“What the hell are we going to do?” Alex cries.
“I don’t think this parachute is going to hold up much longer,” I say, watching as the top becomes engulfed in flames. “We need to position ourselves directly over the river!”
We both look down at the sliver of cerulean blue snaking its way through the rainforest.
“Good idea, but how the hell do we get over there?” Alex shouts.
“By swinging!” I reply.
Alex and I swing our legs toward the river, pulling the flaming parachute with us. We continue doing this until we’re directly over the water.
Wiping the sweat pouring down my face, I say, “Now we just have to hope our parachute holds until we land.”
“Boom Boom, your hair is on fire!” Alex cries.
I look up and gasp. The entire parachute is now swallowed up in a raging inferno. And I can see flames lapping the very top of my hair. At the rate the fire is spreading, we will be burned to a crisp by the time we land. The only way Alex and I are going to survive this is if we do something drastic… like freefall.
Struggling to maintain my composure, I shout, “I’m going to cut us free from the parachute!”
“Are you freaking nuts?!” Alex hollers. “Boom Boom, we’ll die! We can’t survive a fall from this height! We’re still hundreds of feet in the air!”
I groan as the heat from the flames becomes nearly unbearable.
I wrack my brain as I try to come up with the best course of action. There have been many documented cases of people falling from heights of well over 100 feet and not only surviving, but walking away relatively unharmed. The key to survival is in how one lands. It’s best to fall in water, but only if the water is deep and fast moving. Otherwise, the water tension will make it as though you slammed into concrete. I glimpse down at the river and feel a faint glimmer of hope. The water appears to be moving very fast.
“Boom Boom!” Alex cries.
I look down and nearly freak out at the sight of flames lapping across our clothing.
“I’m cutting us loose!” I shout over the crackle of the inferno raging directly above our heads. “Make sure you hit the water feet first! And lean back so water doesn’t rush up your nose and cause you to drown. Take a deep breath while you’re falling so you have enough oxygen in your lungs. We’re going to sink very deep, so stay calm and swim toward the surface!”
“Just cut the damn cord, Boom Boom!” Alex practically screams. “We’re being roasted alive!!”
I withdraw a dagger from my utility belt and slice through the duct tape keeping us bound together. Alex instantly drops, screaming as he plummets toward the gushing river like a missile.
I raise my hand and hack away at the cord keeping me tethered to the inflamed parachute. About two seconds later the flaming cord snaps in half and I begin to fall.
As clichéd as it may sound, my life flashes before me as I plunge toward the Earth. My fucked up childhood, my fucked up teenage years, my extremely fucked up young adult years… they all fly by in the blink of an eye. And then I explode into the gushing river and sink like an anchor.
Even though I made sure to hit the water feet-first, with my legs crouched, the force of the impact nearly knocks me out. I sink much deeper than I anticipated, and I stupidly forget to take my own advice and inhale an adequate amount of oxygen before hitting the water. By the time I swim to the surface and open my mouth, my lungs feel like they’re about to burst.
Gasping for air, I shout, “Alex? Alex, where are you?! Alex???”
I spin around in a complete circle, frantically searching for him. Despite my most feverish attempts not to, I start to panic.
“Alex! Where are you?! Alex!!!”
I no more than utter those desperate words when Alex’s head emerges from the river. He spits out a bunch of water while thrashing around like crazy.
“Alex!”
I swim toward Alex and wrap my arms around him to keep him afloat. His visor is all crooked and he looks like he’s on the verge of passing out. Somehow, someway, the machine guns Grenade gave him are still slung over his shoulders.
Alex turns to me and croaks out, “Boom Boom! Thank God you’re okay!”
He runs his fingers through my singed hair and says, “You’re not burnt, are you?”
“No, I don’t think so,” I say, kicking my feet like crazy to keep us from sinking. I clutch at my still-smoldering hair and groan. “Man, talk about a bad hair day.”
Alex bursts out laughing.
“Have you lost your flipping mind?” I holler. “What the hell’s so damn funny?”
Still chuckling, Alex says, “C’mon, even you have to admit that was pretty awesome.”
“Okay, you’ve officially lost it.”
“We just jumped out of an exploding plane in a flaming parachute and landed in a river in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest,” Alex says, his voice quivering with leftover adrenaline. “That’s gotta be one of the craziest things anyone’s ever done!”
I smirk and say, “This is probably just the adrenaline talking, but I suppose you’re right.”
Alex abruptly stops laughing and yelps. “Ouch! Something just bit my leg!”
I cling to Alex and fearfully ask, “What do you think it was? A snake? An anaconda??”
I have an almost irrational fear of snakes, especially anacondas. If that’s what’s in the water with us, then I’m about to totally lose it.
Alex reaches into the water and grabs the creature chomping on his leg, which turns out to be a ferocious, snapping piranha.
“Get out!” Alex screams, shoving me away from him. “Get to shore as fast as---AHHH!”
Alex screams even louder as more piranhas start snapping at him. Off in the distance, just beneath the river’s murky surface, a massive school of piranhas can be seen swimming toward us, eagerly anticipating a hearty meal of human flesh. I start swimming faster than I ever have in my entire life. I almost feel like a dolphin, effortlessly gliding through the water. And I’m not even a good swimmer. The human body can do amazing things when it’s under immense duress. I glance behind me to make sure Alex is hot on my heels. Thankfully he is. But we’re not out of the woods… or in this case, water… just yet.
Seconds later we both scramble ashore, just as the monstrous school of piranhas is on the verge of overtaking us. Alex and I collapse on the river bank, gasping for air.
“Okay, now that wasn’t awesome,” Alex says with a grimace.
I look over Alex’s leg. His armored plating prevented his leg from getting chewed off, but the numerous bite marks prove just how close he came to becoming an amputee.
I wring out my soaked hair and say, “That was way too close. C’mon, let’s go find the others.”
We just barely clamber to our feet when Krystal and River emerge from some nearby bushes. Krystal’s parachute drags behind her, getting caught on tree branches.
“That was crazy as fuck,” Krystal groans as she hobbles over to me. “I think I sprained my ankle when we landed.”
I whip out a knife and hack off Krystal’s parachute cord, granting her increased mobility. “Have you guys seen Lance or Grenade?”
“No, we were hoping they were with you,” River says.
A string of vulgar profanity suddenly rings out through the jungle, sending several toucans and macaws fluttering into the sky.
“I think we found Grenade,” I say, running toward the sounds of his garish outburst. Alex and the others follow suit. The four of us come to a stop a few hundred yards later, where we find Grenade dangling 20 feet off the ground, his parachute wrapped around the limb of a tall tree.
Krystal bursts out laughing. “He looks like a damn piñata! Anyone got a bat?”
“You better not fucking hit me with a bat!” Grenade hollers, thrashing around in mid-air. “Someone get me down from here, this is humiliating!”
Struggling not to laugh, Alex says, “I got it.”
Alex fires
off a quick burst of laser-fire. The lasers slice through the parachute cord, causing Grenade to slam into the ground.
“Grenade!” I shout, kneeling beside his prone body. “Alex, you should have given us a chance to build a bed of leaves or something. That was a long fall!”
Alex blows raspberries. “He’s a cyborg, for crying out loud. He’ll be fine.”
When Grenade doesn’t stir, Alex gulps and says, “I think…”
“Grenade?” I shout, shaking his shoulder. “Grenade!!”
Grenade pushes himself up and scowls. “I’m fine, Boom Boom. No thanks to your asshole friend over there.”
Alex thrusts his hands into his pockets and awkwardly whistles.
Grenade staggers to his feet and cracks his neck. “Everyone accounted for?”
“Everyone but Lance,” River answers.
Grenade growls as he slowly rotates in a complete circle, his eyes glowing brightly. He’s just about to start another rotation when he stops and points toward the river bank. “He’s a quarter mile that way, and he’s not moving. He might be hurt. Let’s go!”
And with that, Grenade, Krystal, River, Alex and I sprint in the direction of Grenade’s outstretched bionic finger. (Well, Krystal doesn’t exactly sprint so much as she hobbles.)
After a few minutes of hacking our way through the thick jungle brush with our knives and daggers, we come across Lance, curled up in a ball under a towering tree. His parachute is sprawled out on the ground behind him.
“Lance, are you okay?” I ask, cautiously approaching him.
Lance looks up, his eyes filled with tears. When he catches sight of Grenade, he becomes angry. “No Boom Boom, I’m not okay. Grenade left my pills and heroin on the plane! And now it’s all gone! I need it in order to function, Boom Boom! Don’t you guys understand? Don’t you see?? I fucking need it!! I… I go crazy without it! I… I…”
Lance breaks down in sobs. It’s almost pathetic to watch. He’s like a child throwing a fit because his video games were taken away.
Grenade grunts, “Let me handle this,” and makes his way over to Lance, towering over him.
“Look kid, I…”
Lance jumps to his feet and shoves Grenade in his chest, nearly knocking him over.
“No, you listen to me, old man! You had no right… no right… to get rid of my stash! You’re not my father, so quit acting like it! You’re just a washed up old fart trying to relive his glory days. You’re lucky we even let you tag along. You haven’t even been that much help. In fact, you’re slowing us down!”
Grenade growls and clenches his fists. Things are about to get out of hand here if I don’t intervene.
I step forward and shout, “Lance, that’s enough! If it wasn’t for Grenade we would be---”
Grenade raises his bionic hand and says, “Let me handle this.”
Grenade grabs Lance by his Kevlar vest and lifts him several inches off the ground. Lance’s eyes widen in fear. For a second I’m afraid Grenade will knock his head off. But he stuns me when he starts talking to Lance in an eerily calm, sympathetic voice.
“Look kid, I know what you’re going through. I know you’re having a tough time. I used to be addicted to all that shit as well. I know you think you need it… that it’s the only thing that will get you through the day. And I know you didn’t intentionally set out to become a druggie. You’ve just been through a lot… way too much for someone your age. You need something to help blunt the pain… alleviate some of the overwhelming pressure that’s been thrust upon your shoulders. Something to help you cope. I get it. I really do. I was like that, too. And let me tell you something, that feeling of ecstasy you get when you shoot up… that feeling of everything being right in the world… it’s all a façade. Just a fleeting illusion that becomes more and more fleeting every time you shoot up again. Getting stoned and drugged out of your mind doesn’t make things better. It makes them worse. Because when you come down from that high, the world seems even scarier and crazier and more complicated than it was before you thrust that needle into your vein. It’s a never-ending cycle of dependence. You don’t deserve to live that way. No one does. That’s why you need to get over your crippling addiction now… before it’s too late. Because your end date is rapidly approaching. And when it comes… and trust me, it will come if you don’t knock this shit off… there ain’t no going back.
“Now I’m not going to lie to you. It’s not going to be easy. It’s not going to be quick. And it sure as hell ain’t gonna be pretty. To be frank, this is probably the worst time we could have chosen to get you clean. But you’re going to have to. For yourself… for us… for Blade and Harpoon… for the world. You’re gonna have to be strong and clear your head, because we’re gonna need you on your A-Game. I know you can do this. Boom Boom and the rest of us know you can, too. But you need to believe. You get that, son? You have to believe in yourself. You’re the only one who can do this. We can’t do it for you. You have to want this… you have to need it. You get what I’m saying, kid?”
The ensuing silence only enhances Grenade’s impassioned plea for Lance to take his life back. I’ve been trying to say the same thing for the past several months, but I haven’t been able to get through to him. Maybe Grenade can.
Lance looks up at Grenade through tear-filled eyes and opens his mouth to speak. We never find out what he was going to say, though, because at that exact moment a flying car bursts out from behind the treetops and hovers over us. Two fatigue-garbed mercenaries point their machine guns at us.
“Put your hands in the air, now!!” the mercenary in the driver’s seat shouts. “One false move and we’ll blow your heads off!”
“How about six false moves?” Grenade growls.
In one fluid motion, Grenade, Lance, Krystal and I whip out our handguns and fire. Alex unleashes a couple bursts of laser-fire from his visor. And River grabs a pistol from Lance’s utility belt and fires off a couple shots of her own. Our bombardment of ammunition rips into the mercenaries’ bodies, blowing out their brains and splattering blood all over the jungle floor. Alex’s laser beams scorches off one of the mercenary’s arms, sending a geyser of crimson bursting into the air. The flying car spirals toward the ground and crashes into a tree trunk about 100 feet from us. Smoke billows up out of the engine as the bullet-riddled gunmen slump over in their seats.
Krystal blows the end of her smoking gun and cracks, “Well that was easy.”
“You may have spoken too soon,” Alex says, pointing up at the six flying cars that have just zoomed into view. Twelve more guns are pointed at our foreheads.
“Stand down or we’ll fire!” one of the gunmen shouts.
“Enough with the theatrics, Bob,” another gunman says. “Let’s take em down with our tranquilizer darts and tasers.”
All the gunmen whip out tasers and tranquilizer guns and start blasting us. We try to fire off a few shots of our own, but we’re quickly overwhelmed. Taser wire imbeds into my neck and sends a burst of electricity crackling over my entire body. I cry out as wave after crashing wave of excruciating, mind-numbing agony wracks my entire being. I collapse to the ground and start flopping around like crazy. Something else imbeds into my neck. I instantly feel drowsy, despite the electricity still being pumped into me. My vision becomes cloudy and I slip in and out of consciousness.
The next hour or so is nothing but a dreamlike blur. I feel hands groping my body, removing my body armor and most of my clothes. I also remember being tossed into a car and seeing the sky blink in and out of focus. A nasty-looking man keeps leering down at me and touching my breasts. But I’m too drowsy to fight back. I turn my head ever-so-slightly to find River slumped over in the backseat with me. She is being molested as well. I completely black out for a while, and when I finally come to I find myself lying on a concrete slab in the back of a small, damp, filthy jail cell.
I stagger to my feet and slump against the concrete wall. I look down and realize I’m wearing nothing but
my bra and underwear. I peer out through the bars that consist of my cell door and notice I’m in a circular room filled with other prison cells. All the cells are full, most of them with complete strangers. There are frightened Amazonian women and children, and a few angry-looking men. I’m assuming these are the natives River said were being kidnapped by that guy she was talking about… Ramirez.
I’m relieved to find Krystal in a cell on the opposite side of the room from me, her hands gripping the bars as she shouts for our captors to let her out so she can disembowel them alive. (I wish she realized she never helps our cause when she says stuff like that.) One of the cells doesn’t have bars, but rather a solid steel door with nothing but a tiny slit at the top. Inside the slit are two glowing eyes, and a lot of banging and clanging seems to be coming from the interior. I can only assume the glowing eyes belong to Grenade, and he’s trying to break out. If his door only consisted of bars, that would be no problem. A solid steel door, well that’s a different story. Grenade’s bionic arm gives him superhuman strength, but it doesn’t give him unlimited strength. There are feats even he is incapable of. Smashing through a steel door would appear to be one of them.
World War Forever (Highway To Armageddon Book 2) Page 33
