The Hike (13 page)

“Holy shit, dude,” Tony said.

And then they cracked up again.

Back at the Watts house, they performed an easily detectable bit of alchemy, pouring a small amount of vodka and cognac into the
schnapps bottle and then pouring some rum into the cognac to make sure everything came out even, and then carefully replacing the all the bottles where they found them.

They were too full of adrenaline to sleep. They needed a few rounds of Nintendo for a cooldown period.

“Dude, I'd bang Jenny McDowell so hard,” Tony said, mashing his controller.

“Me, too.”

“How many thrusts you think you'd last?”

“Two.”

“No way, dude. Not a chance. I wouldn't even get a thrust in. I'd just be
near
her, and then
thppppppppp. . . .”

“Give yourself more credit.”

“And what about Tina Hansen? Oh, my God, dude. Tina Hansen, dude.”

Ben laughed as the two basked in their collective triumph. They had boozed and blown stuff up and no one had caught them doing it. They had pulled it off.

Or had they? That's not really what happened that night, was it? You didn't get away. Quite the contrary. Remember? On that night, you two ran between the houses and past a Rottweiler on a chain, and then Tony screamed at it for kicks. Turned out the chain gave that dog a considerable amount of slack. So it jumped up and bit your face off. That's what happened. The animal pounced on you and mauled you, digging into your lower eyelid and ripping straight down. And you begged the dog to stop, praying it could understand your commands. You were screaming for mercy at the top of your lungs, and yet Tony didn't help at all. No, Tony kept running. In fact, Tony ran away even faster because he was scared the dog would attack him as well. Then the cops burst into the yard and shot that dog dead.

That's what happened. Remember now? You could feel your face being torn away until there was a loud POP and the Rottweiler slumped down on top of you, dead and bleeding. Remember how it filled your nose with its last few hot breaths? Next thing you knew, you were inside an ambulance, blind in one eye, the paramedics openly discussing whether or not you'd ever see out of the bad eye again. After the fact, the doctors told you that if you had arrived at the hospital ten minutes later than you did, they wouldn't have been able to save it. Ninety-seven stitches. They threaded ninety-seven coarse black stitches through you. Remember how prickly they felt? Your face was a cactus for five days.

The cops got Tony, too. They tracked him down and delivered him back to a very angry Mrs. Watts, who pulled Tony out of school the next Monday. Then the police cornered you in your hospital bed, asking you about the flowers, and about how much you had to drink. And they didn't give a shit about your face being ripped off either, because cops are dicks. There were gonna be lawsuits: against the Watts family, and perhaps against the police for killing the dog. You never saw Tony again after that, remember? That was the last night you two ever hung out together. That happened, didn't it? Wasn't that how it all went down? Wasn't this . . .

Ben woke up in the massive tent library, his teeth clenched tight. He felt his face and drew his finger along his scar, which still remained. Next to his bed, he saw a half-drained bottle of peach schnapps.

T
hat wasn't all. High up among the stacked shelves of ancient volumes that lined the walls, one faded book was sticking out, the kind you might yank on to reveal a secret passageway. Ben got out of bed—he felt oddly hungover—and walked over to the shelf. There was an old wooden ladder, mounted to a top rail, that slid back and forth across the stacks, so you could reach the highest shelves. He pulled it over and climbed up to retrieve the book:

Dr. Abigail Blackwell's Gallery of the Curiously Undead.

“Mrs. Blackwell?”

The tome was in rough condition—the pages tattered to the point of falling apart. But there was one page that was dog-eared. The spine cracked open to the marked page naturally, as if the book had been resting open on it for years and years.

It was a reference section, divided into categories: Lords, Sentients, Brainless, etc. He read through some of the descriptions on the page:

Regenerators—
Normal-looking humans who have the ability to grow back anything that's been chopped off, including their heads. Cannibalistic.

Smokes—
Small black clouds that have bright white eyes. Can roll over a man and asphyxiate him to death with their poisonous ash. Mute but highly intelligent.

The Skinless—
Zombies who appear as skinless human beings. Deaf. Blind. Turn the living skinless merely by touching them.

Jellies—
Gelatinous organisms that aim to absorb and smother.

Head Spiders—
Spiders that possess human heads in the middle instead of a body. Possess a poisonous bite that causes paralysis. Once paralyzed, they slowly devour the body until only the head is left, which then sprouts spider legs. Brainless.

Mouth Demons—
Vile creatures with multiple mouths all over their bodies. One bite from a Mouth Demon causes a mouth to grow where the wound once was. Brainless.

Each entry included strategies for killing the creatures involved, but here the text grew faded and illegible at certain points. He could make out only some of the defense techniques. Regenerators, the tome said, could be killed only with fire. The Skinless could only be killed by throwing salt on them. The Jellies were vulnerable to hot liquids, even plain hot water. And the Head Spiders had to be stabbed, or doused in a mix of “thyme and gingerroot and monkfish liver oil.” Stabbing seemed easier. Mouth Demons needed their mouths filled with something, but the ink disappeared before Ben could figure out what that something was.

But the entry that really caught Ben's attention was the description of a creature named Voris.

Lord. Eyes are pitch black, save for the pupils, which Voris can use to shine a light bright enough to burn through virtually
any living being. Winged. Bloodless, but possesses skin so hot to the touch that it can cause victims to burst into flames. Will kill or possess any human who gets in his way.

I just saw something that had wings come out of that castle.

The only way to kill Voris, the book said, was to kill him in his sleep by feeding him a “glowing solution.” A poison. Ben looked at the ingredients:

• Curry powder
  
• The dead tissue of another undead being
  
• The dead, stewed tissue of a human
  

The next ingredient on the list was illegible, but the final element of the poison was not:

A drop or two of peach schnapps.

Ben dropped the book onto the floor.

“Oh, God.”

He knew a place where he could find curry powder. He knew a place where he could find the dead, stewed tissue of a human. He knew exactly where he needed to go, and he remembered the seed bag and the hint Crab gave before deserting him:

She's only ever eaten humans.

 • • • 

Back to Fermona's mountain he went, with the book and the tent tucked neatly into his bag. There was one merciful part to retracing his footsteps: The mirage of his house was now gone. He didn't have to watch Peter spraying the lawn in his jammies and drenching his own shoes,
laughing gaily all the while. Whoever put him on the path had spared him that torture, and for that he was grateful.

As he reached the mouth of the cave, he realized that he hadn't seen the split in the road where Crab had left him. The other path was gone now.

He walked briskly into the mountain, through the corridor. This would not be his last time inside Fermona's cave. Not at all. He would have to come back once more. Three times in here, with the torchlight and the musty floors and the smell of simmering human bones. Three times was too many. He took one of the seeds out of his small leather pouch and pocketed it.

She was sitting on her pile, filing her nails. Ben could see the sloughed-off bits snowing down to the floor. The cauldron bubbled. Her eyebrows went up at the sight of Ben. As she stood, her mammoth shadow swept over the chamber like a storm system.

“Oh really,” she said. “You again?”

“I need you to do me a favor,” Ben told her.

“A favor? HA! Bring back my livestock and then I'll do you a favor, you poacher.”

“I won't do that, but I will make a trade.”

“What is it that you need from me?”

“Some of that stew you made.”

“Ooh, you wanna try it now!”

“No. I don't want to try it. I need it.”

“Well, I need it, too. You've left my cupboards bare.”

“I don't need much.”

She crossed her arms and tapped her enormous foot, considering it. “Very well.”

She bounded deep into her dungeon and returned with a clay pot
the size of a steamer trunk. She set it before Ben, and then grabbed a ladle the size of a shovel from the cauldron and began dumping the stew into the massive pot. The curry powder in the stew smelled good, which frightened him.

“I don't suppose you have a smaller vessel for it,” Ben said.

“Oh, the pot gives it flavor. You store humans in it long enough, and it seasons the clay. That's the secret.”

“I didn't need to know that.”

“Don't be such a prude about it.”

Ben took a pickle jar out of his bag and dumped the pickles into the bonfire, then held the jar out for her.

“That's all you need? A pint?” Fermona asked.

“Yes.”

“Oh.” She let a couple of drops from the ladle fall into the pickle jar, spattering Ben's hand and burning him.

“Sorry,” she said. She seemed to mean it. “Let me get a towel to . . .”

“It's fine,” Ben said curtly. He added a couple of drops of the schnapps to the jar. Three ingredients down, two to go.

“Hey!” she said. “You're messing with the flavor profiles.”

“It's not for me.”

“Where's that crab you were hanging out with? Your little accomplice.”

“He had to go ahead.”

“Where?”

“Back home to Maryland, where my family lives.”

She licked her lips. “More humans? Are they nice and fat and fleshy and well confined?”

“Don't get any ideas.”

“You owe me more food. Why, this cauldron will only last me the
month! And what then? I'll have to go down the mountain and cook up old parts. You know how long it takes to get those parts tender? You said you were here to make a trade. You better produce something.”

He dug into his backpack and held out a can of tomatoes. Fermona stomped her foot and fumed at him.

“I gave you those from my pile, you little weasel!”

Meat. It needs to be meat.
Ben panicked and scoured through the bag as the giant grew more impatient and angry. Suddenly, he spotted one of the old packages of hot dogs he found at Annie Derrickson's campsite. He held it up for Fermona.

“What are those?” she asked.

“You ever eaten cow?”

“I have not.”

“These are sausages made from cow,” Ben told her. “They're very good. I eat them myself.”

“If it's not people, I don't want it.”

“You know what? I don't think you've ever tried any food that wasn't people.”

“I have so!”

“Okay. What was it then?”

She paused for a moment, thinking. “Well, the stew has coconut milk in it.”

“That doesn't count. I don't even think you
like
eating people all that much. You said it yourself: They're hairy.”

“I'm not eating your weird cow tubes, dear. They don't look natural.”

He held out the pack. “They're hair free. Just try expanding your palate for once. I have children who are picky eaters, like you. And we don't make them eat anything they don't want to. But we do ask that they at least try a bite before they say no. Just one bite.”

“Just one, eh? These better not be poisoned.”

“They're not. I mean, they have nitrates in them, which aren't great but . . . You know what? I've probably said too much. They're fine.”

“And you promise you won't come back here with that stupid gun of yours?”

“I swear it,” he lied.

She grabbed the package.

“Take the plastic off first,” he told her.

She ripped open the little package of franks with her fingernail and the water inside dripped onto her foot.

“Ew! There's water in this!”

“I'm sorry about that. Hot dogs are always packaged with a bit of water.”

“These are made of dog?”

“That's just an expression.”

She tried one. A second later, the whole package was gone. She held her hand out. “More.”

“Oh, you like them?”

“More. More more more.”

“I have more in my bag.”

“Then gimme the bag,” she said.

“I'm keeping the bag.”

“I want the bag.”

“Stay where you are.”

“Bossing me around in my own cave? I won't have it!”

She started walking toward Ben. He quickly reached into his pocket. When he slammed the seed on the ground, he saw a tranquilizer gun with a note taped to it.

SHOOT YOURSELF.

Fermona closed in.

“I've been too nice to you. I think I'll take your magic food bag, and then eat you anyway.”

Ben grabbed the tranquilizer gun, turned it on himself, and aimed it at the meaty part of his thigh. Fermona was so baffled that she paused for a moment.

“Hey, what are you doing with that?”

He squeezed the trigger and the dart from the gun hissed into his leg, stinging him. Now he doubled over and grasped at his thigh as the skin around the puncture wound began to swell. Suddenly, he felt full, like he had just swallowed a hippo. His fingers began to elongate. The hair on his head unspooled, as if released from a kite reel. He could feel his arteries dilating, his limbs growing thick and long. The swelling on his thigh metastasized throughout his body, as if an army of wasps had descended upon him and stung every square inch of his body. His liver swelled. His head swelled. His genitals swelled. He grew and grew and grew until the floor beneath him had shrunk down considerably.

When he stood back up, he was twenty-six feet tall, his clothing and his bag growing with him. Fermona stared at him in wonder.

“Goodness gracious!” she cried.

“I think I'm still shorter than you,” Ben said, dazed.

“HA!”

There was no more time to recover from the shock of his transformation. He dug into his bag and took out the real gun, now large enough to mount on a battleship.

Fermona backed away. “This has all been a terrible misunderstanding. . . .”

“I'll give you the hot dogs, but I need to rummage through that big pile of yours in return.”

“Only if you promise to never come back here. Do you promise?”

Now, Ben wasn't much of a liar. He had neither the creativity nor
the energy to lie. He didn't even like playing pranks, because keeping the lie up wore him down so quickly. Tony Watts could lie his face off, especially when he had to tell the police that no, he had never provoked that dog. Ben wasn't skilled enough to lie like that.

But that was before all this, before the path kidnapped and coarsened him.
Much easier to lie in a world that doesn't seem real to begin with. Maybe Crab was wrong. Maybe his path won't be exactly the same as yours. Maybe you never have to come back here. Yeah, that's it. That's not out of the realm of possibility.

“I promise,” he told her.

“Good. Now make with the cow tubes.”

Ben grabbed the second hot dog package from his bag and tossed it at Fermona's feet. They were the size of logs now. She clapped her hands in joy, like a child.

“Take anything you want,” she said, “and then go away.”

Ben knelt down by the pile and rooted around, grabbing more packaged food that the giant had ignored, along with bags of sand and iodized salt, now as small to him as beanbags. As he scavenged, Fermona guzzled some extra stew from the clay pot. He could hear her smacking her lips, moaning with satisfaction, spitting out the occasional stray bone. He was nearly ready to retch on her carpet again when she stopped feasting and called out, “I'm finished!”

He turned around. Fermona was wiping the sides of her mouth with a dress strap.

“You missed out on a good batch,” she said.

“I'll take your word for it.”

He grabbed two torches off the wall and snuffed them out.

“Hey!” she cried. “I only said you could take from the pile.”

“You said I could take anything I wanted. I want these.”

“Bah! You'll clean me out of house and home if I let you. Just like a giant to think he can do whatever he pleases.”

“I'm finished. I swear.”

“Then get out.”

“One more question . . .”

“Going back on your word already, eh?”