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ONLY IT DIDN’T GET the chance.
With the same deftness he’d shown with the boars, Tank slashed the knife toward Alexa’s throat in such a way that I was certain that he’d cut straight through her.
But he didn’t.
Instead, the knife sliced through the spider’s broad back, killing it instantly. Its legs fanned out in shock and then crumpled in on themselves as the spider spiraled down in a thick thread of webbing to the forest floor. To make certain it was dead, Tank stomped on it as if he were stomping on a rat, finishing it off for good.
At first, there was a moment of relief, but we soon realized that the spider that had first appeared was only one of hundreds hidden within the trees on either side of Alexa. She was caught in a nest of them. While the others were tiny—likely the young of the spider Tank had killed—they nevertheless scrambled out of the trees and toward her with surprising speed.
Alex saw it, sprinted to Tank’s left, and started to tear away the web from Alexa’s body before the spiders could bite her.
“Watch your hands,” Tank said to Alex as they tried to free her. “Be careful.”
Together, they tore at the web, but there was so much of it encasing her that some spiders managed to crawl over Alexa’s cocooned face before she could be freed.
Tank and Alex swatted at them, trying to get them off her before they could bite.
“One is just over my right eye!” she said. “Kill it!”
Alex killed the spider just as Tank, with a great effort, took hold of her arm, which was alive with spiders, and ripped her free from the web. Then, with haste, he ran his hands up and down the length of her arms and legs, essentially crushing each spider with his bare hands. Noting this, Alex quickly began to do the same.
Together, their hands moved down her torso, then down her legs to her feet, and finally up to her head and her hair, which seemed to be covered in an overlay of gauze. In an effort to prevent her from being bit, they ripped away at the web, slapping at whatever spiders they saw. But then Alexa cried out.
“I’ve been bitten!” she said.
Blackwell, Daniella and I moved closer.
“What can we do?” I asked.
“Stand back,” Tank said. He looked at Alexa. “Where were you bit?”
“I felt two stings at the back of my neck. And I’m not feeling well—my body is starting to seize up. It’s becoming difficult to breathe.”
Blackwell charged forward. “There are more spiders on her,” she said. “On her legs—here.” She crushed them with her palms. “And on her arms, there.” Again, she moved into action, joining Tank and Alex to rid Alexa of the spiders that had swarmed her body and the web that still clung to her. My heart began to race at the sight of it all—and then, with unexpected force, came a cramp that made my knees buckle. When another one hit, Daniella took me by the arm and gently led me away from Alex so he couldn’t see what was happening to me.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You need to sit down. You shouldn’t even be out here. You should have done what Tank said and stayed back at the hut to rest.”
“I felt fine this morning.”
“The cramping could mean that you’re still pregnant.”
I hadn’t thought of that, but her logic was sound. For once, Daniella had actually said something of worth.
“What can I do?” she asked.
“Bring me over to that stump. Let me sit down. I don’t want to let Alex see me like this. I don’t want him to worry. I want him to have hope.”
“I think you do have hope,” she said. “Why would you cramp otherwise? If the baby was lost, it wouldn’t make sense to be cramping unless you were having your period.”
“No, this was different.”
“Then what you need to do is just sit your ass down and do nothing. What you need to do is to take care of yourself.”
“She’s been bit,” Tank said. “Twice that I can see.”
I looked over at them and saw that they’d carried Alexa away from the infested area and that she now was lying face down on the ground. The web was mostly off her, but were the spiders? Had they gotten them all? Had they crawled within her clothes? There were so many that had come pouring out of the trees, it seemed unlikely to me that some still weren’t on her—and that she was might get bit again. And if not her, then perhaps Alex, Tank, or Blackwell. Since they were working with their bare hands, all of them were at risk. Anything could happen.
“Lie still,” Tank said to Alexa. “This is going to hurt, but we need to get the poison out now.”
He checked the back of her neck, identified where she’d been bitten, and then, with quick a slash of his blade, he made a small incision in her neck, pressed his fingers on either side of the cut, and began to squeeze hard until blood pooled out in thick red ribbons that dripped onto the jungle floor.
“Do you need to suck the venom out?” Blackwell asked.
“What came out of that tree was a hive of baby spiders. Alexa is strong, and their venom isn’t toxic enough to harm her with any significance. I just need to keep applying pressure here and let the venom come out along with the blood. Then, after a day’s rest, she should be feeling back to herself. She got lucky. If the mother had bitten her, she could be dead.”
“What kind of spiders were they?”
“I’m not sure. Given the size of the female, I’d say that it was a wolf spider, which are known to live around these parts. But who knows? It might have been something else. As I said to all of you earlier, this is exactly why we need to watch ourselves in the jungle. There are poisonous creatures everywhere, from snakes to spiders to insects.”
“And tribesmen,” Blackwell said. “Who are likely watching us now.”
Tank didn’t respond to that. Instead, when he was finished applying pressure to the wound on Alexa’s neck, he leaned down toward her ear and asked her if she was feeling better.
But she didn’t answer him. Instead, she started to sweat—and then to shiver.
“What’s wrong with her?” Blackwell asked, the fear clear in her voice.
“She’s having a reaction to the venom.”
“She could have been bitten somewhere else.”
“She could have. That’s why we need to get her back to camp ASAP, disrobe her, and check her body for other bites.”
“But we should do that here,” Blackwell said. “Now. While time is on our side.”
“We didn’t kill all of the spiders on that web, Barbara. Even though we moved her over here, those spiders are agitated and fast, and they could be upon all of us at any moment. I suggest that we all get the hell out of here and take Alexa home, where I can examine her.”
“Is she going to die?” Daniella asked.
“She’s not going to die.”
“But how do you know?”
“Tank is trained for this, Daniella,” I said.
“That’s not good enough.”
“What’s not good is that we’re wasting time.” Tank stood. “Alex, you take the fruit. I’ll take Alexa. Let’s go.”
And with that, Tank lifted Alexa in his arms, and we all began the trek back to the hut, unsure about Alexa’s health—or the repercussions of how her body would absorb whatever toxins had been needled into it.
