The Ruins (21 page)

E
ric woke, briefly, as Jeff
moved past the tent. He lay on his back, wondering where he was. He was
thirsty and his leg ached, and it was darker than it seemed like it
ought to be. Then it came to him, everything, the whole day, all in a
flash. The Mayans with their bows, his descent into the shaft, Amy and
he tossing Pablo's body onto the backboard. This last bit was
too much for him, too horrible; he shoved the image aside, feeling
wretched.

 Stacy
had rolled away from him, and he could hear someone snoring on the far
side of the tent. Mathias, he supposed. He wondered what time it was,
how Pablo was doing, and thought about getting up to check on him. But
he was too tired; the impulse came and went, and then his eyes were
drifting shut again. He slid his hand in under the waistband of his
boxers, scratched at his groin; it felt sticky. Only then did he
remember Stacy jerking him off. There was something else down there,
too, in the darkness, something soft, tentative but insistent, like a
spiderweb
, brushing against his
leg. He tried to kick it away, rolled onto his side, slipped back into
sleep.

J
eff headed straight through
the vines, angling downhill. The Mayans had built fires all along the
margin of the clearing, evenly spaced, and close enough together so
that the light from one merged into the light of the next. But there
were two that were just slightly farther apart, with a narrow strip of
shadow between them. It wasn't much; Jeff knew it
wouldn't be sufficient on its own. There'd have to
be another factor to help him, a lapse in vigilance, one of the Mayans
drowsing, perhaps, or two of them talking quietly together, telling a
story. What he needed was ten seconds, maybe twenty, time enough for
him to approach the clearing, cross it, then vanish into the jungle.

 It
was harder to move through the vines than he'd anticipated.
They grew knee-high in most spots, but in some stretches they climbed
almost to his waist. They clung to him as he passed, tangled their
tendrils about his legs. It was slow going, and arduous,
too—he kept having to stop to catch his breath. He knew
he'd need to conserve his strength for the bottom of the
hill, in case it came to a sprint, him crashing through the jungle, the
Mayans yelling, pointing their bows toward him, the hiss of their
arrows.

 It
was after one of these pauses, when he started forward again, while he
was still only halfway down the hill, that the birds began to cry out,
screeching, marking his passage through the vines. Jeff
couldn't see them in the darkness. He stopped walking, and
they fell silent. But then, as soon as he took another step, they began
to call again. Their cries were loud, dissonant; there seemed to be a
whole flock of them nesting on the hillside. Jeff had a sudden memory
of himself as a child, visiting the birdhouse at the zoo, his fear of
the noise, the echoing, the abrupt
flappings
.
His father had pointed to the wire net hanging from the ceiling far
above them, had struggled to calm him, but it hadn't been
enough for Jeff; he'd cried, made them leave. There was no
point in going on, Jeff knew: the Mayans would know he was coming now.
But he continued downhill anyway, the shrieking of the birds following
him through the darkness.

 As
he neared the bottom, he saw the Mayans waiting for him. There were
three men standing by the fire on the left, two by the one on the
right. One of them had a rifle; the others had their bows out, arrows
nocked
. Jeff hesitated, then
stepped out into the margin of cleared ground, the light from the fires
flickering softly off his body. The men with the bows didn't
seem to be looking at him; they were scanning the hillside above, as if
they expected the others to be coming, too. The man with the rifle
raised it, aimed it at Jeff's chest. In the same instant, the
birds fell silent.

 The
Mayans were standing with their backs to the fires—to
preserve their night vision, Jeff assumed. Their faces were shadowed,
so he wasn't certain if they were the same men
who'd confronted them earlier, or some more recent arrivals.
There was a large black pot hanging on a tripod over the fire to the
right, steam rising thickly from it, the smell of chicken stewing,
tomatoes. Jeff's stomach stirred hungrily; he
couldn't help himself: He stood for a long moment, staring at
the pot. Someone was singing softly in the shadows beyond it, a
woman's voice, but then one of the bowmen whistled shrilly,
and the singing stopped. No one spoke. The Mayans watched him, waiting
to see what he might do.

 Jeff
wished he could speak to them, ask them what it was they wanted, why
they were keeping him captive on this hillside, what it would take to
purchase his freedom, but he didn't know their language, of
course, and doubted, somehow, that they would deign to answer him even
if he did. No, they'd just keep staring, weapons raised,
waiting. Jeff could either stride bravely toward them and be shot like
Mathias's brother or turn and make his way slowly back up
through the vines, the shrieking birds, the darkness. There was no
other option.

 So
he started back up the hill.

 The
return was much easier, too, for some inexplicable reason, than his
descent had been. There was the exertion of the climb, of course, the
impeding pull of gravity, but the vines caused him much less difficulty
now, seeming almost to part for his passing, rather than grabbing and
snaring at his legs. And, even more puzzling, the birds remained
silent. Jeff wondered about this as he made his way higher up the
hillside. It was possible, he supposed, that they'd flown off
while he and the Mayans were standing at the base of the hill, in their
mute confrontation, but if so, he couldn't understand why he
hadn't heard their wing beats. And why hadn't he
noticed the birds earlier, too, while it was still day? There had to be
quite a few of them, judging by the volume of their calls as
he'd made his way down the hill, and it seemed strange that
he wouldn't have registered their presence. The only
explanation he could think of was that they'd arrived at
dusk, while he and Mathias were too busy raising Pablo from the shaft
to take note of them. Obviously, the birds spent their nights here,
though, which would mean he'd be able to find their nests in
the morning. And their eggs, too, perhaps. At the very least,
he'd be able to string up some snares to catch the adult
birds, and Jeff found a measure of relief in this. They could distill
their urine and gather dew and hope for rain, yet none of that was
going to help them feed themselves. Jeff had been postponing
confronting this problem, not wanting to think of it because
he'd sensed he wouldn't find a solution, and now,
like an unexpected gift, one seemed to have presented itself.

 They'd
have to use something thin, he thought, but strong, like fishing line.
He was too tired, though, to think beyond this point. It
didn't matter; they had plenty of time. All he needed to do
now was get back to the tent, drop into sleep. In the morning, when it
grew light, he was certain that everything would be clearer: the many
things that still had to be done, and the ways in which he ought to do
them.

S
tacy had the third shift. Amy
roused her, jostling her shoulder, whispering that it was time. Stacy
was thirsty, open-eyed but still not quite awake; it was too dark
inside the tent to see. She could tell that Eric was still lying there,
with his back to her, and then there was Amy crouching over her,
shaking her, and then Jeff and Mathias. The boys were all asleep.
Mathias was snoring softly.

 Amy
kept whispering the same thing: "It's
time." Stacy struggled first to grasp the words, then their
meaning, then suddenly she understood. She was awake; she was getting
up and leaving the tent, zippering it shut behind her.

 Awake,
but still dazed. She had to go back for Amy's watch, stepping
carefully over Jeff, Amy already slipping into sleep, mumbling
something, holding out her hand. It took Stacy several fumbling tries
before she managed to unbuckle the watch's strap. Then she
was back outside, alone with Pablo, sitting beside him, growing more
and more awake with each passing moment. She slid Amy's watch
onto her own wrist, and it felt warm against her skin, a little damp.

 Pablo
was asleep. She could hear him breathing, and it didn't sound
right. There was too much fluid in it, a raggedness, and Stacy thought
of his lungs, wondered what was happening inside him, the crises that
were building, the systems failing. She stared at him dreamily, not
really focusing, and several minutes passed before she noticed his legs
in the darkness, his crotch, exposed. She had the momentary
impulse—absurd and inappropriate and quickly
repressed—to reach forward and touch his penis. The sleeping
bag was lying on the ground beside the backboard, and she stood up to
drape it across him, lowering it stealthily, gently, trying not to wake
him.

 He
stirred, shifted his head, but his eyes remained shut.

 This
ought to have been the time for Stacy to attempt some appraisal of her
situation—to glance back over the day or reach forward into
the coming hours—and though she was conscious of this, though
she understood the wisdom of such a course, she couldn't
bring herself to attempt it. She sat listening to the liquid sound of
Pablo's breathing, and her mind remained empty, not asleep,
but not fully awake yet, either. Her eyes were open—she was
aware of her surroundings, would've known if Pablo had
stopped breathing suddenly, or called out for her—but she
didn't quite feel as if she were present. She thought of a
mannequin, propped in a store window, staring out at the street; that
was how she felt.

 She
kept checking Amy's watch, squinting to read its numbers in
the darkness. Seven minutes passed, then three, then six, then two, and
then she forced herself to stop looking, knowing it was only going to
stretch out her time here, eating it in such little bites.

 She
tried singing inside her head to help speed things along, but the only
things she could think of were Christmas carols. "Jingle
Bells," "O
Tannenbaum
," "Frosty the Snowman." She didn't know all
the lines, and even silently, the words rising and falling in her mind,
she didn't like the sound of her voice. So she stopped,
stared vacantly down at Pablo.

 Against
her will, she checked the time again. She'd been awake for
twenty-nine minutes; she had an hour and a half to go. For a moment,
she panicked, wondering whom she was supposed to rouse when she was
through, but then she figured it out, feeling proud of herself for her
cleverness. Amy had been the one to shake her shoulder, pulling her
from sleep, and Jeff had gone first, so that must mean Mathias was
next. She glanced at the watch and another minute had passed.

 I
just hope Pablo doesn't wake
up,
she
thought,
and, at that very instant—as if these words inside her head
had roused him—he did.

 He
lay perfectly still for a long moment, peering up at Stacy. Then he
coughed, rolling his head away from her. He lifted his hand, as if to
cover his mouth, but didn't seem to have the strength; he
only made it to his throat. His hand hung in the air for a few seconds,
hovering over his Adam's apple, then dropped slowly back to
his chest. He licked his lips, turned toward her again, said something
in Greek; it sounded like a question. Stacy smiled at him, but she felt
false doing it, a liar, and she thought he must know it, must guess
everything the smile was trying to hide, how hopeless things were. She
couldn't stop herself, though; the smile was there and it
wouldn't go away. "It's okay,"
she said, but that wasn't enough, of course, and Pablo spoke
again, asking the same question. He paused, then repeated it once more,
and his arms began to move, both of them, emphasizing his words, his
hands patting the air. This made the stillness of his legs beneath the
sleeping bag that much more difficult to ignore, and Stacy felt a
rising sense of panic. She didn't know what she was supposed
to do.

 He
kept speaking: the same question, over and over again, his hands
cutting the air above his chest.

 Stacy
tried nodding, but then stopped, worried suddenly that he might be
asking "Am I going to die?" She tried shaking her
head then, only to realize that this was equally perilous, because
couldn't he also be asking "Am I going to
recover?" She was still smiling—she
couldn't stop herself—and she sat staring down at
him, feeling each moment closer and closer to tears, but not wanting to
cry, desperately not wanting it, wanting to be strong, to make him feel
safe, if only because she was with him, because she was his friend, and
would've helped him if she could. She wondered how much Pablo
understood of his situation. Did he realize that his back was broken?
That he'd almost certainly never walk again? And that he very
well might die here before they could get him to help?

 He
kept waving his arms at her, kept asking that same question over and
over, his voice rising now, as if in impatience or frustration. There
were six or seven words to the question, Stacy guessed, though it was
hard to tell because they sounded
enjambed
,
each flowing into the next, and there was that watery
fricativeness
lurking behind
them, rounding their edges. She tried to guess what the words might
mean, but her mind wouldn't help. It kept offering her "Am I going to die?" "Am I going to
recover?" And she sat beside him, alternately feeling as if
she ought to shake her head, or nod, but doing neither, not moving at
all, while her liar's smile slowly stiffened on her face. She
wanted to check her watch again, wanted someone to emerge from the tent
and help her, wanted Pablo to slip back into silence, into sleep, for
his eyes to drift shut, his arms to go still. She took his hand,
gripped it tightly, and this seemed to help some, to calm him. And
then, without thinking, Stacy started to sing her Christmas carols,
very softly, humming the lines she didn't know. She did "Silent Night," "Deck the
Halls," "Here Comes Santa Claus." Pablo
fell quiet. He smiled up at her, as if he recognized the songs; he even
seemed to join her for "Rudolph the Red-Nosed
Reindeer," mumbling along with her in Greek. Then his eyes
drifted shut and his hand went slack in hers; he fell back asleep, his
breathing going deep, that watery sound rising from his chest.