Audra struggled to the top of the tree and clung there. Her clothes were ripped in long lines down her body. Her skin might be ripped, too; she couldn’t tell. She was so cold. Her eyes burned; she couldn’t see very well. She could be bleeding to death and not know. So she clung to the tree, whispering, praying, crying… all the same.
Her father almost got her… he almost had. But she’d gotten away; she’d been too smart for him. She giggled. He just didn’t know who he was dealing with. Never had. She’d felt his hands grabbing at her, pulling, trying to find something to hold onto, but she’d always slipped away. She was too smart for him.
But his nails had gotten to her. His fingernails. And those had cut her, wounded her bad.
From this tree she could see the waterfall. It was beautiful. The water just fell through the clouds, dropping to the ground far below. She wondered if there were lots of rainbows there. She wondered.
Over the lip of the waterfall she could see the Taylor place. She really needed to talk to Reed. It all looked very beautiful from up here. It almost made her want to let go, to let the water take her, to drift down to the valley below. To talk to Reed.
Maybe he really loved her after all.
Reed had been running through the house, trying to get away from the image of himself that stepped out of the darkened mirror. A false image. A lie. He didn’t think the house could be that big; it seemed as if he had been running forever. It had seemed that big to him when he was a child, of course; it had seemed enormous. When his father chased him he had run and run and had never been able to get to the right door. The house had been huge, and the doors impossibly far apart.
The dark, tattered image of himself, like an unfocused photograph, a self-portrait gone sour, didn’t run, but walked behind him, and yet had no trouble keeping up. Every time he looked back over his shoulder he was there, just a few steps behind.
Looking just like him… but darker, hungrier, with sharper teeth.
Here, Reed… here, boy. It seemed the entire house was whispering to him. I’m the one you came for… I’m the one you needed to talk to. Why don’t you stop and play?
Reed whimpered. The words struck a chord. He’d come back to face these things, he’d come back to face his family. But this. This he could not face.
You got to look at me, Reed. Look at what I… you’ve become…
“No!”
Reed! It wasn’t a whispering this time, but a thunderstorm inside the cramped rooms and hallways. Reed had never heard such anger, not even in his father’s voice. Reed! The wall to his left suddenly exploded. Roaches poured out and did a mad dance around his feet. Reed! The lamp in front of him rose into the air rapidly, smashing into the ceiling. Reed! A long spider-webbing of cracks appeared in the floorboards under his feet. He could hear the teeth grinding behind him. He could feel the hate like an intense heat, an electrical storm in the making.
When Joe Manors woke up, he thought at first he was back in bed at Inez’s, and this had all been a dream. There was sunlight here, and he heard birds singing. He struggled to his feet and looked up: the sky was clear overhead. He looked around him.
He was standing on the detached boarding house roof. He was alone; the rest must have been swept away. Except for a white-sheeted form tied securely to two lightning rods: Hector Pierce’s body.
The roof had run aground. And all around him… a calm lake, like one he might have liked going fishing on some time. There was no sign of Simpson Creeks, and none of the landmarks seemed at all familiar. He had no idea where he might be.
But there… a few miles away… he thought he recognized part of Big Andy’s flank. It was dark there, darker than any sky had a right to be. Thunder in the clouds. Bright lightning flashes.
Like the mountain was tearing itself apart in rage.
Reed! The floor buckled in front of him, throwing him headfirst into the wall. At the last moment he turned his shoulder and drove into the soft, moldy plaster. He looked behind him. Dark hands were gripping the door frame. Glistening, knifelike nails. Then they were splintering it.
Ben pulled the truck right up to the edge of the water, fishtailing slightly on the wet rock that capped the cliff there. He jumped out and stared across the expanse of water separating them from Audra. A good twenty-five yards. There was no way they could get to her.
He looked at Charlie. Charlie suddenly scowled. “We got to do something for her!” he shouted over the roar of the waterfall.
“Charlie…” Inez gripped his arm tightly, using his shoulder to shield her face from the spray. “There’s nothing we can do!”
Ben’s face grew hot with shame. Even now he was thinking of leaving the young woman, driving down there and getting his nephew out of that house before the flood let loose. But who could blame him? There was nothing, nothing they could do.
Audra screamed. They looked out through the flying mist. The tree was bending toward the water. One of her legs was already covered over.
“Dammit all to hell!” Charlie shouted, and jumped. Inez screamed. Ben started to jump in after his friend, but just stared, dumbfounded, as Charlie stood up on the water and began walking toward Audra… small, unsteady steps in that high wind, but progress just the same.
Then he saw what Charlie was standing on. Large sections of a house were floating just under the surface of the flood. Matt O’Riley’s house, if Ben wasn’t mistaken, swept away in that flood ten years ago. None of the O’Rileys had made it out alive.
The pieces were rocking; at any moment Ben knew Charlie’d be stepping on a rotten piece, or the whole thing would flip over on him.
But he’d made it almost to the tree. Audra was reaching out to him.
Reed bounded up the stairs to the attic, his shadow self chewing up the steps a few seconds behind him. Reed, you must talk to me… The anger and rage had gone out of the voice. There was just this coldness now, as if the whispered words might freeze his skin.
Charlie grabbed Audra and pushed her onto the floating slab of house. There seemed to be shapes in the water here, too… interested in her or him, he didn’t know. He pulled her to him—barely conscious, she seemed to weigh a ton—and they stumbled across the slippery surface of the boards.
Ben had backed his truck up so that the rear bumper faced the falls. He grabbed the bumper and stepped out into the edge of the flood, holding out his hand, coaxing Charlie closer. His friend looked dazed, ready to pass out. Ben slipped as the force of the flood pulling out to the falls increased slightly. Inez grabbed him for additional support.
Charlie and Audra were only a few yards away.
But Ben could see that the pieces of the O’Riley house were beginning to separate, leaving wide areas of dark water between them. Some of the sections were breaking apart and sinking.
It was dark in the attic, and Reed felt like a little boy again.
The sounds had been going on for a long time: scratchings, chitterings, creakings, that were so soft you wouldn’t know they were there unless you listened real hard. He hated it here. He was sick with terror.
Maybe it was a rat, a bat; or maybe a snake, or maybe one of those furry things Jim Leeman told him about that had the poisonous bite but usually chewed your head off before you could die of the poison—Reed had had nightmares for a week after Jim had told him about that one. Jim said they were all over this hollow, those furry things.