Adam Baker - Impact

Akingbola’s leg jerked free, minus a boot. He got to his feet. He slapped Trenchman on the back:

‘Go. Just go.’

Trenchman ran. He covered the last fifty yards tensed like a sprint across a minefield: each footfall a coin-flip with death.

He headed for a vertiginous cliff face, the point where jagged limestone crags rose from the desert dust.

He covered the last few feet convinced he would, at any moment, be snatched beneath the sand.

He gripped a boulder, hauled himself up onto its grit-dusted surface. He scrambled one-eighty, intending to offer Akingbola a hand, but the guy wasn’t there. He was a hundred yards away, sitting on the outcrop they just fled.

Trenchman cupped his hands.

‘What the hell are you doing?’

Akingbola pointed to his torn and bloodied pant leg.

‘I got bit,’ he shouted.

Trenchman sat head in hands. Tired, defeated.

‘Sorry I dragged you out here. Didn’t have the right.’

‘No sweat,’ shouted Akingbola. ‘It’s a fucked-up world. Nobody’s fault. Just the way it is.’

They sat, looking at each other, separated by a hundred yards of sand.

‘You better get going,’ shouted Akingbola. He gestured to the rock face. ‘Sunset. You don’t want to climb that thing in the dark.’

Trenchman nodded.

Akingbola pulled a miniature bottle of rum from his pack and twisted the cap with a gloved hand. He stood at the jagged peak of the atoll and raised the bottle in salute.

‘Take it easy, bro.’

‘And you.’

Trenchman stood, turned and started to climb.

Moonlit rocks.

Trenchman pulled himself upwards ledge by ledge. Gloved hands brushed grit aside to clear handholds. He looked down at the crags below. Icy lunar light messed with perspective.

Timeless terrain. Easy to imagine Palaeolithic man scaling the heights to chew a psychotropic root and commune with the savage gods of the wilderness. Maybe, in daylight, these rocks would reveal themselves to be stained with ochre handprints, representations of horses and hunting kills, the petroglyph dream-life of men that lived in the penumbral regions of the desert.

His ascent blocked by vertical rock spurs. Smooth, nothing to grip. He couldn’t climb higher, so he worked sideways, headed right, clambering one shelf to another.

Some kind of mine entrance. A cave mouth framed by prop beams. Dug by prospectors looking to strike borax, or locate a uranium seam.

Trenchman shone his flashlight into the darkness. Jumbled rubble. Tunnel collapse a few yards inside the shaft.

Good place to rest. A chance to shelter from a cold desert wind.

He lowered himself to the ground, shuffled his ass to get comfortable and leant back against one of the prop beams.

He thought about the journey west. Maybe he would find water in the mountains. Somewhere, in a shaded canyon, he might stumble upon a rockpool.

Half-remembered advice from survival class: if you find a basin of deliciously clear water, don’t drink. Could be tainted with sulphur or arsenic. If, on the other hand, you discover a pool green with algae, then the water is probably free of toxins, so drink hearty.

He drowsed, pleased that he was thinking straight and true, had yet to succumb to the manias and night terrors that could play out during prolonged isolation.

Faint noise.

Shifting grit. Skittering stones.

Couldn’t see a damned thing. Too dark. Maybe he disturbed a desert critter, something that made the mine entrance its home.

Clattering stones. Rubble mounded against the shaft wall began to shift and bulge. An emaciated, dust-caked figure slowly pulling itself free as if reluctantly emerging from deep hibernation.

The creature drew itself fully upright and stepped clear of the rubble pile.

It stood over Trenchman. It reached for him.

Trenchman snatched the pistol from his holster and fired. Three shots, centre of mass. Muzzle flash lit the rotted revenant in a series of freeze-frame contortions as bullet hits sent it stumbling backwards out the mine entrance into moonlight. A red jumpsuit. A skeletal, eyeless face. Something buckled round each wrist as if the thing had broken free from heavy restraints.

Two more bullet strikes nudged the creature to the cliff edge.

Headshot. The figure toppled over the ledge, and fell out of view. Muffled sound of impact somewhere below.

Trenchman slowly got to his feet. He edged towards the lip of the stone shelf. He switched on his flashlight, leaned over the precipice and trained the beam downwards.

The body lay forty feet below, sprawled face down on rocks.

White stencil on the back of the jumpsuit:

Clatter of stones from the rock face high above him.

Trenchman quickly shut off his flashlight. He stepped back and pressed against the rock wall, willed himself to become a shadow. He stood still as he could. He held his breath.

Skitter of shifting gravel to his far left.

Might be grit displaced by a scorpion or snake. Might be frost-shattered scree shifting, settling, of its own accord. Or it might be a rotted, skeletal thing prowling the ridges above his position, searching for a route down.

Trenchman ducked beneath the cross-beam of the mine entrance and crouched in darkness. He trained his pistol on the moonlit entrance, ready for whatever might come.

Frost stood on the ridgeline and watched the sun descend towards the western horizon.

Noble climbed the dune and joined her.

‘I’ll head out in an hour,’ he said.

‘Be another cold night.’

‘Then I better not stop to rest.’

‘I’ll explain the situation to Hancock when you’re gone.’

‘He won’t like it.’

‘Not much he can do,’ said Frost. ‘He’s in no shape to chase you down.’

‘His head wound smells pretty cankerous.’

‘I’ll remind him you’re his best shot at survival.’

‘Reckon you’ll be okay?’ asked Noble.

‘Bring back one of those SUVs. We can drive out of this damned desert, find a pharmacy, maybe hook up with a MASH. Shit, if Hancock is still set on detonating the bomb we can toss him the keys once we reach safety and let him drive back here. Fucker can do as he likes.’

‘I don’t like to leave you two alone together. Watch your ass, all right? Not sure the guy is thinking too clear.’

The flight deck.

They sat cross-legged on the floor.

Hancock solemnly broke an energy bar and shared it like he was re-enacting the Last Supper.

Noble turned the hunk of granola between his fingers.

‘Right now, I want a cheeseburger more than I’ve wanted anything my whole life.’

‘Ever eaten lizard?’ asked Frost. ‘I hear they taste like tuna.’

Hancock glanced at the cockpit windows. Amber light.

‘Sundown in an hour or two,’ he said. ‘Ought to pack. Figure how to remove the warhead and carry it to the sled.’

Frost didn’t meet his eye. She examined a split nail.

‘I’ll load a backpack,’ said Noble. ‘Bottle as much water as we can carry.’

‘Well, best get to it. We’ll need food. Survival blankets. Might be worth bringing the trauma kit. And don’t forget the map.’