The Speed of Falling Objects

by Nancy Richardson Fischer

  Is he insinuating that the remaining survivors might not all make it?

  “Anacondas prefer fish, birds and capybaras. There are a lot of those around. They don’t want to mess with something as big as us. Also, after a meal they don’t eat for weeks, even months at a time.”

  “So we’re hoping that if there’s one in this swamp it recently had a huge meal?” Jupiter asks.

  Cougar glowers. “You’re getting paid to be here.”

  “I didn’t sign up for this catastrophe. I signed up for the normal trip where the crew scouts, sets up each scene, makes sure nothing too nasty is out there.”

  “I think the best plan is to hunker down, maybe build a fort, one with no tiny cracks for snakes, spiders or scorpions, and wait for rescue.” Everyone looks at me like I’ve lost it. “What? There have to be search parties scouring the rain forest for us. Cougar and Gus are really famous. People don’t just let famous people die.”

  Cougar holds up his hands. “You’re all overreacting. Seriously. Chances are this swamp is only a few feet deep. We’ll be back on dry land before you know it, following a river that’ll get us out of here. I’ll lead. We’ll stick together. This is our best option.”

  “Okay,” Cass says.

  Of course she agrees. She’s a perfect person in love with my dad. She puts her camera in its case, slings it over one shoulder. Without looking back at the group she follows Cougar into the swamp.

  “I’ll stay with Danny,” Gus offers, “until you know how deep it is.”

  So you can look like a hero? “Thanks, but I agree with my dad. We need to get out of this place before someone gets hurt. I can do this.”

  “I—I wasn’t saying you couldn’t,” Gus stammers. “You take on every challenge, even when you’re afraid.”

  Rolling my eyes at the fake compliment, I step into the swamp and immediately sink to my shins. Every fiber of my being strains to turn back. But if Cougar glances over his shoulder, he’ll see me. So instead, mouth as dry as the desert, I put one shaking foot in front of the other, force myself to ignore the danger siren going off in my brain.

  I hear splashes as Gus, then Jupiter enter the swamp. Stop splashing! We wade through long grasses, around trees with slimy bark, stands of palms and thorny bushes that flower despite the murky light. There are moments when I can’t see my dad, when he’s hidden around an obstacle or in shadow, and my heart sprints until he’s visible again. Every burble beneath the surface makes me flinch, my head whipping left to right, a terrified pigeon desperate to see what’s coming for me.

  Jupiter asks, “Doing okay, Danny?”

  “It’s like a hedge maze, except wet.” I’m sure my unsteady voice gives me away. Trix and I got lost in a hedge maze during a school visit to the coast. I raised the red flag we were given at the start so an employee could lead us out. Trix went back in with her crush of the moment.

  There are half a dozen four-to six-foot caimans in a thick patch of yellow-brown reeds about twenty feet away. As we get closer, their yellow-green eyes follow us. Anxiety prickles along my skin. The water level climbs to my waist, then just below my shoulder blades. It’s the temperature of bathwater with a thick carpet of insects buzzing on the surface. The path we’ve been traveling closes in, thick with brush on one side, thorny bushes on the other. A fallen kapok tree blocks our way. It stretches hundreds of feet in both directions. Neither end is visible in the thick morass of the swamp. Cougar puts a hand on the slimy bark, attempting to climb it. Within seconds he slides right back into the water.

  Gus asks, “Do we go around?”

  Cougar’s jaw clenches, unclenches. “We can, but this seems to be the main channel. I want to stay on it. If we start winding through secondary ones we might end up far from the major river that’ll lead us out of here. Hang on.” He takes a deep breath, then submerges.

  Bubbles rise to the surface. The water ripples, then stills. I hold my breath, count to sixteen before my dad’s head pops up.

  “Seems like most of the tree is above the waterline,” Cougar says. “We go under or we can try to work our way around. Team decision.”

  The tree is huge. We won’t just be ducking under it like it’s a telephone pole. We will be swimming under it. Swimming. Underwater. In the dark. Holding our breath. Hoping nothing deadly is under there with us. We can’t even see the other side. There might be a second tree. This is a very bad idea.

  “We go?” Cougar asks. No one answers. He takes the waterproof camera bag from Cass and loops it over his shoulder. “Okay. I’ll call once I’m out so you know how far it is.” He sinks beneath the surface of the swamp.

  No one says a word. We wait. We wait. We wait. Ten, fifteen, twenty-one seconds...

  “I’m out,” Cougar shouts. “Danny first. Take a big breath and go under right where I did. Swim hard to me.”

  Terror claws my insides like a trapped rat. If I stay on this side, my dad will know I don’t belong with him. Before I can hyperventilate, I sink under the water.

  22

  I swim beneath the massive felled tree. Swamp water streams along my body. I’m petrified of contact with anything, everything. I can hear the fast tick-tick of a stopwatch as the air in my lungs starts to evaporate.

  Swim hard to me.

  I flail forward. Something snags my shirt. Spastically, I reach back, anticipating teeth or an electric jolt. It’s a knot of wood. I twist hard and tug free, push forward. I’m thrashing too much. Predators are attracted to vibrations. They can feel panic. Smell it even in water. Episode 173—New Zealand, with Olympic skier JA Barrett. A great white shark circled JA and Cougar’s man-made canoe. My lungs ache, oxygen deprivation creating a hungry void.

  I’m taking too long.

  Something bashes into me. I wait for an anaconda’s coils to slither around my body, squeeze the final drops of air from my lungs.

  Fight like hell. No predator wants to battle for its prey.

  How can I fight a giant snake or a prehistoric alligator? I open my eyes but can’t see anything in the muddy water. Still, I want to know what’s going to kill me and reach out. It’s slimy, solid...a thick branch, way too big to break. I pull my body under it, belly now touching the muck where stingrays and eels burrow. The ache of my lungs has become a scream. I wiggle forward. The branch presses down harder.

  Go under right where I did.

  I did!

  I manage to get free, propel myself forward and up. There’s another limb angling down. I shove halfway through the thick branches, but now I’m so tightly wedged that it’s impossible to work my way back.

  If your mind wanders, you get smashed.

  Fireworks burst behind my closed eyes—sparklers of bright reds and blues, all flash, no big boom. The pain in my lungs is now excruciating. The urge to open my mouth, suck in oxygen, even though I know it’s water, know I’ll drown for sure, is overwhelming.

  Don’t stay up too late, girls.

  Now I’ll never know why I was named after a breakfast cereal.

  He left, Danielle.

  But you can cut open Poppy without a problem?

  Pigeon drowning.

  Something twists around my wrist. I flail with the last shred of my strength. It yanks me forward so hard my shoulder almost rips from its socket. I’m rocketing through the water, then surface, gasping for air. My dad pulls me toward him. I climb him, desperate to be out of the water.

  “Easy,” he says, untangling himself. “You’re okay.”

  I splutter, half choking. “How did you know I needed help?”

  “Jupiter yelled when you went under. I counted to thirty. Figured that was all the breath you had in you. No Danny, so I went looking.”

  I hug him hard, overflowing with happiness, gratitude, after my near-death experience. “Thank you for saving me.”

  Cougar pulls free, grins.
“Can you imagine the negative PR if I let my own kid die out here?”

  Joy flakes away like old paint. “I wouldn’t want to be the reason for bad press.”

  Cougar kisses my cheek. “Kidding, buddy.”

  Jupiter pops to the surface, his dreads arcing a spray of water. Gus comes next. The swamp’s murky light highlighting the worry etched on his angular face.

  “Where’s Cass?” Cougar asks.

  “She went before me,” Gus says.

  “Cass,” Cougar calls.

  She doesn’t surface.

  Jupiter yells, “Cass!”

  Cougar hands Jupiter the camera bag, then pulls the machete from his backpack. “I’m going back.”

  I want to stop him. We can’t risk my dad getting hurt, or worse. But Cass is under the water somewhere, panicking, or worse. Cougar disappears. There are a few ripples, then the water stills. We wait, ears straining. It’s warm out but shivers rack my spine.

  “Come on,” Gus mutters. “Find her.”

  His ponytail sheds droplets on the water’s surface. They sound like the patter of Sean’s blood. Please find her. My dad emerges, breathless. He drags Cass to the surface. She coughs, chokes and vomits. I don’t want to think about how much of the filthy swamp water is now swimming inside her body.

  “What happened?” Jupiter asks.

  Cass pushes back the hair sticking to her face. “I got lost.”

  “She was swimming sideways. Underwater.” Cougar’s face is red, cheeks puffing hard. “Stick together,” he barks, then wades on.

  “The traffic in LA is a bitch at noon,” Cass says, following Cougar.

  What? If anyone else registers that Cass is talking nonsense, that she could’ve easily drowned, they don’t say so. Cass could’ve drowned! Sean’s eyes, drained of light, flash in my mind, followed by Mack’s unseeing ones. Again, the fine line between life and death is a gut punch. It could’ve been me. I could’ve died in the plane crash, gotten badly injured or drowned in this swamp...

  “Danny?” Jupiter asks.

  “I’m good.” With effort, I follow the others, walking single file through the swamp. When the water reaches my collarbones, I push off the muddy bottom, wishing I were taller, hoping the remaining fruit tied to my back doesn’t escape. I don’t want to climb any more trees. We pass more caimans swimming lazily off to our right. Their prehistoric pupils track us. If one disappears beneath the surface, I will lose my mind.

  Cougar is in front of Cass. I’m behind her. The water is now waist deep. Something wraps around my ankle. I freeze and it slowly releases. Swamp grass. Maybe. I move on. It’s about putting one foot in front of the other. To my left a caiman slides by, just its nostrils and bony eyes visible above the water.

  Gus splashes forward until he’s next to me.

  “Danny.”

  I refuse to look at him.

  “Can we talk about it?”

  “Just drop it.”

  Gus wipes the sweat from his forehead, face flushed. “I thought about it all night. If I were you, I’d be pissed, too. I’m sorry. When I agreed to the episode, I had no idea who you were. I’m filming a new movie in Brazil—”

  “Seriously?” I hiss. “Like I care?”

  “You’re right, it doesn’t matter. But doing your dad’s show wasn’t about the stuff with you, it was just a tie-in for some extra publicity.”

  “I feel so much better.”

  He sighs. “Flirting with a girl who’s younger than me, who they said was sweet, naive... It seemed harmless. I mean, it’s not like I was going to have sex with you.”

  If there is a level of humiliation far beyond mortification, I’ve reached it. “Unbelievable. Of course not.”

  “Danny, that’s not how I meant it.” He shakes his head. “But your theory that this episode is about you being some homely chick who’s lucky to have a guy like me pay attention? That wasn’t the plan. Seriously, I’m not that big of an asshole and you’re not some pathetic loser. We were in a plane crash and you got separated but somehow stayed calm enough, despite Sean’s death, to find the group. I’m not sure I could’ve done that. You tried to help Mack. This situation is messed up but you’re doing your best to deal, contributing way more than me.”

  I snort, try to walk faster but he keeps up. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell the tabloids what you and Cass did. Your ‘good guy’ movie star reputation is safe.”

  Gus pounds at the water. “It’s not... I never even wanted to be an actor.”

  “Wow. I’m so sorry for you. I didn’t know someone was forcing you to be famous, star in blockbusters, date beautiful models, get treated like royalty and make tons of money. Boo-hoo.”

  “So you know everything about me?”

  “I know enough. Maybe your dad died when you were a little kid. I doubt even you would make that up. But lots of kids lose their dads.” I lost mine. “They don’t become assholes.”

  Gus charges ahead. “If you’re so smart, use a mirror,” he says over his shoulder. “You look like Shailene Woodley. Except with two different colored eyes. They take some getting used to, but they’re striking. So quit sandbagging.”

  I catch up to him, one part furious that he’s saying I’m manipulative, another part insulted that’s he’s calling me a liar, and a tiny piece pleased at the comparison to Shailene, which is a big stretch. “You don’t know anything about my life.”

  “That makes two of us. Just quit pretending you’re something you’re not for a sympathy vote.”

  Gus has no idea what he’s talking about. “Shut up,” I manage. “If I’m going to die in this swamp, I don’t want the last thing I hear to be your voice.” I wade ahead, knowing that I’m splashing too much, attracting predators.

  Jupiter comes closer, asks, “Everything cool?”

  “Not really.”

  “He’s right, about Shailene. You do look like her, but your eyes are way cooler. And just so you know, I had no idea about the setup.”

  I look to see how far ahead my dad and Cass are.

  “They didn’t hear,” Jupiter says. “Situation stinks. I’m sorry. Your dad can be a total ass—”

  “He didn’t know. It was all Cass.”

  “Danny, there’s nothing that—”

  Something splashes hard to our left. My stomach leaps, wedges in my throat. “I didn’t see it!”

  “It’s a turtle. Keep walking, Danny. You’re doing great.”

  He’s beyond wrong. Doing great would be sitting at the kitchen table listening to my mom drone on about a case study. Doing great is hanging with Trix and making her laugh, even if I’m the butt of the joke. I just want to go home.

  A snake slithers by, its burnt-yellow body making S’s in the mud-brown water. When it flicks its tongue at me I freeze. There are triangles above its beady green eyes. Eyelash viper. Its needlelike fangs have enough poison to kill me. I watch it swim away.

  Cougar calls back, “How you doing, buddy?”

  “She’s having a ball,” Jupiter says.

  I laugh, which is absurd, all things considered. At the same time, I’m not dead yet, so that’s something.

  “Hey, I have a great idea,” Cass says, turning around. “Let’s play Marco Polo!”

  Jupiter gasps. “Holy hell.”

  23

  “What?” Cass asks.

  A massive, fist-size leech is attached to Cass’s neck, blue pinstripes on a slimy black body bloated with her blood. Revulsion churns my stomach. If she tears it off there’ll be blood in the water. Blood attracts predators.

  Gus yells, “Cougar!”

  When Cougar comes back and sees the leech, even he looks disgusted. “Hold still.”

  Cass’s eyes dart to each person’s face. “What is it?”

  Cougar says, “Just a little leech.”

&
nbsp; Her mouth peels back, like she’s about to scream, but no sound comes out. Cougar uses his palm, tries to roll the thing in circles until it lets go. But it won’t. So he grabs one end, rips it off and flings it into the swamp along with a fine spray of blood. He gives Cass a quick hug. “They inject an anticoagulant called hirudin so it’s going to bleed for a bit. But you’re fine.” He pulls back, meets her eyes. “Be my propeller?”

  Cass wipes her neck, smearing blood onto her chest. She turns, walks on.

  That was a leech—a giant leech. There are probably thousands more in here. Right now, under the waterline, they’re already attached to my skin, bloated with blood. My blood. I’m horrified but can’t make myself reach down, touch my legs. Even if I did find a leech, there’d be another and another...

  Be my propeller.

  I don’t know if I can!

  Jupiter asks, “You okay, Danny?”

  “Depends on your definition,” I reply, my voice shaky. Somehow I take one step, then another. “There’s going to be a big river soon. We’ll build a raft out of bamboo, like Cougar did in episode seventy-seven with Tawny Raynes.”

  “I was the sound guy that episode. Tawny was one hot country singer.”

  “She’d never gone camping and was scared to death of bugs.” I avoid a three-inch-long pistachio-green insect with too many legs to count. “By the end of the episode she’d built a tree fort, killed a black widow and eaten a rat.”

  Jupiter chuckles. “She threw up that rat.”

  I turn. “They didn’t show it.”

  Jupiter waggles his fingers. “The magic of the editing room. No way her people were going to let the world see the darling of the Grand Ole Opry barf up rodent.”

  “Did they date, after, I mean?”

  “Who knows?” Jupiter says. “I heard rumors, but they could’ve been generated by their publicists. In that world it’s hard to tell what’s real. Sometimes even for them.”

  Cass slows way down, barely moving through the swamp. Jupiter wraps an arm around her waist and half drags her through patches of long grasses, under lianas and around trees. Lily pads the size of a car tire dot the swamp, vibrant green, sprinkled with delicate purple flowers.