THIRTYEIGHT
The glow of the flares was fading as the cavern now lay unnaturally quiet. Gordon rolled off of Jack and looked back to where Sam had stood only moments ago. "crap." He scampered on his hands and knees over to the perimeter of the pit and peered into its swallowing shadows. Without warning a burst of flames erupted from the abyss, too far away to give off any warmth, and then was extinguished just as quickly.
"What the hell?"
"Exactly," Jack said as he crawled up beside Gordon, pale and clammy, his hand on fire with an indescribable intensity. He peered down into the pit as well. "Sam," he yelled and shone his flashlight into the endless blackness.
"If this pit has a bottom it's miles down. I don't think Sam…"
"It's hell," Jack interrupted him.
Gordon shook his head confused and overwhelmed by the last couple of minutes. "What?"
"Or at least the gateway to hell. Doesn't that make sense? Camazotz - guardian of the gate, belching fire, bottomless blackness…?"
"So, you're saying we just let Sam fall into hell." Gordon laced the statement with a pinch of sarcasm as he refused to believe something so horrific could have happened. "That's a load of blarney." He lit another flare defiantly and pointed it into the chasm. The glow chased away the first length of darkness and, about two storeys down on a narrow ledge, there lay a motionless humanoid form.
"Sam!" Jack called more urgently and the form shifted slightly and groaned. "Don't move, we're coming down to get you."
He could hear the voices but was having trouble discerning them through the fuzz that filled his head. Pressing his palm against the source of the most intense hammering he found a sticky mess intertwined in his hair. He must have hit his head but he couldn't quite remember what he had just been doing. If he could just have a couple minutes to reconsider things… but the voices above him were worried and insistent.
"M' fine," he choked out, trying to shake some sense back into the situation. He laboriously shifted himself onto his side and, with great effort, opened his eyes to find himself on the edge of a rocky, glowing chasm. In a heartbeat it all flooded back to him - the cave, the bats, the demon, Dean! He pushed himself up despite the pain pounding through his body. "Dean…" He looked up the wall of the chasm and was disappointed to find only Gordon and Jack peering down at him.
"Are you okay?" Gordon was asking, but Sam had more important things on his mind.
"How's Dean?" he shouted up to them and then winced deeply as the effort turned on sparks of pain throughout his head.
"We don't know yet," Gordon admitted, "haven't had time to check."
"I need to know if he's ok," Sam huffed in despair, just barely audible for the Jack and Gordon to hear him.
Gordon motioned towards the back of the cavern, "one of us needs to check on the other two."
Jack just nodded and got to his feet, wordlessly volunteering for the task.
Gordon looked back down at Sam. "Jack's checking him," he relayed into the pit.
Sam lay back and clutched his head. If Dean was - Sam shuddered - gone, then he didn't want to be rescued. He would just rolled off this ledge and that would be that. He should have tried harder to get to him, but he had failed, been too late. Despite himself a tear leaked from the corner of his eye, tracing a path through the grime on his cheek.
Jack hurried passed the sacrificial slabs and towards Dean and Darrin. He glanced behind the mound of backpacks but couldn't even see Darrin's body. The seconds he spent checking on Dean wouldn't compromise Darrin at this point. A lump formed in his throat as his mind danced over all the rotten scenarios he might come across. He closed his eyes and shot off a random prayer as he approached Dean.
The flare Sam had thrown into this corner was nearly out and Jack lit the second last one. The red luminosity enhanced the color of the blood which had pooled under Dean's head. Jack cringed and dropped to his knees beside the body. He rolled Dean onto his back as he meticulously supported his head, deeply concerned that the impact had damaged his spine. They would have to keep that in mind when they moved him. Dammit, how the hell were they going to get out of here. Jack took a deep breath, first things first.
Once on his back Dean's breathing became more obvious and Jack let out a sigh of relief. It was shallow and wheezy, but seemed to be regular enough despite that. "He's breathing," he relayed back to Gordon and Sam, then surveyed the rest of Dean's body. "Man, you're more of a mess than when we first met." He was almost covered head to toe in blood, though most of seemed dried and older. The fresh bleeding was only oozing now from a gash across his forehead and temple. Not dead, Jack thought, not dying, well not yet anyway, and stable for the moment. "I'll be right back," he told the unconscious hunter and then made his way over several scattered bags and satchels towards Darrin.
"Dare?" he called as he clambered over the toppled pile. "You better not be dead," he warned. "I already went through that this week." Finally, he came upon another bloodied body. "Geezus Christ, you're a mess too." He inched in to Darrin's side and checked for a pulse and breathing on him as well. Again, shallow, weak, but present. "Ok, bud, I'll be right back, I promise." He patted Darrin's thigh and crawled back over the packs.
"Jack? Is everyone okay?"
"For now, but they both need…" He closed his eyes as a moment of light-headedness overwhelmed him then continued. "They need attention without too much delay
"Alright," Gordon yelled again, "let's get moving then." That was easy for him to say, he didn't feel like crap. "Hey Jack, see if you can find some rope," Gordon added as an after thought.
Jack gritted his teeth as the expected aftermath of the bite became more and more present. As the adrenaline faded from his system the fiery throbbing in his numb hand was becoming more obvious. It had begun to creep up his arm and he could see the swelling was tightening the tourniquet. If he wasn't careful he was going to lose his hand. He pulled at the strip tied around his forearm and removed it from his swollen extremity. Maybe it was his imagination, but he could almost feel the poison excitedly rushing through the rest of his blood stream. They would just have to get out of the cave before things got bad. What the hell was he talking about, things were already bad.
He rummaged through the pile, almost too easily stumbling upon a couple of climbing harnesses and rope. He gathered them up with his working arm and headed arduously back to the pit.
"Nice," Gordon commented as Jack dropped the equipment at his side. Jack, too, dropped to his knees heavily beside him. "Hey, are you doing all right?"
Jack shrugged. Gordon grimly left it at that and silently threaded the rope through the loops of the harness, tying and tightening it once, twice, three times. "Hey Sam?"
Sam had somehow managed to shift his aching body into a sitting position, supported by the pit wall. As his head cleared he found that other than a sharp throb in his skull, and dull throb throughout his muscles, and a intense throb in his already injured leg, he wasn't as bad off as he had initially thought. He grunted a response to Gordon as gently probed his leg. His hand moved down his shin toward the epicentre of pain and eventually brushed over a kink in his bone. He groaned to himself, more annoyed at his finding than anything else.
"Sam," Gordon called again. "You think you can get this harness on okay? Or do you want one of us to repel down?"
"I think I can managed," he answered with pseudo confidence. He was pretty sure his lower leg was broken but if he could get passed that part, then it shouldn't be too difficult.
"Oookay…here it comes then." He lowered the harness to Sam, trying not to think about how the hell he was going to drag four injured men through all the labyrinthine tunnels. When the harness touched down on the ledge he gave it extra line and then backed up so he could pass it around one of the slabs and then around his own back. He looked back at Jack who was listlessly watching Sam. Well, he wasn't going to be much help. "Hey Jack," he snapped trying not to let his frustration show. "I think I've got this, you watch Sam, make sure he doesn't get caught on the way up."
The order snapped Jack from his daze and he nodded at Gordon then leaned further over the chasm. He took a deep focusing breath. "Are you ready, Sam?"
"Just a second." Sam tugged the last fastener as tight as it would go and nodded up at Jack. His brow was covered in perspiration from manoeuvring his broken leg through the harness, but if it was going to get him back up to Dean he was willing to suffer it. He tried to dry his clammy hands on his pants and then grasped the rope as it became taut. It took a couple of heaves before Sam felt himself rise off the ledge. His legs dangled clumsily below him and despite his efforts banged sporadically against the craggy wall. His face contorted in pain but he bit his lower lip and sucked in his moans and groans.
The ascent was jerky and difficult and Sam hung suspended every couple of minutes as Gordon tried to catch his breath. When he finally became level with the rim of the pit he let go off the rope and grasped at the rocks, trying to pull himself over the edge. Jack reached down and helped to haul him up with his one arm. With Gordon still pulling the rope Sam was finally able to climb back to safety and the three hunters collapsed where they were in relief and exhaustion. Sam breathed deeply trying to stay with it as the pain from dragging his leg over the ledge had temporarily debilitated him.
Gordon was the first to recover and came over to check on Sam and Jack. They were both still panting through their own respective pains. "Okay Scotty," he joked, "we're good now, beam us out."
Sam smirked gloomily at Gordon as he struggled to sit up. "Think my leg is broken," he lamented, "can you help me over to Dean. If it hadn't been for his leg he would be at his brother's side already. Gordon nodded and gently hauled Sam to his feet, supporting him on his injured side. They hobbled painfully towards Dean as Jack lagged behind them.
Dean lay exactly as Jack had left him. Gordon deposited Sam at his side then returned to help Jack bring over their supplies.
Sam's breath caught in his chest as he laid his eyes upon his brother. "Dean?" He leaned over him and instinctively moved to check his pulse. When he found it to be strong and present he tenderly patted Dean's blood streaked cheek, but Dean gave no signs of coming to. It was no wonder; the gash on his head, even though it had scabbed over, had swollen profusely. It was Dean's lack of consciousness that truly worried Sam but he did a quick survey anyway, making sure he didn't miss anything critical.
He carefully felt Dean's head, searching for more concussive injuries. Other than the goose egg at the base of his skull from a few days ago nothing else seemed relative. Blood was caked throughout his hair and the swelling at his temple was starting to creep around his eye. They needed ice, clean water… they needed to be in a hospital. Sam sighed and continued his exam.
There was deep bruising around his neck and Sam figured his wheezy breathing had something to do with the obvious strangling. Again, something he could nothing about. "Dammit," he cursed starting to feel the frustration of being helpless. Beyond these Dean's arm was scabbed with old and newer scratches, a particular long fresh one running the length of it. His wrists were tied with blood soaked cotton and various other minor scratches peaked through his tattered shirt. Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, at a loss for how to help Dean here and now.
In the meantime Gordon and Jack had, with great difficulty, moved Darrin out from his ineffective refuge and laid him closer to the brothers. Jack, who was starting to look as pale as Darrin, was worriedly palpating his friend's abdomen. It was tense and bruised and as he moved to the bandaged right side Darrin let out a pitiful whimper. "We need a hospital," he mourned and brushed a blonde lock off of Darrin's pallid, sticky brow, then wiped his own feverish sweat on his sleeve.
Sam looked hopelessly at Jack, then desperately back at his comatose brother. The thrill of vanquishing the demon gatekeeper was now long forgotten as dismay filled the atmosphere once again.