The Ruins

They needed it to rain. That was the first thing, the most crucial. Without water, they weren't going to last much longer than Pablo.

And then there was the question of food. They had the small amount they'd brought with them-snacks, really-which might, through aggressive rationing, sustain them for two or three more days. But after that?

Nothing. Fasting. Starving.

Eric was in trouble, Jeff knew. The cutting, the pacing, the muttering-bad signs, all of them. And his wounds would become infected soon; there was no way Jeff could think of to prevent this. Time, once more, would come into play here. Gangrene, septicemia-they'd be slower than thirst, probably, but far faster than starving.

Jeff didn't think about the vines-didn't want to, wouldn't have known how to. They moved, made sounds; they thought and pla

He sat. He watched the Mayans watching him. He waited for the Greeks to arrive, believing even as he did so that this wasn't going to happen. He thought about water and food and Pablo and Eric. When clouds began to build to the south, he peered toward them, willing them to grow, to darken, to drift ever northward. Rain. They would have to gather it. They hadn't spoken of this. He ought to have made some plan with the others, left directions for them to follow, but he was tired, had too much to think about; he'd forgotten. He rose to his feet now, stared back up the trail. Why wasn't someone coming to relieve him? This, too, they should've spoken of, should've pla

The clouds continued to build. There was that plastic toolbox from the blue tent. They could empty it, use it to collect some of the rain. There had to be other things they could adapt for this purpose, too, but he needed to be up on the hilltop to think of them, needed to see what was available.

He paced. He sat again. He watched the Mayans, the clouds, the trail behind him. The Mayans stared back, mute and impassive. The clouds continued to build. The trail behind him remained empty. Jeff stood and stretched, then paced some more. The sky had clouded over completely now; rain was imminent, he could tell, and he was just begi

It was Mathias.

Something was wrong; Jeff could see this just in the way Mathias moved. There was a taut quality to his walk; he was hurrying and holding himself back all at once. His face retained its usual expression of guardedness, but with a slight shift to it, almost indiscernible. It was the eyes, Jeff thought: a sense of wariness in them, even alarm. He stopped a few yards short of Jeff, out of breath.

"What is it?" Jeff asked.

Mathias waved behind him, up the hill. "You didn't hear?"

"Hear what?"

"They were talking."

"Who?"

"The vines."

Jeff stared at him-not disbelieving, exactly, but too startled to speak.

"Mimicking us," Mathias said. "Stacy and Amy and Eric-mimicking their voices."

Jeff considered this. He didn't believe it was enough to explain Mathias's agitation; there had to be something more. "Saying what?" he asked.

"I fell asleep, in the tent. And when I woke up…" Mathias trailed off, as if uncertain how to proceed. Then, finally: "They were fighting."

"Fighting?"

"The girls. Shouting things at each other."

"Oh Christ." Jeff sighed.

"They've been drinking. The tequila. Quite a bit, I think."

"All of them?"

Mathias nodded.

"They're drunk?"

Again, Mathias nodded. "They called me a Nazi."

"What?"

"The vines. Or Eric, I guess. It was his voice, but the vines were shouting it."

Jeff watched him. This was it, he realized; this was what had upset him. And why not? He had to feel alone here among them-he hardly knew them. He was an outsider, easily scapegoated. Jeff struggled to reassure him. "It was a joke, I'm sure. Eric, you know-that's what he's like."

Mathias remained silent, neither confirming nor denying this.

"I should get up there," Jeff said. "You'll watch for the Greeks?"

Mathias nodded.

Jeff started to leave, then caught himself. "What about Pablo?"

Mathias made a vague gesture, throwing out his hand. "The same," he said. "Not good."

With that, Jeff started quickly up the hill, ru

"What the fuck are you doing?" he said, and they all turned to stare at him, startled by his presence there, the fury in his voice.

Pablo was vomiting, though that seemed the wrong word for it. Vomiting implied something dynamic and forceful; what Pablo was doing was much more passive. His head rolled to the side, his mouth opened, and a stream of black liquid spilled out. Blood, bile-it was hard to tell what it was. There was too much of it, though, more than Jeff would've thought possible. Black liquid with thicker skeins ru

"He was hungry," Amy said. Jeff could hear in her voice how drunk she was, the threat of a slur haunting each of her words. In her left hand, she was clenching the plastic bag that had once held their supply of grapes; there were three left now. The nearly empty tequila bottle was lying in the dirt beside Stacy. Eric was pressing a bloody T-shirt to his side.

Jeff felt his rage begin to expand inside his body, filling him, pressing outward against his skin, as if searching for an exit. "You're drunk. Aren't you?"

Amy looked away. Pablo had stopped vomiting; his eyes were shut now.

"All of you," Jeff persisted, surprising himself by how quiet he was managing to keep his voice. "Am I right?"

"I'm not," Eric said.

Jeff turned on him, almost lunging. Stop, he thought. Don't. But it was too late; he'd already begun to speak, his voice rising with each successive word, coming faster, harder, propelled by his anger. "You're not drunk?"

Eric shook his head, but it didn't matter, because Jeff hardly noticed the gesture. He hadn't paused for a response; no, he just kept talking, knowing he was handling this in the worst possible ma