Part 3 (1/2)

Jay called, ”You hear that, Lila?” No answer. ”Lila?”

Lila had come to a wide clearing filled with chopped and fallen brush. She was probing through the debris with her machete. ”Jay, I think I may have found something.”

Jay stopped whacking. ”What?”

Lila used her machete to brush some withering branches aside. Underneath she found a section of low, stone wall. ”It's a little wall, kind of like you'd see around a well-you know, it's circular.”

Dr. Cooper's voice filtered over the tops of the weeds. ”It could be a well. How wide is the circle?”

She began to cut away more growth, gradually uncovering the curve of the wall as it formed a circle about ten feet across. ”It's ... uh, about ten feet across, I think ...”

But one thing bothered her about this circle: She was standing inside it. ”Jay?”

”Yeah.”

”I think it might be a well. I can feel cold air coming up from below.”

Jay heard a cracking sound, then a rustle of leaves and branches-and then a long, echoing scream.

”LILA!”

Dead limbs had broken, supporting sticks had snapped, and the thick, centuries-old mat of vegetation had given way under her feet. She was falling into a deep, cold place without light, sliding and bouncing over the slimy stone walls as she tried to grab something, anything.

GOOs.h.!.+ She slid feet first into something soft, slick, gooey. The well must have a muddy bottom, she thought.

SHRIEKS! FLUTTERING! The stagnant air came alive with a rus.h.i.+ng, flittering, flapping, slapping, squeaking.

She screamed and covered her head as countless little shadows swirled around her, slick and slimy, slapping against her, against each other, against the walls.

She looked up just once and saw the opening she'd fallen through as a circle of daylight alive with hundreds of fluttering, flitting, disk-shaped shadows.

Carvies! The pit was full of them.

FOUR.

DAD!” Jay hollered.

But Dr. Cooper had heard his daughter's screams and was already on the way, cras.h.i.+ng and thras.h.i.+ng in a straight line through the jungle.

Lila covered her head with her arms as the riled creatures continued to flurry about her, flapping, shrieking, flinging slime from their wingtips. She could feel the slime spattering her everywhere; it was in her hair, on her face, dripping down the back of her neck. ”HELP ME!”

Jay reached the well but threw himself to the ground as two frightened, screaming carvies flew out of the pit and over his head. He scurried along the ground and peered over the wall into a black void. ”Lila!”

She was screaming for help, her words lost in echoes.

”Dad! This way!” Jay yelled.

Dr. Cooper finally burst into the open. He looked into the pit only a moment before throwing off his backpack and pulling a rope from a side compartment. ”Lila! Stay calm! I'm lowering a rope!”

Lila kept her hands around her head as she whimpered in fear and disgust. The stench-the slime, the mold, the carvy droppings-was almost overpowering. Carvies still fluttered and flapped around her. She could feel slime dripping off the end of her nose.

Flop! The rope dropped into the pit with a loop tied in the end. ”Put your foot in the loop!” her father called.

She reached for the rope, but lost her balance and fell onto something that clattered, clinked, flipped like tiddly-winks as she landed.

Bones. Leg bones, arm bones, ribs, skulls. The carvies were living in them, crawling on them. They scattered like pigeons when she fell, flying by her face and then ... where? She could hear them withdraw into a deep, echoing void behind her. She turned her head, still protecting her face with her arms, and could just make out the entrance to a dark pa.s.sage. A tunnel? Hundreds of carvies had retreated into the cavity, clinging to its walls.

But hundreds more continued to scurry and flop like beached stingrays amid the bones around her. Others hung from the walls of the pit, their backs arched with fear, their beady little eyes locked on her.

She had to get out of there. She righted herself, put her foot in the loop and used both slime-slickened hands to cling to the rope. ”Okay.”

Dr. Basehart joined Dr. Cooper and Jay, and the three of them hauled in the rope hand over hand until Lila's head popped up through the tangle of weeds and broken branches. She was covered with a thin, greenish slime.

Jay reached out to take her hand, but Dr. Basehart grabbed him. ”No. Don't touch her! Just keep pulling on the rope.”

”Try to climb out, Lila,” said her father. ”Yeah, that's it.”

She was gasping in fear but used her feet to kick and crawl, and she finally flopped over the wall onto the ground.

Dr. Cooper tore his s.h.i.+rt off. ”We've got to get that slime off her! Lila, hold still!” He started wiping the slime from Lila's face with the s.h.i.+rt, speaking gently to her, trying to calm her. Jay took his s.h.i.+rt off as well and started working on one arm while Dr. Basehart used a large handkerchief to work on the other.

”We'll have to get her back to the swamp or the waterfall and wash her off,” Dr. Cooper thought out loud. ”We'll make a stretcher to carry her.”

At that moment, Toms, Juan, and Carlos burst upon the scene, machetes flas.h.i.+ng, rifles ready, hollering in Spanish. At the sight of Lila and the open pit, they figured it all out.

And then they started laughing!

Jacob Cooper wanted to strangle them! ”Stop laughing and help us! We've got to get her to the stream to wash her off!”

At that, Juan and Carlos looked at each other and then laughed some more.

Toms tried to explain. ”Seor Cooper, your daughter will be all right. Do not be afraid.”

Neither Dr. Cooper nor Jay were ready to believe that. ”Help or get out of the way!” Dr. Cooper demanded.

”The slime is green,” said Toms, pointing at Lila and the s.h.i.+rts used to clean her. ”These are morning carvies. They are not dangerous.”

Cooper upended his backpack and the contents dumped onto the ground. ”Grab the rope, Jay, and secure it around the ends of the pack board. We'll make a stretcher.”

Toms kept trying. ”Seor Cooper, believe me, if these were yellow evening carvies, Lila would be dead by now.” He pointed to Lila once again. She was crying, frantically wiping her face and hair with clothes that had fallen from her father's backpack. ”You see? She is alive, full of energy!”

Juan and Carlos added their observations in Spanish, and Toms translated, ”Juan and Carlos say her skin would be burning, and she would be paralyzed and choking to death if the slime were poison.”

”We'll talk later,” said Cooper, cinching up the last rope on the pack board.

SPLAs.h.!.+ Lila leaped into the pool beneath the waterfall and began rinsing herself off, twirling in the water. Dr. Cooper left a bar of soap, a clean s.h.i.+rt that could serve as a towel, and clean clothes by the pool's edge. Then he joined the others a short distance down the trail. They wanted to give her some privacy, but didn't want to get out of earshot.