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We jump to our feet and dash forward, leaving the clearing behind. Just as we plunge into the cover of the jungle, a rain of bullets pelts the stretch of earth we were standing on only seconds ago.
As we charge through the trees, branches slap against my face. The growth is too dense for me to duck out of the way. Winter is having an even worse time than me. I check on her as we run and see her struggle as one of her braids gets caught in a low branch. Hands flying to her head, she yanks at it and struggles free, but not without leaving a long blond lock entangled in the prickly vine.
The undergrowth becomes denser. Machete in hand, I hack as fast as I can, fresh adrenaline giving me the strength I lacked before. Cursing under my breath, I slash at the vines and tree limbs with clean strokes of the blade, clearing a narrow passage. My muscles scream in protest from the effort, but fear spurs me on, fueling my arm as it whips through the underbrush at lightning speed. Let’s hope Smith and his mercenaries aren’t good trackers. Our only chance is to lose them.
Winter stumbles behind me, but I can’t spare the energy to check on her; I’m too busy battling the palms. Salty sweat pours down my face and arms, turning the million cuts and scratches on my skin into as many tiny flaming welts. But, despite the knotted, aching muscles and constant tension in my arms, my sole focus is on keeping my machete arm going.
My grip on the handle has become almost maniacal; I don’t dare to flex my fingers for fear of dropping the blade, regardless of the cramping. Handle fused to my palm, I develop a rhythm in a life-or-death dance with the vegetation as my partner. Arm up, I aim for oblique cuts, followed by a backhand hack when I don’t finish the job on the first try, and a strong pull from my free hand to clear the chopped branches. Raise, cut, chop, pull. Raise, cut, chop, pull. Over and over again until my arm becomes one with the machete.
Every swipe is crucial. I can’t afford even a single miss, as every inch I carve forward keeps us alive. I try not to think of the consequences should Smith overtake us. There won’t be any prisoners this time around. Smith isn’t a fool-me-twice kind of fella.
At my heels, Winter isn’t faring any better. Each time she staggers or gets slapped by a branch, she gasps and lets out a quick breath.
“How are you holding up?” I say, glancing back at her.
“This rifle is too heavy,” she pants. “I’m dropping it.”
“What?” I yell, all the while hacking away at the jungle. “You can’t drop our only weapon. Leave the backpack.”
“No way, I have all my equipment in here.”
“And how are a bunch of cameras going to help us stay alive?” I turn just a fraction to glare at her. “Are you going to photograph Smith to death?”
“I’m not leaving my cameras behind; do you have any idea how much they cost? You’ve already wrecked one.”
“Here.” I pause for a second and backtrack to her. I snatch the rifle from her hands and sling it over my shoulders.
The short break is enough for men’s voices to carry over to us, the ring of their whizzing machetes audible now that mine has stopped. Smith and his men are moving in closer. I redouble my efforts, slicing into the undergrowth—raise, cut, chop, pull, raise, cut, chop, pull—while sweat pours down my face and spine.
Another palm falls, and we reach a less dense stretch of jungle. I grab Winter’s hand and we take off at a run.
I glance over my shoulder and catch glints of silver flashing through the thick greenery. They sweep up and down in identical semicircles, their eerie ring whizzing through the air. Too much silver for three men; the soldiers must be spinning a blade in each hand, gaining on us even faster.
As the sound of the machetes grows louder, I wipe sweat from my eyes with my shirt sleeve, stumble, and waste precious seconds. I get up and race on. A dense thicket gets in my way, so I slice at it with more aggressive swings and push forward. And almost drop eighty feet into the violently churning river below.
I fling my arms out just in time to stop Winter from tumbling over the edge, and we stare in horror at the jagged sides of the cliff covered in thick, gnarled vines. We’re trapped!
“Look,” Winter says, pointing to our right. “There’s a bridge.”
Hope swells in my chest, only to be crushed when I spot the crumbling wooden structure she’s referring to. The “bridge” is a narrow, broken-down assemblage of rotting planks covered in vines and dangling precariously over the void. Even when newly constructed, I bet it couldn’t hold two people abreast, and mustn’t have had the strength to carry more than ten in total. And in the present, I fear a single person would be too much. The wood has been ravaged by hundreds of years of exposure to the elements: rain, wind, sun, and whatever else this hideous jungle has thrown at it. That is, where there’s any wood left. Many of the bridge’s boards are missing or shattered in half.
“That’s not a bridge,” I say, unhooking the rifle from my shoulder, ready to make my final stand. “That’s a historical artifact.”
“Oh, please,” Winter scoffs as I kneel behind a tree trunk, trying to spot the exact position of Smith and his sergeants. “You can’t even shoot.”
“I’m a quick study,” I say, pulling a lever I hope removes the safety. How hard can it be? Point and shoot, right?
“I’m taking my chances with the bridge,” Winter says.
The first plank groans under her weight as she steps on it, but I don’t turn to witness the stubborn woman’s walk to her certain death. I focus on the jungle, trying to pinpoint the exact location of our pursuers. They seem to be coming from the left, where I can hear the rustling of the vegetation being trashed and trampled. Let’s see if I retained some marksmanship from my childhood days playing at cowboys with air guns. My only chance is to quickly pick the soldiers off before they overtake us.
I aim the M16 toward the advancing militia, and only detach my eyes from the rifle sight to spare a glance at Winter. She’s made it a third of the way across the bridge, but I bet she can’t make it halfway before the whole thing comes crashing down. The photographer will fall and smash her pretty head on the craggy rocks below, and her limp body will be swept away by the fast-moving waters before I can look. Already, the boards she’s passing are tearing off and scurrying down into the river where they are mutilated on impact.
“Come back!” I yell. “That’s suicide.”
My call is answered by the hiss of bullets hitting wood a few feet left of my position. A blind attack. I peek over the trunk and, just as blindly, try to return the fire. I raise the rifle, pull the trigger, but nothing happens.
How do I remove the damn safety? I’m uselessly pawing at the rifle when suddenly… snap! I turn just in time to panic as the board under Winter’s feet gives way and spirals down into the river. Showing quick reflexes, she grabs onto the railing, managing to keep a hold of the fraying rope. Through the rips in her shirt, I can see the muscles in her arms tense with the effort of pulling herself up. Once she’s standing again, Winter keeps her feet at the base of the railing and with quick sidesteps, hoists herself to the other side of the canyon. She leaps over the last ruined section of the bridge, landing safely on a bed of ferns.
