Here was the distraction for which Ben had been waiting.
Running at full speed, he tackled Felipe from behind and the two men rolled end over end across the ground. Twisting his body, Ben wrestled his way on top of the big Peruvian. In a flurry of blows, he drove his fist into Felipe’s face, up and down, up and down, like a piston. He was still hammering away at the snarling face when he felt something give beneath his knuckles—shit, I broke his nose, Ben thought crazily—but his fist continued to rise and fall, as though it had a mind of its own. Breathing heavily, Ben had his arm cocked back and was about to deliver what he hoped would be the knockout punch when he first noticed the full extent of the damage he had wrought upon the once-handsome face. Felipe’s nose was not just broken, but broken in, pushed back into his face to reveal the glistening red cavity beneath. Sensing Ben’s hesitation, Felipe bucked his hips, knocking the boy off balance and flinging him to the ground. The next thing Ben knew, he was on his back and Felipe was on top of him like a rabid dog, trying to rip his throat out.
As the snapping jaws pressed closer, Ben felt the putrid heat of Felipe’s breath against his face, and he knew that death was near. Repositioning his arms, Ben clasped his hands around Felipe’s neck, squeezing and pushing at the same time. Muscles trembling with their last bit of strength, Ben knew he could not hold the stronger man at bay for long. Desperate for an advantage, he angled his head so that the beam of his headlamp shone directly into Felipe’s eyes, and what Ben saw made his heart stop. Where Felipe’s eyes should have been were two gleaming black orbs that bulged from their sockets as if ready to burst.
With his last ounce of strength, Ben reached up and pushed his thumbs into the insectile eyes. Shrieking, Felipe clawed furiously at Ben’s hands, but Ben refused to let go. Pressing forward, he felt his thumbs squish deeper as the eyeballs popped beneath the pressure, and something that looked like motor oil began to trickle down his fingers.
There was a sickening thud. Shuddering from head to toe, Felipe grunted and toppled to the ground, his legs quivering. Ernesto stood over him with a large rock between his hands. The bottom of the rock was stained red from where Ernesto had brought it crashing down on the back of Felipe’s head.
“OhmyGod!” Brooke was tugging at Ben’s shirt, trying to pull him to his feet.
Auggie’s eyes were wide with terror. “Ben! Ben!”
Ben stood up on rubbery legs. He looked at Auggie and Brooke, but a few seconds went by before he could actually see them. He nodded absently.
Auggie was on the verge of a breakdown. “Di-did you see his face? His eyes?”
Ben grabbed him by the arm. “Is everyone okay?”
“You saw it, right? What the fuck was wrong with him?”
Ben shined his light across the clearing and saw Janie and Cooper were clutching one another. Still holding the rock in both hands, Ernesto was standing over the fallen man, whispering something in Spanish, something that sounded like a prayer. Felipe was still snarling, a low warning sound, like a cornered animal. Then, with a wild scream, Felipe lunged at him.
Ernesto was all calmness and economy of motion. Stepping aside, he lifted the rock and brought it down on the broken, twisted face. The rock came up and down, up and down.
Letting the bloodstained rock fall from his hands, Ernesto, breathing heavily, stared down at the still-twitching body as though hypnotized. Felipe’s face was gone. In its place was a hollowed-out cavern that seemed as black and hopeless as the night itself.
Babbling softly, Oscar, clutching his sagging arm against his chest, shuffled forward like a man in a dream. As he saw what was left of his brother’s face, he knees seemed to fold under him and he fell to the ground with a shrill cry. Burying his head against Felipe’s unmoving chest, he wept.
Twenty-six
They moved swiftly through the shadows, carving their way through the dense tangles of underbrush with ease, unaware of the damage they wrought upon their newly acquired hosts. Their leader, the alpha, was also the oldest of the brood. He was naked save for a few stubborn rags—the last vestiges of a former life that refused to be torn away by the greedy jungle—and beneath these scraps of cloth, his once-muscular flesh had turned black and creamy with decomposition. His progeny were only slightly better off. Surrounded by a universe of flies and mosquitoes, their bodies were riddled with scars and wounds that festered with infection and squirmed with maggots. Death hung about them like a pall—the unmistakable stink of decay—the sickly sweet smell of gangrenous rot.
The nocturnal animals had long ago sensed their arrival and fled.
Monkeys retreated into the upper canopy. Frogs climbed into their secret hollows. A troop of pigs that had been foraging in the area had since tramped away, leaving piles of dung and overturned earth. Now the area was deathly quiet. The wind did not stir, and even their footsteps did not seem to make a sound as they surreptitiously crawled through a densely woven thicket.
Then, sensing a vibration in the air, they stopped as one.
From somewhere far-off in the distance, one of their new scouts had released a high-pitched shrieking, a cry that signaled danger to the others. Uttering a series of clicks and guttural vocalizations, the alpha delivered a message that was passed up and down the cordon until the sound became rhythmic and constant, like a chant. All the while the alpha watched them, his bulging black eyes shining with a cold intelligence.
Then, as though compelled by some invisible force, the chant ended abruptly on a single note, and they began to move with a purpose toward the direction of the intruders.
Twenty-seven
“What the fuck are we gonna do, man? Seriously, what the fuck are we gonna do?”
Six figures huddled together around the fire pit, exhausted but unable or unwilling to return to their tents. Flames danced atop a small pile of kindling, providing little light, although the fire alone offered them at least some sense of security. After regaining their composure, Ernesto and Ben had covered Felipe’s body with a sleeping bag. Kneeling beside the makeshift pall, Oscar kept a lonesome vigil over his brother’s battered corpse. Head bowed in prayer, he rocked slowly back and forth, occasionally mumbling in Spanish or Quechua, strings of mournful-sounding words that included his dead brother’s name, before breaking off into sobs.
Now here they were, in the middle of nowhere, with two dead bodies lying no more than fifteen feet away. Stranded. They were stranded in the middle of the Green Hell. It wasn’t real. None of it could be real. They all had difficulty finding words, any words, in the wake of such horror. They were too busy trying to make sense of all that had happened. Now Cooper got up and began to pace around the fire.
“What the fuck are we gonna do?”
Their collective eyes slowly turned to Ben for an answer, but the muscular boy seemed preoccupied with keeping the fire going. Stoking the flames with a stick, he did not even look at them.
“Ohjesuschrist, how the FUCK are we gonna get out of here?”
Auggie watched him steadily through the dancing flames. “The boat’s gone…” he said hopelessly, and Ben shot him a withering glance that said, Shut up! Just shut up!
Cooper began to pace faster and faster, sneakers kicking up ashes and bits of leaves.
At last Ben raised his head and said, “Sit down, Coop.”
Cooper stopped abruptly, and only now did they see how badly he was trembling. Pushing his hair back from his eyes, he looked at them pleadingly. When he didn’t move, Janie got up and went to him, resting her bandaged hand on his shoulder. “We’ll figure something out,” she said in a tender voice. “We gotta keep it together, okay?” With this, Janie took his hand and he allowed himself to be led back to the fire, where they both sat down with their arms around each other.
Ben turned to Ernesto, who was staring into the embers. “Do you have a radio? A walkie-talkie or something we can use to call for help?”
Ernesto shook his head solemnly. “There was a radio on the boat.”
“Well, of course someone will be coming looking for us,” Auggie said shakily. “Right? I mean, they must have protocols in place for this sort of thing. Five tourists just don’t go missing without a search. Am I right?”
Ben looked around at the frightened faces and the chatter died down as they waited for him to speak. “No one knows where we are,” he said in a tight voice. “We were supposed to go to that other campsite, but we came here instead. Right now the most important thing is to keep our shit together. And we should probably find a few weapons. Just in case.”
This was followed by a long and meaningful silence.
“But someone will come to find us, right?” Auggie asked in a high, trembling voice. “I mean, search parties, helicopters? Someone will come looking?”
Brooke touched his arm. “Nobody knows we’re here. Even if they send a search party, we’re not even due back at the research center for a few more days.”
Surprised by the contact, Auggie shrank away from her. “So, what?” he asked. “We just sit and wait? Cross our fingers that someone will come find us?”
“We could,” Ernesto began quietly, “we could start to go through the jungle. To get closer to the research center, where we can maybe spot-it a boat, uh-huh.”
The five Americans looked at one another grimly. Hiking through the forest on an established path was one thing; heading out into the uncharted recesses of the world’s largest jungle—a place already infamous for having claimed the lives of some of the world’s greatest explorers—was something entirely different.
Auggie finally roused himself to speak, choosing his words as carefully as possible. “Ernesto, are you sure you can get us back to the research center? Is there, like, a specific trail we can take?”
Ernesto was silent for a very long time as he measured his response. At last he said, “No, I’ve never done. But we can follow the river and tell direction by the sun, uh-huh.”
“Do you think it’s—” Auggie licked his lips. “Do you think it’s safe?”
Ernesto rested his hand on the frightened boy’s shoulder. “Gather your things. Everyone. Only what you can carry. We must leave here now.”
Twenty-eight
Grainy and gray, the image was something straight out of a 1970s horror film. On a bed of leaves the body lay perfectly still beneath the unzipped sleeping bag. Speckled with blood, the layers of fabric did little to conceal the shape of a head, the stump of a nose, the rounded indentations that marked the location of two eye sockets—all features that were clearly recognizable as human, nothing like the nightmarish visage that was now obscured beneath the folds. Felipe, or whatever Felipe had become before he died.
There had been some talk, awkward and brief, about moving Felix out of the tent in order to place his body beside Felipe’s. But one look inside the shredded tent was enough to convince them that this was not possible. The blood-spattered interior was just the beginning. Scraps of flesh littered the floor, and Felix’s corpse lay in tatters, gnawed through the bone in places. There would be no removing the body, not without exposing themselves to the dripping gore within. In an effort to preserve the body, they loosened the guy lines and collapsed the poles, and Felix’s tent became his burial shroud.
“What are you doing?”
With the touch of a button, the lens zoomed in and Felipe’s shroud-covered body dominated the screen. Two muscular brown legs protruded from the lower portion of the sleeping bag. Felipe was still, so very still. Like a mannequin. Hard to believe that this broken sack of flesh was once a living, breathing person. It all felt so surreal. The jungle. The attack. Everything. How could any of it be real? Just a few hours ago they had been lounging around the fire, having the time of their lives, and then… Ben watched the body for a few more seconds, both repulsed and fascinated by the stillness of death.
“I said, ‘What are you doing?’”
Shutting down the camera, Ben turned to find Auggie standing close by, gaping at him. Ben started at the sight of him. “I was filming the… the… I was filming. I thought we should document everything that happened. Just in case, you know, the police want to see it or something.”
Auggie nodded vaguely. That was Ben, good old Ben, the Boy Scout. Always planning ahead.
“Are we leaving now?”
“Yes,” Auggie’s face glowed with the flush of fear. “We’re almost ready.”
“Good.” Ben nodded thoughtfully. After sealing his camera inside the waterproof bag, he placed it inside the innermost compartment of his backpack for safekeeping. “Good,” he repeated as he lifted the pack to his shoulders. “The sooner we get our asses back to the research center, the better.”
Ben started toward the group, but Auggie touched his arm, stopping him. “Hey, wait.”
“What is it?”
“It’s just—” Auggie lowered his voice. He hesitated, tongue flicking nervously across his dry lips. “I can’t make sense of it, you know? I mean, what the hell happened here?”
Ben looked at his friend. The button eyes, the trembling lips, the blotchy face. Auggie, for all his brains, was as helpless as a child. Yet Ben held him in the same regard as Cooper. They were brothers, all three. Although he was clearly frightened, Ben did not feel pity for the boy, nor was he the least bit disappointed by Auggie’s gentle nature. Instead, what he felt was something akin to a brotherly instinct to protect him, to see him through this strange ordeal. At last, Ben put his hands on Auggie’s shoulders. “Everything’s going to be okay, man. You’ll see. Ernesto knows his shit. If anybody can get us out of here, it’s him.”
“But what about…” Auggie’s eyes flicked toward the direction of the body. “What I mean is, what happened to Felipe? And Felix?”
Squeezing his shoulders, Ben said, “For now, let’s just focus on getting out of here, okay?”
“What he did… to Felix…”
“Please, man, we have to—”
“But you saw his face…” Auggie said, shuddering.
Ben’s jaw clenched and he nodded solemnly. “Yeah. Yeah, I saw it. No doubt. I don’t know… what happened. Some sort of drug? You know, like PCP, or that other shit? Bath salts?”
“But his face…”
Ben’s eyes drifted to the body that lay covered by the sleeping bag. Yes, his face. Ben would not soon forget that living-nightmare mask with its bloodstained teeth and bulging eyes. Just thinking about it made his head swim.
“I don’t have an answer for it. Not a real answer, I mean. But we don’t have the luxury of time to figure things out. That will have to wait for later. Right now, we just have to get the hell out of this place, until we know that we’re all safe, okay?”
Auggie searched Ben’s eyes, and what he found there did little to comfort him. The old, unflappable confidence was gone, replaced by a look of raw determination. And something else, too. Something Auggie had never seen before. Fear, he thought. If Ben was afraid, what did that mean for the rest of them? Yet, there was a strange kind of logic to Ben’s reasoning. It would do them no good to linger here with the two bodies, which were sure to attract insects and predators of all shapes and sizes. Better to figure it out later. Maybe Ernesto could figure it out. Better still, maybe he already knew the answer.
“Okay?” Ben repeated.
“Okay,” Auggie agreed at last.
Turning away from the deceased, the two boys rejoined the living in their final preparations.
Twenty-nine
The first dawn arrived with a glimmer of hope.
Ernesto was relentless in his push to get them as far away from the Brazil nut camp as possible, and they had smashed, hacked, stumbled, and crawled their way through the green crush all through the night. Scratched, bruised, bug-bitten, and weary, they had survived the grueling nighttime trek and all its potential hazards. At times the underbrush had been so dense, and the trees so crowded, that they were forced to lie on their stomachs and wriggle across the damp earth. Up and over the treach
erous deadfalls, through thorns that slashed their flesh like razor blades and thickets so dense that even Ernesto’s machete could not part them, on and on they walked. But the worst part of this nocturnal journey was the insects, which were a constant torment—mosquitoes and sand flies and God knew what else—leaving their skin raw with bites and stings. The insects found their way into everything—their clothes, their ears, their noses, even their eyes. The everlasting jungle had lost its glamour. The Green Hell was truly living up to its name, for every inch of it had become wretched, almost sinister.
Deep shades of purple seeped into the sky, awakening an orchestra of birds and insects whose morning song seemed the very essence of hope. These much-welcomed sights and sounds imbued the Americans with a sense of finality and made them certain—beyond any doubt whatsoever—that rescue was not only inevitable, but imminent. Soon they would be found. Surely, people must be looking for them. They did not know who these people were, or how anyone could possibly know where to look for them, or even how much time would pass before they would be missed at the research center, but surely they were not the first group of tourists to get lost in the jungle. Surely, the Peruvian government would exhaust all its resources to ensure the safe rescue of the five missing foreigners.
The light was growing stronger, and the first drops of sunshine began to trickle down through the canopy, marking an end to the nocturnal terror. The trees began to stir, their leaves whispering softly in quiet celebration. Birds took wing, squawking and whistling with newfound vigor. Directly in front of them, a troop of squirrel monkeys began to chatter in the low-hanging branches, seemingly unafraid of the human interlopers.
In the dusty light, Ernesto took one look at the turistas’ tired, dirt-caked faces and said, “We rest now.”
Without a word, the Americans collapsed to the ground in exhaustion while Ernesto and Oscar stood slightly apart from them, apparently discussing their next move.
Pray for Darkness: Terror in the Green Inferno Page 15