The Ruins by Scott Smith

Author:Scott Smith
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Horror, Fiction, Cancun (Mexico), Suspense, Mayas, Cancún (Mexico)
ISBN: 9780307278289
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2007-07-31T05:00:00+00:00

They didn’t have a shovel.

Jeff had found a sharp rock, shaped like a giant spearhead, big enough that he had to get down on his knees and use both hands to chop at the dry, hard-packed soil. Mathias used one of the metal stakes from the blue tent, stabbing the earth with it, grunting each time he swung his arm. When a sufficient amount of dirt was loosened in this manner, they stood up to kick it free, then paused for a few moments—catching their breath, wiping the sweat from their faces—before starting the whole process all over again.

It was hard work, and not going nearly as well as Jeff had hoped. He had an image in his mind: a hole four feet deep, just wide enough for someone to squat over it, one foot on either side, its walls dropping into the earth, perfectly perpendicular. It was possible Jeff had read a book that described such a thing, or seen a drawing of it somewhere, but this wasn’t what he and Mathias were creating here. At even a slight depth, the walls of their latrine began to collapse and crumble, so that it widened as quickly as it deepened. For it to be narrow enough to allow someone to squat above it, the hole would have to stop while it was still only two feet deep, which defeated the whole purpose, of course. A latrine that shallow wasn’t really a latrine at all; they might as well just continue to fumble through what Jeff had done earlier that morning, shuffling off into the vines and shitting, covering the mess with a parting kick of dirt.

Thinking this, Jeff realized the truth, what he should’ve known from the very start: it was a stupid idea. They didn’t need a latrine, even a well-made one. Sanitation wasn’t high on their list of problems just now, and no matter what might happen to them here, they’d be gone long before it became an issue of any urgency. Rescued, perhaps. Or dead. Jeff and Mathias were digging now not because it made any sense to be doing so, but because Jeff was floundering about, looking for something solid to cling to, some action to take, anything to keep from simply having to sit, helpless, and wait. Realizing this, accepting it, Jeff stopped digging, dropped back on his haunches. Mathias did, too.

“What are we doing?” Jeff asked.

Mathias shrugged, gesturing toward the sloppy, shallow ditch they’d managed to gouge out of the earth. “Digging a latrine.”

“And is there any point in that?”

Mathias shook his head. “Not really.”

Jeff tossed his stone into the dirt, wiped his hands on his pants. His palms burned—that green fuzz was growing on his jeans again. They all had it—on their clothes, their shoes—he’d seen each of them, at one moment or another, reaching to brush it away as they’d crouched together in the clearing.

“We could use it for the urine,” Mathias said. “To distill it.” He made a motion with his hands, spreading an imaginary tarp across the hole.

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