But the feet and faces of that pit’s victims were fresh, like they’d just lain down in there. Their eyes weren’t even clouded over like she thought dead eyes should be.
Valle de Lágrimas had been a good location for the trenches because it was so far off the beaten path. And really, until the government had come to do the work here, there hadn’t been a passable road into town, the museum had said.
The group she’d come into the jungle with were still staging a mock challenge to get one of them to go into one of the empty trenches. It was clearly all for show, based on their exaggerated whispers and staged fear. Ash ignored them. Stairs led down from the edge into the last pit. She was going to head in, but not because it was great content for their vlog—something was calling her forward.
She used her phone’s light to scan the excavated area. There were no snakes or huge centipedes or giant spiders—that she could see—which was a good thing, because given how many bodies had been so ruthlessly discarded there at some point in the past, a vision was quite likely. And if she had one here, it was going to be a doozy.
She started down the steps while the others were preoccupied with their filming. The pit smelled of rich earth and decaying plant matter. Nothing scary there. She’d reached the middle of the pit before the others noticed her.
“Ash. No! Get out of there,” May called out.
“Leave her, May,” Larry said. “She took our challenge. Bean, you getting this too?”
“I am. It’s fabulous. You’re so brave, Ash. Keep going.”
Ash wasn’t doing this for them but for herself. The urge was too strong to ignore.
The ground under her feet was muddy with old, pooled water. She walked slowly to the other end, feeling some emotion grow the closer she got to the far side. It filled her lungs, pumped through her veins, pounded in her head. Ash had never experienced a vision’s slow build like this, but she was helpless to stop or change it.
Something life-shattering had happened here, but her mind couldn’t rationalize it. As with any vision, her thoughts weren’t her own now. Nor were her emotions. When she had them, she lived the energy of what was left behind.
She spread her free hand out, just a step from the back wall, but something reached up from the ground, snagging her foot. A skeletal hand. She cried out and stumbled forward, slamming into the dirt.
Her self-awareness completely dissolved. She was no longer Ashlyn but someone else—no one really, just air maybe, facing a man she’d never met, one suffering deeply. He was slumped against the same wall, crying, raging, full of explosive energy. He took something from his pants pocket. A knife. Opening it, he made a slice across his wrist. Blood poured out, fast at first, then slowing to a trickle, then not at all. He cut himself a few more times, then cursed and cut his other wrist. Same thing, fast then nothing. In a fury, he kept slashing at one, then the other wrist. Blood covered him, soaked the ground.
Then something invisible made him spread his arms out from his sides. He dropped his knife as he fought against the invisible constraints. He managed to free one hand, which he used to claw at the wrist of his other hand.
Ash felt a rush of air as someone hurried past her. A priest. He ripped off the white robe he was wearing. Bunching it up, he pressed it against the man’s wrists, one then the other, all while stringing prayers together in a litany he said again and again.
And then, the weirdest thing happened. A golden light seemed to come from the suicidal man’s wrists, spreading until it engulfed him entirely.
“Ash! Ash! Get out of there,” Celia and May shouted at her. “Something’s coming. Hurry.”
Ash was too numb to move quickly. Maybe that was her own choice. She didn’t want to leave the desperate man. She picked up her phone. The muddied light showed that what she’d thought was a bony hand was just a cluster of roots. She was vaguely aware of the others screaming and running, but she was too drained to feel fear, or anything, really.
She just knelt there, in the mud, in the death pit, crying for the man who’d wanted so desperately to die.
I’m not worth your tears.
She knew that voice. Whose was it? She tried to see the details of the man in the pit, his face, his age, his skin color. None of that came through. She only got the big stuff, like his emotion and intent and action.
What happened to him? Had the priest saved him? Could someone lose so much blood and survive?
Time to go. You can’t stay wallowing in this pit.
Ash felt like a cooked noodle, but somehow she was able to push herself to her feet. That guy’s energy supported her, almost as if it were he who moved her along.
She didn’t want to hurry—she wanted to just exist where he was, surrounded by the feel of him. She was barely conscious of moving, but she made it out. Topside, she realized her friends were long gone. Being abandoned in the jungle in the night should have frightened her, but she couldn’t feel anything beyond the energy cradling her. She put one foot in front of the other, moving as if guided down the narrow footpath.
Empty. That was how she felt. And yet, she didn’t feel alone.
The Escape was gone. Even that didn’t cut through her numb mind, nor did the reality that she had, in fact, become the group’s token sacrifice stir anything within her.
It was a mile or so into town. She heard talking when she got there, a shrill commotion, voices she recognized. Her friends surrounded her. May took her arms, then swiped away some mud on her face. They were saying something, but Ash couldn’t seem to focus on it.
“Let’s get her home.” Celia drew her toward their car. “She’s in shock.”
“Wait. Look at her. She’s covered in mud,” Larry said. “She can’t get in like that. She’ll ruin our equipment. And it’s a rental.”
“Don’t touch her.” A little boy came forward, the same kid who’d given them the tour. “She could be la Tunda now. Don’t go anywhere with her. She’s not who—or what—you think she is.”
The four stepped back. Their eyes were wide with horror as they stared at her.
Fuck the lot of them. You need better friends.
The man-ghost she’d picked up in the pit wrapped an arm around her and drew her away from them, leading her toward their room. Ash didn’t resist. She didn’t seem to have any of her own steam anyway, so she just surrendered to his.
The Escape drove alongside her all the way to their rented room. Ash felt a strange bubble around her, as if she were in some glass jar. People couldn’t come close to her. Their voices were muffled.
Suited her just fine. She needed time alone to process what she’d experienced. Her dazed state seemed to freak out the guys, but Celia and May helped her to the bathroom.
May set her shampoo out on the little sink with a towel, then left her backpack near the shower. “There. You’re all set. Take as long as you need. Rinse your clothes out and hang them to dry. We can talk after, if you want.”
Ash closed herself off in the bathroom. Her bubble was still around her, giving her strength, helping her get through the mechanical steps of preparing for the shower.
She reached into her pocket for her phone. If she didn’t text her friends that she was back from the woods, one of them would be on the next plane to Medellín.