They walked as children amongst giants.
“Damn, it’s humid,” Ben murmured. “It’s like walking through a clou—”
A splash of sunshine lit up the path ahead. After walking perhaps half a mile, they had arrived at a break in the canopy, and the jungle abruptly gave way to a grassy clearing. They found themselves looking up at a magnificent two-storey structure that resembled an outpost from the days of early explorers. Constructed entirely of bamboo, mahogany, and other native materials, the thatched-roof lodge appeared as both a manmade marvel and a natural extension of the jungle. The entire complex rested on stilts and was flanked by elevated walkways that connected the main building to two separate, smaller structures.
Ernesto led the three young men up the stairs and into the shade of the lodge. Auggie, Ben, and Cooper followed him, taking in their new surroundings.
“Hey, Ernesto,” Cooper said, pointing, “what kind of flowers are those?”
“Mmm, these are the birds of paradise. Very nice flowers. They can be found all over the jungle.”
“Cool.”
“Hey,” Auggie said with a touch of pride. “Check it out.”
He tilted his camera so that Ben could see the bright, waxy bulbs of the flower on the viewing screen. Ben nodded, genuinely impressed. “Nice shot.”
Auggie’s grin brightened his entire face. “Thanks.”
Ben tossed his arm around the thin boy’s shoulders. “Just look at this place, man! It’s amazing!”
“Are you kidding me?” Cooper said. He gestured toward the middle of the lodge, where a handful of people were sipping drinks at a long wooden countertop skirted with a mat of woven reeds. “There’s a bar?”
Ernesto nodded. “Uh-huh. Yes. You can come here for the drinkess.”
On the other side of the bar was a dining area with large communal tables and enough room to accommodate fifty or so guests. Scattered throughout the lodge were several couches and hammocks, all presently vacant. Ernesto set his backpack down on one of the couches.
“Hey, guys? Wait here, okay?”
“Sure,” said Cooper. “Thanks, Ernesto.”
When Ernesto was gone, Ben turned to his friends with a wry smile. “So much for roughing it, huh?”
Auggie had his head tilted all the way back and was admiring the steep pitch and exposed beams of the cathedral ceiling. “I didn’t realize how big this place would be.”
“This is amazing,” concluded Cooper. The three of them looked at one another and grinned.
A moment later, a young woman appeared with a tray holding three tall glasses filled with a rust-colored liquid. “You like drink?” she asked. She set the tray down on a tall wicker table, and the boys gathered around to see the offering.
“Thank you,” Ben said. The glass was cold and beaded with moisture. He downed half the contents in a single gulp. “That’s good. What kind of juice is this?”
The woman looked pleased. “This is mango juice,” she said, smiling politely. “You like?”
“Yes, it’s very good, thank you,” Auggie replied.
Cooper held the glass against his forehead and smiled. “Oh, yeah, that feels good.”
The woman was still smiling graciously as she carried the empty tray back to the bar.
“The people here are really friendly, aren’t they?” asked Auggie.
“The people here are awesome,” Ben agreed.
Cooper paused with the glass hovering at his lips. “That Juice Girl was pretty cute.” He took a delicate sip, licking his lips as though savoring a fine wine. “How old do you think she is?”
Before his friends could respond, Ernesto reappeared. “Coo-per, Ben-nah, Aw-gee,” he said, announcing each syllable with care. “You guys are in Room 10. It is over there.” He gestured toward the elevated walkway to their left. “In two hours, we go for small hike to the jungle platform, okay?”
Cooper jumped up and gave the diminutive man a friendly clap on the shoulder. “I can’t wait! Thanks, Ernesto. We’ll see you in a little while, my friend.”
Ernesto was visibly pleased by this open show of affection. His face, usually so passive, broke into a brilliant smile that revealed two rows of small white teeth. Ben and Auggie were not surprised by Ernesto’s sudden change; they had witnessed this, what they fondly referred to as The Cooper Effect, countless times before. There was something about Cooper, some charming and endearing quality that set people at ease almost immediately. Ernesto was still beaming as they said their good-byes, and the boys were aware that some new connection had been made that circumvented the invisible barrier separating the tourists from the locals.
The three boys followed the wooden walkway to a long building made of bamboo and thatch. Here the walkway turned into a narrow catwalk that hemmed the back of the building and provided access to the guest rooms. There were no doors to speak of—only heavy cloth curtains suspended on wires, which could be drawn for privacy. The rooms themselves were quiet at the moment, and the long curtains rippled gently in the breeze.
“No doors?” Auggie blurted, and the others looked at him with interest. “I mean, do you think our stuff will be safe?”
Ben chuckled to himself. “You worry too much.”
Cooper tried to peek into one of the rooms, but the curtain flapped shut before his eyes. “I think we’re the only ones here right now.”
Ben nodded. “They must be out doing all those excursions we read about.”
Soon they reached their room, which was located at the extremity of the building.
Ben paused in front of the doorway, effectively blocking their path. Pushing the curtain aside with a flourish, he turned to look at them with an arched smile. “Here we go,” he said, and they followed him inside.
The first thing they noticed was that the room was completely open in the front; the only thing separating them from the jungle was a wooden railing with bamboo slats. Kitty-cornered by the railing, an orange hammock swayed invitingly. Beyond that, there was little else of interest: three small beds, a round wicker table, two chairs, and a long shelf that ran the entire length of one wall. Suspended above each of the beds was a white platform that housed a nylon mosquito net. For all that, the room was small but cozy.
“Nice!” Cooper said, wandering over to the railing. He stuck his head outside. “Look at this! You can practically touch the trees from here!”
They were admiring the view when a bizarre caterwauling arose from the jungle.
Blooooop! Blooooop! Bloooooo—
Muscles tensed. Eyes widened. The three boys looked at one another, frozen but for the pounding of their hearts. Cooper was the first who dared to speak. “What… the hell… was that?” He imagined it was the sound an ambulance would make as it plunged into a lake.
Ben was leaning against the railing on his elbows, eyes skimming the trees. “We’re somewhere in the middle of the Amazon fucking jungle,” he said dreamily. “We are miles and miles away from anywhere. And no one we know, no one back home, would even have the balls to come here.” Now he turned to them with the rakish grin they knew so well. “We’ll be talking about this trip for the rest of our lives.”
Cooper gave him a one-armed hug and shook his hand. “Good call, man. This place rocks.”
“Let’s get a picture,” Auggie suggested, and the others chattered in agreement.
They took pictures of each other in various poses around the room, including several group shots using the timer option on Auggie’s camera. Afterwards, Cooper retired to the hammock while Auggie and Ben sorted through their gear, reorganizing clothes and arranging toiletries and other essentials on the room’s only shelf.
Folding a pair of hiking pants, Auggie turned to look at Cooper, who was stretched out in the hammock with his eyes closed. Looking very much like a sleeping child, his face was a paragon of innocence, as though he had not a worry in the world. “Hey, Coop, aren’t you going to unpack some of your stuff?”
Slowly opening h
is eyes, Cooper looked at him and shrugged. “I’m supervising,” he said, cackling. “You’re doing a wonderful job, by the way. I might just give both of you a promotion.”
Ben chuckled in spite of himself. “Man, you are one lazy dick, you know that?”
Cooper reciprocated with a smile that was all teeth.
“What should we do with the passports and all the other stuff?” Auggie asked, handing Ben a plastic bottle of insect repellent and a tube of sunscreen.
“Might as well leave them in your bag. There’s no sense unpacking everything,” Ben said, taking the items and placing them on the shelf.
Cooper cocked his head. “Why not?”
Auggie groaned. “Here we go again.”
“Huh?”
“This is just a one-night stop on our way to the research center,” Ben explained slowly. “You know about that.”
A shadow of suspicion passed over Auggie’s narrow face. “I gave you a copy of the daily agenda I created for us. Did you even look at it?”
“Well, of course I looked at it. It’s not like I memorized the damn thing.”
“Anyway,” Ben said, “we’ll just have to make the most of our one night here.”
“It is sort of a shame, though,” Auggie lamented. “This place is pretty awesome.”
“Hey, no argument here, but the research center will be even better.” Ben paused to let this sink in, and continued in his usual, confident way. “It’s the most remote lodge in the Amazon, which means fewer tourists and even more wildlife. A real adventure. You’ll see.”
Cooper tucked his hands behind his head, gazing outside as he lost himself in the jungle’s song. He rubbed his temples distractedly, a nagging headache catching him unawares as it pierced through the fog of exhaustion. A short time later, Ben and Auggie retreated to their beds. All the days of constant travel had finally caught up with them, and the two boys grew increasingly quiet until sleep delivered them to darkness. Feeling increasingly unwell, Cooper silently slipped out of the hammock, ducked under the curtain, and padded out of the room in search of a bathroom.
Three
Ernesto came to collect them later. Standing on the walkway, he called out to them from the other side of the curtain, waiting patiently for someone to respond.
“Hey, guys?”
Little by little, Ben emerged from the depths of sleep. Opening his eyes, it took several seconds before he remembered where he was. Even then, his mind was cluttered with the remnants of dreams, fragmented visions of the places they had seen during the course of their adventure so far, and the fellow travelers they’d befriended along the way.
Now Ben found himself looking up at the bottom of the mosquito net platform, which dangled from a rope just a few feet above him. The net itself was still neatly folded on top of the platform, as yet untouched. He had fallen asleep on top of the sheets, still dressed in the same sweaty clothes as before, and the room seemed slightly darker than he remembered it.
His eyes were drawn to the open wall, where the yellow sunlight squeezed in through the railing slats, creating alternating bars of shadow and light across the floor. A galaxy of dust motes and sand flies whirled within these sunlit beams, hovering precariously on the edge of darkness. Far off in the jungle, something—presumably a bird, though Ben couldn’t be sure—made a series of ululating cries that ended in a sorrowful, drawn-out note. The sound made Ben imagine that such cries were the animal kingdom’s version of a party line. Only, in this case, it appeared as though there was no one there to take the call. The creature tried again and again, and still there was no response. The unfortunate caller, apparently deciding there was no similar creature out there to answer its cry, suddenly fell into a brooding silence. It was late afternoon in the rainforest.
Ben sat up and saw that both Cooper and Auggie were still asleep, Cooper on the hammock and Auggie on one of the beds. Cooper was sprawled carelessly, one arm hanging over the edge of the hammock, fingers dangling above the floor. Auggie was curled into a near-fetal position; even in sleep, he looked restless and meek. Ben watched them for a few seconds and they didn’t move. For some reason, it crossed his mind that his friends might be dead. His muscles tensed. He held his breath, and in the dreadful silence that followed he had time enough to wonder if perhaps something venomous had bitten them while they were sleeping, causing a cardiac arrest or some other dreadful condition from which they would never awaken. In the span of just a few agonizing seconds, Ben had already imagined an entire scenario in which he must call each boy’s parents to deliver the heartbreaking message. What would he say? I’m sorry, but your son is dead, just didn’t seem to cut it. Would they blame him for dragging their sons along on this adventure? Then Auggie’s mouth popped open with a soft exhalation—Paaaaah!—and Ben knew in that instant that the notion was ridiculous. He breathed a long sigh of relief, silently chastising himself for such foolish thoughts.
Auggie’s paranoia is starting to wear off on me, Ben thought with a touch of amusement.
A voice said, “Hey, guys?”
Ernesto lingered on the walkway, waiting patiently. Ben could see his small sneakers in the space between the curtain and the floor and called out to him, but it appeared that Ernesto was too polite to enter the room, even upon invitation. Snatching up his Red Sox hat from the bed and placing it backwards on his head, he stood and stretched before heading outside to greet Ernesto.
When Ben returned a few minutes later, his friends were still sleeping peacefully and he called out to them until they were awake. Rummaging through his backpack for a change of clothes, he announced that they were to meet Ernesto at the lodge entrance in fifteen minutes. Following Ben’s lead, the boys exchanged their civilian clothes for their jungle gear: long-sleeved shirts with hidden mesh for ventilation, lightweight hiking pants, and hiking shoes. As they were changing clothes, a strangely musical chirping sound came from somewhere inside the room.
“What the hell is that?” said Auggie. Then, turning to the other: “Did one of you idiots put a bird or something in my backpack?”
Cooper only shook his head and shrugged.
Ben chuckled, holding up his arm to show them his wristwatch. “I set it this morning so we’d remember to take our pills.”
Auggie was nonplussed. “Damn,” he sighed. “I never even thought of that.”
Cooper grinned. “That’s why we got Benny with us, so we don’t have to think of those things.”
Ben tossed him the plastic bottle of Malarone tablets. “I already took mine while you guys were asleep. Might as well dose up now, before we go hiking.”
Cooper snatched the bottle out of the air with one hand. “How many should I take?”
“Just one. Technically, I think we’re supposed to take them in the morning, but we already missed today’s dose.”
“Actually,” chimed in Auggie, “we already screwed the whole thing up. We were supposed to start taking them days ago, before we got here. I also read you’re supposed to take them at the same time every day.”
Ben shrugged. “Nothing we can do about it now.”
Cooper was holding a pill up for inspection, examining it closely. “What’s this for again?”
Ben smiled benevolently. “Anti-malaria. The doctor explained it to us, remember? If you forget to take it and the wrong mosquito bites you, you’re fucked.”
Cooper popped the pill into his mouth and gulped it down. Auggie took the container and shook a pill into his palm. Tossing it into his mouth, he swallowed it dry with a look of disgust.
Ben glanced around the room, taking inventory of their scant belongings. “I figure I’ll bring my pack, so we can carry all our cameras and shit,” announced Ben. “There’s no use in all of us bringing one.”
Cooper slipped on his sunglasses. “Sounds good to me, amigo.”
“We can take turns carrying it if you want,” offered Auggie.
As they dressed, Cooper babbled excitedly about seeing jaguars and pumas i
n the wild. He rambled on, mostly to himself. “Maybe I’ll get close enough to pet one,” he finished at last.
“You never know…” Ben said. He shot a conspiratorial glance at Auggie, who rolled his eyes.
Cooper turned his head to the crush of vegetation just outside the open wall. “That,” he whispered, “would be so fucking cool.”
***
On their way to the dining area, they found the lodge mostly empty, save for an amorous young couple nuzzling against each other at the bar and an older man dozing in one of the hammocks with a tattered paperback draped across his chest. There were two water coolers attached to the railing, each on opposite ends of the dining area. Ben poured a few ounces into his bottle. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he drank. The water was cool, not cold, and it tasted as delicious as any Ben had ever had. When he was finished, he filled the entire bottle to the brim.
“How is it?” asked Auggie.
Ben moved aside for him. “It’s fine. Make sure you fill up.”
Auggie did. He had not realized just how dehydrated he was until he took his first sip and his stomach lurched in greedy anticipation. By the time Cooper was done filling his own bottle, Auggie had already polished off half a liter and felt as though he could finish the rest and then some. After refilling the bottle to the brim, he secured the cap and put it in the side pouch of Ben’s backpack.
Cooper clapped him on the shoulder. “You good?”
Auggie wiped some excess droplets from his chin. “Yeah.”
“You sure?” Ben persisted.
Auggie’s smile was as sharp as a scalpel. He didn’t like being treated like the weak link, and he was surprised by the sudden revelation that he was just as eager as they were to see what the jungle had to offer. “I’m good,” he said through gritted teeth. “Really. I’ve got plenty of water. Now let’s get going. Ernesto’s probably wondering where we are.”
Retracing their steps through the dining area, they passed rows of empty tables, crossed a short catwalk, and then entered a small lounge area that consisted of several couches and wicker chairs set around a coffee table. They could see Ernesto waiting at the entrance, his small frame etched against the afternoon light. A high, musical voice grabbed their attention just before they reached the main foyer.
Pray for Darkness: Terror in the Green Inferno Page 3