Transition

Christine slowly woke up to the sound of drums and chanting. Her arms were bent behind her and tied. She was slumped forward but held in a semi-vertical position by something attached to her hands. As she groggily straightened to a stand and lifted her head, she was suddenly wide-eyed with astonishment at the scene around her. It was night and there seemed to be no moon. Rather mean and somewhat intoxicated looking tribesmen of some sort were dancing and chanting around her and around the clearing.

She was bound to a post stuck in the ground in a small clearing in a dense, steamy jungle, wearing only her bedclothes. To her left and somewhat in front of her was another girl named Debbie, similarly bound. Debbie was naked to the waist, trembling with fear, and soaking wet with perspiration. Debbie was struggling against her bonds but her struggling was more wild, aimless thrashing than systematic or purposeful, and it was obvious to Christine that escape was beyond possibility.

To Christine’s right were two more girls also tied to posts in the ground. First, fifteen feet away was Jane, and, a similar distance beyond her, was Connie. Jane was wearing a smart-looking skirt and blouse that showed just a slight hint of cleavage. Her shoes were missing but her hair was neatly cut and entirely undisturbed despite her apparently dire situation.

Connie, on the other hand, was completely naked, except for a pair of completely mismatched sandals. Connie’s jet-black hair hung wildly over and around her shoulders and had a streak of blond that was suddenly revealed when seen from just the right viewpoint. It was startlingly like one Christine had used to keep her parents off balance when she was in high school.

Jane appeared to be asleep and Connie had a sort of blank look on her face as if she might have been drugged. Although she knew all three girls by name and each looked strikingly familiar in some way, Christine had no idea who these girls were or how she knew them. Everything was completely bizarre and there was an extremely ominous tone to the whole scene. Even the heat and humidity was as oppressive as in any environment she had ever experienced. Christine should have been terrified and she knew that, yet she was more fascinated than frightened.

The dancing and drumming went on for what seemed like an hour or more. During this time Debbie stopped struggling against her bonds but repeatedly tried to plead for someone to tell her what she had done wrong or what was wanted of her.

"Why? What do you want from me? Tell me what you want me to do?" she kept repeating. She seemed quite frustrated that no one would respond.

Equally irritated by the constant pleading, Christine momentarily thought of what she had done to her parents and teachers in her early teens.

Jane and Connie now seemed more alert. Jane kept urging Christine and Connie to be careful, to not do anything that might further anger their captors, saying things such as, "Let’s keep them talking, maybe we can reason with them."

In what little Christine could hear, Connie kept trying to tell Jane that if they could get free their best bet was to do something completely unexpected. "If we can throw them off just for a minute it might give us a chance to get away," was, apparently, what she was saying. Each girl seemed to have a different approach to coping with the situation, and each reminded Christine of herself at a different stage of her young life.

Then, with startling suddenness, the moon appeared, full and bright, from behind some clouds. The dancing and drumming stopped abruptly and all attention suddenly focused on Debbie. There was an eerie gust of wind just as she was released from her bonds.

"Please, tell me what to do," Debbie instantly pleaded. "I’ll do whatever you say."

Some of the tribesmen pointed toward a huge, carved pole, something like a totem pole, that was now brightly illuminated by the moonlight and located about 75 yards away. "Go to Memno!" they ordered. "If you make it to Memno while the moon shines you are free!" Their mocking tone indicated they did not expect her to make it.

Christine looked up at the moon for a second and saw that it would be covered by clouds in less than a minute.

Debbie did the same, then bolted and ran in near panic toward the totem, pretty much exactly as the tribesman had directed her to do. She got less than thirty feet before she stumbled and plunged nearly waist deep into a morass of thick, sticky, quick clay. "Eeeeiiiiick!" she screamed, trying to back pedal.

"Nooo!, Why? I didn’t do anything!" she cried in anguish.

Debbie twisted around and took one partial step back toward the clearing before bogging down completely. She kicked once and sank to her chest. She looked up at the watching tribesmen back with an expression of complete betrayal.

"Help me! I’ll do anything you want …Pleeease!" she pleaded desperately. Debbie kicked again and sank to her shoulders. Now she was screaming hysterically and clawing at the mire with her hands and arms, but she just sank deeper. In half a minute she was neck deep, and she was chin deep in another half minute. With her arms still clawing and chopping uselessly at the mire in front of her, she bent her head back to keep her mouth above the surface, now half screaming and half gasping, her eyes wild with terror.. Soon her eyes were engulfed and only her mouth was visible, her lips pursed to keep mud out of her mouth. Then suddenly she choked as mud filled her mouth. She bucked and jerked several times, ineffectually trying to raise her mud-filled mouth back above the surface, and her head was gone. Her arms thrashed at the surface for a few seconds more before disappearing entirely.

For ten or fifteen seconds there was stunned silence. Christine’s heart was pounding in her chest, but more with excitement than fear. She had just seen a young woman drown in quicksand, and the situation strongly suggested she might very shortly meet the same fate, yet she was somehow detached from that reality. It was like watching a movie with herself as an actress playing a role.

The drumbeat started up again as clouds covered the moon. Christine looked over at Jane and Connie. Connie looked back at her.

"She shouldn’t have done what they told her. It was obvious they wanted her to run into the mud, Connie stated with conviction.

Jane cut in, "No they said if she got to the totem pole she would be free. She just should have been more careful. She just took off in panic and it killed her."

Christine said nothing but wondered if it really mattered. The tribesmen didn’t seem to have cared whether Debbie ran to Memno or somewhere else.

A short while later the moon reappeared and the drumming and chanting stopped once more. This time it was Jane who was released. "Go to Memno!" they ordered once again. "You are free if you reach Memno before he disappears again." Jane had seen what happened to Debbie, just as had Christine and Connie, so she did not simply bolt toward the totem. Instead she moved cautiously, as if it was more important to avoid making a mistake than anything else. Meticulously, she picked her way forward slowly, deliberately probing and carefully testing for the edge of the mire she knew was there and trying to work around it.

Christine watched in fascination but became increasingly irritated at Jane’s tedious caution, which was maddeningly like her own reluctance to take chances during her early college years. She appeared to be making progress also but it was too slow. She advanced and retreated, moved left, probed with her foot, moved right, and advanced again. She got about halfway to the totem before clouds began to cover the moon. Even then, with time obviously running out but while a last second bolt might still have succeeded, extreme caution ruled for Jane. Finally, and with awesome suddenness, the clouds covered the moon. She had failed the test.

Tribesmen who knew the way now came out and seized Jane by the arms. They carried her back to within thirty feet of Christine. Even now, Jane was quiet, as if the tribesmen might lose interest if she simply didn’t resist. But the tribesmen didn’t seem to care if she resisted or not. With one taking her wrists and one taking her feet, they swung her once and threw her into the mire.

"Noooooooo!" she finally screamed as she fell, landing on her backside with a sickening splat. She went in to her neck almost instantly, although she was lying in a horizontal position. Flailing with her arms Jane managed to rise to chest level in the mud but put herself in a vertical position doing so. She was now so stricken by fear she could not scream or utter a sound. Several times she retched violently but nothing came up. She thrashed about wildly and was up to her chin in just a few minutes, then gradually was forced to tilt her head back just as Debbie had done. Now she was gasping uncontrollably and eventually she sucked in a mouthful of the mire and began to gag before her eyes went under.

Christine could see the terror in Jane’s eyes as she choked, bucked several times, and vanished into the mire, but, as in Debbie’s case, she felt none of the fear. She knew her turn would come soon but for some reason was identifying more with the tribesmen, who cheered and celebrated as each girl went under.

Now the chanting and drumming started again and went on for some time, but eventually the moon came out again. This time it was Connie’s turn. "Go to Memno!" they commanded again. "You will escape if you reach Memno before the moon fades."

Connie apparently had decided not to try to reach the totem but to attempt to try to do something unexpected, to escape by running in a different direction. Memno, she figured, was just a lure to get her into the quicksand. Christine could see Connie’s eyes tracing out a path almost directly away from the totem and deduced what Connie was about to do. At the same time she was dimly aware that at least part of her wanted Connie to fail.

Connie checked the moon and bolted to her left, diagonally away from the bog and the totem beyond.

Christine instantly noticed that the tribesmen did not seem overly surprised by this move and made no effort to interfere.

Connie’s strategy of surprise and misdirection was logical but not sound and it worked no better than it had for Christine when she tried it on her boss a year before. Just fifty feet from Christine, Connie tripped headlong into another pit of quicksand, falling face down and plunging her arms into the mire all the way to her shoulders. With her face in the mire, she bicycled with her legs and pushed back alternately with her arms. She succeeded in extracting her face and turned her body back toward the clearing, but she was neck deep and going down fast. The tribesmen pointed at her and laughed as she spit mud, gasped, choked, and was engulfed.

At that exact moment, knowing her turn would come with the next appearance of the moon, Christine firmly made up her mind to do things her own way. She would not cooperate in this game, whatever it was. Instead, she would accept her fate with dignity, deny the tribesmen their fun, and try to pretend to enjoy her sinking. She would not be overly compliant, as Debbie had been, neither would she be frozen by indecision or be predictably unpredictable, as had Jane and Connie. Besides, she thought, although she certainly did not want to die, sinking in quicksand was certainly an exciting way to go if that was unavoidable. And, the whole idea of doing things in her own way, even if it meant drowning in quicksand, was beginning to seem rather appealing.

The drumming and chanting resumed for awhile until the moon came out again. Christine knew her turn had come. "Go to Memno!" came the now familiar command, as her wrists were released, "You are free if you reach him."

By now the moon was high enough in the night sky that the edge of the quicksand bog was clearly visible, assuming one was aware of its presence in the first place. The sky around the moon seemed quite clear, as if bating her to take Jane’s cautious approach. One of the tribesmen now pointed obliquely in the general direction of Memno, as if directing her to a specific route. Debbie, Christine knew, would have immediately followed this direction. At almost the same time, something crashed deep in the forest and distracted most of the tribesmen. Christine knew that Connie would have chosen that exact moment to bolt in an unexpected direction.

Christine instantly rejected all three opportunities. For once, she would be herself. Quickly and very deliberately, as if she were in complete command of the situation, Christine walked directly toward a slightly elevated peninsula that jutted out into the bog. She walked right to the edge, then stopped. Without a moment’s hesitation, she slipped the straps of her night gown off her shoulders and let it fall to the ground. Then she stepped out of it, bent down and picked it up, and tossed it aside. She would leave the world dressed as she had arrived. She stood facing the bog quietly for about five seconds. Then she crouched forward and jumped into the mire, plunging in to her chest.

Showing no signs of panic or even fear, and perhaps just a slight indication of pleasure, Christine twisted her torso from side to side once or twice and sank nearly to her shoulders. Using her arms and hands, she scooped mud in toward herself and pulled it up onto her neck and face. In a minute her head was tilted back and framed in a narrowing circle of viscous mud. The enveloping mire was at once profoundly frightening and erotic to the point of orgasm, but she remained outwardly calm. She didn’t cry out or scream or cry; she just waited. In a few more seconds the mire closed over her face. Mud got into her mouth and under her eyelids. There was no discernable taste but it had a thick, smooth consistency, with a few lumps reminiscent of mashed potato, but denser.

The mire pressed in all around her head and face. The feeling was like that of a towel wrapped completely and tightly around the face and soaked with water; not painful, but stifling, like the air just before a hurricane. Christine held her breath until she was well below the surface, then silently screamed into the surrounding mud. For a moment it was a scream of primal terror, one made even more terrifying by the fact she could not even hear it, but it swiftly shifted to one tempered and then overwhelmed by orgasmic release and a concurrent sense of accomplishment. Christine slowly let out what little air she had left, strangely feeling very relaxed.

Then the drums started again. For a moment Christine thought there must have been another girl she had not known about. She wondered how she could still hear the drums from under the quicksand. Then she realized she was still safely in her bed at home. Drumming and laughter were coming from a party at the fraternity house across the woods behind her house.

She was up the rest of the night wondering what, if anything, her acceptance of sinking in quicksand might mean and where such a wild dream might have come from. She was immediately aware that her dream was about the most vivid she had ever had, and that it was no nightmare.

In the next few months, Christine was totally surprised by two successive promotions at work, both accompanied by remarks from her supervisors about her newly apparent ability to make decisions and take charge of complex situations. In the same period, Christine spent a considerable amount of time trying to track down and buy a copy of every Tarzan film ever made.