Kelan lay still. He wanted to jump up and down in celebration, but his unease tempered him. He was certain he had sensed something. It was as if the fat globe in the sky had been a mask, the man behind it not a man at all but a creature ready to devour him.
He unbuckled his boots and got to his feet. His head was still dreamy, that hot soup flowing through him even now. He steadied himself, and as he grabbed his snowboard his gaze drifted across the creek. A wee grin crept along his face.
He leapt up with a shout and pumped the air with a triumphant fist. He found Bobby standing on the crest of the slope and waved frantically. He was bursting. “Did you see? Did you see?”
Bobby nodded. For the first time, he offered a small smile.
Kelan’s heart sank. He had spent months dreaming of this day, but had never given a second thought to its aftermath. Not a first, even.
How was he going to get back?
He moved to the water and found the din frightening. The creek sounded hungry. It was crazy, but it seemed to sense his presence, growing more menacing with every beat of his heart. Old man Krieger was right. The Run was alive.
Despite its weather and wear, the crosstie seemed sound. There had been a wide swath of four ties years ago, but time and rot had taken three of them. Kelan extended his goofy foot and tapped the beam. Tapped it harder. It didn’t budge.
He took the first step. The narrow bridge held, and he used his snowboard for balance as he worked his way out to the middle. He told himself not to look down, but the rush of the icy water caught his eye, and he lost his footing. Only dumb luck kept him from falling, and his heart rolled back in his chest. He settled a moment, and then risked another step.
The crosstie gave behind him. It broke from the bank and slid down, lodging itself on a rock. The impact jarred him from the beam, and he screamed.
They were right. Krieger, Mom, and most of all, Eric. He was going to die, horribly so, and so he closed his eyes tight, bracing for the creek’s ice-cold fangs to rip into him.
But no.
Something snatched him. It snared him by the wrist, and before he opened one eye, then the other, he was upright, standing on the beam. Bobby was there, holding him, and how the kid had managed to move down the hill so quickly mystified Kelan. Still, he was so thrilled to be alive that it didn’t matter. His new friend had saved him.
Maybe you are dreaming, he thought. Maybe none of this is real, and when you wake up you’ll still be a nobody. A chicken-shit freak.
Bobby led him across, and Kelan breathed a sigh of relief when he stepped onto the bank. He looked up. The oak stood like a monster, its scraggly limbs more like legs of a giant spider. He feared it might spring to life and snare him with those clawlike branches. And when a limb did reach down, his heart skipped.
Everything’s aces, the kid told him. See?
Kelan’s jaw slipped open. The limb crept toward him, and without knowing why—just knowing that he should—he extended his hand and plucked a stiff branch from it. The branch pricked him through the palm of his glove, but the discomfort was fleeting. That odd warmth swept through him again, and he held the branch tight. Suddenly it seemed the most important thing in the world, the most dear, and before his next breath, he found himself standing at the top of the slope. Somehow, he was.
Bobby was there, seemingly spinning. The world was. And before Kelan knew it, he was slipping off his glove, unable to fathom why. He simply did, burning with expectation.
A small wound bled in the middle of his palm.
It’s kinda green, he said, examining the strange, dark blood. Incredibly, the words leapt from his mind, not from his lips. Somehow, Bobby could hear him. It was all so strange. All so wonderful.
Come and play, Kay. Come and play.
Kelan tried to speak, but could only sigh as the warmth in his palm worked its way into him. It tingled, almost tickled, and he grew faint as the fluid coursed through his body. He shivered once as it claimed him, just once, and let himself drift in the current that swept him up. He tried to resist yet found it impossible, and so Bobby led and he followed, to a place far from where they were, to a world of wonder … and for a time, he forgot that this one ever existed.