Chapter Nine
“He’s crawling toward me… no, on his arms, his legs don’t seem to work anymore, listen, I don’t have time—oh my God—his eyes—his eyes—please! Please tell them to hurry!” [911 Emergency Response System call, Gabbs, NV, 3/20/05]
In the shadows of the spruces and the firs Dick and Bleu Skye (her legal name, she assured him) crunched through the snow that would linger nine months of the year at that altitude.
“I suppose that some people would call us freaks,” Bleu said, the words distorted by her lip wound but he could at least understand her now. Not that he was really listening. Her voice was a rough melody in harmony with the scrunching down of snow and the squeak of pine needles he made with every step. “And I suppose I don’t mind so much, we were trying to build something, is all. A quiet life in a pretty noisy world. Me and Tony, that was my husband, and our boy Stormy.”
Dick’s feet were numb with the cold. His brain was numb with implications, meanings, ramifications. He’d just participated in the butchering of another human being. Oh, it had been self defense, sure, and oh, Dick was no peacenik. He owned guns, just like half of Colorado. A couple of target pistols and a hunting rifle and yes, he had used it to kill. To kill white-tailed deer. The idea of hurting a human being intentionally, of true violence, of murder… that he’d never even contemplated before.
“That was nigh on twenty years ago, back when Stormy was just a passenger, you know, when I was carrying him. We built all this with our hands and we loved it, just loved it, no matter if we were hungry. No matter if we didn’t know how to do something—we could learn. And all we had to do was walk outside and look up and we knew why we came up here and why we didn’t want to go back.”
A half-visible path, a little more clear of snow than the surrounding terrain, went snaking through the trees and they followed it. Dick was lost on that path as he followed Bleu and he couldn’t let go of the ice axe. It was like a talisman, some proof that he wasn’t an evil man, that he wasn’t a killer. Exhibit A in the trial going on in his head. Bleu’s voice was just the soundtrack to that groundbreaking bit of courtroom drama and when she started sobbing it was just another instrument in the orchestra. On some level he realized that he wasn’t thinking straight.
“I always worried that I couldn’t teach Stormy enough. I worried he wouldn’t know enough to make it in this life and now… oh God, now…”
She stopped, and so did Dick. They’d reached their destination, a wooden structure that had to be a century old. Just a shack really, with one wall open to the elements. Inside the trail lead downward, into the earth. An old abandoned mine entrance. The mountains were riddled with them, leftovers from the gold rush. The wind tore out of it, colder than the outside air, and it made a hollow sound. Dick stepped closer and Bleu took his arm, holding him back. There was something moving down there.
“He died quick. My son died quick. Tony took his time about it. And now… I guess maybe… maybe you should just look. Here.” She handed him a flashlight. He clicked it on and peered down into the darkness.
“How many do you see?” she asked, her voice flinty again. He couldn’t see anything.
Then he could. The beam caught on something wriggling, something dark but recognizable. A pair of human legs in snow pants and tan Timberland boots. The legs kicked fitfully. Dick scanned upward with the light, saw a heavy winter jacket. Arms and a head. The face tilted upward and he felt vomit rush up his throat. The skin of the face was red and black and white and yellow. The eyesockets were empty and half of the skin was missing from the jaw. The hands clutched at the slope of the tunnel, digging in until the knuckles stood out like walnuts. The person, because it was a person, yes, was trying to climb out of the tunnel but it was too steep or something.
“How many?” Bleu asked again.
“Two,” Dick said, sweeping the light back and forth. “No, three. And—are those bones? Skulls. Hu.” He cleared his throat. “Human.” He clicked off the light and shoved it in his pocket so he could wipe his palms on his jeans. “I saw two—two skulls.”
“My big strong men,” Bleu rasped. “They just wanted to help and they’re torn to pieces.”
It took her a while to collect herself before she could speak again. “We found them two days ago and didn’t know what we oughta do. We thought they were dead at first, well, why wouldn’t we? They probably got caught in a storm and went in there looking for shelter. Climbers get themselves lost up here all the time. Nobody ever finds them till summer. When they started moving we decided they were just hurt. They don’t never talk, not even when you yell questions at them.” She took a pistol out of her pocket and cocked it. “There were more yesterday. Maybe six, and maybe seven.” She pointed her weapon down into the tunnel. “They’re getting out.” She fired and the high-caliber shot blasted all around the valley, rolling along the mountains like an endless series of doors slamming shut.
“Wait!” Dick shouted, scampering backward, away from the gunshot. “Wait! They need medical assistance, you know, like a doctor, you can’t just—” She fired again and he winced. “I’ve got to—I’ve got to call the police,” he stammered. He had his cell phone in his hand.
“Good idea,” she said. She aimed carefully, lining up her shot with the forehead of the third—the third person—the third creature? Dick didn’t know what to call them. She pulled the trigger and then let her arm drop, the pistol still in her hand. “We can use the help. We should head back to the house before dark.”
He followed her back, not knowing what else to do.
BAD MOON RISING: Top Psychologists Explain the Recent Outbreak of Violence in America [“Home Front” magazine, March 05]
Nilla scrubbed at her hands and her throat, scraped at her skin with rough paper towels, trying to get the blood off of her body. She had discarded her white clothes. They were hopelessly stained. She had found a doctor’s white coat that smelled like disinfectant and some loose-fitting scrub pants. It would have to be enough.
She kept staring in the women’s room mirror though she told herself to stop.
Her teeth were coated. She ran a finger around them, wished she had some toothpaste and some dental floss. She stopped in mid-rub. Dental floss. Most people never bothered with it. Clearly she had. It wasn’t quite a recollection, more like muscle memory or the pain of a phantom limb: she had used dental floss in her former life. It hurt to think about it. The broken stubs of memories were attached to the idea. I used to floss, she would think, and she could feel her brain trying automatically to find examples, to remember amusing anecdotes about flossing. It came back with blank pages, dead links. She felt for some reason like her head was full of ice cubes that rattled together every time she moved.
She looked up again at herself in the mirror. The blue lines under her skin hadn’t gone away. Those were her veins. They had never been that visible before. Under her eyes she saw dark spots. Blotches, really—not just bags under her eyes, more like tattoos. Or bruises. She looked like she’d been battered.
She looked back down at the sink and the blood swirling in the drain, not wanting to look at her face anymore. She had no pulse. She wasn’t breathing.
Nilla knew what that meant. She had become the biological singularity. The thing that doesn’t happen made manifest. She was dead, but also obviously live. Dead. Alive. Alive. Dead.
Undead.
