CLIFF HANGER (Revised on 2/18/24)

Dahl cried out from the steep slope behind Moss. He reeled around and looked up, certain Dahl had lost her footing for the twelve thousandth time. After narrowly catching her once, he expected to see her sliding towards him at breakneck speed. But this time, it was his turn to lose his footing. The moist path gave way beneath his mud-encrusted boots. Rocks and dirt slid down the slope, taking his feet with them and the cliff-side tilted on a disorienting 45 degrees. Moss grabbed blindly at the nearest bush, but came up empty. Gravity reached up and his backside slammed the slick trail with a painful crunch. Dahl and Eve called out as the jungle undergrowth quickly became a slippery mudslide. Shallow roots pulled out as Moss groped at the passing foliage. A few long branches tangled around his dirty glove and he jerked to a painful stop. He screamed in agony as his shoulder socket let out a sickening pop. The tangle of roots securing the branches to the muddy cliff-side barely held. Moss lay on his back panting, arm stretched out at an unnatural angle and tried to let go. Hand caught.

"Are you all right?" Dahl shrieked, trying to make her way down to him.

"Stop," he blared, looking over his shoulder. "It's not safe. You could fall and take us both over the edge." He waved her off with his good hand. "I'm okay, Just give me a minute to catch my breath and I'll come back up to you. We can't go this way."

"I thought I saw a body laying in the brush," Dahl said, pointing lower down the narrow path.

Moss peered down, praying she was wrong. Praying they had come down the narrow trail looking for Lilith alive, only to find a corpse, He hadn't known what they would find. But he had his suspicions. Moss hadn't told his comrades, he thought Lilith was dead; he hadn't even admitted it to himself. But no one could survive the swarm of creatures that descended upon her. But as long as she was missing, he could tell himself she may still be alive.

The almost uprooted shrub Moss dangled from pulled out a few inches and Dahl shrieked. "God dammit," he blared up at her. "Will you stop doing that?" The pitiful excuse for a bush would not have ended the downward force of their combined weights. They would have gone over the edge. Even now, he was lucky to be alive.

 Loose rocks crashed through the vegetation far below, sending up a flock of angry cawing birds. That would have been us, he thought, pushing away the images of their twisted bodies laying at the bottom of the cliff. What a shit show this turned out to be, he thought, looking around to find another handhold. His disjointed shoulder exploded with pain as he slipped down again. He fumbled his knife out and made to cut the branches, but the grating motions rocketed up his twisted arm and punched him in the shoulder. The world around him shrank and spun, and he almost dropped the knife.

After 10 hours of working their way down the nearly vertical cliff-side trail, they had not passed the halfway point. Two thousand feet of slippery rock face lay between them and the beaches below. 

Moss was concerned the arduous journey had taken its toll on both Eve and Dahl. Dahl's ankle was the size of her calf and Eve's calf was a haggard mess the size of Dahl's ankle. A noticeable chunk was still missing. There was no way; in his current condition, he could help get them back to the summit. And they wouldn't be able to help him up either. Moss peered up at Dahl, noticing a heavy layer of blood on the sleeve of his arm. "Isn't that's just fucking great" he said to himself. "And you re-broke your arm." 

Neither woman had noticed Moss continually looking over his shoulder to check on them. In the past hour, he had looked back more than he watched his own feet, and this little SNAFU was the result. If they had seen him fretting over them, they would have told him to stop it. But they had not. So, as they limped their way down the treacherous slope none of them noticed the worsening terrain. 

None of them had given the trail much thought and certainly not the respect it deserved. After Lilith's horrifying disappearance, the trio immediately descended into the valley, using the steep path to get down as fast as possible. Its twisted trajectory lined up in the direction the swarm had flown off in and Dahl argued, using the path would allow them to accomplish two things.

Search for Lilith and get to the island Lilith had spoken of earlier. Moss agreed and hastily reconfigured his motion tracker to work as a topography generator. The original device used radar pulses to generate snapshots of approaching objects, but now it glimpsed behind the dense vegetation to ensure nothing lay in wait. He described tracker 2.0 as a horizontal fish finder. It revealed everything a hundred meters straight ahead. He recommended no one stand in front of it.

Moss pressed his back into the soggy terrain, trying to keep himself from slipping any lower. Each time he did, it felt as if someone was trying to tear his arm off. As he lay there realizing the nearly impassable terrain was just another obstacle thrown up to keep out unwanted visitors, he felt the whole cliff face drop.

 "Can you get up?" Dahl asked, preparing to step down to offer him a hand.

 "Stop," he ordered, waving her back. "It's too loose. It won't hold your weight." He knew it wouldn't hold him either. But he couldn't tell Dahl that. She would try to reach him before it let go. "Just move back slowly."

 "Are you calling me fat?" she asked, trying to lighten the mood. He mustered a weak smile, and she knew their luck had suddenly turned bad. Moss was in serious trouble. And he was trying to hide it

"Sure," he said, struggling to remain calm. "For a skinny little shirt, your booty has grown."

Moss's eyes were on the same level as Dahl's boots and Eve's boots were level with Dahl's eyes. From straight on, the trio looked as though they were standing on one another's shoulders. But they were actually about 4 feet apart. "Back up."

"That's the third time you've told me to stop."

"And that was the third time you didn't listen," he replied, casting a grim look over Dahl's shoulder. Eve saw the covert order and held her handout, ready to haul Dahl back up the slope. He stretched backward, fingering the tip of a long branch with a trembling hand. He wanted to pull himself towards them. But his muddy glove only slid off, again and again. For all his efforts, he only slipped closer to the edge. He leaned back again, digging the heels of his boots into the squishy soil, and felt the trail beneath him give way ever so slightly. If I keep this up, he thought. The whole damn trail is going to give way.

 Dahl saw his expression and blurted, "What? What's wrong?"

Moss gestured for Dahl and Eve to go back in the direction they came from and said, "Move your asses up, now. This whole cliff is coming down."

"I won't leave you." Dahl protested, gesturing for Eve to toss her the walking stick she carried. Eve held it out, handing it carefully to Dahl,but never lowering her hand. Eve was ready to pull her to safety.. "Take this," Dahl said, squatting down and holding the end of the stick out to Moss.

Moss reached up, finger tickling the end of the stick. He forced himself upward, using the rest of his strength and grabbed the walking stick. For the first time in what seemed like hours, he finally felt anchored to something solid. Dahl looked down at him in horror. He pulled himself upward, bit the branches tangled around his numb hand and savagely gnawed at them. A bright, blaring agony filled his arm and shoulder, but he could not give up. There was no more time. He needed to get up to them, now. His hand came free, and he lost his grip on the walking stick. He slid down hard, drove his heels in the earlier indentations and the whole cliff-side slipped down a foot, opening a long crack between him and the others. He pulled the tracker strap over his head, unfastened one end and threw it to Eve. It wasn't long enough. "No matter what happens, promise me you'll get her out of here before it's too late." Eve nodded.

"I won't leave you, dammit." Dahl protested, turning to Eve with a mutinous look. "And you can't make me. If this slope is that unstable, the last thing any of us needs is a fight."

 "Don't be stupid." Moss said, looking at Dahl With an expression of desperation. "I can feel the trail slipping out from beneath me. I've already slid down another foot."

"Just shut up and hold on. I can pull you up." Dahl blared, flopping on her belly, hanging out over the now two foot wide crack. Dahl jammed the stick into Moss's hands and heaved him up a foot. An instant later, a powerful hand wrapped around her ankle and pulled her back another foot. Dahl screamed in pain, but she did not let go. Moss's hands were at the edge of the crack. Another foot and she could grab them.

Moss could feel the muscle tremors coming off Dahl's whole body, coursing down the stick as she grunted and strained to support his weight. He could see it in her eyes. She thought he was going over the edge and she will sacrifice herself to keep that from happening. Then, two things happened. Eve- out of energy- shifted back into human form and both women slid down. Moss slammed his heels deep into the moist soil and released the stick.The entire bank beneath Dahl and Eve slid down another few feet.

"No," she blared, as Eve pulled her backward.

Eve moved down to help Dahl pull him up and Moss waved them off. "Stop, God dammit. Or you'll get us all killed. The embankment won't support any more weight." He looked back over his shoulder at Dahl. "This isn't your fault. I should have been paying better attention. Just go back up the trail the way we came and take the other path down to the beach. You won't find Lilith down here. She's not here." Then he leaned back, closed his eyes and said in a calm tone, "I'm just gonna hangout here until I get my strength back and then, I'll catch up."

Dahl turned to Eve wearing a horrified look of desperation and mouthed the words, do something. Eve stepped down, moving to Dahl's side and taking the stick from Dahl. Eve and Dahl pushed it forward for Moss to grab and Eve said, "Grab it."

Moss glared at them both, but turned back when he saw Eve squint at something on the trail below him. Eve looked at Dahl and gestured down with her eyes and Dahl looked down and spotted a bloody boot lying partially concealed beneath a bush just below Moss's feet.

The upside down sole peeked out from beneath the dense cluster of foliage. It looked as if someone had fallen on the trail and slid to a stop face down concealed by the dense underbrush. When Dahl processed what she saw, she shook her head no, as if trying to divert attention away from the boot. But it was already too late. Moss had looked down, spotted the boot and was about to do something supremely stupid.

"No," Dahl shouted as Moss slid down and grabbed the boot.

The boot pulled out of its resting place with a severed hairy calf protruding from the still laced cuff. Moss threw it over the cliff. "It wasn't her."

"You idiot," Dahl said, overextending herself to reach Moss. "Take it." she screamed, leaning out even further. Moss's finger tips skimmed the stick.. Eve released the walking stick and grabbed Dahl by the waistband of her pants. The two women hung over the growing crack.

Moss shook his head, and the ground gave way beneath him, leaving Dahl suspended over the edge of the cliff. She hung in the eerie silence, face cast in horror, waiting for the crash from far below. But no sound came back. It was as if Moss had vanished right along with Lilith.