She approached tentatively and knelt beside him. She laid the gun on the ground, freeing her hand, and then grasped the monocular. The straps were tight, and her first attempt to pull it loose caused the man’s head to tilt back and forth, a grim reminder that she was looting a corpse, but it also revealed a chin strap, secured with a plastic buckle. The strap was damp with warm blood. She fought back her revulsion and squeezed the clasp until it popped free. The head harness came away, and the monocular fell to the ground with a muted thump.
As she reached for it, a hand shot up and grasped her shirt front. The attack was so unexpected that the man — not quite so dead as he appeared — got his other hand up before she could move. In an instant, both his hands were around her throat.
She clutched at the gripping hands, trying to break the chokehold, even as she threw herself back. Both actions, fueled by a cold spike of adrenaline that raced through her nervous system, were in vain. The man’s grip was like iron, his body an anchor that held her fast. The momentary failure snapped her out of panic mode. She had the skills to escape, but they were useless if she let the primitive part of her brain take over.
She willed herself to stop fighting the choking hands. To let go. Hands free, she clapped her cupped palms against either side of the man’s head. The action elicited a howl of rage, but the man’s grip tightened. Jenna felt her thoughts go fuzzy. She struck him again, feeling the solid contact of her punches against the man’s face, the hard unyielding skull just below the surface.
This isn’t working, she thought, almost frantic, and she knew why. The animal brain was still telling her to oppose strength with strength, but that was a battle she could not win. This man, injured though he was, was stronger, heavier and unlike Raul, he had almost certainly received formal combat training. You know how to get out of this.
She did. She threw her right arm up, and felt the immediate pressure as her collar bone squeezed the grasping hand even tighter. Then, she rolled to the right. The man’s hand, pinched tight by her upraised arm, was forced to bend at the wrist and his grip faltered. She was free.
Almost free.
As she gasped for breath, it occurred to Jenna a moment too late that she ought to follow up with a counter-attack. She drove out with her elbow, but the man twisted away. She landed only a glancing blow that deflected off his rib cage. Then her elbow struck the ground. The impact sent an electric jolt through her arm from shoulder to fingertips.
Then he was on her, driving his full weight into her like a football lineman charging into the scrimmage. She tried to twist away, but she was too slow by a heartbeat. He slammed into her, driving her back into the wooden rail with such force that Jenna heard something snap. The breath was driven from her lungs, and an almost paralyzing pain radiated from the point of impact. But the noise had not been the sound of her bones breaking. It was the rail.
The crack of splintering wood, the shriek of nails being torn out of two-by-fours and an underlying chorus of bestial hisses from just a few feet below, merged to form a discordant symphony. Restless alligators thrashed through the water before her, crowding together in anticipation of a meal. Then, with a stomach churning lurch, the rail gave way and she fell.
29
Jenna flailed for something to stop her fall, but the only thing within reach was the body of her assailant, and he, too, was falling. Then, as abruptly as it had begun, the fall stopped. The damaged rail had given beneath their combined weight, but had not collapsed entirely. It sagged over the alligator pond, groaning as the nails slowly lost the battle to hold the structure together.
The jolt of the sudden stop sent another lance of pain through Jenna’s body, but the hissing and snapping of reptilian jaws scant inches below her was a wonderful anesthetic. Her attacker pushed hard against her. She couldn’t tell if he was attempting to shove her the rest of the way over or simply trying to recover himself. Ultimately, the result was the same. The rail lurched and dropped another foot.
Jenna clutched at her assailant. If she was going in, he was, too. Her body was slanted down, as if she was hanging by her knees from the monkey bars on a playground. She could feel solid ground pressing into the back of her thighs. Too much of her weight was already hanging out over the edge. When the rail gave way, there would be nothing to hold her back.
Something struck the rail beside her head, sending a tremor through the wood. She heard another hiss and splash. One of the gators had made a grab for her, missing by inches. The impact was the last straw for the railing. With one last tortured squeal, the nails pulled free, and the barrier dropped, along with the two bodies sprawled atop it.
Jenna’s attacker scrabbled in vain for a handhold. She felt him scrape past her and then heard a splash and a howl of denial that was abruptly silenced amid a tumult of growls, snapping jaws and the distinctive sound of bones cracking.
Jenna however, didn’t fall. She could still feel the ground beneath her legs, but there was something else there, too. A weight was pressing down on her feet, holding her in place. Then she was pulled, dragged back up onto terra firma.
“Mercy?” she croaked, her throat still on fire from her assailant’s chokehold.
“I’ve got you,” came the reply. Mercy’s voice was taut with effort, but to Jenna it was the most beautiful sound in the world. She reached out and felt a hand close over her own, hauling her away from the precipice.
Jenna savored the feel of solid ground beneath her body, and she even welcomed the throb of pain from injuries old and new. Hurt was a lot better than dead. For a few seconds, they both just lay there, panting from the exertion.
Finally, Mercy spoke again. “So, was that what you had in mind?”
Jenna almost laughed, but the quip reminded her that this minor victory would count for nothing if they didn’t keep moving. “Not quite,” she replied, rolling over and rising to her hands and knees. She had lost both the gun and the phone in the struggle, but her groping hands found the former and something else as welclass="underline" the man’s night vision device.
She turned it over in her hands, feeling the hard lens at one end and the soft rubber eye cup at the other, and held it up to her eye. Nothing. She continued exploring its exterior until she found a small knob. She twisted it, felt it turn and click, and then there was a flash of green as the device turned on, and the world lit up like the dawn.
That’s more like it, she thought, as she settled the straps over her head and locked the monocular into place. It was heavier than she expected, but the discomfort was a small price to pay for the ability to see in the darkness. Jenna got to her feet. Her first few steps were halting. The green display played havoc with her depth perception, but she found that her unaided eye, even though virtually night blind, still helped her see the world in three dimensions.
She turned back to Mercy who was gazing up at her, pupils fully dilated and shining like little white buttons. “We can’t stay here.”
As if to underscore the statement, the display grew almost painfully bright as an artificial light source appeared from somewhere down the path that had brought them here.