Dreamcatcher: Chapter 12
There were 227 steps up the narrow metal ladder alongside Comcor's chimney. Just 227 steps in a howling wind and predawn darkness
until we reached the inspection balcony, which circled near the tower's top. The backpack with the banner stuffed inside bumped against me every step, the wind trying hard to tug it free. I
didn't complain. I could have been carrying Colin's backpack. It had bricks in it.
The rungs of the ladder were covered with black carbon dust and God knows what other toxic stuff from the chimney. The higher we went, the
more slippery each rung got.
'Careful now,' panted Colin. 'I'm just getting to the balcony.' With a heave, his legs disappeared
sideways from sight, and we heard a clang as he dropped his backpack to the floor. Fighting the wind and a stupid, suicidal urge to look down, the rest of us followed.
'Hell,' panted Jacob. 'It's a long way up here.' Spread out far below was the town, the
streetlights on the roads ribboning their way among houses and shops. Beyond stretched the sea, where the wind had whipped dark water into whitecaps just visible in the distance.
'What a view!' Toni was trying to hold her hair out of her eyes with both hands, but the wind
was winning. She leaned over and looked at the ground below. 'It's sure a long way down.'
'Is the rope still there?' asked Colin. We'd needed the rope to climb the first twenty feet —
Comcor's ladder hadn't started until about then. I'd checked it all out last week. It had taken days to figure everything out.
'I guess so,' said Toni. She didn't look again. Surreptitiously she edged backwards until her
body rested against the main trunk of the smokestack. Black soot instantly smeared her jumper. She didn't seem to care.
'Come on,' I said. 'We'd better get to work.' I hadn't recovered from the climb up, but
looking down was scrambling all sorts of things in my stomach and brain. I opened my backpack, grabbed one end of the banner, and started pulling. 'Take the other end, will you,'
I said to Colin. But the wind beat him to it, tugging at it playfully, spinning it high into the air out of our reach. I held fast to the ties while the rest of it furled and flapped and everyone
stumbled around the balcony trying to play catch with it.
'We don't have to tie it down,' called Toni. 'We'll just leave you up here with it.'
'Hurry up, will you!' The ties were starting to cut into my hands.
'Nearly got you now!' Colin was reaching up for an end, victory in sight.
A sudden rush of wind swirled around the tower. Colin lunged high, but the banner twisted
itself from his grasp, and suddenly I felt material cut into my hands like knives.
'Look out!' yelled Toni. But like a huge alien enemy, the banner hurled itself upwards. It
hovered above, twisting to gain momentum, and then suddenly it cut down, hurling through the air, aiming directly at Colin. There was a rushing sound, a sudden crack like a whip as the end lashed across his face.
'Arrrrhh!' he screamed, and reeled backwards. And then there were other voices screaming,
mine too. For where Colin stood, there was no railing, no metal, no bars to stop his body. Only the empty space above the ladder and the endless, terrible fall to the ground.
'ARRRRHH!' The cry was all around us. 'ARRRRHH!' And only Colin could move, hands clawing
at his face, trying to dig out the pain while his legs moved backwards, still backwards towards the terrible edge ...
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