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

The coffee-brown snake had a diamond pattern running along its back, and it was coiled up four feet from where Libby stood. She was apparently frozen with fear, the kettle shaking in her hand.

Andy thought back to what she said at orientation: No, I’m fine with snakes.

Clearly not.

Andy—who was not, had not, and never would be okay with snakes—was tempted to move even farther away from the large serpent, but again, after that afternoon’s meltdown, he forced himself to stay put. He flipped his headlamp down and trained it on the snake with several of the others’ beams.

“I’m going to try to move him,” Holland shouted.

Rix brought Holland a bamboo pole with a forked end. In one quick motion, Holland thrust the forked end down on the large snake and pinned it to the soft earth. The snake exploded, striking and squirming. It opened its mouth and Andy could see its inch-long fangs.

Holland moved the stick up the snake’s body until he had its neck pinned. Then Holland knelt down and grabbed the snake behind its head. The snake’s body, easily the girth of a softball, whipped back and forth.

“Sorry, mate,” Holland said. “But you’re too bloody aggressive.”

Holland pulled a knife from his belt and cut off the snake’s head. It’s six-foot body continued to thrash, moving several feet from where Holland knelt, until it finally came to rest.

≈

After Holland killed the snake, then tied its head to a tree—which Andy supposed was both a warning to the expedition team to be vigilant as well as a warning to the other snakes that they weren’t welcome—the entire expedition gathered around to drink tea.

The close call with the snake got Holland in the storytelling mood, and he regaled all of them with the close calls he’d had during his many excursions. He’d been bitten by three different snakes, nearly losing his left foot to one in the Philippines, and he’d contracted dengue fever twice, the second time almost killing him.

At eight thirty, people began retiring to their hammocks. Andy’s heart raced as he waded the ten meters through the brush to his campsite. He breathed a sigh of relief when he reached his camp, only to realize the ground beneath his hammock was teaming with hundreds of large cockroaches.

Andy pulled the zipper of the hammock up, fell back, and tried not to think of all the creepy jungle crawlers just below. He was beyond exhausted from the events of the day, and his eyes began to flutter.

Then he heard the snapping of branches and his eyes shot open.

He heard a soft growl.

Something was out there. Something outside his hammock.

His body began to shake.

“Jungle up,” he whispered. “Jungle up.”

15

15

jungle
august 15, 12:22 p.m.
days since abduction: 10