by M H Ryan
Eliza looked as if she needed a break but she kept moving and didn’t complain. She kept looking over to me and at my sweating body. I thought she might ask me something but then just went back to swinging the ax.
“How much further you think?” I asked.
“It’s close,” Eliza said, breathing hard.
We had climbed a good fifty feet in elevation, and when I looked back, through the thick canopy, the blue ocean revealed itself. Ahead, it seemed to be leveling off more.
Another few minutes and I pushed through a rather large bush with leaves half the size of my body and a clearing was revealed.
I shielded my eyes from the bright sun as my eyes adjusted from the dark jungle. The girls and cat walked into the clearing with me. Not much bigger than a forty-foot circle, but when you’d spent the good part of the last hour trekking through the thickest bush I’d ever seen, this clearing was stunning and a huge relief.
“What’s up with this?” Aubrey said, seeming to not trust the clearing.
I walked out into the clearing with Benji, Eliza, and Aubrey at my side. That’s when the floor of the jungle fell. I crashed down through broken roots, dirt, and sand. I hit the bottom first and reached out to try to soften Benji’s fall while Aubrey and Eliza fell onto each other.
Gazing up from where we fell, I saw the bright sunlight and the edge of the jungle about twenty feet up through a tangle of roots. The ground had collapsed under our feet, and I wondered if we fell into some kind of sinkhole. Sherri’s face appeared above, looking down at us in alarm.
“You okay down there?” Sherri yelled.
I wasn’t sure. I rolled over to Benji, and she appeared to be okay, so I rushed to Aubrey and Eliza as they were getting back to their feet.
“You guys okay?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Eliza said.
“Just got the wind knocked from me,” Aubrey wheezed as she struggled to get up.
“We’re okay down here,” I yelled back up.
The wet dirt stuck to them in patches of brown over their skin. Aubrey’s hair had what looked like a damp chunk of grass on it. I plucked it from her hair and tossed it to the ground.
“Thanks,” she said.
“What the hell happened?” Benji asked as she looked up.
“Ground gave out,” I said. “Think we can get back up?”
Benji reached for a root but it pulled out from the dirt. I joined in the effort but each root I grabbed for either broke or got pulled out from the ground. The dirt was inverted and impossible to climb.
Moshe paroled the edge of the collapsed hole above and then jumped in, landing deftly onto various roots before hitting the ground. She walked around us, inspecting us with some cat arrogance.
“Hey, it wasn’t our fault the ground collapsed in,” I said to Moshe, but she gave me a sympathetic meow as if to tell me she knew I was just a stupid human.
We couldn’t go up, but I realized we didn’t fall into a pit but into a cave. I walked a few feet into it and spotted light ahead.
“Looks like we’re going spadunking,” Eliza said.
“Spelunking,” I said and went back to the opening we fell into.
Sherri and Kara were both looking down into the hole.
“What’s going on?” Sherri asked.
“We can’t get back up, but this is a cave; we’re going to follow it. It looks like it heads back in the direction of the raft, and I see a light ahead. We’re going to find another way out. Just meet us back at the raft.”
“Maybe we should just come down there with you,” Sherri said.
“No, too risky. It’s a miracle none of us got hurt on the fall,” I said. “Just watch out for snakes and stuff and get back to the raft. If you haven’t seen us in a while, come back here with some rope.”
“Okay,” Sherri said and watched me go back into the cave and out of her sight.
Leaving them alone made me sick to my stomach, especially in some island we didn’t know. Kara thought this island was a deceiver, and I hoped it didn’t just pull its first trick.
The cave itself had a wet, dirty floor, and the ceiling and walls were more roots than dirt or rock. The green and brown vines moved in and out of the dirt like the intestines of some creature. The musty, dank smell helped with the thought that we were walking through the insides of some living creature, waiting to find its digestive tract and escape through its back end. The slope on the tunnel increased as we walked along, pushing us deeper into its belly.
The light ahead turned out to be another sinkhole from the surface. Looking up through the maze of roots left little chance of getting through them, even if we could somehow climb a twenty-foot wall.
Up ahead, maybe another hundred feet, was another shaft of light coming down into the tunnel.
Moshe growled, her deep voice resonating through the cave as if she was a cat ten times as big. Maybe one day she would. I had the impression from her baby-like face that she was still a kitten and not a cat, or sea cat or maybe aquatic feline?
“What is it, girl?” Benji asked.
Moshe looked stiff, and her hair had puffed up along her stiff back.
It hissed, but then I realized the hiss didn’t come from Moshe.
“What the heck just made that noise?” Benji asked.
“There’s a person, up ahead,” Eliza said. “Just past the light.”
As my eyes continued to adjust to the light, I squinted into the darkness and spotted the body. She lay on what looked like a large, flat rock, longer than her already long body. She wasn’t moving, and I took a deep breath, thinking the worst.
Then I spotted something around her moving and then more things, as if the floor around her had come alive. A few of them moved into the light, and I saw their shiny, green bodies.
“Snakes,” Benji said. “Why did it have to be snakes?”
Chapter 13
Now, snakes on the ground were one thing. Snakes on the water was another whole kind of terrible, but neither compared to the feeling of being in a cave full of them.
The scaly monsters moved around each other to where I couldn’t tell where one began and end. I might have thought it was some thousand-foot-long snake if not for the occasional rise of a snakehead. It would lick the air, tasting our scent, probably deciding how best to wrap its immense body around our neck and squeeze until our heads popped off.
They were a jumble of emotions ranging from anger to curious. There were too many colors and temperatures coming at me for an accurate count.
“I’ve got a dozen arrows,” Benji said.
“I don’t know. I once had to kill a poisonous snake, and even after cutting the thing in half, it still came after me, striking,” I said. “You ever encounter these, Eliza?”
“No, we never had snakes on my island.”
“That’s Cass,” Aubrey said, leaning forward. “I’d recognize those sexy-ass legs anywhere.”
“Cass?” Benji said. “Holy shit, that is Cass.”
“Is she alive?” Eliza asked.
If she was dead, it had just happened, because she still had color to her skin. I watched her stomach. After a few seconds, I spotted movement from a breath.
“She’s alive,” I said.
“Cassandra!” Benji said.
She didn’t move or respond in any way. Whatever was wrong with her, she was unconscious. Near her, I spotted another creature. It looked like a capybara, the world’s largest rodent, but this guy had large teeth sticking out from the corner of its mouth. I would have taken it as dead, but it wasn’t stiff-legged like something you might find dead on the road. It looked peaceful, similar to Cass. It lay on its side, with its front paws pulled up closer to its chest, and I saw its chest moving as well with a slow breath. Why it and Cass decided to take a nap in a den of snakes was beyond me, but I knew we needed to get Cass out of there and quick. I could feel the snakes’ mood changing for the worse.
“We have to get to her,” Aubrey said, pointin
g her spear at the snakes not ten feet from us now.
“We’ve got a snake problem,” Benji said, stating the obvious obstacle.
“There’s another tunnel, off to the left,” Eliza said. “We should go that way.”
“Oh, hell, I almost forgot,” Aubrey set her spear down and swung the bag she was carrying around to her front. She rummaged through it and pulled out the box of matches.
“Fire,” I said, feeling a flicker of hope.
I slid my bag to my front and grabbed some of the bundles of kindling we’d packed and wrapped it around the end of my ax. It would only burn for a few seconds. Then I remembered the lip balm. I smeared some of it on the kindling like a wax. It might only last a few seconds longer, but we’d need all the time we could get.
Aubrey stood by me, holding a match in one hand and the box in the other, ready to strike the match against it.
With the kindling secured to my ax, I extended it to Aubrey.
“We only have one chance at this. Hopefully, the snakes are scared of fire. You three grab Cass, and we’ll haul ass down the tunnel on the left. You sure it leads somewhere, Eliza?”
“It feels like the right way to go,” Eliza said, not looking as confident as I would have liked.
“Okay, Aubrey, light it,” I said as a snake near me lifted its head and opened its mouth.
The match lit, brightening the dark tunnel and giving me a stunning look at the women around me. Even in complete peril, I had a hard time not admiring them. She moved the lit match onto the kindling and it ignited.
I yelled and moved the ax-torch toward the snake. It went back down to the ground and backed away from me. The fear from it wafted up to me like the sweet scent of sugar. We didn’t have time to move slow, so I rushed the snake, torch out and yelling. The snakes hurried out of the way of the flames, slithering into hidden dark recesses, and in a few seconds, we got to Cass.
Aubrey shook her. “Cass? Wake up.”
Nothing.
“Just grab her,” I said, waving the fiery weapon at another snake.
“Of course it has to be the giant we need to carry,” Aubrey said, pulling Cass up into a sitting position. “Eliza, you get the legs. Benji, you and I lift the body.”
Together, the three women picked up Cass, with Aubrey and Benji each taking a shoulder and Eliza between her legs and grabbing her ankles, facing forward.
“Go,” Aubrey said.
A pissed-off, scared snake launched from the darkness, and I swung the flaming ax, striking it over the head right before it got to Aubrey. The snake fell back and slithered into the shadows, and a fresh wave of rage washed over the room like an oven. They were no longer concerned about their safety as much as they wanted to kill us. As long as I had the ax, they wouldn’t attack though.
The flame on the ax went out, and the tunnel returned to deep darkness, as if someone had flipped the switch.
“Shit,” I said.
“Follow me,” Eliza said, pulling Cass’s body and by sheer connection, Aubrey and Benji.
I rushed ahead, heading down the dark tunnel right next to Eliza. Behind us, the sounds of snakes filled the tunnel. We crossed under another light shaft and behind us; it gave me a view of the snakes chasing after us.
There were dozens of them, and this time it was easy to see them, as they were all head first and moving in a serpentine pattern. Their big, green bodies were as thick as my leg, and they seemed to fight for position, their rage radiating out as if we were being chased by lava.
“Run!” I said, trying to get the girls moving faster.
I ran to the front and ducked under Cass’s butt, lifting her middle onto my shoulder, and ran down the hill as hard as I could. I only hoped Eliza was going in the right direction.
Light appeared ahead, peeking through a thick patch of bushes and leaves dead ahead. I glanced back and spotted a snake just a few feet behind Benji. I braced as we busted through the end of the tunnel, covered in leaves, branches, and vines.
The first thing I could see was the sunlight, and then I realized we had just jumped off a cliff while carrying an unconscious woman.
Chapter 14
The tunnel had opened to a cliff, and before I could make a course correction, Eliza had already fallen, pulling Cass and the rest of us down with her. We slid down the side of the cliff, crashing into the roots, vines, and immense leaves as we did. I held onto Cass, trying to keep her elevated above it all.
We crashed through a thick section of vines and fell another ten feet onto a cushion of foliage. The girls crashed into me, and I had a butt in my face along with an elbow in my stomach.
The girls scrambled to get off me as a snake crashed right next to us. Benji screamed and stabbed it with an arrow. It seemed just as stunned from the fall as we did.
Glancing around us, I spotted the ocean not far away.
“Come on,” I said, picking up Cass on my own in a fireman carry while still holding onto my ax.
Another snake slammed into the soft brush around us and I swung my ax, hitting it on the back of the head, sending it reeling back.
The girls grabbed Cass with me, and we took big, high steps, trying to work our way out of the bush as more snakes continuously fell around us now. I kept hearing them smash to the ground behind us.
“Run,” I said.
Carrying Cass, we got through the foliage and found a clearer path back toward the beach—the very path we cleared earlier.
Thankfully, Sherri and Kara were at the raft already.
“Untie the raft!” I yelled.
They heard and jumped into action, pulling the rope loose and pushing the raft along the sand.
I took Cass on my own for the last ten feet and placed her as gently as I could onto the raft, then helped push it into the water. I helped the girls get onto the raft as I faced the jungle, waiting for the tsunami of snakes I knew was coming.
“We’re on,” Benji said, reaching back for me.
I took her hand and jumped onto the raft. She stood next to me and fired an arrow. The arrow flew, and I watched it as it struck the snake in what I would call the snake’s neck. It fell to the sand, flopped around, but kept moving toward us, leaving a trail of blood on the white sand.
“Get the sail up,” I said.
Sherri and Aubrey pulled the sail up and the wind pushed against the sail, jolting us forward. That’s when I saw the snake wave rolling over the green bushes and hitting the white sand. They didn’t slow down as they hit the water; in fact, I’d say they increased in speed as they swam toward us.
“What’s wrong with Cass?” Sherri said, kneeling next to her and holding her head.
“We don’t know,” Aubrey said. “We found her like this.”
“Oh my God. What do we do?” Kara said, standing over Cass.
“Guys!” Benji said, shooting another arrow at the closest snake in the water.
The arrow lodged in the reptile’s body and gave us a flag of sorts as to their location and speed. The arrow didn’t seem to bother it.
“She’s barely breathing,” Sherri said, her ear next to Cass’s mouth.
“Guys!” Benji yelled. “We’ve got a shit-ton of snakes in the water.”
They kept spilling from the island as if we had uncorked some kind of nightmare from that tunnel. The ocean waters splashed and foamed as the mass of life moved through it.
“We need more speed,” I said, moving to the sail.
“They’re catching up with us,” Benji yelled.
“We aren’t dying to a bunch of snakes,” Aubrey said.
“Come on wind,” I begged.
As if on command, the wind picked up, pushing the raft faster.
“It’s pushing us the wrong way,” Eliza said, looking at the distant cave island we’d been on yesterday.
I dashed to the back of the raft and grabbed the rudder. I pushed the rudder into the water, using my strength to turn the boat toward our home.
The raft turned and
the sail went limp, flapping in the breeze. The girls set the sail and the wind grabbed it, but we quickly were getting pulled in the same direction, away from the way we wanted to go.
“They’re getting closer again,” Benji said.
Behind us, the sea looked alive with green snakes. I sensed them and their anger, their determination to get to us. I sensed some of the fatigue in them, but they had a lot more left in the tank still.
I used the rudder again, and with the same result, the sail failed, and we ended up rotating back away from the way we wanted to go. The wind howled and blew a gust of mist over our raft. I squinted, trying to keep the salt water from my eyes as I watched the snakes. They had gotten closer each time I turned the raft toward home and we lost speed.
We were moving fast through the water now, so fast that paddling wouldn’t do much, but we were heading in the wrong direction. I couldn’t risk letting those snakes get to us, so I decided to let the wind take us and push us in the fastest direction. The snakes would wear out, and then we could turn and slowly get back home. Even if we lost a few hours, it’d be better than dealing with a mass of snakes.
“We’re riding this wind out until the snakes are gone,” I said over the wind.
Eliza walked to the front of the raft, and I spotted what she was looking at in the distance. Another island.
“That’s my island,” Eliza said and looked back to me, terrified. “We’re heading toward my island.”
“That’s where you came from?” Kara asked.
“You made it that far in that canoe you built?” Sherri asked.
“Yeah,” Eliza said.
“You got balls, kid,” Aubrey said.
Thunder boomed in the distance, and I looked at the dark clouds moving toward us.
“Guess that storms here,” I said.
“I thought we could make it back to that cave in time,” Aubrey said, looking apologetic.