by Lara Hues
"There is no outside communication on this island. We have no phones or email. We have no letters. We are stuck here just as caged as these tigers but more vulnerable. Richy and Alec are the only ones armed and they unashamedly threaten to kill anyone who steals drugs or tries to leave," Shardul divulged. "Everyone here is paying for everything. All our accounts have been run dry from wire transfers as a means to stay alive, appease Richy, or buy the drug. As I said, it has proven to be rather addictive."
I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that Richy was spiking the drug with oxycodone. Richy was turning out to be much, much worse than my mother warned me. He was lacing the GH10 to keep his men hostage. But at least now I knew why Shardul didn't write.
"So, it’s been a mass kidnapping of sorts?" I didn’t want to make sense of the situation any more.
"Yes."
I sighed. I'd been taken prisoner by my own free will, blinded by the same foolish curiosity that brought all the others.
"So, Bryce thought that he could use me as leverage to escape? He thought that Richy would give up his pride and jeopardize his precious research to save and protect me?" I began to feel badly for Bryce. He hadn’t looked or acted like a kidnapped victim. "Bryce seemed like a nice guy before all this."
"He is a nice guy. He's just desperate. Utterly desperate. He hoped you could help him get out. I think most of us had hoped for something."
"Well, it wouldn’t work for several reasons." I admitted. “I think my mom was right about Richy.”
Shardul smiled. "You aren’t a great actress you know. You need to do a better job if you want people to believe that he is your dad. You’re unnaturally intelligent but not great at charades."
"No?"
"No. You don't even seem to really like him. You didn’t call him ‘Father’ or ‘Dad’ and you seem uncomfortable with his physical proximity and affections."
Such a compliment had nearly made me laugh. He had noticed.
"Does that flatter you?"
"Yes," I admitted. "Richy is my uncle; estranged uncle. I agreed to come out of curiosity and it looks like that landed me in the same terrible situation as it did you."
"It doesn’t make you foolish, you know. We all came here for the same reasons, and none of us are to blame. Richy is the one to blame. Just remember that." I lifted my eyebrows quickly and looked away.
He was right in a way. Richy was to blame for all of this. While Bryce had been the one dangling me out of the cable car, Richy had been the hand that fired the hysterical shots that killed several men and sent the rest of us careening to the jungle floor. And I’d been the one who told Richy that Shardul was a tiger prodigy.
"Why aren’t you speaking in proverbs anymore?" I changed the topic. We needed some light banter. Something to make me forget that I was going to die.
"I typically do it to emotionally separate from the situation, to convey wisdom that is not my own, or to annoy the listener." He grinned, and the sincerity in his reply surprised me.
"But you don’t need to do that now?" I pressed.
"Kat, you make me flustered. You always have, but I’m just about out of proverbs. I guess that means I have to come to terms with how I feel about you."
"Oh." Again, his bluntness surprised me and my ears burned. Hopefully my frizzy hair covered them. "Well, thank you and you’re welcome I guess." It made me want to be blunt. "I, um, hate the name Kat. I prefer to go by Kathryn. That’s why no one called me Kat in high school." It wasn’t much of a confession, but it was something.
"I thought maybe the nickname was a new thing." He smiled again and moved some hair out of my face. "My friends call me Shar."
Warmed by the thought of friendship, or possibly more, in the twisted roots near the bank of an unnamed river in the jungle of Papua New Guinea, I forgot for a moment the terror of the previous day and the dangers all around me. Not everything was horribly wrong. There really was a silver lining, even to this GH-injected storm cloud.
***
It only took about an hour of sitting in the roots silently before our discomfort outweighed our immediate fear. As soon as we had sat still for a few minutes, insects swarmed us. There were bugs of many shapes and sizes- beetles, flying gnats, spiders—which I guess aren't really insects-- and the like, that crawled and buzzed and possibly bit and stung. The mud on my body was drying and itching, almost like my own skin was flaking and peeling off.
"We should wash this off, get some new mud, and drink some water," Shar whispered. I agreed but didn’t ask if the insects were bothering him as much as they had been bothering me. I assumed they weren't since he had grown up in India and I had been sheltered and catered to every day of my life up until this one.
We crawled hesitantly from the mess of roots, wiggling out of the small openings out of which we had been peering. I feared the water; I feared the tigers; I feared the blood sucking insects that may be carrying GH10 or deathly diseases. However, I found that with so much fear, rather than feel overwhelmed by it, I felt less fear over time in all of the above categories. Everything was dangerous, but that didn’t mean that I had to do nothing; it meant I had to be smart.
Shar walked to the water and tossed in a rock. Nothing grabbed at it, but I still doubted that the giant crocodile from before would be terribly interested in a small rock. I wasn’t thinking of throwing another living creature in as a test, because although it would have given me either reassurance in the water’s safety or justified terror at seeing the crocodile again, I wasn’t ready to take on additional guilt.
Satisfied with the lack of movement in the water, Shar dipped his hand in very slowly, letting the water run off his arms into the slow flow of the river. I followed, fighting images from the cable car crash and the echidna I had accidentally sent to its immediate and hopefully painless death.
The water felt extremely nice on my skin, like putting on lotion after shaving my legs, and it was so satisfying to get the dirt off my arms and clean out some of the cuts from the previous day. A few of the larger bug bites drew my attention, some of which looked ready to pop, but I didn’t worry about it; no sense worrying about what I couldn’t change. And no sense opening up wounds for infection.
"I thought of a proverb for the situation," Shar whispered, moving closer to me.
"Okay, let’s hear it." I slowly washed off the other arm.
"Life is not a continuum of pleasant choices, but of inevitable problems that call for strength, determination and hard work." He grinned. "Does that seem applicable to us?"
"Yes. Being here sure has made life before this look like a ‘continuum of pleasant choices’ though. I’m seeing many more of the ‘inevitable problems’ here than ever before." While I still wasn’t in any position to laugh at our circumstances, it did help a little bit to try and gather perspective. Putting the water on my arms made me realize that I was getting thirsty again.
Shar sipped from his hands. "Still can’t drink the river water?" he asked, noting my gaze.
"No." I looked away wishing that there was another leaf full of water that I could have. Going into the jungle to search meant that we might find one of the men Richy had sent in to find me. I turned back to Shar just in time to see him fill a leaf and turn to me.
"Oh," he said, blushing. My heart pounded and I found myself looking at his lips again.
"You were…." I realized how silly it had been for me to believe that before he had found a leaf full of water right when we needed it.
"I just wanted to help," he said, offering the leaf to me, but his voice was heavy with guilt, like a child caught drawing on the furniture.
I knew the water was from the river, but his gesture and effort to try and help me stay hydrated while respecting my anxiety was so thoughtful. I took the leaf, intentionally placing my hands on his for moment, and tried to imagine it was rain water. Gagging at the tenacious and gruesome memories, I guzzled it down.
"Thanks," I muttered. I was glad to get the mud off my
arms, but once again mosquitoes were making a meal of me. "I think I can find a pest-repelling plant nearby."
"We already smell of jungle and I don’t think the tigers will track us- least of all by our scents. Not with so many others in the jungle who are louder and smell more potently." Shar reached for my hand, and holding my breath, I took it. My hands shook, the same way they had when he'd handed me the gold bangle in Panama.
Pushing the dense vegetation out of our faces, we wandered for a few minutes, my fingers twined tightly in his. Probably too tightly, but I didn't want to let go. Not now. Maybe not ever. I stooped, picked a plant with my free hand, smelled it, and moved on. After a few minutes, I stopped and smiled. The leaves were similar to those of an aloe plant, but I knew from my research that the juice inside would repel insects rather than soothe a sunburn. The small bush was only a foot tall, if that, but the leaves were plumb-full of clear liquid which was easily expelled with only a little pressure. His grip released and I let my hand fall so I could work. Faith-filled, I lathered my arms, neck, and face with the juices of the leaves hoping upon hope that I didn’t have a terrible allergic reaction to the alien plant.
The reaction from the bugs was immediate. They ignored me. The lure of my blood was outweighed by their dislike for or fear of the scent from the plant. I grinned.
"You are kind of amazing, did you know that?" Shardul said. His fingers found mine again, and again my heart throbbed.
"Me?" I said, handing him some of the leaves.
"Yes. You," Shardul said, coating his brown arms in the liquid.
"Well, thanks. I don’t know anyone I would rather be stuck here with. You know all about tigers." We started walking back to our root-cave.
"And you know about the edible nuts and berries. We make better friends than we do competitors," he said, giving my hand a gentle squeeze, but he might as well have squeezed my heart.
"You’re right. You know, even if we do eventually die, you have kept me alive much longer than I would have ever made it alone." I looked at our hands together. For so long I'd watched his hands write, type, dangle keys, or pick up my backpack for me. To think that his hands had been there the whole time and for so long and I had just ignored them. I'd just ignored him.
"I surely appreciate the compliment, but I do not desire to talk about the possibility of death. The possibility is there, but I much prefer optimism."
"Me too. Let’s stay optimistic. Maybe they’ll tranquilize the tigers soon, and we can get out of here. If I tell Richy that you have been the one to save me and protect me, maybe he’ll let you go home." Once I'd said it, I regretted it. Nothing I knew about Richy led me to actually believe that. But even if he didn't let Shar go, I knew where they were now. I could get home, get help, and come back for him.
"Maybe." He didn’t sound too optimistic about that. "One thing at a time, okay?"
The sound of the river wasn’t hard to pick out. We had just reached the root entrance when the distinct bam of a gunshot echoed, sending me to the ground in fear and all the nearby birds squawking into the sky.
"Was that….the tranquilizer?" I asked.
Shar scanned the area and crawled into the mess of mossy roots again, gesturing for me to follow. I did, careful not to twist my ankle in the process.
"I'm not an expert in firearms, but I don't believe a tranquilizer would make a sound like that. That sounded more like a shotgun."
"Are they shooting the tigers?" I doubted my own words.
"A shotgun would have little effect on these tigers." His reply was not reassuring. It stirred my head into a fearful frenzy.
"What are they shooting?" I asked, trying not to sound as scared as I was
He thought for a minute, took my hand into both of his, and shook his head. "I don’t know."
Chapter Fourteen: The Hunted
It was only the second time that I had sensed fear from Shar, and I didn’t really understand why. Though I knew that fear was often illogical, I tried to understand why the gunshots made him nervous. The hunters were obviously being successful at something which meant that either very large crocodiles or pythons or tigers were being killed. I didn’t know all the dangers of the forest, but the sound of distant gunshots was much more comforting to me than it was to Shar.
Then I remembered Bryce, and though I tried to hate him, I couldn't really do it.
With each BAM that echoed through the trees, Shar's body tensed then relaxed. His nails just about dug into my knuckles, but I didn't pull away. With each gunshot, my hopes of hearing Richy’s voice on the intercom rose.
Then it was silent. No gunshots. No Richy. And, if I was guessing correctly, no Bryce.
"I have more questions," I whispered, wondering if it was okay to talk now. I had to talk though. The silence and images of Bryce and a shotgun would torture me if I didn't talk.
"Okay," Shar said.
"So, Richy is taking GH10."
"Yes,"
"And the staff here is taking it out of a desire and hope that by complying he will let them go."
"Mostly, yes. A few have taken it out of interest or a desire to get big and strong and fit in." Shar didn’t look at me as I spoke. His eyes darted among the trees like he was watching a tennis match.
"And now they are all addicted?" I phrased it like a question, but I knew they were. And I knew why.
"Yes," he said.
"Richy didn’t offer me a contract. I don’t think he was planning to keep me here indefinitely. He invited me to come here and told me that it would help me get accepted to colleges to have some real experience. I even had a few doctors interview me for what he said was a scholarship. It’s pretty clear now that they were FDA. Even at the time it seemed to me that it was more of an interrogation to see if I was emotionally, mentally, and physically well."
"Yes, the doctors were mostly representatives and workers from the FDA. They are the only ones NOT here against their will. Richy is doing anything he can to convince them that the drug is ready to be sold in the U.S. but the side effects, particularly on Habib, have them concerned. His defects aren’t severe enough to fully convince them though. I think they wanted to run genetic testing on Amar and Amala to see if they are closely related enough for that to be the cause."
I held my lips together tightly for a minute. I was an accomplice; an unwilling accomplice in what had potential to be the most horrible crime. Thinking aloud I said, "He brought me as his daughter, not because he could ‘only bring immediate family’ but because he needed me. He needed my health, my beauty, and brains to vouch for his drug."
I hadn’t known my purpose, but thinking that I could have helped to do something as terrible as legalize a drug with devastating side-effects for offspring made my throat swell with shame.
Shar stared at me, his brown eyes seemed to glaze over. "You didn’t know Kathryn." He set his hand on my hand and held it for a moment. "You can’t feel bad about something you didn’t do willingly." He grinned with half his mouth reminding me of The Jungle Book’s Mowgli from my childhood. "Besides, there is still something you can do. You can get off this island and then tell everyone what’s happening here. We can both do it. It’s not over yet."
The next crack from the gun and following thud as something large hit the ground was so near that I instinctively laid my head on Shar, hiding my face and shaking. He held me for several minutes, and I tried not to cry. The intimacy made me feel safe, and feeling safe brought all the fears and pains I was experiencing to the surface. I wanted to cry and be comforted and be told that it was all over. But it wasn’t all over. Something had been shot only several feet away and the nightmarish adventure was far from over. It wasn’t time to cry.
Surprisingly it was not awkward for me to eventually sit up and scoot back to my previous position on the roots. My legs still ached from the fall but now they ached more as I had been sitting for so long. Again, the now-familiar growl from my stomach began.
"I don't especially want
to go see what it was that was shot so nearby, but I think that we should try to get some fish."
"And eat them raw?" I asked quietly.
"Eating raw fish is the least of our worries. We need the protein. Not to be rude, but I’m not sure you can count on finding enough roots and nuts in the nearby trees to sustain us."
I nodded. There had only been one time that I'd eaten sushi. It was supposed to be date night for my parents but I had not wanted to be left alone so I tagged along, insisting that I would love sushi because I wanted to seem grown up and mature. The taste wasn’t what made my stomach churn--it was the texture and the knowledge that I was eating dead, uncooked fish. If I'd managed to force the sushi down there in the fancy restaurant, I knew I could force it down here on the muddy banks. The pains in my stomach were nothing to be proud of, but the words "famine" and "starvation" had never meant as much to me before as they did then.
***
The sun nestled itself on the horizon and I knew that we wouldn’t be likely to catch any fish in the dark. Also, the darkness brought new terrors to my mind as well as old ones: crocodiles, tigers, bodies in the water, blood-sucking bats, and nameless creatures with claws and venom.
My previous goal of discovering a new species lost all excitement. It’s one thing to find a new creature in the daylight and safe circumstances. It’s a completely different thing to have one find you in the unknown, dark confines of the jungle.
Shar stepped out of the roots first, then motioned that I could come. I didn’t know how to fish without a pre-baited hook and rod, but I could watch Shar’s back while he focused on the water.
I looked at the water while Shar scoured the bank for something to fish with. The water should have been calming. The rush of the water on the rocks was an ambience many people paid for, but too many horrid things happened in this river for me to be soothed by it in the slightest.
Turning, I saw that Shar was frozen in place, staring in the distance at the river bank. A light cough sent Shar running to a man who lay wounded on the ground. He was shot in the chest, still coughing but obviously going to die. His blood coated his torso and the surrounding mud. Covered from head to toe in a dark green camouflage outfit was a large, clearly GH10-injected man.