Chapter 11 teaser: MacGyver’s ears were still ringing with the shock of the crashing blasts, and bright sparks danced in front of his eyes. The world was upside down. That didn’t seem too odd – after the explosions, if anything, it seemed only right – but the world wouldn’t turn rightways up again.
Instead, it swayed. Something was swinging back and forth in front of his face, either above him or below him, depending on which way up was supposed to be. When he tried to lift a hand and move it out of the way, he realised the swinging thing
was his hand.
And the moving things, not that far beyond it, were feet. Hurrying feet. He was slung over someone’s shoulder, and the world was actually right ways up, but he wasn’t. The world was apparently still in one piece, and he was too. Sort of. He hoped.
There had been an eye-searing vision of clouds of fire, blooming and billowing up from the explosions, but the blazes had ebbed away and left the night even darker than before. This early in the dry season, the jungle would not succumb to fire – the rains had paused, but the tangled trees and looping vines and choking undergrowth were soaked down every morning by the heavy fogs from the river.
There had been a foul smell of chemical smoke in the air, but the night air bore no trace of that now, only thick scents of leaf and earth, of growth and rot. The heavy wet smell of the river was thickest of all, with a faint trace of old paint and machine oil that grew suddenly stronger as the floorboards of an open boat jumped up and thwacked him – mercifully, on his right side, although the impact jarred him all over. Mac bit back a strangled cry of pain. Wherever he was, making a lot of noise was probably a lousy idea.
Follow the link for the full chapter: Chapter Eleven: Demonstrative Or begin at the beginning:Chapter One: Present Imperfect