On The Right Track

[PM2K]

New story by me...

On the Right Track - by PM2K (2015)

Pain explodes through Tamara's head as she tries to open her dark eyes. She is vaguely aware of the sensation of stickiness over her face as she fights to surface from the darkness she finds herself submerged in.
Slowly, her senses return to her. She feels the warm tropical air caress her bare, light brown skin, stirred by a slight breeze. Her eyelids flutter open, and she utters a low groan as the midday light dazzles her vision.
As they clear, Tamara's head swims. Something deep inside her urges her to hurry up and move, so she fights the discomfort to slowly sit upright. Her stomach lurches, its contents turned to something cold and oily, yet she somehow manages to choke it down.
The young woman, her Latina heritage clearly stamped on her features, gingerly feels around her face and head, wincing as she feels the crusted over wound. Dried blood paints part of her left forehead and cheek, and she notices over the bulges of her generous chest how the front of her light green safari shirt has been spotted with rust brown drops.
Tamara shifts in position, the black braid of her hair falling forward over her right shoulder. Her legs, covered in loose fitting blue denim, are streaked with green grass stains and mud, her boots coated in rich brown earth.
She takes time to flex each of her parts to ensure they are in working order. Sighing, she looks over to her right to see her pack lying open, contents scattered about on the jungle floor. No need to check to see what was missing... she knew it could only be one thing...
Kellie... you bitch... you fucking bitch...

The pair had been bumming around south of the border for two years running, keeping a low profile. Deserters both, they had worked a string of minor jobs and petty crime, while ducking the authorities.
While drowning their sorrows in a local watering hole with an old mercenary, they heard about the ancient temple, the native people who lived near it, and the precious stones it held stored within...
In time, Tamara and Kellie obtained a boat, weapons and supplies, and made their way up river. Reaching the landing place, they moored the boat, camouflaged it with heaps of branches, and worked their way inland. After a week, they found the village.
In a month, they gained the trust of a native girl who they
sweet talked into showing them where the temple was located, then had killed her and the handful of priestesses who cared for the place... and made off with a fortune in emeralds.
But, several days later while the pair were packing up their latest campsite, Tamara was struck from behind, leaving her in a world of hurt. And not just because of the knock on the head.
It wouldn't have taken long for the villagers to come after them once they found the bodies... and if they catch up, they'll skin me alive, if I'm lucky...

Tamara crawls over to the pack and scoops up its innards, stuffing them inside the canvas as quickly as she can. She is surprised to find her Ruger Security Six revolver still in its holster on her right hip, along with a pair of speed loaders in a pouch next to it.
What she isn't surprised by is the fact her Kalashnikov is missing.
Now that's generous of her, she thinks sardonically. But it makes sense... especially as her former partner has left her breathing after her treachery. To make her getaway, Kellie needs a diversion alive, able to run and put up a fight...
But not too much of one. Her pistol won't hold out long against a people determined to avenge the mass murder of their own...
Tamara scowls, picturing the California blonde dashing through the jungle towards their boat, laughing all the way to that early retirement she always bragged about.
No way, bitch... no way you're getting away, leaving me holding the bag...

Pack now secured on her back, floppy green jungle hat placed atop her head, Tamara pushes through the thick brush. Her eyes dart about, looking for signs of Kellie's passage, ears alert to sounds of pursuit.
Based on what she's seen so far, the blonde hadn't been exactly stealthy. Plants and high grasses were plowed aside, forming a clear trail towards the river.
Tamara rushes along the track, following it closely. She has no idea how much of a head start Kellie has... maybe a couple hours... and that lack of knowledge is urging her quickly forward.
If she reaches the boat ahead of me... I'm as good as dead...

The sun continues ot beat down, and Tamara pauses to take a few measured swallows of tepid water from her canteen. The heavy forest has faded, replaced with stunted trees and thicker stands of tall marsh grasses, which sway well above her head. The going is getting tougher, as the ground underfoot gets softer and wetter, the darkening mud sucking on the soles of her boots. Kellie's path is still clear to see, the grass broken and bent, the holes made by her feet turned into shallow puddles.
Wandering through this shit instead of taking the longer, drier path will slow Kellie down, Tamara thinks, increasing my chances of catching up to her before dark, and getting back the emeralds. After that...
I could blow her head apart... or maybe just gut shoot her and leave her behind for the natives. They both seem like delightful options...
Tamara's flesh has become slimy with sweat, her bare skin greasy with it, from the effort of slogging through the thick black muck, which ranges from ankle to knee deep. She has lost track of time and sense of direction, guided only by the path torn through the lush thickets.
Where the hell is that girl going, anyway? When they first moored the boat, the pair skirted the wetland to the village. Why Kellie would choose to plow straight through it now...
Then it occurs to her... That stupid bitch... she's in a hurry, that's why...

Tamara feels her lips turn to a grim smile. When they were recruits, Kellie sucked at orienteering, always taking the direct path between two points on a map, with little regard to what the actual ground conditions would be, leading her squad to disaster time after time. Here in this remote area, maps were light on details at the best of times, and GPS is close to useless.
Pushing forward through the heavy curtain of grasses and reeds, Tamara gasps in surprise as she feels herself suddenly drop crotch deep in quivering slime. Wiggling her shapely hips in an attempt to free herself, she instead swiftly sinks past them to her waist in dark, piss-warm mud.
Panic shudders through her when she realizes every passing moment she is settling deeper into the jungle mire. In no time, the muck's dense surface rises past her belly.
Crap! I'm being sucked down!
Swearing, she reaches towards the remains of a nearby drowned tree, and seizes one of its branches. Pulling slowly so as not to break the bone dry wood, she struggles to extract herself from the thick mud's considerable suction.
Come on... damn it... come on...
Gradually, as the mire utters wet slurping and farting sounds, she senses herself moving out of the sodden trap. First her hips, then her thighs slowly emerge, thickly coated in greenish black, stinking muck. Hearing the branch creak alarmingly, Tamara quickly lunges for the trunk of the dead tree with her left hand while still hanging on with her right. Bending forward, her belly and breasts pressing into the sloppy earth, she half crawls, half swims towards the semisolid ground the tree is sited on, and flops upon it as the strength in her arms gives out, knees still sunk.
Panting heavily from the effort, Tamara rolls onto her back, her muddy clothing plastered tightly to her skin. God, that was close... The bottom seemed to have dropped out from under her feet, and thinking carefully, she doesn't recall feeling anything solid beneath her... The mud got so thick and heavy around her so damn fast, it was hard to move even as it sucked her down. If it wasn't for the tree...
An image from a Tarzan movie flashes through her mind. Two men, sinking out of sight in bottomless mud. Ugh... that kind of death always horrified her... since she was a kid, she found it hard to watch such scenes...

Tamara shivers, then lies still for a few moments. After a time, she sits up and thinks carefully, as she grasps her right leg behind the knee to free it from the mud. She has her revolver on her right hip, and her military knife hanging off of her left. Kellie will still be lugging around that old AR-15 of hers, but she is a terrible shot.
Maybe... if I can sneak up on her, I can nail her before she gets off a shot... or make her waste her ammunition shooting up the grass and mud. Easy enough to hide in this stuff...
Frowning, Tamara looks around for traces of the trail she had been following, and is puzzled when she couldn't locate any. For a moment she wonders if Kellie had blundered into the same mud pit she just barely escaped from, then spots some broken branches and reeds on the other side of it.
Looks like she had a close call, too... Tamara thinks, and looking carefully finds more evidence of the blonde woman's passage. She spots several of the familiar foot holes meandering along the clumps and ridges formed by plant life snaking through the treacherous wetland.
I can't tell if she's crazy or stupid... or me for following her...
Tamara frees her feet and shins from the clutching muck, then rises upright, determined to press onwards.

Much later, she is exhausted, a combination of overexertion in suffocating heat and humidity, and anxiety, of wondering if her next step in the mire would be her last...
Since her narrow escape, Tamara has had two other potentially deadly encounters with muddy ooze, and again managed to extract herself, but only after prolonged struggles. These exacted heavy tolls on her body and clothing... her shirt, once light green, is soaked with dark silt, and has ripped open, exposing her large brown skinned breasts, dark nipples erect, which bob free. Mud is smeared in streaks across her exposed skin, which glistens with sweat and grass stains.
Her jeans are mud slick and plastered to her legs and ass, forming a slimy second skin, her weapons, still hanging off her hips, are grimy. Her eyes are half open, mouth slack, and yet still glitter with an inner drive.
Kellie... you bitch... I'm coming for you... and my emeralds...
The space in the thick sea of reeds appears so suddenly she almost stumbles and falls into it. A vast swath of brown, black and green streaked mud, maybe twenty feet across, appears before Tamara, its surface flecked with small tufts of grass. On the other side, the reeds continue, with a single large drowned tree still rooted to the spot drawing her gaze.
Her ears twitch. Beyond the tree and the reeds, she can clearly hear, faintly but distinctly, the gentle slap and gurgle of water...
The river! Thank God!
Tamara is about to make a beeline towards the sounds when her eyes again spot the trail she had been following. Water filled foot holes snake outwards, and cross the mud... then end at what looks like a wide, churned up puddle, lying close to the tree's base.
What the hell?
Her sharp eyes narrow at the sodden earth, at the edges of the shallow skin of water covering it. Parts of it look almost like...
Despite the heat, Tamara shivers. The narrow grooves at the edges of the churned up part of the muck look like something... someone... had been clawing at it. Clawing in a vain attempt to escape.
Seeing no evidence of anyone coming out of it, she knows her hunt has ended.
"Kellie... you stupid, stupid bitch..."
Looking more closely at the mud's surface, she sees how it had fooled her treacherous companion. The surface, exposed to the sun, had dried to a rubbery consistency, also allowing for grass to grow in patches. Based on the footprints, it seems one could walk on it, at least for a while...
A deadly trap for the unwary.
Sighing, Tamara turns to go, when she spots something else, close to the edge of Kellie's muddy grave. A small cloth satchel lies atop the surface, a few green stones spilling out.
Her heart leaps inside her chest. A fortune in emeralds, within plain sight, yet lying out of reach.
Or was it?

Tamara squats down near the base of the skeletal tree, probing the mud ahead of her with a branch she had broken off. Its tip glides into the rippled surface with little effort, confirming what she suspected. Kellie's final struggles had loosened up the mire to the point it wouldn't support any direct weight.
Leaning out on her knees, she pushes the six feet of branch straight down into the slimy earth. Extracting it, she sighs, her eyes again alighting on the satchel and its priceless, glittering green cargo, lying maybe a dozen feet away.
So close... so damn close...
Tamara had spent about an hour skirting the edge of the mud, working her way towards the tree, which towers close to the spot where the emeralds lie. Reaching it, she finds to her disappointment the tree is further away than it had appeared, and none of the low hanging branches stretched out far enough to use as a lifeline.
A search of her pack confirms her worst fear... she had forgotten to scoop up a rope when she hurriedly stuffed it full of items back at the campsite. Or maybe Kellie had taken it when she snagged the emeralds in the first place. In either case, she didn't have it.
Standing, she grabs hold of the lowest of the thicker branches, which hangs about chest high. Hanging on to it, she works her way to the edge of the more solid ground and leans forward over the morass. The branch bends and creaks, but holds.
Stretching her right arm out, Tamara finds she needs at least five more feet of reach to grasp the satchel, but considering the muddy death trap it lies atop, it may as well have been five light years away.
Retreating to shore, she growls in frustration. All that effort to get them... spending their life's savings for the provisions and boat... the killings... Kellie's betrayal... the hell of going through that fucking swamp... and now the prized lies there just out of reach... mocking her...
She takes off her muddy shirt, suddenly tired of how its slimy touch feels against her skin. Holding it for a moment, a thought takes shape.
Maybe...
Tamara twirls the shirt tightly, then ties one end of it to the branch, pulling hard. The branch bends, but the shirt holds. Still, she can see it still won't be long enough.
Running her hands over her mud slick jeans, she feels herself smiling. That's crazy... really crazy...
She is still thinking that as she unbuckles her belt...

Tamara takes off her hat, tossing it beside her boots. Remembering how the mud had clung so tightly to her footwear during her slog through the marsh, she had decided to remove them as well, reasoning her bare feet will be easier to extract from the muck. On a whim, she peels off her sodden panties and adds them to the pile.
Might as well go full jungle girl, she thinks, a brief snort of laughter escaping from her as she ties the left arm of her shirt, while the right arm remains tied to the branch, to one of the legs of her pants. She pulls hard, satisfied it will hold. The wetness of the fabric helps to keep the knot tight.
Naked now, Tamara walks over to the branch and unties the shirt arm from it. Working her way to the edge, feeling with her feet, she ties one of the pant legs to the wood, and gives it a hard tug. She then tugs hard on the shirt which is tied to the other leg. Satisfied, she then begins to build up the nerve to actually wade into the mire.
The hot, humid air feels good on her bare skin, caressing her breasts, arms, flanks and the curves of her ass, tickling the mass of black pubic hair and stroking the outer folds of her sex, and slightly rounded belly. She closes her dark eyes for a moment, steeling herself. Then, she steps forward, keeping a tight grip on the shirt sleeve of her makeshift rope...
The tepid slime quickly engulfs her feet, and sucks hard on the bare flesh of her lower legs. Tamara grits her teeth as she pulls hard on the shirt/jean chain, trying to keep as much of herself on the surface as she is able to manage. With a sharp cry, she leans forward and allows herself to land atop the sloppy surface of the mud with a wet, thick slap, shuddering at the greasy sensation of it pressing against her nude form.
Tamara wiggles and swims her way across the surface, ass in the air, while the remainder of her form presses into the rubbery surface of the bog. Her legs pop free, and she is now fully prone atop it.
The shirt, stretched taut, is wrapped around her right wrist, while she digs at the muck with her left arm, slithering with her body across it like a serpent. Mud bunches up against her chin and paints her form with filth as she crawls forward, eyes fixed on the satchel. It bobs slowly in place, as the mud around it quakes and quivers in response to her movements.
Almost... almost...
Tamara's face is twisted with effort. Her wrist complains, strangled by the tightening shirt arm looped around it. The branch creaks overhead, bending down from the strain of holding her up. Her left hand trembles, arm stretched to the breaking point as she reaches for the satchel...
The mud beneath her jiggles and trembles like a living thing, hinting of unknown depths... Even prone like this, Tamara can feel herself sinking deeper into the jelly-like grime with each passing moment.
I can't screw around any longer... she thinks, her mouth dipping under the muck.
Coiling herself, Tamara puts all of her strength into a single lunge forward, and with a cry of triumph she feels her hand close around the satchel as her body slaps into the mud.
Then, the sleeve wrapped around her wrist goes limp.

Tamara looks around frantically over her shoulder to see the branch springing away, jeans rising rapidly out of reach. Her shirt falls limply atop the muck, having somehow slipping loose from its clothing companion.
No!
Arching her back violently and twisting in place, Tamara wrenches herself free of the sucking surface, reaching out to try and grab the pants leg. Her fingers manage to brush the cuff before her lifeline whips out of her grasp.
At the same time, her sudden motion drives her legs and bare hips under the jungle mire's churning surface, and she feels herself quickly settling downwards into it.
Oh, God no....
Belly deep and sinking fast, her left hand still hanging onto the cloth bag, Tamara once again tries to reach the branch overhead, but her finger tips are an inch too far away... and getting farther away as she settles deeper into the mud.
In no time, a thick roll of mud oozes its way past her waist, hungry lips sucking her down. She is finding it harder to move from side to side, as the bottom to the mire proves elusive to her feet, which probe for any sign of one... and finding only more shifting slime.
Tamara tries to twist herself free, but instead sinks past her ribs. She stops moving, and sinks to her breasts.

Tamara bites her lower lip, sweat dribbling down her face, beading on her skin. She feels the mud press against the underside of her breasts, pushing them upwards. Beneath the surface, she feels the gritty mixture violate her, oozing against and inside her openings, a sensation which forces her to squirm against its density, which presses in all around her trapped body.
Every breath she takes, every movement, every shudder, makes the bog shiver in response, drawing her in. She senses the warm, black slime creeping into her cleavage, bubbling through to splatter the tops of her breasts, even as her stiff nipples disappear.
Despite her circumstances, Tamara continues to hold up the satchel with her left hand, even as her right arm slips under the quaking mud. She cannot accept this... cannot accept this grim fate closing in on her...
She tries again to move, to somehow propel herself towards the shoreline, but is held fast by the mire. Shoulder deep now, her breathing reduced to a series of shallow pants, Tamara looks around at the reeds which surround the muddy pit, and sees no sign of humanity. No one to help her out of this deadly slurry.

Not fair... it's not fair...
Tamara keeps biting her lower lip to prevent herself from whimpering. The tepid mud flows sluggishly over the top of her bare shoulders, surrounding her neck. It is a struggle to keep the bag full of emeralds clear of the mud, but she is determined not to let go, even as the thick muck reaches her chin.
Oh, God... I'm going under....
The black and green mire laps over her closed mouth and stops up her ears. Tamara's eyes and nostrils flare wide, her dark hair spreading across the wobbling surface. She can smell the mix of wet earth and decaying plant matter moments before it fills her nose, cutting off her air.
"Mmmmph! Mmmmph!"
Her dark eyes are bulging as she tosses her head from side to side, attempting to dislodge the smothering grip of the mud, but only succeeds in driving herself down even deeper. Beneath the surface, her mouth pops open out of reflex, and Tamara inhales a massive mouthful of foul muck. Choking and gargling, her breath is forced out to bubble on the dark surface, just as her eyes and forehead slip under...
Her hair, forming a thrashing mat of fibers, vanishes in a thick swirl of mud and water, as the rest of Tamara is sucked under. Her shirt, still ties to her right wrist, slithers across the muck before curving under...
Stubbornly, her left arm remains above the churning surface, clutching the satchel tightly. Slowly, the arm slides downwards, fingers trembling, then they lose their grip as the froth of bubbles atop the mire subsides. The satchel strikes the surface with a wet slap, disgorging its cargo of green stones across the black mud.
The hand, now curled into a claw, continues to spasm as it slips out of sight. The satchel sinks as well, mud flowing inside its open top. The emeralds disappear one after the other, until no sign of them remain.
The mud roils and shudders for several long moments, then stills. A tropical breeze, stirred by the coming of evening, ruffles through a pair of jeans hanging off a branch of a bone white tree, where at the foot of its dead trunk lies a pair of boots, a pack sack, a hat and mud soaked panties.

On the horizon, a column of dark smoke can be seen, marking the place were Tamara and Kellie's boat was anchored on the river. The villagers, who got tired of waiting for the criminals who killed their people, destroyed their means of escape instead.
They had taken the river route in pursuing the pair. After all, everyone knew it was madness to go through the wetland, from which no one returned. That route was certain death...

[DJlurker]

And once again, jungle justice is served... quicksand style.

(YEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH)

[Stephymink]

Another wonderfully sticky ending. Thanks Purple Monkey!

[quickbeard]

Pm2k for sheriff.... for justice quick and sure

[lenscap]

very nice!