Slipt, p.1
Slipt, page 1
Slipt
Alan Dean Foster
For Sissy and Randy Shimp,
friends always there when you need them.
For Rube Cozart,
who in never saying much, says a lot.
And particularly for Jane Cozart,
self-proclaimed wicked witch of the west,
who in reality is Glinda, the good witch of the east.
I
Over the years the nightmares had grown less intense, but this summer they’d returned with a vengeance. Though six years had passed since the accident, in her sleep she saw it as clearly as if it had taken place yesterday. Dreaming did nothing to blur the details.
In some ways they were worse now than they’d been immediately following the disaster. Time slowed remembrance, making each second pass in slow motion. Everyone bled in slow motion as they died repeatedly in her mind. Died slowly.
Squeal of brakes and shockingly uncharacteristic curse from Mrs. Robish as she fought vainly to make the old schoolbus do things it was never intended to do. Thunderous overwhelming shriek from the train whistle warning of imminent doom. A sensation not unlike being caught in a big wave at the beach, tumbling her over and over inside the bus. A wetness salty but not of the sea as blood spurted from dozens of tiny torn bodies as the locomotive ripped broadside into the stalled bus.
Above all she remembered the calm which had enveloped her. She hadn’t screamed like the rest of the children. She remembered thinking how like snow the inside of the bus became. She’d never seen snow, but imagined from pictures that it must have been something like the million shards of glass that filled the bus’s interior as the windows caved in explosively.
The wave striking her again, tossing her around the back of the vehicle. She’d been sitting in the last seat. She remembered putting bb’s in a tin can and shaking them around, making a crude musical noise. Shaking and bouncing them, the way her friends were flying around the inside of the bus that afternoon. Little soft bodies suddenly no longer alive, making wet sounds as they struck the unyielding walls. And then the bodies coming apart and her outraged little-girl mind blanking the sight out as best it was able, not letting her acknowledge the pieces of arms and legs richocheting around her.
She remembered watching Jimmy Lee Cooper go floating past her, his face kind of sad (what was left of it). Then a wrenching, numbing pain in her back that startled her even more than it hurt as she flew (just like the superheroes on the Saturday morning cartoons) through the broken-out rear window.
It was warm that day, even for the South Texas coast country. She recalled the warmth around her as she floated through the air, recalled watching the mangled wreckage of the schoolbus recede down the tracks as the mountain that was the train pushed it along. She never saw Jimmy Lee Cooper again. Only his casket, at the mass funeral.
Then she’d hit the ground and stopped bouncing and rolling. She’d been thankful for that because she was starting to feel kind of sick. She was numb all over, as though the dentist, Doctor Franklin, had given her novocaine all over instead of just behind the one bad tooth he’d fixed earlier that year. Drowning out every other noise was a sorrowful sharp screeching as the train fought to bring itself to a halt.
Soon there were people coming, coming down the road the bus had been on. They were getting out of their cars and running up the tracks toward the nearly stopped train and what remained of the schoolbus. The screech of the train’s brakes was replaced by multiple softer screams. She’d never heard adults scream like that before and it scared her badly.
She never knew whether she’d tried to get up or not. She only knew that she didn’t get up. Besides, she didn’t feel much like moving. There was nowhere to move to. They were all going to be late for school, she thought, and wondered if a train hitting the bus would be enough of an excuse for Mrs. Romero.
She looked down and saw that her dress was all torn up, and that she was dirty all over. There was a lot of blood, too, but it didn’t seem to be hers. She wasn’t sure how she knew that but as it turned out she’d been right.
Then there was someone bending over her, looking down at her. A man dressed in blue coveralls and a white workshirt and a broad western hat. He just stood there staring at her, talking to himself fast. She didn’t know why he’d been mentioning Jesus’s name over and over because they weren’t in church.
He knelt close and she remembered thinking that he had a nice old face, burnt brown by years in the South Texas sun. He pushed back the brim of his hat and then used it to shade her face.
The screaming continued somewhere far away. Then there was a new sound; the rising complaint of hurrying sirens. She hadn’t been sure at first that that’s what they were because she’d never before heard more than one siren at a time. When they all wailed together like that it was hard to identify them.
The man touched her then, running his fingers along her left side from her shoulder down to her leg. He pulled the hand away suddenly as if he’d touched fire and looked real funny. Then he stood up and spoke. She recalled his words very clearly, even though it had been long ago and she’d been very tired.
“Now don’t you worry, little girl. You’re going to be alright. I’m going to get some help and I’ll be right back. Just don’t try to move. Understand?”
She nodded. She wanted to say, “I’m not going to move, mister. I’m very tired and I don’t want to get up.” But she said nothing.
He smiled at her, a funny kind of smile not at all as comforting as he’d intended it to be, and went running away back toward the road. Back toward the sirens, she thought.
Soon there were other people bending over her along with the nice man. They were all panting hard, like they’d been running a lot. The farmer who’d found her was talking to one of the younger men in the clean white coats.
“I told her not to move,” he said. “I don’t think she has.”
Then the young men were inspecting her, running their hands over her, and one of them looked at his friend and said quietly, “We’ve got to get her on the gurney.”
The other man nodded agreement. Then there were hands under her. Gentle, careful hands, lifting. She remembered herself telling them, “It’s okay. You’re not hurting me. It doesn’t hurt.”
One of the men in the white coats had smiled down at her. He seemed to be trying real hard not to cry, which was a funny thing to see in a grown-up. She’d only seen it once or twice before when her mommy hadn’t known she’d been awake. But she’d never seen it in a grown-up man before.
Then they were putting her on something flat and white. She almost started to scream when they lifted her, because it reminded her of that moment of flying around inside the tumbling schoolbus with her coming-apart friends, reminded her of flying out through the back window. But she relaxed a little when she realized she wasn’t flying anymore, only being carried.
They slid her into a big car with a red light on top. An ambulance, she thought. She’d always wanted to ride in an ambulance. She remembered asking one of the nice men, “Will I be able to hear the siren?” He smiled back at her through his anxiety and preoccupation and said, “Sure you will, honey, sure.”
They waited for the longest time. Then another pallet was brought and slid in next to hers. It had another little girl on it. Amanda thought it looked like Lucey Huddle, but she couldn’t be sure because the face was all messed up.
About halfway through their ride (they were going very fast, she knew) the nice man who’d told her she’d be able to hear the siren pulled a clean sheet over Lucey Huddle’s head. When he saw Amanda watching he whispered to her.
“It’s okay. She’s just sleeping. She’ll sleep better this way.”
Amanda nodded slowly, her first movement in a long time. She didn’t reply because she didn’t want to make the nice man feel bad because she knew he was lying and she didn’t want him to know that she knew. He didn’t say anything else, just kind of stared off into the distance. Every now and then, though, he’d bring himself back long enough to check on her.
It was strange, she thought as the ambulance careened down the highway. For a moment back there, lying on the grass near the cottonwood, she’d thought she’d been able to see herself from up in the air. That was a funny way to see things, she thought. She giggled, startling the nice man. Lying on the ground, it was kind of neat to be able to see yourself. She remembered seeing herself covered with blood. Her blue dress was shredded and both her shoes were missing (now where did they get to, she thought).
She’d been all twisted up like a rag doll, a real Raggedy Anne. Then the farmer and the men in white coats looking down at her.
She remembered it all vividly, much too vividly, as she woke up breathing hard and in a cold sweat.
She knew what had happened, made herself sit up in bed until she regained control of her breathing. She used the edge of the sheet to wipe away the sweat. A bad one, she thought. At least this time she hadn’t woken up screaming. It hurt her to see the expressions on her parents’ faces when she did that and they came running into her room.
She listened for them, but there were no sounds from their bedroom up the hall. Only the summer concert provided by the crickets outside, interrupted occasionally by the alarming drone of a cicada. When the crickets relented she could hear the faint slap of water against the seawall that protected the yard. Sometimes her dad snored and she could hear that, too, but not tonight.
She used her left hand to lift and push her legs over the side of the bed. Her arms were slim but far more musc
Twist and turn and wheel over to the window to sit staring thoughtfully at the night. The moon was nearly full, its glow like the beam of a flashlight on Lavaca Bay.
She remembered the strangest thing about the “incident,” as her parents carefully referred to it. It had been there in the nightmare too, the only thing not nightmarish about it. There had been someone else standing there looking down at her little twisted body, only that someone hadn’t been there. She knew him. An old man. Her Uncle Jake.
She frowned to herself as she always did at the memory, brushing long black hair away from her forehead. The moonlight pouring through the window gave her face an angelic cast, setting alive the coppery skin and sharp features that reflected her mixed anglo-hispanic heritage.
He’d been sorry, so sorry that he couldn’t have prevented the “incident,” couldn’t have helped her somehow. But he had helped her, simply by being with her. Uncle Jake had always been with her. It was their little secret. When the hospital people had turned her mom and dad away outside the operating room, Uncle Jake had been able to go in with her.
She was thinking of him now, and she was worried, and she didn’t know why she was worried, and that worried her more. He hadn’t been hurt, hadn’t been in an accident. If he had she would have known about it immediately. It would have awakened her faster than any nightmare because it would have been real. Everything that happened to Uncle Jake was real to her.
She’d known when he’d gone into the social security office that time and let his temper get the better of him. He’d gotten himself all worked up, which he wasn’t supposed to do, and his heart, which was the weakest, oldest part of him had started to hurt.
The indifferent expression of the bureaucrat behind the desk had turned to alarm, and other people had been summoned. He’d come out of that okay. Then there was the time he’d been watching the Superbowl and his television had gone on the fritz. He’d gotten real excited and angry at the same time. His heart didn’t hurt as badly that time, but it had scared her anyway.
She hadn’t seen her Uncle Jake in person in many years. Only twice, in fact. Once right after the “incident” when he’d come to visit her in the hospital, and once a couple of years ago when he’d stayed for most of the summer. But he always sent her something for Christmas and her birthday, and he was always there when she needed to talk to him. That was their own little secret, their special secret, her and Uncle Jake, the crippled teenager and the arteriosclerotic old man.
She thought about her unfounded concern and wondered if she shouldn’t ought to try calling him now. No, not until she thought about her feelings some more. Besides, it was late and she didn’t like to wake him. An old man needed his sleep.
She put her hands on the smooth, cool chrome wheels, turned herself and rolled toward one of the two bookcases that rose from floor to ceiling. Both were full, their shelves lined largely with used paperbacks. That had never mattered to Amanda. After all, a book was a book, whether it had a fancy leather binding or a torn paper one. All that mattered were the words.
It was quite a library. Tucked innocuously between the tomes on plants and people and school subjects were books with funny titles, books even her mom and dad didn’t pretend to understand. But at a quarter a book they didn’t care what she bought on their family trips up to Houston.
She studied the shelves and used the mechanical picker to reach up and pluck out one particular volume. It had given her some understanding of herself. Maybe it would help her understand why she was concerned for her Uncle Jake. She worried about him a lot, because she loved him, and because he was special in a way not even her parents suspected.
She wanted above all to protect him. That was ironic, because except for his bad heart Uncle Jake was a robust, energetic man. No matter that he was already into his seventies. At least he could walk, which was something Amanda hadn’t been able to do since the incident. It’s in her back, the doctors had told her parents. It’s in her back, nothing we can do, nothing anybody can do, sorry and shrug and good-bye….
She remembered what walking was. A fading memory now, a sweet innocent remembrance that was one with all her other childhood memories. Pre-incident memories. Her legs now and forever more would be round and chromed and cold.
She turned on the little reading light over her desk and angled it on its gooseneck. Then she leaned back in the wheelchair and began reading. There were a lot of big words in the little book, words that wouldn’t mean much to her parents, but she’d become comfortable with them. She was a good student, at times an exceptional one. But then, when one doesn’t go out on dates or go to parties or go dancing or spend the weekend cruising, one has lots of time for study.
The sonorous dirge of the insects rose over the familiar complaint of the air conditioner and dehumidifier. Something was about to happen, Amanda felt. It somehow involved her Uncle Jake. Perhaps it might reach out to involve her as well, because she was linked as tightly to her Uncle Jake as he was to her. It’s something bad, she thought anxiously. Very bad.
But at least it didn’t feel like it involved trains, though she wasn’t sure about buses. That thought let her relax a little. After a while she fell into a calm, nightmareless sleep. The book slipped from her limp hand to close itself against the floor.
II
The same fat, silver moon that gleamed on Lavaca Bay off the South Texas coast also lit a tiny valley just outside the city limits of Riverside, California. As only the moon watched, sixty and not six hundred rode down into the little valley of death. They were mounted on steel and rubber instead of horseflesh. There were no cannons waiting to blaze away at them. These were not the Crimean heights and the assault on the valley was being carried out with the utmost stealth and silence of which the invaders were capable.
The general who directed the attack held Ph.D’s in chemistry and business administration. His soldiers were armed with graders and backhoes, diesel trucks and tracked dozers. The enemy they fought was as deadly as it was unseen. It did not inhabit the valley so much as permeate it.
Nothing lived in that bowl-shaped depression in the hills east of the sprawling Los Angeles metropolis. A few twisted, gnarled forms thrust bleached fingers toward the moon: the skeletons of the mesquite and cottonwood and scrub oak that had once thrived in the valley bottom. For the past fifty years the water table from which their roots had once drawn nourishment had been poisoned by a bewildering variety of industrial wastes. Now not even a weed could grow there.
A deceptively innocent-looking pond of amber liquid flecked with dirty foam had collected at the valley’s lowest point. The small army of heavily clothed soldiers treated the pool with especial caution. It was a mixture of rainwater and acids, sludge and things with long, tongue-twisting names. Around the central pool rusted and broken metal drums stood guard like heavily ribbed ghosts.
Quietly, quickly, the men and machines went to work. No one spoke. For one thing, the respirators and masks they wore made conversation difficult. For another, continued silence was vital not only to the success of their operation but to the issuance of triple-overtime bonuses for each worker. Those who worked with shovels and suction hoses pulled instinctively and often at the thick gloves protecting their hands.
On the hillsides to east and south a few lights shone dim against the late summer night. Once a backhoe’s gears ground loudly in protest against its operator’s too hasty shifting. Attentive mechanics rushed to mute its complaints, packing extra insulation around the transmission.
The attack had been well-rehearsed in advance. It proceeded with admirable speed. It was already well after midnight. Before the first light of the sun rose over San Gorgonio every worker and machine had to be out of the valley and the work had to be completed.
While the assault continued, similarly masked workers leaned against their trucks up on the east ridge. They conversed in low tones, watching the intense activity taking place below while they waited their turn. The beds of their vehicles carried an odd assortment of vegetation, parodies of the land-scaper’s art. There was young mesquite, some prickly pear, jumping cactus, manzanita … a cross-section of the wild chaparral which encrusted the dry hills of Southern California. No rose bushes, no delicate geranium beds this time. The landscapers who’d been hired to replace the natural vegetation murdered by industrial poisons thought the whole business was absurd. But they had been made to comprehend the urgency, and they certainly understood the money.
