Insects: Braga's Gold

by John Koloen

  “They don’t know what’s going on. They’re tired and they want to go home.”

  “Are they afraid?” Braga asked.

  The man shrugged.

  “They want to know why this man was killed.”

  “It was an accident,” Braga said, having partially regained his composure, still holding the revolver in his right hand. “It was a mistake.”

  The man nodded in acknowledgement.

  “They also want to know if we are leaving now.”

  107

  While Cooper struggled to overcome his shock, Duncan was already planning their next move. Though he had never been in the exact situation in the past, he was mindful of the bigger picture and the sudden precariousness of their position and the little time they had to formulate a new plan of escape.

  “I don’t see how he can let us live,” Boyd said.

  “Don’t talk like that,” Cooper urged.

  “I’m just sayin’. We’re witnesses. He knows we’ll tell the police. He can’t afford to let us live.”

  “What are you proposing?” Duncan asked.

  “The best defense is a good offense. Right?”

  “He’s got a gun. What do we have?”

  “I know, I know. But we’re smarter.”

  “And he’s ruthless-er. This isn’t a thought experiment, Cody.”

  The three talked for several minutes, watching as the miners hurried to their tents to finish preparations to leave. Braga and the cook stood together, eyeing the Americans.

  “What if he starts shooting?” Cooper asked fearfully. “Can’t we just go now?”

  After explaining how difficult it would be to traverse the rainforest with limited food and water, with little to guide them, Duncan brought Suarez and his cousin into the conversation. The Brazilian reminded them that Josias Ikon might still be in the woods, waiting. Cooper was doubtful.

  “He’s probably long gone.”

  Suarez shook his head.

  “The indios are very loyal. They aren’t like most people.”

  “He also has Antonio’s pistol,” Duncan said.

  “What?” Cooper said, astonished. “He’s got a gun?”

  Duncan explained how he’d given the pistol to Josias when he surrendered. He’d done it for safekeeping and wasn’t certain whether Josias had ever used a handgun. Cooper was suddenly fired up, proposing that they get the weapon and use it to prevent Braga from hijacking the plane. It didn’t take long for Duncan to put holes in Cooper’s idea.

  “The plane will only hold three of us. That means two of us have to stay behind.”

  He let this thought percolate.

  “I get it,” Cooper said. “We draw lots, is that how we do it? The ones who stay behind have the gun so they can protect themselves. Right? I mean it’s like only fifty miles to the airport. How long will that take? An hour?”

  Boyd was amazed at how quickly Cooper had overcome his fear, though he seemed to have gone overboard with optimism.

  “He’s not gonna let us take the plane without a fight,” Duncan said.

  “So, we’ll have a gun. He’ll have a gun.”

  “He’s got more ammunition,” Duncan said. “All we got is what’s in the cylinder.”

  “Still, what choice do we have?”

  “I’ll tell you what choice we have,” Cooper said, stepping toward the riverbed. “We can go get the gun right now.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Duncan said.

  “Why not?”

  “I think the bugs are on the move.”

  Boyd and Cooper exchanged puzzled glances.

  “They’re moving?” Cooper said, facing his companions.

  “I think so. Under the surface.”

  Cooper scanned the riverbed doubtfully.

  “You’re just saying that.”

  “I wouldn’t do it,” Boyd said.

  “You’re on his side,” Cooper said petulantly. “I listen to him and I’ll end up like Brett.”

  “You don’t listen to him and you’ll end up like that guy,” Boyd said, nodding in the direction of Fuentes’s body, which had folded over.

  108

  Duncan wondered whether to warn the miners when they shouldered their belongings and headed toward the truck. It was an absurd notion, he realized quickly, and dismissed the thought. Braga had ordered them to load their gear into the truck and told one of them how to shift the gears so that they could drive down the riverbed where he told them he would take the wheel and lead them back to Jacareacanga. It was a delaying tactic, he explained to Grimaldi. Once the men were out of sight, the two of them would cross the riverbed and wait for the plane. It was a simple plan that would fall apart as soon as the men realized their leader had fled. But it only had to buy time.

  “What happens when they find out we’ve gone?”

  “We’ll do what we have to,” Braga said, coldly.

  The men crossed the riverbed and climbed into the truck without incident. That only meant Reptilus hadn’t gotten there, yet. Duncan wasn’t certain, but he had no other explanation for what he believed he saw, that the colony was moving, or spreading out.

  “Are we just going to leave him here like that?” Cooper asked, after placing his bandana over Harden’s face. “I can’t stand looking at him, looking at us like that.”

  “I don’t know if we’ve got time,” Duncan said, looking at the approaching flames, the increasing wind carrying hot ash across the riverbed.

  “So we just leave him here for the bugs?”

  “They’ll get him no matter what we do,” Duncan said.

  While the Americans talked, the miners started the truck. The grinding of the gears was unmistakable. In their haste to get on board, nobody noticed the flat tires.

  “I couldn’t get it in gear either,” Boyd said. Unexpectedly, the grinding stopped and the transmission engaged. They could hear the miners cheering.

  “I’ll be damned. They did it.”

  “Well, at least someone’s going home,” Cooper said.

  “They’re not gonna get far unless they pump up the tires.”

  Braga was stunned at how quickly the men had gotten the truck rolling. They were in front of him before he and the cook had a chance to make their escape. Grimaldi looked worried.

  Cooper eyed the riverbed, only a hundred feet separating the campsite from the opposite bank, where the land was higher by several feet and lined with a strip of palms and thick with vegetation. They watched as the truck labored in first gear, approaching the campsite from around a bend, four miners sandwiched into the cab, the rest riding in the bed crammed with their belongings. The oversized wheels turned slowly, the sidewall of one of the tires slipping under the wheel edge. Boyd shook his head glumly. The driver flashed a triumphant smile as the vehicle approached, stopping to wave to Braga and Grimaldi before turning the wheels sharply with the intention of tackling the embankment, somehow building enough speed and traction to get over the sandy rise. Turning the wheels only caused the sidewall of the flattest tire to slip completely under the steel rim, with only the bead preventing it from separating entirely. It was obvious to the Americans, Braga and Grimaldi that the miners weren’t going much farther on three tires. But the driver revved the engine and, letting the clutch out gradually, tried to build speed, before coming to an abrupt stop before reaching the embankment.

  Grimaldi waved his arms, shouting for the driver to stop but it was too late. The truck was foundering, the rear wheels kicking up sand while the front wheels burrowed deeper into the two-foot high berm. Frustrated, the driver took it out of gear to put it in reverse, but the transmission wouldn’t cooperate, shrieking with every attempt. The miners were no longer cheerful, anguish visible on their faces. It wasn’t long before one of them leaped from the bed into the sand, falling to his knees as he lost his balance. The others started to laugh, stopping quickly as their comrade got to his feet, his lower legs crawling with insects.

  Duncan noticed that Braga
had joined his group as they watched the miner, who almost instantly started running in circles, his appalling screams blending with that of nearby spider monkeys. The longer he remained in the riverbed, the more bugs found their way onto his body, rising from the sand, jumping, their hard-edged wings producing a low-pitched whirring, scores of them leaping into the air, many attaching themselves to the victim’s body as they sought landing spots on his head and shoulders. Attacked from below and above, the miner continued running, first toward the Americans who scattered to stay out of his way, then toward Braga who saw him coming, grabbed a nearby shovel and swung it at his chest, knocking him into the riverbed, where he fell on his back, rolling over instinctively onto his abdomen and pushing himself up with his insect-encrusted forearms.

  By now, the miners in the cab had rolled up the windows as best they could, though the rear glass was missing entirely, as the driver continued to work the clutch and accelerator in a desperate effort to escape the riverbed. Those in the truck bed leaped one by one and somehow made it to the trees, disappearing into the undergrowth and beyond like frightened rabbits while their comrade remained frozen on all fours, his forehead pressed momentarily into the sand to steady himself before bursting to a standing position, bugs dangling from his face and crawling up his torso, their sharp forelegs stabbing him like tiny axes. Stumbling once more toward his boss, tearing at the insects hanging from his eyelids, blood oozing from head to toe, screaming mindlessly, Braga pulled back on the shovel and swung it like a bat, the blade smashing into the man’s face, crushing his nose, his body laying out like a backstroker, dropping heavily onto the sand, motionless.

  A moment passed before Grimaldi, himself fighting his fear, finally got his boss to let go of the shovel. Braga stared uncertainly at the cook, his face contorted by terror, the cook’s words reaching him at first in an unintelligible stream of syllables that through repetition turned into words until he’d regained enough of his composure to push back.

  “I’m fine,” Braga barked agitatedly as he pushed Grimaldi away and approached the Americans, stepping over Harden’s body, angrily spewing in Portuguese so unintelligible that not even the cook understood what he was saying. Duncan and Boyd faced him stoically, both prepared to fight if the Brazilian even looked at his holster. Behind them Suarez tensed, while Cooper and Paulo looked around for something to use as a weapon, just in case. But the tirade didn’t last long, interrupted as it was by the frantic screams of the miners in the truck.

  Duncan led his group away from the edge of the campsite to the highest ground in the center, with Grimaldi and Braga following. With escape blocked by fire on one side, and Reptilus occupying the riverbed around them, he realized it was only a matter of time before they either burned to death or were eaten alive. For the moment though, time was on their side. The bugs were preoccupied with other victims, engaged in a frenzied attack on the four men who had mistaken the truck’s cab for a safe haven when it was in fact a trap. Standing on higher, safer ground, Duncan and the others watched in horror and despair as the miners pressed cardboard against the rear window opening, hoping to seal it from the insects. But it was well-worn, wrinkled and not a match against the insatiable killers that squeezed in around the edges.

  “What can we do?” Grimaldi asked, his voice hoarse from the smoke.

  Duncan glanced at Boyd who lowered his head. All he had to go on was the experience of his first expedition when he and his companions fought the bugs off with fire.

  “I can only think of two things—burn ’em or drown ’em.”

  “How we gonna do that?” Cooper asked nervously, standing close to Boyd as if for protection.

  “We have diesel and kerosene,” Grimaldi said.

  “How much do you have?”

  The cook spoke briefly with Braga, who had calmed himself. He clung to Grimaldi, frustrated that he had to rely on him to understand what the Americans were saying.

  “Half a barrel of diesel and several liters of kerosene. You think we can burn them out?”

  “That’s probably not enough and we’d need some kind of sprayer.”

  “Couldn’t we just pour the diesel over them and light it?”

  “We could do that but that’s not near enough to kill them. We’d need hundreds of liters.”

  “But it would kill them?”

  “Yeah, except they’d probably start jumping and they can cover a good ten feet, so it might make things worse.”

  “What about the pond?” Boyd asked.

  “What about it?”

  “Couldn’t we flood ’em out?”

  Cooper’s eyes brightened.

  “You said we could drown ’em right? Why don’t we do that?”

  “The pond is over there,” Duncan pointed. “How do we get there without being killed? Even then, most would flip over. They wouldn’t drown. They’d float on their backs.”

  “But they’d float away, right?” Cooper said, hopefully.

  “There’s not enough water in the pond,” Duncan said.

  “So what are we gonna do?” Cooper asked agitatedly.

  “We have to figure it out.”

  109

  Duncan knew that the men inside the cab were doomed. Their only hope for escape had passed. They should have fled when they had the chance. Instead, they chose to defend their tiny space with cardboard and fists. Even if they could seal the rear window frame there was little they could do to keep the insects from finding their way through the gaps in the floorboards, some of which were large enough to swallow a shoe. The former professor tried to ignore it, focusing instead on what it would take to ensure his own survival, but the others in his group couldn’t take their eyes off the miners, their screams muffled behind closed windows and the babel of monkeys and birds. With each passing moment, the interior of the cab swelled with a dark, swarming cloud of insects, their wings whirring, their forelegs chopping bits of flesh wherever they landed, the windows and windshield misting with blood. In such close quarters it appeared from the outside that the men were fighting each other, though the reality was they were trying to defend themselves against impossible odds.

  The observers were startled when the driver side door swung open and a man tumbled across the running board headlong into the riverbed, seemingly swimming in the sand, his naked back covered with a churning overcoat of bloodthirsty insects. As with most of their victims, the insects attacked his soft parts, burying their sharp forelimbs into his lips and eyelids, one each lodged in his nostrils forcing him to unclench his teeth so he could breathe, sucking in the killers as he inhaled. As if things couldn’t get worse, a platoon darted to his chest from under the sand like bullets, their mandibles gouging chunks of skin, one layer at a time, rapidly, machine-like in their painful efficiency, deepening and widening, excavating until bursting through the fatty subcutaneous tissue, their heads burrowing into the muscle, their cylindrical bodies protruding like cigar stubs.

  The men could look away, but they couldn’t block out the shrieks and screams. Cooper nervously paced in circles, staring at the ground.

  “I can’t stand to watch it,” he said as Boyd joined him. “How long will this go on?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why are they doing it?”

  “Why do cats kill birds? They’re predators.”

  “Can’t we do something?”

  “They’re done. There’s nothing we can do for them. In case you haven’t figured it out, we’re next.”

  “You seem so calm.”

  “I’m not,” Boyd said, his voice raspy from the smoke. “I’m scared shitless.”

  “You don’t look it.”

  “I’m good at hiding what’s on the inside. I learned that from Howard. I got this mantra going on in my head.”

  “What is it?”

  “Stay calm. I just say that over and over. Stay calm.”

  “This works for you?” Cooper said, skeptically.

  “So far. But we can’t just s
tand here. We gotta come up with a plan. Let’s talk to Howard.”

  Cooper balked as Boyd took several steps toward Duncan, who had moved near the cook shack, talking to Braga through Grimaldi.

  “Why doesn’t he come over here?” Cooper asked, nervously. “He’s so close to the bugs. It’s safer here.”

  Boyd shook his head.

  “Don’t you get it? We’re not safe anywhere.”

  110

  Braga and Grimaldi stood facing Duncan, who was leaning forward, his hands clasped, staring at the pond on the opposite side of the riverbed. He was trying to figure out a way that they could safely cross to the other side. He could not help but notice that two of the miners were now suffering in the sand, their piteous cries resounding above the screeches of the tree-bound observers. Two doomed men remained in the cab, no longer able to resist, their bodies quivering uncontrollably. The one nearest, insects hanging off his face like a mask, raised his head, thick pinkish fluid dripping from his eye holes, bugs entombed in his nostrils, dry-heaving as the insects streamed into his esophagus.

  “Is there anything we can do?” Braga asked, uneasily.

  “Fire or water is all I can think of,” Duncan said.

  “How is that going to help them?”

  Duncan quickly realized Braga was talking about his men. Duncan shook his head.

  “You’ve got the gun,” he said. “That’s all we can do for them.”

  Braga’s chest heaved. He swallowed hard as if his throat were dry. Grimaldi glanced at Braga’s holster, as if to give him permission to kill the men.

  “I wouldn’t do it,” Duncan cautioned.

  “Why in God’s name not?”

  “As long as they’re busy with them, they might not come after us. At least not right away. We need all the time we can get.”

  Braga shook his head angrily.

  “I can’t stand this,” he shouted, lifting the revolver out of the holster, taking several steps toward the nearest victim and aiming.