INTO THE TREES [2]

As they left the resort area behind, the road narrowed, and the lush tropical vegetation that covered eighty percent of the island began to press in on both sides. Dazzling birds of paradise gossiped in the treetops, and at one point they rounded a corner and startled a group of macaque monkeys, who were relaxing on the dusty road like fans soaking up the sun at a music festival.

As civilization became ever more distant, a silence settled over them – partly self-reflection, partly weariness, partly a sense of delayed shock at the abruptness with which the world had irrevocably changed. In the back of the van, sitting among their accumulated booty of weapons and provisions, Sam closed his eyes, all at once overcome by a great rolling wave of lethargy. Soothed by the engine's rumbling, he felt his thoughts breaking up, the harsh images of the past few hours softening and receding.

Blackness rose to meet him, and he slipped gratefully beneath its surface.

It seemed no time at all before someone was prodding him awake.

"Huh?" he said, uncertain for a moment where he was. "Wass happenin'?"

"I think we're here," said Xian Mei, her voice hushed as if in reverence.

"Already?" muttered Sam.

"You been out for two hours, man," said Logan. "Regular Sleeping Beauty."

Sam rubbed vigorously at his face with both hands to wake himself up and stretched to relieve the stiffness in his back.

Turning his head to peer between the front seats and out through the windscreen, he saw that the jungle had been cut right back on both sides of the road, and the wide and dusty clearing was flanked by a haphazard collection of houses.

Most of the houses were stout, wood-framed, one-story buildings, though a number had been erected on stilt-like timber pilings, either for reasons of status or as a preventative measure against the intrusion of snakes and poisonous insects.

The walls were insulated with dried packed mud, which was pale grey, almost white in color, and the roofs were thatched with thick sheaves of grass baked yellow and dry by the sun.

Untethered goats and wildfowl wandered nonchalantly among children and adults performing a variety of tasks in the open air. Sam saw women weaving or grinding corn or washing clothes.

He saw men mending or making various household implements; one even tinkering with an ancient rattletrap of a motorcycle. As they drove past, nearly everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to look at them.

Most of the people were wearing a rag-tag collection of western clothes that looked as though they had been donated by some charity or other. However, a few – mainly women – wore flowing, brightly colored garments, which they had clearly either made themselves or bought locally.