Shadows (Page 100)

“Yeah,” Cindi huffed. She was no expert on skis, but she could tough out a couple miles. Kind of. She felt like she’d been on these stupid skis for a solid day instead of only forty minutes. “I’m coming.”

At the base of the church steps, she sucked wind until her heart stopped trying to pound its way right out of her ears. When she was done gasping and spitting, Luke said, “Maybe we should just leave him alone. You know, give him space, like Mellie and Weller said.”

“Screw them.” She used her poles to unclip. “He’s been up there two whole days. It’s not good for someone to be alone so long.”

Luke jammed the ends of his skis into the snow to stand them up. “How do you know what’s best?”

“My mom was a shrink.” She stood her skis up alongside his. “She said you had to help people want to stay. Like, yeah, someone you cared about just died, but here are all these other people waiting for you to come back. So.” She shrugged the pack a bit higher on her shoulders. “We’re Tom’s other people now.”

Luke screwed his face to a knot, like he’d just gotten a whiff of something stinky. “Maybe I should stay here with the dog. You know, make sure no Chuckies show up.”

“There’s not a Chucky around for five miles,” Cindi said. No one knew that for sure, of course, which was why they’d taken the dog to begin with. A lot of Chuckies had survived the cave-in and flood, and there really was no telling where they might be. Weller and Mellie thought many might be heading north toward Rule. If so, the Chuckies would have company, and pretty soon. She gave Luke a withering look. “Come on. Stop being such a wuss.”

Luke made the dog lie down to wait, and then they slogged up the church steps. Inside, the church was gloomy as a tomb and cold. They skirted the nave, taking a side aisle to stairs and a dusty library on the third floor. There was a trapdoor beneath the organ pipe chamber, and then they huffed up a spiral iron staircase that led directly to the bell tower. In the bell tower, there were seven landings reached by a series of iron ladders bolted to the limestone. A defunct wooden carillon console dominated the southern half of the seventh landing. To Cindi, the batons and foot pedals, with their ropes extending to the church’s twenty-three carillon bells, looked like a gigantic weaver’s loom. Or, maybe, a spider’s web.

At the top of the last iron ladder, Cindi reached up and popped open a sturdy wooden trapdoor. The trap yawned; a wave of cold air splashed over her head and shoulders.

“Hey, Tom,” she said, clambering up the last few rungs. The belfry was open on all four sides, and she tossed a glance north, her flashlight cutting a gash through the blackness. The way north gave a very good view of the mine. Well . . . what was left. But she was sure that was the vantage point Tom would choose, and he had, all right: hunched on a high stool, a bulky sleeping bag wrapped around his shoulders, that big scoped rifle with a girl’s name propped against the stone. He didn’t look around, but she knew from the way his head tilted that he was awake. “It’s Cindi. I brought you something to eat.”

No reply. She hadn’t really expected one. The rest of the belfry was very dark from the bells that dangled from a latticework of vertical struts behind louvered openings. They gave some shelter, but the air up here was much colder, and she was starting to cool down. She shivered as a tongue of wind licked sweat from her neck. She heard Luke scramble up behind her and then shut the trap, and said, “Luke’s here, too.”

No answer. Luke shot her an “I told you so” look that she ignored. Crossing the belfry, she set her pack on the floor, unzipped, pulled out a thermos and then a cup. “I thought maybe you’d like some soup?” When he didn’t reply, she unscrewed the thermos, releasing a cloud of chicken-scented steam. “It’s chicken noodle. Well, not real chicken noodle. I used bouillon cubes and some ramen and—”

“Thanks, Cindi.” Tom’s voice was so low she almost rode right over it. He didn’t look down at all. “I’m really not hungry.”

She heard Luke shuffle but didn’t turn around. She did wish he’d say something. Hello would be a start.

“Yeah, I know,” she said. Was that the right thing to say? Probably not. God, she wished her mom was around. “But my mom used to make chicken soup when I was sick. So I figured you might want some. You know, eventually.” Ooh, that was lame. Being sad wasn’t a sickness. It was human. She carefully set the thermos next to his stool and then withdrew three wrapped parcels. “I made sandwiches, too. They’re not, you know, great or anything. Just peanut butter, and I found a couple little squishy packets of honey. I would’ve brought coffee, but . . .” But what? But gee, you’re not sleeping and you really should? But Tom, when are you going to come down and be Tom again?

She heard him pull in a long breath, and when she glanced up, she was so startled she nearly gasped. He had already been thin. Now, he was gaunt; his cheekbones were razors, his skin caving into the valleys of his cheeks. His lips were crusty with blood from where he’d chewed away skin.

“Maybe you want just a taste?” She didn’t know what else to say.

“No.” He gathered in another breath and looked away. “You should go back. It’s cold.”

“You should come with us,” she said. God, was Luke ever going to say something?

He shook his head. “I’m not quite ready yet.”

“When will you be?” She didn’t think there was any kind of little-kid whine in there, but who knew? This was so freaky. She wasn’t her mom.

A pause. “I don’t know.” She heard a touch of wonderment, as if he was really thinking about that. “I guess when I get tired of looking at it. The problem is . . . I’m not ready to look away,” Tom said.

She knew what he meant. In daylight, the mine was a gouge in the earth: black against the snow and very deep and ragged, like a boil that had burst to let out all the pus. The smell was a little better because the wind was blowing in the right direction, and a skim of new ice had formed over the water. Mellie said there would be two lakes now, shining up into space like lopsided eyes. The sight was the kind of awful that used to make people slow down when they passed by an accident: ugly and absolutely hypnotic at the same time.

What Cindi wondered about were the bodies. There had to be a lot of them, but she hadn’t spotted a single floater. A long time ago, she’d seen a movie about a sunken submarine. The gross part was the bodies, bobbing like corks, hair as wavy as seaweed. Probably a lot of dead normal people down in the mine, too, out of sight. She didn’t want to go looking for them, but it was just as impossible not to think about them.