Episode Two
It dripped from her fingers, spattering the floor in a macabre mosaic of red. It stained the skin of her cheeks and the golden color of her hair, her clothes soaked through with it, rivers of red pooling about her feet as she stood there, staring out from hollow eyes.
“What happened?” Gael asked, grabbing her arm as if to shake her.
She turned her eyes to him, jaw working silently as she struggled to speak.
“The cartel,” the words came at last, filling the thick silence. “We were on a tour and they ambushed us… I think they’re all dead…oh god, Jorge…” The words wrenched from her lips in a sob and she collapsed in a heap, head in her hands.
“Where are they now?” Gael pressed, crouching next to her. “The cartel. Where did they go?”
“It all happened so fast,” she whispered, clutching her hands to her chest. “They shot out the tires. We drove into the ditch and hit a tree. The engine caught fire. Then they shot into the side of the bus. Jorge, he…” she swallowed, tears trailing a path through the blood on her face. “He got hit in the leg. There was screaming and crying, and then they came…they came on the bus and rounded us up like cattle, dragging us out into the street by our hair. The leader pulled out a knife and forced us to our knees.”
A moan escaped her then, and she wrapped her arms around her torso in a hug. “He slit their throats,” she croaked again, breath coming in ragged gasps. “Oh, Jorge…”
“Where are they now?” Gael asked again, this time more insistent.
“I don’t know,” she shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Gael turned to the driver and said something quick in Spanish, then turned back to the rest of us.
“Stay here, and stay calm,” he said. “I’ll go figure out what’s happened.”
For a moment, there was nothing but the crackling hiss of flames and the muffled cries of the sobbing woman. But as the seconds passed, I heard Gael’s voice from somewhere beyond the bus. Creeping forward on cramped knees, I strained toward the still-open door, trying to hear what he said.
“Rhett!” Val hissed, trying to get my attention. “Rhett, please don’t go! Stay here with us.”
Sucking in a deep breath, I peered over the edge of the dashboard and through the window beyond. What awaited was a gut-wrenching scene. Bodies littered the road, the earth around them dyed red with their blood. Great pools of it congealed and coalesced into a river, one still crawling down the road’s gentle slope. Men in dark clothing patrolled the edges of the street, guns aloft in their arms as they stalked their routes in a steady rhythm. But most haunting of all was the sight of Gael there in the middle of the road, forced to his knees with the muzzle of a gun pressed against his forehead.
Gael was stoic in the face of danger, his face an impassive mask. His lips moved quickly, though what he said I’d never know. He seemed to be pleading his case, his hands gesturing toward the bus over and over again. I tried to ignore the way the sight of him made my heart race and my insides squirm, tried to forget about the rushing sound of blood in my ears. I breathed a small sigh of relief when the man in black dropped the gun from Gael’s face, swinging it back over his shoulder in an effortless motion. Gael started to rise to his feet. He would never make it there.
In a flash, the man in black pulled a machete from his belt. Years later I could still recall with perfect clarity the arc of the blade and the way it glimmered in the sunlight before it tore through the flesh of Gael’s neck. Blood spurted across silver, a flood of color against the knife’s shining surface.
I didn’t wait for Gael’s body to hit the ground. I shut my eyes tight, turning away to face my family. They waited at the back of the bus, staring in confusion and fear. Swallowing back the bile and horror, I waved them forward.
“We need to get off this bus right now,” I urged, glancing back out the window. My eyes skittered over Gael’s lifeless body, now slumped over in a strange heap. There were four men in black, from what I could see. Two were still patrolling, their attentions pointed north and south of the road. The other two men, including the one that executed Gael, were huddled together in discussion.
“We only have a minute or two,” I said, making my way back toward Val and the girls. Grabbing my bag, I slung it over my shoulders.
“Rhett, what’s going on?” Val’s fingers clutched at my arm, nails digging through the skin.
“Not now, Val,” I said with a shake of my head. “You don’t want to know. You just have to trust me. We need to leave. Now.”
“But we don’t know where we are,” she argued. “How will we get back to the resort?”
“It doesn’t matter right now.”
“How could it not matter?” she asked, her voice high and reedy. “That’s all that matters.”
“What matters is getting out of here alive,” I snapped, grabbing her hand. “Meadow, Adaline, Hannah, grab Val’s hand and make a chain and for the love of god do not let go. Understand?”
Panicked eyes stared back at me, but their nods were swift and sure.
“Good,” I nodded. “Let’s go.”
At the end of the aisle, I reached for the bloody woman. “What’s your name?” I asked, gripping her wrist as she rocked back and forth.
“L-Lissa,” she answered between broken sobs.
“Lissa, I’m Rhett. We’re leaving, and you should too. You’re welcome to come with us.”
“No,” she said, wiping at he r eyes with her free hand. “Not without Jorge.”
“Jorge?”
“My husband,” she sobbed. “He’s still out there.”
“Is he alive?”
She stared at me then, hatred and grief and sorrow in her eyes. “Let me go.”
I wanted to fight. I wanted to argue with her and force her from the bus behind us. But I didn’t. We didn’t have time to spare arguing with her. And, I had to acknowledge in some dark part of my heart, that she had the right to choose to join her husband if that was what she wanted. Even if that meant she might die.
My fingers relaxed, and she pulled her wrist free, scrambling off of her knees.
“Good luck,” I whispered. For a moment, the ghost of a smile lingered on her lips. Then she was gone.
I waited for a heartbeat before slipping out the door. Shouts rose as Lissa appeared on the road, pleading and screaming with her arms raised high. I caught a glimpse of her being forced to her knees, the executioner in black reaching for his belt.
“Run,” I said, pulling hard. “Run!”
We raced for the trees, feet stumbling on uneven ground as we ran. The treeline was close, its shadows welcoming amidst the gunfire behind us. A bullet lodged itself in the earth near my feet, a spray of dirt washing my ankles as Valerie screamed. I pulled her on behind me, ignoring everything but the ocean of green ahead. It was only a few short steps away, yet it felt like the divide widened with each step we took. The trees loomed before us, stoic and silent, leaves shivering in the breeze. It seemed as though we would never reach them, as if we were destined to live in their shade, always dreaming but never knowing the safety of their canopy. It was as if they mocked us, their sightless faces placid and impassive as they watched our vain attempt to cheat death.
And then we were crashing through the underbrush, thin, ropey vines tangling at our legs, whiplike branches reaching out to cut the skin of our cheeks. More gunshots cracked behind us, but the forest was dense, and within minutes of passing the treeline we were hidden from the road. I pushed us ahead, heart hammering against my ribs, mouth ashy and dry. We drove hard into the trees, not stopping even when the screams of the gunshots quieted, and silence descended in their wake.
It was mid-afternoon, but there in the safety of the trees, black shadows danced all around us. I didn’t know where we were going. All I knew was that we needed to get away from the road. It wasn’t until I felt Valerie’s tug on my arm that I slowed.
“Rhett, stop,” she said, voice breaking. “We need to stop.”
It was easy to run through the brush with adrenaline pumping through my veins. My body felt light, unburdened by the miles I had already walked and the acrid air that stained my lungs. But as we slowed to a halt, and the adrenaline faded, exhaustion filled the empty spaces it left behind. Dropping to the ground, I rested my head against the coarse bark of a nearby tree.
“Dad, what was that?”
For the first time, I noticed the wetness on Meadow’s cheeks, lips quivering as she spoke. She wiped at the tears that continued to fall, sidling closer on bruised and dirtied knees.
Her tears weren’t the only ones. Adaline and Hannah clung to Valerie, faces stricken with fear. Wrapping an arm around Meadow’s shoulders, I pulled her close against me.
“What you saw back there,” I began, throat hoarse with unshed emotion, “was one of the worst things a person can see, and I’m so, so sorry you had to see it.”
“Who were they?” Adaline asked, dabbing at her eyes. “The men in black.”
“I don’t know for sure,” I said. “Lissa said it was the cartel.”
“Jesus, Rhett,” Valerie breathed. “What are we going to do?”
As if to punctuate the thought, two sharp rounds of gunfire rang out. They were closer than I cared to admit, and the knowledge that the cartel wasn’t far behind left me cold.
“We run,” I replied, mouth set in a grim line. “And we don’t look back.”
It was well into the night before the guns fell silent. By then, darkness had swarmed the land, shadows filling every crag and crevice of the forest, leaving us scrabbling and reaching to find a way through the brush. At last, we stopped, our bodies too tired, our hearts too broken to continue any longer. Collapsing into a dense thicket, I braced my back against a tree, groaning as the bark bit into my back.
The sounds of night lingered around us; the gentle whisper of crickets and the quiet trill of night birds, the soft wind sighing through the leaves. And there, beneath it all, was the whisper of children weeping. I sat there for a time, staring with unseeing eyes into the darkness. I couldn’t comprehend the things I’d seen, couldn’t cope with the horrors that waited in my dreams. There was a numbness that comforted me in those early hours of the night, a numbness that stilled the frantic beating of my heart and wrapped its tender arms around me, cradling me and lulling me into a strange sense of safety. I clung to that apathy like it was a lifeline. Maybe in that moment, it was. All I knew was that one day, the numbness would dissipate, and when it did, the wounds I’d suffered today would open and bleed me dry.
Valerie moved close, nestling her face into the crook of my neck. She was silent and still, her body rigid against mine. If not for the wetness that peppered my skin, I might have thought her sleeping. Wrapping my arms about her, I held her close. I breathed deeply of her then, the smell of linen and vanilla grounding me to the earth. We didn’t have any answers, but at least we had each other. I let that thought comfort me to the edges of sleep, where I remained until exhaustion pulled me into a world of restless slumber.
In the faint light of morning, the forest had an eerie sort of charm. Shadows moved in the deep, flickers of black dancing from one tree to the next. I wondered briefly if they were the ghosts of men, watching and waiting for us to make our first move. But as Valerie and the girls rustled awake, and the pale light of morning spread across the ground, the specters dissolved into the grass, never to be seen again.
“How did you girls sleep?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. My heart ached with the things I had seen, my soul bruised and sore when my mind skimmed the surface of those memories. I didn’t want my daughter to feel the things that I felt, didn’t want her to know this kind of pain. I wanted to spare her from the brunt of it, to take it on myself. I would let it destroy me if it meant saving her. But, in the end, there was nothing I could do.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Adaline said, rubbing her eyes. They were red and glassy, the hollows beneath bruised purple with exhaustion.
“I agree,” Meadow said. “I don’t ever want to think about it again.”
“Maybe we should talk about what we’re going to do,” I whispered to Val, reaching out to brush the auburn hair from her cheeks.
“I feel so lost, Rhett,” she said, her voice hoarse. “All I want is to go home.”
“I know,” I nodded, pulling her close. “I want that too.”
“I think we should head back for the road,” Hannah suggested. “Then maybe we can flag someone down and get some help.”
“I don’t want to go back there,” Adaline said, shaking her head. Her face paled visibly at the thought. “I never want to see that fucking road again.”
“I think Adaline might be right,” I agreed. “We can’t take the risk that the cartel is still there. And we can’t risk getting too close to the treeline to find out. If they see us…” I didn’t want to think about what would happen.
“Where do we go, then?” Val asked, grabbing her bag and tugging at the zipper. She fished around inside, pulling out a few granola bars and some trail mix. “Don’t eat too much. Who knows how long this will have to last us.”
“I really regret not taking advantage of the breakfast buffet yesterday,” Adaline murmured, unwrapping her bar and stuffing half of it into her mouth.
“Do you think they’re still following us?” Meadow’s voice was quiet as she contemplated her breakfast, fingers fiddling with the corner of the packaging.
I glanced at Val, heart twisting painfully at her words. I could see the same pain in Valerie’s eyes, their usual amber hue darkening with it.
“I hope not,” I said, reaching across to cup Meadow’s cheek in my hand. “But I promise we’re not going to let anything bad happen to you. To any of you.”
“I say we head for the cenote,” Val said. “We were already headed in that direction before, and Gael said it wasn’t far. Worst case, it takes us out of cartel territory, and we can hit the road without fear of being seen. Best case, we run into another tour group, and they take us home.”
It was the most solid plan we had. Gathering up our few belongings, we turned our attention to navigating the brush around us. It was thick, great leaves and vines blocking our path at every turn. We worked together to rip the plants apart, leaving a space wide enough for us to file through one by one. But even with a concentrated effort, it was slow going. Every now and then the echo of gunshots could be heard in the distance, and that more than anything spurred us on. We worked through the morning and into the afternoon, resting only briefly here and there to catch our breath and sip the last bits of water left in our bags.
Minutes wore into hours and on we walked, slowing only when the sun cast the reddish rays of rust and vermillion, painting the sky in a bloody scene.
“We have to be close,” Val said for the third time. “Maybe we should start making our way back to the road. I’m sure we’re far enough now that the cartel won’t find us.”
There was a chorus of agreement, and even I didn’t have enough fight left in me to argue. It was impossible to tell just how far we had come from where we first entered the forest. All we could do was hope, and pray, and make the best decisions we could with the information at hand. So, with the rest of the group adamant about a return to civilization, we turned course and headed back in the direction of the road.
But, as luck would have it, we didn’t have to wander long.
The black curtains of night pulled close, and with them came a bone-withering chill. It slipped through the folds of my clothes, fingers of cold caressing my skin as I stepped beyond a thicket of trees and into a small clearing. Pinpricks of stars twinkled above, the swollen belly of the moon splashing a grim pallor across the rocky crags that marred the earth ahead. The clearing was little more than a pile of tapered rocks with a narrow black split through the middle, yet the pale light that filtered down through the trees made it seem inviting somehow.
“We should rest here,” I said, crossing the clearing in several steps and propping my bag against the rocks. “At least we’ll have light to see by.”
“Won’t that make it easier for others to see us, too?” Meadow asked, already dropping to her knees amidst the grass.
“Probably,” I admitted. “But we haven’t heard any gunshots since this morning. If they’re still out here looking for us, which I don’t believe they are, they haven’t caught onto our trail yet.”
“I don’t care either way,” Adaline said, climbing the rock pile. “My feet and back hurt so bad all I can think about is taking a nice, long break.”
But as she sat at the edge of the split in the rocks, peering down into the black maw of the earth, she swore.
“Holy shit! There’s something down there.”
Val was the first to her. She pulled Adaline from the edge and glanced inside. “She’s right. There’s a little pool of water down there.”
“How far?” Meadow asked.
“Six, maybe seven feet?” she guessed. “It’s hard to tell in this light.”
“I would kill for some cold water,” Hannah said with a sigh. “I finished the last of my bottle hours ago and I am parched.”
“Val, do you think it’s worth it to explore?” I asked, opening my bag. My fingers rummaged in the darkness, struggling to identify each item inside. When they brushed against metal teeth, I grinned.
“Maybe,” she said, though she looked doubtful. “I’d feel more comfortable if we could see better.”
“Well,” I said, groaning as I stood. “I think I can help with that.”
Keys jingled from the ring in my hand, and next to them was a slim emergency flashlight. The button’s click echoed against the trees, and a brilliant beam of yellow light flooded the ground.
“You’ve had a flashlight this whole time?” Meadow snapped.
“Sorry, Mr. Mayes, but that’s some weak shit,” Adaline said with a shake of her head.
I ignored the sting of their words, focusing the light on the crag in the rocks. Peering down through the opening, the beam of light skimmed the bottom of the cavern. There was a small, rocky shore, and beyond it a rather large pool of water.
“It can’t be more than eight feet from top to bottom,” I said, hazarding a guess. “But it looks big enough for all of us to sleep in.”
“Wait, wait,” Valerie said, holding her hands up before her as if to ward off an attack. “You want to spend the night down there?”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” she spluttered, brow furrowing. “Doesn’t that just seem…wrong, somehow?”
“Mom, please,” Meadow said. “We’ve been running for two days now. We’re tired and thirsty, and honestly, we all kind of stink. My whole body hurts. All I want is to soak my body in some cold water, drink until I throw up, and sleep someplace where I don’t feel like my throat will be cut open in the middle of the night. Okay?”
Even from a distance, I could see the gleaming tears on her face. Valerie stared at our daughter, her face softening.
“Okay,” she said at last. “Fine. Rhett, you go scope it out. If daddy says it’s safe, we’ll stay in there tonight.”
Without another word, I stuffed the flashlight into my mouth and began the arduous process of wriggling my legs through the opening. It took some doing, shimmying through the sharp, jutting stone. More than once my foot snagged on some unseen bit of rock, but I couldn’t let that deter me. Lowering my body slowly, my fingers held tight to the small handhold just outside of the opening, until everything but my hands was submerged in the cave. I opened my mouth then, letting the flashlight fall to the ground. The keys clanked together as they landed, but the light that flickered against the stone was enough to guide my fall.
Sucking in a deep breath, I steadied myself for what was to come. There were still several feet between the tips of my toes and the stone floor of the cave, and as I released my grip on the rocks above, I tried to prepare myself for the inevitable impact.
My feet hit hard, needle-like pricks stretching up my calves as my legs crumpled and sent me sprawling. Skin scraped against stone, shallow cuts adorning my arms and palms as I braced myself from the fall. I groaned as I lay there, rolling onto my back to stare up at the sky.
“Are you okay?” Val’s voice echoed around me, and moments later her head popped into view.
“Yes,” I said with an inelegant grunt. “But it turns out I’m not as graceful as I used to be.”
—
“Oh, honey,” Val said, the whisper of amusement in her voice, “you were never graceful.”
Stooping to grab the flashlight, I waved the golden beam about the cave. It was deceptively large. The water stretched far beyond the sight of the opening, past a series of hanging stalactites that drooped to touch the water like hundreds of rigid fingers. The cave walls narrowed just beyond them, disappearing into darkness, but from what I could see everything seemed safe and sound.
“There’s more than enough room,” I called to them. “It’s not far. Meadow, you come down first and I’ll catch you.”
Positioning myself beneath the split in the rocks above, I waited for her feet to appear. Moments later she dropped into the waiting circle of my arms, laughter on her lips.
“That was kind of fun,” she said with a grin. “Can we do it again?”
“Maybe some other time, kiddo. Val, send down the next one.”
I could tell by the knobby knees and oversized shoes that Hannah was next. I reached for her middle, grabbing her easily and helping her down, then did the same for Adaline. Valerie was the last to drop through the crag, landing with a grunt even with my assistance.
“Okay, this is amazing,” Adaline breathed, dropping down to sit next to the water. Her fingers reached out to touch the glassy surface, and she smiled.
Despite the scrapes and bruises I’d endured to get here, I was grateful. Seeing their smiles lifted my heart, if only for a moment, and I relished the idea of cool water against my tired, aching muscles. Stripping down to my underwear, I wasted no time lowering myself into the water. The cold was soothing, a gentle balm to the burning aches that plagued every muscle and every bone in my body.
That night, we drank until our bellies were full and our hearts content. We filled our tumblers with more water when we could drink no more, and we languished in the pool, our bodies finally able to relax after two hellish days.
It wasn’t the way I imagined our vacation would be, but that night there was a levity we all felt, a lightness and appreciation we’d never had before. I didn’t know where morning would take us, or how we were going to get home. But I did know one thing for sure.
Come hell or high water, I was going to get us out of that forest. And when I did, we’d be able to put this nightmare behind us at last.