The Extinct (23 page)

Eric stepped past him and into the bright sunlight. “Maybe not for them, but there is for us.”

The women and children stared and whispered as Eric made his way through the village and down the hill. He could see the environment clearly now; they were up on an embankment that connected to a larger mountain. Below them was green shrubbery and short grass. Elephants were in the distance, making their way to the nearest watering hole and he could see the striped lines of Indian deer sticking out of the landscape like paint on a canvas.

Eric came to the base of the hill and looked back; no one had followed him. He took out his handgun and kept it low.

“Will,” he shouted. “William!”

He began walking past the shrubbery to a nearby rock formation. “Will!” As he made his way around the conical formation he got a better view of the tops of the lower boulders. Will was sprawled on one of them, his shirt pulled up over his head to keep out the light.

“Will,” Eric shouted as he jogged over. “Will? You okay?”

William belched and tasted whatever fermented drink he’d been served last night. He removed the shirt and squinted as his eyes adjusted to the daylight. “I couldn’t find my phone.”

“I’ll help you find it now and then we’ll get outta here.”

“You want to leave?”

“Yeah, I don’t want to be here anymore. Let’s get someone to pick us up and go back to Kavali.”

William, groggy and still half-drunk, nodded and started to get up. Eric helped him to his feet.

“Where’s Thomas?” Will asked.

“He’s got some of the tribe to help him hunt.”

They made their way off the boulder and began searching the hill. It was soon made apparent how difficult this task was going to be. The dirt had been kicked up from the wind and the grass was just long enough to hide something as small as a cell phone. As they searched, they saw Thomas lead a group of four men down past them. He looked at them and smiled wryly.

“Keep looking, Eric,” William said, averting his eyes from Thomas’s.

They searched for hours, taking only a quick rest to drink water and take care of toiletries behind some trees. In the end the task was impossible. And even if they did find it it’d fallen quite far and might not be working.

“Let’s stop,” William said, his shirt sticking to him with sweat. “I don’t think we’re gonna find it.”

“Maybe we can walk to a town?”

William looked out over the brush, squinted, and rubbed at the burnt skin on his nose. “Without much food or water I don’t know how far we’d get. It could be days on foot. But I don’t think I can stay here anymore; not with these people. I’m going but don’t feel like you have to come.”

“No, I’m coming.”

William grinned, wiping the sweat on his brow with the back of his hand. “All right, get my rifle and as much food and water as you can carry. Leave a couple bottles for Thomas.”

Eric ran up the hill and gathered what William had asked. The tribe didn’t seem to notice him now. They were busy in their day-to-day activities and didn’t have time to worry about an outsider. He took what he could and ran back down the hill. William was staring in the distance.

“I think if we go west we should get there in about two days on foot.” He looked to Eric. “You afraid?”

“A little.”

“Nothing to fear Eric, we’re the righteous and God is with us.” With that, they started walking.

They walked through the thicket of bushes, past the herd of elephants, and in less than an hour were out far enough that the village was an indistinct blur in the distance. “So where’d you go when you ran away?” William asked.

“What?”

“Well I don’t think you came directly to Andhra Pradesh, did you? Where’d you go first?”

“Thailand.”

“Really? I’ve never been. What’s it like?”

“Parts of it are beautiful I guess. I was in the jungle once and it was raining really hard and the sun came up from behind some clouds but the rain didn’t let up. It looked like the whole sky was one giant rainbow.”

“What’s the culture like?”

“Interesting. They’re really proud of their culture. But life’s pretty cheap. If you have the money you can do whatever you want with people.”

“You didn’t know.”

William shook his head. “Something like that . . . you’re just not the same afterward.”

The air was thick with heat and Eric took off his shirt and rolled up his pant legs. By the afternoon he was burned a light pink and the skin on the back of his neck would sting whenever sweat rolled down from his scalp.

It became clear to him that they were absolutely in the middle of nowhere. There were large mountains to one side of them far off across the plains and instead of ending in peaks they were topped with flat plateaus. On the other side was a vast expanse of short-grassed plains, teaming with life and vegetation. Heat waves were streaming from the ground as they walked past a plethora of trees huddled together. .

“Stop,” William said. He stood perfectly still, listening. His eyes were unblinking and they grew wider as he realized what he was hearing.

He walked slowly near the trees and ducked low in the grass. He motioned for Eric to come down next to him.

“What is—” Eric stopped mid-sentence when he saw what William was looking at. In front of them, not more than twenty yards, was a pride of lions feeding on the carcass of a deer. They were swarming over the body like bees, each lion clamoring for as much meat as possible, yet keeping a rigid social order. Their faces were stained red and a few had bits of flesh hanging out of their gaping mouths. They were making primitive noises; not growls really, more like grunts.

“They look so . . . happy,” Eric whispered.

“They’re doing what comes naturally to them. But it’s temporary.”

A large lion, a male with a thick scraggly mane, roared and it sent shivers down Eric’s spine. He’d never seen anything so inspiring of awe and fear. From this close he could see their true bulk and the packed muscles contracting in their jaws and legs.

“We’ll go around,” William whispered.

Eric followed him two or three hundred meters out from the pride and they started west again. The heat was getting to the point of being unbearable and Eric was starting to feel lightheaded. In this weakened, irrational state—a state not unlike the moments of unreality before one falls asleep—looking out over the Andhra Pradeshn landscape seemed as alien to him as observing another planet. Every rock and tree and blade of grass seemed like it didn’t belong in the same world as he. Perhaps it was him that didn’t belong in their world? Either way, he felt grossly out of place and it made him uncomfortable; he felt weird in his own skin.

“Where’d you meet Sandra?” Eric said, trying to make conversation to get his mind off what he was feeling.

“Boston. Her sister was a friend of mine and she introduced us,” William said, happy to talk about his wife. The very thought of her put a smile on his face. “Eric, there’s nothing quite like finding a good woman. It affects everything else. It’s almost indescribable; you just have to go through it to see how far into your life they can reach.”

Eric felt a slight tinge of remorse. But with his mind distracted, and the added stress of being out here, his body ached for a hit of H. He would’ve been perfectly content taking a nice large hit, lying down in the shade of a tree, and sleeping until someone came to pick him up.

He wondered what it was that could make the difference between a casual drug user and a junkie. There didn’t seem to be any pattern; he came from a good family with decent money. Jason back home came from two neglectful, alcoholic parents and a neighbor that had molested him, yet he could drink everyday for a week straight and then not touch the stuff again for a year and not even miss it. In the end there didn’t seem to be any difference except deep down in some part of the soul. And how were you supposed to fix that?

“You believe in a soul, Will?”

“I do,” William said, glancing over at him.

“Prove it to me. Tell me where it is.”

“Do you have thoughts about sex sometimes, Eric?”

“Yeah.”

“Prove it. Tell me where they are.”

“Point taken, I guess.”

“Why do you ask about a soul?”

“Do you think a soul could be diseased? I mean, like permanently diseased?”

“I think a soul could be diseased, yeah. But permanently? No way. People can make great changes to themselves and the world. Some people change their values, their sense of taste, their thought process—it’s like they can change their soul. I don’t think anything is permanent when it comes to the soul except the essence of who you are. Do you think your soul’s diseased, Eric?”

“I was a junkie,” Eric said uncomfortably. The words had to be forced out and even then they left a bad taste in his mouth.

“Are you now?”

“I don’t know. I don’t use, but I always kinda want to. It’s always in my head, you know?”

“No, I guess I don’t.”

They ended the conversation at that, speaking taking up too much effort at this point. Eric decided he liked Will. In a way he was a lot like Jason; no bullshit to him.

Evening came before long and the sky was lit up crimson, the sun a yellow orb in an ocean of red. Though tired and with a growing worry of the coming darkness, they couldn’t help but stop for awhile and admire the view.

“Are you tired enough for sleep?” William asked.

“Definitely.”

“Let’s do two hours each and one person keep watch. Then we’ll keep walking throughout the night.”

Eric put his shirt back on and lay down in front of a large tree. William sat next to him, his rifle across his lap. Eric closed his eyes and could hear the chirping of birds over his breathing. The steady rhythm of large animals grazing was off in the expanse before him and he heard vultures swooping over a nearby kill as he drifted and fell into a dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER

45

Eric awoke to William’s nudging. It was dark now and the moon was only a crescent in the sky. The air was warm and had wafts of dust in it from a strong wind. Eric grudgingly rose and saw William gazing into the valley before them. A small fire was built in front of him but provided little light or warmth.

“What is it?” Eric said.

William’s gaze was unmoving, his voice steady. “It’s here.”

Eric watched the darkness, the trill chirps of thousands of crickets aggravating him and increasing his fear. There was nothing he could see and he wondered if William was just too fatigued. But gradually, as his eyes adjusted, he could see two small glowing lights. They were slits of red, and they were circling them. The lights stopped, fixated, and began a silent approach.

“Run,” William said.

Eric ran, William right behind him. The wind was loud in his ears but he could still make out the crunching of tall weeds and grass behind them. He looked back only to see the slits of red closing in.

“Up there!” William shouted.

There were large boulders piled atop one another and Eric sprinted for them. He leapt onto the first one and grabbed William’s hand and helped him up. They began to climb on the rough, dry surface of the rock and only stopped when they reached the top. Eric’s breathing was labored and his heart felt like it would explode. He took out his handgun and held it in front of him.

“Did you see it?” he said.

“No, just its eyes,” William said, crouching to one knee for better stability. “You watch behind us. Shoot for the head if it charges up the rocks.”

Only the sound of their breaths filled the awful silence; the crickets had stopped. And, somewhere out in the dark, laughter.

The laughter could’ve been human. Eric thought it was the type of laugh that someone who was insane would have; menacing and meaningless at once.

“Why isn’t it attacking?” Eric said.

“I don’t know.”

William saw the slits of red glowing like embers in the dark. He pointed the rifle, trying to steady his shaking hands. He aimed and pulled the trigger. The eyes seemed to disappear in the night. William couldn’t keep the rifle steady.

“Did you hit it?” Eric asked.

“I don’t know, maybe.”

“We should run.”

“I don’t think we’d get very far. At least from here we can see around us.”

They sat on the warm stone through the night. By morning, Eric’s legs and back were stiff and throbbed with pain. His eyes were blurry from a lack of sleep and he found it difficult to think. The sun came slowly and ignited the colors of the plains before them. There was nothing surrounding them but vegetation.

William stood up. “Stay here.” He made his way down the boulders and out to where he thought he might have hit the animal. There was trampled ground and deep paw prints, but he didn’t have enough experience to say what animal they’d come from. There wasn’t any blood that he could see.

Eric climbed down and stood behind him. “Let’s get going.”

“I’m not sure if it was . . . it.”

“Who cares? Let’s just get the fuck outta here.”

They walked back to their supplies and saw with horror that their food was scattered and mostly eaten. The remaining water bottles had been ripped open and the plastic containers were slowly tumbling in the wind across the valley. They walked off without saying a word.

It had the makings of being another scorching, dry, day and Eric feared what it would feel like in a few hours without any water. He surveyed his surroundings in detail and came to the conclusion that none of it looked familiar.