Lyla closed her eyes, nuzzling her cheek against Jack's muscular shoulder. An air current carried the foul odor of Keenan's flesh decomposing under the heat of the late afternoon sun.
She scowled as she covered her nose. "God, that's horrible! Let's get out of here." She rose to her feet and dusted off the seat of her jeans. "Me first?" she asked.
"Once you get up there, I'll follow you up the rope."
She nodded and began the ascent, immediately reminded of the challenge of climbing the rope. She strained, feeling as though her body was filled with lead.
"Lemme help," he said.
He clamped her waist and lifted Lyla over his shoulders and then it got better. He cupped her butt with his strong hands and pushed her further up the rope.
The unexpected pleasure temporarily took her mind off the gruesome situation. She reached higher and seized the rope, her arm muscles beginning to burn. She remembered the familiar agonizing pain from gym class. Rope climbing, pull-ups, gymnastic rings exercises, she was terrible at all of them. Even Darcy, who had arms like pretzel sticks, had greater arm strength than Lyla.
"You gonna be okay?" He could see that she had begun to falter.
"Uh-huh," she barely managed, her face beet red.
"Use your legs," he coached. "Save your arms and shoulders."
Her arm muscles screamed and yet she had another ten feet of rope to climb. She refused to admit defeat, determined to show Jack that she was capable. The final few feet of the climb were the most difficult, but eventually, she reached the top.
It sucks to be a weakling.
She watched him start up the rope then turned when she heard something fall from the tree behind her. A thick black snake slithered in her direction. She darted backward. Another snake dropped from the branches. She let out a yelp and retreated.
"Lyla!" Jack shouted.
She'd nearly stepped blindly off the ledge.
"Snakes!" she howled.
Another larger snake hit the ground nearby. It raised its flat head, coiled its sinewy neck, and opened its jaws, baring the teeth lining its gaping pink mouth. She retrieved a branch and thrust it at the serpent. It wriggled away angrily hissing at her. A smaller snake landed on her shoulder. She shrieked and brushed it off.
When Jack climbed up onto the ledge to a frantic girl she buried her head in his chest.
"Look, it's just the rope," he said. The snakes had vanished. The end of the rope swung in the breeze, draped over the lowest branch. "The wind probably blew it up there."
She fumed, wild-eyed. "Like I don't know the difference between snakes and a damn rope?"
"Okay, okay. So where did they go?"
"This was a seriously intense situation I was dealing with. Like it was raining snakes."
He took a step back and looked up into the branches. "I don't see anything."
"I know what I saw," she hissed.
"I'm just sayin'..."
Clusters of heavy clouds slid across the face of the sun providing temporary relief from the brutal heat.
"So you okay to do this?"
She let out a long breath, calming herself. "Yeah, I'm fine."
He wrapped the rope around the tree trunk and offered the end to Lyla. He coiled the rope in his hands and braced himself a short distance from the edge.
"One,... two,... three." He tugged the rope. Keenan's body emerged from the crevasse. "Again," he grunted.
They dragged the corpse along the stone face of the hillside. Jack yanked the rope, Keenan's body moved closer. Another tug and Keenan's feet were now inches off the ground. Jack groaned, thrusting his body backward, digging his heels into the ground as he strained.
The cadaver was on its way up.