It didn't matter that she could hear them howling, God had called her. Lizzy left her big and collapsing house and felt the frozen straws of grass crunch beneath her bare feet. She crossed over the circle of stones that protected her and shuffled down the hill, where she could see thick cold fog rolling in off the ocean. A church sat near the cliff's edge. Now it seemed a strange place for a church, but the sea had once been much further away. Twighlight gathered around a cross on its apex and somehow the thing was glowing. Lizzy held a kitchen knife in her hand. She didn't want to do this, but she felt that she had no choice.
The house and the church were in the clear. The howling came from the woods, but it was still somewhat distant. Maybe a half mile away. Who knew? Far enough that she could still run back home if she needed to, back within the perimeter of little stones which encircled it. The quesiton was, would she be able to run back? God was calling her and God wasn't easy to ignore.
Lizzy reached the church and stared up at the glowing cross. She placed the knife blade against her shoulder. She shivered. It was bitter cold. No, fucking cold. She was wearing just a tee shirt and a pair of plaid flannel sweat pants. God didn't care. The blade bit into her skin and now that was all she could feel. It was just a little cut, really. It was a bit of test. Maybe that's all God wanted?
She knew it wasn't. She didn't hear a voice or see words. It didn't work like that. All she had was a feeling, a compulsion. She knew she had to cut deeper just the same way you'd know you had to rescue a baby you saw drowing in the water. It's not something you think about. You just do it.
Lizzy lifted the knife, but before it touched her skin again - she heard a sound. It wasn't the howling in the woods. It was a single note played on a piano. Then several more. The notes were out of tune, but the melody was clear. Lizzy hummed along.
Be still my soul when dearest friends depart
And all is darkened in the vale of tears...
She felt her grip loosen as though her fingers were pulled apart by a string. The knife fell near her feat and Lizzy turned her back on the church and wandered over the frozen earth. It wasn't long before she came to a flat patch of ground near the tree line. There was an upright piano there. It was a more than a bit ragged and covered with graffit. In front of the piano stood a man in clothes more appropriate for the cold, with a rifle slung over his shoulder. He pecked a few more notes, which drew Lizzy closer. Then, when she was close enough, he stopped and turned to her.
"Michael." she said.
"Hey Lizzy." said Michael.
"Is that what I think it is?"
"Yup." Michael banged a broken chord on the keys. "I dragged this out from my old house. It's funny how it was the only thing that survived besides the foundation and the floor boards. Do you remember this?"
He pointed to one of the drawnings painted on the piano's side. It was a skull with flowers for eyes.
"What were we, about thirteen when we made that?" Lizzy said.
"That's right." He leaned against the piano in a funny pose and pointed at her chest, saying, "Take a pic."
Lizzy looked down. She had forgotten that she was carrying a camera around her neck on a leather chord. She smiled and lifted it to her face and snapped a photo of Michael posing with the multi colored piano. Both of them looked like cartoon characters in front of the grey tree trunks.
Small glowing orbs appeared in the darkness among the trees. The howling continued. Michael glanced back and then fixed a pair of stark blue eyes on her. He flashed an uncertain grin and hobbled towards her.
"What's wrong with your leg?" she said.
"Nothing. I wanted to tell you something, Lizzy. I followed the stream and it leads out of here. The gimps don't go down there. And anyway I've got plenty of amo. So... we could leave, is what I'm saying."
"You want me to go?" she said.
Michael nodded.
"With you?"
"Who else? What's wrong with me? I'm basically the only person you know, Lizzy."
"I don't think so. I can't, because I keep thinking God's calling me out here to kill myself."
"You don't think I know that? It's why I pulled this piano all the way out here. It made you stop."
"Yes. It's just another voice. So it's you controlling me instead of some other thing."
Lizzy turned around. She went back towards the house. Michael didn't call after her, but that wasn't strange. She knew by now that they'd probably had this conversation a dozen times, even if she didn't remember. She passed over the perimeter of small stones and up the stairs. She set the camera down on a table that was the only piece of furniture in what had been her family's living room and pulled up a small wooden box full of photographs. Lizzy paged through them until she found two that she was looking for. The first was a photo of the glowing cross on top of the church. The second was Michael in front of the piano.
She heard the notes again. They were very faint, but glided easily over the empty landscape. He was trying to coax her out, and that only made her more determined to stay. Lizzy felt hungry. Maybe eating something would take her mind off all of this. A pile of apples was heaped in the corner. Before she ate one, she counted them out. There were about fifty. That wasn't going to be enough to last her through the winter.
Somehow, she hoped that counting them would change things, but her rituals never made anything different. No, they could hold back the forces crushing time and space, but they couldn't reverse what had already happend. She'd eaten an apple yesterday and the day before and they weren't coming back. Lizzy glanced through the ice making prisms on the window. Out there in the yard lay three mounds of dirt she'd piled on top of the graves she'd dug last spring, just before gathering her apples. No one and nothing was coming back. Lizzy took a bite into her apple. She hoped that maybe the winter would pass early.
Darkness crept into the empty house. She slept on the floor under a pile of old rugs that kept her warm. The howling was much louder now that night had come. It wasn't just that the gimps were louder. They were closer. :Lizzy could hear them pawing at the ground near the house, just outside the perimeter of stones.
"They'll never pass over." she whisppered. "They'll never pass. They'll never pass..."
She repeated these words over and over as a ray of light pierced the room through the window and swept over her. She gripped her camera close to her chest and willed herself not to turn aorund and look. So they could get close enough to shine a light through the window. She still wasn't hearing any creaking on the stairs, or fingers scratching the glass. There was a pawing of sorts though. It sounded like something digging a frustrated foot into the dirt. Then a sigh.
Then a whisper.
"Lizzy."
"No." she said to herself.
People say your heart stops when you're afraid. For her it was the opposite. She felt a sickly shock under her solar plexus, as though her heart were an electric eel thrashing in the darkness of her chest, dashing itself against her rib cage.
"Fuck you." she said.
"Lizzy."
This time the voice came with a bit of static. She realized that there was nothing in the room with her. Lizzy shoved the makeshift blankets off herself and fumbled through the darkness until she came to the kitchen. There was a radio on the counter and a little red light. She took the handset and pressed the button.
"Michael?" she said.
"I followed it." he said. "It leads out just like I thought. So I'm coming back to get you."
"No Michael, don't. Leave me here. I'm safe where I am."
"Safe to do what? There's a way out."
"But out to where?" she said.
"I don't know. Does it matter? I'm coming back for you."
"Please don't. Just. Go. Promise me you won't try to come back."
"I've been thinking."
"It was always a bad habit you had."
He laughed and she laughed with him.
"This is what I have to say." came the faint voice. "You're worried about loosing control of your mind. I've always known that. But you know, none of use are in control. Not me or anyone. But it doesn't mean you don't have a choice. Not if you accept that, and you take those things that control you and say - yeah, go ahead. Get in my head and tell me what to do. It's okay. So long as you know it works out in the end the way you want. Like the piano."
She let a few moments of silence pass.
"Lizzy?"
"I'm turning off the radio now, Michael."
"Why?"
"It's like you said. You want to sit out there in the woods and talk to me instead of doing what's right, which is getting to safety. So, goodbye. Let me go."
She turned a switch and the little red light died. Lizzy sat in the lone chair in her kitchen for a long time until she dozed off. She awoke a start. It was light out again. She leaped to her feet and changed her clothes into something warmer. She took the camera. And she took the knife, though this time it wasn't to cut herself. She ran out to where the church was.
And there was the piano, or what was left of it. Bit and pieces of broken wood and wire lay everyewhere among piles of ivory keys.
"Michael!" she shouted.
No one replied, not even the howling gimps. Then she did something she'd never done before. She ran into the woods. There was a trail of blood on the floor or soft fallen leaves. Lizzy followed this until the ground began to dip. She came to a shallow ravine. It was the little river, just as Michael had described. She went sideways down the hill to prevent herself from loosing control.
"Oh god." she said. "Michael."
He lay in the stream bed with his eyes open and looking up to the sky. He clutched his rifle against he chest. His blood was smeared across the rocks and ice that formed the stream bed. And his chest was ripped open. Somehow, this didn't make Lizzy turn away. She didn't feel disgusted. She felt angry. She was angry at the world and angry at the gimps. Most of all, she was furious with Michael because he'd tried to come back.
Without really giving it much thought, Lizzy lifted her camera and took a photo of her only friend.
"I won't forget what you did."
She took Michael's rifle and his bullets. She dragged them along with her camera up the hill and out of the woods. When she reached her house again, she placed them on the porch. Lizzy went around the circle of stones and pulled them up from the ground. In several trips, she gathered the stones and the gun and her camera inside the house. She lay the camera down by her box of pictures and her pile of apples.
Lizzy made a semi circle with the stones around her things and stepped inside. Then she loaded up the rifle and slung it around her shoudler. She sat next to her pile of apples and ate one. Then another. She was done conserving them. There was no more waiting until spring.
"Come and get me." she said.
