of.

He read it again, and a third time.

The feeling returned in a rush.

He scrolled down. More texts: instructions for the game. Messages to other players. And at the very bottom, a text to Heather’s number.

Quit now, before you get hurt.

Dodge replaced the phone carefully, exactly where it had been. Now everything looked different: recording equipment. Cameras. Spray paint stacked in the corner, and plywood leaning against the shed walls. All the stuff Bishop had needed for the challenges.

A half-dozen mason jars were lined up on one shelf; he bent down to examine them and then cried out, stumbling away, nearly upsetting a stack of plywood.

Spiders. The jars were full of them—crawling up the glass, dark brown bodies blurring together. Meant for him, probably.

“What are you doing here?”

Dodge spun around. His heart was still beating hard; he was imagining the feel of a hundred spiders on his skin.

Bishop was standing in the doorway, totally immobile. The storm was still raging behind him, sending down sheets of water. He was wearing a hooded rain poncho, and his face was in shadow. For a second, Dodge was truly afraid of him; he looked like a serial killer in some bad horror movie.

Dodge had a sudden flash of clarity: this was what the game was really about. This was what true fear was—that you could never know other people, not completely. That you were always just guessing blind.

Then Bishop took another step into the shed, shoving off his hood, and the impression passed. It was just Bishop. Some of Dodge’s fear eased too, although his skin was still prickling, and he was uncomfortably aware of the spiders in their thin glass jars, only a few feet away.