As the last of our MRE’s ran out, so did our food supplies. And as Talia quickly taught me, the jungle was full of food that was safe to consume. She taught me that anything that the spider monkeys ate, was also safe for us. She then taught me a long list of other sources of nutrition. From sugarcane to figs, papaya to mangoes. As long as we religiously harvested edible food as we came across it, we always had plenty to eat.
Between Talia’s fire-making skills and the piece of metal she’d brought that doubled as a bowl, we’d boil water a few time a day and that supplied us with a continual source of fresh water. And finding the occasional river or lagoon was always a treat. We’d enjoy fish cooked over Talia’s campfire that evening.
I never got that rifle to work, so I left it at the waterfall. It was on that same day that we fashioned ourselves spears out of bamboo. Those were far more useful to us. Not only were they functional weapons that never needed repair, they helped us to navigate the forest obstacles and provided us with a means to fish as we came across the many rivers and lagoons we encountered.
After that, living within the jungle became much less of a concern. I wasn’t worried about my safety anymore. And I had someone that I enjoyed talking to during the days and sleeping with every night.
Time stretched on. After two weeks, I stopped counting the passing days. One of the on-going issues in the jungle is that it seems designed to consume everything man-made. Between the humidity and the constant scratching of branches and thorns, our clothes were slowly being devoured by the rainforest.
And after what seemed like a month of hiking, our ranger-issued uniforms which originally consisted of fatigues, underwear, socks, and boots, now had become a ragged pair of cut-off shorts, a pair of white cotton panties full of holes, and a pair of boots. Nothing else had survived but the backpack. The remaining scraps of fabrics had become rags that we’d use as bandages, to clean up, for addressing our monthly feminine cycles, or to keep our hair up in ponytails and out of our faces.
And the fewer clothes we wore, the more appealing our flesh became to the resident mosquito population. And that’s when we were forced to adopt another daily ritual. Each morning we took turns smearing a layer of mud over each other; covering our chests, arms, legs, back, and faces. It wasn’t attractive, but our exposed skin was no longer interesting to the swarms of mosquitos. And that’s when I understood just how adaptable two humans could be. Between Talia and I. we had yet to find a problem we couldn’t solve together. And with that thought, a new sense of calmness and confidence set in. I now knew, sooner or later, we’d both make it home alive. I was sure of it.
By this time, I was becoming very familiar with the jungle. I felt at home there. And when that happened, I was beginning to really see the jungle like it was full of information. Everything seemed to make perfect sense. It was more than instinct, it was more like synchronicity. I could sense rain by the change in smells in the air. Sense the direction of watering holes based on paths and tracks on the forest floor. I could read the behavior of animals, or the sounds of birds, which told me when predators were near. And with this sense, I became acutely aware of other things. Landmarks, for one.
I had come to realize that the two biggest problems with the jungle were its vastness and how incredibly dense it was.
Allow me to clarify.
Let’s use a stream, for example. You find a small stream in the jungle. You cross it and move on. Later in the day, you find another and do the same. Later, you do it again. It happens like this all the time. Crossing a stream just isn’t uncommon in a place like this. Chiron’s Grove was full of tributaries that all eventually led back to the stream where I had initially landed. So the real question is, how would you know that you weren’t crossing the same stream repeatedly? You wouldn’t know. Travel a dozen yards in any direction, and the jungle looks entirely different. If you didn’t cross the stream at the same point each time, it looks just as unfamiliar as any other section of Chiron’s Grove.
And after that realization, I began to question everything.
If it wasn’t for coming across a row of broken branches, I wouldn’t have suspected anything at all. As Talia continued on, I stopped to inspect the purposefully snapped branches. They were all at eye level. My eye level. They looked like they had been there a while. Perhaps a month or more. And then I recalled the day I started following Talia. I had been snapping off branches like we were taught in training camp.
I paused and inspected the all the broken branches to figure out which direction the person traveled. And once I had identified that, I then decided to backtrack the path.
Without alerting Talia to what had captured my curiosity, I followed the path for the better part of an hour. And as I feared, it eventually led me back to a shallow and wide stream full of river rocks. I sprinted downstream several yards and found several dried Aloe Vera leaves that someone had filleted like a fish. I was right back where I had started a month or two earlier. We’d been endlessly traveling in circles.
Now I was pissed.
As Talia was not with me, I knew it wouldn’t be hard to find her. I raced back to the trail and didn’t stop until I reached the point where I stopped following her.
With the jungle being so dense, it was impossible not to leave clues when we walked. As I had become so observant in recent weeks, I had no trouble following Talia’s trail. I could spot every little sign Talia left as she made her way through the rainforest. A broken branch, a chip of dried mud, a footprint, an impression of her spear in the mud, they were all keeping me glued to her trail. And while my eyes continued scanning the landscape, my ears were attuned to everything else, seeking sounds that only came from a human traveler within the jungle.
I followed the clues for hours, but then I also realized that something was strange. Usually, when we get separated, we’d notice right away. One of us would call out for the other and we’d find each other in short order. After a while, our signal became a short whistle. But, Talia hadn’t been signaling me this time. Did she suspect that I had discovered the truth? It was all very confusing, but as long as I had enough light to see, I had no intention of stopping my pursuit until I had some answers.
Dusk was rapidly approaching when her trail abruptly ended at a wall of foliage too dense for any person to have traveled through. I searched in every direction, but I hadn’t been mistaken, her trail led to that wall and no further. Inspecting the thicket more closely, I probed it with my spear and found that it was open beyond the wall of foliage. Different sections of the thicket almost look like vines had been woven together in a pattern to keep the branches, ivy, and foliage tightly in place. Then, I was convinced this was made by human hands.
It didn’t take long to test my theory. I wandered around the area until I found an area that I could squeeze through on my belly. And that’s when I discovered something that I wasn’t meant to see.
Beyond the man-made wall was an open area full of knee-high ferns. And in the center of this clearing was a shuttlecraft covered in ivy. My first thought was that this was the Columbia. But there was only one way to be sure. On both sides of every shuttle, the rangers painted the shuttle’s name near the cockpit. So, I then made my way to the front of the vehicle and began pulling vines from the nose and continued backward until I found the area where the shuttle should be named.
It was named, but this wasn’t the Columbia 9 as I had thought. The shuttle was named Heracles 4. That didn’t make any sense to me. I had never heard of the Heracles. Nor had I heard of any other shuttle that had gone missing in Chiron’s Grove. Now completely puzzled, I wondered why this was hidden at all. And that’s when I heard Talia’s voice again.
“Katee? I’m sorry I didn’t take you right home. Please don’t be mad at me. I’ll still take you home. We’ll start first thing in the morning. I promise.”
I turned. She was near the man-made wall of foliage. Keeping a respectful distance. With a growl and a wave of my hand, I dismissed h
er and her words. I marched toward the cargo hold and its open doorway which was covered by more vines and more ivy. I still had a thousand questions, and simply because this shuttle had been hidden by Talia, it surely held some answers.
“Katee,” Talia tried again. “I’m begging you. Please don’t go in there.”
I didn’t reply. My heart hammered in my chest. I was too angry to speak to her. I felt betrayed. Once I pulled aside the layers of vines and ivy, I could see inside. And then I saw what Talia had been hiding. There was a dead body of a ranger who looked to have died ages ago. It was a skeleton dressed in well-worn, dirty, and decaying fatigues.
I glanced back at Talia with a scowl. She hadn’t moved. She was still standing there, waiting patiently.
“What is the meaning of this place?” I shouted at her. “Why were you keeping it a secret?”
“You were right. I wasn’t taking you home. And I feel terrible about it, but it was for a good reason.” Talia paused to draw a deep breath. “When I realized where you went this morning, I knew you figured out what I’d been doing to you. So, I led you here because it was time for me to come clean. It was time for you to know the secret I’ve been keeping from you... but... Katee, I promise I’ll take you directly home this time. Please. All I’m asking is a chance to explain everything before you go in there.”
I looked back at the skeleton inside the shuttle. Who had she killed? And why? And why would she be afraid to take me home when I knew nothing about it until just this moment? Being these were questions only she could answer, I decided to give her a chance, a small one, but I also wasn’t leaving this doorway.
“Alright, start talking,” I told her. “And make it good, or I’m going inside this shuttle and getting my own answers.”
“I have been here a very, very long time, Katee. It’s how I know this place so well. I’ve been wandering around here for ages. All alone.”
“Is this your shuttle?” I pointed at it.
“Yes. I was so lonely here. I had been wishing for company for so long, I thought I’d never be happy again. But then, one day you showed up.”
“Did you cause my shuttle to crash?”
“No.”
“Do you know where the Columbia’s crash site is?”
She nodded this time.
“You’ve been there? You’ve seen it?”
She nodded again.
“Besides me, did anyone else survive?”
She shook her head. “Everyone who was aboard your shuttle died. You must have fallen out before it crashed. And that meant you were all alone, too. That’s why I helped you that day. I didn’t want you to be as lonely as I was.”
“Who cares?” I snapped at her. “You promised to take me home. We were supposed to go home together. Why did you lie to me?” I pointed into the shuttle again. “And who did you kill?”
“You don’t understand. I’m happy now. I’m not lonely anymore, and neither are you.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. Why the lie? Why don’t you want to go back? Are you afraid someone will find out about your murder?”
“I didn’t murder anyone. And I can’t go back.”
“Stop evading my questions!”
“You can go home, Katee. I cannot.” Talia paused and blew out a deep breath. “You told me once that, back at camp, you had no friends, no lovers. You were lonely even before you got here. Me? I’ve been lonely for as far back as I can remember. You see? This was fate. If you stay with me, we can both be happy. If you’ll stay here with me, I promise I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you remain happy for the rest of your life.”
“The rest of my life?” I mocked. “What does that mean? Were you going to kill me next?”
“No... Katee... You don’t understand what I’m saying to you. And that’s probably my fault. I just can’t tell you in a way that you’ll understand. So...” This time, she pointed at the shuttle. “Go ahead. Go see who that ranger is. You need to know.”
For a long moment, I peered through the open doorway at the body. Nothing made any sense, but I wasn’t so certain I wanted to see the body anymore. Perhaps it was fear. I was afraid to find out what she had done. I returned my gaze to Talia.
“It’s okay, Katee,” she said. “Once you know the truth, if you never want to see me again, well, I’ll understand.” She sniffled. Tears streaked her mud-caked cheeks. She smeared the tears from them with her fingertips. “And if you don’t hate me after this, I’ll still take you home.”
I drew aside the remaining vines of ivy and climbed into the shuttle. Kneeling beside the corpse, I took a moment to study the scene. Clearly, the shuttle had been here for ages. It was full of cobwebs and a layer of dirt and dust covered everything. The ranger wore a ragged uniform and held a field knife in her hand. And the lower half of her fatigues were stained with blood. On the hull beside the ranger, I spotted what appeared to be tally marks. Was someone counting days? Was this how long Talia was stranded here before she stopped counting? Doing some quick math, there were more than a hundred marks.
Then I noticed a message scrawled onto the hull near the tally marks. Once I brushed off the layer of dirt that covered the message, I could finally read it. It was written by a fingertip with what appeared to be dried blood.
To whoever finds me:
I’m sorry I wasn’t here to explain anything. We waited patiently to be rescued, but no one ever came. And now that the last of the survivors has died, I can’t take the loneliness anymore. You’ll find everyone’s graves out back. Except mine.
I’m so very sorry I couldn’t get everyone home.
Corporal Talia Elizabeth Scott
I immediately jumped up and exited the shuttle.
I jabbed another finger at her. “You aren’t even Talia, are you?”
“That’s me in there, Katee.” She wiped the tears from her muddy cheeks again. “I didn’t want you to be afraid of me. I wanted you to be my friend.”
“How is that possible? How stupid do you think I am? Once someone is dead, they’re dead. There’s no coming back.”
“I can’t explain it.” Talia shrugged. “I committed... I died a long time ago. I wanted the loneliness to end, but... I didn’t go anywhere,” she cried, “I’m still here. I tried to find my way back home, and I eventually found the way out... but... Katee, I can’t even leave this jungle anymore! It won’t let me!”
As unbelievable as this all seemed, it was possible that it made some sense after all. I never believed much in ghost stories, but I had never completely ruled them out. And if that were true, then that’s the only way all of these puzzle pieces fit together. I jumped into the shuttle and promptly dusted off the chest of the corpse. The tag on the shirt read Scott. Two stripes were sewn on the sleeves of the body. Which is what I expected to see. It was just like the uniform Talia was wearing when I first met her.
For lack of any other explanation, I was forced to consider that Talia may have been telling the truth. If she were just an ordinary person, then things wouldn’t add up. She knew this area well enough that she could’ve found her way out of this jungle a long time ago. If she was a spirit, as she claimed, then she had never wished me any harm. As she could no longer leave Chiron’s Grove, she only wanted me to stay with her. To be her friend. To end the loneliness. Just like she’d said.
“What year was it when you crashed out here,” I asked as I exited the shuttle again.
“2243,” she muttered. “Why? What year is it now?”
“2254.”
“I’ve been out here for eleven years?” She cried out again.
My anger had subsided by this point, but I hadn’t completely bought into this fantastic tale yet. There was one more fact to check. She claimed that the rest of her party was buried behind the shuttle. I then decided that I needed to find out if that were also true. And if that proved to be true, then—as utterly unbelievable as it was—she must be telling the truth.
I made my way to the
back of the shuttlecraft. Behind it, ferns and ivy covered the uneven ground. And sticking out from the sea of ferns were numerous man-made markers; each made of two mossy strips of metal or plastic bound together in the shape of a cross. They each had something scratched onto them, but they had been here so long they could no longer be read.
Now my heart filled with pity. I felt sorry for Talia.
After spending a long moment trying to figure out how to solve this riddle, I made my way back to Talia. I clutched her by the shoulders and spoke in the kindest voice I knew.
“I want to help you, but I’m not sure how,” I told her. “I need to you speculate with me for a moment. Can you do that?”
After wiping her eyes, she nodded.
“Why is it that you didn’t leave here and the others did? Is there a reason?”
Talia shrugged while avoiding my gaze.
“Is it because you still need someone to come rescue your squad?” She didn’t reply. “Do you think if we buried your old body, you could rest?”
“I don’t know, Katee,” she muttered. “I tried everything but that.”
“I’ll make a deal with you. Let’s bury your old body. Then, if you’re still here, help me get back to my base camp. I’ll make sure someone comes out here and takes all the bodies back home. You’ll get a proper burial. And if that still doesn’t work, I’ll come out here and visit you as often as I can. I don’t want you to be lonely anymore.”
She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tightly.
“I’m sorry that I lied to you. And thank you for believing me.”
“Come.” I pulled away and grabbed her hand. “Let’s go bury that body. Okay?”
Stop right there, private. In your written statement, you submitted a rough description of how to find the two missing shuttles. Are you aware that we attempted to verify your story?
“No.”
It is true the Heracles 4 went missing roughly eleven years ago, and it’s also true that it was never found. We did go looking for this shuttle you claim is still out there. The Columbia was precisely where you said it would be, but not the Heracles.
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