Lost: Casa Perdida [Completed]

Terror-Filled Silence

The Narrator

Claire Dakota was relieved that she had been able to wade through a stream, an act that separated her from those who finally relented in their pursuit of her. And once the brook separated her from those who chased after her, she climbed up a tree. From the branch that she sat on in the highest tree accessible from the brook's banks, she could see the men cursing as they began to find their way back.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she climbed down and stood facing the stream's placid waters, with her arms on her waist. She then shifted her glance to her leg, which had been lacerated by jagged rocks and splintered branches during her flight from her pursuers. The numbing effect of adrenaline had worn out, exposing Claire Dakota to the soreness of muscles exhausted by tedious running. She shook her arms first and then her legs and then looked behind her. How am I supposed to find my way in this thicket? She then looked to the forest on the other side of the bank. There was a certain uniformity in the trees there that obscured her ability to find her way back there too. Finally, her eyes fell on the gentle stream. If I could follow this stream, I might end up one way or another in a town or village.

She walked up to the brook, bent over it near its banks and splashed some water on her face pulling up her trouser legs down and walking along the brook.

Her pace was very slow; for, she couldn't muster any strength to maintain a steady pace. She was exhausted and her desire to hit the sack was very strong while her wounds were throbbing. The dried leaves along the bank rustled as he stamped them en route to where she thought she was going at that moment.

Claire loved the wilderness in the United States, and she had thought that Bolivian jungles would be the same. But she was wrong. There were more insects, reptiles and the whole place was constantly wet. She loved the rain and thought it to be refreshing but the constant rainforest wetness coupled with insects and reptiles saturating that part of the jungle bothered her.

The icy, eerily cold air gripped her neck. She had a mild case of the flu and mucous was constantly dripping down her nose. How she would have loved it, if only she had a pack of tissues with her. But, she wasn't anticipating that her little adventure going behind the creep who was pursuing a girl would turn into a fiasco.

Are there any animals here? Seems so lonely

She goes around a pit and continues her trot. Her lips stopped bleeding but they were swollen whereas her head ached from the bang. Her ears were still ringing from that blow to the back of her head. She had no mirror to observe that injury. There was a cut at the back of her head, but the blood stopped gushing out.

She began to feel nauseous. Her head began to ache while her vision began to be blurry. She tried her best to keep pace and balance, using the tree to help her.

Using the trees for some support she continued along the bank for a while. The further she went downstream, the broader the river became and the thicker was the forest. She was exhausted then but she told herself, "You can't stop here. Come on, Claire."

A lot had transpired that night and she wondered if she should've come to Bolivia in the first place. She got bitten by a bunch of ants. When she drew her hand from the bark to check her hand, she lost balance and struck a rock with a leg before falling straight on the bank. It was difficult for her to prop herself up. She tried once and twice and thrice and finally passed out.

***

The taxi driver knew nothing about Claire Dakota personally but he knew where he had dropped her. So the Felipe and few of his aides went with him to the shantytown where he had dropped Claire.

"Do you know this lady?" Felipe asked as he held up the picture of Claire Dakota for the girl, whom the cab driver identified as the one Dakota had been following, to see.

"No."

"Did you know she was following you?"

"No."

Felipe glanced at one of the two officers who had accompanied to this bar in the shantytown and then looked at the other. He then asked the girl once again, "I want you to do something for us."

The girl looked at him, waiting for him to complete his request.

"I want you to try your best, once again, to identify this woman. I know I asked you this billion times, but this is a missing person and we can't afford to miss even the tiniest bits of knowledge; so, please help us by trying your best to see if you remember seeing this woman."

The girl sighed and took the picture from Felipe's hand. She felt its surface, looked at Dakota's face and then stared at the sky above, for a while, thinking and recollecting probably all the people she encountered in the last few months. As she did this, Felipe looked on eagerly, wishing that she would come with an answer that he was looking for, an answer that makes his team's job of finding Claire way easier than it could ever be. She thought for a while and even came to the point of saying something, only to retract her statements from the tip of her tongue. She pondered for a long while.

Felipe asked once again, "Do you remember seeing her?"

"No, I am sorry." She shook her head, as Felipe sighed.

"Thank you for your time."

Felipe placed his hands on his hips and looked about. Then he looked at the girl who was walking away. He wanted to call her and ask her to stay for a while but before that, Tomas, one of his companions, informed Felipe that they managed to find the manager in his bed on top of the bar. Felipe forgot to call the girl and went with Tomas into the manager's office to talk about Claire.

"Have you seen her?" Felipe asked.

Taking the picture, the manager touched it and then said, "No! But I can ask my secretary who was at the billing counter."

Felipe nodded and the manager pulled out his cell phone and called his supervisor

***

Alice began to have seizures and scream and yell. Despite the thick swelling in her elbow and the dislocation, she thrashed her flappy arms about and her legs vehemently.

"Alice!" Kirt yelled.

Alice didn't hear him. Well, she did vaguely catch someone calling her name. But, to her everything around was spinning. Her head began to ache and her ears rang loudly like the shrieks of a thousand lake monsters. She shuddered and twisted and twirled, entangling her self further with those chains.

Kirt looked on with fright. He wanted to help her and he could have but despite his hands being untied, he couldn't reach Alice and the chains on his legs were still intact and strong enough from keeping him.

Alice again untwirled herself, shivering as she did and began to throw up. She finally let out a shuddering scream and puked before falling on her own puke and fainting. She seemed to have dislocated her elbow further by her vehement action.

Kirt's eyes narrowed in horror when he saw that there was a large amount of blood in her vomit and the blood was thick, abnormally thick, with worms swimming on it. Alice's nose was bleeding and her face was drenched in her own bloody vomit.

Suddenly her body began vibrating and shaking, but her eyes were shut.

"Alice!" Kirt called.

She didn't say anything. Only a gush of blood spilled out of her nose and mouth before her body ceased to move.

An eerie terror-filled silence inundated the room after Alice stopped moving, drowning Kirt in further depression over being stranded in that house. He wished that the monster would slay him soon and that when she does it, she'd do it quick. He thought about how it would feel when he dies. Will it be just a bit of pain before everything stops? Or, would the pain go on for a while?