Read The Felix Chronicles: Freshmen Online
Authors: R.T. Lowe
“There’s no branches!” Allison shouted, looking at the log. “Nothing to hold onto!”
“Just get your arms around it!”
“This is the best you can do?” she shouted angrily.
He thought for a moment before shouting back: “I don’t see a rope up here! Just grab it! Trust me!”
She muttered something that was lost in the wind as she released one hand and turned her body toward the log.
He inched it closer to her, steadying it, keeping it as still as possible.
She let go of the rock with her other hand and reached out for it, extending both arms.
Felix held his breath. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion.
Allison’s fingers scraped into the bark and bit hard, pulling the log into her chest. The log banged against the cliff and she let out a startled shout as one hand came free. She grasped at it, unable to lace her fingers together, dropping suddenly, her nails raking down through its soft rotting shell, peeling off bark as she went. She adjusted her grip, clamping her forearms to slow her descent, hugging her body against it. Her fall temporarily stalled, she blew out a steaming breath and looked up at Felix. Then she raised one leg, and then the other, curling both around the log, squeezing it between her thighs.
“You okay?” Felix shouted down at her.
“Fantastic!
What do you think?
Bring me up!”
He pushed himself to his feet and concentrated on making the log ascend up the face of the cliff swiftly but without jarring Allison or unhinging her fragile grip. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” he whispered elatedly to himself as the top of the log rose above the path. He started to breathe a little easier, expecting to have the log, and Allison, on firmer ground any second.
A searing pain exploded in the back of his leg and he hit the ground hard, landing on the same shoulder the swinging log had crushed just a moment ago. He grabbed at his leg and felt something. A foreign object. Something strange was protruding out of his right calf. He ran his fingers over it, and after a few stunned moments, concluded that it was the hilt of a knife. He lay there, confused, wondering what on earth he was doing on the ground with a knife in his leg. Then a pair of fists, dripping blood, and a long wire intruded on his field of vision, passing over his face and blocking out the sky. He swatted the bloody hands away and jumped to his feet, his right leg immediately howling in pain.
Tripoli was down on the path in front of him, propping herself up on her elbows. Her blonde hair was streaked red. Blood ringed her throat and ran down her face from ugly gashes on her cheeks and forehead. Her hands were a bloody mess. Her legs were bent, broken and useless, drenched in blood from hip to ankle.
He grimaced with fury and reached down to pull the knife from his—
“Allie!”
Felix shouted in terror, suddenly realizing Allison was in a free fall.
He waved a finger at Tripoli, flinging her against the embankment; she stuck to it for a moment, then slid down to the bottom slowly in a twisted heap.
His blood racing, Felix turned to the ocean, raised both arms and screamed at the top of his lungs:
“Uuuuuuupppppppp!”
He stepped back from the edge and waited, too afraid to look down.
In the distance, something came into view—but it wasn’t Allison. A rock, long and jagged along its edges, crested the plane of the walkway and continued skyward. Another pillar of stone appeared next to the first, and then another. Soon, an armada of broken sea stacks obscured the skyline. Some were small and unremarkable—except for their altitude—others big (the size of motorcycles and cars), and three magnificent columns of rock, trailing streams of rushing water from huge crevices in their surface, were as large as school buses.
He stared out at the rocks, waiting with a sense of complete helplessness. He couldn’t lose Allison.
Not again
. He waited. Time passed like a frozen eternity in purgatory. Then he saw it, the cleanly severed end of a tree rising slowly above the edge of the walkway. His stomach lurched. His heart stopped in his chest. He resisted the temptation to bring it up faster as he watched it ascend inch by inch for some immeasurable period of time.
And then there was a face, a face reddened by the elements pressed tightly against the rough bark
.
Allison was clinging to the very bottom of the log, her eyes closed and her legs swinging in the open air.
With a sudden rush of glorious, exhilarating relief, Felix brought the log onto the path. When Allison was just a few feet above him, she opened her eyes and let go, dropping into his arms. He caught her, but lost his footing in the process and tripped, and together they tumbled to the ground.
“Thank you,” she breathed in his ear, panting softly. “Thanks for bringing me back.”
The words she’d said to him yesterday came to his mind, and he repeated them to her. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Allie.” He held her tightly, crushing her to him, smothering her; she didn’t seem to mind.
She lay there in his arms for a long while as they looked up at the swirling rain-heavy clouds like two fortunate but exhausted castaways tossed ashore on some distant uncharted island. Finally, she pushed herself up and gazed out at the strange rock formations hovering hundreds of feet above the water.
“Hey, you might wanna drop those things. If anyone saw this…” She shook her head in awe.
He smiled and let them fall. A crackling charge coursed through the air a moment later when they impacted the shoreline. The ground trembled and shook, not unlike the day the earthquake had struck and forever transformed the idyllic nature walk.
“I hope the rest of this thing doesn’t collapse,” Allison said softly as the tremors began to subside. Then she looked down at Felix and raised her eyebrows in surprise. “You have a knife in your leg.”
“Oh. I forgot.” Felix grinned raggedly at the absurdity of forgetting such a thing. “That’s why you took that little log ride.” He reached down and pulled it out. Blood trickled down his leg like sap from a tree. “Owwww! Shit! That hurts!” He held it up close to his face and watched the blood slide languidly down the blade to his fingers. With an angry grunt, he threw it off the cliff.
“You two devils are very sweet,” a voice croaked.
Felix turned to see that Tripoli was smiling at them, on her back, her mouth filled with blood (and very few teeth).
“You’ve gotta be shitting me,” Felix murmered. He heaved himself to his feet and limped painfully over to Tripoli. Her body was wrecked and he wondered for a moment how she could still be alive. “Why are you doing this?” he shouted down at her. “Why are you trying to kill me?”
He felt a hand on his shoulder. Allison’s. Her face was grim, determined.
Tripoli laughed and blood bubbles formed at the corners of her mouth. “You’re not… you’re not… even… the one.”
“
What?”
Felix said, confused. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
“I’ll… tell.” Tripoli’s eyes closed, then fluttered open. Her breathing sounded gurgly, as though her lungs were filling with blood.
Felix got on his knees and shook her roughly. “Tell me!”
“Felix…”
Allison warned, holding out a cautioning hand.
“Here… closer… I tell.”
He bowed his head, placing his ear next to her mouth. “Tell—”
Tripoli’s arm flinched.
Felix didn’t have time to react. A hot, stinging pain just beneath his rib cage was followed by dull, thick pressure. It hurt. A lot. He screamed in agony, his fearful eyes glancing down. Tripoli had stuck him with a knife. She’d shoved it in deep; he couldn’t see the blade, only the glinting steel handle sticking out from his jacket. He screamed again. Then he reacted in a burst of fury: He
broke
her arm in two, snapping it with a satisfying crack. The splintery edged bone cut through her shirt just below her elbow.
Tripoli laughed gleefully, too far gone to feel pain. Her limbs went slack and her laughter caught in her throat mid-cackle, then her eyes glossed over and her head lolled to the side as if her final wish was to look out at the ocean one last time.
Felix fell onto his back and curled up on his side, hugging his arms across his stomach, fearing that if he didn’t, his guts would spill out all over the path.
“Felix!”
Allison shrieked with panic, jumping beside him, hands on him. “Oh my God! Oh my God! Felix!”
His stomach was raging with molten pain. Blood pumped from the wound, spreading over his hands and arms. “How bad is it?” he asked.
Allison ripped open his jacket and gasped. “It’s in there a few inches.” Her voice was shaky. “It’s a puncture wound. She didn’t hara-kiri you or anything, but you’re bleeding pretty bad.”
Some of the pain had already subsided. Felix grabbed the knife by the handle and yanked it out furiously. “That bitch!
I hate that fucking woman!”
“Are you okay?” Allison looked at him uncertainly, wiping the corners of her eyes. “I thought…”
“I’m great.” He struggled to his feet, wincing, and tossed the knife on the ground next to Tripoli.
Allison stood up and took a step back, giving Felix a curious look. “You’re
covered
in blood, in case you’re wondering.”
“I don’t think all of it’s mine,” he replied, using his sleeve to wipe off his face. He eyed her for a moment. “You don’t look much better.”
“Really?” she said, feigning dismay. She held up her arms and looked herself over. Dirt and pitch smudged one side of her face. A lock of wet hair was plastered to her cheek—wet with what Felix didn’t want to think about considering the various substances residing on the log. Her clothes were stained with blood. Her hair was matted with it. “Just bumps and bruises,” she said casually. “Maybe a few scratches.” She turned her hands, bringing her fingers up close to her face. “Damn nails! I just had a manicure.”
Felix snorted.
She circled him, looking him over slowly with a steady, studious gaze.
“What are you doing?” he asked, looking at her skeptically.
She smiled. “How many times did you get stabbed?”
It was such a ridiculous question he found himself laughing. “I lost count. Ouch. Oh.” He clutched at his stomach, keeling over in pain. “It hurts to laugh. Ouch. Don’t make me laugh. Ahhh…”
Allison started laughing.
Drunk with exhaustion and relief, they laughed all the way back to the car.
The adrenaline rush passed quickly. Nothing seemed very funny anymore. They were back at the parking lot searching Bill’s car for a first aid kit. Felix was staring inside the trunk, empty of not only a white box with a red cross but empty of everything, which probably should have made him wonder why he continued to stare at it. But something about it didn’t look right. Above the headrests he could see the back of Allison’s head; she was in the passenger seat.
“Anything?” Felix called out to her.
“No.” She snapped the glove box shut. “You?”
“Nope.”
“I don’t need it anyway,” she muttered. Felix could hear the irritation in her voice and he knew where it was coming from. He didn’t agree with her self-diagnosis—“
nicks and scrapes,”
she insisted—and thought an actual doctor should take a look at her injuries. Of course a trip to the ER was out of the question because of the annoying proclivity of those in the medical profession to ask meddling questions. So that left the first aid kit. Allison was being predictably stubborn about not needing it and kept reminding him that “while we’re wasting time looking for it, what do you think will happen if someone shows up here and sees us in the parking lot and associates the two kids with the Range Rover with the three corpses on the Cliff Walk.”
He was starting to think she had a point.
Allison hopped out of the car and climbed into the back seat. A fat drop of rain landed on Felix’s nose while Allison plunged her hand into the plastic bag from 7-Eleven, flipping aside a magazine (the one with Dirk Rathman and his new tattoo featured on the cover), a bag of chips and a jar of peanuts. She sighed loudly so that Felix could hear her consternation, then opened a bottle of water and took a long drink. The raindrops drummed heavy on the roof of the car and left dark spots on the asphalt where they landed. Felix thought the weather was about to get really nasty. And then, as if the weather gods wanted to make light of his meteorological prognostications, the sun emerged from behind a bank of clouds, bathing the parking lot in a cool, steely winter glow.
“Nada?” Felix asked.
“Nada.”
“You’re not even looking,” Felix complained. “What about under the seats?”
“I’m not the one who got stabbed like forty million times.” She gave him a harsh look and scooted across the seat, letting her legs hang out of the car.
“Can you toss me one of those?” Felix tilted up his chin at the bottle of Poland Spring in Allison’s hand. He was thirsty enough to lap up the puddles studding the lot.
Allison slipped out of the car and came around back, handing him a bottle.
Felix drank half of it in four long swallows, watching Allison as he did. The wind tugged at her hair, blowing strands of it across her face, but not so many as to conceal the blood spatters on her cheeks and brow, her swollen lips or the nasty red welts next to her left ear and on her forehead.
Allison suddenly flipped up his sweatshirt and splashed water on his bare stomach.
He jumped back in surprise, flinching from the cold. “Why’d you do that?”
“Just to confirm something,” she said thoughtfully, using his shirt and the sleeve of her own to dry him off. “Let me look.” She yanked up on the front of his shirt again, raising it up to his chest.
Now he understood what she was doing.
“It doesn’t hurt, does it?” Allison said quietly. Her gaze fixed on his eyes for a moment before moving back to his stomach.
He shook his head. He’d never felt better. Strange, considering the knife wound to his gut—just one of
several
knife wounds—had bled so much that his shirt and jeans looked like they’d been used to sop up the floor of a slaughterhouse. After Allison cleaned off most of the blood, already crusty and more blackish in color than red, and the skin was once again visible, they couldn’t find the wound; it had healed completely.