Apeshit (16 page)

was climbing down. He wonders how long ago the ladder

snapped. Probably years ago. If the rope was weak enough

to break so long ago, he wonders why it is able to hold him

up now. He wonders if he should jump down from here or

climb back up. He’s not sure which would be safer. If the

rope is weak he would be better dropping twenty feet now,

rather than falling forty or sixty feet if the rope breaks on his

climb back up. If he was just a few more feet to his right he

probably could climb down the side of the cliff. He wonders

if he could jump for the cliff face and try to catch a handhold,

but decides he would likely just rip himself to pieces against

the rocks on the fall down.

Before he gets a chance to make up his mind, the rung

holding up his feet snaps and he falls backwards, thrashing

his limbs in the air as he tumbles. He looks down and tries

to aim his fall so that he can land on his feet, but it’s too dark

to see the ground clearly.

Stephanie wraps her arms around Kevin’s neck and

slides her hands down his shirt. Kevin doesn’t know what’s

going on as the bloody girl kisses him on the neck and whis-

pers “I want you” into his ear like a drunken college slut

with a busted tongue.

“What the hell?” Kevin yells.

He looks back at Stephanie. Her head is rolling from side-

to-side. Her eyes flickering. She doesn’t seem completely

conscious.

She slithers her tongue down his neck towards his

chest and rubs her open wound against the side of his face.

He winces and tries to push her off of him.

“I’ve always wanted you,” she says as she attempts

to crawl over the seat to get to him.

Crystal yel s at him from outside, asking him what the

heck is happening, as the van gets closer to the edge of the cliff.

Stephanie pulls Kevin’s penis out of his pants as he

struggles to return her to the backseat. She rolls into his lap

and drops all of her weight onto his right leg, forcing him to

slam on the gas.

Crystal jumps out of the way as the van roars down

the hill. Kevin slams on the breaks and lifts Stephanie’s

weight with all of his strength to get his foot off of the gas,

but it’s too late. The van’s front wheels go over the edge and

by the time the van comes to a stop, they are already hanging

halfway off of the cliff.

The delirious girl puts his penis into her mouth and

begins to give him a blowjob, as Kevin puts the van in re-

verse and tries to go back up the hill. The front wheels spin

in midair. The van doesn’t move. Kevin looks out of the

front window to see nothing but a starlit sky.

Crystal opens the side door and calls out to Kevin.

“Hand her over to me, slowly,” Crystal says.

Kevin looks down. His penis is going through the

bullet hole in the top of Stephanie’s mouth as she blows him.

He imagines that if she didn’t have so much hair he would be

able to see the tip of it coming out of the exit wound.

This is fucked
, he thinks.

He looks at Crystal, “I can’t.”

“This thing is going to go over the side at any min-

ute,” she says.

Kevin feels like he is about to have an orgasm. This

makes him pause for a moment. Part of him thinks that if

he is going to die anyway then dying during a blowjob is the

way to go. The more sensible side of him thinks that he has

to do everything in his power to save Stephanie. He won-

ders what the doctors (or coroners) will think if they find his

semen inside of her skull once they get to the hospital.

He wonders what the heck happened to Stephanie.

He wonders why she is acting like this. She seems com-

pletely unaware of what is going on around her. It is like the

bullet has scrambled her brain.

As he pulls himself out of her mouth and pushes her

away, Stephanie lunges forward with all her strength, kick-

ing off of the side door to get closer to him. The van shakes

and slides farther over the edge. Crystal shrieks at them.

“What the hell are you doing?” Crystal cries. “Get

out!”

Kevin wriggles out of Stephanie’s grip and opens his

door. Without thinking, he jumps out of the van and lands

on the rocky side of the cliff. Only half of his body makes it.

His legs dangle over the edge.

Crystal can’t get to Kevin to help him up. They are

separated by the van, the side of the mountain, and the drop-

off. He has to pull himself up, scraping his naked penis across

a jagged rock as he gets to safety. When he rolls over and

looks at his dick, it is covered in blood. He isn’t sure if he just

cut it open or if it is blood from Stephanie’s head wound. He

decides to zip up his pants and worry about it later.

Stephanie doesn’t know where Kevin went. She sits

up and looks around. She sees Crystal outside the van call-

ing out to her through the side door. She can’t understand

what she is saying.

“Come on, Steph,” Crystal says like she is talking to

a puppy. “Come on.”

Stephanie crawls over the seat. The van slips and

shakes. Crystal tries to hold the van from sliding any fur-

ther. The closer Stephanie gets to Crystal, the quicker the

van starts to move.

Jason is on the ground crying silently in agony. When

he hit the ground, his kneecap popped out of joint. His un-

derwear soaks up the wet mud as he tries to figure out a way

to undo the dislocation of his knee. He looks around. The

sound of croaking frogs is loud around him. It is like they

are screaming. Screaming at him to get off of his feet and

get out of there. Nobody is going to find him. He’s all alone.

The only person who is going to help him is himself. The

wind shakes the trees and freezes the moisture on his body.

He straightens his leg out and hears a popping noise

from inside of his leg as his kneecap slides back into place.

Standing himself up, he puts all of his weight on his good

leg. Then he unzips his fanny pack and pulls out the pistol.

As he walks, he realizes that his leg isn’t as badly

damaged as he thought it would be. He’s afraid he’ll dislo-

cate it again if he puts too much weight on it, but he is able to

move around without too much of a limp. He steps through

the trees, looking up the side of the cliff at the cabin’s lights

so that he can find his way to the bodies.

When Kevin gets off of the ground and looks through

the van’s windows, he sees Crystal on the other side, pulling

Stephanie off of the back seat to safety. The van stops slid-

ing. It settles into place. He doesn’t know how he’s going to

get to them with the van blocking the path. He could try to

climb up the steep slope behind him, but decides it might be

best to hold off just in case the van does go over the cliff.

“Is she okay?” Kevin calls out.

Crystal is busy holding Stephanie back. For some

reason, the wounded girl is trying to get back into the van.

Her eyes are wild and bloody drool leaks down her chin.

Once Steph settles down, Crystal says, “She’s messed up.”

“Take her back to the cabin,” Kevin says. “I’ll go

down the mountain and call for help.”

“We’re coming with you,” Crystal says.

“You’re not going to drag her all the way down the

mountain in the dark,” he says. “Either take her back to the

cabin or wait here. I’ll go as fast as I can.”

Kevin turns and jogs away from them.

“Wait,” Crystal calls out, holding back Stephanie

from getting into the van. It seems to her that Stephanie

is trying to crawl through the van so that she can go with

Kevin. “I need your help.”

Kevin doesn’t stop.

“I’ll get help as soon as I can,” he says.

Crystal calls out again, but he’s already gone.

When Jason gets to the section of cliff directly under

the cabin, he searches the area for the creature’s body. He

doesn’t find anything. He moves slowly and quietly, point-

ing his gun at every branch that blows in the breeze and ev-

ery frog that croaks. He combs the area foot by foot, but

there’s nothing. No blood. No bodies.

He doesn’t know what he’s going to do if the gray

man is still alive. He has put several bullets in his chest,

one in his brain, one in the fetus’ brain. If that mixed with

a twenty story drop isn’t enough to kill the creature then he

doesn’t know what is.

After nearly half an hour of searching, Jason does

find a body. He finds Rick’s corpse up in the trees. It never

hit the ground. Rick was impaled by a thick pine branch

pointing straight up from the tree’s trunk like an index fin-

ger with a long pointed fingernail. The branch went into

Rick’s new vagina, cut through his body, and came out of his

mouth. His body slid several feet down the pole of wood,

turning him into a human kebob. Jason cringes at the sight

of his friend’s corpse, but he does not look away. He pre-

tends not to be bothered by it, even though it is the most dis-

turbing thing he’s ever seen. It looks incredibly painful. He

tries not to imagine how painful his death must have been,

hoping that Rick died instantly and didn’t suffer for very

long like that. He wonders if his dad would approve of him

hoping that his friend didn’t suffer.

There’s no sign of Desdemona’s body, but he does

see a pile of bloody pine needles ten feet away from him.

Jason limps over to the pile and examines the blood. He