by Aaron Hodges
They filed out after him, one by one, their eyes alight with wonder. Turning, Chris looked out across a world blanketed in white. Flakes of snow swirled around them, drifting ever downwards, their intricate patterns catching in the light shining down from overhead. Clouds covered the sky, but after so long inside, it still seemed impossibly bright. Blinking back tears, Chris watched as the world opened around him.
Rocky mountains stretched up above them, sprouting like enormous trees from the slope on which they stood. Sheer escarpments of rock raced upwards, disappearing into the clouds overhead. A sheen of white covered their frozen surface, but further down the valley the snow and ice gave way to barren rock.
Around the facility there was no sign of trees or vegetation, only jagged gravel that promised to make walking difficult. They had not stopped to search for better clothing or boots, and now Chris shivered as the icy air tore through his thin clothes. A dull ache began at the back of his skull, though despite their now undoubted height above sea level, his breath came easily now.
Turning, Chris stared up the valley, his eyes trailing over the snow-covered boulders, up to where the slope disappeared into a narrow gorge. Glancing back, he studied the valley as it fell away from the facility. There was not a sliver of cover in sight. Even so, down was tempting. Down would bring them to warmer air, out of the mountains, towards civilisation. Perhaps they could find someone to help them, to protect them from the monsters that would hunt them.
But even as he considered the temptation, Chris dismissed it. They would not make it far in that direction. Lower down the clouds cleared, and their pursuers would expect them to take that route. The chase would be over before it began.
No, they needed to do the unexpected. They needed to go higher.
The others gathered behind him, huddling close, wings wrapped tight to fend off the frigid air. Turning to face them, Chris’s wings extended of their own accord, curving around to encase him. The relief was instant. The cold creeping through his chest vanished.
The others watched him, wonder and fear mingling on their faces. They all knew the next few hours would decide whether they lived or died. Whatever Angela had done to distract the guards, it could not keep them busy forever. Before long, Halt would wake and the guards would come for them. Chris wanted to be far away by then.
Quickly he explained his plan, watching as Liz, Sam and Ashley nodded. Richard and Jasmine only stood in sullen silence, their faces expressionless. Beside them, the young girl hovered on the edge of the circle. So far they hadn’t gotten a word from her. She huddled in close to Jasmine, a nameless, unknown quantity. Not for the first time, he wondered how she had survived.
He’d thought the other two would argue, but they nodded when he finished. “Let’s go then,” Richard said abruptly.
With a sigh of relief, Chris turned and began the long trek up towards the canyon. He moved as fast as the jagged gravel allowed him, wincing as each step sent a jagged bolt of pain through his feet. Silently he cursed their haste. Boots would have saved them time out in the mountains, but there was no going back now. Glancing around, he made sure the others were following and pressed on.
Half an hour passed as they made their slow way up. The wind howled around them, threatening to hurl them from the rocky slope, but they continued, wings pulled tight against their backs. Briefly Chris considered whether they should attempt to use them, but quickly dropped the thought. Conditions were not ideal for a first attempt at flight.
When they finally reached the canyon mouth, Chris paused, glancing back as the other filed up behind him. One by one they joined him in the shadow beneath the cliffs. Beyond, the canyon twisted deeper into the mountains. A river flowed along its far side, and the roaring of water echoed around them.
The hairs on his neck tingled as Chris looked back down the valley, and saw the black-garbed figures of men spilling from the building below. They gathered near the high walls, concentrating around a man in white. Blinking, Chris watched the distant figures come suddenly into focus. It was as though a film had been removed from his eyes, revealing the world around him in a detail he had never experienced. In that moment he saw them all in crystal clarity, saw the fear in their eyes as they looked at one another, the sleek black steel of their rifles, the blood and tears marking their clothes.
Between them, Halt stood with shoulders hunched, gesturing weakly with his arms. The men did not appear to have seen their little group yet, but it would only take a glance to reveal their position. Silently Chris waved for the others to get into cover, not trusting his voice, in case it carried down to the men below. Turning, he scrambled up the last few feet of the gravel slope, and into the canyon.
The others quickly joined him, scrambling over the lip one by one and dropping out of sight. They retreated behind the boulders lodged in the mouth of the pass, their eyes on Chris, waiting for him to speak.
Heart pounding in his chest, Chris slipped out from behind the boulders. Dropping low, he half-scrambled back up to the gravel lip. At the entrance to the pass, he dropped to his stomach and crawled the last few inches. Then he slowly lifted his head and peered down at the facility.
And immediately dropped back down.
CHAPTER 34
Chris slammed a fist into the gravel, cursing their luck.
Just a few more seconds, and we would have been clear.
He slid back down the slope to the others. Biting back his frustration, he only shook his head at their questioning looks. Below, a line of black figures were streaming their way up towards the pass, waved on from behind by the figure in white.
They had been spotted. Now all they could do was flee, and hope to outrun their pursuers.
“They’ve seen us,” he hissed. Moving quickly past them, he began to thread his way through boulders strewn across the floor of the canyon. “Halt’s with them. Let’s go.”
He caught a glimpse of Liz, her eyes shimmering with anger, and looked away. He could not blame her for her rage. Maybe she’d been right – maybe they should not have spared the man’s life. But even with Angela lying dead at their feet, he could not bring himself to believe killing Halt in cold blood was the right thing to do.
Either way, it was too late to second guess the decision now.
Gritting his teeth against the wind howling through the canyon, Chris picked his way over the rocky ground, taking care to avoid the patches of ice. The stones were slick beneath his feet, worn smooth by the passage of floodwaters, but at least they did not hurt. Above them the canyon walls closed in, stretching up two, almost three hundred feet.
Stone ground against stone as the others followed close behind him, the rocks shifting beneath their weight. To their right the river tumbled over its stony bed, roaring as it rushed down a series of cascades, making its journey through the twisting canyon. During the Spring it would rise, filling the gorge, but in the icy winter air it remained thankfully low.
Chris’s gaze carried up the valley, following the sheer walls as they twisted around and out of sight. He scanned the ground ahead, picking out a trail amidst the rock-strewn ground. He was quickly adapting to the weight of his wings. His muscles surged with a newfound energy, with the joy of freedom. Behind them the mouth of the canyon was empty, but even so he picked up the pace, springing from stone to stone with hardly a pause in between. The thought of the guards and their guns drove him on. Though they were moving at a good pace, their pursuers did not have to catch them – only get them within range of their rifles.
Redoubling his efforts, Chris felt the towering granite cliffs pressing in around him. From somewhere ahead the roar of the water grew louder. Like distant thunder it drew him on, called them deeper into the mountains. Sucking in great mouthfuls of damp air, Chris raced for the first bend in the canyon.
Boulders the size of cars littered the ground. Where the canyon narrowed they clustered in groups, almost blocking their passage. They scrambled over them one by one, slipping on the damp
surfaces while the others watched, waiting for their turn.
Chris’s ears tingled as a voice carried up the canyon. Acting on instinct, he grabbed Liz and pulled her behind a boulder, waving for the others to follow. An instant later the shriek of bullets tore the air, followed by the sharp crack of shattered rock. Cowering behind the boulder, they watched as a boulder where they’d been standing disintegrated beneath a hail of bullets. Hot lead tore great chunks from the stone, dotting the surface of the boulder with pock-marks.
For a moment, Chris stood frozen, terrified by the sheer display of power. In his mind he saw himself caught by the bullets, saw his flesh tear and his bones shatter. Then Liz grasped him by the shoulder and shook him back to reality. He blinked, found her crystal eyes staring at him, just a few feet away, and taken by an impulse, he pulled her close.
They kissed, hard and fast, the moment filled with a desperate passion, the thrill of a chase. A second later they pulled apart and turned to face the others. Richard raised an eyebrow, but Chris ignored him. The first bend in the canyon was close now, just a few more yards away. But the open space would leave them exposed to the guards at the base of the pass, to their unforgiving bullets.
Yet they had to move. No doubt men were already climbing towards them, growing closer with every passing minute.
“We run for it,” was all Chris said before he turned and leapt from cover, unwilling to wait and see whether the others followed.
The buzz of bullets turned to a roar as he stepped into the open. Then he was racing across the open ground, stones slipping beneath his bare feet, faster than thought. With each step the shriek of bullets grew louder, the guards far below narrowing their aim. Stone chips tore his flesh as the thud of bullet impacts shook the ground beneath him. He ducked low, the hackles on his neck rising in anticipation of pain.
Then his wings were out, beating hard, driving him faster. He stumbled as he miscalculated his next jump, almost falling before recovering with a wild wave of arms. Liz bounded past, flashing him a sideways glance. But he was already up and beside her, pushing hard, lungs burning not with exhaustion, but fear. Around him he heard the gasps of the others, their desperate, unintelligible cries.
And over it all, the screech of bullets.
Then suddenly the air was clear, the cliff rising up to shield them from view. Together they drew to a stop, sucking in long mouthfuls of air, their wild eyes looking around at each other, shocked and elated, thrilled by their survival.
They did not pause for long though. They had won a respite, but they were still far from free. Ahead the canyon narrowed, the twists and turns coming closer together, and for the next thirty minutes they did not see their pursuers again. The stones grew larger around them, until only boulders remained. The giant rocks packed the gorge, the creek threading its way between them, over and under, plunging down towards the valley far below. The roar of distant water continued to grow, and the taste of the air changed, filling with moisture. In his mind, Chris pictured the stream cascading over a series of boulders, down into the canyon, and prayed it would offer them an escape.
Gathering his strength, he pressed on, drawing the others with him. The canyon floor grew steeper, winding up towards the clifftops high overhead. Their progress slowed as the way became more difficult, even backtracking where the way grew too steep, too treacherous to pass.
Striding around another bend in the canyon, Chris found his stride slowing as he took in the sight. Beside him, Liz continued her upward march, head down, eyes fixed on the ground. Around them the roar of water had turned to a deafening thunder, but it was only when he reached out and grabbed Liz by the shoulder that she looked up; that she saw where he had led them.
CHAPTER 35
Chris had not been wrong about the waterfall. Three hundred feet above their heads, a river rushed over the edge of the cliff and out into the void. Water filled the air, whirling as the booming wind caught it, turning it to a fine mist, to a light rain that fell around them, settling on their clothes and skin. At the base of the falls, the remains of the river crashed down onto a jagged pile of rocks. From there the stream wound its way down the canyon to where the seven of them stood.
Beyond the waterfall, the canyon twisted back on itself, ending in an abrupt wall of sheer rock. A pile of rubble had accumulated against the cliff opposite the waterfall, stretching up around two hundred feet. Straggly patches of vegetation sprouted from the rubble, no doubt fed by the ready source of water.
Chris closed his eyes, feeling the spray of water on his cheeks, even where they stood some four hundred feet away. It settled in his hair and trickled down his face, until he gave an angry shake of his head and wiped it away. He clenched his fists, shivering with cold and frustration.
There was no way they could climb those cliffs, no way they could reach the top.
He had led them to a dead end, to a trap. And with the guards closing in from behind, there was nowhere left to go.
Looking at the others, he saw his despair reflected in their faces. Only Ashley seemed undaunted. She moved up beside him, her eyes travelling up the canyon, to the pile of rubble. He turned, following her gaze, straining to see through the mist. A pile of jagged boulders clustered around the top of the rubble and the cliffs above them were cracked and broken. At some point the cliffs must have given way, and now a shadow stretched up from the rubble. From the distance, there was no telling for sure, but it looked like a crack they might be able to climb.
“Let’s go,” Ashley flashed him a smile as she strode past, taking the lead.
Chris was glad to relinquish his position. The weight of failure hung heavy on his shoulders. The others did not speak, but he could feel the eyes of Jasmine and Richard on his back. Ahead, Ashley seemed to glide across the rocks, moving with a grace Chris wished he could match. She reached the rubble mound well before the rest of them, and started to climb.
Following her, Chris only managed a few steps before the loose gravel slipped beneath his feet. He threw out an arm, grasping at the branches of a dishevelled bush, then screamed as thorns tore the skin of his palm. Cursing, he regained his balance and released the bush, only then daring to look at his hand.
Dark marks spotted his palm; the broken thorn tips embedded deep in his flesh. Blood seeped from a dozen cuts and the skin was already turning red around the marks. He swore again, but there was little he could do now. Cradling his arm, he moved after Ashley.
The mist closed in around them as they climbed, quickly soaking them to the skin. Chris shivered as a drop of water ran down his back and caught in the clustered feathers of his wings. A tingle ran up his spine as a thought came to him then. Angela’s words in the clean room rang in his mind. The feathered appendages trembled in response, as though reading his thoughts.
Fly!
Chris shook his head, casting the idea back out into the void. With the wind howling through the canyon, and the cliffs pressing close, the idea was suicide.
As they neared the top of the mound, the wind picked up speed. It howled down over the cliffs to pummel at them, tearing at their wings and threatening to send them plummeting to the rocks far below. Above, the river continued its eternal plunge over the granite cliffs, filling the air with swirling clouds of water vapour.
A cry came from above. Chris looked up in time to see Ashley slip, then threw himself to the side as a rock crashed down towards him. He shouted a warning to the others as it thumped past, but thankfully they had spread out, and it tumbled harmlessly past them.
Returning to the climb, he watched Ashley recover and continue her ascent, favouring her left hand now. But she was already drawing level with the boulders ringing the crown of the slope. Picking up his pace, Chris soon joined her at the base of the boulders. Together they turned to watch as the others joined them.
Once the seven of them had gathered on the narrow ledge, they turned to face the boulders. Here Ashley took the lead again, squeezing in between two of the boulde
rs. The way was narrow, and the extra bulk of their wings didn’t help, but Chris managed to slide his way after Ashley. Ahead, the crevice came to an end at another boulder, but Ashley was already making short work of scrambling up, using the rock on either side of her to climb.
Chris waited for her to reach the top before following. The sharp pitch of the boulders and his injured hand made it difficult to find purchase. Cursing to himself, he pressed against the rocks to wedge himself in place, and then slowly began to lift himself up.
When he reached the top, Ashley was already gone. Following her wet footprints through the boulders, his optimism began to return. If they could just wedge themselves into the crack in the cliff, they might scramble their way up in the same way they had just managed. It would be a long and difficult haul – at least a hundred feet remained to be climbed, but it was something.
He stumbled as the rocks around him gave way to open ground, and he found himself in the centre of the ring of boulders. Across from him, he found Ashley with her head pressed against the cliff, fists clenched against the sheer stone. She turned as he approached, her eyes finding his.
Chris’s stomach twisted as Ashley slid down the cliff wall until she sat and covered her face with her hands. Her shoulders heaved as silent sobs shook her, and tears spilt between her fingers.
Behind her the cliff stretched up towards the sky, smooth and unmarked, the shadow they had thought was a crack no more than a change in the rock, a darker shade of granite.
They were trapped.
CHAPTER 36
Liz paused as she emerged from the boulders and found Chris and Ashley slumped against the cliff. Their faces were ashen, their eyes despondent, and she knew in that instant they were finished. Her shoulders sagged, but she moved across to Chris and placed a hand on his head. He did not look up, just stared at the barren gravel.