“Are you sure?” Jamal asked. Was his voice slightly trembling? It was steady when he spoke again. “How bad do you really want to find out?”
“Jamal,” Marko said, staying just where he was. “It gets so much worse.”
26
—no, they were handprints, negative images, a black gum surrounding the pallor of the stone, so that the hands seemed to glow a little, like the shining of the stars. A certain print seemed to attract her hand magnetically, the left one, and when she laid it there it fit so perfectly there was no edge around it. Her left hand disappeared entirely into darkness, complete as the velvet black of a starless sky; it sank a little way into soft stone.
She lay . . . no, she was standing, but gravity had changed direction, so she felt as if she were lying at her ease and comfortably supported by the wall, and against her cheek she felt a soft rise and fall, as if she’d laid her head upon a living, breathing breast . . .
On the other side of the stone’s vast thickness Julie felt her forearm come free, turning and groping in emptiness, the mystery beyond the stone.
She couldn’t understand how she had said it or how she’d understood what she had said. But she felt a small hand, no larger then her own (but stronger), taking hold of hers. The palm was leathery and warm, with more hair on the back of it than on hers. The other hand began to pull her through the stone.
27
As Marko came over the ledge Jamal got up quickly and scraped the rattling sack of cans to tangle Marko’s feet.
“You little shit!” cried Marko. With his heel he kicked the trash bag behind him, out over the ledge. A moment of silence, then a clatter when it landed somewhere down below.
Jamal took one backward step, reaching under the hem of his windbreaker to draw the pistol from the bottom of his spine. The chrome of it glimmered weakly in the moonlight. It looked small.
“What is this, a fucking cap gun?” Marko said. “You’re not gonna shoot me.”
Julie was looking at Jamal’s back, since he had put himself exactly between her and Marko, and over his shoulder she saw Marko halt and hold both his hands palm-out, leaning a little into his palms, like he was pushing against an invisible wall. At any moment the tilt would bring him lunging forward, through Jamal, toward her.
“Are you sure?” Jamal said. He lowered the barrel, using both hands; the shot, though tinny, splintered rock at Marko’s feet. Marko looked down as if dumbstruck, then backed a couple of steps away.
“Hold on,” he said, as Sonny pulled himself over the ledge behind him, and came from a crouch upright.
“Jamal,” said Sonny. “Don’t—” He turned slightly and caught Marko by the elbow. “Man, it’s not worth it. Let’s just go.”
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“What is this, a fucking cap gun?” Marko said. “Nah, Jamal—you’re not gonna shoot me.”
“What would you bet on it?” Jamal raised his left hand to support the pistol, bending his knees slightly; his upper body framed a triangle, with the barrel at the point. Marko kept on leaning forward, as if pushing against an invisible wall, and then he broke through it, roaring, lunging through Jamal toward Julie—the gun made two inconsequential pops and Jamal skipped aside, since Marko wasn’t stopping. Julie edged away, but slowly, like she was pulling her feet out of paste. Behind her she felt the slit of the cave’s opening, as if it had already taken her in.
Marko fell face-down at Julie’s feet. Fluid seeped out from his torso, spreading on the stone beneath him, slow as maple syrup in the moonlight. Julie clapped both hands over her mouth, to clamp off screams and the urge to puke. Where was Karyn? She wished she’d really spent the night at Karyn’s. She wished they both were still ten years old, whispering and scattering cracker crumbs beneath the sheets of a shared bed.
Then Sonny pulled himself over the ledge.
“Jamal,” he said, as he brought himself from a crouch to his feet. “What did you do?”
“What would you do?” Jamal raised the gun barrel bolt upright, pointing at the moon, and for a moment Julie wondered if he’d turn it on himself. Sonny’s eyes went from Jamal to the blood that purled from Marko’s body, then back to Jamal again.
“Jesus,” Sonny said. “It looks like a goddamn starter pistol.”
“Not much knockdown to it,” Jamal said. “But it’ll kill you just the same.” He aimed the pistol at Sonny, bracing it as he had before. “Three shots left.”
29
Let me come out of this rock.
She couldn’t understand how she had said it or how she’d understood what she had said. Through joined hands she and she were balanced on a cusp and the wall of stone was no more than the finest membrane between them. For a moment they spun around in a slow orbit on the axis of the hand clasp. Then Julie felt herself pushing through, or the membrane was shaping itself to accommodate her, like a glove turning itself outside in. Or herself, with the other hand inverting to fit itself perfectly over her own, the whole other skin stretching over her flesh, her bones, her re-forming body.
Now the stone wall was behind her and she stood on the ledge before the rock shelter, her face in the wind, looking out through astonished eyes of the other, into another world.
30
Jamal threw himself in Marko’s way, and Marko backhanded him aside, swatting him off like a mosquito—Jamal flew off, tumbling as he landed, rolling into a crack of the rock shelter. Julie had no time to wonder if he was hurt, hurt badly or not, because now there was nothing between her and Marko, and nowhere to go but the cave.
She had to stoop, turning sideways to get into it. The edges of rock pressed into her clammily, and she thought, with a half-hysterical hiccup, of spiders, snakes—but Marko was roaring outside the opening, thrusting his heavy arm and stubby fingers after her. She had to—had to go further in. And what if her life ended just like this, like a kernel stuck in the whorls of a nut? The passage tightened as it turned, stone scraping the vinyl between her shoulder blades; she heard a couple more studs tear free and patter down.
Then something gave, or softened rather. The texture of the passage changed, still pressing her on all sides but rubbery now, as warm as flesh, and pulsing. Tripping, tripping—her heart tripped in her mouth—she could hope the whole thing was just a weird trip, if they had cut the molly with acid, like Jamal had said.
If she hadn’t drunk that water. If she had. Her head thrust tighter and tighter into the clasping walls of the passage, then finally, dizzyingly, broke free. She was falling into a cool breezy space, with no direction and no gravity, as if she were falling asleep.
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