Page 66 of Final Approach

She placed gentle fingers along my rib cage and a cool hand on my forehead. Her soft skin and softer words lulled me back to sleep.

When I awoke again, an hour or so later, she had moved her mat to my side, her body barely two inches from mine, smothering me with her body heat, her breasts slowly rising and falling in the depths of sleep. The smooth lines of her face were free of worry, the wave of dark hair over her cheeks; the supple, open part of her lips in wonder, before sleep took me back under.

When I woke with the sun a few hours later, she was gone.

Day 4 – After Crash

We were still here.

The cloud cover was lower today and the air swirled in thick, stifling pockets. A storm was coming, which meant rescue today was unlikely.

I’d taken Nikki aside when we’d arrived back to camp and handed him the gun without the story that came along with it. The knowing look and triumphant grin had only elicited a halfhearted punch, my cheeks the temperature of Mercury, but he didn’t question me further.

It hadn’t stopped him from snuggling into my back again when we lay down in our shared shelter. I awoke to another hard rod against my ass, and a massive cramp in my side before Ambrose had cried out in his sleep. Demons must have taken over my body because I’d dragged my mat to his and fell asleep beside him.

I started with the water duties as soon as a grinning Madman had roused me for first watch.

The heat between us hadn’t cooled a single degree, but neither of us acknowledged the previous day’s activities. I wasn’t embarrassed, but it was a distraction we couldn’t afford today. I only hoped no one else had noticed.

Another cloudburst had poured overnight, this time with a brilliant display of lightening, and I’d only just gotten the fire going again from the embers of some deep coals. It sizzled in front of me as I boiled our tenth batch of collected rainwater between two metal travel mugs, which would provide just enough rations for the day.

It was an agonizing process. The higher altitude caused water to boil faster, but not hot enough to kill viruses until it was half evaporated. It would be the worst luck in the world to survive a plane crash and a jaguar attack, only to die of hemorrhaging diarrhea from waterborne bacteria without the luxury of toilet paper.

I cautiously removed the bottle with two large sticks acting as tongs, and left it to cool. One 250-ml bottle per person.

I’d sweated that amount out alone in the last hour, but we could survive on one bottle of water.

For now.

Nikki had found a mango and a banana tree on the opposite side of our camp and filled two travel bags with semi-ripened fruit.

“Marley, can I talk to you for a minute?” Tessa’s nervous request broke through my thoughts. I looked up to see her normally jittery smile absent, a tearful frown in its place.

“Of course.” Careful not to knock over any of the jugs, I followed her to a private spot behind the shelters. “What’s up?”

“Nessie’s sick,” she blurted out, wringing her hands in front of her. “Like, really sick.” She bit her lip, hesitant. “She’s been pooping and puking all morning. Emergency room bad. I don’t know what to do.”

Fuck. The chunga palm. There was no doubt in my mind it caused her infection. We’d all eaten the same food, drunk the same water. That was the only outlier.

We had counted ourselves lucky no one had experienced any bad abdominal symptoms yet. I had nothing to treat them with—nothing in our kit or our packs. Or Charmin.

“You had ginger candies in your bag, right? For plane nausea?”

She nodded but looked around fretfully. “The madman”—she whispered the word—“took those a few days ago. I don’t know if there are any left.”

“If there are, I’ll get them,” I promised. “Grab a banana. It’ll help replace some electrolytes if she can keep it down. Go—check on her, and I’ll see what I can find.”

She nodded appreciatively, but it did nothing to staunch the hopelessness in her eyes. I needed to corner the candy fiend and get them back. It was a complete Band-Aid solution, but they could at least help with the puking. If a banana or two could maintain her potassium, Vanessa would buy herself another day.

The pooping—I had nothing that could help that.

My stomach twinged at the thought of a gastro bug spreading. Nausea and diarrhea. I was avoiding saying the words out loud, but it didn’t make them less true. Without a quick rescue, Vanessa would die.

“Madman,” I called, seeking him out among the trees. “I need to talk to you.”

Nikki was applying antibiotic ointment to Danny’s leg with the plastic glove from the first-aid kit, but walking by, I could see it was wasted effort.

Danny’s wound had ulcerated, leaving a foul-smelling crater the size and shape of a squashed football in the center of his thigh. He hadn’t touched his water or his fruit this morning, and the gray pallor of his skin was so pronounced he looked ghostly. He was going to need intravenous medicine at the very least, but an amputation looked more likely. My thigh scar pulsed with phantom pain the more I stared, remembering my own agony and infection.