by The Behrg
The first of many violations to come.
“This is for your Father,” the man says.
He carries her toward the living room, his thick hairy arms squeezing her so tight she can barely breathe. Her kicks are futile.
He tosses her over the back of the couch, the hard edge ripping into her gut, then yanks on her legs so that she is teetering, halfway over. She hears the man’s belt unlatch, the jangling of the metal prong against the belt’s buckle.
Faye is sobbing. She has forgotten how to scream. How to fight.
She is only six.
“You tell him he had this coming,” the man yells. “He’ll know why. This is his fault!”
A shrill cackle sounded from the trees, rising above the peripheral noise of birds and animals speaking their minds. Commentating on the animalistic scene that was happening before them. Nature taking its cruel course.
But Faye was no longer only six.
She had just enough range of motion with her free arm to reach into the front pocket of her sweatshirt. She wrapped her hand around the grip of her Beretta. As Grey finished pulling his pants down on top of her, he turned back to face the small twin barrels hovering an inch from his skull.
“Like I said, I don’t need you.”
His breathing haggard, Grey stayed atop her for several seconds before his face broke. He rolled off her, weeping and wiping at his face, not even bothering to pull his pants back up.
“Oh god … I don’t know what came over me … I don’t know –” He let out a guttural cry, striking the ground beside him.
Faye stayed where she was as well, though she did reach down to cover herself with her underwear and shorts.
The sky above was an intoxicating blue, so rich and deep Faye felt she might fall upward into it, like diving into a pool. Not a single cloud in sight. She wondered if it would even make a ripple, that fall upward.
Grey sobbed beside her, unable to find anything to say. An apology, they both knew, would never go far enough. And so Faye spoke for him. To him.
“This never happened.” Her swallow sounded harsh to her own ears. “But I swear to God if you ever look at me again, I will put a bullet through your head. And if you ever contradict me in front of the group? Or tell them I’m here for any purpose other than what I tell them – whatever that might be? I’ll tell them everything.”
This little encounter could prove to be worthwhile after all, she thought.
She rolled over on top of him, her knees spread over his body as if she were riding him, the short metallic barrel pressed deep into the side of his head.
“You are mine, now. Do you understand?”
He looked up at her, the shell of the man he had been but moments ago, and nodded.
She shifted her running shorts and panties and, with Grey’s pants already down, guided him inside her. Not once did she remove the pistol, from start to end.
Grey began to cry anew but Faye made sure his eyes were connected to hers the entire time. He had to know who was in control; who was on bottom and who was on top.
When she was finished with him, she rolled back off, panting mildly. She hadn’t been gentle; she knew if it came to it she’d have the evidence now of what he’d done.
“Come on,” she said, already moving back onto the path that connected to the main road. “We have someone to find. And if you’re thinking of killing yourself, at least do it after you help me.”
She left him there, lying in the dirt. Both eyes closed, tears leaking down the sides of his face. But she wasn’t worried. He would catch up. Fall in line behind her.
He no longer had a choice.
Verse VII.
The dense jungle leveled out to bedrock covered in soft clay dirt, each step forward met with a half-slide back. The forest opened up, trees dotting the landscape like lampposts a city street, interspersed by brush and rocks.
Dugan was surprised they hadn’t yet seen the Parai-Tepui; though a good hour-and-a-half from their location, the table-top mountain should have been visible by now. Dark clouds spread across the eastern skies, some part of the Amazon already enveloped in rain. A storm was coming.
It had been coming for some time.
His men moved in silence, the noises of the jungle continuing as if they weren’t even there. Hand and facial signals were all the men required, broken into two squads, Dugan and Oso forming a third.
In the distance a filter of white noise began to grow from a whisper to a shout. They were drawing near.
Without a command, both squads moved out in opposite directions, flanking their destination. Dugan and Oso quietly drove up the center toward the last coordinates their escaped captive fled.
Guayanata.
The only name in Dugan’s book that didn’t belong.
At least not yet.
They came around a large outcropping of rocks, water spilling from the top into a shallow emerald pool. There was no source for the water – the river was a mile or two to the west – but natural springs out here, like cenotes, were not uncommon. Underground rivers ran for miles, both unseen and unheard.
In a large clearing before the waterfall, the remains of a camp were in evidence. Spits hanging above coals with leather hides strung from the branches of trees, still in the early stages of tanning. Ceramic bowls and cookware abandoned. Skinned carcasses of what looked like a jaguar and several boars stretched over wooden stakes, a few only partially degreased and unhaired.
Dugan’s boot fell next to a child’s doll, its faceless head dyed black. He bent down, picking it up.
It’s dress was a mix of desert-colored reds, oranges, and maroons. He brought the doll closer, unable to see past its faceless head. No eyes. No mouth. No possibilities for expression, communication, emotion.
Betrayal.
An odd thought occurred to him, that when they finally found the Shaman, he would be like this doll – featureless. Unable to tell them his secrets because he had no mouth from which to speak.
The simmering of coals broke Dugan from the doll’s sightless gaze. Oso stood on top of one of the rings of coals barefoot, except for the strap wrapped around his injured foot.
The coals – they were still warm.
“Left in a hurry,” Zephyr said, leading his squad in from the north. Kendall and Rojo trailed just behind him. A giant anteater broke from behind nearby foliage, lumbering off with a young pup clinging to its back.
“They haven’t gone far,” Dugan said. “Fan out. A brick for the one who finds something that leads us to them.”
The incentive was unnecessary; his men would respond out of duty but even Dugan felt the anticipation of a long hunt coming to an end.
Cy appeared from the other side of the rock formation, his squad somewhere behind the waterfall. His face was stern, jaw clenched. “You need to see this.”
“Find them?”
Cy shook his head. “I don’t know what we found.”
Lighting a cigarette, Dugan followed the one-eyed Vietnamese former lieutenant. The rest of the men fell in behind him.
A glimmer of light reflected out from near the top of the waterfall, like the sun reflecting off glass. Dugan squinted, even with his sunglasses. He stopped, looking up at the wall of rock when the glint disappeared.
He moved back and forth but the shimmer was gone. The water that fell landed on a black rock only five or six feet from the top, from there scattering into equal parts spray, equal parts dribble, as it both trailed down and dropped the remaining thirty feet.
“Dugan?” Cy asked.
“Yeah. Coming.”
They continued past the falls. Several young Huasui trees had sprouted in their search for sunlight. A type of palm, they typically grew closer to marshy areas within the basin. Dugan noticed that most of their berries had been picked, a delicatessen amongst the natives.
Past a cluster of walking palms, their stilt-like roots spreading out like tangled tripods, he spotted Leech and Chupa. They stood next
to each other, backs turned to Dugan and the approaching men.
Before them a thick wall of fog stretched outward in either direction, running in an endless line. Over twelve feet high, its dark grey wisps circled in revolving patterns. It was unlike any fog Dugan had encountered. Not a single strand stretched beyond the boundary of the wall, as if this fog were made of brick and stone, as stationary as a sentry’s gate.
Dugan unholstered his Glock as they approached, registering Zephyr bringing his tactical shotgun up beside him. The men stopped in an almost perfect line with the other two. After a moment the other men who had been searching the perimeter joined the group.
“Fifty yards south, we found the same thing,” Kendall said. “It keeps going.”
“What the hell is it?” Leech asked.
“Maybe it’s a warning,” Rojo said, lobbing a glob of tobacco onto the ground.
“It’s black magic,” Chupa said. “We shouldn’t be here.”
“It’s just fog,” Zephyr said. “Probably from the storm.”
“You seen fog do this?” Leech asked.
Dugan blew out a cloud of smoke that hit the wall of fog, intermingling until the two became one. “Anyone gone in?”
“Hell no!” Leech said. “Could be monsters and shit in there. I swear we seen faces moving in the clouds.”
Zephyr suddenly fired his shotgun, knocking out four rounds as he rotated the angle of his weapon. He twisted the chamber beneath the barrel, firing another four, shell casings dropping to the ground.
The gaping holes where his rounds had punched through slowly reknit as tendrils of fog stretched and refilled the gaps. Everyone listened – not a sound beyond the soft roar of the falls behind them.
“You hear any monsters in there?” Zephyr asked.
“Go ahead in and we’ll tell ya,” Rojo said, with his crooked grin.
“Oso?” Dugan asked.
The native swung a black blade into his hand and stepped into the fog, immediately disappearing.
“Oso, wait!” Dugan said, pulling back just before entering the fog himself. The fog pressed in around where the native had entered, once again appearing whole. It was as if Oso had been swallowed.
“Damnit!” Dugan shouted.
Kendall stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly, a few of the men clapping or continuing to call out Oso’s name.
Rojo hawked a glob of tobacco onto the ground. “Not the smartest move to send in the one guy who can’t call for help.”
They waited a minute. Then a minute more. With each passing second Dugan’s stomach knotted tighter.
“All jokes aside, this just feels … wrong,” Rojo said. He waved the tip of his gun into the fog, a line swirling like water being displaced.
“They’re finally learning to fight back,” Chupa said.
“No,” Dugan said. “They’re not fighting, they’re fleeing. All of this – the earthquake, the fog – it’s the blanket the magician tosses on the table so he can escape unseen.”
“They’re trying to slow us down,” Cy said.
“Exactly.”
“And it’s working.” Zephyr slid shells back into the loading flap of his shotgun.
Kendall cleared his throat loudly. “No offense, Dugan, but what if you’re wrong? Think about it – the spikes in the river, now this? We could walk straight into a trap; who knows what could be hiding in there?”
Cy stepped up beside Dugan, speaking softly. “Let me take the new guy, run back to the HV’s. We’ve got a FLIR monocular …”
“How many?” Dugan asked.
“Just the one. We didn’t prep for a night raid.”
The FLIR was a multi-sensor thermal lens, able to detect heat signatures in the darkest of environments. It would see straight through the fog as if it wasn’t there. It was a smart play.
“We’ll grab the ropes while we’re there. Make sure no one … gets lost.”
Dugan heard the missing word as if Cy had said it.
Make sure no one else gets lost.
“Two miles there, two back; I’m not sure we can afford the delay,” Dugan said.
“We’ll be fast. Whatever time we lose will be more than made up for with the FLIR alone. I agree with Kendall, I think we should use caution.”
“If this fog is more than just a delay tactic, we’ll all be glad we waited,” Rojo said.
“Go,” Dugan said.
Zephyr stepped away, shaking his head. Cy and Leech both unstrapped any extra weight, each keeping only a small handgun and canteen before taking off in a near sprint.
“This is bullshit,” Zephyr said, once they had left.
“I didn’t see you volunteering to go after Oso,” Kendall said.
“What if this is part of their plan? To keep us separated? Hell of a lot easier to take out two men than a small army.”
“Least it’s just Cy and the new guy,” Chupa said, crouching down beside a large thin tree trunk.
“Yeah, we’ve been trying to get rid of them for who knows how long?” Rojo said, his comment followed by laughter.
Dugan moved away from their conversation, walking parallel to the fog. It did feel … wrong. They knew so little about the people they were hunting short of their miraculous ability to heal. Did they also have an uncanny ability to kill?
He drew in another lungful of smoke before flicking his cigarette into the curtain of fog. He touched the notebook in his inner vest pocket, subconsciously aware of the souls he carried with him.
How many more will I be adding before the day’s end? Or will the Shaman be adding our names to a book of his own making?
Verse VIII.
Conversation had been nonexistent since Grey had rejoined Faye. Small talk would have been an affront and they both knew there was no justification for what had almost taken place.
Or for what had.
The calle they had followed connected to Main Street, one dirt road replaced by another. Grey didn’t so much as glance at her, though every so often he would stop to wipe at an eye or a nostril.
The homes here were more intact, all concrete and block; each exterior painted in a bright swath of colors – reds, oranges, yellows and greens. The occasional blue. One of the homes had only the door still standing, blocks lying in rubble around it, but for the most part the damage from the quake seemed superficial. Of the few townspeople they had encountered, not one appeared friendly.
Across from the town’s center, the public square where Faye and Donavon had faced the soldiers, a large crowd was gathered before the church. Raised voices and shouts echoed both from inside and without.
“Try the church?” Grey asked.
“I don’t think Dugan’s the church-going type.”
“No, I mean, to see if anyone there knows him. Pastors, Reverends – whatever you call them – they have a handle on who’s who in a town this size.”
More shouting came from inside the church.
“It’s worth a try,” Grey said.
“I think we may be safer asking the police.”
“That’s because you were on the other side of the bars.”
Faye sighed. She hated going to a church more than a visit to the dentist. “Alright. But from the looks of it, we could be walking into a riot.”
A handful of children ran toward them as they approached the stone building. Faye was unable to tell if they were the same ones that had helped with their luggage the previous day. Maybe just being white and not covered in filth was enough to warrant being asked for a handout.
She shook her head. “We don’t have any money. No dinero.”
They swarmed Grey instead, latching onto his legs and pulling at his shirt. He almost tripped with so many underfoot. A plump girl no older than three clung to his pant leg while sitting on his shoe, her short black hair no longer than a boy’s.
“Do you think the kids might know this guy?” Grey asked.
“No.”
“It doesn’t hurt to ask?”
“Grey.”
It was all she needed to say. He ducked his head subserviently. She wasn’t sure she had ever broken someone so completely in such a short amount of time.
Grey pulled out a pack of gum as they continued to cross. The kids gathered before him like puppies expecting a treat.
“Here, here you go.”
He tore each piece in two, placing them in grubby hands. It wasn’t long before he was out.
“That’s all!” he said. “No more!”
“No mas,” Faye said.
“No mas!” Grey repeated.
The stout girl with the boy’s haircut still clung to his leg, burying her face into his pants. Grey kicked out lightly in an attempt to get her off. The girl only latched on that much fiercer.
She said something into the leg of his pants, her words muffled.
Faye bent down, asking her to repeat what she had said. Upon hearing it, Faye winced. She stood, glancing around the desolate street. She wiped at the sweat on her brow, her stomach sinking. “We need to go.”
“Why? What’d she say?”
“Nothing, just … pull her off.”
“What’d she say, Faye?”
“It doesn’t matter – we can’t help them.”
Grey’s eyes implored her.
“She asked if … if you would be her father.”
“Oh, god …” Grey’s voice broke. He closed his eyes, swaying slightly. “This place … It’s so much worse than I thought. How do they live like this?”
“It’s all they know.”
Several of the children ran off, knowing the gifts and treats were gone, but the small girl remained wrapped around Grey’s leg.
“Get her off,” Faye said.
“What if her parents died? In the earthquake?”
“We don’t have time.”
“Look at her! We can’t leave her like this.”
“Are you going to help me or not?” Faye asked.
Grey glanced down both sides of the street as if looking for someone to come to his rescue. Or at least the rescue of the little girl. The few residents nearby all kept their distance, looking away whenever Grey turned toward them.