Lee Child - First Thrills

“ Boo! ” A grin parted the corpse’s livery lips. “That’s much better, isn’t it, Howard?”

“You… are… not… real,” Howard rasped.

Terry’s laugh was guttural, yet eerily childlike. “Search your conscience, Howard. I think you’ll find I most certainly am real. You’ve only been stranded a few hours; delirium couldn’t have possibly set in yet. Anyway, I know you too well. You’d never allow your mind to go. No, never your mind! It’s that mind for which I partnered with you in the first place. Such a brilliant architectural mind, it is… a mind clever enough to get away with murder.”

“I… didn’t… murder-”

“Stop it!” Terry spat. “You’ve already killed me, Howard, don’t insult my intelligence.”

“The hook… the safety hook on your lanyard… it was just an accide-”

“Yes, my fall did appear a terrible accident, didn’t it? I must say, as you read my eulogy, I almost believed you’d even convinced yourself that it was accidental. Fortunately for you everyone thought so. Makes sense, after all. It’s dangerous work we do, marching in our slick-soled Italian loafers across the narrow beams of our towering structures, only a hardhat and a measly nylon strap to insure our safety.” His face contorted into a scowl. “Who knew that the hooks on those straps could ever prove faulty, right?”

Howard studied the corpse’s designer suit, once spotless and impeccably tailored, now shredded and caked with spilled entrails. “What do you want, Terry?”

“Only the same privilege you were granted last September. To look into the eyes of my partner as he falls.”

“Fuck you!” The words shot from Howard’s mouth in a voiceless hiss.

“You have already done that, Howard. Now it’s my turn to return the favor.”

“You deserved everything you got, Terry. You rode on my coattails for a de cade, taking credit for my work. The vision was mine!”

“The vision was yours, Howard, I never failed to grant you that. But we were partners, and your vision was nothing without me to sell it, to make others see it and feel it.”

Howard looked away, hugging his arms close, his teeth chattering.

“I’m curious to know, Howard, if you’re prepared to freeze to death arguing with me, or if that creative mind of yours is considering how you’re going to get off this chair.”

Howard leaned forward and looked into the black void below.

“I think you’ve already determined that you’d never survive a voluntary fall,” Terry said. “And of course you’ll never make it through the night in these temperatures.” He leaned across the seat and winked a pupil-less eye. “Not without a fire, anyway.”

Howard met the corpse’s gaze for a beat, then dug hastily into his pocket for the lighter, wondering why he hadn’t thought of it before.

“There’s that brilliant mind at work!” Terry said. “I knew you still had it, Howard.”

It took several tries for Howard to get a flame out of the lighter. With a cupped palm, he guarded the struggling flame against the wind and relished the warmth it brought to his frostbitten fingers. But within seconds, the flame died in the icy gusts.

“Don’t you have anything to burn, Howard?” Terry tapped his jaw in thought, then snapped his bony fingers. “A cigarette box, perhaps?”

Howard came out with the box of Salems and crushed it flat. He thumbed the Zippo repeatedly until he was able to bring a flame to the box, but in the whipping wind the cardboard wouldn’t catch. After some consideration he pulled the lighter apart, exposing its inner workings. He removed the soaked piece of rayon from the canister and squeezed a few drops of fuel onto the cigarette box. Then he closed the lighter again, raked the flint, and instantly set the box aflame.

The paltry fire turned the box to ash in less than a minute, and provided only a scant amount of heat.

Still, at the corpse’s urging, Howard employed the same procedure to his lift tickets, which burned even more quickly than the cigarette box.

Four business cards and six-hundred-and-thirty-dollars worth of folding money went next. When Howard’s credit cards refused to catch fire, the corpse raised a finger and made another suggestion.

“Your clothing, Howard,” he said. “It might produce a bigger flame that would act as a signal fire. Isn’t there anything you can spare?”

There wasn’t. But Howard’s body was stiff with cold, and the promised warmth that a fire would provide was just too hard to resist. Within minutes he had forcibly ripped his thermal undershirt and his boxer shorts from beneath his outer clothing and burned them both down to smoking embers. The corpse went on to tempt Howard into sacrificing his stocking cap, and, finally, his thick woolen socks, on which he’d had to squeeze the last drops of fuel left in the lighter in order to spark a flame.

The corpse’s grin widened when only a faint whiff of smoke remained between the two men. “Well, Howard, it appears you’re out of recourses.”

The dead man’s cackling laugh was infuriating, but Howard refused to let Terry see his rage.

He looked into the corpse’s cobalt eyes and shook his head with pointed resolve. “No.”

“What’s that, Howard?”

“I said no, Terry! This isn’t over.”

The dead man clasped his hands with a bony click. “Of course it isn’t! It’s only getting more fun.”

Howard swallowed a fistful of snow from his lap to wet his parched throat. He straightened his legs, sending searing pain to his frozen knees. He reached up and took hold of the center pole from which the chair hung. His hand slipped twice from the bar as he attempted to hoist himself up on cramped legs.

“So, what’s the plan now?” Terry asked. “Climb up to the cable above, then go hand over hand back to the tower, right? Yes, it is the only way. There’s a ladder on the tower that would lead you all the way down. But it must be nearly a hundred yards back, maybe more-not an easy journey for a man of your size.” His tongue made a rueful click. “Those four-course lunches and hourly lattes have done you no favors over the years, Howard. I suggest you use your ski poles, bridge them over the cable and zip along the line.”

It was a thought that had occurred to Howard just seconds before. He raised his backside off the seat and reached beneath him for the poles, which he had been protecting at all costs. But just as his hand fell on them, the corpse leaned across the chair, yanked the poles from Howard’s grasp, and tossed them away.

“What are you… No!” The poles were out of sight before Howard could even scream the word. Fury erupted inside of him. “You son of a bitch!” In a burst of madness he lunged across the chair, hands outstretched for the corpse’s neck.

But his hands-in fact his entire body-moved straight through the specter unimpeded. With nothing to halt his momentum, Howard toppled forward out of control. The lower half of his body slipped off the front of the chair. His hands clawed madly for the rear edge of the seat and somehow took hold. The next instant found him dangling in open air, legs kicking in the wind, arms outstretched across the seat.

The corpse spoke when Howard’s girlish scream finally faded. “Take it easy, Howard. Calm down. I’ve been waiting far too long to allow this to end so quickly for you.” His tone was level. “Just bring one leg up at a time, slowly and carefully. You’ll be fine.”

Howard did as Terry directed and eventually make it back onto the seat, quivering with exhaustion. He refused to grant the corpse so much as a look. When he regained his wind he brought his feet back onto the chair and finally made it to a standing position. Again, he attempted to climb the pole, but got only inches off the seat before sliding back down.