by Joe Hart
When she looks forward again the ground is gone.
She flies across the six-foot drainage ditch and hits the other side hard enough to send spangles of light dancing through her vision.
Her breath is gone, torn away by the impact.
And worst of all her thighs are growing numb.
She claws up the bank and yanks her legs free as the first men leap into the dry canal. They are ready for the drop and land on their feet, scrambling toward her, shadows with wild eyes and open mouths. She shoots the closest one in the chest, hobbling away as the others climb over his body as if it is part of the landscape.
The lead man, wearing a torn sweater and pants that end at his shins, pours on speed as he tears free of the ditch, and she’s suddenly aware he will catch her. He’s close enough to see pale light reflected in his eyes.
There’s a quick whining, like an insect buzzing past, and the man’s head rocks to the side, pieces of skull showering the ground.
He falls in a heap and she sends up thanks to Ian as two more men slump lifelessly behind her, the gunshots from the mountain where he rests lost in the din of the pursuit.
Slowly the numbness seeps lower toward her kneecaps, the familiar cold-water sensation, but she pushes on, fighting the growing realization that soon she won’t be able to use her legs.
A quarter mile. Maybe less.
She runs.
To her right the vehicles circle to a wider area of the ditch that isn’t as steep, their headlights igniting the dying grass and sage into skeletal creatures.
The land rises and falls twice before leveling out to the field below the ski run. A broken, waist-high fence materializes before her and she seeks the collapsed section she scouted that morning through the binoculars.
It is there to her left. She changes direction, not slowing, and hurdles the downed partition. Ahead the field climbs and empties out at the base of the wide run. She reaches down, drawing the small flashlight from her pocket and aims it at the dark shape of the shack below the first chairlift pole.
She flashes the light on and off.
The same signal comes back to her from the shack, and she drops the flashlight, tucking away her pistol.
The numbness is past her knees now, pain shooting down through it from her lower back and rebounding in her feet, keeping her aware that she’s still alive, still moving.
Engines roar to the right, yellow light illuminating the ground before her, throwing her shadow against the steep grade. She rushes on, a limp forming in her right leg, slowing her as she adjusts the strap on her wrist again.
Almost there. Almost. Please let me make it. Please . . .
“Listen, I’ve got no quarrel with you,” Merrill says, leaning against the cage. The huge man rolls his shoulders and continues a steady pace toward him, unhurried and confident. Merrill glances down at the guard near his feet and reaches for the handgun holstered on his side, but the giant hits him first.
The blow lands on the side of his head and it’s like getting hit by a car.
His foot leaves the ground and he is airborne for a full second before landing at the base of the nearest tent.
The world spins, ground tottering beneath him.
He plants a hand beneath his chest and pushes upright as the man latches onto his shoulders and tosses him down the row of cages. Merrill hits the ground, skidding and rolling once before coming to a stop. He’s never felt this kind of physical power from someone before. It is beyond human.
“Stay still and it’ll be over quick,” the man says, his voice as deep as Merrill expected it would be. He towers over him, reaching down to grasp Merrill by the shirt.
Merrill jabs upward in a quick strike, two fingers to the man’s left eye.
The giant staggers backward, grunting in pain, and Merrill crawls to the base of the nearest cage, pulling himself upright, vision slewing slightly before shifting back into focus. There is a high-pitched ringing in his ears and he opens and closes his jaw as the big man wipes at his bleeding eye.
“Gonna hurtcha for that,” he says, stalking forward.
Merrill hops to the side, nearly losing his balance as he sees he’s bracing himself on the man’s cage door, which swings open freely. Merrill opens it farther, one hand on its edge.
He holds still, watching the man come, trying to calm his breathing, and raises his chin.
The giant swings his huge fist in a looping haymaker that actually whistles as it comes at his face.
Merrill ducks, letting the blow fly over the top of his head.
The man stumbles, off balance. His fist clips the doorframe and he falls, one arm in the doorway, the other catching his weight on the bars.
Merrill drops to his back and kicks the door as hard as he can with his good leg.
The heavy steel shrieks and slams shut on the giant’s forearm.
Skin shreds. Bones snap.
The man bellows and tries to yank his arm free, but Merrill kicks the door again, wedging his flesh tighter as the latch engages with a solid clack.
The giant whimpers, fumbling with his free hand, but the latch is set too far away for him to reach. Blood leaks from his ruined arm down the doorframe, and he tries again, undiluted agony flashing through his features before he drops to his knees with a yelp.
Merrill scoots to the bars and drags himself upright, hopping closer to the man, who’s breathing in short gasps. He turns his bloodied face up to Merrill as he approaches.
“Please.”
Merrill brings his elbow down hard, smashing the giant’s nose to the side in a crunch of cartilage.
The huge man sags, unconscious against the cage, his pinned arm the only thing holding him upright.
Merrill glances down the row of cells and hops slowly past the man, stooping to pick up the guard’s handgun before turning back. He aims at the giant’s wide back, finger tightening on the trigger.
After a long second, he releases the pressure. With a final look around he hops to the nearest tent and yanks a pole from its side. Using it as a makeshift cane, Merrill moves through the narrow alley in the direction of the midway, gun sweeping the space before him.
Nell steps onto the midway and listens. The distant banshee echoes are eerie and she watches as the cavalcade of trucks and vehicles rumble toward the mountain, headlights jostling over the uneven ground.
She glances at her surroundings, struck for a second that something is very wrong. But after a second she realizes what it is.
The trade is mostly quiet.
Several vendors and performers stand in the tent openings and doorways, their eyes searching past the end of the midway and the destroyed fence. A single soldier sprints past in the direction of the shipping containers and a muffled gunshot comes a minute later. The rest of the grounds are empty.
She did it.
A surge of warmth rushes through her. If Zoey is telling the truth then maybe, maybe there’s a chance that she’ll see . . .
But she still can’t get herself to think her daughter’s name. She’s trained herself too long to shut the thoughts and memories down. But perhaps now things will change. She won’t let herself hope quite yet, but maybe . . .
Nell swallows the lump in her throat, gazing across the midway at the nest. It is lit as always, and through the lower-story windows she sees the woman Zoey came here to save seated on a chair.
Taking a deep breath she moves to the unguarded door and opens it.
The woman looks up at the sound of her entry, eyes instantly tracking to the left and back. Nell tries to turn but Hemming is already there, hands gripping her upper arms like steel clamps.
“What are you doing?” he says, face inches from hers, the gun oil smell coming off him in layers.
“I . . . I came to check on the Prestons. I didn’t know what was happening.”
“They’re fine.”
“Are they upstairs?”
“None of your business.” Hemming shoves her toward the door.
“Now get out.”
“I will,” Nell says. “But I have something for them.”
“Come back later.”
“I’ll just give it to you.”
Nell draws the carving knife out of her pocket and thrusts it at Hemming’s stomach.
He twists to the side and catches her wrist easily, the blade falling to the floor. He kicks it away and grins, the white skin of his face wrinkling monstrously.
“Now, now. After all the years we’ve known one another.” Hemming flings her to the floor and kneels in the middle of her stomach. All the air rushes from her and it feels as if a hot coal has been placed in her center. “You know I’ve had fantasies about you. Not the ones you’re probably thinking of. Sex is so dissatisfying. No, I’ve dreamt of removing your skin an inch at a time. And the things I’d do with it, oh, you’d be amazed. You have beautiful skin.”
Nell jerks, trying to shimmy out from beneath his weight, but Hemming balances on her expertly. He leans closer, his irises the color of clotted blood. “Maybe now they’ll let me have you. You were planning on killing them after all.” He puts more pressure on her midsection and she opens her mouth in a soundless cry. “Usually I’m allowed one of the male prisoners. But in this case I think they’ll make an exception.”
Her vision grows smoky, the corners of the room filling with shadow. But behind Hemming a flash of red moves. The woman is there, arms over her head, carving knife clutched in her hands.
She stabs downward.
Hemming turns, lazily snagging her wrists, stopping the knife a few inches from his face. He pries the blade free of her hands and shoves her, hard, across the room. She stumbles, feet tangling, and falls to the floor.
Nell brings her arms up, the momentary lapse in pressure making the darkness in her gaze flee. She reaches, straining for what she knows is there as Hemming turns back to her, the horrid grin stitched on his face.
“I’m going to make you a work of art. My masterpiece,” he says, putting his full weight on her again.
And then he is close enough for her fingers to find what they’re looking for.
Nell draws the long knife out of the sheath beneath Hemming’s jacket and plunges it into his open mouth.
His eyes flare wide, tears flooding them as blood fills his mouth, running over his lower lip in a waterfall of red. It splashes on Nell’s shirt and she pushes the knife deeper.
Hemming loses his balance, falling to his ass, hands scrabbling the air before finding the hilt of the knife jutting from his mouth. He touches it, gently. With a feeble motion he tries to pull it free before his eyes roll up into his skull and he sags to his back, a long, gurgling cough coming from him that spatters the wall with crimson.
Nell rises to her feet, entranced at the sight. Her stomach roils and she swallows bile. Hemming’s eyes reappear and find her but the life in them is already fading, dark blood puddling around his head. She breaks the trance and moves to the woman in the red dress.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, I think so.”
She helps the other woman to her feet, steadying her. “Can you stand?”
“Yes. I’m all right. Thank you.”
When Nell glances at Hemming again he is still, eyes staring sightlessly at where she was standing. She’s about to retrieve the carving knife from the floor when she catches movement outside the windows.
“Get down,” she whispers, and the woman obeys.
The doorknob turns.
Nell eyes the knife lying six feet away. She has to try for it. Without it they’ll be completely defenseless.
The door opens.
She springs forward, snatching the blade from the floor, and turns, arm up, ready to stab, slash, kill, whatever it takes to finally be free of this place.
Merrill stands in the doorway, framed by the lights outside.
He leans against a tent pole while his other hand holds a pistol.
He registers her and the knife as she lowers it, but then his gaze shifts, face slackening with relief.
“Chelsea,” he says, hobbling past Nell. Chelsea rushes forward, crashing into him in a fierce embrace. Nell leaves them to their reunion and moves to the stairway, looking up.
It’s empty.
She regrips the knife, wondering if she has the ability to do what she was planning. Merrill and Chelsea come to her side and follow her gaze.
“We have to go,” Merrill says.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because it ends now. They’re up there and I’m not going to let them get away.”
“We need to leave. I don’t know what Zoey planned but it’s only going to buy us so much time. The guards could be back any second.”
But she barely registers what he’s saying. She’s already taking the stairs two at a time, turning on the landing and up the last set. There’s no guard outside the door; he’s gone with the rest of them. But she’s not sure even an armed guard could stop her at that moment. She is single-minded, unwilling to retreat now. It bolsters her to know Hemming was their last line of defense, and now he’s dead.
Without slowing Nell flings a kick at the door and it bursts open.
She comes in low, knife ready in case the Prestons have heard her approach. The lounge area is empty, a chair on its side by the table, broken plate on the floor. There is movement behind her and she spins, sure that somehow they flanked her or that Hemming reanimated and will be there, knife protruding from his mouth, eyes dead, arms out, reaching for her.
But it is only Chelsea, Merrill’s pistol in her hand. She nods once to Nell and they both move to the opposite door, pausing a heartbeat before Nell kicks it in like the first.
Chelsea sweeps the dimly lit bedroom with the gun before stepping inside, Nell close behind.
A plush, king-size bed takes up the majority of the space. An ornate desk and dresser are mounted against the wall, drawers out, contents jumbled. Nell drops to her hands and knees, looking beneath the bed, already knowing the Prestons won’t be there. They’d never hide like some kind of vermin, even though it would be fitting.
As she rises, a brief flicker of movement comes from the far side of the room and she nearly calls out a warning to Chelsea, but she is already there, drawing back the curtain that Nell mistook as part of the wall, revealing the open window beyond.
45
Zoey stumbles, rights herself, another blast of pain running down her legs like a lightning strike before the sensation of paralysis returns.
A puff of dirt explodes to her left and she zigs the opposite way. They’re trying to scare her, make her stop and give up. She’s sure the guards from the trade are terrified of the other men reaching her first. They’re racing one another. Good.
Come and get me.
The ground rises in another slight grade as she passes the shack housing the drive engines, but then she’s at the first chairlift, its seat broken and canted.
She turns, facing the horde speeding toward her.
More than a dozen trucks from the trade, all of them carrying guards in their beds, lead the pack, but behind them is a sea of men on foot. Some of them are already fighting, striking at one another with clubs, slashing with knives, but most are simply running, trying to outdistance the rest and get to the prize first.
The trucks rumble closer, headlights pinning her where she stands.
She waits.
The men’s yells rebound off the trees and sprawling ski run above.
She waits.
A flash comes from the shack again. Blinks fast, insistent. She can almost hear Tia screaming at her to move.
So she does.
Zoey reaches up and latches the two steel hooks attached to her wrist on the chairlift bar over her head.
There is a coughing bang followed by a low chugging that is barely audible above the sound of engines and screams.
The chairlift jerks into motion.
She’s yanked off her feet, the cable overhe
ad twanging in the cool air as it whisks her up the ski run and away from the masses.
The trucks were slowing as they neared her but now their engines gun again, leaping forward up the steep incline.
The strap digs into her wrist but holds, her feet brushing the ground before being lifted free again. She barely feels it; her legs are like two dead pieces of meat. Her back twinges in pain with each jolt of the lift.
One of the trucks’ wheels spins as it loses traction on a particularly sheer section, and the trailing vehicle slams into its tailgate.
A man tries to leap onto a chair at the base of the run as it rounds the corner from the shack, but it’s going much too fast and hurls him in the opposite direction, his body bowling over five others.
Zoey sends up silent thanks for Tia’s mechanical brilliance. Without her the lift wouldn’t be running at all, and it definitely wouldn’t be traveling this fast.
The ground speeds by, forested sides gliding past as if the earth is slipping away from her, a cloth pulled from a table dragging everything with it. Wind whips at her hair, trying to spin her around, but she grasps the freezing steel harder. Glancing to the side, eyes watering, she spots a snow gun. Which number is that? Six? Seven?
She strains to see in the wan light and glimpses a small red glow atop another of the hosed apparatus farther up the mountain.
The last one.
Headlights jounce on the uneven ground that’s become strangled with natural decay. The lead truck accelerates, its grille within forty yards of her now, and Zoey reaches back with her free hand, stiff fingers fumbling for her belt and what it holds.
Don’t drop it, can’t drop it.
As she jerks it free, the lift carries her higher above the ground, boots dangling over thirty feet from the rock and soil.
The red light passes by.
And at that moment, every snow gun on the mountain jerks with pressure and exhales a blast of air before a fine mist explodes from their nozzles.
The scent of gasoline fills the night.
It rains down on the trucks, covering their windshields and hoods.
It soaks the men on foot, their voices shifting from frenzied cries of conquest to yells of confusion. The fuel splatters everything, covering them with its stinging touch. She imagines the tanker truck near the reservoir below slowly draining dry from the pumps they hooked to it that afternoon.
