where it clung to her skin in wet points and Curls. Her tank top was sodden. Her tanned shoulders looked greasy with sweat. The seat of her red shorts looked molded to her buttocks.
By comparison, Vivian appeared almost cool in her white knit shirt and shorts. But the back of her shirt was pasted to her skin. It took on the contours of her shoulder blades and rib cage. Abilene could see the straps of her bra through the thin fabric.
Finley, just in front of Abilene, wore her baggy shirt with its tails hanging out. It looked dark as rawhide down to her hips. There, where the shirt overlapped her shorts, it was still dry and its usual tan color.
Though her head seemed clear, she felt hot and filthy and miserable.
She wished she’d worn socks. She didn’t like the slimy feel of her moccasins against the bottoms of her feet.
Her denim skirt was damp and thick and heavy, but at least it was very short and air came up from below. Her panties, bra and blouse were wet and clinging. After a while, she asked the others to wait. She clamped the cool, wet pack of hot dogs between her thighs, peeled off her blouse and removed her bra. It felt good to be free of the hot, confining straps and cups. She folded the bra, tucked it under the waistband of her skirt, then struggled back into her blouse. As she fastened a couple of its buttons, Finley set down the water bottle and bag of chips. She pulled the pack of hot dogs from between Abilene’s legs.
‘Let’s go ahead and eat these suckers,’ she said. ‘I’m starving.’
‘Just a short break,’ Cora said.
Finley peeled open the plastic wrapper. She slipped out a wiener, poked it into her mouth, and held the package while the others helped themselves. ‘Gourmet breakfast,’ she said, her words garbled, the end of the frank bobbing and wiggling.,
Abilene took a bite of the hot dog she’d taken. It was warm, moist, mushy. It tasted okay, but she suddenly felt sick as she remembered dinner last night. The sizzling dogs had tasted wonderful, then. Helen had wanted the last one. They hadn’t allowed her to eat it. They’d passed it around, instead, ‘helping’ Helen with her diet.
Abilene’s throat went tight.
God, she wished they’d let her have it. It might’ve been the last hot dog she would ever get a chance to eat.
Abilene had a very hard time swallowing, but she managed to finish her hot dog, washing it down with a lot of water. Finley offered her another.
‘No thanks.’
‘Go ahead. Two each, then we can toss the package.’
‘Maybe we should save a couple for Helen.’
Finley looked as if she felt a sudden pain. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and nodded. Cora, about to bite into her second hot dog, slipped it back into the wrapper in Finley’s hand.
Nobody ate a second one.
Finley shook some juice out of the pack, then folded it carefully and slipped it into a deep pocket of her shorts.
They all drank some more water, then resumed their trek through the woods.
Soon, they came to a split in the trail. One path veered off to the right and the other continued straight ahead.
‘Now what?’ Vivian asked.
‘Flip a coin?’ Finley suggested.
‘We can come back to this if we don’t find anything,’ Cora said.
They stuck to the original path and soon came to a lake. An old, weathered dock reached out from its shore. Off the end of the dock was a diving platform that floated at such an angle that one corner dipped into the water. Apparently, one of the drums buoying it up had sprung a leak.
Abilene supposed this must be the lake Helen had told them about. Somewhere near its shores, the hunters had killed that girl.
The lake was bigger than she’d pictured it. Maybe a quarter of a mile wide and twice that long. She saw no boats on its surface. No other docks. No dwellings along its shores. No people. In spite of its blue, glinting surface and the lush beauty of the forest surrounding it, the lake seemed forbidding. An alien, ominous place.
Abilene rubbed her arms and the nape of her neck. Her hot skin, slick with sweat, was pebbled with goosebumps.
‘Sure looks deserted,’ Vivian whispered, as if afraid to raise her voice in the stillness.
‘Doesn’t anybody live around here?’ Finley said.
‘Creepy,’ Vivian muttered.
‘It’s like the whole lake’s been abandoned,’ Abilene said, still rubbing the achy skin on the back of her neck.
‘There might be houses we just can’t see from here,’ Cora said. ‘Hidden off in the trees. I’d bet on it’
Leaving the shelter of the forest’s edge, they made their way down to the foot of the dock.
Just to the left, Abilene saw what looked like the remains of a beach. The small area sloped down gently to the shore. It had probably been cleared by workers from the lodge, sand carted in to create a nice little beach for the guests. Now, weeds and bushes grew there and the sand was littered with driftwood.
At the far side of the beach area was an overturned canoe. The wooden hull was bashed in as if someone had stomped through it with a boot. The canoe’s green paint was flaking. Painted in white near its bow, faded but still legible, were upside-down letters that read Totem Pole Lodge and a large number 3.
Abilene walked over to the canoe, dropped down to all fours and peered underneath it. Nothing but weeds and sand. Getting to her feet, she said, ‘Just wanted to make sure.’ She brushed sand off her hands and knees.
‘I think we should circle the lake,’ Cora said.
‘That’ll take hours,’ Vivian protested.
‘You got an appointment or something?’ Finley said.
‘Maybe whoever took Helen lives along the shore,’ Cora explained. ‘Somebody must. This lake can’t be as deserted as it looks.’
‘The kid we saw has to live somewhere,’ Abilene said. ‘And the trail led here.’
‘One did, anyway,’ Finley said.
‘You think he’d take her home?’ Vivian said.
‘Who knows?’ Cora said. ‘He took her someplace, didn’t he?’
‘Somebody did,’ Finley said. ‘Probably.’
‘So why not back to his cabin or shack or wherever the hell it is he came from?’ Cora asked. ‘And what are our alternatives, anyway? Wander around in the woods all day? Go back to the lodge and hope for the best?’
‘If we could just get some help…’ Vivian muttered.
‘By the time we could get help,’ Cora said, ‘it might be way too late for Helen.’
‘I think we’re her only chance,’ Abilene said.
‘We’ll find her,’ Finley said. ‘And if she isn’t a hundred per cent fine, God help the bastards that did it.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
In case someone might be watching, they walked away from the lake and entered the woods. They didn’t go far, however, before turning north. Through breaks in the trees, they kept track of the lake and stayed roughly parallel to its shoreline.
Here, there was no path. They tromped through undergrowth, ducked under low branches, circled around brambles and deadfalls and boulders that sometimes blocked their way, climbed down and up the sides of shallow
