Page 55 of Etched in Stone
“So I think it's best we try to do this in stages. I take a bag, and then you, up in stages.”
“And what if they come while I'm on the side of the mountain and you're flying around?”
“I don't anticipate they'll pick us up before noon. We'll be high enough by then.”
A short time later and they were making their way up the mountain. The air was thinner, Jesse could feel that in her lungs, but the cold hadn't bothered her yet. This whole immune-to-frostbite thing was actually turning out to be a pretty good super power. Ray had just left their current ledge to take the bag even higher. They were well above the tree line and the ledges were getting smaller and smaller. The one he left her on was about ten feet across, and she didn't even try to go near the edge.
Falling off a roof was enough of heights for the year.
There was a noise of something just out of view. It was scrambling up the cliff side below her. At first, Jesse thought it was a bird or some other small animal. Then, a shaggy head appeared over the face of the head. It was a blond mop of hair and a pair of crystal blue eyes. The man clawed his way up the ledge and Jesse backed up against the mountain. A scraggly beard appeared and then with a huff, he completed a roll onto the safety of the ledge. He was wearing a fur parka and looked like one of those mountain men of old, a grand viking who would probably be nearly seven feet when standing.
He was young though, no more than twenty.
“You got any beef jerky? I am starving,” he said. Jesse just stared at him. “Hell, I’d take a power bar if you’d got it. Anything? English. French? Ruski?”
Jesse dug into her bag and pulled out the bag of potato chips she’d been saving for a rainy day.
Who knew if they had potatoes in space?
“Oh. My. God. You are such a life saver.” He took the bag of chips and opened it without getting up. He crunched them up in the bag and poured them directly into his mouth. “Oh, the delishush delishush sal!”
For such a large, disheveled man, he seemed quite harmless.
“What are you doing here?” Jesse asked as soon as he’d cleared his mouth.
“I’m climbing a mountain! Why am I climbing a mountain, you ask? That was going to be your next question, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not climbing it because it’s there, if that’s what you think. I’m climbing it because… hell if I know. I was told to. It’s a long story and I’m not exactly sure why, but when you are given warnings of dire consequences of not climbing a mountain in the middle of fucking nowhere Canada that’s cold as fuck, you go climb the fucking mountain!”
She wasn’t sure who he was shouting at. Jesse was pretty sure it wasn’t her, but some unseen or remembered person from his past.
“The real question is, why are you climbing the mountain? And why aren’t you cold?” he asked her.
He sat up and gave her a once over, his eyes examining her from head to foot.
“That is also a long story.”
“It doesn’t appear either one of us is going anywhere,” he said. “I need a break. Mountain climbing is surprisingly hard work, especially without much gear.” He wiggled his eyebrows and got comfortable on the ledge.
“There’s not guaranteeing you’re going to believe a word of it,” she warned.
“Those are the best kinds of stories. I’ve met all sorts of people in my day, and I find the most interesting ones are just one hair short of crazy.”
“I started dating an alien, and he’s going to take me back to his mother ship. Not the original one
he came on, because that crashed. And I’m not cold because he’s bit me, you know, like a vampire, and I’ve got some of his alien DNA rattling around in my cells now.”
“Ah.”
“You see, crazy.”
“Not really. Is your boyfriend named Rocky?”
Jesse paused and squinted at him. He didn’t look like a gargoyle, but it was possible he had a device like Ray did that altered his appearance. Ray had said it worked best on individuals that already merged with their surroundings. What else would she expect to see up here on the mountain than an actual mountain man?
Jesse reached over and touched his forehead. He froze and let her run her hand up under his hood and into his hair. She felt the little nubbin of a horn, but his image didn’t waver like it had with Ray.
