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Back Jungle Up Save as PDF
Chapters (63)
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  29. 29
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  63. Author’s Note

Before he could talk himself out of it, Andy crawled over to his shoe and picked it up by the laces. He was almost positive the scorpion had crawled inside. His hand shook as he carried the dangling shoe to the front of the tent and unzipped the opening with his opposite hand. He lowered the shoe to the wet earth and toppled it over on its side. Then he gave the bottom tread a smack with his hand.

“Go!” he shouted.

He leaned his head out a few inches, rain cascading down into his hair. Nothing happened. No scorpion.

Andy was on his hands and knees, leaning out the tent. He was giving the bottom of the shoe another smack with his right hand, when he felt an odd sensation.

Andy pulled his head in and glanced down at his left hand. The small red scorpion was sitting atop it.

“Please don’t sting me,” Andy whimpered.

He instinctively glanced at his watch, which was an inch from where the scorpion was stopped.

Two minutes until the change.

He’d almost made it. But now he was going to get stung by a scorpion. And then, oh, no, what if he had an allergic reaction? Even though Holland said it wouldn’t kill you, it would probably kill Andy.

He glanced at his backpack three feet away. Luckily, he’d brought an EpiPen. Even though in thirty-two years Andy had never needed one of the adrenaline injections—he’d never had a bad allergic reaction to anything in his life—and they cost five hundred dollars apiece, Andy had brought two.

If he’d only been able to see the change yesterday. Then this stupid scorpion wouldn’t even be in his tent. But those were the rules. Miss the change, and pay the consequences.

He glanced at his watch.

It was 3:32 p.m.

Andy held his breath.

A moment later, he watched the two change to a three. And a few moments after that, the scorpion walked off his hand and out of the tent.

28

28

jungle
august 18, 3:35 p.m.
days since abduction: 13

“Try,” Juan Pablo said, holding out a fistful of green leaves before my bleary eyes. “Make awake.”

The others were off relieving themselves, and Juan Pablo and I were resting against the trunk of a large tree. Camila was dangling from one of the low branches, inspecting a large yellow butterfly that had landed nearby.

A little more than twenty-four hours earlier, Felipe had his men load us on their four-wheelers and drive us the six kilometers to the spot where the stethoscope had been found.

My breath caught as I saw the line etched across the four-foot wide dirt trail. I envisioned Gina with a walking stick, dragging it across the trail, hoping it went unnoticed, then dropping her stethoscope in the brush.