Chapter 16 | Lost, All of a Sudden
By the time red-headed Mike emerged into the clearing, all traces of men in face paint were gone. No sound of rotor blades, nor radio chatter, not even the faint whisper of acrid smoke dissipating. As he stood there anticipating, only the gentle breeze punctured the silence. Mike gazed up and around at the towering karst in the distance, the triple canopy of foliage covering everything else except this small open area he’d found, as if waking from a dream. “Nobody knows I’m here,” he thought, an unheeded warning to himself. Not scary, just an observation. He’d never been here before, nor had any of his friends been here, either. Sure, they talked of such mystery places, weaving pieces of stories they’d heard from the grownups. Places you’d get sent to and never come back, exotic lands far away where you eat bugs and fight for your life and sleep in the mud and always watch your back. Ten thousand miles away. Or your own backyard, just a couple of clicks from the river and Molly and peanut butter toast.
Mike sat down on a rock and rubbed his belly, full and aching from eating too much then running through the jungle. Still quiet, even his own thoughts fallen silent. Mike closed his eyes, trying to see if he could remember all the details of his surroundings. Every leaf a different color, depending on how the sunlight hit. Rocks here and there, twigs, swirls of dirt, clumps of grass and weeds, tree stumps and vines. Mike put his ear to the ground for a moment, to hear if the dead people were talking. He got up and skipped around, into and out of the clearing, till he came upon a stagnant pool of water and some tire tracks. He decided to follow the tracks for a bit, till they petered out. The grass was way higher than his head here, and it was fun to be this lost all of a sudden. “Haha, you can’t find me!” he yelled. He spread the tall grass out in front of him as he pushed forward, till he reached another clearing. In the center of the clearing was a carved stone face about thirty feet high, covered with vines. “Nobody’s been here before,” he told himself. Except that just a few feet away was a satchel he hadn’t noticed at first. Now that he had, it was simply a matter of walking over and opening it up. He listened for signs of the satchel’s owner, but this place was just as silent as the last place. “Finders keepers!” he cried, opening up the small bag. “Wow!” There was a deck of playing cards, a candy bar, a small opaque brown bottle, and some feathered darts. A torn map with hand drawn circles and lines, a yellow notepad, and a pen. A wad of piasters tied together with a twine. And a slingshot!
Mike withdrew the slingshot from the pack and gathered some stones to fire at the thirty-foot face. He went for the eyes, of course.
“Hey!” a voice called out. “You’re doing it all wrong.”
Startled, Mike missed the face altogether. “Jesus Christmas!” he cried, the way he heard his daddy cry when he knew Mike was within earshot. The man who’d yelled at him was now running full speed towards Mike, and Mike wasn’t about to find out what happens next. Still clutching the slingshot, he took off into the jungle, where he could get more lost than any boy had ever gotten lost before.
