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“And me.” Alice scooched forward toward the fire again.
“Ah, we’ll be fine. Just remember to stay close to the fire, piss in pairs, and don’t go near the water’s edge so a croc doesn’t grab you. Do that, and you’ll be fine. They’ve got to have noticed we aren’t back yet. I bet the search will start come morning.”
“Do we seriously have to sleep out here?” Alice asked, concern threaded in her words.
“Doubt they’ll start searching tonight.” Marge shrugged, then went back to sharpening her makeshift spear. “Too dark. They’ll come in the morning. Chances are they’ll ping my phone or Julio’s satellite phone on the raft, then when they find it floating upriver, they’ll work backward and find us.”
“And Julio doesn’t have any other phone?”
“From what I understood when I asked him, he only had a sat phone in the raft storage.”
“But we don’t have the raft.” I sighed.
“Nope. We don’t have the raft.”
“So, we’re stuck.” I sighed. “Sorry, ladies. This is all my fault. I just wanted to do some fun rafting.”
“Yeah.” Alice narrowed her eyes but turned them to Marge instead of me. “I thought you said you picked a river that wasn’t batshit crazy.” She pointed toward the river gurgling beside us. “That river?Thatwas batshit crazy! That was like pro-level rapids!”
Marge shrunk a little. “Well, I didn’t know that. I thought it looked nice in the picture.”
“And didn’t you tell him we were beginners? I’m so shocked he took us on such a dangerous trip.”
Marge slunk a little lower. “I think he did. And I may have misspoke when I answered since I don’t actually know the word for beginner. I thought I conveyed the message, though.”
“Obviously not!” Alice tossed her hands in the air. “I told you that your terrible Spanish would get us in trouble. If I even so much as hear an ‘hola’ out of you the rest of the trip, I’ll show you how much damage a cougar can do.” She flashed her pretty painted nails, then rolled them into a fist.
Marge smirked and pointed her spear at her. “Bring it on, big cat.”
As their stern expressions started to soften, suddenly, Marge’s face tightened, and her body froze.
“Nobody. Move,” she whispered out the side of her mouth.
Our eyes all widened as we froze into place.
“What’s going on?” Doris whispered, her voice trembling.
“Marge, if this is some joke, I swear—” Alice started, but Marge shot her a look so intense it stopped her midsentence.
“I. Said. Don’t. Move.”
Marge gripped her spear, aiming it toward Alice.
Goosebumps rose along my skin, and a shiver of fear slithered down my spine while I sat immobile, completely unaware of what danger lurked nearby and hoping like hell Marge was teasing and would burst into laughter any moment ... Laughter that I would silence by tackling her to the ground and strangling her for scaring me so badly. But instead of laughter, suddenly, Marge shot forward with her spear, a primal, guttural shout ripping out of her as she jammed her spear into the ground.
Or so I thought until I jumped to my feet and saw the snake beside Alice that her spear had penetrated straight between the eyes.
“Ahhhhh!” Alice shrieked, launching up and rushing behind me.
Doris and I joined her screams, the three of us clumping together in a hug as we jumped up and down shrieking.
Marge leaned down and grabbed the large reptile who was longer than she was tall.
Doris swooned, and Alice caught her as she tumbled back.
“Is that... a... a venomous snake?” I managed out.
Marge hoisted it high with a smile and said, “That’s dinner!”
