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

I aim. I fire. Bam! Bam! Bam! Gunfire erupts through the jungle and echoes throughout the side of the mountain. A couple of shots hit the truck but nowhere near the tires. I see Santiago. He orders one of his men to get to the truck and move it.

I turn and shoot again. I am not a good shot. This is so much harder than on television. One of the guys races towards the truck. I pop off a couple more rounds. There’s loud pop, like a giant balloon being burst followed by the sound of a swoosh of air. YES! I finally hit the stupid tire. It’s a good thing, too. Because the rifle clicks and I realize I’m out of bullets. I toss the rifle as far away from myself as possible. When it lands, someone shoots in the direction of the gun.

All I can do now is run. So I take off… back towards the cliff. The silliest thought pops into my head. I think I’m going to insist that Uncle Ami teaches me how to shoot. Yes. Weapons training is a must this summer. I take a quick glance and see Pablo and another guy chasing after me. For a pudgy guy, Pablo moved pretty well and since he’s wearing boots that fit, he actually starts to gain on me.

But I know something Pablo doesn’t know. The cliff is directly ahead of me and before Pablo gets his hand on me, I hurl myself forward hoping I remember how to properly do the long jump. How hard can it be? It’s just like I’m jumping over a hurdle, sort of. A really, really wide hurdle with nothing below me except quicksand, moist ground, and people trying to catch me.

As I fly through the air, I hear Pablo screaming as he tumbles over the cliff. He might be a little faster than I’d expected but he’s not quite quick enough to stop on a dime. Even though I prepared myself to land, the ground came a lot faster than I thought it would and I only missed landing in the quicksand by about six inches but I landed safely. Although I’m sure my knees are going to hurt like mad later. I take off with a glance over my shoulder and see Pablo lying face first in the brown sludge. I spot Santiago and a couple of his men standing on the edge of the cliff. He is not pleased and starts shooting his pistol in my direction.

I duck my head and take off through the jungle which is where I really didn’t want to be but now I’m here and I have to deal with it. The others start firing into the jungle after me and I just keep running and can feel I’m running downward which is far easier than running uphill. You’d have thought they were in a heated battle because of the way the sound echoed through the valley. But I don’t think they’re actually shooting at me. After all, what good would I be to them dead? No, I think they’re firing blindly into the jungle to scare me. But it won’t work. And the more bullets they lose to the jungle, the sooner they’ll run out of ammunition.

Within a minute or two I’m too deep into the jungle for them to see or even hear me. The gunfire dies down to a single popping sound. I hear Santiago screaming, yelling out orders. They’re going to have a hard time getting to me now without their truck. As I run I think of the look on Pablo’s face when he realized he was stuck in the quicksand. And I start to laugh as I run through the trees down a steep vertical descent.

But after a few seconds of weird giddy laughter, I start to cry. I very nearly died… more than once in the last five minutes. Even if they weren’t shooting at me, I could’ve been shot. I could’ve missed on that jump. I could’ve landed in the oil sand or broken my leg or neck. That was without a doubt the single most stupid, dangerous thing I’ve ever done. Ever. The only thing that comforts me is knowing that deep down Uncle Ami would be proud of me. He had been with me the whole time, watching over me; making sure I was okay.

When I was little and would fall off my bike my dad would say, “Calm down, Haddie. You’re fine. Dry it up, kiddo. There’s too much to do today to waste it on tears.” Dad was right. There IS too much to do today to waste time crying. It’s time to run with purpose. Just like when I race, it’s time for me to narrow my focus and let the world fade away. The road is visible through the woods. My tears stop flowing. I see the destination before me. The shouting of my kidnappers fade with the increasing distance I put between them and me. They have a flat tire and two comrades trapped.

By the time my foot falls onto the red dirt road, I’m exhausted. I’ve been running since daybreak. I can’t place the sun in the sky because of the think canopy covering the road. I guess it has to be around noon because what little shadow I do catch of myself running is nearly under my feet, so the sun has to be directly overhead. But maybe since I’m running downhill that trick doesn’t work. Whatever. Sweat rolls down my body but I can’t stop now.

My feet pound steadily on the red dirt as I pace myself and make my way down the slanted road that weaves back and forth. Before long the only thing I can hear is the screeching of exotic birds and monkeys. Their wild sounds help me get my second wind. I stop pacing myself and run all out.

I turn a corner and am awestruck at the sight of a large waterfall that had carved the mountain canyon into the shape of a U. The road continues on the other side of the mountain with a rocky basalt cliff face on one side and a drop-off to the river below on the other. The bridge I’d spotted early into my getaway spanned the canyon over the river. It would make a romantic spot for a picture, if I was with someone special and wasn’t running for my life from a band of Colombian kidnappers. I cut to right and head off the main road and onto a less traveled road towards the bridge.

I hear the roar of a truck’s engine. Through the trees, I can see it getting ready to round the corner onto the straight leg of the U where I was. Seriously? Are they part of some Colombian jungle racing pit crew? Who changes a tire that fast? Or have I been running that long?

My wandering mind is startled back to reality when I hear gunfire. Not again. Before I realize it, I’ve made it to a rickety wooden bridge held up by ropes and metal cables. I have nowhere to go but across the bridge and I have to tell myself to not even think about how high up I am. Unfortunately, I don’t realize until I make it to the center of the bridge, that there is nowhere to go on the other side of the bridge. There used to be a road there but it’s totally overgrown and unlike the jungle, it’ll be difficult to run through it. You have got to be kidding me! Can this day get any worse? I look out across the expanse and see that the main road eventually links up to a different, sturdier looking bridge. Seriously?

With the truck barreling down on me I have to make a decision. Keep running to the other side of the bridge that goes nowhere where I’ll for sure be trapped. Or… I peer over the edge of the bridge. The waterfall at my back spills down the mountain; the rocks below it are razor sharp. The river is rushing. And the drop alone has to be somewhere close to seventy five to a hundred feet straight down.

Standing there like in the middle of the bridge a deer trapped in headlights, I watch the truck skid to a stop close to the edge of cliff. Rocks tumble over to the rushing waters below. I see the door open and Santiago steps out. He grabs a rifle from someone in the back bed of the truck. I stare at him for a moment as he raises the rifle’s site to his eye. Even though he’s far away from me, I can feel his black eyes locking on my eyes. He won’t really shoot me. He needs me.

Glancing up to the sky, I whisper a prayer. And I hope that for once my dad was wrong about this one thing. I prayed that there was a Creator and that he cared about me at this exact moment. I climbed onto the side rail of the wooden bridge. The railing sways beneath me and I glance at Santiago. He’s still aiming the gun at me but he’s not shot at me yet. He will not shoot me. I’m valuable to him.

Seeing the churning white foam rushing into the river below, I know I’ll have jump as far away from them as possible to clear the churning water. If I don’t, the force of the water will just keep me under.

This is it. Without hesitating, I jump and try to leap as far as I can downriver. And in the nick of time, too. Because I can hear what I am sure is the sound of gunfire over the roar of the falls as I plummet to the river below. He shot at me. I can’t believe he shot at me!

Skull of the Zipa – Book 1 in the Haddie Green Chronicles is Chuck Chitwood’s second novel with his first being a contemporary ‘Christian adult thriller written in the style of John Grisham using the backdrop of the story of Job. The Trial of Job written in 2000 and which has sold thousands of copies in the United States and abroad.

After a nearly fifteen year hiatus to focus on his family and his career, Chuck has decided to jump back into the writing arena. This time he has decided to focus his attention on creating a series for young adults filled with action and adventure that revolves a modern protagonist who is a positive role model for young adults in a time when there are fewer and fewer confident, strong, and determined characters for young adults to emulate.

If you would like to contact Chuck please feel free! He’d love to hear your comments. [email protected]