He pulled Dill up on his feet and they looked over the balcony’s edge, down towards Peter’s third floor bedroom and the tree beside it.
Unfortunately, Peter had forgotten how steep the roof was.
Very steep.
And in the dark it looked more like a vertical wall, then a plunge into nothingness. Except Peter knew that there was definitely ground down there, sixty feet below.
Stay up here and get killed by dead guys…or go out there, fall, and get killed.
Or fall, get paralyzed, and then get killed by dead guys.
Great.
Dill grabbed the railing and hoisted a foot over.
Peter pulled him back. “What are you doing?” he screamed frantically.
“Gettin’ down to that tree,” Dill pointed. “Isn’t that why we came up here?”
“I can’t go down there!” Peter wailed.
“Why not?!”
“I…I…”
The emptiness at the edge of the roof seemed to grow before his eyes.
“I don’t like heights,” Peter whispered. “I can’t stand them.”
“You climbed down the tree!”
“That’s different, there’s something to hang on to!”
Dill snapped his fingers. “Hold on!” Then he disappeared back into the trapdoor.
“What are you doing?!” Peter yelled at him.
“Hold on!” Dill’s muffled voice floated up. “I saw somethin’ we can use…”
BAM! BAM! BAM! came from down in the darkness.
Dill’s head popped back up out of the hole. “I’m okay!” he cheerily announced as he plunked down a coil of rope on the balcony floor. “They’re still having a hard time getting through the door.”
Peter unwound the rope. There was maybe 15 feet of slack.
“Dill, this isn’t enough to climb down!”
Dill frowned. “Crap. Okay, I’ll go back down and get some more.”
As he started to put his foot through the trapdoor, though, a splintering CRASH reverberated in the darkness below.
“Or not,” he said hastily, and slammed the trapdoor closed. “Gimme.”
Dill grabbed the rope and hastily tied a loop firmly around his waist, knotted it several times, then did the same for Peter.
“What are you doing?”
“Dude, just pretend we’re mountain climbers. They tie a rope to each other, so we will too.”
“Dill, we’re going to fall!” Peter yelled.
“No we’re not. I climb like a monkey. Come on.”
Dill swung himself over the balcony and onto the shingles.
“Dill, I can’t — ”
BANG!
The trap door under Peter jumped beneath his feet, raising him two inches into the air before slamming back down.
They were right underneath him.
“Come on, man, we gotta go!” Dill screamed.
“What if I fall?!”
“The rope’ll catch you!”
“Unh–uh, it’ll make you fall, too!”
Dill stood up straight like he was shocked. “It will?”
BANG!
Peter flew up three inches into the air and slammed back down.
“Oh God, please don’t let me dieeeeeeee!” he yelled, and vaulted over the balcony. He landed about eight feet to the right of Dill.
“Don’t fall, DON’T FALL!” Dill hollered.
BANG!
The trapdoor exploded open. A charred face and crumbling hat peeked out of the hole, and those sightless eyes found Peter.
In a flash, the thing bolted out of the hatch and strained one arm through the wooden rods of the balcony railing. The skeletal fingers swiped the air just inches away from Peter’s face.
“GO, GO!” Peter screamed as he began backing down the roof.
“I’M GOING, I’M GOING!”
The dead man was climbing over the balcony railing now, his body a smudge of black against the dark violet sky.
“DILL, HE’S COMING, HE’S COMING!” Peter shrieked.
“I’m almost to the tree, I almost got it — ”
The dead man stepped down onto the roof.
Peter’s foot slipped out from under him and he began to slide down the shingles.
Seeing his prize get away from him, the dead man lunged after Peter and began to slide, too.
“DIIIILLLL!”
Dill braced himself and pulled the rope tight. Peter’s fall took a curving arc, and he slid out of the path of the dead man and came slowly to a stop.
The dead man, however, zoomed right past Peter like a kid on a waterslide. His body shot into the air. Only at the last minute did his bony fingers grasp the gutter on the edge of the roof. The metal groaned under his weight, but it kept him from falling.
“Come on, dude!” Dill hollered. He started pulling the rope up handful by handful. “Quit lookin’ at him, we gotta get outta here!”
Peter moved sideways like a crab, keeping his whole body flat against the shingles.
Behind him came the sound of metal crunching. Looking down, Peter saw that the hobo was inching his hands along the gutter, dangle–walking himself on the metal pipe like it was a set of monkeybars.
And the dead man was fast.
Peter picked up his pace. Dill put out a hand and hauled him up to his spot by the tree.
“Th–thanks,” Peter gasped.
“No problem, now let’s go!”
Dill scurried the few extra feet to the tree branch and began to climb down.
Peter looked over at the hobo inching his way along the gutter. Further up, three other dead men had emerged from the trapdoor and were now crawling down the roof like giant black spiders.
Peter lunged for the tree branch and caught it under his armpits, rattling the limb badly.
“Hey, I’m climbin’ over here!” Dill shouted.
“Sorry,” Peter whispered, and started his descent. He made it to the tree trunk at the same time the dead man on the gutter reached the tree. One black hand shot out and grabbed the limb. He let go of the gutter and swung onto the branch.
“Peter, jump!” Dill yelled.
“We’re too high up!” Peter called back. He was still at least twelve feet off the ground. Dill was about four feet lower than him.
“He’s coming too fast, Peter!”
It was true — maybe with all the muscle and flesh burned off him, the dead man was lighter. Whatever the case, he swung down the tree branch with ease, twice as fast as the boys.
“WE GOTTA DO IT!” Dill screamed. “One, two, three!”
Peter let go. He seemed to fall for an eternity.
36
When his feet hit the ground, Peter collapsed at the knees and rolled. Electric jabs shot through his toes and calves, and he pounded the ground with his fist to try and block out the pain.
“Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow,” Dill hissed over to the side. He was rolling around in the grass, holding his knees.
“You okay?” Peter asked.
“NO.”
There was a rattling and shuddering of leaves above. Peter looked up.
The dead man was falling through the air, his jacket flaring around him like a superhero’s cape.
KA–THUMP. He slammed to the ground, legs spread wide, and hunched over like a wild animal hunting its prey.
Unfortunately, Dill was closest. He screamed.
The hobo sprang forward, and its black hands closed around Dill’s neck. His scream turned into a strangled cry.
“DILL!” Peter yelled. He started to move forward, but his foot was tangled in the rope.
The rope.
Peter didn’t know what possessed him — maybe it was watching the Indiana Jones movies a dozen times — but he took the slack between him and Dill and threw it over the hobo’s head. A loose loop encircled its neck now.
The monster paused from choking Dill and looked up almost quizzically.
With all his might, Peter yanked the rope hard as he could.
The loop snapped straight and taut.
The dead man’s head popped cleanly off his body, twirled through the air, and THUNKED down into the grass.
“AAAAAAAHHHHH!” Dill screamed, then lapsed into a fit of coughing.
What happened next would have been comical if not for the threat of imminent death. The hobo let go of Dill and flung its hands up to its face — except its face was no longer there. The hands flailed around. Finding nothing, the hobo turned around as though looking for something, and somehow magically sensed where its head lay. The dead man got up off of Dill and darted over to its skull. Gingerly, like cradling a baby, it lifted the head into the air.
Peter watched in horrified amazement until he heard rustling above.
Two dead men had reached the tree. And there were more above them, like an infestation spreading across the roof.
Further in the distance, Peter heard the distinct eeeeeeeWHAPwhapwhap of the kitchen screen door slamming shut. He could imagine more dead men swarming out into the yard. They would be here any second.
And now the headless hobo had turned around. Rather than try to replace his skull, he was carrying it like a lantern.
Peter hoisted Dill to his feet. They looked at each other.
Without another word, they ran.
KA–THUMP. KA–THUMP. Two more dead men hit the grass behind them.
eeeeeeeWHAPwhapwhap
Peter didn’t dare look back.
They shot through a gap in the rose bushes and sped for the garden. Dill rasped horribly through his bruised throat.
As they ran into the tomato plants, there was a tug at Peter’s waist. Over to his right, Dill screamed, and his voice went “uhWUHuh” like he’d been jerked backwards. Peter looked around, expecting to see one of the hobos with its arms encircling him. Instead he saw the rope, which he’d completely forgotten. It was snagging on the tomato plants and stakes as the boys ran past.
Behind him, the dead men had reached the rose bush. He didn’t have time to count, but somehow Peter knew instinctively that all thirteen were there.
A sad voice inside of him wondered what had happened to Grandfather. But there was no time for that…
“The rope, Dill, the rope!”
Peter grabbed it, went back around the tomato plant, and got directly behind Dill.
The dead men were halfway to the garden.
“RUN, RUN!”
Dill took off again, and Peter followed behind him with the rope coiled in his arms. Without it trailing behind and snagging plants, they made far better time.
Peter could hear the sounds of leaves snapping and swishing as the dead men reached the garden.
The boys rocketed through the corn, the stalks whipping around them and smacking Peter in the face. Then they were through, tromping into the open air and the black night sky.
Up ahead, there was no place to go. Except 200 yards to a hundred–foot–tall cliff.
Behind them came the sound of the dead men crashing through the corn.
On the right, the forest. On the left, more fields.
No matter where they turned, the dead men would eventually catch them.
“What do we do?” Dill huffed as they kept running towards the ocean.
Can we use the rope to pop off all their heads?
No…we might get one, but the others will kill us after that.
We could circle around them, try to trap them with the rope —
But the rope is too small, and we’ll be right next to them, within arm’s reach.
Forest, fields, cliff — we’re dead.
And then it came to him.
Peter sped up and pulled even with Dill. He held enough rope in his hands that the remaining slack between them jostled in the air instead of dragging on the ground.
“Run for the cliff!” he screamed at Dill.
“Are you crazy?!”
“I have a plan!”
“What?”
“Trust me!”
37
There were no longer any sounds of cornstalks being trampled underfoot. The dead men were out in the field, right behind them.
Up ahead in the distance, Peter could make out the silhouette of the tree on the cliff.
“What’s your plan?” Dill yelled again.
“We’re going to jump!”
“WHAT?!”
Dill unconsciously slowed down.
Peter looked back. The dead men were only twenty feet behind them and gaining ground.
“DILL!”
Dill looked over his shoulder, and shot forward with a sudden burst of adrenalin. His lips stretched tight over his face in a mask of fear.
“ARE YOU FREAKIN’ CRAZY?”
“Just go to the right of the tree!” Peter screamed. “And really jump!”
The tree was a hundred feet ahead.
Two dozen dead men’s feet thudded on the grass behind them.
“Peter, we’ll die! It’s too high! And there are rocks — ”
Peter felt the scrape of burned bone across his shoulders.
The dead men were almost on top of them.
The tree was ten feet away.
“BREAK RIGHT!” Peter screamed, and immediately turned left.
As he did, he let go of the rope in his arms.
A hand clamped down on his shoulder.
But he was already at the edge of the cliff.
“JUMP!”
Now he was soaring into space, into blackness, his feet and legs still kicking, but with nothing beneath them. Swimming in air.
He was dimly aware of Dill screaming beside him.
Far beneath, he could see the glint of moonlight on the water and waves, outlining the sharp rocks a hundred feet below.
He had time for one last thought.
Oh crap…I hope Dill tied the knots tight.
There was a horrible wrenching pain around his waist, and it felt like all his guts were smushed from his belly up into his ribcage.
“HCKKKKK,” Dill gagged off to his right.
Peter was no longer falling. He was swinging.
Right past Dill, as a matter of fact.
His friend’s face was beyond surprised as it whooshed by.
The rope had held. Peter had gone on one side of the giant tree, and Dill had jumped on the other. The rope had caught on the tree trunk, and now Peter and Dill were dangling midair, swinging back and forth like two pendulums.
And all around Peter, the dead men were tumbling through the darkness.
A smell of burnt wood and smoke filled his nose, and there was the crack of charred bones as Peter and a hobo slammed into each other. Hands clawed at him, but found no hold. Fingers raked his legs as the dead man spiraled downward.
The last thing Peter saw were its empty eyes as the dark figure plummeted away.
The dead men were all around them now, a flock of black birds clipped of their wings — and then they were past, flailing in the air, dropping towards the ocean and the rocks.
CRACK.
CRACK.
CRACK.
One by one they smashed into the boulders below, skulls bursting like glass bottles, limbs flying, ribcages splintering like matchsticks. Puffs of ash billowed in the air. And the waves rushed over them, washing their scattered pieces out to sea.
Dill swung past Peter again, but slower this time as their momentum gave out. He was looking down at the rocks and the scattered arms and legs floating in the sea foam.
“Ssssssweet,” he murmured.
38
Now that his terror was subsiding, Peter realized the loop around his waist felt like it was cutting him in half. He grabbed the rope above him and pulled so that his stomach wasn’t bearing all his weight.
Dill saw and did the same. “Ohhhhh,” he groaned. “You know when you snapped off that guy’s head with the rope?” “Yeah?”
“My stomach feels like that right about now.”
“Yeah.”
The tree creaked
above them as they swung slower and slower through the air.
“By the way,” Dill added, “thanks.”
“Thanks for saving me on the roof.”
“No problem. You know…I feel like I’m going to puke.”
“Well don’t get it on me. And don’t pee, either.”
“Too late on that one.”
They dangled there for a while longer, both waiting to see if Dill would upchuck. Somehow he kept it down.
“Phew. Good plan, dude.”
Peter beamed in the darkness. “It was pretty cool, wasn’t it?”
“So, how do we get back up?” Dill asked.
“Uh…”
Peter looked up at the tree. There was about five feet of rope between both boys and the trunk.
“You don’t know how we’re going to get back up there?!”
“I didn’t think that far ahead.”
“I take it back. Not so good plan,” Dill scowled.
“I can’t think of everything,” Peter snapped.
“Maybe your Grandfather can come get…”
Dill trailed off.
“I don’t know if he…got out,” Peter said.
“Yeah.” Dill paused. “Sorry, man.”
“I didn’t know him very well…”
“Well, if somebody had to die, better a crazy old man than you or me.”
Peter glared at Dill.
“I’m just sayin’,” Dill protested.
“Well, stop.”
They were silent again for awhile.
“We should try to figure out how to get back up,” Peter finally said.
“Okay.”
“Maybe you can climb the rope…get up to the roots…and then hold on while I climb up.”
“What if the rope slips and you pull me off with you?” Dill asked. “Unh–unh.”
“You got a better idea?”
“I’m just sayin’.”
Up above there was a slight patter of pebbles falling. Some of the dirt hit Peter.
His heart leapt into his throat. “Grandfather?” he asked, and looked up.
There was a figure up there, but it wasn’t his grandfather.
Peter knew immediately because it had no head.
It was the dead man Peter had decapitated.
Now the skull leered from the thing’s right hand as the body crouched atop the tree trunk.
“AAAAAAAHHHH!” Dill screamed.
“WHERE’D HE COME FROM?” Peter yelled.
“He musta been a slower runner without his head!”
The thing leaned over the tree and grabbed Dill’s side of the rope with its free hand. It jerked the cord, and Peter — the heavier of the two boys — sank a foot as the rope slipped across the tree trunk.
Of course, as Peter sank, Dill rose a foot closer to the dead man.
Peter And The Vampires (Volume One) Page 10