[Reviews - 70]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Microsoft Word Chapter or Story | ePub eBook Chapter or Story | Printer Chapter or Story

Has been viewed 1525 times

- Text Size +




Chapter 11


“Babe, are you okay?” Spike asked

“ME? – Am *I* okay? I’m not the one whose just cut off my hand!” Buffy said incredulously

“S’only way Pet…now, can you pass me my rucksack, I’ve got a pack of blood in there”

“Here…any idea where my machete went?”

“Um…Yeah, it’s over there, look, the other side of that puddle – be careful though pet, it looks very boggy over there”

Spike turned game face, pierced the blood-bag with his fangs, then threw it against the wall, wretching

“Ew, EW! It’s congealed, yuck! Spike spat out what he could,

Without a second thought, Buffy exposed her neck

“Come on baby, take a drop or too, you need the strength – I’ve more than made up what I lost by now, it’s been over twelve hours”

“Are you sure?!”

“Course! Besides which, if we don’t make it back to base-camp within 3 hours, I reckon you might have to carry me – so do as you’re told, feed!”

“I love it when you’re all dominant!”

“Pervert!”

“Babe…”

“Spike, I love you, trust you – you’re my husband”


Spike felt his stomach back flip and he homed in, not on her neck, but her mouth…

“Baby…we’re wasting time!”

“Sorry, couldn’t resist. Yes – okay I won’t hurt you, princess”

“I know” She reached and cupped his cheek, leaning her head again so he could bite with ease

As soon as Spike tasted her ambrosial fluid coursing through his veins, he felt the renewed vigour flow through him – tired limbs become rejuvenated. He was careful to stop at a pint – he wouldn’t take anymore, even though he knew she was fit enough for him to take double that amount – he would only take what he thought of as sufficient – if need be in a few hours he could take a nip more if necessary.

“Sure you’ve…”

Spike kissed the wound after licking them, giving her a squeeze and a hug.

“I can have a nip more if need be later, kitten…now how do we get out?”

“Well, first, we do this!” Buffy ripped the groundsheet into five just over a foot wide strips, then she knotted them together, leaving her with a ‘rope’ (taking into consideration how much the knots took up) just about twenty feet long.

“Then, I get the machete’s, and do this!”

She stabbed one of the knives into the earth, creating a foothold, with the other knife, she stabbed about chest height, limbered herself up and used it too, as a foot-hold for the other foot, before reaching and pulling out the first knife, and stabbing that into the earth above her.

She was soon over half way up the earth wall, there was some liana’s draping down, and she used them to leaver herself up.

Spike cradled his stump towards his chest, and tied, with a little difficulty, a triangular bandage creating a sling. He picked up the swollen hand and shoved it un-ceremoniously into his rucksack, put it over his shoulder and waited until Buffy was up and out of the hole.

Buffy allowed herself two seconds on her back, panting and grinning that she was free, before she quickly stood, unfurled the homemade rope and let it down for Spike.

Spike’s feet barely touched the wall as Buffy hauled him up and out of the hole

Spike switched his torch on, pleased to see it was working.

“Come on babe – lets see if we can see the trail we made when we came in here…”

“Spike, be careful…don’t you think we should hole up for a few hours?” Buffy straightened and tidied his triangular bandage sling for him.

“Nope- I’ve got the smell of safety in my nostrils…I want out, ready?” Buffy grinned took the torch off him, held onto his empty sleeve and told him she was right with him!


**********************


“All I’m saying is, it won’t do any good any of us tearing off into the pitch black, that’s all, they’ve got themselves into difficulty during the hours of daylight, imagine what it would be if you couldn’t see a hand in front of your face!” Wesley tried to reason with Angel, who, wanted to trek off in search.

“He’s right Angel - there’s all sorts of ravines, traps, booby traps and all sorts - better to wait until we can see what we are up against first” Gunn said.

“But…well, it’s another 6 hours before it officially gets light – to me, that’s six hours wasted!”

“Angel…we don’t want to have to send a search party out for you too – going out there now would be a suicide mission, trust me”

Angel ran a hand over his face, rubbing, before nodding his head

“Yeah…yes I suppose you’re right – but look, I suggest we build the biggest fire we can, it might give them a beacon if they can over-come their troubles”

“That’s the spirit, big fire we can do!” Gunn slapped Angel on the back calling him to collect as much dry wood as he could for kindling to start the fire.


**********************


“Hmm, not much, is it?” Gunn frowned forlornly at the meagre pile of ‘dry kindling’ with which to build the ‘beacon-mega-fire’

“Well YOU try then – hello, it’s a RAIN forest – everything is wet!

“Look, go and…go and see if the radio’s working yet or something” Wesley said, just to get Angel out of the way.

“Who wants what, or shall I just whack it all in together?” Giles asked, looking at the packets of dried food.

“Mix it all up – what is there?” Cordelia asked

“Chili-con-carne…beef curry, and um…lamb casserole – all served with long grain rice”

“Yeah mix it, it’ll be curried lamb and beef with red kidney beans…different!” Cordelia said

Angel dropped another dry branch next to where Gunn was kneeling, building the fire.

“Wish that bloody – what is it Spike calls him? The ‘over-grown hall monitor’ was here, I’d put him on the bonfire” Angel grouched

Gunn rolled his eyes, and continued to layer kindling sticks.

“Hey, look what I’ve found, the trash from the soldiers stay here, it’s dry and should burn okay” Wesley pushed a metal container towards Gunn – Angel saw this and went to help. There was a fair amount of burnable rubbish

“Great, anything papery, put underneath, in the middle – these cardboard tubes should burn like sticks as they are thick…what was on them?”

“This thin orange rope stuff holding up the tarpaulins”

“Well stack then round the edge…okay, I’m going to light it now………”

The smell of food wafted from the small camping stoves, and there was a nice fire going, Wesley got water and they made tea – things didn’t seem so bad – except Angel, who didn’t eat and wouldn’t drink tea, stood off staring at the jungle, every so often he turned game-face to see if his enhanced hearing could detect anything, but it was nigh-on impossible with all the night jungle sounds.


***************************



Buffy’s arm ached a little where she had to slash away at the vines, and Spike volunteered to take over.

“But, you need to hold the torch too, it’s okay, I’ll carry on”

“Tell you what…give me the torch…” Buffy passed it across to Spike, who ripped some of the ground-sheet rope they’d made earlier and tied the torch to his head.

“There you go, problem solved!” Buffy smiled, took hold of his sleeve again and this time, Spike lead the way.

After another ten minutes, Spike slashed and said,

“Buffy, babe, look!”

“What? – What is it?”

“THIS looks like that clearing we crawled to, when you had that encounter with Mr Anaconda, I’m pretty sure it is………”

Buffy peered into the darkness, then she grinned

“YES LOOK! – Over there! There’s our trail across the way – see all those slashed vines and flattened earth – Oh Spike! We’re on the right track!”

Spike grinned at his wife, gave her a smacking kiss, bumping her forehead with the torch that set them both giggling!

This little victory gladdened their hearts and their weary steps took on a newfound spring as they both strode over to their old trail.

**********************


Gunn scraped the last bit of sauce up with the last spoonful of rice and sat back

“Well, that was different!”

“Tasty enough………I wonder how they are?” Cordelia was staring into the flames, her dish of food still only half eaten.

“Who, Buffy and Spike? – Don’t know…Angel seems to feel that they are both still alive – well he did. What’s that all about, blind faith or is it some vampire thing, do you think?”

Cordelia shrugged and said

“I don’t know”

The radio crackled into life

“Base-camp one, this is HQ, come in please”

Giles stood and went to the radio, pressed the call button and spoke
“We’re here, what do you want? Um – over?”

“How are things, any sign of them? Captain Finn asked me to call – he’s still in with the colonel – he thinks you’ve gone home, over”

“What does he want?” Angel asked glaring at Giles

“Angel shush, just them wanting to know if there’s any sign of them, that’s all”

“Tell them to…to get lost!” Angel sauntered back to where he’d been standing and brooding

“HQ We’ll let you know the minute we know anything okay – over”

“Okay base-camp – try and build as big a fire as you can, you’ll find some trash that’s covered you can burn, and –“

“We found it, we don’t NEED your help!” Angel shouted

Giles rolled his eyes and continued to listen

“There is some dry wood under the groundsheets, over”

“Right, well thanks, we’ll let you know if there’s any development, over”

“Night then base-camp, over”

“Yeah, night HQ” Giles put the radio down and said to Gunn

“They told me that there was dry wood under the groundsheets” Gunn followed Giles to the tarpaulin covered area, pulled back the groundsheets and found a nice big pile.

“Great, I can really build it up, it’ll last well into the morning now”


******************


Spike stopped walking, Buffy looked at him, they could both hear a grunting, rutting noise

“What is that?”

“Probably just some sort of wild pig…hold on to this for me” Spike passed her his machete while he bent down and scrabbled in the undergrowth for something to throw at the creature to frighten it away. His fingers closed around something the size of an apple – probably a seedpod of some kind.

He took aim towards the noise, threw the missile and shouted,

“WHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

Whatever it was took off, and grinning Spike held his hand out for the machete, which Buffy passed to him. He looked up towards the canopy

“It’s getting lighter and……………(he turned game face) can you smell that?”

Buffy took a deep sniff, and said,

“Smell what?”

With a grin Spike morphed back to his human guise and said,

“Wood smoke…I can smell wood smoke, come on pet, with any luck, we should make it back to base camp before dawn!”





You must login (register) to review.