Chapter Six
Allie wasn’t going to lie... she’d made a grave mistake coming out into the jungle in the middle of the night.
The moon was half full, just enough to silver the treetops but not enough to illuminate the roots, the vines, or any obstacle she might encounter on her illegal walk.
Illegal, because everyone was asleep, and she was out sneaking around in search of that protection bracelet.
She was fully aware it was the exact thing people warned against. Sneaking around for anything, especially something as significant as a protection bracelet, was the fastest way to put a target on your back.
But she couldn’t help herself. They were only a few hours into the game, and Allie already felt like the underdog.
Not only had she been chosen last, or technically not chosen at all, but Barra had overlooked her completely.
And then later, once everyone had gathered along the beach, Sutton had asked if anyone knew each other, which Allie assumed meant if anyone had hooked up.
Allie had nearly said yes. It had been only one night, but Allie’s lips had met Barra’s lips, and if that wasn’t intimate, then she had no idea what was.
But then she’d caught Barra’s eye, and her face had been a warning of “don’t say anything.
” So Allie hadn’t. She’d looked down at the sand and prayed Sutton would move on quickly.
There would be time to talk to Barra later.
It turned out that hadn’t been the case.
Allie had spent the entire afternoon, while everyone constructed the shelter, trying to corner Barra for an actual conversation.
Barra had instead skittered around as if Allie were a fly she wanted to avoid.
Allie put that down to Barra feeling a deep sense of humiliation for vomiting in the cab.
So Allie had let it go. She filed it under a problem for tomorrow while she dealt with the problem for tonight.
“If I were a protection bracelet, where would I hide?” Allie muttered under her breath.
She had checked the obvious places first. She had checked the watering well where they had refilled their canteens before sunset.
And then she’d gone to the base of a massive strangler fig that wasn’t too far from the beach.
After she didn’t find it there, she went over to a cluster of smooth rocks where the tide couldn’t reach.
But there had been nothing. Then she’d ventured into the jungle, two cameramen tight on her heels, which had been deeply comforting. Without them... wait. Where were they?
“Shit,” Allie muttered under her breath. She snapped her head left, then right. But there was no one. There was no man wearing a backward cap or a woman in checkered Vans. She didn’t see the reassuring red recording light blinking through the darkness. Just her. Alone. In the jungle.
“Fuck!”
Allie started jogging. Camp couldn’t be far away.
She’d only been walking for about five minutes.
Surely she would break through the trees right at the end of this.
Her foot caught on something hard. She pitched forward with a strangled gasp.
Her arms windmilled, her core tightened, and somehow she managed to keep herself upright.
Then she froze. Diego’s voice filled her head, calm and cautionary, just like it had during the wilderness workshop when he’d rattled off all the little things that could keep them alive. “Never step blindly over a fallen branch,” he’d said. “Snakes often use it for cover. Especially at night.”
Snakes. Why did there have to be snakes?
Allie snapped her head down toward the branch she’d just tripped over.
“Fer-de-lance,” Diego had told them as he had shown a picture of a thick-bodied snake with brown and cream patterning that looked indistinguishable from a pile of leaves.
Allie had shuddered all the way to her toes at the sight of it.
“They’re aggressive and fast and responsible for most snake bites in Costa Rica.
They like leaf litter, so always keep an eye out. ”
Low ground? Well, her feet were on low ground, weren’t they?
Allie’s heart hammered so violently she could feel it in her gums. Then she remembered Diego pointing to a photograph on his phone of a delicate yellow-green snake with little horns above its eyes.
“Eyelash viper,” he’d explained calmly. “They’re beautiful, but their venom is hemotoxic and can cause intense pain. They sometimes sleep on low branches.”
Allie’s gaze shot to the branches above her. Something swayed gently overhead, and a shudder shot up her spine so fast she actually let out a voiceless scream. Fuck!
She would duck and run if every other thing Diego had mentioned during their three-hour-long workshop wasn’t leaving her incapable of simple bodily tasks.
.. such as moving. Instead, she recalled golden orb weaver webs, which he’d said stretched across entire paths.
“You walk into them before you see them.” And tarantulas.
“They’re mostly harmless,” Diego had said.
“But if you surprise one, it may throw hairs.” And wandering spiders, which apparently were fast-moving hunters found on the forest floor or in banana trees.
“Banana spiders are considered highly venomous and aggressive.”
Something scuttled nearby.
Allie felt like she was going to die. And maybe it would just be easier to accept her fate. Maybe she should just find the nearest banana tree and shove her face into it.
Allie took a single, tiny step forward. All she had to do was get back to camp, where it was safe.
But where was camp? She wished Diego’s voice would get out of her head.
If only he had stopped speaking about spiders.
They did not need to know all about bullet ants, named because the sting felt like being shot.
She didn’t want to think about the bark scorpions hiding beneath loose wood, or poison dart frogs small enough to miss entirely until you touched them.
And if that wasn’t enough, Diego had smiled as he said, “Howler monkeys sound like predators.” Allie couldn’t even remember what his smile had looked like because she’d been too focused on the list of creatures that could kill her.
“But they’re not dangerous. Jaguars are very dangerous, although you probably won’t see one. They’re elusive in these parts.”
Probably. Did that mean there was a chance she could walk into one right now?
The thought had barely entered her mind when something screamed in the distance. It was a long, loud wail that seemed to rip straight through the canopy and slide down her spine. Was that what a howler monkey sounded like? Or was that something else? Did jaguars wail?
Allie wished she could go back in time and tell Diego to stop showing photos of snake bites. She’d never known skin could fall off bone like that. Instead, she wished he had played the sounds of the forest so she could know for absolute certainty when to panic and when to remain calm.
Another wail.
The forest suddenly felt smaller, like four walls pressing in. Allie’s vision blurred. Her hands trembled violently at her sides. She couldn’t tell if the crawling sensation on her calves was ants or her imagination. Or if the shadow to her right was just a vine or a snake.
What the hell was she doing here? And not just here, in this jungle at night, but in this game.
Why had she entered Outlast Her? What had even possessed her?
Whenever Allie traveled, she did it first-class.
She was accustomed to lie-flat seats and champagne before takeoff.
When she stayed in hotels, there were turn-down services and blackout curtains, and rainfall showers the size of small apartments.
She did not belong out here in this death trap.
Her breath hitched. She tried to breathe.
In. Out. In. Out. She tried to breathe like every meditation app she’d ever downloaded had instructed her to.
But it wasn’t working. Allie was about to hyperventilate in the Costa Rican jungle because she’d tripped over a branch.
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to conjure up an image of somewhere safe.
A rooftop pool in Santorini. A perfectly chilled glass of malagousia.
“What the hell are you doing?” a voice came so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that Allie couldn’t help it. She screamed. And it wasn’t just a scream; it was a feral shriek.
Then a hand closed over her mouth, and she could feel the warmth of a body against her back as an arm locked around her waist to keep her from thrashing. For one disorienting second, Allie realized jaguars weren’t the scariest thing in the jungle.
She was just about to scream again, this time directly into whoever’s palm was suffocating her, but then the voice spoke. “You’re going to wake everyone up.”
Allie knew that voice. It had to be Barra.
Allie wrenched herself sideways and snapped out of Barra’s arms with more force than necessary. She stumbled back a step, her heart sprinting a million miles an hour to see Barra standing just a foot away in a grey GAP sweatshirt with matching sweatpants.
“What is wrong with you?” Allie hissed. “You nearly gave me a cardiac arrest.”
“You mean a heart attack?” Barra said, sounding amused.
Not that any of this was amusing. Allie’s heart was going off like a jackhammer. She was only just getting her breath back.
“That’s what I just said,” Allie replied stiffly. ER had just launched on Netflix, and she’d spent the evenings of the last two months watching reruns and salivating over a young Alex Kingston. Cardiac arrest was a perfectly good medical term. She had every right to use it.
“Never mind,” Barra said, blinking at a strip of moonlight pouring over the roots of a large strangler. “What are you doing out here? Everyone’s asleep.”
“You’re not,” Allie shot back.
“Well, it’s not safe to be out here at night.”