Scott Smith - The Ruins

The others took this in. Mathias shifted his body slightly, his face seeming to tighten. He knows, Jeff thought. But not the others. Eric just lay there; he might even have been asleep. Stacy cocked her head, gave Jeff a quizzical look.

"You mean, like, embalm her?"

Jeff decided to try another approach. "If you needed a kidney, if you were going to die without it, and then Amy died first, would you take hers?"

"Her kidney?" Stacy asked.

Jeff nodded.

"What does that-" And then, in mid-sentence, she got it. Jeff saw it happen, the knowledge take hold of her. She covered her mouth, as if sickened. "No, Jeff. No way."

"What?"

"You're saying-"

"Just answer the question, Stacy. If you needed a kidney, if you-"

"You know it's not the same."

"Because?"

"Because a kidney would mean an operation. It would be…" She shook her head, exasperated with him. Her voice had risen steadily as she spoke. "This…this is…" She threw up her hands in disgust.

Eric opened his eyes. He stared at Stacy with a puzzled expression. "What're we talking about?"

Stacy pointed toward Jeff. "He wants to…to…" She seemed incapable of saying it.

"We're talking about food, Eric." Jeff was struggling to keep his voice low, calm, to contrast it to Stacy's growing hysteria. "About whether or not we're going to starve here."

Eric absorbed this, no closer to comprehending. "What does that have to do with Amy's kidney?"

"Nothing!" Stacy said, almost shouting the word. "That's exactly the point."

"Would you take hers?" Jeff asked, and he waved toward Amy. "If you needed a kidney? If you were gonna die without it?"

"I guess." Eric shrugged. "Why not?"

"He's not talking about kidneys, Eric. He's talking about food. Understand? About eating her."

There was no more hiding from it now; the words had been spoken. There was a long silence as they all stared down at Amy's body. Stacy was the one who broke it finally, turning to Jeff. "You'd really do it?"

"People have. Castaways, and-"

"I'm asking if you would. If you could eat her . "

Jeff thought for a moment. "I don't know." It was the truth: he didn't.

Stacy looked appalled. "You don't know?"

He shook his head.

"How can you say that?"

"Because I don't know what it feels like to starve. I don't know what choices I'd make in the face of it. All I know is that if it's a possibility, if it's something we can even agree to conceive of, then we have to take certain steps now, right now, before much time passes."

"Steps."

Jeff nodded.

"Such as?"

"We'd have to figure out a way to preserve it."

" It? "

Jeff sighed. This was going exactly as he'd anticipated, a disaster. "What do you want me to say?"

"How about her ?"

Jeff felt a tug of anger at this, without warning, a righteous sort of fury, and he liked the sensation. It was reassuring; it made him feel he was doing the right thing after all. "You really think that's still her?" he asked. "You really think that has the slightest thing to do with Amy anymore? That's an object now, Stacy. An it . Something without movement, without life. Something we can either rationally choose to use to help us survive here, or-irrationally, sentimentally, stupidly-decide to let rot, let the vine eat into yet another pile of bones. That's a choice we have to make. Consciously-we have to decide what happens to this body. Because don't trick yourself: Flinching away from it, deciding not to think about it, that's a choice, too. You can see that, can't you?"

Stacy didn't answer. She wasn't looking at him.

"All I'm saying is, whatever our decision might be, let's make it with open eyes." Jeff knew that he should just let it go, that he'd already said too much, pushed too hard, but he'd come this far, and he couldn't stop himself. "In a purely physical sense, it's meat. That's what's lying there."

Stacy gave him a look of loathing. "What the fuck is the matter with you? Are you even upset? She's dead, Jeff. Understand? Dead . "

It took effort to keep his voice from rising to match her own, yet somehow he managed it. He wanted to reach forward, to touch her, but he knew that she'd recoil from him. He wanted both of them to calm down. "Do you honestly think Amy would care? Would you care if it were you?"

Stacy shook her head vehemently. Amy's mud-stained hat started to slide off, and she had to lift her hand to hold it in place. "That's not fair."

"Because?"

"You make it seem like it's a game. Like some sort of abstract thing we're talking about in a bar. But this is real. It's her body . And I'm not gonna-"

"How would you do it?" Eric asked.

Jeff turned toward him, relieved to have another voice involved. "‘Do it'?"

Eric was still lying on his back, his wounds seeping those tiny threads of blood. He kept pressing at his abdomen, probing-a new spot now. "Preserve the, you know, the…" Meat was the right word-there wasn't any other-but it was clear Eric couldn't bring himself to say it.

Jeff shrugged. "Cure it, I guess. Dry it."

Stacy leaned forward, openmouthed, as if she might vomit. "I'm going to be sick."

Jeff ignored her. "I think there's a way to salt it. Using urine. You cut the meat into strips and soak it in-"

Stacy covered her ears, started shaking her head again. "No, no, no, no…"

"Stacy-"

She began to chant: "I won't let you. I won't let you. I won't let you. I won't let you. I won't let you…"

Jeff fell silent. What choice did he have? Stacy kept chanting and shaking her head; her hat slid sideways, dropped to the dirt. Watching her, Jeff felt that weight again, that sense of resignation. It didn't matter, he supposed. Why shouldn't this be as good a place to die as any other? He lifted his hand, wiped at the sweat on his face. He could smell the orange peel on his fingers. He was hungry enough to feel the urge to lick them, but he resisted it.

Finally, Stacy stopped. There was a stretch of time then, where no one had anything to say. Eric kept probing at his chest. Mathias shifted his weight, the jug of water making a sloshing sound in his lap. Stacy was still holding Amy's hand. Jeff glanced toward Pablo. The Greek's eyes were open, and he was watching them, as if he'd somehow, despite everything, managed to sense that something important was being discussed. Looking at him, at his ravaged, motionless body, Jeff realized that the discussion didn't necessarily end here, that Amy's death almost certainly wasn't going to be the last. He pushed the thought aside.

They were all avoiding one another's gaze. Jeff knew no one else was going to speak, that he'd have to be the one, and he knew, too, that whatever he said would need to sound like a peace offering. He licked his lips; they were sun-cracked, swollen.

"Then I guess we should bury her," he said.

It didn't take long to realize that burying Amy wasn't a possibility. The day's rapidly growing heat alone would've ensured this. Even if it hadn't, there was still the problem of a shovel; all they had to dig with was a tent stake and a stone. So Jeff dragged one of the sleeping bags out of the tent, and they zipped Amy inside it. This involved a struggle of a different sort; Amy's corpse seemed intent upon resisting its enshrouding. Her limbs refused to cooperate-they kept snagging and tangling. Jeff and Mathias had to wrestle with her, both of them beginning to pant and sweat, before they finally managed to shove her into the bag.

Stacy made no attempt to help. She watched, feeling increasingly ill. She was hungover, of course; she was dizzy and bloated and achingly nauseous. And Amy was dead. Jeff had wanted to eat her body, so that the rest of them might, in turn, keep from dying, but Stacy had stopped him. She tried to feel some pleasure in her victory, yet it wouldn't come to her.