Eddie needed his future hosts cared for, and close to his assorted luxury properties across the world. It’s also no coincidence they’re all located in sunny places with a high frequency of skin cancer.
My parents were nothing more than a random coupleEddie threatened into looking after his child. They didn’t love me, but that wasn’t my fault.
I was always enough.
Bravo, sport.
The words repeat in my head over and over again. His shell has cracked and separated, liquefied guts spilling out from the spaces in between, and his last flopping tentacle has finally stopped moving. The creature’s eyes are blank, but in their depths I think I can see one final shimmer, a single flicker of light before returning to the endless nothing.
“Thank you,” I finally reply, accepting the praise. I don’t do it for him, but for myself.
Eddie doesn’t react. Even his tentacles have started breaking down, more sludge than muscle.
I turn my head to gaze up at the sky above. Most of the view is clouded by the tree that broke my fall, but through the haphazard crisscross of snapped branches I can just barely make out a few glorious, blinking stars.
I bet it looks even better from the peak.
Hopefully, Marlo is up there waiting for me, and if there’s one thing that’s gonna keep me from lying back and bleeding out in the snow next to my cold, dead dad, it’s her.
I take a deep breath, noticing an odd stutter in my lungs. They seem to catch slightly, but that’s a problem I can worry about later. Sitting up causes a sharp, stinging pain to blast across my spine. It’s a feeling I’d usually have the instinct to pull back from, but tonight I don’t have that luxury. Instead, I push past the blistering sear until I’m sitting upright.
It’s here that I finally look down at my own body, checking in with the damage I’m working with. A huge gash runs the length of my left arm, likely torn open by a sharp branch, and I think multiple bones in this hand are broken. When I turn to look at my other arm, I find nothing but empty space.
It’s simply not there, replaced instead by a ragged stump just below my elbow. Eddie must’ve chomped it off during the fall.
I can’t let this slow me down.
One of my legs seems fine, but as I climb to my feet, the agonizing burn tells me there’s likely a broken bone tucked away in the other.
I’m standing on a small cliffside landing, one of the many stony perches that line this massive canyon. There’s a cluster of trees up here, which I’ve been lucky enough to land within, but everything else is jagged crags and boulders. To my left is a sheer drop onto the rocks below, but to my right is an upward slope and a winding, snowy path. Hopefully, it will guide me to the next landing, then the next, and the next.
I track the massive hanging gondola cables with my gaze, charting them up the incline and eventually ending at a small dot of golden light at the peak. To the east, the horizon is just barely starting to glow with the faintest hint of deep navy blue.
I’m worried I might faint from the pain, but the adrenaline still pumping through my veins seems to counteract any wooziness. I take the deepest breath I canmanage, ignoring the rattle in my chest, and begin to climb.
From the start, every step is a debate, a negotiation between my body and my brain. My personal determination is steadfast, but that doesn’t necessarily mean this broken amalgamation of shattered bones and hyperextended muscles gives a shit. I stagger onward, limping with the same peculiar gait I witnessed from Eddie just a few hours earlier. If he can push through the pain, then so can I.
Eddie’s persuasive abilities were unlike anything I’ve ever seen—unlike anything humanity has ever seen—and I still managed to conquer them with the power of sheer will.
Is that what it was?
There’s also the chance I developed some immunity over the evening. Maybe having just one exposed nostril made Eddie’s pheromones less effective, or maybe my whole olfactory system was numb from constant abuse. There are dozens of explanations more grounded and logical than the power of love, and before tonight, those grounded explanations were exactly where I’d place my bet.
Now, I’m not so sure.
I focus on Marlo and keep trudging up the mountain, one foot in front of the other.
* * *
The upper lodge is locked, so I break a window to get inside. This likely triggers a silent alarm, but I don’t care. I also don’t care about the shards of glass slicing into me as I climb through, the possibility of more cuts and bruises seeming downright quaint to worry about at this point.
I’ve found myself in the bottom level of a large, two-story structure. This upper building is slightly nicer than the Valley Station, feeling less like a parks building and more like a cozy ski lodge.
“Marlo?” I groan, a sharp pain shooting through my chest as I struggle to put some heft behind the word. I usually have no problem creating volume, but right now the most I can manage is a strained wheeze.
The first place I check is the unloading area, which is empty. It appears the mob down below has finally figured out how to stop the gondolas, because they are no longer running, but this plan came to fruition a little too late. To my relief, the tram we rode up on is parked here at the top of the loop, doors wide open and shattered glass covering the floor.
I stagger back and continue my search, making my way down a dim corridor that’s stuffed to the brim with taxidermy animals in large glass display cases. Coyotes, mountain lions, skunks, and squirrels: they all watch me struggle along with their beady glass eyes. The animals’ expressions are frozen in various states of pantomime, evoking stories of natural life up here on the mountain, but in the dim light I can’t help feeling like each and everyone of them has an ulterior thought tucked away in that hollowed-out head. These propped-up bodies are here for sweet revenge. A room full of corpses who never asked for this, and who now get a front row seat to my downfall.
