Forest of Dreams

by Bevill, C. L.

  A sound came out of Landers’s mouth, and I winced again as I realized he was getting an eyeful of my back. “What happened to your skin?” he hissed.

  “You should know that bad things happen sometimes,” I said, thinking of the plum flower.

  “Plum flower,” he repeated as if I had said it aloud. “Someone beat you with links of metal? Dear Lord, why did that happen?”

  “What difference does it make?” I asked. I needed to wake up. I needed to push out of this lake of delirium and make some decisions that would smack of alertness. Wake up, Lulu!

  “Wait,” Landers said. “We’re coming. I’m coming. Whatever they want, we’ll make a deal. There has to be some way out of this.”

  Wake up, Lulu!

  I wrapped the blanket around my middle and sighed. “There are dangerous people here, Landers. Don’t—” my voice broke, and I had to swallow to continue— “don’t do anything rash. I’m not irreplaceable.”

  Landers said a nasty word and I smiled. I liked that. Landers thought something of me. He didn’t want me hurt, and he didn’t want me dead. He might even…like me. Lulu. Not Louise.

  “Why do you do that?” Landers snarled. “You don’t need to think of yourself like that. Just keep your head up, and don’t poke your damn sharp knife into people until you’re sure they’re trying to kill you.”

  WAKE UP, LULU!

  Lulu and Impending Danger

  The Past – San Francisco, California

  I opened my eyes yet again and saw the art deco features of the south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. I had done three Presidio 10K runs, so I had been here before. The vivid colors and structure of the massive construction were unmistakable.

  The wind was whipping over the bridge, and I almost expected to hear a foghorn because low lying clouds pushed through the orange-red rigging at a furious pace. I lay on my back and studied the world at large. I didn’t hear anything but the wind. How had I gotten here? What was I doing here?

  The last thing I remembered was Theophilus throttling me with his oversized man arm and repeating some of the words I had thrown at him when I had tried to do the very same thing with the chain. It made me realize that the flesh around my throat was throbbing. It was about the same jarring rhythm as the throbbing on my back. I sure hoped he hadn’t dragged me all the way down to the bridge on my back. There wouldn’t be any flesh left there.

  I moved my eyes to one side and saw a large blue-plastic shopping cart sitting nearby. No one was getting that back in their store anytime soon. The conclusion that Theo hadn’t wanted to carry me so he’d pushed me instead, wasn’t hard to reach. Easy one-stop shopping, you know. I surreptitiously reached for the KA-BAR and found that the sheath on my thigh was empty. Damn.

  “Time to put your happy face on, Hasadiah, and you won’t find your edged weapon,” a grated voice said from a little ways away. I lifted my head and turned to see Theo staring out at the bay. If the clouds would only clear, then there would be a great view of Alcatraz. Everyone loved to see The Rock.

  I slowly sat up and took stock of myself. Everything seemed basically whole. I could breathe, although my throat hurt. He’d simply choked me unconscious and then presumably had let go because I was still alive. “My name isn’t Hasadiah,” I said.

  “Your name is whatever God says it is,” he retorted. “You’re not savable. I shouldn’t have wasted my time with you.”

  I scooched my butt over and put my back away from Theo. I wanted to see him coming. I might be able to get away if I kept my head. But there was the whole bridge thing. The bridge was a large uh-oh! in neon bright letters blinking over my head.

  What did people do on the Golden Gate Bridge? They drove across it because they could and because it was convenient. They walked and biked it because it was a nice distance for that. They took more photos of it than I could count. And they committed suicide there. On the rare occasion they threw other people off the bridge.

  Theo took a great big sigh and began quoting a verse from the Bible. I wasn’t completely up on my Biblical learnings, so I didn’t know it. The gist of it was that bad people pay for doing bad things. I couldn’t agree more.

  I moved back a few more inches. My head spun, and my entire body was a mass of pain. I felt like I had been beaten, kicked, stomped, and poked with a crayon for sheer effect. I didn’t know what I had left in me, but there had to be something.

  Theo glanced at me and leaned down to grasp a loop of thick rope. He grinned at me while still quoting. “‘Righteousness guards him whose way is blameless, but sin overthrows the wicked,’” he intoned smugly. He uncoiled the rope and began letting it fall over the edge of the bridge. The actual barrier wasn’t that high, but there was another ledge below it where most of the suicides stood in preparation for the final event. Not that I suspected Theo was going to throw himself in after he tossed me. It looked like I was going to stop a little short courtesy of a rope noose around my neck.

  I had a sickening feeling as I noticed there were other ropes tied to the four-foot-tall barrier. I counted three. If I looked over the edge, would I find others that Theo had “saved”? Would Bathsheba be among them?

  “‘For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander,’” Theophilus quoted, and he almost pulled it off. His righteousness sounded like vanity in its purest form. He attempted to convince himself of his moral obligation to do the right thing.

  I scooted back another few inches and ran into the divider between the sidewalk and the road. I might be able to scramble over it if I was quick. I looked to one side and saw where the walkway curved around the south tower of the Gate. If I could get far enough away from Theo…

  “‘For she cares nothing about the path to life. She staggers down a crooked trail and doesn’t realize it,’” Theo went on.

  “‘The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor,’” I said. Poppops had used to quote the Bible when he was in a certain mood, and I used to sit on his knee and listen. Sometimes he used to listen to me when I asked questions, too.

  Theo paused in unraveling the rope and glanced at me with surprise in his expression. “And Jesus was tempted,” he said. “If he agreed to fall down and worship the devil then all of this would be his.” He waved at the San Francisco skyline.

  I moved a few inches closer to the south tower.

  “‘For the lips of an immoral woman are as sweet as honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil,’” Theo resumed quoting.

  I realized I hadn’t helped myself, but it was better than nothing. “‘Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath; for it is written, vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord,’” I said quickly.

  “YES!” Theo yelled and pointed at me. “Yes, Lord! He tests me, Hasadiah! He whispers in my ears. He allows the devil to speak to me in my head. He tells me that the devil is coming now and that I should spare your life, that I will be saved if I spare your life.”

  I was all out of quotes, Biblical or otherwise. Instead, I felt an overwhelming amount of sadness for the man that Martin the stevedore had become in the massive changes that some unknown occurrence had caused in our world. I felt more sadness for the women he might have encountered, like poor dead Bathsheba, and I felt sadness for the women he might encounter in the future.

  Don’t give up! came a voice in my head, and for a single tiny microsecond I wondered if I had gone around the bend, too.

  No! I’m a psychic! I’m speaking to the other guy, too, but he’s too far gone! We’re close! We’re very close, the northern end of the bridge! Just hang on! Quote something else biblical at him! He’s wavering!

  Well, it wasn’t bad advice. I didn’t exactly have anything to lose. “‘Judge not, that ye be not judged,’” I said loudly. Poppops had liked that one.

  Theo raised his hands heavenward. “‘For with what judgment ye judge,
ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again,’” he said solemnly.

  I had been sorely lax in attending services of late, but I felt like I might have been changing the weight of the scales over to my side. It was slowly shifting. “Matthew,” I said. “The King James version.” Ironically, it was from the same version Theo had beaten me with.

  “Hasadiah,” Theo said slowly, “I can see that the light has come down upon your golden head.”

  And it had. The perpetual morning fog of the greater San Francisco area cleared up and the sun shone down on me. I tried to smile, but I couldn’t bring my lips to form the expression.

  “I see what I must do!” Theo yelled. “If the devil tells me to save you, then I must sacrifice you!” He charged at me.

  I yelped and scuttled toward the tower. I didn’t know if there really was someone coming, but I wanted to head in the correct direction in case it was actually true. I didn’t count my steps, but I think there were three before Theo caught my hair in his beefy grip and yanked me backwards.

  I cursed my hair and the strong grip of former stevedore. I shrieked, “Stop and think about it! God wouldn’t want you to do this!”

  Theo brought me very close to his mouth and he whispered, “God does want, Hasadiah.”

  A former boyfriend’s image popped into my head. I couldn’t remember his name, but he had been heavily engrossed in martial arts. He’d been a black belt in several types, and he’d instructed me in self-defense a few times before he’d figured out that I simply wasn’t interested in it. That was, after all, his calling.

  I slammed my head backward into Theo’s head, and I heard his nose crunch even while he bellowed in pain. It didn’t feel good to me, either, but I launched myself forward, determined to get away.

  Theo still had his hand wrapped up in my hair, and he jerked me backwards again, cursing all the while.

  “Taking the Lord’s name in vain,” I admonished pantingly. “Shame on you, Marty. Shame! Shame! Shame!” I brought my arm up and twisted about, breaking his grip on me, but losing some of my hair in the process. I leaned forward and ran.

  Three steps later, and I counted this time, Theo tackled me, crushing me into the cement of the walkway. “I know thee, demon!” he roared. “‘Thou shall not suffer a witch to live!’”

  I brought my elbow back and heard another one of his bones break. It felt pretty good, but he was making more progress with me. If ever there was a time for prayer, it was then.

  Chapter 11

  Lulu’s Ordeal Gets Better and Worse

  The Past – San Francisco, California

  Theo began to drag me toward the railing where he had tied the end of the rope. As we struggled together it became crystal clear to me what his plan was. He would fasten the noose around my neck and pitch me over the edge. That was likely the fate of what was dangling from the ends of the other ropes fastened there. (Guess they couldn’t be saved, either.)

  But I wasn’t finished. I landed a kick on his leg, followed by stomping on his sandal covered foot with my purloined tennis shoes, which resulted with a pig-like squeal from Theo. He backhanded me, and I sprawled on the concrete once again. I kicked again with my other foot and caught the center of his kneecap. The subsequent sound was like someone loudly crunching on dry cereal.

  Theo bounced up and down in place while he said some very bad words, allowing me badly needed time to clamber to my feet. With no little amount of satisfaction, I saw the blood streaming from his nose and one of his hands protectively holding his ribs. He rested his weight on one leg while his knee began to turn purple. I thought that if I kept resisting without actually being thrown over the side of the Golden Gate Bridge, I might just get away.

  “God wouldn’t want this,” I snarled taking a step away. “Murder is a sin. You’ve already sinned, Theophilus. God is watching you.” I didn’t know if God was watching Theo or not, but since he was a few fries short of a happy meal, it didn’t hurt to rub it in.

  Theo whipped his hand away from his nose and blood splattered across my tennis shoes. I took an unsteady step backwards. For some reason math popped into my brain. If someone was on the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge and was hurrying with his might to the south end of the Gate, then how long would it take him to arrive? The bridge was a grand total of 8,981 feet long. (Obscure facts that stuck in my brain for some bizarre reason. I think I read it on a brochure once while I was waiting for Bloomingdale’s to open.) That was about a total of 1.7 miles, which might translate into a six-minute time for a person who could run a four-minute mile. Since most people couldn’t run a four-minute mile, it wasn’t a stretch to comprehend that if there was someone coming, then they wouldn’t be here in six minutes. Ten minutes? Fifteen? Was there some blockage on the Gate? Had some driver in a big rig vanished halfway across and his trailer taken out all six lanes, blocking me from imminent rescue? How much time had passed?

  “God wants this,” Theo snarled back.

  “How do you know what God wants?” I screamed at him.

  “He tells me!” Theo reached for me, and I spun away. A second later his hefty hand was entangled in my hair again, and I swore I would cut it short so that this would never happen again. He pulled me backward, and I shrieked as he yanked me. He wrapped that brawny arm around my neck again and wrestled me to the ground. One knee pinned me in place as I screamed and flailed my arms at him. His free hand reached for the noose, and he slipped it over my head. He slammed his knee into the middle of my chest, and I immediately couldn’t breathe. He took the moment of my inactivity to tighten the hangman’s noose firmly around the base of my jaw, carefully arranging the trailing rope to one side.

  His weight left me, and Theo followed up by hoisting me into his arms and turning toward the bay side of the Gate. I abruptly gasped in air and slashed at his eyes with my fingernails. I didn’t have much left in the way of a manicure because of the previous three weeks, but I did a little damage. I slammed the fist of my other hand into the side of his head and swore he was going to feel it just as much as I did. Then I swatted at his broken nose, determined to make him hurt. I would have pulled out his eyeballs if I had thought of it.

  Theo roared and swiped at me with one hand. I nearly fell out of his grip, but he adjusted himself and simply tossed me over the railing.

  Weightlessness resulted for a time that stretched out into eternity. More facts came howling into my head. The deck of the bridge is approximately 245 feet above the water. A person will fall for about four seconds. A jumper will hit the water at a speed of 75 mph and likely break 66% of the bones in their body. If they survive the fall, then hypothermia or drowning is the next likely cause of death. None of it was appealing. (Thanks to a few of my more memorable classes at university. One sociology professor had been particularly interested in the phenomena of suicide places. He’d visited Aokigahara, the suicide forest in Japan, three times.)

  Suddenly I hit the ledge beneath the railing with a breathtaking wallop. It was a beam that supported the trusses along the bottom of the bridge. Along the top of the girder were the connections to the suspension wires that were the basis of the Gate. I wrapped my arms around it and grunted in heartfelt approval. Far below me I could see whitecaps on the bay, and I could plainly hear the cry of a mournful wind. On a normal day there would be sailboarders and sailboats galore; their brilliant colors would be visible for miles. However, normal, like Elvis, had left the building.

  Above me I heard Theo make a disgusted noise that I had the unmitigated audacity not to die appropriately like the sacrifice I was supposed to be.

  How many minutes had it been? I suspected it had only been two. My fingers rushed to undo the hangman’s noose. I could slip into the trusses and sneak away if I had the opportunity. Theo would have to climb after me, and I thought I could be quicker.

  I glanced up and saw Theo reaching for me, but I ducked away. He was a tall man, but his reach wasn’t that long. I
saw the expression on his torn and bloodied face change from perplexed to crafty. One of his legs came over the side of the railing. I willed my fingers to work faster. He nearly slipped, and a note of fear escaped his mouth.

  “Hasadiah,” he said, “it’ll be easier if you simply submit. Your suffering will be over. You’ll be saved. Jump and ye shall reside in the kingdom of our Lord forever.”

  One fingernail broke off at the quick, and I told Theo that he could put his observation in a place where the sun never shined. “My name,” I added, “is Lulu, you mental piece of crap!”

  Theo growled to himself and hoisted his body above the railing. Evidently, he didn’t like the idea of heights because he hesitated. I looked down at the bottom of the bridge and saw three bodies swing into sight. The same hangman’s nooses were tight around their necks, and their hands were tied behind their backs. None of them was Bathsheba, and I grimly perceived she was still at the church waiting for her grave.

  “How many people need to die to be saved, Marty? I think your mother would be ashamed of you.” Insults were all I had left, and I was good at insulting people when I put my mind to it.

  Theo reached for me again and I dodged him, scrambling to one side and careful to stay on the middle of the beam. I had a little room with the rope to work with.

  Theo grinned at me with blood on his teeth. One arm wrapped around one of the suspension wires as he held himself in place. He gripped the end of the rope where it was tied to the railing and began to tug it toward him. One hand went over the next as he pulled it, and it would only be a few seconds before I was forced to go toward him. If only I had that knife…

  But I did have a knife. I still wore the long-sleeved shirt over the “How Weird Street Faire” t-shirt. I had put the little holsters under the shirt on my forearms. I fumbled for a moment as Theo began to tow me inexorably toward him. Then one of the knives appeared in my right hand. A million choices popped into my mind as he reached one tremendous hand toward me to give me a solid shove in the downward direction.