Alter Page 4

  Feeling certain the big cat wouldn’t simply abandon a plane full of meat, I shift plans again and head in the opposite direction.

  Destination: who knows where.

  6

  Humming a tune reminds me that I’m still in a world where technology exists. I could listen to music on my phone. I’ve got a wide assortment of tunes downloaded. But that would use up the battery and prevent me from calling for help in the future—doubtful, but maybe—and looking at photos of Gwen and Juni, which I’m going to try to do as little as possible. Because seeing their faces hurts. A lot.

  To protect the phone and save the battery, I powered it down and sealed it in a Ziploc bag I used to carry vitamins. I then wrapped it in a shirt and packed it at the core of my backpack. I’m pretty sure it would survive a drop from a cliff, of which there are few. The terrain here is home to endless trees, some hills, and a network of rivers and streams, but nothing as dramatic as a mountain or cliff. Further west, where the Amazon crosses the Brazilian border into Peru—home of the tribal people I’d hoped to help—the Andes make the topography more dramatic.

  When my humming repeats the same pop song to which I don’t know the lyrics, I’m tempted to pull out the phone and play something—if only to reset my inner playlist. I’ve read that to get a song out of your head, you must mentally finish it. The problem is that I don’t know this particular tune well enough to carry it through to the end. I’m just repeating the catchy chorus, again and again. It’s enough to drive someone mad. Well, that and the blood-sucking insects, which have discovered my presence, but are currently being held at bay by a thick layer of bug spray and a large leaf I’m fanning through the air.

  I decide to replace the song with something I know I can finish, and my mind leaps to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Halfway through, I regret the choice. In my mind, Bing Crosby is crooning out the tune, transporting my mind back to my childhood. I can smell the Christmas tree’s pine scent. Feel the warmth of the Duraflame-fueled fireplace. Can feel the firmness of a gum drop chiseled from the roof of a gingerbread house. And then I’m home with Gwen, carving out our own holiday traditions—Bing Crosby on Pandora, Thai food, the Nutcracker in Boston, and sex. That Christmas Eve tradition led to Juni’s birth the following September.

  I clear my throat and mentally eradicate the painful memories conjured by the song. I turn my eyes skyward, but find only shades of luminous green. I hate the jungle, I decide. It’s claustrophobic, like living in a covered pot of steamed broccoli.

  I’ve been walking for hours, careful to rest, and drink, and listen to the animals and their warnings. I’d like to say I’m making good time, but I think that only makes sense if you have a direction and a destination in mind. I could be walking further from rescue for all I know.

  If anyone is even looking for me.

  “Don’t go there,” I tell myself, as I start to picture Gwen’s current state of mind.

  My next step transforms from a casual stride to a slow motion, Matrix-style bullet time, as my eyes drift back to the ground and I spot a trail of large ants. As much as I like animals, I’m not an expert on ants. When I was a kid, there were black ants, red ants, and their smaller, more peaceful cousins, the sugar ants. I spent enough time watching black and red ants battle to know their diminutive size belied savage tendencies. I’ve been bitten by both species and know both pack punches. But they’re lightweights compared to the ants found in the Amazon. While not all species are dangerous, those that are, like bullet ants, whose bite feels akin to being shot, are best to be avoided.

  I stretch my leg out, clearing the line and stepping onto the soft edge of a mound that looks like a root but is actually the outer edge of an ant hill. The jungle floor comes alive as thousands of ants charge the intruder.

  Me.

  I leap from foot to foot, shouting, the backpack and satchel slapping against me. Running like a gym teacher is shouting, ‘Get your knees higher!’ while prodding me with a taser, I prance away. Clear of the ants, I stop to brush away the few scaling my body, looking for flesh to bite. With my boots and belt cinched tight and my shirt tucked in, they’ll have to reach my arms or neck to finish the job.

  “Ack!” I swat the underside of my left arm and feel a small body crunch under my fingers. As a fiery pain mushrooms out from the bite, I shed my backpack, satchel, and shirt. I snap the shirt back and forth a few times and then brush my pants with it before snapping it back and forth again. Anyone watching me would likely think I’d lost my mind, but there’s no one here to see my mania.

  Confident I’ve defeated the enemy, I slip the sweat soaked T-shirt over my head again, tuck it in, and wonder for the hundredth time why I didn’t bring a light, long-sleeved shirt.

  Because I don’t belong here.

  Because I’m an idiot.

  A stab of pain cuts my mental self-flagellation short. I twist the flesh of my arm for a few seconds. The skin is red, hot, and swollen, like a subdermal golf ball implant.

  That’s not good, but it could have been worse. Much worse.

  No more humming, I decide. No more day-dreaming. No more looking for a sky that isn’t there.

  Depression settles on me along with the weight of my backpack. I want to lie down. In a bed. I’m tempted to settle down right here and wait for night, but I’m still too close to the ants. So I turn a hard ninety degrees and strike out once more, following the maze of trees, roots, and low-lying plant life, watching my step and damming my thoughts.

  After twenty minutes, I have to hold my left arm out to keep the swollen bit from brushing against my shirt. Any contact hurts, but at least I haven’t noted any other adverse effects. My shoulder starts to burn after just a few minutes, so I shorten the satchel’s strap and position it under the arm, keeping it away from my side without any muscle work. The simple problem-solving encourages me. Makes me think that I can prevail, that I can overcome the challenges of this place.

  Then I walk for hours, until my legs start to shake, and realize that if the immediate threats to my life don’t get me, the jungle will still claim me in the long run. My water supply is exhausted. I’ve got food for a few days, if I ration it. But without H2O I’m going to be dead in three days. Granted, some people have lived longer without water, but not here, not where the heat sucks the water from your body and adds it to the undrinkable water that’s heavy in the air. Best case scenario, I’ll make it two days without water, and one of those will be spent immobilized and in pain.

  It will start with extreme thirst—where I am now. Then I’ll become irritable and confused. I’m pretty much there already. That’ll be followed by sunken eyes, low blood pressure, and a racing pulse as my heart tries to pump sludge through my veins. When I eventually break down into tears, there won’t be any. A fever will stop me in my tracks, followed by delirium, hallucinations, unconsciousness, and then death.

  So, as much as I’d like to stop, peel off my wet clothing, and fall asleep beneath the mosquito net I forgot that I’d packed, I need to keep moving. Need to find water, and then find a way to purify it.

  Following the path of least resistance, I trudge down a slope. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen people hack Amazonian vines apart to find water, so I slice through every one I come across, dejected each time the severed vegetation fails to produce even a drop.

  Twenty steps later, my boot slips over the top of a damp root. I twist as I fall, reaching for a handhold and finding nothing. My left side takes the brunt of the graceless landing. The satchel that had been protecting my arm now crushes the swollen bite. An unbidden scream erupts from my lungs, the sound of it absorbed by the lush foliage, but loud enough to silence the chorus of animals I only now notice when they fall silent.

  My head and arm throb when I push myself up, wounded by the ant and dehydration. Anger swells.

  I’m a calm person. I have excellent bedside manners. I’ve suffered injuries, personal setbacks, and a broken heart or two without ever losing my cool. But
here, with no one to see, I go ballistic. Wielding the machete, I wage war against the root that dropped me faster than Mike Tyson could. Shards of wood fly through the air with each solid whack of the blade. It’s not until the machete gets stuck in the root that I look away.

  It’s just a glance, and it takes two tugs of the machete for what I saw to sink in, but when it does, I forget all my anger. For the first time since crashing, I feel genuine hope.

  Ignoring the pain in my head and arm, I push myself back onto unsteady feet and stare down the clear path.

  People make paths.

  And this one is clear enough to assume it’s utilized fairly often.

  After prying the machete loose, I follow the path, which mercifully leads downhill. I walk in silence, listening for any signs of habitation until the animal chorus returns, drowning out any chance that I’ll hear signs of people before stumbling on them.

  My pace quickens, becoming a jog.

  My left arm hurts from my shoulder to my elbow, but I ignore it.

  Ten minutes into the run, I tire. My vision fades until I stop to catch my breath.

  How long could the path be?

  Miles?

  A hundred miles?

  Despair hooks its claws into the upper layers of my skin, threatening to burrow deeper.

  Maybe I can just sit and wait for someone else to come along? The path looks worn enough that people must come through here on a daily basis.

  Just a little further, I think. The sun is starting to set, and the lower levels of the jungle grow dark long before the canopy. Walking during the day is dangerous enough. I’m not about to walk at night. But maybe I won’t have to.

  A hundred feet later, I find the trail’s end.

  At a stream.

  It’s a game trail, I realize, and I fall to my knees beside the gurgling creek.

  My mind starts to drift back toward rage, but the sound and smell of water calls to me like a siren, filling me with lust that could end in death.

  But what choice do I have?

  I’m going to die if I don’t drink.

  And while the water itself might lead to my demise, it will be later than if I don’t drink.

  It goes against my medical instincts—I know my body has no defense against the bacteria in this water—but dehydration will kill me for sure. And while I might have to face dehydration from diarrhea at the hands of this water, it will come days after I would have already been dead. If I survive, and my body acclimates, I can drink with a little less concern, and stand a better chance at surviving long term.

  I cup my hands into the water, bring the clear fluid to my face, and then splash it onto my skin. The cool water is refreshing, and resisting the urge to drink it is even harder, but it also wakes me up.

  “Just hold off,” I tell myself. “Wait until morning.”

  I spot a nearby tree, free of ants and surrounded by a veritable fortress of roots. I settle in for the night, clothes off and drying, protected by mosquito netting.

  Sitting there, exhausted but kept from sleep by pain and worry, my thoughts turn to death.

  What comes next, after this?

  Will it be worse? Or better? I’m not sure how it could be worse. Even a forever of nothing would be better. Before I was born, I just wasn’t. Would it be so horrible to return to that sweet nothing?

  Gwen wouldn’t be there. Nor would Juni. Nor any of the other people I’ve loved and who have loved me. If all those people simply cease to exist, what’s the point? “What’s the fucking point?” I say to no one.

  Or am I talking to someone? If there’s a God who’s omnipotent and omniscient, is He here? Is He listening?

  “If you are,” I say. “You’re an asshole. This is bullshit. You know that, right?”

  Realizing I’m saying a prayer in my own, strange way, I dig through the satchel and remove the notebook. I feel a little disgusted by it. This is what I’ve come to? Praying to a creator that doesn’t exist?

  Screw it.

  “Here’s the deal. I’m not going to say anything nice about you, or this shitty world. I’m not going to God-damned lie, because what’s the point, right? I am going to write down what I want…what I fucking need. When that happens, we’ll talk. Until then, fuck you.”

  Lacking a pen, I dig my hand through the layers of leaves and into the damp earth. Using my soiled finger as a pencil, I scrawl four words—the fourth of which catches me a little off guard.

  Why did I write that? I wonder. Lacking an eraser, I leave it be.

  I don’t think I’m asking for much. For God, my demands should be simple.

  After putting the notebook away, sleep comes fast and hard. I never once stop to ponder what creatures might use the game trail, and which predators might hunt them.

  7

  I think I’m awake. The darkness of a dreamless sleep remains. So does the silence. Where am I? I wonder. My bed is hard and uneven. The air is thick. I open my mouth to call for Gwen when my memory catches up to my waking mind.

  I’m in the jungle. Lost. On my own. And damn near dehydrated.

  I can smell the water nearby. Can feel its coolness on my tongue. In my throat. I’m not generally a passionate person. Gwen has compared me to a Vulcan on more than one occasion. It’s not that I’m unkind, or even cold, but I don’t get fired up about much. But water…I’m lusting for it.

  Did I take some water from the stream already? Or do I still need to?

  I can’t remember.

  I think I still need to. I was resisting temptation before, but now the urge to drink is all I can think about. My cells are craving water. It won’t be long before they stop functioning well, and soon after that, they’ll stop functioning entirely. It’s the unending heat, squeezing out what little moisture my body has left to spare.

  If I don’t drink tonight, I might very well die in the morning.

  Just do it, I tell myself. Save yourself now and figure out how to save yourself from the negative effects of drinking Amazonian water later…when you’re still alive.

  I’m about to push myself up, crawl to the stream, and plunge my face into the water and drink. But something stops me. An instinct. Something is wrong. Other than my desperate thirst.

  But I can’t see anything. Can’t hear anything. Despite being surrounded by strong scents, I can’t seem to smell anything aside from water. But I should be surrounded by something else. Something that’s missing. Being asleep, I didn’t hear the change, didn’t register the warning of complete silence. Hoping to not be discovered in the dark, the jungle’s creatures have fallen silent.

  My heart thumps a bit harder, and for a moment, it’s all I can hear.

  I nearly shout at the sudden sound of running.

  It’s followed by a thump, a moment of thrashing and grunting, and then silence again.

  My imagination conjures images of a horrible beast, rending some wide-eyed jungle denizen’s body limb from limb. It’s inhuman. Dreadlock hair coats its body. Yellow eyes twitch back and forth. A hairless canine face is coated in blood. Crouching over its kill, a Disney cartoon in my mind’s eye—not nearly enough to stave off the monster’s hunger—how long before it discovers me, blind and defenseless?

  I strain to hear the cracking of bones, the tearing of flesh, or the pop of joints. But there’s none of that. It’s just quiet. Peaceful.

  A deep breath testing for blood in the air comes up negative. Was it killed in the water?

  All at once, the jungle screams back to life.

  I flinch, and scream, and twist around, seeing the monster reaching out hooked claws for my face.

  But there’s nothing there.

  As the remnants of my shriek blend in with the calls of animals I can’t identify, I try to stop my body from shaking. Drawing the gun from the satchel and holding it helps. A little. But the monster of my waking nightmare could be two feet from my face and I’d never see it.

  I consider giving the lighter a flick—if I can fin
d it. In the dense, dark jungle, it would shine like the sun. It would create a beacon for predators to follow. So I decide to let dehydration shrivel me up into an unappetizing human raisin.

  The tactic works until the thirst in my throat becomes a pain in my gut. Eyes clenched shut, I do my best to endure it. It feels like there’s an electric eel loose in my stomach, wriggling and launching electric assaults on my insides.

  Think about Gwen, I tell myself. Think about home. The emotional pain of worrying about home will distract me. But I’m not even able to wallow. I see my wife for just a moment, dressed in sweatpants, head clasped in her hands, tired rings under her worried eyes. And then she’s gone, replaced by the anguish of a dying body.

  How long until daylight?

  How long until I’m brave enough to approach the stream and drink?

  And when I’m refreshed and rehydrated, how long will it take before bacteria assaults me? Will I have a day to recover? An hour? Will I recover at all? Despite all my medical knowledge, there aren’t a lot of lessons in med school that apply to surviving in the wilderness.

  I linger in an indecisive quagmire for what feels like an hour, but is probably closer to ten minutes. Pain has a way of stretching out time. It’s the sound of feet on wet earth that pulls me back to the world beyond agony.

  The first set of footfalls is followed by several more.

  It’s a pack. But of what?

  Snuffling sounds fill the darkness, followed by slurping, gurgling, and greedy drinking.

  It’s too much. I can’t stop myself.

  After I slide from the mosquito netting, my hand acts autonomously, digging into my pocket, retrieving the lighter and flicking it to life. Several large creatures, their swine-like backsides pointed in my direction, stand by the stream’s edge, heads lowered. Watching their throats constrict with each gulp, I nearly cry out.

  One of them, probably sensing the light, lifts its head and cranes its long-snouted face around. The beast is huge. Probably a good five hundred pounds. In my current state, it could make short work of me. Lucky for me, it’s a tapir, a pig-like herbivore with few natural predators aside from the jaguar, black caiman crocs, and man. Given the tapir’s lack of panic at seeing me, I’m guessing they don’t come across people often. Or perhaps it senses that I’m near death.