“Help me,” he says, every time, and every time she smiles, soft and secret Spyder smile, nods and puts her arms around him. Preacher Man howls and claws the sagging sky belly, and the sour rain sticks to them like pine sap, turning the ground to tar. “He won’t let me leave, Spyder. He knows what I’ve seen, what I know.”
And so she turns around and stares up into the demon’s face, like there’s nothing to fear in those eyes, nothing that can pick her apart, strew her flesh to the winds and singe the bones, and she says, “He’s not part of this. You can’t have him.” The spiderweb tattoos on her arms writhe electric blue, loaded-gun threat, and now Preacher Man has stopped laughing. He retreats a single, vast step, putting the Pit between himself and Spyder.
“Lila,” he roars. “What you’ve done to me, you’ll burn in Hell forever.” Voice of thunder and mountains splitting apart to spill molten bile. “What you’ve done to me, you’ll burn until the end of time.”
The holy blue fire flows from her arms, the crackling static cage that he won’t dare touch, her magic to undo him utterly, and then she’s pulling Walter from the muck, hauling him across the shattered plains. Days and days across the foothills with Preacher Man howling curses like lightning bolts, howling their damnation, but Spyder doesn’t look at him again. She drags Walter over pustulant caleche and stones that shriek like dying rabbits, shields him from the rubbing alcohol wind that whips up dust phantoms and hurls burning tumbleweeds.
“Close your eyes, Walter,” she says again and again, and at the end he does, because the long-legged things are so close, and he knows the climb’s too steep, that he’s too tired to do it, and she’s too exhausted to fight anymore, and their jaws leak the shearing sound of harvest…
…and he wakes hard, like falling on ice, waking to the aching stiffness in his neck and shoulders and someone calling out his name over and over again. He reaches beneath the front seat for the Beretta automatic and is out of the Lincoln and through the front doors of the convenience store before the last terrible dream images have even begun to fade. His feet on black-and-white checkerboard linoleum and the fluorescent lights in his eyes, but his head still filled with red skies and the stink of brimstone.
“Well, it’s about goddamn time,” Archer says, and Walter sees the man behind the counter with the shotgun, and Theda on her knees, and the guy in the Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt backed up against a display of beef jerky, his eyes so wide it’s almost funny. There are other people, but these are the only three who matter, and he aims the 9mm at the clerk.
“Stop pointing that thing at her right now,” he growls, and thumbs off the safety.
“Just look at her,” Archer says, and shakes her head. “You gotta search long and hard to find someone that goddamn stupid.”
“He called me a freak,” Theda croaks and coughs up another gout of the sticky white mess puddled on the tile in front of her. There are tiny black things wriggling in the vomit, trying to pull themselves free. She wipes her mouth on the back of her hand. “So…I thought I’d show him,” she says and smiles up at the redneck.
“I said not to point the shotgun at the girl, motherfucker,” Walter tells the clerk, his voice as cold and calm as well water, and he takes a step closer to the counter.
“What the fuck’s wrong with her?” the clerk asks and turns the gun on Walter, instead. “She got some sort of fuckin’ disease or what?”
“Whatever it is, it ain’t nothing that calls for a goddamn shotgun. You put that piece of shit down, and we’ll be out of here before you can count to three.”
“I can count to three pretty goddamn fast.”
“Put it down, man. I know you don’t want to die today, and I think you know it, too.”
“Stupid fucking bitch,” Archer hisses. “I’d shoot her myself if I could.”
The redneck in the Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt mutters something unintelligible, and Theda snaps her teeth at him and laughs.
“She’s puking up fuckin’ spiders,” the clerk says, and Walter can see the greasy beads of sweat standing out on his forehead and cheeks, sweat soaked straight through the front of his green BP smock, can almost smell the fear coming off him like smoke off a fire. “You tell me what the fuck’s wrong with her.”
“Just put down the shotgun and none of this will be your problem anymore.”
Theda laughs and vomits again.
“She’s fucking disgusting,” Archer whispers. “You know that, little girl? You’re fucking disgusting.”
“He called me a freak. I asked him…I asked if he wanted to see…just how freaky it can get—”
“So you showed him.”
“Yeah…I showed him.”
“If I put down my gun you’ll shoot me,” the clerk says and swallows, his eyes darting quickly from Walter to the girl on the floor to the bore of the Beretta, then right back to Walter.
“No, I won’t. I’ve got business to take care of, and if I shoot you there’ll be cops to deal with, and then I won’t be able to do my business.”
“Jesus,” the redneck mutters. “Those are black widows. Those are goddamn black widows.”
“Yeah,” Theda coughs. “Aren’t they pretty?”
“Get up off the floor,” Archer tells her. “Get up, and go out to the car.”
“I asked him. He said he wanted to—”
“I mean it, Theda. Right this fucking minute.”
“Okay, I’m going to count to three,” Walter says. “I’m going to count real slow, and whatever happens after that is entirely up to you.”
“Who the hell are you people?” the redneck whimpers and tries to back away, knocking over the display of beef jerky and a life-sized cardboard cut-out of a grinning stock-car racer brandishing a bottle of Mountain Dew.
“Maybe we’re witches,” Theda snickers. “Maybe we’re monsters. Maybe we’re something worse than monsters. Maybe there isn’t even a word for what we are.”
“Little girl, there are a whole lot of words for what you are,” Archer says.
“Archer, shut the hell up and get her out of here.”
“Mister, if I put down this gun you’re going to shoot me,” the clerk says again. “You’re all crazy, and if I put it down you’ll kill me.” His hands have started to tremble, and the barrel of the shotgun bobs and jerks.
“One,” Walter says calmly, firmly, trying to figure out how everything could possibly have gone to hell so fast. How they could have gotten this close to Birmingham and not a detour or delay, and now he’s about to have to put a bullet in this dumb son of a bitch’s skull because Theda can’t be trusted to piss without turning the morning into a horror show. He takes a deep breath and another step towards the counter. “Two,” he says.
“Jesus, Frank, just put down the fucking shotgun before somebody gets killed,” a man shouts from the back of the store. The redneck in the Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt is busy stomping at one of the black widows that’s managed to free itself of Theda’s stringy vomit and is crawling across the floor towards him.
“Hey, don’t do that!” she yells. “You’ll kill it.”
“Damn straight, I’ll fucking kill it,” the redneck replies and squashes the black widow beneath the sole of his work boot.
“Three,” Walter whispers, one word meant for no one but the clerk, one last word of warning and the look in his eyes to say that he isn’t kidding.
“All right,” the clerk says and sets the cocked Winchester down on the countertop, then holds both his hands up like a bank teller in an old Western movie. “There. I fucking put the gun down. Now get out of here, and take that goddamn freak bitch with you.”
“You’re a smart man, Frank,” Walter whispers, so relieved that he wants to vomit, too, wants to get down on his knees next to Theda and barf up the hard, twisting knot that’s settled into his belly. But Archer is already hauling the girl to her feet, and he reaches for his wallet instead, not lowering the Beretta.
The redneck stomps another black widow, and T
heda moans and tries to pull free of Archer’s grip. “I hope all your children are born without eyes,” Theda snarls, spittle flying from her lips. “I hope your wife’s titties rot off. I hope you never have another fucking night’s sleep without dreaming about me.”
“Don’t be such a damned drama queen,” Archer mutters, dragging her away towards the plate-glass doors. “If you hadn’t put them there, he wouldn’t be killing them, now would he?”
Walter fumbles his wallet open and pulls out a couple of folded bills. “Sorry about the mess. Take this and buy some bug spray and a mop. And you and your buddies here are gonna keep your mouths shut or all those things she just said,” and he nods towards Theda, “that shit ain’t nothing compared to what’ll happen to you if I have to come back.” He drops the money, a hundred and a fifty, on the counter, but the clerk just stares at it.
“All you guys gotta do is forget you ever saw us,” Walter says, easing his finger off the pistol’s trigger and reaching for the shotgun. “I hope you don’t mind if I take this—”
“I don’t give two shits what you do,” the clerk replies. “Just take it, and get out of here.”
Walter thinks about asking for the tape from the security camera mounted on the wall behind the counter, then decides not to press his luck. Archer’s probably already seen to that, anyway, and there won’t be anything for the cops but static and wavy lines.
“Fuck this,” the redneck says. “They’re fuckin’ everywhere,” and he stomps another spider.
And Walter turns around, shoving the doors open with his right shoulder, and he follows Archer Day and Theda back out into the bright Alabama morning.
“They live in the deep places,” Spyder says, “but when they die, their bones fill with gas, and the skeletons float to the surface. The fishermen bind the bones together and anchor them to the ocean floor.”
“My God,” Niki whispers, gazing up at the interlocking, jackstraw symmetry of the village ramparts rising from the fog-bound sea. “They must be bigger than whales. They must be bigger than dinosaurs.” And she’s surprised by her own wonder, that she can still be amazed at anything after the Dog’s Bridge, after the Palisades, after following the white bird through that other, ruined San Francisco.
“Yes,” Spyder says. “They must.”
Low waves surge and break against the high ramparts, against the pontoon bases of floating wharves and the hulls of the small wooden boats moored there. Hundreds or thousands of lanterns shine from hundreds or thousands of hooks, poles, and posts, flickering sentries against the night. There’s a red buoy bobbing around in the water on Niki’s left, not far from the edge of the walkway.
“There are many villages like this one—hundreds probably—scattered across the Outer Main,” Spyder says. “But I’ve only seen a few of them.”
“Where is everyone? It looks deserted.”
“They’re always wary of travelers approaching from the Palisades. Don’t worry, Niki. It’s not deserted.”
“I wasn’t worried,” Niki says.
“We shouldn’t linger here. Shake a leg,” and Spyder starts walking again.
There can’t be much more than a couple hundred yards or so remaining between them and the tall rope and bamboo gates where the catwalk finally ends and the village begins, but Niki’s so tired she thinks it may as well be a mile, and her bandaged hand aches so badly it’s starting to make her dizzy and sick to her stomach. She glances back up at the walls, steep, uneven barricades fashioned from the skeletons of leviathans, wire and wood and sea-monster bone rising into the mist, the uppermost reaches almost entirely obscured by the fog. Is everything in this place built out of fucking bones? she thinks, and then realizes that Spyder’s getting ahead of her and she runs to catch up, her footsteps echoing hollowly from the shadowed spaces beneath the punky gray boards.
Strings are drawn tight, or hang loose.
And clocks tick the spent moments away—third wheels, center wheels, brass pendulum shafts—as atoms trapped in the blazing hearts of stars decay, and suns spit prominences to arch forty thousand miles above photospheric hells.
In her trapdoor, black-hole nursery, nestled at the rotten heart of every universe, every bubble frozen in the forever-expanding matrix of chaotic eternal inflation, the Weaver spins in her uneasy sleep, casting new lines of space and time across the void. She dies and is reborn from her own restless thoughts. A trillion eggs hatch, and her daughters cloud the heavens.
Or drift down from night skies to swarm across rooftops and city parks.
Her heart beats, and this line is severed, or that line is secured.
A life is saved. A life is lost. Scales balance themselves or fall forever to one side or the other.
Twenty miles north of Birmingham, Alabama, a man who drives a rusty purple Lincoln Continental and knows how one world might end, sticks to the back roads and county highways, just in case. The ginger-haired woman sitting next to him chews a stick of spearmint gum and says her prayers to forgotten, jealous gods.
And at 10:37 A.M., a graduate student from Berkeley, searching for clams and mussel shells along a narrow stretch of beach below Treasure Island Road, pauses to admire the view of the Bay Bridge silhouetted against the cloudless morning sky. He spots something dark stranded among the rocks at the water’s edge and thinks it’s probably a dead sea lion, until he gets closer and can see the Asian girl’s battered face, her skin gone blue and gray as slate, her hair like matted strands of kelp half buried in the sand. Her eyes are open wide, though they’re as perfectly empty as the eyes of any dead thing. At first, he can only stand and stare at her, horror and awe become one and the same, beauty and revulsion, peace and death and the sound of hungry gulls wheeling overhead. After five or ten minutes, the noise of a passing helicopter brings him back to himself and he drags her nude and broken body to higher ground so maybe the tide won’t carry it out into the bay again, then he scrambles up the crumbling cliffs to call the police.
A cell phone rings. And then another. And another.
News travels fast, and bad news travels faster still.
There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.
A syringe, a stethoscope, and electrocardiograph displays in a white room that smells of loss and antiseptic.
These things happen.
And then…
CHAPTER SEVEN
Snakes and Ladders
I’m going to fall forever, Daria thinks. I’m never going to hit the water, but then she does, and it’s like hitting a brick wall. Not what she expected, but then few things ever are, and at least the pain only lasts an instant, less than an instant, as the cold waters of the bay close mercifully around her shattered bones and bruised flesh, accepting her, promising that there’s nothing left to fear. Nothing ahead that’s half so terrible as all the trials laid out behind her; she wants to believe that more than she’s ever wanted to believe anything.
And she’s certain this is real, because no one ever dies in dreams. If it were only a dream, she thinks, she’d have awakened in that final, irredeemable second before the long fall ended. That’s what she’s always heard, and she’s never died in a dream. No one dies in dreams.
In another moment, you will not even feel the cold, the ocean whispers, as the southbound currents wrap kelp-slick tendrils about her broken legs and pull her down and down and down. Drawing her towards the black and silty bottom, away from the comfortless oyster light of the moon shining so bright that she can still see it through the shimmering, retreating surface of the bay. The light at the end of the tunnel, near-death or afterlife cliché, but she has no use for light anymore, and she’s grateful that soon the moon and the sun and all light will be lost to her forever.
Was it like this for you? she asks, and the shadows swarming thick through the water around her sigh and murmur a thousand conflicting answers. So she takes her pick, choosing at random because she can’t imagine that choices still matter. No, Niki whispers. It’s differ
ent for everyone.
Daria stares up at the rippling moon growing small, hardly a decent saucer now when a moment ago it was a dinner plate, and she tries hard to remember if she’s sinking or rising, if she’s getting farther from the moon or it’s getting farther away from her. That doesn’t matter, either, the bay reassures her. Don’t even think about it, and so she doesn’t. She can see the inky cloud of blood leading back the way she’s come, a blood road back to the moon, but Daria knows the bay will take care of that, as well, and soon there will be no evidence whatsoever of her passage.
A loose school of surfperch sweep hurriedly past, their mirror scales flashing the moonlight because they have no light of their own, and Daria knows exactly how that feels. Never any light but what she stole, never her own soul for a lantern, but only for cloudy days and shuttered rooms, closets and nights without stars.
That girl in Florida, the moon calls down to her with its silken, accusing voice. Old Becky What’s-her-name. You think that’s the way she felt? You think that’s what she heard when she listened to your songs? And then it begins to whistle the melody of “Seldom Seen.”
You leave me alone, Daria calls back at the moon. I’m going down to Niki. It’s not my problem anymore.
The moon stops whistling, and Ohhh, it purrs, pretending to sound surprised. Was it ever? Weren’t you the lady that couldn’t be bothered?
Don’t start listening to that old whore, the bay whispers. She steals her light, too, just the same as you and those fish.
And the water presses in on her, something that would hurt if she could still feel pain, an unfelt agony of pressure stacking up above, pounds and anamnesis per square inch, and maybe it will finally crush her so flat that the moon won’t be able to see her, and she won’t have to listen to it, won’t have to think about all the questions she’s never known the answers to. There’s a final rush of air from her deflating lungs, and she watches indifferently as the bubbles rise (or fall) like the bells of escaping jellyfish.
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