He thought again of Heather, willed his feet forward, and ducked inside the cabin, taking the single step down.
“Anybody…”
The blood lay everywhere in the confined space, an area as tight as a funeral vault. A large amount pooled on the floor, soaking into the carpet, nearly reaching his shoes. More was flung in great spurts against the walls and portholes. He thought of photos he had seen in school, of Jackson Pollack painting.
The flashlight exaggerated the color of the blood and its freshness, sluiced along cushions and dripping from a bench. Everywhere, that is, except on the face of the woman who lay on the bench staring at him with empty eyes. She had short wheat-colored hair and a face that maintained its attractiveness despite what had happened here. Her legs were parted wide. A stab of recognition hit him and he had a moment’s desire to venture deeper into the cabin, but no, he stopped.
He wanted out with sudden panic. He ran a hand nervously through his hair and backed out quickly, the skin on the rear of his neck prickly. Then, again with unaccustomed grace, he hopped back across to Zack’s boat. Zack was in the rear, again working on the knots that secured the Zodiac. He was teasing the girls. “You take the little boat out for a love cruise…?
“No,” a pouty response came.
“She’s dead in there…” John tried to speak calmly, still supremely aware of Heather’s presence. “We’ve got to call the police.”
Zack walked back to the helm, speaking over the exclamations of the girls.
“What do you mean, dead?”
“Dead, asshole,” John shouted. “Murdered. It’s a fucking Freddy Kruger house in that cabin.”
Zack opened his mouth and nothing came out.
He gunned the engine and they leapt out of the water. John fell painfully to the deck, but scrambled up again. He pushed his way forward, the images he had seen burned in his brain, grabbing Zack’s shoulder. The other man pulled away roughly and steered to the middle of the channel.
“We have to go back!”
“Back off, dawg, it’s my boat.”
“She’s dead back there.”
“Then there’s nothing we can do.”
John fought for the wheel, unsuccessfully.
“Go back!”
“Are you crazy?” Zack shouted. “I’ve got a boat of ecstasy and drunk underage girls. No fucking way.”
It was no use. The bright lights of downtown Cincinnati were in their faces and reflecting off Zack’s sleek, shaved head, as if they had suddenly emerged from the past into the present.
Zack steered over to the Serpentine Wall and cut the engines, jumping out to tie up. He leaped back in and took the cell phone from John, rage in his bright blue eyes.