by Stephen King
But a prison was uniquely suitable for backwoods reclamation. And no one had been particularly concerned about the possible environmental dangers that its residents might face. That was how Lion Head Mountain had become the setting for Lion Head Maximum Security Prison.
The prison gate, Celia said, had been open, and the front doors, too. She, Millie, Nell Seeger, and the others had gone in. Most of the exploration party from Our Place consisted of recently released prison inmates and personnel, and they were curious about how the other half had lived. All things being equal, it was pretty comfortable. As much as it reeked from being shut up, and although there were some fissures in the floors and walls, it was dry; and the gear in every cell looked new. “Some déjà vu,” conceded Celia, “but kind of funny, too, you know.”
Their last night had been calm. In the morning, Celia had trekked down the mountain a ways, searching for a trail that might cut off some of the hike and save them having to go all the way down the longer, circuitous route to Eagle. To Celia’s surprise, she’d received a call on her toy walkie-talkie.
“Celia! We think we see someone!” It was Nell.
“What?” Celia had replied. “Say again?”
“We’re inside! Inside the prison! The windows at the end of their version of Broadway are all fogged, but there’s a woman in one of the solitary confinement cells! She’s lying under a yellow blanket! It looks like she’s moving! Millie’s trying to find a way to get the door to release without the power so—” That’s where the transmission ended.
A vast rumble in the earth startled Celia. She held out her hands, trying to balance. The toy walkie flew out of her hand and shattered on the ground.
Returning to the top of the road, lungs burning and legs shaking, Celia went through the prison gate. Powder sifted through the air like snow; she had to cover her mouth to keep from choking. What she saw was hard to process, and even harder to accept. The terrain was shattered, heaved up in clefts as if in the aftermath of an earthquake. Displaced dirt hung in the air. Celia stumbled to her knees several times, eyes slitted almost shut, reaching for anything solid. Gradually, the rectangular shape of the Lion Head intake unit, two stories high, emerged, and then nothing else. There was no more land behind the intake unit, and no more prison. The plateau had crumbled and given way. The new max security facility had gone down the back of the mountain like a great stone child down a slide. Intake was now no more than a film prop, all front and no back.
Celia didn’t dare go all the way to the edge to look down, but she glimpsed a few pieces of wreckage far below: massive cement blocks jumbled at the foot, amid a swamp of dust particles.
“So I came back by myself,” said Celia, “as fast as I could.”
She inhaled and scratched a clean place in the mud on her cheek. The listeners, a dozen women who had hurried to their meeting place at the Shopwell when word spread that she was back, were silent. The others weren’t going to return.
“I recall reading that there was some controversy about the fill under that overgrown jailhouse,” said Janice. “Something about how the ground was too soft for the weight. People saying the coal company cut corners when they were packing it down. State engineers were looking into it . . .”
Celia let her breath go, a long sigh, and continued absently. “Nell and I always kept it casual. I didn’t expect it to last outside of prison.” She sniffed—just once. “So I probably shouldn’t feel so blue, but there it is: I feel blue as hell.”
There was silence. Then Lila said, “I need to go there.”
Tiffany Jones said, “Want company?”
7
What they were doing was foolish, Coates said.
“Fucking foolish, Lila. To go off and play around in an avalanche.” She had walked with Lila and Tiffany Jones as far as Ball’s Hill Road. The two expeditionaries were leading a pair of horses.
“We’re not going to play around in an avalanche,” Lila said. “We’re going to play around in the wreckage from an avalanche.”
“And see if someone is still alive in there,” Tiffany added.
“Are you kidding?” Janice’s nose was beet-red in the cold. She appeared ever more oracular, her white hair floating out behind her, the color in her rawboned cheeks as bright as road flares. All that was missing was the gnarled staff and a bird of prey to perch on her shoulder. “They went down the side of a mountain, and the prison landed on top of them. They’re dead. And if they saw a woman in there, she’s dead, too.”
“I know that,” said Lila. “But if they did see a woman in Lion Head, it means there are other women outside of Dooling. Knowing we’re not alone in this world, Janice . . . that would be huge.”
“Don’t die,” the warden called after them as they rode up Ball’s Hill. Lila said, “That’s the plan,” and beside her, Tiffany Jones chimed in, more conclusively, “We won’t.”
8
Tiffany had ridden all through her girlhood. Her family had run an apple orchard with a playground, goats to feed, a hotdog stand, and a pony ride. “I used to ride all the time, but . . . there was some other stuff with the family—downsides, you could say. It wasn’t all ponies. I started to run into some trouble and got out of the habit.”
This trouble was no mystery to Lila, who had personally arrested Tiff more than once. That Tiffany Jones bore startlingly little resemblance to this one. The woman who rode astride the massive roan beside Lila’s smaller white mare was a full-faced, auburn-haired woman in a white cowboy hat that would have suited any John Ford rancher. She had a self-possession about her that was utterly unlike the wretched drug addict Truman Mayweather had regularly tuned up on in the trailer next to his meth lab so long ago, and so far away.
And she was pregnant. Lila had heard Tiffany mention it at a Meeting. That, Lila thought, was where at least part of her glow came from.
It was dusk. They would have to stop soon. Maylock was visible, a spread of dim dark buildings in a valley a couple of miles distant. The exploring party had been there, and found no one, male or female. It seemed that only Dooling held human life. Unless there really had been a woman in the men’s prison, that was.
“You seem like you’re doing pretty well,” said Lila carefully. “Now.”
Tiffany’s laugh was amiable. “The afterlife clears your mind. I don’t want dope, if that’s what you mean.”
“Is that what you think this is? The afterlife?”
“Not really,” said Tiffany, and didn’t pick the subject up again until they were lying in their sleeping bags in the shell of a gas station that had been abandoned in the other world, too.
Tiffany said, “I mean, the afterlife, it’s supposed to be heaven or hell, right?” They could see the horses through the plate glass, tied up to the old pumps. The moonlight gave their coats a sheen.
“I’m not religious,” Lila said.
“Me neither,” Tiffany said. “Anyway, there’s no angels and no devils, so go figure. But isn’t this some kinda miracle?”
Lila thought of Jessica and Roger Elway. Their baby, Platinum, was growing fast, crawling all over the place. (Elaine Nutting’s daughter, Nana, had fallen in love with Plat—an ugly nickname, but everyone used it; the kid would probably hate them for it later—and rolled her everywhere in a rusty baby carriage.) Lila thought of Essie and Candy. She thought of her husband and her son and her whole life that was no longer her life.
“Some kind,” Lila said. “I guess.”
“I’m sorry. Miracle’s the wrong word. I’m just saying we’re doin all right, right? So it’s not hell, right? I’m clean. I feel good. I got these wonderful horses, which I never in my wildest dreams imagined could happen. Someone like me, takin care of animals like these? Never.” Tiffany frowned. “I’m making this all about me, aren’t I? I know you’ve lost a lot. I know most everybody here has lost a lot, and I’m just someone who didn’t have nothing to lose.”
“I’m glad for you.” She was, too. Tiffany Jones had dese
rved something better.
9
They skirted Maylock and rode along the banks of the swollen Dorr’s Hollow Stream. In the woods, a pack of dogs gathered on a hummock to observe them as they passed. There were six or seven of them, shepherds and Labs, tongues out, breath steaming. Lila took out her pistol. Beneath her, the white mare rolled its head and shifted its gait.
“No, no,” Tiffany said. She reached a hand across and brushed the mare’s ear. Her voice was soft but steady, not cooing. “Lila’s not gonna shoot that gun.”
“She’s not?” Lila had an eye on the dog in the middle. The animal’s fur was a bristly gray and black. It had mismatched eyes, blue and yellow, and its mouth seemed especially large. She wasn’t a person who typically let her imagination run away from her, but she thought the dog looked rabid.
“She certainly isn’t. They want to chase us. But we’re just doing our thing. We don’t want to play chase. We’re just getting along.” Tiffany’s voice was airy and certain. Lila thought that if Tiffany didn’t know what she was doing, she believed she knew what she was doing. They paced along through the underbrush. The dogs didn’t follow.
“You were right,” Lila said later. “Thanks.”
Tiffany said she was welcome. “But it wasn’t for you. No offense, but I’m not lettin you put a fright in my horses, Sheriff.”
10
They crossed the river and bypassed the high road the others had taken up the mountain, continuing instead on the lower ground. The horses descended into a dell that formed the gap between what was left of Lion Head on the left and another cliff face on the right, which rose up at a sharp, splintery slant. There was a pervasive metallic stench that tickled the backs of their throats. Crumbles of loose earth shook down, the embedded stones echoing far too loudly in the bowl created by the rises on either side.
They tied up the horses a couple of hundred yards from the prison ruins and approached on foot.
“A woman from somewhere else,” Tiffany said. “Wouldn’t that be something?”
“Yes,” Lila agreed. “Finding some of our own still alive would be even better.”
Fragments of masonry, some as tall and wide as moving vans, were embedded higher up along the back of Lion Head, stabbed into the earth like enormous cenotaphs. As sturdy as they appeared, Lila could easily imagine them breaking loose under their own weight and tumbling down to join the pile at the bottom.
The body of the prison had hit bottom and folded inward on itself, forming a vaguely pyramid-like shape. In a way, it was impressive, how much of the building’s body had survived the slide down the mountain—and hideous, too, in its decipherability, like a dollhouse smashed by a bully. Spears of jagged steel jutted out from the cement, and massive root-knotted clods of earth had settled on other parts of the debris. At the edges of this unplanned new structure were tattered breaches in the cement that offered glimpses of the black interior. Everywhere there were smashed trees, twenty- and thirty-footers snapped into raw shards.
Lila put on a surgical mask that she’d brought. “Stay here, Tiffany.”
“I wanna come with you. I’m not afraid. Let me have one a them.” She stuck out her hand for a surgical mask.
“I know you’re not afraid. I just want someone able to go back if this place falls in on my head, and you’re the horse girl. I’m just a middle-aged ex-cop. Also, we both know you’re living for two.”
At the nearest opening, Lila paused to wave. Tiffany didn’t see it; she’d walked back to the horses.
11
Light filtered into the interior of the prison in sabers punched through the smashed concrete. Lila found herself walking atop a wall, stepping on the closed steel doors of cells. Everything was turned one-quarter. The ceiling was on her right. What would have been the left wall was now the ceiling, and the floor was on her left. She had to lower her head to slip under an open cell door that hung down like a trap. She heard ticking noises, dripping noises. Her boots crunched against stone and glass.
A clog composed of rock, shattered pipes, and chunks of insulation obstructed her forward progress. She flicked her flashlight around. A-Level was stenciled in red paint on the wall above her head. Lila backtracked to where the door hung. She jumped and grabbed the doorframe, hoisting herself up into the cell. A hole had broken open in the wall on the opposite side of the hanging door. Lila made her way—carefully—to the breach. She crouched and ducked her way through. Serrations of broken concrete snagged at the back of her shirt, and the fabric tore.
Clint’s voice came to her, inquiring if maybe—just maybe, and don’t take this as an accusation, please—there was a risk-reward ratio that needed to be reconsidered here?
Let’s unpack it, shall we, Lila? The risk is that you are climbing into an unsettled wreck at the bottom of an unsettled mountain. Also, there are goddam wild, deranged-looking dogs out there, and a pregnant drug addict waiting—or not waiting—with the horses. And you are—again, no criticism, merely setting down the facts, darling—forty-five. Everyone knows that the prime age for a woman to crawl around unsettled and volatile ruins is from her late teens to her late twenties. You’re out of the target group. It all adds up to a significant risk of death, horrible death, or unimaginably horrible death.
In the next cell, Lila had to climb over a battered steel toilet, then slip down through another hole in the floor that had been the right wall. Her ankle bent funny when it hit the bottom, and she grabbed for purchase. Something metal slashed her hand.
The wound on her palm was a deep red gash. It probably needed a stitch or two. She ought to turn back, get some ointment and a proper bandage from the first aid kit that they’d brought.
Instead, Lila ripped off a piece of her shirt and wrapped her hand. She used the flashlight to find another stencil on the wall: Secure Wing. This was good. That sounded like exactly the place where they’d seen the woman in the cell. What was bad was that the new hall was situated above her head, a shaft going upward. What was worse was the leg in one canted corner, raggedly severed two inches above the knee. It was clad in green corduroy. Nell Seeger had been wearing green cords when the expedition had left for Eagle.
“I’m not going to tell Tiff about this,” Lila said. Hearing herself speaking out loud both startled and comforted her. “It would do no good.”
Lila pointed her beam upward. The Lion Head’s secure wing had become a great wide chimney. She shone the light from side to side, looking for a way to go, and thought she might see one. The ceiling of the wing had been of the drop-panel type; the panels had all shaken loose in the slide, but the steel gridding remained in place. It resembled a trellis. Or a ladder.
As for the reward, Clint offered, you might find someone. Might. But be honest with yourself. You know that this wreck is empty, just like the rest of the world. There’s nothing to be found but the bodies of the women who went with Nell. Let that one severed leg stand for all of them. If there were other women in the world you’re calling Our Place, they would have made themselves known by now. They would at least have left some trace. What is it you think you have to prove? That women can be Marlboro Men, too?
It seemed that even in her imagination, he couldn’t just tell her he was afraid for her. He couldn’t stop treating her like one of his incarcerated patients, throwing leading questions like dodgeballs in a playground game.
“Go away, Clint,” she said, and for a wonder, he did.
Lila reached up and grabbed the lowest trellis of ceiling gridding. The crosspiece bowed, but didn’t break. Her hand sang and she felt blood leaking around the edges of her rag bandage—but she hung on and pulled herself up, and upright. She braced her boot on the crosspiece and pushed down. It bowed again—and held. Lila reached up, pulled, stepped. She began to ascend the ladder of gridding. Each time she came to the level of a cell door, Lila used her good left hand to hang on while she swung out in the air, shining the flashlight with her hurt right. There was no woman to be seen through th
e wired glass at the top of the first cell door, no woman in the second, no woman in the third; all she saw were bed frames sticking out from what had been the floors. Her hand pulsed. The blood was dripping down inside her sleeve. Nothing in the fourth cell and she had to stop and rest, but not for too long, and definitely no looking down into the darkness. Was there a trick to this kind of effort? Something that Jared had mentioned about cross-country, something to tell yourself? Oh, right, now she had it. “When my lungs start tightening up,” Jared had said, “I just pretend there are girls checking me out, and I can’t let them down.”
That wasn’t much use. She’d just have to keep going.
Lila climbed. The fifth cell contained just a cot, a sink, and a dangling toilet. Nothing more.
She had arrived at a T. Off to the left, across the channel, the length of another hall stretched away. Far off, at the end of the hall, the beam of Lila’s flashlight found what appeared to be a pile of laundry—a body or bodies, she thought, the remains of the other explorers. Was that Nell Seeger’s puffy red jacket? Lila wasn’t sure, but as cold as it was, she could smell the beginnings of decomp. They had been tossed around until they snapped and then probably tossed around some more. There was nothing to do but leave them there.