The Fall of Never(108)

“Kelly!” she heard her father shout, a tremor in his voice, and that was what got her moving. Without looking back, she broke into a sprint toward the door, her legs pumping, her hands balled into white fists, tears burning her face. She ran as if in slow motion; it seemed to take an eternity to reach the door. Behind and above her she could hear the sounds of the animal heads peeling away from the wall, their defunct vocal chords regaining composure: a chorus of unnatural sounds. Chunks of plaster crumbled above the doorway.

She burst through the door into the hallway and continued running down the length of the corridor until she spilled out into the main foyer and proceeded out the front door. The image of those struggling animal heads trapped inside the walls followed her into the daylight. Once she made it halfway around the house, she collapsed in a sobbing heap to the ground, exhausted and terrified.

What if he dies in there? What if those animals break from the walls and kill him? It will be all my fault.

A small voice at the back of her head told her to get away. If her father died, people would come looking for her. Police would come. She’d be arrested and put in jail and how could she even begin to explain what had just happened? She didn’t even understand it herself.

Away, the voice persisted. Run away.

She sought solace in the cover of the forest in the valley below. They won’t find me, she thought. They’ll never find me. I won’t let them. She’d been in the forest many times before, though hadn’t strayed too far from the house. Now, she needed to be as far away as possible. The further she ran, she rationalized, the better her father’s chances of survival.

Those heads…those animals…

Thinking about it just made her feel worse.

(stop stop stop stop)

(—kelly—)

She ran until her feet ached and her lungs burned. Around her, the thick bluish branches of the evergreens shrouded her from civilization; she could no longer even see the house on the hill above.

Good, she thought, that’s how I want it. I never want to go back there. Never. I hate it there.

“I hate it,” she said between sobs.

Pushing through the underbrush, she uncovered a moss-covered log peppered with tiny white mushrooms. She administered a swift kick to it, causing it to rock. A platoon of black beetles came scuttling out from beneath it and vanished beneath the soil. Frightened and shaking, she sat down on the log and pulled her legs up to her chin, wrapped her arms around her knees. Her sobs dying down now, she sat there breathing heavy while her eyes roamed around the forest. This deep, the trees were full and green and as tall as houses. Somewhere in the distance she could hear the trickle of running water. Every so often the sound of birds taking flight could be heard from various locations, their wings beating against the branches of the trees as they took to the sky.

An image of her father surfaced in her head: lying dead in the middle of his thinking room, bloody and ravaged by hoofs. There were hoof-prints across his chest, on his thighs and shins, and one in the center of his forehead. His eyes had retracted back into his head, the whites tinged red with blood.

On the verge of fresh tears, Kelly began to shake her head frantically. “Is he dead?” she asked, her throat clicking. “Is he? Is he dead?”

—Do you want him to be?

“No.”

—Are you sure?

“I don’t want him dead,” she said. “I don’t.”

—Then I’m sure he’s fine.

She rubbed her nose with the heel of her hand. “I don’t feel well,” she said.

—Will you be sick?

“I think I w—” No sooner had the words come out of her mouth did she double forward and vomit stringy green foam onto the ground. Crouched and tensed, she remained like that for several moments, afraid to move, afraid to set the world spinning around her again. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the sound of the running water off in the distance. Hearing it evoked the colorful images associated with nursery rhymes and fairy tales—the lands of candy houses and kingdoms by the sea and all those other places she so desperately wanted to run away to. Make-believe…but real, too. She understood reality, understood that reality was flawed and subject to manipulation. Listening to the babbling water, she vowed she would track it down, would stand in it and feel its cool rush between her toes.

“I want to go there. I want to leave this place and go there.”

—You can. I know where it is. I can take you there.

Kelly opened her eyes. A cool breeze rustled the trees. “Hello?”

Silence.

A path-like clearing wound its way through the underbrush in the apparent direction of the running water. While part of Kelly wanted to curl up into a ball on the log and fall asleep, another part of her wanted to follow that path to the sounds of the running water. She stared at the path for some time before hanging her legs off the side of the log and hopping to her feet.

The world seemed to tilt to one side. She uttered a weak sob and caught the branch of a tree before vertigo sent her crashing to the earth. After a few moments of rest, her eyelids pressed together, she opened her eyes and released the branch. One foot in front of the other, she wove a steady channel down the center of the path, her eyes never leaving the ground. At one point, a flock of whippoorwills broke out over the trees and she paused to watch them leave.

“Good-bye,” she whispered.