The Jungle.
He walked into the jungle and never walked out.
Eight years ago, Charlie Hale’s father went into the Mexican jungle chasing a legend. This summer, Charlie finds what he left behind: a sealed basement beneath the family's holiday home, and inside it, half of an ancient Mayan key.
The other half belongs to Dave. Barber, old friend of Charlie’s dad, and a man carrying a promise he hoped he would never have to keep.
What begins as five bored British teenagers poking around a locked room becomes a race upriver into three hundred square miles of green, pursued by a private organisation that has been watching the house for weeks, and has been holding Charlie’s father far longer than that.
They have half a map, a reluctant adult, and no idea what is waiting at El Filo.
The mansion was too big, too quiet, and begged to be explored.
Charlie Hale stood in the entrance hall, staring up at the vaulted ceiling while his friends scattered like curious cats. The place had been in the Hale family for years and once belonged to his father, Chris Hale. Now it sat here in the Mexican jungle like a monument to a man who’d vanished mid-sentence.
Nine years ago. Almost to the day.
“This is insane,” Sam called from somewhere upstairs. “Your dad had a mansion? An actual mansion? With like, rooms he probably never even went in?”
“It was for work,” Charlie said, even though Sam couldn’t hear him any more.
“Creepy,” Sam announced, reappearing at the top of the stairs. “This place is officially creepy. I’m calling it. Creepy Mansion votes are in, motion passes.”
“It’s not creepy,” Charlie said. “It’s just… quiet.”
“Same thing.”
It wasn’t the same thing. Creepy implied ghosts or danger. This was different. The mansion felt like it was on pause. Like it had been holding its breath for nine years, expecting Chris to walk back through the door any moment with another crate of artefacts and an apology for running late.
He never did.
⁂
At the far end of the basement sat a metal field case, sealed with a combination lock. Unlike everything else, it wasn’t dusty. It looked recently handled — or at least, handled more recently than nine years ago.
Charlie knelt beside it. The lock was old-fashioned. Three dials. He tried his birthday.
Nothing.
His dad’s birthday.
Nothing.
The date his dad disappeared.
Click.
The lock opened.
“How did you know that?” Tom asked.
Charlie didn’t answer. He lifted the lid.
Extract ends .
- Form
- Novel
- Mood
- Wonder
- Status
- In development
- Imprint
- Publsh'd
No date. It is finished when it is finished, and you will hear about it here first.
Know when The Jungle lands.
One message when it is out. Nothing before, nothing else.