Tales of the Lost: Monsters of the Amazon

Chapter 9:Surrender
By Persephone Bolero

(Tales of the Lost is loosely based on actual roleplay adventures in the Amazon in Second Life. To start at the beginning, go here. Photos courtesy of unsplash.com.)

Thomas had paid Cog to return one week after dropping him off at the last pier east, hoping it was enough time to find and rescue me from what we both thought was my suicide mission. We walked back to the river and waited a few days for the captain to return. I filled Thomas in on what happened at Shards’ cave, with a few omissions. When I told him what Shards asked in return for staying in the canyon, he expressed some reservations about leading the Yakturo into an ambush. His moral compass was as steady as ever, so I altered the story to coax the needle in the direction I needed it to go. I didn’t tell him why the Hoplons joined Shards or that she planned the same for the Yakturo.

As Cog’s boat motored us west up the mile-wide river, Shards’ madness hovered around me like a ghost. I felt strangely light, as if gravity had loosened its grip on me. I began to envision the future in ways I never had before. Obstructions seemed smaller, more manageable. Answers were simpler and less encumbered by auxiliary concerns.

As I watched miles of wake cascade behind the boat, I schemed. I couldn’t just tell Kartago where to find Shards. I had deceived him before, and the distrust would make him cautious with any information I provided and therefore less likely to walk into a trap. I needed him to stumble upon the knowledge of where Shards lived and then act with reckless vengeance.

Thomas had brought with him to rescue me spices he had acquired at a grocery store in Houston before he fled back to the jungle -- and a field medical pack he talked Lauren into letting go of -- planning to trade them at Thor’s Place for something Kartago would take as payment for more time in the canyon. If all went as planned we wouldn’t need to leave our home, but we still needed more time for the war with Shards to play out.

“It’ll be a few hours,” Thomas told me as Cog tied the boat to the dock cleats at Thor’s Place. “You should stay here and rest. You’ve been through a lot.”

While I felt perfectly capable of walking around the market with him, the suggestion fell well within my plans. “Stay away from the brothels,” I quipped, and he grinned.

His footsteps creaked as they bounced down the gangplank. After he was gone I approached Cog, who sat on the bow puffing away on a pipe. The sweet smell of hemp wafted from the clouds he exhaled. One of his crewmen, a guy who went by Smartie, sat nearby, holding a bottle of rum the pair were passing back and forth.

“You take Yakturo shoppers every week to Thor’s Place, don’t you?” I asked the captain casually as I looked toward the gate of the busy market, where barterers were checking their weapons in before entering.

Cog peered at me with the pipe between his lips, cheeks pulled in as he sucked. He turned his head and blew out a cloud. “Now, Persephone,” he replied in his Australian accent, “it’d be real bad for my business if I went around telling people who I took where. What happens on my boat, stays on my boat, and I don’t turn away anyone who pays their fare. That’s my rules.”

I nodded respectfully. “Well, let’s just say, hypothetically, you did have some Yakturo on your boat in the near future. Perhaps you might mention to one of your crew, within earshot of the Yakturo, that I had gone to confront Miss Shards. And let’s just say you overheard me telling Thomas that she lives about thirty clicks north of the last pier. And even though she only had a small army, you heard me say, it was too much for Thomas and me to rescue Kiki. So we came home empty handed. Think you might be able to have that discussion?”

He pursed his lips contemplatively and banged his pipe against the railing. “And what makes you think a couple natives would even speak English?”

“They wouldn’t send someone to barter at Thor’s Place who couldn’t understand it.”

“Sounds like you want the Yakturo to go look for Miss Shards. And knowing how that sheila operates, she’s got some trap set for ‘em. Didn’t you just have a war with her? Sounds like I’d be putting myself in the middle of something messy.”

“You’d just be gossiping with a crewmate about something you overheard.”

“There’s still a risk,” he replied with an expectant look.

I took his hint. “I’m willing to pay,” I stated and then sauntered to the top of the stairs that led down below deck. His smile was agreeable to the offer. “Just you,” I clarified as Smartie started to stand up.

Cog grabbed the bottle from him, took a swig, and said, “Sorry, mate,” before he followed me down below deck.

Thomas returned just as I was climbing back onto the boat after a swim in my underwear to wash away the smell of sex. He had bartered everything for a stack of DVDs, which were almost as valuable as gold to Kartago. For the time it took, Thomas must have been thorough, though it was a small profit for such a valuable medical kit.

It was more than a week before we made it back at the city. First thing after we got back, Thomas approached Kartago with the offer. The chief agreed to more time in exchange for the DVDs, but Thomas told me he took a calendar and placed his finger on the last day of the following month. “If any of your people are still in the canyon on this day,” Kartagon had warned Thomas, “they will not be allowed to leave alive.”

When he told me the chief’s response, I leaned my head back and cackled.

“He’s serious,” Thomas warned. “And he’s still got a large army. We’re not out of the woods yet.”

“Fuck him,” I spat bitterly.

With our home secured for a while, I called everyone to the mess tent. The city was small now, and just fifteen residents gathered around me. Three had died, one was kidnapped, and a dozen others had lost faith in my leadership and fled. I told those who had remained that we were staying in the canyon for the time being.

“How long?” Lauren asked.

“We might not ever be leaving,” I answered. “I can’t explain why at the moment.”

“Last time you didn’t tell us things, we were attacked,” Jackson pointed out.

Thomas lied for me, “We may have found another home, but we don’t want anyone else to find it before we build a fortification there.” He knew as well as I did that we couldn’t let anyone know about the ambush awaiting the Yakturo. While we could trust the residents to remain loyal to their city, the knowledge had value. You leave a pile of gold laying around, someone’s likely to give into temptation. “When we’re finished surveying the area, we’ll let you know more.”

I looked around for further questions and then offered a final assurance: “For now, just sit tight. We’re going to be alright.”

“Now, Persephone and I have another announcement,” Thomas then stated.

Fifteen minutes later I was standing under the sun in a stained dress with a worn hem, a scarf over my hair. Thomas was in his best bluejeans, which were faded, and a clean t-shirt. Lauren conducted the makeshift wedding. We had no gold left for rings, and so Lauren wrapped our hands together with some plastic red ribbon we’d used and reused many times for birthdays and whatnot. She opened with some extemporaneous remarks about love binding people together and fueling a hope for the future. She then asked Thomas if he would take me for his wife, and his reply was an unambiguous “I do.”

“And do you, Persephone Bolero, take Thomas Stone to be your husband?” Lauren then asked me.

“I most certainly do,” I answered immediately, beaming happily.

The city was tired and heartbroken, and a wedding wasn’t going to change that. As Thomas and I kissed, the applause was light. It was still better than another funeral.

My husband and I retreated back to our cave, and as we made love, I again imagined holding his child in my arms, in the aftermath of labor, my mussed up hair sticking to my forehead over my proud smile. The girl in my imagining had Kiki’s face.

I dreamt that night of Los Angeles, a memory that had been tucked away and forgotten. One Saturday when I was four years old, as I was shoveling spoonfuls of Cocoa Puffs into my mouth, my father spontaneously announced we were spending the day together -- just me and him. Mom dressed me up in a frilly pink dress and did my hair in curled pigtails. Then my dad took me down to the Santa Monica Pier in his Maserati. We rode the carousel, saw the sharks in the aquarium, and he got me an ice cream cone.

As the vanilla sweet dripped into my little fist, a street performer twisted some tube balloons into a pastel pink and blue princess’ tiara. With it perched upon my head, my father lifted me up onto his shoulders so I could watch dancers zing around on the boards, flipping and spinning around wildly to “Pump Up The Jam.” Only the palm trees were taller than me.

“Daddy look!” I sang with an excited giggle as I watched the performance.

“I see them, princess,” he cooed, his big hands wrapped around my small legs.

After the dance was over, he put me back onto the pier. The crowd closed in around us as it started to disperse, shoving my dad and I apart. He reached out to take my hand as people pushed in between us, and I couldn’t reach it. I lost him in the forest of legs and started calling out, “Daddy!”

Then the crowd became jungle grasses and vines and bamboo. I screamed for him, pushing through the blades of grass that sliced deep cuts into my arms. I found him finally. He lay in a small clearing, his belly torn open by a jaguar that pulled at his entrails. The beast turned its head toward me, his teeth dripping with bloody saliva. His roar was deafening, and I screamed as he pounced upon me. Then, I was a grown woman again, my hair still in pigtails. As the jaguar lapped its big tongue over my cheek, smearing my father’s blood on my face, I giggled.

I awoke alone in the bed. Thomas had gone to pray in the tree. I grabbed his pillow and hugged it tightly. Somewhere beneath a lifetime of grudges, I had forgotten the times my father was kind and fun and loving. A time so long ago, before I was a prisoner of this jungle, I was my father’s little princess. I had no way to know if he was still alive, and he would never know what happened to me.

Thomas returned from his prayers and dropped the shoulder pack next to his duffle bag beside the bed. I sat naked on it, the pillow between my legs and covering my breasts. He peered lovingly and lustfully at me. I returned his smile, warm and welcoming. He gently took the pillow away. We made love again and didn’t emerge from our honeymoon cave until an hour before noon.

In the mess tent, Thomas stood over a wood-burning stove, stirring sizzling rice, papaya, and fish inside a large wok with two wooden spoons. He tossed some salt into it, mixed it in, and then nibbled on a bit from the edge of a spoon.
 

“You know what would make this even better?” he asked me. “Cumin.”

“Yeah,” I chuckled. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“You know, I think I got some left that I didn’t trade away.” I peered at him skeptically. “It’s in my duffle. Go get it. Let’s give lunch a bit more flavor.”

“If you have cumin, we can trade that,” I objected.

“Come on. It’s our honeymoon.”

Not wanting to spoil the spirit of the day, I went up to the cave to get the spice. I hooked the canvas door open to let the sunlight in and rummaged through his duffle bag to find the unmarked jar of the beige cumin. So precious are spices in the jungle, these few ounces could fetch a box of penicillin. I really didn’t like the idea of eating them.

After I zipped the duffle back up, I noticed Thomas’ shoulder pack sitting next to. I couldn’t help but to wonder if he bookmarked his bible, what passages he’d underline, and if he made notes in the margins. I knew he was a follower of Jesus Christ, but he had always been private about his faith. He never proselytized, and we had never discussed our difference of opinion on the existence of God. Curious about this aspect of my husband of which I knew so little, I opened the pack up.

But there was no Bible to be found. Inside the pack’s one pocket was a satellite phone. Cell phones are entirely useless in the rainforest for communications, but satellite phones could, on rare occasions, make fleeting connections to the outside world, especially on hills and other high places. I looked back at the door guiltily and turned it on. With a little beep, it came to life, and the no-signal icon flashed on the screen. The charge bar was full.

I flipped through the call logs, which showed it was turned on every morning. Once per day, Thomas had climbed that tall tree on the hill and made a single call to area code two-eight-one -- Houston. The same number. Every time. All the calls had failed to make a connection.

I could see him hanging off the trunk of the tall tree and watching the screen eagerly, hoping this would be the day he’d connect with the wife who’d wrote him off as dead and proceeded quickly to shack up with another man. I could reasonably guess he hadn’t fled back to the Amazon to give her the freedom to get over him, as he had told me. He’d been sent away. Maybe he came back to die in the jungle that had taken his family from him. Maybe he had actually hoped to find me after all. Whatever led him here, it wasn’t a benevolent act toward the woman in Houston he loved. That was a lie. And he would always carry with him a small piece of hope he’d someday get back what he lost.

And then I realized why he’d taken so long at Thor’s Place to get so little. The generator had been destroyed in the war with Shards, and he needed time to use a charging station, which cost him some of what he brought to barter. I turned off the phone, slipped it back into is pack, and zipped the pocket closed.

One week later, Thomas and I were standing in the guard tower as the sun set behind us. A couple residents were working in the rice fields with the last of the daylight. Jackson, who stood in the other tower, began to whistle loudly when twenty Yakturo warriors emerged from the trees at the edge of the paddies. Kartago was at the head of the party. The army then turned north and began marching along the irrigation stream toward the Sungew River.

“It’s alright,” I shouted to Jackson. “They aren’t coming for us.”

Thomas hugged me from behind, his chin resting on the top of my head. A pleased smile spread upon my face as we watched Kartago leading his army to their demise.

“They took the bait,” Thomas noted.

“What would happen if you found out your wife didn’t get married again?” I asked, like a casual non-sequitur.

“What?” he replied.

“What if you knew she would take you back if you could get back to Houston? Would you ever try to flee the jungle again?”

He turned me around, flummoxed by the question. “Where’d this come from?”

I gave a little shrug and answered, “I have it so good. I’m just wondering if I’ll ever lose it.”

“Baby, she’s gone,” he averred. “And if somehow I learned she would take me back, well, I’m married to you now. This is where I belong, and I promise I’ll never leave you.”

I felt no sting or anger over the lie, nor did I feel any sense of disappointment. Thomas had needs. We all had needs. And this jungle took so much from us. In this savage place, we act with desperation to carve out some way to satisfy many hungers. He would, like anyone, do what he needed to do to survive. Perhaps I should have been angrier at him, but if I were in his shoes, I’d do the same. In many ways, you could say, I was in his shoes.

“We need to find out what happens to the Yakturo as soon as possible,” I said. “If the outcome doesn’t work in our favor, we’ll need to act quickly to get out of here. I should follow them to Shards’ lair.”

“You can’t go back there alone,” he replied predictably.

“Then come with me.”

The night, before we left for the long trek back to Shards’ territory, as we started to make love, I suggested to Thomas he ought to wear a condom.

“I thought you wanted to get pregnant,” he said, a hint of umbrage in his tone.

“I’m just worried what will happen if Kartago survives,” I lied. “You don’t want to be roaming this jungle with a pregnant woman.”

“We’ve been doing it without protection for a week, Persephone. You might already be pregnant.”

“Just please do it,” I insisted tersely and pulled the condom out from under the pillow. I shoved it toward him. With a sigh, he tore open the package.

We paid Cog’s fare with the last of the cumin, and I led Thomas from the last pier across the exhausting miles of jungle, hacking machetes through dense vegetation in downpours that drenched through our clothes to our skin. We hugged each other for warmth every night under mosquito netting and proceeded wearily at the break of dawn. Gradually, I moved deeper into the fog that was Shards’ world, a place where primal barbarism shriveled the heart, and the closer we got to her, the less emotion I felt. It took us eight days to reach Shards’ territory.

“What the fuck is this?” Thomas asked with trepidation when we came upon the four piles of bones. He held his hand against his nose to guard against the putrid odors.

“Shards puts these all over the place,” I said insouciantly.

He got down on his haunches and studied the tracks in the mud. “The Yakturo came through here,” he noted. “Probably a few days ago. They didn’t camp here, though.”

“Let’s stop here, then. We don’t want to catch up to them. If they find out we’re following them, the gig will be up.”

“What about the smell?”

“You’ll get used to it in a moment. I’ll go gather wood.”

“How much further to Shards’ cave?”

“It’s a few more clicks north,” I replied with my back to him. “We’re safe here for the night.”

I climbed up the hill to Shards’ cave, which was concealed behind trees, with the rifle slung over my shoulders. Just past the entrance, it opened into a large room with stalactites hanging menacingly overhead. Shards was waiting with Yakov, two Yakturo soldiers, and Kartago. The Yakturo chief showed no recognition. He just stared absently into an abyss that awaited Shards’ directions.

“The little bunny returns,” she said. “You did your part well, Persephone. So you may stay in my canyon so long as you pay the rent.” I unslung my rifle, and though I did it slowly, Shards unholstered her pistol. “You better watch yourself, girl,” she warned.

I looked at her nonplussed as I unlatched the clip and flung the bullets from it one by one with my thumb. I showed her it was empty, reattached it, and then pulled the bolt back to eject the round in the chamber. She watched the display curiously.

“I brought you someone,” I said with the bullets scattered in the dirt at my feet.

“You did?” she asked, sounding touched by my offer.

“You said you wanted an intact black man for your collection? It’s not Aries, but I think you’ll agree he looks just as good.”

I stepped aside so Shards could look from the cave entrance through the trees and down the hill to Thomas. He was stringing our hammock between two trunks. “Who is he?”

“I want Kiki,” was my answer. Now I too didn’t answer questions. I just stated what I wanted.

Shards’ peered at me and bared a wicked, self-satisfied grin. “You’ve come to trade, Persephone?”

“I want Kiki,” I repeated.

“I need you to get something from him before I’ll consider it.”

I pulled the used condom from my back pocket. It was tied at the opening, and Thomas’ semen was still moist inside it. I extended it toward her, and as Shards reached for it, I snatched it away.

“Do we have a deal?” I asked.

“We have a deal,” she assured me. Her tone had an air of respect to it now. After I handed her the condom, she nodded toward Thomas. “Go on, boys,” she told her zombies. “Bring him to me.”

“Wait,” I said. I placed my hand on her arm, and she looked at it as if it were a dagger. She didn’t push it away. “I’ll send him up here. When you have him, you send Kiki out.”

I returned to Thomas and handed him the unloaded rifle. “There’s a cave up there. We can get some shelter from the rain,” I said, looking up to the dark clouds rolling in. “Could you please go check it out? Let me know if it’s safe.”

“A cave?” he asked, looking up the hill.

“Yeah, just past those trees. It looks safe to me, but you have the flashlight.”

 He slung the rifle over his shoulder and said, “Alright. I’ll have a look.”

As he started to walk away I blurted out, “Thomas, I love you. Please, know that.”

He turned around with an expression that sensed something was amiss. I would forever remember that face peering down at me as thunder rumbled in the distance. If there was any rational thought that would have led him not to trust me, it lost out to my affections.

“I love you too, Persephone,” he replied with a smile. He then walked away.

A couple minutes later, I could hear him calling to me from the cave. “Shards is up here with Kartago! Persephone, run!”

Then, there was silence. A half hour later, as I knelt over moist tufts of kindling, sparking a lighter and trying to get a fire going while large, intermittent raindrops slapped the leaves and dirt around me, I heard Thomas scream in terror.

“Persephone, help me!” he shouted. A long, tormented wail followed, and he continued to call to me for help.

On my knees, I covered my ears but it did little to shield me from Thomas’ tormented pleas. I would always wonder when, if ever, he realized what I had done to him. Was it when he pulled the trigger of the unloaded rifle as Shards and her zombies went to seize him, or just before Shards inserted the needle up through his nose into his brain after he'd been subdued? Maybe he never understood what happened. As a zombie in Shards’ army, was his mind somewhere inside the shell Shards took over? Did he burn with hate inside the prison that was his body, or was his love for me forever frozen inside his catatonic mind? I never saw him again, and I never learned the answer to these questions.

In the days he and I hiked up from the pier, I had become numb to anything more than the ache in my muscles. After my deed was done, I felt so much. I felt rage over every injustice I had witnessed in this rainforest. I felt sadness over every friend I had seen perish in violence. I felt hunger for everything taken from me in the decade since this jungle snatched me away from the luxurious life I’d know in Los Angeles. And I felt shame over what I’d become. It all rolled in with the storm, thunder booming louder as Thomas’ cries faded away into the oblivion of savagery that is the dark heart of this monstrous jungle.

“Kee kees,” I heard behind me.

I uncovered my ears and turned around. She was standing there naked, grasping my canteen in her hand. “Kiki bear!” I sang and hugged her hard.

Her arms dangled at her side and she whispered, “Kiki bear luff.”

“Luff,” I replied, looking into her eyes.

They looked back at me, innocent and happy.

Ever since I became a prisoner of this jungle, I’ve fought the monsters that call it home. They rape. They kill. They steal. They act with a brutality that grows like vines, weaving their way through every heart that has the misfortune to be a prisoner of this place. I fervently believed I could defeat these beasts and create something civilized and safe. This battle became another failure to add to my list. I never defeated the monsters. I became one of them.

And for that, I’m truly sorry. But I’m going to make sure there’s one angel among us.

“Kiki ome?” she asked me, her little voice full of hope.

“Yeah, baby. We’re going home,” I answered.

I held out my hand, and she placed hers in it. It was small and dark at the center of my white palm. I wrapped my fingers tightly around it. She smiled as the rain began to fall on her little cheeks.

The End