There's an exhale of relief behind me, but I'm not stupid enough to turn and look. “What is it?”
“The mist... it's too thick. I can't see you.”
“At all?” I continue moving, almost methodically now. It does sort of get slightly easier, though that might have been because of my imagining of softer valleys and not because of my body getting physically used to it.
“Not at all. I... don't know if you've fallen or anything.”
“We can talk, or something,” I offer, though my mind isn't really even in this conversation, but more on my grip.
“About what?”
“I don't know.” It's silent for a bit, before I finally think, “We can sing.”
“What would we sing?”
“Uh... you know, that kiddy song.”
“What kiddy song?”
“It's something about railroads.”
“Railroads?”
“Yeah. It's like...” I hesitate, then begin in an off-pitched, rather poor singing tone, “I've been working on the railroad, all the live long day. I've been working on the railroad, just to pass the time away. Can't you hear the whistle blowing? Rise up early in the morn'. Can't you hear the captain shoutin'? 'Dinah, blow your horn!'”
There's a moment of silence, then, “That was awful.”
I laugh lightly. “Why thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week.”
It's quiet again before out of nowhere, he comments, “Why would someone work on the railroad? Isn't that where, like, trains go?”
“Yeah. But they need someone to make the railroad tracks before they can have a train on them.”
“Wait. People make railroad tracks?”
“Where do you think they get them,” I ask, incredulously sarcastic, “Target?”
“Target?” Screech queries.
“Yeah. Y'know, that big store that has like, everything. It has this white bull terrier dog or something for the mascot or whatever.”
“The store has a mascot?”
“I dunno!” I shrug a bit violently, and momentarily lose my gripping, thus immediately deciding to never shrug again. “It just is. You know, that store with the big red target?”
There's no retaliatory reply, nor is there any form of realization at all, so eventually I just sigh it off.
“What about CVS? You have to know about CVS.”
“Very funny,” Screech says, in a voice telling me it isn't.
“No, that's TBS.”
“What are you even talking about?”
“A convenience store.”
“Why is it called TBS?”
“No, that's a television network.”
“Then what does CVS stand for?” he says, obviously exasperated.
“Convenience store?” It's a guess, but not a bad one, I suppose.
“How do you know all this stuff?” He's almost accusing me.
“I don't know!” I cry, helplessly, because I don't. It's all just facts in my head with no source, no origin.
We end up not singing at all – though he does attempt his awful whistling again, much to my jestful delight – instead just climbing in the red mist, and I force myself to believe that it's not made of blood, merely so I do not gag.
twenty-three
In the distance, through the folds of mist and behind the screen of the tears in my eyes – I hadn't realized I was crying, but it doesn't seem very important right now – I pick out a figure hanging, not moving, fingers clasped around the black brace.
“Scree, you see that?” I ask him, but from behind me, there is no reply. I presume he just didn't hear me or is taking time to attempt to make out what I am talking about before answering. With a new fervor, I grapple towards the figure. Another out here.
The more the merrier, my mind clings desperately, though so much has happened recently to prove that wrong.
“Hey,” I call to the figure in the distance. “You okay?”
The person is hanging down from the pole on their side, facing neither forward nor backward path but the mist in front of them, both wrists and fists grasped so their body is baring to the right. They sway, quietly, in the nonexistent breeze.
Much too large white t-shirt and blue jeans that hang kind of low on their scrawny, childlike body. Bare feet which stretch downwards. Messy brown hair and eyes that are strikingly blue. Face is covered in thick, black liquid, and when the body sways facing me, the look they give me is both vacant and sullen.
My stomach drops off the beam and to the end of the bottomless pit below me.
I recognize this person.
“SCREECH!” My voice shouts, then breaks, leaving the air silent, too quiet for what I'm feeling. Hysteria takes control of my every limb, my every cell, and a choking noise exits my throat without my permission. How did he get in front of me? What is on his face? My clasping across the expanse becomes desperate, fevered, and I'm fighting to get to him, ignoring the sting my invigorated pace is causing my bloody hands.
Bloody. That's what he is, too.
The black liquid on him is not black, as originally thought – it's deep red. He's bleeding. I look for wounds, but there are none. It seeps from his dark hair as naturally as if it has always leaked from there, and always will.
His mouth is opening and closing, no words, no expression coming from his mouth. My arms are buckling so wildly I'm sure I'm going to let go, and I'm going to be tumbling, alone, shrieking for a bleeding child miles above me.
“W-w-what 'appened?” I'm stuttering, as I pull towards him.
He gazes at me for many moments, one of my hands releasing to touch his soft shoulder, attempting to get his cognitive attention. “S-S-Screech... how are... what...?”
It's in silence that he watches me and, consequently, in silence that he lets go. His body is flimsy and empty as it begins to fall down beneath me, gravity stealing the child from me.
“NO!” I nearly fall off myself as I bend to catch the collar of his shirt. I pull him up, grab an arm, desperately cling on. The added weight and loss of grip is making the hand holding onto the beam, my right, begin to loosen, the slipperiness of the pole and the blood overcoming my ability to hold on.
“Come on, Screech, get back up here!” My voice is in no way kind or forgiving. I attempt to pull the child up myself but the arm, still labored with alarm, doesn't bend, doesn't lend itself any elasticity.
A loud groaning noise, like a door opening slowly, signals itself from straight ahead. I turn my attention away from Screech momentarily to see what it is and when I'm greeted with nothing but mist, I allow myself back to the child.
There's nothing there, in my hands. Nothing but the white shirt, despite the fact that I had been gripping his arm just moments before.
“No!” I'm crying, a rush of confusion stealing my breath. “No!”
The groaning is approaching, quickly, and finally comes close enough for my visual confirmation of it. The pole that I'm holding onto is disintegrating rapidly, particles combusting together and falling silently down into the cloud-like mist below.
I attempt to wheel backwards, but a glance tells me that the disintegration is not unique to the front of the path. I'm cornered, from both sides, and Screech's body is falling, and I wonder how long I can keep calling it his body before he has to be called a corpse, and I'm screaming, my throat is beginning to bleed, I'm sure, and I drop his shirt and hold on for dear life and shut my eyes as I wait to fall into the empty pits below and finally it happens and I'm falling, my fingers clawing at nothing but empty air and mist, and I'm sure I'm crying as I fall further and further to my –
“FRECKLES!”
My body seizes slightly and I jump up, in a cold sweat, my body frantically shaking. There are two small hands on me, and it takes too long for my eyes to follow them back to a body.
A small, scrawny boy with a white shirt still loosely on.
I wrap him into the tightest hug I've ever given anyone, so hard that my already aching arms thr
ob.
“Hey, hey. Are you okay?” His voice is muffed between the fabric of the shirt I'm pressing him into, and I'm holding him with my bleeding, scarred hands, crying into his hair.
“I thought – ... I saw – ”
“I told you about the hallucinations.” He pulls away from me and studies my face. “What did you see?”
I shake my head. “We... we had to climb across this beam... and I fell... and you fell...”
“The beam was real,” he says, and points. I turn to look at it, the small shaft stretching across the expanse. “But it wasn't that far. It took a while to cross, though.”
I nod, and I realize I'm still holding him tightly by the arm, the same arm I was holding when he decided to fall. I examine his face for any sign of injury, any trace of blood, but I can see none.
“You forgot that you were safe?”
“I didn't even remember finding the end,” I breathe, brokenly.
“It must still be some effects of the water or something. That messed with your memory, right?”
I nod and rise, wiping my hands off on my pants. “Yeah. Yeah. That's what it has to be.”
In silence, the two of us turn to move, holding hands like we used to so many ages ago when we were first pioneering the staircase.
“I think we might be close,” I say, more for Screech's benefit than mine. “To the end. We have to be close, don't we? I mean, like you said, rats in a cage.”
“Yeah.” His voice tells me he doesn't believe the lies he's feeding me. “Rats in a cage.”
I open my palm and gaze at his hand, then fake coddle over him as loudly as I can. “Aww! Wittle baby got scratched up by the pole?”
“Stop it, will you?” His voice is hard, but when he pulls his hand away he turns enough towards me that I can see him grinning.
“I totally don't feel bad for you, because it was your idea to climb across it. And you said you'd done it before?”
“Yeah. Suicide attempt gone wrong.” His voice is light, but the words make me frown.
“That's not funny, Screech.”
“Well, this whole world's kind of a suicide attempt. Living, dying. Moving, not moving. Either way you're putting yourself out there.”
“That's morbid,” I say, the bite of a chuckle ending my words.
“Nothing isn't here.”
“God, you're so depressing! What about the good stuff?”
“Good stuff?” His voice is incredulous. “I just woke you up from a terrifying hallucination in which the both of us died, and I just saved you from being molested, and before that I was saving you from being turned into a smoke monster – ”
“Okay, Clark Kent. That's enough.”
There's a pause, and then, “Superman!” His dark personality has faded into bright realization.
I grin back. “Yeah, that's right. Superman.” I straighten up, put my hands on his shoulders and drive him forward like a shopping cart. “But anyway, there are good things here. Like we don't need to eat or drink, or worry about stupid people or grades or jobs or anything. We just get to live. Do whatever we want, you know? Forget about family, forget about life. Just... climb.”
“And try not to fall,” he adds, sullenly.
“You are going to grow up to be the best killjoy in the entirety of the universe,” I say, tapping his cheek twice, jokingly, before putting my hand back on his shoulder, stretching out my back as I bend down so I can steer him.
“Grow up? I think I'm pretty good at it now.”
“You can open up your own practice. I can see it now: youngest eight year old with a PhD in being depressing as all hell.”
“I don't need any more practice,” he huffs at me, but at that, I just laugh.
“What about the time I saved you? Wonder woman and all.”
“Yeah, that was like, once.”
“Twice! You over-did your rescue and almost died a heroic death, plunging over the side to save me.” I speak very over dramatically, which earns me an eye roll.
“Yeah, okay. That's not really important.”
“Not really important? I can push your wimpy self off right now.”
“Wimpy? I'm sturdier than I look.”
“You're still eight.” I put my head on top of his to accentuate my point. “And I'm still eight.” Long pause. “Teen.”
“You're never going to quit that, are you?”
“Never ever,” I swear, smiling down at him.
“What were you like when you were eight?” The question comes out of nowhere, but I still deign to answer him.
“A lot shorter.”
“No, I'm serious.” His voice is what it always is – upset that I'm not taking him earnestly. “What were you like?”
“Screech, I can hardly remember back to before I met you. You really think I remember all the way back then?”
“But where were you, when you were eight?”
“Where was I?” I'm presuming this is one of his crazy theories again, but it's hardly registering to me.
“Yeah. Where did you live? You were still on the staircase back then, right?”
I blink, because it's sort of a good question. If only I had an answer. “I don't know. I really don't know.”
“Well how old were you when you found the group of people you always talk about?”
“Always talk about?” I didn't realize I'd mentioned them that often. “Uh, I don't know. I was an age in which I lived.”
“No one can ever judge you for being unhelpful,” he drawls sarcastically, and I roll my eyes before messing with his hair compassionately.
“Promise,” he says when I release him, fully this time, allowing him to walk on his own.
“Promise?”
“Yeah. You've got to make a promise now.”
“What?”
“We're family, you and I.” He stops walking and turns towards me – his eyes are green now, contrasting gorgeously with his black eye, and they cut through me, like they can see into my soul. He's standing with his feet slightly apart, his hands in fists, his shoulders squared and ready to take on the world. “That means forever. You and I. No matter what. We'll face the odds, we'll run into problems. But we'll do it together.”
“Screech, the staircase is probably over – ”
“I don't care,” he interrupts. “Even after the staircase. After everything. Just you and I.”
“Against the world?” I chime in, softly, a faint smile pulling at my features.
“Against the world.” He swallows and straightens his back. “You've got to promise. Right here, right now.” He puts his right hand out, unclenching it, holding it and awaiting me to accept it in a handshake.
“I promise,” I say, and look at the hand for a few moments. Scarred, bloodied, stained, but still alive. Just like he is. Just like we both are.
In silence, I put my fingers up to the jawline of his small, soft face. I touch him lightly, quickly, only the tips of my fingers brushing his skin. I tilt his chin up and then angle it away from me, slightly, before leaning in and brushing my lips across his smooth face, a gentle and loving kiss.
When I pull away, he's red in surprise. “W – ... what was...?”
“We don't shake hands, Screech,” I chastise lightly. “We're not business partners. We're family.”
twenty-four
I think we're getting close to the end, because the staircase is getting harder.
There are more mind games and tricks that neither of us are accustomed to. A few of them involve seeing faces we've seen before – not all of them human.
Screech was huddled in a corner, sobbing when I found him. I pulled him up and asked him what was wrong.
“Shadow... she's... I just saw...”
“No, you didn't.” I pulled him away from the edge he was dangerously close to. “Come on, Screech, come on.”
I saw Todd too many times to count. Each left me quivering, unspeaking and unmoving until Screech pulled himself out of what he was s
eeing and dragged me away. Once or twice I swore I saw the face of a girl I'd never met before – but she looked young, with small features and bright green eyes, freckles spewed across her gentle face. Soft, short brown hair hung beneath her ears, short enough to tuck behind her ears but not enough to tie up. There was an odd glow in her eyes and skin.
When I described her to Screech, he went pale and told me, “That's you, Freckles. That's what you look like. It must've been a younger version of you or something.”
But as he led me away by my hand, all I could think of was the unborn, imaginary daughter I had.
There was no pause to the terrors we saw. It was everywhere, ever present, breathing into our souls, our eyes, our thoughts. No dream was left unhaunted, no thought untainted. We held on to each other desperately to remind ourselves of solidity and reality.
At one point the path in front of us became empty – large chunks of staircase disappeared, randomly, only illusions that we could walk over if we ignored them. But Screech would not have it – he pulled away from my grasp and walked to the center of the black, tangible staircase and screamed upwards.
“What next, huh? Are you going to fry us? Beat us? Kill us? How much do you have to put us through before you think we're worthy of the top?”
His voice came out in spiteful anger, dark and clipped in argument with an unseen entity. I was frightened he was losing his mind, and in silence, edged towards him.
“Screech – ”
“No!” He spun towards me, jaw set and angry, and his wounds and disheveled hair made him look as if he’d honestly lost it. “I'm done with this, Freckles! I'm done with this world! I'm sick of everything here!”
I approached him, hands held out touching him lightly. “Hey, hey. It's okay.”
“Okay? Okay?” His laugh was sickly and frightening, and he shoved at me so hard I fell on my back. He towered above me, threatening, stance ready to fight. “Nothing's 'okay', Freckles! Nothing! I'm done with this world! I'M DONE!”
I jumped up and wrapped my arms around him, though he fought with me, jabbing at my ribcage and biting at my forearms. I gently wrestled him to the floor where he dissolved into a sobbing mess and I held him until his tears lifted and he became blank and empty, finally allowing himself peace long enough to stand and walk across the invisible steps, a difficult task in and of itself, as one's mind fights desperately not to walk where there's seemingly nothing.
Edge Page 17