Face crumbled in a devastation Jake had never witnessed, Henry poured flame across the ceiling and walls. “Cael!” Burning gremlins fell around them until any remaining had skittered away. The air was heavy with smoke and charred flesh.
Jake dropped to his stomach and peered over the edge, his light flickering over the bumpy walls. “Dad! Dad! He’s okay, he’s right there!” Please be okay, please be okay. Cael lay on a thin ledge, sideways, one arm dangling downward. He was so still, obviously unconscious. He was only about ten feet down. “Cael!”
“Jake, stop. Don’t wake him.” Henry had come up beside him, was breathing hard. “God.” He ran a shaky hand over his chin. “If he wakes and starts flailing…he’ll fall. Okay, okay. One of us has to get down there right now, before…” Henry was up and running across the cave, stepping over burnt and still glowing gremlins, to get the duffel.
Jake was up and ready, grabbing at the rope. “I’ll do it.”
Henry’s brows lowered, the same way Cael’s did when he didn’t like something.
“There’s no way I’ll be able to pull both you and Cael up,” Jake reasoned. Of course he wasn’t sure his dad could pull him and his brother up either, but they’d worry about that later. Right now he had to get down there and keep Cael from shifting in his sleep and…Jake swallowed, desperately wanting visual confirmation that that hadn’t happened while they were getting the rope.
Not wasting another moment, Henry shoved part of the rope into Jake’s hands and then began tying one end around his own waist. “He’s not that far down so tie yourself in the middle of the rope. Leave enough length to secure around Cael once you get down there. Around each leg and looped around your waist—like a climber’s chair—you remember how to do that?”
“Yeah Dad.” He made a loop around one leg, then knotted it so it wouldn’t slip tight and cut off his circulation.
“Once you get down there, use the remainder of the rope and tie it around your brother the same way,” he explained again, a telling sign of his father’s worry. “Okay? You got this?”
“I got it. Don’t worry. I won’t let him fall.”
Henry gripped Jake’s arm. “I know you won’t.”
They each hurried to get their parts of the rope tied properly. When they were ready, Henry ran over to Jake’s “tonsil” wall that split the tunnel in two. He went through one side and emerged out the other side, trailing the rope around the rock and came back to Jake. “Ready?”
Jake nodded, knowing that as his dad walked slowly back toward the tonsil stone, the rope would wind back around, making him lower. Normally he’d hesitate before stepping off a ledge, but Cael was down there. Cael could fall. Without a second thought, Jake stepped backwards, planting the soles of his boots against the wall. And watched his dad take a step at the same time he took a step downward. Soon he was past the lip and staring at the wall of the tunnel.
His shoulder throbbed where the damn beastie had bitten him, but he moved through it anyway. He could worry about that later.
He walked down along the side of where Cael lay as his dad let the rope out, until he was even with his brother. Too afraid to call out to his dad to stop in case his yell inadvertently woke Cael, he kicked off the wall, making the rope slap at the top of the hole, hoping his dad got the message.
As the rope swung out, Jake took advantage and jerked it sideways so when he came back against the wall he was right in front of Cael.
His descent immediately stopped. Message received.
“Kay, buddy,” he whispered, relief flooding through his veins that he was there. First things first. Jake didn’t dare brush his fingers over Cael’s skin to check him. The kid was still in a pretty precarious position. Even with Jake blocking the way, he was on a rope. A rope that could swing away from the wall if Cael shifted and Cael could still roll off between him and the ledge.
So resisting the urge to do a quick assessment, find out how his brother was hurt, why he was unconscious, instead Jake brought the rest of the rope dangling beneath him up and snaked it under one of Cael’s legs to begin the first loop and knot. He was on the second leg when Cael started rousing.
And rolling forward.
“Cael. Stop.” Heart racing, Jake pressed back on Cael to keep him put, but it only made Jake swing out, scooting Cael’s hip across the ledge since his legs were looped in the rope. If Cael came off the ledge now, he’d fall back and his legs would just slip out. He had to get the rope secured around Cael’s waist and get him tied upright against him. “Cael. Don’t move. Wake up, wake up now.” Jake threw as much authority in his voice as he knew how, even though the tremor bled through. “Cael, you be still, you hear me. You be still.”
As if the order penetrated through the clouds of sleep, Cael’s muscles relaxed and he settled.
“Jake?” Henry’s voice filtered from above, worry straining the timbre.
“We’re okay,” Jake called up, a little high-pitched. “Almost ready.”
“Jake?” The slight murmur brought his gaze back down. Cael’s eyelids were lifting drowsily.
Jake didn’t have time to ease him into anything. “Cael, stay very still. You trust me, right?”
That made the sixteen-year-old’s eyes flash open.
“Don’t look down.” Jake softened his tone. “And don’t move except how I tell you.”
“Wha—?”
“You fell. But I’m gonna get this rope around you and we’re getting out of here. Don’t look down,” he cautioned again, seeing Cael’s gaze dip low. The kid’s eyes snapped back up at the order.
“You have to do everything I tell you. Okay?”
Cael nodded. Warmth settled in Jake’s chest, knowing in normal situations his sibling would balk at a suggestion like that, but when it counted, he trusted without exception.
“Okay. I need you to sit up. Think you can do that?”
“Yeah.” Cael’s voice rasped—like his morning voice, still groggy with slumber.
“Just take it slow. There’s not much room to maneuver.”
Jake anchored his hands on the wall while Cael pushed himself up, scooting carefully until he was sitting on the lip of the ledge. Once he was up, Jake could make out the raw skin on the side of Cael’s face he had been laying on. It looked like road rash where he’d probably scraped across the wall going down. He imagined there was probably a hefty goose-egg that went along with it just under his hair somewhere. He tamped down the worry over that and immediately set to getting the rope around the kid’s back and then to the front where he started tying it to the part of the rope around his own chest with a slip knot that could be pulled tighter once Cael was off the ledge.
He had it nearly secured when a soft scratch made the hair on his arms stand on end. He turned his head, sweeping the headlamp’s beam with him and found himself staring into the small beady eyes of a gremlin climbing up the wall next to them. Jake swallowed past a sudden lump and looked down. Several more were climbing up from the darkness below. Sonofa…
Jake looked back to the monster next to them. Things were even uglier up close. The gremlin's rubbery lips pulled back from curving teeth in a snarl as Jake pulled the slipknot tight and shouted, “Dad! Now!”
The rope immediately jerked. Cael and Jake’s chests bumped together and Jake just held on, bracing his feet on every little protuberance, trying to help his dad with their weight as much as he could.
They were moving slow, but steadily upward in jerks and stops. Jake could only imagine his dad up above, straining against their combined weight, using the tonsil rock as leverage for his feet. Cael’s arms wrapped around his back, clinging to the ropes.
The gremlin moved with them, stopping when they stopped, until it finally scampered the rest of the way over the top.
“Dad, look out!” Jake screamed at the same time Henry shouted and the beast shrieked and suddenly they were falling, the walls of the hole rushing past them, crashing into several gremlins th
at peeled away. They slammed into the rock and Cael’s body went limp, his head and arms falling back as the rope wrenched to a stop.
“Cael! Jake!” The call came from far overhead. Jake was breathing so hard he couldn’t speak. “Boys! Answer me dammit!”
“We’re good,” Jake squeaked, and then tried again. “Good, Dad.” Except they weren’t. Cael had smacked into the wall, hard. “Just get us out of here!” He pulled Cael’s head to his shoulder, felt wetness in the matted hair and rough broken skin at the back of his head.
The rope moved upward again, slower than before. His dad’s muscles had to be burning, but Jake knew his father wouldn’t give up. The intervals between stopping and inching upward became longer. He looked around to pinpoint the gremlins. Apparently their little tumble, knocking several of them off the wall, had them spooked because they were keeping a wary distance. A few skittered up to the ceiling, moving out of sight.
“Dad, there’s gremlins above you!”
“I know.” Jake was shocked his dad’s voice was so close. His gaze shot up, his line of sight barely an inch higher than the rim. His dad was flat on his back, head and shoulders over the hole. He pulled on the rope that ran back toward the tonsil rock and around it, trailing along the ground to them. Most alarming was the gremlin clamped around his leg, teeth embedded in Henry’s thigh and his dad not doing a damn thing about it because pulling on that rope, getting his boys out of that hole was Henry Gillant’s highest priority.
Henry shifted back some more, farther out over the hole, and Jake realized that his father was ready to go over the edge, taking the gremlin's weight with him to give his sons that last little pull that would carry them up out of there.
“Dad?”
“Get Cael out of here. That’s an order.”
“I’m tying off as soon as we’re up.”
Henry nodded. The rope was around his waist. He could climb back up. Their dad could do anything. He could climb up. Jake could pull him up. They would do this. Get Cael out. Pull dad up. Doable. All doable. Jake’s heart was beating a mile a minute.
Henry shifted again. The rope inched higher. Jake braced a hand on the ledge, the other still cradling Cael’s head.
And a gremlin ran across the ground, grabbed Cael by the shoulders and heaved up like he weighed nothing. Since Jake was tied to him he was lifted too and then they were being dragged across the ground, Cael’s body bouncing roughly beneath Jake’s.
They came to an abrupt stop when the rope twisted around the tonsil pillar, grainy hemp digging into their flesh. Jake felt Cael’s body lift as the beast tugged the kid’s arm and bit into it. Jake screamed, shoving, slapping at the monster, but with the way he was tied to Cael on his stomach, he couldn’t get any leverage.
But their dad had somehow gotten up, gotten the other gremlin off his leg and was there, stabbing his knife into the leathery back over and over until the grotesque head lifted, hissing and Henry kicked it away. Again, again, stomping on the short neck while bones crunched beneath his boot and the little beastie went still.
Pivoting, Henry slashed the blade through one of the ropes between the boys, giving Jake room to work, and dropped the knife before racing away. As his fingers curled over the hilt, Jake heard the whoosh of a propane torch and the squeal of monsters being burned.
Jake made quick work of the rope, getting himself separated from Cael just as their dad ran back and thrust both propane torches in Jake’s hands then bending, scooped Cael over his shoulder and ran.
There was no need for spoken orders. Jake was on gremlin burning duty. Seeing the remaining Hobbit wannabes were still fleeing the other way from Henry’s last eruptions of flames, Jake raced after his family.
Henry was just up ahead, running with a tight limp. Cael’s arms swayed against their father’s back with each pounding step. They raced to the cave exit. Skidding to one knee, Henry pulled Cael gently from his shoulder, laying him on the ground by the opening. “Jake, you first, and pull your brother out. Go Jake, now!”
The gremlins were getting closer. He could hear them pattering across the rock. A lot of them by the sound of it. Jake dropped the torches near his dad and scrambled beneath the low opening, twisting around on his belly to reach back and grab the leg of Cael’s jeans and the bunched material of the kid’s jacket just beneath his armpit. Scooting backwards, he dragged his young sibling across the sand and out into the night. Loud screeches and the flash of fire flickered from inside.
Trusting his dad to do his job and knowing his dad was trusting him to get Cael out of there, Jake wrapped his arms beneath his brother’s shoulders and started dragging him backwards across the ravine to the other slope, the wounds on his own shoulder in agony, his gaze steady on the flashing firelight coming from inside the cave.
All at once his dad was out, running fast, a dark silhouette rimmed by flames spouting far behind him as Henry twisted, still running, the torch on its highest setting, arcing a jet of flames yards and yards behind him, flames that poured over short little monsters that spilled out of the cave after him. Monsters that erupted into fireballs that spun off across the ground, spun over fuse lines laid down for dynamite.
The explosion kicked across the air, rolling through the ground, rocking Jake off his feet and tearing Cael out of his arms.
Six