Dark Waters
Page 18
“That’s what he said on the bus ride over here,” Lucas said. “Other than that, I didn’t really bother to listen to much of what he said. Most of it was just bitching and complaining, as far as I could hear.”
Simon had taken a bus from the city to here as well. It had been a small, overcrowded affair where nonetheless very few people had gotten off in this vicinity. From the stop, he’d had to hitch a ride in the back of a truck to get here. None of the others currently waiting here had been with him for any of that, so he had to wonder if there had been a way to get here that hadn’t smelled like chicken and pigs.
His Aunt Annie may have paid for him to come here, but she sure hadn’t been able to pay much.
Simon had to assume that most of the others were here, at this off time in the season and taking less than reliable means to get here, for the same reason. Apparently, though, they’d gotten here by different means than him.
“Did you have a bus that brought you all the way here?” Simon asked.
“No, we had to take a smaller shuttle,” Miriam said. “Thankfully. Katherine here was convinced we would have to ride the rest of the way in the back of a livestock hauler, but I told her that couldn’t possibly be the correct way.”
Simon kept his mouth shut and tried not to blush.
Miriam, however, seemed to realize that she’d said something to make him uncomfortable. She remedied the situation by changing the subject. “Where are you from, Simon?”
“Nebraska,” he said. Normally, that was something he felt self-conscious about, coming from a state that many considered to be middle-of-nowhere. But he thought he had detected just the hint of a mid-west accent in one of the other tourists, so maybe he wouldn’t feel so out of his element here.
“I’m from Iowa,” Lara said, confirming his theory, “although I’ve been living in San Diego for the last couple of years.”
“And I’m San Diego born and raised,” Lucas said as he affectionately kissed the top of Lara’s head.
Miriam and Katherine looked like they were about to chime in with their own places of origin, but before they could, they were interrupted by a whistle from Cory back over at the dock.
“Hey, assuming the rest of you are going to be stuck on this shitty trip with me, you might want to look alive,” he called. “It looks like our ride and home for the next few days is here. And it’s exactly as terrible as I expected it to be.”
Oh lordy, Simon wasn’t looking forward to dealing with that attitude for the rest of the trip. But when he turned and looked at the boat they would be taking, he honestly had to agree with Cory. This was definitely the conveyance of tourists who couldn’t afford to see the Amazon during peak times of the year with respectable tour agencies controlling it.
Damn, Aunt Annie, Simon thought. I love you so much for this trip, but next time, please check the brochure a bit closer.
There was a name stenciled on the side of the boat, but it was so chipped and faded that Simon couldn’t even tell if the name was in Spanish, English, or Portuguese. If everything about the environment around them said “green,” then everything about this boat said “brown,” even the parts that were supposed to have color. And it wasn’t a rich brown, either. It was the washed-out brown of mud and excrement and rotted leaves left to bake in the sun. The thing had obviously been around for a very long time, and Simon honestly wasn’t sure how the rickety thing managed to stay afloat. About the only positive thing that could be said in its favor was that at least it was large enough for the small group of tourists to live there for several days like they were supposed to. The question then became whether or not they would even want to.
As much as everyone else looked like they wanted to defy Cory’s snide statement, none of them said anything in the boat’s defense. Most of them looked downright shocked at the sad state of their home for this trip, and Simon had to assume that, like him, they hadn’t been the ones to arrange the specifics of their trip.
“Please tell me this is some kind of joke,” Lucas said.
The boat slowed as it got to the dock, and the two deckhands stepped out to tie it off. Simon didn’t know a lot about sailing, but he didn’t think the knots they were using were of the best quality or workmanship. Behind these two, a third man came out of the cabin, looked around confused for a minute, then saw the tourists waiting for the boat and waved at them. While the two deckhands appeared to be locals, the man in the captain’s hat had a light complexion and features that vaguely marked him as being of some kind of Eastern European stock.
“Welcome!” he bellowed at him. His thick Russian accent confirmed which part of the world he hailed from. “You must be my guests for the week! Welcome, welcome! Come aboard and join me!”
Simon looked discerningly at the boat and captain, then at the other tourists, then again at the lush world surrounding them. So then, this was to be his dream Amazon vacation. Already he could see how it would leave a little something to be desired, but at the same time, he hadn’t expected five days in the rainforest and along the Amazon River to be a pleasure cruise. He’d wanted to see the real river, not some overly touristy version of it, and that apparently was what he was going to get. He would take the bad, as long as it brought all the amazing world of his dreams along with it.
After all, despite the company, despite the janky nature of the boat and the strange-acting captain, this was something people did a lot. What was the worst that could happen?
Simon grabbed his backpack with his belongings and was the first to approach the boat. Following his lead, the remaining tourists took up their own possessions and boarded along with him. None of them took notice of the shifting change in the wind, or the dark clouds that had just popped up far away on the horizon. And none of them, not a single one, thought for even one second that they might not leave the Amazon River alive.
Shark: Infested Waters is available from Amazon here!