by Dan Arnold
From the top of the escarpment the red mountains in the distance danced and writhed in the heat waves as though they were alive. The mirage effect made the plain look like a vast lake, nearly driving them mad with thirst. Jake and Becky stumbled into some brush and dropped down in the shade.
“I can’t go on. I’m done.” Becky said.
Jake was too tired to reply.
“I mean it. You should go on without me.”
Jake slowly shook his head.
“We’ll rest here for a little while. Then we have to get moving.”
“Say, mate, do you still have that vest in your pack?”
Jake nodded.
“It won’t work without water. We can’t waste the little we have. We can’t produce enough sweat as it is.”
Becky didn’t respond.
Jake slipped his arms out of his pack and lay back on the ground. He closed his eyes and drifted off.
When he opened his eyes, for a moment he didn’t know where he was. His mouth was so dry, he couldn’t swallow. His wristwatch told him he’d been asleep for nearly an hour. He scratched at the itch behind one knee, feeling welts forming.
Looking over at Becky he found her so still he feared she was dead. As he pulled the water bottle out of his pack, Becky moaned and stirred.
Jake took one long sip from the bottle. Pouring some into the cap, he trickled that water past cracked lips into Becky’s mouth. The relief roused her, allowing her to swallow.
She sat up, looking at him with eyes filled with abject misery. He knew the only reason she wasn’t crying was because her body was unable to produce tears.
He handed her the half full bottle of water.
“Drink,” he said.
He didn’t have to say it twice.
Becky swallowed most of the water, stopping herself from drinking all of it.
She offered the dregs to Jake.
He accepted the bottle tipping his head back as the last dribble ran down his throat. He drew his knife and carefully split the bottle open.
“Here, lick up those last few drops. Then we need to get moving.”
As she followed his instructions, Jake stood. The sun hit him like a hammer blow. He wanted to drop back to the ground, but knew if he did, he probably wouldn’t ever get up again. He reached down to help Becky up.
“I can’t.” She said.
He didn’t argue. Instead, he gripped her elbow and dragged her to her feet. She was too weak to resist.
Keeping his hold on her elbow, they set off following the vehicle tracks.
Twenty-Four
Dr. Jacob Walker couldn’t remember when he started carrying Becky. He barely remembered why he was stumbling through the Tanami Desert, under the sun, in the late afternoon. He was following vehicle tracks...somewhere.
He stopped, letting Becky slip from his arms. Where was he? Looking around, he found himself on the edge of a playa. A flat, sun baked plain stretched before him. It was devoid of vegetation. In the distance he saw a pool of water. Some part of his mind was trying to tell him the water wasn’t real, but his thirst wouldn’t let the message get through. He tried to pull Becky up, but she was glued to the earth. He took one step, then another before he fell headlong on the ground.
He lay there for a moment, trying to gather his strength. He couldn’t get up, so he began crawling. He wasn’t sure why he was crawling, something about water... somewhere. He had to get to it. Where was it?
He lifted his head to see where he was going. Through the heat waves he saw a caravan of camels approaching. No, that couldn’t be right. Was he in the Gobi Desert?
He looked again, the image undulating in his vision. He tried again to stand, but his body refused the command. He felt the hot sand against his face.
Above him he heard a voice.
“Bloody fools,” Wally said.
Jake opened his eyes, squinting in the bright light. He was lying on his back, with an IV needle in his arm. The man bent over him spoke.
“G’day, mate.”
Confused, Jake managed to croak. “Where am I?”
“Yarramalong Station.”
“Where is Becky?”
“She’s in the next room.”
“Is she...”
“Alive? Too right, but it’s a pure wonder. You should both be dead.”
“How did we get here?”
“Wally says you walked most of the way. He found you out there. He gave you both water and brought you back the rest of the way with his camels.”
“Camels? I guess I wasn’t seeing things, after all.”
The man shrugged.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Toby Warren, with the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Now that you’re both stable, we’ll be transporting you to hospital.”
“No, you can’t. We’re both infected.”
“Infected? What do you mean, mate?”
“I don’t know what it is, but we have itching welts.”
A snort from the doorway startled him. Jake turned his head to see Wally standing there.
“Tell him, Wally. We have some sort of bites. We’ll go crazy.”
“No, mate, you have chiggers is all. A little calamine lotion and you’ll be right. Isn’t that so, Toby?”
“I reckon.”
“But, the others...”
Wally nodded.
“Yeah, you were going on about how the others in your party went crazy and started killing people. We informed the authorities. They’ll look into it. I expect they’ll send choppers out there tonight.”
“Tonight, what time is it?”
“It’s sundown, mate. Don’t worry. They have spotlights and plenty of rescue crewmen.”
“They’ll be too late.”
“Maybe, but they have to try. If they don’t, it could be a week or more before they get another chance.”
“Why?”
“It’s the monsoon season, mate. The rains will start tomorrow.”
Jake marvelled at Wally’s bush knowledge.
“How do you know?”
“I saw it on the tellie. The weather service says torrential rains are expected starting tomorrow.”
Jake blinked, startled at the answer.
“You have television out here?”
Wally shook his head.
“Crikey, you yanks are funny. Haven’t you ever heard of satellite TV?”
Jake chuckled.
“Thank you, Wally. If you hadn’t found us, we’d be dead.”
“The heat does funny things to your head. I reckon that’s why you followed the wrong set of tracks.”
“What do you mean? We came back on the exact same tracks we made going out there.”
“Too right, mate. That was a stupid thing to do. You should’ve followed me motorbike tracks. The bike tracks would‘ve brought you here much sooner. Why do you think I took it out there? I could’ve driven back in an air -conditioned ute with the trucker.”
“Are you saying you took your motorcycle out there to leave a track for us to follow?”
“Well, yeah. That and the fact I wanted to get back here as quick as possible.”
“I don’t understand. How did you happen to find us out there?”
“Just a notion I got. I found the ute only about ten kilometres from here. The driver was as dead as disco. I knew something wasn’t right, so I figured I’d set out to see what else I might find. I found you.”
“Yes, Wally, you did. Thank God. You are an answer to prayer.”
“Well, I don’t know about that, but I’ve been called much worse.”
“How did Tim die?”
“That’s a matter for a medical examiner. I couldn’t tell just by looking at him. It was horrible. He was sitting behind the wheel. Judging by the condition of the body, I’d say he’d been baking in that ute for a couple of days. You can imagine what that did to him.”
Twenty-Five
Early spring in Arizona meant the desert wildflow
ers were spectacular. Jake sat in his office looking out at them through the window, as he talked on the telephone with Becky in Australia.
“The autopsy of Sarah Elliott found brain lesions. Under the microscope, infinitesimally tiny worms were observed burrowing through and eating the grey matter. Research suggests these were an immature stage of a previously unknown marine worm. Evidently the adult worms laid eggs which are carried to the brain through the circulatory system. Once there, they hatch and began feeding and growing.”
“Wait, did you say marine worm, as in an oceanic or salt water species?”
“That’s correct, Dr. Walker.”
“How is that possible? We were never near any ocean.”
“Aren’t you the bloke who mentioned an interest in cryptobiosis? Remember, those mountains are part of an ancient seabed reef dating back to the Palaeocene. There were all kinds of interesting fauna alive then, most of which are extinct now.”
“Let me see if I’m following you. Are you saying these marine worms adapted to the environment as it changed and the seabed was exposed? They became dormant in the sandstone?”
“That’s the theory.”
“How could they stay alive for millions of years?”
“They didn’t. What we were dealing with was the adapted offspring of thousands of generations down through time. It appears the adult stage is capable of going dormant for an unknown period of time, scores, possibly hundreds, even thousands of years. When the time and circumstances are just right, they revive, feed and reproduce. Isn’t that what those brine shrimp you spoke of do?”
“That’s astounding. What I don’t understand is why it happened in the heat of summer, the driest time of year. Wouldn’t the rainy season be a better time to revive and reproduce?”
“No, that’s one way they’re different from some of the other cryptobiotic organisms. These are marine worms from a salt water environment adapted to live in a dry desert environment. In wetter weather there’s too much water and it’s all fresh water.”
“I still don’t get it. Why do they prey on people and other mammals?”
“The woman researching this told me the human body, especially the blood stream, is very similar to a marine environment. That’s why we establish intravenous lines with a saline solution. We humans have relatively thin skin that’s easily penetrated by the adult worms. Our bodies and those of some other mammals provide everything they need to feed and reproduce.”
Jake considered the information for a moment.
“But how and why did they revive just because we were there?”
“She says; they felt the heat of our bodies, smelled the salt in our sweat and heard the rhythm of our pulse.”
“No, that can’t be right. The rock was too hot to touch during the day.”
“Yes, during the day, but at night it cooled pretty quickly. By morning it was cool to our touch, remember? That’s why reptiles can survive in those canyons. They’re cold blooded. Their body temperature is inconsistent and matches the environment. They weren’t around during the heat of the day or the cool of the early mornings.”
“I think you just creeped me out. Was Sarah’s body the only one the rescuers were able to find?”
“I’m afraid so, mate.”
“No sign of the professor?”
“No. I reckon the goannas got him.”
“Perenties.”
“Excuse me?”
“Professor Madison called those monitor lizards, Perenties. He said they were the biggest goannas in Australia. It’s too bad about his luck, eh.”
“I reckon. Oh, I forgot to tell you, they found a couple of adult sea worms in Sarah’s body. The adults are only about six and a half millimetres in length and thin as a hair, more or less transparent, almost invisible to sight. They burrow in and feed just under the skin. That’s what causes the welts and itching.”
“That’s only like a quarter of an inch long, right?”
“Yeah, mate, but get this…seen under magnification, they look just like that thing painted on the canyon wall.”
“I thought the petroglyph might be a depiction of the rainbow serpent. What you just told me is amazing.”
“Too right it’s amazing. The amazing thing is the people who painted it didn’t have any form of magnification. How did they paint a picture of those things?”
“I guess the research will be ongoing.”
“Not out there at the site, it won’t be. Those mountains are off limits. The tribe has banned any further exploration. The government isn’t challenging them on the point because of the danger to the researchers and the public. Speaking of research, what are your plans, Jake? Will you be coming back to Oz any time soon?”
Jake smiled.
“I don’t know. I’m getting ready to go to South Africa. It’s just a hop, skip and jump from Australia. Maybe I’ll drop in on you.”
It was Becky’s turn to smile.
“Good on ya. I’ll look forward to it. So, I guess that’s it for now. I’ll say g’day.”
“G’day, Becky. Thanks for the update.”
As Becky hung up the phone, she thought she saw something move at the corner of her vision. It was something beautiful, something that looked like an iridescent serpent, with wings.
A Look at: Angels and Imperfections
JOHN WESLEY TUCKER IS NEITHER AN ORDINARY DETECTIVE NOR AN ORDINARY MAN.
Private Investigator John Wesley Tucker is hired to do a routine background check for a wealthy oil man, an aspiring politician. His investigation is complicated by his involvement in other cases and events which may be tied to a person associated with his client.
His partner, Christine, finds herself struggling to come to grips with her own ideals and beliefs. She and John are being followed by members of an unknown agency. When they learn there is a connection between the agency and Christine’s former boss, all the disparate threads are woven together into a tapestry of death.
John and those around him will be led into a trap from which few will walk away.
A fast-paced, contemporary detective thriller with action, intrigue and a spiritual twist!
AVAILABLE NOW
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Dan Arnold
About the Author
Born in Bakersfield, California and abandoned by his parents in Seattle, Washington. After living in the foster care system for some years, Dan Arnold was eventually adopted. He’s traveled internationally, lived in Idaho, Washington, California, Virginia, and now makes his home in Texas with his wife Lora. They have four grown children and three grandchildren of whom they are justifiably proud, not because they are such good parents, but because God is good.
A Member of the Association of Christian Fiction Writers, and Western Writers of America, in 2015, writing under the name Daniel Roland Banks, his book Angels & Imperfections was selected as a finalist in Christian Fiction in the Reader’s Favorite International Book awards.
READ MORE ABOUT DAN ARNOLD HERE