Part Two
Coalise Edison thought the universe might be sending her a message that she was going to die.
All the signs were there, and Coalise believed in omens. That morning she had seen a story on the news about somebody dying of exposure in these very mountains, and then a series of bizarre events lead her to her present position.
Sitting on the ground at the bottom of a fifteen-foot deep hole.
The worst part was, she wouldn’t even die quickly. Her water bottle had survived the fall with her, as improbably intact as she was, and if she rationed it properly, she might live seven, eight, even nine days.
It wasn’t a terrible hole. A season or two ago, something large had nested down here with a lot of dry brush, the abundance of which was mostly likely the padding that had robbed Coalise of a quick and stunning death. If she got really hungry, she might be able to eat bark.
She’d actually called for help, twice, before she realized how absurd the hope that someone might hear her was. Now she was just muttering to herself, while she paced in tiny circles.
"What the hell is this hole doing here, anyway?" she asked. The diameter couldn’t have been more than three feet, if that, and the walls went straight down.
Coalise should have expected that this was how she would go out. She had, mildly put, strange luck. It couldn't even be called bad, because more often than not she came out of a situation breaking even, but her luck was definitely weird.
Things malfunctioned. Stuff blew up. She got lost and met strange people who offered her a free scooter or a bunch of light bulbs in return for her witnessing their marriage. Coincidences fell like rain. She was never punctual, but it genuinely wasn't her fault. The one time she had been out of the country, she had bumped into a classmate from junior high school, halfway around the world.
Today had been no exception, and now she was sitting at the bottom of a hole, wondering whether her situation would be the last great inexplicable of her life or yet another silly joke.
She dug through her pockets. Keys, two for the house, two for her car, a mini-flashlight key chain that might come in handy. A roll of Butter Run Life Savers. A silver necklace she had been wearing last week when the clasp broke. Her wallet, including her license and a photograph of her baby brothers, Addison and Greco.
Other than that, she had the clothes on her back, her water bottle, and a T-81 graphing calculator that had somehow gotten into her jacket pocket.
She was wondering whether or not she could enter a last message to her family as a box plot when she realized what the calculator was really good for.
It was a shovel.
If she started digging now and conserved her water, she might be able to widen the hole at enough of a slant that she could climb out. It wouldn’t be easy, starting from the bottom and working up, but it sure as hell beat dying.
She had just jammed the calculator into the dirt next to her head when the puma appeared.
It had a smallish, circular face with pert ears and gray-blue fur. The nose was pink but not in a kittenish way. It stared down at her from the mouth of the hole with lovely blue eyes that were probably assessing her potential as a meal.
"Oh, shit," she whispered, and hurtled her keys at it. They landed somewhere outside the hole. The cat leapt back and Coalise frantically began going through her pockets again. Calculator, water. She could maybe smack it with the calculator and pour water in its eyes if it didn’t jump down the hole and land on top of her first. Yeah, that would work.
"Don’t eat me, kitty," she said. "I’ve had a really bad day, don’t make it worse."
The puma had moved out of her line of sight after she threw her keys, and she waited but it failed to reappear. It hadn’t eaten her, she thought that might be a good omen.
"Hello?" she heard a male voice call.
Coalise was so startled she dropped her calculator.
"Hello!" she shouted back, almost disbelieving her luck. Maybe the puma was a pet or something, a huge feline Lassie. "I’m stuck down a hole!"
His face appeared above the opening. "I see," he said.
She couldn’t tell how tall he was or what he really looked like from that angle, but she thought he was around her age. "Hi," she said, smiling.
He frowned and didn’t say anything.
"There was an avalanche," she told him, "I freaked out and started running and fell right down this hole. Can you give me a hand out?"
He straightened up and looked away, over one shoulder and then the other. Coalise began to get a sinking feeling in her stomach. There was something strange about this guy.
"Yeah," he said finally, "I guess."
"Is there something going on up there?" she asked, trying to understand. She saw him lift his face, and she thought for a moment that he sniffed the air. "Are people hurt?"
"I don’t know. I was with someone, I don’t know if she got caught or not." He took a few steps away from the hole and Coalise lost sight of him. She thought he might be in shock from the vague way he addressed her.
Minutes passed. Finally she called, "Are you still there?"
"Yes. Move against the wall, I’m coming down."
"No, wait-" she began, but he was already dropping over the edge.
He landed on his feet without wincing or loosing his footing in the loose nesting twigs. Coalise gaped, but he didn’t blink.
They were less than four inches apart. The hole was narrow and she wasn’t sure they both could have sat down.
The light was dim, but she was able to see his face now. It was roundish and very focused and he had light brown hair. His hair cut was odd, an inch long over his entire scull, no variation, and his hair looked thick, like animals fur. His blue eyes…
Coalise blinked. The puma that had peered in on her flashed in her mind and she almost made some connection between the two, but the thought combusted and she ended up just holding out her hand. "Coalise Edison," she said.
He stared at her hand so long she rolled it over to see if her palm was grossly dirty. He took it slowly then, pressing her fingers under his thumb. "I’m Scotch Thrithe," he said.
"Scotch?" she repeated. "Like the tape?"
"The tape?"
"Like Scotch tape?"
"Oh, no. Like the drink. Here."
He wove his fingers together to make a platform and held them out to her. "I’ll hoist you up," he said.
"Then how are you going to get out?"
"I’ll climb."
"How?"
The walls were dirt, and they crumbled. Coalise only had to brush them with her hand to prove how dangerous they were.
"I…" Scotch frowned again. "I have special shoes," he told her. "Gravity boots."
"You have what?" She looked down at his shoes. She could see nothing remarkable about them. "You have Keds."
"Yes, treads. That’s what I meant. I have treads on my shoes."
Obviously, there was something wrong with him. She thought he must be trying to tell her he had cleats, which he didn’t. "Did you hit your head in the avalanche?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Yeah, a bunch of times."
Sweet Jesus. "Look, cleated shoes aren’t going to help us. There’s no way you’re going to be able to get out now that you’re down here." She ran a hand through her hair, accidentally bumping his chest with her elbow.
"Sorry," she said quickly. He looked at her blankly, but she was distracted by the odd material his shirt was made out of. It was thin and yet…almost woolen. His pants were the same way, and he wore no jacket.
Mountain people, she thought, and didn’t dare say it. "The only way I see this working is for you to give me a boost out. Then I’ll go back to the highway and call for help."
He considered. It was only when he tried to speak to her that his expression turned to confusion.
"Okay," he said, and held out his hands again.
Coalise put her shoe down on his palms and her hands on his shoulders. There was a lot more muscle in his arms than she was expecting—he didn’t look that strong.
Then he sent her flying into the air, and she realized how wrong she was.
One moment she was at the bottom of the hole, the next she was getting her knee up over the edge of it and scrambling for a rock to hold onto. He had simply thrown her upwards, and the image of the puma flashed in her mind again before she rolled into the bushes and safety.
"How the hell did you do that?" she asked in a whisper, lying on her back panting.
"Um," he said.
She sat up. She was ten feet from the mouth of the hole—how the hell had he even heard her ask?
The situation was strange and getting stranger. Coalise climbed to her feet and peered into the hole. Scotch was standing against the wall, frowning again.
For no real reason, she suddenly wondered what he would look like when he smiled.
She shook herself and called down, "I’m going for help, okay?"
"Okay," he agreed. He didn’t appear the least bit worried that she was leaving.
She turned and started back toward the path she had been on when the avalanche began.
She hadn’t gone forty feet before she remembered her keys. She couldn’t get the car open without them.
She began retracing her steps, glanced up, and stopped dead.
The gray-blue puma had just leapt out of the hole.
Her throat constricted and her hand clenched around her water bottle. The puma shook itself, sending bits of dirt flying in every direction, and then stretched its hind legs.
The legs didn’t stop stretching when they should have. They kept getting longer, and they darkened, and a moment later they were a pair of pants and generic Keds.
Coalise watched in total silence as the puma refitted itself to Scotch’s shape. He was getting off his knees when his livid blue eyes met hers.
At the same time, they both said, "Oh, shit."