I pulled into the parking lot, shut off the car, and took a deep breath. I could back out. I hadn’t told anybody yet. If I did it, I could brag about it; If I didn’t do it, then no one would know.
Skydiving.
It would be a tandem skydive with the instructor strapped to your back, guaranteeing a safe landing, a fall through the void with a knowledgeable companion. That’s what finally swayed me. If I froze up and couldn’t pull the rip cord, then my able, keen-minded buddy would have no problem doing it for me.
“Hey fella,” the muffled call came through my closed windows.
I opened the door and stepped out onto to the gravel parking lot.
“Larry, Loco Larry they call me. You can just call me Loco.” A tall bushy bearded red-headed bull of a man stuck out his hand.
I stuck out my hand and grasped his. He squeezed down like a vice, crushing my fingers together like a bundle of sticks. I wasn’t prepared for the aggressive handshake.
“Kenny.”
“What’s up Kenny? Are you ready for an experience of a lifetime. You’re never gonna forget this?”
“I’m ready…. I guess.”
He laughed, shaking his head from side to side. “Come one inside.”
I followed him up a small modular stairway into a little portable It reminded me of my high school algebra class, except there was only two desks in the entire room: one enormous office desk and one small elementary school desk. I knew my place and took a set in the cramped-up school desk.
“We’ll go over a few things in the classroom, practice a bit in the yard, and then hop on the plane.”
He walked over to the executive desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out some papers.
“First, you’ve got to sign some waivers. You know, your family can’t sue us if our parachute doesn’t deploy and our bodies are pulverized into the earth, leaving your face unrecognizable.”
He let out another boisterous laugh.
I chuckled a bit to demonstrate my appreciation of his dark humor.
“I’m just kidding man. I’ve had thousands of tandem jumps and never once had a problem.”
He handed me the papers and showed me where to sign.
“I mean you can read it if you want. It’s a bunch of boring ass legalize. I told you the gist of it.”
“I understand. I’ll sign. You only live once,” I replied.
“You’re damn right,” he said.
I didn’t dare glance at the contract, scribbled my signature and signed away my right to life and the pursuit of a hefty lawsuit. It was now my own damn fault if I died.
Larry snatched the paperwork out of my hands and tossed it on his desk.
“Alright, now listen up. We’re going to fly up to 13,000 feet. From there we’re going to jump. You’ll need to spread your arms and legs out wide, so as not to have an unbalanced surface area. If not, the air pressure against one side of your body is going to be greater than any other part of your body and we’re going to tumble through space and time. You’ll be disoriented. Alright, then at about 6,000 feet I’m going to let you pull the rip cord, and then we’ll steer around a little and when it’s time to land you’re going to pull down hard on the two toggles to slow our approach. Then we hit the ground, roll up our chute, and have a beer. Alright, let’s go outside and practice.”
“That’s it?’ I asked.
“Ain’t much more to it my friend.”
We walked outside to the yard behind the portable. There was a raised wooden deck about fifty yards from the portable. He climbed the stairway and motioned to me to follow him.
“Now go on out to the edge and jump off, spreading your arms and legs out wide, like a big ole giant X.”
I hastened up the steps and walked to the edge of the deck. I stopped and stared down at the ground.
“What are you waiting for? It’s only five feet off the ground.”
I started to have doubts. Do I really want to jump out of a plane with the responsibility of my life in the hands of man who proudly calls himself Loco Larry?
“Go man. I got to see your technique,” he yelled.
I jumped and spread my arms but not my legs.
“Not good enough. We’re going to tumble with your legs in tight like that. Damn, it looked like you were squeezing your nuts off. Spread them legs. Let in some air.”
I climbed back on the deck and jumped again, this time concentrating on my legs.
“Good, but now you went T-Rex on me. Little arms. Spread them arms.”
Time and time again I jumped but there was always something wrong. I lost count of how many times I had jumped. I was getting frustrated. Did I pay all this money just to be a dancing backyard ballet dancer.
After some time, I heard a sputtering engine gasping for air, churning its rusty old cogs against the force of failure. It sounded like a lawn mower engine with barely a drop of gas in its tank.
“Alright, the plane is ready.”
I looked over to my right. There was an old tan single-prop plane struggling out of the hangar. Its wing was straddled across the top of the plane.
“Come on let’s get outfitted and ready to go.”
“Did I perfect the technique?”
“Nah, but it’s good enough. I’ll do the rest.”
I didn’t feel too confident with his answer.
“Go on over to the plane and I’ll get our gear.”
I jogged over to the plane. The pilot opened his door and squawked out some words, but I couldn’t hear him.
“What?”
“Pete, my name is Pete.”
I waved at him. “Kenny,” I responded and pointed to myself as if I was talking to an ape with no understanding of the human language. There were no more attempts at conversation, since it would take too much effort, yelling over the droning of the dilapidated aircraft engine.
Larry bounced his way over to the plane carry a pack sack and two helmets. He slammed a red helmet over my head and handed me some safety googles. Then he tossed me a red and yellow one-piece polyester skydiving suit and a harness.
“Put it on the suit and harness and then we’ll hook up.”
After we got dressed in our gear Larry walked over behind me and grabbed me from behind. It was a violent embrace. He pulled me in tight and I could hear the fastening of metal buckles, the clicking together of two men as one unitized entity.
“Alright, let’s walk over to the plane.”
We lumbered together toward the plane as a clumsy, awkward Siamese twin born of two different mothers. We got to the plane and slowly climbed up into the plane.
We sat down on the floor and pondered the gravity of the moment.
“You might want to close the door,” hollered Pete.
Larry reached over my head and slid the door shut.
The plane moved out into the small runway. We accelerated and began liftoff. The plane rose steadily but then dipped violently back toward the earth. The pilot stabilized the course and leveled the plane to an acceptable ascent. Yet, ever so often the plane would dip again, causing my stomach to shift in my abdomen. After a few more minutes of erratic flight, I was more than ready to jump out of the plane.
Finally, the winged jalopy made it to 13,000 feet and Larry slid open the door. The air rushed immediately in and pounded against the interior of the plane. My heartrate increased, pushing hard against my chest. Larry scooted us across the floor to the edge of the door.
“You ready? When we push out remember to push out your arms and legs. Imagine yourself as the capital letter X. By the way, what do you do for a living?”
I was stumped. Was this a time for small talk? “I’m a dock worker. I load and unload freight in and out of trailers. Not very exciting.”
“I own a bar and bartend fulltime. In fact, I came straight over after a few shots. Got to get the blood pumping and ease your nerves if you’re going to jump out of a plane hooked up to an unsuspecting stranger.” He roiled in laughter, and I swear I could smell vodka in the mist of his jovial spittle.
He pushed us beyond the edge of the door and my legs dangled out beyond the plane and above the clouds. A tingle of nervousness shot up through my body.
“Alright, on the count of three we are going to shove out. When we do spread your arms and legs out like we practiced. At 6,000 feet I’ll show you my altimeter and that’s when you pull the rip cord.”
“Did we practice that,” I asked.
“I can’t remember. Don’t worry. It’ll be alright.”
Loco Larry, not the best with details.
“Ready, 1….2….3… jump.” Larry pushed us out of the plane. I spread my legs but forgot all about my arms. We flipped head over feet until Larry grabbed me by the wrists and yanked my arms out wide. We stabilized and began falling belly parallel to the ground. After about a minute, Larry deployed a smaller parachute.
“This smaller chute will slow us down, so when you deploy the main chute, our shoulders aren’t jerked out of our bodies.” More information I wish Larry would have told me beforehand.
“What the hell is that?” I heard Larry exclaiming to himself.
I looked over to my left and saw a tiny dot moving towards us. Adrenaline was coursing through my veins. My hands felt week. I was looking toward the ground and then back at the foreign object accelerating toward us.
As the dot got closer the silhouette of a person became apparent. Another skydiver was on a collision course with me and Loco Larry. I heard a high-pitch shriek, like that of an Eagle, but with a much more sonorous tone.
Larry grabbed my wrists and pushed them down to the sides of my thighs. He buried his forehead into the nape of my neck. I felt my stomach lift and we accelerated on a steep downward angle. I knew something was wrong and I surmised that Larry was trying to get us out of the path of the other skydiver.
I heard the shriek again. I peeked over my shoulder and I could clearly see that the other skydiver was not human. It was a grey figure with arms outstretched. The figure had a web of flesh extending from each wrist to its torso. It wasn’t an inerrant skydiver, but an alien species on the hunt. It wasn’t trying to avoid us. It was trying to catch us.
“Put your head down!” he yelled.
I did as he asked. I closed my eyes, hoping for the best, but even with all his efforts, we could not avoid the hunter. There was a violent collision. The shrieking grew in frequency, and I could feel a struggle on top of my body.
Larry was swinging his arms, struggling to push the beast off of him. We started tumbling through the air. I felt nauseous and vomited, the contents of my stomach splashing at a high velocity into my face.
I heard a loud snap and the weight on my body lightened. I saw the beast fly off below me at a lower altitude.
“Larry. You alright. Larry!”
There was no response. I spread my arms and legs out wide, trying to stabilize my descent. When I finally was falling in an appropriate manner, I peered back over my shoulder. I saw a stream of blood trailing behind me like a comet’s tail and slightly to the left was Larry’s decapitate head weaving left and right through the eddying currents of air.
I looked all around trying to spot my flying predator. I didn’t see it anywhere. The ground was coming up fast. I reached back to find Larry’s wrist. I pulled down one arm but there was no altimeter on that wrist. I grabbed for the other arm, but it was stubbornly flailing about so much so that I had a difficult time grasping the wrist. I finally caught a hold of the fabric of his sleeve and pulled it down. The altimeter was reading 4,000 feet. I soon realized why his arm was so difficult to grasp for as soon as I made my reading the arm separated from Larry’s body and began and floated away from me.
I was at 4,000 feet and I was supposed to pull at 6,000 feet and peacefully float to the ground. Should I pull now and risk the beast ripping through my parachute. I didn’t know when I would approach the altitude of no return, when I was too far down to land safely. I looked around again for the beast. I listened for its screams. The time was now. I had now choice. I was ignorant of the point of no return, something Loco Larry felt unnecessary to teach me.
The deceased Larry had no control of his body. His legs were spastically kicking against my calves and his headless torsos was bouncing up and down against my back at terminal velocity. My whole body was aching from Larry’s involuntary beating.
I reached up for the rip cord and pulled down. The parachute deployed and jerked me into graceful disposition, falling gracefully to the garden of Eden. I felt relaxed for a moment until I realized that there was a headless corpse strapped to my back. Then I heard the shriek again. I was defenseless. I looked to my right, nothing there. I looked to my left, nothing there. I looked up and through the thin fabric of the parachute I saw the shadow of a descending demon. It landed on top of my parachute. It bent down and exhibited a hideous deformation. I started spinning and falling faster. I could see the beast trying to claw its way through. It the bounced off to the side and floated out parallel to the top of the parachute.
The beast had an uncanny ability to descend and ascend at will. It would contort its body in a certain to position itself where it needed to be. The beast descended to the same level that I was at. It turned its head and growled. I could see its read eyes and razor-sharp teeth. Somehow it started moving sideways towards me, moving closing, snarling ever more wickedly as it got closer. I noticed that it had long sharp fingernails and it was clinching its hands in and out working itself into a frenzy of madness, ready to tear me apart.
The parachute caught a burst of air and extended out to its full circumference. I slowly stopped spinning but the beast was now only a few feet away. I decided then and there that my only option was to bite, and to bite hard. I had no weapon, not even a make-shift shiv I could use to defend myself.
The beast gravitated towards me and then grabbed me by the wrist. I moved my hand around, countered, and grabbed its wrist. I pulled the beast towards me, bear-hugged it around its chest, and bit down into its neck. I felt its frigid blood stream down into my throat. There was a thrashing about, but I bit down even harder, refusing to release my grip. It bellowed out continuous shrieks, but these were tinged with fear and surprise, less confident than the beast’s earlier proclamations. I felt certain I was deep in the jugular, and began to try and rip apart its flesh, but it was thick and coarse, and I couldn’t penetrate much further. I gave up and shoved the beast away from me. Its body was limp and floated lifelessly away from me.
The fight had preoccupied my attention and when I looked down, I realized I wasn’t far from the ground. I quickly grabbed the two toggles and pulled down hard. I was weak and my arms felt powerless, but I was able to slow my descent enough to land without much chaos. I tumbled and rolled over Larry’s body. The parachute dragged us through the brown dusty grass for about three feet before we stopped. The parachute deflated and slowly fell to the ground.
The beast’s body fell for a while until it regained consciousness It suddenly stopped and hovered above me. It wouldn’t descent any further as if it was afraid to touch the ground. It stared at me and gave me a fierce look of hatred. It was communicating to me an accentuated sense of resentment, barking, growling, and shrieking, as if to say that it wanted revenge. It was usually only a hunter, but in this case it became personal.
When the beast was finished expressing its hostility, it became quiet, its eyes glowed a brighter red, and then it quickly shot up into the atmosphere.
“Fuck you,” I murmured to myself. I unbuckled my harnesses and let Larry’s body fall to the ground. There was no more blood flowing from his neck. I rationalized that maybe the fall had thrust all of the blood out of his exposed veins and into the atmosphere. Somewhere miles away clouds were going to bleed the essence of Loco Larry out onto the fields of rural America.
At that point it was obvious to me that this was my first and last escapade into skydiving.