The whole world knows this.
And really, I'm not sure what world we're in right now.
63
Casa de Seniorita Alonzo.
13 minutes later . . .
We met back at Seniorita Alonzo's front porch as a curious looking tabby cat slinked by with a look of restrained urgency—that quick cat trot that you see three days before a tornado.
“Los gatos,” Juan says, “they know things we don't. They have, ah . . . comó te dices . . . ” He's searching for a word. “Sensitivities?” he tries.
Senses, I say. Yeah, they have very acute senses.
“Si, eso. Senses .”
I've got a soil sample in a small metal tube, which I'm hoping is composed of lead or some other dense material that insulates against radioactivity. If the suspect soil does turn out to be radiating it will probably leech into my body and twist my reproductive system into knots. I guess I'll know for sure when my future kids are born with extra eyes and a set of flippers.
Juan and I make our way through the half grass, half reddish dirt yard and put the goggles back inside the Hummer . I stow the soil sample in a metal case that has all kinds of gauges on the side that make me that much more concerned.
As we turn around we notice several cats, just like that first one, all racing by like they have to get somewhere quickly. Like they're late for an appointment.
Is that normal? I ask.
Juan looks up, his nearly black eyes studying that morning sky, “Es que . . . maybe there is a storm coming. Sensitivities.”
Right.
We head back through Seniorita Alonzo's tired iron gate and across her small courtyard. And as I'm walking over some small round tiles, it hits me. I turn to Juan, lowering my voice, “Didn't the woman say they were trying to get all of the chickens back in their cages?”
“Si.”
And I'm picturing the hen house we walked by on our way down the gentle slope that led to the back gate. The hen house is a low-roofed, long building that smells like the worst parts of a chicken times a million. The building itself was painted in a faded blue that looks to have been applied to the warped wooden planks some time in the early 50s.
I don't know how the whole 'chicken farming thing' goes, but, from what I gather, it's basically a whore house where the birds are urged to mate as quickly as possible, spitting out kids until they baby maker is worn out. Then they're chopped up and used for pig food. I think that covers the broad strokes.
But the thing I don't get is, how did the chickens get out in the first place?
“They don't let chickens run around and get exercise, do they?” I ask as I notice some slithery little bugs wiggling around in the mucky water that's left in the fountain.
He laughs, “No.”
And then we both look at each other, nodding. Somebody set the chickens loose to separate the children . . . so they could snatch one. We fast walked to the door of the house, and it's kind of cracked open, just waving back and forth as the wind pushes through. I guess that's their version of air conditioning.
I knock lightly and announce that we're coming in. A few steps inside we see the others standing in the kitchen. There are small blue and white tiles across most of the floor. And the walls are an eggshell color, darker near the top corners by the ceiling. There are candles on almost every flat surface, along with several crucifixes and pictures of Jesus. I don't know if the word sad is appropriate, but it's the only thing that's echoing through my mind.
Ms. Josephine and Ricky have conjured up some concoction in a large black pot. Ms. Josephine is holding a picture of the missing boy over the swirls of steam as they roll and bend their way up from the bubbling pot.
Mr. Green, Mr. Blue, and Seniorita Alonzo, they're off to the side watching all of this.
And I know when to keep my trap shut and observe. Ms. Josephine, in her white dress, with her dark black skin and mesmerizing eyes, she seems larger than life. This all feels surreal. She's more of a character than an actual person. She's got her eyes closed, moving the photograph up and down slowly as she mumbles unintelligible stuff in French and Creole.
Ricky is at her side, like a doctor's assistant, waiting to see if he gets to be the one to kill the chicken that is in a small metal cage on the floor. And I just know that this has to involve the chicken's throat being slit at some point.
Juan doesn't seem the least bit bothered by any of this. Mr. Green backs away from the group and approaches Juan, whispering something to him. Ms. Josephine is doing her voodoo thing as he comes around to my right side. We watch her touching the picture, beads of steam condensing into drops that make it look like the lost child is crying right in front of us.
The chicken is getting restless. It just has to know what's coming.
I guess maybe that's what the cats were all hauling ass for. Perhaps they have some special sense that lets them know when it's not healthy to be anywhere near the practice of voodoo rituals. Especially if you've got warm blood that can be splashed around in a pot.
Mr. Green leans in and asks me if we found anything useful. I explain my theory about the chickens being deliberately set free to cause a distraction. He agrees. I tell him about the warm soil just past the gate, and how we got some cellular phone interference in this area.
They all think this is a chupacabra. A goat sucker.
“Maybe it is,” Mr. Green says under his breath as he turns back to the unsettling ceremony taking place.
We both look at Seniorita Alonzo. Her face is tanned deeply brown, with the kind of crows feet at the corners of her eyes a woman gets only after years of squinting under the harsh sun. Her face is wide and kind of flat, and she has this defeated look about her. It's like her body realized a long time ago that life wasn't going to be pleasant. She has thick forearms and muscular, thin fingers rough and leathery from working with her hands.
And so we just stand there watching until my phone starts to vibrate in my pocket. I quietly excuse myself outside into the courtyard near the starving fountain and answer. It's Billtruck, and he's talking excitedly.
“ . . . found another body!”
Wait . . . what ? Where?
“Off the Pan-American Highway, the one that leads from the airport,” he says. “I'll shoot you the exact coordinates. But you need to hurry if you want to get a clean look at the body.”
Why?
“The anonymous voice just got the same call I'm giving you. Only his came from the local Police.”
We're on it! I say.
64
Pan-American Highway, South of the Airport, Quito.
8:32 am . . .
We're racing down the Pan-American Highway, again. This time, we're in search of the most recent body. This makes two of seventeen missing children. The Pan-American Highway is an interesting piece of history, Juan explains, with Mr. Green filling-in the gaps in his English.
It's basically a network of highways that connect North America to South America. It was conceived in 1923 as a single route, but it eventually grew to include several other highways in participating countries. Most of the sections of the highway were built with US financial assistance, however Mexico financed the entire portion that falls within its borders. The whole system extends from Alaska and parts of Canada, all the way down to Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, and Brazil.
It is nearly 30,000 miles in all. A grand feat, indeed. Although, right now it's just another place where horrible stories and nightmares will be spawned. The morning traffic is already starting to get dense as we weave in and out of the dilapidated pick-up trucks and rusted old cars.
Time left this place in the dust years ago.
I know we're getting close when we see the police vehicles gathered at the side of the road. There are only about five vehicles at this point, but it's going to get much busier, I'm sure. We skid to a stop on the side of the road, about 25 feet from the last police vehicle.
Mr. Green turns to us, “Let me talk. I'll intro
duce you as health investigators. Ricky,” he says glancing over, “you do your thing. Get your pictures and blood samples, or whatever, and then we get moving. These are locals, this is a dead child, you can see where tensions might be running a bit high.”
And with that we all get out of the first Hummer and head towards the last police vehicle. Mr. Green walks ahead of us, speaking quickly with the police. I can see a plastic sheet a few feet off of the road, in some sparse yellowed grass.
It doesn't take long for Mr. Green to get clearance for us to investigate. Juan, Ms Josephine, and I, we're trailing behind Ricky and Mr. Green. Mr. Blue, the quiet one, he's staying with the vehicles.
The police look less like cops and more like out of work actors, playing cops. They all have their navy blue shirts partially untucked or unbuttoned. Their hats are either folded in their back pockets, or falling halfway off of their heads. Nobody here shaves, apparently, and they take even less care with their hygiene.
And all of them, every single tanned one of them, have this concern on their faces, eyes filled with terror. These men are haunted. They would all rather be at a ten-fatality traffic accident. Or a burning house with five charred bodies. Because at least then they could explain what happened.
Then they wouldn't have to wonder.
Inspector Rodriquez—a short, balding man with sunken in eyes and sharp, almost unhealthy features—rubs the space between his eyes and nose, as he explains to Mr. Green how they found the body.
Some taxi coming from the Airport noticed several stray dogs toying with something just off to the south side of the highway. The driver thought he noticed a pair of feet and thought maybe they were attacking somebody. After skidding to a stop and backing up, he honked his horn several times to run the dogs away. He got out of the car and walked towards the body.
After throwing-up he got back to his car and called the dispatcher to report that a child had been found. That was just over an hour ago. People called people, who called the anonymous voice, who called the Vatican. At some point in there, we intercepted one of those calls, and here we are.
“Tengo dos hijos,” Inspector Rodriquez says as he turns towards the small body. The wind is barely lifting the edge of the plastic to show one of the tiny legs, where the dogs were mauling it. “Es horrible, todo eso. Horrible.”
“Permita nos a investigar,” Mr. Green asks.
“Si, si,” Inspector Rodriquez says as he waves us on. He yells to the other officers, “Deja ellos mirar.”
Let them look.
Ricky and Mr. Green make their way to the body, nodding and shaking hands with two other officers. Ricky pulls out several pairs of surgical gloves and puts them on, giving Mr. Green a pair. The rest of us are just watching from behind them. I have no desire to get really close to the body of another drained child.
This hunt, it's draining the humanity out of me as much as it is the blood out of these helpless children. I don't even have the heart to tell the inspector that he's got some spooks watching him. I give him till the weekend, tops.
Ricky kneels down over the body, slowly removing the plastic. First thing he does is check at the insides of the wrists and ankles for the ligature marks we saw in the photos. He looks up and nods at us.
Then he carefully pulls another corner of the plastic back. The child is a young boy, can't be older than six or seven years old. His skin is dark, with jet black hair. I hear some of the other officers behind me mentioning Cotopaxi. They mention something about the child's familia.
This kid was from the city where the volcano lives. Where most of the disappearances took place. My gut tells me we're going to have a long drive ahead of us.
Ricky takes a breath, slowly manipulating the child's tiny arm as he inspects the bite marks. On the inside of the arm, a few inches down from the shoulder, he finds the blackened marks.
“Anterior Carpi, just like the other child.” He leans in, “Multiple dental sets.” He sits up and takes a deep breath, looking at Mr. Green. “Hand me the digital camera, can you?”
They take several pictures of the wounds, and Ricky swabs the area for saliva samples as well as blood.
Inspector Rodriquez approaches from behind, reading, “Juan-Carlos Jimenez, vivio en Cotopaxi. Septimo niño que ha desaparecido.”
Juan-Carlos Jimenez, lived in Cotopaxi. The seventh child to disappear.
I walk away once I see the shriveled-up knee and ankle of one of his gaunt legs. The inspector was right, this is horrible. Kids shouldn't die like this.
I make my way out into the grass, taking several breaths. I feel sick to my stomach, nauseated by the site and the stench and the . . .
And then my left eye starts to shift. The grass in the field disappears. I glance back and, through my left eye, there is nobody. Just me, the greying mass of this child's cold body, and an endless stretch of cracked and crumbled highway. The sun is a green mass in the bluish sky.
My death-vision is back.
I notice something about the child's body as I stagger back forward. Ms. Josephine comes to my side and grabs my arm, supporting me. My legs feel weak underneath me, but I have to get closer.
“What is it, Jack?” Mr. Green says anxiously. “What did we miss?”
They can't see it, but I can, and I assume that the spooks that are eyeing Inspector Rodriquez hungrily can see it, too. I walk closer, kneeling a few feet from the body. The child is glowing. Nothing in deadside glows, other than my tattoos. But this is different. It is a kind of greenish-purple glow, like something you might see under a black light.
The wounds, on the insides of his arms and thighs, they're glowing this new color.
Footprints of Evil.
Echoes in the darkness.
“How long,” I ask, my voice slurred and skewed, “ . . . h-how long has the body b-b-been here?”
Ricky considers, looking at the half-naked child, only a pair of ripped shorts to cover him. No shoes, no shirt, no blood.
“There's some blood pooling. Although, without a liver temp,” he says as he touches the child, “ Whoa !”
Mr. Green lowers his body, “What is it?”
“This kid is hot ,” Ricky says, almost in disbelief.
“The sun?” Mr. Green offers.
“No, no. This kid's internal body temperature is hot. So hot . . . he would have had to be in a coma. He's way over a hundred-five or six. His brain would have been destroyed. Intense hyperthermia. Like they heated him up after they finished him off.”
Ms. Josephine broke the silence, “Dey 'eated 'is body up while dey drank away 'is life. Warm blood would be easier to get out of a small child.”
My death-vision blinked out as quickly as it came on. And now I'm left with the images in my mind. Glowing wounds where Evil attacked.
We need to go to Cotopaxi, I told them all.
And then there was a commotion behind us as several men approached. As we stood I noticed a few of them were wearing those black jackets with the small white square at the neck.
Sacerdotes.
Priests.
And one tall man with a long, bent nose and green eyes makes his way to us. He's sturdy and kind of harsh looking. His head is shaved to a shine, and he looks like a schoolteacher from the 18th century. Like at any second he is going to pull out a ruler and start whacking at our knuckles for interfering.
This guy seems to already know that we speak English because he introduces himself, “I'm Father Peter Scarcelli.”
Everybody trades disinterested glances. Well, everybody except Inspector Rodriquez, who snaps to. “Disfruta me, padre.” They shake hands and then the inspector seems to defer authority to Father Pete.
He looks at each of us, taking a moment, and then down to the plastic that's covering Juan-Carlos.
Mr. Green takes the initiative, “We're from the World Peace Brigade . We're investigating a possible contagion outbreak.”
Father Pete doesn't say anything, he just nods to himself, still stud
ying our faces. He looks at Mr. Green, “We have met before, no?”
“I don't think so, father,” he says.
“This is a police scene!” the father snaps. “We cannot have anyone contaminating any evidence. I trust that your investigation can wait until some time in the future.” He turns to Inspector Rodriquez, urging him to get rid of us.
And as he talks we hear his Italian accent. Ricky, Ms. Josephine and I, we all know who this guy is.
It's the anonymous voice from the Vatican.
We all sense that we're no longer welcome, and the Inspector kind of pleads with his eyes that we leave. So we do just that.
65
Hotel Antonio, Quito.
11:11 am . . .
We're sitting at the hotel bar, waiting for several orders of pulpo —octopus. Mr. Green promises that, with the garlic butter they provide, you can't tell where heaven stops and the pulpo starts. I don't know about that, but I'm so hungry that I could eat part of the oak table at this point.
We came back, called Billtruck, and traded our theories for an hour. Now we're waiting for some of Ricky's machines to process the samples he took from Juan-Carlos Jimenez before the Vatican took over.
And it's puzzling to me that the church would have that much power here, but Mr. Green explained it, “The church, especially the catholic church, are the highest power in the land. They judge the judges, and influence politics, and tell the people how to live their lives. And the people, believe me, they listen.”
He stirred a glass full of iced tea as he shook his head, “You see, these people live every breath of their life with unflinching faith. You don't find many atheists down here. So, the Vatican is the closest thing to God they will ever see. A catholic priest, might as well be a senator or a congressman. He can do just about anything he pleases.”
Untouchable ? I ask.
“Well, from a legal standpoint.” And then Mr. Green gets this sinister, closed-lipped grin. “But, you know . . . we do things extra-official around here.”
See Jack Hunt (See Jack Die) Page 26