Darkness, Be My Friend

Chapter Seven : One Last Glimpse at Hell

Jack crouched on one of the auxiliary seats, watching as Riddick hooked the first two power cels up to the skiff's electrical system. The lights flickered on overhead but not outside, two power cels weren't enough for the external lamps. She felt a sense of releif wash over her; they were going to make it. She watched silently as he stood up and stepped back down the ramp, picking up the generator in one hand while looping the cables around his other arm; as it was the only light, he would need it to keep the creatures away. His goggles were pushed up away from his eyes, which, in reflecting the light, looked to be a solid silver rather than the iridescent gleam in the darkness.

Silver...he can see in the dark...

He glanced at her, frowning in some thought before stepping off into the shadows again; Jack watched him and that retreating glow of the fiber-optic light, an anxious feeling in the pit of her stomach. So she got up and moved to the other side of the small cabin, glancing at the food stores before climbing onto the opposite row of seats to inspect the thin metal cabinets set into the wall. She opened one to find a fully stocked first aid kit, complete with medical gauze and a small can of disinfectant spray; the second one held, to Jack's surprise, two small boxes of freeze-dried emergency ration packets. She smiled slightly at this, setting the boxes back inside before turning to the last cabinet; there were three flashlights sitting inside as well as a box of replacement batteries and bulbs.

Grinning, she quickly pulled them out and sat down on the floor; checking quickly to make sure they worked before pulling one of the shoelaces out of her shoe. She strung the shoe lace through the battery cases of each flashlight, snapping the tops securely; but one string wasn't long or thick enough. Jack, despite being forced to steal her own shoes, was one of those people who possesses the odd quirk of wearing more than one pair of shoelace per shoe. She took them all out and knotted them together; the end result was a chain of flashlights that could be hung over one shoulder.

She finished it just as Riddick came back, the third power cel on his shoulder, the cut there looking worse in the light. As he set down the cel, Jack stood up, holding out the flashlight chain for him; he almost didn't notice it. When he saw it, however, an odd look came over his face that Jack couldn't quite place; he pulled the loop of glowing cables from his shoulder and set the generator aside. Then he took the chain from her and strung it over his shoulder, the flashlights shining down his back; He didn't glance back before stepping out again.

Jack felt a knot start to form in the middle of her stomach; her hands were shaking as she sat down on one of the seats, a stinging sensation in her eyes.

No...I am not going to cry...there's nothing to cry about...

Jack bit her lip, tasting blood again as she stubbornly wiped the tears from her eyes; she heard Riddick come back again with the fourth cel, but didn't turn to look. Something hit the window about a minute later and Jack looked up, eye's widening as first one drop then another, then a whole onslaught of rain came pouring down. It crashed against the front window and the ground outside the skiff; Jack turned back towards the open ramp, hearing the water splashing down like a waterfall over the back of the wings.

She crept towards the edge, peering through the rain to look for Riddick, but she couldn't see anything but the water and the darkness around the skiff. Cautiously she crept out onto the ramp, staying close to the light as she swept her gaze over the ground outside; again there was nothing, not even the beams of the flashlight chain she'd given him. Her foot bumped against the fiber-optic generator and she glanced down at it, eyes traveling back over to the cells, counting five...

Five...there were only five...five...why'd he go back out?

Jack stepped off the edge of the ramp for a moment, searching the darkness again.

"Riddick?" she asked the night, looking towards where they'd left the sandcat, but of course she couldn't see it, there was the shed sitting in the way. There was a screech overhead as something flew past, followed by the sound not unlike that of someone climbing hurriedly over a chainlink fence. Jack turned towards that noise, the fear growing even as the rain came down harder. "Riddick!"

They needed more than just the cels and the food; even if the skiff came with the standard first aid kit, it wouldn't come with anything to stitch up the gaping cut in his shoulder. Riddick had gone back into the buildings, he had seen some things that would be useful; the flashlights shining down his back kept the creatures away as effectively as the glowing cables had, but they made it easier to carry the last two cells back to the skiff. The light didn't get in his eyes now and he could see clearly to find the things he needed; he wrapped them up inside two blankets, then found a box to shove the whole lot in just as the rain came pounding down.

Fuck...as if this place could get any worse...

The water would distort the light and worse, short them out; the flashlights were not made to be water proof or even water resistant. But the water would also wash away the blood, make it harder for the creatures to zero in on his scent; he would chance it, the light would work halfway through the rain. He held the box in one arm as he ran out into the downpour, finding himself soaked after only three steps; the sound of the rain hitting metal drowned out the electric snap of the flashlights shorting out one by one.

The last one went as he reached the dead sandcat; he wouldn't have noticed it if it weren't for the shriek of one of those creatures as it landed somewhere to his left. He spun towards it, gritting his teeth as it twisted its head back and forth, dagger toothed-jaw flexing in anticipation of having him for a meal. It was being cautious, however, so Riddick guess it to be one of the ones that had been following them despite the light; it was bigger than the two he'd killed before, almost big enough to bite his head clean off if it got a clear shot.

Not gonna get the chance...

Riddick let out a defiant growl, but froze when his ears caught another sound other than the rain. It was his name; Jack's voice echoed out through the water and he knew that she'd come looking for him again. The creature lunged forward and he side stepped, avoiding a direct hit but still getting sliced in the chest by the thing's claws; a shallow cut, nothing more. It slammed into the side of the shed, crumpling the metal with its skull and scraping against it with its talons. He heard Jack shout again, she'd obviously heard the noise; he found himself willing her to just shut up and stay inside the skiff, she'd be safer there.

The monster spun back towards him, screeching in annoyance at having missed in its attack and for a second he sympathized; maybe it felt the way he'd felt when he'd found out the point of his shiv had missed that bastard Johns' sweet spot by a mere fraction of a centimeter. But Johns was dead now, indirectly and unknowingly killed by Jack; it was a matter of physics concerning the dimensions of the death box and the girl's light weight. This wasn't precisely the right time to be thinking about that, however, so Riddick pushed it from his mind; setting the box down he faced off with the creature, eyeing it for a weakness as it too was no doubt doing.

This time he lunged first, darting forward to grab the two protrusions on the sides of its heads, prepared to snap its neck like he had the last two; but this one, this one was smarter and stronger than its kin. This one whipped its head back, wrenching free of Riddick's grasp and bringing its claws forward, trying to impale him; he could see it coming, the points of them cutting through his flesh just like his shiv had cut so many others. There was a flash of light, blinding him; the creature let out a scream and he heard it slam into the shed again, screeching and wailing and thrashing against the metal until finally all was still.

Riddick's eyesight returned, bleary at first, spots dancing before his pupils from the abrupt flash of light; he saw the form of the creature, burnt and unmistakably dead, blue blood oozing from cuts made by it's self-inflicted crash into the shed. Beyond that, however, was another form, small and unmistakable; Jack was sprawled on her back in a puddle, the generator still in her grasp, some of the cables still glowing, but more than half of them were dark. She had smashed the thing over the creature's head, blinding it, burning it, killing it, all in a singular flash of light that had no doubt chased away any others that may be lurking in the shadows.

And she had done it to save him.

Jack felt like she'd just been torn into a thousand peices and reassembled without the aid of painkillers or modern medicine; this was more or less the truth, but she didn't know that. Her head and everything else in her body felt like she'd been beaten to within an inch of her life; to make matters worse her gut felt like someone had knotted an electric wire through it. She let out a pained groan, shifting slightly only to find that this made her left side feel like it was being stuck with a red hot poker; she yelp and moved back to her original position, gritting her teeth.

Reluctantly, she opened her eyes, something that proved difficult as her right one felt like she'd been punched and given a nice black shiner. She was inside the skiff, lying on her back on the floor; there was a large blanket wrapped around her and she suddenly became aware of the fact that some of her clothes were missing.

What the hell?

She saw them hanging off the other side of the cabin wall; they looked to be half-way dry. Jack felt her face growing a little red; she was still wearing her under clothes, but...

"Had to stitch you up, your clothes were in the way," came the low growl of Riddick's voice and Jack twisted her head around to see where he was. She regretted it instantly, as her neck seemed to be just as bruised as the rest of her body. He was sitting in the pilot's seat of the skiff, staring out the window, through which could be seen the stars and the faint outline of a planetary body, obscuring half the view of space. He didn't turn around to look at her, but he seemed to have guessed her train of thought anyway. "They were wet, so I put them up to dry."

Makes sense...but...

"Yours are wet too," Jack observed, trying push herself to sit up with one arm while holding the blanket over her with the other. It didn't exactly work; her side exploded in fiery pain, causing her to fall back down. She heard him stand up and walk over, looking down at her; his goggles were off, she could see the strap hanging out of one of his pockets. The gash in his shoulder had been sewn shut and for a moment she could picture him stitching it himself; she shivered, an action which made her body protest in pain again.

"I'll live," he told her, face expressionless as if he hadn't noticed her eyes wander over his own wounds. "You shouldn't move."

"Hurts," Jack grunted, biting her lip and closing her eyes. Her stomach had stopped cramping up, but none of the other pain had lessened at all in the short time that she'd been awake.

"There's no painkillers," Riddick informed her bluntly. "Except some morphine and that shit won't help."

Jack opened her eyes again; he was kneeling down next to her now, a look of distaste on his face from mentioning the only drug in the med box. He looked like he was recalling a bad memory or something like that; but the expression faded back to his usual scowl when he felt her staring.

...Why aren't I dead?

"Thought I was dead," she whispered, voicing what was running through her mind. She'd been expecting it, after all, going out of the skiff with no plan and nothing but the generator to use as a weapon against the creatures. She hadn't thought it through, she'd just acted, swinging on impulse; she gotten slammed against something, she remembered that much, but after that she'd faded into unconsciousness.

"Did you want to die?" he asked, the look on his face implying that he wasn't going to take silence for an answer.

"No," Jack answered softly, feeling tears start to sting her eyes. "I just- I thought-"

Riddick stood up again, still looking down at her; Jack felt like she'd said something to upset him, but she couldn't tell because of his stoic expression.

"Sorry."

"No, no apologizing. Rule number one, no saying sorry for shit that's not your fault," Riddick growled, a sudden flash of anger coming across his face. He moved back towards the pilots chair; scowl still in place. "Now go to sleep."

Jack swallowed the lump in her throat, brushing away her tears and clutching the blanket closer. She closed her eyes, trying to will herself to sleep, but Riddick's voice cut back towards her ears again.

"Jack?"

"Yeah?" she looked more carefully this time; he was back to staring calmly out the window, she could see his reflection.

"Thank you."