Out of Reach

by Kendall Talbot

  Before she could really study it, she’d drifted right past. A wave tumbled over her head, covering her in a wall of water. She wondered if she was drowning and what she’d seen was just an apparition.

  Her ankle smashed into a giant rock and she howled at the agony. The pain was the jolt she needed to get her brain into gear again.

  She lifted her head to avoid smashing into another rock and spied a fallen tree jutting out from the bank. This was her chance. If she caught it, she was going to hang on to the damn thing like her life depended on it . . . which it did.

  The half-submerged tree came at lightning speed and Lily hit it chest-first. She clawed at the branches, desperate for purchase, but the force of the water dragged her down. Her boots and legs sucked beneath the trunk. Her arms and head were the only part of her body above the water.

  “Carter!” she screamed.

  She clutched at the branches until her fingers bled. Tears blurred her vision.

  She was going to die.

  Then she thought of her brothers, her friends, her boss, and her mother, who’d all tried to talk her out of going to the Mexican jungle alone.

  “I’m not dying, you bastards!” Lily shrieked.

  She had two choices. Let go of the tree, get sucked under, and hopefully pop out the other side and continue floating down the river. The second choice was to pull her ass up out of the water.

  “I can do this.” Lily reached for the gnarly remains of a branch. She clenched her teeth and kicked with all her might to haul herself up onto the tree. Inch by inch, she dragged her sodden body from the water. With one final gasp, she flopped onto dry land.

  As fresh blood mingled with water and trickled down her legs, Lily burst into tears.

  Chapter 14

  Carter waited until Lily plunged into the water before he jumped. But he was a second too late. He screamed in agony as a spear of fire ripped through his left hip. As he tumbled into the river, he knew he’d been shot. He hit the water broadside, smashing his legs and the side of his face like he’d smacked into solid concrete. Beneath the turbulence he struggled to find the surface.

  He swallowed water—great bloody mouthfuls of it—and his lungs burned, seeking air that was impossible to get. Around him, the water swirled blood and froth and silvery bubbles that floated upward. His brain kicked into gear. Follow the bubbles!

  Carter clawed for the surface, fighting bolts of pain in his left hip. He kicked harder, desperation driving him upward. His lungs screamed, his vision blurred. It was an eternity before he shot into fresh air and sucked huge gulps into his lungs.

  A giant rock materialized from nowhere and he smashed into it feet first. His legs bore the brunt of the impact and he howled at the new onslaught. The water was fast, much faster than he’d predicted, and his thoughts snapped to Lily.

  “Lily!” Now that he fully appreciated the power of the torrent, his fear for her hit a whole new level. He pushed off the rock, aimed his feet downriver, and allowed himself to be sucked into the middle flow again.

  “Lily!” He screamed her name until his throat burned.

  He bounced off hidden rocks beneath the water and exposed ones above, with equal intensity. Every collision created a new bruise, and if he didn’t get out of here soon he was likely to break a bone or two.

  Lily’s pack snagged on something, jerking him back and allowing volumes of water to crash over his head. Pinned in the middle of the river, he was sucked under. He thrashed and fought against invisible hands that trapped him. The smart thing to do would be to let the pack go, but he couldn’t. Whatever was in there was important to Lily, and that made it important to him. With a couple of mammoth kicks, he twisted his torso, fighting to roll onto his stomach. It worked, and whatever had snagged him, set him free.

  The current grabbed and hurtled him along with renewed vigor.

  Control was impossible, but he needed to get out of the fast-flowing current and nearer the riverbank. Fighting the agony in his hip, he swam toward the left bank of the river. His only hope was that he’d be able to latch on to something, but with the speed of the water he was already doubtful.

  A gnarly shrub clinging to the edge of the bank farther down caught his eye, and he made a decision to go for it. He rolled onto his stomach, kicked, and paddled like fury to reach it before he zipped right on past.

  Carter grabbed it, clutching at the rough branches with a viselike grip. His legs whipped around in the current and speared into the half-submerged bush. Splinters of wood pierced his flesh but he didn’t let go. He climbed up the shrub and heaved his body out of the river.

  Weaving through the bushes, he dragged himself from the water’s edge and crumbled into an exhausted heap on the rocky ground.

  “Lily.” Her name whispered off his lips.

  His heart shattered into a million pieces as he pictured her caught in that swirling water.

  Dragging himself upright, he clutched at a nearby tree for support, stood at the river’s edge, and screamed her name over and over. All he heard was the relentless rush of water. Searching the opposite side of the river, he begged for a glimpse of her and yet at the same time dreaded what he’d see. With the amount of trouble he’d had in the water, he had absolutely no comprehension how Lily would’ve coped. Tears stung his eyes as he pictured her beautiful face beneath the water, gasping for air.

  “Lily! Where the fuck are you?”

  He stumbled along the water’s edge, calling out, and every couple of feet he stopped to inspect both sides of the river. Soon his body quivered like jelly, and he couldn’t stand a moment more.

  “Fuck!” he screamed and crumbled to the ground. He was pretty sure he was heading into shock and that wasn’t good.

  Blurry visions of Lily, the rooster, snakes, and giant trees swirled around him like they were apparitions. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing in an attempt to steady his thumping heart.

  * * * *

  Carter blinked his eyes open. With a jolt he realized he’d fallen asleep. If his darkened surroundings were any way to judge, then he’d slept for some time. It also meant he was in trouble. The sun was setting.

  He went to sit up, but the weight of Lily’s pack pinned him down. He tugged it off and howled in agony when he rolled to sit.

  Sucking in short, sharp breaths, he tried to ward off the pain. The trees around him set off in a slow spin and nausea rushed through him like a tidal wave. He splayed his legs out before him and threw up gushes of water and what little else remained in his stomach.

  When the queasiness subsided, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He glanced down at his pants and cringed at the blood staining his left hip. The jagged hole at the center confirmed what he already knew. He’d been shot. The only good news was it looked like the bullet had gone clean through. This was encouraging; maybe his injury wasn’t as bad as he’d thought.

  He turned toward the water, searching for signs of life.

  “Lily.” His voice was nothing more than a pained croak. He rolled his tongue around his mouth, trying to produce moisture, but it was futile.

  Rolling onto his back, he undid the zip on his pants and peeled them open. His heart lurched to his throat at the sight. He’d seen bullet wounds before, many of them fatal. This wasn’t lethal, but if he didn’t do something to stop the bleeding and possible infection, it might become so.

  He unclipped the water bottle from the pack and gulped down a few refreshing mouthfuls. His legs were covered in scratches, some as small as paper cuts, some as big as his middle finger. He poured the water over the wounds, creating bloody rivers down his calves.

  Turning his attention to the bullet wound, he lay on his right side on the dirt, clenched his jaw, and wriggled out of his shorts and undies. Craning his neck, he peered over his hip to try to see the entry wound. His stomach bucked at the sight. Th
e bullet had gone in high on his buttock and a hole about the size of a button oozed dark blood that trickled in a steady flow down his cheek. The edges of the hole were raised jagged flesh and around that a reddened stain seemed to darken before his eyes. The exit wound at his front hip was slightly larger and equally brutal.

  He tore his eyes from the blood and charred flesh and panted against crippling nausea. The bullet hole in his shorts was slightly smaller than his wound, and as he poked his finger through the fabric he wondered if any of it had caught in his flesh. He’d seen enough injuries to know that a foreign object in a wound was a surefire way to get an infection. He was certain the bullet had gone right through. That was a good start, but he still needed to check that nothing else was trapped in there.

  Carter glanced around. Nothing but green surrounded him on his left side, and the river rushed by his right. Other than his camera, whatever was in Lily’s pack was all he had. With a bit of luck, the first-aid kit had been put in this pack and not his.

  The first thing he removed was the leather-bound journal, and as he placed the sodden book on the ground, he wondered if that was the reason why Lily had refused to let go of her bag. He found it hard to comprehend how it could be worth more than her life. He shoved the speculation aside and reached back into the pack to tug out clothes, her toiletries bag, a Swiss army knife, the large metal spoon, a small towel, a second water bottle, and a flashlight that he flicked on and off to see if it worked. It didn’t.

  He found her notebook, now a soggy mess, clothes, toiletries bag, and at the very bottom was his Tupperware container with his first-aid basics. Without much hope of finding anything helpful for his serious wound, he set the box between his legs and tugged off the lid. To his surprise the contents were dry.

  Despite being fully aware of their inadequacy, he downed a couple of generic-brand painkillers. Anything to dull the ache, even slightly, would be welcome relief. His first-aid kit contained tweezers, scissors, three types of bandages, gauze, gloves, eye patches, and various other bits and pieces to help with cuts, scratches, bites, sunburn, and other minor injuries. He checked out the medication and found Ibruprofen and promptly swallowed two of them as well. The kit also contained antihistamines, diarrhea-relief tablets, a constipation helper, a few other items and a 15 ml plastic tube of sodium chloride.

  Based on his experience in Somalia, Carter knew he had to clean and dress this bullet wound before it became infected. The very idea of touching it, though, brought a new wave of nausea that he fought with short, sharp breaths.

  A strange sepia color settled over the opposite riverbank as the sun cast its final rays across the horizon. The sight was the slap he needed to get his brain into gear. He sucked in a deep breath and let it out in one big gush.

  “Let’s do this.”

  He crawled to the nearest tree, dragging the pack behind him. Then, as he curled against a giant exposed tree root for support, he rolled out Lily’s sopping wet sleeping bag that’d been tied to the outside of her pack. The dark blue padded fabric had a huge rip in the side where the stuffing leached out, and Carter assumed this was what’d snagged in the river.

  Upon the sleeping bag, he laid out the bits and pieces he needed. He took a drink of water and popped two more painkillers.

  Fighting wave after wave of nausea, he dug into his wound with tweezers, searching for any scraps of fabric that may’ve been caught by the bullet. The deeper he dug, the more blood oozed down his ass and hip, and the harder he fought a blackness that threatened to swallow him whole.

  It was a long, excruciating process, but satisfied there was nothing there, he dropped the tweezers, squeezed his eyes shut, clenched his jaw, and thought about Lily until he’d overridden the urge to pass out.

  When his head stopped spinning and he could breathe again, he cleaned the wound with a T-shirt and water, wiping away the fresh and dried blood from both front and back. Once he was done, he stared at the wound, hardly able to believe it was his own flesh he was looking at. Thankfully, it didn’t look as nasty as it had when he’d first started.

  As he reached for the sodium chloride tube, he tried to force bravado into his next move. It’ll hurt like hell—of that he was certain. Carter twisted the top off the little plastic tube. If he was going to do this, he needed to be quick.

  He closed his eyes, clenched his jaw, and released a slow growl in an attempt to psych himself into it. The excruciating throb in his hip and ass, stung like hell—but it’d be nothing like what was coming up. He opened his eyes again, aimed the tube at the bullet hole and squeezed.

  A scream tore from his throat as the blazing needles tortured him. The howler monkeys joined in with their own bloodcurdling cries. But he didn’t stop; he squirted both front and back, and kept squeezing until all the liquid was gone.

  Tears stung his eyes, and a sob caught in his throat when he tossed the empty tube into the surrounding bush.

  He put his head back against the tree, squeezed his eyes shut, and tried to push the agony from his mind. His thoughts drifted to Lily and how she’d handled pain the other day when he’d sprayed liquid skin onto her open wounds. She was strong. She was a fighter.

  He had to believe she’d survived.

  And come first light tomorrow, he had every intention of finding her.

  Right now, though, he needed to get ready for a night alone in the bush.

  He placed gauze over his cleaned wound and wrapped a bandage around his hip, butt and between his thighs and back again. He secured it in place with two butterfly clips he’d found in the Tupperware kit. Deciding to leave his underwear off, he fought the pain as he wriggled his shorts back on.

  By the time he stood again, the painkillers had kicked in, dulling the ache enough to keep him moving. He picked up his underpants, and his treasured pouch of SD cards fell out. Collecting them from the ground, he sighed and clutched them to his chest. With a bit of luck, they’d be using these soon to return to Otomi. He tucked the pouch into his shorts pocket and glanced around.

  No matter which way he looked, it wasn’t good.

  He forced himself to list out the positives. Number one being I’m alive. If that bullet had strayed just a couple of inches higher, then he probably wouldn’t wake in the morning. The next good thing was the abundance of fresh water at his fingertips, which was a major contrast to yesterday’s predicament.

  With those two positive thoughts rolling around his mind, he scoured the area for a place to sleep. Like the last four days, he was surrounded by jungle. Trees of all sizes created a cluttered canopy that let in little sunlight. The sky over the river was the only light source and it was getting darker by the second.

  He decided to stay near the water rather than venture into the bushes. Where he was seemed suitable enough. It was flat ground, and once he tossed the loose rocks away, it was relatively smooth. The sleeping bag was still sopping wet and he hooked it between his feet and twisted it with his hand to remove as much moisture as he could, then he hung it on a nearby by tree to drip-dry.

  A sturdy branch nearby caught his eye and he picked it up. After assessing its weight, he decided it’d be his weapon should a gun-wielding drug runner come his way during the night. Or any other creatures.

  He rolled on Lily’s insect repellant, grateful to repel the mosquitos that’d already begun buzzing in his ears. Lily would have no such luxury. He at least had a pack with some supplies, but she’d gone into the water with nothing. He settled onto the ground and recalled her skinning the iguana and climbing the tree for the fruits. She was resilient, and if anyone could survive out here, it was her.

  He slumped into the curve of the exposed root again and watched the water froth and tumble over a rock that jutted out of the river. Darkness descended with lightning speed. With his full water bottle within arm’s reach, along with his branch weapon, he curled onto his side and willed the night to be ove
r.

  Chapter 15

  Lily had watched the sun set with tumultuous emotions that swung from being grateful to be alive to crippling sorrow over Carter’s absence. When she’d first crawled onto the shore, she’d spent what felt like hours calling for him. Her only buoying factor was her survival. If she could survive that torrential river when she couldn’t swim, then there was every possibility Carter had survived it too.

  She’d ignored the painful throb in her ankle, focusing instead on what she had to do to get through the night alone. Her saving grace was the cigarette lighter she’d put in her pants pocket after lighting the fire this morning. It was the only piece of equipment she had.

  After stripping out of her wet shirt and shorts and placing her shoes as close as she dared to the fire she’d built, she squatted, near naked, next to the flames. She was attempting to dry her clothes by holding them on sticks above the blaze. Beyond the firelight, the darkness was complete, no variations, no shadows, nothing but the blackest of black.

  Lily pictured her oldest brother, Bobby. Dozens of times on their camping trips he’d drummed into her the importance of carrying a lighter. It’s your most important survival tool. It’ll give you fire. That in turn will give you sterile water, burn germs off dubious food, give you a signal opportunity, provide heat, light, a defense mechanism, and most importantly, something to distract your mind when you’re cold and alone.

  As she stared into the dancing flames, she realized how right he’d been. The last instruction Bobby had given her before she’d left for this trip was to buy three lighters at the airport. She had. Fortunately for her, one had been in her pocket when she’d dragged her sodden body out of the water.

  Her mind drifted to Carter. For a man who traveled to remote parts of the world, he seemed particularly lacking in survival skills. She imagined him lying somewhere along the river, cold and alone and in complete darkness. Her heart broke into tiny little pieces at the thought of losing him, and in that moment she wondered if she was falling for him.