by Greig Beck
Michael Vargis had removed all of the medical boxes and packs from the truck and stacked them on the grass. Most were small compact field-equipment cases holding computers, microscopes, centrifuges, and several portable batteries in case there was no generator out in the field. There was also a single, reinforced brushed metal case. Alex picked it up and the tips of his fingers tingled. Strange, I can sense radiation, he thought.
‘What’s in here, Dr Vargis?’
‘Michael can carry that, Captain Hunter,’ Maria Vargis replied. ‘It contains micro field X-ray equipment, which is pretty delicate, so please be careful when you’re putting it back down.’ She turned away, indicating the conversation was ended.
Alex knew she was lying, but he could wait to find out why. Instead, he lifted the box that contained the battery packs. It was heavy and he knew that carrying its weight for over twenty-four hours would just about kill anyone else. He thought of some of the miniaturised technology he’d worked with in the HAWC labs – weapons and comm device power packs that contained ten times more power at about a hundredth the size. Guess there’s more money in war than in medicine, he thought as he strapped the heavy box to his back.
Twenty minutes later, the boy emerged from the jungle with another slightly older youth, who, judging by his facial features, was probably related to him. The younger boy walked up to Garmadia. ‘Él es mi hermano Saqueo,’ he said, then indicated himself with his thumb. ‘Yo soy Chaco.’
Garmadia turned to Alex. ‘His name is Chaco, and this one here is his big brother, Saqueo – he will be our guide.’
Garmadia pulled a map from his pocket, spread it on the ground and pointed to their current location, then at a red circle about forty miles inland towards the river. He asked Saqueo several questions and the boy nodded to each, replying in a language that Alex thought sounded sometimes like Spanish.
‘It’s a mixture of Guarani, Tupi and Spanish,’ Sam said softly, appearing beside Alex and squinting while he listened.
‘Can you understand it?’ Alex spoke without turning.
‘Some. The Spanish, no problem, but the Tupi and Guarani, just a word here and there. Only had a few hours to pick up the basics on the plane.’
‘Okay. Make sure our captain’s playing it straight, but keep your language skills quiet for now,’ Alex ordered.
Garmadia took two bank notes from his pocket and showed them to Saqueo. He gave one to the boy and made a show of putting the other one back in his pocket. The gesture was clear: this one now, the other when we get there.
‘He can take us to the drill site,’ Garmadia told Alex. ‘And he’s confirmed it’s a 24-hour trek – maybe a bit longer seeing we are not local.’
‘Good. Tell him we want to leave immediately. How long until they can be ready?’
‘Two strong legs and a jungle full of food – they turned up ready, Captain Hunter.’
Garmadia folded the map and got to his feet. He said something to Saqueo and pointed to the piles of equipment. Alex watched as Chaco darted over and lifted one of the small packs onto his shoulder; he’d obviously decided he was coming as well.
‘No. Tell him he can’t come.’
The boy looked up at Alex in shock, understanding the near universal negative. He started to argue with Garmadia, his older brother joining in. The pair of them created a high-pitched chatter that had the captain covering his ears and waving them away.
‘I cannot stop him,’ Garmadia said with a shrug. ‘He will come anyway.’
Alex thought for a second. The two boys stood frozen in anticipation, waiting for a decision from the man who was clearly the group leader.
‘Okay, just to the river. But neither of them is to enter the camp,’ he said.
Though neither boy had a grasp of English, the word okay was obviously universal as well. Chaco was beaming again.
‘Gracias, señor.’
‘What about the truck?’ Michael Vargis said as he shouldered his pack.
Garmadia spoke without turning. ‘It will be safe where it is. We are far from any of our borders, and the Indians have no use for something this large. Just make sure the doors and windows are closed so nothing can take up residence in it.’
‘Let’s move. Chaco, Saqueo, after you.’ Alex made a sweeping gesture towards the tidal wave of vegetation that looked like it was about to crash down on top of them.
Saqueo went out at lead point, but Chaco fell in next to Alex, looking first up at his face, then down to the belt circling his waist with its strange mix of metal objects and pouches. His eyes alighted on the green and black gloves with their hardened ceramic armour. He reached across and tapped one with his small brown hand, feeling the toughened plates, then looked back up at Alex. ‘Como Batman, si?’
Alex shook his head and said, ‘HAWC.’
Chaco’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Hawkman?’ An even more excited look lit his face.
Alex groaned. It’s going to be a long trek, he thought.
ELEVEN
‘Where are they all going … and in such a hurry?’ Maria Vargis looked puzzled as yet another small group of Indians hurried past them in the opposite direction.
‘I was wondering the same thing. They look spooked by something.’ Alex called to Garmadia. ‘Captain, why are the locals leaving?’
Garmadia shrugged and called the question to Chaco, nodding towards the retreating Indians. ‘They are more likely to tell him than they are me,’ he said to Alex.
Chaco scampered after a woman with a huge pile of brightly coloured clothing strapped to her back. Alex watched the boy’s eyes widen as she spoke to him, and he hung onto her arm and pumped it, as though the action would keep the information flowing. He returned to Garmadia speaking rapidly and gesturing towards the jungle. Garmadia shook his head and dismissed the boy with a sweep of his hand.
‘Well?’ asked Alex.
‘It’s nothing. They are moving to find a better campsite, that is all. These people are still quite nomadic, Captain Hunter.’
‘That’s not what he said,’ Sam whispered. ‘It was something about a golden flower…and missing children.’
Alex gave a small nod.
‘Everyone take a break,’ he ordered. ‘Captain, a word, please. Lieutenant Reid, can you join us?’
Alex walked a few paces away from the group and called to Chaco. He nodded to the jungle and repeated one or two of the words he’d heard the boy use. Chaco replied quickly, pointing towards where the people were coming from, then making his eyes wide and holding his fingers in front of his mouth, mimicking long teeth.
Alex nodded, pretending to understand, then turned to Garmadia as he approached. ‘Sounds like a little more than poor geography causing the exodus, Captain. It’s important that we have all the facts heading into any type of hotzone. As a soldier you should know that.’
Garmadia went slightly red at the rebuke, but also frowned at Alex’s apparent ability to understand the local language. ‘Pah! It is nothing but a myth,’ he blustered. ‘They say there is a bad feeling in the jungle and so they have decided to leave. You must remember these people are still very superstitious and easily mix a Christian saviour with a bird-headed god that brings them rain. A bad storm with lightning can necessitate the sacrifice of a goat…or tell them it is time to leave and find another camp. You do not understand what you are hearing, Captain Hunter.’
‘Really? Educate me then – tell me about the golden flower and missing children.’ Alex’s eyes bored into the Paraguayan soldier’s.
‘Mierda santa,’ Garmadia said under his breath and rubbed his forehead. ‘It is nothing. It is as I said—’
Frustrated, Alex held his hand up and nodded at Sam to talk to the boy.
Sam dropped to one knee and smiled at Chaco. ‘Amiguito Chaco. Cuándo hizo esto sucede?’
The boy nodded and the two of them talked quickly for several minutes. Sam gave Chaco a stick of gum, ruffled his hair and stood up.
‘The Indians
believe something called the Tau, “the evil one”, is in the jungle. They are leaving before it eats them all. Seems a few young men disappeared during the night first off, then children were taken from their beds. The woman Chaco spoke to told him about a legend about a golden flower – when it blooms again, a great evil will be reawakened in their land. She thinks it is either an evil spirit, or perhaps Luison himself, the Great Devil.’
‘Eaten by the Devil? Hmm,’ Alex said and looked at Garmadia. ‘We must operate as a single team in the field, Captain. Is that understood?’
The captain returned Alex’s gaze from under a furrowed brow, his expression a mixture of hostility and embarrassment. His compressed lips bent into a tight smile and he walked away to light a cigar.
Alex watched his back for a moment, then returned his attention to the small boy. ‘Sam, tell Chaco there’s nothing to worry about. But his brother must go faster – we have to hurry.’
The light was just about gone. Alex thought of the unearthly roar he had heard on the recording from the Green Berets. Eaten by the devil. He thought of Aimee alone in the jungle. They could get another few hours closer if they left immediately.
‘We’re moving out, ladies and gentlemen. Now!’
Francisco and Aimee watched the wooden hut burn. Its six inhabitants had died, their skin, muscles and bones liquefying until they were nothing more than putrid black puddles on and around their cots. With no bio-hazard clothing or materials to hand, neither the Paraguayan doctor nor Aimee could bring themselves to clean out the cabin in preparation for any future inhabitants. They had decided their only course of action was to burn the site and use another hut for isolation. It already had its first occupant – strapped down and weeping black tears onto his pillow.
Aimee found the flames on her face surprisingly soothing; she closed her eyes and tilted her hat back so she could feel the heat dry the perspiration at her hairline. The corks around the hat’s brim banged softly against her forehead and she remembered when Francisco had given it to her – just a few days ago, but the insane events unfolding around them made it seem so much longer. She opened her eyes and saw that her friend stood almost in a trance as he watched the flames. Tiny flecks of orange were reflected in the centres of his dark, watering eyes.
The men had gathered in clumps at the fringes of the blaze. About eighty of them remained, trapped in the jungle by both geography and a government order. More disappeared each night – always an entire tent of them, as though some unanimous decision had been made and acted upon. Aimee couldn’t understand why they never took their belongings, meagre as they were; surely they would have wanted their machetes, food, photographs of their families? And why did some of the tents have slits cut into the back? Nothing’s making sense anymore, she thought.
The cabin blazed furiously and was quickly reduced to a mound of ash, glowing nails and twisted metal fastening strips. The mud surrounding it was blackened and dried to a pottery hardness by the heat of the fire. Aimee looked up at the darkening sky and closed her eyes again. That morning, Alfred Beadman had told her that Alex Hunter’s HAWCs and the CDC specialists had arrived in the country and were on their way, but he had been vague about when they might arrive. She hoped it would be soon – they were all feeling the strain of being under quarantine. With the rig shut down, men running away, a hideous disease burning through their camp, and something out there in the jungle that had butchered a squad of Green Berets, she felt like running off into the dark herself. That was no jaguar attack. The thought made her exhale slowly.
Aimee opened her eyes and watched the shadows lengthen – she knew within an hour, night would collapse on them like a warm wave. The day’s sapping heat would be swapped for night’s humidity – a shitty trade, and the oily feeling of fatigue never went away. She rubbed her cheek; with her red-rimmed eyes in darkening sockets, an itchy rash, and lank hair that seemed to be constantly damp, she knew she looked how she felt. Nothing a hot shower and ten hours sleep in a cool hotel room couldn’t fix, she thought with a crooked smile pulling up one spotted cheek.
Aimee’s reverie was broken as she became aware of raised voices, followed by Alfraedo’s deeper tones, first conciliatory, but quickly lifting in volume as he obviously felt the need to assert his authority. The big man had managed mine sites all his life and knew how to stay in control of his most volatile resource – manpower.
Some moments later, he came to join Aimee and Francisco. ‘The men are angry and bored; they are demanding a date when they can go home. I hope your friends can give us some answers, Dr Weir,’ he said. ‘I also wish we had more security. For now, the men listen to me, but soon…’ He shrugged his meaty shoulders.
‘Yes,’ was all Aimee could manage. Her vision blurred with exhaustion, but she was loath to use her hand or sleeve to wipe her face in case her clothing was contaminated. Instead, she squeezed her eyes hard shut and blinked twice. When she opened them, there was a man, dressed all in black, standing at the edge of the jungle.
She nudged Francisco. ‘Who’s that?’
Francisco followed her gaze to the stranger. ‘I do not know, Dr Weir; I have never seen him before. He is certainly not part of the drilling team. He is too tall for a local man. I would have assumed him to be one of Captain Hunter’s team, but he looks to be wearing the cassock of a priest.’
Aimee squinted; there were now just a few bars of weak sunlight streaked across the clearing, and in the twilight gloom it was hard to make out the man’s facial features. Francisco was right: he looked like a priest, but his cassock was old-fashioned – rough and heavy. He came towards them smoothly, almost gliding across the mud. He stopped to talk to some of the men, who stood quietly and nodded at his words. He touched the top of one man’s head, as though blessing him, then turned to where Alfraedo, Francisco and Aimee stood.
Aimee shuddered; the man’s gaze was so intense it seemed to penetrate her skin and see her soul shrinking within her. He came towards them again with that strange gliding motion. The men surged behind him in a rough horseshoe shape. About ten feet away, he came to the last weak strip of sunlight and halted, appearing to collect his thoughts. Aimee could see him a little more clearly now: a tall, robust-looking man in his fifties or sixties, with a thick square beard covering a strong chin. A line of iron grey at his jawline and temples gave him a look that was a combination of scholar and screen star. He smiled without opening his mouth, causing his cheeks to pull up slightly.
The last rays of sunlight thinned to a slit and then finally vanished. Halos of light appeared around the clearing as the generators whined into life. As soon as the lights ignited, their cyclopean heads were assailed by squadrons of flying insects of varying sizes, their bodies ricocheting off the thickened glass lenses.
The man glided closer and stopped a few feet in front of Aimee. He nodded respectfully then spoke in a voice that seemed to well up from deep within him. Aimee frowned slightly as she recognised some of the words curling from his barely opened mouth.
Alfraedo placed a hand on his chest and responded in Spanish, gesturing to all three of them.
Francisco whispered to Aimee, ‘He is speaking in an old Spanish dialect and also using some Latin words. He says his name is Father Alonso González and he is a Spanish priest sent here to bring enlightenment to the indigenous population.’
‘I thought I recognised some Latin,’ Aimee whispered back. ‘Who the hell speaks that anymore? Ask him where he’s staying.’
The priest had turned to Aimee, seeming to watch her lips as she spoke. He repeated the question, ‘Where he’s staying, where he’s staying, where he’s staying’, trying different inflections as though tasting them on his tongue. After a few seconds he responded to Aimee directly, in a voice that contained only a hint of an accent.
‘Forgive me, señora, I have not heard the language of the English for a long time. I am Father Alonso González, and, to answer your question, I am staying just a few miles to the northwest of yo
ur camp. I only became aware of your presence in the last few days when I spoke to some of your labourers…who seemed in a great hurry to leave.’
He held out his hand. Aimee looked at it for a moment, then grasped it. It was only later that she realised the grip had been cool and dry, unlike everyone else’s, whose skin was warm and slick with perspiration.
‘I’m Dr Aimee Weir – pleased to meet you, Father. Have you been in the jungle long?’
‘Longer than I can remember, Dr Aimee Weir, but I am patient, and my work is eternal. I bring the God’s Word to the Indians of Paraguay, and perhaps, one day, to this entire world.’
He brought his hand up to his face, seeming to smell his palm and fingers where they had pressed against Aimee’s hand. Aimee thought she saw his mouth working and had a disgusting impression that he was licking the traces of her perspiration.
Alfraedo cleared his throat. ‘Padre, the men that left the camp – are they with you now?’
González dropped his hand and glided a little closer to the site manager. ‘I’m afraid not. I gave them my blessing and some supplies, but they were in a hurry to be on their way. Is there a problem here? If I may be of assistance, please let me know. At least allow me to conduct an evening mass at my church for the men. I detect a strong desire for spirituality here; I think they need me.’
Francisco cut in before Alfraedo could respond. ‘I’m not sure that is a good idea just now, padre. The men must not be allowed to leave the camp while we are under a formal quarantine order. Also, it may not be safe for you or your followers if some of our men are carrying the infection. It would be best if those who have left were strongly encouraged to return to us here at the camp.’ Francisco’s fine silver brows knitted for a moment, before he spoke again. ‘How far exactly are you from here, Father? If you have a sizeable group, I’m surprised that our initial surveys didn’t pick up your settlement when we were doing our initial aerial mapping.’