Chapter Eighteen

At first, sound returned to him in distorted waves, like a crackling radio signal struggling through heavy static and interference. Though Carlo had no awareness of time and place, he realized his auditory senses were again functioning. Before, there had been only silence behind the black veil that had fallen over him. Now that silence had been altered, albeit subtly, and had transformed unintelligible static from slurred babble to discernable language. He was hearing a distant voice—little more than a soft echo from the bottom of a well—but definitely a human voice, he was sure of it. Carlo strained to listen.

“We’re sorry.” The voice was female, and quite composed. “Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Due to a severe snowstorm, service to several areas has been temporarily interrupted. We apologize for any inconvenience and have technicians working to resolve the problem as quickly as possible. If you need further assistance, please stay on the line or press pound for more options.”

No sight, no other sound, just that same detached female voice.

Through the darkness came the unexpected sensation of taste, but Carlo still had no sense of physical self, so it seemed completely independent of him. For all he knew he was floating in space, unconscious and trapped in some bizarre sleep state. Maybe even dead, he thought. The taste grew stronger, bringing with it an awareness of his mouth, teeth, tongue and throat. He willed his tongue to move, and it did, tasting more. Metallic and familiar, the substance coated his tongue and trickled along the back of his throat like syrup.

Blood, he heard himself say.

No, he—he had only thought the word.

Light flashed before him in quick intervals to create a strobe effect, but within seconds the intervals had grown longer and begun to linger, each burst of light allowing his vision to clear a bit more each time. He blinked repeatedly in the hopes of hurrying the process along, but everything remained slightly out of focus.

The serene voice echoed in his head again. “We’re sorry. Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Due to a severe snowstorm, service to several areas has been temporarily interrupted. We apologize for any inconvenience and have technicians working to resolve the problem as quickly as possible. If you need further assistance, please stay on the line or press pound for more options.”

And then nothing remained but the slow cadence of his breath and an otherwise uncanny silence.

Darkness returned. Had he closed his eyes?

After a few moments his mind began to fill with more thoughts and memories. Disjointed and independent of one another, they trickled through his head like raindrops before eventually merging to form complete phrases and sentences. Carlo remembered his cell phone. Had he attempted to make a call while semi-conscious? He wondered where the phone might be—it had to be nearby—but he had no context in which to frame these thoughts because he still had no clear idea of where he was.

From within the dark void came a clicking sound and another voice. “Operator Assistance.”

“Operator?” His voice this time, but raspy, like he needed to clear his throat.

“Operator Assistance,” the voice said more forcefully. “Is anyone on the line?”

“Operator,” Carlo managed, “I’ve…”

I’ve what?

Another clicking sound was followed by a dial tone.

Carlo forced his eyes open. Light flickered into the void a second time, tiny pinholes of it that gradually expanded to allow more and more illumination in the darkness. Colors and shapes came to him as well, but as before, everything was blurred. He did his best to follow the sound of the dial tone, and eventually located his cell phone a few feet away from him, lying there open.

Though his vision had improved, something else was wrong. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but something was definitely off. He shifted his eyes forward, and with his head still swirling, realized he was looking through some sort of large frame with a smooth surface and a strange configuration just beyond it.

Across his entire plain of vision was static, like snow on a television.

The sensation of pain suddenly joined that of taste, and a stabbing spasm fired through his head, across his temple and down into his jaw. Instinctively, he attempted to bring a hand to his head, and though he was able to do so, the angle was all wrong.

His hand had come from above his head rather than below it.

How could…

I’m hanging.

He wiped his eyes with the same hand, felt a sticky wetness gather between his fingers. His vision cleared a bit more. Crimson stained his hand and the blood taste became stronger. Carlo blinked and squinted until the blurriness sharpened significantly.

I’m…upside down.

Carlo realized he was looking through the blown-out windshield of an SUV at a section of snow-covered pavement. The configuration just past it was a row of trees signaling the start of the forest on that side of the road.

It wasn’t static he was seeing, it was literal snow, still falling, snowflakes blowing about all around him. He could feel them now, along with the blood, wet against his face.

His mind slowly came around. More thoughts formed, and the difference between the here and now and memory was gradually becoming more distinct. His head was clearing, his memories returning, bringing him back to where he was and how he had gotten there.

Carlo tried to move again but this time his body refused to cooperate. The darkness returned, swallowing him and pulling him under. He did not fight the darkness. He chose instead to swim into it, embracing it so he might emerge on the other side where light and coherent thought would set him free of this black hole.

He was cold, so very cold. And all was quiet.

Trapped behind thick black walls, Carlo embraced the temporary sanctuary as memories materialized before him like ribbons unfurled.

James. In the end, this man with whom his best friend had spent years, slept with and held in her arms countless times, with whom she had shared so much, was someone she’d hardly known at all. As Katherine suggested to him on her last visit to his apartment, how well did anyone ever truly know anyone else?

How well do any of us even know ourselves? he wondered.

The darkness seemed fluid now, moving gracefully, slowly. Though Carlo could see nothing but endless waves of black, he knew he was being watched from somewhere nearby. He could feel it.

More memories unraveled before him, old blankets shaken open, the dirt and dust and debris trapped within, exposed.

There had been a child in the road.

He remembered swerving to avoid hitting the child, remembered hanging upside down and being trapped in an SUV—Marcy’s SUV—with blood running down his throat and across his face. And for the first time since the crash, Carlo remembered fear.

Floating away from the darkness, he pushed through the black veils and back into the light.

White. So much white.

From one extreme to the other, he thought.

The SUV had hit a tree, apparently flipped over and skidded back out into the road, where it came to rest in the heavy snow. And now Carlo hung inside it, his head resting against the roof.

Move, he told himself. Move.

He started with something basic: wiggling his fingers. He willed them to move, and they obeyed. Carlo next clenched his hands into fists then released them, performing this again and again until the numbness became pins and needles. Eventually, the blood returned to his hands.

Once he was reasonably certain he’d regained enough strength to effectively maneuver his body, he reached for the frame that had once held the windshield and carefully pulled until his body slid forward toward the opening. Feeling was slowly returning to his lower body as well, spreading across his legs and into his feet. But with sensation came further pain as well, a dull ache that pulsed through him from head to toe.

He slumped and fell a bit, his body now twisted and bent nearly in half, but he’d gotten far enough so that his head protruded from the windshield opening. A burst of snowy air slapped his face. Carlo welcomed it, allowing the cold to put a greater distance between consciousness and the darkness that had consumed him earlier. He gasped in the fresh air, filled his lungs with it then coughed it out. His chest stung, and there was an odd burning sensation in his ribs, but he grabbed the frame again and pulled himself completely free of the vehicle.

He slid through and flopped over into the snow facedown, but was able to get to his hands and knees relatively quickly. His neck ached and his head felt heavy as a cinderblock, so he let it hang, his chin nearly touching his chest as he heaved in another series of deep breaths.

Blood plopped in fat drops to the ground, staining the snow as the horrible sound of the crash—that terribly final sound of impact—echoed in his ears.

Without lifting his head, his eyes panned the area and located the windshield a few feet from the overturned SUV, shattered and spider-webbed but still whole. He could only hope his head hadn’t done all that damage to the glass, but it certainly felt like it had. Pain surged through his skull and fanned down his neck and shoulder blades, joining the array of aches already present in the rest of his body.

Carlo wiped more blood from his eyes then raised his head and attempted a look around. Though still on hands and knees, he was able to make out most of the road up ahead. He stared through the heavy snow until more of the horizon came into focus, and saw the cottages—just snow-draped lumps now—in the distance. He was so close, so close to Katherine.

But then movement from the corner of his eye captured his attention, a subtle movement from above and slightly to his right.

Carlo forced himself up onto his knees and reluctantly lifted his gaze to the snow-draped trees. His vision was still far from perfect, and the heavy snowfall made visibility even worse, but he knew what he was seeing. He blinked rapidly, grappled with what his mind told him could not be, and yet, there it was.

A series of small bodies bound in winter coats, the hoods pulled up over their heads to conceal their faces, sat perched in the trees. Twenty or more were scattered throughout the trees between his position and the lake, and though he could not see their eyes, Carlo knew from the angle of their heads that they were watching him through the snowfall.

He struggled to his feet, knees weak and trembling, eyes wide and mouth agape.

One after the next, the sentinels began to slowly drop from the trees.

Carlo tried to speak, but the words stuck in his throat, any sound muffled by the wind.

Once the small beings had all reached the ground, they moved toward him through the storm in a silent, methodical, and eerily uniform shuffle, arms dangling lifelessly at their sides and bodies perfectly still.

In the distance, something dark broke through the white landscape. Waiting and watching in the road was a person in a knit hat and a long dark overcoat. Though he was too far away for Carlo to make out any facial features, he could tell it was a man.

Just like the lake itself, there is the surface, and there is what lies beneath.

The man advanced toward him with the same otherworldly gait the children possessed, pushing through the deep snow with what appeared to be great effort but progressing nonetheless. In time, unlike the children, Carlo was able to see the man’s face. He had the blackest eyes he’d ever seen, and when he looked into them—even at a distance—he was met with a sense of emptiness and sorrow greater than any he had ever before experience. Every moment of sadness, uncertainty, regret, guilt, shame and fear he’d endured in the course of his life soldiered through him to produce a crushing feeling of utter hopelessness and despair. And yet, even with his mind collapsing, Carlo found himself incapable of looking away.

The children continued to shuffle forward, and the man, still just behind them, extended his arms like a great giant bat, his dark overcoat and black eyes beacons in the whiteout.

By the time Carlo was able to process what he was witnessing, he realized the things playing out before him were neither tricks of the storm nor delusions caused by his injuries. Impossible as he knew it to be, the man was really standing there, a victim of crucifixion nailed to an invisible cross, arms out and head bowed.

As the children continued forward, moving closer, the man’s head suddenly snapped back to again reveal his face.

It had changed.

A scream fought its way to the forefront, through the howling wind and endless mass of snowflakes, a scream remarkably pure in its primordial timbre. A scream of terror absolute, the depth and scope of which human beings were rarely able to produce.

But it wasn’t until the brood of children closed around Carlo, growling like a pack of wild dogs, tiny hands tugging at him and pulling him back down into the snow, that he realized the scream was his own.