Jungle Changes

Another from that discovered archive ...

It had been a strange hike through the jungle. Vicky, as part of her biology field study, was studying the local forest floor ecology. Unfortunately, she got lost. Equally unfortunately, she'd forgotten her compass. What's worse, even though her GPS was working, it was giving strange readings on occasion. She was starting to distrust the thing. That it was the only link she had back to her base camp was the only reason she hadn't pitched the thing into the nearest river.

Like all the students, she'd memorised her maps so that she was pretty sure where she was. Arriving at a ruin in the jungle instead of the bank of the river as she'd been expecting was a slight shock. She decided very quickly that the best thing she could do was get some height and began climbing the steep temple stairs. It took longer than she hoped to find a safe path to the top. The view was of jungle, jungle for kilometres in all directions. It was a bit disheartening. Still, with the extra height, she might be able to contact the radio operator at the base camp.

"Echo Bravo Camp," she was careful to speak clearly into the radiophone. "This is Vicky. I'm lost without a compass and the GPS is acting up."
"You're signal is a bit weak. Can you climb something to get a better signal?"
"I'm on top of some kind of ruin. A temple, I think. It's the highest thing about."
"There's only one ruin in the area that you could have walked to in the past three hours. We can't land the helicopter anywhere near there. Hang on a second." 

There was a brief pause and Vicky thought she could hear some ticking of keys. Probably Gerald, the radio operator, was hunting through the online mapping section to find a place they could airlift her out.

"Only place flat enough is by the Chakarak Falls. They are more-or-less NNE of you. Could be tough without a compass."
"I understand Bravo Echo. I'll try to hike out using the sun and GPS. Vicky out."

On her way down the temple stairs though, she slipped on a loose stone and slipped into a slot between a pair of walls. The artwork on the walls was strange, a mixture of scorpions and people doing some strange dance or whatever. She wasn't an archeologist. Her concern was to get out. She achieved this at some cost though. She skinned herself many times and was stabbed by some kind of spike imbedded in the wall. She quickly bound the wound and dressed it against the jungle's various nasty micro-organisms and fungi.

It took another ninety minutes, though, to reach a river. Fortunately, she could hear the falls in the distance and began to fight her way through the jungle towards the sound. She wished she had a boat but that would have just weighed too much. She derided herself for getting off the trail somehow and getting lost. This would definitely put back her own investigations. 

Another hour, and the sun began to set. Though she couldn't see it, her watch indicated she had, at best, another hour or so to reach the falls and rescue or she might have to spend the night in a cave somewhere. That prospect didn't appeal to her in the least so she redoubled her efforts and was soon rewarded by breaking through the wall of vegetation that separated her from the falls.

"Bravo Echo," she signalled. "I'm at the falls."
"Good to hear, Vicky. The pilot is all checked out and ready to go. Expect him in about half an hour. You know the survival drill. Light three fires to signal your location."
"Will do, Bravo Echo. Vicky, out."

She decided she'd best get some wood. Of course, all the wood in the jungle was wet but she decided that the driftwood around the falls might be usable. She began to gather short chunks of driftwood and carried them to a flat rock in the middle of a small island below the falls. It was at that moment that the gathering twilight was broken by the rising moon and an unwelcome discovery. That spike in the walls was much more than a simple metal spike. It had had something on it or in it, something that had changed Vicky.

She collapsed onto a large log in the stream and felt spasm after spasm wrack her body. Soon her convulsions had shredded her clothing against the sharp rocks. But that was the least of her problems. Her body was changing. She was growing a tail and legs. Wave after wave of change shook her body as the unwelcome growths increased in size. Soon it was apparent to Vicky that she was becoming one of the scorpion-people she'd seen painted on the walls of that temple. 

How was she going to get into the helicopter now?

Photo Credits:
Woman: https://www.DeviantArt.com/SwiftCreekPhotos
Scorpion: Creative Commons
Background: https://www.DeviantArt.Com/BHP-Stock