Ben stopped in his tracks.What was that?He scanned from left to right, high to low. There was nothing out there. No jaguars prowling, no howler monkeys, no sloths – not so much as a tree frog, as far as he could see.
‘Hello?’ he called. ‘Is there someone there? Naya, Scott – Carly – is that one of you?’ He paused, licked his dry lips. ‘Mira?’ But there was nothing now; only silence. He shrugged, turned back to the phone.
He was safe; he was totally alone. He wondered if perhaps he’d imagined it or the snapping sound was one of the tropical birds the jungle was teeming with, raking through some fallen branches, rooting for food.
Yes, that’s most likely all it was. I’m wired, is all. I need some sleep.
Snap.
Another branch, another footstep – and closer this time. He knew he wasn’t imagining it now – it seemed to have come from only a few metres behind him.
A creeping sensation crawled across his skin; an absolute certainty, in that moment, that someone – orsomething– was coming after him. He held still, so still that he could hear the blood rushing through his brain in time with his pulse – perhaps, if it was an animal, some kind of predator, it would simply give up if it couldn’t hear him or see him move.
Every cell in Ben’s body wanted to run –run, goddamn it–but he couldn’t. If he moved too far from this spot, how would the rescuers find him? The phone operator had told him to stay in one place, hadn’t she? Their best chance of finding him was if he stayed put.
There was another loud crack behind him; more snapping, faster now – and something else – footsteps. They didn’t sound like those of any rainforest animal – these were decidedly human.
Ben, you need to start running!
He couldn’t rationalize it, this urge to sprint; most likely, it was one of the others, deciding to follow the same path, stumbling across him. If they’d all been running towards that chopper earlier, that would mean he’d gotten close to them all. They’d mean him no harm, surely?
But he was gripped with fear.
Are they coming after me? Have they worked something out? Does someone know that I’ve turned up here uninvited?
That’s it. I’m moving.
If he just tried to walk in a circle – he could keep watch on one of the taller trees, maybe, use that to navigate back to this spot – then hopefully he could lose whoever was after him and get back to the same place. It didn’t need to be exactly the same spot, surely, for the rescuers to find him? As long as it was close enough, he’d hear them – or he could send the coordinates again, couldn’t he?
The footsteps were coming faster and heavier towards him now – whoever it was, they were almost here. It was too late. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t outrun whoever – or whatever – was following him. Better to turn and face it – them – head on.
Heart racing, hands clenched into fists, he turned to the source of the rustling, just as a figure emerged from the foliage.
He blew out a long breath and his racing heart began to slow when he saw who was standing there, watching him.
‘Oh, thank God, it’s only you!’ he said, a smile tugging his mouth wide. ‘I thought you were some kind of predator! How did you find me? Listen, I’ve managed to call—’
But Ben never finished his sentence.
His words were shocked from his mouth as the sharp sting of a knife slammed into his side.
He only just had time to register the look of pure desperation on his attacker’s face, to see a series of fast-moving images behind his eyelids – Hannah’s slow, lazy smile after he’d kissed her for the first time; his beautiful Blondie turning her chocolate eyes to him, excited for their morning walk; his mom staring vacantly out the trailer window, fried and zombie-like – before his body slipped to the ground and the world around him began to fade.
SCOTT
Scott hadn’t been able to sit there waiting for Carly, or Mira – for bloodyanyone– any longer. He’d decided he needed to focus on getting out of the rainforest; finding his way back to safety. Helping the others too, if he could. Helping himself.
He wasn’t sure exactly how, at first. He was injured and totally alone; everyone who should have been there with him was gone. Hannah was dead; their supposed retreat was over before it even started. Naya was pretty much certain to be dead too. Ben had bolted off and left them – which might well have been for the best, if what they all suspected was true. Then Mira had gone to relieve herself some time earlier and never reappeared, and now Carly too had disappeared: she’d gone off to investigate the source of the sound he’d heard,agesago now.
At least, itfeltlike ages ago, but he knew his sense of time was starting to get warped and strange. In pain and dehydrated and grief-stricken as he was, the hours and minutes out here seemed to be bending and contracting; earlier, for just a minute, he’d even forgotten what day it was. It was a disconcerting feeling: as though the jungle were turning him into an animalrather than a human being, some kind of creature without conscience, one that was only aware of the difference between day and night but nothing more precise than that.
Stop it, Scott. His thoughts were wandering again; rambling and rattling about in his brain. What was his point again? And why did it matter, anyway, now that Hannah was lying dead and beautiful, kind Naya had been taken down that stream? The image of her gulping at the air in panicked spurts, choking underneath the rushing current, flooded his brain again; made him gasp with sadness and horror.
Mira, Carly. That had been it. He’d been thinking about how long they’d both been gone, and what the hell had happened to them. However long it had been, he hadn’t been sure either of them would be back any time soon.
And he sure as anything couldn’t stay sitting still on that tree trunk, with what was most likely a broken ankle, waiting to die of pain and thirst. Not while he still had an outside chance of making it out alive and getting help for the others, anyway.
He’d decided it was time for him to start moving, to use what was left of his strength and energy to find his way out. Yes, he was heartbroken at the thought of leaving the others – Mira especially, who was so weak and vulnerable and might well be trying to make her way back to him right now. And Naya –oh God, Naya– his heart ached again at the thought of her.
