The meadow fell away and dropped toward the darkness of Coombs’ Gulch. The clouds darkened with the setting sun. The clouds were heavy now; the smell of snow suffused the air once again. The trees were black and appeared to shift and move with an unseen presence rippling in the shadows. Before him, the forest seemed to twist itself into a strange and horrifying grimace like a child’s Halloween mask – a ghastly pantomime of life. The mouth opened wide for him, swallowed him down into the Gulch.
He reached the point of exhaustion. The terrain was now too steep and rocky to run, the trees and underbrush seemingly impenetrable. He slipped on roots underfoot; branches slashed his face, and rock outcroppings left ten-foot drops that could break his legs, leave him crippled and dying in the wild. He careened off a tree and slid to a stop. The forest turned like a kaleidoscope, silent and fractured into a million pieces. He felt it crawling over his body, like an army of ants roaming beneath his skin. The entire mountain pulsed with an unseen force, which was finally pulling back the veil, making itself known.
Jonathan found his footing and began to move as quickly as he could, sliding, falling down the slopes he and the Braddick brothers had climbed just two days before. He struggled for a grip in the snow. He tried to calculate in his mind the fastest route back to the cabin. He wondered whether Daryl Teague had left Conner’s Suburban there as he promised. He feared what would happen when he called the authorities, the story he would have to tell. But most of all, he feared for his son and feared it was already too late.
Snow began to fall, softly floating to the forest floor between the leafless crowns of trees that grabbed at the sky. He caught glimpses of the eastern ridge of mountains; they seemed to dance and sway with the pounding of his heart. He remembered what Daryl Teague told them about the Gulch: the mountains were like mirrors of themselves. People got lost, thought one direction was the other. He wondered for a moment if another man now stumbled and fell toward his doomed destiny in Coombs’ Gulch on the opposite mountain.
The trees were a maze. The undergrowth was stripped of its leaves, its remains like fossilized bones against the snow.
He now realized the distance he had yet to cover, and suddenly began to wonder if it was all futile, doubt reaching up and gripping his heart. He could practically kill himself trying to get back home through the Gulch, but what difference would it make at this point? He was like the buck who, startled at the piercing thundercrack of a gunshot, runs and bounds through the forest as his life pours from the hole in his side. Jonathan had so much farther to go, so little light left to find his way. He stared at the eastern mountains and tried to scream the way Mary had screamed with all that pain and loss, but his dry throat cracked and it came out as only a whisper. He had no voice now. The only thing left was a heartbeat, moving arms and legs, and a mind slowly spiraling into the abyss.
He clasped trees to keep from falling on his downward slide. He constantly turned his head to scan the forest behind him like a paranoiac, but there was nothing. He listened to the blood pumping through his veins and secretly hoped some malady would suddenly stop his heart and give him an easy excuse to bow out forever. But it didn’t happen. He had a debt to pay and there was no escaping it.
Time stood still. The slope was endless, plunging deeper than he could remember until the mountain peaks disappeared from view. It was like burrowing beneath the Earth’s crust. The air grew dark; walls closed in. The trees were everywhere, endless. It seemed like an illusion, but he knew if he reached his hand out, his fingers would find purchase. It was like being led through a hall of mirrors. He thought of his bachelor party night in that strip club nestled in the looming hills, when the doe-eyed girl had taken his hand and led him to the back rooms. He remembered the image of himself walking with her hand in hand to that dark place. He remembered wondering whom he was looking at – a pathetic stranger, more alone in the world for taking this stage girl as a prize. What had she whispered to him in those moments? In the dark, with the flashing lights? Had she changed forms momentarily? His animal prey, splayed open and hollow to the cold, empty world, had whispered in his ear.
Now, in the mirror of the trees, he looked to his side and saw he was not alone. She walked with him. Every step, every movement mimicked his own. She was dressed the same as that night in the strip club – a line of cheap fabric arching over her rounded hips, which seemed to glow faintly in the dusk; her breasts were tanned and rippled slightly with each light step. Her dark hair fell like a deep stream and brushed thin shoulders. He watched her, and she watched him. He continued his downward trek into the Gulch, and she moved with him. He stopped and she stopped. He turned to face her, and they stared into each other’s eyes. She seemed so far off, yet, like a fever dream, she was close enough to touch. He could make out every detail of her. Like a mirror she moved perfectly with him; like a mirror, it was not real. There was no soul, no life.
He looked away from her and turned to the narrow slope. Root systems gripped massive stones and held them. He turned to look at her again, but she was gone.
Instead,
