Every Mountain Made Low

by Alex White

  She imagined other souls hitching a ride on the mist to travel far away from their corpses. After a while, all ghosts vanished, and perhaps this was how. Perhaps the steam carried them up to God, and they were so happy that they never returned. Perhaps that’s all the steam really was – the ghosts of the dead. Part of her wanted to laugh at the thought, and the other part of her had suffered too much abuse at dead hands to make light of it.

  The path to the ninth ring was, in some ways, the oldest part of the city, and in others, the newest. The ever-sinking nature of the Hole meant that it was constantly being changed and lowered as they dug deeper, hungry for more ore. But at the same time, people had been walking this path since the first shovel turned Alabama soil. It was well-worn by the boots of hundreds of thousands of men and women – many of whom would never leave it. So many people had been buried down here by accidents, people whose lives had all held meaning to someone or another. Their passage had warmed the hard-packed earth, wearing it to a dull sheen.

  She kept her eyes peeled for ghosts. She usually didn’t venture down so far because of the dead. Accidents, as well as rapists and murderers, ensured a high degree of danger the closer she got to the bottom. Armed policemen supervised the changing of the shifts, but at this time of the evening, she was on her own. No one would help if she got into trouble. An undiscovered body could spell disaster.

  And yet she passed, unmolested, through the eighth ring as she made for the ramp into the works. No one emerged from the silent, dark row houses that lined the filthy avenue. No voices beckoned to her from dim alleyways. The landscape lay empty, almost like a stage, waiting for her and Hiram to take their places in the light. Would she see him on the way? Would he already be there? Would he be alone?

  She shivered in the frosty air. The temperature must have dropped twenty degrees in the past day or two... not that she’d been outside her room much. She regretted not wearing more layers, and crossed her arms tightly as she marched onward. It wasn’t a windy sort of cold, but the kind that seeped into her bones no matter how fast she walked.

  Quentin had been right: she was going to die, even if she’d never admit it. She was cold and alone, armed only with a knife against a professional murderer. She’d accepted what would happen to her with the same sort of detachment one might have for the death of a distant relative. However, she had to try, and she had to do it her way. She’d wanted to ask for Quentin’s help, and perhaps even Tailypo, but she’d been unwilling to pay the prices such help would cost.

  What would she feel when she sunk the knife into Hiram’s chest? Would she be swept up by an ocean of his blood? What noises would he make? These questions occupied her during her descent, until she reached the lowest level of the Hole – the Foundry.

  The Foundry had a filthy coal storage facility, endlessly belching clouds of black soot over the rest of the ninth ring. She could see the stacker boom looming over her approach, a colossal machine for vomiting heaps of coal onto mountains, but silenced at this time. Yellow light sprayed from its length, illuminating everything around in a nasty wash. A fence separated her from the rest of the facility – a sad, rusted thing, fraught with breaches. She pulled away the chain link and slipped inside with nary a sound.

  The dirt on the other side was black and chalky, suffused with coal dust. It edged onto her shoes, staining them as if to mark her as someone who belonged to the Hole. Much open ground lay between her and the stacker, and she could see it perfectly from her vantage point.

  The backdrop of city lights sloped upward, flashing neon and hazy sparkles, spinning around Loxley’s vision. Her stomach turned as she realized that this was the second place where anyone in the city could look down and see her, provided they were on the right side of the Foundry’s plume. She’d disliked Edgewood as a child for the same reason, looking out over all of those people, and now, they were all looking down on her. It was an arena, just like the boxing hall near Vulcan’s Bazaar, but on the grandest scale. Would others watch with casual disinterest as she and Hiram carved each other up?

  She clambered over the stacker’s tracks, a pair of heavy silver rails that shined unlike anything else around them. Had this machine always been so big? She’d never seen it up close, but when her eyes followed the boom’s length, she realized the assembly was larger than most buildings, maybe as large as Bellebrook.

  Dirty white and yellow paint flaked from its surface, and a massive Consortium logo adorned one of the larger panels. A random patchwork of details threatened to overwhelm her senses, but the form of its boom calmed her – a long series of interlocking triangles wrapped around a wide conveyor belt.

  Upon reaching the stacker, she looked around and found some scaffolding with stairs. Five and a half hours early, she would take shelter and await her prey. She couldn’t hide on the ground level; she might never see Hiram’s approach. A high vantage point would be required to spot him first. Taking hold of a railing, she grunted and began the long ascent.

  The metal was icy under her palms, and her hands began to go numb. She wished she could have crawled back into bed with Jayla and warmed them up. Loxley had wanted to tell Jayla she was leaving, that she was sorry, but it would have been too painful. She’d never say all the right things to calm her lover’s mind – she could barely calm herself. Loxley didn’t know how to make people feel better, only to hurt them, and in turn they would hurt her. Better to face Hiram alone with a worried friend back home, than to face him with no one waiting for her at all.

  She climbed higher, and the wind whipped her hair into her eyes as she reached the end of the path. To her left lay a door to the interior chambers, locked, and ahead of her, there were a few tenuous footholds. She could see better hiding spaces further up the boom, but no railings and paths. She hoisted herself over the side and continued onward, trying not to look down. She was already at least fifty feet above the ground, and though it looked soft and ashen from up high, she knew better.

  After a few harrowing minutes of climbing, she’d reached the end of the boom. The machine was turned off, except for the lights. She eased onto the conveyor belt and laid down on her belly to survey the coal yards.

  Empty and quiet, save for the distant thrum and clang of the steelworks.

  She rolled onto her back. The column of steam climbed away from her, gargantuan in its proportion this close to the Foundry. The rings of the Hole were like a belt of stars, a halo surrounding the great blackness of night beyond. Every human was only a brief flare, sliding into this pit to be reborn in steam.

  She drew Cap’s carving knife from its sheath and ran her thumb across its worn handle. The other side of life’s veil, Heaven, Hell or otherwise, was close at hand now. Soon, she would be a ghost, just like all of the others... or would she? Did crazy people even make ghosts? She wasn’t like anyone else she’d ever met, so perhaps not. Maybe she’d stop existing and no one would ever care that she’d been there in the first place. It might be better than hurting everyone through the simple act of dying.

  She lay perched on the thin place between the living and the dead. Surrounding her, the lights of all things familiar and warm, but above, the ragged edge of the cold, open sky. It was a bubble, and the stacker’s boom was a needle, lifting her, pushing her through. The longer she lay, the closer the infinite night drew, and the colder it got. She shivered and held herself tightly. She wasn’t imagining it – the temperature had dropped as the hours wore on.

  Something tiny and white fluttered in front of her face. She blinked, looking around, but couldn’t see what it had been. Then, another movement and another, and her eyes focused upon snow. She recognized twisting wisps of it extending from the column in long tendrils. Had it really grown so cold?

  The first time she’d seen snow as a little girl, she’d screamed. She’d looked out her window, and the world was all wrong, white and cold, framed by an icy haze. Someone had come in the night and kidnapped her and her mother both, wrenching them away from the
familiar.

  No, no, it’s okay Lox. Hey, no, it’s okay. Everything is still the same as it was, just with a little extra on top, is all. We’re still at home. You’re safe. It’s okay.

  She had no idea how long it took to calm her down; time was slippery. When her mother took her up to the roof, Loxley found she loved snow. It fogged the world around, obscuring the distant buildings, and it muted all noises as if there was no one for miles. She could draw in it. She could count every footstep she took. When she got too cold, the snow made her mother’s embrace feel that much warmer.

  And now, as she watched the tiny flakes flit and dance around her, absorbing the city’s incandescence, her heart was at ease. It was one last gift to her from the Hole, before she went to join those in the steam. Tomorrow, they’d find her body shot through by Hiram, lying helpless in the fresh white powder.

  She curled up and willed time to wait, to give her a little longer.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Talons

  A LOUD CLICK, the throw of a massive switch.

  A buzz, the grinding of a gearbox.

  Loxley startled as surely as if the air had caught fire. How long had she been alone with the snow? How long had she been staring up at the sky? Slippery, stupid time. Why couldn’t she pay attention, just this once? She’d planned to find a good place to ambush Hiram once he arrived, but now she was isolated on the most dangerous part of the machine.

  She rolled over to look down the conveyor belt and see if she could spot the person in the driver’s seat. Lights all along the boom erupted, and she shouted in surprise, covering her ears and shutting her eyes. Vibrations rattled the bucking metal, and she screamed louder. Coal dust shot down her throat as she inhaled, leaving her coughing and sputtering. The crackles popped in her fingertips like gunshots and she kicked her legs against the conveyor as hard as she could, trying to shake off the ants. Static rose in her brain like the tide.

  She sheathed Cap’s knife with shaking hands; she had to, in case the static got her. She might drop it if she lost control. Her body didn’t want to listen to her, but she forced her feet under her and stood, grabbing onto the conveyor’s cage for support. Her hands were black – covered in coal dust where the skin was supposed to be. She spat on them and rubbed them on her pant legs, but the streaks wouldn’t come off. She tried not to imagine that it covered most of her body, but she knew it did.

  With a deafening roar, the stacker pivoted hard to one side, threatening to rip her from her perch and fling her into the open night air. Loxley caught the boom cage just in time, clinging on for dear life. She had to find some way down, but the stacker continued its merciless spin, taxing her every action. Knees quaking and fingers straining, she hefted her weight forward, carefully stepping around shivering piles of coal. With a few more steps, she’d be able to see the driver’s cabin. She knew she’d find Hiram behind its windows. The conveyor belt whined to life, taking her feet out from under her. Her fall wrenched her hands from their holds, and her face slammed into the gritty rubber belt with a bright flash. The cage rushed past her as she scrabbled for another hold, anything to stop the forty foot drop that was coming. Then she saw the end of the boom, and the open air.

  All became weightless.

  Air fled her lungs as her back struck a jagged coal pile. Searing pain flooded her. She couldn’t scream; she couldn’t breathe. She tumbled end over end through the flying rocks and dust, the coal slicing any exposed skin. Her limbs tried to bend in ways they shouldn’t have, and up became meaningless. The stacker’s running lights flashed through her vision.

  She came to rest with an agony she’d never known, not even from the touch of a ghost. She couldn’t take a breath, her mouth agape in a silent scream. She tasted blood. Her fingers curled into jittery, aching talons. Her left knee blazed like a torch. Her cheek rested against coal gravel. She could not lift her face from the choking soot. Rocks showered onto her from the still-running stacker.

  She thought the static would take her – make her not care about any of this until Hiram came and put a bullet in her. Instead, it waited at the edge of her mind, rendered all too distant by the pain that suffused her every fiber. The only time she’d ever wanted to forget herself, her mind had failed. Coal sands sifted over her, weighing down upon her body, covering nearly every inch of her. The stacker above ground to a halt.

  “Miss Fiddleback?” she heard Hiram call with a chuckle.

  Every exhalation brought another tuneless note from her throat. What would Nora do? Nothing. She’d die just like she did before. She heard the chunk of his heavy footsteps, the crunching of coal.

  Her heart thundered as he came into view, every bit as terrifying as she remembered. He looked like a man composed: one who could kill a human as easily as wringing a chicken’s neck. His clothing was stained with soot and he held a shining chrome pistol. He looked right at her. His smirk told her there was no time to hide or run.

  With great pain, she reached down to her rubble-covered leg, to Cap’s knife, and drew it partway. She focused on Hiram’s exposed neck. Maybe she’d get one chance to put the blade into him before he shot her if he did something stupid. Let him come closer. Let him underestimate her just like Quentin, just like the men in Duke’s limousine.

  “Is that you, sugarpop?” he said, his voice lilting. “You know, I was wondering, because I thought, to myself, Only a retard would choose to hide at the end of the stacker boom. And there you were! Can you believe it?”

  “I’m not retarded,” she said, surprised that she could still speak.

  Hiram was still too far away. She’d never be able to get to him before he blew her head off. She needed him closer. He stopped a few feet away and leveled his pistol.

  “What’cha got there? Like a knife or something? Baby, please. I’m a professional.”

  He locked back the hammer.

  “I would like to know what’s going through your head. You know, before a bullet, I mean. Call it fucking morbid, but I ain’t never shot a mongoloid before.”

  “Why?”

  His self-righteous smirk faltered. “It’s just, like... I just want to know. You thinking of your daddy or something?”

  She released the knife, put her palms against the ground and pushed. Fifty pounds of coal fell from her body as she excavated herself, and she got her legs under her. Her hips strained, and her back felt wretched, but still she rose. She forced herself to meet his eyes. She found no insight in them, not like Nora would have, but she stared as long as she could.

  “I’m thinking of dots,” she said. “I don’t live in a line like you do, but dots.”

  “Do tell.”

  “I was so scared in that limousine when I opened up your friend’s leg. He was screaming and red, but do you know, I think of it now, and I only think of cutting meat. Like trimming the gristle off a pork chop.”

  “Girlie girl, I think that’s the best description I’ve ever been offered of what I do.” He took a step closer, but he was still too far. “I think you really get me. I wish we could have gotten to know each other a little better.”

  “You don’t have to shoot me.”

  He shook his head. “No, but I want to.”

  A pair of distant pops echoed across the coal stacks, and Hiram screamed obscenities. He clutched his arm and stomach, nearly dropping his gun, and Loxley saw blood oozing between his fingers.

  “Loxley, run!” It was Quentin’s voice. He crouched behind the stairs of the stacker, his gun smoking.

  Hiram turned his gun on Quentin and returned fire, making long strides toward cover. She flinched with each pop, and the muzzle flashes struck her eyes like a slap. She wanted to run straight to her friend but feared getting shot in the exchange. She hobbled toward Quentin, trying to steer clear of the line of fire. When she looked to see if Hiram was about to shoot at her, she saw him running off into the darkness.

  The words to tell Quentin what was happening on the other side of the stacker elude
d her grasp. She flapped her fingers and gestured in the direction of the fleeing killer. Quentin came charging out of cover only to grab her hand and drag her back behind the stacker. She tried to wrench free; his grip was ironclad.

  “Tailypo said he’d have my skin if you went and got yourself killed,” he panted, checking around the corner for Hiram. “Are you hurt?”

  She grabbed hold of her sentence and forced it out of her mouth. “He’s getting away!”

  “I know. I fucked up his motorcycle, and he’s twice wounded. We can take our time and do this right. Now are you hurt?” He hugged her, and even though she ached all over, she buried her face in his chest.

  “Yes,” she mumbled. “Everything hurts. I have to kill him. We’re doing that, right?”

  “I can handle him on my own. You don’t have to come along.”

  “Yes I do!” she shouted, and Quentin flinched.

  “All right, pumpkin.” He nodded once, twice. “I understand. Stick close to me.”

  He took her to where the shots had struck Hiram and looked around in the dust. He found footprints and spots of blood. Loxley reached down and touched the drops, squishing them between her fingers. She didn’t mind his blood on her skin. Quentin took a few more steps, searching out the trail, and she followed after him.

  They made their way in silence, Quentin’s eyes constantly darting this way and that, ever alert. They found Hiram’s motorcycle kicked over, ignition wires ripped from their housing. Quentin chuckled. Loxley pulled her knife from its sheath and clutched it tightly. The buildings of the Foundry rose around them as they followed the path, and soon they departed the dirt for concrete, which made Hiram that much easier to track.

  “He’s lost a lot of blood. Going to be weak when we find him,” said Quentin.

  The longer they walked, the weaker Hiram would be, and the more strength Loxley would regain. Her whole body ached, but movement worked out some of the pain. She hadn’t fallen as hard as she’d thought, and soon she’d be able to run if she had to.