Needles & Sins (11 page)

Who was I to argue? We split up, him circling the camp to the east, as I went west. Rick had perfected a pretty convincing owl call, and we agreed that this would be the signal to strike.

I got as close to the camp as I could and waited, watching the two as they talked in muted tones across the crackle of the fire. Where they’d found the wood, I didn’t know, but they had a blaze that would last well into the night, and seemed to have already cooked a dinner on it. The scent of burnt flesh still lingered on the night air and my stomach rumbled so loud I worried they would hear.

They looked young; the man was still freckle-faced and smooth-skinned, a shock of blonde hair jumbled like a weed patch across the plane of his scalp. Maybe it was love, or just the fire, but I could see the gleam in his eyes when he looked at her, nodding all the while, and never looking away.

She, too, looked barely a woman. Bone-thin but willowy, her long fingers fluttered over his biceps and thigh, as she animatedly told him a story of some kind. My stomach dropped when I heard the cry of an owl in the distance. I hated to break their moment. To break them.

But my hesitation lasted only an instant, and then I was launched, barreling down out of the brush, the shock of surprise still fresh in her eyes as I crossed the fire, stepped over his crossed legs and grabbed her by the shoulders dragging her backwards out of harm’s way.

Harm came from the other direction, and drove a long knife through the boy’s back before he was even partway to his feet. I caught the bloody glimmer of its tip parting the kid’s chest and shirt just before he toppled forward into the flames, the haft projecting from his back as if he were a newly pinned moth.

The girl screamed.

I couldn’t blame her. The man she loved was shuddering spasmodically in the middle of the romantic fire they’d shared moments before. And a madman was now lifting her from my grasp to hold her upright in front of him, eyes aflame with a look I knew only too well, but one that must have scared the fight right out of her. She released her bladder, in any case, and I stepped back from the puddle at her feet.

“Do exactly as I say, and you’ll survive the night,” Rick announced. He had a growl to his voice like a chainsaw trying to be coy.

“Who…why…” she stammered.

“I’m Rick, and because I wanted to,” he said. “Now sit down and be quiet.”

We tied her hands behind her back, and then I dragged the boy’s body out of the fire and into the darkness. It was beginning to smell deliciously cooked, and I didn’t want the temptation.

“Get my knife,” Rick called as I pulled the dead boy out of sight.

Her name was Annabel, and she and her boyfriend had been on their own expedition.

“Where the hell were you going out here in the middle of God-fucking-nowhere?” Rick asked and her lips drew taut and thin.

When she remained silent, I raised an eyebrow at her and she shrugged.

“It doesn’t matter now.”

“Got any food left?” Rick asked, already up and moving towards their tent.

She didn’t answer. This one didn’t say much, something that made me feel better. She’d live longer. After splitting the remains of a stew Rick found still warm in an old covered pot inside, he disappeared with Annabel into the tent.

“Gimme 20,” he said, and winked.

I gave him an hour, but I’m not sure that he needed it. I didn’t hear a sound besides the occasional pop of the wood beneath the flames.

She
was
a quiet one.

The next morning we broke camp at dawn, taking anything that looked useful and throwing it into a couple of canvas bags. Annabel asked me to carry a backpack with her things, and little more was said as we filed back through the grasslands to the wreck of the road, and then on a mile or two farther to the car. For a moment or two, I panicked that it would be gone, and we’d walk for hours down this road without finding it, but then when I saw it in the distance, I began to worry about getting it started again.

It started and three hours later we were far from the latest in Rick’s long string of murders.

We were also at the end of the line.

I shoved the gear into park, killed the engine, and the three of us stared out the pitted and bug-stained glass at the spectacle ahead.

The asphalt of the road itself had disappeared some time ago, but a faint path of grey continued to lead through the almost equally grey parched and empty landscape. It was as if we’d entered a valley of the moon; the earth all around was chalky and dead, its surface featured only with boulders and stones. It was arid and alien, this wasteland, but for miles and miles, a faint path had continued on, leading ever upward, as the ground around us dropped off, and the path in front drew ever closer to the dark shadow of a single rocky spire.

Mountains do not simply burst into ascension; they sort of grow, slowly, the earth gently rising until at one point you say to yourself;
hey, I’m halfway up a mountain
.

This mountain was not like that.

Our road ended at the foot of a 40-foot incline of vertical rock. When I shielded my eyes from the pale sun above, I still could not see the peak.

“Looks like we walk from here,” I announced.

“Do I look like a goat?” Rick asked. I ignored him and got out of the car.

“There’s got to be a way,” I murmured to myself, and began to scout, walking along the base of the jagged limestone pillars that seemed to wall the mountain off from the powdered death at its feet.

The way didn’t become apparent. We split up, Rick heading one way, and Annabel and I going the other. We agreed to meet back at the car, one way or the other, in a half hour.

The walk was treacherous. Our path had apparently been a slowly ascending ribbon of land that had grown increasingly distinct from the surrounding plains. As we walked along the unscalable wall of the mountain’s foot, the ground to our left dropped off with increasing rapidity, until within a few minutes we were walking on a thin path between wall and deadly drop.

Annabel walked single file in front of me, so I could keep her in sight.

“Did you love him?” I asked at one point, instantly kicking myself. If I’d wanted to break the ice, there were less crass ways.

“No.” She didn’t elaborate.

I didn’t know what to say to that exactly. It wasn’t what I expected.

“I’m sorry Rick had to kill him,” I finally spit out. Equally dumb.

“Me too,” she said.

We walked in silence a bit more, single file, and then she stumbled, cursing as she began to slip off the edge of the path, rock crumbling beneath her foot to fall into open space below.

I dove forward, aiming to grab her about the waist, and instead, hooked my arm into hers, which was tied in a tight loop about her wrist to her other arm, and thus made a convenient hook point.

“Fuck,” she screamed as her arms twisted above her head and she hung suspended from my grasp.

The gravel clicked and rained around her feet, which dangled above the grey featureless earth below.

“Try to wedge your foot in the rock,” I begged, my own strength quickly giving way. I could feel my body, flat on the ledge, slipping toward the edge.

She swung from my grip, screaming as much in anger as pain, and I pulled with all my strength. I felt her skin sliding through my grasp.

“Come on,” I begged, and she shouted back.

“Pull, you bastard!”

I did, and she hooked an elbow onto the rock at the path’s edge. I reached out and grabbed a piece of her shirt with my other hand and pulled again, and this time her hip cleared the ledge. With a scream and the twist of a gymnast, she flipped a foot up onto the rock. I pulled hard, and both of us rolled back and away from the drop.

“Fuck, fuck fuck,” she breathed, tears streaming down her face.

“Are you alright?” I gasped, and she shook her head.

“Untie my wrists, please,” she whispered, and then let out a long scream of anguish.

When she was done, she took a breath, and looked at me with wide, blue eyes that couldn’t be ignored.

“I think you broke my arm when you grabbed me,” she moaned. “Oh, God.”

“Stand up,” I said, and helped her to her feet.

Her right arm was hanging limply and I pulled out a knife.

“Promise you won’t run,” I said, holding it for her to see.

“Where would I go?”

I cut the ropes and then traced her left arm from shoulder to wrist with my fingers. When I got midway between her elbow and wrist, she gasped.

“Okay,” I said, and continued on. “Move your fingers?”

She could.

“I don’t know if it’s broken,” I said. “I don’t feel anything jagged. When we get to the car we can wrap it.”

She nodded.

We started back, her in the lead this time, and then she stopped.

“What?” I asked.

“The path,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“We’re going down.”

I looked back, and then ahead of us again. She was right. The incline was slight, and I hadn’t really noticed it on the way, so intent was I not to slip or lose track of her behind me.

“This is the way up,” I pronounced.

She nodded, long hair swishing ahead of me, but didn’t say a thing.

We started back to the car to meet Rick.

He met us on the way down.

“I heard a scream,” he huffed, clearly out of breath.

“Was it your conscience?” Annabel said.

Rick looked her over and then gave a pointed glance at me.

“I can understand wanting her arms around you during the act, but shouldn’t you tie her back up now?”

I explained what had happened, and he performed the same test I had. She didn’t scream this time when his fingers touched the spot on her forearm, but I could see the swelling there now, and her face pinched as he felt it. Her breath shuddered.

“Let’s get it wrapped then,” he said.

We used strips of towels to wrap her arm. Whether it was broken, fractured or just badly bruised, it seemed best to immobilize it and tie it up in a sling. Then we lunched on some leftover crackers and cheese from the stash we’d found in Annabel’s tent. Finally, as the sun moved towards 2 o’clock, we packed up our things and began our ascent.

The path had looked like a level walk around the base of an unclimbable mountain, but actually, it was a slow corkscrew, leading gently but unquestionably upwards. The sun was hot, and the sweat bled all of our backs into Vs of dark exhaustion. After an hour of silent plodding, I called for a rest, and we sat on the edge of the path, looking out.

We’d circled the mountain. Straight down and to the right, I could see the rusting wreck of our car, and off in the distance, the pale ribbon of the path we’d driven faded lighter and lighter into a horizon bleached of all life.

The wasteland surrounded us, and we were winding inexorably into its very heart.

Surprisingly, it was Annabel who finally broke the silence.

“After you kill me, what will you ask for?”

Rick stared at her. He hadn’t expected his lamb to know she was being led to the slaughter. She had not asked where we were taking her, and that made it easy for us. But she’d known all along. Not too surprising, I supposed. Where else could this road lead?

“Mastery of the power,” he answered presently. “I’ve studied and practiced and sacrificed. But I can’t get there without her help.”

Annabel nodded, as if she completely understood what he was talking about. I barely grasped what he was after myself. I’d participated in his rituals, and helped him clean up the messes afterwards. But while he insisted they were means to an end, it seemed to me that it was just an excuse for the ultimate in debauchery. He enjoyed the flayings too much. And while he’d shown me a parlor trick or two, I really didn’t believe, deep down, that Rick was more than a two-bit magician with a kink for blood. Truth be told, up to now, that had suited me just fine.

She didn’t speak again, but looked out over the endless ocean of death with faraway eyes. I realized then that her eyes were grey, like the earth below. They held a stillness too, and the proud line of her nose seemed chiseled from the hard ground we walked on. She was a quiet core of strength, not a silly girl, as I’d expected when I pinned her to the ground the night before. Her eyes shifted, caught me staring, and I averted my gaze. But not before I’d seen the spark in those steely pools and the slight smirk in her smile.

She was not broken yet, I realized. She’d seen her boyfriend brutally murdered, been violently raped, maybe broken her arm and knew she was on the way to be sacrificed, yet she wasn’t afraid.

Annabel was dangerous.

When I looked back at her, she was still staring at me, and my stomach shivered.

“How’s your arm?” I asked, eager to break her concentration on me.

Her smile twitched.

“Hurts like a mother,” she whispered.