The dense forest was suffocating, and the surface slippery from lumpy boulders and moss. Puddles of tree sap snared our feet while hanging vines attempted to clutch back our wrists, as if to steal our souls for themselves. We batted free with weapons and fists ‘til the roots and vines got the message.
Without warning, Harmony randomly changed direction, leading us over a river of frozen ice. All but Kat spilled to backsides the moment our heels touched the glistening surface. Coming to my aid first, Kat took my forearm and heaved me upright.
"Mustn't linger," said Harmony, assisting Eddinray. "The ice is not as thick as it-"
Then, like the sound of a breaking egg, Eddinray's foot gave way and the ice sucked in his leg.
"Be still knight!" ordered Harmony. "Do not struggle!"
She snatched hold of Eddinray's hand and warned Kat and I not to come any closer. Further cracks escalated around Eddinray's leg and he shrieked at the alien thing swimming against it under the ice.
"I feel it!" he cried. "What's in here?"
"Dare you find out!" said Harmony, reaching her free arm back for Kat. "Pull me samurai! Pull us!"
Promptly, all of us made a human chain to haul Eddinray from the water. Behind, a dozen or more bogs spilled out from the forest, each spinning on the ice as we had done.
"Don't stop!" I said, watching the bogs make new holes over the ice-sheet. In my slippery stride, I turned to witness a spotty tentacle rise from a crack in the ice, coil then drag one terrified bog under the surface.
"Move on!" exclaimed Harmony. "Haste! Haste!"
We followed the flow of the river to its unfathomable end; a drop of petrified water. Ice poured over the edge like a chute; a crystal fall more than five hundred vertical feet down. The height was head spinning, nauseating, impossible — all the ice leading to an open mouth — the head of a colossal stone demon with the features of a deformed cherub.
Cracks intensified over the lake and the world rocked underneath us as eight prodding tentacles burst free for more meat. "What now?" I yelled, cold water spouting up between my legs.
"We jump!" returned Harmony. "We simply… jump!"
"Easy for you to say," said Eddinray, "you have wings my dear! I cannot do this! What exactly is this, and why am I a part of this fiction!"
"Take," she said, extending her hand. "We shall all leap together!"
Eddinray took the thin fingers on offer, and Harmony subsequently took my hand with her other. I then gripped Kat's palm and instantly felt his tug away. "Together," I stressed, and grudgingly he accepted.
We approached the edge of the glassy precipice now, a fall beyond words. "I've a nose bleed!" spluttered Eddinray. "Dear me, tell me… tell me what awaits this knight yonder?"
"Hell-fire" answered Kat. "On three!"
Harmony and I agreed with nods and gulps. Unfortunately the bogs where closer than expected, and the choice of a countdown was removed by a flying hook, clattering into the back of Eddinray's head — knocking the screaming knight forward, and dragging us all head-first into a new nightmare…
20. Four More
I moved with purpose through vulgar lights and sounds. It was a minute before 8pm on a frosty November evening, but the fairground amusements caused those around me to forget the cold. I followed John Curtis to that dominating Ferris wheel; took my place in the cue behind him then set my gaze to the grass. The bastard hadn't seen me yet, perhaps he wouldn't remember my face.
The Ferris wheel was the star of the show here, standing nearly three-hundred feet with sixteen revolving gondolas around a blinking neon wheel, and peppered with smiling faces and hands waving from the heights. A young girl got on the first available ride with her boyfriend, John Curtis was due a spot next. When his gondola came round, I nudged past the stoned attendant and joined Curtis in our own private cage. The door shut behind with a satisfying lock, and the gondola rocked as we began to ascend the circle. Curtis sat opposite me taking in views of the night harbor. "Mr. Fox," he said, unsurprised. "Have you come to kill me?"
I swallowed hard but kept my cool. His face hadn't changed; it was everything I remembered from the trial; disappointingly average. Ordinarily balding for a man in his late forties, ordinarily carrying a little more around the waist, and ordinarily unlike any murderer you can imagine. The only unusual thing about John Curtis tonight was his smart corduroy suit, a three piece. This was an educated, well to do man who didn't belong amongst the high school kids below us. A man who, at the start of the evening, never intended to find himself in this grubby fairground."I've felt you on my back for the last hour," he said, unhurried; "and yesterday through the market, and the day before as I waved down a cab. Then there was Thursday, loitering outside my office, and there again Friday and the following Monday morning. A child could find better hiding places. You're my own little fan club."
"Why then," I asked, feeling the hand tremble inside my jacket pocket; "didn't you say anything?"
"It was harmless enough for the first month,” he shrugged. "To be honest I was flattered, amused. I mean all that fuss for little old me. Made me feel…important somehow. Notorious even."
"And now?"
"Now it's past harassment, and people are beginning to talk. Look around you Fox, hardly up-scale this place but you are the only one who looks like a bum. How many nights have you slept in those clothes? Do you think about anything other than me nowadays? Shaving? A shower? No?"
I did look shabby in my jeans, scruffy shirt and jacket, but this recent hobby of mine made all that junk seem so worthless.
"Gone on long enough," said Curtis, exasperated. "Tonight I wanted to have it out — so I walked — you followed, and here we are."
The wheel continued to creak on its revolution, and between the bars of our gondola, I could see the tacky merry go round, the young stuffing vending machines with coins and the bumper cars leaving trails of electric light.
John Curtis watched me watch him; he crossed his legs, lit a cigarette, and then offered me one from the pack. "Suit yourself," he said, on my refusal. "But we will talk Fox, or you will. After all that's what all this boils down to, me listening to you, isn't that right? So go on, get it off your chest. Say what you have to say then we can both move on with our lives. You've got my attention."
"There are two things I want from you," I mumbled, feeling the hand sweat in my jacket pocket.
"The first?" he asked, while I hesitated. "Well? Tell me!"
"Are…you sorry?"
Blowing smoke out his nose in a bored fashion, Curtis shook his head and smiled. "I might have known. You were always hell-bent on the status of my remorse. Didn't you visit me in prison once to ask that same question? Am I sorry?"
"You didn't answer me in prison."
"You weren't ready for the answer, Fox. You never will. Yes I am sorry," he said, leaning forward. "Sorry for you. Sorry you wasted your time. This sad obsession is taking over your life. It is your life!"
"Stop talking," I said, through clenched teeth. "Shut your fucking mouth."
"It's funny," he continued, unconcerned; "the former detective who sees so much of people. You observe men but cannot understand them. Should I be sorry? I am certainly not proud of what I did, but neither am I sorry. I was careless yes, but I cannot be sorry for the lessons I learned, and paid for with years! My debt to society has been paid."
"Not in full!" I growled, standing. "You killed six people you son of a bitch, four of them children, yet you sit here wearing that shit kicker grin and call it carelessness? Don't you have a fucking soul inside you?"
He laughed again, a condescending titter. "The soul is an invention to keep sheep in place, Fox. When I die there won't be any angel over me; just my rotting corpse with the worms and my mind enjoying everlasting peace from your footsteps."