Twenty-One
Just before dawn I heard something in
the hall outside. I slipped out of bed and tiptoed across the room. In the
hallway light that leaked under our door, I could see it: a folded piece of
note paper. I knew immediately who it was from. I flicked on the light and read
it quickly. Harriet stirred in bed, looked over at me.
“Vickie …? What’s …?”
“Oh, no!” I cried. The page fluttered to the floor. I hurried to my
clothes, threw them on, pulled aside the window drape and looked outside.
I saw Gil, shuffling across the road.
Heading for the Niagara River.
I ran out into the hall, found the elevator,
then decided it would be quicker to take the stairs. I raced down them and
hurried out into the dawn. I could see Gil, already across the parkway, moving
steadily toward the river.
“Gil!” I cried.
He hesitated, just a step, but did
not turn around. He knew who had called, I was sure of it.
When he reached the edge of the
river, he turned to face me. I was running as fast as I could, crying his name
aloud. As I got closer, I could see a small smile on his face. He slowly
stretched out his arms, as if reaching for something on either side of him. And
then he let himself fall backwards into the raging river. Which swept him away.
“No!” I screamed as I reached the
spot. I could see Gil out in the river, heading rapidly for the Falls, on his
back, his arms still stretched outward. And he was smiling … smiling.
I felt a palm in my back, a shove,
and, suddenly, I was in the frigid waters, too, being swept swiftly along, like
a bird in a high wind. I wrenched my head round to look back toward the shore,
and I saw Blue Boyle laughing.
But he didn’t laugh for long. Running
up behind him was a huge creature—he had to be seven or eight feet tall. Dressed
in rags. It looked human … but not,
too. Humanoid. With a flick of his
wrist he sent Boyle soaring out into the river. I could hear his terrified cry
just before he hit the water. And then that creature dived in and began
swimming furiously toward me. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw
another person dive in, too, a little closer to the Falls. Mr. Leon?
By then I was in almost a trance.
The frigid water—I’d swallowed a lot of it—the certain death roaring ahead of
me—I had surrendered. I was calm. No longer worried. Oddly, I wondered if I
would drown first or be smashed on the rocks below the Falls. It didn’t seem to
make a difference.
And then the creature reached me. I told you to watch! he said as he
grabbed me by the waist with his two enormous hands, raised me out of the
water, and, in an act of superhuman strength, hurled me to the shore only
heartbeats before he and Blue Boyle hurtled over the edge of American Falls,
where they would join Gil and Mr. Leon, certainly crushed now by the tons of
water colliding with the mountainous rocks below.
I lay gasping on the shore, both
from amount of river water I’d swallowed and from hitting the ground so hard. I
felt familiar arms around me, heard the sweet voice of my dearest friend.
“Vickie! You’re safe.” And then I
heard Harriet weeping.
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