by Ilsa J. Bick
“Might be nothing more than a bruise. What about your neck?”
“Eric.” She swallowed back against another tidal surge of nausea. “Where’s Lily?” When he hesitated, she thought, Oh God. “Lily … she … she’s dead, isn’t she? I got her killed, didn’t I? Where is she? Is she”—ignoring the knifing pain in her neck and shoulders, Emma tried to turn her head—“was she thrown or is she still …”
“Emma, does it really matter? Seeing won’t change anything.”
No. She used her eyes the way she might her fingers, tracing the shape of his nose, that line of jaw, tangling in hair that was wavy, black, and thick. Even in the gloom, she could see the deep blue of his eyes. You don’t understand, Eric. Seeing is believing. Seeing changes everything. Aloud, she said, “Thank you for not leaving us.”
“Not the way I’m made.” He cupped her cheek. “Come on,” he said, gently. “Let’s get you out of here.”
CASEY
Dead Man’s Shirt
“OH BOY.” TONY was kneeling in deep snow by the Camry’s rear tire. “This is not good.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” said Casey, smearing ice from his cheeks. He grimaced as snowmelt trickled down his neck to soak the collar of Big Earl’s shirt. Casey hadn’t wanted the thing, but his was shredded, cut to ribbons by Big Earl’s switch, and blood-soaked to boot. At first, shrugging into Big Earl’s oversize flannel had been like slipping on the slack, discarded husk of a gigantic python, and just about as pleasant. The thing was a little better now, but that wasn’t saying much, all things considered. The shirt felt … squirmy. Not alive, exactly, but every now and again, he thought he could feel it actually moving in tiny creeps, as if trying to worm into and wrap itself around the muscles and bones of his much smaller, slighter frame. Which, of course, was crazy; the thing was just a dead man’s shirt. Still … he could feel his skin flinch and cringe, withdrawing the way cats slithered low to the ground when they just didn’t want to be touched. He shrugged, wincing as old flannel raked raw flesh and clotted blood. “Man, that tire’s flatter than a pancake.”
“Wh-what happened?” said Rima, doing the freezing person two-step. “I thought you were being c-careful.”
“I was, but …” Tony sighed, his breath huffing in white steam the wind grabbed and tore apart. “If I had to guess, I’d say one of these downed spruces. Branches are sharp as spears. Probably drove over one buried under the snow.”
“Do you have a spare?” asked Emma, shivering. Gasoline didn’t freeze, and she and Eric were drenched, the stink hanging over them in a noxious cloud. Tony had dredged up a space blanket for her, but it didn’t seem to be doing much—not that this broke Casey’s heart or anything. “Or maybe a pump you could run off the battery?”
“The car’s buried,” Casey said, impatiently. Idiot. She looked like hell, too. In the flashlights, the shock-hollows beneath her eyes were purple smudges. Wouldn’t let Eric touch the gash on her forehead, but had bandaged it herself. Not such a hot job either. She also seemed kind of out of it: like she zoned every so often.
She’s probably high. Big Earl’s voice misted over his mind. Or drunk. Probably why she crashed.
Now, he’d had Big Earl in his head about as many times as he’d slid into the old fart’s clothes. Like never. The fact that he did hear Big Earl now should’ve freaked him out, but Casey was surprised to find that he was more … interested.
“Look,” Casey said to Emma, “you can change the tire five times, if that’ll make you happy. Even if you manage to get the tire to reinflate, take a look around. Snow’s way too deep. There’s no way this car’s going anywhere.”
“Wow,” Rima said. “N-n-negative often?”
“No.” He wanted to smack her, and this was also a new impulse. Big Earl had been the one to hit first and never ask questions later. “I’m just saying.”
“But if he’s got a spare or a pump, it’s worth a try,” Eric said. “We can’t be any worse off than we are now.”
Oh, wanna bet? Casey wasn’t sure if that was his voice or his dad’s—not that it mattered, because he agreed. But he kept his mouth shut. None of these people had a clue, but he knew: This valley is wrong. It doesn’t belong. The valley was a big black mouth and that road was its throat, and they were at the bottom, in the dark and the cold and the snow that just kept coming, like dirt filling a grave.
Which they could use, come to think of it. Casey’s eyes slid to the van. Through the window, he could make out a fur-trimmed parka that had once been white but was now oozy with blood and lumpy-bumpy from the body underneath.
“Well …” Tony looked uncomfortable. “I think we’re already worse off. I don’t have a pump, and my spare’s leaning against the wall of our garage. I did lawns this summer, so I took it out to make room for the mower. Just never got around to putting it back.”
“So what do we do?” Emma asked.
“We get you someplace warm,” Eric said.
“You know, we’re all kind of cold,” Casey said. He saw the sharp look Rima threw his way. Yeah, yeah, bite me.
“Ease up, Case,” Eric said.
“Ease up?” It figured. Eric got to play G.I. Joe; poor widdle Emma was saved; and still, here they were, oh-so-screwed. “In case you haven’t noticed, no one’s going anywhere warm. We’re stuck.”
“Yes, but we still have the sleds.”
“Which won’t fit everybody.”
“Case, I know,” Eric said, “but getting upset won’t—”
“You know, I’ll feel whatever I want.” Casey’s fists bunched. He took a step toward his brother and enjoyed the surprise in Eric’s eyes. “Quit bossing me around.”
“Casey,” Emma said. “He didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Am I talking to you?” Casey rounded. “Do you see me talking to you?”
“Casey,” Eric said, shocked. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Guys,” Rima said. “Stop.”
“Yeah, yeah, whoa,” Tony said, putting his hands up. “Everyone, calm down. This isn’t getting us anywhere.”
“Well, that’s good, because we’re not going anywhere,” Casey spat.
“But Eric’s right. You’ve got sleds,” Tony said. “Can’t we use them?”
“Are you deaf? I just said: there’s not room for everyone. My sled is a one-man. It doesn’t have enough power to make it back up that grade; it’s too steep. I’d sink, or just get stuck, or roll. Eric’s got the only two-seater, and it hasn’t got enough zip to get back up either. We’re both stuck down here with you.” Casey leveled a look at Eric. “Right?”
Eric’s eyes narrowed as if Casey was some bug he’d never seen before. “Yes,” Eric said after a long pause. His gaze slid away, but not before Casey registered the hurt. “He’s right.”
For a split second, Casey felt a sharp prick of shame. What was wrong with him? This was Eric. His brother had nearly gotten killed saving him.
Bull, Big Earl whispered. He was saving himself. You aren’t doing anything you shouldn’t have done a long time ago. He’s afraid you’ll get strong, stronger than him. Strong as me.
Right. Yeah. Eric should be afraid. Served him right for boogying off to boot camp and leaving Casey with Big Earl in the first place.
“Even if by some miracle we did manage to load everyone on the sleds and get back up? I don’t know this road. I’ve never seen this valley, to tell you the truth. I have no idea where we are in relationship to anything, and the way the snow is coming down”—planting his hands on his hips, Eric gave the snow an angry scuff—“visibility would be pretty bad. We’d have to go slow, and I think …” He looked back up at them. “I think we’d probably run out of gas. I don’t have a tent or shelter in the Ski-Doo.”
“So you’re saying we’d freeze to death,” Emma said.
“I’m saying I really don’t want to find out.”
“So then what?” Rima clamped her hands under her armpits. “Stay in the c-c-car? Won’t w
e just freeze to d-d-death here?”
For the first time, Casey noticed how small she was, like a doll. The snow was up past her knees, and the wind grabbed her wild, shoulder-length curls. That duct-taped parka was so ratty, Casey bet you could see daylight through it. If he was cold, that girl must be freezing. She seemed, actually, kind of nice, and pretty, too, with intense, violet eyes. He slid a gloved hand into his parka and felt the bunched wool of a spare watch cap. Didn’t people lose most of their heat through their heads? Maybe he ought to give her his—
Not your problem, boy. Big Earl’s voice seemed to steam like breath, wreathing Casey in the fruity reek of old beer. Every man for himself.
Casey hesitated. He actually thought back to his father, Yeah, but she’s cold.
So what? Casey heard the sneer in Big Earl’s voice. You look out for numero uno, boy. None of this do-gooder crap Eric’s always spouting out his piehole. You’re better than that.
Right. Casey crushed the cap back into his pocket. Not his problem.
“I’m saying you guys have a better chance of riding out the storm in the car than with everyone piled onto the sleds.” Eric nodded at the faint dimple of the road snaking away from the car. “But a sled could still make it fine down there. This road has to go somewhere.”
“Well, we were following a truck,” Tony said. “That’s how we ended up down here to begin with. We lost him about a quarter of a mile back. I’ll bet there’s a turnoff or something you could find with the sled.”
“Worth checking out.” Eric shrugged. “Okay, I’ll go.”
“I’ll come with you,” Tony said. “I got some flares we can set up, and I think my dad stowed a couple walkie-talkies in the trunk that he uses when he goes hunting. I don’t know the range, but they’re worth taking along. That way, we can find the car again and maybe keep in touch.”
“No way,” Casey said. “If Eric’s going, then I am out of here, too—and on my own sled, thanks.”
“But Casey, if you take your sled, that l-leaves us with n-nothing.” Rima’s face was going so white with cold, her eyes stared like sockets. “What if s-something happens to you g-guys?”
“Yeah,” Casey snapped. “So … what, I should freeze my ass off to keep you company?”
“Casey!” Eric snatched at his arm. “Calm down. Stop it!”
“What?” Batting his brother’s hand away, Casey squared off and set his feet. “You want to fight, Eric, huh? Well, bring it on, bro; let’s go.”
“Guys, please, this isn’t helping. Don’t argue,” Emma said.
Casey rounded on her. “You know, Emma, just shut the hell up. If you hadn’t almost gotten us killed, we wouldn’t be stuck down here in the first—”
“Casey!” Eric rapped, though Casey noticed that his brother was careful not to touch him again. “What is wrong with you? Leave it! What’s done is done.”
Casey bristled. “Yeah, what’s done is done, all right. You did a real nice job with Da—” He bit down on the rest.
No one said anything for a long moment. The wind whistled and fluted through warped metal. Finally, Eric said, much more quietly, “Someone has to check this out, Case. I can’t force you to stay, but I think you should, just in case.”
“In case what? In case things get worse?”
“In case I don’t make it. You’re my brother. I don’t want you to get hurt, and right now, it’ll be risky sledding. But come morning, when the storm dies, you might find a better way out, and for that, you’ll need a sled.”
“If it dies,” Casey said. “You ever think that it might not? No, of course you didn’t. So, instead of us getting somewhere safe, now we’re down here … Oh, but I forgot.” He did a mock head-slap. “What’s done is done.”
No one took the bait on that. After another moment, Tony said, “Eric, man, you really shouldn’t be alone. What happens if you get stuck? A sled that big, I’ll bet it takes more than one person to get it out of a drift.”
“Tony’s right,” Emma said. “You’ve got a two-seater. Leave the other sled, but I’ll come with you.”
“No way,” Eric said. “You’re hurt.”
“All the m-more reason she should g-go with you,” Rima said. She threw a defiant look at Casey, as if daring him to disagree. “Like you s-said, she needs to get someplace w-warm. L-last time I ch-checked, that’s not h-here. If you f-find a place, she c-can stay while you c-come back for us.”
Hands still on hips, Eric looked from Rima to Emma, then sighed. “All right. I don’t have any other warmer clothes for you, Emma, but there’s a spare helmet in the Skandic, so you won’t totally freeze.”
“I’ll be okay,” Emma said. “You’ll be my windbreak.”
Oh, ha-ha. An itch of annoyance dug at Casey’s neck as he saw Eric crack a grin. I see what you’re doing, bitch, but he’s my brother. I knew him first. He belongs to me. When Eric turned to him, that stupid shit-eating grin slipped, which was just fine with him.
“Case?” Eric said. “Please, I’m asking you to stay.”
“Fine,” he said. “Be a hero. Be a Boy Scout. It’s what you’ve always wanted, right? Here’s your big chance to impress us.”
“Jesus,” Tony said. “You just don’t quit.”
“Case,” Eric said, patiently, “it’s not that—”
“You know,” he said, “I don’t care, Eric. Whatever. You and Emma, I hope you’re really happy together.”
The others ignored him, which was par for the course, the idiots. But come morning, if Eric wasn’t back? He was gone and good riddance to bad rubbish, as Big Earl would’ve said. Strange, how comfortable all those ideas felt now. For that matter, he couldn’t tell if that was his voice in his head anymore or Big Earl’s.
And stranger still: only an hour before, Big Earl’s shirt had been way too big. A Boy Scout troop could have pitched it, gathered round, and sung “Kumbaya.” But now?
Now, the damn thing actually fit Casey like a second skin.
LIZZIE
I Want to Tell You a Story
“LIZZIE, IT’S LIVED in your dad’s skin. It may have your father’s voice, but it won’t be him, don’t you understand?” Mom gulps back a sob as the cell in Lizzie’s hand chirps again. “Please, honey, don’t answer. I know you want to, but you can’t save him. Your father is gone. Now sit down, turn around, and put on your seat belt.”
“No,” she says. “I won’t.” Parents don’t have all the answers, and Mom has already failed, hasn’t she? Heart thumping, she hangs over the front seat to stare out the car’s rear window. Behind them, the fog is a greedy mouth swallowing up this reality, gaining fast. Mom just said that all the energy from the Peculiars is there, all tangled up with her dad and the whisper-man—and Mom should know: energy’s never gone. So her dad isn’t either. The whisper-man only thinks he’s got her dad.
But I’ll fix you. Just you wait and see. She punches up the cell. “Daddy? Daddy, are you there?”
“No, Lizzie.” Sparing her a sidelong glance, her mother makes a grab, but Lizzie cringes away and out of reach. “Please, hang up.”
Lizzie doesn’t answer. The glass on Lizzie’s memory quilt ticks and rattles, and she can feel it starting to heat. Gripping a tongue of fabric in her right hand, she uses her index finger to trace a special Lizzie-symbol: two sweeping arcs, piled like twin smiles, stabbed through with a zagdorn, capped with a bristle of four horns.
“Lizzie.” Mom risks a peek, but without her panops, Lizzie knows that her mother can’t see these symbols and wouldn’t know what they were even if she could. “What are you doing?”
“Dad?” Lizzie grips the cell in her left hand, tight. The barndil hovers in midair. Make a luxl next; yes, that’s the right sign. “Dad, are you there? You have to talk to me. I want you to talk to me.”
Are you sure? The reply is immediate, as if the voice has been standing at the door, waiting for Lizzie to throw open the lock and invite it in. This is what you want?
“Yes
,” Lizzie says. “I’m sure. I want this. Let me talk to my dad.”
“No, Lizzie, don’t!” her mother says, sharply. “Don’t want it. Don’t invite it! Listen to me!”
No. The voice in Lizzie’s head is a sigh, a susurration, and the words are black slush, freezing her veins. Listen to me, Little Lizzie. Are you willing? Are you sure?
“You bet.” Her finger’s moving faster now, the glass of the memory quilt crackling as the symbols fly so fast and furiously she can barely keep track of all the weird shapes, how they’re knitting and weaving together: swhiri, molumdode, czitl. Teoxit. “Yes. I’m here. Talk to me, Daddy,” she says at the same time she’s drawing and thinking hard, I want this; I’ve got the Sign of Sure and I want this. Want me, use me, take me instead of …
“L-L-Lizzie?” Dad says, only hesitantly, as if he’s never had a voice and just decided to give this a try for the very first time. “H-honey?”
“Dad!” Lizzie’s heart leaps because it’s her dad, it is. Caulat! her finger screams. Stim syob duxe! “Daddy, it’s me!”
“No, Lizzie,” her mother says, “it’s not—”
“L-Liz … Lizzie?” Dad’s voice wobbles. “Lizzie, is that y-you?”
“Yes.” Her lips are quivering, and her eyes burn, but she can’t cry, she mustn’t cry now; she has to focus and be sure; she has to be quick. Frit. Yaanag. “Daddy, listen, I want to tell you a story. Are you listening?”
“Yes, I’m … I’m listening, honey. I’m … yes, I’m here,” her daddy says, but she can tell he’s not really, not all the way. He’s still down deep. Well, she’s going to fix that. Oh boy, just you wait and see.
“Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Lizzie,” she says. Ptir. Zisotin. “And she loved her daddy very, very much. Her daddy wrote books—scary, scary books—but she didn’t care, because no matter what he did, he was still her daddy.” Smin trevismin. “Lizzie thought he was very, very brave to reach into the Dark Passages where the monsters live—and she wanted to be just like him. So she tried really hard to make new Nows.”
