Temple of the Gods - Andy McDermott [197]
It wasn’t part of the helicopter, so that only left— ‘Sophia!’
Despite the flames gnawing at her skin, Sophia was still alive, still conscious, still screaming as she fell.
Something whipped through her pain-racked vision – a parachute, two forms dangling from its lines.
Nina had caught Eddie. They were going to survive.
‘You . . . bastards!’ she managed to shriek—
The wet thump of her impact on the stony ground was mixed with the horrible crack of shattering bones.
The parachute’s aerofoil design meant Eddie and Nina were now traversing the landscape rather than merely plunging straight at it, but they were still descending too quickly. A hundred feet remained, ninety—
Eddie unclasped his fingers. ‘What’re you doing?’ Nina demanded.
‘Making you lighter,’ he said, painfully slipping his arms out of the harness straps to hang from them by his hands. ‘Just before you land, turn side-on and let it drag you – try to kind of crumple from your feet upwards when you hit. And for Christ’s sake, bend your legs or you’ll break ’em both.’
Fifty feet. ‘What about you?’
‘I haven’t turned forty yet – there might just be a little bit of bounce left in me!’
Thirty. ‘Are you out of your mind?’
‘You’re the one who jumped from a fucking chopper!’
Twenty—
Eddie let go. Even with his legs bent to absorb the impact, he hit hard, rolling uncontrollably before bouncing to a stop in a cloud of dust.
Nina whisked past overhead, wailing ‘Oh shiiiiiit!’ as she was carried helplessly down. At the last moment, she remembered what Eddie had said and twisted sideways. Her feet scraped through the sand – then she slammed down like a toppling tree. The parachute flopped on top of her like a shroud.
Groaning, Eddie slowly tried to get up, discovering numerous new sources of pain throughout his body. No bones seemed to be broken, to his relief, although his already injured leg now hurt worse than ever. Wobbling, he stood and dizzily surveyed his surroundings. The black plume from the volcano rose into the sky on the northwestern horizon; much closer was another, smaller column of smoke.
He knew what it marked, resolving to investigate, but completed his turn. The helicopter was about half a mile away to the west, slowly heading towards him. On the ground, the parachute wobbled in the wind like a beached jellyfish. He limped towards it. ‘Nina? Nina! Are you okay?’
‘No, I’m dead,’ came the weak reply. He pulled the entangling sheet and cords aside to find Nina sprawled face-down in the sand. ‘I must be dead. We couldn’t have survived that. Could we?’
‘Well, I’m alive, more or less – and like you said, we stay together, so you must be too.’ He quickly checked her for obvious signs of injury, finding nothing beyond plentiful cuts and grazes.
She sat up and blew sand off her face, giving him a pained smile. ‘Wow. So we actually made it.’
‘Yeah, we did.’ He kissed her – then they both recoiled.
‘Ow,’ said Nina, putting a hand to her face and finding it bruised and swollen. ‘My lips hurt.’
‘My everything hurts,’ Eddie complained. ‘Think you can stand?’
‘I’ll try.’ Grunting, he helped her up. Nina winced at a sharp pain in her ankles; her touchdown had been far from soft. ‘Oh, crap.’
‘What?’
‘I just realised, we’re still sixty miles from town in the middle of a desert. And I’m really not up to walking all that way.’
Eddie jerked a thumb towards the approaching helicopter. ‘We’ve still got a ride.’
Nina regarded it in relief. ‘I guess Larry’s okay, then – shit!’ She looked round in alarm. ‘What about Sophia?’
He indicated the nearby smoke. ‘I know where she is. Let’s take a gander.’ Supporting each other as best they could, they hobbled towards it.
A little impact crater came into view, the smouldering line rising from the charred remains of a parachute backpack atop a broken, huddled shape within. Jagged spikes of broken bone jutted out from ruptured flesh. Splashed across the surrounding sand was an oozing starburst of dark red. ‘Well,’ said Nina after a long silence.