by Tara Ellis
Hope.
Chapter 6
JESS
Amazon Jungle near Kumalu, Suriname
The Libi Nati Preserve
Jess wasn’t paying much attention to the on-going conversation as she robotically ate her sandwich. Everyone had gathered for lunch before divvying up everything that needed to be done, and to get caught up on what each other knew. She thought vaguely about how they were using up the last of the bread. Would she ever have a sandwich again?
Blinking, Jess pulled the peanut butter and jelly away from her mouth and stared at it with a new sense of importance. She’d have to take her time and make every bite count.
Devon said something witty, which made Paul and Amisha laugh. It was an odd sound, and for some reason it made Jess frown around the wedge of crust in her mouth. She didn’t know why, but laughing felt…wrong, even though having the people crowded into the kitchen and eating area of her house helped to make her feel safe.
The food wasn’t settling very well, and Jess put a hand on her stomach as she leaned back on the couch. Although she was in a much better state since she’d last sat there earlier that morning, she was still working through some stuff. She had a ton of questions for Jason, but it was like she could only handle things in small doses anymore. Normally, she’d be able to roll with the punches, but it felt like her body was already too full of confusing and horrible feelings, so that anything else bubbled over and she couldn’t control it.
Jess didn’t want to become a shaking, blubbering mess again. So, she’d do what her father had taught her: adapt. That meant a little bit at a time. A little information, conversation, work, and food. Sleep seemed to increase her capacity for everything, so she’d try and get more of that as soon as she could, but it wasn’t going to be until later that night. There was too much to do before her dad came back in the morning.
“I don’t want you outside doing any work with that hand,” Jason was saying to Kamal. Jess looked to where they were standing by the back door. He had the bandage unwrapped, exposing what was left of her finger, which wasn’t much.
Kamal frowned and stared beyond the glass patio door. “I’ve got animals out there that haven’t been fed since yesterday,” she complained. “I feel fine.”
Jason shook his head and began re-wrapping the wound. “You just started taking the antibiotics, and I’m not too happy with how this looks. The last thing you need is to get dirt or animal waste in it. Someone needs to stay with Pikin and Akuba, so it may as well be you.”
“Fine,” Kamal huffed, but smiled at the little girl who was seated at the kitchen island with Amisha. “We can clean up after all of you, and keep Akuba company before we make dinner later. Maybe at least one of you could think to take your shoes off when you come inside?”
Jess noticed Eddy and Paul exchange a look from where they sat at the dining table, and the older man smacked at Mavi’s arm. “Are you listening?” Mavi glanced up from his food in surprise, clearly unaware of what they were talking about.
“Sorry,” Mavi said, looking around. “I’m still waking up. How many hours of daylight do we have left? If you want to go into town for the radio, we should probably leave soon.”
“There’s at least six hours until sunset,” Akuba said as she handed a sandwich to Jason, and another one to Peta. “It will go quickly, and none of us want to be caught outside.”
Jess nodded and then pointed out the door. “We’ve got a ton of work to do before it gets dark, if we’re going to have the food put together for my dad to pick up in the morning. I mean, I know you’re gonna talk to him, but it would probably start off better if we have the stuff he wants.”
“I think a peace offering is a great idea,” Devon agreed, taking the sandwich from Jason and biting into it before he could grab it back. “Maybe we can work out a trade with him, you know? Produce for access and information, or something.”
Jess felt a small surge of encouragement at how sane Devon made it sound. Maybe the new arrivals were right and seeing it all more clearly. That they just needed to sit down and have a good one-on-one with her dad. Even without any emotions, he was likely to be practical. The part of Jess’s stomach that hurt insisted her optimism was way off, but she clung to the thought that it could all be somehow smoothed over.
“It’ll take about an hour to drive to the police station and back,” Jess said, popping the last piece of food into her mouth in spite of her queasiness. A small whimper from her feet caused her to look down, and she frowned when she realized Marty had been laying there patiently, waiting for some crumbs.
“Don’t let him fool you,” Tyler whispered from near her elbow. She turned to face where he was seated next to her. “He already had his own sandwich, and probably at least one bite from everyone else’s. He’s a pro.”
Chuckling, Jess reached down to pet the dog. “Well, you can’t blame him for trying. We all have to be good at something.”
“I’ll go to the station,” Mavi said, standing. “I’m familiar with the building and where they’d keep the radio. It was attacked fairly early on, so everything useful was likely either taken or destroyed. Hopefully, the old piece of equipment in the back room was passed over for other things.”
Paul nodded, but put a hand out to stop the other man from leaving. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for anyone to be out alone.”
“I’ll go with you,” Eddy offered, already moving for the door. He picked up one of the automatic rifles. “Unless anyone has an objection?” he added, turning to Jason and then Peta.
Jason shrugged. “Not from me,” he said, looking around the room at everyone else for input. When there wasn’t any, he pointed at the weapon. “Why don’t you keep that out of sight though, unless absolutely necessary. No sense in advertising our arrival any more than we already have.”
“Speaking of which,” Paul said, also standing. “We’ve got some cleanup to do.”
Jess winced at the visual the comment created. The adults had already spent some time debating who they thought had attacked them, and what they should do with the evidence. She agreed that it wasn’t her dad’s doing, but the fact that anyone was attacking people using their road was upsetting. Like they didn’t already have enough to worry about.
When Jason, Peta, and Devon all stood at the same time, they looked at each other for a moment before Peta spoke first. “One of us should stay here with the other rifle and handheld radio, so we can stay in communication.”
Devon raised a hand and then saluted toward Jess and Tyler. “Count me in.” When Peta raised a brow at him, he shrugged. “You know, call me strange, but dragging day-old corpses out of the road and picking up a trail of wreckage just doesn’t sound like that great of an afternoon. Plus, I’m still a gimp,” he added, gesturing to his right leg and the injury from the car accident. “And I’d much rather spend that time watching the jungle and slinging some cow manure.”
Chuckling, Jess jumped to her feet and then motioned for Tyler to follow. She was glad Devon was going to stay with them. He was fun to be around, and made her stomach feel a little better.
Amisha fell in alongside her as they walked outside, and then hooked an arm through hers. They hadn’t had a chance to talk to each other very much since the jaguar attack, and Jess had been afraid her friend was mad at her for running off to the barn and leaving her alone.
Giving her arm a squeeze as they headed for the barn, Amisha leaned in so they could talk without being heard. “I’m glad you’re okay, Jess. You have to promise me you’ll never do anything like that again! I thought—” her voice caught, and she cleared her throat as she checked behind them to make sure Tyler and Devon weren’t too close. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Jess pushed against Amisha, bringing their heads together. “You don’t have to worry about that!” she scoffed. “There’s zero chance of anyone getting me to go anywhere outside after dark, ever again.”
Laughing, Amisha fell sil
ent for a few paces and then grew more serious as they approached the barn. “I can’t believe these people actually came from the same house I sent that water sample to!” Glancing over at Jess, she pursed her lips. “And that Grizzly Adam’s guy is your dad, Jess? If the world wasn’t already so crazy, I’d say we were in an episode of the Twilight Zone, or something.”
“Ugh, pick a different show,” Jess said, as she dropped Amisha’s arm and waited for Devon to catch up so she could push the barn doors all the way open. He was limping his way towards them, and she wondered how bad his ankle really hurt.
When the other girl frowned at her, Jess widened her eyes in feigned exasperation. “The endings? That show was all about people learning a lesson about humanity and stuff, and they didn’t usually have a happy ending.”
“Sounds about right,” Tyler said as they approached, and Devon somewhat awkwardly pointed the weapon into the barn before easing his way inside. Smiling at his back, Tyler then glanced around the open driveway, and the jungle beyond that.
As he shifted to study the dense foliage behind them, Jess noticed he had a gun tucked into the small of his back. It probably should have surprised her, but instead it made her chastise herself for not thinking to take one too, and she wondered why she hadn’t. Maybe because there was a part of her that was still trying to hold on to some thin strand of normalcy. Once Jess accepted it wasn’t even safe to walk out to the barn, she really had crossed into the Twilight Zone.
“What sounds about right?” Amisha asked, before following Devon inside the dusty interior of the big barn.
“Learning a lesson about humanity,” Tyler said, his smile gone.
Jess hesitated, and stared at the boy she already considered a friend. “And what have you learned?”
Sighing, he turned away before Jess could correctly interpret his emotions. “That no one is really who you think they are,” he said. “We spend our whole lives creating what we want everyone to see…and it only took a few days to strip it all away.”
As Tyler walked into the barn, Jess watched Amisha wave him over to the feed bins. They’d busy themselves with mundane chores and find some sort of an escape in the tasks for the rest of the day, but Tyler was right. Later, when it got dark, they’d be forced to face the other side of things. And Jess was coming to understand that in the dark, there was nowhere to hide from all those truths that were being exposed.
Chapter 7
TYLER
Amazon Jungle near Kumalu, Suriname
The Libi Nati Preserve
Tyler wiped his hands on his jeans, leaving streaks of dirt and other unidentifiable matter behind. He’d regretted turning down the gloves only fifteen minutes into the work. Two hours later, he was about ready to make the long walk back to the barn to get a pair, in order to save the rest of his skin.
The sun was hot on his back, and he’d have to put his shirt back on soon. Darker skin or not, he’d eventually burn. Squinting up at the dulled sun behind its veil of ash, Tyler started to reach for the sweat dripping into his eyes and had to stop himself. The last thing the cuts on his face needed was a nice dose of bacteria.
“Want a drink?” Devon asked as he hobbled toward him with a fresh water bottle. Kamal had just made a brief visit to bring them snacks and water, and to let Jess know Akuba was doing better. She also reported that Marty was perfectly fine lounging with the wounded, and was Pikin’s new best friend. Tyler wished he could have brought the dog out with them, but Jason cautioned how he had a thing for chasing farm animals.
Tyler looked over to where Jess and Amisha were currently busy weeding and picking vegetables from one of many large gardens. He wasn’t sure how Jess was able to keep all of the required work straight in her head. The whole spread was pretty impressive, with a couple of groves of fruit trees mixed in with fields that had goats, cows, chickens, and even pigs. He was currently spreading hay for the cows, and had just completed mucking out a few stalls housed in a small covered area in the corner of the nearest field.
The smaller house the other guys were staying in wasn’t far from where they were, and on the other side of the fields was another long building Tyler hadn’t been inside yet. Jess had explained it contained their storage room, some lab space for her father’s research, and a dorm-like living area upstairs for the other preserve employees and science students who were normally there.
“Tyler. Water?” Devon repeated. He had come to within a couple feet of him and was holding the bottle out.
Tyler noticed how clean Devon’s hands were when he took the offered water. “I’m not sure how these chores got assigned, but I think it’s time for us to switch,” he scoffed, gesturing to the rifle.
Devon tried to make a show of being confused by what he meant, and took a step back in mock offense, but stopped midway through his playful display. Grimacing, he fell to the side and had to use the rifle to steady himself so he wouldn’t fall.
Lunging forward, Tyler grabbed Devon by the arm to help support him. Studying how he was holding his right foot up, he frowned at his friend. “What’s the deal? I thought you said it was just a bruise.”
Huffing, Devon accepted Tyler’s help to sit on one of the bales he’d carried out to the field. “I thought it was, man,” he said, leaning over to rub at his leg. “But the more I walk on it, the worse it gets.” Propping his foot up on his left thigh, he grunted and then leaned back on his elbows. “Remember, you had the benefit of a seatbelt last night. Me? I got to play superman for a millisecond where I thought I was facing certain death. I consider myself lucky I can walk at all, although my whole body feels like I just got out of the ring after a match with the heavyweight champ.”
Tyler chuckled, but then sobered as he thought about everything Devon had been through. He knew his eardrums ruptured in the initial explosion, and that Devon suffered pretty significant burns to his feet while escaping the pyroclastic flow. Glancing at the two-week old scar on the other man’s forehead, Tyler was reminded of the emergency landing in the ocean, and that Devon had been knocked out. The second helicopter crash dislocated a couple of his fingers, and then he’d been shot in the arm during the gunfight at Mads’ house.
While Tyler had his own mild head injury during the crash that killed his mom, aside from some scratches and bruises, he’d done pretty good in comparison. Feeling guilty for giving Devon a hard time, he handed him the water back and then picked up the rifle. “Why don’t you stay here for a while?” he suggested, removing the Glock from his waistband and holding it out. “You should get off that foot and have Jason look at it when they get back. We don’t need you breaking down physically now. Not when we’ve finally made it here and you managed to somehow land on your feet through all of the other crap.”
Devon accepted the smaller gun with a loud snicker. “Right? I finally got the full use of my fingers back, and the holes in my left arm closed up enough so that it doesn’t ache all the time. I wonder how many of my nine lives I’ve used up so far?” Setting the weapon on the bale next to him, he gave his head a shake and then ran his free hand over his rather full, dark cloud of hair. “Honestly, my friend, I don’t think I’m ready to find out.”
Tyler was trying to think of something meaningful to say, when he noticed Jess had left Amisha in the garden and was quickly making her way over to them. She pointed at the remaining bale that Tyler was sitting on, and then smiled at Tyler. “You got the hay spread pretty fast. Wanna get out of the sun?”
Grabbing for his shirt, Tyler nodded eagerly. “Absolutely. Where are we going?”
“Storage room.” Jess took the water from Devon and guzzled some before handing it back. “You okay to stay with Amisha while she finishes out there? We need to get going on sorting the other stuff out before it starts getting dark. We don’t know when they’ll show up for it tomorrow, but my dad has always been a really early riser.”
Devon waved her off and then looked over at the building they’d be going to. “Yeah, I’m fin
e. Just be sure to keep the doors open, okay? I’ll shoot once into the air if I spot any sign of trouble.”
“You good with the Glock?” Tyler asked, offering Devon the rifle back.
“Yeah, I’d rather you have the AR,” Devon said. “If any trouble does go down, it’d probably be best if the most heavily armed person is also the most mobile.”
Tyler couldn’t help but feel a greater sense of responsibility as he shrugged into his T-shirt, and it wasn’t exactly a pleasant feeling. Not considering what the stakes were.
“Come on!” Jess called back at him as she sprinted off across the field, dodging cows as she went.
“How in the—” Tyler muttered, ignoring Devon’s laughter as he hurried to catch up with the agile girl. Even though he’d spent close to a year in the tropics on Madagascar, Jess had grown up in the Amazon. Her high tolerance to the heat and humidity was hard to believe, and it had been less than twelve hours since she’d been through a major ordeal, with only a few hours of sleep. He hated to think what her normal energy levels were.
Unlike the barn, the doors to the outbuilding were of normal size and firmly closed. Tyler was relieved when Jess still waited for him to go in first, noting that in addition to being fast, she also had good situational awareness and seemed pretty intelligent. At least, compared to most of the other kids he’d known from school. He imagined that living where Jess did required a certain level of common sense that wasn’t demanded of teens who spent most of their time on a smart phone.
Leading with the rifle, Tyler felt like an imposter as he led the way into the dark interior of the building. Even though it was highly unlikely that jaguars had learned how to open and close doors, he was still the one holding the weapon, so it fell on him to react right away and keep them safe. And he had absolutely no idea what he was doing.