***
The water tower’s ladder swayed, swinging out several feet before rebounding and taking Joss so close to the tower he could reach out and touch it, but he didn’t dare unlock his arms. One was hooked around the ladder’s side. The other, wrapped around a rung.
“You’ve got to stop moving it or the whole thing will come down,” Holly yelled up at him.
What was she talking about? He wasn’t moving it. The ladder moved by itself.
If he lowered himself slowly, maybe he could climb down a few rungs. He had to do something. If not, he’d fall and die.
He tried to unhook his arm around the rung but his muscles wouldn’t respond.
“I can’t move,” he said.
Holly paced around the water tower’s base. “If you stay up there too long somebody’s going to see you.”
“That’s the least of my worries,” Joss said.
“I didn’t want to say at any moment you could come crashing down.” She stopped pacing and held out her arms. “Want me to try to catch you?”
“Oh, that’s hilarious,” he said.
She dropped her arms. “Try climbing down real slow.”
“I told you I can’t move at all.”
Twenty feet below Joss the bolts snapped off with an audible ping and this time on the down bounce the ladder didn’t rebound, but swung farther out.
Joss screamed.
The ladder slowed and stopped on a 45 degree angle out from the water tower.
His legs felt like limp spaghetti.
“I’ll go call 9-1-1. Hang on!” Holly sprinted to the hedges bordering 7-11′s parking lot.
Joss couldn’t believe this was happening. He should have called it quits the first time the ladder wobbled. Or better yet, he shouldn’t have attempted the climb in the first place.
He watched Holly disappear through the hole in the hedges. She’d get help. It’d be embarrassing, but at least he’d be alive.
As soon as Holly disappeared from view, a small furry animal emerged from the bushes and stood on its hind legs like a meerkat. The animal raised its arms, placing a paw on each cheek, as if surprised to find Joss dangling there.
The ladder started moving again, picking up speed.
He closed his eyes and let out a strangled yell. “Aaaeeeeiiihhh.”
* * *
“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”
Holly rapid-fired her answer. “My friend is stuck on the ladder on the old water tower, the one near 7-11 on Wabash, and the ladder isn’t attached any more, and he’s stuck like sixty feet in the air and can’t move and you need to send a fire truck with a long ladder–”
“Aaaeeeeiiihh,” Joss’s scream interrupted her.
She turned and watched her friend clinging to the falling ladder. The hedges blocked her most of her view, but she heard the crash. Joss stopped screaming.
The dropped the phone. This was her fault. She shouldn’t have challenged him to climb the water tower.
She sprinted across the parking lot and dove through the hole in the hedges.
* * *
Joss felt somebody shake his shoulder and lifted his head to see who it was. It was Holly. He had been laying, face down, on the ground next to the old water tower. He rolled over and sat up. “What happened?”
Holly didn’t answer. She looked at him, eyes glistening with tears.
He tried getting to his feet, but fell to his knees. The world spun around him.
Holly helped him up and threw her arms around him, squeezing.
He broke free of her hug. “What’s going on?”
“You fell.” She rubbed her eyes.
He cocked his head sideways, but didn’t say anything.
“Don’t you remember falling?” she asked.
“No.”
“I can’t believe you’re not dead,” she said. “You fell over fifty feet. I was calling for help, saw you fall, and then ran back over here.”
Joss rubbed the back of his neck. It felt like dozens of small spiders were flitting around there.
“You remember climbing?” Holly asked.
This didn’t seem like one her jokes, so he answered. “I remember I was getting ready to climb. I was at the base of the ladder and, whoa!” He stared at the busted up ladder next to his feet. “I … uh, this is crazy.”
“Yeah,” Holly said.
“So I was getting ready to climb, I looked up the ladder, and then it’s just sort of a blur after that.”
“You were almost to the top,” she said. “It started to fall and it was swaying up there with you clinging on. I ran off to call 9-1-1. Then I heard you screaming–”
“I wasn’t screaming.”
“Whatever, yelling then, you don’t even remember. Anyways, I looked back and the whole thing was falling down.”
“No way.”
A siren wailed in the distance.
Joss pointed at the top of the water tower. “I fell from clear up there?”
“Yeah,” Holly said. “I didn’t actually see you hit the ground because I was on the other side of the hedges, but I saw you fall.”
He examined the ladder on the ground and noticed the bend ten feet up where it was still attached to the water tower. “I bet it slowed down. See it didn’t break, it’s just bent. It must have slowed me down right at the end.”
The sired sounds were closer.
“I don’t know,” Holly said. “Maybe. That’s the fire department I bet. Unless you want to explain why we’re here, we better leave.”
They both ran toward the hole in the hedges.
***
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