The Ascent(82)

“Good luck,” Petras said, his voice no more than a rattling croak.

“Good-bye,” I said back.





Chapter 16


1



ALL PERCEPTION LOST—ALL SEMBLANCE Of NOW-

malcy eradicated—I opened my eyes to a world that no longer existed.

2



BY MIDDAY I WAS OVERCOME BY A CHRONIC

fatigue. Whether it was brought on by simple exhaustion, a lack of sustenance, or the middle stages of acute mountain sickness, I did not know.

A deep, angry wind picked up in the north and barreled through the valley. On either side I was enclosed in tar-colored rocks, glossy with a coating of ice. My fever had returned full force, my forehead steaming and bursting with sweat. I stopped and bit down on my gloves, yanking them off with my teeth. Holding my hands to my eyes, I had twenty fingers. My vision would not clear up. I flexed my fingers and could hear the tendons creaking like an old rocking chair, the fingers themselves like hollowed tubing knotted at the joints and knuckles.

Suddenly a low, motorized growl sounded in the distance. I looked around, but, being at the bottom of a valley, I could see nothing except the rising black walls around me. Yet the sound grew closer, closer …

I jerked my head to the right just in time to see an old motorcar leap over one side of the embankment in a cloud of snow. Its tires spinning, its tailpipe flagging a contrail of exhaust, it gleamed in the sun like a chrome missile.

Breathlessly I watched it careen over the embankment and descend in an arc toward the floor of the ravine. It hadn’t been going fast enough to make it to the other side. Nose-first, it slammed into the snow in an expulsion of white powder and crystalline confetti, folding up on itself like an accordion. For a second, it balanced on its front grille, standing perfectly vertical; then the rear end tipped toward the ground.

With a shatter of glass, the vehicle exploded in a bright orange ball of flame. It billowed into the sky, roiling smoke atop a stalk of flame, until it dissipated into streamers of smoke. As the vehicle burned, the snow around it melted until the black rock was exposed.

I dropped my pack and was about to sprint toward the wreckage when it vanished before my eyes.

Sobbing, I collapsed to the ground and pulled my knees up to my chest.

3



SLEET FELL AS THE DAY COOLED TO EVENING AND

the warm pastels of the setting sun crouched behind the distant mountains. Shadows elongated and spilled across the valley. I’d spent the day winding through the valley, keeping to the base of the mountain. I walked now to the edge of the cliff and peered over the side. A great distance below was an icefall—perhaps the continuation of the one we’d crossed earlier in the trip, the one that had swallowed Curtis Booker. Seracs split and sluiced through the river of ice to the bottom of the valley. The path they carved instantly altered the geography of the fall.

There was no safe way to cross the icefall, but if I continuedwinding around the base of the mountain, I would eventually reach the valley floor. Then—

“Hello, Tim.”

Andrew stood behind me, backlit by the sunset. Scarecrow, I immediately thought. He appeared detached, flimsy, emaciated, skeletal. His clothes hung from him like drapes, his shirt unbuttoned to midchest, exposing the pink, sun-ruined lines of his abdomen. The wind blew his hair across his face, obscuring his eyes … but I could make out a partial smirk at the corner of his mouth.

He carried the ax. As he unshouldered his pack, he tossed the ax down at his feet. His too-big clothes flapped in the wind.

“Stay there,” I told him, dropping my own pack but grappling with the pickax from the pack’s restraint. “Don’t move.”

Andrew raised his hands, palms up. “We need to share a few words …”

I pulled the pickax from the restraint and hefted it like a baseball bat over one shoulder. “You’re sick, Trumbauer. You’ve lost your goddamn mind.”

“What I’ve lost, I’ve lost long ago. Let’s talk.” He took a step in my direction.

I swung the pickax to show I meant business. “I said to stay the f*ck where you are. You take another step, and I’ll come at you swinging.”

The rush of sleet increased, pelting my head, my shoulders, my back.

Andrew shivered, his clothes soaked and beginning to freeze in the unforgiving night wind. He ran his hands through his hair. For the first time, I saw his eyes—soulless, remote, vacant. The eye of a needle held more emotion.

“I’m not the monster, Tim.”

“Stop playing the game. You brought us all here to kill us.”

“I’m just here to make things right,” he said. “I’ve very nearly succeeded.”

“Step away from your pack.”

Andrew cocked his head at me. “What?”

“I’m taking your pack,” I told him. “I’m taking your food.”

Andrew laughed … or appeared to laugh: he brought his head back on his neck, exposing his enormous Adam’s apple, and opened his mouth wide, but no sound came out. When he leveled his gaze on me, there was a gleam of hatred in his eyes.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said and took three giant strides away from his pack. Away from his ax, too. “It’s too late.”

With my eyes locked on him, I traversed the sleet-slick ridge until I reached his backpack. Dropping to one knee, holding the pickax out in front of me, I unzipped his pack with one hand. Packets of freeze-dried food spilled out in a tidal wave. A can of mushrooms rolled out and dropped on my boot.