by Hadena James
“I’m half American. My father was an American.”
“I didn’t know that,” I told him.
“Once we get into the jungle a good ways, we’ll stop and take inventory of what we saved.”
Six hours later, my stomach was growling, my feet hurt, I was sweaty and I was reconsidering every one of my life choices. I couldn’t decide which fork all those years ago had lead to me hiding in the jungle, but I knew one of them was responsible. I’m pretty sure it also involved Anthony and my mother.
Zeke finally stopped. He leaned against a tree and stretched. I found a log. I stared at the log for several minutes. There was something else I was afraid of in this jungle and it would probably be living inside the rotten piece of timber. It took me a minute to find a large enough stick to beat the log. The sound of the stick hitting the log echoed against the trees and stirred more creatures in the treetops above us. I waited to see what came out.
Ants suddenly poured forth. This was not the thing I feared, but it would be a banquet for it. I stood motionless.
“Those are bullet ants, they are going to hurt like hell if they bite you,” Zeke gave me a strange look.
“Are they likely to attract armadillos?” I looked at the leaf-strewn ground, searching for movement.
“Maybe, I think armadillos will eat them. Why?”
“I don’t really like armadillos. They are odd looking and…” And I couldn’t think of another reason to dislike them or be afraid of them. But a phobia is a phobia, they aren’t supposed to be rational. I found another spot to sit, away from the ants and any hungry armadillos and pulled out the bottle of calamine lotion.
“You’re afraid of armadillos?” Zeke smirked.
“We all have moments when we are irrational. This would be one of mine,” I answered him and began to open the bottle.
“I don’t see you being savaged by an armadillo, but you might watch for snakes,” he told me as he snatched the bottle out of my hands. The calamine lotion flew through the air, as if in slow motion, and coated Zeke. He growled.
“Serves you right. Why did you take that away? Are snakes edible?” My stomach growled again.
“Don’t you know better than to take things, even calamine lotion, from strangers?” He wiped at the stuff, but it was already starting to dry and flake under his movements.
“He seemed nice. Where are we sleeping tonight?”
“You’re not really a camper, are you?” He peeled at the lotion.
“I cannot for one reason figure out why I would go camping when hotels provide me with everything I could possibly need,” I answered.
“Except safety from deranged drug lords who are hiding out in Belize and want you dead.”
“Ok, except that and I’m not sure they want me dead. I think this time, it’s you.”
“That’s true, you are just collateral damage at this point, but since we were seen together…” Zeke let his sentence trail off. I hadn’t really dealt with drug lords in the past, but I was guessing they were no different than the Russian Mob. They had wanted me dead at one point and had been willing to kill anyone necessary to get there. Something told me the same principle applied to this situation.
I opened the carry-on bag. It contained two pairs of underwear, mine; two pairs of socks, his; a pair of his jeans, a t-shirt that belonged to me, handcuffs, a baby-doll nighty, some other unmentionables, some batteries for said unmentionables, and a bikini. I had seen the movie with the bikini clad girls in Central America. They had died. I wasn’t about to put it on.
This meant I had a t-shirt, two pairs of panties and my canvas tennis shoes that my mother had insisted went with a dress. I hadn’t believed her, tennis shoes whether canvas or not did not go with dresses, but I was glad I also hated sandals and bought the canvas shoes on instead.
At the very bottom of the bag was a package of peanuts and an empty Mountain Dew bottle. I pulled out the peanuts and ate them greedily. Zeke smiled at me while I did it. When they were gone, I was very thirsty.
“Those didn’t really help, did they?” He asked, still smiling.
“Go give yourself a swirly,” I muttered at him.
“I hear water, I’ll see what I can do,” he took the Mountain Dew bottle and left me.
Dark was starting to descend. The undergrowth was growing bleaker by the second. Soon, I would be plunged into complete darkness. This didn’t make me feel very good. I kept trying to spot movement in the jungle. A jaguar would be just my type of luck.
Zeke came back with the Mountain Dew bottle. He handed it to me. I reluctantly tasted the water. It wasn’t bad. I drank enough to cleanse my palate of salt and thirst and handed him the bottle. The last thing I needed was dysentery.
The ever prepared Zeke, pulled a flashlight out of his pocket and handed it to me as he drank from the bottle. I flipped it on. It was just a small LED flashlight, but at this point, I was out of my league and clinging to anything I could find that reminded me of civilization. Guns I could deal with, but we didn’t even have those. I had unmentionables and a tiny flashlight.
He pulled out a second one and turned it on. He also pulled out a compass and a map. I wasn’t sure where these things had been stored, but I was grateful for both.
“We’ll camp here tonight, no point going any further, we’ll just get stuck in the darkness. Tomorrow, we continue west until we hit this town,” he pointed his light at a spot on the map.
“Camp?” I frowned at him.
“Camp. As in sleep under the stars.”
“What about jaguars? I’ve seen big cats up close and personal, I know what they can do to a human body.”
“Oh, I hadn’t considered your phobia of them.”
“It’s not a phobia, it’s a justifiable fear. I’ve been attacked once; I would prefer not to be attacked again.”
“Traveling through the jungle at night on an empty stomach isn’t very smart,” Zeke stood up and began doing things in the dark.
It took an hour, but he had a semi-shelter built over me and a small fire burning. Next, he went outside the scope of the fire and came back with what appeared to be a large lizard. It was obviously having a similar day to my own. Zeke stuck something through it and began holding it over the small fire.
“Won’t the fire and the smell of roasting lizard be noticed?” I asked.
“As long as we don’t keep it burning all night, it should be fine. Locals don’t go into the jungle at night, too many things to keep you from coming out.”
“And the drug dealer?”
“Also unlikely to come out into the jungle at night. Remember, just because I can make you feel safe doesn’t mean we are safe. Jaguars are not the only predators in these trees.”
“Worse than jaguars?” I looked around.
“Bullet ants, poison dart frogs, palm vipers, Tommy Goffs, several types of spiders and there are scorpions that can be fatal. The bullet ants won’t kill you, but they hurt like hell. It will make you scream and cry.”
“What is a Tommy Goff? Is it a ghost?” I asked.
“No, it’s a type of snake, a viper. Don’t get bit, it carries hemotoxin that will rot off your body parts before it kills you.”
“Great.”
“There are also reports of pumas and caiman here, both are nocturnal.”
“Shut up.”
“Want some lizard?”
“My brain says no and my stomach says yes.”
“Just close your eyes and pretend it’s chicken,” Zeke cut off a chunk of meat and handed it to me. I closed my eyes and ate it. It did not taste like chicken. If I had to describe it, I would say it tasted like chicken, if the chicken had been slathered in pork lard, then roasted with beef stock and finally blended with badly cooked raccoon that retained its gamy taste. But it had been lean and it hadn’t tasted like beets.
The lizard eaten, my stomach felt better or at least it felt full. Zeke rummaged around in the carry-on and found a hoodie. He took it out and
covered me up with it. He also took the t-shirt and made a pillow out of it.
“It’s no use trying to be nice now,” I told him, attempting to fluff the t-shirt into a shape that would hold my head.
“I’m being helpful, you still have hives,” he answered.
“Thanks,” I looked at him. “Well, at least I can cross off ‘jungle tour’ from our honeymoon to-do list.”
“You wanted exotic,” he smiled at me. “You got it. What could be more exotic than being trapped in the jungle with your new husband and a couple hundred predators while hoping you don’t get caught by a crazed drug lord?”
“Were you supposed to assassinate said drug lord?”
“No, I was in charge of destroying his operation. Someone else was supposed to assassinate him,” Zeke stared into the fire for a long time, not talking. I could tell it weighed heavily on his mind.
“It was like this,” Zeke started after a long silence that had almost put me to sleep. “Myself and four others broke into the compound. We were to find the cocaine fields and kill the drug lord. I was in charge of finding the fields, I took two guys with me. We scoured the compound, found the plans and went off to do what we were sent to do. Two others stayed behind, they were in charge of killing the drug lord and his lieutenants. My team found the fields and set them on fire using a combination of incendiary devices and flammable liquids. We were setting up the last field to blow, when we discovered our target was at the field. We didn’t let this stop us, but it did mean we had to change how we did things. Most of the workers would run from us, they weren’t armed and the supervisors were easy to take out. But the last one, the drug lord being there, well that made things more difficult. He was heavily armed and guarded. We had to be very careful. We weren’t careful enough and all of us ended up prisoners. He made a mistake by taking us back to the compound to interrogate us. The other two men were still there, cleaning up when we arrived. Gunfire erupted, we thought the cartel leader went down in a blaze of glory, so to speak. I was injured, along with one of the other men from the unit, but we managed to get the hell out of there. We got back and the mission was proclaimed a success. Obviously, it wasn’t. By then though, a new cartel leader was coming into power. Since it is hard to have multiple cartels working in the same area, my guess is this one disappeared, went into hiding. Until I saw him today, I would have bet he was dead. If not by us, then by the new cartel.”
“And he remembers you,” I thought that was impressive.
“Wouldn’t you remember the man who practically ruined you? The scar on my chest is from him,” Zeke said thoughtfully.
“So you were CIA?” I asked.
“Not really, it was black ops, but not CIA sponsored. There is more to the government than the public ever really sees. “
Tuesday
Zeke shook me awake as dawn was approaching. I could just begin to see the sky starting to lighten. I figured I had gotten about four hours of sleep. In my world, this is unacceptable, but since we were on the run, I didn’t bitch about it. Besides, if I did bitch, it was possible that Zeke would feed me to a jaguar.
The sun was up when we stopped. Zeke stood. I sat down on a fallen tree. These shoes were not made for walking, at least not for long periods of time.
“Do you have a plan?” I asked.
“Yes, you rendezvous with Alex and the two of you get the hell out of Belize. The three of us disable the threat.”
“You’re going to kill him.”
“I think we are going to blow him up, payback for the taxi. Does that bother you?”
“Nope, but half of my family still deals with mob death threats and I’m pretty sure they don’t all get restraining orders. Look at my great aunt,” I was referring to my Great Aunt Olga of course, who carried some sort of supergun from the former Soviet Union’s weird cache of firearms.
I scratched at the Brazilian Waxed area that my mother had insisted I get. It itched like mad and seemed covered in bumps that I was sure wasn’t supposed to be there. I had seen it yesterday morning when I showered.
“Stop scratching, you’ll just irritate it more,” Zeke smiled at me.
“It itches, I don’t know how women do this all the time,” I admitted.
“So, I’m betting that I will have to get used to some hair down there.”
“I trim, it isn’t like digging through prairie grass,” I said defensively.
“No doubt,” Zeke started laughing at me.
“Hush or I’ll sic my brothers on you.”
“I’d be more afraid of the dogs.”
“True, but I don’t think the dogs would attack you. You feed them bacon.”
On that note, we got up and started trekking through the jungle some more. When one is stuck in the jungle, marching along, with no conversation, trying not to think about what drug dealers do to hostages, one has a lot of time to think. Currently, I was thinking about jungle rot. I had overheard conversations about jungle rot from my former military security personnel. I didn’t know what it was, but it seemed to be something you caught in the jungle.
“Am I going to get jungle rot?” I asked after walking for what seemed ages. I was going to have to start exercising more. Zeke was a foot taller than me with long legs, I was having to speed walk to keep up with him.
“No,” he said, obviously smiling.
“What is jungle rot?” I huffed a little, Zeke slowed down his pace.
“Maybe you should focus on walking quieter,” Zeke answered.
“Am I loud?”
“You sound like a dinosaur crashing through the jungle, so yeah, I’d say you are loud.”
I stopped talking and focused on walking quieter. Zeke was right, he moved with not just speed but stealth. In comparison to him, I really did sound like a dinosaur crashing through the undergrowth. More time to think about jungle rot. I made a mental note to look it up when I got back to civilization. I didn’t have a clue what it was, but I was sure it would be important when my foot began to rot.
Another hour had gone when the jungle suddenly gave way to a backyard. I look up and found a large building with manicured grass and trees that were more manageable.
“Oh thank god,” I said.
“I told you I’d bring you through,” Zeke turned and flashed me a grin.
“I need a phone charger.”
“You need a bath.”
“Ok, I need a bath and a phone charger.”
“At least the hives are going down,” Zeke took my hand as we walked out onto the street.
Surprisingly, almost no one turned to stare at us. I guess tourists getting lost in the jungle was standard operating procedure around here. We were in a smaller town. However, there was still plenty of tourist claptrap around us. There were also plenty of tourists to go with it. I heard a man hawking a tour to a ruined temple somewhere down the road and felt a tinge of disappointment. I was supposed to going to Mayan ruins and exploring stepped pyramids.
It was a strange transition. One minute jungle, the next a busy thoroughfare, in a busy town. I stopped at a stall selling T-Shirts with pictures of beaches and screaming “Belize” in odd lettering.
“Do you have your wallet?” I turned to Zeke.
“Yes,” he sighed and walked over to me. He handed me some money. I took it and bought one of the crappy t-shirts. Since I didn’t really have much in the way of wardrobe, I’d have to settle for what I could get.
T-shirt in hand, I walked the few feet back to Zeke. He was scanning the crowd. I’d seen him do it before, he was looking for anyone that seemed out of place. In a town full of tourists and locals, I wasn’t sure what that meant.
“What now?” I asked after a few minutes. My feet were killing me. I was sure jungle rot was setting in.
“Now we find a small hotel with lots of tourists and call Anthony,” Zeke took hold of my hand.
Twenty minutes later, I was in the hotel. There were two bottles of water in a small fridge. I guzzled both, found
a bottle of sparkling water and drank that too. I hadn’t realized how thirsty I’d been until I had seen the water. Thirst now quenched, I made a mental note to call the front desk for more water and headed to the shower. The water was only lukewarm, but it beat the hell out of being in the jungle. I let the water beat down on my skin and wash away the dirt and grime. I put on the hotel bathrobe and examined the hives. They were going down.
There was “jungle-tainted” jeans next to the bed, but they were the only pants I had at the moment and the “Belize” T-shirt. The jeans smelled. I could smell them from here. I really didn’t want to put them back on. Zeke had gone out to buy a few necessities. I wasn’t sure what defined necessities in this situation, I was hoping pants were included.
I grabbed the phone and dialed Alex.
“Oh my god, are you ok?” She asked, instead of saying hello when she answered the phone.
“Well, I’m clean,” I answered.
“Zeke said to pack some clothes, so I have an extra bag for you. Our plane leaves in about thirty minutes.”
“Zeke says we are safe here for the time being. He is out getting some things, but I don’t know what they are. What is jungle rot?”
“I don’t know,” Alex answered.
“I think I have it. I also have hives and a rash from the day at the spa. I have lost almost everything I brought with me except the stupid pearls that don’t go around the neck, one pair of jeans, a shirt and a bikini. And I endured the torture of having my eyebrows plucked only to have them burned off.”
“Are you going to cry?”
“I’m too tired to cry at the moment. Maybe later. I ate lizard last night for dinner. My stomach is growling but I’m afraid to upset the lizard.”
“Nadine?” Alex said my name with hesitation.
“I’m fine. I’m just tired. I’ll be very glad when you get here and we can fly back home.”
“Worse than being chased by the mob?”
“I haven’t gotten to do anything I planned on this honeymoon. We, as in you and me and maybe Kenzie, will have to come back to Belize so I can explore Mayan ruins and swim in the Caribbean.”
