“You should.”
“Goddamnit, Morgan. Just shut the fuck up.”
“What. Is. Wrong with you?” she said as she stepped away from him, head shaking back and forth. “I’m not sure who you are anymore.”
He wasn’t so sure himself.
Moray joined him by the bodies. In a lowered voice, he said, “Is that all of them?”
“Yeah, pretty sure,” Cutter replied, staring off at Gauge who was dabbing at the flow of blood on his forehead with a cloth. “What should we do with the bodies?”
Moray checked his watch. “Leave them to the forest. We have about an hour to make it another two miles to our final supply drop. I’ve already sent Ajay along ahead with our guide and they will—”
“What about any more threats?” Cutter asked.
“Doubtful,” Moray said dismissively and again checked his watch. “We’ve got to move. Now. I’ll take point. You make sure we aren’t followed.”
Cutter let out another grunt, followed by a single nod of his head.
“Stay close,” Moray said in a commanding tone and went to pick up his pack.
Cutter returned to Gauge and helped him to his feet, then got behind him and tied off a cloth bandage around his head. When he looked up, Morgan had already retrieved her pack and was speaking quietly with Reyna. They soon took off after Moray without exchanging a single word with Cutter, which spoke volumes.
“Let’s go,” he grumbled at Gauge. “Keep watching our six.”
It was pitch dark by the time they reached the supply drop. Cutter had been following the light ahead and using his own flashlight only occasionally to keep from tripping over anything as he and Gauge made their way through the tangled roots. One thing he had learned about the jungle was that underneath the canopy of lush green, most of what grew there was often sickly and barren. Strip away the trees and the land would become nothing more than a desert.
No one said anything to Cutter as approached the campsite. In the center was a glowing lantern sitting on top of a supply crate. Around it was an assortment of MREs and a small hissing stove with a pan filled with boiling water.
Ajay handed Cutter and Gauge two steaming cups. Cutter sniffed the contents. Tea? It wasn’t coffee, but right now it didn’t matter. Anything other than lukewarm water was a nice change of pace.
“We’ll camp here tonight,” Moray stated. “And, Mr. Cutter, I would like you to handle perimeter security—personally.”
Cutter glanced at Morgan. She glared back at him as she got up from where she’d been sitting and returned to her pack. From inside, she drew a set of miniature alarms and a spool of wire and a handful of remote sensors. It was obvious that she still had not forgiven him, nor should she, he figured. She would do her job. Given time, she would let it go. He just had to let her have that time and space.
Another check on Reyna told him that she was also pissed at him. He’d be sleeping alone that night—if he’d be able to sleep at all. His mind kept replaying those wild-eyed natives emerging from the jungle and the horrible ways in which they had died. He had thought he’d put the whole episode in Russia behind him, but he hadn’t. Not even close.
As he watched Morgan head out to set up a perimeter, he changed his mind about letting her settle on her own. He owed her an apology for snapping at her at the very least. Maybe it was the tea, maybe it was the walk. As he thought about it more, he became certain that what he’d done had been more than a bit shitty. He had to own that.
“Hey,” he said as he caught up to her.
She said nothing.
“I know. I—”
“Don’t even start, Jack. I’ve kinda had it with you.”
“Aren’t you being a bit childish?” he asked, then suddenly wanted to take the words back.
She stopped. Turned. “Childish?” She nodded and resumed her trek.
He caught up with her again and stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“Let go of me.”
“Of all people, Morgan. This isn’t you. Nor is it the time. I’m not proud of what I’ve been doing. Haven’t been for some time. But…and this is difficult for me to say—”
“Then just say it, Jack.”
“I respect the hell out of you, Morgan. I really don’t get why you keep following an asshole like me. I mean, come on. I’m just a tired drunk who doesn’t give two shits about life.”
She remained silent for several seconds, then said, “Jack, have you stopped to think about what we think about you?”
That stumped him. He didn’t have an answer. Nor could he easily untangle the question.
“No,” she continued. “We are with you because you’ve proven your loyalty to us long ago. You may talk like an ass—hole. You might even act that way most of the time. But you don’t always act that way, and we can tell the difference.”
“What’s that all mean?”
“Sometimes, you can be a bit dense. You know that?”
He didn’t necessarily disagree with her assessment.
“Our loyalty was earned, Jack. Early on. Stuff like that doesn’t just go away, you know. No matter how hard you might try to screw it up.”
With that, she just left him standing there, considering all that she’d said.
- 26 -
SKELETAL FOREST
Cutter felt exceptionally good now that he had an MP-5K in his hands again instead of his competent, but slower-firing Glock. It also felt good to have the heavy pack on his back filled with hundreds of extra rounds of ammunition. But it didn’t feel so good to know that they were heading deeper into the jungle on a vector to some unknown location.
If they didn’t make it there and find what Moray had been seeking, they might as well write off the expected helicopter tasked with extracting them from the jungle and returning them to civilization. They would be on their own, with the nearest friendly settlement over two-hundred miles away, on foot and through dense jungle terrain, across two major rivers, and straight into uncharted territory, which itself was filled with not only the ever-present dangers of the jungle, but perhaps more hostile natives as well. And given that Cutter had—at most—three or four days of food rations and clean water remaining in his pack, that two-hundred-mile trek would be nearly impossible to pull off successfully.
That left only one way out. Find the damn city or bust his ass trying.
Still, the cold, hard truth of that didn’t sit well with him, but it did make him wonder if he might have been wrong with his initial assessment. There still might be a wildcard out there that was about to be dropped on the table. Life—at least in his experience—had always worked that way. Warren Bell was out there somewhere, waiting, watching—maybe even following. If Cutter knew the guy’s modus operandi as well as he thought he did, the man was cooking up something. But as to what that was? He hadn’t a clue.
Earlier, Moray had stated that the same zombie-like people they’d gone up against in Russia would more than likely inhabit the lost city and would attempt to stop anyone from getting to what Moray wanted.
Which meant—more zombies.
Cutter hadn’t complained when he’d been told this by Moray. They were in too deep already, and they’d done well enough against the zombies before, so he figured they’d do just as well this time around. And, this time, they’d be prepared for them.
They’d been marching along for hours so far, with Cutter and Gauge handling the rear-guard position, and other than spotting hints of a jaguar off in the distance, or some other big cat, nothing much had happened. So, it was the way the skinny man, Ajay, had come to a sudden stop that put Cutter on edge. When they caught up to the guy, Moray was already examining a vine-covered tree.
Whatever it was that Moray was looking at, Cutter could not tell until he drew a little closer. With a swelling lump in his throat, he figured out what it was.
A body had been strapped to a tree, bound there by ropes made of thick vines. No flesh remained on the body, and the bones were
mottled green and brown.
Cutter drew even closer, and it became clear, based on the tall stature of the skeleton, that it had not been one of the natives that called the area home.
“The good news—this doesn’t look like it was meant to be a warning,” Reyna Martinez said as she examined the skeleton.
She picked at a piece of clothing that had rotted through, pinched it between her fingers, and stepped back from the greenish bones. A long strip of cloth peeled off the skeleton. She draped it over the backside of her hand.
“How long do you think that skeleton has been here?” Moray asked.
She examined the cloth further. It appeared to contain part of a sewn patch of some kind. A nametag? A uniform? Cutter wasn’t exactly sure what it was.
“Forty, maybe fifty years,” she said. “It’s far too degraded for me to make much more of a guess beyond that.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry I can’t be more precise.”
Cutter scanned the tied-up skeleton again, head to toe. Something caught his eye, so he went to the skeleton and dug around in the roots and overgrown vines beneath it. He came up with a rusting pistol in a rotten leather holster. The rotten leather fell away like mud, leaving him holding a rusty revolver. He turned it over in his fingers, but couldn’t tell what model pistol it was, other than it was .38 caliber. He handed the rusted weapon over to Gauge.
“Thirty-eight. Smith and Wesson,” Gauge commented as he rolled it about in his hands. “World War II era. Victory model.” He gave the pistol back to Cutter. “I’d bet on it.”
“What does this mean?” Cutter said.
“That’s still part of the good news. This should be a warning to us,” Reyna added. “Go no further. But the bad news is—something about all this says it’s not a warning. It was done deliberately and doesn’t seem meant to scare others off.” She shook her head. “Strange. I have my suspicions as to why, but I want to check a few things before I say anything further.”
Cutter nodded. He was happy she was speaking with him again. She’d even looked him in the eyes for a brief second.
“Hey!” came a voice.
Everyone turned toward the sound.
It was Ajay. He had left and was now returning with the small native guide at his side. He stopped about twenty feet away and started waving a hand for everyone to follow him. Cutter checked his gun and led the way, pointing the barrel to indicate he wanted Gauge to watch their flank.
About one hundred feet ahead, the undergrowth grew thinner but the canopy of interlaced branches above plunged everything into darkness. Shafts of dusty light cut through small gaps in the branches and cast sharpened shadows on the gnarled, vine-covered trees. Pinned to those trees were even more skeletons. Some had been posed with their hands raised above their heads, some had arms outstretched and tied off to sticks of wood. Two were strapped to X-shaped frames.
It all made Cutter rethink Reyna’s initial assessment. She must have been wrong. This was a warning of some kind. It had to be.
As he drew nearer, he glanced off into the forest where it grew even darker. The tied-up skeletons kept going as far as he could see. There had to have been hundreds of them, row after row after row. Thousands, perhaps. The hairs on the back of his neck rose, and his gut was tingling that all-too-familiar sense of danger. He stopped, stood still. For a brief second, he questioned his own sanity.
Then one of the skeletons moved.
He raised his gun and prepared to fire.
But fire at what? They were skeletons. There was no meat, no flesh to destroy. He almost laughed at the pointlessness of it. It was as if he had been suddenly dropped into one of those old horror movies where the skeletons all came alive and attacked.
It was impossible. But he had seen some crazy shit before. So, maybe…?
He kept watching, stock-still.
This time, nothing moved. He blinked a few more times as the others joined him. It was only his imagination. That was it. He was sure.
Pretty sure.
Cutter glanced at Morgan. Her jaw was hinged open. Then he looked at the others. Reyna and Moray appeared to be able to assess the scene with a calmness that eluded Cutter. He went to another of the skeletons. This one was much smaller. There were teeth on a neckless draped over the exposed shoulder bones. It was a man—or a woman—and had to have been one of the natives. As he left that one behind and examined another tied to a nearby tree, it appeared even smaller. A child? But Cutter didn’t even want to consider that thought for more than half a second.
He tried to push what he was seeing from his mind.
“Why are they here?” he asked.
No one responded.
He asked again, this time directing the question to Reyna.
“I’m still not sure,” she said as she stepped past him and bent to examine another of the skeletons. “It’s like they’ve all been tied up here, but there do not seem to be any signs they met a violent death. No broken bones, no head trauma. And it appears they’ve been tied up post mortem. Nothing makes sense. It is…indeed strange. What is obvious, though, is that they have been here for a long, long time. That much is clear. But not much else.”
“So, were you wrong? Is this a warning or do you still think it is something else?” he asked.
“Something else,” she said, sighing forcefully. “I’m sure of it now.”
“Jack, I don’t like this,” Morgan said.
He almost told her that her statement was just a bit too obvious but held his tongue. She probably felt the same level of bubbling fear he did. When he glanced about to locate Moray, the man was already heading into the midst of the tied-up skeletons.
“It’s nothing to be afraid of, Mr. Cutter,” Moray said. “I half-expected this to be here.”
“Half-expected?”
“Yes.”
Cutter glanced to Reyna. “What does he mean by that?”
She thought about it for a moment. Then she sighed again. “It’s best we do not speak of it yet. I don’t know for sure, Jack. Neither does he.”
“Know what?” Morgan asked. “Tell us.”
“These were once…zombies,” Reyna said. “At least that is what I suspect.”
“And…?” Cutter asked. “I mean…if they were zombies once upon a time, what the hell tied them all up to the trees? And how in the hell did they do it?”
- 27 -
THRESHOLD
For Cutter, it was just one big messed-up situation. A regular Charlie Foxtrot. To start with, here he was, days from any kind of safe harbor, surrounded by the skeletons of countless dead, in the middle of a brackish, hellish Amazon Basin where every living creature was engaged in a desperate battle to remain alive, and, to add to that heaping helping of misery—his boots had been a half-size too large, and the blisters that had formed on his feet hurt like hell.
Seated on the upturned roots of a fallen tree, he pulled both boots off to see if he could find some relief from the pain. It appeared, after stripping off his socks and finding blood underneath, that the blisters had already burst and he’d rubbed clear through his skin. To top it off, the nail on his big toe was bent upward where it must have caught and nearly been torn off. There was a white crease running all the way through it. Underneath, the formerly protected skin was already swelling and turning a nasty shade of blue. There was a slight chance the nail might remain attached for the next few days just as well. Whatever the case, the blisters and toenail would hobble him somewhat.
But complaining about it wasn’t going to help.
Morgan had stayed behind with him like she always had in the past. That simple, silent message meant a lot to him. Everyone else had moved on ahead, and it was in the way that she looked at him as if he were some object of sympathy—or worse—pity, that returned the final measure of steel to his spine.
One small blessing was that none of the skeletons filling the large swath of forest surrounding him had mysteriously come to life as he’d thought they might. It also
appeared, the further they went into the midst of the skeletal forest, the fresher the corpses became, as if they were resistant to decay. It struck him as odd, but he still had a job to do before it was all over, so he pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind and got on with what was most important.
Wincing, he slipped his socks back on over his injured feet. “Go on ahead,” he said to Morgan as he tightened his bootlaces as tight as he could take them. He didn’t want her seeing just how much pain he was experiencing.
Testing his ability to walk, he managed to make it a few steps. He took a few more. He could move, but each step was a new agony as the material of his socks shifted about. After a few more steps, the pain subsided somewhat, and he straightened and found a pace he could maintain.
When he arrived where the others had assembled, he set a hand on Gauge’s shoulder and stared past the big man at a desiccated corpse still tied to the tree. The face was sunken, the teeth exposed, and the flesh had contracted so much that it had torn away from the bone, yet it appeared different from the others.
Cutter leaned in and whispered in Gauge’s ear, “What do you suppose happened?”
The big man shook his head and walked sideways a few steps, sloughing off Cutter’s hand. It was easy to tell that Gauge wasn’t thrilled with the situation they had gotten themselves into, just as much as Cutter, maybe more.
Cutter cleared his throat. “How much farther?”
Ajay looked up from a tablet computer. “We’re at the coordinates we were provided. It is supposed to be right here.” He tapped on the screen and looked around as if he expected to be standing in the middle of the city’s central plaza. “It could be anywhere. Maybe one hundred yards from here in any direction. Maybe a mile.” He sputtered through tight lips, shrugged his shoulders, and finished with, “I don’t know.”
“I don’t see a missing city anywhere around here. I do see a bunch of skeletons, though,” Cutter said as he shaded his eyes and glanced around mockingly. “Moray, do you think we can get the hell out of here now?”
Zombie Team Alpha: Lost City Of Z Page 13