Free The Ruins by Scott Smith

down the path into the
jungle.
       
    T he path was narrow enough so
that they were forced to walk single file. Jeff led the way, followed
by Mathias, then Amy, then Pablo, then Eric. Stacy was the last in
line.
     "But
her lover told the police," Eric said.
     Stacy
stared at the rear of his head. He was wearing a Boston Red Sox hat; he
had it on backward. She tried to imagine that this was his face she was
staring at, covered in brown hair, his eyes and mouth and nose hiding
behind it. She smiled at this hairy face. It was their game, she knew,
and she thought the words, So she fled to another city, but she didn't say them.
Amy had made fun of her enough times, mimicking her and Eric saying "So" and "But," that Stacy
didn't like playing the game in her presence anymore. She
didn't say anything, and Eric kept walking. Sometimes this
was just how it worked: you threw out a "So" or a "But" and the other person didn't
respond, and that was okay. That was part of the game, too, part of
their understanding.
     She
shouldn't have gone at the tequila so aggressively. That had
been a stupid idea. She'd been trying to show off, she
supposed, trying to impress Pablo with her drinking. Now she felt
light-headed, a little sick to her stomach. There was all this green
around her—too much, she felt—and that
didn't help things: thick leaves on either side, the trees
growing so close to the trail that it was hard not to touch them as she
walked. An occasional breeze pushed past her down the path, shifting
the leaves, making them whisper. Stacy tried to hear what they were
saying, tried to attach words to the sound, but her mind
wasn't working that way; she couldn't concentrate.
She was a little drunk, and there was far, far too much green. She
could feel the beginning of a headache—flexing itself, eager
for a chance to grow. And the green was underfoot, too, moss growing on
the trail, making it slippery in places. When the path dipped into a
tiny hollow, she almost fell on the slickness. She gave a squawk as she
caught her balance, and was dismayed to see that no one glanced back to
make sure she was safe. What if she'd fallen, hit her head,
been knocked unconscious? How long would it have taken them to realize
she was no longer following in their footsteps? They'd have
doubled back eventually, she supposed; they'd have found her,
revived her. But what if something had slipped out of the jungle and
taken her in its jaws before this happened? Because certainly there
were creatures in the jungle; Stacy could sense them as she walked,
watchful presences, noting her passage along the trail.
     She
didn't really believe any of this, of course. She liked
scaring herself, but in the way a child does, knowing the whole time
that it was only pretend. She hadn't noticed the boy riding
off on his bike, nor the fact that the path had been camouflaged. No
one was talking about any of this. It was too hot to talk; all they
could do was put one foot in front of the other. So the only threats
Stacy had with which to entertain herself were the ones she could think
up on her own.
     Why
had she worn sandals? That was stupid. Her feet were a mess now; there
was mud between her toes. It had felt nice, walking across the
field—warm and squishy and oddly reassuring, but it
wasn't like that anymore. Now it was just dirt, with a
vaguely fecal smell to it, as if she'd dipped her feet in
shit.
     Green
was the color of envy, of nausea. Stacy had been a Girl Scout;
she'd had to hike through her share of green woods, clad in
her green uniform. She still knew some songs from that time. She tried
to think of one, but her headache wouldn't let her.
     They
crossed a stream, jumping from rock to rock. The stream was green, too,
thick with algae. The rocks were even slipperier than the trail, but
she didn't fall in. She hopped, hopped, hopped, and then she
was on the other side.
     The
mosquitoes and the little black flies were so persistent, so numerous,
that