Pain. Cut in half. Stink of blood. Reek of diesel fuel. Mac coughed. Smoke, thick burning his lungs. Gasping. Mac opened his eyes and screamed. His chest rose and fell like bellows fanning the fire of pain in both legs below his pelvis. Mac reached out and made a fist digging into damp, dark earth. Mac closed his eyes trying to ride the ever rising tide of pain. He forced his breathing to slow, made each breath deeper. He could feel his heart flapping like a hummingbird's wing in his chest and throat.
Birds, exotic. Monkeys, other jungle animals. Mac opened his eyes and blinked until the world came into focus.
Green, everything around him was green, and alive.
He was hot. The air was heavy, oppressive in its heavy moisture. He was in a jungle.
Mac's stomach cramped. He tried to roll over. Black spots and flames burned across his vision. He couldn't move.
Calm down, you're ok. It's just a jungle...and your legs…
Mac opened his eyes and looked down. HIs heart became a timpani drum in his ears.
His lover legs were trapped under the broken canopy of a helicopter cockpit. All around him slivers of plexiglass gleamed like lost diamonds among the fertile moss and fans of ferns. Mac again had to force himself to breathe, to think. He wanted nothing but to pass out, to drift into silent darkness.
Mac shook his head biting back another scream. God his head hurt. Everything swirled. Mac took several deep breaths then tried again. The ferns around him were splattered with his blood. The soil around him was wet with diesel fuel. He couldn't feel his legs. Were they still there? Mac bit his lip until blood dribbled down his chin as he forced himself to sit up.
Blood painted the bubble of the broken helicopter, but he didn't think it was enough to indicate missing limbs. Mac sank back holding his chest with his hands. He felt like someone stomped on his middle, hard. Mac closed his eyes.
Why was he in a jungle? His head hurt too much to think. He grimaced and wiped his face. His hand came back covered with blood and bugs. Mac became aware of bug bites and the constant buzzing of more around him. Mac could feel his skin crawl with thousands of small feet…
Pull yourself together, he told himself. It was his imagination. There were a lot of bugs, but not as many as his brain conjured. He waved his hand in front of his face. This just angered the flies and gnats. Mac closed his eyes. The smell of broken ferns, blood and rotting leaves hung in the air around like the dirt of a grave. Mac shook his head. Morbid much?
Mac stared up at the helicopter he frowned. It looked like a giant had chomped the front half of the helicopter off. The tail rotor stood straight above him on an upside down metal ice cream cone. The pilot and front passenger seats were gone.
JACK! Mac sat up ignoring the burn of agony the motion caused.
"Jack? Jack? JACK?" Mac sank back heaving in heavy air, feeling like he was being waterboarded. He and Jack had been flying...exfil after a mission in South America...Mac groaned putting a hand on his head.
It hurt to think.
He didn't want to think. If he did he'd only come up with the cold logical truth. Jack was dead. Pete, their pilot, was dead. He was going to die here, no one would ever find him, and if someone did. Well, there wouldn't be much left of him by the time the bugs and jungle life finished. Mac rubbed his head as tears leaked from the corners of his eyes.
"Jack." Mac moaned his arm flopping to the ground. It was his last thought before everything faded out.
Jack opened his eyes. Holy shit he hurt. He grimaced as he tried to sit up. Jack hissed in air as he felt along his chest. A seatbelt held him to his seat. Jack frowned when he noticed the world was on its side. Jack undid the belt and groaned as he fought gravity to crawl off his seat. He froze when the world shook around him.
Ok, easy does it. Where the hell was he. Moving just his head Jack didn't like what he saw. The helicopter nose and pilot's seat were gone. Jack slowly backed out of his seat. The wreck still wobbled, but not as much as it had.
Jack slowly pushed himself upright. Damn. He'd just used a lifetime's worth of Dalton luck in one day. He sat in a bowl shaped piece of the cockpit that had rested on the top of the jungle canopy. Jack took in the sea of green around him. It was beautiful. Birds flitted above the green foliage. It was cool and smelled fresh and free. Jack shook his head. It was nice but he had more important worries.
Jack slowly turned looking at the remnants of the helicopter. He shook his head. As near as he could tell the rear rotor had been cut off by the top rotors. Pete had fought to correct a marked change in weight on one side or hard downwind. The pitch of the aircraft allowed the steel blades to slice through the middle of the tail like a ginsu knife.
Jack sank down. He was beginning to fry under the hot sun. He had to get down. He had to find Mac. Jack leaned back and grinned. Go Dalton luck! His pack was still under his seat. Jack had been in jungles on more missions than he could count. Mac always teased him about the stuff he packed. Mac was going to get the biggest "I told you so" ever. Jack's heart sank and his breath skipped. If he could find him-No, Dalton told himself-when he found him.
Jack sat up sniffing the air. He could smell the pungent fumes of diesel. Jack pulled out his Sunagor compact binoculars. Jack gasped as his nest shifted under him. He had landed on the smallest branches of a hundred foot tree. Not the safest perch. Jack ignored it and concentrated on slowly circling. Bingo. A small plume of smoke drifted through the canopy then vanished in the gentle breeze. Jack pulled out his GPS and compass working out Mac's coordinates. At least he hoped they were Mac's coordinates. Jack brushed sweat from his forehead. The plume was thin. That was good and bad news. Good news-any engine fire was vanishing. Bad news-there had been a fire. Most likely it was in the undercarriage and Mac had escaped from the flame radius. Jack glanced around. He smiled. The first aid kit was still strapped to the back of his seat. He pulled it out and tied it to his pack.
He had been lucky. He knew it was unlikely Mac or Pete had been. Jack gulped. He scanned the rest of the helicopter and grinned. Mac's knife was jammed into a corner between the seat and the shell of the helicopter. Jack leaned forward. His hand circled the little red knife just as the bowl tipped, the tree snapped and Jack was falling.
"SHIIIIIIT!"
-Sorry to those who were following Rabbit, I decided it was turning into a story that wasn't what I wanted to tell. It is going to be completely rewritten and posted again, until then...
