Mountain Madness

by Daniel Pyle

  These shards of ice fell to the snow below, writhed there for a moment, and then stilled.

  The tentacle above wrapped itself back around the branch.

  And waited.

  9

  WARREN MANAGED TO bring two loads of wood from the shed to the house without throwing out his back. The first load wasn’t so bad, but by the time he dragged the sled across the yard for the second time and transferred the firewood into the house, every muscle in his body seemed to be aching. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this sore. He guessed it was possible he’d never been this sore.

  It just about made him wish he’d shelled out the money for a gas-powered furnace or a backup generator. They had the gas stove and the hot water heater and kept a decent supply of firewood, and he’d always thought that would be enough for emergency situations. He guessed it was. As long as you were willing to do plenty of work.

  He left the sled in the snow drift by the back door, shut himself inside the house, and leaned against the wall until his body went from aching to merely throbbing.

  “That you?”

  Tess’s voice sounded a mile away, and Warren realized he was still wearing his hat. He took it off and hung it from a series of hooks mounted beside the back door.

  “Who else would it be?” he called back.

  Except, of course, he knew exactly who she might think he was: the stranger she was convinced was out there in the blizzard, stalking them, toying with them.

  “It’s me,” he said.

  He took off his boots and his snowsuit, shivering the whole time, rubbing at his body. His breath plumed out from between his lips and floated toward the ceiling.

  He eyed the pile of wood he’d carried in. It would be enough for tonight and tomorrow, and maybe even tomorrow night, depending on how well it burned, but then he’d have to go for some more.

  Maybe it will have stopped snowing by then. Or at least stopped blizzarding.

  He could only hope.

  He picked up two of the larger logs and carried them into the living room. He found Tess arranging blankets on a mattress in the middle of the floor.

  Frowning, he put the logs on the floor a few feet from the hearth. He said, “What…is that the mattress from our bed?”

  She nodded.

  “How’d you get it in here?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m not a muscleless blob.”

  He moved to help her smooth out the topmost blanket, but she had already finished. “I know, but why did you bring it in here?”

  “I thought it would be warmer. For…you know.”

  “Our raucous lovemaking?”

  She laughed. “Yeah, that. If you still want to.”

  He moved to her and took her in his arms. “Just give my extremities a chance to warm up and I’ll be all over you like stink on a monkey.”

  She laughed again. “Sadly, that might be the most romantic thing you’ve ever said.” She kissed him once, playfully, and then again, more slowly, and parted his lips with the tip of her tongue.

  When she pulled away, he said, “Are you sure you’re up for this?”

  “I am if you are.” She patted the front of his pants and grinned.

  He took her hand and led her to the mattress. Although kneeling and crawling under the blankets pained just about every joint and muscle he had (hadn’t he always said they should have bought a couch with a pull-out bed?), he managed in the end. Tess crawled in after him and gave him another long kiss.

  “Bub is watching,” she said.

  And he was. From his doggy bed between the two chairs.

  “Turn around and watch the fire,” Warren said.

  Bub panted and grinned his old, familiar grin, but he didn’t turn around.

  “Feel like putting on a show?”

  Warren ran a hand through her hair and caressed her jaw the way she liked. “Do I ever.”

  She unbuttoned his pants and her blouse, and they did.

  10

  LATER, AFTER WARREN had fallen into a deep, postcoital sleep, Tess slipped out of bed and hurried over to the fireplace. She was naked, and the fire had died down to almost nothing. She walked with her arms wrapped around herself, rubbing at her biceps.

  She used the poker to stir the coals. The fist-sized chunk of wood left on the grate caught fire again, but it wouldn’t last long; she’d need to grab more logs from the pile Warren had brought in. She looked at the heap of clothes on her side of the bed, considered getting dressed, and decided not to mess with it. Better just to hurry up and get the fire going again so she could crawl back beneath the covers and against Warren before the cold had a chance to work its way into her.

  She rushed through the kitchen, which was cold, and down the back hallway, which was colder still, barely tolerable. Her breath floated in front of her face like smoke, her nipples were stone-hard, and her toes and fingers had started to go numb. She didn’t bother picking through the logs but grabbed the first three she could wrap her fingers around. She tucked one of the chunks under her arm, and cradled the other two against her belly like a baby. The bark dug into her skin, scraped her, but she hardly noticed; compared to an exploding window to the face, a few scrapes were nothing.

  As she brought the firewood into the living room, her breasts swayed (much closer to her belly, she was sorry to admit, than they’d been thirty years earlier) and her nipples still jutted. She hopped from foot to foot, trying to stay warm, aware that she probably looked ridiculous but not worried about it because there was no one around to see but Bub and Warren, who were both sleeping and snoring almost in unison.

  She dropped two of the sections of wood on the coals and used the poker to scoot them together. Fresh flames curled up the sides of the logs, orange and almost unnaturally bright in the otherwise unlit room. The blizzard continued, blowing snow and ice against the house, shrieking and moaning, sounding like a tea kettle one second and a ghost the next.

  When the logs looked like they would stay lit, Tess turned around and snuck past Bub.

  Something vibrated in her chest, like the beginnings of a deep cough. She stopped, placed a cold hand between her breasts, and held her breath, willing herself not to cough and wake everyone up.

  For a second, she thought the sensation had passed, but then the vibration came again, a tickle deep in her lungs. She coughed once—a tiny, almost polite cough—and then again, more loudly this time. Warren sniffed and shifted on the mattress but didn’t wake up. Bub never moved at all. Tess felt another cough coming on and hurried out of the room before it could escape her.

  Halfway between the living room and the bathroom, in the narrow hall where she’d hung their portraits and shelved the cheap knickknacks they’d picked up over the years, she stopped, doubled over, and let loose a series of loud, hacking coughs that left her gasping and teary eyed. A string of spittle dripped from her bottom lip and fell to the floor. She listened to see if she’d woken Warren.

  No sounds from the living room.

  Her chest vibrated again, and she hurried into the bathroom at the end of the hall. With the door closed, she couldn’t see anything at all. Their only flashlight was on the mantle in the living room. They’d brought a box of candles and matches into each room when the lights went out, but before she could fumble around for them, another long cough rumbled its way out of her chest and throat. Thick, warm liquid flowed past her teeth, over her lips, and down her chin, and she felt her way to the toilet. The next cough brought another stream of liquid, but this time she managed to spew most of it into the commode. When her coughing finally let up, she reached blindly for the toilet paper, found it, and used a handful to wipe the gunk from her face.

  What the hell was that?

  It had felt almost like throwing up. She knew she should light a candle and see what exactly had happened, but she was afraid. What if the candlelight revealed a toilet bowl full of blood and hacked-up innards?

  It’s probably just barf. You can’t
cough that hard and not vomit a little bit, too.

  Maybe. But what had caused her to cough like that in the first place?

  She stood up and ran her hands over the vanity. She thought she remembered putting the candles beside their toothbrushes, but when she felt around the area, she found nothing but the toothpaste.

  Warren was in here, remember? Looking for tweezers. Who knows where he put the damn things.

  She slid her hands around the sink and found the box of tapers pushed into a corner of the countertop. She grabbed a candles, found the smaller box of matches, and lit one. Even before she touched the flame to the candle’s wick, she saw the streaks of red on the floor and down the sides of the toilet. She gasped and almost dropped the candle. It looked like someone had died in here. Swirls of thick, dark blood floated in the toilet bowl, and a mess of red footprints and knee prints surrounded the toilet.

  She turned to the mirror, and a bloodied, zombified version of herself looked back at her. The red stains running down her face and chest made the rest of her body look pale, ghostly, lifeless. Her drooping boobs swayed as she sucked in one long breath after another. The sight of all this blood made her want to puke, but she didn’t dare if she could help it. She was afraid she’d hack out another pool of blood.

  You swallowed some glass. Or breathed it in. That’s the only explanation.

  Okay, fine, but what was she supposed to do about it?

  Wake up Warren. Tell him.

  But what could he do about it? The truck wasn’t going anywhere; he’d said so himself. And they had no way to call for help. Not that help would have had a chance of making it up here anyway. And it wasn’t like he was a doctor or anything, not like he could cut her open and do some exploratory surgery.

  You’re bleeding. Badly. You have to wake him up and tell him. Right now. Don’t be an idiot. Maybe he can’t do anything, but two minds think better than one.

  She felt that tickle in her throat again and leaned over the sink, ready to puke out another helping of gore, but the tickle never worsened, and after a few seconds, it went away altogether.

  A drop of wax dripped off the taper and onto Tess’s hand. She hissed and dropped the candle into the sink. It sputtered but didn’t go out immediately. Before it did, Tess turned away from her reflection and walked to the living room, holding her hand between her breasts again, trying to be careful, not wanting to dislodge any bits of glass that might be floating around her lungs or throat.

  Warren lay spread-eagle on the mattress, his head buried between their two pillows and one of his feet sticking out of the covers. Tess hurried to him, grabbed his shoulder, and shook him.

  He grumbled, turned away from her, and curled into a ball on his side of the bed. She rolled her eyes and shook him again.

  “Warren.” She whispered it but realized there was no reason to be quiet and said his name again, louder this time. Between the chairs, Bub lifted his head from the doggy bed and looked over at her, but Warren still didn’t open his eyes.

  “Warren!”

  He turned, blinked his eyes, and rubbed his face. “Huh? What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. I’m bleeding.”

  He pushed himself up on his elbow. “What? Your cuts?”

  She shook her head. She’d done her best to wipe the blood off herself, but she hadn’t gotten it all. At first, she didn’t know how he’d missed it, but then she realized she was kneeling between him and the fire, which meant she was backlit, and he’d just woken up. She was probably nothing more than a blur to him right then.

  “No, not my cuts. Or at least not just my cuts. I coughed up some blood.”

  Now he sat up all the way. She saw the fire reflected in his eyes. The blanket dropped around his waist and revealed his lean, not-quite-bony torso.

  She said, “Not just some blood—a lot of blood.”

  He opened his mouth but didn’t say anything for a long time.

  “Are you okay now?” he finally asked.

  She started to say something, maybe I don’t know or I’m not sure or some other worthless non-answer, but before she got out a word, that tickle came again. The cough came quickly this time; before she could turn her head, a streamer of blood came shooting out of her mouth and hit Warren right in the center of his chest. It splattered there, ran down his belly and splashed up against his chin. It rebounded off of him and onto the sheets, bedspread, and pillows. By the time she turned away, Warren looked like something out of a horror movie, like Carrie at the prom. She spat the last mouthful of blood on the floor between her legs, but Warren had gotten the bulk of it. The blood dripped down his belly and into his lap.

  Bub whined, got to his feet, and inched over to them. Tess reached out to comfort him, to tell him it was all right, but before he got within reach, he bowed his head and shied away from her. She realized her hand was covered in blood. Bub looked from her to Warren and whined again.

  Warren ran his hand across his chest and stared at his bloody fingers. “My god,” he said. “We…I have to get you some help.” He pulled her to him, either forgetting about the mess or ignoring it, and hugged her tight. “It’s going to be okay.”

  Tess wasn’t sure how it could possibly be okay—she’d already lost a disturbing, surely dangerous amount of blood—but in his arms, with him whispering reassurances in her ear, she couldn’t help but believe his lies.

  11

  WARREN’S FIRST THOUGHT was that he needed to clean himself off before he left. No time to take a shower, but he could at least towel off most of the blood. He pushed himself off the mattress, bundled up the sheets and the comforter to keep the blood from soaking through, not thinking about it, just doing it because it seemed like the only thing to do. And then he walked naked through the living room and toward the bathroom at the end of the hall.

  Tess followed him. “What are you going to do?”

  He didn’t answer, not because he was purposefully ignoring her but because he wasn’t sure what to say, wasn’t sure what he was going to do.

  Bub followed them out of the living room but stopped only a few feet into the hallway, sat down, and whimpered.

  Warren decided to ignore him for now, stepped into the bathroom, and reached for the light switch, forgetting about the blackout, forgetting about everything except the blood geysering out of Tess’s mouth. He flipped the switch half a dozen times before he remembered and shook his head.

  This is no time to go senile. Tess needs you to think straight. Pay attention.

  He clenched his jaw and remembered the box of candles.

  “Don’t light a candle,” Tess said from behind him. “You don’t want to see this.”

  And, of course, he didn’t want to see it, but he needed to see it. He swept his hand across the counter until he found the box of tapers and matches. He lit one, and when he saw the

  (slaughterhouse, bloodbath, crime scene)

  mess that had once been their ordinary bathroom, he almost choked on a sob. Bloody streaks ran down the sides of the toilet. A wad of toilet paper floated in the toilet, watered down and pink instead of red but still undeniably horrific. Smears of blood covered the area around the toilet and the floor between there and the doorway. He guessed there were probably some in the hallway, too, although he hadn’t noticed them. There were a few splashes of blood all the way back to the hamper and even the shower curtain beyond.

  “Jesus, Tess. This is…” He was thinking, This is very, very bad, but he couldn’t say that. For her sake. For his own. So he said, “This is going to be okay.” He turned to her, grabbed her shoulder with his free hand. “Okay?”

  She nodded. By the glow of the candle light, she looked worse than before. The darkish bags beneath her eyes had become bottomless chasms; the streaks of blood on her face and body looked darker, thicker, more fatal.

  Don’t think like that.

  Except how the hell else was he supposed to think? His wife was coughing out blood; she’d lost what seemed lik
e a bucketful. In the bathroom. In the living room. All over him and herself.

  She stood there in the flickering light, looking into his face, looking a little faint and a lot worried.

  “Come on,” Warren said. He’d decided cleaning off the blood had been a stupid thing to worry about. “Let’s go get your clothes on. You must be freezing.”

  As if him saying it had made it true, she began to shiver. She wrapped her arms around her quivering breasts and shut her mouth when her teeth chattered.

  Warren lowered the candle and ushered Tess back down the hall. Bub got up before they reached him and led them into the living room, limping. He looked back at them once and wagged his tail a single time, to the side and back to center, as if asking if everything was okay.

  “It’s okay,” Warren said and thought he’d been saying that a lot lately. He guessed that’s what you did when bad things happened: assure your loved ones everything would be okay until either it were or it weren’t. “It’s going to be fine.”

  He brought Tess to the bare mattress and grabbed her clothes from the floor. They had a few splatters of blood on them, and he guessed they’d have to throw them away when this was all over, but they were fine for wearing, for keeping warm.

  “Here,” he said and handed her her undergarments. “Turn around; I’ll help you.”

  She shook her head. “I can do it.” She stepped into her panties and slipped her bra straps over her shoulders.

  “So what are you going to do?” She reached around to hook her bra. She struggled for a minute, sighed and ripped the bra off.

  Warren reached down to pick it off the floor and help her back into it, but she told him to leave it be and give her her shirt.

  “I can go braless. I don’t feel like something squeezing me around the chest. Makes me feel coughy.”

  He handed her the shirt and waited until she’d pulled it over her head.

  “I think there’s only one thing I can do,” he said. “I’ve got to go for help.”