The Ruins (56 page)

 They
turned, looked at each other.

 Eric
ist
da
. Eric
ist
da
.

 "Oh
Jesus," Stacy said. "No."

 Eric
ist
gestorben
. Eric
ist
gestorben
.

 They
both began to run, but Mathias was faster. He was already in the
clearing by the time she reached it. She found him there, gesturing,
speaking the same word over and over again with great sternness. In his
fatigue and distress, he'd fallen back upon his native
language.
"Genug
,"
he kept
saying.
"Genug
."

 It
took Stacy a moment to understand that he was addressing Eric. There
was a ghoul in the clearing—that was what she first
thought—some new horror spawned from the mine's
mouth: blood-streaked, naked, wild-eyed, with a knife in its hand. But
no, it was Eric. He appeared to have stripped much of his skin off his
body. It was hanging from him in shreds; Stacy could see his leg
muscles, his abdominals, a glint of bone at his left elbow. His hair
was matted along the right side of his head, and she realized
he'd cut off his ear.

 Mathias's
voice rose toward a yell: "
Genug,
Eric!
Genug
!
" He was gesturing for Eric to set down the knife, yet it
seemed clear to Stacy that Eric wasn't going to do this. He
looked terrified, savage with it, as if it were some stranger
who'd been attacking him.

 "Eric,"
Stacy called. "Please, sweetie. Just—"

 Then
Mathias was stepping forward, reaching to yank the knife from
Eric's hand.

 Stacy
knew what was going to happen next. "No!" she
shouted.

 But
it was already too late.

O
nce Eric started, it had been
impossible to stop.

 First
there'd been that bulge in his calf, and that was easy:
he'd made a single short cut with the knife, and there it
was, right beneath his skin, a tightly coiled ball of vine, no bigger
than a walnut. He'd pulled it from his body, tossed it aside.
Then he'd started in on his forearm. This was when things
became a bit more complicated. He made a small incision where
he'd glimpsed the wormlike bulge, and
found…nothing. He probed with the tip of the knife, then
enlarged the bloody slit, drawing the blade in a smooth line from wrist
to elbow. The pain was intense—he was having a hard time
maintaining his grip on the knife—but his fear was worse. He
knew the vine was in there, and he had to find it. He kept cutting,
digging deeper, then moving laterally, pushing the knife beneath the
skin on either side of the incision, prying it upward, peeling it back,
until he'd managed to expose his entire forearm. There was
more and more blood—too much of it—he could no
longer see what he was doing. He tried to wipe it away with his hand,
but it just kept coming. His skin was hanging from his elbow like a
torn sleeve.

 There
was an abrupt clenching in his right buttock, as if a hand had grabbed
him there, and he pushed himself to his feet, dropping his shorts and
underwear, twisting to stare. He couldn't discern anything,
though, and was about to begin probing with the blade, when he felt
movement in his torso, just above his belly button, something shifting
slowly upward. He quickly switched his attention to this spot, slashing
at it with the knife. The vine was right beneath the surface here; a
long tendril tumbled forth, more than a foot of it, dangling from his
wound, twisting and turning in the air, blood running down it,
spattering into the dirt. The tendril was still attached to him, rooted
somewhere higher in his body. He had to draw the knife nearly to his
right nipple before the thing slipped free of him.

 Then
it was his left thigh.

 His
right elbow.

 The
back of his neck.

 There
was blood everywhere. He could smell it—a metallic, coppery
odor—and knew that he was getting weaker, moment by moment,
with its loss. Part of him understood this was a disaster, that he
needed to stop, needed never to have begun. But another part was aware
only that the vine was inside his body, that he had to get it out, no
matter what the cost. They could sew him up when they returned; they
could wrap him in bandages, tie tourniquets around his limbs. The
important thing was not to stop before he was through, because then all
this pain would be for nothing. He had to keep cutting and slicing and
probing until he was certain he'd gotten every last tendril.

 The
vine was in his right ear. This seemed impossible, but when he reached
up and touched the lumpy mass of cartilage, he could feel it there,
just beneath the skin. He wasn't thinking anymore; he was
simply acting. He began to saw at the ear, keeping the knife flat
against the side of his head. He'd started to moan, to cry.
It wasn't the pain—though that was nearly
unbearable—it was how loud it sounded, the blade tearing its
way through his flesh.

 Next
came his left shin.

 His
right knee.

 He
was peeling the skin back from his lower rib cage when Mathias
reappeared in the clearing. Time had started to move in a strange
manner, both very slow and very fast at once. Mathias was yelling, but
Eric couldn't grasp what he was saying. He wanted to explain
what he was doing to the German, wanted to show him the logic of his
actions, yet he knew that it was impossible, that it would take too
long, that Mathias would never understand. He had to
hurry—that was the thing—he had to get it out of
him before he lost consciousness, and he could sense that this terminus
was fast approaching.

 Then
Stacy was in the clearing, too. She said something, called his name,
but he hardly heard. He had to keep cutting—that was what
mattered—and it was as he was bending to do this that Mathias
rushed toward him, reaching for the knife.

 Eric
heard Stacy shout, "No!"

 He
was shaky—he didn't feel entirely in control of his
body—he was reacting by reflex. All he intended to do was
fend Mathias off, push him away, clear enough space to finish what
he'd begun. But when he threw out his hands to do this, one
of them was still holding the knife. It came as a shock, how easily the
blade punched into the German's chest, slipping between two
of his ribs, just to the right of his sternum, sticking there.

 Mathias's
legs gave out on him. He fell backward, away from Eric, and the knife
went with him.

 Stacy
started to scream.

 "
Warum?"
Mathias
said,
staring up at
Eric.
"Warum
?"

 Eric
could hear blood in Mathias's voice, could see it spreading
across his shirt. The knife's handle was moving back and
forth, jerking,
metronomelike
.
This was from Mathias's heart, Eric knew. He'd
shoved the knife straight into it.

 Mathias
tried to rise. He managed to sit up, leaning back on one hand, but it
was obvious that this was as far as he was ever going to get.

 "
Warum?"
he
said
again.

 Then
the vines were in motion once more, snaking quickly into the clearing,
grabbing at the German, coiling around his body. Stacy jumped forward.
She struggled to free him—she did her best—but
there were far too many of them.

 Eric
could feel himself fading. He had to sit, and he did so clumsily,
half-falling, dropping into a large puddle of blood—his own
and Mathias's. It was absurd, but he still wanted the knife,
would've crawled forward and pulled it from the
German's chest if only he'd had the strength. He
watched it jerk back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

 More
and more tendrils kept coming. Stacy was yanking at them, sobbing now.

 Soon
they'd be reaching for him, too, Eric knew.

 He
shut his eyes, only for an instant, but it was long enough. By the time
he opened them again, the knife had ceased its fretful twitching.

S
tacy sat with Eric, his head
resting on her lap. The vine had claimed Mathias's corpse,
dragging it away. She could still see his right shoe protruding from
the mass of green, but otherwise he lay completely covered. The
tendrils were quiet, motionless, just the occasional soft rustling as
they worked to consume his body.

 Stacy
couldn't understand why the vine wasn't slithering
forth to capture Eric, too. She wouldn't be able to defend
him—just as she hadn't been able to defend
Mathias—and she was certain the plant must know this. But all
it sent out was a single long tendril, which sucked noisily at the
immense puddle of blood that surrounded them, slowly draining it.

 It
left Eric be.

 Not
that there was any doubt as to where this would end: Stacy could see he
was dying. At first, it seemed as if it might be over in a matter of
minutes. Blood was seeping and dripping and running in thin strings off
him, pooling in the hollows around his clavicles, welling upward from
his deeper wounds. There was a strong smell coming off him, vaguely
metallic, which, for some reason, reminded Stacy of collecting coins as
a child, polishing pennies, sorting them by date.

 She
stroked his head, and he moaned. "I'm right
here," she said. "I'm right
here."

 He
startled her by opening his eyes: he peered up at her, looking scared.
When he tried to speak, it came out as a whisper, very hoarse, too soft
to hear.

 She
leaned close. "What?"

 Once
more, there was that faint whisper. It sounded as if he were saying
someone's name.

 "Billy?"
she asked.

 He
closed his eyes, dragged them open again.

 "Who's
Billy, Eric?"

 She
saw him swallow, and it looked painful. Breathing looked painful, too.
Everything did.

 "I
don't know a Billy."

 He
gave a slow shake of his head. He was concentrating, she could tell,
working to articulate the words. "Kill…me," he said.

 Stacy
stared down at
him.
No
,
she was
thinking.
No
,
no, no.
She was willing his eyes to drift shut again, willing
him to slip back into unconsciousness.

 "It…hurts…."

 She
nodded. "I know. But—"

 "Please…"

 "Eric—"

 "Please…"

 Stacy
was starting to cry now. This was why the vine had left him untouched,
she realized: it was to torment her with his passing. "You'll be okay. I promise. You just have to
rest."

 Somehow,
Eric managed a crooked smile. He reached, found her hand, squeezed. "Beg…
ging
…you."

 That
was too much for Stacy; it knocked her into silence.

 "The…knife…"

 She
shook her head. "No, sweetie.
Shh
."

 "Beg…
ging
…"
he
said. "Beg…
ging
…"

 He
wasn't going to stop, she could tell. He was going to lie
there with his head in her lap, bleeding, suffering, beseeching her
assistance, while the sun continued its slow climb above them. If she
wanted this to end—his bleeding, his suffering, his
beseeching—she would have to be the one to do it.

 "Beg…
ging
…"

 Stacy
carefully shifted his head aside, stood
up.
I'll
get it for him,
she was
thinking.
I'll
let him do it.
She moved to the edge of the clearing, stepped
into the vine; she crouched beside Mathias's body, parted the
tendrils. The plant had already stripped the flesh from his right arm,
all the way to his shoulder. His face was untouched, though, his eyes
open, staring at her. Stacy had to resist the urge to push them shut.
The knife was still protruding from his chest. She grasped it, tugged,
and it slipped free. She carried it back to Eric.

 "Here,"
she said. She put it in his right hand, closed his fingers over it.

 He
gave her that lopsided smile again, that slow shake of his head. "Too…weak," he whispered.

 "Why
don't you rest, then? Just shut your eyes
and—"

 "You…"
He was shoving the knife back toward her. "You…"

 "I
can't, Eric."

 "Please…"
He had her hand, the knife; he was pressing them together. "Please…"

 It
was over, Stacy knew—Eric's life. All he had left
here was torment. He wanted her help, was desperate for it. And to
ignore his pleading, to sit back and let him suffer his way slowly into
death, simply because she was too squeamish, too terrified to do what
so clearly needed to be done, couldn't this be seen as a sort
of sin? She had it in her power to ease his distress, yet she was
choosing not to. So, in some way, wasn't she responsible for
his agony?

 Who
am
I?
she
was
thinking once
again.
Am
I still me?

 "Where?"
she asked.

 He
took her hand, the one with the knife in it, brought it to his chest. "Here…" He set the tip of the blade so
that it was resting next to his sternum. "Just…push…"

 It
would've been so easy to pull the knife away, toss it aside,
and Stacy was telling her body to do this, ordering it into motion. But
it wasn't listening; it wasn't moving.

 "Please…"
Eric whispered.

 She
closed her
eyes.
Am
I still me?

 "Please…"

 And
then she did it: she leaned forward, shoving down upon the knife with
all her weight.

P
ain.

 For
an instant, that was all Eric was conscious of, as if something had
exploded inside his chest. He could see Stacy above him, looking so
frightened, so tearful. He was trying to speak, trying to
say
Thank
you
and
I'm
sorry
and
I
love you,
but the words weren't coming.