Something Most Deadly

by Ann Self

  “She thinks she can escape you, mother...” A girlish laugh made the hackles on Jane’s neck stand up.

  Jane slowly backed up against the window where the speaker wires fed in. Cold wet air blew at her back and lifted her hair. With one hand behind her, she slipped her fingers into the two-inch space next to the heavy wires and quickly slid the window up as high as it would go, thanking Reggie for the new windows that moved easily in their track. She kept the lamp aimed straight in Cecily’s face—hopefully still confusing her vision—and then worked on getting the screen to slide up, fumbling with the pesky latches on each side that wanted to lock in.

  At least if she got the screen up, she would no longer be trapped between a wall and a mad woman. Jane was going to rely on the fact that she knew the window with the wires was just over the peak of the roof, even though the roof was completely invisible in the blackness. Talk about a leap of faith. She hoped Reggie hadn’t moved the wires to another window, in which case she would be jumping into space. She wished she could take the light off Cecily’s face for a second, to shine it on the roof, but that, she knew, would be a deadly mistake.

  Jane briefly considered fighting it out with Cecily, but even though the woman was sixty years old her madness seemed to have given her unbelievable strength and agility, especially when she morphed into the younger Lucinda. And an axe was a formidable weapon; she could be rendered helpless or killed with just one well-aimed swing. Jane preferred the roof, to feeling even one bite of that nasty weapon. She hoped she could fling herself out before Cecily jumped her and started wildly chopping.

  Cecily held up one hand again to shield her eyes from the light, and slowly raised the axe. Her metallic eyes narrowed as she felt the spray of wind and rain. She seemed to understand that Jane was not trying for the door, and had spent too much time at a window that now seemed to be wide open—although she didn’t at first think her intended victim would be crazy enough to jump out into pitch blackness and a dizzying fall. Cecily crept with raptor stealth towards Jane, her knees flexed and the axe cocked and ready. “Get her mother! Finally get her!” Cecily nodded again as if listening. She grasped the very end of the shaped handle, still holding one hand against the light. Her eyes were intently focused on Jane’s feet. Jane had to turn slightly sideways, to get the screen up as high as it would go and seat it, making Cecily suspicious. Jane tried a last-ditch attempt to appeal to Lucinda, thinking now that Cecily might be the only truly murderous one.

  “Lucinda. You can’t have success by killing me!”

  She was wrong. Lightning illuminated Jane for a second as the Lucinda voice screeched: “JUST WATCH ME!!”

  Cecily lunged forward, momentarily stumbling over the amplifier wires, but hardly impeded, now that the surge of fresh madness buoyed her. She darted at Jane like a rabid bat with all the force focused into the axe, screaming hideously in Lucinda’s voice: “DIE DAMN YOU!.” She took a wild side-arm slash, aimed at her victim’s waist just under the light. Jane leapt backwards out the window into the storm-wracked darkness, sensing the swish of a blade that missed her middle by an inch, as she twisted and dropped the four feet from the window and fell hard on her stomach against the peak of the roof. The wind grabbed her instantly, sweeping her sideways and almost off the peak. She barely hung on to the ridge with her fingers. The rough landing knocked the wind out of her lungs, and she had to struggle without air to scramble sideways, hand over hand, grabbing the ridge of wet gritty shingles; fighting to keep from following the lamp as it spiraled down into the night over the steep pitch of roof.

  Her ears rang with the Cecily/Lucinda bloodcurdling screams of anger, and her mouth gaped open trying to drag in air. Jane’s lungs painfully re-inflated as she hooked an elbow over the peak and pulled the rest of her body up to straddle it, hitching across the top like a terrified crab. She was almost blinded by the storm and could barely see the shingles in front of her face. As big as the tower was, it was now invisible to her in the blackness and she had no idea what Cecily was up to—although she thought it a good bet that the madwoman was scrambling to lower herself out the window and still hang on to the axe.

  The deranged woman (women?) had stopped screaming, but that was probably to concentrate on moving like a nasty spider to catch up. Jane prayed for another flash of lightning, to give her an idea of how close her enemy was, but the electrical storm seemed to be moving off toward a distant horizon. She clambered across the roofline, hunching low against the wind and rain and moving as fast as humanly possible; but what was chasing her was inhuman—two enemies in one, Lucinda riding along in Cecily’s head. She concentrated on keeping her balance as she struggled across the peak with a leg on each side, so she wouldn’t fall from the massive roof and do Cecily’s work for her. Jane hadn’t bargained on being blown off, however, and each stronger gust of wind threatened to pluck her off the top. She was literally holding on with fingernails and she felt too light, almost as if the roof was losing its gravity. The roar of the broiling canopies of trees below was deafening up here, and bits of branches, needles and leaves struck her face with force as they were sucked up into the wind. Climbing over the roof was even more miserable and difficult than she expected, and she had no idea what to do when she ran out of roof. One bolt on the door, she grimaced, would have spared her all this.

  The rain pelted like a firehose, soaking her clothes and the sweatshirt, but that at least made her heavier and harder to blow away. Her hair was now whipped into soaked cords that beat at her face and stuck in her mouth, making it difficult to gasp for air. The palms of her hands were burning from repeated contact with slimy, nubbly shingles. She kept imagining Cecily sneaking up on her out of the gloom, and the axe sinking into her back. If she didn’t keep moving, she feared it wouldn’t be imagination. Jane heard a muffled yell behind her and realized the vicious woman would not quit! That made her hitch along even faster. She was momentarily slowed by a ridge vent that she had to scramble over with some difficulty, and then she heard the rusty screech of a weathervane overhead. A copper horse and racing sulky rotated crazily in the wind as the smaller, decorative cupola suddenly popped out of the dark right in front of her nose.

  Oh no. If something could be so close without her realizing it until she nearly collided with it, how close was Cecily? Jane put her hands on the high wooden sides of the cupola; she craned her neck back, but she couldn’t see the top with the weathervane, it was just too high. She had to get around it. She was sure now, that she could sense something behind her. Something was moving in fast—death was still snapping at her heels again. Jane again raked her hands over the wooden sides of the cupola and found a row of four-inch spikes, probably used as an anchor for some long ago banner or decoration. If she could just grasp them with enough force, and try to keep some traction on the shingles with her shoes, she might be able to scramble around it.

  Her senses went off like jangling alarms to warn her something was next to her, and she wasted no more time in the planning, diving off the peak and scrambling on her stomach and toes while trying to grasp the exposed nails. Her hands were wet and slippery and the rubber treads of her wet shoes did not grip. A rough blast of wind hit her and ripped her hands off the nails and rolled her away down the roof. Jane screamed as she clawed and grasped at the rough, slimy shingles, scraping the skin from her hands and impeding the rolling, but not stopping the downward slide; in fact she was picking up speed, and she could hear the louder roar of the trees as the roof was delivering her to them. If she hit them at this speed, there would be no chance of clinging to a branch, she would punch right through and drop into the stableyard far below.

  Just as she was loosing all hope and on the verge of going into shock, she collided with a stack pipe. The pipe was slippery, stone-cold, and not very wide, and the impact nearly knocked the breath out of her again; but she held onto it for dear life, hugging the wet metal as if it were the most wonderful thing she had ever found. She curled around it in a fetal pos
ition, crying and shaking. Dylan’s sweatshirt was now so soaked with water it felt like soggy clumps of paper-mache. Her teeth chattered and she knew hypothermia would take her soon if she spent much more time exposed to the wind and rain. She looked up, certain she could hear yelling over the wind—she expected to see Cecily rolling by at any minute, trying to hack at her on her way down. Then the yelling stopped. She tried to assess her situation with a foggy mind teetering on the edge of shock. She was on the roof of the north wing, and as far as she could tell, not too far from death.

  Not good.

  As she squinted into the wind and rain, she tried to make out the shapes of dormer windows. There were at least four dormer windows on the north wing roof, but it didn’t look like she had the luck to be near one. They were likely too far away to be useful to her, or any would-be rescuer. Jane was shivering hard enough to be loosening her grip, and she had to constantly reclaim the hold on the pipe. She decided to scream to warm herself up a bit, thinking maybe someone would hear. She screamed heartily for a few moments, feeling like Fay Wray in the old King Kong movie. At this point she would’ve been happier to see a ten-story gorilla than Cecily. Jane stopped screaming and opened her eyes when she sensed a flicker of light, but then it was gone. She pulled her shivering face up away from her friend the cold slimy pipe to squint into the rain. Oh great, she thought, the lightning comes back just when I’m holding on to metal. Fine, let it happen.

  Maybe it will be a blessing...

  She screamed for help again. The wind rose up, ripping the scream from her mouth and slapping hair across her face. Her hands were getting numb and useless and she was hanging on to the pipe mostly with her upper arms, but they were starting to lose feeling too. Her shoulder ached miserably and her soaked body seemed to be slowly sliding down, paying homage to the gravity god. The spindly outermost branches of the trees were scrabbling and clicking greedily at the edges of the roof far below, as if eager to catch her body and fling it a dizzying distance to the ground. She thought about just letting go and ending it, but reasoned she could hold on a little while longer—just in case, however unlikely—someone could save her. She’d really gotten herself into a pickle now, far beyond the reach of rescue. She’d need the Flying Walendas as Westy had mentioned. Westy where are you now? And Brian? I guess you couldn’t make it after all. What a way to be stood up.

  Suddenly she was riding with Madeline in her Jaguar. Then she was riding Charmante in the show—it was so real she almost forgot to hang on to the pipe.

  The trees and death waited patiently as the wind grew fiercer and the hurricane crawled through the Atlantic Ocean to pounce on New England, savaging the outer-islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard as it approached the elbow of Cape Cod. In a short time it would be right on top of her and she would be ripped from the roof and hurled through the sky, her body just another sodden piece of debris. She could see and hear absolutely nothing—her world was just the cold wet pipe, a few gritty shingles, and herself. Light flashed over her. Her nerves began singing again—she sensed someone. Someone close by. She knew she was not alone. Even in this ferocious storm Cecily was going to get her. God help me...

  She felt a hand suddenly claw at her back in the dark, accompanied by unintelligible yelling. She tried to fight and twist out of the grasp, and since she was slimy as a fish from so much exposure, she managed to roll to the other side of the pipe and escape the grip. But the invisible figure instantly snatched hard and rough at her middle and found purchase on a chunk of sweatshirt, grabbing and twisting. She screamed and dropped her one-handed hold on the pipe to flail at the ghost in the darkness, and the oversized sweatshirt started to ride up. She went limp and tried to allow herself to slide out of it; she had decided to pick her own way of dying. Better to fall than be carved up by an axe. She was roughly and impertinently yanked forward, then the grip retaken on her back—grabbing up sweatshirt and tee-shirt in a deathgrip—even the skin on her body—and she was heaved up like a cat by the scruff of its neck. She remembered Madeline said psychotics have amazing strength.

  “No!! Cecily..!” she screamed into the wind.

  A band of iron that was his arm crushed Jane to his chest. He yelled into her ear: “It’s Brian, Jane! Not Cecily.”

  “Brian...” she whispered. She sagged against him, stunned.

  Theydid say he was a ghost...

  The trees railed beneath her, slapping at the gutters as they were denied their victim. A strong arm held her tightly, and Brian was now pulling her slowly back up the roof with his other hand grasping Westy’s rescue ladder. He knew that Jane had no strength left to help him and that her joints were nearly frozen in place. The tropical-force winds were not cooperating, mercilessly whipping the two figures hanging from the rescue ladder hooked over the ridge vent, making its purchase on the vent precarious; and the vent itself was bending from the weight. Jane felt useless as she was hauled up the roof; her body a boneless ragdoll. All she could do was concentrate on breathing.

  Once at the top, near the small cupola, Brian dragged them both up to sit on the peak, with his back against the cupola, affording a slight windbreak. He straddled the roof and held Jane crosswise, hugging her tightly in his arms and trying to shield her head and face from the brutal wind. She shivered violently. There was a howling whistle around the cupola that made conversation impossible, as well as the rusty screeching of the spinning weathervane—but he did manage to hear her pleading for Sam and Reggie.

  He cupped a hand and yelled into her ear: “They’re okay!”

  She buried her face against the warmth of his neck and gasped with relief. She tried to say “Brian” but no longer had the strength to make herself heard over the wind. There was another wrenching, cracking sound as a branch was sucked up out of the broiling gloom below and nearly hit them, glancing off the cupola and taking the screeching spinning weathervane with it. The pieces of metal and the branch disappeared into dark space as if they were a magic act. The rescue ladder whipped and flailed in the wind and finally yanked itself off the vent. They cringed away from it as it snapped and coiled and also disappeared into the storm. Jane cried out and hugged Brian tighter. His arms were wrapped around her and he shielded the back of her head with his hand. He wanted to give her time to regain a little strength, and he rubbed her arms vigorously to get circulation going. After a few moments the wind died just a little, and Brian told her they had to make it back to the tower or the next round of wind would blast them off the roof and kill them both. He turned her toward the tower and helped her straddle the roofline, his hand on the waistband of her jeans in a steel grip.

  “Go Jane...move! MOVE NOW!”

  She dredged up some last bit of strength, and hitched along the roof. Her hands were so numb with cold it seemed like they belonged to someone else. They made it to the tower just as the wind executed a last ditch attempt to snatch them off. It made a brutal assault as they desperately tried to get in the window, the rain belting them in flat sheets. Jane felt herself being blown to the side, her hair nearly ripped out by the roots as she tried to scramble in, and the wind was winning. But Brian had her belt, and he shoved her up and through the window—none too gently—all flailing arms and legs. Brian then yanked himself up and over the sill, diving onto the floor after her. He reached up to pull the window down, as far as it would go, and collapsed back in a soggy heap next to her in the dark, breathing hard from the tremendous exertion. His jacket lay nearby where he had discarded it before climbing out the window.

  Jane sat up, breathing hard and trying to pull the hair from her mouth, shivering badly enough to rattle her teeth. Wind screamed around the tower. Brian yanked a flashlight out of his back pocket and aimed it up at her face. His chest heaved to gulp in air as he lay on the floor planks.

  “Hello, Miss Husted,” he gasped. “How are you?”

  She looked down at him while water dripped from her speechless mouth and chin. A violent quake wracked her body every few seco
nds.

  “If you say ‘I’m fine’,” he puffed, “I’m going to throw you back out the window.”

  Jane was stupefied for a moment, then started to laugh, and laughed harder. She nearly fell back laughing. Water and mud streamed down her face, her hair was in strangles imbedded with leaves and twigs, her hands were bleeding, she was shivering and had a giant scrape on her forehead, but she couldn’t stop laughing.

  “Am I that funny?” he asked, starting to laugh himself as he carved water from his face with the arm of his ruined dress shirt, and raked back sodden hair.

  “I’m s-sorry,” she laughed. “It’s true...just about every word I ever spoke to you was lamer than lame. I’d want to throw me back out the window if I said fine one more time!” She tried to stop the water running off her nose with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “And I n-never entered a building quite like that before.”

  Brian sat up and looked closely at her, setting the flashlight on the floor, still trying to catch his breath. “I’m kidding—that was far too much work to toss you back. And I’m sorry I was so rough...I had to be sure I didn’t lose you,” he explained. “It seems you touch my life, and then I somehow fumble and lose you.”

  They looked at each other in the Halloween light from the flash on the floor. Occasional blasts of wind shot through the two-inch opening in the window around the heavy wires. Jane smiled again through her shivering and quaking.

  “What’s so funny now?” he demanded, shifting himself close, scooping her into his arms and wiping the water and wet hair from her face.

  “That was a f-fast response to an email!”

  “I aim to please...”

  They were nose to nose when Jane remembered Cecily.