The Ruins

by Scott Smith

  "Say ‘Hold me. Just hold me.'"

  Stacy lifted her hand from his knee, stared at him. "What?"

  "I want to hear you. I'll be able to tell if I hear you say it."

  "Tell what?'

  "If it's your voice."

  "You're being an asshole, Eric."

  "Say ‘No one will hear.'"

  She shook her head. "I'm not gonna do this."

  "Or ‘harder.' Whisper ‘harder.'"

  Stacy stood up. "I have to check on Pablo."

  "He's fine. Can't you hear him?" And it was true: the sound of Pablo's breathing seemed to fill the tent.

  Stacy had her hands on her hips. He couldn't make out her face in the darkness, but he could tell somehow that she was frowning at him. "Why are you doing this? Huh? We have so much else to deal with here, and you're acting like-"

  "Amy was right. You're a slut."

  This seemed to hit home; it slapped her into momentary silence. Then, very quietly, she whispered, "What the fuck, Eric? How can you say that?"

  He heard a trembling in her voice, and it nearly gave him pause. But then he was speaking again; he couldn't stop himself. "When did you do it? Tonight?"

  It was hard to tell, but it seemed like she might be crying.

  "You were naked when you came in," he said. "I saw you naked."

  She was wiping her face with her hand. The rain increased suddenly, jumping in volume; it felt as if the tent might collapse beneath it. Instinctively, they both ducked. It lasted only a few seconds, though, and in its passing, the world seemed oddly quiet.

  "Were there other times, too?"

  Stacy made a sniffling sound. "Please stop."

  Eric hesitated. For some reason, that peculiar sense of heightened silence was beginning to unsettle him-it seemed ominous, threatening. He glanced out toward the clearing, as if expecting an intruder there. "Tell me how many times, Stacy."

  She shook her head again. "You're being a bastard."

  "I'm not angry. Do I seem angry?"

  "I hate you sometimes. I really do."

  "I just want the truth. I just want-"

  Stacy started to scream, making him jump. Her fists were clenched; she was yanking at her hair. She yelled, "Shut up! Can you do that? Can you please just shut the fuck up?" She stepped forward, as if to strike him-her right arm raised over her head-but then stopped in mid-stride and turned toward the tent flap.

  Eric followed her gaze. Mathias was standing there, stooping, one foot in the tent, one foot still outside. He was completely drenched. It was hard to discern much more than that in the darkness, but Eric had a sense of the German's confusion. He seemed as if he were about to retreat back into the night, deferring to their privacy.

  "Maybe you can tell me," Eric said to him. "Did you fuck her?"

  Mathias was silent, too startled by the question to offer an answer.

  "The vine was making sounds," Stacy explained. "Like we'd had sex."

  Eric was leaning forward, peering at Mathias's face, trying to read his expression. "Say ‘God, that feels good.'"

  Mathias still had one foot out in the rain. He shook his head. "I don't understand."

  "Or ‘We shouldn't. What if he-' Can you say that?"

  "Stop it, Eric," Stacy said.

  Eric spun on her. "I'm not talking to you. All right?" He turned back toward Mathias. "Just say it. I want to hear your voice."

  "Where do you think you are?" Mathias asked.

  Eric couldn't think of a response to this. Hell was the word that came to him. I'm in hell. But he didn't say it.

  "Why would you even care-at this point, I mean-if Stacy and I had fucked? Why would it matter? We're trapped here. We don't have any food. Henrich and Amy have both been killed. I can't find Jeff. And Pablo-"

  He stopped, cocked his head, listening. They all did.

  The silence, Eric thought.

  Mathias vanished back out into the rain.

  "Oh God," Stacy moaned, hurrying after him. "Oh please no."

  Eric stood up, the sleeping bag still wrapped around his shoulders. He stepped to the flap, peered toward the lean-to. Mathias was kneeling beside the backboard; Stacy was standing behind him. The rain poured down on both of them.

  "I'm so sorry," Stacy kept saying. "I'm so sorry."

  Mathias rose to his feet. He didn't say anything; he didn't need to. His expression of disgust as he shoved his way past Eric into the tent was far more eloquent than any words he might've uttered.

  Stacy lowered herself into a crouch, the rain spattering her with mud. She hugged her legs, began to rock back and forth. "I'm so sorry… I'm so sorry… I'm so sorry…"

  Eric could barely make out Pablo on his backboard, beyond her, just visible in the darkness. Motionless. Silent. While they'd argued in the tent, while the storm had beaten down on them from above, the vine had sent forth an emissary. A single thin tendril had wound itself around the Greek's face, covering his mouth, his nose, smothering him into death.

  Even after the rain had begun to fall, Jeff had maintained his post at the bottom of the hill. If the Greeks had set out that morning, then it seemed possible the storm could've surprised them on the walk in from the road. Jeff spent some time attempting to guess how Juan and Don Quixote would react to its arrival, whether they'd turn around and try to flee back to Cobá, or duck their heads and hurry onward. He had to admit that the latter of these two options seemed least probable. Only if they were nearly there, if they'd already left the main trail and were making their way along that final, gradually uphill stretch, could he envision them persisting through this downpour.

  He decided he'd give them twenty minutes.

  Which was a long time, sitting out in the open, unsheltered, with that rain beating down upon him. The Mayans had retreated into the tree line, were crowded together beneath their tarp. Only one of them remained in the clearing, watching Jeff. He'd fashioned a sort of poncho for himself, using a large plastic garbage bag, from which he'd torn holes for his head and arms. Jeff could remember making a similar garment once, on a camping trip, when he and his fellow Boy Scouts had been caught unexpectedly in a two-day rainstorm. As they'd made their way home, they'd been forced to ford a river. It was the same one they'd crossed on their hike into the woods, a week earlier, but it had risen dramatically since they'd last glimpsed it. The current was fast, chest-deep, very cold. Jeff had stripped to his underwear, floundered across with a rope slung over his shoulder. He'd tied it to a tree so that the others could follow, holding on to it for support. He could remember how daring he'd believed himself to be for attempting this feat-a hero of sorts-and he felt slightly embarrassed by the recollection. It came to him now that he'd spent his entire life playing at one thing or another, always pretending that it was more than a game. But that was all it had ever been, of course.

  The rain fell in a steady torrent. There was thunder but no lightning. It was nearly dark when Jeff finally checked his watch, stood up, turned to go.

  The trail had grown muddy, slippery with it; climbing was hard work. Jeff kept having to stop and catch his breath. It was during one of these pauses, as he glanced back down toward the bottom of the hill, struggling to judge how far he'd come, that the idea of fleeing occurred to him once more. The light had faded enough that he could no longer see the tree line. A mist was rising from the cleared ground, further obscuring his view. The downpour had doused the Mayans' campfires; unless they were prepared to spend the night standing guard almost shoulder-to-shoulder along the jungle's margin, it seemed perfectly possible that Jeff might find a passage through them.

  The rain maintained its onslaught, but for the moment Jeff was hardly conscious of it. He was famished; he was completely used up. He wanted to go back to the tent, wanted to open the tiny can of nuts they'd brought and parcel it out among them. He wanted to drink from their jug of water until his stomach began to hurt; he wanted to close his eyes and sleep. He fought against these temptations, though-and that sense of
failure, too, which continued to cling to him, promising him yet another disappointment-and struggled for something like hope, a sentiment that was already beginning to feel oddly unfamiliar. He asked himself: Why shouldn't it work? Why shouldn't he be able to creep down the hill and find the clearing deserted, the Mayans huddling together beneath their plastic tarps, hiding from the deluge? Why shouldn't he be able to slip past them, undetected, vanishing into the jungle beyond? He could hide there till dawn, start for Cobá at first light. He could save them all.

  But no-he was doing it again, wasn't he? More foolishness, more pretending. Because wouldn't the Mayans have anticipated something like this? Wouldn't there be sentries waiting for him, arrows nocked? And then Jeff would just have to retrace his footsteps back up the hill, all the more tired and cold and hungry for the wasted effort.

  Round and round he went like this, tilting first in one direction, then the other, while the rain fell upon him and the darkness continued to deepen. In the end-despite his hunger, his fatigue, his anticipatory sense of failure-it was Jeff's upbringing that finally triumphed, his New England roots asserting themselves in all their asceticism, that deep Puritan reflex always to choose the more arduous of any two fates.

  He made his way slowly back down the trail to the bottom of the hill.

  And it was exactly as he'd anticipated-the mist, the rain, the gathering dark-he couldn't see more than fifteen feet in any direction. If the Mayan with the makeshift poncho was still on duty in the center of the clearing, he was hidden from sight now. Which meant, of course, that Jeff, in turn, was equally invisible. All he had to do was edge to his left, twenty yards, thirty at the most; this would put him midway between the Mayans sheltering beneath their tarp here and the ones at the next encampment. And then, if he crept forward, cloaked in the darkness, the mist, the rain, he might very well manage to reach the jungle unobserved.

  He turned to his left, started walking, counting his strides in his head. One…two…three…four… The rain had already saturated the clearing, transforming its soil into a deep, viscous mud that clung heavily to his feet. Jeff thought of his earlier attempt to flee, that first night, when he'd tried to sneak down through the vines, how the tendrils had cried out, alerting the Mayans of his approach, and he wondered why the plant was remaining so quiet now, so motionless. Surely it must've sensed what he was intending. It was possible, of course, that this silence betrayed how negligible Jeff's chances were, that the vine could perceive the Mayans standing guard even through the darkness, the mist, the rain, that it knew he'd never make it-he'd either be turned back or killed. At some remove within himself, Jeff could even grasp what this portended, could recognize that the logical course, the sensible one, would be to surrender now, to retreat up the hill to safety.

  Yet he kept walking.

  Thirty strides, and then he stopped. He stood there peering toward the jungle. All he could hear was the rain slapping down into the mud. The wind tugged at the mist, stirring it deceptively. Jeff kept pulling shapes from the darkness, first to his left, then his right. Every cell in his body seemed to be warning him to turn back while he still could, and it baffled him why this should be so. Here, after all, was the moment he'd been yearning for, was it not? This was escape; this was salvation. How could he possibly renounce it? He tried to gird himself, tried to imagine what it would feel like to be lying in that tent five days from now as the hunger started to take hold, his body failing beneath it, how he'd think back to this moment and remember his hesitation here-the fury he'd feel with his cowardice, the disgust.

  He took a single step out into the clearing, then went still as another shape materialized from the mist, quickly vanished. This would be the way to do it, Jeff was certain-one cautious step at a time-but he knew, too, that he wasn't equal to such a path, that if he was going to venture this, he'd have to do it at a run. He was too worn-out for any other method; his nerves weren't equal to the challenge of the wiser, more wary approach. The risk, of course, was that he'd end up charging straight at one of the Mayans, stumbling directly into him. But perhaps it wouldn't matter. Perhaps, if he were moving quickly enough, he'd be past the man, vanishing once more into the darkness, before a weapon could even be raised. All he had to do was make it to the jungle and they'd never find him, not in this weather-he was certain of it.

  Jeff understood that if he kept thinking, kept debating, he wouldn't do it. He either had to make the leap now, immediately, or turn back. Perhaps this alone ought to have given him pause, but he didn't let it. To turn back would be to accept yet another failure here, and Jeff couldn't bring himself to do that. He thought back to that long-ago riverbank, the rope slung across his shoulder, the aplomb with which he'd plunged into the current-the utter self-confidence-and he struggled to reclaim that feeling, or some shadow of it.

  Then he took a deep breath.

  And started to run.

  He hadn't gone five steps before he sensed motion to his left, one of the Mayans rising to his feet, his bow before him. Even then, Jeff might've still had a chance. He could've stopped, could've turned back, smiling ruefully at the man, hands high over his head. The bow had to be raised, remember-it had to be drawn and aimed-so there ought to have been plenty of time for Jeff to demonstrate how harmless he was, how acquiescent. But it was too much to ask of him. He was in motion now, and he wasn't going to stop.

  He heard the man shout.

  He'll miss, Jeff thought. He'll -

  The arrow hit him just below his chin, piercing his throat, entering on the left side, exiting on the right, passing completely through his body. Jeff fell to his knees, but he was instantly back up on his feet, thinking, I'm okay; I'm not hurt, while his mouth rapidly filled with blood. He managed three more steps before the next arrow struck him. This one entered his chest, a few inches beneath his armpit, burying itself almost to its fletches. Jeff felt as if he'd been hit with a hammer. His breath left him, and he could sense that he wasn't going to get it back. He fell again, harder this time. He opened his mouth, and blood poured forth from it, a great surging gush splattering down into the mud beneath him. He tried to rise, but he didn't have the strength. His legs wouldn't move; they felt cold and far away, somewhere behind him in the darkness. Everything was becoming increasingly blurry-not just his vision but his thoughts, too. It took him a moment to understand what was grabbing at him. He thought it was one of the Mayans.

  But of course that wasn't it at all.

  The tendrils had reached out into the clearing and were wrapping themselves around his limbs now, dragging him backward through the mud. He tried to rise once more, managed an awkward sort of push-up before the vine jerked his left arm out from under him. He fell onto the arrow still protruding from his chest, the weight of his body pushing it deeper into himself. The tendrils kept tugging him toward the hillside. The mud beneath him felt oddly warm. It was his blood, Jeff knew. He could hear the vine sucking noisily at it, siphoning it up with its leaves. There were figures looming on the far periphery of his vision, a handful of Mayans, staring down at him, bows still drawn. "Help me," he begged, his voice making a gurgling sound as it passed through the blood, which continued to fill his mouth. His words were inaudible, he knew, yet he kept struggling to speak. "Please…help…me."

  That was all he could manage. Then a tendril covered his lips. Another slipped wetly across his eyes, his ears, and the world seemed to shift back a step-the Mayans peering down at him, the rain, the warmth of his blood-one step and then another, everything retreating, everything but the agony of his wounds, until finally, in the last long moment before the end, all that remained was darkness: darkness and silence and pain.

  The rain continued into the night, unabated. The tent's walls became saturated with it; the dripping leaks steadily multiplied. A puddle of water soon covered the entire floor, nearly an inch deep. The three of them sat in it together, in the dark. It was impossible to sleep, of course, so Stacy and Eric passed the time talking.

&n
bsp; Eric begged her forgiveness, and she gave it to him. They leaned against each other, embracing. Stacy slid her hand down to his groin, but he couldn't seem to get an erection, and after awhile she gave up. It was warmth she wanted anyway-figurative and literal-not sex. His skin seemed colder than hers, though, markedly so, and the longer they embraced, the more it began to feel as if he were draining the heat from her own flesh, chilling her. When he coughed suddenly, hunching forward, she used it as an excuse to pull away from him.

  She tried not to think about Pablo, but she couldn't stop herself. It felt strange to sit there, knowing that the vine was stripping the flesh from his bones, that he'd be a skeleton before morning. Off and on, as the night progressed, Stacy started to weep over this-over her part in it, her failure to protect him. Eric comforted her as best he could, assuring her that it wasn't her fault, that the Greek's death had been a given from the moment he fell down the shaft, that it was a mercy for it finally to be over.

  They spoke of Jeff, too, of course, pondering his absence, probing at the various possibilities it presented, returning obsessively to the prospect of his having found a way to flee. And the more they discussed it, the more obvious it began to seem to Stacy. Where else could he possibly be? He was making his way back to Cobá even now; before the sun set tomorrow, they'd be rescued. Yes. They weren't going to die here after all.

  Mathias remained quiet through all of this. Stacy could sense him in the darkness, four feet away from them; she could tell he was awake. She wanted him to speak, wanted him to join in the construction of their fantasy. His silence seemed to imply doubt, and Stacy felt threatened by this, as if his skepticism might somehow have the power to alter what was happening. She needed him to believe in Jeff's flight, too, needed his help to make it true. It was absurd, she knew, childish and superstitious, but she couldn't shake the feeling, was growing slightly panicky in the face of it.

  "Mathias?" she whispered. "Are you asleep?"