Chapter Thirty
The howling wind shook the small car. Jane had never been so aware of so many small things at once. The faint sounds of the idling car's engine, the hum of the heater fan. The hiss of the snow blowing outside, and the rhythmic slap of the cars wipers. The barrel of the small pistol wavered in Jane's wide eyes, giving her an almost comical, cross-eyed look, if anybody in the car had been in a laughing mood.
Jane's lean body trembled. Her weary mind grappled with the conflicting emotions. Her close, intense friendship with Daria had supported her through all the weirdness. Shock after shock had beaten at her normally stoic spirit. Other than her brother, Trent, and her high school art teacher, Ms. Defoe, Jane had cared about few people. But Daria was the one, the one person who clicked into her life, giving them such a close relationship that even they had never understood it.
Even in the blowing snow she had been sweating. In the heat of the small car she stank of smoke and sweat, with her black hair plastered limply across her forehead. Her body trembled in nervous reaction. She wanted to just break down and cry, but she held grimly to her purpose, knowing there wasn't any time left to lose.
She gulped, knowing any sign of violence might get her killed by the nervous, frightened man holding the gun to her face. Jane was seldom a diplomatic or even sympathetic person, but she rallied herself.
"Ah, Mr. Smits? Um, Mayor Smits? Um, please? I uh, need your help, please!"
In a quavering, almost falsetto voice, Smits replied suspiciously "What?"
"Please, my best friend, my only friend, is in real trouble, and I have to help her. I know her mother Helen really, uh, really attacked you at that press conference, but they all really need your help now. I think, something is killing them in their house, I don't know what, but it's really bad!"
Looking at Smits pale, round, face, Jane saw confusion and fear chasing each other across it in waves. Jane wanted to just scream, attack this weak man, drive to Daria's, but held herself in check. She needed his help.
"Sir, please, just drive me over to their house. If I'm wrong, if they're okay, you can throw me in jail. I'll say I attacked you, but please just, please, let me help my friend!"
It was the sheer passionate desperation in her voice that seemed to convince him. He stared closely at her shaking form for a long minute, then, very slowly replaced his small pistol inside his jacket pocket. Still looking over at her out of the corner of his eye, he said."All right, but, where exactly do they live?"
Jane, her voice still shaking from her emotional storm, said "Just straight up this street. 1111 Glen Oaks Lane, it's a two story, red brick house."
She sank back into the seat, then realized he was just staring at her.
"What is it?"
"Miss, you need to put on your seat belt."
Jane stared at him, saw he was serious, and slowly buckled herself in.
Smits, satisfied, started to drive.
Jane stared out the side window, listening to the steady clanking of the snow chains on the car as it crawled up the street. Smits glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, but concentrated on his driving. Jane knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the things she had seen were real, not a dream or hallucination. She doubted that Smit's would even go in the house with her. She despised politicians, like many Americans' did, but was suddenly glad that at least one person might know what had happened to her that night, even if it were a total stranger like this man.
The lightless houses on either side of the street crawled by the slowly moving car. The blinding snow, the total darkness made everything seem to be unreal. It was almost a shock when Daria's house seemed to appear out of the swirling snow. Smit's pulled up to the curb, leaving the engine running. The snow-covered mounds of the Morgendorffer's cars, Jake's blue Lexus, and Helen's big red SUV, were barely visible in the driveway, parked as usual outside.
Like the other houses, the lights were all out. The blowing snow made it hard to see, but the house appeared to be intact, no broken windows, no forced doors.
Of course, Jane thought, those things just walked through the walls at home. What if they are here? Do I burn Daria's house down too? As a defense that leaves a bit to be desired. How would Daria put it? "Another such victory will leave me undone?" Some Greek king said that, I think she said once.
Jane stared at the door handle.
What am I going to do? I, I really don't want to die today. I want to live! I want to go to college, I want to have friends and lovers, live my life! But, If I don't go inside, I'll lose Daria, I'll lose my first real . . . friend. Damm it, Daria! Why are things so hard to understand!
Staring out the windowJane almost saw Daria standing there, her face slowly twisting into what both girls had called her "Mona Lisa" smile. That calm, quiet smile, that Jane had seen so seldom, only when everything was going right for her, that she was on top of the world, and feeling fine.
Well, my "Freaking Friend, " Jane Lane is coming to the rescue! You still owe me that tour of Raft University you promised me, anyway. I want to see you smirk at me just one more time.
Still, opening the car door was one of the hardest things she had ever doneTo her surprise, the sound was echoed on the other side of the car, and the howling wind filled the small vehicle with a cloud of snow crystals that momentarily blinded her. She stared at the stout figure of the mayor as he stood there, visible shaking, on the other side of the car.His teeth were chattering, but he plowed resolutely through the deep snow to the curbside of the car where Jane was standing. Jane looked at him, and incredibly, he blushed, and looked down at his feet, almost like a child, not meeting her eyes.
"I, well, I couldn't let you go in there alone, I'm afraid, I'm sorry, Miss, uh?"
"Lane, Jane. I mean, my name's Jane, Jane Lane."
"Well, Miss Lane, let's check on your friend."
Side by side, the two unlikely companions turned and stared at the Morgendorffer house. The house was barely visible, even this close. The front yard was buried under drifts of deep, powdery snow, hiding the path to the front door. The snow shifted slowly, almost as if the drifts were a great beast, slowly breathing. Columns of ice crystals danced on top of the snow, almost like the ones which had yielded the small army which had attacked Jane's home earlier.
Jane stiffened. An eerie whitish light glowed out of one of the upstairs windows, on the far left of the front of the house. A frequent visitor to the Morgendorffer home, Jane knew it was Quinn's bedroom. The light shone coldly, vaguely resembling the dancing curtains of the Northern Lights she had once seen in a National Geographic magazine.
Jane shuddered, then awkwardly moved through the deep snow to the front door. She and Smits waded through the drifts slipping and falling until they finally thumped against the thick wood of the door. Jane reached out to try the doorknob, and to her surprise, it crumbled in her gloved hand, sifting away to a fine powder. Even after what she had already gone through that night, she stared at her empty hand in disbelief, slowly shaking her head. What could do that to metal? The sheer cold surrounding her provided its own answer.
Besides her, Smits looked at Jane's white face. Looking ahead at the door, he laid the gloved palm of his hand against the door, and to their surprise, it swung slowly open. A blast of a pure, almost liquid cold poured of the house, undiluted by the wind outside. It was like being drowned. Jane and the mayor were driven to their knees by the raw power of it.
Jane recovered first, though she felt that her skin, even her eyes would freeze solid. As she forced her eyes open and looked around her, she gasped with first pain, and then, awe. The familiar living room and stairs to the second floor were sparkling with frost. The walls and ceiling seemed to fall away from her, vanishing into the sky, until Jane thought she was alone, standing on an endless field of ice.
Stars shone steadily in the black sky above her. Small pale lights glowed dimly in the distance. Looking down, she saw only a loose covering of snow covering the ice field, along with . . .
Oh, no . . . Jane thought, Please . . .
She reached down, and gently brushed away the snow from a bump in the ice, only to see the face of Jake Morgendorffer, Daria's father. The ice was crystal clear, and Jane saw bodies as far as she could see, trapped under her.
"Miss Lane? Are you all right?"
Smits touch brought Jane back into the living room. He stared at her in concern.
"I'm sorry, Miss Lane, but you disappeared for a minute, right in front of me! When I stepped forward to look for you, you suddenly reappeared! What happened to you?"
Jane stammered, "I, I don't know, I was in some other place, with people frozen under the ice, and, never mind! Let's just find Daria! I'm close to going crazy right now."
Smits nodded, and they moved carefully into the house, walking lightly, staring nervously around them. Ice crystals frozen into the carpet crunched under each step. Jane couldn't shake the illusion that kept nibbling at her mind, that she was advancing into something different, that this was no longer just a friends home, but something quite removed from a house.
They stopped at the base of the stairs, and looked upward. The horizon retreated from them, the stairway seeming to go on for eternity, through the star filled sky. She gripped Smits hand fiercely. He didn't see what she did, he kept her grounded. Jane focused her attention directly ahead of her.
I just need to walk up the stairs, turn to the left, and down the hall to Daria's room, that's all I have to do. I've done it lots of times. Just find Daria, walk down the stairs and out the door. Don't think about anything else, just think about doing this. Find Daria, take her to the hospital, nothing else.
Jane saw a white shining mist pouring down the stairwell. She gasped in the frigid cold, even
worse than what she faced outside. As she placed her foot on the first step, two things happened. Smits vanished. As she grabbed futilely for him, the whole house abruptly trembled. She grabbed at the railing, then gaped as slowly, majestically, the room started to revolve around the stairwell she was standing on.
Jane sank to her knees, breathing heavily. Closing her eyes was the only thing that helped her with the nausea that had overcome her. She gulped several times, then placing the palms of her gloved hands firmly on the ice crusted carpeting covering the stairs, she slowly climbed upward.
The stairs stretched on and on, up and up. Jane had walked up these same stairs' hundreds of times before, hardly even noticing them as she did so. Now, eyes closed, she could swear that she was climbing Mt. Everest. The sparkling mist burned her exposed face like the fire from a sparkler.
Jane decided to chance a look. She struggled a long painful moment, at first afraid that her eyes had frozen shut. Then they popped open almost with a snap, her vision was blurry at first, then cleared, and Jane gasped, at first in stark terror, and then, a quiet awe that shook her to the depths of her artistic soul.
She was climbing in a river of stars. The glittering specks of light flowed around her gloved hands and knees as they rushed past her, down the now unseen stairs from above her. Looking around her, stars were all she could see. Some glowed steadily, but others twinkled like gems. Certain groups formed patterns, human, animals and others. Jane stared in rapture, the pure beauty of the sight washed away her fear and fatigue for a brief, magical moment. Jane felt like a child again, seeing a rainbow for the first time.
The moment passed. Daria's danger beckoned her again, and with a deep sigh, Jane firmly closed her eyes, and started her climb again.
Stacy's sobbing and screaming had finally stopped. She just laid there in her skin tight prison, hearing the hissing snow as it blew over the deep drifts above her, the faint creaking of the trees as they wearily bent to the punishing blast of the winter winds. The quiet trickle of running water, the creak of ice shifting in a nearby stream.
Evenly pressing against her bare skin, Stacy felt the grittiness or dirt and sand. The smooth and coarse bulges of rock and gravel pressed deeply into her soft skin. She slowly sank into a state of passive awareness, accepting all she heard and felt. What she heard and felt increased slowly. She felt the sharp ping as the metal of Sandi's car reacted to the cold and pressure of the covering snow, the groaning of the canvas convertible roof as it slowly bent down.
The crackle of flames reached her ears as she heard the sound of the small fire in the cabin, the popping of sparks. She heard Sandi's groaning, which peaked in little gasps as the thing inside her womb twisted, casually hurting its helpless host. Sandi grunted and bit back screams at the pain.
Quinn's feeble whimpering was very faint. Her labored breathing had become a strong panting hiss, almost a snarl. Stacy's sharpened senses felt the lustful fury, the bestial hunger pouring out of the tortured form of her friend.
Stacy jerked away from her tortured friends in horror and shame. She slowly opened her eyes, seeing nothing at first, just harsh, hurtful darkness. Then, as before, the soil grew slowly transparent. She hung in space, still unmoving, like a fly trapped in amber. She saw the deeply thrusting roots of trees all around her, as they dug into the yielding soil and rock.
Far beneath her, like the ocean floor, she saw the solid form of bedrock, the hard granite blocking her vision. Against her will, her eyes sought the cabin. This new Stacy wasn't really surprised to see the deeply running cave underneath it, or the pitiful objects it had contained for centuries. She saw the thick swarm of human spirits swirling around the thing Quinn had become, and their fear and hate of their captor.
The ghost's faint mumbling was hard to make out, their words only a monotonous whispering. Stacy suddenly latching onto one thread of sound that sounded familiar, a intense, quiet, utterly hopeless sobbing.
"Stacy, why! Stacy, Quinn killed me! I'm, I'm dead! I'm dead forever! Why! Why me! I wasn't a bad person! You said you would get us some help! I trusted you, you and Quinn! It's so cold here. It's so lonely! The other ones can't hear me, and they don't listen to me! I'm so alone here, and I can't leave this place! Why me, Stacy, why me?"
Stacy's eyes filled with tears hearing Tiffany's utter and complete despair. The tears from her eyes flowed into the soil that shrouded her. But, unable to speak, she could only cry along with her murdered friend. After a very long time, their weeping slowed and came to a stop, and there was a long silence.
Sta-cy? Is that you? Can you hear me?
Yes! Yes, Tiffany, I can hear you! Are you all right?
No! I'm dead, Stacy! Quinn murdered me! She killed me, she trapped me in here with these, these things. I can't ever go home again! None of us can!
What do you mean, Tiffany?
We're dead, Stacy! Don't you get it? We are dead! You and me. But not Quinn and Sandi! Sandi's only alive until her mother says she loves her, and Quinn is immortal! She's an immortal monster! I saw the others, I saw how they all died. I want to go crazy, but I can't! The thing that took Quinn did it. It killed them all! It killed your Snow Lady, too! That's why she's trapped here! Its a real monster, and when it wakes up, it's going to go to Lawndale!
How do you know all this, Tiffany?
They told me, the other ghosts, like I am, now. But he told me the most, her husband did..The one that brought her here. She almost escaped, Stacy, she almost escaped, but it killed her.
Tiffany, I've got to know what happened, please, tell me what happened! This might help us!
Tiffany sighed deeply.
We're dead, Stacy, we're de-ad. Nothing's going to help us, ever again.
Stacy almost literally blew up.
God damn all it to hell! You just listen to me, Miss Tiffany Blum-Deckler! You and I might be dead, but that doesn't mean we can't do anything! Now, you tell me what you know right now, or I'll, I'll, Ohh!
I'm sorry, Stacy, I'm sorry.
I am too, baby, I am too, now please, just tell me, okay?
Well, he said he met het on a mountain?
As Tiffany said that, Stacy suddenly saw a majestic peak towering in her mind and a quiet voice said, "Fuji-yama.' Mountain of the Goddess of Fire.