The Voice inside My Head (11 page)

The first bite feels like the flame of a lighter against my skin, though the only time I’ve actually had that experience, I’d just knocked back half a bottle of single malt, so this feels ten times worse.

“What the …!” I jump up.

Zach pulls me toward him. “Fire ants,” he says, pointing to a bunch of innocuous-looking ants marching around the spot I just vacated. “You okay?”

I look at the line of red dots up the back of my calf.

“Yeah,” I say. It hurts like hell. “No problem.”

“I might have lost track,” he says glumly.

“What?” My skin is starting to blister.

“I definitely counted two or three.”

I think I’m having an allergic reaction. The throbbing is getting worse.

“There were a couple of things that might have been paths. Not more than five, that’s for sure.”

I run my fingers over the welts. They feel hot.

“So we better keep moving,” says Zach. “It’s getting late.”

I want to suggest we turn back, but I can’t waste another day no closer to finding my sister.

“You don’t happen to have a first-aid kit in there?” I ask, following Zach off the road. He clambers over the log I was just sitting on, but I hack my way through some bushes to the side of it. I’m not risking any more bites.

“Sorry, no medical kit,” he apologizes, “but I’ve got more beer.”

“Maybe later, thanks.”

The next hour is hard going. Over and over, we have to take major detours off the path to avoid puddles the size of inland lakes. Two or three times, the path curves so sharply I think we’re doubling back, but everything looks alike. I can’t tell if we’re climbing over the same dead wood, crawling under the same vines and going round the same ponds or if it’s all new territory. It doesn’t help that the ground is infested with massive ant mounds, which I give a wide berth, while simultaneously trying to avoid the biters on the ground. I spend as much time watching my feet as I do looking ahead, so more than a few times, I get whacked in the face with foliage.

Zach insists on stopping to admire every freaking reptile we come across. I share his excitement over the first few dozen, but after that, every rainbow spotted lizard–iguana–salamander–snake starts to look like so much shoe leather.

“Zach,” I say, stopping to consult my watch. “We may have a problem.”

He leans against a spindly tree, and I notice for the first time that we’re surrounded by spindly trees. When did we
leave behind the thick soaring trees of the rainforest? When did the ground change from dry with occasional puddles to damp with occasional dry spots?

“Two problems,” I say.

He looks at me apprehensively.

“We’ve been walking for four hours, more than two on this path, and it’s almost six o’clock. That means we have only one more hour of daylight.”

“We’re almost there,” he says, pulling out a pack of smokes and offering me one.

I shake my head. “And secondly, I think we’ve hit swamp.”

“We may have one more problem,” he says, taking a long slow drag as he scrutinizes something behind me.

“What?”

“I’m pretty sure that log behind you just moved.”

I turn around — slowly. There are more dead leaves and branches on the ground than overhead, but I don’t see anything out of the ordinary.

“Looks fine to me.”

“Keep watching,” he says.

“Oh, shit!”

“Uh-huh.”

“Back away slowly,” I whisper, keeping myself between Zach and the croc.

I can’t tell if it’s watching us, but there’s something about the way it shifts ever so slightly that gets my heart pounding. We haven’t taken more than a few steps before it leaps into action, lifting its body off the ground and galloping toward us. I overtake Zach in seconds and grab his arm, dragging him with me. His pack slips and I snatch it up without
breaking stride. We leap logs and branches, sprint through mud that sucks at our feet and dodge trees, hoping something will slow the creature down. We run till we can’t run anymore and we don’t look back.

Finally, Zach drags on my arm.

“I need to stop, man,” he puffs, leaning over with his hands on his thighs.

I look around but can’t see any sign of the predator. I don’t know if we’ve lost it or it’s lurking in the ooze that is now above our ankles.

“I think it’s gone,” I say.

“It’s not the only thing that’s gone.” Zach stands up and takes the measure of our surroundings.

“We’ve lost the path,” I say grimly.

He nods.

“And it’s getting dark.”

There’s no sign of the forest now. We’re smack in the middle of a mangrove swamp.

“Beer?” he offers, reaching for his pack, which is still slung from my shoulder. I hand it over and he pulls out two beers and a bag of chips.

I’m light-headed with relief at the sight of food, despite the fact we’re royally screwed and probably won’t survive the night. There’s nowhere to sit, so the best we can do is break off a few mangrove branches and make a spiky pile that gets us inches out of the mud. As night falls, bats swoop all around us and the birdsong is replaced by an eerie clacking.

“What is that?” I ask.

“Crabs.”

I look around. Sure enough, we’re surrounded by heaving masses of crabs scuttling about like armored spiders in the fading light.

“They’re not dangerous,” says Zach unconvincingly.

“I think we’re going to have to stay here till morning.” I consider adding that he should have told me when he first realized he might have miscounted the paths. I can’t believe I let him get me into this mess and all to get information on voodoo dolls, which I don’t even believe in. But as I look at Zach staring at the ground, his shoulders drooping, I just don’t have the heart to add to his misery by complaining.

“It’s not your fault, Zach.”

“I got us lost.”

“The croc got us lost.”

“I always mess up,” he says quietly.

I know the feeling, which makes me determined not to let Zach feel that way. I try to make out his expression in the gloom, but we’re sitting awkwardly, side by side, on our twiggy nest and he’s pointedly turned away from me.

“It’s a nice night,” I say, trying to sound cheerful. “It’s not so hot now and it’s not raining. Things could be a lot worse, Zach. In the morning, we’ll figure out where we are and walk out of here. It’s no big deal.”

He doesn’t answer and, if anything, slumps lower onto our twiggy perch.

“How old are you?” Maybe I can take his mind off our situation. I’d been assuming he was Pat’s age, but now I’m not so sure.

“Official or real age?”

I smile. “Both.”

“My ID says I’m twenty. That’s what people here think I am.”

“Twenty? They really believe you’re twenty?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Why wouldn’t they?”

“No reason,” I say quickly. “It’s just, if you were getting a fake ID, I would have thought you might go for something a little younger. Pat says you only need to be eighteen to become a dive master.”

“I needed to be eighteen when I was fifteen,” he says in a low voice. “I got the fake ID when my mom kicked me out. So now that I’m seventeen, I’m twenty. You get it?”

“I think so,” I say. “So you’ve been on your own for two years?”

He grunts, which I take to mean yes.

“I’m really sorry, man,” I say and know exactly how meaningless that sounds because people keep saying it to me.

“It’s probably for the best,” he says wearily. “My mom went through a lot of boyfriends after my dad left, but they all had one thing in common. They liked to hit. The first time I hit back, she kicked me out, but I was pretty much ready to leave by then anyway. Are your parents still together?”

“That’s one way of putting it,” I say. “Mom’s threatened to leave a couple of times but she never does. Sometimes she gets worked up and says Dad’s ruined her life, but only when she’s really wasted.”

“Your mom gets wasted?” Zach sounds way more disapproving than I would have expected for a guy who considers beer one of the basic food groups.

“My parents were our age when Mom got pregnant. They weren’t even dating. Dad was taking photos of my mom for
the school paper. She was head cheerleader, and he had this huge nerdy crush on her. I think they only hooked up the one time, but they hit the jackpot. Pat says Mom wishes she’d never had us. There may be some truth to that but it’s not that simple. My mom loves us.

“I don’t think anyone is thrilled to have a baby when they’re still in high school, and she doesn’t cope well with her life not working out like she’d hoped, but she can be really thoughtful. Dad’s never made much money and Mom’s never worked at all, but every year she manages to get us something really special for Christmas. This year she got Pat a top-of-the-line laptop to take to college. I don’t know how Mom ever pulled enough money together, but it was the perfect gift at the perfect time. Just when you think she only cares about herself, she does something like that. The drinking’s gotten worse over the years, though. She’s tried to stop a few times, but she always goes back to it. I think she’s just disappointed with herself, and drinking makes her feel better.”

I don’t say that it does the same for me. Maybe that’s why Pat and I take such different views of it. “Pat fights with her all the time. It doesn’t help.” I pause, take a deep breath and rush on. “Mom tried to kill herself a few weeks before Pat came down here.”

“Wow, man, I’m really sorry. That’s brutal.”

“At first Pat was furious. She acted like Mom did it deliberately to hurt her, which might have been true. It
was
the night of Pat’s graduation. It should have been Pat’s perfect night, her reward for all her years of hard work and clean living. Pat gave the valedictory address, and Mom was there in the audience, clapping louder than anyone. Then that
night she took sleeping pills. She said it was an accident; she was so overexcited by seeing Pat up there on the podium that she couldn’t sleep. But we think she took at least a dozen, with her usual booze. It’s hard to imagine how that could have been an accident.”

“She sounds a bit whack. Did your dad put her in a mental hospital?”

“Nah, she got her stomach pumped and was home in a few days. Nothing was the same after that, though. I’d always told Pat Mom would try to kill herself someday and we needed to be more careful around her. I’m not blaming Pat. Mom made her own decision.”

“That’s heavy, dude. Is that why Tricia came to Utila, to get away from all the stress?”

I stare at my feet, lifting them just in time to escape a crab scuttling toward my bare toes, claws outstretched. It launches itself up the side of our perch, following my retracting feet. I break off a twig that’s been jabbing my butt for the last several minutes and hold it down to the crab to try to distract it. It latches on with a claw that’s obviously designed for combat, being at least three times larger than the other.

“Pat needed to get away.” I’m glad of the darkness to hide the guilt in my eyes. “But that’s all in the past,” I continue resolutely. “The important thing is, I’m going to find Pat, and we’ll talk this all out and be a family again.” I suddenly realize what I’ve said. “Geez, Zach, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says, but when he runs a hand across his eyes, I think he’s crying.

“Of course it doesn’t matter,” I say, clapping him on the back. “Because we’re brothers now, right?”

He turns to me, his eyes glistening in the moonlight, and throws both arms around me in a hug that knocks us both into the muck.

“Damn,” I mutter.

“AAAAAIIIIEEEEE!” he screams.

We both struggle to get our footing. My heart is pounding again.

“What is it?” I demand.

“Something bit me,” he whimpers. “It hurts, man, it really hurts.”

He’s cradling his mud-covered hand. I try to get a look at it in the moonlight, cursing our lack of planning. Would it have been too much foresight for one of us to bring a flashlight? I can’t even tell if he’s bleeding. I use the last bit of the water in my water bottle to wash off the mud. I still can’t make out a bite mark, but even in the limited light, I can see it’s starting to swell.

“It’s going to be okay.” I hope he can’t hear the panic in my voice. There could be any number of poisonous creatures out here, wherever the heck here is. A long way from help, that’s for sure.

“I think I’m dying,” he wheezes, his breath coming in short gasps.

Holy shit. Holy shit.

“Help!” I shout, sounding every bit like I’m in some cheesy horror flick. “HELP!” I bellow, even though we’re in the middle of nowhere and I’m more likely to attract crocs than rescue.

I pull Zach onto our branch nest and put my arm around him, wondering what the hell I’m going to do. If I leave him
and go for help, I’ll only get myself more lost. And if by some miracle I find my way out of the forest, I doubt I could ever find my way back to Zach. Maybe we should try to walk out together, dark as it is. But what if we just go deeper into the swamp or stumble into another crocodile? Cold beads of sweat pop out on my forehead as I peer into the murky moonlight, where every gnarled tree looks like a monster.

Did something move?

A shape emerges from the darkness.

It steps toward us.

“Zombie,” whispers Zach.

I shiver.