Pray for Darkness: Terror in the Green Inferno

by James Michael Rice

  Ben turned his head slowly, the ghost of a smile still dimpling his cheeks, and regarded Auggie with his intelligent blue eyes. Auggie was leaning toward him eagerly, blinking in the dappled sunlight as he waited for an answer.

  “Funny,” Ben said in that strange, slow cadence that made people hang on his every word, “I was just thinking the exact same thing.”

  Relief spread across Auggie’s face and he leaned in closer, grateful for the distraction. “I never would have imagined,” he went on, “that out here, in the middle of nowhere, you’d see something like that. It sort of reminds me of the Saco.”

  “I hear you.” Ben nodded thoughtfully. “I’d love to bring a few beers, set up a beach chair, and just kick back and chill out for the day, you know?”

  Auggie opened his mouth to agree but quickly reconsidered. “Eh, not me. You never know what might come crawling out of that jungle…” He smiled, and his eyes filled with a kind of giddy terror.

  “You’re probably right,” needled Ben. “With your luck, you’d probably be swallowed whole by an anaconda.”

  Auggie’s upper lip twitched involuntarily. “Dude, come on. Don’t even—”

  “Or piranha,” Ben interrupted, fighting hard not to smile. “I hear this river’s full of ’em.”

  “That’s just a myth…” Auggie’s jaw was clenched and now he was grinding his teeth. He made another imperceptible adjustment to his lifejacket. “They hardly ever attack people.”

  “And let’s not forget the tarantulas.” Eyes brimming with mischievous humor, it was all Ben could do to keep himself from laughing. “They grow as big as… as big as Dobermans out here.”

  The joke now apparent, a smile slowly crept across Auggie’s long face. It was the kind of unaffected, childlike smile that seemed to show every tooth, warping his features almost beyond recognition.

  “As big as Dobermans, huh?”

  “Shit.” Ben looked back at him, grinning. “I should’ve said Chihuahuas.”

  Auggie chuckled. “You realize tarantulas can’t kill you, right?”

  “Maybe so,” Ben conceded, and his blue eyes danced above his crooked smile. “But I still wouldn’t want one of those nasty, hairy little motherfuckers to bite me.”

  The two boys laughed heartily, exhilarated by the spirit of adventure and the potential dangers that awaited them. Now Auggie understood why Ben had looked so pleased. It was the moment itself that pleased him. After so many months of plotting, planning, and anticipating, they were finally here, wherever here was, somewhere deep in the heart of the Amazon River Basin. Auggie could hardly wrap his head around it.

  He was still considering this when Ernesto came over and sat beside them. Small and slender, his mahogany skin and smooth complexion glowed with a youthful exuberance. From a distance, he might even pass for a teenager, though it was likely he was somewhere in the mid-thirties. Only his eyes revealed an older, wiser man; one who understood the world completely and accepted it as it was.

  In his shy, careful voice, Ernesto said, “Hey, guys?” He seemed to preface any new conversation this way. Hey, guys? Always like that, always in the form of an interrogative. “We are going to look at the beach now. The driver, he thinks he saw a caiman.”

  Auggie quickly powered up his camera and began to scan the riverbank with the telephoto lens. He knew from his research that caimans were a species of South American alligator, and the prospect of seeing one up close was much more exciting than he had imagined it would be. Sand and trees bobbed into view as his hands trembled with anticipation.

  Cursing under his breath, Ben quickly rummaged through his backpack in search of his video camera. He was hell-bent on documenting their entire trip, an endeavor that had actually begun months ago with their initial visit to the Tropical Disease and Travel Clinic, where he had taken great delight in interviewing the doctor about all the nasty, potentially lethal things the jungle had to offer. Now he looked across at Cooper, who was fiddling with his iPod, oblivious to his friends’ growing excitement.

  Sporting dark Armani sunglasses, Cooper’s surfer boy hair whipped back from his forehead in long, sun-streaked tendrils as he bobbed his head to the music. Lost in his own little world, as usual. Ben smiled to himself. Even in the deepest jungle, Cooper somehow managed to look as though he had just stepped off the cover of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue.

  Despite his lingering hangover, Cooper could not think of a single place he’d rather be at the moment. There was something about the jungle, something he could not articulate, even in his own mind, which made him feel at one with the world. Totally Zen, were the words that came to his mind, and that’s exactly how he felt—as though he existed purely in the moment, with no past and no future.

  Only the past would not let go so easily.

  Last night’s cocktails oozed from his pores, and behind his eyes the echoes of their revelry beat like a drum. Too many Pisco Sours, too little sleep, and now he was paying the price with a skull-crushing headache. He was adjusting the iPod’s volume to drown out the gargle of the outboard motor when Ben caught his attention.

  Cooper pulled out his earbuds. “Huh?”

  “They think they spotted a caiman over there.” Ben nodded his chin in the direction of interest.

  Cooper’s eyebrows shot up. “A caveman?” He smiled skeptically, trying to comprehend the meaning of the joke. “You’re shitting me, right?”

  The peki-peki glided smoothly toward the riverbank. Here the river had eroded a section of the high bank, and a row of edge-bound palms bowed at various angles toward the water. Several young palms had already taken the inevitable plunge, pulling a confusion of roots from the unstable soil. As the canoe floated closer, a small caiman, roughly four feet long from nose to tail, appeared on a strip of beach between the fallen trunks. Its hindquarters wiggled as it skittered across the sand and slid effortlessly into the brown water. One last swish of its tail and it was gone, swallowed up by the murky river.

  Cooper removed his sunglasses to better see the reptile, and the sudden brightness made his eyes water and his head throb even more. After several seconds of blinking and squinting, his gray eyes shot open, wild with amazement. “Wow! Did you see that? What was that—an alligator?”

  “Uh-huh.” Ernesto nodded. “Is white caiman. Just a baby. They are very shy.”

  Cooper was ecstatic. He slid closer to Auggie. “Did you get it?”

  Auggie was scrolling through the images when suddenly he smiled. He angled the camera so that Cooper could see the display screen. The image showed the caiman in a dramatic pose, one clawed foot frozen in mid-air, hovering just above water. Its mouth was slightly open as though smiling for the photograph, revealing two long rows of pointed teeth.

  “Great shot, man!” Cooper gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder. “You’re going to give me copies of these when we get home, right?”

  “Sure,” Auggie said, looking very pleased. “But I still don’t understand why you didn’t just bring your own camera.”

  Cooper grinned. “What the hell do I need a camera for when I’ve got you? Besides,” he tapped two fingers against his temple, “It’s all up here.”

  Auggie shook his head and sighed in resignation. He looked to Ben for support, but Ben was busy gathering information from their guide.

  “—the lodge?” Ben was asking.

  Ernesto made a so-so gesture with his hand. “Mmm… is about four more hours.”

  “What about the research center? How far is that from the lodge?”

  Frowning, Ernesto’s small mouth grew smaller as he thought. He shouted something to the driver, whose words bubbled back in a rapid staccato.

  Ben leaned across to Auggie. “What’s he saying?”

  Auggie cocked his head and listened. “Something about the time, I think.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s way too fast for me, man.”

  After a few seconds, Ernesto turned back to them. “Mmm. Is about same distance…
four, five more hours.”

  The three Americans looked at one another and nodded, settling in for the duration.

  The view along the river was a feast for the eyes. As they cruised along, Ernesto identified the various birds by name: the colorful macaws, the ominous turkey vultures, the gangly herons. The fragility and the beauty of the jungle astounded them. Every living thing, from the smallest insect to the tallest tree, was engaged in its own private struggle for survival, each one reliant upon the other; the ultimate circle of life.

  Occasionally they stumbled upon other people—brown-skinned fishermen in dugout canoes overflowing with strange fish and unripe fruit, and naked children splashing at the river’s edge—all of them cheerful and friendly in spite of their indigence. Their broad, smiling faces and waving hands were without guile, and the three Americans happily returned their greetings.

  “Hey, what’s that guy doing over there?” asked Cooper.

  On the river’s edge, a scrawny, shirtless man was working on a noisy contraption that leaned precariously toward the water from atop two rusted pontoons. A confusion of hoses, belts, and smoke-belching pipes, the floating machine reminded Cooper of something from a Dr. Seuss story. The man glanced up, the nub of a cigarette dangling from his thin lips, and waved a grease-covered hand at them.

  Ernesto frowned. “Uh-huh. He is looking for the gold. Is okay, this method. Not good, but okay, you understand? Other people use the chemicals to find the gold. Is no good for the river.” Reever, he pronounced it.

  Recognizing their cue, the boys nodded sympathetically.

  Ben scowled. “Does anyone do anything to stop them?”

  “Mmm. The government, they try, but the jungle—is too big to see everywhere all the time.” There was a definite note of sadness in the way he said this, though his expression remained unchanged.

  As the gold sluicing machine and its operator slipped from view, the boys went back to scanning the shoreline for more signs of wildlife, Auggie jotting down notes in his journal and Ben shooting video for his travelogue. Cooper was content just to live in the moment.

  An hour or so later, Ernesto opened a cooler and produced four small bundles wrapped in banana leaves. “This is the lunch,” he said sheepishly, keeping one bundle for himself and handing out the others. He reached into the cooler again and came up with three plastic bottles of water and three little packages of plastic utensils, which he distributed to the tourists.

  Ben opened his bundle with care. Inside the banana leaf was a fist-sized lump of rice mixed with chunks of mango, pineapple, and chicken. His stomach rumbled with anticipation. He had not eaten since yesterday, and last night’s heavy drinking had left his stomach churning. He dug in eagerly and was pleased to find the food was pretty good—delicious, actually—a bit like pork fried rice, only tastier and less greasy. “This is really good,” he managed between bites.

  Cooper was listening to his iPod again, chewing happily as he watched the scenery drift by.

  Balancing his bundle on his lap, Auggie twisted the cap from the water bottle and drank greedily, not caring when the excess dribbled down his chin and onto the front of his shirt.

  “You okay?” asked Ben. He held up his unopened water bottle. “You can have mine if you want.”

  Auggie smiled and waved away the proffered bottle. “Thanks, man. I should be good now.” Feeling a little lightheaded, he untied the thin strip of bark that held the banana leaf closed. Unfolding the leaf with care, he probed the contents with his fork. After a brief inspection of the food, he took a small portion onto his fork. He ate slowly, tentatively, and when he didn’t drop dead from food poisoning, he finally allowed himself to relax a bit.

  Ben was right, thought Auggie. This really is an adventure.

  And someday they’d tell their grandchildren all about it.

  Two

  Some four and a half hours later, they came upon a wooden stairway that protruded from the jungle like a long brown tongue. There were no other visible traces of civilization, no welcome signs, no porters waiting to greet them or to help them with their luggage. The jungle loomed before them, awaiting their arrival.

  “Hey, check it out,” said Cooper. “This must be the place, huh?”

  “Uh-huh,” replied Ernesto, shouldering his small daypack. “From here we walk it to the main lodge.”

  Ben’s eyes were wild with anticipation. “Awesome,” he murmured.

  Felix adjusted the tiller and aimed the peki-peki straight for the shore. At the last moment he cut the engine, and they drifted forward in silence until the prow pressed softly into the muddy bank. Ben, Auggie, and Cooper retrieved their backpacks and exited at the bow. It felt good to be on solid ground, to stand and stretch and feel the solid reality of this strange new land beneath their feet. Checking their gear, they waited while Ernesto and Felix exchanged a few words in Spanish. The two men shook hands, and then Ernesto came ashore and helped to shove the canoe back into the deep water.

  “What were they saying?” asked Cooper.

  Ben only shook his head. He turned to Auggie, who did the same.

  The driver gave the motor some juice, and the peki-peki lurched forward into the rushing current. As the propeller churned the brown water, the driver’s face erupted into a cheerful, gap-toothed grin, and he waved to them as he continued upstream.

  Auggie followed the shrinking peki-peki until it disappeared around a bend in the river. The stark reality of their isolation suddenly overwhelmed him, and he found it difficult to breathe. “Felix… he’s not… coming with us?”

  Standing slightly apart from them, Ernesto was gazing at the gap in the forest from which the stairway descended. Against the dark profusion of the jungle, he suddenly looked laughably small, undeniably fragile. Now he turned to them with his calm, dark eyes. “The drivers, they stay in house on the other side of the river, uh-huh.”

  As they started toward the stairs, a flotilla of insects fluttered up from the coarse grass that grew along the water’s edge. Their iridescent wings shimmered in the sunlight, intensely green and veined with ornate patterns.

  “Whoa,” said Cooper, stopping abruptly. “Check out those butterflies.”

  Auggie was already searching frantically for the proper depth-of-field setting on his camera.

  “Mmm, these are moths,” Ernesto murmured softly, as if fearful of frightening the insects away.

  “Wow, those’re moths?” marveled Cooper. “The ones back home sure don’t look like that.”

  “Mmm. Is very pretty.”

  Suspended in air, the moths pirouetted in lazy circles, twirling round and round as though caught in a vortex. After several seconds they landed, one by one, on a patch of mud by the water’s edge. Ben was momentarily hypnotized by the slow dance. He turned to Auggie, who was already reviewing his pictures. “Did you get a good shot?”

  “I think so.” His eyes were bright as he looked up from the camera.

  Ernesto turned to them. “Hey, guys? We go to the Amazonia Lodge now. Is just a few minutes through the jungle.” He turned and started down the narrow path leading into the cavernous trees.

  Auggie lingered for a moment as the others went on ahead. He raised his camera, using the digital image on the screen to frame his shot: the towering trees, the drooping vines, the constantly moving shadows, the barely visible trail. Snapping a picture, Auggie looked at the screen and admired the result. The unmoving image did little to convey the intricacies of the jungle, but it would have to do for now. Tapping the POWER button, he lowered the camera to get a better look at the living jungle before him. Seeing it through his viewfinder was one thing, but witnessing it with his own two eyes was an entirely different experience, somehow invigorating, terrifying, and humbling, all at the same time.

  A light breeze stirred from the river, and the trees swayed seductively, as if to whisper: There’s nothing to be afraid of here, Auggie. Nothing to fear at all. Now, why don’t you just run along and join your frie
nds before you lose them. Before it’s too late. Before it’s too late to—

  Go home!

  Run!

  Get out of here!

  — run along now, run along.

  Auggie shuddered. The sudden conviction that he was being watched, backed by no proof whatever, overpowered him. He could rationalize that this new, unfounded fear was all in his head, and yet—

  “Hey, man! You coming?” Ben was waiting just inside the mouth of the path, practically shaking with excitement. A little farther down the trail, Cooper was smiling and moving his hands animatedly as he chatted with Ernesto.

  Auggie took one last look up at the billowing trees. Wiping the sweat from his face with his shirtsleeve, he turned and trotted along to catch up to the others.

  Ben clapped his hand on Auggie’s shoulder. “Ready, bud?”

  Auggie sucked in a breath and released it slowly. He turned to Ben with a nervous smile. “Okay, let’s do this.”

  Taking one last glance at each other, the three boys stepped out of the light and into the permanent gloom of the jungle proper.

  ***

  While Ernesto strolled on ahead of them, the three Americans walked in single file with their eyes tacked to the ground, fearful of what unknown creatures might lurk under the layers of fallen leaves. A profusion of branches loomed a hundred feet above them, blotting out the sun, and the shadows lay deep and dark between the towering trunks. Beneath the canopy was an alien world, no less mysterious than the untouched depths of the ocean floor.

  A curtain of sound enveloped them, a pleasant cacophony of things that squawked, things that whistled, things that seemed to heckle them as they walked by. All around them the trees hummed and clicked and buzzed with unseen life. The fear of things that bite and sting was soon forgotten, replaced by the irresistible lure of the unknown. And so they walked in quiet wonder, exchanging furtive glances and shy smiles as the nature of the jungle revealed itself in increments. They walked with their faces tilted toward the patchwork sky, heads swiveling restlessly from side to side, trying in vain to locate the sources of these mysterious melodies. They walked with wide eyes and open mouths.