The Ruins (53 page)

 Round
and round he went like this, tilting first in one direction, then the
other, while the rain fell upon him and the darkness continued to
deepen. In the end—despite his hunger, his fatigue, his
anticipatory sense of failure—it was Jeff's
upbringing that finally triumphed, his New England roots asserting
themselves in all their asceticism, that deep Puritan reflex always to
choose the more arduous of any two fates.

 He
made his way slowly back down the trail to the bottom of the hill.

 And
it was exactly as he'd anticipated—the mist, the
rain, the gathering dark—he couldn't see more than
fifteen feet in any direction. If the Mayan with the makeshift poncho
was still on duty in the center of the clearing, he was hidden from
sight now. Which meant, of course, that Jeff, in turn, was equally
invisible. All he had to do was edge to his left, twenty yards, thirty
at the most; this would put him midway between the Mayans sheltering
beneath their tarp here and the ones at the next encampment. And then,
if he crept forward, cloaked in the darkness, the mist, the rain, he
might very well manage to reach the jungle unobserved.

 He
turned to his left, started walking, counting his strides in his
head.
One
…two…three…four…
The rain had already saturated the clearing, transforming its soil into
a deep, viscous mud that clung heavily to his feet. Jeff thought of his
earlier attempt to flee, that first night, when he'd tried to
sneak down through the vines, how the tendrils had cried out, alerting
the Mayans of his approach, and he wondered why the plant was remaining
so quiet now, so motionless. Surely it must've sensed what he
was intending. It was possible, of course, that this silence betrayed
how negligible Jeff's chances were, that the vine could
perceive the Mayans standing guard even through the darkness, the mist,
the rain, that it knew he'd never make
it—he'd either be turned back or killed. At some
remove within himself, Jeff could even grasp what this portended, could
recognize that the logical course, the sensible one, would be to
surrender now, to retreat up the hill to safety.

 Yet
he kept walking.

 Thirty
strides, and then he stopped. He stood there peering toward the jungle.
All he could hear was the rain slapping down into the mud. The wind
tugged at the mist, stirring it deceptively. Jeff kept pulling shapes
from the darkness, first to his left, then his right. Every cell in his
body seemed to be warning him to turn back while he still could, and it
baffled him why this should be so. Here, after all, was the moment
he'd been yearning for, was it not? This was escape; this was
salvation. How could he possibly renounce it? He tried to gird himself,
tried to imagine what it would feel like to be lying in that tent five
days from now as the hunger started to take hold, his body failing
beneath it, how he'd think back to this moment and remember
his hesitation here—the fury he'd feel with his
cowardice, the disgust.

 He
took a single step out into the clearing, then went still as another
shape materialized from the mist, quickly vanished. This would be the
way to do it, Jeff was certain—one cautious step at a
time—but he knew, too, that he wasn't equal to such
a path, that if he was going to venture this, he'd have to do
it at a run. He was too worn-out for any other method; his nerves
weren't equal to the challenge of the wiser, more wary
approach. The risk, of course, was that he'd end up charging
straight at one of the Mayans, stumbling directly into him. But perhaps
it wouldn't matter. Perhaps, if he were moving quickly
enough, he'd be past the man, vanishing once more into the
darkness, before a weapon could even be raised. All he had to do was
make it to the jungle and they'd never find him, not in this
weather—he was certain of it.

 Jeff
understood that if he kept thinking, kept debating, he
wouldn't do it. He either had to make the leap now,
immediately, or turn back. Perhaps this alone ought to have given him
pause, but he didn't let it. To turn back would be to accept
yet another failure here, and Jeff couldn't bring himself to
do that. He thought back to that long-ago riverbank, the rope slung
across his shoulder, the aplomb with which he'd plunged into
the current—the utter self-confidence—and he
struggled to reclaim that feeling, or some shadow of it.

 Then
he took a deep breath.

 And
started to run.

 He
hadn't gone five steps before he sensed motion to his left,
one of the Mayans rising to his feet, his bow before him. Even then,
Jeff might've still had a chance. He could've
stopped, could've turned back, smiling ruefully at the man,
hands high over his head. The bow had to be raised,
remember—it had to be drawn and aimed—so there
ought to have been plenty of time for Jeff to demonstrate how harmless
he was, how acquiescent. But it was too much to ask of him. He was in
motion now, and he wasn't going to stop.

 He
heard the man shout.

 He'll
miss,
Jeff
thought.
He'll
—

 The
arrow hit him just below his chin, piercing his throat, entering on the
left side, exiting on the right, passing completely through his body.
Jeff fell to his knees, but he was instantly back up on his feet,
thinking,
I'm
okay; I'm not hurt,
while his mouth rapidly filled
with blood. He managed three more steps before the next arrow struck
him. This one entered his chest, a few inches beneath his armpit,
burying itself almost to its fletches. Jeff felt as if he'd
been hit with a hammer. His breath left him, and he could sense that he
wasn't going to get it back. He fell again, harder this time.
He opened his mouth, and blood poured forth from it, a great surging
gush splattering down into the mud beneath him. He tried to rise, but
he didn't have the strength. His legs wouldn't
move; they felt cold and far away, somewhere behind him in the
darkness. Everything was becoming increasingly blurry—not
just his vision but his thoughts, too. It took him a moment to
understand what was grabbing at him. He thought it was one of the
Mayans.

 But
of course that wasn't it at all.

 The
tendrils had reached out into the clearing and were wrapping themselves
around his limbs now, dragging him backward through the mud. He tried
to rise once more, managed an awkward sort of push-up before the vine
jerked his left arm out from under him. He fell onto the arrow still
protruding from his chest, the weight of his body pushing it deeper
into himself. The tendrils kept tugging him toward the hillside. The
mud beneath him felt oddly warm. It was his blood, Jeff knew. He could
hear the vine sucking noisily at it, siphoning it up with its leaves.
There were figures looming on the far periphery of his vision, a
handful of Mayans, staring down at him, bows still drawn. "Help me," he begged, his voice making a gurgling
sound as it passed through the blood, which continued to fill his
mouth. His words were inaudible, he knew, yet he kept struggling to
speak. "Please…help…me."

 That
was all he could manage. Then a tendril covered his lips. Another
slipped wetly across his eyes, his ears, and the world seemed to shift
back a step—the Mayans peering down at him, the rain, the
warmth of his blood—one step and then another, everything
retreating, everything but the agony of his wounds, until finally, in
the last long moment before the end, all that remained was darkness:
darkness and silence and pain.

T
he rain continued into the
night, unabated. The tent's walls became saturated with it;
the dripping leaks steadily multiplied. A puddle of water soon covered
the entire floor, nearly an inch deep. The three of them sat in it
together, in the dark. It was impossible to sleep, of course, so Stacy
and Eric passed the time talking.

 Eric
begged her forgiveness, and she gave it to him. They leaned against
each other, embracing. Stacy slid her hand down to his groin, but he
couldn't seem to get an erection, and after awhile she gave
up. It was warmth she wanted anyway—figurative and
literal—not sex. His skin seemed colder than hers, though,
markedly so, and the longer they embraced, the more it began to feel as
if he were draining the heat from her own flesh, chilling her. When he
coughed suddenly, hunching forward, she used it as an excuse to pull
away from him.

 She
tried not to think about Pablo, but she couldn't stop
herself. It felt strange to sit there, knowing that the vine was
stripping the flesh from his bones, that he'd be a skeleton
before morning. Off and on, as the night progressed, Stacy started to
weep over this—over her part in it, her failure to protect
him. Eric comforted her as best he could, assuring her that it
wasn't her fault, that the Greek's death had been a
given from the moment he fell down the shaft, that it was a mercy for
it finally to be over.

 They
spoke of Jeff, too, of course, pondering his absence, probing at the
various possibilities it presented, returning obsessively to the
prospect of his having found a way to flee. And the more they discussed
it, the more obvious it began to seem to Stacy. Where else could he
possibly be? He was making his way back to
Cobá
even now; before the sun set tomorrow, they'd be rescued.
Yes. They weren't going to die here after all.

 Mathias
remained quiet through all of this. Stacy could sense him in the
darkness, four feet away from them; she could tell he was awake. She
wanted him to speak, wanted him to join in the construction of their
fantasy. His silence seemed to imply doubt, and Stacy felt threatened
by this, as if his skepticism might somehow have the power to alter
what was happening. She needed him to believe in Jeff's
flight, too, needed his help to make it true. It was absurd, she knew,
childish and superstitious, but she couldn't shake the
feeling, was growing slightly panicky in the face of it.

 "Mathias?"
she whispered. "Are you asleep?"

 "No,"
he replied.

 "What
do you think? Could he have escaped?"

 There
was the sound of the rain falling upon the tent, the steady dripping
from the nylon above them. Eric kept shifting restlessly about,
creating ripples in their little puddle. Stacy wished he would stop.
The seconds were ticking past, one after another, and Mathias
wasn't answering.

 "Mathias?"

 "All
I know is that he's not here," he said.

 "So
he might've run, then. Right? He
might've—"

 "Don't,
Stacy."

 This
caught her by surprise. She peered toward him. "Don't what?"

 "If
you let yourself hope, and then you're wrong, think how
terrible you'll feel. We can't afford
that."

 "But
if—"

 "We'll
see in the morning."

 "See
what?"

 "Whatever
there is to see."

 "You
mean, you think he might be—"

 "
Shh
.
Just wait. It'll
be light in a few more hours."

 It
was shortly after this that they heard Pablo's breathing
start up again. There was that ragged intake of air, that whistling
exhalation, then the pause before it all recommenced. Despite herself,
knowing better even as she did so, Stacy sprang to her feet. Mathias
had also risen; they brushed against each other as they both made their
way toward the tent flap. He grabbed at her, holding her wrist,
stopping her.

 "It's
the vine," he whispered.

 "I
know," she said. "But I want to make
sure."

 "I'll
do it. You wait here."

 "Why?"

 "It
wants us to see something, don't you think? Something
it's done to him. It's hoping to upset
us."

 Outside,
there was another rasping inhalation. It sounded exactly like Pablo;
even after all she'd witnessed here, it was hard to believe
that it wasn't him. But she knew Mathias was right, and knew,
too, that she didn't want to glimpse whatever it was the vine
had prepared for them out there beneath the lean-to. "Are you
sure?" she asked.

 She
sensed him nod. He let go of her wrist, moved to the flap, bent to zip
it open.

 Almost
instantly, as soon as he stooped out into the rain, the breathing
stopped. Then a man's voice began to shout. He was speaking
in a foreign language; it sounded like German to
Stacy.
Wo
ist
dein
Bruder
?
Wo
ist
dein
Bruder
?

 Stacy
sat back down. She reached for Eric's hand, found it in the
dark, clasped it tightly. "It's talking about his
brother," she said.

 "How
can you tell?" Eric asked.

 "Listen."

 
Dein
Bruder
ist
da
.
Dein
Bruder
ist
da
.

 Mathias
reappeared, the rain running off him, audibly dripping to the
tent's
puddled
floor. He zipped the flap shut, returned to his spot beside them.

 "What
happened?" Stacy asked.

 He
didn't answer.

 "Tell
me," she said.

 "It's
eating him. His face—all the flesh is gone."

 Stacy
could sense him
hesitating.
There's
something else,
she thought, and she waited for it.

 Finally,
very softly, Mathias said, "This was on his head. On his
skull."

 He
held something up in the darkness, extended it toward her. Stacy
reached out, warily took it from him. She moved her hands over it,
tracing its shape. "A hat?" she asked.

 "It's
Jeff's, I think."