Faller

by Will McIntosh

  The nooses were tightened around their slender throats. Without word or ceremony, a line of Orchids picked up the slack end of each rope and walked it away from the gallows.

  The prisoners jerked into the air, legs kicking frantically, their faces turning purple, until they were a dozen feet above the casino floor. The ropes were tied off on the brass pipe that ran along the foot of a bar.

  The woman on the left stopped kicking first, followed shortly by the woman on the right. They hung limp, their eyes bulging, swaying gently at the end of their ropes, canted for some reason at a slight angle from the floor.

  All of Faller’s companions were looking away from the scene, even Snakebite. Suddenly Faller felt ashamed for watching, although he’d taken no pleasure in it. He looked away.

  This was insanity, these exact copies of a woman living on the other side of the sky fighting each other to the death, over nothing.

  Faller looked up at the dead women. It was strange, how they were hanging at an angle to the ground, as if pulled by some invisible force. Others in the crowd seemed to notice as well. Murmurs rose from the crowd.

  Faller reset his feet. He felt unsteady; he definitely wasn’t feeling well.

  “What’s going on?” Storm asked. “Do you see that? It’s like they’re being pulled.”

  To Faller’s right, Penny grasped Snakebite’s forearm, as if to steady herself. Were the hanged women canted at a slightly more extreme angle than before? It could have been his imagination, but it looked as if they were.

  Faller looked to his left, and had the most peculiar sensation: the ground seemed off. It was as if it weren’t the hanging women that were angled, but the ground.

  “Faller, Snakebite,” Black Bird said. “Choose a number.”

  Faller sputtered; fear cut through him like a blade. “We haven’t done anything.”

  Black Bird shrugged. “You’re a risk. You can’t be trusted. Pick a number.”

  An Orchid was at his side, pressing a pistol to his temple as his friends screamed protests.

  “Pick a number, Faller.” Black Bird glanced around, as if noticing the slight tilt of the ground for the first time.

  The barrel of the gun pressed harder into Faller’s temple. He looked at the table, at the dead women beyond it, hanging at that disturbingly crooked angle. “Twenty-eight.”

  “Snakebite?” Black Bird said.

  “Fuck you all,” Snakebite replied, his tone no more hostile than usual.

  “Fine,” Black Bird snapped. “Faller’s number is twenty-eight, Snakebite’s is fuck you all.”

  She spun the wheel, sent the ball flitting around the lip.

  It bounced, landed on 3. Three slots from 28.

  “Bad luck,” Black Bird said over rising murmurs of confusion.

  On the roulette table, the steel ball popped from its slot, bounced over the numbers 35 and 12, and settled into 28.

  One of the Orchids in the crowd shouted, “What’s going on?”

  There was no doubt now: the casino floor was tilting. The crowd wasn’t perpendicular to the floor; everyone was leaning toward the gallows.

  “Does anyone understand what’s happening?” Snakebite asked, his voice low. “Melissa?”

  “No.”

  Everything looked off. Was it worse than it had been a moment earlier? Orchids were leaving, staggering away, steadying themselves on whatever they could grasp. Three Orchids hurried past, holding each others’ hands, speaking in urgent whispers.

  In the street, a wagon piled with bricks rolled past. No one was pulling it. It collided with the curb and tipped, spilling bricks.

  There was an unnerving groaning/squealing coming from across the street. The hanged women looked like they were levitating.

  “We have to get off of here,” Snakebite said. “Find our packs while everyone is preoccupied.”

  Across the street, a building collapsed with a roar, sending an avalanche of bricks spilling into the street. A cloud of dust and debris rose into the air. Farther in the distance, Faller heard another crash. If the tilting didn’t stop soon, all the buildings would come down.

  The Orchids were moving in a dozen directions. Snakebite grabbed the arm of an Orchid rushing past, shouting directions and looking important. “Where are our packs?”

  She tried to yank her arm free, but failed. When she instead tried to draw her pistol, Storm beat her to it and pointed it at her head.

  The Orchid shouted for help. In a heartbeat, a dozen guns were trained on Storm and Snakebite. Storm lowered the pistol; Snakebite released the Orchid’s arm.

  “Take them back to the lockup.” Faller checked the speaker’s patch: Yellow Tree.

  A few blocks away, another building crumpled.

  One of the Orchids holding a gun on Snakebite stepped away, lowered her pistol and hurried off. Seeing this, others followed. Soon there were no pistols trained on them; the casino was emptying, the Orchids fleeing.

  “Oh, my God,” Melissa said. “They found the map, and now Ugo has the singularity. He’s doing this.”

  “Doing what?” Faller asked. “Making a whole world tilt?”

  “Yes.”

  Faller folded his arms. “A whole world is tilting because of us?”

  “Because of you. If he found the map, and the singularity, he doesn’t need you alive any more. He wants you dead, especially if he doesn’t know your memory was wiped. I just don’t understand how he knows where we are.”

  “Why don’t we split up and look for the packs?” Storm suggested.

  The only places they could think to look were the buildings on the street where most of the Orchids seemed to live, and the big store where they’d held the first meeting.

  “We’ll check the store.” Melissa tugged at Storm’s arm, drawing her away. “The three of you check residences.”

  Storm gave Faller an unreadable look, then took off with Melissa.

  Faller’s group headed off to find the street with the residences. “Anyone know which way?” Having been led around for the past few days, Faller hadn’t paid much attention to directions.

  “This way,” Penny said. “They were on Lexington.”

  Faller didn’t remember anyone referring to the street as “Lexington,” but he followed Penny, since she seemed sure.

  It was, mercifully, downhill. Faller ached all over, but ignored the pain, pushing to keep up with Penny and Snakebite. It was a strange sensation, running on streets that were so uniform in their downward tilt. Twice, Penny took a detour to avoid fallen buildings. Soon Faller recognized the façade of a movie theater they’d passed when they first landed.

  Orchids were rushing to and fro, wide-eyed and confused, shouting directions at each other. The landscape was badly tilted now; looking up the street was like looking up a steep hill, except the buildings left standing were all leaning toward him, threatening to pull loose from their foundations and tumble down on him.

  “Let’s each take a building,” Snakebite said. “I don’t know if they’d be in a closet, or sitting in the open.” He wiped sweat from his forehead.

  “This seems hopeless,” Faller said. “How are we going to find them when we don’t even know what building to look in?”

  Snakebite looked around, spotted an Orchid coming out of an apartment building. “Hey. Excuse me.” He ran over to her, fell into step beside her as she hurried up the sidewalk. If she was armed, her pistol was hidden. Maybe she’d forgotten it in her rush to get out of the building.

  Faller eyed the row of seven or eight intact buildings. He did not relish the thought of going inside them.

  “This is just fucked up,” Penny said. “What if it just keeps tilting? Everything will come sliding down on us.”

  Movement drew Faller’s attention. Down the street, the theater was tipping. It fell silently until it hit the building beside it. When the second building was hit, it tumbled over like a domino, spewing wood and concrete as it landed on the roof of the squat row of bom
b-damaged stores beside it.

  Snakebite ran back toward them, his gait awkward and uneven as he moved perpendicular to the slant. “These two, if they’re anywhere.” He pointed to the two apartment buildings on the end of the row.

  The end apartment building peeled off from the one beside it.

  “Look out,” Snakebite shouted to an Orchid hurrying along the walk beside the building. It was too late; she had time to look up, raised her hands as the building crashed down on her. Faller couldn’t help but imagine Storm’s face, not Orchid’s, on the woman. He wished Melissa hadn’t separated them.

  “Shit. Oh, shit. We have to get off of this thing,” Penny said.

  A crack caught their attention. A tree growing alongside the road had fallen, crushing a van, its upper branches burying a truck parked across the street.

  “We have to find cover.” Snakebite looked around. “Something solid that protects us from falling objects.”

  Faller looked around as well. Nowhere looked safe. From near and far, the crack and boom of falling buildings filled the air, mixed with screams. Down and across the street, there was a block where most of the buildings were gone, leaving nothing but a row of foundations cleaned out by the Orchids. From his vantage point he could see that one foundation was sunken, where there had once been a basement.

  “Down there.” He pointed. “That basement.”

  “I see it,” Penny said. “Let’s go.”

  It was no longer possible to run full-out—the drop was too steep. Instead they half ran, half skipped to a concrete basement about a dozen feet deep, completely empty thanks to the fastidiousness of the Orchids. There were concrete steps leading down. Faller felt better—safer—as soon as he was standing on that sunken floor.

  A crash got their attention. A semi, trailer and all, was tumbling down the hill at them.

  “Look out,” Faller shouted, his words drowned by the deafening rattle of steel as it slammed over them.

  Faller ducked.

  The steel trailer banged to an abrupt halt, three feet above his head.

  “Is everyone all right?” Snakebite called from nearby.

  Penny shouted that she was all right. Faller crawled toward the high wall of the basement, the wall of steel rising, giving his head more clearance, as he went. One end of the trailer had wedged in the basement against the far wall; the other was still aboveground, creating a lean-to.

  Penny ducked into the space, looked up. “Perfect.”

  They hunkered down with their backs against the wall, waiting, with no plan beyond avoiding being crushed. The foundation was so severely tilted that when Faller propped his feet flat on the concrete, his knees were parallel to his hips.

  Something crashed into the semitrailer. Faller jumped as blocks of concrete rained down on either side of their makeshift lean-to. He hoped Storm was safe, maybe waiting at an edge, ready to jump. He had to admit, it was an unlikely scenario. If the world didn’t stop tipping, he couldn’t imagine a way out of this for any of them without their parachutes.

  A shriek snapped him back to the present. Ducking low, Faller crawled out from under the trailer, with Snakebite and Penny at his heels. The stairs were blocked by rubble, but he managed to climb up the side of the partially crushed semitrailer and jump to the wildly tilted ground beside the cab of the semi.

  There were three Orchids lying in the street. Two were motionless, the third was trying to push herself up, but her legs looked like they’d been broken, or crushed. A fourth was still on her feet, clinging to a light post. The angle was so severe now that if she stumbled and fell, she’d tumble down the street until she slammed into something.

  Up the street, a tree fell, releasing a yellow school bus that had been wedged against it. It toppled down the street, ricocheting off the remnants of a store, bearing down on the Orchid. Seeing it was coming right at her, she dropped down on all fours and scrabbled sideways, trying to get out of the way.

  “This way,” Faller called. The Orchid ran for them. She looked like she was running on a wall; her momentum would have plunged her straight into the rubble-filled basement if Penny and Snakebite hadn’t grabbed her from either side as she flew by.

  As they led her into their shelter, Faller took one last look around, hoping to spot some other survivor, willing Storm and Melissa to appear from behind a building. Debris crashed down from above, an avalanche building steam. It was an awesome and terrifying sight.

  Faller jumped onto the semitrailer, then vaulted to the basement floor and ducked beneath the trailer. It wasn’t going to stop, he realized. And if this was the work of Ugo Woolcoff, then he’d underestimated how much hatred he could create in the heart of another human being. Could this really be about him? It was hard to believe. He couldn’t believe it, actually. For some reason Melissa wanted him to go to his grave believing he was responsible for all the death in the world, but he wouldn’t. No one would tip a world just to kill him.

  “I’ll be right back.” Snakebite disappeared from under the trailer.

  A moment later he was back carrying seat belts, cut from the truck cab. Snakebite cut the buckle off a seat belt with a knife he must have had strapped on him, slid it behind a pipe running along the base of the wall, then lashed it around the Orchid. He repeated this on each of them until they were all attached to the wall.

  There was nothing to do but wait, and hope the world stopped tilting. Faller looked at his companions. Penny was clinging to Snakebite.

  “I’m sorry, Penny,” Faller said. “I’m sorry you got tangled in this mess.”

  “No, I got myself tangled.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I should have stayed out of it.”

  “Stayed out of what?”

  Penny shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now.” She looked up at their low steel roof. “He knows I’m here. He doesn’t care.”

  Faller frowned, trying to follow. “Who doesn’t care?”

  Penny buried her face in Snakebite’s shoulder. Snakebite put his arm around her.

  A wave of affection for Snakebite washed over Faller. He raised his hand to Snakebite, who saw the gesture, and raised his in return.

  The wall was now as much ceiling as wall, the floor as much wall as floor. Outside, some tipping point was reached, and the sound of things falling escalated until it sounded like it was raining bricks, trees, cars, and people.

  The seat belt around Faller’s waist tightened as he slid down the floor as far as his tether would allow. The trailer groaned.

  It lifted free, and toppled out of their basement. Suddenly steel and shadows were replaced by bright blue sky.

  Tentatively, the Orchid turned to Faller and wrapped her arms around him. Maybe it was seeing Penny and Snakebite, maybe just an instinctive need to seek comfort at the end of the world. Faller put an arm around her shoulder.

  They drew their legs in toward the wall as steel, wood, and stone dropped from overhead, some of it landing just beyond their sheltered space and rolling to the far end. Much of it hit the mountain of junk piled against the far wall and bounced back out.

  If not for the belts they would have toppled down the wall of this world with the rest of the things that had been on it.

  “What’s happening?” the Orchid asked. “Do any of you understand this?”

  “Not really,” Faller said. “Our friend thought an evil scientist tipped your world to try to kill us, but I think that’s unlikely.” He thought of Melissa, silently cursed her for pulling Storm away. He wanted to say good-bye to her, to tell her he loved her, that he didn’t care if she was a copy of someone else.

  Soon they were hanging from their straps with the sky below their feet.

  Nearby, an Orchid fell from whatever she’d been clinging to. She plunged, screaming. There were other people falling as well, scattered among the trucks and trees and detritus. It occurred to Faller that Storm was probably down there somewhere. If he went headfirst the whole way, arms pressed to his sides, he might catch her, and
they could at least die together.

  “I’m going to cut loose.” Now that he’d thought it through, he could feel Storm getting farther away with each passing moment.

  Penny looked at Snakebite, who nodded.

  “You’re not serious,” the Orchid said, eyeing the endless sky below.

  “You’re welcome to come with us,” Faller said.

  “I don’t understand. Why would you do that? The world might still right itself. If you fall, there’s no hope.”

  “Even if it does,” Faller said gently, “there’ll be nothing left. We’d all starve.”

  The Orchid clutched his shoulder. “Please don’t leave me here alone.”

  Faller reached out, brushed the back of his fingers against her cheek. “I’m sorry. Come with us.”

  He nodded to Snakebite, who pressed the knife against the seat belt above Faller’s head and, with one quick motion, sent him plummeting.

  Below, the sky was filled with chunks of buildings, vehicles, rocks, and thrashing, screaming Orchids. Some were still clinging to broken pieces of their world.

  Faller rotated until he was diving headfirst, pressed his arms to his sides and willed himself to fall faster. Storm was down there somewhere.

  41

  WHEN IT became clear the two specks he’d been tracking weren’t just floaters in his eye, Faller’s heart soared. There were two of them, two tiny Xs in a cloudless blue sky. They could have been Orchids, but Faller was sure they weren’t. They were Melissas, arms and legs stretched to slow their descent, hoping Faller and the others would catch up. Faller spun to find Snakebite and Penny, who were falling side by side, and pointed emphatically.

  Snakebite gave him a thumbs-up.

  Faller repositioned himself in a headfirst dive, and closed the gap.

  As he drew closer, his heart started beating slow and hard. Each of them was clutching something. He tried not to get his hopes up; it might be food or water, although that wouldn’t make much sense if they were going to die anyway. They looked like packs. Faller squinted, straining to see, battling the wind that blurred his vision.

  They were black, they had straps. He inched closer, willing himself to see what was actually there, not what he wanted to see.