by Jim Goforth
He could have been carrying an extra ten, twenty, thirty kilos of weight and he still would have felt like a lightweight infatuated schoolboy.
Up ahead he saw Lee's back, his light jacket pale in the moonlight.
Using that pale outline as a guide he traipsed after his friend, careful not to rush too fast.
"You're doing great hun," came Desiree's voice from behind him. "Just don't look down."
Stupidly, barely knowing what he was doing or why he was doing it, Corey looked down.
He wished he hadn't.
As Melissa stated earlier it wasn't really that far down, a mere six metres, maybe a fraction more, but the waters of the river weren't nearly as serene as those of the lake.
They were rushing and swirling, a fast moving death trap under which dangerous beds of rocks undoubtedly lurked.
Corey snapped his head up so quickly he almost gave himself whiplash, successfully attempting to avert his eyes before the scene below mesmerised him and charmed him off the ledge into a watery embrace.
A gentle finger nudged him in the back.
"I said DON'T look down silly," Desiree chided him playfully.
Feeling more like a moron than ever, thankful she couldn't see his burning red face, Corey continued his ponderous journey; hugging the cliff on his left, daring not to gaze anywhere but at the pale rectangle of Lee's back.
"Keep going," Desiree's calming voice continued to sound behind him. "You're almost there. See, Lee's made it and he was dreading this worse than you."
It was true, both parts of the statement.
Lee reached the other side and was now standing with Tim, Rachel and Raven in a small grassy area surrounded by towering trees.
Corey almost jogged the final stretch just to be free of the haunting paralysing feeling that he was going to do a nosedive over the side, but he managed to restrain himself.
As he stepped from the ledge to join the others, but before he barely had a chance to regain his composure, Melissa was bellowing from the rear.
"Keep moving people, you've still got the bridge to go."
Corey hardly let that statement sink in.
Grinning with jubilation at conquering the perilous ledge, he strolled after the others led by Raven up a gentle gradient through a narrow pathway of sorts between the trees.
Then he saw the bridge.
The overjoyed smile froze on his face.
It slid right off his features, replaced instead by a mixture of abject terror and painful grimacing.
He saw Lee glance back at him and the expression worn by his friend mirrored his own.
Stumbling a little he lurched forward, gazing bleakly at the monstrosity.
A ramshackle construction composed of wood, rope and god knows what else, it was thinner than the cliff ledge and looked trebly as dangerous.
In the day it probably appeared horribly perilous to cross, lit by a moonlight glow it looked even worse, like some terrible rope bridge in the pits of Hades stretched across a burning lake of fire.
It swayed gently in the mild breeze and simply watching how much motion a tiny wind caused, Corey dreaded to think of the bridges activity if it were caught amidst a massive gusty windstorm.
He pictured it swinging over and over like a child's skipping rope.
Raven didn't hesitate for one second; she was out onto the bridge literally dancing across it like the showoff she was, undeterred by the constant swinging from side to side.
Rachel followed at a far more cautious pace, stepping from one plank like structure over a wide gap where two planks were missing, having either rotted away or dropped out of the bridge via some other means.
"Ah this is just fucking bullshit," moaned Lee, fairly wringing his hands in despair as he and Corey watched their brave mate Tim venture out onto the bridge. "Corey tell me again why we're here."
"To be honest, I'm not sure anymore," replied Corey though that wasn't entirely true. He was here for one reason and one reason only. He was pretty certain Tim had a good reason to be part of the mission, only Lee's motivations eluded him.
Originally the threesome just wanted to have a nice relaxing smoke and drink with the ladies, unable to foresee just what that concept was actually going to entail.
Corey wondered if he and his friends were being put to some kind of test, a trial by fire, an initiation, to prove what he wasn't entirely sure of.
If so, he wondered how he was faring, if he'd passed the mystery test and guessed he wouldn't really know until he stepped off the other end of the bridge.
If he successfully managed that without falling through that hellish gap or having the aging structure collapse under him.
The bridge was a lot higher up than the ledge that was for sure.
Falling from it would hardly be a picnic.
"Shit!" Lee exclaimed and Blaise gasped simultaneously as a stronger gust of wind suddenly kicked up.
It caught Tim on the bridge just before he stretched his long legs over the missing plank gap and the bridge swung out wide, almost tipping itself parallel to the fast moving river below.
Tim's right foot slipped off the plank, down into the gap and he fell, thumping on his knees, his hands curled in fists around the rope guides.
The look of confidence he'd been displaying as he navigated the treacherous course was swiftly washed away by one of fear and apprehension.
He hung onto the ropes, still on his knees on the edge of the gap, swinging like a pendulum until the strong wind ebbed away to a calmer breeze.
Various people, namely Blaise and Rachel on the other side, clapped as he recommenced the journey, throwing up his arms in triumph when he finally stood safely with Rachel and Raven.
"Corey," said Lee weakly. "Be a bud will you and go next. I need a few more minutes to get my shit together before I go out there."
"Sure thing," replied Corey sounding a great deal more courageous than he felt.
Watching big Tim Hayworth getting buffeted by the mighty wind gusts had done little to decrease his trepidation.
"Hold on," Melissa said. "That wind's starting to kick up pretty nasty like. I think we should probably go in twos. That bit of extra weight might keep the bridge from swaying too badly."
"Extra weight?" Lee wailed plaintively. "You sure it won't just collapse the whole thing?"
"What are you saying?" Melissa pinned him with a steely glare. "That we're fat or something?"
"No!" Lee quickly said. "Not at all. Actually you are all beautiful. I'm just not looking forward to dying tonight."
"You'll be alright." A smile actually traversed Melissa's face for a fleeting moment. "You can come across with me. Desi, you want to go with Corey?"
"Does she ever," Blaise giggled and were it Raven making the comment Desiree might have reacted with threats of physical violence.
Since it was Blaise, Desiree merely laughed and slapped her friends’ bare ass.
"OK Corey baby, let's do it."
"And then we'll cross the bridge after?" Corey said, stunning himself with his own wit.
Everybody laughed, even Melissa.
"I kind of like this guy," Melissa said which from her was probably very high praise indeed.
Corey felt himself blushing; the chorus of hilarity lightening his mood, making him feel a fraction more upbeat about the impending bridge crossing.
"Blaise, will you be alright going it on your own?"
"Of course. I can do it alone. Naturally I prefer a partner," Blaise replied with a lewd chuckle in her voice. "Or two. Or three. Corey? Lee? Keep that in mind when we get to camp."
"Oy!" Desiree gave her a very dark look. "I think you know better."
"Oh. Right. Sorry." Blaise grinned, not looking very sorry at all. "Can't help myself you know."
"Yeah. I know. Well you better go first while the wind has died off a bit."
"What and have the boys watching my ass the whole time?" Laughed Blaise. "Not very clever thinking if you want to keep th
em all to yourself is it Desi?"
"I don't want them for myself!" Desiree said, affronted.
"Just Corey right?"
"Just go you tramp."
"Gone," said Blaise and then she was, skipping across the bridge as though she was jumping across stepping stones in a pond.
Then it was Corey's turn and he stepped out onto the first plank. Having learned his lesson from the cliff ledge he kept his head up, eyes on the quartet on the far side.
"Right behind you," came Desiree's voice from the rear as he began to make his way across, step by cautious step, hands clinging to the ropes.
He felt the bridge swaying slightly with both the motion of the wind and his movements, felt breeze blowing against exposed skin.
The wind intensified the cold from his drenched clothes, seeping it into the core of his being.
Though the temperature of the night was warm and pleasant Corey was not.
If he didn't get his saturated soul in front of that alleged fire shortly he thought he might succumb to pneumonia before anything else happened to take his life.
Halfway across and he felt he was cruising along alright until Raven on the other side saw more opportunity to heckle him.
"It's a bridge Corny, not a tightrope. You don't need to hang on like a baby every single step. Fuck, Christmas will be here before you are," she jeered. "Shit, I bet you fall in again. Ha, I HOPE you fall in again!"
Furious, Corey would have responded with an obscene gesture had he not been loath to take either hand from the ropes of safety.
Thankfully he wasn't disappointed by his legions of saviours. Attacks on Raven and her callous taunts came from all sorts of unexpected angles.
Firstly Tim rounded on her spitting,
"Wouldn't be quite so funny if I threw you in over the edge would it?” while Desiree a mere heartbeat behind him shouted,
"Fuck off Raven, not everybody is half monkey like you!"
A similarly angered reply on Lee's behalf was drowned out by a strident shout from Melissa.
"There's no call for that Raven! You don't pull your head in and nobody is going to stop Desiree from beating you up. And we all know she wants to."
A mumbled response from Raven which was possibly only audible to her companions on the far side was the final word on the matter.
Corey and Desiree completed their crossing of the bridge with no sudden wind changes, no disasters and no more catcalls from Raven.
Melissa and Lee, the final pair to make the perilous trek also did so without further mishap, Lee surprisingly making better time crossing than both Corey and Tim.
Assembled on the far side now the octet began to proceed once more, though not before Raven lanced Corey with a murderous stare, a dark look lurking with such malice that he couldn't help but feeling rather unnerved.
Raven was one of the women in the group who carried a knife on her belt like Melissa, and though Desiree assured Corey that Raven liked nobody he had the sneaking suspicion that the dark girl liked him a whole lot less than anybody else, had singled him out for persecution and given the whisker of a chance wouldn't hesitate for a second before taking her knife to him.
He found slight solace in the fact that Desiree his protector was one of the other girls in possession of a knife.
What would have further increased his feelings of safety would have been if he too happened to have a knife of his own within easy reach.
He suspected that Raven wasn't quite finished with him yet and nervous butterflies of apprehension tickled his insides unpleasantly.
Too easily he envisioned Ravens animosity exploding abruptly into physical violence with him on the receiving end.
The last thing he wanted to do right now was to get separated from the group, hopelessly lost in no mans land while the malevolent Raven stalked him like a predator with designs on dicing him into cubes of meat.
That outcome didn't appear extremely likely, but while Corey had the uneasy cogitations in his mind anything could be possible.
However with Raven at the head of the party leading the troupe, acting like the Queen with a vengeful stride in her swagger, the chances of her cutting him off and ambushing him in the dark seemed rather remote.
Pushing that worrisome little nugget of thought far away in his mind Corey concentrated on more pleasant things like the promised bonfire and the delicious Desiree.
They were now traipsing along a distinct track; a path worn between trees by plenty of foot traffic and in the distance just over a small hill Corey could see an orange glow on the horizon and smell the aroma of wood smoke.
He surmised that they must be extremely close; assuming that the orangey glow tickling at the dark plane of the sky indicated the fire Desiree had spoken of.
As the group mounted the hill he gazed down from atop it and saw that he was right.
CHAPTER 7
In the very centre of a large clearing a massive bonfire roared, hungry orange flames dancing a constant hypnotic jig, black clouds of smoke roiling into the sky to disperse.
Surrounding this clearing were tall stands of trees and sitting amidst these trees following the clearing right around in a circular fashion were bizarre little hut like structures, wooden with thatched roofs.
Gazing upon this scenario with some intrigue, Corey was acutely reminded of the Ewok village on the tiny moon of Endor from the Star Wars movie Return of the Jedi.
Only this quaint little woods village wasn't populated by spear toting gibbering little fur balls; it appeared to be home to hordes of gothic Amazonian goddesses.
As his party of eight stepped down the gentle slope and out of the woods into the open expanse of land they were immediately confronted by two armed lasses who lowered their weapons once they recognized who dared to enter their stronghold.
Corey hadn't seen where the two women materialised from. but gazing upon them now made him feel very glad he hadn't blundered into this occupancy all by himself.
The girl who'd approached from the left was something of a giantess, a towering broad shouldered female with a blonde Mohawk hairdo and a rather unpleasant scowling face.
Held aloft in her hands she toted a crossbow, a deadly bolt notched in it.
She released her drawstring once she acknowledged her mates amongst the party and defused the dangerous bolt by pointing it at the ground.
As alarming as it was to be confronted by this sizeable she-mountain punk waving a crossbow, equally perturbing was the woman who'd come from the right and the weapon of choice she displayed.
Lacking the bulk of her crossbow carrying partner she was a skinny wispy little twig of a thing with ragged clothing literally hanging off the angles of her bony form.
Her birds nest fright wig hair looked as though she styled it by deliberately ramming a finger or two straight into an uncovered live electrical socket.
It wasn't her appearance which was worrying for she looked as though a decent blast of wind from a portable hair dryer would send her tumbling, it was the item she held in both scrawny hands.
This particular item was a semi-automatic Nighthawk pistol which she pointed towards the ground, clicking the safety switch on once she recognised Melissa and company.
"Shit you chicks are jumpy!" Tim blurted, gazing with some bewilderment from the pistol to the crossbow. "And rather well armed too."
Corey noticed the edge of tension lurking in the women too, and it became more apparent as six or seven more women from the camp approached the new group; their faces grim and stern, their manner highly agitated, as if they were on guard and expectant of some sudden cataclysmic event occurring.
To Corey's dismay one of the new girls in this approaching group was the mirror image of Raven, albeit with an even harder set to her features and corn rows in her black hair.
He groaned inwardly, immediately deducing that if Raven hated him as much as she did, this girl who was almost certainly Raven's sister was absolutely going to abhor him.
&nb
sp; Tim, possibly the only one of the three lads game enough to speak up, gave voice to Corey's misgivings in his own unique way.
"Oh shit, not another Raven! One of them is too many. Hell, what's this ones name? The Crow?"
This he said utilizing his fingers as punctuation marks around 'the Crow'.
Predictably both Lee and Corey found that comment sensationally amusing, but while Blaise and Desiree also both laughed, Corey's keen ears detected an edge of nervous tension in their laughter, as if it were forced or they too were driven by whatever was affecting the women in the camp.
Stony faced Melissa didn't laugh, neither did Rachel nor of course Raven.
Melissa held out her hand to the Pintsized Pistol Packing Princess who instantly relinquished her hold on the gun, giving it to the star tattooed woman.
"Where are Tasha and Erica?" demanded one of the new group, a lithe blonde woman with her hair in a long simple ponytail.
"Still with the Plebs," replied Melissa. "But don't worry; we've got a new plan of attack."
A burst of noise erupted from the group, including Crossbow Queen and the Stick Figure as they all began firing questions at the same time.
Melissa held up her hand for silence and was instantly obeyed.
"I'll tell you all in a bit. First," she pointed at Corey. "This one fell in the river. We'll have to get him dried off and into some new clothes. Desiree, that a job for you?"
Desiree nodded shortly and to Corey's joy took him by the hand, leading him away from the others.
"We'll introduce you to the others later," she said. "For now, let's get you changed."
"No funny business!" Called Blaise after their departing backs. "And if there is any funny business I want to know 'cause I want to be part of it!"
Corey didn't hear what else was said, if anything, for by then he was out of earshot, hurried away by Desiree.
His mind was in two very different places as he was led by Desiree to one of the huts.
The first very obvious one was a rapturous excited place of thought dominated by the touch of her cool hand and cogitations of where things might lead with her.