First Thrills

Suspended by Ryan Brown

Howard Boyd’s time was up.

Twilight had descended on the mountain by the time he exited the dining hall at the base of the slopes, clipped back into his skis, and returned to the chairlift.

He was met with disappointment.

“Lift’s closed, pal,” said the terminal operator as Howard approached. The man was clearing dirty sludge from the loading area with a shovel.

“Already?” Howard skied forward until his waist met the yellow rope blocking the line entrance. “But can’t I just make one more run, buddy?”

“It’s Freddy, and no you can’t.” The operator dodged an empty lift chair moving past. “It’s five o’ clock. Last skiers are coming down now.”

Howard slid his sleeve off his Rolex. “I got four fifty-one. And I can make this run in a hell of a lot less than nine minutes.”

“Swell. Trouble is it’s an eighteen-minute ride to the top.”

“Come on, man. The cell service up here is for shit; I had to go inside to phone the office, and I just got tied up. Give me a break, will ya?”

“Forget it, we’re closed.” The operator jammed the shovel into the snow. “Marvin’s probably already left the terminal up top anyway.”

“Marvin, eh? Well can’t you check if he’s still working up there? Come on, Freddy, have a heart.” Howard unzipped the breast pocket of his bib and presented a fifty-dollar bill to help change the man’s mind. It wasn’t until he brought out a second fifty that Freddy finally gave in.

“Ah, hell.” The operator brought his walkie-talkie to his lips. “Marvin, come in…” Getting no response, he banged the squawking radio against his knee and tried again. “Marvin, you reading me up there?”

“Go ahead,” came a voice through thick static.

“Yeah, Marvin, you still up top? Got another asshole down here, wants to make a run. It’ll mean fifty… uh, twenty-five bucks to you if you’ll wait.”

Seconds passed before the radio squawked again and Marvin’s voice came back. “Yeah… go ahead.”

Freddy switched off the walkie-talkie with a shrug and cut his eyes back to Howard. “It’s your funeral.” He took his time approaching, but was quick to snatch the two bills from Howard’s glove. He unhooked the rope and allowed Howard to push past. “I’s you, I’d ski down with Marvin. He’s the best skier on the hill, knows every inch of this mountain.”

“I hardly need a babysitter,” Howard scoffed. “Been riding black diamonds for more than twenty years.”

“Yeah? In the dark? With weather moving in? We’ll be under an avalanche warning come tomorrow, mark my words.”

“Piece of cake,” Howard said, swishing through the maze of rope leading to the loading area.

“Just get down quick, fella, or it’s my ass.” Freddy waved him off and disappeared into the bull-wheel shack.

Howard allowed an empty chair to pass, then side-stepped into the loading space and let the next chair scoop his backside. The chair accelerated through a sharp ascent before rattling over the sheaves of the first tower and slowing into a smooth, quiet glide.

He closed his eyes and drew crisp air into his lungs, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. Snow began to flurry as the chair crept over a steep, pine-wooded peak. The terrain then fell away sharply, opening into a wide treeless valley already clear of all ski traffic.

Minutes passed.

The chair chattered past another tower and continued on for seventy- five more yards before the drone of the lift suddenly muted and the cable came to a gentle halt. Momentum swung the chair back and forth some until it eventually hung motionless.

Howard cursed under his breath. The clouds seemed to close in more quickly in the stillness. The base of the slopes and the resort village far below were already completely obscured.

Boredom set in immediately. He took out his cell phone hoping to check messages, but when he saw that he still wasn’t getting a signal, he set the phone down beside him, thinking he’d check again from a higher elevation.

The snow fell more heavily now, landing thick and wet against his goggles, stinging his cheeks. He huddled his arms across his chest to fight the chill that was seeping through his clothing like acid.

Christ, what I would give for a…

He paused, then fumbled into the breast pocket of his coat. To his relief there remained a crumpled box of Salems pressed against his monogrammed Zippo. Setting his gloves on the seat next to the phone, he tapped out the single remaining cigarette and thumbed the lighter until it sparked a flame. He drew quickly and heavily off the cigarette, burning it down to the filter.

Three minutes later, still chilled to the marrow, he flicked the dead butt away and cursed again. “Come on, Freddy, Marvin, you asshole, crank ’er up.”

Looking down to check his watch, he caught movement through the gauze of cloud between his knees-a lone skier, some two hundred feet below, swishing with perceptible skill down the slope. Howard watched the man until he disappeared under the chair.

Hell of a skier, he thought. Quite a pro.

Then he jumped, startled by the unexpected sound of laughter.

“I think your fate has just been sealed, Howard.”

Howard turned toward the voice and found sitting on the other side of the chair a man he’d watched die months before.

“Jesus Christ!” He yanked his goggles down to his neck and looked the man up and down, his eyes wide with horror, his jaw hanging slack.

Another liquid chuckle left the dead man’s throat. “Miss me, Howard?”

It was Terry Choate, Howard’s former business partner, in the flesh.

Only the flesh was gunmetal gray, slightly transparent, and peeling off of grossly mangled bones. The dead man’s smile was toothless and glistened red. His misshapen skull was split open at the crown. Gray liquid oozed from the ghastly wound and trickled down past sunken, ink-drop eyes.

Howard’s heart became a piston in his chest. He tasted a bitter sickness rising in his throat. “Terry, what are you… how can you be-”

“I’d say Freddy was right, wouldn’t you, Howard?” The corpse’s words slithered off a sluglike tongue. He aimed a thumb over his shoulder. “That Marvin might truly be the best skier on the hill. Certainly looked like an expert to me.”

Howard could only stare at the dead man, stunned with terror, until at last he blinked back to attention. “What… what did you say?”

Terry pointed toward the slope behind the chair. “Marvin. It doesn’t appear that he waited for you.”

“Marvin?” It took a moment for Howard to understand the corpse’s meaning. He turned slowly around in the seat. The skier he’d seen a moment ago had long since vanished under the cloud. “Marvin.” Howard blinked again. “Yes. Marvin. But… but he said-”

“Yeah, go ahead,” Terry finished. “I believe those were the exact words Marvin used. But the static coming through that radio was rather heavy, wasn’t it Howard? Couldn’t it be that Marvin’s words were not an instruction for you to proceed, but an indication that he was still awaiting a response from his coworker below?”

Howard’s stomach knotted, his terror now compounded. He spun around in the chair and screamed Marvin’s name until his voice went hoarse. In response he heard only a desperate echo. It wasn’t until he turned back that he realized he’d just knocked the gloves and cell phone off the seat.

“Looks like we’re in for a long, cold night, Howard.” Terry grinned with malice… then vanished.

Howard’s gaze darted all around. He called out to Terry, but heard only the corpse’s cryptic laughter, which seemed to come at him from all directions, taunting and threatening at the same time.

Darkness fell quickly then, even as time stretched out.

It wasn’t long before the weight of Howard’s skis began to pull painfully on his tired knees. Deeming the skis useless, he kicked them off into the night and listened, to no avail, for their contact with the ground.

Faced with the knowledge that he would never survive a drop from the chair, he was left to wait and listen and watch as the storm rolled in.

The dead man didn’t appear again until seven hours and nine inches of snow later.

“I see you haven’t gone far, Howard.” The corpse’s voice snaked out of the darkness. “In truth, neither have I. I have always been with you, every minute of every day. Since the very beginning… or end, I should say, my end.”

Curled with his knees tucked under his chin, back pressed against the armrest, Howard lifted a trembling hand. With fingers made bloodless by the cold, he pried open an eyelid, sealed shut by frozen tears. Through his blurred vision he saw only swirling snow on a field of black.

“I suggest you reach into your pants’ leg pocket,” Terry said. “Down by your right calf. Go on, Howard.”

It was some time before Howard mustered the energy to do as instructed. Struggling with dead hands on the zipper, he reached into the pocket and came out with the plastic glow stick he had mindlessly tucked away three days before-a precautionary handout from the ski-rental shop in a place where avalanche warnings were not uncommon. Howard bent the stick until it clicked, bathing the space around him with its green luminescent glow. He hooked the stick to the shoulder strap of his bib, then raised his head to face the man across the chair.

“Boo!” A grin parted the corpse’s livery lips. “That’s much better, isn’t it, Howard?”

“You… are… not… real,” Howard rasped.

Terry’s laugh was guttural, yet eerily childlike. “Search your conscience, Howard. I think you’ll find I most certainly am real. You’ve only been stranded a few hours; delirium couldn’t have possibly set in yet. Anyway, I know you too well. You’d never allow your mind to go. No, never your mind! It’s that mind for which I partnered with you in the first place. Such a brilliant architectural mind, it is… a mind clever enough to get away with murder.”

“I… didn’t… murder-”

“Stop it!” Terry spat. “You’ve already killed me, Howard, don’t insult my intelligence.”

“The hook… the safety hook on your lanyard… it was just an accide-”

“Yes, my fall did appear a terrible accident, didn’t it? I must say, as you read my eulogy, I almost believed you’d even convinced yourself that it was accidental. Fortunately for you everyone thought so. Makes sense, after all. It’s dangerous work we do, marching in our slick-soled Italian loafers across the narrow beams of our towering structures, only a hardhat and a measly nylon strap to insure our safety.” His face contorted into a scowl. “Who knew that the hooks on those straps could ever prove faulty, right?”

Howard studied the corpse’s designer suit, once spotless and impeccably tailored, now shredded and caked with spilled entrails. “What do you want, Terry?”

“Only the same privilege you were granted last September. To look into the eyes of my partner as he falls.”

“Fuck you!” The words shot from Howard’s mouth in a voiceless hiss.

“You have already done that, Howard. Now it’s my turn to return the favor.”

“You deserved everything you got, Terry. You rode on my coattails for a de cade, taking credit for my work. The vision was mine!”

“The vision was yours, Howard, I never failed to grant you that. But we were partners, and your vision was nothing without me to sell it, to make others see it and feel it.”

Howard looked away, hugging his arms close, his teeth chattering.

“I’m curious to know, Howard, if you’re prepared to freeze to death arguing with me, or if that creative mind of yours is considering how you’re going to get off this chair.”

Howard leaned forward and looked into the black void below.

“I think you’ve already determined that you’d never survive a voluntary fall,” Terry said. “And of course you’ll never make it through the night in these temperatures.” He leaned across the seat and winked a pupil-less eye. “Not without a fire, anyway.”

Howard met the corpse’s gaze for a beat, then dug hastily into his pocket for the lighter, wondering why he hadn’t thought of it before.

“There’s that brilliant mind at work!” Terry said. “I knew you still had it, Howard.”

It took several tries for Howard to get a flame out of the lighter. With a cupped palm, he guarded the struggling flame against the wind and relished the warmth it brought to his frostbitten fingers. But within seconds, the flame died in the icy gusts.

“Don’t you have anything to burn, Howard?” Terry tapped his jaw in thought, then snapped his bony fingers. “A cigarette box, perhaps?”

Howard came out with the box of Salems and crushed it flat. He thumbed the Zippo repeatedly until he was able to bring a flame to the box, but in the whipping wind the cardboard wouldn’t catch. After some consideration he pulled the lighter apart, exposing its inner workings. He removed the soaked piece of rayon from the canister and squeezed a few drops of fuel onto the cigarette box. Then he closed the lighter again, raked the flint, and instantly set the box aflame.

The paltry fire turned the box to ash in less than a minute, and provided only a scant amount of heat.

Still, at the corpse’s urging, Howard employed the same procedure to his lift tickets, which burned even more quickly than the cigarette box.

Four business cards and six-hundred-and-thirty-dollars worth of folding money went next. When Howard’s credit cards refused to catch fire, the corpse raised a finger and made another suggestion.

“Your clothing, Howard,” he said. “It might produce a bigger flame that would act as a signal fire. Isn’t there anything you can spare?”

There wasn’t. But Howard’s body was stiff with cold, and the promised warmth that a fire would provide was just too hard to resist. Within minutes he had forcibly ripped his thermal undershirt and his boxer shorts from beneath his outer clothing and burned them both down to smoking embers. The corpse went on to tempt Howard into sacrificing his stocking cap, and, finally, his thick woolen socks, on which he’d had to squeeze the last drops of fuel left in the lighter in order to spark a flame.

The corpse’s grin widened when only a faint whiff of smoke remained between the two men. “Well, Howard, it appears you’re out of recourses.”

The dead man’s cackling laugh was infuriating, but Howard refused to let Terry see his rage.

He looked into the corpse’s cobalt eyes and shook his head with pointed resolve. “No.”

“What’s that, Howard?”

“I said no, Terry! This isn’t over.”

The dead man clasped his hands with a bony click. “Of course it isn’t! It’s only getting more fun.”

Howard swallowed a fistful of snow from his lap to wet his parched throat. He straightened his legs, sending searing pain to his frozen knees. He reached up and took hold of the center pole from which the chair hung. His hand slipped twice from the bar as he attempted to hoist himself up on cramped legs.

“So, what’s the plan now?” Terry asked. “Climb up to the cable above, then go hand over hand back to the tower, right? Yes, it is the only way. There’s a ladder on the tower that would lead you all the way down. But it must be nearly a hundred yards back, maybe more-not an easy journey for a man of your size.” His tongue made a rueful click. “Those four-course lunches and hourly lattes have done you no favors over the years, Howard. I suggest you use your ski poles, bridge them over the cable and zip along the line.”

It was a thought that had occurred to Howard just seconds before. He raised his backside off the seat and reached beneath him for the poles, which he had been protecting at all costs. But just as his hand fell on them, the corpse leaned across the chair, yanked the poles from Howard’s grasp, and tossed them away.

“What are you… No!” The poles were out of sight before Howard could even scream the word. Fury erupted inside of him. “You son of a bitch!” In a burst of madness he lunged across the chair, hands outstretched for the corpse’s neck.

But his hands-in fact his entire body-moved straight through the specter unimpeded. With nothing to halt his momentum, Howard toppled forward out of control. The lower half of his body slipped off the front of the chair. His hands clawed madly for the rear edge of the seat and somehow took hold. The next instant found him dangling in open air, legs kicking in the wind, arms outstretched across the seat.

The corpse spoke when Howard’s girlish scream finally faded. “Take it easy, Howard. Calm down. I’ve been waiting far too long to allow this to end so quickly for you.” His tone was level. “Just bring one leg up at a time, slowly and carefully. You’ll be fine.”

Howard did as Terry directed and eventually make it back onto the seat, quivering with exhaustion. He refused to grant the corpse so much as a look. When he regained his wind he brought his feet back onto the chair and finally made it to a standing position. Again, he attempted to climb the pole, but got only inches off the seat before sliding back down.

“Your boots, Howard. You will never make it with your boots.”

Howard reached down with palsied hands and unclamped the boots enough to slip his feet out. Snow crunched on the seat beneath his bare toes. Taking hold of the bar again he looked up and paused, paralyzed by the prospect of leaving the relative safety of the chair.

“What’s wrong, Howard? Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet,” Terry chuckled.

Howard ignored the cruel taunt. Using his feet for extra leverage now, he hoisted himself off the chair. His muscles spasmed from the strain. The bones of his spine creaked like the turn of a ratchet handle with every upward thrust.

When at last he reached the cable, he took hold and eventually summoned the courage to release his legs from the bar. Dangling freely now, he swung back and forth, trying to build enough momentum to swing his feet up on to the cable and relieve his hands of some of the burden.

The effort proved futile, and expended more energy than Howard could afford. He had no choice but to continue using only his hands.

Three minutes gained him little more than ten feet along the cable. His fingers quickly stiffened into inflexible claws around the bundled steel wires. His heart drummed behind his ribs. His lungs labored with every breath.

Four more minutes elapsed.

He thought that if he could just reach the next chair he could stop and rest, perhaps shake some feeling back into his hands. But beyond the faint green light of the glow stick, he saw only darkness.

His right hand slid forward another inch. Then his left. Right. Then…

His left hand slipped from the cable, leaving him hanging by the floundering grip of his right.

An instant before Howard fell, the corpse appeared before him again, taking hold of Howard’s jacket collar and jerking him upward with unfathomable strength. Howard reached out with grabbing hands until once again he had secured a firm grip on the cable.

The corpse hung only inches in front of Howard by a single rotting hand, showing no strain in his effort. His expression remained a sneering, cadaverous grin. No longer just a specter, the dead man had become something shockingly more tangible. The torn flesh of his scalp flapped in the wind. His stench was foul, nauseating.

The corpse reached inside his tattered suit coat. “Recognize this, Howard?”

Howard’s eyes fell to the nylon lanyard rolling out of Terry’s free hand. At each end of the six-foot cord was a copper rebar hook. It was identical to the safety strap worn by Terry on the day of his fatal fall. One end of it had been hooked onto itself, forming a loop. Howard’s eyes came back up.

“Now it’s my turn.” The corpse slipped the loop over Howard’s right foot, then pulled it up his leg to the top of the thigh.

“Terry, what the hell are you doing?”

The corpse answered with a hard upward tug, tightening the loop like a noose.

Howard cried out in pain. “Dammit, Terry, what are you doing to me?”

Terry proceeded to attach the remaining hook to the cable above, snapping it closed with a click. “It is time for your confession, Howard.”

“I told you I have nothing to conf-”

A fist of stripped bone struck Howard across the jaw. “Say it, Howard!”

Howard shook his head furiously, the coppery taste of blood filling his mouth. “I told you, I did nothing! The hook was faulty. The locking mechanism just snapped…”

Another punch struck Howard’s opposite cheek.

“These things don’t just snap, Howard! Or… do they?” The corpse yanked downward on the lanyard.

“No!” Howard screamed. “Don’t, please! Terry, what ever you think happened that day-”

“You gave me the harness, Howard. Fifteen years together, never once had you provided me my safety harness on a building site.”

“It wasn’t my fault!”

“Liar! You looked me in the eyes as I fell, and I saw it on your face. You took plea sure in my fall, didn’t you? Say it!”

“Terry, I didn’t-”

“Say it!” The corpse yanked again on the lanyard, harder this time. “Say it!”

It was guilt as much as terror that finally broke Howard. “Yes! I killed you! Is that what you wanted to hear?” Hot tears welled in his eyes.

“Is it the truth?”

“I swear on my life it’s the truth!” He lost another precious inch of his grip on the cable. He now clutched it with only the tips of his numb fingers. “I’ve confessed, Terry, now please! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!”

“Sorry isn’t good enough, Howard! Not for me, nor for my wife and son who have cried on your shoulder all these many months as I was forced to look on.”

Howard looked into Terry’s eyes, his mind racing. “Your son… yes… Kyle! Terry, I saved Kyle from-”

The corpse drove a fist into Howard’s stomach. “Don’t you ever mention my son’s name, Howard!”

Howard’s breath shot out of him. He fought to draw air back into his constricted lunges. “But it’s the truth!” he sputtered. “Four years ago. The third story collapse on the Donovan project. It was your birthday, Terry, I know you remember! Kyle was to surprise you at the site, but I called him that morning and told him not to come! I knew that the structure wasn’t completely sound and I told him not to come. We were all nearly killed, Terry; I know you haven’t forgotten it! Kyle and I agreed never to mention it to you. But it’s true, Terry, you have to believe me!” Tears streaked Howard’s face as he searched for mercy in the corpse’s lifeless eyes. “You have to believe me!”

“After hearing the lies you’ve told my friends and colleagues all these months? The lies you’ve told my wife and children? Why should I believe you?”

“Because it’s the truth! Oh God, Terry, you have to believe me!”

Silence fell between them, each man holding the other’s bitter glare.

It was the corpse who finally looked away. “You’ll find out soon enough whether or not I believe you, Howard. It’s time for us to part now.”

“No! You can’t leave me!”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“But I can’t hold on any longer!”

“That’s the idea.”

Howard’s eyes moved to the hook above his head. “Is it secure, Terry? I have to know if the lanyard will hold when I let go!”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

“What! What does that mean?”

“It means your moment of judgment has finally come, Howard.”

“Wait! Please wait!”

Gazing into Howard’s frantic eyes, Terry offered a slow nod. “I will wait, Howard… for as long as it takes. All I have left now is to look into your eyes and wait…”

As an actor, RYAN BROWN has held contract roles on The Young and the Restless and Guiding Light. He has also appeared on Law & Order: SVU, and starred in two feature films for Lifetime Television. His first novel, Play Dead, a comic supernatural thriller, will be published in May 2010, and his short story “Jeepers Peepers” will soon appear in ITW’s Young Adult Anthology.