Plans

  Meanwhile, Varjak sat like a lump on his cave floor.

  “Too many plans and none of them foolproof,” he said with a sigh, chucking yet another rock into the Living Dead pit, making them moan. 

  That was his only form of entertainment - hurtling things at the Living Dead to annoy them during the day. 

  He didn't see them as a threat, considering that he wasn't that damaged by them. 

  What usually killed off rogue undead was the constant fear of the Living Dead being there, and the inability to escape. 

  Varjak, on the other hand, had typically taken a much less serious approach to them. 

  Well, at least during the day where they couldn't hurt him he did. 

  And he was insane anyway, so what harm would they do him? 

  His main concern was the whereabouts of his friends. 

  Without them, he didn't really want to admit, he couldn't get them out of here. 

  And high up in his little cave he had no way of communicating with them either. 

  He could walk through walls, yes, but he'd already done that and learned that the others were not being kept in the caves along from him, so it was pointless. 

  There was one plan, however, that Varjak had thought of that was a major risk.

  He could plainly throw himself into the oblivion below. 

  Varjak knew many things about the undead, but he wasn't so sure about the things that could kill them. 

  So far, only weapons had any effect. 

  Varjak wondered what might happen to him if he were to jump from this dizzy height to the grassy, forest area far below.

  He would have carried out this plan days ago, had it not been the amount of time he took convincing himself that there was no other way. 

  It was a fifty-fifty chance situation. 

  Either the undead knew he would die if he fell, so put him up here, or thought him too cowardly to attempt it.  

  Well, good thing they didn't know Varjak Swinton. 

  Because for his friends, he'd do virtually anything. 

  Even throw himself off a skyscraper-height cliff. 

  It was exactly the same back with Edward, Ruth, Alicia and Arnaud. He'd do anything to save them if they couldn't save themselves. 

  It wasn't like he didn't try to save them that night twenty years ago. 

  And at that thought the previously weary Varjak sprung up and jogged to the edge of the cliff, looking down and staring at his landing area.

  The height gave him vertigo.

  “Not good,” he muttered, stepping back cautiously from the edge. 

  He was hit by the sharp pain of a pebble in the back of his head. 

  He whipped round.

  “Hey you morons! There’s no need to get nasty, I was just playing!” He shook his fist at the interior of the cave. 

  Only then did it occur to him that the Living Dead couldn’t move solid objects. 

  He turned back and stared up absently at the sky. 

  The clouds appeared to touch the roof of his new-found little home. 

  Oh yes, it's that high, thought Varjak. 

  Again he took a single, carefully footed step towards the edge, and stared down again at his inevitable fate. 

  “It's always me, isn't it?” he sighed, putting his hands purposefully at his hips. “Okay, well, there's no other way around this.” 

  Taking a deep breath, Varjak swung his arms backward to give him some sort of propellant, then swung them forwards for momentum, then back, and...

  “They'd better appreciate this!” he growled into the under oxygenated air, and with no more interruption gave his arms that last swing forward and threw himself off the cliff. 

                                                                                      ***

  Anyone in the surrounding area of the forest most likely would have heard an initial thump, followed by a bang, a whap, a crack, a yowl and one last bump as Varjak made contact with the forest floor through the volley of branches and leaves. 

  Even the canopy hadn't been quite enough to break the fall completely. 

  The blonde figure lay inert at the foot of an old oak tree, showing no obvious signs of life. 

  Eventually he grunted like an old man as he lay draped over a large tree root, and attempted to steady himself with a shaky arm. 

  He pushed himself up with a force that yes, put him on his feet, but only for a second as he fell backwards like a domino into the soft forest grass. 

  Baaaad plan, he thought. 

  “Ouch!” he cried, trying to push himself up with both arms and failing. 

  He seemed to have fractured his wrist. Well, it could have been much worse. 

  It was then that Varjak's keen ears detected the mumblings of two people. 

  They were about fifty metres away, but approaching. 

  It didn't even take a super-brain like Varjak to work out that they weren't the sort of people he'd want to party with. 

  Injured but still light on his feet, Varjak clambered up into the old oak and positioned himself as undetectably as he could. 

  The mumbles became clearer as two undead made their way into his view, both carrying sacks full of log on their backs. 

  They were both teenagers, one about seventeen, one maybe fifteen.

  “...could be transformed into an undead, you know. I'd much desire to be her mate.”

  “That's blasphemy, Jeremy! Speaking of a human woman in such a desiring tone. And 'you know' is a common human phrase, not to be used in our camp. You are young with clearly much to learn.”

  “Surely you have to think it too, Ryan. She is absolutely beautiful.”

  “She is human, and no human can ever be beautiful. Learn that quickly, Jeremy.”

  In the heights of the oak Varjak gritted his teeth and resisted the major urge to whoop their asses for talking about Kate in such a way. 

  The Ryan boy stopped a few metres from Varjak's oak and sniffed the air, a frown framing his expression. 

  “Can you smell that?”

  Jeremy snorted the air unhelpfully. 

  “Yes, I can.”

  “What do you think it is?”

  “A bitter, musty sort of oaky scent,” he replied, clearly thinking he was exerting some sort of intelligence. 

  “That's because we are standing in front of an oak tree, you imbecile.” 

  “Oh yeah.”

  Ryan sniffed the air again. 

  Varjak held his non-existent breath in the tree. 

  “No, I'm imagining it I think. Must just be your revolting scent.”

  “It's not that bad,” Jeremy said, as the two got moving again and eventually their voices faded to mumbles and then nothingness. 

  This allowed Varjak to assess his surroundings a little clearer. 

  One, he'd fallen directly into undead territory. In fact, he was at the very boundaries of it. 

  Two, although in undead territory this seemed to be a highly unpopulated area, in which he could move about in without detection with fair ease. 

  And three, since this was undead territory it also meant the undead camp was not far off. And that meant he could finally get back to his friends. 

  Renewed by this thought, Varjak began his quest to the camp by leaping to the next tree, continuing to do so until he was satisfied enough that he could run on the ground without detection. 

  I'm coming everyone, he thought with gritted and full-force determination.

Reviews

[tynamite]

Hmm this is interesting. I like the uncertainty in these chapters.

[Alskar]

Perhaps I should have made this clearer, but it was in fact Gwen trying to get him to jump down.

[w2de35657u687y4324rf]

I love the jumping idea. I don't quite understand the part about him being hit by a rock, though. Was it the cave stalagmites falling down? This was a short chapter-- neat and enjoyable, though.