by Ellen Datlow
When she finally reached Dubort’s house, her stomach sank. It didn’t look like a house at all these days—more like a sandy hill, with a strange gray vine growing up its side. As with the clearing, the forest that had claimed the rest of the property seemed to have left this part alone.
Sally circled the house, afraid of what she’d do if it was empty. She saw a dark square opening in the leeward wall. The black square of a window, or door. Someone had recently been inside.
Sally lowered the shovel. “Pa?” She tried the word out, scared of speaking too loud. “You there?” The air itself seemed to be listening to her.
Sally closed her eyes, thinking of Pa and his tobacco smell and his graceful fingers as he patched up a gunny sack. She had to see.
She walked slowly up to the dark square and peered inside.
The first thing that hit Sally was the smell. It was horrible, and faintly familiar, as though she’d encountered it many years before. It was the smell of rot, the kind of thing you might find in a wet place, not here on the plains.
She stared hard at the darkness, trying to make it form shapes. She had matches in her pocket, swiped from the old kerosene lamp. She struck one, but a faint stir of wind guttered it out too quickly. She needed to do better than that.
She slung her leg over the windowsill, gulping what clean air she could. The wooden sill moved beneath her hands. You’re doing a dumb thing, she thought, and slipped inside.
The ground was soft sand. Grimacing, she put her hand up against the wall. She’d follow the wall around, in the dark. Figure out how far she could go.
But she hadn’t gone very far at all when she heard the breathing.
Sally froze. She wanted to believe she was imagining things. She held her breath, to prove it. A wheeze in. A wheeze out. Too regular to be the wind.
Fear pressed on her. She didn’t want to call for her father. If he hadn’t heard her earlier, he wouldn’t hear her now. And if it was something else there breathing, she didn’t want to know.
Don’t try to solve all the problems at once, Pa always said. Break them up. Deal with each one in order.
So Sally groped her way back to the window, with its bright patch of light. She was glad, now, to see the lurid green outside. She fumbled the matches out, holding them in the light. Ten left. I am going to do this, she thought, I am.
She struck the match.
At first she could see nothing in the orange circle of light. She cupped the flame and extended her arms. There was one shadow that was stranger than all the others, taller than any man should be. Something was there.
Sally moved forward. She had to get the circle of light closer before the match went out. The soles of her feet crunched onto uneven sand piles, miniature dunes that hissed out of place as she stepped on them.
Yes, there was definitely something there, in the jumping flame. A line of vine, of leaves, a reassuringly normal shape. The vines fed into the bulky mass growing out of the wall, a
—gaping incomprehension of seeds and veins and flesh and
interiors that were exteriors yawning backwards into dark
[consumed] the dirt the air the vine the stone the bird the man the
the—
It had her father’s face.
It used that face as a hand, reaching for her, sensing maybe the kinship between them. It reached for her with its
—fused body that bulked vegetable animal
a cuff link from the other agent still on its cuff oh god the—
Sally ran. Quick as sight, she was out the window, her disconnected self not feeling the stones that slammed and cut her knees and saved her life because the father-thing stopped to drink her blood, the jeweled red pools that clustered in the stone—
Sally ran, feeling her body again when the evil not-vegetation tried to clutch her legs her arms but she was an arrow loosed from a bow. She thought of those crusts of bread her mother had saved eat this you must stay strong, and here was why, this flight this stumble towards sand, the sand would save her. Even the gnaiih-thing behind her could not grow in the dust the choking otherness would slow it down while she, a Nester, fleet, could reach the fence, could stagger ch’it while h’followed her on what kind of legs? Dear god h’ah’olna’ftaghu—
She was over the fence, running across the dust to the end of the horizon.
When her legs gave out, Sally forced herself to look back towards the house. This was maybe the bravest thing she’d done, because she knew if [it] was coming for her, there was nothing she could do but watch her death walk up. Not death, no: [it] was worse than that, her father’s face absorbed into some amalgamation of life and used as a tool to probe the world. At least [it] didn’t look human, because if [it] did—
But [it] didn’t. She hoped [it] never did. She hoped that along with those pieces of her father and the government man, [it] had not taken their memories: the pattern of her mother’s dress, the creak of the old well, the words the government man had used to get her father, oh, her father, to come trudging out here to die.
Except he wasn’t dead.
Sally understood now what the screaming government man had tried to tell them,
—the exterior turned interior the reaching dark the—
and knew also there was no words to contain [it]. She had to force her mind back, to here, to the soil on her hands and the gleam of life that was Sally because
—the howling light a rage of knowing—
if she didn’t, she would become like one of those wizened stock, tangled in the wire. No. She was a Nester. She would not die like that.
But her Pa.
If she told, they would come out here. If she lied and said she’d found nothing, they might come anyway.
She’d lost the shovel, dropped it somewhere. That wouldn’t do. A fire. She remembered the red can of gasoline by the crater.
I’ve cracked, she thought, brushing her face. But that was all right.
When her legs started working again, she got up and went back to the clearing.
Sally struggled over the dunes, the sun high in the sky. No birds, no clouds, only infinity staring her down.
When she was actually at Dubort’s fence, seeing again the drift, the body of the cow ominously absent, she felt fear thrill through her. It was that fear that finally brought her back to herself, no longer one with the sky and the—
down in the dark, in the deep
—but back in her shaking, dry-throated body.
She didn’t want to die. She was sure the calf hadn’t wanted to die either, no matter how its stomach hurt or how short its life would be. It had struggled even as the hammer came down, with Sally’s fear reflected in its eyes.
It’s like riding a horse, she thought. Like riding a horse somewhere it doesn’t want to go. With that in mind she coaxed a foot forward. Then another one. And another.
She watched her feet. If this was all she saw, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
But it was bad. The hideous green jangled her mind. The wind breathed wrong, whispering things. Why had she come, after all? Why had she come?
There was a stubbornness in Sally that went down through the soil and past that, through the rock and its layers of time. She was a Nester, wasn’t she? She belonged here, or at least—(remembering the Comanche, remembering the English with their guns)—at least she was here, and she would not easily be moved.
It was a long hot way. She had to keep switching the gas can from one arm to another when the pull got too much. As she walked she became more and more herself, these tired muscles lugging a sloshing burden through an ugly glare of green. She should have brought Ben. If Ben could walk, he would have helped her. But then he would see the thing and she did not want anyone else in her family to see [it]. That would be too much.
At last the house swam into the tunnel of her vision. She expected her legs to balk again, but they didn’t. It was as though, having crossed the fence, all of her options were gone.
> She did not bother wasting a match outside this time. She slung her leg over, and stepped inside.
When she lit the match, she saw only awful greenery. The father thing had vanished.
[It] couldn’t have gone far, she thought. Of course she wasn’t sure if that was true or not. Maybe the thing was faster than it seemed. Maybe [it] was already advancing through the township, swallowing stray passersby into its madness.
No. The thing was here. Somewhere.
Perhaps [it] was deeper in the house.
The hairs on the nape of her neck rose. Of course the house had more rooms. It was a wealthy house. Now that the outgrowth on the wall had torn itself away, she could even see the gap where the door had been. Might not that be a sign, then? That something had gone through?
Between her and the door was a mess of tangled growth. It was dangerous to step through, and not just because of the smell of rot that rose with every step. She had the notion that the vines and [it] were all connected. She was like an ant walking on [its] arm letting [it] know where she was.
If [it] found her, she could kill it faster, she reminded herself. She walked through the door.
The air inside this room was moist and sweet-smelling. The rot-stench was thick here, and something else, something indescribable, and bitter-edged.
She struck a match. There was a dark square in the floor. A rusted ladder curled out.
Sally peered into the black hole and thought about dropping the match. But what would happen if the flame lit on part of [it]? The thing would know what she intended.
So she blew out the match. In darkness she found the creaking, terrifyingly mobile rungs of the cellar ladder. She climbed down.
At last Sally had come to the end. She knew that even before she opened her eyes, before she struck the second match. She could hear the breathing around her. Synchronized, from many points. A sucking in and out.
She stepped down. Fumbled the cap off the gasoline.
A puff of air on her leg. She carefully pulled that leg away, trying to stand close to the ladder. They were all around her.
And they were.
The jumping orange light revealed twisted bodies—humans, cows, birds, plants, all merged together. Bird wings fanned air around the room. Human faces twisted on vine stems. A flower opened around an eye. She placed the match carefully on the ladder, letting it burn.
The antenna/vines/fingers quested forward. She looked for her father’s face. That was the only one that mattered. The prickle down her leg told her that one of the vines had caught her, was latching on.
Then she saw Pa. It helped that he didn’t look like her father anymore, but like a sack that had been stretched over a different shape. Something appeared to be growing under his eyelids.
She hurled the gasoline at him. It missed, soaking a good portion of the vine-wall instead. Heart clutching, she felt the slight slosh of some remaining gasoline. Nothing to do but this. She strode forward and poured, the awful, wonderful smell of gasoline filling her nostrils.
She could feel the latch of the vines on her arms and hands, could feel them burrowing into her skin. But what mattered, what truly mattered, was that she get the other match free, and out, and—stepping back, despite the tearing pain at her legs—struck.
The whoosh of flame knocked her backwards. Now there was heat to get away from and the screams of [it] as flowers, vines, hands stretched up in pain and terror. She stumbled away from the father-thing, crawling with flame. Her hand found the cold rungs of the ladder. Up.
Eyes streaming Sally stumbled towards the thin light of the window—a different window this time, she’d come out wrong. The house was filling with smoke and blackness, like a duster. She didn’t want to die like this. She tore vines away from the old window frame, pushed her way through the rotten wood. She fell outside, into the sunshine and the merciful air.
Sally choked on the ground. There was not enough air in the whole world for her. The sun dazzled overhead, a hot stare, and black trekked above her in a column of smoke. Behind her, the vines were screaming.
Let them scream. Sally rolled on her side, scrabbled blindly away from the noise, going somewhere else.
They found her on the road. Her mother grabbed Sally, a relief of human skin pressing against hers. “Sally what happened to you, your face—my God—”
All of these words were tiresome. Sally leaned her smarting face against her mother’s shoulder, breathing in the smell of flour. One of the adult men was shouting but Sally ignored him. “It’s okay Ma,” she tried to say. The words came out as a croak.
“Hold on, Sally,” Ma said, “You hold on.” And Sally lowered her head as though Ma’s words would keep her safe.
Later, when the doctors finally let Sally come home, she helped Ma look for dimes. The funeral had come and gone when Sally was in her fever. About it, all Ma said was, “Your Pa was a good man.” She added, staring at the pile of bills, “He would have wanted us to stay here.”
Sally knew Ma was talking about the hardware men who were calling in their debts, and who Ma refused to look at when they were in town. It wasn’t fair of Ma, really, Sally thought. What choice did the hardware men have about eating? They needed the money.
But something seemed to have changed for Ma, since the day Sally had come stumbling back to them on the road. She didn’t care so much about politeness now. That part of Ma seemed to have been lost somewhere. Sally missed it.
Ben, on the bed, was trying to do his part. He held up the coin he’d found—or hidden, Sally thought, a long time ago.
“Found one,” he gasped. He looked away from them. Ma added it to the small pile on the table. Sally remembered the ten dollar bill sitting there and turned her head away. That money was long spent.
“Are we going to be okay, Ma?” Ben couldn’t see the coins from where he lay. He didn’t know how few there were.
Baby Alasdair snuffled in his box, his breathing low and ragged. Ma adjusted his blanket, then scooped up Alice, who was getting underfoot as always. She went over to Ben and sat on the bed beside him, motioning Sally to join her. Sally sat gingerly on the end of the bed. Sometimes she thought she could still feel the vines squirming under her skin, and then she was afraid to let folk touch her.
“Now you listen, all of you,” her mother said. “This is Mackay land. We’ve worked for it and we’re going to keep working for it.” She squeezed Ben’s hand and threw a hard, half hug around Alice and Sally. Sally found herself returning the painful embrace, as though she was hanging on to her family as they slid off the face of the world.
“We won’t be moved,” her mother repeated into Alice’s hair, like it was true.
From the nick of her eye, Sally could see the future coming for them: baby Alasdair dead from dust pneumoniaby year’s end, the land foreclosed, her mother half-mad at losing another loved one in a land not even good for graves any more. They’d be moved, alright, the way you had to move, when the only other choice was to die.
Sally felt that future and it terrified her more than the thing she’d seen at Dubort’s. But she said nothing. Instead, she reached out and took hold of Ben’s arm, like it really could work, like they really could make it.
Head bowed, she told the lie that was asked of her.
“We’ll hold on, Ma,” she agreed. “You’ll see.”
BETTER YOU BELIEVE
CAROLE JOHNSTONE
Maybe true
Maybe not true
Better you believe
—Old Sherpa Saying
It’s all downhill on a descent. The oldest climbing joke of the lot, but only because it’s true. If I like any bit of it at all, it could never be that slow, painful climb down from the highs of before and the bone-deep exhaustion of after. People make mistakes on a descent because everything’s against them: altitude, time, their bodies. And always their mind. No one gets excited about survival—not like they do about standing on the top of the world. And no one gets a good write-
up in Nat Geo or Time for managing to get back down a bloody mountain in one piece. Unless they’re Jean-Christophe Lafaille, I guess.
The air is raw, thin, dry. Acke Holmberg’s cough is worse; when ice walls throw up rare shelter, I can hear it rattle up from his lungs hard enough to start doing damage. Nick likes to tell me about the gross stuff when we’re in bed, warm and lazy, blissed out. One guy he climbed with ruptured his esophagus on Nanga Parbat, a few thousand feet above base camp. The blood spray froze in mid-air, Nick said with a grin, before pulling me back under the covers and him.
The wind is a demented banshee. Only fifty k, Nick said maybe twelve hours ago; on the summit it beat around our heads so hard we had to crouch. Some of the Swedes were convinced they were going to be yanked off into the swirling white void. As if they’d be fuckin wheeched off, Nick said with usual scorn. As if it had never happened, when I know just how many dozens of times it has on this peak alone. But he’s earned the right to be scathing, I guess. Until today, Annapurna was the only eight-thousander he hadn’t summited.
But things are different now—I know that without being able to either see or hear him, somewhere further down the Lafaille line and attached to the same fixed rope. It’s dark and growing darker. It’s too late—much too late—I can barely see the low sun beyond Gangapurna’s peak, some 7,000 meters above the Marsyangdi River. The weather is moving. And the mountain is getting jittery; I feel its hackles under my frozen feet, like we’re ticks that just won’t quit. We’ve been inside the Death Zone for too long, but we’re too slow, too tired, and have too far to go.
Bad Things, I think, in Nick’s lesser spotted concerned voice, as I battle on down through the white and the wind, putting one boot in front of the other in the kind of trance that’s both helpful and dangerous. Bad Things are about to happen.
By the time they do, I’ve managed to convince myself they won’t. The wind has died again; the flag cloud west of the summit tilts up and sharp against the dying sun. Up is good, flat is bad, down is fucked. I remember the big poster tacked alongside prayer flags in the med tent, and Nick laughing with one of the American doctors that it was a far more reliable indicator than any other base camp forecast. The mountains make their own weather, and it’s rarely kind.
