The Ruins by Scott Smith

then, finally, a young
man's face. It was Mathias's face, only different:
it had the same features, the family resemblance vivid even now, with
some of Henrich's flesh oddly eaten away, so that his cheekbone was visible, the white
socket of his left eye.
     "Oh
Jesus," Amy said. "No."
     Jeff
held up his hand, silencing her. Mathias crouched over his
brother's body, rocking slightly, that moaning coming and
going. The T-shirt was only black, Jeff realized, because it had been
stained that color: it was stiff with dried blood. And sticking out of Henrich's chest,
pointing up through the thick vines, were three slender arrows. Jeff
rested his hand on Mathias's shoulder. "Easy," he whispered. "All right? Easy
and slow. We'll stand up and we'll walk away.
We'll walk back up the hill."
     "It's
my brother," Mathias said.
     "I
know."
     "They
killed him."
     Jeff
nodded. His hand was still on Mathias's shoulder, and he
could feel the German's muscles clenching through his shirt. "Easy," he said again.
     "Why…"
     "I
don't know."
     "He
was—"
     " Shh ,"
Jeff said. "Not here. Up the hill, okay?"
     Mathias
seemed to be having trouble breathing. He kept struggling to inhale,
but nothing went very deep. Jeff didn't let go of his
shoulder. Finally, the German nodded, and then they both stood up.
Stacy and Amy were holding hands, looking stricken, staring down at Henrich's corpse.
Stacy had started to cry, very softly. Eric had his arm around her.
     The
Mayans kept their weapons raised—arrows nocked , bows taut, rifle
shouldered—and watched in silence as Jeff and the others
turned to start back up the hill.
       
    T he climb helped
some—the physical demands of it, the need to concentrate on
the steeper stretches, where they almost had to crawl at times, pulling
themselves forward with their hands—and as Stacy moved slowly
up the hill, she gradually managed to stop crying. She kept glancing
back down toward the clearing as she went; she tried not to, but she
couldn't help it. She was worried the men were going to come
chasing after them. They'd killed Mathias's
brother, so it only seemed logical that they'd kill her, too.
Kill all six of them, let the vines grow over their bodies. But the men
just stood there in the center of the clearing, staring after them.
     At
the top, things got hard again. Amy started crying, and then Stacy had
to, too. They sat on the ground and held hands and wept. Eric crouched
beside Stacy. He said things like "It's gonna be okay." Or "We'll be all right." Or " Shh , now, shh ." Just words,
nonsense really, little phrases to stroke and soothe her, and the fear
in his face made her sob all the harder. But the sun burned down upon
them and there was no shade to be found and she was worn-out from the
climb, and after awhile she began to feel so stunned from it all that
she couldn't even cry anymore. When she stopped, Amy did,
too.
     Jeff
and Mathias had wandered off across the hilltop. They were standing on
the far side of it, staring down toward the clearing, talking together.
Pablo had disappeared into the blue tent.
     "Is
there any water?" Amy asked.
     Eric
dug through his pack, pulled out a bottle. They took turns drinking
from it.
     "It's gonna be
okay," he said again.
     "How?"
Stacy asked, hating herself for speaking. She knew she
shouldn't be asking questions like that. She needed to be
quiet and let Eric build this dream for them.
     Eric
thought for a moment, struggling. "Maybe when the sun sets,
we can go back down, sneak past them in the darkness."
     They
drank some more water, considering this. It was too hot to think, and
there was a persistent buzzing in Stacy's ears, like static,
but higher-pitched. She realized she should get out of the sun, crawl
into one of the tents and lie down, but she was frightened of the
tents. She knew that whoever had set them up so carefully here upon the
hilltop was almost certainly dead now. If Henrich was dead, then the archaeologists must be,