Читать книгу Dead Man Walking - Paul Finch - Страница 7

Heck had no clue how long he lay there for.

Firstly, because he was only semi-conscious. Secondly, because it was one of those slow disbelief moments, the sort people experience after emerging from terrible car crashes; when it seems somehow unjust that they’ve survived, when they probe gingerly and nervously around their limbs and body, increasingly baffled by the absence of extensive damage. Heck did exactly this, and though he discovered cuts and bruising, nothing appeared to be out of place. His vision was still obscured, but this time by broken stalks and tatters of brown leafage.

Heck rent all this aside as he sat slowly upright. He was still bathed in sweat, in fact his clothes were sodden, and it was noticeably chilling – aside from the warm stickiness caking the left side of his face. When he fingered this, he discovered that his left brow had split open. However, blood was only leaking out¸ suggesting even this wound was superficial. Still groggy, he gradually became aware of the jagged jumbles of rock underneath him, digging into his pummelled body, and of a distant ghostly voice calling his name from somewhere far overhead.

Despite the loose hillside shifting under his trainers, he rose painfully to his feet.

‘Mark!’ a frantic voice called again. ‘Mark!’

It actually sounded like two voices. Hazel and Gemma.

‘I’m okay!’ he tried to holler back, but he struggled to get enough air into his lungs. He took a second to compose himself – his back was hurting, his neck was hurting, his chest was hurting. Every damn part of him was hurting.

‘It’s okay,’ he bellowed, though the mere act felt as if someone had clobbered him in the ribs with a sledgehammer.

There was an abrupt, lingering silence, as they perhaps wondered if they were hearing things. ‘Mark …?’

‘I said I’m … I’m okay.’ Heck shook himself; just craning his head back to gaze upward was enough to send him dizzy, but at least the acoustics of the chasm enabled him to shout and be heard reasonably clearly. ‘Look, I don’t know how far down I am.’

‘You’re actually okay?’ That was Gemma. She sounded incredulous.

‘Think so …’

‘Anything broken?’

‘Not sure. Nothing that isn’t bruised, that’s for certain.’

‘Are you stuck?’

‘Seem to be at the top of a slope. I can probably work my way down from here, but I doubt there’s any way I can get up to you.’ There was another brief silence. He imagined them discussing the situation. ‘Does Hazel know where she is?’ he called up. ‘Can she work her way back into the Cradle?’

‘Yeah, I think so,’ Hazel replied. ‘You sure you’re okay?’ She didn’t sound as if she believed it either. ‘I thought you’d been killed for sure …’

‘No chance,’ he replied. ‘But you two may be. If he’s got a rifle, you’ll still be in range, so you need to back away from the edge. Make your way into the Cradle on foot. If nothing else, at least he’ll be off your back for the time being.’

‘But what’re you going to do?’

‘Same …’

‘Do you even know where you are?’

‘No, but heading downhill’s got to be a start.’