Her mind went blank. The brutal shock incapacitated her. Her blood was so thick with grief that her heart ached with the strain of beating.
A single word crept into her mind. JUMP!
Lyla struggled to her feet and gazed out across the expanse of the gorge. She peered over the edge down to the bottom where the twisting creek made its way through the rock. She couldn't see Jack's body and she was glad of it.
She had no future in this unforgiving world. One quick step off the ledge would finally put an end to her nightmare. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Just one step. And it will all be over.
A stiff breeze volunteered to help her make her decision, but reflexively she maintained her balance. She gulped down her inhibition and with resolve, slowly raised her foot. But before she had taken her final step, Lyla was interrupted by a curious sound. A guttural noise, like a wounded animal grunting. Was Keenan coming back to life? Were his flaccid lungs somehow filling with air?
Lyla advanced to the edge and peered down. Keenan's body lay motionless. She heard another faint sound. At the lower ridge where Jack had disappeared something was moving. She squinted.
They were Jack's fingers. His strong hand reached up to secure a grip. She could make out the top of his head. He must have been dangling by his fingertips from the edge, and now he struggled to climb his way up.
"Jack!" Lyla shouted. "I'm coming!"
She looped the rope around the tree and secured it with several tight knots then sat on the edge, wrapping the rope around her hands. She exhaled a long, shaky breath then cautiously lowered herself. She swung her feet, eager for the toes of her boots to make contact with solid rock as she descended. When her foot slipped, she slowed her pace and took small, careful steps.
She watched Jack fighting for his life. Gravity was eager to take him for a rapid ride to the craggy rocks piled at the base of the cliff. He locked his raw, swollen fingertips on narrow ridges in the rock formation, arduously battling his way up, his feet kicking to keep the devil at bay. He frantically flung his hand up at the rugged surface but his fingers could find nothing to grip. A split-second slip and he dangled from the lower ledge by one arm.
Lyla gasped. "Hold on, Jack!"
She inched her way toward Keenan's corpse and, more importantly, toward the tree branch. The putrid smell of rotting flesh repulsed her, but Lyla continued her journey downward, driven by Jack's soft cries, half pain, half fear. She averted her eyes from Keenan's revolting appearance and focused her attention on the branch now nearly within reach.
He swung his arm, this time finding a narrow notch where his fingers secured a grip in the nearly vertical rock wall. With both hands clinging to the unforgiving surface, he strained, pulling himself further up. He lay there for a moment, his face pressed against the baking cliffside, panting as he gasped for air. Attached by nothing more than his fingernails, he balanced precariously at an impossibly steep angle. A stiff breeze was all that would be required to dislodge Jack and send him plummeting off the edge.
With one hand clinging tightly to the rope, she extended the branch with the other.
He lunged forward, latching onto the branch. She gritted her teeth as the raggedy bark of the tree branch bit into her palm. He was heavy.
Hand-over-hand, he slowly climbed the branch until he clamped Lyla's wrist. There was no way she would let go, no matter how painfully her arm muscles burned.
At last, he found firm footing. Inch by careful inch he made his way up to the mouth of the crevasse, his arms scraped and bleeding. He'd sustained a gash to his forehead where his head struck the rock when he tumbled uncontrollably over the edge.
Jack's shoe slipped from under him. She grabbed a handful of his T-shirt, preventing him from toppling. Carefully, he climbed to the surface above the crevasse. Just below them lay Keenan's corpse, his cold lifeless eyes staring up at the gray sky.
She assisted Jack to a cutout in the rock where they lay against the rock wall, shoulder-to-shoulder. With their chests heaving, their lungs hungry for oxygen, Lyla and Jack looked out across the ravine. She leaned her head against his shoulder, exhausted, but relieved, and so grateful that she hadn't lost him.
He wrapped his thick arm around her and pulled her close. "Yeah, so that happened," he wheezed.
Despite the rotting corpse slouched in the crevasse only a few feet away, she couldn't help but smile.