I don’t know what he is, and I don’t want to know: ‘Dazzles’ says to dance, I dance. I dance to buy time, to wait for some opportunity for escape to present itself. It’ll happen: he’ll get bored and his attention will wander, or he’ll tire and he’ll fall asleep, or he’ll come close and he’ll underestimate how strong a dancer might be.
I’ll get away. I swear to Christ I will.
There hadn’t been any pesky children when she’d moved in. There hadn’t been any children at all, nor any parents: hers had been the only house for miles. But time marches, and houses are built, and couples move in and nature takes its course.
Now the children were everywhere. On the street, in her yard, in the woods where she’d once sought the ‘Wine Of The Mother’ at her convenience. They came to the door and knocked and ran away. They pulled down her mailbox, not that it ever held mail. There were even eggs once. Her forbearance was tested, then eroded, then exhausted.
It wouldn’t be death. Death would attract attention.
Chicken pox was perfect, but they couldn’t get it all at the same time. Perhaps a few ear infections? And diarrhea. Definitely diarrhea for that Perkins boy, the one with the smart mouth who’d pulled poor Frisky’s tail.
He’d come expecting to climb the mountain the old-fashioned way, he’d bought the gear, he’d looked at the survey maps. On arrival, loaded down, the old guides had laughed at him and pointed up.
Someone had long since carved steps into the rock itself, and they stretched up the mountain and out of sight. He rented a locker for his extraneous possessions and began the climb.
They’re up there, at the top, in the thin air. They know I’m coming, and what questions I’ll ask, and the answers to those questions. All I have to do is reach them alive.
