The Ruins - Страница 22

Albatross, hethought. Avarice . Annunciation. Alacrity. Armament. Adjacent. Arduous. Accentuate. Accommodate. Allegation.

He was just turning to theB 's-Boisterous. Bravado. Bandoleer. Botanist-when that electronic chirping began again, waking Pablo, startling them both. Eric let go of the Greek's wrist, stood up, the wound on his knee making him stagger-step, like a clubfoot. The chirping seemed to be coming from his right, yet when he limped toward it, he realized he was wrong. It was coming from behind him now. He started to turn, but then wasn't so certain. It seemed to be circling him, drifting along the walls of the shaft.

"Eric?" Jeff yelled down. "Can you find it?"

Eric craned his head back. He could see them leaning into the rectangle of blue sky. He called up, told them how it was moving on him, first in one direction, then another.

"Is there a light?" Jeff shouted. "Look for a light."

The sound seemed to be coming from the opening beyond Pablo's body now, just inside the mouth of the shaft. Eric limped past Pablo, the air growing noticeably cooler. The chirping retreated, as if to draw him down the shaft. He hesitated, frightened suddenly. "I don't see it," he called. And then the chirping fell silent. "It's stopped," he yelled. He counted to ten inside his head, waiting for it to start again, but it didn't. When he peered up at the mouth of the hole, the heads had vanished and the sky had taken on a reddish tint. The sun was beginning to set.

He hobbled back to Pablo's body. He could sense him moving in the darkness, shifting his head, but he remained silent. He didn't resume his moaning or muttering, and this frightened Eric.

"Pablo?" Eric said. "You okay?" He wanted the Greek to start speaking again, but he just lay there, motionless now. Eric reached for the lamp, found it, reached for the matches, and…they weren't there. He patted at the rocky floor of the shaft, in a slowly widening circle, with a sense of growing panic. He couldn't find the box.

There was a creaking sound above him, and he looked up. The sky was rapidly growing dark, but he could see something silhouetted against it, an oblong shape, almost filling the hole. They'd finished their backboard, were setting it into place. He kept patting at the ground, reaching farther and farther away from himself, then returning to the lamp, starting outward again. But the matches weren't there.

The creaking grew louder, steadier, and he glanced up again. They were lowering the backboard into the shaft. "Eric?" he heard Amy call.

"What?" he yelled.

"Light the lamp!" She was on the backboard, he realized, dropping slowly toward him.

He stood up, limped a step, thinking that he might've been holding the matches when the chirping began, might've carried them with him as he started off to discover the source of the sound, only, absentmindedly, to set them down again. It didn't make sense, and he didn't really believe in it, but then he took another step and his foot hit something, kicking it, and he knew by the noise it made, by the way it felt against his foot, that it was the box of matches. He lowered himself carefully to his hands and knees, began to pat the ground, searching.

The creaking continued. The sky had grown dark now; he couldn't see the backboard any longer, but he could sense its approach. "Light the lamp, Eric," Amy called again. She was closer now, and there was an urgency to her voice. She sounded scared.

He kept patting at the ground. He was in a corner of the shaft that the vine had colonized fairly aggressively; his hands kept getting tangled in its tendrils, giving him the eerie sensation that the plant was purposefully impeding him. When he finally found the box of matches, it was buried underneath the vine, almost completely covered by it. Eric had to tug it free, tearing at the plant, its sap sticking damply to the fingers of his left hand, cool at first, then suddenly burning.

"Eric?" Amy shouted again. She was almost upon him.

"Just a sec," he called. He hobbled back to the lamp, crouched over it, lifted its glass globe. He didn't realize how badly his hand was trembling until he struck the first match: he was shaking so much that it immediately fluttered out. He had to take a moment, two deep breaths, working to calm himself, then try again. This time, he was successful-he lighted the lamp-and there Amy was, barely fifteen feet up, peering anxiously down at them, dropping, dropping, dropping.

He had to turn away from the lamp's brightness after so many hours sitting in the dark, but, even so, the flame was somehow fainter than he'd remembered-or than he'd hoped, perhaps. Much of the shaft remained shadowed, impenetrably so. His hand was burning from the vine's sap. He wiped it on his pants, but it didn't help.

When the backboard came within reach, he took hold of it, guiding it slightly to the right so that it would come to rest at Pablo's side, but then, with three feet still to go, it jerked to a halt, almost toppling Amy off her perch.

"Amy?" Jeff called from above.

"What?" she shouted.

"Have you reached them?"

"Almost. A few more feet."

There was a brief silence while this information was absorbed. Then: "How many?"

Amy leaned, peered down off the backboard at Pablo's broken body. "I don't know. Three?"

"It's the end of the rope," Jeff called. There was a pause. Then: "Can you still do it?"

Amy and Eric looked at each other. The whole point of the backboard was to keep Pablo's spine straight while he was lifted: without it, there'd be twisting or bending, which would, of course, cause further damage to his injured body. But if they decided to wait, it meant winching the backboard back up, taking it off the rope, braiding another length of nylon, reattaching the backboard, dropping the whole thing down the shaft once more, all of this attempted in complete darkness.

"What do you think?" Amy asked Eric. She was still crouched on the backboard, though she could've easily slid to the ground. It seemed as if she didn't want to attempt this, as if she felt it might commit her to a task she was still hoping she could evade.

Eric struggled for something that might approximate thought; it wasn't easy. He noticed a shovel leaning against the far wall of the shaft-a camp shovel, the type that could be folded up and carried in a backpack-and he spent a long moment staring at it, trying to imagine a way in which it might be useful to them. He couldn't come up with anything, though, and when the words grave digger popped into his head, he almost flinched, as if he'd picked up something hot.

"We can undo the backboard," he said. "Put him on it, then lift it up and tie it back on."

"By ourselves?" Amy asked. It was clear she didn't think this was possible.

Eric shook his head. "They'll have to lower someone else to help. Stacy, I guess. Two of us to lift him, one to tie the knots."

They thought about this for a moment, imagining all the steps, the time it would take.

"We'll need to blow out the lamp," Eric said. "Wait for her in the dark."

Amy shifted her weight, and the backboard began to swing. Eric extended his hand, stopped it. He thought she was going to climb off it, but she didn't.

"Or we can just lift him ourselves," he said.

Amy was silent, staring down at Pablo. Eric wished she'd say something. He couldn't do this by himself.

"It's only a few feet."

"If he twists-"

"I could take his shoulders. You take his feet. One, two, three-easy as that."

Amy frowned, uncertain.

Eric lifted the lamp, tilted it, examining its reservoir, the diminishing pool of oil. "We have to decide," he said. "The light's not going to last."

"Amy?" Jeff called.

They both craned their heads to look, but it had grown too dark up there to see him.

"We're gonna try it," she yelled.

Eric held the backboard steady while she climbed off, then he set the oil lamp on the ground. Amy gathered the belts from the sleeping bag, dropped them next to the lamp. Pablo was watching them, his eyes moving back and forth from one to the other.

"We're going to pick you up," Amy said to him. She made a lifting motion with her hands, palms open, then pointed to the backboard. "We're going to put you onto here, and then hoist you up and out."

Pablo stared at her.

Eric moved to the Greek's head; Amy stood at his feet.

"His hips," Eric said.

Amy hesitated. "You sure?"

"If you lift from his feet, he'll bend at the waist."

"But if I lift at his hips, won't he end up arching his back?"

They both stared down at Pablo, picturing these two different scenarios. It was a bad idea, Eric knew. They should send the backboard back up, have them lengthen the rope. Or at least have Stacy come join them. He glanced toward the lamp. It was nearly out of oil.

"At his knees," Eric said.

Amy considered this, but not long enough. A handful of seconds, and then she crouched over Pablo's knees. Eric bent, sliding his hands under the Greek's shoulders. He could feel the cut on his leg stretching, tearing, beginning to bleed again. Pablo groaned, and Amy started to pull away, but Eric shook his head.

"Quickly," he said. "On three."

They counted together: "One…two…three."

And then they lifted.

It was a disaster-far worse than Eric had feared. It seemed to take forever, and yet it happened so fast. They'd barely gotten him off the ground before Pablo began to scream-even more loudly than before, if possible, a pure shriek of pain. Amy almost gave up, almost set him back down on the ground, but Eric shouted at her-"No!"-and she kept going. Pablo's body sagged at the waist; he began to thrash his arms. His scream went on and on. His body was too heavy for Amy; she couldn't keep up with Eric. The Greek's shoulders were level with the backboard now, but his knees were still a good foot beneath it, and it looked as if Amy might not be able to lift them any higher. The bend at Pablo's waist increased. His right arm, flailing, hit the backboard, and it began to swing wildly back and forth.