by Lee Child
The corpse spoke when Howard’s girlish scream finally faded. “Take it easy, Howard. Calm down. I’ve been waiting far too long to allow this to end so quickly for you.” His tone was level. “Just bring one leg up at a time, slowly and carefully. You’ll be fine.”
Howard did as Terry directed and eventually make it back onto the seat, quivering with exhaustion. He refused to grant the corpse so much as a look. When he regained his wind he brought his feet back onto the chair and finally made it to a standing position. Again, he attempted to climb the pole, but got only inches off the seat before sliding back down.
“Your boots, Howard. You will never make it with your boots.”
Howard reached down with palsied hands and unclamped the boots enough to slip his feet out. Snow crunched on the seat beneath his bare toes. Taking hold of the bar again he looked up and paused, paralyzed by the prospect of leaving the relative safety of the chair.
“What’s wrong, Howard? Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet,” Terry chuckled.
Howard ignored the cruel taunt. Using his feet for extra leverage now, he hoisted himself off the chair. His muscles spasmed from the strain. The bones of his spine creaked like the turn of a ratchet handle with every upward thrust.
When at last he reached the cable, he took hold and eventually summoned the courage to release his legs from the bar. Dangling freely now, he swung back and forth, trying to build enough momentum to swing his feet up on to the cable and relieve his hands of some of the burden.
The effort proved futile, and expended more energy than Howard could afford. He had no choice but to continue using only his hands.
Three minutes gained him little more than ten feet along the cable. His fingers quickly stiffened into inflexible claws around the bundled steel wires. His heart drummed behind his ribs. His lungs labored with every breath.
Four more minutes elapsed.
He thought that if he could just reach the next chair he could stop and rest, perhaps shake some feeling back into his hands. But beyond the faint green light of the glow stick, he saw only darkness.
His right hand slid forward another inch. Then his left. Right. Then . . .
His left hand slipped from the cable, leaving him hanging by the floundering grip of his right.
An instant before Howard fell, the corpse appeared before him again, taking hold of Howard’s jacket collar and jerking him upward with unfathomable strength. Howard reached out with grabbing hands until once again he had secured a firm grip on the cable.
The corpse hung only inches in front of Howard by a single rotting hand, showing no strain in his effort. His expression remained a sneering, cadaverous grin. No longer just a specter, the dead man had become something shockingly more tangible. The torn flesh of his scalp flapped in the wind. His stench was foul, nauseating.
The corpse reached inside his tattered suit coat. “Recognize this, Howard?”
Howard’s eyes fell to the nylon lanyard rolling out of Terry’s free hand. At each end of the six-foot cord was a copper rebar hook. It was identical to the safety strap worn by Terry on the day of his fatal fall. One end of it had been hooked onto itself, forming a loop. Howard’s eyes came back up.
“Now it’s my turn.” The corpse slipped the loop over Howard’s right foot, then pulled it up his leg to the top of the thigh.
“Terry, what the hell are you doing?”
The corpse answered with a hard upward tug, tightening the loop like a noose.
Howard cried out in pain. “Dammit, Terry, what are you doing to me?”
Terry proceeded to attach the remaining hook to the cable above, snapping it closed with a click. “It is time for your confession, Howard.”
“I told you I have nothing to conf—”
A fist of stripped bone struck Howard across the jaw. “Say it, Howard!”
Howard shook his head furiously, the coppery taste of blood filling his mouth. “I told you, I did nothing! The hook was faulty. The locking mechanism just snapped . . .”
Another punch struck Howard’s opposite cheek.
“These things don’t just snap, Howard! Or . . . do they?” The corpse yanked downward on the lanyard.
“No!” Howard screamed. “Don’t, please! Terry, what ever you think happened that day—”
“You gave me the harness, Howard. Fifteen years together, never once had you provided me my safety harness on a building site.”
“It wasn’t my fault!”
“Liar! You looked me in the eyes as I fell, and I saw it on your face. You took plea sure in my fall, didn’t you? Say it!”
“Terry, I didn’t—”
“Say it!” The corpse yanked again on the lanyard, harder this time. “Say it!”
It was guilt as much as terror that finally broke Howard. “Yes! I killed you! Is that what you wanted to hear?” Hot tears welled in his eyes.
“Is it the truth?”
“I swear on my life it’s the truth!” He lost another precious inch of his grip on the cable. He now clutched it with only the tips of his numb fingers. “I’ve confessed, Terry, now please! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!”
“Sorry isn’t good enough, Howard! Not for me, nor for my wife and son who have cried on your shoulder all these many months as I was forced to look on.”
Howard looked into Terry’s eyes, his mind racing. “Your son . . . yes . . . Kyle! Terry, I saved Kyle from—”
The corpse drove a fist into Howard’s stomach. “Don’t you ever mention my son’s name, Howard!”
Howard’s breath shot out of him. He fought to draw air back into his constricted lunges. “But it’s the truth!” he sputtered. “Four years ago. The third story collapse on the Donovan project. It was your birthday, Terry, I know you remember! Kyle was to surprise you at the site, but I called him that morning and told him not to come! I knew that the structure wasn’t completely sound and I told him not to come. We were all nearly killed, Terry; I know you haven’t forgotten it! Kyle and I agreed never to mention it to you. But it’s true, Terry, you have to believe me!” Tears streaked Howard’s face as he searched for mercy in the corpse’s lifeless eyes. “You have to believe me!”
“After hearing the lies you’ve told my friends and colleagues all these months? The lies you’ve told my wife and children? Why should I believe you?”
“Because it’s the truth! Oh God, Terry, you have to believe me!”
Silence fell between them, each man holding the other’s bitter glare.
It was the corpse who finally looked away. “You’ll find out soon enough whether or not I believe you, Howard. It’s time for us to part now.”
“No! You can’t leave me!”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“But I can’t hold on any longer!”
“That’s the idea.”
Howard’s eyes moved to the hook above his head. “Is it secure, Terry? I have to know if the lanyard will hold when I let go!”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
“What! What does that mean?”
“It means your moment of judgment has finally come, Howard.”
“Wait! Please wait!”
Gazing into Howard’s frantic eyes, Terry offered a slow nod. “I will wait, Howard . . . for as long as it takes. All I have left now is to look into your eyes and wait . . .”
*
As an actor, RYAN BROWN has held contract roles on The Young and the Restless and Guiding Light. He has also appeared on Law & Order: SVU, and starred in two feature films for Lifetime Television. His first novel, Play Dead, a comic supernatural thriller, will be published in May 2010, and his short story “Jeepers Peepers” will soon appear in ITW’s Young Adult Anthology.
SEAN MICHAEL BAILEY
Invisible ain’t easy, man. Takes years of practice, years of trying, failing, and all the pain comes with being caught.
Took me six years of hiding from Momma, hearing her call me so sweet, that boiling water sloshing ou
t the pot onto the floor while she looked for me all over the house. Her carrying the hot pot, or those things she stuck in me. Learned a lot in them two thousand days. First, I just hid. Ha. Can’t hide from Momma. Can’t run, can’t hide.
Only thing that works is invisible.
Daddy did it. Went out for that peppy pizza, left it on the front porch, and just vanished. She never did find him. But that wasn’t invisible. That was cheating. He just ran away. He had a car.
Nobody taught me. Learned invisible by myself. I would sneak off to a closet or slide under the bed, trying to hide, pretending I wasn’t there, all the time secretly praying Momma would put down the pot, drop the fireplace shovel, and just hug me.
That don’t work. I was still me, hiding, scared of Momma. That ain’t invisible. She could see into my mind, find me every time. Burn me, hit me. Hurt me.
I found out I couldn’t wait ’til Momma started heating the water and singing her hymns. I had to work at it all the time, planning, concentrating, watching. Had to learn not to be me, to become a thing with no thoughts. A couch, laundry in the cellar, dust in the cedar closet. Dust don’t want to be found by nobody, laundry don’t want to be hugged. Still not invisible, but when I did that, it took Momma longer to find me, so it was, like progress, you know? Then I figured how to plan, make it seem like I couldn’t be in the house. Leave open the door, a window. Make her think I could not be where I was. Had to find the right spot at the right time, too. Made it harder for her, but that made her madder. Still wasn’t invisible.
Not ’til I stopped being dust and became Momma.
She would open up that sink cabinet, look right down at me in a ball, and not see me. I wasn’t there. I was her, not seeing me. Looking at only a can of Ajax and a bucket and some moldy junk. No boy.
That did it.
Invisible.
Later, I was so happy I done it. If I did my work right, thought it all out, made the house feel like I was gone, found the right spot to go and be Momma, singing about God, boiling water, looking for that dirty, sinful boy, she never found me. Later, when Momma was gone, I had to learn how to be invisible to other people in other places. It was hard, but that was my new job and I was, like the doctors say, motivated.
Now, I got it down to about three months, give or take.
First, I told the doctors about it, but their eyes got all scared. They wrote it down but didn’t believe me. Thought I was crazy as Momma. I showed them good. I watched, planned every day, watching from the prison yard at the homes beyond the concertina wire fences. People coming and going from the homes outside. Men, women, kids. Cars, trucks. Dogs, cats. Worked out, waited ’til it was cold. Daylight Saving Time Monday night. Wore lots of clothes, layers, long sleeves. Taped myself all over, under my sweats, under my orange jumpsuit, like a mummy, so there would be no blood, no good scent for the dogs to follow. Guards stayed inside for the first time ’cause it was cold, dark, cloudy. I did my runs to and from the fence, until my smoker went off behind the fire extinguisher. By the time they looked back in the yard, I was gone, flying up the fence, the blades ripping my layers, then up the second fence, like in the Olympics, over and out.
They found my clothes next to the big road, everything but the pizza. Right next to the big sign warning not to pick up hitchhikers because it was a correctional institution. Looked like I stripped, got into a car, and I was gone. Never thought I would run in the opposite direction, take a dip in the icy water of a pool in one of the backyards and then run the water off. Anyway, just a prison escape, looks like.
But I was invisible.
Deputies and cops came into the house where I was invisible, but I was in the right spot at the right time with the right people, who couldn’t see me.
I was now Harold. He said his name was Harold. He let the cops in and they searched. One of them even looked where I was but didn’t see me. Invisible, like I told you. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t curled up under the living room couch. I was Harold, sitting on top of the couch.
Harold listened as the guys with the shotguns and M16’s told him about the inmate escapee. Did he see or hear anything unusual in the last thirty minutes? We told them no, nothing, just the siren from the jail and all the lights and helicopters and dogs. We went out into the backyard to see them. Who escaped, we asked them?
A bad guy, a real mutt from Down South, they told us. Serial killer. Crazy as a shit house rat. Hard case, boiled his own mother, killed maybe fifteen people all over the country. Real escape artist. Desperate. Consider him armed and dangerous. They asked us about any strangers in the area recently, any other residents or weapons in the household.
We told them we saw no one suspicious recently, we lived alone, told them about the legal, licensed shotgun in the bedroom closet upstairs. Then we talked all racist, how those minority people were all trash, not even human, those people. How all those scum lowlifes should get the death penalty.
The cops were uncomfortable. They cut us off, told us this guy wasn’t black or Latino. He was white.
We just said, oh.
They gave us a description of the fugitive, a name. Showed us a picture. We didn’t recognize me. We said we had never seen the guy, but if we did, we’d blow his ass away. Better not come around here.
The deputies said that was a bad idea. Told us to just keep our doors locked. If we saw anything, call 911 right away. We offered them coffee and booze, for the cold, but they said they had to continue their search, even though the skel probably got into a waiting car out on the highway and was long gone. There was a big alert out, roadblocks.
We felt safe with all the cops in the house. When they left, it was good to see them still driving around the neighborhood on patrol. Past midnight, they moved on, looking for the guy somewhere else. The clock on the mantle clicked gently after we shut off the TV news. We checked all the doors again, to make sure they were locked, and went upstairs to the bathroom.
That’s when I stopped being invisible, quietly crawled out from under Harold’s couch, and softly mounted the stairs. I knew Harold would go to the bedroom closet and get his shotgun soon, to have it by the bed while he slept. When he opened the closet door I would be inside. I wouldn’t be invisible then. I’d let him see me.
Then we would be one.
*
SEAN MICHAEL BAILEY is the pen name for the New York Times bestselling author of crime nonfiction who went from the dark side to the darker side to write the thriller 1787. He has completed his second novel, Triad, and is working on another.
HEATHER GRAHAM
It was eighteen sixty-five when the terror came to Douglas Island.
Eighteen sixty-five when Johnny came home.
Naturally, it was a time when few people cared what was happening on a small, barely inhabited southern island off the coast of South Carolina.
So much tragedy had already come to the country; there were so many dead, dying, maimed, and left without home or sustenance that a strange plague descending upon a distanced population was hardly of note.
Unless you were there, unless you saw, and prayed not just for your life, but your soul.
The war was over, but not the bitterness. Lincoln had been assassinated, and all hope of a loving and swift reunion between the states had been dashed.
Brent Haywood, Johnny’s cousin, had made it home the week before. A government ship—a Federal government ship—had brought him straight to the docks. He limped. He was often in pain. Shrapnel had caught him in the right hip, and he’d be in pain, limping, for the rest of his life.
Brent had been a prisoner a long time, and he told me that he hadn’t seen Johnny since Cold Harbor, and that he wasn’t sure if he wanted to see Johnny; he hadn’t known that his cousin had survived until we had received the news. “There’s something not—right with Johnny,” he told me.
The world, our world, or that of our country, was in a sad way, desperately sad. On Douglas Island, we had survived many years of the travelers who
had come from far and wide to see the beauty of our little place, to ride over the sloping hills, to fish and boat and hunt. The war had barely begun before we had ceased to care who won or lost. Now, far too many people were struggling just to survive. The South was in chaos.
And so it was on the day that Johnny MacFarlane came home.
At first, nearly the whole town came out, two hundred odd of us came to the docks to meet the boat that had brought him home. A letter had been received the previous week, and we knew just when the schooner the Chesapeake was to bring him home. A kindly surgeon Johnny had come upon somewhere in his travels home after the surrender at Appomattox Court house had written that Johnny MacFarlane was not well, but friends were helping and would be sending him home with all possible speed, and they made arrangements for his travel.
Came the day. I was there with my father, eager, barely able to wait through the moments that would bring him back to me. From the widow’s walk of Johnny’s home, Janey Sue, his sister, had seen the schooner out on the horizon, and so we had gathered. Our town band was playing welcome songs, and it was no matter that he’d been one of the last battered soldiers of Lee’s army, we were one country now, and the band played for him, using all the songs we knew. People sang at the docks, and it was momentous. Federal song, fine. They played, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.”
Except that the schooner stopped far out to sea, and it was strange, for even the music ended by the time Johnny rowed himself to shore in a small boat.
There was deep dockage at the island, and throughout the war, we’d been visited now and then by ships from both sides, and it was only the fact that we were, actually, so small and seeming to offer so little in support or importance that they all passed us by with little interest after docking. Sometimes, sailors wanted to loot the houses, but thanks to my father’s brilliance at hiding all assets, they did not stay. We had never imagined that any ship would eschew the fine docks and send Johnny home in a longboat, but so they did.