by Q. Zayne
“Ai!” Jace yelled, pointing at a log. I hoped it was a log.
Tico steered the boat away from the obstacle. It swayed sickeningly and tipped. I grabbed for the rail and slipped.
Flailing my arms, I fell hard in the water, shock going through my back like a backwards belly flop. I sank.
Brackish, foul water filled my mouth. Filthy, filthy. But worse, I imagined the creatures in the dark. Who knew what strange things might live in this remote jungle water?
I shot to the surface and forced myself to calm down. The sun dazzled me. I’d never been any place so bright—so filled with shadows and unknown dangers, yet under this unremitting glare all day. Blinking, I took a breath and got my bearings, the boat coming into focus, the sight of it bobbing as much from my panicky breathing as from Tico’s efforts to keep it steady against the current.
“Get the gear!” Jace shouted.
“But, the senorita—.”
“Get the gear!”
Tico dropped the anchor and dove. He disappeared where bubbles surfaced. He surfaced with a gear bag and hefted it up the ladder. Felipe used a pole to keep a log from slamming into the boat. Jace grabbed the bag before Tico reached the deck.
I mastered my outrage and sliced through the water to the boat. I fell overboard, and he sent the guide to retrieve the gear and not me.
Jace held out his hand when I climbed to the deck. I ignored it and accepted a towel from Tico. He didn’t meet my eyes. He was a man who would never have put possessions above a person’s safety. His posture showed his shame at having to follow the rich gringo’s orders.
Felipe peeked at me, eyes wide at the sight of my drenched clothes clinging to me.
“I knew you’d be all right.” Jace said. He grinned at me, gaze dropping to my now transparent shirt. I covered myself with the towel. Stubble glinted on his strong jaw and lines radiated from his killer green eyes. Cords of muscle stood out on his arms, showing through his damp linen shirt.
I found him devastating, so attractive I barely kept my eyes off him, but he was a callous bastard.
I headed into the hold to get dry. His laughter scorched me. Almost, I wished I hadn’t come, but I had to find Lena. If not us, who would?
Lena was brave and strong. And so smart. If anyone could survive eight days in the jungle, she could.
If the cost of finding her was putting up with an arrogant billionaire explorer for a few days, so be it. It was the only way I could swing an expedition into the rain forest to search for her.
Jace was my father’s best friend and my godfather. I’d known him all my life. But Dad had been dead for months and the way Jace looked at me, I don’t think he thought of me as his buddy’s daughter. He thought of me as a woman. I felt his lust from all the way down in the hold in the one place I could lock a door. I locked it.
I’d always been too sensitive to the feelings of others, even their thoughts. It was inconvenient most of the time. With three men on a boat, one of them way too appealing and so off-limits, being psychic made the close contact excruciating. The way Jace seemed to amplify his magnetism, I suspected he had some of the gift, or curse, too. It surprised me Jace said yes when I asked him to help me. But he was an archaeologist and explorer. I told him about Lena’s search for a Mayan temple said to have glyphs about the apocalypse—and the secret to mastery over death. I suspect that piqued his interest more than my girlfriend’s plight. I hoped she had a lot of supplies.
I sat down on the narrow bunk and shut my eyes. I still felt his desire. The trip might have a price he hadn’t mentioned.
Over dinner, we ignored the tension of his having left me to fend for myself in the river. Tico played music as we ate. The soothing tones of the wind instrument changed the prickly energy. I found myself relaxing for the first time in days. As my heart rate slowed, I drifted into a daydream of a man who looked a great deal like Tico playing a similar instrument in a stone courtyard. The precision of the stone work mesmerized me. I felt the heat radiating from them, smelled dust, dung, and the coppery tang of blood on the breeze. I sensed I glimpsed the ancient past.
Jace handed me a beer and I accepted it. Peace offering, no doubt. And perhaps a pointed message that he knew I was old enough to drink. What was the drinking age here, anyway?
“Do you think we’ll find her?” I stabbed the food with my fork.
I wasn’t sure what the meat was. Something chewy with a delicious, spicy sauce. I made the men promise me not to kill any monkeys. They’d promised with solemn vows. Tico was a terrific cook; I just didn’t have much of an appetite.
Jace averted his eyes. He took a swallow of beer and wiped his mouth on his arm. This wasn’t the suave billionaire of the society pages. He’d shed that skin when we reached the jungle, the way massive local snakes shed their dull outer layer. As we wound deeper into the jungle, I wished I wasn’t so familiar with the story of the lost explorer Percy Fawcett. Visions of a metro bus-length serpent rising from the river kept emerging unbidden. My godfather pinched his lower lip and met my eyes.
“I don’t know.”
At least he didn’t lie to me. My hopes dwindled as I surveyed the vast, wild terrain. The boat seemed too small for a billionaire. I supposed it had to be in order to navigate the many narrow channels in this unpredictable river. The men cut through logs with chain saws to clear our way. This wasn’t an expedition for a luxury craft.
“Odds?” I whispered. If this was an abduction back home, the odds went down after the first day. Even someone lost in the woods in California had diminishing chances of being found alive with each day that passed. I wouldn’t think of Lena being dead, but I was tired; it all seemed impossible now that I saw where we had to search.
“I wish I could tell you, Beep.” I cringed at his use of my old nickname, but he put his big, warm hand over mine and squeezed.
I let out a breath I’d been holding longer than I knew. I’d forgotten how safe I used to feel with my big, strong godfather. Nothing in his eyes but concern, and warmth. It was too much. I needed his help. I needed someone.
I’d been lonely a long time. I threw all of myself into school since Dad died in Africa. Stupid, sad thing. A snake bite, after all his years of adventuring. Not an ordinary snake of course, a black mamba, super lethal. He used a compression bandage to try to stop the venom from spreading until he got to a hospital for anti-venom, but he had no chance. He died at the site. The coroner told me death must have been quick, but I stayed awake at night imagining his last moments, alone as he so often was, digging, of course, his body betraying him, disobeying his powerful will, shutting down, his airway closing.
We had a closed-casket funeral when his body came back from Africa. Jace flew himself there in his plane, arrived sun kissed, windblown and more magnificent than I could take in, in my state of shock. He looked shocked when he saw me. I was in seventh grade the last time he flew in to see us. He grabbed me in a crushing hug.
I tossing dirt on Dad’s coffin. He went down into the dirt at the end of his life digging. It hit me hard as a truck: he was gone. I sobbed into Jace’s cashmere jacket, losing control. We stood in the shadow cast by the angel marking my father’s grave and he rocked me in his arms, letting me cry.
I felt too much right then on the boat. I didn’t look at Jace. Despite the urge to pull away, I let him hold my hand as Tico played his mournful tune. The alternating low and high notes made me think of ancient flutes made of bone, of rituals honoring ancestors, of secret acts on stone altars.
Felipe navigated the boat through the dark. Nothing existed except the music, the light shining on the river’s ripples, and Jace’s big hand on mine. We drank beer in silence deep into the night and I felt close to peace.
Alone below decks in the tiny, windowless cabin, I paced the few feet of space from bunk to door. Being unable to see out made me feel trapped, but being on deck under the intense stars, gliding through the unremitting jungle with eerie calls splitting the night worked m
y nerves. Nameless dark masses floating past the boat conjured images of giant-jawed horror-movie beasts out to devour us. A sharp piece of threatened rain forest wood floated at the ready to pierce our small boat and take us down into the murk to drown.
Damn him. I kicked the bunk. My stubbed toe jolted me out of my imaginings. I sat down and took off my high tops, squeezed my barking toes. Jace stipulated I wasn’t allowed to know where we were or to contact anyone until we got back, not that my phone was any use out here. Did he think I might send a message in a bottle? He swore the men to secrecy. The covered window next to me on his private plane kept me from watching for geographical clues on the way.
We landed at a featureless airstrip. I had no freaking idea where I was. It unnerved me. Each day, I watched for signs, as attentive as a prisoner of Alcatraz intent on escape. I decided to treat it as a game, to puzzle it out based on climate, species, terrain, people, and any other telling details. All I knew for sure was we were south of the U.S. border. I plumped my pillow and kicked back on the bunk. It squeaked. Like everything else about this mysterious expedition, it lacked any sign of being owned by a billionaire. I couldn’t complain. This wasn’t a pleasure cruise. No one else was searching for Lena, and at least Jace agreed to help.
Last I heard from Lena, she was in Central America, near the border between Belize and Guatemala. An artifact from a questionable source lured her to seek a temple rumored to hold the key to long life and an entrance to the underworld. She wrote about Mayan gods as though he were members of her family.
‘Think of it, Blair, I’d be the first person to explore this lost temple! It might be filled with details about cheating death, the way the Hero Twins did. I’m not convinced that it will have any bearing on the apocalypse. This guy says there’s an explanation for the problem with the dates, that the temple has something to do with preventing or causing the end of the world. He said he got the stone with the inscription from a shaman who said it comes from a place of great power, the power over life and death, the power to pass through to the underworld. That part sounds like horse shit. Still, I have to check it out. I know the artifact might be fake. No way I can find out, out here without a lab. It has no provenance. He says it’s part of a looter’s cache, found by a member of one of the few tribes in the area not bedeviled by tourists and ecological destruction. He’s sketchy on how it got from a remote tribesman to the alleged shaman, but swears he got it by honest means. I can’t make out all the glyphs due to damage, but it’s exciting. The workmanship comes close to convincing me it’s real. What forger would put such labor into chipping at stone? Yet some of the most famous hoaxes of our profession took investments of time.’
Our profession. We dreamed of exploring the world together, but I wondered if my passion for the Egyptians and hers for the Maya might be the seed to split us apart, the way an acorn splits concrete as it grows into an oak. I slipped off my ponytail holder, hoping to release a growing headache. I did my best to ignore the motion of the boat. I’d memorized her last letter, but it gave no clue where the rumored temple stood. Had she made the mistaking of telling the sketchy guy selling looted artifacts that she was from California? Did he have an ulterior motive for bringing her a remarkable find that would inflame any archaeologist? Lena might have traveled into Mexico due to the concentration of Mayan sites there. She wanted to see the Red Queen’s tomb, but knowing Lena, she dropped all other plans to follow the mysterious lead. The Maya were her passion, and their settlements were concentrated in Mexico and Central America. So she wouldn’t be beyond Honduras, unless the unspeakable happened.
Abductions and murders of Americans occurred throughout the region. The U.S. State Department website gave me the horrors. Yet my skeptical mind kept thinking the warnings were inflated, a type of propaganda. My parents and some friends were terrified for me when I spent the summer before college in a sublet in Oakland. News coverage of periodic violent crimes, and the prevalent racist biases in not-so-liberal-as-that California, had them freaked out. I felt safer in my Oakland neighborhood than in many parts of San Francisco. I wasn’t about to label entire countries as danger zones. All that ‘Black people will rob-rape- kill you,’ ‘brown people will rob-rape-kill you’ crap reminded me of childhood stranger-danger hype. Enlightening to discover most molesters are relatives or adults in trusted roles, priests and teachers. As the news blared scandal after scandal, baring Church cover-ups of child-victimizing priests, my guilt at leaving my parents’ religion faded.
Despite my spiritual limbo, I pulled at my fingers and prayed, as much as I could be said to ‘pray’ since Dad died, that Lena had gone nowhere near the Darien. Multiple sources warned against entering that dark jungle near the Columbian border, a high-risk zone due to drug traffic. Maybe it was a super ignorant hope, but I thought no one would abduct a Chicana. In her field gear, she looked far from prosperous and blended with locals in many places. She joked that I could, too, if I kept my mouth shut. My Spanish didn’t go far and I sucked at rolling my Rs.
Surely no one would kidnap her for ransom. For sex trafficking? Maybe. Another unspeakable thought. Or if she strayed into an area controlled by drug runners, she might die from multiple bullets before anyone noticed or cared about her gender or country of origin. I slapped the thoughts away. I had to stop going to those worst places. Mom used to do that and I hated it. I didn’t want to become the person who focused on horrible possibilities. I punched the pillow into a more comfortable shape and rubbed my feet together, missing the way she caressed mine with hers during the night. Loving someone opened the abyss of unbearable loss.
I dreamed I found her, comatose or dead, her voluptuous naked body splayed on bones I knew at once belonged to Percy Fawcett. Her hair spread over the bones like snakes leaving their nest. The explorer’s ribs stood out brown, his face with its screaming rictus looked mummified. His empty canteen and a glint of gold under his spine mocked me. Had he found the lost city? With his tongue and eyes long gone, we’d never know.
She found him. I found her. We were all lost.
My critical mind brought me awake objecting that the lost explorer went missing in the Amazon, far from Maya sites, but the horrible image of Lena entombed persisted.
A lurch and a loud rending sound like breaking wood awakened me. Instant terror. We’d run aground or a giant log breeched the hold. We’d sink and drown. I tasted the river in my mouth as foul and real as when I fell overboard. I jumped out of bed and ran to the door. I fumbled with the lock.
Danger Signs
I rushed into the corridor, collided hard with solid muscle. Those big arms enclosed me. I knew who he was. The only man that big who ever held me. His masculine scent filled me. I lost my mind. All thoughts of danger dropped away, and I embraced him. His hands slid down my back, low, lower. He took my chin and tilted my face to his. His eyes seemed to shine in the dark. A gleam of red. His lips pressed mine, captured me. I surrendered. I kissed him back. His tongue slipped between my lips. I responded with all my desire. I shook in his arms. Our breathing became loud and urgent in the dark. His erection pressed against me. I pushed him away.
“Are you alright?” Jace asked in a whisper. I couldn’t answer. “The boat’s okay. We grazed a mass in the water. No harm done.” He answered what I got up to find out, as though my whole world hadn’t changed.
“Why do I feel dirty?”
“You want me as much as I want you.” He sounded much younger, uncertain.
“I can’t stand this.” My nails dug into my palms.
Dad came back to me as I last saw him, his dazzling smile, his graying hair windblown as he prepared to board ship. He looked wiry and much older than Jace, though they were the same age. Such mischief in his face. Since I was little, I looked forward to the surprises he’d have in his pockets for me when he returned. I had carvings of animals from all over the world, snakes most of all. His smile made my heart bigger as he waved from the deck. I had no idea I’d never see him again.<
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I hoped the dead didn’t see us. I couldn’t stand it if Dad saw me in Jace’s arms, responding to his best friend’s mouth. My godfather. What was wrong with me? I backed away one step toward the door to get away from the heat of him. It was safe to retreat. Whatever else was going on, I believed Jace when it came to the boat. I’d get away from him, go back to bed. He closed the distance between us. I felt his breath on my face. My nipples hardened.
“You know why you want a man as old as your father.” His rasping voice in my ear sent a jolt through me, right to my core.
I slapped him. He raised his hand to his face. His eyes went blank, shocked. I rushed inside and locked the door.
My heart sank as I heard his footsteps. Slow, retreating.
We didn’t speak in the morning. Tico glanced at us and away. He was a perceptive man. No doubt he knew something was wrong, but his sense of discretion kept him silent. I was relieved when he whistled as he took the boat to shore.
The landing site was desolate. A muddy, unmarked narrow strip of river beach with thick vegetation, indistinguishable from miles of other such places we’d passed. Bare trunks arched overhead. Leaves and vines intertwined like the endless body of some presence out of a horror movie. A monkey screamed. A bright-colored bird swooped low over the deck; I ducked. I swallowed, embarrassed by my flinching. It was just a jungle. Lena had been out here for days, so I’d stand it, too.
“Why here?” I blurted my question. Why start our search in this desolate place? What would Lena be doing here?
Jace glanced up from checking his gear bag, eyes narrowed.
“Ever since you asked my help, I’ve been using my network to locate any sign of Lena. I’ve had experts analyzing satellite images, and people in the field following every lead. My best intel led me here.” His posture and face said that his best intel was better than the FBI, CIA, and any secret government agency put together.
