Lee Child - First Thrills

“Your boots, Howard. You will never make it with your boots.”

Howard reached down with palsied hands and unclamped the boots enough to slip his feet out. Snow crunched on the seat beneath his bare toes. Taking hold of the bar again he looked up and paused, paralyzed by the prospect of leaving the relative safety of the chair.

“What’s wrong, Howard? Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet,” Terry chuckled.

Howard ignored the cruel taunt. Using his feet for extra leverage now, he hoisted himself off the chair. His muscles spasmed from the strain. The bones of his spine creaked like the turn of a ratchet handle with every upward thrust.

When at last he reached the cable, he took hold and eventually summoned the courage to release his legs from the bar. Dangling freely now, he swung back and forth, trying to build enough momentum to swing his feet up on to the cable and relieve his hands of some of the burden.

The effort proved futile, and expended more energy than Howard could afford. He had no choice but to continue using only his hands.

Three minutes gained him little more than ten feet along the cable. His fingers quickly stiffened into inflexible claws around the bundled steel wires. His heart drummed behind his ribs. His lungs labored with every breath.

Four more minutes elapsed.

He thought that if he could just reach the next chair he could stop and rest, perhaps shake some feeling back into his hands. But beyond the faint green light of the glow stick, he saw only darkness.

His right hand slid forward another inch. Then his left. Right. Then…

His left hand slipped from the cable, leaving him hanging by the floundering grip of his right.

An instant before Howard fell, the corpse appeared before him again, taking hold of Howard’s jacket collar and jerking him upward with unfathomable strength. Howard reached out with grabbing hands until once again he had secured a firm grip on the cable.

The corpse hung only inches in front of Howard by a single rotting hand, showing no strain in his effort. His expression remained a sneering, cadaverous grin. No longer just a specter, the dead man had become something shockingly more tangible. The torn flesh of his scalp flapped in the wind. His stench was foul, nauseating.

The corpse reached inside his tattered suit coat. “Recognize this, Howard?”

Howard’s eyes fell to the nylon lanyard rolling out of Terry’s free hand. At each end of the six-foot cord was a copper rebar hook. It was identical to the safety strap worn by Terry on the day of his fatal fall. One end of it had been hooked onto itself, forming a loop. Howard’s eyes came back up.

“Now it’s my turn.” The corpse slipped the loop over Howard’s right foot, then pulled it up his leg to the top of the thigh.

“Terry, what the hell are you doing?”

The corpse answered with a hard upward tug, tightening the loop like a noose.

Howard cried out in pain. “Dammit, Terry, what are you doing to me?”

Terry proceeded to attach the remaining hook to the cable above, snapping it closed with a click. “It is time for your confession, Howard.”

“I told you I have nothing to conf-”

A fist of stripped bone struck Howard across the jaw. “Say it, Howard!”

Howard shook his head furiously, the coppery taste of blood filling his mouth. “I told you, I did nothing! The hook was faulty. The locking mechanism just snapped…”

Another punch struck Howard’s opposite cheek.

“These things don’t just snap, Howard! Or… do they?” The corpse yanked downward on the lanyard.

“No!” Howard screamed. “Don’t, please! Terry, what ever you think happened that day-”

“You gave me the harness, Howard. Fifteen years together, never once had you provided me my safety harness on a building site.”

“It wasn’t my fault!”

“Liar! You looked me in the eyes as I fell, and I saw it on your face. You took plea sure in my fall, didn’t you? Say it!”

“Terry, I didn’t-”

“Say it!” The corpse yanked again on the lanyard, harder this time. “Say it!”

It was guilt as much as terror that finally broke Howard. “Yes! I killed you! Is that what you wanted to hear?” Hot tears welled in his eyes.

“Is it the truth?”

“I swear on my life it’s the truth!” He lost another precious inch of his grip on the cable. He now clutched it with only the tips of his numb fingers. “I’ve confessed, Terry, now please! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!”

“Sorry isn’t good enough, Howard! Not for me, nor for my wife and son who have cried on your shoulder all these many months as I was forced to look on.”

Howard looked into Terry’s eyes, his mind racing. “Your son… yes… Kyle! Terry, I saved Kyle from-”

The corpse drove a fist into Howard’s stomach. “Don’t you ever mention my son’s name, Howard!”

Howard’s breath shot out of him. He fought to draw air back into his constricted lunges. “But it’s the truth!” he sputtered. “Four years ago. The third story collapse on the Donovan project. It was your birthday, Terry, I know you remember! Kyle was to surprise you at the site, but I called him that morning and told him not to come! I knew that the structure wasn’t completely sound and I told him not to come. We were all nearly killed, Terry; I know you haven’t forgotten it! Kyle and I agreed never to mention it to you. But it’s true, Terry, you have to believe me!” Tears streaked Howard’s face as he searched for mercy in the corpse’s lifeless eyes. “You have to believe me!”

“After hearing the lies you’ve told my friends and colleagues all these months? The lies you’ve told my wife and children? Why should I believe you?”

“Because it’s the truth! Oh God, Terry, you have to believe me!”

Silence fell between them, each man holding the other’s bitter glare.

It was the corpse who finally looked away. “You’ll find out soon enough whether or not I believe you, Howard. It’s time for us to part now.”

“No! You can’t leave me!”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“But I can’t hold on any longer!”

“That’s the idea.”

Howard’s eyes moved to the hook above his head. “Is it secure, Terry? I have to know if the lanyard will hold when I let go!”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

“What! What does that mean?”

“It means your moment of judgment has finally come, Howard.”

“Wait! Please wait!”

Gazing into Howard’s frantic eyes, Terry offered a slow nod. “I will wait, Howard… for as long as it takes. All I have left now is to look into your eyes and wait…”

As an actor, RYAN BROWNhas held contract roles on The Young and the Restless and Guiding Light . He has also appeared on Law & Order: SVU, and starred in two feature films for Lifetime Television. His first novel, Play Dead, a comic supernatural thriller, will be published in May 2010, and his short story “Jeepers Peepers” will soon appear in ITW’s Young Adult Anthology.

I nvisibleain’t easy, man. Takes years of practice, years of trying, failing, and all the pain comes with being caught.

Took me six years of hiding from Momma, hearing her call me so sweet, that boiling water sloshing out the pot onto the floor while she looked for me all over the house. Her carrying the hot pot, or those things she stuck in me. Learned a lot in them two thousand days. First, I just hid. Ha. Can’t hide from Momma. Can’t run, can’t hide.