Stephen Irwin - The Dead Path

Nicholas suddenly felt his heart beat harder. Its thudding pumps shook him on the floor.

“What do you mean?”

She smiled, perfect white teeth alternated with rust red, almost toothless gums.

“England was too far away. Too, too far. So I asked Him to bring you home,” she said. “And here you are.”

Nicholas felt his vision sparkle and the blood drain from his face. And memories of flashing green; the thrum of a motorcycle; the glimpse of an inhuman face among the black tangles of an oak grove; Cate’s neck bent too far back over the white porcelain edge of the bath, her open eyes dulled by a fine patina of plaster dust.

“What did you do?” he whispered.

She let free a laugh that was at once as clear and pretty as fine bells and graveled and moss-thick as a blocked drain. Her eyes watched him fondly.

“My pretty man. I did what I had to. I want us to be together.”

T he smell was familiar.

There wasn’t a hint of goodness about it. It was the sour scent of rot and wet shadow; the smell of bad earth and failed flesh. Hannah recalled it, or something like it, from when she had accompanied her father under the house, crawling low between stumps, over damp earth where sunlight never shone, until they found the dead possum. Its gray bones poked from beneath a pungent shroud of fur, green stuff, and wriggling white. Maggots. The smell of death had made her gag and skitter back to fresher air. Now she had no such luxury.

She was upright, but couldn’t move or see. Her legs were swaddled fast together and her arms were bound tight and crooked against her body. Her eyes were shut and she couldn’t open them: a second skin had her wrapped from head to foot, with only a little space left under her nostrils. Fine strands like baby’s hair tickled her nose when she inhaled the stale, soiled air.

But she knew what it was holding her. She was trussed up just as she imagined Miriam had been: spun tight in spiderweb, alive and waiting to be fed upon by scuttling things with sharp fangs and unblinking eyes.

A hot wave of panic swept through her, and she fought for control of her bowels. Idiot, she thought for the thousandth time since she’d watched Nicholas-at least, she’d thought it was Nicholas-return from chasing Miriam’s voice. He’d smiled and said, “Just the wind.” Then he pointed, “But what the hell is that?” She’d turned to follow his outstretched arm, realizing as she twisted that she had fallen for the oldest trick since smell the cheese. Something hard had come down fast on the crown of her skull, and minutes suddenly disappeared. She’d woken on the ground with her arms tied behind her back and her knees lashed together and rags shoved in her mouth. Then, like looking into a bewitched forest mirror, she saw herself standing in the darkening glade, smiling back at her. The hairs on her arms and neck turned to wire, and her twin called in her own voice: “Nicholas!”

The real Nicholas- the one with a gun, dummy! -had rushed back, looked at Hannah, and his eyes had widened. He’d raised the gun and, just when she thought she was dead for sure, swung the barrel away. Then, blammo!, and a sting ten times worse than any bee’s had rammed like a hot darning needle into her left calf muscle, which now ached like hell. Tears had rolled down her face as she watched her twin self pull out a syringe and stick it into Nicholas. He folded like a dropped doll, and then her twin came over to her. “Sleep tight,” the other Hannah had said, and stuck the needle into her arm. About ten minutes ago she’d woken from a black sleep to here, a fly in the spider’s parlor.

Hannah realized she was crying. Fat lot of good that would do.

“Help!” she called.

Her voice was muffled and sucked up by the blackness; it was like yelling from inside a wardrobe full of clothes. The dead sound and the spoiled butter smell of rancid earth confirmed she was underground. It was as if she was dead already.

Hannah expected this to make her sob even more, but instead she found her tears drying up and her tummy growing warm. How dare they? How dare they do this to little girls! She understood why her parents got so angry when they saw the results of bombers in the white hot streets of the Middle East, why men and women wailed in anger as well as grief when they lifted the limp bodies of children from the rubble. How dare they? No. She wasn’t going to die like this, wrapped up like some helpless baby.

She concentrated, trying to picture herself. There was no weight on her feet. She was vertical. Her heels, back, and shoulders were pressed against something hard and cold-the earth wall. She was hung like a side of lamb. She sent a testing kick of her twinned legs against the wall behind her and heard a small shower of earth trickle and a faint rattling like glass. She kicked again. Another small fall of soil, another rattle like glasses on a shelf. If only she could see . There was only one way that was going to happen.

She strained and forced open her mouth, and stuck her tongue between her teeth. It touched a fibrous skin that made her wet flesh instantly recoil and her stomach jumble. Come on, she told herself, there’s no other way. She opened her mouth again, wider. She felt the binding silk around her jaw stretch. She closed and opened again, wider, the muscles in her neck straining hard. Come on! She closed and opened one more time… and felt the horrible fabric tear a little.

She put her tongue out and felt the raw edges of the torn silk. She looped her tongue around them and drew them into her mouth. Just a little bit, she thought. That’s all I need to free my eyelids. She pulled the tasteless web between her teeth and ground, pulling her jaw down in a grimace-it felt as if she was eating the very skin off her face. But the silk over her eyelids shifted. She opened her mouth and gagged, her stomach heaved and finally let go, and a warm gush of acidic mush jetted out. She spat and sniffed up snot. Her eyes opened a crack.

It was impossible to judge the room’s size because it was almost completely dark. The inkiness was broken by three weak slices of light that shone down onto a set of ascending stairs made of old bricks. The far wall was swallowed by the darkness-it could be three meters away, or three hundred for all she could see. She twisted her head to the right. From the corner of her eye, she could just make out the wall she was hung from; into its earth were cut rows of horizontal shelves, and on them were jars and jars and jars. So that’s what was rattling. She twisted her head left and bit back a scream.

The skull looking back at her had its mouth open. The spiderwebs that bound the mummified child had long turned gray and now sagged morosely. The child’s skin was the black of old book leather. Curled black hair poked dully between the smoky silk around its skull. Its eye sockets had been closed over with fresher webs.

She looked away, heart cascading. How long had she been here? How long would she need to hang here until she was too weak to do anything and met the same fate? How much time did she have? A fresh wave of tears built up inside her, threatening to burst out. How much time?

Time.

T-i-m-e. T-I-M-E. T-I…

If she screamed now that she’d spat out the gag, the witch would surely hear her. She closed her eyes, focused on the letters. T-I-M-E. T-I-M-E. Tick tock. Tick tock goes the clock. Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock… Her breaths came more evenly as she ran the children’s rhyme through her mind. The bird looked at the clock. The dog barked at the clock. The bear slept by the clock… Her heartbeat slowed. Before she realized what she was doing, she moved her legs left, just a little, then let them drop back. As she swung down, she lifted her legs right. And drop. Tick tock. She began a rhythm, a human pendulum, swaying on the wall. She didn’t ask herself why; she knew it felt right. With each drop and swoop up, she strained, getting higher and higher. She felt her back, her bottom, her elbows, her heels, scrape on the dirt, grinding through the silk. That’s it! Scrape! Tick! Scrape! Tock! She swung herself, straining left, straining right; swing-scrape, swing-scrape. The tightness around her chest eased just slightly. Her strapped ankles grew slightly freer. She felt wet, cold earth trickle into her shirt, down her back. Left-swing-scrape… Right-swing-scrape… a little higher, a little higher… She could flex her arms, just a little, but that little bought her room to swell and contract as she swung. A couple more! She could hold her legs a few centimeters apart. Her shoulders could shrug. She could slide her hands across her belly. Yes! One more! She swung…