Angel Fall

by Coleman Luck

  Alex inched out onto the ledge. As he gripped the rocks, he stared into the chasm.

  So easy to let go…

  So easy to make the pain end forever.

  But just as he was about to do it, he turned his head and saw her—the girl standing in the moonlight with her black hair swirling in the wind.

  “You saved my life. You’re very brave.”

  Brave? Is that what she’d said?

  “It tried to kill me. Did you see its ugly face?”

  Slowly his mind took hold of the words. Yes, he had seen it and it was ugly. What had he been thinking?

  “I’ve watched it eat people—tear them to pieces and suck their blood. I was so scared. A lot of men have tried to kill it, but the music fooled them. It made them see things that weren’t there. But it couldn’t fool you. You were too smart.”

  The music. That was it. The music had tricked him. It was like a drug. There was no beautiful face. And the whispering in his mind—it was just a lying echo trying to make him kill himself.

  “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t saved me. You’re such a hero.”

  Instantly Alex’s world stopped crumbling, and all the shattered pieces fell back into place. She had said it. He really was a hero after all, and the truth was all that mattered. He was so relieved that he almost sobbed.

  “What’s the matter? Are you all right?” The girl moved a step closer to the gorge.

  “I’m…I’m fine.” He hoped she didn’t hear the quiver in his voice.

  “It’s freezing out here. Come on inside and get warm.”

  “Inside?”

  “The cathedral. It’s where I live.”

  “You live in there?”

  “I know it looks a little strange, but it’s okay.” She sensed his hesitation. “You aren’t afraid, are you?”

  “No.” The question aggravated him. Hadn’t he just killed a monster?

  “Do you need help getting across?”

  “I think I can handle it.”

  The girl laughed. It wasn’t a friendly sound. “Well, what are you waiting for? Come on.”

  Fighting his irritation, Alex began creeping across the ledge. Instantly he felt a stab of pain. His arm—the dog had bitten it. He’d been so caught up in the battle with the spider (yes, that’s the way he was remembering it now) that he’d barely noticed the wound. His forearm was slashed to the bone. Not much bleeding…which wasn’t good. Slowly the stabbing pain gave way to a throb. He was losing strength in his left hand.

  “The dog bit you. Is it bad?”

  “It’s pretty deep and it may have been rabid.”

  “There’s help inside.” She hurried toward the building.

  Alex crept forward. Soon he almost forgot the ache in his arm because every inch took him closer to the most awful monstrosity that he had ever seen. When he reached the other side, all he could do was stare at it in shock. The thing that she had called a “cathedral” lay like a gash on the face of the mountain. The web had masked its true ugliness and squalor. Now all the chaos was visible in every writhing detail. Hundreds of broken towers jutted toward the sky. Grimy spires and pinnacles crowded in senseless profusion. Tortured walls coated with filth twisted and turned, mile after mile across a wide rock ledge.

  Was it really a cathedral?

  Just looking at it, Alex felt a crushing weight of misery and madness. Out of it seemed to rise a miasma of agony, as though all the groaning prayers and grinding penance of endless centuries had congealed into a haze of silent screams. Far away he could just make out the tallest pinnacle of all. It rose like a bloody needle above a gigantic vaulted chamber. In front of it, spilling down the face of the mountain were thousands of broken steps that ended in a moonlit gorge. Long ago, people must have climbed those steps. But why? Why would anyone want to come to such a place of terror? As his eyes traced the insane heap, suddenly he was overwhelmed with such despair that it felt as though his life were being sucked into a sewer. His gaze shifted to a wall a few feet away. It was covered with deep-carved eyes. The heaviest cluster was around a massive door banded with iron. In front of it, at the top of a crumbling staircase, waited the girl. And she was smiling.

  “Come in and we’ll take care of you.” She reached for a handle.

  “You said you were locked out.”

  With a soft laugh she opened the door…and vanished inside.

  So she was lying.

  Slowly Alex walked to the steps and looked up. Though the eyes in the wall weren’t real, they seemed to glare at him with revulsion as though he were a rodent that had crawled out of a hole. More than anything he didn’t want to climb those stairs and go through that door. Something told him to run and never look back. But in his misery he knew that he couldn’t do that either. If he ran, where would he go? Back out to freeze on the mountain? To die of an infected wound? He told himself that he was an idiot. Okay, she had lied about being locked out, but the spider really was going to kill her. And this old building where she lived, maybe the people who built it thought stomach-churning ugliness was pretty. And who was he to say they were wrong? There was no such thing as “wrong.” Just different. He’d learned that in school.

  Forget the building.

  Think of the people.

  Hadn’t he come all this way to find other people? Well, he had found them. Inside was a beautiful girl who thought he was a hero. And he needed help. His arm was throbbing. So why was he standing out here in the cold?

  But try as he might, Alex couldn’t bring himself to walk up those steps. Each time he lifted a foot, a horrible pain shot through his arm. As he stood unable to move, he suddenly heard a sound that made him forget the terrors of the cathedral. From behind him came the same haunting moan that had echoed across the mountain. But now it was much closer. Slowly it rose into an agonized wail. Alex turned…and stared.

  Something was coming up out of the gorge…

  Above the chasm hung the shadow of a dog.

  And it was growing.

  The beast had come back from the dead to attack him, to tear him to pieces for what he had done. Around him echoed a cry of heartbroken sorrow. But all Alex heard was a roar.

  He ran up the stairs…pulled the door open…and stumbled inside.

  With a thundering crash the huge door slammed shut behind him.

  Panting…shaking…he tried to catch his breath. Instantly he felt like a jackass. What was wrong with him? There was no ghost dog out there. The thing was dead, lying in a bloody heap at the bottom of the mountain. The shadow was only a mist in the moonlight. And the moan—just the whistling of the wind. He hoped the girl hadn’t seen him.

  As Alex cursed himself, he slowly became aware of his surroundings. He was standing in an oily darkness, the air damp and warm and filled with a cloying stench like the reek of a filthy toilet. A large chamber surrounded him, lit only by a shaft of moonlight. And it was hot. Really hot. Sweat began trickling down his face. Peeling off his jacket, he almost screamed—his arm felt like it was about to drop off. Where was the girl? He needed medicine and a bandage. Carefully he wrapped the jacket around the wound.

  As the pain subsided, he heard dripping…a slow, thick plop like gravy into a bowl. A few feet away stood an ancient fountain in the shape of a tree with branches like hands with long drooping fingers. They were covered with softness like furry gray-velvet skin. He realized that the softness was everywhere. Walking over, he touched it…and drew back in disgust. It was mold. Like on old food in a refrigerator. And it was so thick that it must have been growing for a thousand years. The fountain was full of it. A pool of furry slime rippled with each drip. His stomach gave a queasy lurch. What a hideous place to live. He was turning to search for the girl, when he saw a broken reflection in the ooze.

  He looked up.

  In the ceiling hung a stained-glass window, a tapestry of red and purple moonlight, and embedded in it was a figure cut from jagged crystal, a man with black hair and a
long robe. His ghostly face was so utterly cold and his squinting eyes so real that they made Alex shudder. Where had he seen that face?

  The plane!

  It looked exactly like the man who had been with the woman and the baby on the plane. And just like on the plane, the man was glaring at him with such hate that it felt like any second he would crash down from the glass.

  Then the figure moved. The arm shifted an inch. He was sure of it.

  And that was it! Even the freezing wind and the ghost dog would be better than this. Rushing to the door, he tried to pull it open, but it wouldn’t budge. He pulled harder. Was it jammed? Suddenly fear prickled the back of his neck. It wasn’t jammed. It was locked. At that moment the girl’s soft voice called to him.

  “What’re you doing?”

  He spun around. Across the chamber a flicker of candlelight came through an open doorway. But the girl wasn’t there.

  “Unlock this thing, I want out.”

  Soft laughter. “You can’t go out that way. That door’s only for coming in.”

  “Open the frigging door right now.”

  Another soft laugh. The candlelight began to fade as though she were walking away.

  “Hey, come back here. Where are you going?” As he ran across the room, he was so enraged that he never saw the change in the window above. The image of the man had vanished. All that remained was a silhouette in empty glass.

  Rushing into the next room, Alex was ready to let loose with a string of profanity, but he never got the chance because the candlelight was gone. In a split second all his fury drained. She was playing a game with him. A stupid game. Why would she do that? She knew he was wounded and needed help. Now she was screwing with him.

  Suddenly he hated her. She was just like everybody else. If she was trying to freak him out it wasn’t going to work. So the dirty, ungrateful little witch wanted to play games. He’d show her. He’d find her wherever she was. And when he did…

  Alex scanned the room. It was like the hall of an old castle. Red moonlight flooded through a hole in the ceiling. By the dim glow he could just make out the walls. They were covered with hundreds of paintings. It was some kind of gallery, and the paintings were portraits. Alex didn’t know anything about art, but he didn’t need to. Even in the moonlight he could tell that they were the work of a great master. Each was lifelike to the smallest detail. Especially the eyes.

  And as he stared at them, a strange realization came over him. All the portraits were of children—every single one. And they seemed to look back at him with anguish and pleading. It was eerie, almost as though they were watching him, following his every move. Suddenly finding the girl didn’t matter. He had to get out of this awful place. And if the only way out was through the locked door he would break it down.

  Alex was about to run from the room when the dim candlelight flickered through another doorway at the end of the hall. With it came whispering and laughter. “You’re so slow. What kind of a world do you come from? It must be full of turtles.”

  It was then that he knew the truth: he was caught like a rat. She had lured him here, and now she was playing with him. Terrified, he turned and tried to run back into the room with the fountain, but instead, he crashed into a wall of paintings. The door he had just come through wasn’t there anymore.

  Another trick.

  Feverishly Alex shoved the paintings aside and groped in the mold. It had to be there, but he couldn’t find it. Swearing, he pounded on the wall, and once more, the soft laugh whispered around him. He had to play the game. There was no other choice. The only way out of the gallery was to follow the candle. And the glimmer was fading.

  As the shadows merged into darkness, a terrible thirst swept into him. And it wasn’t a thirst for water. It was a thirst for light. Suddenly nothing mattered but light. To be without light was to shrivel and die. As the flicker disappeared, the thirst took control, and all he could do was run after it.

  So Alex ran into the next room.

  It was a library; three of the walls were lined with shelves, but there were no books. On the fourth loomed a gigantic stained-glass window, and in it was a woman with a face of power and dark beauty. It was the woman from the plane, but Alex barely saw her. The thirst for light was blinding him. The glimmer had moved on and he had to follow.

  And so began a staggering, stumbling chase of horror. No matter how fast he ran, the candle was never closer than the room beyond. Chamber after chamber. Hall after hall. Through narrow passages. Up and down staircases. Around corners. Beneath echoing domes. And everywhere, rippling laughter with muffled, meaningless words. Everywhere thirst and terror. Running. Falling. Screaming with pain. Then on again. Sweat dripping. Clothes slick with mold. Loathing himself, choking with rage at his own weakness. Dragged as though chained to the fading glow.

  And on every wall there were paintings of children, always children, only children, paintings crammed and jammed without an inch between.

  16

  THE PORTRAIT

  As Alex ran, the air gradually grew hotter and thicker until he could hardly hardly breathe. Blinded and choking, he was about to drop from exhaustion when the chase ended. Rushing around a corner, he crashed into a stone wall with such force that he fell backward and hit his head on the floor.

  Slowly he sat up and groaned. His eyes wouldn’t focus, and his arm burned with such agony that he wanted to tear it off. But what was this? All around him was falling a soft shower of light. And he heard singing. From somewhere came the deep rumble of a thousand male voices joined in a roaring chant.

  Alex rubbed his eyes trying to make them work. Slowly they began to focus. The wall he had crashed into had a large hole in it. That’s where the light was coming from. A mist of glistening drops lay on his skin like clusters of tiny pearls.

  Liquid light. Light that you could drink.

  Suddenly the desire to drink it was like a sickness. He licked it off his hand. So sweet! So delicious! Sticking out his tongue, he drew in his breath, trying to suck it from the air. Not enough. He had to have more. In spite of the pain, he pulled himself up. Then, like a dog on three legs, he scrabbled through the hole. As he passed to the other side, the chanting pounded into him with such ferocity that he sprawled on his face.

  Struggling to his feet, Alex stood in awe. He was at the back of a cathedral so magnificent and soaring that he felt like an ant on the floor of Heaven. High above, the ceiling was lost in darkness. Below rose a forest of pillars taller than the tallest trees and littered among them were crumbled statues with golden wings, twisted bodies, and contorted faces. They looked like angels frozen in a writhing dance.

  But it was the light that Alex cared about. The light and nothing else.

  Fiery mist swirled and spiraled between the pillars, falling around him in clouds of glistening rain. And in the light flowed billows of silvery mold. The chamber was awash in an ocean of it. Clots and strands in exquisite patterns sailed through the air. Furry webs of filth floated to the walls and slicked the floor.

  Gasping, he let the rain fall into his parched mouth.

  Where was it coming from? He had to find it…then run and leap and drink until he drowned. He craned his neck. He couldn’t see between the pillars. Trembling, he crept out and cowered behind a statue. With one eye he peeked around it…and the vision froze his heart.

  The cathedral was infested with phantoms.

  Thousands of them hung suspended from floor to ceiling, and each was draped in a shroud of softly swirling mold. Far away he could see splashes of brilliance, but he couldn’t tell what was causing them. Whatever it was, the ghosts were staring at it as though in perpetual amazement. Finally Alex’s thirst overcame his fear, and he began skulking around the edge of the vast room; from pillar to pillar, he crept and each one brought him closer to the phantoms. Finally he was able to catch a glimpse of their faces.

  And he knew who they were.

  They were the sleepwalkers who had marched thr
ough the dead city. When they disappeared into the statue, this is where they had come. Even though he was moving close to them, they didn’t seem to know he was there. With dead eyes they just kept staring straight ahead. It took several more minutes for Alex to reach the last pillar, and with his face pressed against the slime, he inched around it.

  Everything opened before him.

  The congregation of ghosts was gathered around a golden staircase that led up to a wall a hundred feet high, and down it poured cascades of flaming light. In the light hung a gigantic painter’s canvas. The great expanse of cloth was empty except for a thick coating of dark green oil that rippled down in heavy waves. When each wave reached the bottom, it flowed onto the golden stairs. The steps must have been very hot because when the paint touched them, there was a hiss, and the oil bubbled into the fiery light that billowed through the room.

  Most horrifying of all, between the canvas and the stairs hung a grotesque shape. It was the sculpture of a golden hand with fingers the size of tree trunks. The monstrous thing was suspended, palm upward, as though a giant were reaching through a curtain of oil. And the sculpture was alive; the fingers were slowly moving. As the burning waterfall ran through them, they opened and closed, grasping the shimmering brightness.

  Suddenly Alex felt ill.

  The heat was overpowering, and the stench smelled like boiling vomit. Fiery streaks were pulsing through his arm, and something slimy was running through his fingers. Lifting his hand, he stared at it. Green pus was flowing from the gash. His stomach knotted. His mouth filled with saliva. Squatting behind the pillar, he retched. The taste made his thirst for light disappear. Suddenly all he wanted was the cold of outer darkness, a place where he could go and freeze and die alone.

  It was time to die. He could feel it.

  Desperately he looked for a way out of the cathedral. In the dimness of his suffering he remembered that at the back he had seen massive doors. But they had been chained shut. Maybe there was a little space underneath them—just enough for him to crawl out like a maggot, then rush to the cliff and throw himself off.