Follow You Down Page 9

  Sammy looked at Neil once again, feeling that faint stirring within her. She cursed softly under her breath. Control yourself, Sammy, she thought. Remember who he is.

  Once they passed by, she slipped across the main trail and circled around through the forest until she heard their voices again. Sammy was cautious, moving silently through the forest until she came to the spot she’d scoped out earlier. From her vantage point, she could see almost the entire zipline.

  They were standing below the launch platform, which was suspended from the side of a pine tree. The distance from the ground to the platform, her father had once told her, was seventy-five feet. When the camp had been open, the ladder rungs leading up had been painted gray. But time had taken its toll. The paint was peeling off, and splotches of rust had formed on the aged metal underneath. She could just make out the dark steel cable stretching from the platform out into the forest, disappearing into the canopy of branches.

  Steve fumbled with the harness. “How does this work?”

  Jeremy snatched the harness from his hand. “You got it upside down.”

  “You’ve done this before?” Neil asked.

  She watched him closely. Neil was fidgety, his feet kept shifting in the sand. Sammy couldn’t help but feel a certain amount of sympathy for him. She knew his secret and could only imagine how terrified he must be. Seventy-five feet above the ground didn’t sound like much, but for an acrophobe . . .

  “Numerous times,” Jeremy said, smiling. “It’s simple.”

  Jeremy took a moment to demonstrate how to wear the harness, then asked, “Who’s going first?”

  Steve folded his arms and looked back at Jeremy. “You go first. Show us newbies how it’s done.”

  Jeremy shrugged. “Works for me!”

  Moments later, Jeremy had scaled the ladder to the launching platform and clipped the harness into the zip trolley. Sammy slid lower into the underbrush when she saw him gaze around the forest from his elevated position. She couldn’t be certain that he saw her, but his eyes seemed to linger for a few moments in her direction. Then he pushed off from the platform. “Cya, losers!” he shouted.

  She watched Jeremy speed off into the trees, his legs flailing wildly. His yells were loud, overshadowing the high-pitched whine of the trolley racing down the cable. It sounded like he was having the time of his life. Glancing across at Neil, she noticed that his forehead was moist. His fear appeared to be getting the better of him. She almost pitied him. Was it really necessary to put him through this? Maybe her father had been right. Maybe this wouldn’t bring her closure. Perhaps it would be best if she showed him mercy.

  “Awesome!” Jeremy shouted from the far end of the zipline.

  Throughout the past eighteen years, mercy had been the furthest thing from Sammy’s mind. She’d burned with anger and hatred for the first five, fell into a melancholy haze for the next ten, and, finally, spent the last three years with a focused vigor toward revenge. It made her feel better to think of it as justice, but in the end, she knew it was nothing more than seeking vengeance.

  Jeremy came crashing through the underbrush, returning to his friends. She didn’t think the smile on his face could get any broader. He held the harness and zip trolley aloft like it was a trophy. She watched him raise his hand in the air, receiving high-fives from Patrick and Steve. Rob, who was leaning against the ladder, just laughed. Then, without warning, Jeremy tossed the harness to Neil, whose hands fumbled to catch it. “Brewster, you’re next!” Jeremy said.

  Sammy focused her attention on Neil. This could be a telling moment. She saw him smile, but it looked forced. He groped at the harness, unable to get it the right way around. When he did finally manage to get his legs into it, his hands were trembling. Did his friends notice? If they did, they didn’t seem to let on. He must be terrified, she thought.

  When Neil had made snug the harness straps, he moved to the ladder. He paused, his back toward his friends. From her vantage point, Sammy saw something that his friends could not—his face. His eyes clenched closed, as if he were in excruciating pain. His hands clamped on the ladder rungs, his knuckles turned white.

  “Neil,” said Jeremy.

  “What?”

  Jeremy stretched his hand forward, holding the zip trolley out before him. “You won’t get far without this.”

  Neil took the zip trolley, and then turned back to the ladder, pausing for a moment longer. Sammy fought the urge to rush headlong from the underbrush to put an end to his torment. Was this fair? Was this right? Every fiber of her being begged her to put a stop to it. Every ounce of compassion cried for her to release him from this torture. But then her hand—almost by instinct—clutched the St. Christopher medal around her neck. The small object between her fingers banished any thought of compassion or mercy from her mind.

  “Come on, Neil. We ain’t got all day,” Rob said.

  She watched Neil raise his hand, extend his middle finger, and then grasp one of the ladder rungs. He hasn’t changed, she thought. He never will. He deserves everything that’s coming.

  His climb was slow and, she was certain, grueling. Hand over hand and foot over foot, he rose up the ladder, the trembling in his arms and legs becoming more pronounced. Every step looked as if it was harder than the last. His face seemed to reveal every agonizing thought. She imagined the litany of questions running through his head. What if my foot slips? What if I lose my grip? What if? What if? What if? She wondered how prideful Neil must be to refuse to admit that he was afraid. Her narrowed eyes followed every move of his ascent. No mercy, she thought. No compassion.

  When he reached the platform, Neil pressed his back against the tree with his eyes tightly closed. The platform was nothing more than crisscrossed steel bars, giving her an almost unobstructed view of him as he stood unmoving among the trees. His face looked pale, and, for a moment, she thought he might vomit over the side of the platform. With a slow, deliberate motion, his hand reached upward, touching the steel cable above his head. She watched him slip the trolley over the cable and attach his harness.

  “Sometime today, Neil,” shouted Patrick.

  Sammy found herself again feeling pity for him. Did he realize how pathetic he looked up on that platform? She experienced a moment of compassion, wanting to put an end to his suffering. It’d been a long time since she’d felt anything for him other than animosity. There’d been a time when she felt something akin to love, but those emotions were thought to be dead and buried. Yet, when she’d seen him again last night . . .

  With a sudden movement, he pushed off from the tree and sped along the cable. His eyes were open, and a mix of emotion crossed his face—part terror, part exhilaration. His hands clenched the lanyard of his harness while his legs thrashed about in the open air. She smiled, relieved to see that his terror seemed to be subsiding. She cursed under her breath, upset for her moment of empathy. He must suffer, she reminded herself. Just like him, I’ll show no mercy.

  The squeal drew her eyes back onto him. The trolley had stopped with an unexpected jolt, leaving Neil rocking back and forth like a pendulum. Sammy figured that he’d traveled about twenty-five feet from the platform. The exhilaration that she’d seen on his face moments ago had vanished, being replaced with utter terror. She watched him bounce and swing from the lanyard’s end. His fingers curled around the nylon strap while his head darted from side to side. Sammy lowered herself to conceal her from detection.

  It was then that she heard the voices.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It took him a few moments to recognize the voices, and only another moment to realize that they came from the same person. There was a childlike innocence in the voice, along with a high-pitched whine that stirred up long forgotten memories. It’d been eighteen years since he’d last heard that voice.

  “Neil! Stop it!” echoed through the forest from every direction.

&
nbsp; He twisted his head in search of the source but found nothing.

  The voice echoed again. “Leave me alone, Neil!”

  “Is this a joke?” Neil shouted.

  “Stop it, Neil!” was the only reply he received.

  The words repeated again and again, overlapping like a dozen people speaking at once. The ghastly montage filled the air around him. There was no way he could escape. Releasing his grip on the lanyard, Neil covered his ears with his hands. He realized his error as he pitched backward, leaving him hanging upside down by a single cord. His arms and legs flailed in desperation, a panicked bid to right himself. His thrashing had sent him into a spin, making him dizzy as the ground twirled below him. He swallowed hard, fighting back the bile that begged to spew forth. The tightening in his chest made every breath an overwhelming effort. And still the voices continued to bombard him.

  His hand grasped the lanyard, and he pulled himself upright. His eyes fought to focus on something—anything. Clinging to the nylon lanyard, he pressed his forehead against his clenched fists. He closed his eyes, trying to slow his breathing.

  “Damn it! Someone stop it!” Neil shouted.

  His hands were tingling, and his blood felt as if it had turned ice cold. His eyes lost the ability to focus. The echoing voices ripped through him, inducing a full-fledged panic attack.

  “Neil, stop it! Leave me alone, Neil!” the voice echoed. “Stop it, Neil!”

  He could swear it was getting louder, and the words were melding together into an unharmonious chorus straight out of hell. With his heart threatening to shatter his ribcage with its rapid hammering, Neil feared that he might die right there in the air. His lungs burned with each inhale. His head ached, either from the utter terror or the increasingly loud and repetitive words that reverberated in his ears. He didn’t know which.

  “Neil, stop it!”

  “Leave me alone, Neil!”

  “Stop it, Neil!”

  Over and over the words repeated, getting louder and louder with each repetition. His mind plowed through the scenarios, each as terrifying as the one before. Most ending with a long plummet through the trees to his death. The voices pounded their way into his head, into his psyche, invading every crevice and every cavity not already terrorized by his distance from the ground. His hands trembled violently as they clutched at the lanyard, sending tiny vibrations up into the cable. He opened his eyes, looking up at the trolley above his head. Why wasn’t it moving, damn it? he thought.

  Neil gripped the lanyard and shook it, determined to get himself going. The echoing voices built to a crescendo, louder and louder, more distorted with every second. Squeezing his eyes closed, Neil screamed in a vain attempt to drown out the unending din, desperate to make it stop. He just wanted it to be over.

  Then, just as quickly as it had started, it ended. The voices abruptly stopped, and the zip trolley began to move forward. As his momentum picked up, Neil felt the cool wind once again blow against his face. Looking ahead, he saw the landing platform quickly approaching. When he’d pushed himself off earlier, there had been a sense of exhilaration intermingled with his fear. But now, all he felt was pure and unadulterated relief.

  The landing platform was a narrow upward slope over which the zipline crossed. As he approached, Neil extended his feet out, slowing himself down as they drug through the dirt. He quickly unhooked the harness from the trolley, dropped to his knees, and spewed his breakfast across the ground, heaving again and again until there was nothing left to come out. The acidic vomit burned his esophagus, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. Breathing deeply, his nose picked up the sour odor of his own regurgitation, causing him to heave again. This time, there was nothing more to bring up besides a bit of stomach bile. Wiping his chin with his forearm, he stared down at the watery remnants of his congealing breakfast on the dirt below him.

  Still trembling, Neil’s arms ached as he pushed himself up. Kneeling in the dirt, he tried to work out what had just happened. His first instinct was that it had been a joke, a bit tasteless, but a joke nonetheless.

  But it didn’t make sense. None of his friends knew that he was afraid of heights. And even if they did, what the hell was up with the voices? He could understand leaving him hanging for a few moments on the zipline, but why bombard him with a voice from the past? He dismissed the idea as soon as he’d thought of it. His friends would never be that cruel, certainly not to him.

  Neil tried to think rationally. There had to be a logical explanation. It must have been a mechanical problem. Steve’s engineers weren’t as sharp as he claimed. Perhaps something got jammed in the wheels of the trolley. That was probably all it was. And the voices? Just his imagination. Already overtaxed by his fear of heights, his imagination must’ve gone a little wild, causing him to hear things that weren’t there. It all made perfect sense. Figuring it out, however, didn’t make him feel any better about the ordeal. It’d still been terrifying. Gazing down at the remains of his half-digested breakfast, he sighed, realizing that he’d have to explain this to his friends. Preferably without telling them that he’d been scared shitless.

  He heard them drawing closer, crashing through the underbrush, probably coming to see if he was okay. Trying to stand, Neil found that his legs didn’t seem to have the strength. He remained on his knees, breathing deeply and feeling his heartbeat finally begin to slow. He closed his eyes, only to snap them back open suddenly—the memories being far too fresh to allow his mind a moment’s peace. The moment his eyes were closed, he heard the distant echoes of that voice. They’d been seared into his subconscious. Why would he imagine the voices? Why his voice?

  “Brewster, what’s taking you so . . .” Jeremy started to say as he emerged from the underbrush. “What happened to you?”

  Before Neil answered, his three other friends arrived behind Jeremy. Their footsteps stopped abruptly, and, without looking up, he knew that they were gaping at him just like Jeremy. Inhaling deeply, he rose to his feet, slowly at first, still unsure about the stability of his legs. Turning, his eyes met the concerned gazes of his four companions.

  Looking down, he mumbled, “Please tell me you guys didn’t have anything to do with that.”

  Rob shrugged his shoulders. “With what? What happened?”

  Neil wasn’t sure how to explain it. Words, for once in his life, seemed to fail him. The ordeal had exhausted him, both physically and mentally. He felt as if his mind had been shattered into a million pieces, and pulling it back together was like doing a jigsaw puzzle without the picture on the box. The world around him remained a blur, his eyes still struggling to focus. His friends remained patient, quietly waiting as he gathered his thoughts.

  Sighing, he began to explain. “It got stuck. The trolley got stuck.” Speaking was difficult. His tongue stuck to the roof of his parched mouth. “I couldn’t get it moving . . . just hung there.”

  Jeremy reached over and loosened the harness from around Neil’s waist and legs. “Let’s get this off you.”

  As the harness slid down his legs, he continued, “I flipped over . . . was spinning around . . . couldn’t move.” He paused, glancing at Patrick. The look on his friend’s face wasn’t one of concern but one of confusion. Patrick’s eyes darted between Neil and his friends. With his thoughts and words still coming out in fragments, Neil said, “Something stopped the trolley in the middle of the ride.”

  “But Neil—” Rob started to say.

  “And then the voices . . .” Neil interrupted. “The voices were so loud.”

  Steve touched his shoulder. “Neil, are you okay?”

  Another deep breath helped to clear his mind further. How would he explain this to his friends? They’d want an explanation. There’d be no way to get around it. They must have seen the way he’d panicked on the zipline. He decided there was no option but to tell the truth. “I’m afraid of heights. When the trolley got
stuck, I panicked. I, um, must have hallucinated for a moment . . . I thought I heard voices while I was up there.”

  “Voices?” asked Jeremy.

  Neil nodded. “Yeah. I . . . I heard Stinky Bateman’s voice. It was coming from everywhere.”

  Neil caught the glances exchanged between his friends. He could only guess what was probably going through their minds. First, he’d seen a disappearing t-shirt with the word “KILLER” written across it, and now he was hearing voices. The verdict wouldn’t have been hard to predict.

  Patrick folded his arms and said, “Neil, putting aside the voices for just a moment. You said the trolley got stuck?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded, gesturing in the direction of the launching platform. “Shortly after I pushed off. I was probably about fifty feet off the ground.”

  Another glance passed between his friends. Patrick looked at Neil. “We watched your whole ride. From the moment you pushed off almost ’til you landed.” He paused. “We saw you go all the way down the line. You never stopped.”

  Summer, 1996

  Bordering on obsession, Patrick had insisted on recording almost everything on the Sony HandyCam he’d brought to camp that second summer. Neil thought it was funny at first, but now he wasn’t so sure. They’d recorded things that he’d prefer the camp leadership never see. Some of the video footage was innocent enough, but there’d be hell to pay if anyone ever saw the footage they’d recorded from the girls’ bathhouse. And he didn’t know how Brenda Miller would live down the humiliation if the footage in which she’d played a starring role ever got out. He smiled, remembering how he’d charmed the seventeen-year-old into performing a striptease for the camera. She had the body and the moves, making the ten-minute video the closest that they’d ever come to filming something X-rated. Not that they hadn’t tried.

  The rain had been falling throughout the day on that mid-July Friday, but the storm was beginning to let up with the approaching sunset. Standing on the porch of Redwood Lodge, Neil gazed out at the saturated forest, hoping that it wouldn’t interfere with the evening escapade he had planned. Patrick stood beside him, video camera in hand, filming the scene. Jeremy, leaning against the porch rail, folded his arms and scowled as the camera lens pointed in his direction.