The Ruins

by Scott Smith

  She stroked his head, and he moaned. "I'm right here," she said. "I'm right here."

  He startled her by opening his eyes: he peered up at her, looking scared. When he tried to speak, it came out as a whisper, very hoarse, too soft to hear.

  She leaned close. "What?"

  Once more, there was that faint whisper. It sounded as if he were saying someone's name.

  "Billy?" she asked.

  He closed his eyes, dragged them open again.

  "Who's Billy, Eric?"

  She saw him swallow, and it looked painful. Breathing looked painful, too. Everything did.

  "I don't know a Billy."

  He gave a slow shake of his head. He was concentrating, she could tell, working to articulate the words. "Kill…me," he said.

  Stacy stared down at him. No, she was thinking. No, no, no. She was willing his eyes to drift shut again, willing him to slip back into unconsciousness.

  "It…hurts…"

  She nodded. "I know. But-"

  "Please…"

  "Eric-"

  "Please…"

  Stacy was starting to cry now. This was why the vine had left him untouched, she realized: it was to torment her with his passing. "You'll be okay. I promise. You just have to rest."

  Somehow, Eric managed a crooked smile. He reached, found her hand, squeezed. "Beg…ging…you."

  That was too much for Stacy; it knocked her into silence.

  "The…knife…"

  She shook her head. "No, sweetie. Shh."

  "Beg…ging…" he said. "Beg…ging…"

  He wasn't going to stop, she could tell. He was going to lie there with his head in her lap, bleeding, suffering, beseeching her assistance, while the sun continued its slow climb above them. If she wanted this to end-his bleeding, his suffering, his beseeching-she would have to be the one to do it.

  "Beg…ging…"

  Stacy carefully shifted his head aside, stood up. I'll get it for him, she was thinking. I'll let him do it. She moved to the edge of the clearing, stepped into the vine; she crouched beside Mathias's body, parted the tendrils. The plant had already stripped the flesh from his right arm, all the way to his shoulder. His face was untouched, though, his eyes open, staring at her. Stacy had to resist the urge to push them shut. The knife was still protruding from his chest. She grasped it, tugged, and it slipped free. She carried it back to Eric.

  "Here," she said. She put it in his right hand, closed his fingers over it.

  He gave her that lopsided smile again, that slow shake of his head. "Too…weak," he whispered.

  "Why don't you rest, then? Just shut your eyes and-"

  "You…" He was shoving the knife back toward her. "You…"

  "I can't, Eric."

  "Please…" He had her hand, the knife; he was pressing them together. "Please…"

  It was over, Stacy knew-Eric's life. All he had left here was torment. He wanted her help, was desperate for it. And to ignore his pleading, to sit back and let him suffer his way slowly into death, simply because she was too squeamish, too terrified to do what so clearly needed to be done, couldn't this be seen as a sort of sin? She had it in her power to ease his distress, yet she was choosing not to. So, in some way, wasn't she responsible for his agony?

  Who am I? she was thinking once again. Am I still me?

  "Where?" she asked.

  He took her hand, the one with the knife in it, brought it to his chest. "Here…" He set the tip of the blade so that it was resting next to his sternum. "Just…push…"

  It would've been so easy to pull the knife away, toss it aside, and Stacy was telling her body to do this, ordering it into motion. But it wasn't listening; it wasn't moving.

  "Please…" Eric whispered.

  She closed her eyes. Am I still me?

  "Please…"

  And then she did it: she leaned forward, shoving down upon the knife with all her weight.

  Pain.

  For an instant, that was all Eric was conscious of, as if something had exploded inside his chest. He could see Stacy above him, looking so frightened, so tearful. He was trying to speak, trying to say Thank you and I'm sorry and I love you, but the words weren't coming.

  They'd gone to a roadside zoo in Cancún one afternoon, as a lark. It had held no more than a dozen animals, one of which was labeled a zebra, though it was clearly a donkey, with black stripes painted on its hide. Some of the stripes had drip marks. While the four of them stood staring at it, the animal had suddenly braced its legs and peed, a tremendous torrent. Amy and Stacy had both collapsed into giggles. For some reason, this was what came to Eric now-the donkey relieving itself, the girls grabbing at each other, the sound of their laughter.

  Thank you, he was still struggling to say. I'm sorry. I love you.

  And the pain was slowly easing…everything was…moving further away…further away…further away…

  The vine claimed his body. Stacy didn't try to fight it; she knew there was no point.

  The sun was directly overhead; she guessed she had six more hours or so before it would begin to set. She remembered Mathias's words-"How can we say for certain that it won't be today?"-and tried to draw some hope from them. She'd be okay as long as it was light. It was the dark that frightened her, the prospect of lying alone in that tent, too terrified to sleep.

  She shouldn't have been the one to survive, she knew; it should've been Jeff. He wouldn't have been scared to watch the sun start its long journey westward. Food and water and shelter-he would've had a plan for all of these, different from hers, which wasn't really a plan at all.

  She sat just outside the tent and ate the remaining supplies-the pretzels, the two protein bars, the raisins, the tiny packets of saltines-washing them down with the can of Coke, the bottles of iced tea.

  Everything-she finished everything.

  She stared out across the clearing and thought of the many others who'd died in this place, these strangers whose mounds of bones dotted the hillside. Each of them had gone through his or her own ordeal here. So much pain, so much desperation, so much death.

  Fleeing headlong from a burning building-could that be called a plan?

  Stacy could remember how they'd talked about suicide late one night, all four of them, more drunk than not, choosing prospective methods for themselves. She'd been slouched on her bed, leaning against Eric. Amy and Jeff had been on the floor, playing a halfhearted game of backgammon. Jeff, ever efficient, had told them about pills and a plastic bag-it was both painless and reliable, he claimed. Eric proposed a shotgun, its barrel in his mouth, a toe on the trigger. Amy had been drawn to the idea of falling from a great height, but rather than jumping, she wanted someone to push her, and they argued back and forth over whether this could count as suicide. Finally, she surrendered, choosing carbon monoxide instead, a car idling in an empty garage. Stacy's fantasy was more elaborate: a rowboat, far out to sea, weights to bear her body down. It was the idea of vanishing she found so attractive, the mystery she'd leave behind.

  They'd been joking, of course. Playing.

  Stacy could feel the caffeine from the Coke, the iced tea; she was becoming jittery with it. She held her hands up before her face, and they were shaking.

  There was no rowboat here, of course, no idling car or shotgun or bottle of pills. She had the drop into the shaft. She had the rope hanging from the windlass. She had the Mayans waiting at the bottom of the hill with their arrows and their bullets.

  And then there was the knife, too.

  How can we say for certain that it won't be today?

  She found her sunshade, used the roll of duct tape to repair the damage the storm had wrought upon it. She retrieved the bottle of tequila from the center of the clearing. Then she set off down the trail.

  Carrying the knife.

  The Mayans turned to appraise her as she approached: her bloodstained clothes, her trembling hands. She sat at the edge of the clearing, the knife in her lap, the sunshade propped against her should
er. She uncapped the bottle of tequila, took a long swallow.

  It would've been nice if she could've figured out a way to fashion some sort of warning for those who were yet to come. She would've liked that, to be the one whose cleverness and foresight was responsible for saving a stranger's life. But she'd seen that pan with its single word of caution scraped across its bottom; she knew others had tried and failed at this, and she saw no reason why she should be any different. All she could hope was that the mute fact of her presence here, the low mound of her bones sitting at the path's mouth, would signal the proper note of peril.

  She drank. She waited. Above her, the sun eased steadily westward.

  No, you couldn't really call it a plan at all.

  Stacy spilled some of the tequila onto the knife's blade, scrubbed at it with her shirt. It was silly, she knew-both pointless and hopeless-but she wanted it to be clean.

  She grew calmer as the day drew toward dusk. Her hands stopped shaking. She was scared of many things-of what might come afterward, most of all-but not of the pain. The pain didn't frighten her.

  When the sun finally touched the western horizon, the sky abruptly changed, taking on a reddish hue, and Stacy knew that she'd waited long enough. The Greeks weren't coming, not today. She thought about the approaching darkness, pictured herself once more alone in the tent, listening to whatever noises the night might offer, and she knew she didn't have a choice.

  She thought briefly about praying-for what, forgiveness?-only to realize she had no one to pray to. She didn't believe in God. All her life she'd been saying that, instinctively, unthinkingly, but now, for the first time-about to do what she was about to do-she could look inside and claim the words with total assurance. She didn't believe.

  She started with her left arm.

  The first cut was tentative, exploratory. Even here, at the very end, Stacy persisted in being herself, never leaping when she could wade. It hurt more than she'd anticipated. That was okay, though-that was fine-she knew she could bear it. And the pain made it real in a way that it hadn't been before, gave these last moments an appropriate heft. She cut deeper the second time, starting at the base of her wrist and drawing the blade firmly toward her elbow.

  The blood came in a rush.

  She switched the knife to her left hand. It was hard to get a good grip-her fingers didn't seem to want to close, and they were slick with blood now-but she managed it finally, pressed the blade to her right wrist, slashed downward.

  Perhaps it was just the fading light, but her blood seemed darker than she'd expected-not nearly as bright as Eric's or Mathias's-inky, almost black. She rested her wrists in her lap, and it flowed down over her legs, feeling hot at first, then gradually cooler as it began to pool around her. It was odd to think that this liquid was part of her, that she was becoming less and less for its steady loss.

  Who am I? she thought.

  The Mayans were watching. Somehow they must've sensed that she was the last, because the women were already beginning to break camp, gathering things up, rolling them into bundles.

  Stacy had assumed her heart would be racing, pumping faster and faster with each passing second, but it turned out to be just the opposite. Everything-inside and out-seemed to be steadily slowing. She was astonished by how serene she felt.

  Am I still me?

  The vines came snaking toward her. She heard them start to suck at the puddled blood.

  She should've cut the rope off the windlass, she realized. Why hadn't she thought to do this? She tried to reassure herself that it didn't matter, that her corpse was going to remain here as a sentinel, warning any future visitors away, but she knew it wasn't true, could sense it even before the tendrils began to grab at her, dragging her off the trail. She fought as best she could, right up to the very end, struggling to rise, but it was too late. It had gone too far; she no longer had the strength. The vine held her down-covered her, buried her. She died with a sensation of drowning, with the memory of that rowboat, far out to sea, those weights pulling her ever deeper, the green waves closing above her head.

  The Greeks arrived three days later.

  They'd taken the bus to Cobá, then hired the yellow pickup truck to ferry them out to the trail. They'd made three new friends in Cancún-Brazilians-whom they'd brought along for the adventure. The Brazilians' names were Antonio, Ricardo, and Sofia. Juan and Don Quixote had both become deeply smitten with Sofia, though it appeared that she might be engaged to Ricardo. This was hard to tell for certain, however, since the Greeks couldn't speak Portuguese, and the Brazilians, of course, didn't know Greek.

  They were having fun together, even so. They were chattering and laughing as they made their way into the jungle. Ricardo was carrying a cooler full of beer and sandwiches. Antonio had brought along a boom box, and he played the same CD over and over again on it-he was trying to teach the Greeks how to salsa. Juan and Don Quixote cooperated in this for Sofia 's sake, for the joy of hearing her laughter at their clumsiness.

  It was impossible to miss the turnoff toward the ruins. There'd been too many comings and goings of late to disguise the narrow path. The dirt was well trodden, the brush beaten back.

  Just as they were about to start down it, Ricardo noticed a little girl watching them from the far side of the field. She was tiny, perhaps ten years old; she was wearing a dirty-looking dress, had a goat on a rope. She seemed upset-she was jumping up and down, waving at them-and they stopped to stare. They gestured for her to approach-Ricardo even held out one of their sandwiches as an enticement-but she wouldn't come any closer, and finally they gave up. It was hot in the sun. They knew they were nearly at their destination and were impatient to get there.

  They started down the path.

  Behind them, Juan and Antonio saw the girl drop the goat's rope, sprint off into the jungle. They shrugged at each other, smiled: Who knows?

  Through the trees, across the little stream, and then suddenly they found themselves in bright sunlight again.

  A clearing.

  And beyond the clearing…a hill covered in flowers.

  They paused here, stunned by the beauty of the place. Ricardo took a bottle of beer from the cooler and they shared it among themselves. They pointed at the flowers, commenting upon them in their dual languages, saying how lovely they were, how stunning. Sofia took a photograph.

  Then, all in a line, they started forward again.

  They didn't hear the first horseman arrive. They were already too far up the hill, calling Pablo's name.

  Scott Bechtel Smith

  Scott Bechtel Smith (July 13th, 1965) is an American author and screenwriter, who graduated from Columbia University. He has published two suspense novels, A Simple Plan and The Ruins. His screen adaptation of A Simple Plan earned him an Academy Award nomination.

  Scott B. Smith was born in Summit, New Jersey in 1965 and now lives in New York City. After studying at Dartmouth College and Columbia University in New York, he took up writing full time. He wrote the screenplay for his book A Simple Plan starring Billy Bob Thornton. This film was nominated for numerous awards, including two Academy Awards, one for Best Adapted Screenplay. The screenplay won numerous awards, such as a Broadcast Film Critics Association Award and a National Board of Review Award. Billy Bob Thornton also won numerous awards for best supporting actor for this film.

  Scott Smith recently finished his long awaited second novel, The Ruins, which Smith recently adapted into a film, released on April 4th, 2008. Stephen King claims The Ruins is "The best horror novel of the new century."

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