Scott Nicholson - The Gorge

He turned, the cool night air shrinking the Boomeroo even further, until it was hidden in the nest of his pubic hair.

A flock of the creatures flew silently up the valley, stunted wings barely moving. Three came out of the mist, following the river. A few more emerged. Then more, spilling forth like shaved rats from a storm grate. Farrengalli couldn’t count them all.

Their silence was more unsettling than their shrieks had been, and they soared with an eerie determination. Farrengalli stepped back into the cave, risking Raintree’s piton, but the creatures didn’t detect them.

Or, Farrengalli thought, they know we’re here but they just don’t care. Like they got bigger fish to fry.

One of them flew close, not altering course below them. Farrengalli’s breath caught.

Doo-dah-fucking-day. That one looked like McKay!

The creature had no hair, like the others, but its face wasn’t quite as wrinkled and it had the same arched brow as the dead bicyclist. A tattered piece of fabric, the same color as McKay’s royal blue SealSkinz, trailed from its neck like the cape of a deformed superhero, flapping in the wind.

Being dead ain’t good enough. Being dead doesn’t mean you get out of this cluster fuck.

All the more reason to keep from being dead.

Farrengalli was about to suggest they all hide deep in the cave for a while, but the words never got a chance to leave his vocal chords. Raintree rammed into him from behind, knocking them both over the ledge and into the great gulf of space.

Ace knew exactly where they had taken Clara.

God had shone a thin, golden beam through the clouds, casting its pure light on a dark cleft in the granite. The opening was only about thirty feet above the river, and probably back in the days of Noah, it had been deep underground. But the Unegama had bitched and moaned, as persistent as a psychotic woman, until it cut deep into God’s green Earth and first released these underground demons.

Why had God played such a trick? He’d let Ace think they were angels, in a nasty piece of bait and switch, and that they had been sent from above to assist in the holy work.

It all came down to a test of faith. Why, God had tested the faith of Adam, Abraham, Jonah, Daniel, Job, pretty much every big name in the Good Book. He’d even tested his own worldly son, Jesus. So Ace should never have expected any different.

Besides, God was still on his side, as promised by the guiding light.

“Wait up,” Bowie rasped from behind him.

Ace, beating his way through the scrub vegetation, had no reason to wait. This was his mission, even if Bowie now held the gun. Ace had something even more valuable: the C-4 in his knapsack, rigged with a touchy detonator.

The river guide was maybe fifty feet behind him, and though Ace was exhausted, an inner fire kindled deep in his gut and warmed him. God may have tested him, but it also meant Ace was up there with the big names, that maybe one day an extra testament would be added and preachers would be reciting from the Book of Goodall.

Ace had never been much for schooling, but he aimed to pass this test with flying colors.

He scrambled along the base of the cliff wall, following a natural shelf toward the opening. A geologist might have explained erosion patterns and the different properties of various rock layers, but to Ace, the shelf was God’s version of the straight and narrow.

Though he could use a vision right about now to give him a clue. In school, before he dropped out, he’d been able to bully other kids into cheating for him, or else just wrote the answers on the back of his hand. Except he always wrote down the wrong answers, or they always asked the wrong questions. Tricks. Always tricks.

God, though I walk through the valley of death by the still waters, may I cast no shadow. And if it be Thy will, deliver me unto evil so that I might show you I’m worthy.

And, just as simple as that, the demons came out of the misty night and winged toward the opening. Ace had guessed right. They were all gathering inside, gray, blind pigeons come home to roost.

He paused, moving aside a branch to watch them enter. They were silent, except for the soft stirring of their wings and tongues.

Three made a beeline for the rock cleft, slowing a little and angling sideways as they entered.

Then came another batch.

Feeding time.

Except Ace knew they were after a different, darker kind of nourishment. They had passed up Bowie to go after Clara. They needed the thing in her belly.

And goddamned if they were going to take his blood kin without a fight. A baby was a baby, and life was life. Worth fighting for, worth killing for, and worth dying for.

Bowie caught up, breathing hard right behind him. “Jesus,” the rafting guide whispered.

“Not exactly,” Ace said. He was calm, his pulse and hands as steady as they had been when he’d planted the clinic bombs. Some of his fellow patriots were hot-blooded, ranting about revenge and revolution, but Ace approached his duty with patience and humility. He was a servant. Rewards would surely follow, but not on this mortal plane.

“How many of them are there?”

“They are legion. Don’t you read the Good Book?”

“Not lately.”

“You ought to. Lot of wisdom in them pages.”

“Any instructions on this kind of thing?”

Ace watched another small flock of the creatures descend and swerve into the cave, their gray flesh making them look like glass ravens in the moonlight. “There’s one of yours,” he said, pointing.

“Shit. Can’t be.”

“Proof that he wasn’t worthy. I expect your other people will be along shortly.”

“Vampires. Farrengalli was right.”

“Call them whatever you want. They’re unfit. Cast into eternal darkness.”

“She’s already dead, you know.”

Ace shook his head as the stream of demons slowed and the gorge again fell hushed except for the riffing melody of the river. “Don’t matter none. Being dead don’t get you off the hook. And they ain’t getting’ my baby. Dead or alive.”

Ace stepped from the low, concealing trees and walked toward the light.

Raintree heard Dove call his name as he took Farrengalli over the edge and into space. Or maybe he imagined it, because the loud smack as he and Farrengalli slammed into the side of the cliff was followed by exploding fireworks inside his skull.

The intensity of the headache was rivaled by the orange strip of napalm in his leg. He was dimly aware of the naked man hanging onto him with a passion Farrengalli had probably never shared with a lover.

He opened his eyes, and the river was above him, its rapids pale in the light of the grounded moon.

Farrengalli’s arms were wrapped around his waist, hooked in his belt. The two of them were swaying, and Raintree understood.

Amateur technique. Poor awareness. The kind of thing you’d expect from a pill-head.

He’d left the safety rope secured in its anchor, coiled loosely at the edge of the cave. His foot had tangled and aborted his kamikaze attack. Hanging upside down, his leg broken and the tendons separating further by the second, blood pouring from his scalp and nose, he could only imagine how silly he must look. A red puppet on a yo-yo string. He laughed.

Farrengalli planted his toes on Raintree’s chin, launching himself upward, grabbing for the rope. Raintree was too weak to hold onto him, the Olympic grip now impotent. His back was pinned to the mat, the ref counting down.

Farrengalli skinned up Raintree’s devastated leg like a summer camper climbing a greased pole for a watermelon. Just before abandoning him and scaling the rope, Farrengalli reached for the belt, tugging at the fanny pack that held the cell phone.