The Ruins (54 page)

 Stacy
knew he was right—immediately—yet didn't
want to believe him. She searched for another possibility, but nothing
came. The hat was saturated with water; it felt heavy. She had to
resist the temptation to throw it aside. She leaned forward, handed it
back to Mathias. "How did it get there?" she asked.

 "The
vine must've, you know…"

 "What?"

 "It
must've taken it and passed it up the hill from tendril to
tendril, then set it there, and called us out to find it."

 "But
how did it get it? In the first place, I mean. How did
it—" She stopped, the answer coming to her even as
she asked the question—so obvious, actually. She
didn't want to hear Mathias say the words, though, so she
veered in a new direction, straining to assert a different possibility.
"Maybe he dropped it. Maybe as he was running across toward
the trees, he—"

 The
voice from the clearing interrupted her, calling out
again:
Dein
Bruder
ist
gestorben
.
Dein
Bruder
ist
gestorben
.

 "What's
it saying?" Eric asked.

 "First,
it asked where
Henrich
is," Mathias replied. "Then it said he's
here. Now it's saying he's dead."

 
Wo
ist
Jeff?
Wo
ist
Jeff?

 "And
that?"

 Mathias
was silent.

 Jeff
ist
da
. Jeff
ist
da
.

 Stacy
knew what it was saying—it was easy enough to
guess—but Eric hadn't made the leap. "It's something about Jeff?" he asked.

 Jeff
ist
gestorben
. Jeff
ist
gestorben
.

 Eric
squeezed her hand, tugging at it. "Why won't he
tell me?"

 "It's
the same thing, Eric," Stacy whispered.

 "The
same thing?"

 "It's
asking where Jeff is. Then saying that he's here. Saying that
he's dead."

 Outside,
the voice multiplied suddenly, surrounding them, spreading itself
across the hilltop. It became a chorus, which steadily rose in volume,
chanting:
Jeff
ist
gestorben
…. Jeff
ist
gestorben
….
Jeff
ist
gestorben
….

T
he rain stopped just before
dawn. By the time the sun began to rise, the clouds had already started
to thin and part. Eric and Stacy and Mathias emerged from the tent at
the first hint of light—hesitantly,
stiffly—surveying the night's damage.

 The
vine had spread over the backboard, covering it, completely burying
Pablo's remains. Half a dozen tendrils had pushed their way
into the blue pouch, draining whatever water it had managed to capture
during the storm. And Amy's bones had been dragged free of
the sleeping bag, scattered haphazardly across the clearing. Eric
watched Stacy move about with a dazed expression, stooping to collect
them. She laid them in a small pile beside the tent.

 Eric
had developed a cough during the night, a deep-
chested
,
hacking sort of bark. His head ached; his clothes were wet, his skin
chapped from sitting in the puddle. He was hungry, exhausted, cold, and
found it hard to believe that any of this would ever change.

 Mathias
crouched beside the backboard, started to pull the vines from
Pablo's corpse. Eric was tired enough that he
didn't feel quite awake; everything had once again taken on
that faraway quality, both comforting and frightening. So when he idly
scratched at his chest and felt the bulge there, lurking just beneath
his skin, he reacted with a remarkable air of calm. "Where's the knife?" he asked.

 Mathias
turned to glance at him. "Why?"

 Eric
lifted his shirt. It looked much worse than it had felt, as if a large
starfish had somehow surfaced between his rib cage and his skin. And it
was moving, too, inching slowly but visibly downward, toward his
stomach.

 "Oh
my God," Stacy said. She turned away, covering her mouth with
her hand.

 Mathias
rose to his feet, stepped toward him. "Does it
hurt?"

 Eric
shook his head. "It's numb. I can't feel
it." He showed him, pushing at the bulge with his finger.

 Mathias
scanned the clearing, searching for the knife. He found it lying near
the tent, half-buried in the mud. He picked it up, tried to wipe some
of the dirt off its blade, rubbing it against his jeans. They were
still wet, and the knife left a long brown streak across them.

 "It's
down there, too," Stacy said. She was pointing at his right
leg, but with her gaze squeamishly averted.

 Eric
bent to look. And it was true: there was a snakelike lump winding its
way upward from the top of his shin to his inner thigh. He touched it
hesitantly; it also felt numb. The swelling coiled almost completely
around his leg, starting in front, then angling up behind his knee,
before stopping just short of his
groin.
I
should be screaming,
Eric thought, but for some reason he
maintained that lofty sense of distance. Stacy was the one who appeared
most upset; she couldn't seem to meet his eyes.

 Eric
held out his hand for the knife. "Give it to me."

 Mathias
didn't move. "We have to sterilize it,"
he said.

 Eric
shook his head. "No way. I'm not waiting for you
to—"

 "It's
dirty, Eric."

 "I
don't care."

 "You
can't cut into yourself with something
this—"

 "Jesus
Christ, Mathias. Would you fucking look at me? Do you really think
it's an infection I have to worry about? Or gangrene? Either
somebody comes and rescues us within the next day or two or this
shit's
gonna
kill me. Can't you see that?"

 Mathias
was silent.

 Eric
held out his hand again. "Now give me the fucking
knife."

 Jeff
wouldn't have done it, Eric knew. Jeff would've
gone by the book, would've gotten out the soap and water,
would've built the fire, heated the blade. But Jeff
wasn't there any longer, and it was Mathias's
decision now. The German hesitated, staring at the starfish in
Eric's chest, the snake coiled around his leg. Eric could see
him making his choice, and he knew what it would be.

 "All
right," Mathias said. "But let me do it."

 Eric
took off his shirt.

 Mathias
glanced about, appraising the muddy clearing. "Do you want to
lie down?"

 Eric
shook his head. "I'll stand."

 "It's
going to hurt. It might be easier if you—"

 "I'm
okay. Just do it."

 Mathias
started with his chest. He made five quick incisions, in the shape of
an asterisk, directly above the starfish-shaped bulge, then reached
inside and slowly pulled the vine from Eric's body. There was
an astonishing amount of it; Mathias had to tuck the knife in his back
pocket, then use both hands to drag the slimy mass free. It emerged
thrashing, covered in half-clotted blood. The pain was
intense—not the cutting, but the drawing forth—it
felt as if Mathias were ripping out some essential part of
Eric's body, a vital organ. Eric thought of those images from
Jeff's guidebook, the Aztecs with their long knives, yanking
the still-beating hearts from their captives' bodies, and his
legs almost buckled. He had to grab Mathias's shoulder to
keep from falling.

 Mathias
tossed the writhing mass aside; it landed with a wet sound in the mud,
coiling and uncoiling. "Are you okay?" he asked.

 Eric
nodded, let go of Mathias's shoulder. Blood was streaming
down his torso, running into the waistband of his shorts. He balled up
his T-shirt, pressed it to his wound. "Keep going,"
he said.

 Mathias
lowered himself into a crouch, drew the knife in one smooth movement up
and around Eric's leg. Again, it wasn't the
incision that hurt; it was when Mathias reached in and pried the vine
from his flesh. Eric cried out: a moan, a howl. It felt as if he were
being flayed. He dropped heavily to the ground, landing on his rear
end. Blood was pumping thickly from his leg.

 Mathias
held the tendril up for him to see. This one was much longer, its
leaves and flowers more developed, almost full-sized. It twisted in the
air, seemed to lift toward Eric, reaching for him. Mathias threw it
into the mud, stepped on it, crushing it—the first one, too.

 "I'll
get the needle and thread," he said, and he started for the
tent.

 "Wait!"
Eric called. "There's more." His voice
emerged shaky and thin; it frightened him how weak he sounded. "It's all up and down my leg. It's in my
shoulder, my back. I can feel it moving." It was true, too:
he could feel it everywhere now, lying just beneath his skin, like a
muscle, flexing.

 Mathias
turned to stare at him, one step short of the tent. "No,
Eric," he said. "Don't start."
He sounded tired; he looked it, too—slumped and sunken-eyed. "We have to sew you up."

 Eric
was silent—dizzy suddenly. He knew he didn't have
the strength to argue.

 "You're
losing too much blood," Mathias said.

 For
a moment, it seemed to Eric as if he might faint. He lowered himself
carefully onto his back. The pain wasn't diminishing. He shut
his eyes, and the darkness waiting for him there was full of color: a
bright, flickering orange deepening toward red at the margins. He could
feel the voids the tendrils had left behind in his chest and
leg—somehow this seemed central to his pain, as if his body
were experiencing the vine's removal as a sort of theft, as
if it wanted it back.

 He
heard Mathias entering the tent, then returning, but he
didn't open his eyes. He watched the colors pulsate in the
darkness, saw how they jumped in brightness when the German bent over
him and began to stitch shut the wound on his leg. There was no talk of
sterilizing the needle; Mathias simply set to work. The incision was a
long one; it took him some time to finish. Then he gently pushed
Eric's hands aside, lifted the blood-soaked T-shirt away, and
started in on his chest.

 Eric
grew slowly calmer. The pain didn't lessen, but that familiar
sense of distance was returning, so that it almost began to feel as if
he were observing his body's distress rather than inhabiting
it. The sun had climbed free of the horizon now—it was
becoming hot—and this helped, too. He finally stopped
shivering.

 Stacy
was on the far side of the clearing; Eric could hear her moving about
there. It seemed to him that she was avoiding him, that she was afraid
to come near. He lifted his head to see what she was doing, and found
her crouched over Pablo's pack. She pulled the remaining
bottle of tequila from it. "Does anyone want any?"
she called, holding it up.

 Eric
shook his head, then watched as she bent to peer into the pack again.
Apparently, there was an inner pocket. He heard her unzip it. She
rummaged about inside, lifted something out. "His name was
Demetris
," she said.

 "Whose?"
Mathias asked. He didn't glance up from his stitching.

 Stacy
turned toward them, holding a passport. "Pablo's.
His real name.
Demetris
Lambrakis
."

 She
rose, brought the passport across the clearing. Mathias set down the
needle, wiped his hands on his jeans, took it from her. He stared at it
for a long moment without speaking, then handed it to Eric.

 The
photo inside showed a slightly younger Pablo—a bit plumper,
too—with much shorter hair and, absurdly, a mustache. He was
wearing a jacket and tie; he looked as if he were trying not to smile.
Eric noticed—again, as though from some great
distance—that his hands were shaking. He gave the passport
back to Stacy, then lowered his
head.
Demetris
Lambrakis
.
He
kept repeating the name in his mind, as if trying to memorize
it.
Demetris
Lambrakis
…
Demetris
Lambrakis
…
Demetris
Lambrakis
…

 Mathias
finished with the stitching. Eric heard him move off toward the tent
again. When he returned, he was carrying the can of nuts. He opened it
and divided its contents into three equal piles, counting them out nut
by nut, using the Frisbee as a platter. Mathias was in charge now, Eric
realized. All three of them seemed to have agreed upon this, without
anyone needing to discuss it.

 Eric
had to sit up to eat, and it hurt to do so. He spent a moment examining
his body. He looked like a rag doll, handed down through generations of
careless children, sewn and
resewn
,
its stuffing leaking between the seams. He couldn't see how
he was ever going to make it home from here, and this reflection
settled,
siltlike
,
inside him. He felt himself growing heavy with it, resigned. But his
body didn't appear to care; it continued to assert its needs.
The mere sight of the nuts filled him with a fierce hunger, and he ate
them quickly, shoving them into his mouth, chewing, swallowing. When he
was finished, he licked the salt from his fingers. Mathias offered him
the plastic jug, and he drank from it, conscious of the vine once more,
shifting about within him.

 The
sun kept climbing higher, growing stronger. The mud was beginning to
dry in the clearing, their footprints solidifying into small
shadow-filled hollows. All three of them had finished their rations,
and now they sat in silence, watching one another.

 "I
guess I should go look for Jeff," Mathias said. "Before it gets much hotter." The idea seemed to
cause him great fatigue.