“You sonofabitch,” Ben yelled, obviously seeing what the mercenary was trying to do.
Ben looked like he was trying to squeeze every last ounce of speed from his legs, but he began to slow as fatigue must have felt like he was dragging lead weights.
“Stop it,” she yelled at Bellakov and grabbed his collar. She saw that Ben still had too far to go and was never going to make it, and she leaned out to point to the nearest edge of the plateau.
Bellakov ignored her and continued to fire at the rock. Then, to Emma’s horror, she felt the plane begin to slide over the edge.
“Oh, no, no, no.”
Just like Ben had hoped, the plane began to be tugged forward. Bellakov tried to drag forward the ancient canopy over the cockpit but it snagged on something.
Emma felt insane fear and anger and grabbed Bellakov’s collar and shook it, as Jenny screamed in his ear. Emma then began to beat the man with her fists, but all he did was hunker down and grip the controls.
She raged and tore at his hair, pulling clumps out and then dug nails into his face. Emma pulled her handgun free just as Bellakov jerked an elbow back that struck her cheekbone, making her see stars for a moment. When her senses returned, the gun was gone.
She heard Ben’s voice again and saw that he’d finally run out of plateau and was right on the absolute rim. He turned to look at her, once, and only for a moment, before vanishing over the edge.
“No-ooo!” Emma stood up in the cockpit.
“He jumped.” Jenny’s mouth hung open, before she turned, and her expression turned to wide-eyed terror. “Ack.”
Emma spun to look at the woman and then her head snapped around to where she stared.
“Oh God.” The snake’s attention had been dragged to the only thing left moving on the plateau edge — them.
“Come on, you fucker,” she heard Bellakov grunt and start to jerk in his seat as though trying to force the Corsair to move faster.
“Get out.” Emma felt terrible fear run through her as the monstrous snake bore down on them. “Out,” she hissed again, grabbed Jenny’s arm and tugged. But Bellakov whipped out an arm across her chest, holding her in place.
“Sit fucking down!” he screamed.
Jenny looked up at her, her eyes wet. Go, she mouthed.
Time was up; the snake was only a hundred feet away and would cross the distance to them in seconds. The plane began to tilt.
Jenny fought with Bellakov, the plane was going over, and the snake was there. Emma looked to where Ben had jumped. She made up her mind and leapt from the tipping plane.
Ben had seen the narrow ledge only five feet down — it may take his weight and it may not. He had no choice; he jumped down. It held.
After a few moments, he began to hear the screams of the two women. Please, not them, was all he thought, as he looked up over the edge.
The snake closed in on the sliding Corsair and he saw a figure leap free on the opposite side, roll on the ground and then scramble away on her belly — it was Emma!
Ben raised his hand to wave as the plane reached the plateau rim. Emma belly-crawled toward him, and he helped her over the ledge, as the snake’s massive head shot out on its coiled neck and caught the rear of the plane.
“Jenny.” Emma sunk down. “Oh God.”
Jenny’s scream was like a siren, and the sound of gunfire was continuous. Even though the snake was basically a 70-foot pipe of solid muscle, it still couldn’t hang onto the entire weight of the Corsair, and its body began to slide. Self-preservation kicked in, and it opened its mouth, releasing its prey.
Ben couldn’t tear his eyes away. The Corsair had been hanging straight down. The rock slingshot had detached, but the intervention of the snake had meant they didn’t get any upward-forward lift.
The plane had no hope of getting into any sort of glide formation and would drop like a rock. As he watched, he saw a single figure clamber out from the cockpit canopy, and make a leap for the cliff wall. But the falling plane meant whoever it was never stood a chance. The Corsair and the body fell into oblivion.
“Jenny!” Emma screamed, and Ben put a hand over her mouth.
The monstrous snake watched the objects fall for a moment more, then an arm-thick forked tongue slid out to taste the air. It then began to coil back on itself, still tasting the air, as though searching for more interesting scents. Its huge head began to swing around. Ben eased both of them down.
He remembered what Walt had told him: big snakes could see your body heat. And even the top of a head peeking over a cliff edge might warrant an investigation from a hungry alpha predator.
Emma covered her face with her hands and began to sob. “You’re alive,” he whispered, and then put an arm around her and drew her in close. He then tried to force them both hard up against the cliff wall. With the other arm, he held his pitiful hunting knife pointed up at the cliff edge and stared towards the lip, watching, and waiting.
Minutes passed.
Then more minutes.
Ben wasn’t sure exactly how long he waited, but curiosity was now gnawing at him. He tried to reach out with his senses, listening, smelling, or even feeling for vibrations in the stone. But he couldn’t detect anything, and the wind around them was picking up, and with it came a continuous howl as it rushed up over the rim.
At last, he couldn’t take it anymore, and he started to rise up. Emma grabbed at him and stared with wide eyes.
“Don’t.”
“Can’t stay here forever.” He lifted her hand free and squeezed it for a moment, before continuing to rise up.
When Ben got to the lip, he turned his head sideways, allowing just one eye to ease over the edge fractions of an inch at a time. At last, he was able to see.
He lifted a little more, letting his eyes dart left and right — there was no sign of the snake — nothing.
The bare rocky ground in front of the jungle was empty. Ben stared hard into that veil of green, trying to see in past the first lines of massive tree trunks, tree ferns, and huge tongue-like fronds. His neck prickled as his mind told him nothing was there, his eyes confirmed it, but his animal senses screamed a warning.
“Is it there?” Emma whispered.
“Can’t see it.” He reached down to grab her. “Come up and add your eyes. See if you can spot anything in the jungle I’m missing.”
She exhaled and then rose up beside him, basically climbing his body. She peeked over the edge.
“Jenny,” she squeaked.
“Didn’t make it,” Ben replied. He remembered seeing only one person get out, but then the body fall away into the misty void.
“It’s just us now,” she said softly.
“I know,” he added.
“We’re stuck here.” Emma slumped back down and drew her legs up to her chest.
“If there’s a way down, we’ll find it.” Ben turned down to her. “We can’t stay here.”
“Why not? I feel safe here.” She looked up at him, her eyes wet. “Where will we go anyway?”
Ben sighed and stared out at the now swirling mist. The sun was rising, and hopefully it would lift the fog-like veils that were still hanging over them. He also expected that the ever-present cloud would rise and then the jungle floor over 1,000 feet below them would be laid out like a green carpet. He knew that Emma wouldn’t find being on the cliff ledge so pleasant then when vertigo kicked in.