Max shook his head.
‘You’ve got drowning on the brain,’ he said. ‘You always get wet when you drown anyone. When will you learn? Remember that twist we surprised in her bath? That was your idea: flooded the god-damn bathroom, spoilt a nice-looking ceiling and I got a cold. It hung around for weeks. No drowning for me.’
‘I forgot,’ Frank said apologetically. ‘Suppose we open his veins?’
‘Too easy for him; besides, it’s messy. I thought if we got rid of these two we might stay here for a few days. I like it up here. We don’t want to mess up the cabin.’
‘Keep the redhead until the fourteen days are up, is that what you mean?’ Frank asked.
‘That’s the idea. Then we could look after her — and her dough.’
Frank brooded for an inspiration.
‘We could shove his face in a bucket of molasses. He’d suffocate slow that way,’ he said at last, looked enquiringly at Steve. ‘Got any molasses, pal?’
Steve shook his head. Out of the corner of his eye he had seen Roy creeping along the verandah.
‘Why don’t you give him a break?’ he demanded loudly. ‘What’s he done to you?’
Roy had stopped and was crouched against the cabin wall, his head turned in their direction. The Sullivans had their backs to him, but he didn’t know that.
‘We could make a bonfire of him,’ Max suggested, ignoring Steve.
‘Now that’s a swell idea,’ Frank said. ‘Saves us burying him, too.’
At that moment Roy made his bid for freedom. He crept across the verandah, swung his leg over the rail, dropped to the ground. Then he began to run blindly.
The Sullivans glanced round, saw him.
‘Keep to your left, Roy,’ Steve bawled, seeing his brother was running towards the lake.
Roy swerved, bounded towards the pine woods.
‘Now I wonder what he thinks he’s doing?’ Max asked, and laughed. He raised his gun.
Steve made a movement, but Frank’s gun rammed into his ribs, winding him.
There was a sharp crack and a flash and Roy pitched forward on his face. He lay there for a moment, then began to crawl over the ground, his left leg limp.
‘I’ll fix him now for good,’ Max said, and walked down the steps of the verandah, across the yard. He overtook Roy, kicked him savagely, walked on to where the Packard was parked.
‘You’re going to see something in a minute,’ Frank said to Steve. ‘He’s got brains, that boy; and style — you’ve never seen such style.’
Roy was still crawling desperately towards the lake. He left a thin trail of blood behind him on the sandy ground.
Max reached the Packard, took from the boot a can of gasoline, walked after Roy.
Roy heard him coming, cried out, tried to crawl faster, fell over on his side.
‘Don’t touch me,’ he moaned as Max came up. ‘Leave me alone... for God’s sake, leave me alone...!’
‘Little Bernie says he hopes you rot in hell,’ Max said, poured the gasoline over Roy’s shuddering body.
‘No!’ Roy screamed as the gasoline ran over his head. ‘You can’t do this to me! Steve! Help me! No... no... no...!’
Max fumbled in his pocket, found a match, struck it alight on his shoe.
‘Here it comes, ol’ man,’ he said, and laughed.
‘Ever seen a guy burn?’ Frank asked Steve. ‘Even when they’re dead they jump and twitch... like a chicken with its head chopped off. We burned a guy a couple of weeks ago. He went up like a firework and the crazy lug ran right back into his own house and set that on fire too... burned his wife and kids.’ Frank shook his head. ‘Take a look at that,’ he went on, suddenly excited. ‘That’s what I call a blaze. He’s cooking fine now, ain’t he? Now watch him run... they always run. There! Didn’t I tell you?... Watch him!’
Steve shut his eyes, put his hands over his ears.
Something happened inside Carol’s head. It was as if her brain had turned completely over with a deafening snap! and at once the shadowy dream world in which she had been living suddenly came to life. Things which a moment before had blurred edges, dim colours and faint sounds became sharp-etched and vivid: like a film out of focus on the screen that has been suddenly adjusted. It was like bursting up into fresh air after diving too deeply in green silent water.
Carol thought she must have been dreaming that she was out in the pine woods, but now she realized that she had walked there in her sleep; it seemed to her to be the only explanation. She was surprised she could accept the shock of awakening so calmly and looked around for a familiar landmark to lead her back to the cabin. She saw through the trees the lake glittering in the moonlight and she walked towards it.
As she walked she tried to remember what she had been dreaming about before awakening. She had a vague recollection she had dreamed that Roy had come into her room, but it was nothing more than a vague recollection. She thought it was when Roy had come into her room that she had heard the snap inside her head. She wasn’t sure about this, but she knew some time recently a shutter or something like that had fallen inside her head. It had happened in the past, but she could not remember exactly when. When she thought about it she had a vague recollection of a room with blue-quilted walls and an electric lamp high up in the ceiling which was covered by a wire basket. It must have been something that had occurred in a dream, because the nurse was there: the nurse with the horrible look in her eyes, who said nothing, did nothing, but stared and pointed at her. Carol knew she had many such dreams, although she couldn’t remember them clearly. They were a jumble of dissociated figures and faces and rooms.
She wondered why she had come out here into the pine woods, and realized, with dismay, that she was half naked. She wondered if Steve had missed her and was looking for her, and she became anxious to get back to the cabin and find her pyjama jacket that had so mysteriously disappeared. She experienced a strange confused feeling of tenderness and embarrassment at the thought of him finding her like this. She wanted to tell him about the noise inside her head. That worried her. He might know what had happened: might be able to explain it to her.
It was when she was walking up the path from the lake that she saw the Sullivans. They were standing by the lake, looking away from her, talking. In the moonlight she could only see their black sharp-etched outlines, but it was enough.
She had no idea who they were, but they frightened her — as they would have frightened anyone who came upon them suddenly in the dark. So she stepped behind a tree, her arms across her breasts, and watched them walk quickly and silently into the woods, past her, down the path along the lake.
She saw their white, hard faces: faces that looked as if they had been carved out of cold mutton fat, and she shivered, knowing instinctively that they were dangerous and evil. Her thoughts flew to Steve, and she felt weak, wondering if they had harmed him.
When they had gone, she ran towards the cabin, her heart beating so fast that the beat was like a hammer-stroke against her side.
As she crossed the yard she came upon what was left of Roy: something that twitched and was arched back from the heat; a burned up, shrivelled object that was human only in outline.
To her this scorched nameless thing was just another dream figment, and she scarcely looked at it, believing it existed only in her mind, and anxious only to reach the lighted cabin to make sure that Steve was safe.
She ran up the steps, stood in the doorway and looked into the lighted sitting-room.
Steve was lying on the floor, tied hand and foot. He tried to sit up when he saw her.
She came to an abrupt stop, forgetting she was half naked, staring at the cords that bound him, horror in her eyes.
Seeing her like that: wild, beautiful, her skin like the smooth lustre of a pearl, Steve realized how much he loved her: that he had loved her almost from the moment he had found her, lying in the wrecked track: that he wasn’t going to restrain his feelings for her any more: that she was the only woman he could ever love.