Crosscut

by Meg Gardiner

  The doors shut. Coyote’s arm was jammed between them. The knife was out, the point ten inches from his face. With every ounce of strength, he swung the tire iron.

  The sound cracked in the air, and her wrist and hand skewed, deforming at an angle below her elbow.

  Through the slit in the doors she glared at him. The doors should have opened autmatically, but instead kept pressing closed on her. She tried to push them open, using her upper arm. Her hand and wrist sagged but she held on to the knife. The door began wedging wider. Oh, shit.

  He slammed the tire iron against her arm again and again. She growled, now trying to wedge her shoulder in the doors. He hit her again, bringing the iron down like a sledgehammer. The knife dropped from her fingers. Her hand retreated out of sight. The doors closed.

  Holy fuck.

  The leg, the arm, none of it mattered. She was impervious. Unless he killed her or fried her central nervous system, she would simply keep coming.

  He hit the control panel and the elevator began to rise. Outside the glass, Coyote’s translucent face appeared. She watched the elevator pull away, her head tilting back, freaky eyes following him.

  She opened her mouth and wailed.

  The sound made his skin shrink. He turned his head, trying to swallow, and saw the floor.

  “Yes.”

  The hunting knife lay in front of him. He grabbed it and pressed six. Leaning back, he tried to catch his breath. Outside, the view soared over the atrium.

  Oh, God. He slapped his hand against the glass.

  Leaning over the walkway railing to see who was howling was Angie Delaney.

  He pounded on the glass. “Angie.”

  She looked up, spotted him, and her mouth opened in surprise.

  He pointed upward, yelling, “Evan’s on six!”

  He slapped his hands to the window again: five fingers and one finger. She disappeared from his view. The elevator continued rising.

  Two floors above Angie, staring down over the railing, her face knotted with anger, stood Maureen Swayze.

  37

  My hands throbbed, numb. The tape bit painfully into my skin. But what was unbearable was the quiet.

  All the sounds I’d heard earlier had been overcome by jagged sobs and the words whispering from my lips. “Our Father, who art . . .”

  Hell, what was the rest of it?

  “In heaven. Hallowed . . .” If I could recite the rest of it, I wouldn’t go insane. If I could get to that part about deliver us from evil, then maybe . . .

  I heard Coyote wailing.

  I cringed my knees together. Come to me, prayer. Come on. I’m on a highway to hell. . . . The elevator call button chimed.

  I looked and saw Jesse come around the corner.

  All my defenses evaporated. I erupted in tears. “Oh, my God.”

  He had a knife in his hand. An enormous, serrated knife. He was winded and his hands were shaking. He began sawing at the tape that bound me to the pillar.

  “What happened?” I said.

  “Got this from her.”

  My voice was racked with tears and astonishment. “Got it? Simple as that?”

  “Broke her arm with the tire iron, but that won’t stop her. She’ll be coming.”

  Concentrating, he fought to steady his hands and sawed into the tape above my wrists.

  “Your mom’s downstairs. She’s okay,” he said.

  He kept sawing as I broke into another bout of tears. He looked at me, ragged.

  “I hope,” he said.

  With one last shove of the knife, he cut through the tape. I swung my arms down and he helped me sit up. Blood and sensation flooded painfully back to my hands. I struggled to my knees and fell against him.

  He clutched me. “Can you walk?”

  “Don’t know; she Tasered me twice.” My voice dropped. “I wet my pants.”

  “Join the club.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was joking. I tried to get my feet under me and stand up. I wobbled and stayed put on the floor.

  “Not working yet,” I said.

  “Climb on.”

  He jammed the knife and tire iron behind his back and pulled me onto his lap. He was joking about the pants, I realized. He was simply spooked half out of his head. With me slumped against him he turned and carted us back toward the elevator, swerving around paint buckets and sawhorses. My limbs felt weak and tingly. Working at it, I made a fist. Control was returning, but strength was still distant. We rounded the corner and I saw the elevator door jammed open with the potted plant. Jesse wheeled in and muscled the plant out of the way. His shirt was clinging to him and he was breathing hard. He pushed the button for the lobby.

  “Anybody out there’s going to be able to see us coming down,” he said. “Can you hold the knife?”

  I squeezed my hand again, wondering if I could grip it. The doors began to chug closed.

  Ding. Next to us the second elevator stopped. When we looked we couldn’t see anybody inside, but then the doors opened, and we heard them.

  A woman was shrieking. “Shit. Fuck.”

  “Get off—”

  Thudding sounds and a slap and a loud crash racked out of the elevator, and a cry of shock, pain, and surprise. Mom and Swayze rolled out onto the floor in the walkway.

  They were grappling, clawing, pulling hair, and kicking and biting each other. Swayze’s glasses were gone and one side of her face was red, her eye swollen shut. Mom’s forehead was bleeding and her blouse was ripped open.

  I jumped off Jesse’s lap, lunging for them, and fell smack on my face. Jesse shoved his way around me out to the walkway.

  “Stick the broom in the door,” he said.

  “Swayze has the Glock.”

  I sloshed around, got my hand on the broom, and tipped it into the doorway so the elevator couldn’t leave without us. And so that Coyote couldn’t get up here in it. Fighting to my knees, I crawled out of the car.

  On the floor ten feet away, Swayze punched Mom in the mouth. Mom clawed at Swayze’s face. It was so swollen on the right side that I knew Mom had pepper-sprayed her. Swayze kicked Mom and rolled away, scrambling to her feet. I saw Jesse swing the tire iron, hard, and Swayze drop. She howled and grabbed for him. Mom pulled at Swayze’s lab coat and Swayze wriggled out of it, twisting free. I saw the Glock slide out of the pocket and Swayze swing at Jesse and Jesse trying to get the knife from behind his back and to keep control of the tire iron and not get dumped on the floor. And I saw Mom come up with the Taser.

  She jammed it against Swayze’s shoulder, yelling, “Jesse, clear.”

  He raised his hands. Mom fired.

  Nothing happened.

  They held still for a second, looking at the Taser.

  Swayze backhanded Mom into Jesse and turned, looking for the gun. I crawled toward them.

  “Pocket,” I said.

  They didn’t hear me. Swayze fell toward the Glock.

  “Mom, her lab coat. The pocket.”

  Swayze came up with the Glock. “The Taser’s out of power from making Evan piss herself. There’s not enough juice left for you to shave your legs with.”

  Mom was on Swayze’s right side. Swayze couldn’t see Mom stick her hand in the pocket of the lab coat and discover the syringe.

  Swayze racked the slide on the Glock. Clutching the syringe, Mom jammed her in the calf and pushed the plunger.

  Swayze stared, appalled, gasping. She dropped the gun and pulled the syringe out. Grabbing her leg, she fell in a ball on the floor, screaming. Mom staggered back.

  Crawling to Jesse’s side, I pulled myself to my feet. My legs held. I reached out.

  “Mom.”

  She seized hold of me. On the floor Swayze convulsed. Her head jerked and her eyes rolled back to whites.

  Jesse backed into the wedged elevator door. “Come on.”

  I faltered after him, clinging to Mom. “I can’t believe you did that.”

  Mom stared at her. “She set Coyote loose on y
our class.” She pulled me toward the elevator, but I hesitated. The Glock lay on the floor beyond Swayze, just outside the door of the second elevator. I needed to get it, but I didn’t want to get close to her. Her face was blue. Bloody foam frothed from between her lips. Her limbs were slamming the floor.

  If I stuck close to the wall I could pick my way around her. Letting go of Mom, I took a step.

  The bell for the second elevator chimed. The door yawed open, and out stepped Coyote.

  Even with her hair shorn, her face scratched, and her arm grotesquely broken, she was striking. Androgynous, and wounded, and intent.

  “Ev.”

  Jesse pulled on the back of my shirt, dragging me into the elevator. Coyote attacked.

  Her shin crunched and slipped when she put her foot down. She fell to her knees. I tangled with the broom handle and stumbled, landing on my butt in the doorway. I crab-crawled backward as the doors began to close, but Jesse and my mom were behind me and there wasn’t room. Hands in, butt in, left foot in.

  “You.” She crawled toward me and grabbed my right foot. “You belong to me.”

  The door closed, hit my calf, and came open again. Coyote sank her nails into my ankle. With her one usable arm, she began hauling me out of the elevator. She was wickedly strong.

  “Jesse, help.”

  He grabbed my collar but Coyote was pulling, and that meant she pulled him along with me. I tried to clear the broom from the door but managed only to get it upright. The door shut on my leg again, and this time it stayed closed. What was wrong with these stupid elevators? Outside, Coyote’s voice rose.

  “You took my life. You’re mine.”

  “Jesse, I’m stuck.” I put my other foot against the door and pushed.

  The elevator lurched downward, dropping two solid feet and jerking to a halt. The broom handle, jammed upright in the door, shattered.

  Coyote held on. The malfunctioning door stayed closed. My leg was stuck.

  “Jesse, this is urgent.”

  “I don’t have any leverage. Ev, push.”

  “I am pushing. Shit. Shit.” I put everything I had into shoving with my left leg. The door squeezed my shin. Outside, Coyote growled.

  Mom climbed around Jesse and braced herself, foot up on the wall of the compartment, hands hauling on the door, trying to open it.

  “The tire iron,” I shrieked. “Use it. Leverage.”

  She grabbed it from Jesse and wedged it in the four-inch space between the doors and yowled and threw all her hundred pounds against it. The car dropped again. The doors began crawling open.

  Yes. I saw my leg. I saw the carpet outside. I saw Coyote’s face. And her good hand, wrapped around my ankle like a bear trap. The doors gradually spread wider, and she looked at me as if I were the meal she’d been waiting for all winter, and she pulled.

  “No, no.” I began sliding out again.

  Jesse grabbed me with one arm, hanging onto his wheel with the other. “Angie, help.”

  The doors closed again on my knee. Above me Jesse and Mom pulled, groaning, trying to get me back inside the car.

  Coyote’s hand tightened on my ankle and the car shuddered, the cables groaning. I screamed, knowing what was going to happen in a few more seconds. If my leg stayed stuck I would be mangled to bonemeal.

  Jesse yelled, “One, two, three!”

  He and Mom pulled, one last almighty effort, and hauled me back. My knee appeared. My calf. My ankle, with Coyote’s hand still gripping it. The car went down. My foot appeared. In Jesse’s hand, the knife appeared.

  I shut my eyes. “Do it.”

  I felt the blow, the huge momentum behind his swing. I felt blood and pain. I pulled myself back into the elevator.

  The car lurched and motored downward with a long, hard drop, as though a gallows door had fallen open. It bounced and danced on the cables and kept going down, the motors humming. Opening my eyes, I kicked and squirmed and pulled my knees up, panting. My ankle was slashed and bruised but still hooked to my leg.

  Jesse pushed back. Mom shrank against the glass. I inched back to the wall. We all stared at Coyote’s severed fingers.

  They lay glistening in a row on the floor, still attached to the knuckles, blood pooling around them. Jesse had taken off the end of her hand. He put the back of his wrist against his mouth as though suppressing his gag reflex.

  “Holy shit,” I said.

  They had nothing to add to that.

  “Thank you. Both of you.”

  The lights flickered. The elevator stopped humming, started again, and slowed. We looked at the numbers and saw three, M2, M1. The car stopped with a thunk and bounced on the cables. The call button pinged and the doors stammered partway open. We were on the mezzanine, and the car was three feet higher than the walkway outside. We were stuck.

  I pushed close, open, and lobby. Neither the doors nor the elevator car budged an inch.

  “Go,” Jesse said. “Get out and start running.”

  “What are you going to do?” I said.

  He nudged forward. His wheels just fit between the doors. “Jump.”

  “Then what?”

  He shot me a glance, frazzled. “Find another elevator. Bump down the stairs or let you piggyback me. Anything but hang around here.”

  Mom scooted around the edge of the car, staying clear of the severed half hand, and leaned out.

  “Clear. Let’s do it.” She jumped out.

  My heart felt thready. I stepped around the gory fingers and followed her, thumping down onto the wide walkway of the mezzanine. Below us in the lobby the lights were still spasming. Jesse handed me the hunting knife. I backed out of his way, watching him wheelie and balance himself in the doorway. Three feet was no piece of cake. He was going to land damned hard.

  “Sure you don’t want to—”

  “I’m sure.” He rocked his feet up, inching forward, gauging it.

  Something warm sprayed my cheek, a mist. The gunshot echoed around the atrium. Mom fell to the floor.

  “Ev,” Jesse yelled. “Get down.”

  Mom lay crumpled on the carpet, eyes wide, gasping. I dropped to her side. My horror was airless and jagged.

  Jesse shouted at me, “Evan.”

  I looked up. Coming down the stairs from the upper mezzanine was Coyote. She was gimping along, her foot turned on its side. The remnant of her right hand hung soaked in a bloody strip of fabric. She had ripped her shirt and wound it around her palm to stanch the bleeding. In her left hand she awkwardly gripped the Glock.

  Mom stared up at me. The pain in her eyes looked as though it had come at her from a direction beyond our experience. She opened her lips but didn’t speak.

  Coyote balanced her way down the wide mezzanine staircase. Her face was deathly pale but impassive. She appeared less a woman than a zombie eking its way across rough terrain. She wasn’t flinching, wasn’t cringing. Though desperately injured, she obviously felt no pain. Only purpose.

  “You took my life. You four.”

  She worked to raise the Glock again. It weighed a couple of pounds, and with her arm fractured by the tire iron she struggled to control it. Her hand drooped. She began raising her entire arm from the shoulder.

  First rule of a gunfight: bring a gun. First rule of a knife fight . . .

  A rasp rose in my head, the sound I’d heard when I saw Coyote walk past me through the revolving door, and when I knew that Tommy and Abbie were dead, the hollow roar caused by certainty kicking the base out from under my world.

  I could run. And the day after tomorrow I would bury Jesse and my mother.

  If I didn’t run, I had to get close. All I had to put between them and Coyote was my own body. Now, before the gun came up.

  The rasping disappeared. Truth rang through me like a bell. I could not let Coyote get down the stairs. If she did, we were lost. No matter what happened, I had to stand.

  Raising the knife, I ran at her. The sound coming out of my throat was wild. She could not g
et down the stairs. Could not.

  Behind me I heard Jesse screaming at me to stop. I saw Coyote brace her torn right arm beneath her left hand, supporting it and working the Glock up to firing position. I charged her, knife out, seeing the gun aimed at the rug, at the air, swinging around.

  She dodged and the knife went through her shirt. She grabbed me, wrapping her damaged arms around my chest. And she pulled me back, off balance, toward the railing. Jesse screamed, I screamed. Clasping me like a lover, Coyote flung herself backward and together we flipped over the rail.

  We fell. And hit the painters’ scaffold.

  I landed on my back on the rickety wooden platform. Coyote whammed down on top of me. Her uneven eyes hovered inches from mine. Her right arm was wrapped beneath me, pinning my left arm to my side. Her left arm, in which she held the Glock, pressed on my right hand. She had the knife pinned to the platform. I couldn’t wrest it free.

  “You took my life,” she said. “That day. South Star, I tried to stop it.” Teeth bared. “Stop it. You were downwind; I knew you were.”

  I tried to get my arm out from under her. No good. I swung a leg around and kicked her broken ankle. That did worse than nothing. It didn’t hurt her, but the scaffold wobbled beneath us. It was only a couple of feet wide. Falling the next twenty feet to the marble floor of the lobby would be easy as anything. She bared her teeth.

  “I ran back but it detonated. I got it full force. And this is what I’ve become.”

  Over her shoulder, on the mezzanine above, I saw Jesse wedge his arm around the rail and give it every effort he had to stand up. He was at least six feet above us. He couldn’t possibly reach me. The scaffold trembled again. Coyote wrapped her legs around me and the platform, holding on as though riding a wild horse bareback. Frantic, I tried to brace myself. The knife slipped from my fingers. It dropped and dropped, and it was a long time before I heard it bounce on the marble.

  Inches from my face, Coyote’s mouth lost its sneer. Her lips quivered. For a second I saw Kai Torrance, the street kid holding her tragedies inside, the woman who so hated herself that she no longer believed she was a woman. The animal that couldn’t feel pain except by inflicting it on others.