Chapter 2: Bad Lands
Author: Catch23
Pairing: HB/Myers
Feedback: Welcome.
Notes: Spoilers for first Hellboy movie, Hellboy Comics.
Hellboy:
Up ahead, the high black rectangle of a mesa is silhouetted against the twilight sky.
Even fifty feet above the desert floor, the heat of the day hangs on, blown into the Army helicopter's open sides by the rotor-wash. Myers fiddles with one of the buckles on his vest, and shoots me a small but delighted smile. -This is the first time he's been to the desert, outside of a John Wayne movie.
The mesa summit is getting nearer awfully fast. I grab a coil of rope, and a handful of railroad spikes. Me and Myers and Abe synch up our locators, and Myers reaches over to turn on Roy De Los Verdes's. He's the local expert for this trip, a dedicated rock-climber and part-time Brujo who discovered the weirdness we're out here to see.
That 'part-time' still worries me.
We can see it from the air and it's big, a roughly circular hole nearly fifty feet across, perfectly centered on the top of the Mesa. It looks like it could go down from there forever, and it's black as an open grave three feet in.
De Los Verdes looks antsy, and I figure he's dying to tell us all about his discovery. Again.
The helicopter drops us off, and banks away into the deepening night.
It's real quiet up here.
Something scuttles out from under a rock, runs over my boot, and vanishes into a low burrow. That wasn't a rabbit. I take my gun out and cock it, scanning the plateau.
Nothing moves, but I can hear a dry, rustling, -scampering- from time to time.
"We're not alone," I say, evenly.
Myers:
Five minutes drag by in waiting silence.
I can hear -something- but it's coming from places in the rocks, so when a bat-like bundle of scaly wings dive-bombs me, all I have time to do is duck. Red slaps the critter out of the air with a clean swat of his tail, and it hits the stone shelf at our feet, flapping weakly.
Red covers us and I look down, gun trained.
Scales, one eye, something between a feeler and a tentacle streamlined out of the back of it's elongated green-gray skull.
"'Scout?" Red asks.
"It's not local," I reply, and shoot it.
We wait a while longer, but nothing else happens. Abe and De Los Verdes move up to the edge of the hole, flanked by me and Hellboy.
There's an oddly-scented wind from inside, and it catches the edge of my hair.
Abe peers in, finger-webs splayed. Red picks up a small rock, and chucks it in.
There's no echo at all. Nothing but a deep-looking shaft gouged out of solid rock, and perfect blackness at the bottom.
Gouged. ...Out?
"Blue, this tunnel was made -upwards-, wasn't it?" I say, pretty sure of my answer.
Abe glances around at the heaps of broken stone surrounding the pit, and closes his hands with a slight sticky noise.
"That is correct. Some... ...great energy exploded from the inside of this mesa in the very recent past. This wind... does not -belong- here."
"It's a gateway, man," De Los Verdes breathes.
"It could be," I agree.
Red looks over at De Los Verdes critically, then turns the Samaritan on him with a snarl.
"-YOU- OPENED THIS, YOU SCUMMY LITTLE-!"
De Los Verdes shrugs, grinning, and shoves Abe over the brink.
Hellboy:
I see Myers make a grab for Abe, but I'm too far away to do anything about it.
Like hell. I grab De Los Verdes by the back of his jean jacket, and launch him at the others like a sandbag. He hits Abe square in the center of the back, knocking him violently against the wall of the shaft, where his clings by his fingertips with a pained gasp. Myers is knocked back, falling to his hands and knees. His hands go over the edge, so the rim of the shaft catches him fairly in the chest. Instinctively Myers snaps his head back, killing all his forward momentum.
De Los Verdes scrabbles desperately as he falls, clawing at Abe's legs, then at the wall, and finally pitches down into the unknown blackness with a scream that cuts out like an unplugged radio.
The force of the breeze from within the mesa strengthens, lifting the edges of my coat. I drop the end of the rope to Abe, swinging it against the wind. I've just about got him up, when something like a tendril of barbed wire lashes out of the center of the hole, whips twice around Myers's arm, and yanks him in.
It's so fast I almost didn't see it happen. I can't speak an' I sort of lose track of Abe for a second, but he clings to the rope for dear life, and in the next breath, I pull him the rest of the way up.
"John??" Abe asks, looking around with wide, frantic eyes.
"I'll be right back," I tell him, and leap into the dark.
Myers:
It's too bright.
I'm lying face-down on something grainy and hard-packed, something white. I get to my hands and knees, and squint against the blinding flood of light around me. Gradually, my eyes adjust.
I'm on a white, dusty hardpan, with a round of perfect deep-blue sky overhead. It's maybe a hundred degrees on the ground, but a cooler breeze is blowing on the left side of my face, unnaturally steady. My head is pounding. I try my locator, but nobody else is nearby.
I see a dark, gleaming patch in the dust near my right arm, and my eyes unwillingly focus.
All at once I realize my forearm's bleeding, and it hurts. I look all around, and over my shoulder, but there's nothing. I take off my jacket, and push back my soaked sleeve. Instantly, fresh dark red blood oozes out of a double row of small but deep cuts. The jacket protected me from the worst of the damage, thank God. I get a field dressing out of one of the pockets of my vest, rip it open with one hand and my mouth, and wrap the pad and long bandage around my arm.
I think I'm in shock, but the sun on my back is helping.
Sun.
Yeah. Daylight. ...How long have I been unconscious? Wait, the cuts on my arm are fresh, how-?
The ground trembles for a moment, barely enough to even feel, then all is still.
Hellboy:
Sharp rocks. It had ta be sharp rocks.
I look around in a panic, half expecting to see Myers splattered all over, but I'm the only one here. A cold sweat of relief prickles all the way down my back, and I let out a breath.
If he's not here, he's gotta be someplace else.
I stand up and look around, shading my eyes against a fierce, naked sun.
Nothin'.
There's a ridge of low mountains off to my right, then broken boulders, and the jagged ridge I'm standing on. Leftwards, all I can see is smooth, white desert.
Hey, I know this place...
What I -don't- know, is where in the nearest thousand miles my partner is.
"MEY-ERS!!" I yell at the top of my lungs.
The echo comes back faintly from the mountains, and dies on the plain.
My locator beeps.
Myers:
I look down at my locator, staring hard to make it real.
It's Red.
I don't know where he is, or where -I- am for that matter, but he's SOMEWHERE within this thing's range. I suddenly realize I'm crying, and knock that off, wiping my face on my undamaged sleeve. -I don't much care for being alone.
Taking a bearing from the locator, I start walking again.
Hellboy:
I catch sight of a dark mote up ahead that wavers in the heat but always re-appears in the same place. I run the rest of the way and pounce on Myers like Sylvester the cat, sweeping him up in my arms.
"Omigod, I can't believe it-"
"Are you okay?" I demand.
"What happened to Abe?"
"-Fine. Your arm-"
"Well, it's not bleeding anymore. What happened to YOU?" Myers accuses.
"Uh-" I follow his gaze, and realize that I lost a little skin back in the rocks. I hadn't noticed. "-I got scuffed on my way in," I shrug, "-it's healin' already."
"Okay," Myers nods, looking up at me happily.
The steady desert wind swirls in through rips in my clothes, and ruffles Myers's hair.
"...So, what brings you here?" I ask.
"Where IS 'here'?" he counters.
"New Mexico. We're not too far from where I grew up."
"...Really?" Myers seems genuinely interested. I kick myself for not trying to bring him out here before, WITH a Jeep and some extra water.
"Yeah, really. What's left of the old base should be right North of here. -That's how come most of the UFO nuts never found Area Fifty-One, by the way. ...Uncle Sam keeps movin' it around."
"-Huh," Myers looks fascinated, "-And SECTION fifty-one?"
"...Is wherever they're basing me. It's like with the President and Air Force One," I explain.
"Oh."
"Listen, uh, Myers-" ...Annnd my mind draws a blank. I shut my mouth, and stroke the back of his bloodstained hand with my thumb.
"-I know," Myers says, quietly.
"Come on partner. It's a long walk, an' don't even -think- about fallin' out on me."
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