Nightwalk 2 Read online

  “Alright, here he comes,” Darla’s voice reached me again.

  I took up the slack on the rope and noticed it now ran straight down the pole. David must now be on board. He didn’t say anything but that hardly came as a surprise. I’m sure he had a lot on his mind at the moment.

  The cord dipped and I carefully took up the slack again. This told me the kid had started moving.

  “That’s it,” I called encouragement. “Just keep coming. I’ve got you.”

  I’ll give him credit, once he got started he made constant progress. I found myself taking up the slack in steady intervals. Although I couldn’t see him, I realized I could keep track of the rope I took in to get a rough idea of where he was out there.

  That’s how I knew he sat in the middle when he stopped.

  And that’s when I suspected he was in trouble.

  “David?”

  “D-did you see this?” he called back. “There’s a sky down there. A whole sky!”

  “I saw it. C’mon, let’s go.”

  “It’s a real sky!” panic rose in the kid’s voice. “This thing actually DOES go down forever!”

  Not good.

  “It’s still just a hole, David. Keep doing what you were doing and you’ll be over here with me in twenty seconds.”

  No reply.

  No slackening of the rope either.

  “David?”

  “I…I’m gonna fall…”

  Oh shit, oh shit, ohshitohshitohshit…

  “No David, you’re not! You just need to get back to moving. Sitting still makes it harder to balance.”

  “I can’t!”

  “You have to!”

  Somewhere out in the darkness something hooted in gruesome mockery.

  “David, move!” I pleaded, while already bracing my foot against the end of the light pole and wrapping all the slack I could around my forearm.

  “Help me!”

  “Move! You’ve got to move!”

  “Help meeee…”

  “David!”

  And then he fell.

  I felt the rope go taut at the same time the boy wailed. He had still been fifteen or twenty feet out there, which meant this was going to hurt. I leaned back and pulled hard, both feet braced against the light pole, and prepared for the worst. He might only be a kid but I put him at well over a hundred pounds, and I ain’t Mr. Universe.

  Worst of all, in the heat of the moment, I had forgotten I wrapped the rope around the forearm the monster in the graveyard had bitten.

  David hit the sheer wall below and cried out. At the same time he became a dead weight and my forearm screamed at the pressure. Then the cuts on my back lit up from the pulling as well. I was in trouble… bad trouble. I managed to fall backward on my butt, feet still braced against the pole, but this only accomplished an agonized stalemate.

  Every instinct I had wanted me to tear the rope off my arm. The pain took my breath away. It made it hard to think, and at that moment it took all of my mental resources to force myself to hang on.

  I groaned in effort and tried to pull the rope toward me. The best way would have been to lie back and let my torso do the pulling, but I had a baby in my backpack. So instead, I bent my knees to get some quick slack and then straightened while leaning back a little to pull what rope I gained toward me. I managed about a foot. Then I discovered the only way to preserve my progress would be to wrap another couple of loops around my arm. The rope was too thin to hang on to by my hands alone.

  “David, hang on,” I gritted, as much for my benefit as his.

  He didn’t reply and I realized I hadn’t heard anything from him since he hit the wall. That didn’t bode well either.

  I flexed my legs and pulled three more times, gaining a pitifully small amount of ground compared to the effort. My arm now screamed with each pull. My hand had also started to throb in a most uncomfortable way, making me fear I had cut off the blood to it.

  This had already started to look like it wouldn’t end well, although I’m not sure how it could end when I damn well refused to let go. I had to keep pulling. At the same time I knew I had nowhere near the stamina left to pull a hundred plus pound kid twenty feet up a cliff face. Yet stopping and just letting him hang there wasn’t an answer either. I had to try.

  But then, as I tried to find the strength to pull through the pain once more, I heard something beautiful.

  “Estoy aqui,” Lupe spoke up as he scooted out of the darkness ahead.

  “Oh, thank God!”

  He hustled off the pole and wasted no time in laying the shotgun and Tommy’s bag on the ground, and then wrapping his hand in the rope right ahead of my forearm. The easing of pressure on my arm was like a blessing from on high. With two of us manning the line, the overall situation had changed drastically.

  We found a rhythm to pull together and things proceeded swiftly after that. Lupe’s calloused hands seemed to handle the rope a lot better than mine, so I scooted backwards to pull while he stayed put and used a hand over hand approach. Within a couple of minutes we saw the back of David’s head crest the edge, and Lupe went and pulled him up and over while I held the kid from falling with the rope.

  Job done.

  I remembered the baby just in time to keep from flopping over onto my back in exhausted relief. I had other things to do anyway.

  “How is he?” I joined Lupe and looked down at the kid.

  It wasn’t pretty. David must have done a full-speed face plant into the cliff wall. His glasses were gone, his right eye had swollen nearly shut, and his nose now bent at a disturbing angle. Blood poured from his nose and mouth down onto his shirt. Although his unswollen eye remained half open, his lack of response indicated he wasn’t really conscious. Truthfully, if it hadn’t been for the harsh sound of his breathing around the blood, I would have thought he was dead.

  “David?” I called gently, “snap out of it. Talk to me.”

  No response.

  “David? C’mon David, you gotta wake up.”

  Still nothing,

  “Uno momento,” Lupe muttered.

  Carefully straddling the prone boy, he leaned forward and placed his hands on each side of the boy’s broken nose. Then he took a deep breath, pressed down, and forcefully moved those hands together and to the right. The nose returned to its original position with an audible snap.

  More blood poured and David woke up. He would have cried out but Lupe had anticipated that and already covered his mouth.

  “Shhhhh… monstros…,” he warned, “tener cuidado el monstros.”

  I guess he got his point across.

  Tears welled in the boy’s eyes but he contained himself to soft whimpers. Still, I knew he had to be in severe pain. It made me mad just seeing a child hurting like that. I fervently hoped that if he survived tonight he would never have to be this brave again. Hell, no kid should.

  But first I had to focus on getting him out of here alive, which meant getting this show on the road.

  A quick glance around revealed Darla hadn’t made it to our side yet.

  I saw her shotgun and Tommy’s bag, but then remembered Lupe setting them down when he arrived. She must have wanted her hands free for this. I bit off my initial temptation to call out for fear it would distract her and get her into trouble while out on that pole as well.

  Then I spotted the glowstick.

  She must have taken it from Lupe when she gave him the shotgun and bag. Now she carried it, and it still glowed on the other side of the chasm.

  She hadn’t even started across yet.

  “Darla,” I called, trying to keep my frustration from affecting my volume, “come on. The kid is okay. Now it’s your turn.”

  She clutched the glowstick in both hands, meaning just enough light escaped for me to see it but not for me to see much of her. From the way it moved, I think she started rocking side to side for a second before going still again.

  “Darla,” I repeated, “C’mon. You can do this.
And as soon as you get over here we’re heading straight for the pipe. We’re just waiting on you.”

  She took so long to answer that I almost called her again. With the aerial predators still gone, we could stay in the highway and go straight for the pipe. We could be there in a couple of minutes. So needless to say, I chafed to get moving.

  Yet when she did answer, it was with three simple words I thought I would never hear from Darla Dower. Not in a thousand years. But I would have gladly passed on hearing those words, just so she wouldn’t be saying them at that very moment.

  “Mark…I’m sorry.”

  ###

  Aw no…

  Not now.

  Not when we were this close.

  “Darla,” I growled, “don’t even say it. Just get your ass on that pole and slide it over here. Don’t think, don’t talk, just shut up and move.”

  That elicited a hollow laugh.

  “I bet you’ve been dying to say that last part all night,” she answered from across the gulf. “I suppose I can’t blame you. I’d probably want to say it to me too.”

  Huh?

  Okay, I really didn’t like this.

  People fighting for their lives don’t get rueful and introspective. At least not in the middle of the struggle. And especially not Darla. Now I knew why she had been so helpful right before sending me over. And now I knew why Lupe showed up carrying the shotgun and bag. She meant it.

  “Darla, don’t you do this.”

  No answer.

  “Don’t you dare give up.” I fought not to shout. “You are almost out of here!”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t do it, Mark. It’s just too much. It’s too high.”

  Dammit!

  She was terrified of the chasm, and the kid falling had only made it worse. And this time “hope” wouldn’t be enough to see her through. The fog-swallowing gulf in front of her was an immediate reality that drowned out any distant hopes.

  I needed to change tactics.

  “Darla, if you don’t get over here, you’re going to die. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you? Let me paint you a simple picture. In half an hour a tactical nuclear warhead is going to go off, and everybody outside of that pipe is going to be obliterated! Do… you… understand… that?”

  “Yes!” her voice cracked a bit, “I believe you. I really do! But don’t you see? It’s a big bomb and it will be quick… and then I won’t have to be scared anymore.”

  Shit! Now what?

  What could I do? How could I get her to do this?

  We had come so far, and I just couldn't let it end here. I refused to simply walk away. But she had become paralyzed with fright and I didn’t have time to go back for her. Even worse, her terror of the depths right in front of her outweighed her fear of the certain but quick death still a bit in the future. The equation was maddeningly simple. Darla would follow the least frightening path.

  Now my only chance of getting her out of here alive was figuring out how to convince Darla Dower to be brave.

  But how? Yelling at her wouldn’t work. Our closeness to our goal hadn’t done the trick, and reminding her of the bomb had failed as well. What alternatives did I have left?

  Anger?

  What about anger?

  Darla had certainly proven herself capable of anger, and I have been assured by many that I’m a natural at pissing people off. Might as well do it on purpose once in a while, right? After all, it would be for a good cause.

  “Darla,” I filled my voice with all the scorn I could muster, “I always knew you were a bit of a chickenshit, but a full blown coward? This is pathetic!”

  Nothing but another alien hoot from the trees for an answer.

  “You think we weren’t scared?” I spat. “We were! But we did it! I crossed it. Lupe crossed it. Even the boy had the guts to do it!”

  And now for the really low blow…

  “And you know what? Mickey and Casey would have crossed it so don’t play the weak helpless female card on me either. As a matter of fact, Tommy was right about Ashlyn… she would have been the first to cross it! Hell, she would have crossed it standing up! So where the hell does that leave you?”

  Her sharp intake of breath reached me from clear across the ravine.

  Good.

  That’s it, c’mon Darla, I encouraged her silently. Don’t let me get away with that. I just took something you confided in me and threw it back in your face. Come over here and let me have it.

  For just a moment I thought I had pulled it off. I saw the green bits of light move a step toward the pole base.

  But then it stopped and her hollow laugh sounded again.

  “Nice try, Mark,” she sighed. “But you know what your problem is? You’re something of a clueless ass, but underneath that you’re a truly decent guy… and that makes you transparent. I used to eat guys like you for lunch. Maybe if you would have been a real asshole that trick could have worked.”

  Freaking great.

  This would have made an interesting conversation if we had time to have it, but I had a clock to beat, a world to save, and a man to kill.

  “Darla…please.”

  “You need to go, Mark,” she said as if reading my mind. “Look at it this way, no more nightmares.”

  “What? How the hell do you figure that?”

  “You saved me,” she said.

  “Like hell I did!”

  “Yes,” she insisted, “you really did. Tommy gave me the death of a whore, and you changed that. Now I’m just taking the easy way out instead. Believe me, I’m really good at that. I’ve done it all my life. And now I’m cool with checking out the same way as well. Okay? So you did save me. No more bad dreams with Darla’s name on them.”

  Yeah right.

  I might not have her gruesomely mangled face staring out at me from the darkness anymore, but she would now be a soft and rueful voice calling from that same blackness instead. Not exactly what I would call an improvement. Hell, in some ways it might even be worse.

  And worst of all, I had finally started catching a more human side of Darla, and it was while she was asking me to leave her to die.

  Not…a…chance.

  In truth, another solution had been dancing on the edge of my mind since she had informed me of what a decent guy I am. A truly drastic solution.

  Yes, she was who she was. And no, I couldn’t change the equation she operated on… but I could damn sure change the variables.

  On the downside, this solution came with the risk of getting her killed. I would be putting her directly in harm’s way with no way to help her if I had calculated wrong. Not to mention I suspected it might cause her to reevaluate my status of not being a “real asshole”. But I had run out of choices. She would definitely die if I didn’t go through with it.

  It was either do it or start walking.

  So be it.

  “Last chance, Darla,” I warned. “Get over here.”

  “Goodbye, Mark. Take care of yourself.”

  Well, crap. I was really going to have to do this. And despite the cavalier tone I prepared to adopt, I would hate every second of it. But I could see no other way.

  “Okay, Darla,” I pulled a new flare from my back pocket and lit it, “don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  The flare sparked to life, illuminating the area and dimly revealing Darla on the other side. She had sat down near the base of the pole, with her arms wrapped around her knees, but now started coming to her feet.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded, alarm creeping in to her voice as she came erect.

  Instead of answering, I pulled the Coonan from its holster and fired a shot into the sky. After all the sneaking we had done since crossing Coventry Boulevard, its thunder seemed to shake the night.

  “Holy shit! What are you doing?!”

  Ignoring her, I fired two more shots in the air and then called out at the top of my lungs…

  “Oh, Mr. Re
-ex!” I hollered. “Din-din! Coooome annnnnd get iiittt!”

  “Oh my God! Are you insane?! Stop it!”

  “Yoohoooooo!” I fired off another round. “Heeerrrree Rexy, Rexy, Rexy!”

  “Stop it, you idiot!”

  A second later the Rex added his own roar to the conversation. I guess my brazen shooting, shouting, and waving light show had worked him up past the point of being able to contain himself. I still swear the monster carried a grudge. But that wasn’t the important thing.

  What caught me off guard was the proximity of the creature’s roar. It had reacted faster than I thought. It had already made it halfway to us!

  Less than fifteen seconds later its nightmarish face emerged from the darkness, with the rest of its impressive bulk right behind. I’m still unsure how something so big could have covered the distance in such a little time. Maybe it had been closer than I thought. Now it stalked into my light like the god of all carnivores, and it had already spotted the offering on the menu.

  But I had also underestimated Darla as well.

  She was already halfway across the pole.

  It turned out that lady could move, too… although it may have been too late.

  The Rex stopped at the cliff, leaned forward, and stretched an almost impossible distance in an effort to reach her. With its massive tail as a counterbalance, it could extend itself out over the chasm without fear of toppling forward. And it now pushed that advantage to its fullest..

  Its jaws slammed shut less than three feet behind her.

  Darla shrieked at the sound and scooted faster.

  The titan stretched farther and tried again, and yet again fell just short. It gained nothing but another shriek for its effort. The night now echoed with the cries of the giant predator and its prey. Frustrated, the beast bellowed twice more at her retreating back, and each elicited an answering scream from his target.

  But the chase had failed.

  A few seconds later Darla got close enough for Lupe and me to reach out, catch her by the arms, and haul her to safety.

  We held her like that for a moment between us, waiting to be sure her legs were steady enough for her to stand on her own. Needless to say, she wasn’t in the best of shape. She stood there with her head hung down, making little squeaky noises as she panted, and trembled violently.