The Hike (14 page)

“Have you ever heard of a creature named Voris?”

That caught her by surprise. “Where did you learn that name?”

“From a book. Do you know him?”

“In the dungeons,” she said, “some of the people I've found, they would say that name—Voris—over and over again. Didn't mean a thing to me. It meant quite a bit to them, though. But then I would eat them and they wouldn't cry about it anymore.”

“So you don't know who Voris is?”

“Nope. But I bet you get to find out. Oh, that's gonna be so fun. I almost wanna come with you, to see your face when it happens.”

“But you won't.”

“No, I won't. I'm precisely where I should be. Maybe you'll find a place like this for yourself one day.”

“Maybe.”

“Or maybe this Voris will kill you and rip your guts out. You just never know!”

“Yes, thank you for that, Fermona. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye! See you never.”

He slung his backpack over his shoulder and turned back down the mountain tunnel. Back to the castle, on a path that would return to this very mountain again one day.

But first, Voris awaited him.

H
e walked between the split-rail fences, his new size making the journey considerably shorter this time. The horses looked like squirrels beneath him. The ground itself felt bouncier. No wonder Fermona was always in such a cheery mood. Being a giant felt fantastic.

The house never materialized again, allowing Ben to push his family out of his mind, if only for a moment. Pining and yearning would do nothing for him now. He would have to be like a reporter dropped into a war zone, in a place to observe it, but not
of
it. Maybe he could keep it together if he was clinical about his plight, if he acted as if he elected to be there for a work assignment.
Be at a remove. Be analytical, distant, unemotional. Keep yourself busy and the burden of time eases.

But thinking clinically wasn't going to be easy for him. The shock waves were wearing off, the dread laid bare. There were so many years left to go, the mere thought of them heavier than pure lead. He ruminated on the final, terrified utterances of Fermona's victims, some of them crying out the name of the creature up in the castle ahead.
Maybe they were also lost on this path and Voris was the fate that awaited them. Maybe Voris is the Producer and this path feeds him his
victims. “Eyes are pitch black, save for the pupils, which Voris can use to shine a light bright enough to burn through virtually any living being.”

As he got closer to the castle, Ben smelled something faintly metallic. One of the tiny, wild horses came galloping over and gazed at him from behind the fence, a trail of blood running down its chin. He reached into his bag and pawed his gun.

He bypassed the stallion and hurried to the foot of the winding, arched road leading up to the blackened castle. Between the rocky cliff edge where he stood and the massive castle gate was a moat sitting a hundred feet below. It ran blood-red, as did the nearby pond. A bevy of purple swans cruised through the moat, the blood dampening their feathers and slicking them black. The air reeked of iron. Ben hiked his bag higher up onto his shoulder and began the hard trek up the walkway, stopping in the middle to sit and rest, letting his legs dangle off the rocky arch. The purple swans passed under the arch and dove into the blood, emerging again and turning rust brown. Up ahead, the walkway came to an end at a large gap, with a raised heavy wooden drawbridge blocking the castle entrance on the other side.

Ben buried his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes hard, as if he had shards of glass stuck in his irises. His body was altered now. In a few years, he would find himself in another altered form, perhaps with many transformations to be experienced in between. There was no guarantee he would, at the end of this, revert back to his normal size, his normal proportions, his normal
self.
Maybe there was a wheel of fate with a cutout of his stupid head pasted to the center, with all his possible new body types crudely marked all around it, and someone Up There was spinning it at random intervals just for the pleasure of watching Ben grapple with becoming a giant, a crab, a centaur, a dishwasher, a loaf of bread. Nothing about this land was permanent, not even him.

The only concrete thing he had was his memory. He dug into the
backpack and grabbed the legal pad and pen, which had grown with his bag and his body and remained perfectly usable. He tried to sketch his family, going from the memory of the photo from his phone. He could see it clearly in his mind: the table at Chuck E. Cheese's, Flora's purple fleece jacket, Teresa awkwardly rubbing her wedding band.

But he couldn't draw it. Teresa was the artist. In her limited spare time, she would paint wonderful things: vivid landscapes; chestnut horses with shimmering, muscular coats; harrowing self-portraits. She knew all about light and shadow. She could see the composition of things that Ben couldn't. He drew like a kindergartner who'd been asked to sketch a murder suspect. The more detailed he tried to be, the worse the portrait looked. Hilariously so. Flora would have made fun of this most recent attempt relentlessly. She would have looked over his shoulder and, with characteristic bluntness, told him, “You are not good at drawing, Dad.”

He laughed. He could forge memories like this now. He could put himself back in his house and daydream about Teresa and the children and make those daydreams feel like real remnants of his past. This kind of daydream was the precise opposite of life before the path, when he would sit at home with the kids losing their minds and imagine fly-fishing alone in some fucking river somewhere. All the fantasizing was reversed now. The most mundane things seemed so remote and foreign.

Ben crumpled up the paper and tossed it off the bridge. Just before it hit the standing blood, another crow (or the same one?) swooped in and grabbed it. He wadded up another sheet from the pad and chucked it at the bird, but missed.

The castle gate beckoned. He came to the considerable gap between the end of the rock bridge and the narrow ledge under the gate and looked down into the stillness of the moat below. God only knew what happened to you if you fell into that pool of chum.
Is that where the Jellies were? Or the things with the mouths?

He leaned over the span and pressed his hands against the castle wall. It was an awkward position. If he stepped clean over to the ledge, he'd have no room to pull the drawbridge down without his gigantic body getting in the way. So he dug his thick right hand into the top of the drawbridge, braced against the wall with his other hand, and then ripped the bridge back down toward his feet, regaining his balance at the edge of the span as the chains went taut and the bridge slammed down onto the end of the walkway in front of him, just narrowly missing his toes.

Past the drawbridge lay not a stone chamber, but a set of glass double doors, each eight feet high. The windows were tinted, so Ben couldn't see inside. Yellow stickers that said
CAUTION: AUTOMATIC DOORS
were plastered on both sides. They looked like hotel doors.

Ben was just about to step onto the drawbridge when suddenly the chains holding it began to creak and moan. The bolts keeping the right chain fast to the stone castle wall came flying out, and the chain smashed down onto the wooden bridge with a heavy THUD, splintering the wood and sending bits and pieces of it down into the blood moat below. Soon, the entire bridge began to crumble and fall, heavy shards of oak plunging down and smashing the bevy of purple swans. The part of the bridge spanning the gap was all but gone now, the swan bodies floating on the surface of the plasma. All that was left was the small ledge in front of the automatic double doors.

Inside his bag was the extra-large can of whole peeled tomatoes that Fermona had initially rejected. Ben took out the can—the label boasted that the tomatoes contained “extra lycopene”—and squeezed it into his mouth, like he was drinking from a juice box. Then he tossed the can into the moat, took ten steps back, and ran toward the expanse separating the arch and the castle gate, jumping as far as he could.

He smacked right into the double doors upon landing and had to carefully regain his balance on the rebound to keep from plummeting
into the gorge below. Just as he was steadying himself, he doubled over in pain again, turning away from the castle walls and clutching at his leg. Everything went taut: his skin, hair, fingers, and toes. He felt as if he had become a fist. His mighty giant hair spooled back into his head. He slumped down on the narrow ledge as his chest and stomach and legs and arms shrank back down, the serum from the gun wearing off.

He was six feet tall again, which would have been a welcome development except that all his writhing and spasming had caused him to roll right off the mountain.

He grabbed hold of the ledge just in time to avoid falling into the red abyss. His hands were in better shape now, but his full body weight was bearing down on them and he could feel his fingers getting sweaty and losing friction. He was slipping away. In one desperate motion, he pulled himself up and swung his foot onto the ledge as all his hand muscles cramped and seized.

The doors in front of him parted silently to reveal a stark, modern hotel lobby: pristine white marble floors, black light fixtures, a large black fountain in the center of the lobby with water falling down the sides of a black granite cube, and a series of elevated tables with sleek black bar stools. Two escalators ran up to a generic white mezzanine.

Ben swung his other leg over the ledge and rolled to safety, gasping for air as he gazed into the lobby. At the back, to the right, there was a long white counter with a short old man standing behind it, staring at Ben but not saying a word, never blinking, not offering to help the traveler lying prone at the hotel's doorstep.

Eventually, Ben got up and walked inside, the doors sealing shut behind him. When he pressed down on the floor mat and waved his arms around, the doors failed to reopen. There was no leaving the hotel now.

H
e was just a man once more, everything about him now in correct proportion to his environs: his body, his clothes, his bag. It was vaguely disappointing.

Between Ben and the clerk was a small, circular stone table with a fruit basket sitting on top: complimentary apples and pears and oranges. He grabbed an apple on his way to greet the creepy old clerk, who looked like a wax figure: his face caked with foundation makeup, each strand of hair on his head discernible to the naked eye, occupying its own little patch of real estate on his pale scalp. He looked as if he had been crafted by a twisted dollmaker. Ben approached him with caution.

“Hello?”

The clerk said nothing, and instead reached into a drawer to pull out a plastic key card, the kind you find in any twenty-first-century hotel. He placed it against a magnetic reader until it beeped, then bundled it inside a little pamphlet and scribbled a number—906—on the inside in blue pen. He left the Wi-Fi password space blank, then slid the pamphlet over to Ben.

“Is this my room?” he asked.

The clerk answered only with a leering half smile. There was a bank of elevators behind him to the right. He pointed Ben toward the bank, but Ben wasn't in a rush. The lines demarcating the path were gone now. He had free rein to explore the hotel as he pleased. To the left of the cube fountain was a sleek, open lounge with a full bar. No one was there. No bartenders. No patrons. There was a smattering of tables, but all of them were covered in overturned dining chairs, as if service had ended. Ben walked up to one of the place settings and unfurled a cloth napkin, watching a fork, a spoon, and a thick steak knife all tumble out. He grabbed a second bundle from another place setting and tucked it into his backpack. The clerk, who remained conspicuously silent, slowly ambled over behind the bar and rested his frail, rotting hands on the cold marble countertop.

The bar, apparently, was still open. Whatever this place was, it at least had better liquor laws than Pennsylvania.

Ben walked to the bar and hung his backpack over a stool. He didn't bother asking for a double rye. He knew the clerk wasn't going to ever speak. Ben pointed at the bottle and held up two fingers. The clerk nodded and filled a tumbler. Then he dug up a scoopful of ice and held it over the glass, awaiting further instruction from Ben. Ben held up one finger and the clerk let a single rock fall into the tumbler, then placed the drink on the bar. He stared at the glass until streaks of condensation ran down the side, pooling at the base and forming a suction ring.

“Money?” Ben asked.

The clerk shook his head. Ben dislodged the tumbler from the wet bar and took a sip. It was real booze. No tricks. No poison. Real, honest-to-God booze. His socks were digging into his ankles and now
even his leg hairs were sore, like wearing a snug baseball cap for too long. His body and mind moaned with every blissful sip. It tasted like home in the wintertime.

He gestured for a refill. The clerk obliged.

At the far end of the bar was another set of tinted double doors. After a couple more sips, Ben stood up and walked toward them, then looked back at the clerk for approval. The clerk gave a nod and Ben stepped onto the floor mat that made the doors slide open automatically.

Outside, he came upon a flagstone patio. In the center of the patio was a small, black-tiled pool with deck chairs arranged in a rectangle around it. Rolls of complimentary towels were stacked on built-in shelves over to the side. To the right of the pool was a raised fire pit, made of stone, with a circular slab running along its perimeter for bench seating. The pit was surrounded by wrought-iron outdoor furniture with firm cushions and little side tables where patrons might rest all manner of fruity, fifteen-dollar cocktails.

The entire patio was enclosed by a black aluminum rail fence that was five times higher than Ben was tall. In the distance, he saw that the patio overlooked a vineyard at the base of a series of rolling, sun-bathed hills. It looked like paradise: the fat grapes hanging in bunches from vines that were held up by wooden stakes. (S
takes, eh
?), the wizened olive trees that dotted the hillside, the way the fading sunlight seemed to embrace all of it and give it a visible aura. He walked to the fence and grabbed one of the cold rails with his free hand, the second rye cocktail in his other hand nearly finished. He wanted a third. He wanted a hundred.

The clerk was outside now as well, perched by the double doors, which remained open to the hotel lobby. Ben took a final sip of his
whiskey and then grasped the fence with both hands, bracing his foot on the rail, ready to climb. He looked to the clerk for approval.

The clerk shook his head.

So Ben picked up the tumbler and gave it a shake. The clerk nodded and went to get another refill. The sunlight faded to purple and Ben looked down into the stone fire pit, which was filled with tiny blue rocks and had two small gas pipes jutting out. When the clerk returned with a full drink, Ben pointed to the fire pit. The clerk nodded once more and walked over to a white switch on the side of the patio. The flames kicked up and toasted Ben's skin the way the liquor toasted his insides. He slumped into one of the chairs ringing the pit and gazed into the fire. He didn't want to think about Annie Derrickson, but he couldn't help it. It was okay now. A few drinks always made it okay to put guilt aside for a moment.

Then he thought about Teresa and the children. No SWAT team or Special Forces agents had found him. They wouldn't find him, of course. They could sweep every square inch of the Earth and not find him.
Maybe they had a funeral already.
He hadn't had time to write a will or make any sort of proper burial request. He was at that age where he used work as an excuse to put off other pressing matters, like personal finances and filling out life insurance forms. He preferred making the small amount of money he made to figuring out how to take care of that money.

But Teresa would know what to do. She would be practical. After the proper amount of time had passed, she would accept that he was gone, and then hold a small memorial service in their home, with platters of sandwiches and bowls of dip (she made excellent dips) set out for the bereaved. She would keep her shit together until everyone had cleared out of the house, and then she would cry and wail privately, just to herself. After a year, maybe she would begin dating again.
Maybe she would get married. The kids would have a new dad. And slowly, they would all forget about Ben, wouldn't they? Life would move forward, without him. He didn't want to be gone, but now he was. Just like
his
worthless old man. A whole new ecosystem would soon grow and thrive over his grave site.

He squeezed his glass angrily and left it on the edge of the fire pit, unfinished. He fell asleep right in the deck chair, his clothes still on. In the dead of night, the clerk gave him a gentle tap on the shoulder and he slowly opened his eyes. He didn't like the clerk touching him. His touch felt like it could infect others.

The clerk pointed up. It was time for him to go to his room.