28

Suz

Wednesday, February 23rd

The Forest, Refugio Tatí Yupí, Paraguay

That was it. Suz had taken her last step. Each step of the way — from the time she had been at the hospital with Jack unconscious with post-surgical drugs, to the hide in the woods with the sixteen kids all giggling over Captain Jack stories, to coming home and Jones pushing through her door and her shouldering Jack’s zombie pack — all she kept saying was this was it, she had pushed herself to the limit, she had nothing left. Each time, she had surprised herself and found courage hiding in her toes that she pulled up to her chin and powered on. This time was it, though, for sure.

The boys were walking in their sleep. With their fingers curved into her pants loops and her arm wrapped around their shoulders, they had soldiered on though their eyes had closed a long while ago. There was nothing to see anyway except for the orange glow from her chem-light stick. The night had descended quickly and completely after they left the view of the encampment.

She didn’t know how long they had walked. The only reason she felt that they were headed out of and not farther in to the forest was that this was the way the tire tracks had gone. There were none on the other side of the gate. She had no idea how far they had come or how far they had yet to go. But there was no going back. The decision had been made, and Suz felt it was the only one possible. It was the one that Jack would have made.

“Jack,” Suz whispered. He was probably frantic or broken hearted. He was something. But the one thing he wasn’t was here. Somewhere deep in her cells, she had believed that Jack would know she was in trouble and nothing would stop him from finding her and helping her. But this was Tuesday. She had been gone a week. If he was coming, he’d be here wouldn’t he? He probably saw the start of her letter and the ring. Saw the plane tickets and the man’s name. Thought that someone was supposed to care for her dogs and got hung up. . .decided she wasn’t worth the effort.

Whew! That was a thought. He might think that he was as equally done as she had been. They were done, and she wasn’t worth coming after and confronting. She had been letting go of their relationship one finger at a time. She had known that no Jack in her life meant…well, no Jack in her life. But somehow that message didn’t get to her cells, where she believed that somehow Jack would always be there for her in her time of need. She cycled those thoughts again. And again. Wow. I am such a hypocrite.

No one was coming. It was all on her. Everything that Suz knew and loved about Jack fought against the conclusions she just drew as she moved the children off the trail and behind a large rock that jutted up as big as a car. She sat the boys on a smaller stone. Jack would come no matter what. He would. He just has no way to find me. That’s the problem.

“Sit here. I’m going to make a camp for us and we’re going to sleep.” There was no response. The boys wrapped their arms around each other, holding their twin upright, their eyes still closed.

Suz ran some line from tree to tree in front of the rock as high up as she could reach. The tarp came down to the ground and she used rocks along the edges to hold it outwards. Suz figured if the terrorists were out looking for them with night vision, the tarp and rock would help block their heat signatures. That’s what the survival guide had said, anyway. She suspended the hammock. It was some kind of high-tech hanging tent system that she assumed would be considered hyper-cool by people who used this kind of thing. That it was a snap for her to get up and secure was the only thing that Suz really cared about. The guide had been adamant about staying off the ground. Suz couldn’t agree more. The ground was a sponge, and it crawled with things that wriggled and squirmed as the foliage was consumed, digested, and biodegraded. She found the hot sack that Jack had included and put a hand warmer in the bottom.

She had the boys drink, and pee, then helped them navigate into the bed. Suz couldn’t figure out a way to fit in there with them without flipping the base over, she’d have to come up with something else for herself.

Suz sat on the smaller rock, poised to go through the backpack and make a plan to get some rest when she heard a mechanical noise from the path, coming in from the direction they were headed out. She looked over at her handiwork, she thought the three of them were completely hidden from view. She pulled her pack behind the rock and checked the boys. They were sleeping with an intensity one wouldn’t equate with rest. They were sleeping so hard, it looked like work, wrapped in each other’s arms. Pulling the hood of her poncho up over her head, Suz picked up a stick and stood behind the boulder, watching.

Electric ATVs moved down the path. In the low lighting put out by their red headlamps, she couldn’t see anything but black outlines. She counted heads, there were ten in all. That was all she could see. It didn’t look like they were bringing in supplies – more food to bolster the hungry jihadists. She wondered who they were. Reinforcements for the terrorists? People who came to inspect their progress? People dispatched to do something to the children? Whoever they were, she was glad she wasn’t in the camp anymore. Their automatic weapons poked into the air like something out of a dystopian battle scene.

Suz waited for a long time for more people to come in or to leave, for an alarm to sound that they were missing from their tent and a search was under way. The rain drizzled lightly down and Suz was glad because eventually it would obscure their foot prints. Maybe. She hoped it worked that way. She wasn’t sure what the terrorists would do to her if they found her. She knew it wouldn’t be good – so she tried Jack’s thought process – don’t fight a battle you don’t have to fight. Once again, she was smacked in the face with the fact that she was not Jack.

She moved around to sit with her back against the rock. Time past, and Suz fell asleep, her head back, her mouth hung open. She startled awake and wiped drool from her chin. That’s when she heard the rata-tat-tat of machine gun fire, coming from the fort. Thoroughly confused, terrified beyond physical control, Suz crouched behind the outcropping and wept.