Read Online Two Worlds and In Between: The Best of Caitlin R. Kiernan (Volume One) by Caitlin R. Kiernan - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Caitlin R. Kiernan
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pull the shadows off her before there’s nothing left to save.
But a shaggy head rises ox slow from the space between her breasts, and these eyes are nothing but the red sky, molten pools of stupid hunger, and Tom turns away, lost for a moment, feeling his way along the silken-papered walls, until his fumbling hands find the cool brass doorknob and the thunder splits apart that world. Splits the alley girl like an overripe peach, and he steps across the threshold, his bare feet sinking through the floor into the icy lake, and she’s waiting, dead hand shackle tight around his ankle to pull him down into the fish slime and silting night.
Mr. Tom Givens woke up, sweat-soaked, eyes wide, still seeing white-knuckled hands clasped, sucking air in shuddering gulps, air that seemed as thick, as unbreatheable, as dark lake water. The crystal-cut whiskey glass tumbled from his hands and rolled away beneath the bed. Thunder rumbled across the Allegheny night like artillery fire and Old Testament judg ment.
Both his legs were still propped up on the four poster and, as he shifted, the Charley horse began slowly, jealously, to relax its grip, and he realized there was no feeling at all in his left leg. Outside, furious rain pounded the windows and slammed the shutters against the clubhouse wall. Tom Givens cursed his stupidity, nodding off in the chair like a lousy drunkard, and he carefully lowered his tortured legs onto the floor. Fresh pain in bright and nauseating waves as the blood rushed back into droughty capillaries; the room swam, losing its precious substance for a moment, and the dream, still so close, lingered like crows around the grey borders.
A flash of lightning then, blinding sizzle that eclipsed the electric lamp, and the thunder clamored eager on its heels.
He sat in the chair, waiting for the last of the pin-and-needle stab to fade, and he listened to the storm. A wild night on the mountain, and that went a long way towards explaining the nightmare, that and the bourbon, that and the things he’d seen since he’d arrived at the lake two weeks before. He’d come out early, before the June crowds, hoping for rest and a little time to recover from the smoky bustle of Pittsburgh.
The loose shutters banged and rattled like the wind knocking to come inside, and he got up, cautious, legs still uncertain, but only two steps, three, to the window. And even as he reached for the latch, then thumbed it back, even as he pushed against the driving rain – knowing full well that he’d be soaked before the task was done – he heard the roar. Not of thunder, not this time, but something else. Something new. There was immediate and stinging cold as the sashes were ripped from his hands, slammed back and glass panes shattered against the palsied shutters.
And through the darkness and the downpour he saw the white and whirling thing, impossibly vast, moving past the docks, dragging itself across the lake. Silvered clockwise, and the deafening roar and boom, and Tom Givens forgot the broken windows, the frantic drapery flutter, the shutters, ignored the rain blowing in, soaking him through, drenching the room. He watched as the waterspout passed by, and the girl, the girl standing there, her long dark hair whipped in the gale, her body an alabaster slash in the black night. She raised her bare arms, worshipping, welcoming, granting the funnel passage. She turned, her white gown become a whirling echo of the thing, and her arms were opened to him now, and Tom recognized the face.
The face that had turned to him, helpless, pleading, in the Johnstown alleyway, but changed, eyes swollen with bottomless fury and something that might be triumph, if triumph could be regret. And he knew as well that this was also the girl that he’d watched drown herself off South Fork Dam barely a week back.
Her lips moved, but the wind snatched the words away.
And then lightning splashed the docks with noonday bril liance, and she was gone,
But a shaggy head rises ox slow from the space between her breasts, and these eyes are nothing but the red sky, molten pools of stupid hunger, and Tom turns away, lost for a moment, feeling his way along the silken-papered walls, until his fumbling hands find the cool brass doorknob and the thunder splits apart that world. Splits the alley girl like an overripe peach, and he steps across the threshold, his bare feet sinking through the floor into the icy lake, and she’s waiting, dead hand shackle tight around his ankle to pull him down into the fish slime and silting night.
Mr. Tom Givens woke up, sweat-soaked, eyes wide, still seeing white-knuckled hands clasped, sucking air in shuddering gulps, air that seemed as thick, as unbreatheable, as dark lake water. The crystal-cut whiskey glass tumbled from his hands and rolled away beneath the bed. Thunder rumbled across the Allegheny night like artillery fire and Old Testament judg ment.
Both his legs were still propped up on the four poster and, as he shifted, the Charley horse began slowly, jealously, to relax its grip, and he realized there was no feeling at all in his left leg. Outside, furious rain pounded the windows and slammed the shutters against the clubhouse wall. Tom Givens cursed his stupidity, nodding off in the chair like a lousy drunkard, and he carefully lowered his tortured legs onto the floor. Fresh pain in bright and nauseating waves as the blood rushed back into droughty capillaries; the room swam, losing its precious substance for a moment, and the dream, still so close, lingered like crows around the grey borders.
A flash of lightning then, blinding sizzle that eclipsed the electric lamp, and the thunder clamored eager on its heels.
He sat in the chair, waiting for the last of the pin-and-needle stab to fade, and he listened to the storm. A wild night on the mountain, and that went a long way towards explaining the nightmare, that and the bourbon, that and the things he’d seen since he’d arrived at the lake two weeks before. He’d come out early, before the June crowds, hoping for rest and a little time to recover from the smoky bustle of Pittsburgh.
The loose shutters banged and rattled like the wind knocking to come inside, and he got up, cautious, legs still uncertain, but only two steps, three, to the window. And even as he reached for the latch, then thumbed it back, even as he pushed against the driving rain – knowing full well that he’d be soaked before the task was done – he heard the roar. Not of thunder, not this time, but something else. Something new. There was immediate and stinging cold as the sashes were ripped from his hands, slammed back and glass panes shattered against the palsied shutters.
And through the darkness and the downpour he saw the white and whirling thing, impossibly vast, moving past the docks, dragging itself across the lake. Silvered clockwise, and the deafening roar and boom, and Tom Givens forgot the broken windows, the frantic drapery flutter, the shutters, ignored the rain blowing in, soaking him through, drenching the room. He watched as the waterspout passed by, and the girl, the girl standing there, her long dark hair whipped in the gale, her body an alabaster slash in the black night. She raised her bare arms, worshipping, welcoming, granting the funnel passage. She turned, her white gown become a whirling echo of the thing, and her arms were opened to him now, and Tom recognized the face.
The face that had turned to him, helpless, pleading, in the Johnstown alleyway, but changed, eyes swollen with bottomless fury and something that might be triumph, if triumph could be regret. And he knew as well that this was also the girl that he’d watched drown herself off South Fork Dam barely a week back.
Her lips moved, but the wind snatched the words away.
And then lightning splashed the docks with noonday bril liance, and she was gone,
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