Echoes of Darkness (33 page)

“You know, you’re my
wife
. I might have expected this kind of thing from him—he’s a stranger, just the pilot, just the fucking help, after all—but from
you
? I expected better from you, Maggie. I expected better.”

The back of my head strikes the top of the doorframe. It’s not a hard hit, but what is now the top used to be the bottom, and there is still a small step built into the bulkhead right there. The step-edge catches me across the back of the skull, the sharp edge magnifying the impact. I stumble through the doorway, spinning away from the two of them. Rage fills me as, just for an instant, I think about the way they’ve teamed up against me, the way they’ve tricked me, even going so far as to distract me so I’d hit my head yet
again
. But I only have an instant, as the white wintery world outside goes watery, and then dim, and then black. I know that I’m falling, though I don’t even have time to feel the snow’s bitter-cold kiss on my face before everything slips away and is gone.

My eyelids flutter, my tickling lashes registering the snow’s nearness before I see it, before I even feel it on my skin. I roll over, start to moan, then stop. My throat is too dry to make a sound—all the attempt makes is pain, and I’ve had enough of that to last me a lifetime, thank you very much. I scoop snow with clumsy movements, mashing it into my mouth to melt slowly on my tongue. I reach for more and see red streaks on my fingers.
Blood? Did I bite my tongue? Lose a tooth?
I wipe at my lips again, numb fingers scraping woodenly across an unfeeling face.

More red. But it’s not quite right, it doesn’t look like . . . I hold my fingers closer. Squint.

It’s not blood red. It’s rose red. A single word floats through my mind.

(Maybelline)

Horrified, I stick a finger in my mouth, scrubbing it against my teeth and gums. It comes out covered in a familiar rose red.

“Oh, God,” I try to say, but the words are only a rough whisper.
I
ate the lipstick. And if I ate
that
, then I must have eaten all the rest as well. I cover my eyes with a hand, trying to recall the deed, to recover the taste, the feel, to remember
anything
about eating the last of what I laughingly referred to as
food
. There’s nothing there, not even the dreamlike possibility of a memory . . . but I have no problem remembering something I wish I could forget.

My God, I was awful
.

I roll onto my stomach and try to rise, but I’m too clumsy, my balance nonexistent. I crawl instead, dragging myself the short distance into the plane, thankful I hadn’t gotten farther before I fell. Thankful also that the door wasn’t closed behind me. Something about that bothers me, the wide open door (
Were you raised in a barn?
says a voice in my head, female and familiar, but I can’t quite place it), but I don’t have time to worry about it now. I can only handle one thing at a time, if that, so rather than think about it I simply close the door behind me, shutting up the nagging in my head.

“I am so sorry,” I say, the words coming hard and slow through my dry and swollen throat. The other two say nothing, patient. “I was wrong. It was me. I had no right. Can you forgive me?”

Bill pointedly refuses to even turn to meet my eye. That hurts, of course it hurts, but not as much as the blank, dead stare my wife levels my way.

“Maggie, please.” I pull myself closer to her, a little bit of feeling coming back to my rubbery limbs through use; pins and needles, mostly, but at least it’s something. “I’m not doing so good here, you know? I know I said I’d get you down. I tried, but I can’t. And about the food, I lost my head there. But I know it was me now, see?”

I rub a quick, painful finger across my teeth and gums and hold out the reddish-pink result for inspection.

“See? I know, you know”—I wave a hand behind me—“even
Bill
knows. I was way out of line before, okay? But please,
please
don’t shut me out. Don’t ignore me, I couldn’t take that. I’ll never make it on my own. Please.”

Maggie’s expression doesn’t change a whit. It’s like talking to a stone.

“What do you want? Do you want me to die? Was I right before?” I turn, throwing words at the back of Bill’s head. “Is that it? Bill? Is that what you both want: for me to join you? I . . . I can do that.”

Bill responds no more than Maggie, but at least I can see Maggie’s face, try to gauge her reactions. I turn back her way, meeting her cold stare.

“I can do that, hon. I can
do
that. Is that what you want? Okay. Okay.”

I keep saying it, like a mantra, as I pull myself over beneath the seat where I woke up the other day. Using the curve of the bulkhead and the purchase the recessed window gives me, I pull myself nearly upright.

“Okay?”

My heart is beating hard from exertion, my head pounding in time, and the plane’s gone all swimmy again as I grab the nearer end of my old seat belt. I wrap it about my fist in a death grip and use it to hold myself up as I flail for the other half of the belt, dangling an arm’s length away. It may be swinging, it may not; I really can’t tell right now. All I know is I can’t catch hold of the damn thing as it wavers, seeming to sway in the air before me. I’m still saying “Okay? Okay?” but it’s less a question to Maggie and Bill than it is a tear-streaked plea to the universe to just let this happen, just let the damn belt come into my hand and let me get this done.

I want to be done.

Finally, weeping with impatience and fatigue, I lunge for the strap. My feet slip out from under me and I loose a rusty, guttural cry of frustration: if I fall I’ll have to start all over again, and I just don’t know if I can do it.

Twin jets of agony lance up from my knees as they impact the floor, the body-wide jolt enough to make my world go white. Unconsciousness looms large again, but I manage to fight it off, focusing on my hands, on their grips: left hand wrapped in a nylon strap, the right squeezing tight on another. Then tighter.

My lunge worked. I’ve got it.

Clinging to consciousness, hanging two-fisted from the seat belt, I manage to stay kneeling but upright. I struggle to my feet again, bracing my backside against the bulkhead once more. I know neither side of the belt is long enough to loop about, then tie a knot. Neither end will work alone. But together . . . together they just might get the job done.

Working swiftly, not thinking about it beyond the logistics, I snap the belt together, then grab the buckle as a whole, twist it to the correct angle, and yank it out to its greatest buckled length. Sliding my feet over the floor rather than lifting a foot and maybe losing my balance, I position myself under the seat. Holding on to the belt with my right hand, I take hold of the end sticking out of the buckle with my left: the thing flight attendants tell you to yank on to pull the belt tight across your lap.

I take a breath, and slip my head through the space between seat and belt, tucking the nylon gently beneath my chin.

“Okay,” I say, a return of my mantra, as I angle my head slightly, bringing Maggie into view. She hasn’t turned her head in my direction, but I can tell she’s watching me from the corner of her squinty eye, and there’s a grim satisfaction in her profile. With the seat backs in front of me I can’t see Bill at all, but I feel his silent approval radiating from the front of the plane.

“Okay.”

My right arm trembles with the strain of holding myself erect; my left simply trembles, though the fingers still wrap tightly about the pull tab of a strap.
This will do it
, I think. This will put us all on even footing, and they’ll stop giving me the cold shoulder. This will stop me from feeling so alone.

And so
hungry
.

“Okay.” I tilt my head forward to hold the belt beneath my chin.

Wait!
shouts a voice in my head, the rational, French-tip and pilot-name voice, just as my left arm yanks the strap as hard as it can. The seat belt snaps taut beneath my Adam’s apple, pinning the back of my head to the seat above. My legs give out again, and my full weight falls against the restraint across my throat.

No!
comes that voice again, as limbs flail, my arms and legs no longer under my control.
You wanted them to talk to you to help you survive
, the voice says, crystal clear and as annoying as ever.
Doesn’t killing yourself so they’ll stop ignoring you kind of defeat the purpose?

My lungs suddenly kick into overdrive, pulling and pulling, but it’s like trying to suck a shake through a collapsed straw—all that work for no reward. My feet scrabble against the floor, but the curving shell that was once the ceiling has become a slope of ice, and they can’t find any purchase.

You’re doing all this to survive! You
want
to survive!

My throat feels like an empty beer can crushed in some dumb jock’s fist, but my view of the seatback in front of me is suddenly shockingly clear, the pattern of whorls and grain in the leather coming into amazing focus, even in the dim light, the high-defest of high-def. It’s the last thing I’ll ever see. I don’t feel Bill any more. I don’t see Maggie. My uncontrolled hands strike the wall, the seat, the window, my own face.

You’re the guy in the movie who rations the food. Who makes the fire.

Shiny spots. Worms of light. Worms of dark. All of them invading my high-definition view, creeping in from the sides to steal the sight from my bulging eyes. My hands striking the seat. Striking my face.

You’re the guy who wants to
live
!

Striking the seat belt release.

I crumple to the floor, great whoops of air burning in and out through my bruised throat.

You see? I told you you want to live.

Fuck you
, I think back, as I huddle against the bulkhead, unable to even see Maggie’s expression through the tears flooding my eyes. The sobs rip through my crushed windpipe to thrust spears up into my skull, skewering all the soft spots in my head, and though I try to crawl away—not having a destination in mind, but just needing to go somewhere—my exhausted limbs won’t do more than twitch. Maybe I do want to live, but I don’t know if I can take it.

I don’t know if I can take it.

I’m shuffling through the snow, one hand braced against the plane for balance, the other trailing behind, dragging a long, stout branch. I stagger to a stop, confused. Wondering how I got here. I know
what
I’m doing, but not how . . . how I . . .

I know I’m trying to get Maggie and Bill—at
least
Bill—to forgive me for pulling that belt release. Bill . . . Bill’s in terrible shape, stumps and stubs for arms, his face a mess—it’s no wonder he’s a little pissed at me for still being alive. I had the idea that if I could manage to protect Bill, if I could manage to keep those damn wolves out, then he might look kindly on me, you know? I know about that idea . . . but I don’t remember actually
having
it. Just like I don’t remember coming out here to work on it, though I can see from the tracks in the snow that I’ve already made this trip up the plane. Twice. At
least
twice. I’m going to have to search out more wood, if I ever want to start a signal fire or something.