The Ruins (novel) - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

Four American tourists—Eric, his girlfriend Stacy, her best friend Amy, and Amy's boyfriend Jeff, a medical student—are vacationing in Mexico. They befriend a German tourist named Mathias and a trio of hard-drinking Greeks who go by the Spanish nicknames Pablo, Juan, and Don Quixote. Mathias convinces Pablo and the Americans to accompany him as he joins up with his brother Heinrich who had followed a girl he'd met to an archeological dig. The six of them head down to the rural Yucatan in search of Heinrich. Near a Mayan village, they discover a disguised trail which leads to a large hill covered in vines and surrounded by bare earth. The group approach the hill, ignoring the warnings of a young boy who had followed them to the village. The boy soon returns with armed adults who force the group to stay on the vine-covered hill. Among the underbrush, they discover the body of Heinrich, already overgrown with vines.

They realize that the vines contain an acidic sap that burns their hands after they pulled the vines away from Heinrich's body. At the top of the hill is a camp with tents, a campfire and windlass and rope which leads down a mine shaft. Much of the camp is overgrown with the same acidic vines. Hearing the ring of a cell phone from the bottom of the shaft, they use the rope to lower Pablo down in an attempt to retrieve it. However, the acid from the vines has weakened the rope which snaps, sending Pablo falling down the shaft. His back is broken and the group raises him on a makeshift backboard.

Jeff, who quickly emerges as the most level-headed and action-oriented of the group, explores the hill and discovers that the Mayans have formed a perimeter around the entire hill, not approaching, but always watching him and ready to shoot them dead with bow and arrow. He also discovers a warning sign made by someone else, which has been pulled into the underbrush of vines.

That night, Eric, who had received a wound on his leg while rescuing Pablo, awakes to find one of the vines curled around his leg and inserting itself in his wound.

Jeff surmises that the Mayans are afraid of the vines. They salted the earth around the hill to prevent their spread and are now intent on killing anyone who strays onto the hill. Already, spores from the vines have embedded themselves in the group's clothes. He also realizes that they will die soon without any food or water.

Jeff and Amy return to the mine shaft to find the cell phone. After almost falling into a pit, Jeff realizes that the cell phone noise is being made by the vines. The plants can imitate sounds made on the hill. As they climb back up, they hear the plants laughing at them.

Eric becomes convinced that the vines have infested his body and attempts to cut himself to get them out. That night, he, Amy, and Stacey get drunk and nastily criticize everyone. Later, the vines repeat their criticisms, especially those of Jeff. Amy and Jeff fight and Amy leaves the tent drunkenly. Jeff ignores the sound of her vomiting, and calling his name. The next morning they discover that Amy is dead; the sounds they heard were of the vine suffocating her. They seal Amy's body in a sleeping bag, intending to bury her, but that night they hear her calling Jeff's name. Seeing the bag moving, they open it to discover it full of writhing vines which have eaten Amy's body.

Jeff, taking advantage of a torrential rainstorm, heads down the hill and attempts to escape but is shot by the Mayans. The vines pull his body back into the underbrush.

The next morning, Stacey and Matthias go to check on Jeff. Increasingly disturbed, Eric begins cutting himself in an effort to remove the vines which he believes have infested his body. Hearing the vines telling them that Eric is dead, Matthias and Stacey run back up the hill to find him bloody, but alive. Eric angrily confronts Matthias, and accidentally stabs the other man with his knife. He then asks Stacey to kill him which, after much pleading, she does.

Alone, Stacey heads to the bottom of the hill and seats herself on the path leading to the top. She then calmly slits her wrists and waits to die so that her body will be a warning to anyone else who comes. As she loses consciousness, the vines reach out and pull her off the path into the underbrush.

A few days later, the other two Greeks, with some Brazilian tourists in tow, find the trail. A little girl—who's acting as a sentinel, as the little boy on the bike was—runs back to the village, but the new tourists are already halfway up the hill, calling for Pablo, before the men on horseback arrive.