The closer they got to
the forest the more ominous it looked: a seemingly impenetrable black barrier
between them and the mountains, an unbroken canopy of leaves casting a pall of
gloom on the sinister tangle of tree trunks below. It was much bigger than it
looked from afar. With only hours of precious daylight left this was a most
unwanted obstacle. Today was to be the final leg of their journey. They had
left their rocky refuge early in the morning to be sure of reaching the mountain
slopes before evening and it had been a long and gruelling journey, the worst
so far. Dutch and Righteous had spent a lot of their energy helping Sweet Mary
and Rose in turns. They even extended a helping hand to Officer Angelo at times
when he started flagging but he would have none of it. By this time they were
all pretty much pushed to their limits and hoping to have been there by now. The
mountains beckoned mockingly from above the jungle tops and seemed to slip
further away by the second as the sun began to sink behind them, reminding them
that the night was closing in, and with it the ice.
But worse was still to
come. The springy grass began to give way to soft marshy patches which looked
suspiciously like quicksand. Within minutes they had come to a dead end.
“Damn,” said Dutch. “We
have to turn around. Find another way.”
“Where are we going
now?” whined Sweet Mary in a delirium of exhaustion.
“Just do what I say,”
snapped Dutch. For a brief moment Dutch realized that she would never have
spoken like this to Rose, or to Officer Angelo, and the phrase ‘familiarity breeds
contempt’ came to mind.
“Please stop shouting at me,” said Sweet Mary.
“I’m not shouting. I’m
just……”
“Yes you are.”
“Well then you deserve
it because I’m sick and tired of your moaning. From now on you either do what I
say or die, the choice is yours. But will you for Jesus’ sake just SHUT UP AND STOP
MOANING!” Dutch shouted at her and stormed off ahead. She knew she shouldn’t
take it out on her but she couldn’t help herself. For Sweet Mary this was a
step too far. Angelo and Rose watched as Sweet Mary’s face went void and her
null-wave transmitter kicked in. But they had no time to dally. Dutch was
already way ahead.
“Righteous, you’re going
to have to carry Sweet Mary,” said Angelo and guided him to her.
“What’s wrong with her?”
said a concerned Rose as they set off at a trot.
“She has a null-wave
implant,” he explained.
“What’s that?” she
asked.
Angelo couldn’t believe
that she had never heard of them. But of course, she was a well-bred lady,
protected from all the real things in life. With as much tact as possible he
started to explain.
More than once they had
to double back from a dead end and find another route, all the time they were
painfully aware of the dying daylight. Finally they came to a stop on the edge
of a vast mangrove swamp. A boiling, bubbling morass of foul smelling mud and
slime that spelled out an unequivocal message. No Entry. It was a sight to
daunt the stoutest heart. Long forgotten nightmares crept in and out of the
darkness, writhing and twining in agony around the coiling, choking vines;
desperate trees twisting themselves out of shape, grasping for a means of
escape; beasts best forgotten danced like deathly shadows in the deep, begging
to be saved from such an infernal end, their mute voices strangled before they
could rise and cry for help. This jungle was no friend to man or monster.
Even if it was only a
hallucination, it was real enough for the small group of castaways. Their
belief made the effects of it palpable. They couldn’t go through, and they
couldn’t go back. The distance they still had to travel to safety of the
mountain slopes was formidable, and the night was closing in fast. All in all they
had travelled more than a hundred miles from one way-station to the next to get
here. And now the journey was over. It seemed like a cruel joke had been played
on them. But it was much worse than that. Dutch wasn’t speaking anymore. She
was bone weary from carrying everyone on her back. She seemed to have given up
and was wrapped in her own inner turmoil, the burden of defeat more than she
could bear. She just stood and stared at the swamp as if she had come face to
face with her nemesis.
The good news was that
Sweet Mary was alright again, being tended to by an overly attentive Rose, who had
cooed and stroked her back to the land of the living.
Angelo, stood
thoughtfully surveying the barrier in front of them.
“How far to the
mountains from here, you reckon? They look pretty close to me. What do you
think Dutch?” he asked optimistically, trying to engage her. But Dutch didn’t
answer. She was too busy hating the person she had become; a failure and a
bitch. And she didn’t know which hurt most. She had failed the group and she
had been unforgivably nasty to the person she loved most in the world. She felt
dangerous and untrustworthy. She just didn’t feel like living anymore.
“How long you reckon we got between sunset
when all this disappears, and the ice arriving?”
Once again Dutch was as
silent and sombre, but Angelo went on undeterred. “I’d say about half-an-hour
from what I can remember,” Sweet Mary and Rose were only half listening to him.
Everyone was too tired.
“I reckon once the sun
goes down and this jungle disappears we can make it to those mountains before
the ice gets us. All we have to do is wait for sunset.”
“What if this forest
isn’t a hallucination?” Now it was Rose’s turn to bite her tongue. She had
spoken without thinking and watched the concern begin to grow in Sweet Mary’s
eyes. “But I’m sure it is,” she said trying to correct her mistake. “All the
other trees and bushes were. And I’m sure we could make it through when this
disappears.”
They all turned to look
at the distant mountains with great misgivings in their hearts.
The sun was halfway down
now, but everyone studiously ignored the fact. What was coming next didn’t bear
thinking about. Another terrifying run from the ice was more than they could
stand. Sweet Mary sat cross-legged behind Righteous, plaiting his long locks
into a pony tail. She had to have something to do.
‘It was strange how he
had no facial hair though,’ thought Angelo. His own beard, much to his dislike
and discomfort, was black and bushy already, while Righteous’ chin was as
smooth as a baby. Dutch sat off to one side by herself, her unkempt dirty hair
wedged back behind her large ears.
‘We could all do with a
bit of a wash,’ thought Angelo. The bio-suits had long since stopped
functioning and everyone was beginning to smell rather pungent. Sweet Mary was
singing softly under her voice as she worked away at her plaiting. He liked
her. He liked them all. He was damned if he was going to lose them now.
Especially Rose. He’d never been in love before, except with his mother he
supposed, but that wasn’t the same thing. He felt ten feet tall with Rose
around, like nothing in the world could get him down.
He glanced at Dutch. He
had no idea what was going on with her. It was as if the jungle had possessed
her and defeated her already. He hoped she’d snap out of it soon.
“Nearly time to go,” he said, getting up and
stretching his aching muscles. “I think we should get ready.”
Without a murmur the
others followed his lead and came to stand obediently next to him, staring at
the forest. Everyone was on their best behaviour now because Dutch was so
silent. Something was wrong with her but no-one knew what. She still stood in
the same place, looking like a sleepwalker, and Sweet Mary, forgiving to the bitter
end, went and stood next to her and held her hand in an attempt to comfort her and
revive her spirits.
As it got darker they
began to discern an eerie green glow emanating from the trees. More
bioluminescence was lighting up the swamp like a witch’s cauldron. Far from
disappearing, the forest seemed to be gaining mass and substance. Angelo rubbed
his eyes to make sure it wasn’t just a trick of the light. He moved closer to
the edge and pushed his hand into the bubbling mud. With a cry of pain he
jumped back. Rose equalled his cry with one of concern and leapt to his side,
ready to minister to his wounded appendage.
“It’s boiling,” he said,
quite stupefied by the fact. “I don’t think this is a hallucination.”
Then the horrible
reality struck him in the face. They were doomed. The ice was already on its
way and their only choice seemed to be whether they were to be cooked or
frozen. This swamp was terribly real, probably a result of volcanic action from
a fault line below the surface, as real as the ice anyway. Angelo gathered his
wits and assessed the situation. With a swift glance at Sweet Mary, he tried to
keep his voice as light and cheerful as possible.
“Small change of plan.
We’re going to have to find somewhere safe to spend the night. Maybe a tree
that’s close enough to the edge for us to climb up into, or a fallen log or
something, anything that’ll keep us clear of the ice and the boiling mud. So I
want you to keep your eyes open.” Sweet
Mary just nodded her head stupidly. Thankfully the depth of their danger could
not penetrate her tiredness anymore. There was only so much a person could take
in.
“This way,” he waved
them to follow him. The ice would be coming from directly behind them so it
didn’t really matter which way they went. Angelo turned left and they all set
off after him in a stumbling sort of gait, Sweet Mary pulling Dutch along by
the arm. Progress was dreadfully slow.
After twenty minutes
they still hadn’t seen anywhere they could take shelter.
“Call out if you notice
anything that might do, anything that catches your eye. Anything at all,” said
Angelo. Rose and Sweet Mary looked around them, not quite sure what they were
looking for. It all just looked like the same mess of jungle.
Above their rasping
breaths Angelo could now hear the sound he’d been dreading. He glanced to the
left and there it was, a stripe of white across the horizon.
“Keep looking. There’s
got to be something.”
But there was nothing.
By now the ice was so close they could feel the cold on one side and the heat
on the other as they stumbled along the edge of the swamp, hissing on one side
and bubbling on the other. Angelo refused to give up. He was sure they would
find something. He’d been so confident. Surely God wouldn’t give him the love
of his life one day and take it away the next. He wasn’t a religious man, but
now he prayed fervently as he ran. He was going to be damned if he gave her up
so easily.
Ahead of them the ice
crashed into an outcropping of the swamp in a massive explosion of steam and
ice. They were trapped. There was nowhere else to go. They all stopped and
looked at the spectacle in awe.
“Damn,” swore Angelo
under his breath and desperately scoured the tangle of vines nearby. Then,
unbelievably, he saw it, camouflaged by the foliage, an outcrop of rock
reaching like a tongue into the seething swamp, an islet of land, thinly
connected to the shore and just big enough to hold the five of them.
“HERE!” he said, trying
to control the hysterical edge in his voice. “Here, follow me.” He led them to
the little spit of land surrounded by boiling mud.
“Dutch, you first, then
the rest.” But Dutch didn’t move. “Dutch, we gotta go now,” said Angelo. Still
Dutch stood her ground stubbornly, head downcast, her heels dug in.
“Righteous, you’re going
to have to carry her,” said Angelo and Righteous scooped Dutch effortlessly up
into his broad arms.
“Let’s go,” Angelo
chivvied them along. “Sweet Mary you help them.”
Sweet Mary grabbed
Righteous by the arm and guided him towards the little raft of rock that was to
be their refuge. But Dutch wasn’t going that easily. Just as Righteous stepped
onto the spit of land, Dutch suddenly sprang to life and elbowed Righteous in
the face. Then she twisted out of his grasp and tumbled down towards the
boiling mud.
