Death Glitch (31 page)

“
I remember,” Izzy said.

“
Then we see how it goes.”

“
Easy peasy, like you said.”

“
Easy peasy,” Lila said. “They say you’re not supposed to look down, but I find it’s better if you do, if you watch where you’re putting your feet, because a misstep would be a bad thing.”

“
Yeah,” Izzy said. “So let’s do it.”

“
One more thing, we can’t use our hands, nothing to hold on to.”

“
I got that.”

“
Luck.” Lila stepped out on the ledge, back to the mountain.

“
Luck to you, too.” Izzy followed and right away regretted the riot gun slung on her back, because she wanted to get as close to the cliff face as possible. But she was afraid to push herself too hard against it, afraid the gun would snag on a rock or shrub or who knew what. She was also afraid if she pushed too hard into the cliff she’d lose her footing, slip and fall. And she was afraid to look down, afraid to move.

“
Come on, Izzy, you can do this.”

“
I can’t.”

“
Yes you can,” Lila said. “It’s not far.”

“
It’s too far.”

“
No it’s not. Just slide your right foot a few inches to the right, follow with your left.”

“
Can’t.” Izzy really thought she had conquered her fear of heights, but it was clear now that she hadn’t. She was terrified, wanted to be anywhere else but here. She could very well die tonight, be blown all to hell by Manny Wayne’s private army and that she could face, but this, this had her paralyzed.

She had to go back.

“
There has to be another way.” She was about to slide her foot to the left, to give it up when she felt Lila take her hand.

“
Close your eyes and trust me.” Lila gave a gentle tug to the right and against what every fiber in her body was telling her, she did as Lila said, she closed her eyes and held onto her hand, not wanting to squeeze too tightly, but she couldn’t help herself.

The first side step required a tremendous leap of faith. She saw herself falling off the mountain, plunging like granite, too terrified to scream as the ground came rushing up to meet her, but she’d made the leap, moved her feet and to her surprise the next step was every bit as hard for her as was the first.

“
I don’t think I can,” she said, then she felt something wet on her face and she opened her eyes. “Oh my God, it’s snowing.”

“
Izzy, you’re panicking.” Lila squeezed her hand. “You’ve come through so much, now’s not the time for this.”

“
I know. I just need a second.”

“
Think about something else.”

“
We’re out on a ledge in the middle of the night and it’s snowing. How can I think of anything else?”

“
Try.”

“
I can’t.”

“
Listen to me, Izzy, I’ve done this dozens of times. It’s not the easiest thing in the world, but it’s not the hardest either. It’s not impossible.”

Izzy heard the words, but she was frozen in place. She’d conquered her fear of heights, but here it was, back with a vengeance and that made no sense, because she knew there was a better than even chance that she would wind up riddled with bullet holes once she reached the top and they began their assault, if she didn’t get electrocuted before that, so she shouldn’t be afraid of a little thing like falling off a mountain. Her fear was completely irrational, but it was there and it was locking her up.

“
So what do you think caused this thing that happened to you?” Lila said.

“
What?”

“
You know, what do you think brought you back from the dead? And you were dead, I know, I shot you and I don’t miss.” She squeezed Izzy’s hand again. “Then there’s that waking up young again business.” Another squeeze. “What do you think caused it?”

“
Now? You’re asking me now?” Izzy clenched her teeth against the cold. She was starting to go numb.

“
Just making conversation, till you overcome your fear,” Lila said. Still another squeeze. Her hand in Lila’s was warm. It was as if a heat was radiating from Lila, the warmth moving up Izzy’s arm, killing the cold. “So what was it? Surely you have some kind of idea.”

“
Aliens, I think.” There it was, hanging out there with the snow in the cold, dark air. She’d said what had been hanging around in the back of her mind. “I think it was aliens.” She said it again. Then she told Lila about Kissan and Marlan and their strange accents and how she’d delivered their baby, how she’d skinned her hand and about the blood to blood transfer and, as she’d been doing the telling, she’d felt her fear fading away and by the time she’d finished, it was gone.

“
I thought it had to be something like that. That there was a bigger picture.”

“
You can let go of my hand,” Izzy said. “I’m okay now.” Lila’s heat, wherever it had come from, had warmed and calmed her.

“
I think I’ll hold on for a bit, at least till we get off the ledge.” Lila started moving to the right and Izzy went along with her, eyes open, taking in the city lights below, winking now through the snow.

Then the fog started to roll in.

“
Crap,” Lila said, but she kept moving.

“
It’s a sign,” Izzy said.

“
Of what?”

“
I don’t know, but I think it’s a good thing.”

“
It’ll give us cover when we get there, but it’s a little inconvenient right now.”

“
No wind and it’s not cold anymore,” Izzy said.

“
So where’s the fog coming from?” Lila stopped. “Aliens?”

“
You think?” Izzy said.

“
Couldn’t be. That’s crazy talk.”

“
You’re the one doing the talking.” It was quiet, save for their voices, there were no sounds out there on the ledge. No wind, not a hint of a breeze. No night sounds. It was as if they were in a vacuum.

“
We should hurry this up,” Lila said.

“
Yeah.”

Lila started moving faster, pulling Izzy along with her as the fog started closing in, blacking out the city lights below.

* * *

“
Would you look at that?” Mouledoux stared out into the fog, which was rolling in thick and fast.

“
I better get Manny.” Peeps left the room.

He didn’t know how, but all of a sudden Mouledoux knew Isadora Eisenhower and Lila Booth were coming in through the back. Manny Wayne had said it was impossible, but somehow they were going to do it. Cliff, dogs, electric fence, him and Peeps at the window, it made no never mind. That’s the way they were coming and somehow the fog was aiding them.

Keeping his eyes glued on the back, Mouledoux saw the fog stop just short of the house and he couldn’t shake the thought that it was alive. There was something going on here bigger than Isadora Eisenhower and the Fountain of Youth she’d apparently discovered or stumbled upon, whichever, it made no difference, because her rebirth as a young woman was only a part of a bigger picture that he didn’t want any part of, especially now that he’d learned it was Peeps who’d taken out the lawyer Drake and doctors Jordan and Romero and not Eisenhower. True, she’d obviously done those hospital security guys at her home, but looking at it now he saw that it was probably self defense and Shaffer had had a heart attack, Eisenhower wasn’t responsible for that.

She wasn’t a killer, not if you didn’t count defending your life and Mouledoux didn’t. That being the case, he didn’t have a dog in this fight and that was good, because this was a fight the Waynes, with their Blackwater thugs, concrete foxholes, dogs and firepower were going to lose, because those women had something on their side that Mississippi Bob Mouledoux was afraid of.

What it was, he didn’t have a clue, God, ghosts, extra-terrestrials, some kind of voodoo or mother nature herself, Mouledoux didn’t know, but it was mighty powerful, whatever it was, and though he didn’t believe in any of that stuff, his mama hadn’t raised a dumb boy. He’d been confronted with some pretty compelling evidence that one of the former had a hand in this, or something equally as powerful.

Those women were going to be here any minute and they were going to get those girls upstairs and take them out of here and anybody who tried to stop them was going to get dead and Mississippi Bob Mouledoux didn’t want any part of it.

Izzy hadn’t seen such thick fog in Northern Nevada ever. But as a child, she’d grown up near the beach in Southern California, so she was familiar with fog and the eerie feeling of being caught in it.

Her mind went back to a time when she was fifteen years old. She’d been walking the neighbor’s collie, Skipper. It was a Sunday evening and it had just turned dark. They were crossing the baseball diamond in José San Martin Park, when the fog rolled in. It was December, three days before Christmas and the park had been deserted, save for her and the dog. It was as if they were alone in the world. She’d been both frightened and exhilarated.

She’d been cold that night in the fog, enveloped in the clammy wetness of it, afraid because she didn’t know which way to go, exhilarated because she felt like she could do anything she’d wanted out in the middle of centerfield—dance, strip naked, make a fool of herself—and nobody would see, so she’d shucked her clothes and swayed nude to an imaginary song, goosebumps peppering her body, while the dog sat patiently, waiting for the song in her head to end.

And when the song was over, she’d put her clothes back on, gave the dog his head and let him lead her home. That was one of her favorite memories, one she’d revisited often as her cancer had progressed.

Izzy remembered that fog. It was an alien thing.

“
Lila wait,” she said.

“
We’re almost there,“ Lila said. “Just a little further and we’ll be at the top.” They’d been going steadily up hill, not at a very steep grade, but up. And the ledge had widened, so Izzy was feeling safer, even though the snow had started to come down harder, but it had stopped with the fog.

“
This isn’t right,” she said.

“
What?” Lila said.

“
This fog.”

“
It is strange, but it’s a good strange. It’ll give us cover.”

“
No, it’s more than strange. This isn’t like fog. It’s dry, like it’s sucking the moisture right out of the air. That’s the opposite of fog. Fog is wet and fog is cold. It’s not cold anymore. And what happened to the snow?”

“
Izzy, this isn’t the time or place for this. We’ve come here to do a job. Let’s just do it. We’ll sort out all this strange shit after. Okay?”

“
Alright,” Izzy said and again she followed Lila, keeping close, because the fog, or whatever it was, seemed to be getting thicker.

“
We’re here,” Lila said a couple minutes later. Then, “They’re still here, after all this time.”

“
What?”

“
My rebar ladder,” Lila said. “My beau put these in, you know, the guy I was telling you about who helped build the electric fence.” Lila raised a hand overhead, grabbed onto a rung that seemed to be coming out of the cliff face. “It’s only about ten feet up, then we’re at the top and just about in Manny’s backyard.”

“
You weren’t sure this ladder would still be here?”

“
Not a hundred percent, but the odds were pretty good. After all, it was built by a lovesick young man who wanted to see his girl, who was a virtual prisoner in the castle.”

“
The ladder could have been discovered and taken down.”

“
But it wasn’t, when we get to the top, you’ll see why.” Lila put her foot in the bottom rung, started up and was at the top in short order. “Come on.”

“
Right behind you.” Izzy grabbed onto the ladder and a chill rippled through her, her old fear of heights still raising its ugly head, but she fought it off, went up. At the top, Lila reached a hand out. Izzy took it and Lila pulled her up.

She didn’t know what she’d expected, a palatial estate maybe, but not this. She was confronted with a dense forest of tall pines. Now she understood how Lila’s beau was able to build the ladder without getting caught. Wayne’s estate wasn’t here, so there had been no one to catch him.

“
So what now?” Izzy said.

“
Manny’s place is a ten minute hike that way.” Lila pointed into the trees. “He’s secure in the fact that his home can’t be approached from directly below the back, but we’re almost a quarter mile away here and off to the east. He couldn’t secure the whole damn mountain, that’s why the fence.” Lila started into the trees.

Izzy followed and in seconds she was surrounded by the trees and though they were pine trees and though Christmas was just around the corner, the atmosphere was far from festive. In the fog, the trees seemed like ghostly apparitions, reaching out for her as she brushed past them. In another life, she’d’ve been terrified, but after surviving the last couple days, including the ledge out on that cliff, it would take a lot more than a few trees on a foggy night to frighten her.

Ahead, Izzy saw gauzy strings of light penetrating the forest through the fog.

Lila stopped.

“
We’re here,” she said.

They were through the forest and Izzy saw a hazy circle of light up ahead in the fog and she was struck with the thought that she was dead and supposed to go toward it.