The Ruins - Страница 24

"Are you cold?" Stacy asked. She hugged herself, tucked her head into her shoulders, mimed a shiver.

Pablo shut his eyes.

Stacy stood up, darted into the tent. It was even darker inside than out, but-groping on her hands and knees-she managed to find one of the sleeping bags. She rose with it, intending to hurry back outside and drape it across Pablo's body, then felt a sudden hesitation, the temptation to lie down instead, curl into herself here in this musty stillness, hide. It lasted only an instant, this temptation. Stacy knew it was pointless-there'd be no hiding here-and she pushed past the moment. When she stepped back outside, the Greek was still shivering. Stacy laid the sleeping bag across his body, then sat down next to him, reaching to take his hand. She felt she ought to speak, ought to find some words to soothe him, but she couldn't think of a single thing to say. He was lying with a broken back in his own shit and urine, surrounded by strangers who didn't speak his language. How could she possibly hope to make this better?

There was a slight breeze, and the tent billowed in it. The vines seemed to be moving, too: shifting, whispering. It was too dark to see anything; there was just her and Pablo and the tent, and-somewhere out of sight across the hilltop-the creak, creak, creak of the windlass. Soon Amy or Eric would appear out of the shadows, coming to sit with her and Pablo, and then things would be easier. That was what Stacy told herself: This is the hardest moment, right here, all alone with him.

She didn't like the rustling sounds. It seemed as if more were happening out there than the wind could account for. Things were moving about; things were creeping closer. Stacy thought of the Mayans, with their bows and arrows, and had to repress the urge to flee, to drop Pablo's hand and sprint across the hilltop, toward Jeff and the others. But this was silly, of course, as silly as her fantasy of hiding in the tent. There was nowhere for her to run. If the sounds were what she feared, then attempting to flee would only prolong her terror, draw out her suffering. Better to end it now, swiftly, with an arrow from the darkness. She sat clenched, waiting for it, listening for the soft twang of the bowstring, while that furtive rustling among the vines continued, but the arrow didn't arrive. Finally, Stacy couldn't bear it any longer-the suspense, the anticipation. "Hello?" she called.

Jeff's voice came toward her from across the hilltop: "What?" The windlass had stopped its squeaking.

"Nothing," she yelled. And then, as the windlass resumed its turning, she repeated the word, in a whisper now: "Nothing, nothing, nothing."

Pablo stirred, stared up at her. His hand felt cold to her, oddly damp, like something found rotting in a cellar. He licked his lips. "Nottin?" he said with a rasp.

Stacy nodded, smiled. "That's right," she said. "It's nothing." And then she sat there, waiting for the others to join her, struggling to believe it was true, that it was nothing-the wind, her imagination-that she was pulling monsters out of the night. "It's nothing," she kept whispering. "It's nothing. It's nothing. It's nothing."

Amy had asked Eric if she could hold his hand. She wasn't frightened, she'd explained; it was just so dark down there in the hole, and she needed some sort of contact, needed more than the sound of his voice to reassure her of his presence beside her. He'd agreed, of course, and though at first it had felt a little awkward, sitting on the rocky floor of the shaft, holding hands with her best friend's boyfriend, she'd soon grown comfortable with it.

This was while they were waiting for Jeff and Mathias to return from the orange tent and lower the rope back into the hole. She and Eric spent the whole time talking-assiduously-as if they sensed some danger in even the briefest silence. The danger of thinking, Amy supposed, of stopping and assessing where they were, what they were dealing with. She felt as if they were sitting on some perilously high cliff, sensing the earth so far beneath them but trying not to look down and see it. Talking felt safer than thinking, even if they ended up talking about precisely what would've occupied their thoughts, because with talking there was at least the chance for reassurance, for them to bolster and encourage each other in a way that was impossible to do on one's own. And there was the chance to lie, too, if this were necessary. They talked about Eric's knee (it hurt when he put any weight on it, but it had stopped bleeding again, and Amy assured him it was going to be okay). They talked about how thirsty they were and how long their water would last (very thirsty, and only another day or so, though they both agreed that they'd probably be able to catch enough rain to tide them over). They talked about whether the other Greeks would come in the morning (probably, Eric said, and Amy seconded this, though she knew they were only hoping it was true). They talked about the possibility of their signaling a passing plane, or of one of them sneaking past the Mayans in the middle of the night, or of the Mayans simply losing interest at some point, vanishing back into the jungle, leaving the path open for their departure.

The one thing they didn't talk about was Pablo. Pablo and his broken back.

They talked about what they were going to do when they finally managed to return to their hotel, the very first thing, debating the merits of their various choices, until it became too painful to think about any longer-the meals they both dreamed of eating made them feel too hungry; the icy beer made them feel too thirsty, the shower too dirty.

The cold draft came and went, yet it did nothing to clear the shaft of the smell of Pablo's shit. Amy had to breathe through her mouth, but even so, the stench managed to reach her; she began to feel as if it were some sort of paint into which she'd been dipped, as if she'd never be free of it. Eric asked her if she could see things in the darkness, floating lights, bobbing slowly toward them. "Over there," he said, and his hand fumbled for her chin, turned her head to her left, held it still. "A bluish sphere, like a balloon. Can't you see it?" But she couldn't; there was nothing there.

Jeff yelled down that they were back. All they had to do was knot together a sling, and then they'd pull them up.

Amy and Eric discussed who should go first, both of them offering this opportunity to the other. Amy insisted that Eric should be the one. He was wounded, after all, and he'd already spent so many hours alone in the hole. She swore she wasn't frightened, said it would only be a minute or two, that she didn't mind at all. But Eric wouldn't hear of it; he refused outright, and, finally, with secret relief-because she was frightened, because she did mind-Amy accepted his decision.

The windlass started to squeak. Jeff and Mathias were lowering the rope.

It was too dark to make out the sling's approach. They sat staring upward, seeing nothing, and then the creaking stopped. "Got it?" Jeff yelled.

Eric and Amy stood up, still clasping hands, and held their free arms out, swinging them slowly to and fro until Amy felt the cool nylon of the sling; it seemed to materialize out of the darkness at her touch. "Here it is," she said, and she guided Eric to it. They stood for a moment, both of them gripping the sling. Amy shouted upward, "Got it!"

"Tell us when," Jeff called back.

Amy could hear Eric breathing beside her. "Are you sure?" she asked.

"Definitely," he said. And then he laughed, or pretended to. "Just don't forget to send it back down."

"How do I do it?"

"Pull it over your head. Tuck it under your arms."

She let go of his hand, pushed her arms through the sling's opening, her head. Eric helped her, adjusting it beneath her armpits.

"You're sure it's okay?" she asked again.

Somehow, she could sense him nodding in the darkness, cutting her off. "Want me to shout?"

"I can," she said. Eric didn't respond. He stood beside her, with one hand resting lightly on her shoulder, waiting for her to call out. She craned back her head, yelled, "Ready!"

And then the windlass began its squeaking, and suddenly she was rising into the air, her feet dangling free, Eric's hand falling from her shoulder, vanishing into the darkness behind her.

The chirping began again. At first, it seemed to be coming from above Eric; then it was right in front of him, nearly at his feet. He reached toward the sound, patting with his hands, but found only more of the vine, its leaves slick to his touch, slimy even, like the skin of some dark-dwelling amphibian.

The windlass paused in its creaking, leaving Amy dangling somewhere up above him.

"Can you see it?" Jeff yelled.

Eric didn't answer. The chiming had moved away now, toward the open shaft in front of him, then into it, down it, growing fainter.

"Eric?" Amy called.

There was a pale yellow balloon bobbing to his left. It wasn't real, of course, just a trick of his eyes, and he knew this. So why should the chirping be real? He wasn't going to follow the sound down the shaft, wasn't going to move, was determined to keep crouching here, with one hand on the oilless lamp, the other on the box of matches, waiting for the sling to come dropping back toward him.

"I can't see it," he shouted up at them.

The windlass resumed its creaking.

The wound on his knee throbbed steadily. He had a headache-he was hungry, thirsty. And tired now, too. He was trying not to think about everything he and Amy had discussed, trying to fill his mind with static, because it was so much harder now, all alone down here, to keep believing in the hopeful scenarios they'd created. The Mayans weren't going to leave-which of them had been the one to propose such a foolish idea? And how did they imagine they'd ever be able to signal a plane for help, it flying so far above them, so quickly, so tiny in the sky? Chiropractor, he thought, struggling to mute these questions. Credentials. Collision. Celestial. Cadaver. Circumstantial. Curvaceous. Cumulative. Cavalier. Circumnavigate.