by Jeff Strand
“Get out of our way!” Henrietta shouted, waving the rifle. “Get the hell out of our way!”
The men stepped out of the way. We ran past them.
Now we ran at a full sprint, trying to reach the “safety” of the trail where it would be more difficult for them to shoot us with arrows and darts. It was going to be scary as hell running through the rainforest in the darkness, though not as scary as being cooked and eaten. We couldn’t use the flashlight functions on our cell phones if we hoped to escape from our pursuers.
None of us tripped, which was pretty remarkable.
We made it to the trail.
Now the big question was, did we continue running as fast as we can, in almost total darkness on uneven ground, virtually guaranteeing that one of us would take a nasty fall, possibly breaking one or more bones, or did we slow down and take a more cautious approach?
Henrietta, who was in the lead, slowed down. We were still running, but no longer at a sprint.
“Are they following us?” she asked.
Roger, who was in the rear, said, “Yeah.”
But they probably couldn’t shoot darts or arrows at us while they were running, and the trail was anything but a straight line, so while we were at a disadvantage for not knowing the area, they most likely couldn’t puncture us with their long-distance weapons. I’m not saying that I was feeling comfy and secure, but it seemed fairly likely that we’d survive for another minute at least.
We kept running.
And running.
And running.
I was starting to get a little worried, because we should’ve reached the river by now. We were still on a trail, but not necessarily the right one. Were we kind of going in the right direction, or were we getting more and more lost?
Henrietta seemed to realize this the same time I did. “I’m going to stop running now,” she announced. “Don’t crash into me.”
We all stopped.
“As far as I can tell, they’re not following us anymore,” said Roger.
“We must’ve gone off the right path,” said Henrietta. “They don’t want to get lost out here at night any more than we do. Let’s just catch our breath and then we’ll figure out a plan. Don’t lean against anything, though. Any branch could be a snake.”
“Thanks for saving us,” I said.
“Sorry it took so long. There wasn’t really anything I could do until it got dark.”
“That’s okay.”
“So...the woman I shot in the head. She was super-evil, right?”
“They killed and ate Percival, so I’m going to say yes. I mean, even if you account for cultural differences, she was pretty sadistic about it.”
“I heard his screams,” said Henrietta.
“It smelled awful,” said Ignacio. “That would have been my fear—that the scent of human flesh being cooked was appetizing. I was relieved that it wasn’t.”
I couldn’t see him very well, but I stared at him in the darkness.
“Are you back to being a stand-up comedian?” I asked.
“You weren’t concerned about that?”
“No. Not at all. I have literally spent zero percent of my life worrying that somebody getting cooked would make my mouth water. That’s seriously what you were thinking about while it was happening?”
“To be fair,” said Ignacio, “I was trying to distract myself from the horrors we were witnessing. Worrying about being enticed by the aroma of human flesh is what kept me from going insane. If it weren’t for that, right now I’d be screaming and tearing out my hair.”
“Let’s change the subject,” I said. “I’m going to admit that I have no idea how we get back to the river. Does anybody else?”
“Not a clue,” said Roger.
“I thought I did,” said Henrietta. “The path must’ve divided at some point and we took the wrong way. I’m worried that if we keep moving we’ll just get more and more lost. Normally I’d be happy to get lost with three young, virile men, and maybe when we know we’re safe we’ll figure out a way to celebrate, but right now I think we should avoid getting lost.”
“I agree,” I said. “If we wait here until daylight, at least we know we aren’t too far from the river. If we keep going in the dark, or even using the light from our phones, we might get so far off-course that we’ll never find our way out.”
“On my boat, you do as I say. But we’re not on the boat, so I guess it’s a democracy. Does anybody object to waiting here until morning?” Henrietta asked.
Nobody did.
“We’ll sleep in shifts,” said Ignacio.
“Yeah, right,” said Roger. “I couldn’t sleep in the hut, and I’m not going to be able to sleep out here with tarantulas crawling all over me.”
“Whoever is keeping watch will be responsible for brushing the spiders off the others,” said Ignacio.
“What if I yawn and a spider scurries down my throat?” I asked. “How fast are your reflexes? Will you even see it?”
“I don’t want to sleep amongst the spiders either,” said Ignacio. “But we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Henrietta, have you seen the boat since Percival tried to flee in it?”
“No. I looked but couldn’t find it. Pisses me off.”
“So though there’s a chance that it’s somewhere on shore, they might have let it float up the river, or they may have destroyed it. We have to assume that tomorrow will not involve strolling to the river, finding the boat undamaged, and speeding back to civilization. It may be an extremely challenging day. It’s very much in everybody’s best interest to try to get some sleep.”
“I’ve had an exhausting day,” said Henrietta. “I get that you all had a pretty shitty day, but you may be thinking that all I did was swim back across the river and wait outside the village until nightfall, and that wasn’t it at all. I went through all kinds of misery. My day sucked. I would be very happy to take the first sleep shift.”
“Done,” said Ignacio. “We should have two people sleeping and two keeping watch. Roger? Do you have a preference?”
“I’ll take the first watch shift. Even with somebody on tarantula duty, I won’t be able to sleep.”
“I guess I’ll try to get some rest,” I said. With our luck (which, as a reminder, was typically quite bad) it was safe enough to assume that tomorrow would involve trying to get back to civilization without a boat, so Ignacio was right, we needed some sleep.
Henrietta and I lay on the ground. An army of tarantulas did not immediately scurry over my face, so that was a promising sign. I figured that there was no way in hell I’d actually be able to lose consciousness under these circumstances, but after a few minutes I started to forget where I was, and I drifted off into a peaceful slumber.
I dreamt of the triplets. In my dream, I was holding Rose and Brianna and Cecilia all at the same time, and they were fast asleep, like little angels. Their diapers smelled of buttered popcorn and peppermint.
In the dream, Helen was floating, her eyes closed, her hair moving as if it were underwater.
Kyle and Theresa were hugging me.
I didn’t want them to stop hugging me.
“Not so tight,” I said in the dream. “Daddy can’t breathe.”
They hugged me even tighter, like they were trying to crush me.
I opened my eyes.
I couldn’t breathe.
This was almost certainly because there was an extremely large snake coiled around me.
Chapter Nine
Ignacio and Roger were sitting several feet away, facing away from me, softly chatting. I let out a gasp to let them know I was currently being suffocated by a snake.
They turned around to look. It was too dark to see their faces, but they both moved toward me at a very speedy pace, so I assume their expressions were wide-eyed shock. Their conversation better have been damn good for them to be so inattentive to my reptile problem.
Ignacio crouched down next to me. “It’s a boa constrictor,�
� he informed me. I didn’t like his tone; it was as if he was trying too hard to sound calm and soothing. “They’re not venomous.”
I was glad to hear that it wasn’t venomous, but since it currently felt like it was crushing my ribcage, I wasn’t inclined to celebrate.
I managed to speak: “Get it off me!”
“We will, we will,” Ignacio promised. “Just trying to brainstorm ideas right now.”
“Shoot it!”
“That might draw the villagers over here. You’ll be fine. At least it’s not a Burmese python. If it was a Burmese python, I’d be terrified, but it’s not, it’s a boa constrictor and I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
“Get the frickin’ snake off me, Ignacio!”
“Just think of it like a giant leech. You made it through the leech issue, right? I bet you didn’t think about that leech the entire time we were trapped in the hut.”
The boa constrictor’s head slithered up against my neck. Was it purposely trying to be frightening? Probably not. It was just a snake. But my fear level was off the charts, and if it had been easier to breathe I’m sure I would’ve been doing a lot of whimpering.
I tried to speak as calmly and clearly as possible. “It’s very important to me that you remove this snake.”
“Should I break off a branch and just start stabbing it?” Roger asked.
“No. You might anger or frighten it. We don’t want it to constrict further or bite him.”
“I thought it wasn’t venomous,” I said.
“It’s not. We still don’t want you to get bitten by a snake that big if we can help it.”
Henrietta snored peacefully.
“I just need to know what you want me to do,” I said. “I’ll do anything. I’ll follow any instructions you give me. I’m all in on trying to get this snake off of me.”
I had to be brave. Someday my children would ask, “Daddy, how did you act when the giant boa constrictor was trying to crush you?” and I didn’t want to have to lie to them.
“We’re going to try to pull it off of you,” said Ignacio. “If we decide that it’s not working, we may have you smash yourself against a tree, but for now we’ll go with the idea that slowly pulling it off will work. Roger, you’re willing to help me, right?”
“Of course I am.”
“Just making sure. It means handling a snake.”
“I’m not going to stand here and let the snake strangle him.”
“I didn’t want to presume that your friendship was at that level.”
“Let’s do it.”
Ignacio and Roger crouched down next to me. Roger’s breathing was quick and frantic, like that of somebody who was about to handle a boa constrictor.
“Any advice?” Roger asked.
“Not really,” said Ignacio. “I’ve obviously never done this before. If it weren’t so dark you’d be able to see that my hands are trembling. Try not to make it angry and try not to get bit is the best I can offer.”
They each grabbed a separate part of the snake. Roger sucked in a deep breath.
“Try to lift your right arm a little,” Ignacio told me.
I lifted my arm. He gently pulled the snake out from underneath it.
“See, this isn’t so bad, is it?” Ignacio asked. “Who’s the American who does concerts with a boa constrictor around his neck? He did that one song about school being out?”
“Alice Cooper,” I said.
“Everybody secretly wishes they were Alice Cooper, right? All that fame and fortune. It’s like you’re him. If he were standing here right now, he’d be very proud.”
Ignacio and Roger continued working on the snake.
“How are your ribs?” Roger asked.
“Not great.”
“Oh, shit,” said Ignacio.
“What?” I asked, thinking it was a very bad serpent-related development. Then I saw the torches off in the distance, that might be carried by kindly people on their way to help us out of this predicament, or might be carried by angry villagers who were seeking revenge because we’d killed their leader. I was pretty sure it was the latter.
Roger left me and the snake and hurried over to Henrietta. He shook her awake. He whispered softly enough that I couldn’t hear what he said, but Henrietta sat up immediately and grabbed the rifle.
“Our best move is to be as silent as possible and hope they don’t find us,” Ignacio whispered, when Roger returned. “Andrew, will you be okay if we leave the snake on you for a bit longer?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure, fine.” I was being sarcastic at the beginning of the sentence but by the time I got to the end I was sincere, because the torches were getting closer and postponing the snake problem was indeed the best plan. I’d try to alert Ignacio and Roger before a rib cracked.
The snake’s head slithered over my chest. A sword would’ve been so nice to have right now.
Somebody shouted. Once again I couldn’t understand the language, but the context clues seemed to indicate that the message was “There they are! Let’s kill them!”
They were definitely running toward us. And as they got closer I could see that the men, four or five of them, were wearing white paint. So, yeah, it was safe to assume that they were the dudes from the village whose leader we’d slain.
“Stay back!” Henrietta yelled at them.
They kept moving.
She waved the rifle into the air. “Don’t make me shoot you!”
This did not dissuade them. They obviously knew what the rifle could do, but either they weren’t frightened or—more likely—they couldn’t see it. By the time they got close enough to recognize the danger, they might be too close for Henrietta to shoot all of them before they reached us. I had no idea how much ammo was in the rifle, but I at least hoped she had more than five shots.
Henrietta fired into the air.
The villagers stopped moving.
And then they started moving again, but more slowly.
Henrietta lowered her aim, though still clearly trying to shoot over their heads, and squeezed the trigger. And once more the villagers stopped for a moment, then continued moving forward.
“I think I have to start killing them,” Henrietta announced to us.
At this moment, the boa constrictor began to squeeze more tightly. Maybe the rifle blasts scared it, or maybe it was a jerk who knew how inopportune of a moment this was. But suddenly the idea of dealing with one crisis at a time was no longer practical.
“Guys…?” I said.
Ignacio shushed me. I wanted to ask why the hell he was shushing me, since the plan to keep quiet had stopped being effective after Henrietta started firing the rifle, but I couldn’t breathe well enough to articulate my inquiry. Nor could I gesture with my arms pinned to my sides. The best I could do was let out a gasping croaking sort of noise.
Roger seemed to realize the problem. He returned to snake duty.
Henrietta fired again. Somebody cried out in pain. Their screaming continued, so whether on purpose or through bad aim, she’d wounded instead of killed whomever she’d shot.
“Should we ask her to shoot the snake?” asked Roger.
“It’s a magnificent creature,” said Ignacio.
“It’s killing my friend!”
“Let’s just keep trying to untangle him for now. We don’t want to blow off its head prematurely.”
Ignacio and Roger resumed their work in trying to get the snake off of me, while Henrietta continued to shout at and shoot at the villagers. After a couple of minutes, her shouts changed from “You’d better run!” to “That’s right, run!”
Henrietta hurried over to us. “They’re gone for now. We’d better get moving.”
“Shoot the snake in the head,” Roger told her.
“You can’t get it off?”
“We’d like to expedite the process.”
“I don’t really wanna kill a snake.”
“You killed that lady!”
“She was
a cannibal. The snake’s just doing what comes naturally to it. If it was eating other snakes, I’d happily shoot it, because that’s taboo for a reason. For now, unless it actually starts digging its fangs into Andrew’s body, I don’t want to kill it until it’s absolutely necessary.”
“It’s crushing him!”
“Then maybe instead of jabber-jawing you should get back to work.”
“It’s okay,” I told Roger. “She doesn’t have to murder the snake. Please just get it off of me. I’m starting to feel dizzy.”
Roger and Ignacio resumed trying to pull the snake off me. Henrietta stood guard, brandishing her rifle in a way that would intimidate the villagers if they returned and got close enough to see her in the light of their torches.
“We’re going to stand you up,” Ignacio told me. “Then if you could turn around a few times, I think we can unwind him.”
“How did it even get this tangled?” Roger asked. “It’s like Christmas lights when you take them out of storage.”
Roger and Ignacio pulled me to my feet. I slowly turned around as Roger took the boa constrictor’s tail and unspooled it.
The snake hissed.
“You may be pissing it off,” I said.
“That’s okay,” said Ignacio. “As long as it doesn’t start biting you.”
It was becoming very difficult to speak, and there was really no point in notifying him that his statement was absolutely insane. Instead, I continued to slowly turn around, as the angry snake slithered and hissed and implied very strongly that it wanted to sink its fangs into me.
“Wow, this thing is way longer than I thought,” said Roger.
“Yes, but we’re making progress,” said Ignacio.
“Try to move a little faster,” said Henrietta. “The villagers might come back with reinforcements.”
“We’d move a lot faster if you’d shoot the snake,” Roger told her.
“No, no, we’re almost there,” said Ignacio. “Two more minutes at the most.”
Six minutes later, they pulled the last of the snake away. Roger and Ignacio gently set it on the ground, and it slithered away.
“How do you feel?” asked Roger.