The Ruins (42 page)

 At
some point, without his noticing the exact moment, the vine had fallen
silent.

 It
would be dark soon. Another five or ten minutes, Jeff guessed, and
they'd be blind with it. They ought to have talked things
through, ought to have set up a watch schedule, doled out another
ration of food and water. Even now, in this final waning of light, they
ought to have been up and doing. "Too hard," Amy
had said. "We think you're too hard." He
was working to save them, and behind his back they were gossiping,
complaining.

 Fuck
her,
Jeff
thought.
Fuck
them all.

 He
turned away, left Amy standing with her hand held out before her. He
stepped to the lean-to, sat down beside it, in the mud, facing Pablo.
The Greek's eyes were shut, his mouth hanging partway open.
The smell he was giving off was almost unbearable. They ought to move
him, Jeff knew, lift him free from that disgusting sleeping
bag—sodden and stinking with his body's effusions.
They ought to wash him, too, ought to irrigate the seared stumps, flush
them free of dirt. They had enough water now; they could afford to do
this. But the light was failing even as Jeff thought these things, and
he knew they could never do it in the dark. It was Amy's
fault, this missed opportunity—Amy's and
Stacy's and Eric's. They'd distracted
him; they'd wasted his time. And now Pablo would have to wait
until morning.

 The
stumps were still bleeding—not heavily, just a steady
ooze—they needed to be washed and then bandaged. There was no
gauze, of course, nothing sterile; Jeff would have to dig through the
backpacks again, search for a clean shirt, hope that this might
suffice. Maybe he could use the sewing kit, too, a needle and thread.
He could search out the still-leaking blood vessels and tie them off
one by one. And then there was Eric to think of also: Jeff could stitch
up the wound in his side. He turned, glanced at Amy. She was still
standing in the center of the clearing, motionless; she
hadn't even lowered her hand. She was waiting for him to
relent. But he wasn't going to do it.

 "Tell
me you're sorry," he said.

 "Excuse
me?" The light was fading enough that it was already
difficult to see her expression. He was being a child, he knew. He was
as bad as she was. But he couldn't stop.

 "Say
you're sorry."

 She
lowered her hand.

 He
persisted: "Say it."

 "Sorry
for what?"

 "For
stealing the water. For getting drunk."

 Amy
wiped at her face, a gesture of weariness. She sighed. "Fine."

 "Fine
what?"

 "I'm
sorry."

 "For
what?"

 "Come
on—"

 "Say
it, Amy."

 There
was a long pause; he could sense her wavering. Then, in something close
to a monotone, she gave it to him: "I'm sorry for
stealing the water. I'm sorry for getting drunk."

 
Enough,
he
said to
himself.
Stop
it here.
But he didn't. Even as he thought these
words, he heard himself begin to speak. "You don't
sound like you mean it."

 "Jesus
Christ, Jeff. You can't—"

 "Say
it like you mean it, or it doesn't count."

 She
sighed again, louder this time, almost a scoff. Then she shook her
head, turned, walked off toward the far edge of the clearing, where she
dropped heavily to the ground. She sat with her back to him, bent into
herself, her head in her hands. The light was nearly gone; Jeff felt he
could almost see it departing, draining from the air around them. He
watched Amy's hunched form as it faded into the shadows,
merging with the dark mass of vegetation beyond her. It seemed as if
her shoulders were moving. Was she crying? He strained to hear, but the
phlegmy
rattle of
Pablo's breathing obscured all other sounds within the
clearing.

 Go
to
her,
he
said to
himself.
Do
it now.
Yet he didn't move. He felt trapped,
immobilized. He'd read once how to pick a lock, and he
believed that he could do it if he ever needed to. He knew how to break
free from the trunk of a car, how to climb out of a well, how to flee a
burning building. But none of that helped him here. No, he
couldn't think of a way to escape this present situation. He
needed Amy to be the one, needed her to be the first to move.

 He
was certain of it now: she was crying. Rather than softening him,
though, this had the opposite effect. She was playing on his
sympathies, he decided, manipulating him. All he'd asked of
her was that she say she was sorry, say it in a genuine way. Was that
such an unreasonable thing? Maybe she wasn't crying; maybe
she was shivering, because she must be wet, of course, and cold. As he
watched, trying to decide between tears and the shivering, he saw her
tilt to her side, lie down in the mud. This, too, ought to have
elicited sympathy in him, he knew. But, once again, he felt only anger.
If she was wet, if she was cold, why didn't she do something
about it? Why didn't she get up and go into the tent, search
through one of the backpacks, find herself some dry clothes? Did she
need him to tell her to do this? Well, he wasn't going to. If
she wanted to lie in the mud, shivering or crying, or both, that was
her choice. She could do it all night, if that was what she desired,
because he wasn't going to go to her.

 Later,
much later, after the sun had set, after Mathias had returned from the
bottom of the hill and joined the others in the tent, after the sky had
cleared and the moon had risen, its pale sliver shaved one step closer
to nothingness, after Jeff's clothes had dried on him,
stiffening slightly in the process, after Pablo's breathing
had stopped at one point for a full thirty seconds before starting
again with an abrupt gagging rattle, like a
bedsheet
being torn in half, after Jeff had thought a dozen times about going to
Amy, rousing her, sending her into the tent, only to decide against it
on each successive occasion, after he'd sat through his
entire shift, and most of the shift to follow, not moving, wanting her
to be the first to stir, to come and beg his forgiveness, or even, more
simply, just wordlessly embrace him, Amy staggered to her feet. Or not
quite: she rose, took a half step toward him, then fell to her knees
and began to throw up. She was leaning forward on one hand; the other
was pressed to her mouth, as if to hold back the vomit. It was too dark
to see her properly. Jeff could make out her outline, the shadowy bulk
of her body, but nothing more. It was his ears rather than his eyes
that told him what was happening. He could hear her gagging, coughing,
spitting. She tried to stand again, with the same
result—another half step before she dropped back to her
knees, her right hand still clutching at her mouth while her left
seemed to reach toward him through the darkness. Was she calling for
him? Beneath the gagging, coughing, spitting, did he hear her say his
name? He wasn't certain—not certain enough at
least—he didn't move. And now both her hands were
pressing at her mouth, as if to dam that flow of vomit. But it
wasn't possible, of course. The gagging continued, the
choking and coughing. Jeff could smell it now, even over
Pablo's stench—the tequila, the bile—and
it kept coming.

 Go
to
her,
he
thought
yet again.

 And
then:
You're
too hard. We all think you're too hard.

 He
watched as she hunched low, her hands still pressed to her mouth. She
hesitated like that, going silent finally: no more coughing or gagging
or choking. For nearly a minute, she didn't move at all.
Then, very slowly, she tilted over onto her side in the mud. She lay
perfectly still, curled into a fetal position; Jeff assumed
she'd fallen back asleep. He knew he was supposed to go help
her now, wipe her clean like an infant, guide her back into the tent.
But this was her own fault, wasn't it? So why should he be
the one to pick up the pieces? He wasn't going to do it. He
was going to let her lie there, let her wake at dawn with vomit caked
to her face. He could still smell it, and he felt his own stomach
turning in response to the stench—not just his stomach but
his feelings, too. Anger and disgust and the deepest sort of
impatience—they kept him by the little lean-to through the
night, watching but not
doing.
I
should check on her,
he thought—how many times? A
dozen, maybe
more.
I
should make sure she's okay.
He didn't do
it, though; he sat watching her, thinking the words, recognizing their
wisdom, their rightness, but not doing, all night not doing.

 It
was nearing dawn before he finally stirred. He'd nodded off
some, his head bobbing in and out of consciousness as the moon climbed
and climbed above him, then crested and began to sink. It had almost
set before he managed to rouse himself, struggling to his feet,
stretching, his blood feeling thick in his veins. Even then he
didn't go to Amy, though; not that it would've
mattered. He stared at her for a long moment—her still,
shadowy mass in the center of the clearing—then shuffled to
the tent, unzipped the flap, and slipped quietly inside.

S
tacy had heard Jeff and Amy
shouting at each other. It had been impossible to make out their words
over the rain drumming against the tent, but she could tell that they
were arguing. The vine had a part in it, too; she could hear it
mimicking Amy's voice.

 
Yelling,
It's
my fault.

 And
then:
I'm
the one, aren't I?

 It
was just she and Eric in the tent. The storm made it too dark to see
much. Stacy didn't know what time it was, but she could sense
that the day was leaking away from them. Another night—she
didn't know how they were going to manage it.

 "If
I sleep, will you watch over me?" Eric asked.

 Stacy's
thoughts felt muddy from too much alcohol. Everything seemed to be
moving a little more slowly than it ought to. She stared at Eric
through the dimness, struggling to process his question. The rain
continued, the tent sagging beneath it. Jeff and Amy had stopped their
yelling. "All night?" she asked.

 Eric
shook his head. "An hour—can you stay up for an
hour? I just need an hour."

 She
was tired, she realized, as if simply talking about it was making it
so. Tired and hungry and very, very drunk. "Why
can't we both sleep?"

 Eric
gestured toward the supplies piled against the tent's rear
wall. "It'll come back. It'll push its
way in again. One of us has to stay awake."

 He
means the
vine,
Stacy
thought,
and for a moment she seemed to sense it there, hidden in the shadows,
listening, watching, waiting for them to fall asleep. "Okay," she said. "An hour, then
I'll wake you."

 Eric
lay down on his back. He was still pressing the balled-up shirt to his
side. It was too dark in the tent to tell if the bleeding had stopped.
Stacy sat beside him, took his free hand; it was clammy to the touch.
They should dry off, she knew; they should change out of their wet
clothes. She was cold, still shivering, but she didn't say
anything, made no move toward the backpacks. The archaeologists were
all dead, along with whoever might've come before or after
them, and—stupidly—their belongings felt contagious
to Stacy. She didn't want to wear their clothes.

 Eric
fell asleep, his hand going slack in hers. Stacy was startled by the
rapidity with which he managed it. He began to snore, and it sounded
oddly like Pablo's watery rasp—frighteningly so.
Stacy almost woke him, wanting him to roll over and fall silent, but
then, abruptly, he stopped of his own accord. That was scary, too, in a
different way, and she leaned down, her ear right above his face, to
make sure he was breathing.

 He
was, of course.

 Bent
low like that, her head nearly at a horizontal, only a foot or so above
the tent's floor, it seemed easier to keep dropping than to
struggle upward again. She lay beside him, pressing close. The rain was
passing—it was nothing but a drizzle now—and it
felt almost peaceful in the tent. Stacy shut her eyes. She
wasn't going to sleep—how could she have? It
wasn't even night yet. Amy would be in soon, and they could
sit up talking together, keeping their voices quiet, maybe even
whispering, so that they wouldn't wake Eric. She was tired,
it was true, but she'd given him her word, and she knew the
vine was lurking all about them, just waiting for her to lower her
guard. No, she wasn't going to sleep. All she was going to do
was shut her eyes for a moment, so that she could listen to that soft
pattering on the nylon above their heads, and perhaps daydream a
little, imagining she was somewhere else.

 When
she opened her eyes again, it was very dark in the
tent—pitch-dark, too dark to see. Someone was standing over
her, shaking her shoulder. "Wake up, Stacy," this
person kept saying. "It's your shift."

 It
was Jeff's voice, she realized. She didn't move,
just lay on her back, peering up at him through the darkness. Things
were returning to her, but too slowly to make much sense of them. The
rain. Amy shouting "Slut" at her. Jeff and Amy
arguing. Eric asking her to watch over him. She felt
hungover
, but still drunk,
too—a painful combination. Her head not only ached; it felt
spillable
in some strange way,
as if, were she to move too quickly in one direction or another, she
might pour out of herself. It wasn't something she could
think clearly about; she simply knew that she didn't want to
stir, that it would be perilous to do so. Her bladder was full to the
point of discomfort, but even that wasn't sufficient to impel
her into motion. "No," she said.