The Ascent: A Novel of Survival (Thriller Suspense)

by Ronald Malfi

  “Get bigger boots,” Petras told him after he was done.

  Only ten minutes had passed, but Andrew and Curtis had already disappeared over the crest of the passage. Hollinger and Chad were close behind them.

  “We lose much time?” Shotsky asked, lacing his boot.

  “Not much,” I said.

  “Goddamn boots. Goddamn cramping leg muscle. Is it getting late?”

  “We still have a few hours of daylight left.”

  “Lousy goddamn boots. I’m sorry, guys.”

  I waved a hand at him, yet I was anxious to start moving again. My hands were shaking. When I looked up, I noticed Petras watching me. His face held no expression.

  Shotsky managed to gather his feet beneath him. He dusted the snow off his clothes, his face red and flushed. I could easily picture him as a bloated Popsicle frozen to the wall of an ice cave, his eyes hardened pebbles recessed into the black sockets of his skull.

  By the time we crested the passage, Shotsky was behind again. Petras caught my arm and told me to wait. My heart rate wasthrumming; I wanted to keep going and to get my mind off the remaining alcohol in my pack.

  “I’m okay,” Shotsky called from farther down the slope.

  “Asshole’s going to break his neck,” I commented to Petras.

  “Or kill one of us in the process. Listen,” Petras continued, lowering his voice. “About what you said before—Shotsky and the twenty grand and all. Let’s keep that between us, yeah? No need to let any of the others find out.”

  “You think they’d be pissed?”

  “What I think is we’ve got a crew of alpha males, each of them like to think they’re the one in charge. They find out this is some kind of mind game on Andrew’s part, and we may have an all-out mutiny on our hands. And seven headstrong individuals going their separate ways on this mountain is a bad idea. So if it’s all the same to you, I think we should keep up the façade. Whatever you’ve learned doesn’t need to leave this passageway.”

  “Fine by me.”

  “Guys …,” Shotsky called. He leaned against one of the large black stones, breathing hard. The skyline was bruising toward dusk. “Wait up …”

  Petras sighed and rubbed the side of his face, covering his mouth from Shotsky’s view. “Anyway, we got bigger problems, I think.”

  Petras and I grabbed Shotsky by the arms and hoisted him off the rock. He groaned and said he needed just a few minutes to rest.

  “It’s getting dark,” I said, “and we need to catch up to the others before it gets too late. Wind will come funneling through here from the top of the ridge, freezing the place. It’ll be twice as hard to climb to the top.”

  Shotsky groaned. “You two are a couple of downers—you know that?”

  It was dark when we crested the incline and continued down the other side of the passage. The stars were countless and dazzling, the line of mountains a blackened series of waves against an inky backdrop of sky.

  The flicker of a campfire trembled in the narrow, cupped valley below.

  Two hours ago, Shotsky might have sighed with relief and commented in some quasi-humorous fashion about how glad he was to see the campsite. But that was two hours ago. Now all his strength was reserved for propelling one foot in front of the other. The night had cooled the atmosphere considerably, yet Shotsky’s round face was glistening with sweat, his cheeks flushed and quivering, his exaggerated breaths volleying his lower lip back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. It would have been comical had I not been concerned about his heart giving out.

  The rest of the crew was uncharacteristically quiet upon our arrival. Instinct told me they were thinking the same thing I was—namely, that there was no way in hell Shotsky was going to be able to complete this journey. Wordlessly, Hollinger handed a cup of hot cocoa to Shotsky, who accepted the cup equally as silent.

  “You’re fucking kidding me,” Chad commented under his breath, coming up beside me. “What’d you do, carry the son of a bitch on your shoulders the whole way?”

  There was nothing I could say.

  “Seriously,” Chad went on, his voice rising, “where’s the hidden fucking cameras? Because this has got to be a joke—”

  “Cool it. I don’t need a goddamn recap.” I glanced around. “Where’s Andrew?”

  “Where do you think? He’s praying like a goddamn monk up there.” He pointed to a silhouetted outline of jagged rock.

  I could just barely make out Andrew’s form crouched atop one of the peaks, his face in profile.

  “Is it just me,” Chad said, “or is everyone losing their fucking minds?”

  An hour later, Andrew came down from the peaks. Shotsky was snoring against a stone outcropping, while Curtis, Chad, and Hollinger played cards. Petras had taken my book on George Mallory closer to the fire to read by the light. I’d spent the past hour thinking aboutthe situation with Shotsky but mostly thinking about the bourbon in my canteen. I’d come to the decision that I’d take another swig—just one more—after everyone had gone to bed. Either that, or do push-ups till morning.

  “We need to talk,” I said to Andrew as he took off his shirt and sniffed his armpits.

  “I’m ripe,” he said, pulling a face. He tossed the shirt atop his pack and bent to rifle for a fresh one. “What’s up?”

  “I think you know.”

  “Do I? Because there are so many things going on at the moment.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Well,” he began, his voice level, “for one thing, I noticed how collected you were this morning and well into the afternoon. Up until early evening, really, when you started lagging behind. And your hands started shaking again.”

  I wasn’t going to mention the liquor to Andrew—though he’d supplied it, I didn’t have to let him know that I’d discovered it—but he was already onto me. This angered me. I guess Andrew could see that it angered me because he looked me up and down and asked if I was going to punch him in the face again.

  “Thinking about it,” I said.

  He selected a fresh T-shirt and pulled it over his head, tucking it into the waistband of his camouflage pants.

  “He’s going to drop dead out here,” I said. “And I’m sure as hell not going to be his babysitter for the rest of the trip.”

  “You didn’t have to be his babysitter today, either.”

  “We had a deal,” I reminded him.

  “The deal was if he feels like he can’t finish. Not you.”

  “He won’t quit because he needs the money.”

  “He’ll quit,” Andrew said. His eyes were like twin orbs of obsidian reflecting the nearby firelight. “That’s the problem with him. He’s a quitter. I wish it were different, but that’s not the case. You’ll see—

  you’ll come out on top, and you’ll get your way.”

  “I just hope it’s not too late. We’ve got a long day tomorrow.”

  “Yes,” Andrew said, squatting down with his back against his pack and lacing his hands behind his head, “we do. Good night.”

  Speechless, I climbed into fresh socks and had Chad deal me in for a few hands of poker.

  “You suck, Shakes,” Chad said after I’d lost my tenth hand in a row.

  “Just deal,” I told him. Truth was, I couldn’t concentrate on the game; I was too busy watching Andrew sleep. Whether it had been subconscious or not, he’d removed himself from the rest of us, setting up his sleeping bag on the other side of the bonfire where, in the flicker of the flames, he was nothing but a dance of alternating shadows.

  “You got it,” said Chad. “Money on the wood makes the game go good. Ante up, boys.”

  After everyone had gone to sleep, I crawled over to where Shotsky lay, half petrified against the side of the stone outcropping. His snores were like the buzz of a chain saw. I poked his chest lightly and whispered his name into his ear over and over until his snoring broke up and his eyelids fluttered.

  “Wha—?”

  �
�Quiet,” I told him. Thankfully Petras’s thundering snoring compensated for Shotsky’s.

  “Tim, wha—?”

  “Listen. I spoke with Andrew. He’s going to give you the money whether you finish this thing or not. He doesn’t want you to know because he wants you to finish, but we need to be honest here, Donald.” I used his first name, hoping to appeal to the soul of the man. “This trip is going to get one hundred times worse than today. You’re going to kill yourself.”

  His eyes were large and beseeching. I couldn’t tell if he was fully awake.

  “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  “Sure.” His voice was calm, relaxed. His breath was warm in my face, smelling of onions and cigarettes. “Thing is, maybe I do need to prove this to myself. Maybe Andrew’s right. Maybe I need this.”

  “Andrew’s out of his mind. He’s playing a game with you. You don’t need to prove a goddamn thing.”

  “But I do.” His voice was oddly serene; just hearing it caused goose bumps to break out along my arms. “I do.”

  “Then you might die proving it,” I whispered and crawled back to my sleeping bag.

  Shotsky was snoring again before my eyes closed.

  2

  IN THE SCANT MOMENTS BEFORE DAWN. I AWOKE

  to find Andrew and Shotsky standing above me with their packs on. For a second, I thought I was dreaming. I turned over and saw Curtis’s slumbering form wrapped in a flannel sleeping bag. I could hear Petras’s snores echoing off the stone walls of the valley.

  “What’s this?” I muttered, rubbing sleep from my eyes. “I’m taking Shotsky back to base camp,” Andrew said, his voice flat and emotionless.

  “That’s a full day’s hike,” I said.

  “And another day coming back,” he added. “We can do it quickly.” I stared at Shotsky, but he refused to meet my eyes. “You want me to go with you?” “It’s not necessary.”

  But I was already lacing up my boots. “I’ll come.” “Tim—”

  “Remember what you said to me when I told you I’d gone caving on my own? That I was a fool and I could have died down there?”

  Andrew looked away, rubbing his jaw. He seemed to chew on my words.

  “Well, you were right. I’m coming with you.” I gazed at the camp, which was still dark in the predawn. “Besides, what the hell am I gonna do? Sit here and lose all my money playing poker with Chad?”

  “Quiet,” Chad groaned a few yards away. “Still sleeping.”

  Again my gaze shifted to Shotsky, but he still refused to look at me.

  Finally Andrew said, “Hurry up and get dressed.”

  While I dressed, Andrew spoke with Petras and told him to wait here until he and I returned which, with luck, would be in less than two days. Petras accepted his duty as next-in-charge in Andrew’s absence without protest; however, when he peered over at me, there was a dubious glimmer in his eyes. I could only roll my shoulders in response.

  We set out before the sun had time to rise. Conversation was nonexistent. The only sounds were of our boots crunching in the snow, the top layer having frozen in the night, and the collective sighs of our respiration. The descent was easier than the initial climb, and Shotsky had to stop only a handful of times to catch his breath. Each time, Andrew did not wait for him; he continued descending the passage, tromping through our footprints from the day before, until he was once again a dark speck at the opposite end of the passage.

  I remained with Shotsky, but we did not speak to each other. There was nothing to be said, and we both knew it. I could tell he was uncomfortable around me, and I could tell by the distance Andrew created between us that he was upset, too.

  “I’ve gotta take a leak,” I told Shotsky during one of his breaks and climbed farther down the passage where I urinated into the snow.

  When Shotsky caught up five minutes later, somewhat refreshed and ready to continue, I sighed and said nothing. We continued down the slope until my nagging thoughts got the better of me and I said, “What was all that talk last night about needing to finish? You seemed determined.”

  “Guess I had time to think about it,” he said, his voice small. “You’re right. Who am I kidding?”

  I said no more about it. We stopped for a late, freeze-dried lunch, and none of us spoke. I found my mind wandering, occupying itself with things other than the descent and the coldness between the three of us. I thought of Hannah and how she—

  3

  —STUCK HER HEAD UP THROUGH THE FLOOR HATCH

  of our loft. Soft, tallow light framed her face. She smiled as I set down my hammer and chisel and wiped my hands on my pants, leaving white smears of powder on them.

  “You need to see this,” she said.

  “I need to finish this.”

  She climbed out of the floor hatch. My studio was actually the attic, accessible only through the small hatch at the center of the floor. Brushing dust off her clothes, she stepped around the sculpture and behind me, placing a hand on my shoulder. “I thought you weren’t going to do the memorial.”

  “I’m not.” I traced a thumb along the base of the sculpture. It was far from being finished, the bottom half still an unrefined cube of marble. Three faceless soldiers, their rifles drawn and their helmets covering their heads, rose out of the cube of marble, each of them facing in a slightly different direction. “I just couldn’t sleep. I kept seeing this in my head … and I knew this chunk of marble was up here, growing cold and ugly.”

  Hannah reached out and stroked the cold, white stone. “It’s beautiful.”

  “What’s so important that I need to see?”

  “Outside. They’re shooting fireworks over the water from the Naval Academy.”

  I examined the blank oval heads of the three soldiers beneath their helmets. “I should finish,” I said, picking up one of my carving tools.

  “You should leave their faces blank,” she suggested.

  “You think so?”

  “Seems to make a bigger statement. Like they could be anyone and everyone. All the young men who died over there.”

  “I need to finish,” I told her. “Please, Hannah …”

  She kissed my cheek, and I felt her hand slide off my shoulder. The floorboards creaked as she made her way to the floor hatch. “I love you,” she called to me.

  “Love you, too,” I said and watched as she descended through the hatch, under-lit by the shaft of yellow light.

  I finished the sculpture, but it wasn’t good enough. I sat and stared at it for an undefined time, my stomach cramping with hunger and my bladder swollen with piss. Sometime during the night, I’d decided to submit it to the memorial commission after all. Leaning closer to it on my stool, I scrutinized every detail, every nuance. There was anguish and fear in the soldiers’ blank faces, creases and tears in their uniforms, and I could almost convince myself that I could see the grease on their hands from their weapons.

  And it occurred to me like a burst of fire in a darkened cave: there was too much detail. It was too much.

  Like they could be anyone and everyone.

  One week later, I presented the sculpture to the memorial commission—a donation from an up-and-coming artist who’d done only a meager number of commissioned works. Reviews of the sculpture proclaimed it to be powerful, all-encompassing, otherworldly, yet somehow completely unassuming. It graced the covers of several design and art magazines. I started receiving work from more elite clients.

  One man in particular, the publisher of a national newspaper, desired a personalized sculpture for his office, something he could set on the mantel above his fireplace. Upon our first meeting, he pumped my hand vigorously and said, “I fell in love with what you did for the memorial, Tim—can I call you Tim? So simple yet so

  complex. That’s how I live my life, really.” He winked conspiratorially and added, “How did you ever think to keep the soldiers’ faces blank?” “Guess I was inspired,” was my response.

  That night in bed
, I kissed Hannah on the shoulder and told her what the newspaperman had said. I felt her smile in the dark. “So we make a good team, you and me, huh?” she said. “Marry me,” I said.

  4

  WE WERE NO MORE THAN RN HOUR AWAY FROM

  base camp when Donald Shotsky died.

  It happened just as twilight deepened the sky to a blend of cool purples and pinks, the moon visible in the eastern sky. For the past half hour, I had been conscious of Shotsky’s breathing—the rasping, closed-throated labor of it—so when it stopped, I was keenly aware of it.

  I snapped my head around and saw him ten feet behind me. His eyes were bugging out of their sockets, his mouth working like a fish out of water. One of his pudgy, white hands fluttered in midair. I could almost hear his heartbeat closing the distance between us. I watched as his eyes filmed over, going blind. That fluttering hand clutched his chest. A small, froglike croak issued from his gaping mouth, and a moment after that, he pitched forward face-first into the snow.

  I ran to him and dropped to my knees. It took some effort to roll him over on his side, and I knew it wasn’t a good sign that his eyes were still open.

  “Andrew!” I could see him about to climb down the far end of the snowy passage to the path below. “Andrew!”

  I pushed Shotsky over on his back. He didn’t blink. “Come on, Shotsky,” I pleaded. “Don’t do this.” Pressing two fingers to his carotid, I couldn’t make out a pulse. I quickly commenced with chest compressions, but he was wearing

  too much restrictive gear. I unbuckled his pack and opened his coat, then proceeded with more compressions. My breath whistled in my throat, and my pulse drummed in my ears.

  “Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on—”

  “What happened?” Andrew barked, running toward us.

  “Heart attack!”

  Like a runner stealing second, Andrew slid in the snow and slammed against one of my thighs. He braced Shotsky’s head and positioned it back on his neck, creating a clearer passageway for air. With one hand, he administered quick little slaps to the side of Shotsky’s face, which was quickly turning a mottled shade of purple.