Supernatural Fresh Meat - By Alice Henderson Page 0,79
off the cliff. But they both kept their distance, just out of sight at the top of the ridge. Sam’s searching hand felt around for a boot.
Blue Spikes’ heel drove into the back of his head. Black Overcoat snaked his hand down and grabbed the axe head, wriggling it free. She kicked Sam again in the back of the head, slamming his face into the sharp granite. Blood from a cut in his forehead trickled down into his eyes, blurring his vision. She kicked him again and again. He reached up with his left hand, grabbing her boot, but she wrenched it away, then cracked the back of his head with her heel, driving his face into the jagged rock once more.
Sam felt the axe rip free of its hold and reached for the rock wall desperately with his left hand while trying to wedge it in again with his right. Another swift kick to his head disoriented him. He felt the ice axe start to slip out of his hand. As he strained to hold on to that lifeline, the female vampire pulled him violently to the right, wrenching his left hand away from its hold. He started to fall backward, his feet the only thing holding him and Bobby up. The weight on the rope tugged inexorably downward and Sam’s hand searched the granite surface for anything to cling to.
He and Bobby were going to die.
Suddenly, the weight on the rope vanished. Sam heard Bobby shout, his voice falling away. Sam’s arms reached out, scraping along the granite, the toothed axe ripping down the side of the rock face. Then it caught. Sam’s left hand struggled for a hold and he scrambled his feet against the cliff, both finding purchase. He clung to the wall, breath coming in gasps.
Blinking his eyes clear, he looked down. The end of the lifeline flapped loose. Bobby had cut the rope. The sheer cliff face stretched below, ending two hundred feet down in a jumble of rocks. A few snow-covered ledges protruded out, but he didn’t see Bobby on any of them.
“Bobby!” Sam shouted. “Bobby!”
A gust of wind came screaming around the ridge, pinning him against the rock. No one answered.
Above, he heard the vampires laugh.
FORTY-NINE
Dean came to slowly. He couldn’t quite remember where he was and tried to move his body, but something pressed down on him, making it impossible. He could barely breathe. As he tried to suck in air, he instantly went into a coughing fit. Dust drifted thickly around him and a strange red haze permeated the air.
Across from him in the gloom, a red ‘exit’ sign glowed above a hopelessly askew doorway. Heavy beams lay in front of it, along with broken ceiling tiles and plaster dust. Wiring hung down in clumps, sparking and swinging.
Dean remembered. There had been another avalanche.
He lay on his stomach, something heavy across his upper back. He tried to crane his neck around to see, but couldn’t. Someone whimpered nearby.
“Hello?” he said, spitting out plaster dust.
A man continued to mutter and plead softly.
He could hear something moving near him, but couldn’t tell if it was shifting debris or someone crawling around.
“We’re dead, we’re dead,” the man muttered.
“No, we’re not,” Dean told him, and started coughing again.
When the fit subsided, he glanced around for anything he could use as a pry bar. A few feet away, a piece of rebar lay against a pile of cement rubble. Dean’s left arm was free, and he reached for the rebar. At first he could barely graze it with the tips of his fingers, but he managed to grip it enough to drag it a little nearer, then grasp it properly. Something above him groaned and shifted, pushing even harder down on him.
The man whimpered softly.
“Hey, buddy,” Dean called out. “You free? Can you give me a hand here?”
But the man just went on crying.
Another groan filled the gloom, and Dean felt the debris on his back shift again. But this time the weight eased. Suddenly, he could take a deep breath. Pushing with his legs, he managed to wriggle out from under the debris. When he scrambled free, he sat up and looked back. Part of the stone wall from above had crashed over the staircase. He’d been pinned under one end of a massive beam. Luckily, as more debris fell on the other end of the beam, it had lifted off him.
He tried to stand and found that he could only crouch. The ceiling