Thinking about Ben helped her to focus—anything not to think about Janie. It was much too soon to think about Janie. The rain stopped as abruptly as it had arrived, as though someone had closed the valve on a sprinkler system. One moment there was a hissing torrent, the next, nothing but the tapping of residual raindrops passing through the canopy to the jungle floor. All other noises also seemed to stop, if in fact they had ever really been there at all. Maybe it was just the rain all along? Or an animal—a few of those cute little squirrel monkeys, perhaps? A wild pig? Brooke measured the time by the metronomic tapping of the raindrops. Her silent count reached sixty before her mind began to wander again. Sixty raindrops. Sixty seconds. An eternity wrapped inside a minute.
They waited in darkness, seeing nothing, hearing nothing except the dripping water. A strange stillness settled around them, as though the jungle was holding its breath. After a time, the hand that was cupped around Brooke’s mouth withdrew itself. The stillness gave her pause to think and, though she at first resisted, it allowed her to wonder what had become of Janie. A collage of images flickered through her mind’s eye: Janie at Machu Picchu, laughing as she struck a sexy, defiant pose for the camera, her breasts thrust forward, her hands on her hips. Janie putting back tequila shots at Molly’s, the local dive back in Palo Alto. Janie’s piercing scream as she was dragged away from camp, the scream reaching a shrill crescendo before it was abruptly cut short and Janie Castellano was no more.
Beside her, Cooper was shivering again. She reached down and found his hand. Like a child, his fingers curled instinctively around hers. Her touch seemed to calm him, and the shivering gradually subsided. Several minutes passed, and no one dared to move or speak. Brooke was beginning to think that Ernesto had been wrong for once, that maybe what they’d heard was nothing more than an animal, some critter foraging in the underbrush. Then, as the clouds shifted and the moonlight trickled down through the treetops, Cooper dug his nails into her hand.
“There,” he whispered, pointing.
Brooke followed the direction of his outstretched finger. Just ahead, the underbrush gave way to a small clearing. A furtive movement between the trees caught her attention, and at last she glimpsed what had been stalking them. Were it not for their strange, drunken gait and misshapen heads, she might have mistaken them for humans—one of the lost tribes she had read about on the Internet, perhaps. But no human she had ever seen moved like that… Because they’re not human, she realized. Her mind seized these words and repeated them like a chant:
Not human. Not human. Not human.
Somehow, in a forbidden corner of her mind, she had known this all along.
Now that her unspoken fears were finally confirmed, she began to pray.
She prayed for the safety of herself and her friends, that they would somehow find a way back home. She prayed that Janie was safe, wherever she was—but then she remembered how her friend’s screams had pierced the night, so instead she prayed that Janie’s soul was at peace and that she had not suffered before she died. She prayed that the clouds would cover the moon again to blind her eyes to the horrors before her. She prayed for darkness, sweet darkness.
In the pallid light, Brooke counted at least seven of them, but from this distance, she could not tell for sure. They were picking their way across the clearing, an uneven row of black shadows stamped in sharp relief against the sparkling foliage. They were halfway across the clearing when the leader stopped suddenly, tilting its misshapen head to taste the air, and the others fell in line behind it. Brooke watched in fascinated horror as the creature stood in perfect profile, jaws yawning open to reveal long, jagged teeth that glittered in the moonlight. From deep within its throat came a series of discordant, guttural sounds, and its mouth snapped open and shut, teeth clicking together in rapid succession. Its progeny listened attentively, and soon the sounds were imitated up and down the line. The message, whatever it was, was apparently understood, and their movements became coordinated, heads swaying jerkily from side to side.
My God, Brooke realized, those aren’t just random noises. That’s some form of primitive language. They can actually communicate with one another.
After what seemed like a very long time, the inhumans began to move, their slow pace determined by the alpha. Moonlight slithered over their emaciated bodies as they crept across the clearing, revealing scars and open wounds that festered with infection. Soon they would reenter the brush and continue in the opposite direction, away from Brooke and the rest of her group.
It could have all worked out for them. The creatures would likely have continued into the jungle, and she and the others would have been safe for the time being—maybe long enough to find their way back to the river, where a fisherman or a river guide might have spotted them. But then a bird or an insect began to chirp in a high, musical tone that stopped the creatures in their tracks. Bulging eyes searched the trees, trying to pinpoint the source of this strange, new sound.
In a heart-stopping moment, Brooke ascertained the chirping noise was coming from somewhere very close to her. Out of nowhere came a memory: she and Ben, chatting on the steps of the research center, looking up at the stars, like a scattering of diamonds in all that emptiness. They were about to kiss when something, some strange sound had interrupted them, and it was then that he had told her about his wristwatch, some funny little story about his wristwatch that made them both laugh out loud, and then he turned to her and said—
“RUN!”
Two powerful hands gripped her shoulders, the fingers digging deep into the flesh. Brooke snapped to attention, instantly alert, as if awakening from a trance. Someone was pulling her to her feet, and in the darkness she could see the whites of his eyes, eyes that were no longer squinting and calm but wide with terror. “BROOKE! RUN!”
Springing forward, she reached back into the gloom and her hand closed on air. Cooper was gone.
Someone let loose an ear-shattering scream, and then Brooke found herself up and running. Her legs launched her forward without direction, sent her barreling recklessly through the undergrowth. In her terror, she barely noticed the lashings of thorns and branches or the warmth of blood as it oozed from newly opened wounds. She had time enough to register the voice behind the scream, and even with the creatures bearing down on them, this knowledge only served to magnify her fear, for the scream was her own.
And she was still screaming.
Still screaming.
Still screaming.
Crashing through underbrush and leaping over deadfalls with impossible speed, the inhumans were almost upon them. Their unhinged jaws yawned open, bristling with rows of shattered teeth. Teeth that glistened with saliva as they gnashed together, lusting for the kill.
Thirty-nine
Ben and Brooke were sprinting blindly through the darkness, hands locked together as they attempted to navigate the jungle maze. They heard the bloodthirsty shrieks of their pursuers approaching from behind, only yards away and closing fast, and they knew it was only a matter of time before they would be forced to turn and fight.
Ben led the way on instinct, ducking and weaving, cutting sharp angles through the underbrush. He was so decisive in his movements that if Brooke hadn’t known better, she would have believed he actually knew where he was going. Hurling themselves through the netlike vines and brambles, they came upon a narrow strip of sand, a rutted trail that arrowed straight into the forest—no, not a trail, exactly. In all likelihood it was probably just a dried-up streambed or an animal run. Either way, it would have to do.
Pulling free of the brier, they leapt down onto the hard-packed sand. The impact momentarily loosened their grip on one another, and Ben turned in time to see Brooke reaching out to him, her eyes round with fear. Grabbing her hand, he began to lead her down the right-hand trail, which divided the vegetation like a natural corridor. Now that the going was easier, they ran even faster, boots crunching softly against the naked sand. All was going well, it seemed. A min
ute passed. Then five. It seemed like longer, much longer. Soon the trail petered out, and they were back in the thickness of the trees. Eventually they arrived at a dead end; an impenetrable wall of underbrush that skirted the forest like an endless hedgerow.
Brooke took a couple of steps toward the green wall. A mouse couldn’t fit through there, she thought.
“Come on,” Ben urged. “We’ve got to keep moving.”
For the next twenty minutes, they hurried along the outskirts of the hedgerow, trying to put as much distance between themselves and their stalkers, desperately searching for a means of egress.
Ben stopped short, raising his hand in a bid for silence.
“Listen,” he said.
Holding her breath, she did.
WOOOT!-wooooh!
Somewhere off in the distance came the extraordinarily loud voice of the Screaming Piha, the tiny bird whose flirtatious wolf-whistle had been such a source of amusement during the boys’ first day at the Amazonia Lodge.
“That bird,” Ben whispered. “I’ve never heard it at night, have you?”
WOOOT!-wooooh!
“I—I’m not sure. I don’t think so. But the sky—”
He looked at her, puzzled, and saw the outline of her face etched in gray. She was standing with her lips slightly parted and her head tilted back. Not quite understanding, Ben looked up and saw the source of her fear. Behind the clouds, the sky was beginning to blush. Until then he had not noticed how clearly he could see her, and he knew it was only a matter of time before the sun came out and their stalkers would spot them hiding amongst the brambles.
There was a very long silence and then: WOOOT!-wooooh!
But there was something else, too. They seemed to hear it at the same time. Something that sounded like the wind in the leaves, only there was no wind at the moment. The trees were perfectly still, and yet—
She clutched his hand. “Ben—”
“I know. When I say ‘run,’ we’re going to head straight toward the sound of that bird, okay?”
In the ruddy light, Ben saw her head bob up and down in quiet understanding.
There was a soft crunching of leaves behind them on the trail, and then a twig cracked only a few yards away. It was now or never.
“Run,” Ben hissed, and they took off at full speed, straining to hear the piercing cry of the Screaming Piha. Now the forest erupted behind them and they could hear the conspicuous sounds of footsteps, the breaking of branches, the guttural vocalizations of the inhumans as they closed in for the kill. There was no more guile in their movements. There was no need. The human invaders were almost completely surrounded, and there was no chance they could escape.
They sensed rather than heard the creatures bearing down on them. Visualizing the inevitable battle before him, Ben hoped that when the time came, he would be brave and that he would be able to fend them off long enough for Brooke to escape unharmed. He was steeling himself for the fight of his life when he noticed a strange ball of light bouncing along the underside of the canopy. The light winked on and off, and again he heard the familiar wolf-whistle of the Piha, only now it sounded much closer, and he was suddenly certain, absolutely certain, that it was not the cry of a Piha at all. It was Ernesto, signaling to them from somewhere up ahead.
Invigorated by this knowledge, Ben pushed onward through the lushness of the forest, still gripping Brooke firmly by the hand. The hedgerow ended abruptly and then the land began to slope upward to form a steep incline. Slipping and sliding on the layers of wet leaves, they began to climb. They were halfway up the hill when Brooke’s foot caught a root and she fell forward on her hands, but then Ben was beside her, yanking her to her feet, and she was somehow able to right herself. They were nearing the summit when a flutter of movement caught her attention. Out of the corner of her eye she saw two dark shadows running low to the ground, matching them stride for stride. Then the shadows separated, one of them streaking ahead, trying to outflank them.
With her last ounce of strength, Brooke dug her boots into the muddy earth and pushed. It seemed to take forever to reach the top of the ridge, but at last they did. There was a moment, a terrible moment, in which they both lost their balance, but then the ground leveled out beneath their feet and their momentum carried them forward onto even ground. Muscles burning, lungs screaming, they threw themselves up and over the crest. Crashing through a thicket of ferns, they saw an empty hollow before them, a place devoid of vegetation, and immediately took this to be the downward slope of the hill.
“Look!” Ben gasped.
A circle of light had appeared ahead of them, perhaps a hundred yards way. It hovered for a moment, bobbed up and down for one or two seconds, and then winked out. Ben and Brooke ran faster.
They were still running when the ground dropped away beneath them and they fell, legs treading air as they tumbled down, down into the empty space below.
***
They did not have time to hold their breath.
They did not have time to think.
Even as the water closed over their heads, several seconds passed before they were able to comprehend what had happened. A moment ago they were running, and then they were plunging into a liquid tomb. Instinct kicked in and they clawed their way up, arriving at the surface at approximately the same time. Coughing up mouthfuls of the thick black water, they saw that they were floating in a scum-covered swamp. Overhead, the clouds were beginning to break apart and the first scattered rays of dawn were filtering down into the forest.
“Swim! Swim!” Cooper’s passionate cries came to them from the other side of the mire. A light flashed on and off as someone signaled them with a headlamp.
Several feet away, Brooke was slapping the water with both hands, struggling to stay afloat as her stomach expelled the black soup, forcing it back out of her mouth in a violent flood. Swimming up behind her, Ben reached under her armpits and pulled her against him so that her head was resting against his chest. “I got you, okay?”
He felt her head move up and down as she nodded. Gagging, she turned her head and spit.
“Can you swim?”
“Yeah,” she gasped, able to breathe at last.
Pushing her ahead of him, Ben began to paddle for the opposite shore.
Cooper was hopping up and down, motioning to them from the bank. “Faster! Swim faster!”
Taking wild strokes, Ben turned his head and saw a row of shadows gathered along the steep embankment from which he and Brooke had fallen. Though the inhumans made no move to follow them, he urged Brooke to paddle harder, thoughts now shifting to all the many deadly creatures that liked to lurk in swamps, lying in wait for an easy meal. Standing on the opposite side of the swamp, Auggie used his headlamp like a beacon, guiding them safely to shore. Ernesto and Cooper were waiting for them on the water’s edge. Trembling with fear and exhaustion, Brooke and Ben arrived together, slipping and sliding in the deep mud.
“Oh, fuck, man,” Cooper cried out. “Your leg.”
Looking down, Ben saw the butt-end of a stick protruding from a hole in his pant leg. The branch had impaled his calf like an arrow, and now that his adrenaline was crashing, the muscle began to throb with a sharp pain. Limping forward, he grabbed Brooke around the waist and lifted her out of the mire.
“Got to…” Brooke was panting heavily, not really walking so much as falling forward onto her feet. As they reached dry land, her legs buckled and she slipped out of Ben’s wet hands. Tumbling forward, she began to crawl up the embankment. “Keep moving…”
Ben managed to get an arm underneath her and was trying to help her to her feet when a dull light caught his eye. The morning sky had appeared above the canopy, an ashen sky, the first harbinger of daybreak.
“Keep moving…”
Ernesto was standing with his back to them, gazing out across the black mirror of the swamp. “Is okay,” he said in a razor-thin voice. “They are gone now.”
Forty
“This… wi
ll not feel good,” Ernesto said, dropping down on one knee.
From where he was sitting on the ground, Ben looked at Ernesto’s face in the dreamy light and almost laughed. “You have a wonderful way with words,” he said with a wan smile.
Using his knife, Ernesto had cut away a portion of Ben’s pants in order to get a better look at the injury. Roughly five inches long and one inch wide, the branch protruded from the side of Ben’s calf like a giant splinter, embedded deep into the fleshy ball of muscle; just how deep was anyone’s guess. Surprisingly, there was little blood—only a thin scarlet ribbon oozed from the puckered wound around the point of impact. By some miracle, there was little pain, no worse than a charley horse, though Ben had a strong suspicion that was about to change in a moment.
Auggie was on all fours, using both hands to hold down his leg. “Are you sure we should pull it out? I mean, sometimes they say it’s better to leave it in. You know, to stop the bleeding?”
Ben’s blue eyes took in every movement around him. Now they focused on Auggie, who was looking back at him with a clinical detachment. “I don’t have much choice. If I leave it in there, I might do more damage to the muscle. And I can hardly walk, never mind run, with that goddamned thing sticking out of my leg.”
“Okay, okay.” Auggie knew there was no point in arguing the contrary. Once Ben made up his mind, it was impossible to change it. The stubborn bastard would never flinch, realized Auggie. Not even if you killed him.
“Just make sure you’re ready with the bandage.”
Ernesto’s first-aid kit had been lost along with the peki-peki, so they had been forced to improvise. Digging deep inside his backpack, Auggie had found a pair of antimicrobial socks he had purchased online a week or so before the trip. Supposedly conceived for the military, the socks were lightweight and breathable, and were designed to prevent the growth of bacteria. Better still, they were the only things in his pack—perhaps the only things in his possession—that were not completely filthy.
Pray for Darkness: Terror in the Green Inferno Page 19