Highway To Hell (29 page)

His progress was slow and it didn’t take long before his body began to rebel. His shoulders cried out as cramp surged through them. His forearms and fingers burned from the constant tension that they were under. Sweat blinded him and his gums bled as his clenched jaw forced his teeth deeper into their beds.

Through it all, the itch in his crotch grew. It was no longer a thought in the back of his mind but a fact, cold and hard to ignore.

In an attempt to catch his breath Richard stopped and rested his head against the rock. Its surface was chalky, and although he couldn’t see it, he felt a layer of powdered rock dust stick to his sweat drenched forehead. Once it became clear to him that resting in his current position would not lead to recuperation in any form, he continued his descent, slamming his feet into the softened sand-like rock, driving his legs with power generated in an attempt to ward off the itching which had become too much to bear. It had progressed beyond the point of a need to scratch and become something painful in both mind and body.

His feet hit home, eliciting a grunt which could have come from either him or the rock. Richard lowered himself another step, hands filling the indentations left by his feet from an earlier strike. Richard had struggled at first, but now he had found his rhythm. It was slow and steady but it worked for him. He looked up and saw the ledge towering above him.

What are you doing?
the voice whispered to him, impatient with the halt of his descent.

There’s no way I’ve come that far. Fifty feet, seventy-five maybe, but no way have I come this far.
Richard looked back up again. The ledge must have been at least two hundred meters above him, too far to change his mind.

Richard clenched his teeth, closed his eyes and tried to wipe his mind.

It itches so bad, doesn’t it?
The voice changed its approach, trying to find another way to worms into Richard’s mind, to sell him a deal he couldn’t refuse.

It itches, but you can make it stop. Just scratch it. It’s burning, right?
it probed.

No, it’s not. Focus. Come on, we need to get down. I’m saying that this is all wrong, don’t you see?
Richard told himself

Okay, but just scratch it, we can’t think like this. Scratch; find that sweet release and then we can think things through with a clear head.

The argument raged inside his head, and Richard could feel his mind being pushed and pulled in both directions. Through it all, his crotch continued to burn as the itching became so intense it brought tears to his eyes. His whole body called out to be scratched yet he knew only one place would be the right one, the sweet spot that would make it all go away. Richard tried to grind his crotch on the rocks, but it was to no avail. This relief needed to be delivered by a much more intimate method. He closed his eyes and the voices grew louder, so he opened them again. Determined to ignore them, he looked around. He was unfocused but determined to find a way to the bottom. He looked down, and thought the cliff no longer looked like such a vertical drop, but had turned into a curve. The change in gradient was slight, if at all, but it was better than the sheer face he had begun with.

If I can just find a way to make…

Scratch IT! Burning, we’re burning up!

I just need to work out how…

To scratch it. We could think clearer if we did..

“No!” Richard bellowed aloud, his voice raspy, his throat agony as a result. His grip loosened as cramp buried into his forearms while his swollen fingers were skinned down to the bone. Unable to take the strain any longer, they released their grip, and for a split second Richard hung in the air. It was a sobering moment, akin to when one falls asleep while driving. Having not noticed your head drooping towards the steering wheel, you are jolted awake when your head snaps back up just in time to avoid disaster. Richard closed his eyes and forced his fingers to do the same. They dug into the rock. It didn’t stop his fall, but rather sent him sliding like Errol Flynn down sail of a ship, knife-like fingers slicing through the sandy cliff face. His descent slowed – after a few more meters Richard came to a stop.

The unwanted descent had taken Richard closer to the ground, but now his feet were left without purchase. He tried to create some foothold like before, but the soft surface was gone, replaced by hardened, terracotta colored rock. Time passed, the sun beat down on him, and Richard felt his grip begin to give. His kicks against the rock lost their impotence, his toes numb from the blows. Still the maddening itch buried its way deep into his crotch, like a flesh-eating bug. At some point during his descent the thin, healed skin had been ripped away. The skin beneath the scab was wet and raw, and Richard’s every move irritated it further.

Just FUCKING SCRATCH IT!

The sweat blinded him as the need to scratch continued to grow. Richard realized it was unavoidable. Much like mosquito bites, there was only so long he could resist before he just had to scratch them, stopping only once he had broken the surface of the swelling, spilling the white poisonous fluid that filled them.

Richard’s hands slipped further, the surface of the rocks slick with a mixture of blood and sweat. His strength had deserted him; he hadn’t even the energy to tell the voice in his head to shut up. He needed to think and find a fast way down – and then it came to him.

There’s only one thing for it,
he told himself as he looked down between his legs.

Just scratch it then, get it over with. You know you’re not thinking straight. Scratch it and things will look so much different. Don’t do anything stupid.

Fuck you,
Richard snapped at himself, unsure if he spoke aloud, not caring either way.

Richard closed his eyes, and a sudden moment of clarity came rushing into his brain as he realized what he was about to do, and for the first time he could remember, certainly the first time since his parents had died, Richard Hamilton prayed. The words felt hollow and stale in his mouth. He knew what he planned to do was wrong, but at the same time if felt right.

“
Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.

Amen”

Richard whispered the final word and then kissed the rock. Wanting no further moments to risk additional reflection, Richard released his grip. The feat itself was harder than he had anticipated and for a while Richard wondered what that meant.

Cramp raged through his arms and shoulders, which he found to be locked into position, yet somehow Richard managed to force his hands to open far enough to allow gravity to do its part in the proceedings.

Turning as he fell, Richard felt his back grate against the rock. He began to pick up speed. The rock wasn’t as smooth as Richard thought, yet after a few feet his body came away from the wall and removed the issue from his list of problems. Richard pitched forward and for a moment thought that he would do a somersault in mid-air and land head first in the ground like a javelin launched from the top of the highest mountain in Hell.

Thankfully the curve of the cliff face began at just the right moment: Richard’s heels hit first, creating a jolt that ran up his spine like a static shock. He twisted and felt his spine crack. He gave a small cry but was cut off when his torso slammed into the cliff face, bouncing not once but three times before settling into the slide. Richard’s head also took a solid whiplash jolt which caused fireworks to explode before his eyes, and twilight descended over the entire desert. Richard managed to remain conscious but felt his slide getting out of control; his speed was much faster than he had thought it would be in his brief moment of contemplation. Before he reached the burning sand of the desert, he had twisted and begun to tumble rather than slide. His arms went out behind him to try and create some stability, but succeeded in merely loosing several layers of skin and being pulled to the limit of their arc of rotation.

When his slide finally came to a halt, Richard’s body landed in a limp heap, his legs bent one way, his upper body twisted another. His neck snapped to the left so hard that the pain erupted through his entire body like a ball of fire. Just before his world went black, Richard managed to raise his arms and drape them over his face to protect him from the sun which had now passed over the mountain and had the rest of the afternoon to focus all of its damaging attention on the prostrate figure that lay below it.

Richard had no idea how long he was unconscious, but when he came around a genuine twilight had taken over the world – not just the hazy blackness of impending unconsciousness, but the actual look of the world as the light is rubbed out.

Richard sat up, his skin dry cracked and sore, already blistered from overexposure. Weeping sores covered his arms from where they had been raised. His legs were straight out before him, and he could see that his left ankle was badly swollen, his knee was locked into place, and Richard saw his jeans were soaked to a hardened crisp from where his blood had been spilt. A large tear ran through his jeans leg, stretching from his knee down to the midpoint of his shin. Through it, Richard could see a deep laceration that ran the same length as the tear. Yet miraculously he could feel and move both of his legs and saw no immediate sign of continued blood loss.

Looking up at the mountain Richard was amazed at how large it looked. He couldn’t see the exact place where he let go, but he made a groggy estimate and found he didn’t like even the most conservative of numbers.

How did we survive that?
the voice said. This voice wasn’t groggy, and it didn’t seem to be suffering from the heat or overexposure. The only thing that seemed to affect him had been the itch, which, now that Richard thought about it, still burned like the memories of a first love.

I don’t know. I guess somebody up there likes me today,
Richard thought to himself. He shivered. It was cold. Night approached fast in the desert, no matter the passage of time once it arrived. The stars were already out in force, and Richard just knew that this night would be a long one.

A fluttering sound behind him made him turn sharply, and his neck called out a bright reminder of its recent off road adventure. Moving slower, turning his entire upper body in one sweeping motion – it was stiff but not as painful as when he moved his neck –Richard saw nothing. Not just in terms of a source of the fluttering sound, but nothing, simply endless rolls of undulating sand dunes and valleys of dried cracked earth which he assumed had once been the bed of rivers, wild water highways that had cut through this arid landscape and offered respite to all who graced the vicinity. The fluttering sounded again, buzzing in his ears like a mosquito in the middle of the night. Richard turned back again – and then he saw it. It hovered in the air, its body not exactly glowing but shimmering in the moonlight as if it had a phosphorescent shell. The scorpion hovered mere inches from Richard’s face, its wings creating an ever so slight breeze that battered against his nose, making it itch.

“Hey, little guy, I guess I owe you a lot of thanks, or at least half of a lot.” Richard smiled, unable to take his eyes off the magical creature.

Moving with a grace the defied its species, the creature landed on Richard’s injured leg just above the knee. He could feel its legs prickling his skin. Richard winced at the sensation – not pain – but the scorpion stood perfectly still. Richard smiled at it. “You are a strange little bugger,” he began, but before he could say anything else the scorpion struck. With the speed of Mohammed Ali’s jab its barbed tail whipped out and dug into Richard’s leg. It struck three times in quick succession, each strike so fast that Richard didn’t even see it move more than once. “Ah… Son of a bitch!” Richard snapped, flicking out his hand and slapping the creature off of his leg.

The scorpion landed on its feet and turned to face him. “You journey has begun,” the creature said, and then in a sudden burst of fire the jape scorpion was engulfed in flames, and disappeared within a few seconds. It left behind not even a scorching on the ground or a smell of smoke in the air.

The pain was instantaneous; Richard could feel his leg begin to swell as the poison worked its way into his body. It was excruciating. Richard felt his heart begin to race. His breathing accelerated but become shallow at the same time. A bellow of rage grew in the pit of his stomach where it remained prisoner for as long as Richard could contain it. His leg was swollen to the point where it looked the same as when Bill Bixby’s Bruce Banner got mad. A sudden gust of wind ran through the desert, carrying Richard’s screams off into the distance, leaving behind nothing but a howling echo that came close to taking Richard’s focus away from the pain. The pain remained long into the night, and Richard lay awake the entire time. He screamed and roared in agony until his throat was raw and the coppery taste of fresh meat filled the back of his throat. His leg alternated from periods of burning, fire fuelled agony to near frozen cold spells that only served to aggravate the poison further. When the sun finally rose in the morning, Richard lay once again with his eyes closed, only this time it was a light form of sleep that held him captive. Even in his dreams his leg burned, but he was elsewhere, lost in a happy place. The scene changed every few moments, or so it felt. One moment he was at the local water park where he had spent many summers as a child, and then he was in a forest, the floor thick with pine needles that crunched beneath his feet. He turned a corner and found himself looking at a church; a small quaint country church surrounded by barren fields. A small campfire smoldered beneath the shadow of the church, a thin trail of grey wispy smoke dancing into the air, pushed along by a light breeze. Just like the breeze created by the jade colored scorpion. A close up image of the rare creature appeared in his mind, spot lit and taking center stage. Its talking head’s monologue was short and simple:
Your journey has begun.
The words echoed through Richard’s dream world: taking him by the hand, they pulled him from slumber.