Forget about this, her mind spoke up. There’s a pair of psychos right behind you and you’re here cavorting with a bunch of birds.
Not exactly cavorting, more like witnessing, but she understood the concern. This place was a sight and sort of magical, too, but how the hell was that going to help her?
You need to run. Get to the summit.
No, she didn’t. Even from here, Mercy could tell that the cliff at the far end was plenty steep enough to accomplish what she wanted on the top of this mountain. And what had been that grand plan, exactly?
She stared at the flashlight in her hand. The bulb had dimmed to a barely perceptible glow like a match at the far end of a cave.
Like your hope for getting out of this mess alive.
From behind her, not far at all down the trail, Caleb’s convoluted scream added the exclamation to her mind’s warning.
Last chance to run.
But she couldn’t. Aside from her ailing body, from the hard truth that if she dared to continue up this mountain there was no way she would make it to the top before Caleb caught her, she simply didn’t want to leave this spot. This oasis in the woods.
Slowly and carefully, she began to walk around the edge of the clearing. Most of the birds hopped out of her way before her bare feet (what had happened to her socks?) could even touch them, but a few more obstinate crows had to be encouraged out of her way with a gentle tap. Their feathers were smooth like silk.
Evergreen branches poked at her with thousands of needle fingers and tugged at her clothes like claws. The most amazing aroma of freshness filled her nostrils. At first she thought it was simply the smell of the trees, that bouquet of Christmas time, but there was something more to it, some other, unidentifiable smell like clean clothes right out of the dryer, or a spring morning where the sky is clear and the sun full of warmth and promise.
Or maybe you’re going out of your mind.
“Anything’s possible,” she said.
A few crows flapped their wings as if in agreement.
“I’ll get you, you bitch!”
Mercy froze.
Caleb was just beyond the border of the trees, mere feet away.
A few crows offered a momentary glance in that direction but most simply went on foraging.
The evergreen at the far end shook. He was trying to find his way through it as she had. How did he know she was there?
He can smell you, she thought. Like a wild beast.
She gripped the flashlight in both hands, squeezing it until her hands hurt. If he barged in, she would run to the edge, lure him right to the cusp, and when he barreled after her, she would slam him in the face with the plastic flashlight and push him over the edge to his death.
Simple.
So simple to kill a person, is it?
Whose voice was that? Perhaps a teacher she had in high school, the one who always dared to question students’ perceptions of the world. Mrs. Trolliver. Mercy had gotten mostly A’s in her class. Except on that persuasive research paper. Mrs. Trolliver refuted Mercy’s opinion on abortion in a half-page response written in red pen in which she insisted that one day Mercy would recognize the sanctity of life.
Her statement began, So simple to kill a person, is it?
Yes, you bitch, it is, Mercy thought and grinned.
Perceived confidence aside, she was already wondering what she’d say to the police and how many nightmares she would suffer and how she could live a normal life after taking someone else’s.
But he’s trying to kill me.
But he was gone. His next scream came from farther away, somewhere up the mountain a way. A crow in the middle of the gathering raised its head and cawed.
FORTY-FIVE
Victor was playing hide and seek again. It was almost funny. After finally ridding himself of his mother, here he was hunting for her in the woods. But it wasn’t his mother hiding out here among the trees. And when he found the girl, he would prove that to himself. He’d prove it in the most assured and intimate way.
Time to give Momma her prize.
Caleb was ahead somewhere, now a nonsensical screaming voice that warbled through the night like an audible, angry wind. If he were right in front of him, squawking away like a deranged fool, Victor would bury one of his knives into Caleb’s back. He’d use the one with the gut hook, so when he slid it free from the flesh, the man’s guts would come with it in one long, slippery crimson ribbon.
Caleb claimed to be a cleanser. Victor had accepted him for the advantages it offered rather than for the veracity of his claim. There were cleansers, after all, and then there were cleansers. Caleb was a maniac who wanted to rape and maim and kill and that had its usefulness for Victor, but when it came right down to it, Caleb was not going to survive the transition. An authentic cleanser would never allow it. The future belonged to the disciplined.
Victor had found him on this very mountain and had taken that as a sign that the universe intended them to meet, and the man had been useful so far, but now Victor dared to question if it hadn’t been a sign at all, was in fact a test of his will. Could he do the right thing?
The life of a cleanser was a solitary one. That was the point. Sure, there were others like him, thousands even, and there were specific “grounding points,” or meeting places (typically a “marked” place) where they could associate if needed, but the essence of the calling was the single-minded primal man who, though he might long for a family or clan, understood that true survival, the purest form of it, meant a life alone, constantly on the prowl for nature’s next offering.
He had been confused with the girl. Watching her from afar in the bookstore, following her home some nights, stalking her up this mountain--those were the signs of a desperate man. A pathetic man. He had wanted to believe he was being disciplined, wanted to believe that she was a potential life mate who would travel the dark future at his side. Again, he had misread the signs. This was another test.
Part of survival was internal equilibrium. That required a frequent letting of his fluids. He did that numerous times a day. Instead of relying on himself, or simply taking the girl and being done with it, he had fooled himself into believing she might realize his prowess and pledge her devotion to him.
If he could make himself vomit he would, he was so disgusted with himself. So pathetic. He had believed in love.
He knew better now. Love was a beast that hooked its talons deep inside you and infected you with some poison like a sedative that convinced you it was okay to be trapped, okay to be this beast’s victim. Okay to die in its embrace.
The trail grew steeper, Caleb’s screams closer, and Victor stopped.
His mind was clearing and sharpening. He knew the error of his ways and continuing to follow that idiot up the mountain was another error in this recent streak.
The girl didn’t scale this whole mountain. She would never make it before Caleb overtook her and that would be that. No, she was much closer.
He knew that with the certainty that primal man knew there were deer grazing just the other side of hill. Instinct guided the earliest men and it was all the purest cleansers really needed.
The girl was close. Very close.
Playing hide and seek with him.
FORTY-SIX
Mercy walked to the edge of the cliff. What would it feel like to jump off and plummet to the darkness below? The free fall would be exhilarating and horrifying, but her death might be long and protracted if trees cushioned her fall. She could end up lying as a broken heap of bones and torn flesh, paralyzed but alive. She would starve to death. The crows might pick at her skin, slowly eat her alive.