that could be hiding in it. The eyes watching her, under cover of the dark. Waiting for her to step closer, until – She heard a sound. Her eyes squeezed shut hard enough to force a tear over her cheek. Closer now, she heard it again. Her breath shuddered in her throat.
Then, something landed on her shoulder. She screamed.
“Wow, calm down. It’s me.”
She opened her eyes and Hadwick’s face floated in front of her. His eyes looked worried above the reflection of her lamp in his metal-rimmed glasses.
“Kim,” Hadwick stepped closer. His hand, his very human hand, warm on her shoulder where she’d felt the thing touch her. “Are you alright?”
The circle of light around her brightened with the light of his lamp. She leaned back against the wall, breathing in deep, giddy breaths that chased the fright back to the edge of the shadows. The stone leeched away her body’s heat, leaving a numb cold spot on her backside, but she didn’t feel it over the relief of not being alone in the dark tunnel anymore.
“Come on, the entrance is this way.” With a hand on her elbow, he steered her through the tunnel.
And then she knew: She would have gone the other way. If he hadn’t come for her, she would have gathered up her courage, and gone the other way. Deeper into the temple, until her lamp ran out. Leaving nothing but her and the dark. The goose bumps came back in force at the thought.
Two quick turns, one right one left, and they stepped into the moist heat of the afternoon jungle. It fell on her like a hot blanket, beads of sweat popped up on her face almost instantly. A bird screamed in the distance, adding to the comforting bustle of sounds from the jungle all around them. Looking back over her shoulder at the dark, ugly pile of stones squatting on top of the rise, she understood that their crew thought there was a curse on this place. It hung over the hill like a vapour. She could feel it reach out to her with cold fingers, even here in the hot afternoon.
“You alright?” Hadwick asked again, lifting her chin with a finger so she looked up at him. A worried expression creased his normally smooth brow.
“Hey guys,” The stocky figure of their guide Jake, came trotting up the path that led back to their camp. His khaki’s and the shirt that was a pale blue this morning, looked wrinkled and clung to his skin. “The rest is already in, so I thought I’d come check. What happened?” He asked her, taking of his sunhat and wiping the sweat from his face with his arm. The steel blue of his eyes seemed to look right through her. She opened her mouth, but didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t make her sound like a fool.
“Not sure,” Hadwick said, saving her the embarrassment. “I sent her out ahead of me, after the rest. A few minutes later, at the entrance, I thought I saw a flicker of light down the south tunnel, so I went to have a look. And there she was, huddled against a wall.” He shrugged. “I don’t understand how she got there.”
“I’d like to call you a moron for going into an unexplored tunnel, but it’s a good thing you did,” Jake clapped Hadwick’s shoulder. “Please don’t do it again.”
Hadwick opened his mouth, not sure he should be insulted or not, but she interrupted any retort he might have had.
“I’m sorry,” She said, rubbing her face with both hands. “I must have been daydreaming or something, making me miss the exit. So stupid.”
Jake put a hand on her shoulder to turn her so that they faced each other. Years of sunshine tanned his skin a deep brown, making it look like soft leather. Deep folds surrounded his mouth and eyes. She’d thought they were blue a moment before, but now she could see they were grey, like storm clouds.
“Not stupid. It happens to the best of us,” He didn’t change the pitch of his voice or the stance of his body, but she understood that his next words were meant as much for Hadwick as for her. “That’s why we never let anyone walk around alone. With two, there’s usually at least one who’s paying attention.”
“You walk around alone.” The words were out of her mouth before she realized this might not be the best time to point that out. Jake looked at her for a moment, a small grin around his lips, and then winked at her like she’d made a private joke that only he would understand.
“That’s because they pay me to be stupid.” He said, manoeuvring her in front of him on the path so he could keep a hand on her shoulder as they walked. “You’re all supposed to be exceedingly smart, so you get to stay in groups.”
He mocked them, but she didn’t mind. She thought this kind of open mockery came close to a compliment. It suggested that you were smart enough to understand why you did something wrong and to not repeat your mistake in the future. And strong enough to take the critique. She smiled, her scare in the temple all but forgotten.
The camp
They built their camp only a couple of hundred metres from the temple. Their feet stomped out a trail through the greenery, walking up with equipment and back down with rubbings and finds. The plants did their best to retake the trail, the tall grasses and wedge-leafed plants Kim didn’t recognize hung over the narrow line of downtrodden plants and earth, stroking her arms as they walked to their camp.
The tents were set up in a rough circle around a patch of ground that served as a fireplace and kitchen. A few large common tents were for storage, except the one that professor Aldritch used as his private quarters, the smaller sleeping tents were for her and the professor’s three other aides. Jake and his men shared open canvas shelters, but she’d seen some of them sleep on the open ground between the tents.
The professor sat in his tent, bent over one of their artefacts he took from the temple the first day. Kim could see the reflection on the afternoon light on the magnifying glass in his hand, when they passed in front of the open tent flaps.
To accommodate their guests, their helpers constructed a modern shower of sorts at the edge of the camp: A simple wooden construct with canvas sides and a large tank tied on top with lengths of rope for the water. Grabbing a towel and a change of clothes from her tent, she hurried to get clean before diner.
When she walked up, Christo stepped out from behind it with two of the old gasoline tanks they used to get their water from the river. He tipped his finger at her that she was good to go and walked off, the empty tanks slung on his back.
Closing the canvas curtain behind her, she started to peel off her thin cotton slacks. They stuck to her skin, making it a small struggle to get out of them. Not to mention the wriggling dance she would have to perform to get into the clean pair after she shoe showered. She tossed her dad’s old shirt up after it, hanging them over the side of the cubicle, next to the clean, still unwrinkled set.
She’d soaped her hair, humming to herself, but when she started to rinse it, the water stopped. She tapped the tank with a finger. Still plenty inside. Besides, she just saw Christo fill it.
Picking a safe spot on the wet ground, she stood up on wobbly tiptoes, looking at the showerhead: A basic model with a small gauze surface, more like a tap on a short tube. She pushed her face up close to peer inside the opening. Some water still dripped out, but not much. At this pace, she’d never get the soap out of her hair before dinner. She shut one eye and pressed the other close to the opening, to see if she could see something inside.
It moved.
She slipped and fell down in the layer of thin mud with a shriek.
A moment later Jake ripped open the canvas curtain and stepped into the stall.
“What’s wrong?” He grabbed the towel from the side, lifted her up and wrapped her in it in one efficient movement. Then he picked her up and set her back on her feet outside.
“It moved,” She pointed at the shower with a finger that trembled with reaction. “The water stopped and then the shower – It moved.”
“Hmm...”
Jake stood underneath the faucet with his hands in his sides, peering up into the opening. It moved again.
“There! You see?”
“Jup.”
He gestured to one of his men an
d said something in their quick, unintelligible babble. The other man ran off and came back with a packing crate moments later. Jake carried it around to the back of the stall and stepped up on it. Kim padded after him with tiny, towel-wrapped steps. She saw him open the small lid on top of the tank and tilt his head to look into it.
“Though so,” He grinned at her as he stepped back down. “We’ll have your shower back up in no time.”
Back in the stall, he screwed the nozzle off the short tube on the tank while the other man held a bucket under it. A black snake shot out of the tube, propelled by the pressure of the water.
“Poor guy got stuck,” The man holding the bucket walked off with it and Jake reconnected the head to the hose, dancing to avoid the steady stream that poured from the tank, now that the tap wasn’t on to stop it. “There you go love, good to go.” He took off his hat with a flourish, before he walked off back to the camp.
Back inside, Kim let out a long breath and looked up at the shower with a frown. She shook her head and tossed the towel back over the side. One innocent little snake and she’d been screaming her lungs out for the second time that day.
When she came back from her tent to get something to eat, she saw Hadwick, Williams and Peterson sitting off to the side, under the flap of one of the large tents, eating and passing a hipflask. The first few nights she’d joined them, but they mostly