Supernatural Fresh Meat (29 page)

But it thundered on, taking over Dean’s entire world, suffocating him.

FORTY-EIGHT

Straining under the massive downward pull, Sam extracted his fingers and tried to find a lower spot to move to. He felt along the rock, finding a crack to wedge them in about a foot down. Then he let his body ease downward, his right foot feeling for a toehold. He scraped his boot along the rough granite, finding a tiny lip of rock. He tested his weight on it, and it held. Then he moved his left foot down, trying not to let the agonizing weight pulling at his back yank him too far. He felt a small protuberance of rock and rested his left foot on it. It held too. He carefully dislodged the axe, aimed for a crevice to the right of his chest, and drove the toothed side in. He tugged on it, and it remained embedded.

More dirt and tiny rocks spilled down over him. The female vampire’s boot couldn’t reach him now. She cursed.

“Pull me up!” she yelled. “He’s too low.”

Little victories,
Sam thought. He clung to the rock face, feeling his strength drain away by the minute, his arms and legs starting to shake with muscle fatigue.

The ridiculous position they hung in now meant that neither Sam nor Bobby could fight, just make tiny defensive moves. And Sam knew he couldn’t hold on forever. The vampires knew that, too. They hovered at the top of the ridge, staring down and grinning. Maybe they wouldn’t have to climb down and finish off Sam at all.

Sam decided to climb up, taking a route to his left that wouldn’t allow the vampires to lower themselves down and kick him off. If they did attempt to reach him, they’d be in the same clinging-to-the-rock situation Sam was, and he guessed they wouldn’t risk it. This way they wouldn’t be able to attack him until he reached the top.

He moved his left hand out of its crevice and felt around for another handhold. When he found one, he followed suit with his feet. Then he heaved himself upward, pulling Bobby’s dead weight. His finger bones felt like they might snap, but he held on. He swung the ice axe out and in, biting into a fresh nook in the rock. He continued to drag himself upward, finding handholds and toeholds where he could, swinging the ice axe, wedging it in tightly enough to support both him and Bobby.

Bobby had grown quiet. Sam put all his concentration into pulling them up the cliff face, one little step at a time, one handhold after another handhold. The wind howled around him, though at least he was a little sheltered on this side of the rock. He worked his way steadily upward, thinking each time he’d see the top of the ridge, only to be confronted with more rock face.

Then, with the next heave upward, he reached it. He could see clear over the ridge to the clouds filling the valley on the other side.

A blinding kick to his face snapped his head back. Bright stars flashed as blood spilled from his nose and filled his mouth. Sam reached up with his left hand, trying to grab the vampire’s leg and fling her off the cliff. But they both kept their distance, just out of sight at the top of the ridge. Sam’s searching hand felt around for a boot.

Blue Spikes’ heel drove into the back of his head. Black Overcoat snaked his hand down and grabbed the axe head, wriggling it free. She kicked Sam again in the back of the head, slamming his face into the sharp granite. Blood from a cut in his forehead trickled down into his eyes, blurring his vision. She kicked him again and again. He reached up with his left hand, grabbing her boot, but she wrenched it away, then cracked the back of his head with her heel, driving his face into the jagged rock once more.

Sam felt the axe rip free of its hold and reached for the rock wall desperately with his left hand while trying to wedge it in again with his right. Another swift kick to his head disoriented him. He felt the ice axe start to slip out of his hand. As he strained to hold on to that lifeline, the female vampire pulled him violently to the right, wrenching his left hand away from its hold. He started to fall backward, his feet the only thing holding him and Bobby up. The weight on the rope tugged inexorably downward and Sam’s hand searched the granite surface for anything to cling to.

He and Bobby were going to die.

Suddenly, the weight on the rope vanished. Sam heard Bobby shout, his voice falling away. Sam’s arms reached out, scraping along the granite, the toothed axe ripping down the side of the rock face. Then it caught. Sam’s left hand struggled for a hold and he scrambled his feet against the cliff, both finding purchase. He clung to the wall, breath coming in gasps.

Blinking his eyes clear, he looked down. The end of the lifeline flapped loose. Bobby had cut the rope. The sheer cliff face stretched below, ending two hundred feet down in a jumble of rocks. A few snow-covered ledges protruded out, but he didn’t see Bobby on any of them.

“Bobby!” Sam shouted. “Bobby!”

A gust of wind came screaming around the ridge, pinning him against the rock. No one answered.

Above, he heard the vampires laugh.

FORTY-NINE

Dean came to slowly. He couldn’t quite remember where he was and tried to move his body, but something pressed down on him, making it impossible. He could barely breathe. As he tried to suck in air, he instantly went into a coughing fit. Dust drifted thickly around him and a strange red haze permeated the air.

Across from him in the gloom, a red ‘exit’ sign glowed above a hopelessly askew doorway. Heavy beams lay in front of it, along with broken ceiling tiles and plaster dust. Wiring hung down in clumps, sparking and swinging.

Dean remembered. There had been another avalanche.

He lay on his stomach, something heavy across his upper back. He tried to crane his neck around to see, but couldn’t. Someone whimpered nearby.

“Hello?” he said, spitting out plaster dust.

A man continued to mutter and plead softly.

He could hear something moving near him, but couldn’t tell if it was shifting debris or someone crawling around.

“We’re dead, we’re dead,” the man muttered.

“No, we’re not,” Dean told him, and started coughing again.

When the fit subsided, he glanced around for anything he could use as a pry bar. A few feet away, a piece of rebar lay against a pile of cement rubble. Dean’s left arm was free, and he reached for the rebar. At first he could barely graze it with the tips of his fingers, but he managed to grip it enough to drag it a little nearer, then grasp it properly. Something above him groaned and shifted, pushing even harder down on him.

The man whimpered softly.

“Hey, buddy,” Dean called out. “You free? Can you give me a hand here?”

But the man just went on crying.

Another groan filled the gloom, and Dean felt the debris on his back shift again. But this time the weight eased. Suddenly, he could take a deep breath. Pushing with his legs, he managed to wriggle out from under the debris. When he scrambled free, he sat up and looked back. Part of the stone wall from above had crashed over the staircase. He’d been pinned under one end of a massive beam. Luckily, as more debris fell on the other end of the beam, it had lifted off him.

He tried to stand and found that he could only crouch. The ceiling had caved in all around him. He followed the sound of the crying man. Dean recognized him as Bill, who he’d helped dig out of the first avalanche. A massive head injury yawned in his forehead. His eyes were unfocused and glassy. Dean shucked off his jacket and folded it tightly, then pressed it against the wound.

“Anyone else down here?” Dean yelled. “Jason!”

He listened, hearing only the sparking of the wires and water dripping from somewhere nearby.

He told Bill to put pressure on the wound and moved away in the darkness. Crawling over debris and walking bent over when the space allowed it, Dean entered the neighboring room. It was the locker room where he’d originally seen the avalanche control team.

One wall had completely caved in, the lockers fallen over against the benches in the center of the room. It left a space big enough to protect someone. Dean bent down and peered in. The red emergency lighting had kicked on, and he could just make out the shapes of two bodies in the confined space.

“Hey,” he said.

A hand reached out for him, and he grasped it. Pulling gently, he dragged the person out. It was Steven, the snow ranger.

“Thanks, man,” he said. “I can get Hank out. He was next to me in there. We’re both okay, I think.”

Dean nodded and continued on, crawling through the wreckage. Beyond the crew locker room lay the equipment room. Dean moved to it at a crouch. He wondered if anyone who’d been on the floor above when the avalanche hit could possibly have survived. He wondered if Don had dashed down here at the last minute, but somehow he doubted he could have made it in time.

As Dean made his way toward the equipment room, Steven and Hank emerged from the locker room and crawled away toward Bill. “Everyone should try to stay together,” Dean told them.

Steven nodded dreamily, showing signs of shock.

Dean could hear Bill’s voice echoing down the hall. “Hey, dude. You seen my car? It was parked out in the lot. We’re probably going to go out later and cruise around.”

Hank responded, his voice strained. “We’ll do that.”

The equipment room lay at the end of a narrow corridor sparking with live wires. Before he went in, Dean searched for additional rooms, but didn’t see any other spaces where people could have survived the building’s collapse.

Finally, he slunk down the hallway, keeping well away from the live wires. The equipment room lay in ruins. Splintered skis and snowboards stuck out from a collapsed ceiling that descended at an angle. Some of it still held, creating a triangular space.

He saw two shapes moving in the gloom and crept closer. A man lay on the floor with a figure bent over him. Suddenly the man cried out in pain, and Dean recognized Jason’s voice. He crept closer and saw Grace stooping over him, her back to Dean. Blood soaked her hands and Jason’s chest. She bent her head low over him, and he screamed.

Dean dug around in his pockets, his hand closing around the spice concoction. “Hey!” he shouted.

Grace turned around, and Dean released a big splash of the mixture, hitting her squarely in the face.

FIFTY

Grace reached up and wiped the fluid from her face with one sleeve. “Jesus, Dean! What the hell are you doing?”

Dean crept closer. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to stabilize him before he goes into shock.”

Dean moved toward them at a crouch, still unable to stand. He could see now that Jason’s stomach had been torn up by something sharp. His shirt and jacket lay ripped open, and a bloody, ragged wound gaped in his abdomen. Next to Grace lay an open medical kit. She was in the middle of preparing a gauze pad to apply pressure.

When she did, Jason cried out again in pain.

“You’re more of a wuss than an incontinent kid at a summer camp,” she told him. “This is nothing. I bet you cry over paper cuts, too.”

Dean knew Grace was lying to Jason, trying to force him to fight against the pain. It was no paper cut, and Dean was sure he’d seen the glistening white of Jason’s intestines before Grace covered them with the pad.