It would stain him, too, if he did it. But that was all right. If someone had to be dirty, let it be him. He would become –
(“They’re coming. They’re becoming.”)
– what he had to become if it meant Trish’s survival. But he couldn’t ask her to bear that burden.
“You’re not asking me to do it,” she said. “You can’t do it, and it has to be done.”
He hadn’t said what bothered him, but she knew what it was just the same. She always did, didn’t she?
She’s so close. So much of the best of me.
And she has to be the one to do this.
He looked at the girl one more time. He nodded at Trish.
She kissed his cheek, then slid toward the open trapdoor. “Careful,” he said.
“It’s tricky. Even if you’ve done it before.” Isn’t that what Sheriff Azakh said, before a deranged lunatic put an axe into her brain?
He wanted to stop Trish. What if that happened to her?
He dropped the axe. He can’t use it.
But he knew that wasn’t the entire list of disasters that could happen. It wasn’t even a big part of it.
Below them, the killer moaned. He still sounded out of it, but the moan was louder. He was waking up.
“Wait, Trish,” Alex began, but she ignored him and disappeared through the trapdoor.
Moving as quickly as he could through his pain, Alex crawled to the edge of the trapdoor. The pain was still there, but buried in fear for what was about to happen. Not just fear for the act itself, but fear of what it would do to Trish.
She stood on the rungs just above the killer by the time Alex got to the trapdoor. The guy was about ten feet down, and Alex wondered why Trish had stopped descending. Had she changed her mind?
Then Trish shifted her weight and swung out into empty space. She wasn’t changing her mind; she just couldn’t do anything without going onto the other side of the ladder.
Alex’s heart leaped so high it felt like it bounced off the roof of his skull, then plummeted into his toes. He almost cried out, but gagged the noise down, worried that any sound might surprise Trish, might make her lose her grip and fall.
Behind him, the girl whispered, “I lost my toy. I want my toy.” She sounded a decade or more younger than the teenager she must be.
Alex didn’t look back to check on her. He couldn’t. Not with Trish now descending so that she was even with the moaning form of the killer. She climbed down to the closest rung where one of his legs had wrapped itself. She threaded one arm around the side of the ladder, through the gap just above the killer’s leg. She grabbed his foot with her free hand and pushed.
Nothing happened. She pushed again, grunting a bit. The killer moaned as though in response, and Alex saw his wife shy back. She was going to fall, he knew it. She’d fall and then what would be the point of… anything?
She didn’t fall. She switched her grip slightly, then moved her attention to the killer’s other leg and foot, twisted around the ladder rung and the side of the ladder.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
Trish looked up at him. “I can’t get him loose,” she said. “He’s wedged in too tight.”
The killer moaned. “Kill… stop it…”
“Get back up here,” said Alex.
“I can try again.”
“Just get up here!” he shouted.
The killer started twitching. “Has to end… has… to…”
Trish started climbing, moving fast. But she stopped when the killer moaned out another set of words. “Have to kill… have to… end… Mandy.” Trish looked up, then started climbing again. He saw her lips move, and the mist drew her words to Alex’s ears: “We’ll save you, Mandy. I promise.”
Alex hoped she wasn’t lying.
34
(When Tricia Had Grown)
Tricia felt like she was in two places at once. Then three, then four, then a dozen. First she was here, now, hanging above a killer on a ladder so high she couldn’t see the ground. The next place she was: in the forest, looking for Sam. Then she was in a car, turning over and over, her husband’s and child’s screams following her into darkness. She was at home, with her father – always so angry, so despairing, and at the same time so empty. She was at Tina Louise’s Diner, she was…
… everywhere.
Then the strange sense of everywhere, everything dissipated and she existed only in a place where a madman wanted to kill her, to kill her husband, to kill –
“It’s… Mandy,” muttered the killer, or at least, she thought he said that. He sounded oddly peaceful, more like someone caught in the throes of a vivid dream than an unconscious murderer wedged into place against a ladder, and the words came out more like, “Ssssmand…”
“Trish, come on!” shouted Alex.
She held to his voice. Climbed toward it, like it was a lifeline every bit as sturdy and substantial as the ladder under her feet and in her hands.
He reached for her. She took his hand automatically, not even thinking about what she was doing or how it must hurt his wounds to stabilize her. Alex didn’t make a sound, though he gritted his teeth and his eyes glimmered with barely contained pain.
“Sorry,” she said.
“It’s… it’s okay,” he managed. He looked through the trapdoor. The killer was silent, motionless again.
“He dead?” Tricia asked, surprised and sad to realize how much she hoped the answer was yes.
“Your guess is better than mine,” said Alex.
The killer moaned again.
“So much for that,” said Tricia. She turned to Alex. “What now?”
Alex looked almost surprised. “I didn’t think much, really. Just wanted you away…”
Even as he said it, she could see him casting around for something to use against the man who wanted them all dead.
Because he lost a toy, too. He lost his own Dopey Monkey.
The thought was insane – though given everything that had happened since they came to this place, it was pretty low on the crazy-o-meter.
Alex stood and went to the table that held the radio. He tried to move it, hooking his good hand under it and then pulling. It didn’t budge.
“Heavy?” she asked.
“No,” he breathed. He looked under it. “Bolted to the floor. And the radio looks like it’s bolted to the table.”
Even in the terror of the moment, the ridiculousness of that penetrated. “We’re in the only earthquake-proof lookout tower in the world.” She giggled, then clapped her hands over her mouth, afraid of letting the sound continue. If she kept laughing, she might not be able to stop.
Alex grabbed one of the room’s two chairs, grimacing as he dragged it over to the trapdoor. Tricia realized what he was doing. She grabbed the chair out of his hand, then the other one as well, and pitched them both through the hole in the floor.
The angle was bad. One of the chairs missed the killer below them completely. The other glanced off his foot, but obviously didn’t do any damage. Alex went to the generator.
“Let me,” said Tricia. He nodded and she shoved it over the side of the trapdoor.
It did less than the chairs. The weight of it slammed it down too fast, and it arced into the first rung, slamming into it hard enough to ricochet outward and miss the killer by a good five or six feet before it was swallowed by the fog.
No flashes. Nothing coming.
Small comfort, that. And she knew, somehow, that the reprieve wouldn’t last long.
Alex was nodding as though he had expected no more. “Should we bother with the cork board?” he asked, gesturing at the bulletin board that leaned against a wall.
Tricia shook her head. “No. I think we have to get out of here.”
Alex looked at her, then at the girl who hugged herself into a knot on the floor. “What about her?”
“We take her.”
“I know that. But… how? Will she go with us?”
Tric
ia didn’t know. She went to the girl and knelt before her. “Sweetie?” she said. The girl didn’t respond. “We have to go,” said Tricia, then added, “Mandy.”
She expected the girl to moan or cry or just stay hidden away in her mind. Instead, the teen nodded absently. She didn’t look like she had heard – her expression didn’t change a bit from the vacant, shell-shocked stare – but she stood and moved to the trapdoor. Waited.
“I’ll go first,” said Alex.
“No way,” said Tricia. “You’re hurt –”
“And that’s why I go first. Because I’m hurt. I might have trouble holding on.”
Tricia didn’t want to think of that, or of the implication that if he fell as the first one, at least he wouldn’t bring Tricia or the girl down with him.
He looked at Mandy. “I’ll go first, then you, honey, okay?”
She nodded again, though her eyes were still glassy, unfocused.
Alex looked at Tricia, and she saw the concern in his eyes. “We’ll be fine,” she said. Then, turning her gaze to Mandy, she added, “Won’t we?”
The girl didn’t answer.
Alex levered himself out so his legs hung down. For a moment he started to slide, and Tricia leaped toward him.
“No, it’s okay.” He stopped sliding and grinned a sickly smile. “Just had to find the ladder.”
His shoulder, where she could see it through the tattered remnants of his shirt, was still weeping blood. There were some dark patches that had started to clot, but most of the cut was a wide-open slit that looked like a wet maw, opening and closing as it blindly sought its next meal. The hand on that side was useless, and she had no idea how he could get down the ladder.
He’ll do it. It’s Alex. He does what he has to do. He’ll be okay.
Alex gave her one last attempt at a smile, then lowered himself below the level of the trapdoor. Tricia leaned over, watching him for a few rungs. He seemed to be doing okay, but he had to work one-handed, which meant that he would step down, step down… then let go with his one hand and then quickly slap it down against the next rung. A three-point anchor, which became two points and a weightless fall every few seconds before the third point held fast again.
Tricia’s stomach roiled. She didn’t want to look away – something whispered that the minute she looked away, Alex would fall; that he had only been held aloft this long because she held him fast in her gaze. But she also couldn’t bear to see him falling a few inches at a time. Controlled falling, yes… but for how long? How long until sweat or blood slicked his palm and he slipped and fell and left her alone in this place –
STOP IT. Get moving. Don’t waste what he’s doing.
Tricia shut her eyes for a second, gathering her strength. When she opened them, the teen was staring at her.
For some reason it spooked Tricia. “Mandy?” she said.
The teen didn’t answer. Her gaze went to whatever safe place it had sought throughout the night. Moving like an automaton, she sat and then began sliding toward the hole. Tricia held onto her arm, trying to provide support for the girl as she swung out into nothing before catching hold of the first ladder rung with her feet. The girl’s muscles clenched at Tricia’s touch, but she didn’t shout or scream at her to let go or get away, so Tricia maintained her grip until the girl had lowered herself far enough that Tricia couldn’t reach her.
Tricia’s turn.
She rolled onto her belly, scooting backward, feeling her legs drop slowly into empty space, trying not to think of Alex falling, of Mandy falling, of her falling.
Or of the killer.
He has to be past him, right? Alex has to be past him.
Then she remembered, with a sickening sinking feeling, that she had had to climb around the side of the ladder to get to a place where she was even with the killer. It had almost made her vomit, hanging out into nothing – for a moment, the height seemed every bit as terrifying as the man she was trying to dislodge.
How would Alex do that? How would he get past the killer? How would Mandy get past this man who wanted so badly to kill her?
One foot found the ladder. She shimmied backward a bit more. Her feet dropped to the next rung. She pushed herself back still more, hanging just that much farther into mist and empty space. Her feet were both on the rung now, and they stepped down the foot gap to the next one. Now she was far enough that she had to reach down and grab the topmost rung with her hand. The other hand joined it and she looked down.
Surprisingly, both Alex and the girl had already passed the killer. He was moaning and twitching, but both of them had swung around the ladder, passed the madman, and continued climbing down while Tricia eased herself out of the tower.
Alex was far enough down that she could barely see him in the fog.
She abruptly remembered something. There was no sense of the understanding or comprehension that usually accompanies actual memory, though. Tricia saw only a quick flash: Sam, running beside her and Alex, three teens running in terror.
Then she saw only Alex with her. Sam was gone.
And if I don’t see Alex now, the forest will separate us. If my husband drops out of sight, I’ll never see him again. Just like we lost Sam.
She hurried. She wanted to yell at Alex to slow down, but the madman who still hung between them was making more noises. His limbs were twitching, movements like someone coming out of a deep dream on a hot summer day. “End,” he moaned. “Just be… over…”
She drew even with the killer’s foot. It was still trapped in the rungs, trapping him upside down.
Hope it hurts. I hope you broke your legs all to pieces.
At any other time, in any other place, she would have had no doubt that his legs were indeed broken; shattered. But not here. The forest didn’t grant that kind of favor.
Lower. Looking at his shirt, bloodstained and torn.
Lower. Staring at the back of his head. He was facing away, and she was thankful for that, though it meant she was looking at hair that had matted with blood from the head wound that marked where he had hit his head on the ladder.
But whether she could see his face or not, Tricia’s mind kept casting up images: the killer’s eyes snapping open, looking around, sensing the prey nearby.
She kept going.
She was past him. Still close though.
Another rung. A bit farther.
Something tugged at her hair.
She dropped automatically, allowing herself to fall, knowing even before she looked up what she would see. She dropped a few feet, then jerked to a halt as she grabbed a rung with both hands, both feet finding purchase as well. She looked up.
He was staring at her. Reaching for her. She saw a few of her hairs clutched between the clenched fingers of his hand.
“I have to end it,” he whispered.
“No you don’t.”
He started crying. Tears ran down his face – which in this case meant they carved bright streams toward his hairline. For a moment, it seemed like gravity was playing games. The forest’s tricks weren’t confined just to time and space and everything in between: the very gravity of the universe could upend itself in here.
“I do,” he whispered. “You understand. You have to.”
Something about the way he said that, so quietly and yet fervently, chilled Tricia to the bone. She felt like she would see her fingernails turning blue if she looked; that if she blinked, tiny icicles would shear away from her eyelashes.
Tricia lowered her head. She could still see the girl below her, but Alex was little more than a hint in the fog.
Tricia started climbing down, afraid again that losing sight of Alex would allow the fog to steal him away.
Just like Sammy.
Just like Sam.
Above her, she heard grunts and groans. Something bounced off her shoulder and she yelped and almost lost her grip. She looked down and saw a shoe, falling into the always-hungry mist. She looked up.
The killer had one leg
free. It was streaked with blood, but it was free.
She looked down. “Hurry!” she shouted.
No answer came. She couldn’t see Alex. She could barely see the girl.
I’ve lost him. I’ll lose her.
Tricia hurried down. Faster and faster – so fast it was dangerous, definitely fast enough that she should have caught up with a semi-catatonic teenager or a one-handed man, wounded and bleeding.
But she didn’t. The forest played its tricks, and the world distorted to its twisted design. Now she couldn’t see anything below her but mist. She looked up and saw nothing but the fog there, either. She was suspended in a nowhere-land. Purgatory.
She shook her head. Keep moving.
She climbed down. Down. Down. The descent took longer than forever. She remembered something she heard kids say back in grade school: I hate you infinity. Followed invariably by the object of their ire responding, I hate you infinity plus one!
The kids said that in third and fourth grade. She knew it was stupid – not because they were wrong, but because they were right without knowing it. An infinite line, for example, if viewed as the total set of all its infinite points, well that number would be larger than the number of integers that belonged on that line. There really was an “infinity plus one,” but these kids weren’t invoking it that way. They just wanted to one-up each other.
She and Alex had made fun of it, sitting alone around the side of the building during lunch, comparing the contents of their brown paper bags even though they both brought the same thing as each other each day – a PB&J and a few veggies packed in Saran wrap. “They don’t even know about cardinality,” said Alex, and laughed. “Dummies.”
“I know!” She laughed, too. “Trade you carrots for celery?”
She thought she knew the truth of “infinity plus one.” But she didn’t. Not then, not later in college, not at work, with access to the most advanced knowledge that science could supply. No, it wasn’t until now, hanging in the middle of a mist that went forever up, forever down. The ladder never ended, did it? It was infinite, and the number of steps she would have to take to reach the bottom was infinity plus one.
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