Zombie Team Alpha: Lost City Of Z

by Steve R. Yeager

  Moray turned to the man’s translator.

  Instead of speaking in Portuguese, the man said in almost respectable English, “Atikibono will give to consider your gifts, and your request. Tonight, you are invited to take food with us and enjoy us what we have to offer. He will give answer in the morning.”

  Somehow, Cutter knew—just knew—things were not going as Moray had planned.

  - 16 -

  CELEBRATION

  The music was loud enough to drown out the background din of the forest, and the choice of music was not what Cutter would have considered appropriate for a party so deep in a jungle, but there it was. It was not as if he could change it.

  Atikibono apparently had a fixation with marching band music, and it was John Phillips Souza that blared from a hodgepodge of assembled speakers surrounding a large fire pit in the center of the village.

  The whole scene was just a bit too surreal, even for Cutter. Natives were dancing in odd fits of starts and stops while keeping time with the rhythmic patterns of the military march. The flamboyant outfits they wore, made from multi-hued feathers and painted sticks, whirled about with them. He almost had to laugh at the spectacle of it all but forced himself not to because everyone there seemed to be taking the celebration so seriously.

  It was some crazy shit.

  Morgan and Gauge sat nearby in stained plastic chairs, neither one of them appeared too enthralled with the unfolding chaos. Next to him on a worn-smooth log, sat Reyna Martinez, who had been attempting to translate the strange culture into something which she could grasp—and was having trouble doing so. Things were just a bit too weird for her to make sense of it as well.

  Earlier, Cutter had been handed a wooden plate with some items on it that he could not identify. There was some kind of meat—not human, he hoped—and long stringy bits of something else that tasted like grass clippings, and a kind of paste-like substance that reminded him of stale glue. It all was supposed to be a huge feast, but if that were so, then he had to wonder what the hell they normally ate.

  He was enjoying a small part of the meal. It was of a more liquid variety and came in shallow bowls. The substance was the color of milk mixed with water. From it, he had developed quite the buzz soon after his third sip.

  The buzz it had given him was not the ordinary sort of buzz that came from the varied alcoholic concoctions he’d consumed in the past. This one had left his head feeling as if it were being supported by a string from above, and the lights all around him appeared to be twinkling like a million tiny stars. He marveled at how he could twist his neck to one side, then the other, and watch as long streaks grew into a rainbow of colors, then fade back to white whenever he kept his head still.

  With his gaze now affixed on Reyna, who sat beside him, he felt himself grinning foolishly at her.

  “Enough of that,” she said, reaching for the bowl in his hand.

  “What…is it?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s called chicha.”

  “I like it.”

  “You wouldn’t if you knew how it was made.”

  He was enjoying the buzz so much that he went ahead and asked, “How…is it made?”

  She smiled as if what she was about to tell him would bring her great pleasure. “The women here chew up cassava roots and spit them out into a big communal bowl. Then they let it ferment for a few days, sometimes weeks.”

  “You mean I’m drinking someone else’s”—he stifled a belch—“spit?”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  He threw up a little in his mouth, then blinked hard, reconsidering. He grabbed the bowl back from her and had another sip of the concoction. “It’s really not that bad.”

  “Suit yourself,” she said, head shaking.

  Soon, the mellowing effects of the buzz had him leaning back and considering the entire mission so far. It had been so much different from the last time he’d visited the rainforest. Then, it’d been, land at the airport, grab a ride to the dig site, rappel down into a hole—and then start running for his very life after his wife had been killed. After her death, he’d not given a second thought to a return trip anywhere near Ecuador. This time around, he figured he’d soak in a little more of the local culture and atmosphere than dash in and run like hell to get out. And if local culture meant hanging out with a crazy, eccentric tribe in the middle of the Amazonian jungle, watching them dance to Souza military marches while eating strange food and drinking alcohol made from spit—then so be it.

  He raised the carved wooden bowl, drained it, and swallowed hard. Leaning back, he watched as the natives continue their strange dance before him, which was now becoming even more of a whirlwind of sights and sounds. He did this right up until the moment he felt a tap on his shoulder. Turning, he almost slid off the log on which he was sitting.

  It was Chief Atikibono, standing firm before him, arms folded. The thin man next to him asked in broken English, “Chief ask—how much for women? Your women. He wants to buy your women.”

  Cutter wobbled a bit on the log as he adjusted to the new troubling dilemma. To stabilize himself, he lifted one leg and planted it again hard against the ground, stamping his foot to keep himself steady.

  “We are not for sale,” Morgan said from a few feet away, showing just how repulsed she was by the request by the sour look on her face.

  The chief raised an eyebrow and frowned at her.

  “The woman. I want to buy,” the chief said, waving away his translator.

  Cutter stared at him for a moment.

  Then, suddenly, Chief Atikibono broke out into a full-on belly laugh, which was picked up by the man beside him and everyone in the general vicinity.

  Morgan and Reyna were left glancing at each other then back at the round little man before them dressed in colored feathers and laughing so hard he might split at the seams.

  When Cutter understood the joke, he started laughing too. “It’s a line from a movie—I hope.”

  “Blue Brother,” the chief said in broken English. “Mission from God.” He burst out laughing again before walking past them all and going to join the dance with the others around the fire. As he cut in the circle, he tossed his hands up in the air whenever the cannons boomed in the current march.

  “This sure is a strange place,” Morgan said, having to almost yell to be heard over the cheers going up for the chief’s arrival and subsequent joining of the dance.

  Cutter slid off the log and into the dirt. He rested both arms along the smooth wood behind him, patted it once, and kept watching the festivities. The blurred colors and fast action kept his head spinning—round and round and round—and, before long, one of the young native girls dancing by the fire, who happened to be topless, took him by the hand and raised him to his feet. She led him to the circle around the crackling fire, and soon he was smiling and dancing along, his own hands going up high in the air in unison with the others to the off-beat rhythm of the marching band.

  - 17 -

  JOYRIDE

  The sun peeked over the horizon and painted the lumpy forest in shades of green and gold. Without knowing just how he had gotten there, Cutter found himself behind the padded steering wheel of the big G-63 6x6, in the middle of nowhere in particular, spinning the easy-to-steer wheel this way and that, while whooping it up like a cowboy on payday.

  The wide-open plain in front of him had been clear-cut to the horizon and was fair game for him and his crazy band of Mad Max warriors riding along inside the cab. There were also a few brave souls perched in the bed of the truck and holding on for dear life. Chief Atikibono was in the passenger seat and bouncing up and down, cheering wildly as Cutter spun donut after donut in the soft dirt, tossing up gritty rooster-tails of sun-scorched earth.

  Right now, Cutter was a little amazed to learn just how much fun it was to drive in the middle of the Amazon with a bunch of whacked-out-of-their-minds natives, hooting and hollering and carr
ying on like madmen. All the chicha he’d been drinking throughout the night had added to the fun but had considerably reduced the wholesomeness of his current endeavor.

  After tipping the vehicle up and onto one side and balancing it on two wheels, he breathed out a slow-drawled, “Whoa,” and let everything settle back down. Then he firmly planted his foot on the brake pedal and brought the vehicle to a skidding, bouncing halt.

  Chief Atikibono kept pounding on the dashboard with a crooked stick covered in a rainbow of feathers, shouting guttural encouragements. Cutter ignored him for the time being while he wondered what the hell he was going to do for an encore.

  The chief then settled down and everything got very quiet.

  Off in the distance, a rising dust trail caught by the sun soon resolved into the other G-63. It was making a beeline straight for Cutter. Chief Atikibono made another gesture with his stick, pounding it against the dashboard. He wanted Cutter to keep going. But reality, however thinly grasped, was creeping its way back into Cutter’s mind, and he began to wonder just what the hell he was doing.

  “Oh…shit,” he breathed when the realization of what he’d done finally hit him.

  Not wanting to wait around for the coming punishment—at least not until he was sober again—he goosed the gas pedal, and the vehicle lurched forward.

  Then it suddenly came to a dead stop when the engine died.

  Cutter reached for the starter button and pressed it. Nothing. He pressed it again, then faster and faster.

  Still nothing.

  “Damn,” he said flatly.

  Agitated, Chief Atikibono pounded on the dashboard with his feathered stick once more. All Cutter could do though was look at the man and shrug. He gave one last try of the starter, and when it didn’t start, he simply shrugged again, and got out of the vehicle. The chief continued to jabber away. Cutter pushed the door shut behind him and shut off the cries. His head was starting to hurt already.

  Wobbling on his feet, he braced himself against the side of the truck with one hand to keep the world from spinning too quickly. The other G-63 pulled up alongside. The driver’s side door opened and out jumped a very angry-looking Anton Moray.

  “What the hell do you think you are doing!” he shouted.

  Cutter suddenly wanted a cigarette, or another drink. Not because he needed the nicotine burst from the first drag or the comforting numbness of the alcohol, but because he was about to get a certain part of his anatomy reamed two sizes larger that it was now. He figured that just one smoke and one drink before a rough bought of nonconsensual sex would be appropriate.

  “How dare you drive off like that, Mr. Cutter. Stealing my equipment. Putting all our lives in jeopardy! For what? What…? A joyride?”

  Chief Atikibono had come around to Cutter’s side of the vehicle. He did not look too pleased. The little chief raised his rainbow-colored stick, and Anton Moray stopped talking.

  The chief’s translator joined them, brushing back a lock of hair that had flopped over his eyes. “Chief Atikibono doesn’t like you. He will not provide guide for you. Not give…blessing for you to enter sacred forest.”

  Moray scraped his fingers under his jawline and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Tell him…that we had a deal.”

  “No deal,” the chief said, waving his feathered stick inches from Moray’s face and tapping him on the chest with it.

  Anton Moray glanced at the chief, and then let his eyes roam to Cutter. “You. You did this. You screwed it all up. You!”

  Cutter shrugged. The buzz was still going full-blast. He was feeling no pain. The romp through the clearing and the crazy drive had done him a world of good, other than the pain growing behind his eyes. At the moment, though, he could care less if they located this missing Lost City of Z or whatever the hell was in it which Moray found so goddamned important. Cutter was ready to head back home to the States with the beautiful and intelligent Dr. Reyna Martinez. Maybe he could just catch another jet to somewhere sunny and warm that had a cooling ocean breeze.

  He was ready to be done with it all.

  “The chief will provide guide for him,” the translator said, indicating toward Cutter. “Not for you. You are not fun. He is.”

  Moray glanced at Cutter and then back at the chief. He nodded once and only once before returning to his vehicle. While he had not looked pleased with the situation, he’d accepted it nonetheless.

  Cutter, who had almost thought he’d blown everything all to Hell and was about to gleefully head back to a sunny place near the water, realized that the journey had not ended at all.

  It had just begun.

  “Damn,” he said. His hand went to his forehead and he began massaging his temples with his fingers.

  - 18 -

  OVER HUNG

  Cutter’s head was pounding so hard that he thought his brain might just come bursting through his skull, which would make quite a mess.

  That was the half of it.

  “Goddammit, Jack! What the…hell is wrong with you?” Morgan yelled, or maybe she had said it loudly. He wasn’t sure. It certainly did feel as if she were screaming, screeching, making harsh noises—something. And for Morgan to stoop so low as to resort to swearing—the one true friend he had in the world that did everything she could to avoid swearing—that meant something. Something big.

  Make it stop, make it stop. But the pain in his head wouldn’t stop.

  Clamping his eyes shut, he rolled over on his shoulder inside the small, dank hut. Then he threw up, emptying the remaining contents of his stomach onto the hard-packed dirt floor. It took some time to finish vomiting, but almost immediately afterward, he felt better, so he rolled onto his back and lay there while massaging his eyeballs.

  “Jack, that was very bad form. Very bad.” This time, it was Reyna who was chiding him. “You went too far this time. Way too far.”

  Then, to finish off the group condemnation with the proverbial cherry on top, Gauge gave a single grunt of disapproval.

  Cutter tried to sit up—and witnessed streaks and flashing forks of lightning blasting across his vision. It was not true lightning that he saw. It was the misfiring neurons gone haywire in his scrambled brain, but it sure felt like lightning strikes. Wincing, he smacked his lips together and wiped the remaining strings of vomit from his mouth and flung them away. Then he toppled back over and curled into a fetal position, bringing his knees up to his chest, thinking that if he could just keep his eyes closed long enough, maybe he could fall back to sleep.

  Before he could reenter the numbing embrace of sleep, a third voice chimed in. “Mr. Cutter, we are leaving here in twenty minutes. I expect you to be ready and available by then.” It was Anton Moray who had spoken and had done so without any trace of residual anger.

  Uh? Twenty minutes? That was all Cutter could focus on at the moment. He wanted to be sick again. Moaning, he rolled over and heaved again like a cat coughing up a hairball, but nothing came out this time. Just the dry-heaves. With an outstretched hand waving them all off, he got out from between his lips a brief blip of sound. “Give me…a minute.”

  “Jack!” Morgan yelled.

  The word reverberated about in his head. He waved her and the others off again. He needed a minute. He could do this. He’d been hungover before and hadn’t died. He’d recovered. It had even been his primary way of living for almost a year after he’d lost Sharon. A life of barstools, booze, sunshine, and cheap, fast women. All of that had prepared him for this. He was a true champion of hangovers.

  But maybe all that hadn’t prepared him for this hangover. This one was far worse than any he could remember. He was as sick as a sick dog. Sicker, maybe. He could still function on a minimal level, which meant he knew he had only to force himself to get his shit together and to get moving. One foot in front of the other, and all that. But when he tried to stand, he toppled over and ended up on his knees, using his fingertips on the ground for balance.

  “Why?” he mo
aned, rotated his eyes skyward, and belched.

  The little voice still operating on a low flame in his head was berating him as well. He’d screwed up once again.

  Way to go, Jack.

  He shook his head and then wished he hadn’t.

  The destructive cycle had to stop and it had to stop now. He needed to stop behaving like this, or one more episode like it might—

  “No more, Jack,” he whispered.

  He stood. This time, his rubbery legs held. He looked around. He was inside a hut. It was a small hut. It stank inside the hut. It stank mostly of him. He vaguely remembered passing out. Before that, he’d been driving. He lifted his hands and rubbed his fingertips together, trying to remember just what he’d done since then.

  “What did I do this time?” he said out loud.

  No one answered him.

  When the bright purple-yellow flashes subsided to mere sparks, his balance returned. He ambled to the doorway leading out of the hut, stopped cold, and held onto the threshold to steady himself while scanning the area immediately outside.

  Everything was as it had been, the best he could remember. The only real change was that Morgan had gone out before him and was waiting for him. No one else had stopped to wait.

  “I should kick your…” she started to say. “You are such an…”

  “Asshole,” he breathed, completing what he knew she’d wanted to say. “Yeah, I know. It won’t happen again.”

  “Bull—” she started to say.

  He held up a hand to interrupt her. “I promise.”

  Her half-opened mouth closed and she nodded. “Better not.”

  “Where’re they going? And where’s my gun?”

  “They are going to get everything ready, Jack. We were supposed to have left already, but the damage you did to that bridge, and the stupid joyride you took has set us back almost half a day.”

  “How long was I…? Never mind. Where’s my gun?”

  “You were gone for most of the day. And you were out for—”