Now the boys were meandering down the long catwalk that led back to the guest wing. Pleasantly intoxicated, they did not want the night to end. Stumbling toward the room, stopping here and there to take photos and video clips they would dimly and blushingly remember later on, those first feelings of awe came rushing back to them. The dampness of the evening revealed a strange new essence, a latent vitality in the air that diffused the sweet floral notes of nocturnal flowers; the pungent smell of jasmine; the smoky aroma of rotting leaves. Even Auggie—perturbed though he was about the improbability of a good night’s sleep and the inevitable hangover thereafter—could not ignore the wonders of this enchanting new world, or the special quality of this moment.
Stopping suddenly, Cooper tilted his head back to the sky. “Wo-oh, look at that!”
The moon was invisible at this hour, obscured by the vertiginous height of the canopy, and in its absence the sky was cloudless, black and studded with stars that winked on and off like Christmas lights.
Ben stumbled into Cooper and caught himself against the railing, laughing gleefully at his own clumsiness. Leaning back, he followed Cooper’s upwards gaze, blinking as he struggled to focus. “Is that—”
“The Milky Way,” Auggie confirmed, stepping up beside him.
Surrounded by the black spires of the jungle, the trio stood united in friendship, the spirit of adventure, and the warmth of intoxication. A pensive silence settled amongst them. In the absence of human voices, the night sounds seemed to intensify as the symphony of crickets, birds, and tree frogs swelled around them.
“Wow,” whispered Ben. “It’s just—it looks so—”
“Milky?” laughed Cooper.
Ben said nothing, but the lantern’s yellow flame illuminated his drunken smile.
“This is awesome.”
“The balls.”
“Even better than Machu Picchu…”
“Those girls…”
“Best night ever.”
A pause.
“Yes,” Auggie agreed in a formal tone. “This truly is the balls.”
Turning to one another, the three of them shook with laughter at this most eloquent affirmation.
“Alright,” Ben said reluctantly, “we should probably get some sleep, huh? We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow and we don’t want to be dragging ass again. You guys ready to call it a night?”
“These jungle noises are crazy,” Cooper slurred as they continued down the catwalk. “They remind me of that cantina. You know the one I mean? From Jedi?”
Ben and Auggie both chuckled at this strange but improbably accurate comparison.
“The cantina,” Auggie said, “was from the original Star Wars. You’re thinking of Jabba’s palace.”
“What was the name of that fat dude’s band?” Cooper persisted.
“Sy Snootles and the Rebo Band,” Auggie replied without hesitation.
Cooper became weak with laughter. Leaning on the railing, he doubled over in hysterics.
“Shhh…” Ben hissed, also trying to contain himself.
Cooper howled. “How the fuck do you remember shit like that?”
Auggie only smiled and shrugged.
When they arrived at Room 10, they ducked through the curtain and stumbled inside.
Sitting on the end of his bed, Ben began to unbutton his shirt. Glancing to his side, he saw that Auggie was rummaging through his backpack, carefully removing items and setting them aside on his mattress. After tucking in the bug net, Ben fell back upon his pillow with a sigh. “Are you going to kill the light?”
“In a little while,” said Auggie. “I just wanted to jot down a few things in my journal.”
Through the white mesh of the mosquito net, Ben could see the ghostlike outline of his introspective friend. Auggie was sitting with his legs propped up and his back against the headboard. A little notebook rested on his knees; he was deep in thought as he nibbled on the back of a pen. After a few seconds, Ben rolled over and fell asleep.
***
Auggie flipped through the pages of his journal, smiling at the previous entries: vivid descriptions of some college girls they had met in Cusco; his impressions and theories about Machu Picchu, a few quick notes identifying the names of various restaurants and bars they had visited and people they had met along the way (there was an entire page dedicated to the lovely Aussie girls). Now reading through these pages, Auggie realized that this jungle adventure in the Amazon had already far surpassed those other memories. How could anything compare to this? he wondered. No one back home will ever understand. Even when they see the pictures and hear our stories, they’ll think they know what it was like to be here, but they won’t. They’ll have no idea. Only Ben, Cooper, and I…
This last thought touched him in some new and unexpected way. The three of them were now one, forever bound by this unique and magnificent experience. They were different now. Equal.
Turning to a blank page, he tapped the pen against his lips, thinking.
Outside, the night songs of the forest rose and fell. A loud twilling arose from somewhere nearby. Auggie was amused to know this was a tree frog; as part of his pre-trip planning, he had listened to dozens of audio clips on YouTube. He looked over at his friends, both of them motionless and apparently already asleep beneath their bug nets.
I travel not to learn more about other people and places but to learn more about myself.
Though he could not recall the origin of this quote, he felt it was apt enough for the occasion.
After a time, Auggie put the pen to paper, and it moved across the page as though guided by a force all its own.
Today was the most amazing day of my life, he began.
Nine
Cooper was frustrated.
He and Janie had been fooling around all night in the field outside the main lodge, surrounded by the throbbing jungle. Several times, he had removed her clothes only to find her fully dressed again. Now, for the first time, they were both fully and gloriously nude and about to have mad, passionate sex when they were interrupted by the sound of birds chirping.
“What’s that?” Janie asked, jerking her head up in surprise.
“It’s nothing,” he assured her, pulling her down on top of him. He gave her his winning smile, the one that had helped him loosen the morals of even the most respectable girls. Warmed by his smile, she leaned over and pressed her mouth against his. Things were just starting to get hot and heavy when the birdsong interposed again and everything melted to gray.
Cooper awoke abruptly to the early morning light, desperately trying to cling to the fantasy. Even as he came to, he knew it was a dream, but he wanted to finish it, the final act. Unfortunately, the daylight was already washing away the details of his dream. He was alone in his bed, and his erection felt as though it were going to explode. Those damned birds—
And there it was again, that annoying racket.
No, not birds. Ben’s wristwatch, chirping out the hour.
“Ugh!” Auggie moaned, rolling onto his stomach and pulling a pillow over his head. “Someone please shut that thing off!”
Cooper tossed the mosquito net aside and jumped up from the bed, feet landing with a thud upon the wooden floor. Ben’s bed was empty, the covers rumpled and the mosquito net untucked from the mattress. On the table, resting beside the bottle of Malarone tablets, Ben’s wristwatch blurted the unwanted alarm. Perhaps he had gotten lucky last night? Then Cooper remembered that the three of them had returned to the room together, and he cast that thought aside. Cooper padded over to the table and picked up the watch. He jabbed at every button until at last it fell silent.
A moment later, Ben pushed through the doorway curtain, dripping wet and wearing only a towel.
“Rise and shine, bitches.”
Auggie’s voice was muffled against his pillow. “Dude, really?”
“What’s wrong?” Ben asked cheerfully.
Cooper swayed unsteadily, blinking in surprise. “I fu
cking hate you right now,” he croaked.
“Urgh!” Ben groaned, shrinking back. “Man, your breath smells like ass.”
Cooper shrugged. “Yeah, I sort of puked over the railing last night.”
“You lightweight.” Ben produced a tin of Altoids from his shaving kit and tossed it to Cooper, who snagged it from the air with a one-handed grab. Cooper opened the tin and popped two mints into his mouth.
“Thanks,” Cooper muttered, and flopped back onto his pillow.
Ben shook his head. “No problem. Yo, Auggie-dog, what about you? Please tell me you didn’t puke, too.”
Auggie sat up with a grunt. “No… but I wish I did.”
“See?” Ben said with a laugh. He dropped the towel he was holding and began to get dressed in the clothes he had set aside the night before. “Even Auggie didn’t puke.”
“Yes,” Auggie said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Even I didn’t puke.”
Throwing the mosquito net aside, Auggie sat sulking on the edge of his bed. Rubbing his eyes, he grunted again as he crossed the room, finding a bottle of water on the table and guzzling most of it down in a single gulp, not caring whose bottle it was or where it had come from. Returning the bottle to the table, he noticed Ben’s watch for the first time.
“Where’s the Malarone?”
“Over there,” Ben told him. “On the shelf.”
Auggie nodded, picked up the water bottle again, and stumbled over to the shelf. He uncapped the bottle, popped one of the bitter pills into his mouth, and took another swallow of water. He looked at Ben, who was folding his dirty clothes to store away inside his backpack. “Did you already take yours?”
“The Malarone? Yeah, I popped one before I took a shower.”
“You left your watch here,” Auggie muttered.
“That’s right,” Ben agreed, letting Auggie’s accusatory tone slip past him. “I left it here on purpose so you guys would wake up and take your pills.”
“It wouldn’t shut up,” Cooper croaked from the bed.
“What if the alarm doesn’t go off, and we all forget to take the pills?”
“That’s why I set it,” explained Ben, “so we’d all be on the same schedule.”
Looking at Ben, Auggie’s button eyes seemed to grow smaller. “Yeah, but what if we’re not all together when the alarm goes off? Like, if you go for a walk or something, and Cooper and I are chilling out in the room?”
“Then I’ll remind you guys when I get back.”
Auggie nodded uncertainly, gnawing on his bottom lip.
Ben rolled his eyes and began to unbuckle the watch from his wrist. “Here, if it will make you feel better, why don’t you wear it?”
Auggie shook his head slowly. “No, I trust you.”
Ben held the watch out to him with his eyebrows raised. “Just take it.”
“Are you sure?”
Ben’s arm remained extended with the watch in hand. “Just take it,” he repeated, pressing the watch into Auggie’s palm. “It’s probably better you have it, anyway. Maybe you’ll be able to figure out the damn alarm while you’re at it.”
Auggie strapped the watch onto his bony wrist with a look of relief. “Cool, thanks. I’ll take good care of it, I promise.”
Cooper moaned as he sat up. “I’m never gonna drink again.”
“You said that last time,” Auggie chided.
“Yeah,” Cooper groaned. “But this time I mean it.”
Ten
The river, like the jungle, was always changing.
An hour after they left the lodge, the water became turbid and gray, the color of sewage. Gone were the sandy shores and swaying palms that, only yesterday, had conjured images of tropical locales and exotic women with rum libations. In their place, massive walls of green encroached the banks, which were little more than the suggestion of solid ground, jagged scrawls of dark sludge that descended quickly into the unknown depths below. The trees and underbrush were a tangled confusion of vines, branches, foliage; it was impossible to tell where one growth ended and another began. With its fan-shaped fronds and solid trunks, the previous day’s landscape had, for the most part, a familiar aesthetic, whereas this new landscape was a nightmare for the eye; like a child’s interpretation of a jungle, it resembled an unplanned, unfinished scribble of green with no discernible pattern and no perceivable boundaries.
The sputter of a diesel engine drew their attention to the shore as they passed an ungainly metal contraption that seemed to serve no perceivable function but to make noise and belch smoke. Save for three or four wooden bowls that had been arranged upon the trembling platform, there were no other signs of human life. Upon seeing the unmanned machine, Brooke’s mobile mouth turned downward.
“Hey,” Cooper said. “It’s another one of those gold extractors, right? Like from the other day?”
Brooke’s eyes narrowed. She crossed her arms. “That’s exactly what it is,” she replied in a voice that trembled with anger. Her small hand became a fist that opened and closed, opened, closed. “Those prospectors are destroying the river. And the vapors pollute the air. We’ve already seen some of the damage, but the long-term effects will be immeasurable. There are species here that haven’t even been named yet, and these assholes are going to wipe them out before they can even be discovered. For what? Some yellow rocks that can be found almost anywhere in the world?”
Ben studied her admiringly. This sudden outburst intrigued him. Her anger was passionate, deep, and instant, and it somehow made him like her even more.
For the next three hours, the going was slow, their progress impeded by the rocky shallows and by the occasional cluster of fallen trees. Several times they actually felt the wooden vessel scrape bottom—a cringe-worthy sensation, not unlike fingernails on a chalkboard—and the five Americans looked at one another and grimaced as they each grabbed for the nearest lifejacket. Only Felix seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to navigation, somehow lifting the propeller shaft out of the water just in time to save the blades from sure calamity. Gradually the river grew deeper, then wider, pushing the shorelines farther and farther apart, and now the sun beat down upon them, unobstructed by the canopy.
“Hey, what’s that?”
An island had appeared before them: a near-vertical ridge of land, which divided the river in two. A wooden staircase clung precariously to the escarpment, inviting the eye to follow it to the top of the rise, where an arrangement of stilted huts sat perched amongst the trees. The huts seemed to extend beneath the trees and out of view, suggesting a small community.
“What’s that?” asked Ben. “Some kind of village?”
“It’s a checkpoint,” Brooke announced. “Well, actually, it’s the checkpoint. We have to sign-in before we enter the reserve.”
“Wait,” said Ben. He turned his camera on and directed it at the petite girl. “I’m here with the lovely Brooke, somewhere in the heart of the Amazon, and we’ve just arrived at a small village set upon a picturesque hill. And Miss—?”
Since last night, Ben had wondered about Brooke’s last name, but it had felt rather awkward just to come right out and ask. Now, by means of the video introduction, he had left the door open for her to fill that blank herself.
“Harlow,” Brooke supplied, unknowingly laying that mystery to rest.
“Miss Harlow,” Ben said with emphasis, trying and liking the sound of her last name, “would you enlighten our audience, please?”
“Well, Mr.—?” Lips parted, eyebrows raised, she waited expectantly.
“Sawyer,” Ben replied, grinning behind the camera as he realized how the tables had been turned. Wow, he thought. She’s a clever one.
“Well, Mr. Sawyer,” Brooke continued, “this little village is actually a checkpoint, where we will soon disembark from this here watercraft in order to sign the register—” She paused, trying not to laugh as she noticed Ben’s smile widen behind the camera. “The register is strictly a formality to ensure the saf
ety of our group in the event that we enter the jungle, never to be seen again.”
At this last part, Ben did laugh. He hit the STOP button and powered down the camera. “Holy shit,” he said. “That was pretty damned good. You should be a host on one of those travel shows.”
Brooke wrinkled her nose, blushing. “Thanks,” she said.
As the hill loomed closer, they began to feel the anticipation of movement. They’d been sitting for hours, and were eager to stretch their legs. Auggie grabbed his camera, looping the lanyard around his neck. He was fiddling with the lens when he felt something cold press against his arm. When he looked up, he saw Ben holding a bottle of water toward him.
“Here,” Ben said. “It’s getting really hot out there. You don’t want to get dehydrated.”
Auggie accepted the water with a half-smile. “Thanks, Mom.”
The motorized canoe glided toward the shore, the prow sliding to a slow stop as it kissed the muddy bank. Ernesto hopped off the bow and helped them off the gently rocking boat and onto solid ground.
As they started up the grassy slope, a flotilla of moths came twirling up from the long grass as though caught in a vortex. Their iridescent wings caught the sunlight and flashed shades of green. Cooper turned to Janie. “Those’re moths, not butterflies,” he explained.
Janie smirked at him. “Yes, I know.”
He had to look at her to see if she was joking, but she wasn’t. Cooper had clearly wanted to impress her with this modicum of knowledge and, seeing that she had stolen this small bit of joy from him, Janie felt a stab of guilt and hurried to catch up to him. She grabbed his hand and squeezed it, and in good time he was smiling again and order was restored.
“Hey, guys,” said Ernesto. “We are going for to sign the book in the ranger station. There is a bathroom if you need.”
Pray for Darkness: Terror in the Green Inferno Page 7