by Rick Jones
“How far from the river?” Ben asked Amici.
Amici took a quick calculation. “About three miles.”
Three miles! Then Ben thought: We walked all this way, and we only covered four miles.
The day was slow, the heat unbearable, but after another two miles they began to see copses of trees and heavy brush, telltale signs that a body of water was close by. Spirits were raised, eyes lit up, and their pace began to quicken.
As much as Ben wanted to approach with caution knowing that jungle foliage and water were both necessary resources for nurturing life, and that life would most likely gravitate to the resources in return, he didn’t care, his life force draining. If anything was in the brush, then they would have to deal with it because they would have no other choice.
It was nature at its best, and also at it cruelest.
When they reached the sanction of the tropical brush, they found refuge within the shade beneath the large canopy of leaves.
They laid there absorbing the quasi-coolness of the air, not wanting to get up to hike an additional mile to the river. But after forty minutes they didn’t have a choice. Everyone needed to replenish their water supplies.
With Ben taking his turn to cut a trail, and other than a few flying bugs and annoying gnats, the journey was an easy one, right up until the moment they could hear the river in the distance, the wonderful sound of water running, when suddenly people seemed to discover a second wind and took flight, crashing their way through the brush, picking up cuts and tears along the way.
When they reached the edge of the brush, they came to an opening that overlooked a ravine. Two-hundred feet down, the river.
Suddenly, hearts dropped about as fast as their hope.
On the other side of the river, another two-hundred foot wall.
Sommers went to his knees. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he murmured.
Ben looked over the edge. Along the banks of both rivers were trees and brush. But the climb down would be a difficult one. He stepped back to analyze the situation. “We need water,” he said. It was that simple. They all needed water.
Pam Schott was standing beside him. “You really expect me to climb down there, cross the river, and climb the wall on the other side?”
Good point. Ben addressed Amici, who was checking the map. “Is there another way?” he asked. “One that’s much safer?”
Amici drew a finger along the map, unfolded it to its fullest, continued to trail his finger along whatever route he was tracking, then shook his head. There was no other way. “There is a line on this map,” he finally said, “that runs along the length of the river. Apparently it's a line that marks the ravine in accordance with the design of the river.”
“And?” asked Pam.
“Apparently it runs the entire length of the river, which also runs from one end of the valley to the other.”
“Geeeee-zuz,” said Jerald Hughes, sounding more angry than astonished. “So this is it? This is the only way across? A climb down and then a climb up?”
Amici nodded. “It looks that way.”
Albright laughed. “Did you really expect it to be that easy?” he stated rhetorically. “Did you really think that Prime Time was just going to let us walk right through this and become free men? Then you’re all dumber than you look.” He turned and walked away.
“So what do we do?” Pam asked to whoever would answer.
“The only thing we can do,” said Amici. “We climb.”
“Oh, no way!” said Pam. “Not only no, but HELL no!”
“Then stay here,” said Albright. “Since that’s your only option.”
“Why don’t you just kiss my ass!” she told him angrily.
Though expecting a reaction, Albright ignored her.
Ben looked over the side. The water looked cool, clear and inviting. The side of the rock wall, however, looked less appealing with skinny hand- and footholds. The longer the team went without water, the more strength they would lose. The more strength they lost, the less of a chance they would have.
Ben took a few deep breaths and thought: Sooner begun, sooner it’s done. Then he began to climb over the edge, his toes looking for a recess and a hold, found it, and began his descent.
“Are you out of your frigging mind?” asked Pam, standing at chasm’s edge with her arms folded across her chest. “Seriously, Ben? You’re really going to do this?”
He looked at her. “We can’t go back. And we can’t go east or west. Now I can’t force any of you to do what you don’t want to. But I’m hoping that you follow my lead. I hate to say it, but Albright’s right. They’re not going to make this easy for us. In fact, I believe it’ll only get harder from here on in. If you don’t want to follow, I’ll understand. And for those who choose not to . . . Good luck.”
“I’m staying right here,” said Hughes. “I’ve got a bum elbow. It’ll only take me so far before my arm gives. And I can’t be sticking to a wall with one good arm.”
Ben stared at him for a moment before swinging his pack around until it settled on the landing, unzipped it with his free hand, rummaged around, found his last bottle of rations that was half filled, and tossed it to Hughes. “You’re going to need this then.”
“What about you?”
“I’ve got three empty containers in my pack. I’ll fill them down at the river.”
Hughes thanked Ben and wished him luck.
“You know that’ll only keep you for so long,” Ben told him. “A few days maybe in this heat. You’ll either die out here or head back. And there is no future in heading back.”
“Your concern, Ben, is appreciated. But there’s no future for me if I make this climb as well. No matter how you look at it, Ben. I’m lost either way. My choice is, do I die now or later? I choose later.”
Ben nodded. “I understand.” Then, working on his backpack, Ben started down until he was below the edge and could no longer see his teammates.
The crevasses were thin, but deep, and the clefts were many.
He could feel the heat of the sun against the top of his head, a baking heat, but he continued downward, picking and choosing his recesses with careful consideration. Two hours had passed when he made the halfway point of one hundred feet. The sound of the river flowing was louder, closer, an incentive to get this right, so he continued downward, and so far he was mistake free.
When he looked up, he saw others following his lead.
Albright and Yakamoto were doing well, moving with grace and agility. So was Cheryl Dalton, who moved skillfully as if this was not her first effort in scaling mountainsides. Amici was beside her; however, he looked a little less confident, but making his way, nonetheless, with Cheryl’s guidance. Surprisingly to Ben, Sommers was also acting as a guiding hand to Pam Scholl, who was having a truly difficult time. On many occasions Ben could hear her voice, her vacillations between wanting to return topside, or continue downward. But Sommers continued to coax her to the awaiting river below, telling her about the wonderfully cold water.
It was enough to keep her going.
At least until one of her footholds gave, the fractured rock beneath her weight giving, the support suddenly gone. In panic, she released a handhold to reach for another too high for her to grasp, her instinct for climbing upward kicking in, and telling her to get back to safer ground.
She screamed as her right side dangled precariously against the face of the wall, the foot that lost its holding and the hand that reached for a recess too far away, the hand now clawing at open space.
Sommers reached out to grab and stabilize her so that she could reestablish herself along the wall, but she was too wild, too out of control, Pam now screaming nonsensical words.
Ben called her name, told her to be calm.
So did Cheryl.
Sommers struggled, and he too was losing his hold. So he released her. He had to. Pam was writhing madly searching for grips that weren’t there, her eyes wide, her screams lou
d. And then her strength began to tire, the power from her supported hand and foot starting to fade as the lack of balance started to cause her to lose her stationary positon along the wall.
“Heeeeelp meeeeeeeeeeeee! Somebody please help me!”
“Pam, stop swinging about! You need to calm down!” It was Sommers, who was trying his best to reestablish her position against the wall. “Pam, stop!”
But the fear was too great, her mind becoming a maelstrom of confusion.
And then she slipped from the wall, screaming, her body taking flight and picking up speed and momentum until she hit a small outcropping of rock, her broken body then caroming off the ledge, her cries cut off at impact, and began to pin-wheel in blinding revolutions toward the bottom, where she disappeared into leafy treetop which she gave cause for birds to flock from its limbs.
Cheryl leaned her face against the rock wall and barked a cry. Even Yakamoto appeared disturbed by this as he looked downward at the imprint in the treetop where Pam disappeared.
“Keep moving!” yelled Ben.
They did.
And after two more hours of cautious struggle, they were duly rewarded by touching down on solid ground. The soil beneath their feet felt wonderful. People laughed. Even Suki Yakamoto, who accepted a hug from Cheryl. There were congratulatory claps on the back, and praises for a work well done. They had made it. And then they went to the edges of the river’s bank, bathing and drinking the water, water that was pure and unfiltered.
With the exception of Darius Albright, who stood at the base of a tree staring up at the tangled body of Pam Scholl who remained horribly twisted within its limbs. Her bones were broken in right angles, enough to cause most stomachs to clench themselves into a slick fist to see a body in such an unnatural way. Even from where he stood, he could see her eyes beginning to glaze over, that frosty sheen of death. And blood dripped slowly from the corners of purple lips, hitting the leaves below.
Albright cocked his head in study, felt a chill race along his spine.
While everyone seemed caught up inside their temporary bliss of the river and what it had to offer, Albright was feeling something quite different, a pornographic pleasure in seeing Pam Scholl lying all twisted with her face starting to pale and marble with the lines of her veins tracking across her features.
Whereas everyone else wanted water, he wanted this.
Death was in his nature.
Death was who he was.
He reached behind him and felt the guns fully secured behind the small of his back. He also knew that sooner or later Ben Peyton would make a play for them because Peyton saw him as the man that he truly was, a viable threat.
Albright winked at Pam Scholl’s twisted body, blew it a kiss, and made his way back to the group, telling them that he discovered Pam’s body, which would be lowered from its wild tangle of limbs, and buried along the shoreline beneath a cairn of stones.
This time it was Cheryl Dalton who spoke the eulogy.
Even Yakamoto showed up, standing over the grave with his hands clasped before him as Cheryl spoke. The only one who was not in attendance was Albright, who lay on the shore with his hands behind the back of his head watching the last streamers of daylight fade away.
And when he closed his eyes, he could see the imprint of Pam Scholl twisted within the limbs of the tree still within his mind’s eye. The image was somehow haunting and mesmerizing at the same time. But when he opened his eyes it was gone, leaving nothing but the sky before him and the countless pinprick of star-lights that sparkled like a cache of diamonds spread over black velvet.
He had survived the day. Five others did not. And they had so much more to travel.
The only question was: when is Ben Peyton going to make his move?
But it didn’t matter to Albright, because Albright already decided that he would make the move if nature didn’t.
When weighted fatigue finally edged its way into Albright’s eyes, he finally fell asleep.
And he slept well as most men without a conscience normally do.
Chapter Sixteen
In the term of most clinicians, Peter Haynes was classified as an insomniac, a person who often found it impossible to sleep. But Peter Haynes always found sleep to be a profound waste of time anyway. At least when there was so much to do and life so short.
He had seen Pam Scholl’s death and played the footage over and over like a loop, catching every detail from the panic in her eyes to the moment her body became ensnared within the crooked boughs of the tree below.
He watched the body fall, hit the rocky outcropping from the wall, and spin head over heels in blinding revolutions until the final impact. It was a glorious conclusion to a grand day, with five of the twelve dead. And they had yet to step into the far arena on the other side of the ravine.
Haynes kicked his feet up on his desk and toyed with the toggle switch. The stadium was empty, the show’s celebratory preamble over for the day as throngs of people returned home to watch future runs on their big screens that would be broadcast over the next several days. Empty candy and soda boxes from the concession stands littered the seating area, at least two days’ work for the janitorial crew to clean. But the filth was a hallmark to the show’s success; not a seat went vacant.
On the board beside his desk, he scratched off five names, leaving six—if they could get across the river and scale the wall on the other side of the ravine—to run the course. But Jerald Hughes remained topside on the south-side ravine, refusing to go forward with his teammates.
“Bad mistake,” Haynes murmured, zooming in on Hughes as he sat by the flames of a small fire. “Very bad mistake.”
The problem with night-vision shots was that the images were always too dark, gray against black, with whatever it was they were filming revealed only by its eye-shine.
But Haynes had a solution, since he believed that everything had a solution, and toggled another switch, causing high-powered lamps secured high on the limbs of trees along the ravine to light up, turning night into day.
“Now,” said Haynes, leaning back into his chair, “let’s get this show started.”
Haynes waited patiently, knowing that the illumination always drew something horrible in the same manner that moths are driven to light.
And it didn’t take long.
Something was on the move.
Chapter Seventeen
Jerald Hughes lied about having a bum elbow. His elbow was fine—perfect, in fact. The truth was that he was terrified of heights to the point of it becoming a paralytic terror to him. He knew he would freeze up on the wall. Then after seeing Pam Scholl fall to her death, he more than realized that he had made the right choice.
After finishing the last of the water, Hughes had built a small fire. Though he considered that the flames might draw beasts from the surrounding brush, he also knew that there was one constant in life: that all creatures were afraid of fire.
The warmth was good against the chill of the night. And his body found relief in a time when his mind was struggling with his own mortality, knowing that he had handed himself over to a fate that would have no positive outcome.
The questions were: When will it happen? More importantly: And by what?
Jerald Hughes got his answer.
The landscape lit up around him with a sudden and bitter brightness, the lamps within the trees causing him to narrow his eyes as he raised his hands as shields to block the light attacking his vision.
In the heavy brush to his left, the thicket began to rustle and move.
Then to the right and behind him, leaving him with the only avenue of escape; the edge of the ravine and a 200-foot drop.
Hughes got to his feet as his eyes widened to the size of communion wafers.
The nocturnal creatures were closing in from all points.
And Hughes screamed, hoping to drive them back. But they continued ahead through the brush, snapping branches that popped like gunshots, advancing.
/> Hughes went to the fire, grabbed a flame-tipped branch and used it as a weapon, as a hot poker ready to mark a fiery brand into their hides.
The bushes ahead of Hughes finally pared back and the creature came into the landing. It was a Megalania Prisca, a large monitor-like lizard that was an ancestor of the Komodo dragon, but much larger at 25-feet and weighing as much as 4500 pounds. And like the Komodo dragon, its teeth were serrated and built to rip and tear, so that its toxic saliva could enter the wounds of its prey and kill it. Like the monitor, it was low to the ground like an iguana, quick and fleeting, with a forked tongue that lashed in and out in rapid succession, the tens of millions of senses along its tongue picking up and sending messages to its brain, determining if Hughes was a potential danger. Or if he was something that he truly was: prey.
Two more Megalania Priscas exited the brush and began to circle Hughes, their tongues tasting and analyzing his scent, their primitive minds so advanced at drawing conclusions.
These creatures were huge, ranging between 25 to 30 feet, thickly built, and were naturally low to the ground. Their heads resembled that of Komodo dragons—a monitor lizard, actually—having evolved little over the tens of millions of years.
Their tapered snouts were directed at Hughes, the creatures circling and closing in by the inches.
Hughes continued to cry out and stabbed the fiery-tipped branch in their direction, the Megalania Priscas reacting in reflex by bobbing their three-foot heads up and down before resetting their sights on Hughes. None of them relinquished their ground.
The lenses of nearby cameras began to whirr and focus, gearing themselves for the kill shot, for that moment when the hunter finally pulls the trigger and the kill is made.
The Megalania Priscas didn’t roar but hissed, like most lizards that lacked vocal chords with their symphony of calls sounding like steam escaping from damaged pipes.
They circled Hughes, with each circle growing tighter and tighter.
And Hughes continued to stab at them with his poker, the flame beginning to die off at its tip, the end becoming an orangey glow of charred wood.
