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night had never looked so dark and so vast, and for all she knew or could
see, it might have stretched out over an endless expanse of ocean or the wide
open nothingness beyond the edge of a cliff.
It turned out to be neither and, in many
ways, both.
Callie heard the door close with a light
click behind her and, for the briefest of instants, felt an absurd pang of
separation anxiety. Her hand reached for the knob, almost touching it, then
dropped to her side. A muted crunching sound seemed to be gravitating toward
her, a crunching sound that grew more distinct by scant degrees. She sucked in
a breath, held herself rigid, eyes probing the darkness for a direction to go
in. She heard a crisp snap, saw a wisp of flame, and then two tiny dots glowing
orange in the night, moving erratically like a pair of drunken fireflies.
Cigarettes. Voices drifted as the lit cigarettes jostled, moving up and then
down, out and then back. And then they began to float toward her, the crunching
of feet on brush coming closer.
A single voice, insidiously intimate, only
a few feet away. “Qué?”
Callie bolted away from the door, away from
the house, stumbling headlong into the night and she knew not what else.
Frantically, she thought she heard footfalls behind her and moved faster, but
the pain in her abdomen was screaming and her weak legs were already giving
out. No, no, she exclaimed in her head, run, run! Can’t stop, can’t
stop! But she was stopping, her legs folding like a collapsing lawn chair.
The last thing she felt as she fell was fire engulfing her belly and the
staggering blow of her head hitting the ground.
When
CALLIE opened her eyes, all was still and black. Her head had a heavy
but empty feel, as if a balloon had been inflated inside and then popped. She
became aware of the ground beneath her, felt its firmness, smelled its sphagnous
musk. A pale gold hook of moon hung in the sky, stars scattered like chips
broken from its orb. It took her several moments to remember where she was,
what had happened, and when she did a burst of panic got her clawing and pushing
to sit up. Her efforts brought on a powerful wave of dizziness and nausea that
almost caused her to drop back to the ground. But fear of being caught proved
to be a stronger impetus and she was finally able to stand. Taking several deep
breaths, she slowly felt the dizziness lessening and the nausea remaining in
check. She peered around in the darkness and, seeing the house behind her,
started moving as quickly as she could manage.
She had gone perhaps thirty or forty feet
when the sliver of moon vanished altogether, the last nightlight going out.
Beneath her feet the ground seemed to be changing, becoming more uneven, brush
scratching and climbing up her ankles. She ambled a few feet in each direction
and found it all the same, and yet something was different. An overwhelming
feeling of despair descended on her as dark as the night—how could she keep
going when she couldn’t see anything? Again, she turned in every direction in
the hope of being able to make out something, anything, and then she felt the
mochila bob against her side. Felt the weight of its contents. She reached
inside and immediately felt the despair flip over to euphoria as her hand closed
around a slim cylinder.
A flashlight.
Tears of gratefulness sprang to her eyes.
Aiming it toward the ground, she flicked it
on and slowly swept it around her. Cautiously raised the beam. She gasped at
what she saw in the powdery light. She was surrounded by trees—tall, thick
trees that had crowded out the night and pulled her into an even darker
netherworld with no beginning and no end. How had that happened? She had only
taken a few steps. Panicked, she turned toward what she thought was the way
she’d come, and pointed the flashlight. Nothing but trees. She swung the beam
around again, full circle. Trees, a density of mammoth trees. With mounting
alarm, she paced several yards in every discernible direction. And found the
same thing each way she headed.
She was in the forest.
Stunned, Callie looked for a place to sit
and spotted a log. She tried to tuck as much of her dress underneath her as
possible, utterly grateful now for the underwear the Latino woman had given
her. With the mochila cradled in her lap, she held the flashlight over
the opening and studied the contents. The first things she noticed, with a
surge of relief, were two bottles of water and something that looked like dried
fruit. Plantains, she speculated. A plastic bag contained a couple of
doughy rounds, bread of some kind.
But right now she was not hungry and thirst
seemed a distant need. It was night, it was pitch dark, she was alone in the
forest…and she was scared to death.
CALLIE SAT ON THE log, blinking fitfully in
the pale mist of illumination drifting up from the flashlight. Her first
instinct on breaking free of the house had been to flee, but now she was afraid
to go anywhere for fear of getting lost. And then a thought of such deep
desolation struck her that a sob gurgled involuntarily from her throat. Who
or what would she be lost from? Where was she? Was this jungle near the
beach house? Was it near Dominical at all? Was it even in Costa Rica? She
could not imagine that Jake had any idea where she was. But wasn’t being lost
better than being found by the inconceivably evil man back at the house? Of
that, there was no doubt. And what if he had discovered that she was gone?
What if he and his men were out looking for her right now?
She rose unsteadily from the log, vaguely
aimed the flashlight in front of her, and began walking as quickly as she
could. Her pelvis still ached, everything within its cradle tender and hurting,
but she had been freed and now had the chance to get away. She had no idea
where to go in the maze of trees, but she had to try. Though the trunks were
close and the undergrowth thick, there was enough room to maneuver between
them. So far. Nudging vines aside and ducking low hanging limbs, she gradually
fell into a quiet rhythm.
At first, the only sound she heard was that
of the sandals pushing down on the forest floor, alternately soft and spongy and
coarse and unyielding. But as she navigated further, the jungle’s nocturnal
dimension came unnervingly to life in a fusion of noises as large predatory
birds thrashed through the canopy on the hunt for bats and monkeys against a
chaotic chorus of rumbles, grunts, groans, clicks, barks, whistles, and trilling
from frogs and insects. She became fearfully aware of indistinct undulations
above and around her, obscured by density and darkness. Something flapped just
above her head, so close she could feel the stir of air in her hair. She
flinched and tottered, and the flashlight was jarred from her grip. It thumped
to the ground and rolled away from her feet, the light clicking off as the
switch hit a tree root.
“No, no, no,” she whispered in horror as
the dark bas-relief of jungle solidified to total black once more. Carefully,
she knelt down to feel for the flashlight, sucking in a sharp breath as cramps
seized her abdomen. A sudden swishing nearby sent a peal of fear through her
like the twang of a tuning fork, the sensation tingling from her jaw to her
kneecaps. A scared whimper mewed from her throat as she thrust her hand forward
and side to side. Touched something smooth and warm and pulsing. She jerked
her hand back and heard a sound that was like air being let out of a tire.
Hissing. Terrified, she could not move as hissing filled her ears, almost
ringing with intensity.
Close, persistent hissing. The air
shuddered. Went still. Her heart beat unbearably loud in the stillness.
Seconds passed, then minutes. A faint
rustling…inches, just inches…and…receding. Steam swirled around her, bathing
her face and neck in moist, sticky heat. The ground smelled of burnt coffee and
charcoal and earthy decomposition.
She exhaled and felt her heart gradually
slow. But it took a long time for her to find the courage to move again. When
she finally did, her shaking hand closed around the flashlight. She went weak
with relief as a flick of the switch brought a little light back into the
jungle. But the loss of light had made her wonder how much time remained on the
flashlight’s batteries. Hours? A nighttime’s worth? Please, she prayed
desperately, please don’t let me lose the light. The thought of
that happening made her start shaking again, so much her teeth chattered.
Around her, the jungle thrummed.
Suddenly lightheaded in the humidity and
utterly overwhelmed, she sought a place to rest and found a buttress at the base
of a wide tree. Slipping her hand inside the mochila, she felt a square
of fabric wedged in the bottom of the bag and pulled it out. Unfolding the
light woven material, she found that it covered enough ground for her to sit and
stretch her legs. Just barely. When her calves touched brush, she quickly drew
her knees up and tucked her feet. Covered by only the few yards of now-tattered
white linen sundress, a crudely altered pair of too-big panties, and sandals
that were no more than soles and a couple of straps, out here Callie felt as
vulnerable as if she were naked. A ghastly image of the vile man over her, of
being exposed and violated, flashed like sky-splitting lightning. She squirmed
uncomfortably on the fabric throw, tucking and retucking the short hem of the
dress. Sighing, she uncapped one of the water bottles and took a few sips.
When she didn’t become nauseated and the water stayed down, she took a few
more. For the first time, she was really thirsty, and had another worried
thought: How long would the two bottles of water last? She took one more
mouthful of water, twisted the top back on the bottle, and put it inside the
mochila. Coated with sweat, she leaned back against the tree. Seconds
later her neck was on fire, then her arms and legs. Squealing, she jumped up
and pawed frantically at her skin, instantly stinging her hands and fingers, the
pain as hot and intense as electric shocks. Grabbing the flashlight, she
flailed it around and was horrified to find herself crawling with ants, dozens
and dozens of them. Disappearing inside her dress, running down her bare arms,
climbing up her neck to her face. Over her eyelids, around her earlobes, across
her lips. Shaking and slapping them off, she wailed in misery as their bites
swelled and circulated heat through her flesh. Soon, her heart was jittering
with adrenaline as their venom disseminated. The pain radiated and she found
herself gasping for breath. Her throat tightened and she struggled to swallow.
A surge of panic pulled her under like a riptide.
She dropped limply to the square of fabric
and tried to stay calm, tried to breathe slowly, tried not to cry. She took a
few more swigs from the water bottle, splashing a little on the welts rising
around her neck. The tightness eventually lessened, her breathing eased, her
panic diminished. But the fire spread, and intensified.
And then the mosquitoes came.
THEY FEASTED WITHOUT MERCY, and as Callie
tried helplessly to ward them off, flesh itching and burning relentlessly, she
was sure she was going to die. Arms hugging her midriff, she imagined it was
Jake holding her, and wept.
At some point she heard a faint chirping in
the tree directly above her, perhaps fifteen feet up. The chirping had an
unsettling urgency to it, increasing in volume and frequency. Next, from the
same spot, wick-a-wick-a-wick-a-wick, followed by barks and more
insistent chirping. Wick-a-wick-a-wick-a-wick, and then a shrill scream
that sent Callie scrambling. Heart tripping, she pointed the flashlight up into
the high branches of the tree, the beam catching a pair of glowing red eyes.
Almost dropping the flashlight again, she snatched the square of fabric from the
ground below the tree and skittered away.
She had only gone about five yards when she
heard something else.
Growling. Deep, serious growling
somewhere behind her.
Now her heart was hammering, her mind
frenzied with fear. The growling continued, low and menacing. Was it close?
Yards away? Feet away? As she tried to ascertain where the growls were coming
from, a raucous roar erupted, enfolding and filling the space with the richness
of Bose surround-sound. She jumped, cried out in terror, her exclamation all
but eclipsed by the shrieks of the creature in the tree. Her heart was beating
so strenuously she thought it might explode. She pushed her clenched hands up
against the middle of her chest, as if to contain it.
More growling. It sounded closer. Was
it closer? Oh God, was it? Oddly, the creature in the tree had
grown calmer, resuming its wick-a-wick-a-wick-a-wick chant interspersed
with a few chirps. But the growling, where was the growling?
Callie listened. Had it stopped? Was it
gone? Distant, crackling noises, a long, low rumble. Then nothing.
She found a cluster of leafy ferns at the
base of another tree, dropped the fabric square across them, and sunk onto it.
Numbly, she reached into the mochila, uncapped a water bottle with a
quivering hand, and drank. Not even a minute later, she threw all of it up. |
