Her throat ached from crying; her eyes felt swollen. She was so tired, so desperately tired, yet the idea of sleep filled her with fear. She could feel Eric’s breath against the back of her neck. He was hugging her, and at first it had seemed nice—soothing, quieting—but now, without warning, it began to shift, began to feel as if he were clutching her a little too tightly, making her conscious of her heart, still beating so quickly in her chest.
She tried to shift away, only to have him pull her closer. “I’m so cold,” he said. “Are you cold?”
Stacy shook her head. His body didn’t feel cold to her; it felt hot, in fact, almost feverish. She was sweating where they touched.
“And tired,” he said. “So fucking tired.”
Stacy had returned from the bottom of the hill and found him lying in the clearing, on his back, his mouth hanging open: asleep. Jeff had been sewing his pouch; he’d called out to her as she’d emerged from the trail, told her to get herself some water. Even then, Eric hadn’t stirred. He must’ve napped for two hours, she guessed, maybe three, yet his fatigue still hadn’t left him. She could hear it in his voice, how close he was to sleep, and for some reason this, too, made her want to pull away. She shifted again, more forcefully, and he let her go, his arms falling limply off her. She sat up, turning to stare at him.
“Will you watch me?” he asked.
“Watch you?”
“Sleep,” he said. “Just for a bit?”
Stacy nodded. She could see the wounds on his leg, the ugly ridges of Jeff’s stitching, shiny with Neosporin. His skin was smeared with blood. He was cold and tired, and he had no obvious cause to be either of these things. Stacy consciously chose not to pursue this observation, not to follow it to some conclusion. She closed her eyes, thinking,This, too, will pass.
His touch startled her, making her jump. He’d reached out, taken her hand, was lying there, smiling sleepily up at her. Stacy didn’t retreat, but there was effort in this; she could feel herself wanting to flee from him, from the heat his flesh was giving off, the damp slickness of his grip.It’s inside him: that was what she was thinking. She attempted a smile, which she managed, but just barely. It didn’t matter, because Eric’s eyes were already drifting shut.
Stacy waited till she was certain he’d fallen asleep, then slipped free of his grasp, edging backward, leaving his hand lying open on the tent’s floor, palm up, slightly cupped, like a beggar’s. She imagined dropping a coin into it, late at night on some dark city street; she pictured herself hurrying off, never to see him again.
This, too, will pass.
Mathias was out in the clearing, sitting beside Pablo. Stacy could hear the Greek’s breathing, even above the wind, which had begun to rise, gradually but implacably, buffeting the nylon walls. It had grown dim inside the tent, almost dark. Eric was a snorer, and he was starting up now. Stacy used to imitate the sound for Amy, honking and snorting, the two of them giggling over it late at night in their dorm room, sharing secrets. The pain of this memory felt startlingly physical: a throbbing sort of ache, high up in her chest. She touched the spot, massaged it, willing herself not to cry.
This, too.
Somehow, she sensed the rain’s approach.Here it comes, she thought, and she was right: an instant later, the storm arrived. The water fell in sheets, windblown, as if a giant wet hand were rhythmically slapping at the tent.
Stacy leaned forward, prodded Eric’s shoulder. “Eric,” she said.
His eyes opened—he peered up at her—but somehow it didn’t seem as if he were awake.
“It’s raining,” she said.
“Raining?”
Stacy could see him touching his wounds with his hands, one after another, as if to check if they were still there. She nodded. “I have to help Mathias. All right?”
He just stared at her. His face looked haggard, strikingly pale. She thought of all the blood he’d lost in the last forty-eight hours, thought of Jeff pulling those tendrils from his body. She shuddered; she couldn’t help it.
“Will you be okay?” she asked.
Eric nodded, reaching to drag the sleeping bag over his body. And that was enough for Stacy; she darted off, ducking past the flap, into the rain.
Within seconds, she was drenched. Mathias was standing in the center of the clearing, letting the Frisbee fill, pouring its contents into the plastic jug. His clothes were clinging to him, his hat drooping shapelessly on his head. He held out the Frisbee, the plastic jug, gesturing for her to take them; when she did, he moved quickly toward Pablo, who was lying motionless on the backboard, eyes shut, the rain blowing in on him. Stacy waited for the Frisbee to fill, then poured the water into the jug, repeating this process again and again while Mathias struggled with the lean-to, trying to adjust it so that it might give the Greek more shelter. It seemed like a hopeless task; the wind kept gusting, knocking the rain almost horizontally through the air. Short of bringing Pablo into the tent, there was no way to protect him.
Stacy capped the jug. The pouch was filling; it seemed like it was working. The rain fell and fell and fell, turning the clearing into mud. Stacy could feel it deepening, her sandals slowly sinking. She noticed the bar of soap, which was lying half-immersed beside the pouch, and picked it up, began to scrub at her hands and face. Then she tilted her head back, let the rain rinse her clean. It wasn’t enough, though. She wanted more, and without really thinking, she stripped off her shirt, her pants, even her underwear. She stood in the center of the clearing, naked, lathering her breasts, her belly, her groin, her hair, washing the dirt—the sweat and grease and stink—from her body.
Mathias was bent low over the lean-to, taping the lengths of nylon more tightly to the aluminum poles, the wind tugging at him. He turned, as if to ask for Stacy’s help, but then just stared, his gaze passing over her nakedness, moving slowly upward. He couldn’t seem to meet her eyes; he flinched from them, turned back to the lean-to without a word.
The light, already faint to begin with, was rapidly draining from the clearing. Stacy had long ago lost track of time, so it was difficult to decide if this were some effect of the storm, growing ever darker above them, or if, behind the mass of clouds, the sun had finally begun to set, bringing the day to its abrupt close. There was thunder—growling, low and guttural—and the rain was falling forcefully enough to sting her skin. It kept getting colder and colder, too. She had to clench her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering; she was shivering, the chill sinking into her bones.
Bones.
Stacy turned toward the sleeping bag, the knot of vines spilling from its mouth, the glints of white shining wetly in the fading light. She had the odd sense that someone was watching her, felt suddenly exposed in her nakedness, and hugged herself, hiding her breasts beneath her folded arms. She glanced toward Mathias—who remained with his back to her, absorbed in his struggle with the lean-to—then toward the trail, thinking Jeff might’ve returned from the bottom of the hill. But there was no one there, and no sign of Eric, either, peering out at her from the tent. The sensation remained, however, growing stronger, uncomfortably so. It was only when she turned to stare off across the hillside, at the rain falling steadily upon all those green leaves, making them duck and nod, that she realized what the source was.
It was the vine: she could feel it watching.
She sprinted for the tent, leaving her wet clothes abandoned in a muddy heap behind her.
It was even darker inside than outside; Stacy could barely make Eric out, had to strain to discern him lying on the tent’s floor, the sleeping bag pulled tightly around his body. She thought his eyes were open, thought she could see him peering toward her as she entered, but wasn’t certain.
“I washed myself,” she said. “You should, too.”
Eric didn’t respond, didn’t speak or move.
She stepped toward him, bending. “Eric?”
He grunted, shifted slightly.
“You okay?” she asked.
Again, he gr
unted.
Stacy hesitated, watching him through the dimness. The wind kept shaking the tent’s walls. The nylon above her was leaking in a handful of different places, waterplop-plop-plopping to the floor, forming slowly expanding puddles. She couldn’t seem to stop shivering. “I have to get dressed,” she said.
Eric just lay there.
Stacy stepped to the rear of the tent, crouched over the backpacks, dug through them until she found a skirt, a yellow blouse. She quickly rubbed herself dry with a T-shirt, then pulled the skirt and blouse on, naked underneath—she couldn’t bear the thought of wearing a stranger’s panties. The skirt was short, riding up her thighs; the blouse was tight. Whomever they’d once belonged to must’ve been even tinier than she was.
Stacy was feeling somewhat better—not good, exactly, but not quite as wretched as before. The humming in her head had nearly vanished. Her hunger, too, seemed to have diminished; she felt empty, husklike, but strangely serene within this. She was still shivering, and she thought briefly of climbing in under the sleeping bag with Eric, cuddling up against him, that heat radiating off his flesh. But then she remembered Mathias, out in the clearing, fighting to create some small measure of shelter for Pablo, and she crept back to the flap, peered into the gathering dark. The light was almost completely gone now. Mathias, only ten feet away from her, was little more than a shadow. He was sitting beside Pablo, in the mud, hunched beneath her sunshade. He’d managed to lower the lean-to, but it was hard to tell how much good it was doing the Greek.
“Mathias?” Stacy called.
He stared toward her through the downpour.
“Where’s Jeff?” she asked.
Mathias glanced over his shoulder, as if he expected to find Jeff lurking somewhere in the clearing. Then he turned back to her, shook his head. He said something, but it was hard to decipher above the sound of the rain.
Stacy cupped her hands, called out, “Shouldn’t he be back?”
Mathias rose to his feet, stepped toward her. The sunshade seemed more symbolic than practical: it wasn’t really doing anything to block the rain. “What?” he said.
“Shouldn’t Jeff be back?”
Mathias shifted his weight from foot to foot, thinking, the tops of his tennis shoes vanishing into the puddled earth, then reappearing, then vanishing again. “I guess I should go down and see.”
“See?”
“What’s keeping him.”
Stacy’s head started to hum again. She didn’t want to be left alone up here with Eric and Pablo. She tried to think of something to say, a way to keep Mathias near the tent, but nothing came.
“Can you watch Pablo?” he asked.
She hesitated. She was clean and dry, and the idea of relinquishing these two tenuous comforts filled her with dread. “Maybe if we wait, he’ll—”
“It’s just going to get darker. I won’t be able to see if I wait much longer.” He held the sunshade toward her, and she reached to take it, extending her arm into the rain, goose bumps forming on her skin. Mathias dragged his hat off his head, wrung it out, put it back on. “I’ll try to be quick,” he said. “All right?”
Stacy nodded. She gathered her courage, ducked out though the tent flap. It was like stepping into a waterfall. She moved toward Pablo’s lean-too, crouched beside it, trying not to see the Greek—his gaunt, mud-spattered face, his wet hair—too frightened to confront his misery, his suffering, knowing that there was nothing she could do to ease it. She held the sunshade above her head, pointlessly—it was just something for the wind to yank at. Mathias remained there for another moment, watching her, the rain pouring down upon them. Then he turned and strode off across the clearing, vanishing into the darkness.
Eric had curled into a ball, burrowing beneath the sleeping bag, trying to find some warmth. The rain was falling, and Stacy and Mathias were outside in it. The wind kept gusting, shaking the tent. Eric was exhausted, but he wasn’t going to let himself sleep, not without someone watching over him. He was just going to shut his eyes, only for an instant, a handful of seconds, shut his eyes and breathe, resting, not sleeping. Then Stacy was back, quite suddenly, stooping over him, asking if he was okay. She was wet, she was naked, and she was dripping on him; the roof was also dripping. And Eric thought,I’m asleep, I’m dreaming. But he wasn’t, or only half so. He was conscious of her in the tent with him, could hear her rummaging through the backpacks, patting herself dry, pulling on new clothes. He felt with his hand, searching out his wounds, worried that the vine might’ve attacked him while he’d lain there drowsing, but he discovered no sign of this. He ached—his entire body seemed to be throbbing. Even his fingertips felt bruised, the soles of his feet, his kneecaps—everything.
He heard voices and lifted his head. Stacy was standing by the tent flap, silhouetted there, talking to Mathias. Eric’s eyes drifted shut once more, only for a moment it seemed, yet when he reopened them, he was alone. He checked his wounds again, thought about sitting up, but he couldn’t find the strength for it. The rain was loud enough to make it hard for him to think; it sounded like applause.
He could feel himself sinking back into sleep, and he fought against it, struggling to surface. He was teaching, his first morning at his new job, but every time he tried to speak, the boys would start to clap, drowning out his voice. It was a game—somehow he understood this—yet he wasn’t certain of the rules, knew only that he was losing, and that if this kept up, he’d be fired before the day was through. Oddly, he felt comforted by the prospect. Part of himself was still awake—he knew he was dreaming. And from this still-sentient sliver of consciousness, Eric could even manage to analyze the dream. He didn’t want to be a teacher—this was what it was saying, that he hadn’t ever wanted to be one, but could only admit it to himself now, trapped here, never to return.What, then? he thought, and the answer came in a way that made him understand this, too, was part of the dream—this self-appraisal—because what he realized he’d always wanted to be was a bartender in an old-fashioned saloon, not a real saloon, either, but a movie saloon, from a black-and-white Western, with swinging doors, a drunken poker game in the corner, gunslingers dueling in the street. He’d fill mugs with beer, slide them down the countertop. He’d have an Irish accent, would be John Wayne’s best friend, Gary Cooper’s—
“It’s making it up. Okay? Eric? You know that, don’t you?”
The tent was dark. Stacy was crouched above him again—wet, dripping—prodding at his arm. She seemed frightened, jittery with it. She kept glancing over her shoulder, toward the flap.
“It’s not real,” she said. “It didn’t happen.”
He had no idea what she was talking about, was still half-immersed in his dream, the boys clapping, the creak of the saloon doors swinging open. “What didn’t?” he asked.
And then he heard, faintly, beneath the rain’s downpour the wordsKiss me, Mathias. Will you kiss me? It was a woman’s voice, coming from the clearing.It’s okay. I want to. It sounded like Stacy, but the voice was blurred slightly; it was her and not her all at once.
Stacy seemed to sense what he was thinking. “It’s trying to pretend it’s me. That I said that. But I didn’t.”
Hold me. Just hold me.
And then, what sounded like Mathias’s voice:We shouldn’t. What if he—
Shh. No one will hear.
“It’s not me,” Stacy said. “I swear. Nothing happened.”
Eric pushed himself up off the floor, sat cross-legged, the sleeping bag wrapped around his shoulders. From outside, in the rainswept dark, came the sound of panting, softly at first, but then growing in volume.
There was Mathias’s voice again, almost a sigh:God, that feels good.
The panting became moaning.
So good.
Harder,Stacy’s voice whispered.
The moans built slowly, inexorably, toward a mutual climax, with something like a scream coming from Stacy. Then there was silence, just the rain splattering down, and the start-stop r
asp of Pablo’s breathing. Eric watched Stacy through the darkness. She was wearing someone else’s clothes. They were a size too small for her, clinging wetly to her body.
It shouldn’t matter, of course. Maybe it had happened, and maybe it hadn’t—either way, he’d be a fool to worry over it at a time like this. Eric could see the logic in such an argument, and he spent a few moments struggling to find a way to achieve the proper distance for so rational an approach. He toyed with the idea of laughing. Would that be the right strategy? Should he shake his head, chuckle? Or should he hug her? But she was so wet, and dressed in those strange clothes, like a whore, actually. The thought came unbidden. Eric even tried to suppress it, but it wouldn’t let him be, not with her nipples standing so erect beneath her blouse, not with that skirt riding up her thighs, not with—
“You know it’s not real,” she said. “Don’t you?”
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