“Sharks. They love the river fish.”
Finally, the lazy river gained speed, the water churning out over boulders as the land grew rockier, the jungle thicker. The river grinded angrily forward, falling downward in a series of small pools before it opened up into a gigantic waterfall that roared beneath them, the haze of spray rising up into the thick mist above them. From the base of the waterfall, a lazy stream, tired from its journey, wound its way quietly down to the ocean, the river bend making a sharp right turn before continuing out to the sea. Peter flew up beside her again and pointed to where the river bent away from its main stream.
“Do you see it, Wendy?”
She didn’t, not at first, but then her eyes followed a small wisp of steam that trailed up from beyond the trees. Steam, she thought. That’s an odd thing to see in a jungle. She would have easily missed it had Peter not pointed it out. The curling steam trailed up out of the trees and then dipped under a swaying green branch, massive in size, draping across a large rocky outcropping. Her eyes followed the serrated gray rocks down a slick tumble of stone, as if a giant had shoved over a mountain and then piled it back up again. There was a wooden stake that rose out of the peak of the stone pile, a huge cross that was turned sideways so that the arms of the cross pointed down into the peak. From there, a single white rope tethered to the cross wove its way down until it met the ground, its taut line disappearing under the rushing river water. Spaced evenly along the rope, each dangling in place by gigantic metal hooks, a line of broken skeletons blew in the wind, their bones rattling. The horrific sound whispered quietly out through the jungle and made Wendy long to clasp her hands over her ears, to block the memory out forever. A strong gust of the humid wind of the island rocked the skeletons simultaneously, and they all turned to face the sea, a macabre coordinated dance.
Large red birds, their brilliant feathers shimmering like ripe plums, reminiscent of distorted peacocks, nested in the ribs of each skeleton, looking from above like huge, beating hearts. The wind changed direction again, and the skeletons all twisted to look right at Wendy, and she saw the glittering black obsidian rocks that had been placed in their eyes. Her stomach lurched when she realized that the skeletons looked so terrifying not because of their red bird hearts or their coordinated turns in the wind, or even the metal hooks around their necks—the skeletons were uniquely terrible because they were small. Far too small to be grown men. These were the skeletons of children. These had been the eleven Lost Boys. Fear twisted Wendy’s heart, overwhelming any lingering excitement that she felt.
This is a bad place. We should not be here. She looked up at Peter, whose eyes rested easily on her. She started to mouth the word “no” before he gave her a devilish grin and led the boys forward, banking hard in the air so that they silently came up above the jungle about a half mile from the Vault. Peter motioned to the jungle, and one by one the boys and Wendy dropped into the dense trees that grew beside the mountain of horrors. The jungle was deep and ill-behaved. Choking vines tangled around her, and the canopy slithered closed immediately after they slipped through, turning them all a sickly shade of green in its emerald light. Wendy watched with wide eyes as a hairy, scarlet spider made its way through Abbott’s hair in front of her.
“Abbott!” she hissed quietly.