The Ascent(38)

I turned and cupped my mouth with both hands. “Andrew! Andrew!”

A shape darted across the campsite: Chad. I could make out his bright neon parka even in the dark. He trampled the steaming, blackened heap that had moments ago been the bonfire and sprinted toward the hillock. I followed, cognizant of Petras shouting my name as I ran.

“Where is he?” I huffed, skidding to a muddy halt beside Chad.

“Don’t see him.” Chad was farther up a gradual incline, peering over the ridge to the cupped pool of rocks below.

I waited for the next lightning strike, hoping it would reveal Andrew below, unharmed.

“I don’t think—no, wait. Wait—” Chad took a step forward, and the crest of the ridge broke apart. His arms pinwheeled, and he bowed backward. Then he pitched forward as his feet fell away beneath him.

I grabbed a fistful of his parka just as a mudslide broke across the ground quick as a serpent. “Chad!”

He went over the edge, dragging me forward. My chest slammed against the rock as the cascade of mud pooled into the cuffs of my cargo pants and washed over my body. My arm seesawed over the broken crest of the ridge, the sharp rock slicing my flesh. I groaned and sat up, mud splattered and freezing, and grabbed a second handful of Chad’s parka. He was heavy as hell; I could feel the tendons straining in my arms.

“Tim! Tim!” It was Petras, his voice nearly in my ear. I felt his hands slide beneath my armpits and wrap around my chest, his hands coming together in a death grip. My breath was squeezed out of me as Petras pulled me against his chest.

“Don’t let go,” I moaned, not sure if I’d actually managed to speak the words or not.

In a flash of lightning, I caught a glimpse of Chad’s terrified eyes staring at me from over the ridge. He seized my arms with both hands, but the rainwater made it impossible for him to get a secure grip. His cheeks were quivering. For one horrifying second, as another bolt of lightning lashed out overhead, I thought I could see his skull through his skin.

“Come on!” I cried, trying to pull him up. “Come on, Chad!”

“Don’t f*cking drop me, Shakes,” he said, his voice quavering.

“Don’t you f*cking drop me.”

“Won’t happen,” I promised. “Get one of your feet up.”

The pain ratcheted in my arms and shoulders as he swung toward the face of the cliff and tried to dig his boots into the rock. But like a cartoon character, his legs only cycled wildly in the air, pushing him farther from the face of the cliff and back out over the abyss.

Hollinger and Curtis were suddenly at my side, feeding a length of rope down to Chad over the jagged ridge.

“Watch your footing, guys,” I cautioned them, my breath coming in gasps and wheezes. “The ground’s turned to mud.”

Hollinger pointed to the rope and shouted to Curtis, “Don’t let the rope floss the rock, mate! It’ll rupture.”

Curtis dived forward and grasped the rope in gloved hands, his head two inches away from my own. I could see the deep trenches in the mud that his knees had made as he slid across the incline. The trenches quickly filled with water.

“Grab the rope!” Curtis shouted to Chad.

“He’s slipping,” I said through clenched teeth. I couldn’t tell if anyone had heard me. “I’m losing him …”

“Come on, Chad!” Curtis continued. “There! There! It’s in front of your face, man!”

“Use your feet,” Hollinger yelled.

My hands were numb; I could no longer tell if I was still holding on to Chad’s parka. I closed my eyes, my teeth chattering, my arms quaking. My chest was going to burst at any second. The breath whistling up my throat was the breath of a volcano.

The rope went taut.

“Here—here—” Curtis pitched forward as the top of Chad’s sopping head appeared over the crest of the ridge. “Gimme your hand—”

One of Chad’s hands swung around and clamped down on Curtis’s elbow.

Curtis grabbed Chad by the seat of his pants.

How the hell is Curtis not falling? How is he not toppling right over the ridge?

“Heave!” Curtis hollered.

A moment later, Chad sprawled on top of him, both of them covered from head to toe in black mud. There was a second rope tied around Curtis’s waist. I trailed it with my eyes toward a forked tree where Donald Shotsky still held the other end of the rope, both his feet planted against the bifurcated tree trunk.

Petras loosened his grip but didn’t let go. He yanked me away from the edge of the cliff, as if to simply release me would send me shooting like a rocket out of the abyss … and given the adrenaline burning through my body, I might have done just that.

“I’m okay. I’m okay,” I huffed.

Petras released me fully as Hollinger patted the top of my head like I was a child.

“Me, too,” Chad wheezed, pulling himself off Curtis. His pale face was streaked with mud, his eyes blinking away the rainwater. Somewhat unsteadily he got up on his knees and gripped his hips with jittery hands. “Saved my life, Shakes.”

I nodded like a fool. I didn’t know what I wanted to say.

“Come on,” Petras said, clapping me on the back. He caught one of my elbows and helped me to my feet. “Before the whole lot of us catch pneumonia.”