On Black Wings (3 page)

I am splayed out so tightly it is impossible to pull straight up and free myself. I am so numb from the frigid water, I can’t control my limbs all that well. I pull my wrist up, or what I think is up, as hard as I can, but I can’t free myself.

Something else is happening. The water, which was on my cheek, is now near my lips. The current is increasing. I feel the cold rush wash over me.

The water is rising.

I cough again, wishing I was dead, and wondering why I am being left to die in a shallow river, tied to the rocks, the carcasses of a thousand rotting birds around me. I scream, raising my head, my neck killing me, trying to force my mouth above the water for a gasp of air.

The waves of the river fight to drown me, but a break once and a while lets me gasp air, suck it down before another wave washes over my face and tries to drown me again.

I just want to die. Just let me die.

I close my eyes, and settle my head against the rocks. The water covers my head, and I close my eyes. I’m in silence again. It’s peaceful, but I’m holding my breath. I need to let go. I need to open my mouth and fill my lungs with water. Come on, you can do it.

I wait, trying to build up the courage. I need to do this. Be brave and let go. I can’t.

I can’t die yet. I shove my head up as hard as I can, sucking in as much air as my burning lungs will hold. Another wave covers my face, and I’m lost again. I struggle, feeling my numb arms pull against the ropes, the ropes likely cutting into my skin, and my body thrashing and fighting my bonds.

I need to live.

I struggle harder, the oxygen depleting from my lungs, the arms and legs I cannot feel pulling and yanking against the ropes holding me down, the bondage which will cause me death, and the sadistic torture someone placed me in.

As if my day wasn’t bad enough.

I want to live. I fight harder, my teeth grinding together so hard I can taste bone, my shoulders wrenching upwards, the last feelings I have in my body of pulling and struggling coming from the last drops of warmth in my chest. I press my ass into the rocks, and try to sit up, both of my arms igniting in pain as I feel my shoulders pop out of their sockets, the blinding pain sending red through my vision, the taste of blood in my mouth, and the fire of pain waking me up from my deathly slumber.

I strain, I grind my teeth, I pull upwards, pain shooting through my body, blood clouding my eyes, the warm trickle of blood, of life, running out of my nose on my wet face. I pull, sitting up, feeling my numb arms yank hard, pulling against God and might to free myself, to sit above this cursed water, to free myself from the bonds of death.

I’m free.

I am in so much pain I’m crying, but my arms are free, and I’m sitting in a shallow river. I’m in so much pain, I can’t believe it, my world is a haze of pain and red, and darkness, and tears. My nose is bleeding and running down onto my pink body-shirt with the number 17 on the front. I feel a weight on my back, like some of the dead bird carcasses are sticking to my skin. I hurt so much I want to die.

But I can’t die.

Across from me is a camp, like a campsite at a national park. There are tents and cookware, a fire going, and three large black doberman dogs barking at me.

My ears pop and I can hear again. They are ferocious, mean and vile, foaming at the mouths, pulling on their chains, trying to yank free and come for me. A group of men dressed in hunting clothes sleep around the fire, rifles, bloody hooks, and stained knives leaning against their packs. Their clothes are covered in blood, spatters and arms of their jackets covered with deep black blood.

These are not good men.

Their dogs seem even worse.

The dobermans bark and howl, pulling at their chains as they snap and bark at me. Why, why do they hate me? What did I do to them? I’m in so much pain, both of my arms are on fire. As they warm, the numbness of the warmth coming back into them is replaced by pure agony and blinding pain.

The dobermans bark and snap in my direction, the wooden stakes holding their chains in place pulling free from the ground as they jump and lunge at me. Black flies crawl across their fur. The dogs howl, and I stare at them.

They have no eyes.

The dogs have no eyes, black flies crawl around their faces, out of their empty, hollow eye sockets, and they look like demonic creations of un-death and hatred. I’m scared, I’m cold. And I can't move my arms.

I need to pop my shoulders back into their sockets.

I throw myself sideways, shoving my right shoulder underwater and between rocks. I wedge it between two large rocks, and jerk my body backwards.

The sickening pop of bone on bone tells me my right shoulder is back in place, but the pain nearly knocks me unconscious. My head is underwater, I am crying, and I want to die in this painful moment.

But I can’t die.

I sit up, glaring at the howling dogs, my face a scowl of hatred, and reach around to my left shoulder. I yank it back into its socket without thinking or caring, the pain now too much for me to handle, my eyes a sheen of crimson, my world nothing but cold hatred, pain and misery.

I’m weak. I’m freezing to death, but at least I have my arms back.

One of the dogs breaks free and runs for me.

He splashes into the water, his mouth foaming, his teeth thrashing, and his eyes black and hollow. How does he know I’m here? Is he in pain? For some stupid reason, I feel there is no animal here, just a twisted husk of flesh that was once a loving animal, but now it is sick and twisted by hatred and malice. It doesn’t need eyes to see, only hate.

It leaps on me, and I hold my hand out, trying to push it away. It snaps at my face, trying to maul me, biting and scratching, thrashing on top of me like a mad and rabid animal. I struggle and push with my left hand, losing a battle with the monster, its jaws snapping a hair’s width from my face.

I notice the rusty stake still tied to my left wrist.

I grab the stake with my hand, and I don’t want to do it, but this animal isn’t even alive anymore. I swing as hard as I can and plant the rusty stake in my hand through the side of the beast’s head.

It dies on top of me, finally at rest.

I push it off, and the other two dogs are snapping and barking even louder now. They are furious, livid and full of hatred, wanting to kill with razor-sharp teeth.

The men. The men are beginning to move.

I notice the same black flies crawling across their faces, and one opens his eyes.

Hollow and dead, the men have no eyes.

Wicked hunters, creatures bred of hate, the men slowly rouse and I struggle harder. I grab at my feet and yank the spikes holding my ankles free. I pull the last one free and I want to cry, I want to cry that I don’t have to spend another moment in this cold river staked down, waiting to die.

I try to stand up.

Something on my back weighs me down.

Something heavy.

I try to stand again, my legs burning, the warmth coming back to them, the numbness fading. I feel them shake as I try to stand again, the weight pulling me backwards and down. I’m so weak, my back is weighed down with whatever is tied to it.

The men are moving now, groaning, spewing forth chants and verses I do not understand, but the words are filled with bile, hatred and venomous intent. Black flies crawl along their faces. These are not good men.

I wonder if they are even alive.

I push harder, trying to stand, trying to flee, trying to get my balance as the weight on my back keeps dragging me down. Damn! I cannot stand, I cannot move. What is weighing me down?

I look backwards, reaching and trying to free myself from this backpack or carcass, or whatever is tied to my back.

They aren’t tied.

Two gigantic black feathered winds protrude from my back, wet and heavy from having been underneath me in the river. I feel the bones of them jut into my shoulder-blades, and the fine but strong muscles along their roots. Black with the shine of a thousand crows, my ebony wings of death weigh me down, pull against me, sit limp and useless in the water around me.

I have wings and they are black.

CHAPTER III:

They Drag Behind Me

The eyeless men grab their rifles, black weapons wrapped in barbed wire, sporting rusty nails and blood-stained knives on their ends. They turn towards me like they can see, seeing without any eyes.

I need to go. I need to run.

I stand on wobbly legs, my feet numb from the ice-cold water, my body weak and wracked with pain. I push myself away, black wings dragging behind me like the tail on my wedding gown, useless and limp. They slow me down as I crawl up onto the opposite side of the river, my lame wings dragging through the water like giant black blankets, soaked wet through and heavy.

I turn towards the men, wanting to know why, what happened to me, and why they did this to me. They stand, facing me, black and eyeless, weapons in their hands, flies crawling out of the sockets where their eyes once sat.

They open their mouths as one, and howl an unearthly scream. It is so deep and harrowing it hurts my ears, a sound so low and base it feels like it could break bones. The screams feel like they will crush my skull. I hold my ears.

It’s noise. It’s just noise to distract me.

The dogs are set free, and splash into the river. I’m too weak, they will rip the limbs from my body, they will tear the feathers from my wings.

My wings?

My wings.

I run, my feet coming back from numbness and the rocks of the shore sticking into them and feeling like a million needles rasping on my flesh. It hurts, but I have to run. I pump my legs harder, harder than they will ever go, and push my stumbling body towards the trees.

The bullets sail by me, and bullet after bullet smacking into trees. The air snaps as the slugs pass by, and I feel chills run down my spine.

Why God, why?

The eyeless hunters keep firing, the bullets impacting the rocks around me, the terror as I hear the hypersonic cracks whip into my ears and send bone chilling fear down my spine. I drag my useless wings behind me like a burden, huge wet mops dragging along the stones.

I run, and I hear the splashing of the dogs stop, and their feet hit the rocks on this side.

I’m not outrunning the dogs, they will be on me soon.

More bullets, the snaps and cracks of the air just inches from my flesh, they are shooting at me, their guns not stopping, the hail of pops and rat-a-tat-tats behind me not letting up. Shotguns blast, and I feel like some sort of black duckling scared out of a pond and flying into a hail of buckshot.

They want to kill me.

The trees.

I need to get deeper into the trees.

Bark flies off the trees as the bullets mulch the wood, a shotgun blast stripping a tree bare right next to my arm, other bullets making bark explode. Splinters cover my body as bullets crack past me and slam into the wood.

I feel the dogs chasing me, they are getting close, my limp wings dragging through the forest, collecting leaves, twigs, and all sorts of garbage from the ground. The hunters keep firing, honing in on me, but I weave between trees and feel the trunks shake and explode behind me.

Maybe I’m making it.

If not for the dogs.

I scream, running, my feet pushing leaves and twigs away in a cloud behind me, my fear of being ripped apart by the eyeless dogs driving me on.

The men, I hear them laughing. It sounds like a backwards chant, yelping and gulping large gasps of air, a perverse laugh of hatred and bile. The sound of it, I know the sound of it will haunt me. It’s the wicked laughs of murderers.

Feet pounding, right behind me. The dogs, I hear them close on me.

I turn, trying to grab my last spike in my left hand, screaming, crying and readying myself for their brutal jaws. I skid to a stop in the brush, and the two eyeless dogs beat their way to me with little effort, foam hanging from their mouths.

I tense, preparing myself for the final battle.

I feel powerful muscles ripple through my body, steeling themselves to incredible hardness. It feels like a weight is being lifted from my back, and my entire spine seizes up and strengthens. My back, I feel tendons ripple and pulse under the skin of my back. It feels like raw power emanating from within.

The dogs stop dead in their tracks as my black wings lift themselves up and flare out like a raven’s. The long black feathers steel and shine, and point down like a thousand daggers.

Their hollow eyes widen, the flies buzz and crawl out, and they begin to growl at me warily. One backs up a step, his teeth bared.

I bare mine. I growl back.

One dog leaps, and I recoil, raising my arms in defense, holding my last rusty spike. My wing shields me with the blackest wall of night, and I don’t want the eyeless animal ripping into it, so I try to move it, but can’t. Instead, I prepare myself, tensing up, and feeling my wings stiffen as well. The dog impacts with the steel-hard feathers of my wing with a thud, bones snapping, the lifeless carcass of the animal dropping to the ground.

My wing surrounds me like a solid wall of blackness. I reach out to touch it, and it’s hard as black diamonds, each feather still textured, but unmoving and solid like a piece of glass. I relax, and the feathers soften, and return to their suppleness.

My wings.

I hear the other dog bark ferociously, and I bring my wing down, peering over it at the raging beast. It snaps and growls, trying to get a position on me for an attack.

The other dog lies dead.

I flex, harden, and sweep my wing as fast as it can go towards the eyeless monster. Three trees are cut cleanly in half like butter before the sword-like edge of my wing slices the soulless dog in half like a sword to a rotten piece of fruit.

The cut trees fall away from me in a splintering racket, landing in a semi-circle outward around me, the top branches landing with a whoosh. I un-tense, let go, and soften my wing, letting it float gently behind me.

Amazing. I just did not do that.