Supernatural Fresh Meat - By Alice Henderson Page 0,85
drank some eagerly, feeling the liquid refresh him.
Next to him lay the decapitated body of the female vampire. Somewhere below, on the pile of rocks that he and Bobby had climbed, lay the body of the other.
Sam crept to the edge of the ridge as a tremendous gust of wind swept over him. Bracing himself, he lay down and grasped the rocks around him. His parka hood nearly ripped free in an almost deafening burst of fluttering material. He leant over where Bobby had fallen and peered down.
“Bobby!” he shouted.
He didn’t see the orange of Bobby’s parka anywhere, no tangled mass of color among the rocks below.
Then, on a ledge about thirty feet down, Sam spotted an orange shape. He leaned out a little more, snow raining down as he scrunched forward.
“Bobby!” he shouted again.
The orange patch didn’t move. He couldn’t make out legs or arms. It was half buried in the white. Bobby’s pack was nowhere to be seen, no longer on his back.
“Bobby!”
The orange stirred a little. Sam heard a groan, and then a gloved hand appeared from beneath the snow, accompanied by a sharp cry of pain. Bobby cried out again as he flipped over, moving his legs as though he was preparing to stand.
“Don’t try to move!” Sam called down.
Either Bobby was in shock or didn’t hear him, because he kept shifting his position around. He got dangerously close to the edge. Sam shouted down again.
“Bobby! You’re going to fall!”
He stopped moving and stared up, then signaled to Sam, weakly waving an arm.
“God damn mess I’ve gotten myself into here,” he shouted.
At least he was conscious. Sam watched as he tried to sit up, struggled with it, and collapsed back, cradling his arm.
“You waste those two losers?” Bobby called after a moment.
“Yep.”
“Good.” Moving all his limbs now, Bobby added, “My wrist is screwed.” He reached gingerly up to his head. “And I’ve smashed my head pretty good.”
Sam could see the blood, even from his height, staining the snow.
“How long have we been here?”
Sam stared up at the sky again. “I don’t know. Maybe overnight.”
“That’s not good. I’m damn thirsty.”
“What should we do?” Sam shouted down.
“I could try to climb up,” Bobby said, “but that’ll take too long.”
“Do you have more rope?”
“In my pack.” Bobby glanced around on the ledge. “Where’s my pack?”
Sam scanned the boulders at the bottom, not seeing anything. Then he spotted the pack on a ledge above Bobby, about ten feet under and to the right of him. It had ripped open in the fall, some of its contents spilling out and falling to the bottom of the ridge.
“It’s up here,” he called down.
“Can you reach it?”
Sam saw a couple of likely hand- and footholds descending down to the ledge with the pack.
“I think so,” he shouted back.
Another blast of wind buffeted Sam. Once he swung over to the other side of the ridge, though, he’d be on the lee side and safer from getting blown off the rock.
Sam debated whether he should take off his pack before attempting the descent. It had his tent, food, and water in, and if Bobby’s food had fallen out, that was all they had left. On the other hand, the pack was heavy and ungainly on his back, with the potential to throw him dangerously off balance. Finally, he decided to keep it.
He swung his legs over the edge of the ridge and flipped over on his stomach. Reaching down with each foot, he found good handholds and lowered himself down. The storm raged around him as he descended, huge snowflakes getting in his eyes every time he craned his neck around to find his next foothold. He knew that if he fell, both he and Bobby were toast.
After fifteen painstakingly slow minutes, he reached the ledge with Bobby’s pack. Stepping down gingerly onto the rock, Sam tested its solidity, hoping it would hold his weight. It did.
“I’ve got it!” he called down to Bobby.
He stared over the lip of his platform at his ledge some twenty feet below.
Bobby didn’t stir.
“Bobby!” he shouted.
When he still didn’t move, Sam dug into his pack, relieved to see the rope hadn’t fallen out. Bobby’s tent and sleeping bag were still lashed to the outside of the pack, and his weapons and the research folder Marta had given him were still safe inside another zip pocket, but his food, his water bottle, and the stove they’d been using to melt snow for additional drinking water were all gone.