The Ruins

seemed to be working its way toward his foot. And then, higher up, in his chest, there was no movement at all, only a steady pressure, impossible to ignore. Eric imagined some sort of void there, just beneath his ribs, a natural cavity within his body that was slowly being filled by the vine, the plant twisting back upon itself as it grew, shoving his organs aside, taking up more and more space with each passing moment. He believed that if he were to cut himself at this spot, just the smallest of incisions, the plant would tumble outward into the light, smeared with his blood, like some horrific newborn, writhing and twisting, its flowers opening and closing, a dozen tiny mouths begging to be fed.

Pablo moaned-it almost sounded like a word, as if he were calling out for something-but when they turned to look, his eyes were still shut, his body motionless. Dreaming, Eric thought, yet he knew immediately that it wasn't so, that it was worse, far worse. It was delirium, the stumble before the fall.

Dreaming, delirium, dying…

'Shouldn't we give him some water?' Amy asked.

Her voice sounded odd to Eric. Her hands must be shaking, too, he thought. No one answered her. They sat for several long moments staring in silence at Pablo, waiting for him to open his eyes, to stir, but he did neither. The only sound was the wet, phlegmy rattle of his breathing. Eric had the memory of himself lying half-asleep somewhere, early in the morning, listening as someone dragged furniture back and forth across the floor of the room above him, rearranging it. He'd been visiting a friend, sleeping on a couch. Oddly, Eric couldn't remember the friend's name. He could see the empty beer bottles lined up on the coffee table, could smell the mustiness of the pillow he'd been given, could hear the furniture being pushed and shoved from one side of the room above him to another, but he was so tired, so parched, so famished that somehow he couldn't remember who his host had been. That was the noise he was hearing now, though-there was no doubt of this-that was what Pablo's breathing sounded like, a table being dragged across a wooden floor.

Amy persisted: 'He hasn't had any water, not since-'

'He's unconscious,' Jeff said, cutting her off. 'How are we supposed to give him water?'

Amy frowned, silenced.

One by one, they all stopped watching Pablo-shutting their eyes, glancing away, not looking back. Eric's gaze drifted around the clearing, aimlessly, only to catch, finally, on the knife. It was lying beside the lean-to. Its blade was dull with the Greek's blood, completely stained from point to hilt. It wasn't that far away-to reach it, all Eric had to do was shift a foot or two to his left, then lean, stretching, and suddenly it was in his hand. Its grip felt warm from the sun, comfortingly so, the right thing for him to be holding. He tried to wipe the blade clean on his T-shirt, but the blood had dried and wouldn't come off. Eric was dehydrated enough that he had to work with his tongue before he could gather enough saliva to spit. Even this didn't help, though; as soon as he started to scrub at the blade, his T-shirt-eaten to a muslinlike transparency by the green fuzz of the vine-began to shred into nothingness.

It didn't matter, he decided. It wasn't infection that he was worried about.

He leaned forward and cut a three-inch-long slit in his leg, just to the left of his shin, slightly beneath the incision Mathias had made earlier that morning. It hurt, of course, especially since he had to push deep, probing down into the muscle, prying the flesh back with the edge of the knife, so that he could hunt for the tiny piece of vine he knew must be in there. The pain was intense-loud, was how it felt-but also strangely consoling: it felt bracing, clarifying. Blood was pooling in the slit, spilling outward, running down his leg, making it difficult to see, so he reached with his free hand, stuck his forefinger into the wound, digging, searching by feel, the pain like a man running up a flight of stairs now, sprinting, skipping steps. The others were watching him, too startled to speak. The worming sensation continued, despite the pain; Eric could feel the thing fleeing downward, away from his finger. He started in once more with the knife, cutting deeper, and then Jeff was on his feet, moving quickly toward him.

Eric glanced up, the blood running thickly down his lower leg, beginning to collect in his shoe again. He was expecting solicitude, an offer to help, and was astonished to see the disgust on Jeff's face, the impatience. Jeff reached, grabbed for the knife, yanking it from Eric's grip. 'Stop it,' he said, tossing the knife away, sending it skittering into the dirt. 'Don't be a fucking idiot.'

There was silence in the clearing. Eric turned to the others, assuming one of them might offer something in his defense, but they avoided his eyes, their faces set, echoing Jeff's disapproval.

'Don't you think we've got enough problems?' Jeff asked.

Eric made a helpless gesture, waving his bloody hands at his bloody shin. 'It's inside me.'

'All you're going to do is get yourself infected. Is that what you want? An infected leg?'

'It's not just my leg. It's my chest, too.' Eric touched the spot on his chest, the dull ache there, laying his palm against it. He believed he could feel the vine pressing subtly back.

'Nothing's inside you. Understand?' Jeff asked, his voice matching the hardness in his face-the frustration, the fatigue. 'You're imagining it, and you just-you just fucking have to stop.' With that, he turned and strode back into the center of the clearing.

He started to pace, and everyone watched him. Pablo continued to drag that heavy table along the wooden floor, and suddenly the name Mike O'Donnell popped into Eric's head. That was his friend: redhaired, gap-toothed, a lacrosse player. They'd known each other in high school, had gone to different colleges, gradually grown apart. He'd been living in an old row house outside of Baltimore, and Eric had spent a weekend there. They'd gone to an Orioles game, had bought horrible tickets from a scalper, ended up not being able to see a thing. All this was only two or three years ago, but it seemed impossibly far away now, another life altogether from the one he was living here, sitting in this little clearing, listening to the dreadful rasp of Pablo's breathing-dreaming, delirium, dying-wanting to push his finger into his open wound again, but resisting the urge, telling himself, It's not there, and struggling to believe it.

Jeff stopped pacing. 'Somebody should go relieve Stacy,' he said.

No one moved; no one spoke.

Jeff turned first to Amy, then to Mathias. Neither of them met his eyes. He didn't even bother to look at Eric. 'All right,' he said finally, waving his hand, dismissing the three of them-their inertia, their lassitude, their helplessness-his disgust seeming generalized now, all-encompassing. 'I'll do it.'

And then, without another word or glance, he turned and walked out of the clearing.

They should've eaten something, Jeff realized as he picked his way down the hill. It was well past noon now; they should've divided up the two bananas, cut them into five equal portions, chewed and swallowed, and called it lunch. Then the orange for dinner-maybe some of the grapes, too-these were the things that wouldn't keep, that were already beginning to spoil in the heat. And then what? Pretzels, nuts, protein bars- how long could this last them? A couple more days, Jeff assumed, and after that the fasting would begin, the starving. There was no point in worrying about it, he supposed, not when there wasn't anything he could do to change the situation. Wishing or praying-increasingly this was all that was left for them, and, in Jeff's mind, wishing or praying was the same as doing nothing at all.

He should've brought the knife with him. Eric was going to keep cutting himself, unless the others stopped him, and Jeff didn't trust Amy and Mathias to do this. He was losing them, he knew. Only twenty-four hours and already they were acting like victims-slope-shouldered, blank-faced. Even Mathias seemed to have retreated somehow, over the course of the morning, grown passive, when Jeff needed him to be active.

He should've known it wasn't a cell phone in the shaft; he should've anticipated such a turn of events, or something like it. He wasn't thinking as clearly as he ought to, and he knew this would only lead to peril. The vine could've easily eaten the rope, but it hadn't. It had left it untouched on the windlass, which meant that it had wanted them to drop back into the hole, and Jeff should've seen this, should've understood that it could only mean one thing, that the chirping sound was a trap. The vine could move and think and mimic different noises-not just the cell phone but the birds, too. Because it must've been the vine that had cried out like that to warn the Mayans as he'd crept down the hill the previous evening, and he should've realized this also.

He was getting sloppy. He was losing control, and he didn't know how to reclaim it.

Stacy came into sight, sitting hunched under her sunshade, facing the clearing, the Mayans, the jungle beyond. She didn't hear Jeff approach, didn't turn to greet him, but it wasn't until he was nearly upon her that he