Ben

So life rolls on. This week is promising to be a little bit busier, and I had a house call to do today for a 93 year old lady. Too cute. I’ve also been job hunting and looking either to supplement with a part time job doing something else, or to change careers (which would suck, I love what I do) to something else full time, or maybe get a job as a super in a small apartment building and do massage, or find another place to do what I do. I am looking into all of the above. One job looks like it might be promising and the contact fella is going to call me next week to talk about it. We’ll see.

And now, on with the story.

***

Ben Sutter lay on teh ledge, high up the cliff face. If he were to get to the top and back before dark, he had best get moving again. The only thing keeping him on the ledge was the recurring small sounds. The overhang was next and it was tricky enough without an angry raptor flying around his head. Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. He had come too far now to turn back.

He stood as erect as the space allowed, checked his ropes and began investigating the pitons already in place. They seemed steady enough and he attached his safety rope to one. Sure that it would hold in the event that he slipped, he began the careful and laborious navigation of the overhang.

No enraged falcons or eagles swooped down to knock him loose and his confidence returned. He made it past the area where he had to hang almost upside down and was able to return to a vertical ascent.

Small pebbles fell down on him from above, startling him badly. What the hell was up there? Better not be the start of an earthquake. Not that this area was prone to them but there was so much weird shit going on in the world any more that you never knew.

As he neared the top, he heard a chilling snarling sound unlike anything he had ever heard before. He craned his head to look up and an involuntary shout escaped his throat.

Several pointed furry faces glared at him from the top of the cliff. They took turns baring their very sharp teeth and snarling savagely. One was braced against the cliff wall, its tiny front feet clung to an invisible ridge close to his right hand.

Before he could move his hand out of range, the creature darted its head and sank its teeth into the fleshy part of his thumb. He screamed as intense pain shot up his arm to his shoulder.

Without thinking, he jerked his hand away from its hold, dragging the creature with it. He tried to shake it loose, knowing the long fall would kill it, but its teeth were sunk too deeply into his hand. He felt the flesh beginning to tear. Pain roared through him, clouding his judgement.

He slammed the creature against the rock. A second one launched itself at his face. He ducked to one side and it fell past him. He continued battering the one hanging from his hand, wishing it would let go. A third one succeeded where the second had failed.

Needle teeth penetrated his cheek below his eye. Bone crunched and he felt his eyeball shift as the base of the socket broke under the unthinkable power of the creature’s jaws.

Reason fled. Ben reached for his face with his left hand. Freed from anchorage, his upper body tipped away from the wall. His rope caught and kept him from falling to a sudden death, only to hold him in place for a slow and agonizing one. More creatures leapt down onto his twisting, flailing body and attacked with great fervor. Jaws capable of almost a ton of pressure per square inch crunched bone, tore tender flesh. In their frenzy, two more were jostled and fell, while the rest feasted until they were sated. Then, with lithe skill, the swarmed up the cliff and vanished over the top.

Ben Sutter’s tattered body twisted at the end of his safety rope.

***

Gruesome. I need to flesh this out a bit more, in a manner of speaking. I want to know my characters better and make them more 3D, as it were.

Hmmmm.