Chapter Eight

She wasn't sure how long they had been walking. Awareness was slowly creeping its way back into her mind and body, try though she might to keep it away. The foreign sound of her father's violin faded from her mind, leaving it open and vulnerable to the predicament at hand. Then, she began to feel again.

The twine that bound her wrists behind her back chaffed her skin. She tested her bonds quickly, wincing when they bit. No escaping that way, then.

Though the group traveled in the looming shade of the canopy, her face was still dripping with sweat from the combined forces of the humidity and her exertions—their captors were small, yes, but they traversed the forest floor quickly. She looked to her left at one of the men that flanked her, noting his scanty garb; for half a second, she wondered if she'd be as sweaty as she was if she weren't wearing as much clothing.

She pressed her lips together, thinking, surprised when a stab of pain registered there. Licking her lips slowly to try to assess the damage, she tasted salt and the tinny, peculiar flavor of blood before finding the wound: her bottom lip was swollen. Her tongue gingerly traced the crescent shape of a bite mark there, suddenly realizing that she must have bit her lip too hard at one point. Her mind still fighting off the numbness of shock, however, she couldn't remember when that had happened.

For the first time since they had started on this death trek, she raised her head to look about. She realized that they were now traveling in some sort of bizarre formation, and she was nearly at the rear; she could hear one or two others behind her, grunting occasionally as if under the strain of some sort of weight. With a sinking feeling in her gut, she realized that weight must be Thomas.

Christine pushed the mental images that suddenly plagued her back to the farthest reaches of her mind. She would need her wits about her if she and the rest of her team were going to make it out alive.

But that didn't mean she hadn't caught another glimpse of Thomas' last moments before she had assumed this new mindset.

She looked ahead of her, surveying the smaller forms of her captors, the bowed heads of her colleagues. She ground her teeth in frustration; why had she been moved to the back? When had that even happened? As she berated herself and the situation, she longed to make eye contact with one of her friends. She wasn't sure if speaking would be a good idea; how were they to orchestrate an escape when no one knew what the others were doing?

Not that she had a plan, anyway. It seemed that there were two men for each member of her party, herself included. Always suspicious of so-called 'coincidence', she pondered what this could mean. Had they been targeted? Was this all an elaborate set-up?

Had they been betrayed?

Her thoughts flickered to the honest, nervous face of the good Colonel. No, this couldn't have been his doing. She refused to believe it. He was just as frightened of the natives as she was, had lost men to their hunting parties. There was no way he would have done this to them.

Then something he had said to her resurfaced in her ponderings. These people reputedly only hunted at night; hence the surprising military escort that had met them on the landing strip. If this was true, as she strongly suspected it was… what on earth was going on?

She felt that this was the crux of the riddle, and accordingly, the answer to why they had been taken captive. Making an effort to quiet her now frantic brain activity, she observed the two men beside her more closely.

The man to her right looked much younger than the man on her left; just barely a boy despite all the war paint, a fact that startled her. His hand on her arm as they guided her was shaking—nervousness? Excitement? She wondered if this was some sort of rite of passage for him.

After a few minutes, he noticed her looking at him, for he flicked his deep brown eyes to meet hers for a moment before bowing his head and murmuring something.

Yes, he was definitely only a boy; his voice had barely started breaking.

She wondered if he was strong enough, then, to withstand if she were to move quickly.

Her curiosity was such that it refused to be ignored except in rare cases such as this. While her interest was being piqued in learning more about these people—most especially why they had broken a possibly long-standing tradition in order to hunt during the day—her survival instincts ran deeper. She must get away.

Not quite satisfied with her half-baked plan, yet desperate enough to try it anyway, she made her move. Jerking to the left unexpectedly, then spinning around so that she was facing the back of the group, she darted off. Her eyes were riveted by a clearing in the trees that lay a few hundred feet away from her.

She hadn't expected the maneuver to work; therefore, she was elated that it had. Adrenaline flooded her system as she sprinted, flying over the uneven ground, her hands still tied behind her back. Her legs sped up when she became aware of the men giving chase; she could hear the shouts but didn't dare look behind her, for fear of falling—

Then her foot caught something on the ground, and she pitched forward, cursing. Not having her arms free to break the fall, she attempted to roll, catching the brunt of the force on her right side. There was a sharp snap, and she cried out in pain.

Seconds later, they were there, propping her back up on her feet. She tried to fight them off, squirming, kicking, but the pain was just too much. Giving up, exhausted, she again allowed herself to be led away, back to the rest of the group.

The first thing she noted was the boy that had been on her right, wide-eyed and frightened as another man spoke to him in loud tones. She didn't need to understand what was being said to know that he was in trouble.

Next, she realized with a start that the remaining members of her team were now pressed face-first against the trunk of a large tree, four or five men glaring at them, brandishing spears. Several feet away from them lay one of the natives, unconscious. Next to him was Thomas' prone, pale form, and next to him—

"No!" The cry was hoarse and tore itself from her throat. She attempted to run forward but found her way barred by two more natives bearing spears. The men who had retrieved her gripped her arms tighter, leading her away, towards the large tree. "NO!"

She slumped against the massive trunk. The sobs that racked her body aggravated the pain in her side, making it difficult to breathe. She closed her eyes, but try though she might, she couldn't eradicate the picture of her dear friend lying on the ground beside Thomas.

"I don't think he's dead," said a voice after a while, close on her left.

Christine attempted to regain control of herself and her emotions, but it was becoming more and more difficult to do so. She leaned to her left, resting against the owner of the voice for support, the bark of the tree scratching her face as she moved. "Wh-what do you mean?" Again, that disturbing image…

"After you started running, we tried to break free," explained another voice, this time on her right. "But we were outnumbered. Jonathon put up one hell of a fight, and when most of the attention was focused on subduing him, the good Doctor,"—Christine couldn't help the sob that escaped her then—"somehow managed to get his hands free and clocked one of them. It was amazing; I've never seen anything like it in my life."

"They were about to go in for me," continued the voice on her left, quieter, sadder this time. "He was trying to untie me; they got him from behind."

"Some sort of dart," said yet another voice on her right. "I'm trying to convince myself it's tranquilizer, not poison."

She stiffened when she felt hands on her again, pulling her away from the tree. She looked to her left, startled that she had been leaning on Jonathon, and not on Oliver as she had originally thought. Another lump rose in her throat as she half-smiled at him before being led away, this time in the front of the group. God must have a sick sense of humor, she thought—why else would he look so unbearably much like Raoul?

She fought against the fresh onslaught of tears that threatened at her eyes. She would live to see her fiancé again. She would.

But despite her fierce determination, she fell into despair quickly. Her one chance for escape had failed. She doubted another opportunity would present itself, so how was she to—?

"Oh," she gasped, closing her eyes and gritting her teeth against the pain in her side, throbbing as she walked.

"Christine?" Oliver's voice, behind her and slightly to her right.

"I'm—fine," she panted, fighting to keep her pace steady. She was tempted to stop, to see what her new guards, gripping her tightly by the arms, would do. "I think one of my ribs is broken, that's all."

"Those fucking—!" He couldn't even finish, he sounded so enraged.

"Stop it," she said, trying to turn around; the two men beside her wouldn't let her. She settled for turning her head, looking at him. "Stop. I fell, it was my fault." She paused, lowering her eyes from his. "This is all my fault."

"Don't start talking that way," interrupted Simon. She couldn't see him, but he sounded a little further behind her than Oliver. "We'll get out of this, so don't say that. It's no one's fault."

This aggravated her. "Thomas is dead," she stated, staring straight ahead of her now. "The Doctor might as well be. And as soon as we stop walking, as soon as we reach wherever it is we're headed… we'll be dead, too." She gulped. "I'm going to die. We're going to die, and it's all my fault."

It was quiet then, just footsteps and breathing. She took the silence as an affirmation of what she had just said. They would all die. They would all die, and no one would know for sure what had happened to them, and it was her fault. She thought of her unfinished work, the criticism and scrutiny her employer would be under once news of the failed expedition leaked out. She thought of Meg, and of dear, sweet Raoul… Pain stabbed at her heart as hot tears filled her eyes, leaking over and burning their way down her face, blurring her vision.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry…"

--

It was another twenty minutes or so of walking and whispered apologies when they heard them—drums. Not that Christine was counting, of course. It's a grim thing to do, to count the minutes until one's imminent death.

But counting or not, Christine knew she was running out of time.

Her heart rate accelerated to match the frenzied drum rhythms that penetrated the air, her mind disturbingly blank. She stepped forward, conscious only of the movement of her body, the pain at her wrists, her side, and the drums, always the drums. Louder they grew, and louder, until she could hear chanting, screams.

They were close.

A shudder passed through her at the thought, and she tried to slow her pace, but it seemed her body had detached itself from conscious control.

She startled when their captors let out a loud answering whoop in response to the drums and cries. She then found herself passing through a veritable curtain of foliage before being blinded.

Christine blinked rapidly at the ray of sun that filtered through the large clearing, turning her head to the ground as the dark sun spots danced across her vision. The drums throbbed around them, sound made tangible, tension mounting as the cries grew more frantic, urgent, excitable—then suddenly cutting off.

The ensuing silence was deafening.

Confused, she looked around. There, several feet in front of her, stood a tall, abnormally thin man, swathed in a dark cloak and made up to look like a skeleton. Her blood turned to ice as she beheld him, Death, come to visit.

He held his slender arms above his head, fingers splayed, a clear signal for the silence that now suddenly attempted to fill in the massive hole the aching beat of the drums had left behind. Mesmerized, she couldn't look away when he turned to look at her a, jolt speeding down her spine as their eyes met. She gasped. His face…

But then, he began to speak, thus erasing all immediate thoughts of his face.

The clear voice that grappled with silence's tenuous hold was unearthly; there was no better word for it. Christine shivered and closed her eyes as the voice seemed to catch her up and spin her around, weaving a cocoon of peace and quiet beauty the likes of which she had never before experienced. She listened to the foreign syllables that filled the large clearing to the brim, filled her mind and settled into her soul, closing the empty, raw spaces of recent loss stitch by gentle stitch. Her breath slowed. She opened her eyes.

He was still looking—no, staring—at her as he spoke. She shivered again, daring to meet his eyes, those strange, amber eyes that seemed almost to glow from their dark hollows set above the terrible gap that served as his nose. He smiled at her, more of a smirk than anything else, his thin lips quirking up at the edges before barking out an order of some sort.

She found herself being marched forward, towards the horrible man that so captivated her. The scientist in her ached to know what it was that had rendered his face so—her first thought was leprosy; the little girl in her ached to run away. The woman, however, found she could neither speak, nor run, so instead remained silent, her feet carrying her ever closer to him.

She was allowed to stop only a few paces away from him, doing so gratefully. Unnerved by his unwavering gaze, yet wanting to stand her ground, she merely stared straight ahead, focusing on a tree branch slightly above his head. He spoke then. She listened intently, thinking it a question from his tone. The man to her right answered; from out of the corner of her eye, she could see him gesturing at her side.

The imposing figure before her spoke once more; he seemed displeased by something.

Christine's concentration broke when she felt the bonds on her wrists fall away. Someone had cut her loose! But why? She brought her arms forward in wonder to look at them, wincing at the deep pink grooves that marked her pale skin there.

The skeleton man hissed. Christine snapped her eyes up in alarm, becoming more puzzled as she realized he, too, was examining her chaffed wrists. Another man from the hunting party stepped forward, speaking hurriedly.

What was going on here? Why had they cut her free? Was all this—hope beyond all hope—merely a misunderstanding? Her heart rate picked up again at the thought, mind racing. She would get out of here. Alive! She wouldn't have to die today, she wouldn't have to lose anyone else…

Occupied by her thoughts, she missed the silent exchange between the skeleton man and the man who had stepped forward to speak. The latter posed a question, gesturing quickly at his own neck; the former nodded once.

A sudden shout behind her brought Christine back to the present. More shouts, a scream. A gurgle. A thud. Then the clearing erupted in sound once more.

Unthinking, she spun around to find the source of the shout, bringing her newly-freed hands to her mouth when she felt the bile rise in her throat.

There before her lay Jonathon, green eyes wide and staring, his mouth moving slowly in an attempt to speak; warm blood spurted from his neck where they had slit his throat and jugular, spraying the surrounding soil. The natives stood in a frantic circle around the fallen body, drums pounding, some even venturing to dance, though careful not to touch him. The spurts from his neck slowed with his heart, until, finally, the crimson merely trickled from the wound before being greedily absorbed into the soil.

Christine gagged, fighting to keep her breakfast down. Jonathon's vacant eyes stared into her own, a silent accusation, pinning her into place as first Simon, then Oliver, and finally the still-unconscious Doctor met with the same fate. Oliver cried out to her before he fell, silent, but so overcome with horror, she hadn't heard what he said. Her mind turned up blank, her eyes unseeing as she began to shut down for the second time today, in an attempt to save her sanity.

The quiet numbness with which she regarded the outside world would not last, however. The drums found a way in, shattering her sanctum with their rhythmic ferocity. She soon registered the skeleton man watching her, watching for an expression, an outcry, any sort of indication that she was seeing the same thing he was. But she wasn't, she didn't see the endless rivulets of blood steadily collecting in the center of the circle, the blood that continued to stain the earth, darkening the already dark soil—

Christine shut her eyes tightly and turned her head away; she felt positively sick. Death was everywhere, seeping into the soil beneath her feet and burning her nostrils, unseeing eyes and gaping, silent mouths that pleaded in her mind for help. To her continued horror, she felt fingers of ice grasp her chin tightly and force her head so that she was facing forward again, felt the horrid man's presence behind her, shuddered and nearly cried out when he swept her hair away from her ear and leaned in close.

"You must watch," he growled in French, startling her immensely in its abrupt change in timbre and tone; it filled her with even more terror than before, knowing that, at some point, this man had been civilized, had spoken French to others on an everyday basis, had possibly grown up in the metropolis—just like her.

Yet she could not afford to even begin to make any sort of connection with this monster; she shook her head violently, keeping her eyes shut at all costs, already having trouble mastering her ears, listening to the violent ululations of the natives in celebration, thanking God that she could no longer hear the frantic cries and calls for help from her team—

Christine wrenched violently away from the strange man, only to feel a cold, biting pressure around her wrist where his long fingers dug into her skin. "Stop, please," she rasped, her mouth dry. "Please… I—I'm going to be sick."

Instead of letting her go as she had anticipated, he led her away from the circle of blood and gore, pulling her into the trees. She felt his grasp lessen suddenly, and she lurched forward, retching violently, disgusted with herself and the sights she had just witnessed.

The gags kept coming long after her stomach had emptied itself of its contents. She was vaguely aware of someone holding back her hair as wave after wave of bile rose in her throat, the acrid smell of her vomit unsettling her already unsettled stomach. She fought to take a breath without the accompanying dry heaves, wiping at her mouth with her dirty sleeve as she stood up straight. A native woman offered her the hollow half shell of a coconut filled with water, which she accepted readily, first rinsing out her mouth and spitting, then gulping the cool liquid down, soothing her throat. Sighing, quite suddenly drowsy, she closed her eyes. The drums seemed to be getting steadily further and further away.

"Sleep, Christine. Sleep," crooned the angelic voice belonging to a demon, the last thing she heard before everything faded to black.