by A. Nybo
Now he was safe, he needed sleep. With luck, Nate and Mike would be able to follow the tracker, but he wasn’t going to count on it. He was effectively buried in rock, and he doubted the tracker was that good even if Russell’s jammer hadn’t damaged it.
Spreading the sleeping bag out on the higher side, where there was less moisture, Henri crawled in and closed his eyes, ignoring the burning of scraped hands covered in mud and the stiff, tired muscles in his arms and legs.
THE INCREASING need to urinate and the discomfort of the dampness seeping through the sleeping bag encouraged Henri to full wakefulness. Heavenly desires for coffee and a hot bath occupied his mind, but reality had only planned more inching and clawing his way through the sharp and coarse crevices.
With no light to suggest what time he awoke or to track the hours he’d spent squirming and twisting through the dark, damp gaps and caverns, Henri was surprised when confronted by daylight. He took off the NVGs and wriggled through the last section, looking towards the light with the same anticipation he’d have borne for a long-wanted gift.
Despite trying to always head towards the mouth of the cave, Henri wouldn’t have been surprised to find himself jammed in some rock crack, weak from dehydration, lack of food, and overexertion, waiting to die. Instead, he found himself in a rock cradle about eight feet above where Russell had set his sleeping bag on the first night. Russell wasn’t there, but all his belongings were, and wood had been set in the pit ready for lighting.
Looking out into the day, Henri judged it to be early afternoon. He guessed Russell was probably out looking for him. Since the fire had been readied, Henri dared to believe Russell wasn’t expecting to be back before dark, although counting on anything with Russell could be hazardous. This was Henri’s only opportunity to access food and water, and he had to take it.
He looked down the wall to see if he could at least climb low enough to drop the rest of the way. Enough rocks jutted out to use as foot- or handholds, but the most difficult part was going to be traversing the side of the “cradle” as the lip went up. It was helpful to keep Russell from seeing him but would make it bloody difficult for Henri to reach the wall. Even if he had to climb through each of those crevices all over again, he needed supplies.
Rock climbers often climbed massive overhangs. Surely he could manage a tiny one. Maybe he could use the muddy sleeping bag he had dragged with him every inch of the way. The sleeping bag was barely recognizable, mostly tears and holes held together by tracts of silted and abraded material. He looked down at himself and found much the same was true for his clothes. His jeans had fared far better than his windcheater, which he knew would be torn as he’d yanked it from rocks often enough.
Casting all thoughts of the sleeping bag and clothes aside, Henri leaned over the cradle as far as he could and made decisions on hand and foot placements. Before he eased himself backwards over the side, he performed the actions in his mind several times. He fumbled around for what seemed an eternity before his foot found the nearest jutting rock, which now seemed ten times smaller than it had looked from above.
With achingly slow precision, he made his way down the wall until, with great relief, he finally touched a foot to solid earth.
He drank his fill and threw at least half the MREs up into the cradle before turning to search for plastic bottles he could use for water. One of the two bottles he found was very weak plastic, and he threw that up into the cradle before anything else, in case it broke. Then he threw up a few more MREs and searched the red pack for antiseptic for his hands.
He hurried back to his hiding place, where he prepared one of the MREs. Too hungry to wait for it to heat properly, he began eating it. Between mouthfuls, he opened the plastic that encased the medical gauze, glad not to have an audience he’d have to keep from hearing the crackling wrapping. It reminded him of days in the cinema, trying to open a bag of chips or lollies without getting yelled at to shut up.
He doused the gauze in water, which he then used to clean up his hands as best he could. Some sections were dry and chafed while other bits had lost enough skin to continually weep. He’d pocketed the pack of painkillers in case his hands became unbearable, especially as he’d still have to use them.
Once he’d finished eating and cleaning his hands, he secreted the stores farther into the crevice, beyond Russell’s reach. He ensured he himself was concealed and tucked in where Russell couldn’t go, and with what remained of the dirty sleeping bag wrapped around his upper body, got some rest.
Henri was woken with a start by a horrendous screech that rose and then faded, and as he came to full wakefulness, he heard a constant chittering sound. Only able to see a sliver of sky through the cave mouth from his vantage point, he judged it to be almost twilight.
Snarls and hisses accompanied the chittering, and he edged forward so he could see what was making the noise.
With great caution, he raised his head above the edge of the cradle and looked down to the scene below. Even in his current situation, Henri couldn’t help but be delighted to experience his first ever real-life sighting of raccoons. He loved watching animals play, and he was so absorbed with their antics that the implications of what was occurring didn’t even register.
Henri continued to watch as darkness descended and was still trying to make out their forms when a shout from outside the cave sent him ducking for cover. Safe in his hidey-hole, Henri listened with grim amusement as Russell ranted and raged at the cheeky and destructive little beasts.
Daring to raise his head just enough to see, Henri watched as Russell ran around trying to chase the raccoons from the cave. They ducked and evaded his angry swipes until he began throwing stones at them. A horrendous squeal evidencing Russell had hit his target acted like a warning to the other raccoons, and Russell ran growling as the last of them scampered from the cave.
Only when Russell bent and picked up a torn MRE packet that had been dropped at the cave mouth did the significance of the destruction hit Henri. With any luck, Russell might attribute the missing stores to the raccoon’s antics.
Russell threw the now empty packet at the fire pit. “Fucken little shits,” he growled at the already departed beasts. When he began collecting up the supplies the raccoons had strewn all around the cave, Henri sank back into the depths of his hidey-hole. Each fresh round of expletives Russell spewed at the departed bandits as he cleaned up the mess brought a renewed bout of amusement to Henri.
A light beam waved around, and Henri surmised Russell must have acquired a torch from somewhere—possibly from his vehicle. Either way, he now had a way to see Henri in the dark again.
When the beam remained static for a long time, Henri dared peer over the rocky edge. Russell stood unmoving, his head cocked to the side, the torch trained on the place Henri had been chained. “Where did you get to, you little bastard?”
Russell’s utterance caused apprehension to spread throughout Henri. He expected satisfaction, elation, or some kind of relief knowing Russell was at a loss as to his whereabouts, but fear still held him firm in its grip, and that grip tightened as an inhale brought the sensation of a cough building in his bronchi. It worked its way up his throat until he could no longer hold it. With a handful of wrecked windcheater stuffed against his mouth he coughed as hard as he could, hoping to ease the urge at once.
The muffled cough echoed around the cavern. The ray of light shot to the back of the cave, whipping left to right and back again, enticing Henri to see what Russell was doing. Camouflaging his head with the muddy sleeping bag, Henri stayed far back but raised his head high enough so he could watch undetected.
“Where are you, you slippery little prick? You’re going to pay for putting me through this.”
Coming from Russell, Henri could well believe the threat, but now it was just the two of them pitted against each other, nothing would convince him to give himself up.
The torch beam whipped back around towards the mouth of the cave. Russell appe
ared unable to pinpoint the origins of the sound, and Henri wondered how badly this cave distorted sounds. Picking up a small rock, he waited until Russell headed back to the pit and then tapped it against another rock. Russell spun the torch beam back toward the depths of the cave, convincing Henri he could use the acoustics to his advantage, but he needed to think how best to do it.
After a while, Russell gave up searching for the source of the sounds and organized a fire and a meal. When he finished eating, he stepped out of the cave but didn’t go far. The sounds he made told Henri Russell was performing his nightly ablutions.
When he returned, he added more wood to the fire and slid into his sleeping bag. It looked like the raccoons had used it for their own toileting purposes, but that didn’t seem to bother Russell. This place probably seemed like a luxury hotel in comparison to some of the conditions Russell had survived.
Henri was counting on Russell’s sleeping habits having altered while he was in jail. While Russell would have at one time woken fully alert at the slightest sound, three years of rigid routine would have undoubtedly dulled that instinct. Still, Henri had enough supplies to carry him through several days. He could sleep during the day and keep Russell awake at night. For once, the cards were stacked in his favour.
Russell remained motionless for what Henri judged to be half an hour, although he knew his judgment was probably distorted. Wanting an indistinguishable noise to wake Russell, or at least gain his attention, Henri put the rubber band from his back pocket onto the plastic bottle he used for water and snapped it against the side several times in quick succession.
As before, the acoustics ensured the sound from Henri’s location bounced to the back of the cave, the place Russell had been drawn towards each time Henri had made a noise. The height must have made the difference, as any sounds Russell or the raccoons had made hadn’t been distorted. Or maybe it was simply that Henri could see the origin of the racket.
Russell made his way back to his campsite and climbed back into his sleeping bag, and the light beam slid over the gun he’d secreted under the pack he used as a pillow. So Henri was right; Russell did sleep with it.
The night passed in waves of waiting and harassing. If there was one thing Henri had learned how to do, it was to wait. He waited until each time Russell settled for a while and then would wake him with a clatter of rocks or some other sound he’d thought up during those waiting periods. Sometimes he’d just screech or squeal, jarring Russell to wakefulness. At one point he managed to keep Russell tossing and turning with a constant tapping sound, which he let trail away when it started to irritate him.
Although Russell stopped looking for the source of the noises sometime during the night, Henri knew from Russell’s inability to settle for long that it was having some effect, so he kept it up until Russell rose from his sleeping bag at dawn.
Russell left his gun beneath the pack as he went to the water tank. Bending his head beneath the tap, he turned the water on and visibly shuddered as water sluiced over his cropped hair. Henri guessed the water had to be as bloody freezing as he was. Watching Russell undergo what was undoubtedly an almost painful experience, Henri was heartened. It seemed his night’s work had been well done. Why else would anyone subject themselves to that if they didn’t need to clear their head? Then again, this was Russell.
Henri had just begun stretching his aching muscles, when Russell made towards the mouth of the cave. Henri froze. Russell hadn’t taken his gun. Henri could still see the butt of it beneath the pack. Russell paused and, facing out over the valley, he undid his trousers.
Uncaring of whether he broke both his ankles in the process, Henri swung over the lip of the rock cradle. The stream of Russell’s urination was loud in the cave. Henri hung on until the worst of the swinging stopped and then dropped the few feet to the cave floor. His ankles jarred. Russell spun around, still pissing. Not wasting time to see if he could walk, Henri crashed over the stone floor on his hands and knees until he reached Russell’s sleeping bag and lifted the pack.
Russell ran towards him, pants hanging low on his hips, his dick flopping back and forth as he ran, oblivious to the still-prevailing stream.
Henri grabbed the gun and fired a single shot. The deafening boom reverberated around the cave. A blood-red rose blossomed on Russell’s torso, but he kept coming. Henri shot again, and the sound doubled what was still bouncing off the walls. Another rose bloomed, this one higher on Russell’s chest. Henri released one more shot as Russell pitched forward, and a neat little stem hole appeared on Russell’s forehead as blood and brain-matter sprayed from the back of his head.
The first real thing Henri was aware of was extreme silence.
And then the space was filled with birds warbling, shrilling, and whistling—as if the entire world had stopped for an indeterminate amount of time but was once again coming to life. Russell’s lifeless body lay sprawled on the ground just inside the cave mouth. How quickly it could all come to an end.
Awareness continued to creep in, and as he sat with his back against the wall, all those bruises and bumps he’d gained on his journey through the crevices made themselves known. His ankles felt okay, but the skin on his hands burned from all the chafing and abrasions.
He patted his back pocket in search of the painkillers, and when he rose to his feet, he realized how shaky he was when he struggled to remain standing. His leg muscles were both achy and jelly-like. With unsure steps, he made his way to the water tank and knelt forward to drink, swallowing several of the painkillers as he did so.
“Freeze!”
Henri raised his head to look at the young cop who stood with legs spread, gun arm braced, and a look of fear plastered on his face.
“If I freeze now, I’m going to fall over,” said Henri as he tried to keep his balance. “If I fall over, please don’t shoot me.” With deliberate slowness, Henri set his hands on the ground to balance himself.
The cop spoke briefly into a handheld radio, and then it crackled. “Location?”
Even over the radio, Henri recognized Jason’s voice. With the same caution he’d used to set his hands down, Henri lowered himself to lie on the ground as the cop relayed the coordinates. He was fucking tired—and sore.
Henri figured he must be blinking in super slow motion, as in one blink, the cop got from well outside the cave to where Russell was. The scene confused him. The cop was bent over as if taking Russell’s pulse, although why he would bother when the back of Russell’s head was missing was puzzling. Meh, what did he know? Maybe someone could live without the back of their head. But then, what if this guy was one of Russell’s men?
The cop stood and took a step towards him. “Don’t,” Henri said. “Don’t come near me.”
“It’s all right.” The cop raised a staying hand. “I’m not going to hurt you. You’re Henri, right?” He took another step forward.
The cop’s strange behaviour caused Henri’s eyes to flick to where he’d left the gun on the other side of the cave. Fuck. Digging for energy reserves, Henri sat up. “Stop. Let’s just wait for Jason.” He couldn’t tell what the fuck was going on, whether the cop meant him harm or not.
The cop took another few tentative steps until he was almost within arm’s reach.
“Stop!” Henri yelled.
“It’s all right,” the cop said again and reached a hand towards him.
Henri kicked out and nailed the cop in the knee. The cop fell, and Henri jumped on him, slipping his arms beneath the cop’s and then locking his hands behind the man’s neck. They rolled around as Henri hung on and the guy tried to free himself. Fast running out of strength, Henri locked his legs around the cop, who was still struggling.
“Who the fuck are you?” Henri hissed in his ear. “Did he fucking call you?”
“No! No. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“How did you find me?”
“I heard the gunshot. There’s a team of us in the area. The tracker y
ou have lit up for a few minutes yesterday, so we have been out here looking since then.”
“Stop struggling.”
The cop stilled, but just as Henri was beginning to loosen his grip, the man started up again. Henri bit the guy’s ear, drawing a scream.
“Hold it!” The sound of Jason’s voice brought the wrestling to an abrupt halt, but Henri didn’t let go. “What’s going on?” Jason was puffing as if he’d run up the mountain.
“I just wanted to make sure he was all right, but he attacked me,” the cop complained.
Henri let go of the cop’s ear so he could speak. “He was acting weird.”
Jason never lowered his gun. “Weird how?”
“Birch? Is he okay?”
“He’s fine.” Jason allowed before dismissing the tangent. “Weird how?”
Although he tried not to let it show through the hold he had on the cop, hearing Birch was still alive relieved a tightness Henri had been unaware had been clenched around his chest. It let go abruptly, and he felt as if he were about to float to the cave’s ceiling.
Trying to stay focused, Henri explained how the cop had checked Russell, how he refused to keep his distance, and how he tried to trick Henri into letting him go.
When Jason reached them, he bent and took the cop’s gun and handcuffs before lowering his own gun. “Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to handcuff this man and—”
“What? Why handcuff me? I’m the fucking law, for chrissakes!”
“Shut it!” Jason demanded. “Are you okay to walk?” he asked Henri. He snapped a cuff around one of the cop’s wrists.
“Yeah. I don’t know for how far, though.”
“Put your hands behind your back,” Jason told the cop. When the man didn’t move, Jason softened. “Look, we haven’t had the greatest run with the police so far, so just humour us. If you choose not to, then this is going to go really fucking badly for you.”