By Kate Austen (1526 words)

The gun felt increasingly heavy. Lucy held it in two hands, its aim wavering between Dante Ficknelly, the unconvincing cop, Peter and Paul, bound and gagged on the floor, and Ed, also silenced with a sock, his wrists straining against handcuffs, the only authentic accessory to Dante’s ersatz uniform.

What time was it? The long winter night had been so crammed with action, each twist and turn, each departure and arrival, stranger than the last. Surely it must be morning soon. Lucy was exhausted. Her eyelids kept drooping closed, and her thoughts circled sluggishly. She couldn’t keep up this armed surveillance for much longer, but she couldn’t think how to resolve the situation.

“You’re making a big mistake. Just give me the gun,” Dante pleaded, stepping forward.

“Don’t move!” screamed Lucy, jerking the muzzle in his direction. He stumbled back. “On your knees! Hands behind your head!” Where did that come from? thought Lucy. Too many TV crime shows. Dante obeyed. He was sweating profusely, black rivulets trailing down his temples from his hair dye, reminding Lucy of a certain corrupt politician. Meanwhile, Peter was making keening noises in his throat, and Paul’s eyes sent a fervent appeal to his misused wife. Only Ed seemed calm. He stood tall, his gaze assessing the situation with a cool detachment.

Where was Jen? Earlier, when Lucy had fallen asleep in the straw with the pigs, Jen had been sitting in the chair with a shotgun across her lap. And what about Jane and Bunny? Were they even at this moment carrying out their revenge on Jasper? She had heard Chuck staggering about in the undergrowth after his berserk attack on his fellow conspirators. That was hours ago, before the gunshot. Had Chuck shot someone or had someone shot him? Jasper was out there somewhere too, drunk and incapable. Perhaps he’d passed out in some leafy hollow and would be safe.

Lucy would have given anything to be back in her messy house and her sleep-deprived life. She pictured Eleanor’s face, her adorable dimples, the way she stretched out her arms to be picked up and hugged. She missed her so much. Writing could wait; she would never have this precious time with her daughter again. How could Paul have left her with a stranger? Lucy knew nothing about Jasmine. Eleanor might be frightened. Lucy imagined her baby’s desperate sobs. Anger pulsed through her, and she aimed a vicious kick at Paul’s side. He grunted in pain. Ed nodded in approval.

When would help come?

***

On Sunday, the sun rose at 7:30 a.m. according to the Almanac, but it was a further hour before any light rose above the dark fortress of pines that encircled Pine Tree Lodge and seeped into Margaux’s room. The rain and wind had stopped. She lay for a moment savoring the peace before memories intruded of the chain of disasters that had unfolded since Friday evening: long-suppressed secrets exposed, lingering hopes proved futile, and, permeating the very air they breathed, a miasma of violence. 

But for Margaux, the habit of putting on a brave face and soldiering on was engrained. She dragged herself upright, struggled into her stilettos, and painted a Chinese Red lipstick smile onto her face. First, she would check on Jasper. She had no idea where he’d disappeared to last night and hadn’t heard him come back to the Lodge, so she was relieved to find him in his room. Relief quickly turned to disgust. Jasper sprawled crosswise across the bed, passed out drunk, his clothes muddy and torn, face and hands covered in bloody scratches as if he had fought his way through a thicket. He was snoring unevenly, a trail of drool linking one corner of his mouth to the shabby coverlet. Margaux squared her shoulders and closed the door on him. As she walked to toward the lobby, she thought she smelled smoke.

Only Mavis was in the lobby, tapping away on her laptop.

“Where are the others?” Margaux asked, affecting a bright voice. No reply. “Well, I’ll just put on some coffee, then go and round them up. There’s time for one final group session before the retreat winds up this afternoon.”

“Give it up, Margaux,” Mavis murmured, not raising her eyes from the screen. “You know Jasper’s not fit to lead a session and anyway nobody’s interested in writing.” Mavis sat up and clicked the laptop closed. “Listen, you should get out of here while you can. It’s not safe for you and Jasper—for any of us. This whole retreat was poisoned from the start. I’m leaving. You should too.”

“That’s nonsense. I’m sure we can salvage something. We just need—”

“Stop pretending! You know better than most who orchestrated this catastrophe—that shapeshifter, Gianni Ficinelli. He’s the psychopath who’s been conducting a crazy social experiment here to try and prove his insane theory of oppositional personality traits and plot development.” Mavis was on her feet now, pacing to and fro, emphasizing her words with hand gestures.

“Oh, no! That’s just him showing off. I planned—Jasper and I planned this retreat to give you writers a wonderful opportunity to grow in the craft. Gianni, Sicard, whoever he is, had nothing to do with it!”

“Then why did he, as Sicard Ficini, infiltrate my critique group months ago to establish an online relationship with me, knowing my niece Jen worked here? Why did he sneak into the lodge early on Friday to plant triggers like the bloodstained rug to stimulate what he calls the dynamic arc, in other words, a narrative, a story, a plot?”

Margaux shuddered at the memory of the viscous feel of blood on the floor of the Grand Salon.

Mavis continued speaking, no longer the passive observer but an impassioned warrior for truth. “He’s manipulative. He’s the one who wrote that crap in my journal. He throws out accusations of homophobia to undermine alliances that might interfere with his schemes. He adopts disguises to confuse us and increase the tension. All to prove the inevitability of Aristotles’ Poetics.”

“Well, you’ve lost me now. What’s all this got to do with poetry?”

“No, not poetry—the story spine. Exposition, conflict, resolution. Equilibrium, disequilibrium, new equilibrium. Beginning, middle, end.”

Margaux gave a nervous chuckle. “And where are we now in this story?”

“I’m very afraid we are near The End.” Mavis’s words hung heavy in the air.

The silence was broken when Jane and Bunny burst into the lobby. Jane, normally sleek and tailored, looked disheveled. Bunny was almost unrecognizable, the frizzy grey wig was gone, revealing slicked-back dark hair. Her old-lady long woolen cardigan and baggy trousers were stained and torn.

Jane spoke first. “Where is he, Margaux? Stop covering for him. You can’t protect him anymore. He’s a drunk, a failure, and a sexual predator.”

“He ruined my life!” Bunny screeched, tears tracking through the grime on her haggard cheeks.

Margaux leaned forward, narrowing her eyes to peer at Bunny. “Well, well, well! It’s little Bernadette Peters! I remember you, the fangirl, the groupie, always pestering Jasper for attention. You got exactly what you wanted from him.”

“I wanted love, a lasting relationship! But he threw me away like a used condom!”

Margaux was about to protest when Mavis raised a hand to stop her. “Forget all that. We have to leave now. It’s too dangerous to stay. I initiated a distraction by setting that bloodstained rug on fire, but it won’t hold Gianni for long. While it was still dark, I saw him start up the trail to the shed dressed in something like a police uniform. He’s going to find the others. Come on, let’s go.” She slid her laptop into its bag, grabbed her backpack, and headed for the double glass doors. Nobody followed her. 

The storm had transformed the parking lot into a quagmire: puddles had become potholes, then turned into craters filled with rainwater and festooned with downed branches. In the middle of the debris, two enormous pigs frolicked in the mud. As Mavis picked her way across, she noticed that, as well as streaks of mud, the pigs wore splashes of ketchup red and mustard yellow; strings of white fat dangled from their snouts. The wind blew over the trashcans, Mavis thought, and the pigs had made a feast of the food waste. One hog even held a long bone in its mouth. Some lucky former guest must have dined on osso buco.

Mavis made her way down the hill to the tree that still blocked the road. Behind it, her little Toyota, Chuck’s beat-up Subaru wagon, and Ed’s silver Audi were where they had parked on Friday evening. As Mavis stowed her bags in the back seat, her conscience assailed her. She couldn’t leave fellow writers in danger. She should at least warn them of Gianni Ficinelli’s evil intentions. Although Margaux, Jane and Bunny hadn’t believed her, the others might. She hoped there was still time before Ficinelli’s insane storyline reached fruition.

She trudged back up the road to the Lodge.