Ascent
By Barbara Stanley
“Sure you’re gonna be okay here by yourself?”
“Of course, of course, I’ve got plenty to do. Don’t worry, go make contacts.”
Julie pulled the comforter, damp and snagged now, tighter around her body. The icy wind bit into her hands and face as she sat on the roof top, trying to absorb what little sunshine peeked through the midday clouds. Jack was three thousand miles away at a supply chain logistics conference in Maryland, and Julie, crouched on the roof of their house, did not have plenty to do, she had one thing to do, one thing only—figure out how to get off this roof before their house fell into Jesusita Canyon, a thousand feet down.
The rain started the day before. Light at first, coming up from Ventura County as her app predicted--then a torrent so sudden it was as though an angry god decided to dump an ocean of water on their little mountain enclave with the intent of drowning everyone out. The power had gone out soon after, but when the downpour finally stopped, her cell phone screeched an evacuation alert. As Julie raced to get blankets and clothes, a rumbling growl shook the foundation and a mountain of muddy sludge burst through the house.
The entire first floor lay buried in it, right up to the second floor. Though she’d left her phone downstairs, by sheer chance she’d been upstairs in the bedroom when the mudslide happened. Up on a second floor where the first floor no longer existed.
Outside held an alien world. Slate grey sky. A moonscape of mud brimming with planks, boulders and trees, a huge swath of which cut into the canyon.
Other things on the moonscape—a basketball, a teddy bear, bicycles, shoes. A doll’s head, a stroller. Unnerved, Julie looked beyond, searching for the familiar rooftop of her nearest neighbors, hoping they’d escaped the carnage.
Gone. The house and the land it stood on sheared off into the canyon below. The fate of her remaining two neighbors a half mile away--unknown.
Of all things she thought of Moze, her 17-year-old tom, eight months gone now. His grave lay somewhere beneath the sludge. Last of their menagerie of pets, he’d died a peaceful death in his sleep—a small mercy on this awful day. His favorite spot had always been downstairs by the fireplace.
Saint Jules, Jack called her, patron of all creatures. Cats, dogs, birds, lizards, insects—all fell under her protection, including the worst--spiders. Just before the rains she’d mustered the courage to save yet another Daddy Long Legs from the shower, recoiling as she scooped him up in a towel and dumped him over the bathroom floor, cringing as he scurried away on those spindly legs. Carry out, never squash, was her motto. Even the eight-legged horrors.
Now she felt like that spider, clinging not to a shower wall but to the roof of a dream home that yesterday morning had been fifteen feet from the canyon but today sloped way too near that edge.
The distant wail of sirens the day before gave Julie hope that Emergency Services might somehow make it here despite the chaos. She kept a vigil, huddled close to the chimney, as day faded to dusk. Not until the first stars appeared did she give up and focus on sleep.
An icy mist descended that night; a light one, but drenching after hours of exposure. Did she sleep? Fitfully, jerking awake whenever her body dozed sideways.
The first far off sounds of a helicopter in the morning roused her from drowsy enough to shout “Help! Help me!” to no one in particular, as the hum faded away, hidden behind the north ridge. She cursed and huddled under the comforter, grateful for its warmth. In her panic to get to the roof she’d grabbed whatever was close and brought it with her. Pulling the comforter through the window and around the dormer had been scary hard but saved her from the night chill.
Her head hurt, her sinuses throbbed from the icy air, but the worst was that safety was only twelve feet away. The storage shed Jack bought this past summer—sturdy with a low pitch roof—stood on a rise above the mud, away from the canyon edge.
Twelve feet away with no way to reach it.
A running jump might do it. But who was she kidding at that distance? Miss it and she’d drop into the slurry to be stabbed or crushed by branches, boulders, and the debris of other lives.
So began another vigil--straining to hear any sound, any noise that signaled rescue. One siren only pierced the quiet and one helicopter hummed before fading out, far from the canyon. The grey sky gave way to a mildewy yellow, signaling late afternoon. Dusk would be here soon, followed by another night on the roof. Unless--
Her comforter. The thing was a monster, a California King she and Jack often joked would swallow them whole one day. She remembered marveling at its length--almost nine feet long--only three feet less than the length from her roof to the shed roof. What if she ripped a hole in its corner, swung it towards the shed wall? Three sturdy hooks protruded from those eaves. Hooks for the extension ladder Jack never got around to putting back after painting the house trim last fall.
If she tossed the comforter and the hole caught on a hook. If she twisted the comforter into a makeshift rope and secured it to the chimney. If she grabbed the comforter rope, hung on, moving hand over hand to span those twelve feet—she’d reach the shed roof.
Crazy, crazy, crazy, and it might work.
There looked to be enough height between the mud and the proposed rope to accommodate the sag from her body weight. Enough height, but not enough length. More fabric was needed to extend the comforter rope.
That meant a trip back into the house.
The asphalt roof tiles were slick with moisture and her shivering didn’t help, so Julie inched down on her butt until she reached the little peak of the bedroom dormer window.
Thank God for the rock-climbing class she’d taken with Jack. She curled her right hand around the front eaves—a clumsy hand, chilled by wind and damp—crouched close to the dormer and wriggled her way around to the open window. She slipped a leg in, straddling it, while holding onto the window frame. Then she ducked in and let the rest of her body to fall into the bedroom.
She landed with a splat in a foot of mud—more of it since yesterday. A cup of water stood on her nightstand and she waded over to down it in one gulp. She stretched across the bed to devour the bag of chips on Jack’s nightstand, not caring about her muddy hands, shocked by her sudden hunger. A few big steps later she reached the closet.
Julie pulled on one of Jack’s cable-knit sweaters for warmth and tucked a couple of long-sleeved shirts inside to clean her hands and feet after. She found a pair of tights dangling on the door, more long-sleeved tops, and a pair of Jack’s pants, enough fabric to extend the comforter. One of the nightstand drawers yielded a dried-out pen, the only thing nearby resembling a sharp object.
She knotted tops and bottoms together until she had a long length of narrow clothes rope, wound it around her waist and began the reverse climb back up the roof.
Her muddy feet slid down twice. Her hands missed a grab, clumsy with fatigue. When Julie reached the chimney, she paused to stabilize herself until the shivering passed.
Julie pulled the pen out from her bra and held a corner of the comforter taut. She stabbed the corner four, five times until she heard a satisfying rip, jabbing again through the stuffing to rip the underside. Easy enough to make the hole bigger by pulling at the tear. Easy also to repeat the whole process on the corner diagonal to the comforter. And easy to thread the clothes rope through that hole, knot it tight, lay it near the chimney base.
Twelve feet, one swing, salvation.
Julie slid down until she was about a foot away from the roof edge. She rose up on her knees—to stand would be suicide this close. She twisted the comforter tight as possible until her hands ached from the effort. Mindful of the edge with the hole, she gathered the comforter in her arms and began to swing, getting a feel for its weight. Back and forth, building momentum. Stabilizing her knees, raising her arms high. Rocking and rocking. Higher and higher, bigger swings. Up-up-up--
And release.
The comforter flew up, sailed over the edge of the roof and dropped to the mud below.
Her heart dropped with it, as all at once she saw the sheer stupidity of the plan. The idiocy of thinking her arms strong enough to make a damp comforter fly twelve feet through the air. The moronic ineptitude of forgetting to secure the clothes rope end to the chimney before she tossed the comforter end.
Julie doubled over and howled, punching the roof, screaming, cursing, oblivious to the slippery pitch and the jagged rocks below. Her shrieks filled the empty air, stopping only when she saw that a piece of clothes rope still lay along the roof edge.
Even muddy, the comforter offered night shelter. All Julie had to do was grab the clothes rope and pull it back up.
Arms outstretched, she lunged towards the rope, slipped and skidded to the edge. At the last minute she pushed with both hands, saving her body from going over but knocking the last of the rope off the roof. It fell with a plop to the mud below. Julie felt the wind go out of her as though she, too, had gone over the edge.
She lay quiet for a long time, until the air grew cold and still, until the last seam of light disappeared from the horizon, until her breaths went calm and quiet. Then she inched her way back up to the chimney.
I may die on this roof. I may die in the canyon. There’s nothing to be done but wait. I can do that.
She pulled out the shirts stuffed in her top, knotted them together, draped them around her body and tied herself to the chimney. Then she pressed her cheek against the rough brick, hugged it, and incredibly, fell asleep.
***
Blackness, dripping cold, scrabbling noise and a gut-curdling slide. Julie jolted awake, her cheek scraping brick, still tied to the chimney base. The house had slid further, caving in on itself, and would have tossed her off the roof if not for that chimney. From far off, a gathering of dark clouds, pregnant with rain, stood quiet in the early morning, waiting to advance and drench her one last time.
In the distance a helicopter sounded from everywhere and nowhere, its hum somehow mocking her.
Didn’t matter. The end would probably be quick. Funny, the calm she felt inside, her shivering body not really feeling the cold.
She closed her eyes and found herself standing with Jack at the edge of the canyon that first morning after their move. Two cups of coffee, fragrant sage, leaves crunching at their feet and sky a robin’s-egg blue. Taking her hand, Jack had winked at her and said “Let’s jump.” Her laughter had filled the canyon.
A chirp of birdsong startled her. She looked over to see a tiny sparrow warbling away, perched on something grey that stretched between the house and the shed—something not there the day before. Something that looked exactly like a tarp, attached to the eaves of her house and stretching twelve feet across to the eaves of the shed, connecting the two buildings.
A trick of the eye, a shadow? Birds don’t perch on shadows. The tarp swayed a bit in the wind but held firm, a thick dark material along its edges holding it stable to the shed.
Hallucination? A waking dream?
As she untied herself from the chimney the sparrow flew off, causing the tarp edge to ripple. Morning dew glistened on the fabric.
Julie threw the shirts onto the tarp. They landed in a pile on the surface.
Before she had a chance to think how or why, her body jumped into action, launching her off the roof and into the center of the tarp in a bouncy, rolling tumble. At the same time the helicopter—loud now—appeared over the north ridge, moving in her direction.
All Julie had to do was crawl forward to the shed roof, less than twelve feet away. The tarp felt soft but strong, oddly gummy, holding her weight in a netting-like fabric. Strong but yielding, kind of like webbing. Almost like—
She looked at the dark rim holding the tarp steady at the shed. Swiveled around to see another dark rim holding the tarp steady at the house eaves. Turned back to the shed and looked at that dark rim again.
Solid yet not solid. Quivering. Fabric didn’t quiver or writhe along the edge. Only living creatures did that. Tiny critters, teeming with life. The kind Julie feared.
Spiders. Hundreds of them, thousands of them, brimming at the edges, holding a giant spiderweb in place with Julie in the middle.
Her scream rocked the canyon, knocking her flat. Trapped in a web with millions of spiders. She screamed again.
The helicopter drew close. If Julie made it to the shed roof before the spiders did she’d be able to fight them off before rescue.
She forced herself to move towards the shed, one trembling limb in front of the other in a slow-motion crawl. The web sagged, the black rim writhed, the web held firm.
She continued to force her way forward, eyes glued to the rim, creeping along the sticky surface, heart pounding. Every fiber in her being screaming at her to stop! Closer and closer, millions of tiny legs moving--gray and furry, brown and spindly, black and thick. The whole world shrinking to a narrow tunnel and at the end of that tunnel, spiders.
She saw her hand reach beyond the mass. Saw it grip the shed edge. Felt the brush of a hundred legs tickling her skin. Heard herself scream. Her other hand pressed against the roof edge. More tickling, a million legs brushing. Then a catapult forward, and she lay on the roof. She jumped up, ready to fight.
But the rim remained quivery still. No spiders crawled up her body. The helicopter drew overhead while Julie flailed her arms—I’m here. I’m here.
She looked up to see a figure looking down, waving a gloved hand. The helicopter thundered above her as the figure extended down on a single thread, moving towards her. Strong arms adjusted a rescue sling around her body and pulled her close. She held tight to the figure as they swung up through the air towards noise, other outstretched arms and a tornado of wind.
As the figure pushed her into the mouth of the helicopter Julie looked down. The grey web, her beautiful spiderweb, had been blown to tatters by the helicopter’s force, shreds flying in the wind. And the spiders, all of them, blew through the air like drizzly rain, mixing with specks of mud before drifting down to scatter away. All evidence gone-- a secret never to be revealed.
But as the helicopter flew off, Julie felt a surge of gratitude and promised herself to someday, maybe under another blue sky, tell Jack everything.
For the first time in three days she smiled.
Saint Jules, ascending.
END
Barbara Stanley's fiction has appeared in print and online at Mystery Tribune, Fiction on the Web, Literally Stories, Flash Fiction Magazine and Yellow Mama Webzine, among others. She lives a quiet life in Southern California, always searching for that hint of menace.
