Armful after armful, Dylan pulled down the clammy moss and piled it next to the big screw tree. Hopefully the pile would allow him some protection. Feeling the chills coming on again and with darkness fully settled over the jungle, Dylan pulled off his boots, hung up his socks and crawled under the moss. The pungent wet smell threatened to suffocate him, but still Dylan gathered the musty green vegetation closer to his body to ward off the mosquitoes.
As he lay on the hard ground, nausea swept over his body again like a wave trying to drown him. The shivering returned, and a pounding headache made his head throb. Dylan felt hot and confused. His joints ached and he couldn’t sleep. For long hours into the night he suffered through hot flashes, shivers, and sweating. All the while, haunting new sounds echoed from the jungle, vicious and evil. High-pitched screaming, shrieking, and growling. Dylan was totally alone. Never in his life had he craved companionship so much. Even Quentin would have been great. Talking!
While chills and sweats wracked Dylan’s body, his teeth chattered until his jaw hurt. Maybe the diarrhea and throwing up were from eating the coconuts, but the chills and fever had to be something worse. Could they possibly be from malaria? If so, Dylan felt like the biggest fool in the world. Why hadn’t he taken the malaria pills? They were just little tiny white pills. It would have been no effort to swallow them. In fact, it had taken more effort to remove them from his mouth and throw them away.
During the long night, breathing became painful. Dylan took breaths carefully, as if sucking through a straw, so it wouldn’t hurt. Big beads of sweat stung his eyes. Each time the fever disappeared, chills returned and left Dylan exhausted and short-winded.
Finally, too tired to stay awake, he fell into a troubled sleep. His dreams became nightmares. He dreamed that everybody he had ever known in the world was in the bleachers of a gym laughing at him. Then he dreamed rats were fighting over the last bits of his body here in the jungle. That’s all he was good for, rat food! Before he woke up, he dreamed he was being eaten by cannibals. At least somebody could say something good about him. He tasted a little like chicken.
Dylan woke with fire burning his skin. He screamed and rolled over, opening his eyes. Where were the flames? The only light he found came from the dawn breaking dimly over the small clearing in the jungle. Clawing away the moss covering his body, Dylan rolled to his knees and discovered ants, hundreds of them, swarming over his body. The small red insects attacked him like bees. Dylan leaped to his feet. He ripped off every piece of clothing he wore and ran naked away from the moss pile, slapping and brushing at the infernal little monsters.
When he was finally free of ants, Dylan returned to the tree and examined his body. Dozens of tiny welts blistered his skin. He shook his clothes until the last ant fell to the ground, and then pulled on the damp rags. His soggy boots were still coated with muck. Dylan was preparing to pull on a boot when something moved inside. He knocked the boot against a log, and out fell a big scorpion.
“Cripes!” he muttered, examining the insides of both boots more carefully. Then, grunting with pain, he pried a foot into each boot. The idea of walking another day made him want to cry.
By the time he was ready to leave, dawn had brought a warm glow to the sky. At least the mosquitoes and other insects hadn’t started swarming yet. Dylan tried to think clearly, but even a simple thought proved difficult. He needed to find food of some kind today. And he needed to find something to drink. If he didn’t find food and water, he would die. He didn’t want to die. That thought kept repeating in his mind.
Small animal trails angled out of the clearing away from the screw tree. Dylan stood, trying to decide which one to follow. As he weighed his choices, he noticed a single human footprint close to the big tree on the side of a trail where rain had not washed it away. The small barefoot imprint looked to be that of a young child. If there had been a child here, this clearing couldn’t be that far from some kind of civilization. Dylan looked around the clearing, trying to guess which trail might have brought that footprint here. He picked what appeared to be the path most used and began walking.
Never in his life had Dylan hurt this much. Nausea churned his stomach, fever and chills swept through his body, blisters pained his feet, his rash from the diarrhea burned, and the leech bites looked puss-filled and swollen. And now the ant bites left little welts that stung.
Still, only one thing really mattered.
Food.
Dylan would have given anything for the canned and powdered food in his survival kit. Now the catfish, sago starch, and cooked rat didn’t seem so bad. He stumbled down the trail, searching for anything he could eat. The jungle had plenty of berries and plants and weird fruit-looking things hanging on the trees, but Allen had warned that many were poisonous. And yet, how ironic would it be if searchers found him starved to death, lying beside some plant that he could have eaten. The epitaph on his gravestone would read, “Here rests a boy who was too stupid to live!”
As Dylan plodded down the trail, the dense jungle thinned. By mid-morning he had broken out of the trees into a swamp, but this swamp looked different from the one they hiked past when they were leaving Balo. The sky had clouded over, but not with the angry churning clouds that brought the downpour yesterday. These clouds brought relief from the relentless sun.
Dylan collapsed on a log. His blisters bled and hurt so badly he had no choice but to remove his boots and carry them over his shoulder. Barefoot, he continued. It felt wonderful to take off the soggy anchors that had pained his feet, but now every step had to be careful and deliberate. This was hard in places where his feet sank into the muck up to his shins, or where the water rose above his waist. By mid-afternoon, Dylan still hadn’t found anything to eat. His body began to grow weak. He was a car running out of gas.
The swamp was quieter than the jungle, and Dylan tried shouting. His puny voice didn’t even echo. It sounded no louder than a cricket across the endless fields of swamp grass. At home, he had always thought he was so important, the center of attention one way or another — usually it was another. But here, he was insignificant, a pebble tossed into a huge ocean. This place didn’t care about him. He could die in this jungle and it would be no different than a rat dying. Realizing he was so small terrified him.
Looking around at the swampy marshland, Dylan puzzled. There had to be something to eat. Besides the mosquitoes, there were tons of other insects and bugs. Even as Dylan brushed a grasshopper from his pants leg, other grasshoppers bounced about, thick in the tall grasses. Dylan paused, struggling to recall a vague memory he had of somebody eating chocolate covered ants. Or was it grasshoppers? Ants wouldn’t be very filling but grasshoppers might be okay. Hesitantly, Dylan cupped his hand over a grasshopper and crushed it. Before chickening out, he stuffed the springy little bug into his mouth. The legs and shell crunched as he chewed, and a black ink squirted out from its tail. When Dylan wiped his lips, black fluid smeared the back of his hand.
It didn’t matter what the grasshopper tasted like, Dylan knew only that he needed to eat more or die. He would find out really quickly if these grasshoppers were poisonous. Dropping to his knees, he crawled through the marsh, grabbing frantically at the bouncing insects and stuffing the unlucky ones into his mouth as fast as he could. They kicked at his tongue as he chewed them.
Dylan captured and ate grasshoppers until his hands and knees bled from crawling around on the spongy, prickly ground. This satisfied his need for food, but where could he find water? He remembered one thing from school; the human body could live for a month without food, but only three days without water. Not having water would kill him, especially dehydrated as he was from sweating and diarrhea.
Thunder sounded overhead and a light breeze picked up. By now Dylan’s lips were swollen. When he opened his mouth, his lips cracked. It would have hurt terribly to smile. Besides, today there was nothing to smile about. Even as it began raining again, Dylan had no idea how he could collect the water that fell
. He tilted his head back and painfully opened his mouth, but only a few drops hit his tongue. Here he was with thousands of gallons of fresh water dumping from the sky and he could barely capture a single drop. Then an idea struck him.
Dylan pulled off his shirt and spread it out on top of the chest-tall grass, letting the muddy ripped material soak up the rain. In minutes, water dripped from the cloth. Dylan rolled up the wet shirt and held it up so that when he wrung it out, the water drained into his mouth. Brown water squeezed from the muddy shirt, but it worked. Again, Dylan stretched the ragged cloth out, and again he wrung the water into his mouth. Knowing that when the rain stopped, his water supply would end, Dylan kept drinking. Even after he felt full, he gulped and gulped more. Water was the single thing he needed most to stay alive.
As quickly as the light shower started, it ended. For the first time, Dylan knew he had done something smart. For once he had done the right thing, and he felt proud.
For a few brief minutes the mosquitoes had disappeared during the rain, but now they returned, along with swarms of other insects, some big enough to suck serious blood. Dylan kept walking, constantly waving the pests away from his face. He carefully picked each step as he slogged through the rotting and stinking swamp. There had to be a village somewhere.
Some places in the swamp, Dylan had to wade through water up to his chest. He inched forward, eyeing snakes that glided past. One was green, another brown. Two were bright orange. But what else was in the water? Were there water monsters waiting for Dylan’s next step? He watched for crocodiles, but were there flesh-eating bolkatas this far from the river? Dylan waded, swishing one hand in front to guard himself. What else was out there that he didn’t even know about?
Something big brushed against his leg, big enough to stir the water when it swam away. Dylan fought the urge to go crazy, splashing and convulsing and screaming in sheer panic. Instead he reached his foot forward hesitantly, consciously breathing slower. His heart beat like a drum in his chest.
Deliberately, Dylan waded into shallower water where the grasses grew.
Though reeds sliced at his arms and legs, he decided this was safer. By late afternoon, blood seeped from long cuts crisscrossing his body. His pants looked like shredded rags. Again Dylan risked wading into deeper water. He spotted more snakes, and angled toward a part of the bog where large stones dotted the surface.
Twenty feet from the stones, Dylan suddenly realized they had eyes. What he had thought were rounded rocks was actually a group of small crocodiles watching him, lying motionless, mostly submerged. Being in the same water with them really freaked Dylan out. It reminded him of the anti-aircraft fire Grandpa mentioned in his journal. When the shells exploded, the puff of black and the exploding bomb fragments were called flak. One of the journal entries had said that it was never the flak you saw that killed you — it was the flak you didn’t see. Maybe that was how it was with crocodiles and snakes, too.
Holding his breath, a lump clogging his throat, Dylan moved slowly away from the group of beady eyes. He didn’t know which was better, wading through smelly black water with snakes and crocodiles, stumbling through the wet marshland with grass reeds cutting him up like knives, or hiking deep in the jungle where nobody could see him twenty feet away? An extra-big green snake that swam past within feet of him made Dylan decide to find higher ground.
As he waded toward distant trees, a dull droning of an aircraft sounded far away. At first, Dylan ignored the faint sound, but slowly it grew louder and louder. Dylan stopped and searched the empty sky, waiting. No aircraft had flown anywhere close since he became lost. Now the droning became a roar. In a blinding flash, a blue and silver plane screamed past overhead, so low and fast that Dylan didn’t even have time to wave his arms or shout. As quickly, the droning of the engine faded.
Then it disappeared and silence returned.
Dylan stood all alone in the middle of the grassy swamp looking up, blinking back tears. The plane probably carried tourists from Wewak or Ambunti who were being shown the beautiful swamps and jungles of Papua New Guinea — the same beautiful place where a boy from Wisconsin was lost. The same beautiful place that was slowly killing Dylan Barstow. “Please come back,” Dylan cried out, his voice just one more insignificant animal sound in the great expanse of nothingness. He turned and kept wading toward the trees. Down here it wasn’t so beautiful.
The setting sun worried Dylan. He had been able to find food and water, but could he survive another night in the jungle? Or was he just postponing his death with everything he now did? Maybe he was going to die anyway in two or three days after a lot of wasted suffering. Maybe it would be better to just lie down here in the swamp and give up — let the snakes, crocodiles, and rats have a free lunch. Who said he only thought of himself!
But then Dylan thought of his grandfather. Uncle Todd had said that Grandpa had survived for two weeks in these jungles — and that was while wounded after crashing in a bomber. The very notion shamed Dylan and filled him with deep respect. He wouldn’t have lived even this long if Uncle Todd hadn’t made him run to get in shape. If Grandpa had survived for two weeks, Dylan knew he had to make it at least one more day. If he couldn’t, he deserved to die. Dylan clenched his teeth. He wasn’t ready to die yet.
He struggled to concentrate as random images bombarded his mind: the old waist gunner from the nursing home, the VFW marching past in the parade, the police car waiting for him to quit spinning circles in the junkyard, shoplifting, all the trips to the principal’s office, the many fights he had picked, arguing with his mom, drifting Uncle Todd’s Corvette. Everything seemed to be part of some big pattern. Dylan’s thoughts became clouded and confused as he walked.
Dylan slogged through the swamp toward the trees. He needed to find dry ground where he could spend the night again. Still he watched for snakes and crocodiles. The air reeked of rotting undergrowth. All day he had seen birds, rats, possums, and other animals to eat, but no way to catch them. The only critters Dylan could approach were snakes and crocodiles. He knew the snakes might be poisonous, and there was no way he was going to try to catch a crocodile, even a small one.
Before leaving the tall grasses, Dylan ate a few more grasshoppers, and then deliberately headed for a root-tangled path entering the jungle. Soon, the thick, matted screen of overhead vines and leaves muted any fading sunlight that made it through the clouds. For the next hour, Dylan stumbled along a trail, no longer looking down to pick his footing. He had to find some kind of refuge before dark, a place where he could be out in the open but on higher ground. He needed a space where he could lie down and still see wild animals approaching. Hopefully a place with fewer insects.
As the light faded, a brief shower of rain fell. Only a few drops penetrated the dense canopy. Suddenly a sharp pain stabbed Dylan’s ankle. He glanced down in time to see a dark brown snake recoil and slither across the trail and into the undergrowth. “Ouch,” he muttered, crouching. He pulled up his right pant leg to find four small puncture wounds where the snake had sunk its fangs.
Without thinking, Dylan panicked and began running down the trail. But even as he ran, he realized it was probably the dumbest thing he could do after a snake bite. Still he kept running. If he stopped, he would just die here on some muddy overgrown trail in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. By morning, rats would have picked his bones clean. By next week, other critters would have his bones scattered through the forest like twigs and branches. The world would never even know what had happened to Dylan Barstow.
Dylan ran faster. He had to find protection or help.
Overhead the light had faded into darkness. Now the only light came from a hazy moon hanging in the sky like a dim lightbulb. At that very instant, Dylan broke into a clearing similar to the one where he had slept the night before. He walked out away from the darkness of the trees into the moonlight and froze in shock. Ahead were rocks, and next to the rocks stood a tall spiral tree that looked like a big screw. This was
the same place he had left early this morning. Without a compass, he had walked all day in a huge circle, only to end up back where he had begun.
Dylan blinked his eyes, as if doing so might make the stupid tree disappear. He shook his head as a wave of despair washed over him, worse than any chill or fever. Dylan screamed, desperate and primal, his voice piercing the hush that had fallen over the clearing. As he finished, tears started down his cheeks, stopping to rest each time he hiccupped with grief. And then a different spasm flooded through his body, and his knees buckled. Dylan collapsed to the ground. The jungle spun in circles. He felt suddenly stiff and cold, as if his body were freezing in a blizzard.
And then there was nothing.
When Dylan lost consciousness, time disappeared. He remembered little of that night. His body jerked and sweated and shook with chills. His dreams became violent nightmares with terrible ghoulish creatures skulking around his body with toothy snarls and hungry yellow eyes. Other sounds were evil: shrieking, barking, and hissing. When Dylan tried to open his eyes, shadows hunkered over him. He dug his fingers into the soil to try and cling to sanity.
He never knew when night became day. He woke to the feeling of something eating his leg. He jerked and sat up. Nothing made sense. He expected a monster, or maybe a wild pig or rat. Instead he found a small girl wearing only a grass skirt and a T-shirt. She backed away from him when she saw him become conscious. Her curious eyes showed no fear. She was short and stocky, with brown skin, curly hair, skinny legs, and a small potbelly. Her weathered bare feet were rough and worn like leather. Blood smeared her cheeks and lips. Deliriously, Dylan thought of a child eating a big ice-cream cone. An ice-cream cone made of Dylan’s blood.
He looked down at his leg and found the skin ripped from the girl biting on his ankle. Blood was everywhere, even in the grass. “Get away from me!” he shouted. “You cannibal!”