the ladder. She sounded angry. There was a kind of a banging noise, like she kicked something or slapped her hand against it.
I scrambled up and crawled to the edge of the platform. But by the time I got there, I seen how stupid it would be to look out over the edge. There might yet be enough light in the sky for my head to be visible from down on the ground. I just crouched down instead, and got a good grip on the top of the ladder.
It creaked and shifted under my hand, but only for a second or two. If someone was climbing up, it would be shaking like anything. So I was safe for now.
“I heard something,” a man’s voice said. It was hoarse and high, with breathing all around it. He sounded to me like he might be sick in some way. “I think there was some kind of a light too.”
“Up in the lookout?” This was the woman again.
“Well, where do you think I mean?”
“The light come from over there. We seen the body, Mole. We seen the burns on it and everything.”
“Yeah, but we didn’t see what burned him, did we? I heard something move up there. I’m sure of it.”
“This is stupid,” said a third voice. Another woman, or maybe a boy. “We shouldn’t of come so far out so late in the day. Dogs almost got us, chokers almost got us and now we’re stuck in this shitheap.”
“Only until morning, Cup,” the first woman says. “Sky’s clouding over again nice as anything. It’ll rain like a bitch tomorrow, you mark me. Mole, that ladder will not take your weight. It’s probably got rungs missing too. You’re gonna break your neck if you go up there in the dark.”
“I’m not going up,” the man said. “He’s coming down to us. Aren’t you, you little shit? Yeah, I see you there.” I near to give a gasp, and give myself away with it, only I shoved my fist up against my mouth and stifled it. He had got to be lying. There wasn’t no part of me that was showing over the edge of the lookout’s platform, and the sky was pretty dark now in any case. Clouds had rolled in over the thin slice of moon that was up there, like the woman said, so I couldn’t hardly see my own hand.
“If you get down here now and tell us who you are,” the man went on, “I guess we’ll let you live. I’ll give you the count of five, then I’m coming up. But if I got to do that, you little bastard, I swear I’ll send you down the nearest way.”
“He’s bluffing, Koli,” Monono said in my ear, her voice all calm. “Twice. He can’t see you and he’s not coming up. Trust me. If he does though, he’ll get an earful of the security alarm when he’s halfway up. Induction only. The other two won’t hear it, so they’ll think he just missed his step.”
The man’s voice had got to five by this time. There was silence for a few moments.
“Can we go find somewhere to sleep now?” the woman named Cup asked.
“I guess we’ll sleep right here,” the man said, somewhat angry.
“What? Why?”
“If there’s someone up there, I don’t want him sneaking away in the night.”
“And I don’t want him sneaking down and cutting my throat in my sleep. There’s all these houses. I bet there’s beds in some of them.”
“Oh, you want to sleep in a bed now? Maybe you want your old name back too?”
There was quiet for a moment or two. “No,” said Cup in a small voice. “I don’t want that.”
“Are you sure? I think it suits you better than Cup does.”
“Don’t, Mole! Don’t you say it to me! I’ll fight you if you do.”
“Shut up, the both of you,” said the other woman. “How’s this now?” There was a bang, and then another one, and a sound like one thing falling hard against another thing. More of the same followed, for about the time it took to draw ten breaths and let them out again. The ladder shaked and then stopped, shaked and then stopped again, but nobody come up.
“I don’t want to hear no more talk about this,” the woman whose name I didn’t know said. “Not from either of you. We’re gonna do what Cup said and go sleep in a house. Not for sinful backsliding, but to have a wall