Scott Smith - The Ruins

"I washed myself," she said. "You should, too."

Eric didn't respond, didn't speak or move.

She stepped toward him, bending. "Eric?"

He grunted, shifted slightly.

"You okay?" she asked.

Again, he grunted.

Stacy hesitated, watching him through the dimness. The wind kept shaking the tent's walls. The nylon above her was leaking in a handful of different places, water plop -plop-plopping to the floor, forming slowly expanding puddles. She couldn't seem to stop shivering. "I have to get dressed," she said.

Eric just lay there.

Stacy stepped to the rear of the tent, crouched over the backpacks, dug through them until she found a skirt, a yellow blouse. She quickly rubbed herself dry with a T-shirt, then pulled the skirt and blouse on, naked underneath-she couldn't bear the thought of wearing a stranger's panties. The skirt was short, riding up her thighs; the blouse was tight. Whomever they'd once belonged to must've been even tinier than she was.

Stacy was feeling somewhat better-not good, exactly, but not quite as wretched as before. The humming in her head had nearly vanished. Her hunger, too, seemed to have diminished; she felt empty, husklike, but strangely serene within this. She was still shivering, and she thought briefly of climbing in under the sleeping bag with Eric, cuddling up against him, that heat radiating off his flesh. But then she remembered Mathias, out in the clearing, fighting to create some small measure of shelter for Pablo, and she crept back to the flap, peered into the gathering dark. The light was almost completely gone now. Mathias, only ten feet away from her, was little more than a shadow. He was sitting beside Pablo, in the mud, hunched beneath her sunshade. He'd managed to lower the lean-to, but it was hard to tell how much good it was doing the Greek.

"Mathias?" Stacy called.

He stared toward her through the downpour.

"Where's Jeff?" she asked.

Mathias glanced over his shoulder, as if he expected to find Jeff lurking somewhere in the clearing. Then he turned back to her, shook his head. He said something, but it was hard to decipher above the sound of the rain.

Stacy cupped her hands, called out, "Shouldn't he be back?"

Mathias rose to his feet, stepped toward her. The sunshade seemed more symbolic than practical: it wasn't really doing anything to block the rain. "What?" he said.

"Shouldn't Jeff be back?"

Mathias shifted his weight from foot to foot, thinking, the tops of his tennis shoes vanishing into the puddled earth, then reappearing, then vanishing again. "I guess I should go down and see."

"See?"

"What's keeping him."

Stacy's head started to hum again. She didn't want to be left alone up here with Eric and Pablo. She tried to think of something to say, a way to keep Mathias near the tent, but nothing came.

"Can you watch Pablo?" he asked.

She hesitated. She was clean and dry, and the idea of relinquishing these two tenuous comforts filled her with dread. "Maybe if we wait, he'll-"

"It's just going to get darker. I won't be able to see if I wait much longer." He held the sunshade toward her, and she reached to take it, extending her arm into the rain, goose bumps forming on her skin. Mathias dragged his hat off his head, wrung it out, put it back on. "I'll try to be quick," he said. "All right?"

Stacy nodded. She gathered her courage, ducked out though the tent flap. It was like stepping into a waterfall. She moved toward Pablo's lean-too, crouched beside it, trying not to see the Greek-his gaunt, mud-spattered face, his wet hair-too frightened to confront his misery, his suffering, knowing that there was nothing she could do to ease it. She held the sunshade above her head, pointlessly-it was just something for the wind to yank at. Mathias remained there for another moment, watching her, the rain pouring down upon them. Then he turned and strode off across the clearing, vanishing into the darkness.

Eric had curled into a ball, burrowing beneath the sleeping bag, trying to find some warmth. The rain was falling, and Stacy and Mathias were outside in it. The wind kept gusting, shaking the tent. Eric was exhausted, but he wasn't going to let himself sleep, not without someone watching over him. He was just going to shut his eyes, only for an instant, a handful of seconds, shut his eyes and breathe, resting, not sleeping. Then Stacy was back, quite suddenly, stooping over him, asking if he was okay. She was wet, she was naked, and she was dripping on him; the roof was also dripping. And Eric thought, I'm asleep, I'm dreaming. But he wasn't, or only half so. He was conscious of her in the tent with him, could hear her rummaging through the backpacks, patting herself dry, pulling on new clothes. He felt with his hand, searching out his wounds, worried that the vine might've attacked him while he'd lain there drowsing, but he discovered no sign of this. He ached-his entire body seemed to be throbbing. Even his fingertips felt bruised, the soles of his feet, his kneecaps-everything.

He heard voices and lifted his head. Stacy was standing by the tent flap, silhouetted there, talking to Mathias. Eric's eyes drifted shut once more, only for a moment it seemed, yet when he reopened them, he was alone. He checked his wounds again, thought about sitting up, but he couldn't find the strength for it. The rain was loud enough to make it hard for him to think; it sounded like applause.

He could feel himself sinking back into sleep, and he fought against it, struggling to surface. He was teaching, his first morning at his new job, but every time he tried to speak, the boys would start to clap, drowning out his voice. It was a game-somehow he understood this-yet he wasn't certain of the rules, knew only that he was losing, and that if this kept up, he'd be fired before the day was through. Oddly, he felt comforted by the prospect. Part of himself was still awake-he knew he was dreaming. And from this still-sentient sliver of consciousness, Eric could even manage to analyze the dream. He didn't want to be a teacher-this was what it was saying, that he hadn't ever wanted to be one, but could only admit it to himself now, trapped here, never to return. What , then? he thought, and the answer came in a way that made him understand this, too, was part of the dream-this self-appraisal-because what he realized he'd always wanted to be was a bartender in an old-fashioned saloon, not a real saloon, either, but a movie saloon, from a black-and-white Western, with swinging doors, a drunken poker game in the corner, gunslingers dueling in the street. He'd fill mugs with beer, slide them down the countertop. He'd have an Irish accent, would be John Wayne's best friend, Gary Cooper's-

"It's making it up. Okay? Eric? You know that, don't you?"

The tent was dark. Stacy was crouched above him again-wet, dripping-prodding at his arm. She seemed frightened, jittery with it. She kept glancing over her shoulder, toward the flap.

"It's not real," she said. "It didn't happen."

He had no idea what she was talking about, was still half-immersed in his dream, the boys clapping, the creak of the saloon doors swinging open. "What didn't?" he asked.

And then he heard, faintly, beneath the rain's downpour the words Kiss me, Mathias. Will you kiss me? It was a woman's voice, coming from the clearing. It's okay. I want to. It sounded like Stacy, but the voice was blurred slightly; it was her and not her all at once.

Stacy seemed to sense what he was thinking. "It's trying to pretend it's me. That I said that. But I didn't."

Hold me. Just hold me.

And then, what sounded like Mathias's voice: We shouldn't. What if he-

Shh. No one will hear.