The Nightmarchers

by J. Lincoln Fenn

  But it won’t come off. Like it’s stuck to her skin with superglue.

  She tries again, but pulling the twig just stretches the skin it’s attached to. It’s the hook and she’s the fish. This is obviously going to require a bit more force.

  Julia takes a deep breath, thinks about going back for a Jack Daniel’s bottle, liquid courage—don’t be dramatic—scrunches her eyes—it’s just like ripping off a Band-Aid—and gives it a good, hard yank. She feels a sharp, piercing pain—goddamn!—but it does finally come off in her hand. She opens her eyes, looks down at her belly, and sees a droplet of blood beading on her skin. Isaac had said something about there being an emergency kit in each hut, and she’s hoping there’s some hydrogen peroxide, because she can only imagine all the odd microbes crawling on her skin at the moment.

  . . . a faint hissing sound . . .

  God it stings. What if it causes some kind of reaction, like the sap from the plant in the jungle?

  . . . something tickling the back of her hand . . .

  The last thing she needs is to pass out alone in her bathroom in her underwear, covered in mud. She looks down at her hand.

  What the fu—

  The twig . . . the twig is twisting in her palm, and small, thin brown tendrils reach out of the bark, flailing. The hissing grows louder, like the sound of a deflating balloon.

  For a moment all she can do is stare, utterly stunned. Slowly, slowly, fingers trembling, Julia holds the twig up closer to the light, turns it around . . .

  And sees a small round circle of what looks like teeth at the end, blood dripping from a tiny mouth.

  Not possible, it’s not—

  The mouth moves, jawing like it’s desperately looking for its next meal.

  Julia screams, drops it on the floor. A leech? Some kind of twig-leech-flatworm—

  “Fuck!”

  The goddamn thing is using the tendrils to awkwardly propel itself forward in her direction—

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck . . . fuck!”

  —and holy mother of God, there’s another one on her leg.

  She screams again, crashes into the sink with her hip as she reaches down and rips it off, throwing it on the floor, where it writhes and twists like the detached gecko tail in her nightmare.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  Vomit rises in the back of her throat, that egg churning murderously, and the . . . thing, its tendrils reach out from it and it begins to crawl toward her—holy shit!—they’re both crawling toward her. But how? With what eyes do they see her? How the fuck do they know where she is?

  I need something to bash them with. The trash can? No, she needs a hammer, she needs to inflict blunt-force trauma, and . . . Christ, there’s a righteous stinging on her leg, she can feel something itchy and venomous tingling out from the bite. Something itching on her back too—she turns to the mirror, twists around . . .

  Two. Two more on her back.

  “FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK!” She desperately tries to grab one, but the angle is all wrong.

  This is where I lose it. This is where I really go insane.

  Sound of the door opening, heavy footsteps, then she catches a glimpse of Dr. Noah Cooper in the corner of the mirror, rain dripping off his beard, his hair, his aloha shirt completely sodden. She’s relieved, terrified, frantic, and about to pass out.

  “Noah! Get them off me! GET THEM OFF!”

  One of the twigs raises a tendril, appears to sniff, and changes direction, flopping toward him. He raises a foot and promptly stomps it, grinding it into the floor with his heel. The faintest, wheedling cry.

  “Obviously,” he says, lifting his boot to make sure the thing is good and dead, “we should have had a serious talk much sooner.”

  Noah pulls two latex gloves out of his pockets, all business—what kind of tourist carries latex gloves on him?—tugs them over his hands, and then quickly turns the shower faucet off.

  “How long have they been on you?”

  “I don’t . . . I don’t know.”

  “Get in the shower stall,” he says. He seems to think a moment, then adds, “You’re going to be fine. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  She knows that tone—it’s one she used on Evie, usually when the opposite was true. She steps into the shower stall and stands there, cold, half-naked, shaken, trembling. Tries to cover herself with her arms, not that there’s much to leave to the imagination when all she has on is her bra and underwear. Noah stoops down for the other . . . thing, and tosses it in the sink. She can see it try, and fail, to climb up the slippery, porcelain bowl. A faint hiss.

  “What . . . what is it?”

  “Something utterly disgusting.”

  She laughs in spite of herself. “You think?”

  Noah offers a wry grin, pulls out a cigarette lighter from the back pocket of his cargo shorts. “At least you haven’t lost your sense of humor. You might just survive after all.”

  It’s settling somehow, not being alone in it, although it’s bizarre, this new Noah. The annoying, chatterbox tourist act suddenly gone.

  “Turn around slowly, and we’ll encourage your joyriders to disengage.” Assured, like a real doctor.

  She turns, starting clockwise. Who is he, really?

  “Stop. Hold up your left arm.”

  Noah flicks the lighter on, dials it down for a smaller flame. “Did you know that leeches were an important medicinal tool for centuries? They’re still used today in reconstructive surgery. Helps to stimulate the blood flow.”

  He’s trying to distract her. She knows this, but it’s working anyway. She can feel her heart rate start to slow.

  She holds up her left arm. “So it’s a leech?”

  “Well, without the proper dissection tools, I’d be hard-pressed to classify it, but from a general theoretical approach, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck . . . ”

  He holds the flame to the tip of the creature under her arm, and it falls away. He bends down, grabs it, and tosses it in the sink with its cousin. “The trick with leeches is getting them off. Some people prefer the fingernail method, slipping it under and gently working it off. But that doesn’t work so well when you’re wearing latex gloves. Turn again? Ah, there’s a small one. Stand still.”

  She hears the click of the lighter, then a faint, complaining hiss. She can feel a slight sting, but not nearly as bad as that accompanying the ones she pulled off.

  “A wee baby, that one. Generally salt is good too; they don’t like salt on their skin. Although this creature looks like it came into its leech-hood through a detour in the Phasmida, stick-bug family, so I don’t know if salt would work with these fellas. But yanking them off with force . . . not such a good idea.”

  Her heart rate starts to pick up again. “Why . . . why is that bad?”

  “Well, sometimes a bit of the jaw gets left behind, which can eventually lead to infection.” He seems to realize how that came out, because he adds, “But there are tweezers in the emergency kit. Easy as pulling out a sliver.”

  “If it’s a leech, why does it look like a—”

  “Twig? Turn one more time.”

  She does, facing the back of the stall.

  “Oh, there’s another. Well, I’ve never heard of a leech that takes this kind of camouflage approach, but of course, no one’s exactly been allowed to study the species here, and as you and I both know, it’s been remarkably isolated from the rest of the world, on its own separate, evolutionary track. Unless Dr. Lydia Greer kept you completely in the dark, which I wouldn’t put past her.”

  Click of the lighter, faint hiss. He knows. And he’s revealing that he knows to her. Why?

  “Okay, that’s all of them that I can see.”

  He’s not going to say anything more about Aunt Liddy. The ball is in her court now. She’s not sure it’d be wise to play.

  Julia exhales and turns around, finds Noah picking the leeches up from the floor, dropping them in th
e sink. A whole tribe of the damn things. A shiver runs down her spine, and she can feel the adrenaline start to ebb, the fatigue start to build. Sleep. What she wouldn’t give to be able to sleep.

  “Now, the next part is going to require your help.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, just to make sure we got them all. I’m going to turn around and close my eyes to give you some privacy, and I want you to feel under your underwear and bra to make sure we’re all clear.”

  She swallows, hard. “Okay.”

  “Try not to freak out if you do find something.”

  “That’s easy for you to say.”

  “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  She wishes he’d stop saying that.

  He turns around, and who the hell knows whether he’s really got his eyes closed or is surreptitiously looking at her through squinted eyes and the mirror’s reflection, but it’s preferable to him leaving her alone with those . . . things in the sink.

  Quickly she runs a hand under her bra—nothing. Area under the panties is clear too.

  “Oh, thank God,” she says.

  “All good?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “Can I turn around?”

  “Sure, I guess.”

  When he does, he looks almost as relieved as she feels. “All right. Next, you should wash up, and then when you’re ready, come out and I’ll take a look at your leg, make sure nothing’s there that shouldn’t be.”

  “Not just my leg; there was one here,” she says, pointing to her belly button. There’s a steady trickle of blood. “I think it was the biggest.”

  A look of concern washes over his face, but he catches himself, puts on an unconvincing smile. “I’ll take a look at that too. The bites are going to bleed, and keep bleeding for a while. Most leeches inject an anticoagulant, so that they can keep the meal coming.”

  Another crack of thunder, followed by a rumbling so loud the walls tremble.

  “Now I’ll give you some privacy.”

  “And the . . .” She points to the sink.

  “We can divvy them up. I’m sure your great-aunt will want at least two. If you don’t have specimen bottles with you, I do.”

  With that he leaves her, gently closing the door behind him.

  The cold shower has the effect of driving some of her mental fog away, and it’s beyond a relief to wash off all of the mud, shampoo her hair, and comb out the bits of leaves, the small pebbles. When she towels off, she sees a couple of greenish bruises starting to form on her legs.

  And this is just day one.

  She grabs a towel from the floor, bends over, and wraps her hair in it, twisting it into a turban. The leeches in the sink twist and tumble over each other, trying to get some kind of grip so they can climb up and out of the porcelain bowl, their antennae waving in her direction. Still hungry.

  She’s tempted to toss them into the toilet and flush them into oblivion, but Noah’s right. Aunt Liddy will want a specimen.

  He obviously wants to form some kind of partnership. Does she need one? If the strange girl keeps her word, she’s on track for finding the corpse flower . . . or at least when the electricity returns she’ll be able to plug in her GPS and start the search again.

  Not that today’s trek went well. She almost got herself killed, twice.

  Plus Noah seems to know things. He might even know why the flower is important, or why the churchwomen act so strangely.

  She closes her eyes, wishes she’d never met with Aunt Liddy, or even heard of Kapu. “Ghost, most, host,” she whispers. “Coast, roast, post.”

  There’s a chirp above her, and she looks up, sees a white gecko blending in with the white ceiling, given away by dark eyes that can’t change color. Probably intrigued by the moving twigs in the sink.

  “If you want to have a snack, be my guest. They’re over there,” Julia says.

  The gecko just blinks. She sees the flicker of a pink tongue tasting the air.

  Her bungalow feels crowded all of a sudden. And Noah . . . what to do with Noah? She knows she can’t trust him—she can’t trust anyone—but that human desire to connect, to ally, is strong. She’ll have to share some things, too, to get more information, but she’ll have to be careful about how much.

  She wraps the second towel around her body, realizes that he’s going to need access to her belly, so she shifts it to her waist and then unties the turban to cover her torso. Her clothes lie in a sodden, muddy lump on the floor, something about them reminiscent of her dream on the plane, like when she leaves, closes the door, they’ll rise up, take the form of an invisible ghost.

  The gecko chirps twice. Looking for connection too.

  CHAPTER 17

  JULIA FINDS NOAH SITTING IN one of the rattan chairs, staring out the window, something indescribably sad in his expression, like he’d just received terrible news. But as soon as he hears the creak of the floorboard when she steps into the bedroom, it vanishes, replaced with a smile.

  “No offense,” he says, “but you look much, much better.”

  The emergency kit is unzipped, laid out on the coffee table in front of him, illuminated by a flashlight standing upright. There’s a small puddle of rainwater from his own clothes pooling near a chair leg; two sets of their muddy boot prints—his and hers—mark the floor. She’s going to be up late tonight, cleaning.

  “I feel better with those things off of me. How much time do we have before dinner?”

  “No idea. I had a watch, but it mysteriously disappeared. Anything of yours missing?”

  “No. I don’t think so.” But now she wishes she’d actually checked her suitcase.

  “I could use more light. Can you look in your bottom bureau drawer?”

  Oh, right. Isaac had said there would be flashlights, a battery-operated lamp. She goes to the bureau, pulls out the bottom drawer, careful to keep all towels she’s wearing in place. But then, he just saw her in wet, clingy underwear. That proverbial horse has left the barn. She finds some kind of halogen camping lamp, a modern design with a stainless steel base and a plastic globe for a shade. She turns it on. The light warms the entire room.

  “When did the electricity go out?” she asks as she brings it back to the coffee table.

  “Sometime after lunch. Maybe an hour, maybe more. Your absence was quite the hot topic. And your destination.”

  A sideways press for information. She settles into the opposite rattan chair. “There wasn’t much to it. More of a ghost town really. I wasn’t there long. Got lost on the way back.”

  He grabs a small brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide, then the tweezers. He pours some of the peroxide over them, letting the excess land on his already sodden shorts.

  “Huh. Got lost on a path that hugs the coastline. With a wall between the path and the jungle. You have a terrible sense of direction. Let me see your leg. Actually, put it up on the table.”

  She does, and the glass is cold against her calf. For a moment, neither of them speak, the only sound the rain pounding against the bungalow roof. He leans over, peers closely at the spot where she’d pulled the leech off. Picks up the flashlight, focuses its beam there. Pours a trickle of peroxide over it. It bubbles fiercely.

  Two seconds later, it stings like hell.

  “Ow. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow.” She sucks air through clenched teeth.

  “I know, I’m sorry.” He squints. “Oh, there’s a bit there.” He takes two fingers, gently pinches the flesh around the wound, like he’s extracting a sliver. More blood rushes out.

  “How do you know the path hugs the coastline?”

  “Because it shows up on the satellite map. That and the wall.”

  Words bubble up in her consciousness: wall, mall, hall. It’s an effort not to speak them aloud.

  “I thought it was an act, what with your last name,” he continues. “I thought maybe you were research, or development. But you really are just a journalist. Or were a journalist.”
r />   “Am a journalist, thank you.”

  You know you’re rhyming words, like Irene.

  Don’t think about it.

  He takes the tweezers, gently plucks out a bit of . . . something. Then he pours more peroxide over the wound, turning the blood a milky pink.

  “So what brought you to your brilliant conclusion that I’m not a researcher?” she asks.

  “Your fearlessness leaving the resort. Anyone who understood the danger would never have dared. And not only that, but you went over the wall and deep into the jungle’s interior, which, as far as we know, no one has ever survived. Or if they did, they were never heard of again. Like Irene.”

  We. Who’s we?

  “But they found Irene.”

  “Did they.”

  “I went to her grave. I saw the casket.”

  He pinches her skin just a little bit harder, to make sure it’s all gone. Obviously she saw a casket, but she has no way of knowing who, or what, they’ll put inside. Which means she’s down half her goal all of a sudden.

  Julia crosses her arms over her chest. “Why are you talking to me?”

  A shadow flits across his face again. Conflicted.

  “No. Really, why are you talking to me?”

  He knocks the bit of leech onto the table. Opens an alcohol swab packet. “For one thing, I feel bad, because I honestly thought you were more prepared, and you almost got yourself killed today. What’s going on with your hand?”

  She turns it over. The dried blood has washed away, revealed a jagged L shape from where the broken glass cut her.

  “Wow,” he says. “Did you manage to not injure any part of your body?”

  “Maybe it wasn’t the best time to go exploring. But I’m hoping to get out when the pilot comes to fix the fridge.”

  “You and everyone else, except Beth. She was MIA at lunch too, but no one seemed to notice, or care.” He cleans the tweezers with the alcohol swab. “But I think the Reverend may have a class action lawsuit at the end of this. Or so they think. I’ll take care of your hand last. Now, let’s take a look at the big bite on your stomach.”