Skull of the Zipa PREVIEW CHAPTERS by Chuck Chitwood (best book club books for discussion .txt) 📕

I am so tired and minutes that feel like hours pass as I trudge forward trying to keep track of all the sounds around me. The decline has been steady until I feel a major shift in the angle of the ground beneath my feet. I can barely keep myself upright. Thankfully, my foot lands on a broad, flat rock so I can stop.

Then for some reason, I don’t know, maybe it’s the sixth sense Uncle Ami is always talking about but I get the strangest feeling there’s great danger ahead of me. So I pause.

I carefully push through the foliage and stop again in terror. Terror because of what is… or rather is not in front of me. I’m standing on the edge of a cliff with a drop that must be at least a hundred feet straight down to a river below. I start to backpedal away from the edge grabbing limbs and vines to keep myself from falling. Small rocks and pebbles tumble over the edge to the river rapids below.

When I finally steady myself, I look out over the opening and see a giant waterfall that feeds the river below. And I also see a rickety wooden bridge that crosses the river. That’s where the road must lead. At least I know I’m still going in the right direction. I’ve got to keep moving. But I’m so thirsty and my muscles don’t want to help me. I need water. I have a power bar and some bread but no water. I can go for days without food but I won’t last a day without water.

The water in the river below looks dangerously tempting. No. No. No. I’ve seen all sorts of movies where people find running water and start lapping it up like a dog because it’s supposed to be cleaner and safer. But I’ve traveled enough to know that water outside the United States is sketchy at best and jungle waters might be teeming with parasites that eat you from the inside out. Stupid movies.

Racing down the road brings another thought into my head, Why is it that running through the jungle looks really cool in the movies? They never show the pain of lactic acid build up or dehydration or slip-sliding on muddy roads. Stupid, stupid movies. I’d like to see someone really running through a jungle in a movie, just once. They get breaks, and water, and have stunt doubles. Stop complaining, Haddie. No shortcuts.

With the rising of the sun the gnats have come out in full force. They must have some innate radar that draws them to human sweat. They swarm all over me; tiny buzzing, irritating monsters in my ears, up my nose, and in my eyes. I must have looked like an idiot swatting at the air with my hands while I ran down the road.

I close my mouth to keep them from making their way in and down my throat. The crazy thing is I probably need to be swallowing them down like candy because they’re loaded with protein. They can’t be that bad. After all, the locals offered us hormigas culonas last night at dinner at the trading post. When a little old lady placed a bowl of roasted black things in front of my face, I only asked what they were after I had popped a couple in my mouth because, stupid me, I thought they were big and looked like roasted peanuts. They weren’t.

Dr. Waters leaned over and told me I was eating - ants. Fortunately, they were fairly bland and crunchy. I tried imagining I was eating sunflower seeds or something.

Right about now, I’d love to be eating some hormigas culonas instead of gnats. I try pulling the front of my shirt over my mouth and nose, but it only throws my balance off and slows me down. So, instead of fighting a losing battle, I kick in the afterburners and run as fast as I can thinking I might be able to outrun the infernal flying little terrors.

The only thing I’ve heard so far is the sound of creatures in the jungle, my feet landing on the ground, and my breathing. But that all changes when I hear a cracking sound. What was that? Then I hear a succession of the same sounding short bursts through the jungle.

Gunfire? I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. After all my kidnappers must know by now that I’m gone. Pablo has to have gotten up and told someone. Unless he’s too ashamed to admit he was overpowered by a girl.

If that is gunfire and they are looking for me, I know I’ve managed to put five miles between me and the camp. They’ll be in their vehicles and that means I probably have fifteen or twenty minutes before they catch up to me.

I’ve lost sight of the waterfall but when I reach a place where the narrow dirt road turns back on itself because the mountain is so steep I stop and take a quick inventory of the situation. I can’t stay on the road. It might be easier but doing so will only waste time and put me a little ways further down the mountain. Besides, if they’re on the road when I happen to cross that one spot, they might see me and then all this running will have been wasted.

My options are limited. Stay on the road or get off the road. If I stay just out of sight so I can keep up with the road, I can put more distance between me and the kidnappers. No shortcuts.

Leaves crackle under my feet as I step off the road again. Small spindly branches with tiny thorns catch on my pants legs and I find myself having to grab the thorny things to keep from sliding. Jumping over fallen tree trunks and rocks reminds me of hurdles; I just have to make sure to plant each landing carefully, so I don’t twist an ankle. I can hear an engine roar and fade away somewhere up the mountain

The curves will slow them down, hopefully enough for me to keep working my way down. I have to keep going down even though it’s dangerous and tiring. If I fall out here, I might never get up.

As I move further down the mountain, the canopy and the humidity get thicker. But at least, I was running in the shade. I know there are all sorts of things out here that can kill me that are not human but I can’t think about that right now. Snakes, spiders, jaguars. I could die all sorts of terrible deaths.

I continue downward and push aside some huge banana leaves causing me to stop for just a minute to ponder grabbing some of the green things. But I’m not stupid. The bananas are far from ripe and could make me sick. However, if I can find some mangos or papayas, they can give my body some much needed liquid. After all, it doesn’t have to be water. Fruit is juicy and loaded with sugar – instant energy. I can use fruit.

I scan the trees as I move forward and downward. I would kill for a mango smoothie from Ye Olde Bagel Shoppe right now. After searching for a few minutes, I finally find one. And thankfully the greenish red fruit is low enough for me to jump and grab one.

Catching sight of my fingernails as I dig into the thing makes me sad. My beautiful manicure is totally ruined now. Sinking my teeth into the mango, the juices fill my mouth. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted a mango this good in my life. The flavors explode in my mouth as the juices ran down my chin. The liquid feels so good on my throat and the sugar jolt is just enough to help me pick up my pace through the underbrush. As I chew on the mango, trying to keep hold of it in one hand as I grab for branches and whatnot to keep from falling, I spot a patch of red dirt ahead of me through the trees. The road, far down the mountain is ahead of me. I know I’ve got to be getting closer to the bottom and the river.

In my excitement, I take another bite of the mango and suddenly I feel my feet fly out from under me. No. It’s more like the ground has disappeared under my feet.

I start rolling down a steep sloop, dropping at least eight feet. My mango flies out of my hand as limbs and branches slap at me. The little, thorny green branches scratch my face. I reach out to grab a limb but it breaks in my hand. I can’t stop sliding. Panic sets in as I grasp the passing limbs.

Even though I’m falling and everything is a blur, I see a bigger drop off ahead of me. I’m not slowing down. Digging my fingers into the dirt, I try to slow myself, but rocks and limbs just scrape my hands. I roll over on my back and dig my boot heels into the ground. The rubber heels grip the soil and send me spinning head over heels over the edge of a drop off. My body leaves the ground as I fall through the air not knowing how far I will fall or what I will crash into.

It’s just like one of my races, everything seems to slow down, outside noises fade away, and my vision narrows. The edge of the cliff is visible above me. I can see the rocks and vines that spill over the drop where I flew off the earth. Green leaves of all hues circle in the air around me. Then, just like that, all I can see is a small circle of blue sky above me as everything else turns black like spilled ink seeping over a white page. I lose consciousness.

Lying in a pile leaves on the jungle floor; I find myself somewhere between that fuzzy state of conscious and unconscious. My English teacher, Mrs. Groves told us that Edgar Allan Poe called that the ‘hypnogogic state.’ It’s when a person isn’t sure if they are awake or asleep, alive or dead. But since I’m thinking or at the least, dreaming, that must mean I’m alive, right?

My thoughts drift back to my first memories of going to Israel when I was ten years old. My father’s career hadn’t taken off yet. He still struggled to make ends meet, but he promised my mother we would spend the summer in Israel visiting her family. I think he maxed out all the credit cards to take us. The memory of flying into Tel Aviv is fresh in my mind…

Hundreds of people were in a giant holding room shoving each other as security checked our passports and asked questions. “Are you here for business or pleasure?” I guess that’s the first step in finding terrorists but I’m not sure how they can figure out who the terrorists are with those questions. Finally, we made it through and got our luggage.

Waiting for us was a little man with