by John Bolin
He realized how exhausted he was. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Each sound and movement in the storm-drenched jungle seemed to have a muffled quality about it. He shook his head, struggling to stay awake. He kept one hand on the strap of his rifle as he walked.
He moved quickly, making a circle around the entire village. The embers of the fire popped and hissed in the rain. As he passed by the other Indians in their huts, he could hear them talking and laughing. Though he didn’t know their language, he imagined they were talking about his team.
Movement in the trees drew his attention from the camp. The jungle just beyond the perimeter of the camp was dark and foreboding. Rain dripped off the broader leaves above his head and dropped to the ground. He scanned the forest but saw only dark shadows, forms shifting in the gloom. It must have been his imagination.
Lightning flashed. For an instant, the forest lit up like a football field.
In front of him, vines dangled from huge trees, snaking to the ground around his feet. Giant fungi made a white and yellow path along the floor of the jungle. Two bats flittered through the bright flash. The whole place was a scene from a nightmare.
Then it was dark again.
Something rustled in the underbrush nearby, maybe the dog rummaging through the woods. Peter heard something else, like the sound of breathing nearby, human breathing. His pulse quickened. “Hello?”
Lightning flashed, and Peter again saw a human figure before him.
He stepped back and readied his rifle.
“Hey,” a voice said. The figure stepped forward. “It’s just me.”
“Who?” Peter said, reaching for his flashlight.
“It’s me: Alex.”
Peter’s flashlight snapped on.
“I had to, you know, use the bathroom,” Alex said. One of her hands was in her jacket pocket. She was soaking wet. “I was just heading back to my tent.”
“Okay,” Peter said, relaxing slightly. “Be careful.”
“You, too,” Alex said as she scampered back toward her tent.
Peter watched as she slipped into her tent and zipped it closed. He stepped back into the gloom of the outer circle of the camp. Lightning still flashed overhead but the rain was subsiding somewhat. He shielded his eyes with each bolt of light. His head was pounding from the chichi as he began another circuit of the camp.
As he moved near the edge of the forest again, he heard branches snap.
“Alex?”
He arced his light around. Nothing. He squinted as a dull ache hammered just behind his eyes. Turned it off again and listened.
“Hello? Who’s there?”
Lightning filled the spaces between the trees, and he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He shook his head. In front of him, Peter could see the mist covering the blackness of the river. Something was moving. He focused. A shadowy figure appeared in the mist.
A soldier in black. Maybe the soldier from the boats.
“Who’s there?” Peter said, clasping the strap of his rifle.
The figure didn’t answer. Instead, it moved toward Peter.
The stranger’s face was hidden by the darkness of the woods.
Peter stood watching as the black-clad man drew closer, until he was five feet in front of him. Peter slipped the rifle from his shoulder. His breathing quickened, his jaw squeezed shut.
Another flash of light blazed across the sky.
He saw the face clearly.
Dad?
Peter dropped his rifle, surprised.
It was some sort of trick. Had to be. Maybe the effects of the jungle beer. He closed his eyes and shook his head, but the figure was still there. No mistake. He’d recognize the eyes, nose, and jaw anywhere.
It was like looking into a haunted mirror. It had been more than a decade since he’d seen his father, but he was there now, plain as day, in the middle of the Amazon rain forest. The man’s green eyes seemed to glow in the midnight gloom as Peter stood facing him. Another flash in the sky, and rain began to fall heavily again.
This man’s face looked younger than he’d remembered his father. The last time he’d seen Andrew Zachary was a chance encounter during Desert Storm. And before that, it had been another decade since he’d seen him. Peter was suddenly back on that day, when he was only eleven, as he watched from his bedroom window as this man walked away from them and was swallowed by a career.
Couldn’t be him. Even at fifty-nine, his father had hard lines etched in his face from years of wearing a permanent scowl. This man’s skin looked taught, his eyes bright and intense. And he was fit. Water dripped from the man’s wet silver hair and fell into the mist at his feet.
It didn’t make sense. Andrew Zachary was a career military man, the head of DARPA, a top-secret division of the military. The last place on earth he’d be was in the middle of the Amazon.
“Hello, Peter,” the man said.
The voice was so familiar. Peter laughed. “You’re not real.”
“Oh, I’m very real.”
“What do you want? Why are you here?”
“Peter, you must believe. It is more than you think, more than what you see. Do you understand me?”
Peter didn’t answer. He was confused and angry.
“This is bigger than you know,” the man continued. “Once you’re into it, you can’t get out. Leave the girl. Leave this jungle. It is after you, Peter. You cannot fight it.”
Peter felt his mouth pull into a sneer.
As far as he was concerned, his father—whether this thing in front of him was real or an apparition—had died when he was eleven. Fury began to build. Peter dropped his flashlight, balled his fists, and advanced toward the figure. His fists shot up from his sides, and he began to swing sloppy punches.
The man blocked Peter’s arm and counterpunched.
The blow was hard and sudden. Peter’s body flew backward, thumping into the wet grass. A sharp pain shot through his chin and face. He looked up. The stranger stood over him.
“Very well, Peter. You’ve made your choice.”
The figure turned and walked back into the mist. Peter watched it move down toward the stream until it disappeared. Fog from the streambed swirled up and over Peter. He felt himself slipping until the world blurred around him.
A voice called through the thick fog. “Hey, Pete!”
It was Linc.
“Is that you?”
Peter groaned.
A hand reached down into the mist and pulled him up.
“You okay?” Linc asked. “It’s my shift, boss. Why don’t you go back into the tent and get some rest?”
Peter rubbed his throbbing jaw, confused. He checked his watch and snatched up his gun. Three hours had passed. He must have fallen asleep. “Yeah, I’m fine. I was just . . . getting some air. That swill did a number on me.”
“I get it. Can’t take the jungle beer,” Linc said with a smile.
The rain was falling in a constant downpour. Peter winced when Linc shined his flashlight in his eyes.
“What happened to you?” Linc asked.
“What do mean?”
Linc pointed. “Your face, Pete. Looks like you got beat up.”
Peter touched his chin. Blood covered his fingers and palm. “It was nothing. I must have fallen.”
* * *
Alex couldn’t breathe.
She jerked awake, shocked by the odd sensation that there was something huge sitting on her chest. The fog of sleep clouded her mind. She tried to lift her arm to push the weight off her, but she couldn’t lift her hand. It was pinned to the ground. She thrashed, panicked. Still struggling for breath, she managed to open her eyes. Her pulse caught in her throat.
Floating on her chest, inches from her head, was a dark blob, a thick, oily looking mass. It resembled a miniature rain cloud with ragged, billowed edges. And it was moving, swirling.
She began to shake, trying to turn over, to get away from it, but she could feel the presence p
ushing against her, pinning her to the floor of the tent.
What the—?
In a way that surprised her, her breath came back, pulsing into her mouth and lungs in a sudden rush of suction. She shut her eyes and coughed and gagged and finally steadied herself. She opened her eyes. The thing was gone.
A nightmare.
She moaned and struggled to orient herself, to place where she was. She could feel the sheets of her bed and reached out her hand to touch the walls of her college dorm room. Instead of the familiar wood paneling, she heard her fingers zing across nylon.
A tent.
She remembered then. The river, the Indians, and the American soldiers. The village. She breathed out slowly, calming herself. Finally, after what seemed like ten minutes, her body relaxed so that she could sit up.
The pitter-patter of rain on the tent was lighter than it had been when she’d fallen asleep. She could still smell the faint aroma of smoking coals. That, and the slightly sour smell of the wet clothes inside the closed tent. She coughed, almost gagged. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light. She could see shapes but not much more—nothing distinguishable, only outlines in the dark.
Tima was still lying motionless next to her, curled into a ball. Alex stared at her for a full minute, watching Tima’s body, waiting for her to breathe.
Nothing.
Something was wrong. Something about the way Tima lay in the tent. She didn’t want to think about it. She wanted to lay her head back on the pillow and fall asleep. She wanted to wake up in her dorm room, twenty years old, having never come to the Amazon at all, never seeing the jungle or the river or Tima. Now, the young girl lay there unmoving, totally still. Dead.
No, no, no, she kept telling herself, shoving the thought away.
Without thinking, she shot her arm out and pushed on Tima, shoving the girl’s body so hard that it rolled over.
“Tima!”
The girl moaned, regaining her position in a ball.
Alex took a breath of relief and tried to focus on the pattern of the rain on the tent.
Please, Alex, once he has begun the ritual, he cannot stop until the girl has control. If he does, the evil spirits will enter someone else.
Alex couldn’t say why the priest’s words came to her, but they did. She lay awake tumbling the words around in her head.
Evil spirits.
There was no such thing. Spirituality was neutral—she’d always believed that. Who’s to say what’s good or evil, anyway?
But that thing on her chest . . . it definitely felt . . . evil.
It was a nightmare—that was all.
She pushed the Indiglo button on her watch. It was 3:43 a.m.
She laughed out loud, partly at the priest and partly at herself.
The evil spirits will follow you.
Sure.
She shifted in her bed again, trying to make herself comfortable, struggling to adjust her body. But mostly, she kept staring over at Tima.
It was useless.
She donned her boots and rain parka and stepped into the night.
* * *
Dawn crept over the Peruvian rain forest, slower than Alex would have liked. She walked along through the wet grass, watching the pale sun as it toyed with the tangled branches of the ancient jungle, revealing a gray-green world distinctly other. The air was thick and musty, nearly opaque. The smell of life and decay permeated the oxygen-rich ecosystem.
Alex spotted an aged kapok tree that spread its massive limbs over a dozen lesser trees. Its trunk had to be more than fifty feet in diameter, and its branches stretched nearly two hundred feet overhead, pushing out through the webbed canopy of forest toward the celestial glow.
Above her, a giant condor waiting to take flight perched like a watchman over the jungle. The archaic bird sat quietly, alert to the smell of rotting carrion in the valley below, waiting for the morning breeze to give it flight.
Normally, she was used to the jungle. She’d spent the past five years waking up every morning in the jungle. But things had changed. Now, she sensed a dread that lay just below the surface of her emotions, threatening to burst out at any moment.
No wind made its way to where she stopped in front of one of the Quechua dwellings, shrouded by the trees. A strange silence filled the hanging air, thick and wet but still cool. She breathed deep, filling her lungs with the dank morning.
She went to sit by the fire. When she’d awakened, Linc was on his shift and had relit the fire for her. The rain had stopped, and the two of them had sat together, talking on and off for an hour. Just before dawn, Linc had ducked into his tent, finished with his watch, ready to prepare for the hike ahead.
“Morning, Alex,” a voice said.
Alex looked up. It was Peter.
“Coffee?” she asked.
“Are you kidding? I live on the stuff.”
Alex poured some of the dark liquid into a tin cup and handed it to Peter. “It’s not Starbucks,” she said, “but at least it’s coffee.”
“Hey, coffee’s coffee as far as I’m concerned.”
Alex’s head pounded. She rubbed her forehead and must’ve let out a moan.
“You okay?” Peter asked, sitting on one of the logs. “You sick?”
“No, I’m fine. I just didn’t sleep much.”
“I know.”
“Do I look that bad?” Alex joked, brushing hair out of her face.
“No, you look fine,” Peter said. “I mean, I didn’t sleep much last night, either. Plus, I heard you tossing and turning all night. You aren’t exactly a quiet sleeper.”
“It was horrible.”
“And I thought you were dreaming about me,” Peter joked as he stoked the fire.
Alex smiled for the first time that morning. “That would be a nightmare.”
“Ouch,” Peter said, chuckling.
“What about you?” Alex said. “Why couldn’t you sleep?”
Peter shrugged. “I’m used to it. Sleep’s overrated. Now, in another twenty-four hours I’ll be a pumpkin. But until then, I’m good to go. Anyway,” he said, his gaze unfocused, “I had a lot on my mind.”
Alex didn’t say anything. The steam from her aluminum mug curled up slightly in the still air and heated the tip of her nose. She held the cup close and took a sip from her coffee.
Peter’s lower jaw moved back and forth. He looked like he was upset about something, but then she was pretty sure that he was that way most of the time. Even in the early light, she could see in his eyes that he was confident. Alex had gotten used to Peter giving orders, but this morning something was different.
“How are you doing with all of this?” she asked him, looking over her cup.
“All of what?”
“Bogart. He was your best friend. It’s got to be torture for you,” Alex said, looking away.
There, she’d said it. It had been two days now, and no one had as much as even said his name. Yet Alex knew good and well that Bogart—not Tima—was the reason Peter and his men had insisted on going into the jungle at all. She glanced up at him.
He was sitting with his elbows on his knees. He’d set his coffee cup on the ground by his foot, and his hands were touching each other, his index fingers rubbing on the end of his nose. His eyes were squinting and wet, maybe from the smoke, maybe not. Either way, it was the first time she’d seen him actually act human. No heroics, no façades.
Neither spoke for a moment. Alex sensed that Peter was struggling to hold it together.
“Bogart was a good friend,” Peter said, unflinching. “The best friend I ever had.”
Alex didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.
“Alex,” Peter said finally, “there are a few things I think we need to talk about.”
She edged closer. Just being near him made her feel safer, like somehow him being here meant that things were going to be all right. For the next half hour, Alex listened as Peter told her everything he and Linc had discovered about Michael Khang
and the Eden Project the night before.
“What do you mean you’re not sure if she can make it?” Alex asked.
“It’s just that . . .” Peter said, his voice trailing off.
“What?”