Endless Night by Richard Laymon

the wall. Then her legs started coming down behind her. The rate they were moving, she figured her heels might be the first part of her body to strike the ground.
    But her legs kept dropping even after she sensed that her body was stretched out level. They swept lower and lower. Then her rump smacked the steep ground, mashing crisp and prickly weeds, bouncing, throwing her forward in a headfirst somersault down the slope.
    A tree pounded her shoulder, knocking her sideways, turning her tumble into a quick, wild roll. She flipped and flipped. She tried to spread-eagle, hoping that outstretched arms and widespread legs would stop her, but the ground battered her arms out of the way and knocked her legs together and she kept on spinning downward like a log. Once, she grabbed a handful of weeds. Their roots popped from the soil. Later, something gouged her side. Finally, the ground dropped out from under her.
    A freefall made her heart lurch with dread.
    But the fall only lasted a moment. She landed on her back on a bed of rocks that rolled and clattered as Jody’s momentum slid her across them and flipped her over one last time.
    For a while, the world seemed to go on tilting and swaying. Then it settled down.
    She lay there, huffing, her heart slamming.
    I’ve gotta get up, she told herself. Gotta get up and run. They’re gonna be coming. They’ll kill me ...
    She didn’t hear them coming, though.
    The wall’s way up there, she thought. Way, way up there. If those guys didn’t have the nerve to jump off the balcony, what’re the chances they’ll make a try at this?
    Who knows?
    If I hear them coming, I’ll get up and run. But not till then.
    For now, she didn’t want to move. Not even to fix her nightshirt.
    The fall had twisted her nightshirt and rucked it way up, leaving her naked below the midriff. She didn’t like it. Bad enough that her butt showed, but she didn’t enjoy having her bare front against the ground. God-only-knew-what might be there. Bugs, spiders, worms, snakes ...
    All she could feel under her body, however, were rocks. Some small as marbles, some big as baseballs, some round, some blocky, some pointy—each of them pushing against her someplace. They were under her legs and groin and hips and belly and ribs and breasts and arms and face. In some places, they hurt more than in other places. Nowhere did they feel good.
    With an effort that made her dizzy, she moved her arms away from her sides and folded them under her head. She pillowed her cheek on a forearm.
    Better.
    But she still ached everywhere. The rocks weren’t the worst of it, either. Her skin seemed to bum with countless harts. Beneath her skin, her muscles everywhere quivered and jerked and flinched. Under the muscles, her bones seemed to ring from the pounding they’d taken.
    Just to make sure her legs weren’t broken, she moved them slightly. The rocks beneath them rolled a bit. Some scratched her skin. The movement hurt her in many ways. It convinced her, though, that she’d broken no bones in her legs.
    Broken bones.
    Andy! Where’s Andy?
    Slowly, Jody lifted her face off her crossed arms. She swiveled her head.
    The area was very dark, but specks and patches of moonlight glowed here and there. She seemed to be lying on a path of rocks. Its sides were bordered by steep banks a few feet high.
    A creek bed. A dry creek bed.
    Up ahead, where she could see over the banks, the place looked like a jungle.
    This is okay, she thought. This is really good.
    They’ll never find us here.
    She knew that she had to find Andy, though. Lowering her head, she rested for a while longer. Gradually, her breathing and heartbeat calmed down.
    While she waited, she listened. She heard birds twittering and squawking, cars passing on a distant road, the far-off hum of a prop airplane, a door banging shut, a dog yapping, music and voices that apparently came from a television.
    She did not hear anyone crunching through the foliage on the