“Look up there!” Inez shouted, and pointed.
A figure was struggling to the top of a tree near the cliff. Ben put the pickup in gear and sped down the road. If the Cliff Trail was still passable, they might just be able to get close enough…
Audra struggled to the top of the tree and clung there. Her clothes were ripped in long lines down her body. Her skin might be ripped, too; she couldn’t tell. She was so cold. Her eyes burned; she couldn’t see very well. She could be bleeding to death and not know. So she clung to the tree, whispering, praying, crying…all the same.
Her father almost got her…he almost had. But she’d gotten away; she’d been too smart for him. She giggled. He just didn’t know who he was dealing with. Never had. She’d felt his hands grabbing at her, pulling, trying to find something to hold onto, but she’d always slipped away. She was too smart for him.
But his nails had gotten to her. His fingernails. And those had cut her, wounded her bad.
From this tree she could see the waterfall. It was beautiful. The water just fell through the clouds, dropping to the ground far below. She wondered if there were lots of rainbows there. She wondered.
Over the lip of the waterfall she could see the Taylor place. She really needed to talk to Reed. It all looked very beautiful from up here. It almost made her want to let go, to let the water take her, to drift down to the valley below. To talk to Reed.
Maybe he really loved her after all.
Reed had been running through the house, trying to get away from the image of himself that stepped out of the darkened mirror. A false image. A lie. He didn’t think the house could be that big; it seemed as if he had been running forever. It had seemed that big to him when he was a child, of course; it had seemed enormous. When his father chased him he had run and run and had never been able to get to the right door. The house had been huge, and the doors impossibly far apart.
The dark, tattered image of himself, like an unfocused photograph, a self-portrait gone sour, didn’t run, but walked behind him, and yet had no trouble keeping up. Every time he looked back over his shoulder he was there, just a few steps behind.
Looking just like him…but darker, hungrier, with sharper teeth.
Here, Reed…here, boy. It seemed the entire house was whispering to him. I’m the one you came for…I’m the one you needed to talk to. Why don’t you stop and play?
Reed whimpered. The words struck a chord. He’d come back to face these things, he’d come back to face his family. But this. This he could not face.
You got to look at me, Reed. Look at what I…you’ve become…
“No!”
Reed! It wasn’t a whispering this time, but a thunderstorm inside the cramped rooms and hallways. Reed had never heard such anger, not even in his father’s voice. Reed! The wall to his left suddenly exploded. Roaches poured out and did a mad dance around his feet. Reed! The lamp in front of him rose into the air rapidly, smashing into the ceiling. Reed! A long spider-webbing of cracks appeared in the floorboards under his feet. He could hear the teeth grinding behind him. He could feel the hate like an intense heat, an electrical storm in the making.
When Joe Manors woke up, he thought at first he was back in bed at Inez’s, and this had all been a dream. There was sunlight here, and he heard birds singing. He struggled to his feet and looked up: the sky was clear overhead. He looked around him.
He was standing on the detached boarding house roof. He was alone; the rest must have been swept away. Except for a white-sheeted form tied securely to two lightning rods: Hector Pierce’s body.
The roof had run aground. And all around him…a calm lake, like one he might have liked going fishing on some time. There was no sign of Simpson Creeks, and none of the landmarks seemed at all familiar. He had no idea where he might be.
But there…a few miles away…he thought he recognized part of Big Andy’s flank. It was dark there, darker than any sky had a right to be. Thunder in the clouds. Bright lightning flashes.
Like the mountain was tearing itself apart in rage.
Reed! The floor buckled in front of him, throwing him headfirst into the wall. At the last moment he turned his shoulder and drove into the soft, moldy plaster. He looked behind him. Dark hands were gripping the door frame. Glistening, knifelike nails. Then they were splintering it.
Ben pulled the truck right up to the edge of the water, fishtailing slightly on the wet rock that capped the cliff there. He jumped out and stared across the expanse of water separating them from Audra. A good twenty-five yards. There was no way they could get to her.
He looked at Charlie. Charlie suddenly scowled. “We got to do something for her!” he shouted over the roar of the waterfall.
“Charlie…” Inez gripped his arm tightly, using his shoulder to shield her face from the spray. “There’s nothing we can do!”
Ben’s face grew hot with shame. Even now he was thinking of leaving the young woman, driving down there and getting his nephew out of that house before the flood let loose. But who could blame him? There was nothing, nothing they could do.
Audra screamed. They looked out through the flying mist. The tree was bending toward the water. One of her legs was already covered over.
“Dammit all to hell!” Charlie shouted, and jumped. Inez screamed. Ben started to jump in after his friend, but just stared, dumbfounded, as Charlie stood up on the water and began walking toward Audra…small, unsteady steps in that high wind, but progress just the same.
Then he saw what Charlie was standing on. Large sections of a house were floating just under the surface of the flood. Matt O’Riley’s house, if Ben wasn’t mistaken, swept away in that flood ten years ago. None of the O’Rileys had made it out alive.
The pieces were rocking; at any moment Ben knew Charlie’d be stepping on a rotten piece, or the whole thing would flip over on him.
But he’d made it almost to the tree. Audra was reaching out to him.
Reed bounded up the stairs to the attic, his shadow self chewing up the steps a few seconds behind him. Reed, you must talk to me… The anger and rage had gone out of the voice. There was just this coldness now, as if the whispered words might freeze his skin.
Charlie grabbed Audra and pushed her onto the floating slab of house. There seemed to be shapes in the water here, too…interested in her or him, he didn’t know. He pulled her to him—barely conscious, she seemed to weigh a ton—and they stumbled across the slippery surface of the boards.
Ben had backed his truck up so that the rear bumper faced the falls. He grabbed the bumper and stepped out into the edge of the flood, holding out his hand, coaxing Charlie closer. His friend looked dazed, ready to pass out. Ben slipped as the force of the flood pulling out to the falls increased slightly. Inez grabbed him for additional support.
Charlie and Audra were only a few yards away.
But Ben could see that the pieces of the O’Riley house were beginning to separate, leaving wide areas of dark water between them. Some of the sections were breaking apart and sinking.
It was dark in the attic, and Reed felt like a little boy again.
The sounds had been going on for a long time: scratchings, chitterings, creakings, that were so soft you wouldn’t know they were there unless you listened real hard. He hated it here. He was sick with terror.
Maybe it was a rat, a bat; or maybe a snake, or maybe one of those furry things Jim Leeman told him about that had the poisonous bite but usually chewed your head off before you could die of the poison—Reed had had nightmares for a week after Jim had told him about that one. Jim said they were all over this hollow, those furry things.
But he had to stay. It was the best hiding place he knew. And if Daddy caught him today…
Reed thought he could hear him bellowing down below, but no, no…that was just the blood beating in his own ears. He was so scared this time; he couldn’t remember ever being this scared.
The scratching continued…softly, softly. Then the whimper
ing started.
Reed listened closely, holding his breath. There was another kid up here with him. Crying.
The whimpering grew louder. Maybe his daddy had beaten this little kid too.
Louder. Louder. A sound like an animal…a calf, mewling. They’d had one hit by a truck one time and it had sounded just like this before Uncle Ben had took out his gun and shot the poor thing to put it out of its misery.
Suddenly Reed wished he had a gun right then. He’d help it; he’d put the poor thing out of its misery.
Then there was a change. The mewling became a growling. And Reed got real scared.
The house sections were separating, and Charlie could see it now, and that desperate look in Ben’s and Inez’s faces over there on the bank.
“Jump!” he shouted in Audra’s ear. She looked up at him uncomprehendingly. “Jump, girl, if you want to live!”
She jumped, and he gave her an extra push with all his might to help her on her way. He was satisfied that she had landed on some floating wood right in front of Ben’s outstretched hand when the momentum of his push carried him backwards and into the water.
He grabbed the tree Audra had been clinging to as he drifted past. That stopped him for a moment, but then the top of the tree broke off completely and he was suddenly rushing for the falls.
He still held on to the tree top. He wasn’t sure why.
The teeth were right in front of Reed, virtually glowing in the dark. The dark silhouette started breaking up the attic, throwing things around, sinking his teeth into things, chewing them apart, savaging them as Reed watched in fascination and horror.
Reed had never seen anyone so angry before, even angrier than his father. It both scared and thrilled him. Daddy shouldn’t have hit the little boy so hard. See what happened?
But the dark eyes, the bright teeth, were looking at Reed now. Reed jumped up and fumbled with the door that led to the roof. The dark little boy with the big teeth was almost on him when he got it open.
Reed climbed as fast as he could. The little boy roared behind him.
Ben held Audra and Inez to him. He was crying. He stared after Charlie, but Charlie wasn’t even looking at him anymore. He was staring at the edge of the falls, now only a few feet away.
Charlie watched as the two figures climbed up on the roof of the Taylor house. Two almost identical figures. But it was hard to tell from this distance. He figured that one of them must be Reed, but who was the other one? Could Joe Manors have come out here trying to save the boy, too? Charlie had always liked Joe Manors; he hoped he made it out okay.
There were more immediate concerns at hand, however. He was smelling lilacs. Not just any lilacs, mind you, but Mattie’s lilacs. He knew.
Charlie looked down over the approaching edge of the falls. It looked like you could see forever, forever down, that is. Charlie chuckled to himself. But he was still smelling lilacs. The foaming water was like thousands and thousands of yards of lace. Doilies. Embroidery. His Mattie had had a hand in all of this, yes indeedy. He would recognize her handiwork anywhere.
And as he looked over the edge, right straight down, he could see her face, shining up at him out of the water. Like she was taking a bath, her face well scrubbed and glowing so pretty. Smiling at him. And smelling so strongly of lilacs.
The worst thing about people dying on you was sometimes it seemed that they hadn’t even existed, and that they’d taken part of your own past with them when they died. Practically stolen it from you, Sometimes you had to spend the entire rest of your life trying to get those pieces back. Having to face those old ghosts again and again till you got things settled between you.
Charlie hoped his death wasn’t going to give anybody that kind of trouble. He sincerely did. He wished them all well.
Chapter 33
Those last minutes on the roof. The water was so loud, filled the air so completely, everything seemed strangely nullified, silenced, and Reed felt as if he were huddled in the quiet heart of the world.
But there was still this roaring inside his ears; the giant waterfall had slipped into his head and was raging there. He had to get Carol and the children away from this angry, insane waterfall, but where could he put them? He jerked the soggy handkerchief out of his pocket and thought about wrapping them up in that. He’d wrap them up safe and they’d be there in his pocket, warming his damp cold body, for all time. He couldn’t bear to think of them drowned, or kept from him forever.
Once as a boy he’d gotten lost in a heavy rainstorm, only a mile or maybe less from home. He’d become hysterical, convinced he was forever lost in the fury of the storm, and alarmed that he could not feel his own tears in the angry rain. His parents could not hear him above the angry rain. And the angry rain blinded him so he could not find his way.
He’d spent almost a lifetime in that rainstorm; he was in the center of that raging storm even now. All the people who had died here, all the people who had been betrayed. They wouldn’t rest. He knew; he had betrayed himself.
Reed saw his shadow in the rain, straddling the rooftop and mocking him. He thought he should jump, let himself drown, but he could not. As long as he lived there was a chance he might see Alicia and Michael and Carol again. Alicia with all the questions, Michael with the dark hair and burning gaze so like his own, Carol with the arms to hold him and make him feel part of the human race.
Animal fear escaped him as the shadow approached. He wet his pants, and felt absurdly grateful that later no one would be able to detect a urine stain on his corpse, so wet and soggy he would be. Like cotton. Like morning fog. Like a drowned rag doll.
The shadow came closer. He tensed and crouched. Reed wasn’t going to make things easy for it.
Reed leaped, and saw the toothy grin in the pale face filling the storm. Lightning flashed, and he could feel his own face lose definition…
As Charlie went over the falls, it was as if the whole world went down with him in an earthshaking explosion of water. The flood escaped from behind the trees and rapidly surrounded the old Taylor house, pulling it apart in seconds with a thousand invisible claws. The water level dropped immediately with a roaring all around Ben, Inez, and Audra, who ran as far away from the edge of the cliff as they could. Then the hollow filled up again, great waves splashing over the edge of the cliff, almost swallowing Ben’s pickup. It rocked near the edge, but stayed.
After a few more minutes the storm subsided, and the new lake grew calm. The three half-drowned former citizens of what had been Simpson Creeks looked out on a long valley filled with miles of water.
Big Andy’s become a serpent, Ben thought, and began to shake all over. Inez was tugging at him.
Floating out in the distance was a large piece of wall. And his nephew Reed was on it.
Chapter 34
He kept thinking of it as Simpson Creeks after the flood, but that was foolish. There was no Simpson Creeks anymore. It had been absorbed, erased, drowned. A new lake nestled here, thirty miles long and almost as wide as the original river valley, winding its way tortuously through the southeast Kentucky hills, always doubling back on itself, always presenting a surprising twist, a brand new turn to the eye. It seemed strange that it was still accessible by road—the old dirt logging system. The flood had leveled off a few yards below its hard-packed, though sometimes overgrown, surface. It was as if Big Andy wanted all to see his new face.
There were bits of the old stream system here and there, reduced to tributaries feeding the enormous lake. In several places waterfalls had formed where the ground had sunk. In one spot a small waterfall emptied out directly onto the road, and the occupants of the old pickup had to grip the seats to keep from screaming when they passed under the thundering waters. He wanted to say something to soothe them, but could not.
There was surprisingly little recognizable debris around the lake—mostly bits of bark, branches, leaves, moss, floating in large masses in the water. As if even the last dregs of memory had been wiped away
. Here and there the thick trunks of fallen trees. As they passed it, a large oak standing at drunken attention on the bank suddenly shuddered up its entire height, as if with delayed terror, leaned crazily over, then fell with a series of moans and creaks into the lake. Squirrels and small birds exploded from its branches and rushed for other shelter just before its ragged roots let go completely and it turned over, corpselike in the water. He watched it turn in a slow, graceful circle before drifting away from shore.
Tiny jewels of water glittered over everything: stone and leaf and even the top branches of trees. With this morning’s sunrise, for the first time he could remember, there was no fog in the valley. No fog around Big Andy at all for the sun to burn off in layers. The mountain had been already stripped naked, with nothing left to conceal.
Most of the animals stayed hidden, probably as shocked by this strange land as were the occupants of the pickup. It was as if they had been picked up and transported a thousand miles or so. Nothing looked familiar. The animals, too, must have found it difficult to adjust to the morning’s unaccustomed brilliance. The sun’s heat must seem several hours early this morning. As after many disasters, natural enemies, still in shock, seemed to have made a truce. He saw a wildcat on the bank right beside a small deer.
Periodic winds stirred the water this morning, as if the previous night’s storm were threatening to begin again. But each died fitfully, as if they were Big Andy’s stray thought, his shadowy morning dreams, after a long night awake.
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