Dastardly Bastard(17)
“All you do is screw around on that phone and ignore me! I’m your mother, you sniveling little cunt-rag! You’re the reason your father died! You! The poor son of a bitch ran straight into the bowels of hell to get away from your incessant goddamn noise. All day, all night. Me, me, me, me, me! It’s all you think about. No wonder tigers eat their fucking young!”
“Mmmphhhh…” Lyle managed through the palm she still had over his mouth.
“Just stop it! Shut the hell—” His mother’s eyes suddenly softened. She shuffled backward, releasing him. “L-Lyle, what’s wrong? Honey? What happened?”
“You went batshit,” the guy in the baggy pants said. His girlfriend punched him in the arm.
“What’s going on?” Donald asked from the guard wire.
“Everyone just relax.” Jaleel held his hands out in front of him as if everyone were going to stampede. “It’s anxiety; I’m sure of it. It’s like cabin fever or something like that. This trail gets to people. Just calm down, just breathe… it’s like… you know, when the lights go out, and you don’t know where you are, and then BAM! BAM! Whooey!”
With that, everyone in the group jumped at once. The tour guide spun in circles, laughing. His head tilted back at an odd angle as he sang to the heavens, “The Dastardly Bastard of Waverly Chasm does gleefully scheme of malevolent things!” Over and over again, Jaleel trilled those same words, as his revolutions got wider.
Everyone was yelling, hurting Lyle’s ears. He clamped his hands over them, but he could still hear their muffled calls of confusion, anger, and fear.
“What the hell is wrong with that dude?”
“Somebody grab him before he goes over the edge!”
“Stop it!”
“I didn’t say anything! I promise!”
“Mom?” Lyle looked to Marsha for comfort, an explanation, something, anything as the voices around him carried on. His head spun like the dancing tour guide, and he felt himself stepping forward. He had to escape. No one could help him. The chasm was the only way out.
Lyle sprinted for the steel wire, his right leg coming up to hurdle it.
He would be so welcome down there, down in the dark, where the Bastard played. Everything felt so right. Nothing would ever be wrong again. Lyle could hear angels singing, trumpets sounding, and birds chirping. Paradise was just over the wire.
“I’ve been ever so lonely down here,” a voice beckoned.
13
THROUGHOUT THE CHAOS, MARK SIMMONS kept his camera working. Something instinctive made him catch every insane happening as events played out before him. Not caring about the framing or focus of the Nikon, he pressed the shutter release repeatedly.
Click, snap…
Squirt seemed upset about something. His eyes showed dark, vehemence filling his face as he spoke to the tour guide. Mark couldn’t make out what the man had said, but by Jaleel’s reaction, it hadn’t been good.
Click, snap…
Lyle tried to say something. Marsha reacted as any mother would by clamping a hand over the boy’s mouth, silencing him. But what came afterward was as far from motherly as one could get. She spit venom, and Mark cringed as every foul comment lit into the boy. Lyle’s eyes showed cold fear. Mark had seen that same horror in the eyes of soldiers, soldiers he had also watched die because of that fear.
Click, snap…
Marsha backed away from her son, her face different. All the raging anger she’d been using to belittle her child was gone, replaced by an expression of fear. Her profile told of confusion and terror. Mark knew if he asked her what had happened, she’d have no idea. She looked shell-shocked, PTSD at its worst.
Click, snap…
What Mark’s Nikon would not capture were the words coming from Jaleel Warner. The man sang a song Mark recognized at once—The Dastardly Bastard of Waverly Chasm, the local lyric Willy had emailed Mark. The tone of the voice was playful, childlike, as the tour guide spun like a ballerina. Mark felt his hackles raise, gooseflesh running up and down him in waves. He was able to keep his camera up, but just by force. Mark felt the need to capture the story. The oddity possessed him. He knew he was being unforgiving in his blatant picture taking, but the group would just have to deal with it. There was a story forming, and Mark would be the one to tell it.
Click, snap…
The final picture was of Lyle. The boy pitched forward away from the wall on a course that would surely direct him over the edge and into Waverly Chasm. Lyle’s eyes were spinning, rolling in his head like a slot machine just after the arm has been pulled. The sight caused Mark to pause. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, though he saw it with his own eyes.
Even as the camera processed that last photo, saving it to memory, Mark began to move, springing forward, not thinking, only reacting. He lurched, pushing past the stunned couple in front of him, using his size more than his strength to shove the two against the rock face.
The boy’s right leg extended.
Mark, already struggling for breath after five steps, his blood hammering in his temples with every heartbeat, stretched forward, arms out in front of him.
Lyle’s leg lifted, clearing the two-foot-high guard wire easily. He was going over. Mark was sure of it.
Mark tossed his entire weight forward, wanting, needing with every part of his being to find something on the boy to grab.