The Calm Before The Swarm

by Michael McBride

  "How long...?" the woman called. "How long will it take?"

  "Hours... days...weeks...There's no way of knowing for sure."

  "Does it...hurt?" she asked, rising to her feet. A small child grabbed her hand, gloved in a dirty sweat sock, and fought in vain to pull her mother back down out of sight.

  Anders locked eyes with the woman across the shadowy alley.

  "Yes."

  "Please, mommy."

  "It's okay, sweetheart," she said unconsciously. She focused on Anders. "Can you help my child find a better place to live? A better life?"

  "Mommy!" the child screamed, but her mother's ears were deafened to her plight.

  The woman stepped forward, her daughter wailing and pawing at her the whole while. Her straw-colored hair poked out from beneath her ski cap, crisp with frost. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were bright red, her eyes sunken into pits of despair. She wore a wool overcoat that appeared to be of little warmth as she visibly shivered.

  "Can I trust you to see that my child is safe?" she asked, her brittle lips cracked and bleeding.

  Anders could only nod.

  The woman searched his eyes for sincerity. Walking over bodies able to sleep through the bitter cold thanks to enough heroin to fell a horse, she strode up to Anders and stood before him.

  "How does this work?" she whispered.

  When he looked up into her eyes, tears streamed down her cheeks.

  The little girl ran to her mother's side and wrapped her arms around the woman's leg.

  "Perhaps you...would like to rethink your...decision," Anders rasped. He knew that if she didn't decide immediately he would have to crawl over and take one of the zombie junkies to rid himself of the disease.

  "No," the woman said firmly, though her jaw quivered and her lips pursed. She slipped both hands beneath her child's chest and pried her away. "Someone...please..."

  An older man, gray and haggard like a Viking, stepped out of the darkness and walked over to her side without looking directly at either of them.

  "C'mon, honey," he said, wrapping his arm around the small girl's chest and lifting her from the ground. Though she swung her arms, kicked her legs, and screamed loud enough to rip the sky, the man managed to keep both arms around her so he could carry her down to the end of the alley.

  "Do you swear you will make sure my daughter finds a better life?"

  Anders broke eye contact and nodded.

  "Swear it to me."

  "Your child...will no longer know suffering."

  "Will you take her tonight?"

  "Tonight?"

  "Please...I can't stand the thought of her watching me die. She's been through more than enough in her short life."

  Anders stared at her again, his eyes lingering within hers, and finally nodded.

  The woman fell to her knees before him, wiping the tears from her cheeks.

  "Make sure she knows how much I love her." She had to stifle a sob.

  "Come closer," Anders whispered.

  The woman leaned over his legs until their face were a scant foot apart.

  "Just do it," she said. "Please."

  "Closer."

  She leaned even farther across him until he was able to raise a trembling hand to her chin. He turned it gently to the side and whispered into her ear.

  "Thank you."

  "For what?" she asked.

  "For restoring my faith. For giving me...hope."

  She turned and looked him in the eyes, confused.

  "Reach into the left...left inside pocket of my...my jacket."

  She slid her hand between the flaps of the trench coat and felt around with a shaking hand until she found the pocket and reached inside.

  When she recognized what her hand was wrapped around, she drew in a sharp breath.

  "Show no one," he whispered. "Take...take your daughter and go."

  "Why---?"

  "Go."

  She pulled the money out and stuffed it into her pocket, rising quickly to her feet.

  "Thank you," she whispered, and turned away. Her pace hastened with every step, and with one final glance back over her shoulder, she snatched her child from the large man's arms and disappeared around the corner onto the street.

  Anders rolled over onto his stomach and tried to push himself to all fours, but with as badly as his arms were shaking, he could barely lift his head from the ground. Reaching forward with clawed fingers, he tried to grip the icy cement, tearing the skin from his fingertips and prying his fingernails from the cuticles. He left bloody smears as he dragged himself toward the unconscious addicts abusing the valuable space beneath the overhang. They had one foot in the grave already. All he had to do was pass the disease into one of them and...

  He awoke on his belly, a pool of blood expanding around his mouth. Be it from the cold or the rapidly metastasizing tumors that riddled his body, he could barely feel his arms and his legs could only flop uselessly on the ice. He had waited too long...too long...

  They would find his corpse in the alley with all of the others and would bury him beneath an unmarked placard. He would no longer be able to take the sickness from the dying. His message would die with him.

  No.

  The woman and her child. They would continue to pass along the only thing he found worthwhile in this dying land, the one thing the world needed more than anything else...

  Hope.

  Anders closed his eyes.

  "Thank you, sir," a tiny voice said.

  He barely had the strength to open them back up.

  The little girl stood by his side. She couldn't have been more than seven or eight, yet her eyes were hardened well beyond her years.

  He tried to forge a smile. His trembling hand reached for the hip pocket of his coat.

  The girl knelt and removed his wooden case from his pocket for him, holding it tightly in both hands.

  "How does it work?" she asked.

  "Directions..." he whispered. "Inside..."

  He closed his eyes and drifted into the afterlife while the child opened up the wooden case. At first she saw nothing, but she turned it over and over in her hands until she managed to decipher a faded inscription. Bringing it close to her face so she could read it, she crinkled her brow.

  Hope demands sacrifice.

  Closing it back up, she stuffed the box into her pocket and knelt beside the man. She leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on the side of his bloody face.

  "I understand," she whispered.

  A tear fell from her chin onto his cheek as she rose and ran back down the alley to where her mother waited for her on the street.

  An Exclusive Preview of Michael McBride's Novel

  BURIAL GROUND

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  Prologue

  Andes Mountains

  Northern Peru

  October 11th

  9:26 p.m. PET

  The screams were more than he could bear, but they didn't last long. Panicked cries cut short by wet, tearing sounds, and then finally silence, save the patter of raindrops on the muddy ground. From where he crouched in the dark recess of the stone fortification, hidden from the world by a screen of tangled lianas and the sheeting rain, he had listened to them die.

  All of them.

  The signs had been there, but he and his companions had misinterpreted them, and now it was too late. It was only a matter of time before they found him, and slaughtered him as well.

  Hunter Gearhardt donned his rucksack backward, and wrapped his arms around its contents. He'd managed to grab a few items of importance once he'd recognized what was about to happen, and he needed to get them out of the jungle. More bloodshed would follow if he didn't reach civilization. With their inability to access a signal on the satellite phone, there was no other way to deliver the warning. It was all up to him now, and his window of opportunity was closing fast.

  His breathing was ragged, too loud in
his own ears, his heartbeat a thudding counterpoint. He couldn't hear them out there, but they had attacked so quietly in the first place that the silence was of little comfort. They were still out there, stalking him. There was no time to waste. He needed to put as much distance between himself and his pursuit as possible if he were to stay alive long enough to get down off the mountain. And even then, they knew this region of the cloud forest far better than he did.

  He wished he'd had the opportunity to find his pistol, but it would have been useless against their superior numbers. His only hope was to run, to reach the river. From there he could only pray that he would be able to survive the rapids and that they wouldn't be able to track him from the shore. It was a long shot. Unfortunately, it was also his only shot.

  Tightening his grip on his backpack, his muscles tensed in anticipation.

  Through the curtain of lianas, the rain continued to pour, creating puddles in every imperfection in the earth and eroding through the steep slope ahead, which plummeted nearly vertically into the valley below. If he fell, they would be upon him in a flash. And that was only if he didn't slide over the lip of the limestone cliff and plunge hundreds of feet through the forest canopy to his death.

  Hunter drew a deep breath and bolted out into the night. Narrowing his eyes against the sudden assault of raindrops, he focused on the rocky path that led down toward the river. The ancient fortress wall flew past to his left, a crumbling twenty-five foot structure composed of large bricks of chiseled obsidian nearly consumed by the overgrowth of vines, shrubbery, and bromeliads. Every footfall summoned a loud splash he could barely hear over his own frantic breathing. The mud sucked at his boots as though he were running through syrup. He barely managed to stay upright long enough to reach the path, little more than a thin trench between rugged stone faces. The ground in the channel was slick and nearly invisible under the muddy runoff. His feet slipped out from beneath him and he cracked his head on a rock. His momentum and the current carried him downward onto a flat plateau dominated by Brazil nut trees draped with vines and moss.

  The roar of the river became audible over the tumult of rain. He was so close---

  A crashing sound from the underbrush to his right.

  He glanced over as he crawled to his feet and saw nothing but shadows lurking behind the shivering branches.

  More crashing uphill to his left.

  He wasn't going to make it.

  Willing his legs to move faster, he sprinted toward the edge of the forest and the cliff beyond. The waterfall that fired from the mountain upstream was a riot of mist and spray that crashed down upon a series of jagged rocks. Hopefully, there was enough water racing through now thanks to the storm to have raised the level of the river above them. Either way, he'd rather take his chances with broken bones than the hunters that barreled through the jungle, leaving shaking trees in their wake.

  They were all around him now and closing fast.

  If he could just reach the rock ledge, he could leap down into the river and allow it to whisk him away.

  Ten yards.

  Through the trees, he could see only fog, but he'd been down here enough times to know that the foaming whitecaps flowed only fifteen feet below. He would then need to navigate a series of waterfalls, and keep from drowning long enough to reach the bottom of the valley and the start of the real trek.

  Five yards. Another four strides through the snarl of brush and he could make his leap. Just three more strides and---

  Searing pain erupted in his back as he was slammed from behind. Something sharp probed between his ribs to either side of his spine. The mist-shrouded cliff disappeared and he saw only mud rising toward his face. The backpack against his chest broke the brunt of his fall, but his forehead still hammered the ground. He saw only blackness and tasted blood. The weight pounded down on his back, knocking the wind out of him. Something clawed at his shoulders as he slid forward.

  The pressure on top of him abated and whatever had stabbed him was yanked out as he rolled over the ledge and tumbled into the fog toward the frigid river, unable even to scream.

  Chapter One

  I

  Pomacochas, Peru

  October 14th

  8:38 a.m. PET

  By the time Wes Merritt caught up with the children, they were giggling and prodding the corpse with sticks.

  This certainly wasn't how he had envisioned starting his day.

  He had been down on the rickety floating dock on Laguna Pomacochas, loading his 1953 DHC-2 #N68080 seaplane with supplies for a quick jaunt down to the City of Chachapoyas, capital of the Amazonas Province of Peru, when the three boys had raced up the wooden planks and begun chattering at him in Quechua. Far from fluent in the native tongue, he had captured just a handful of words here and there, but the few he understood told him he wouldn't be making the flight that morning. Two words had stood out specifically. The first, aya, meant "dead body." And the second, undoubtedly the reason they had come directly to him rather than the policía, was a word that he had been called on more than one occasion himself.

  Mithmaq. The Quechua word for stranger.

  As Merritt approached the bank of the river and the partially concealed body, he wondered if the children had been mistaken. What little skin he could see was mottled bluish black, and the hair was so thick with mud and scum that it was nearly impossible to determine the color. The Mayu Wañu, or, roughly translated, Resurrection River, rose and fell with the seasons, alternately climbing up the steep slope behind him in the spring into the primary rainforest, where the massive trunks of the kapok trees bore the gray discoloration of the water, and diminishing to a gentle trickle mere inches deep during dry spells. The body was tangled in vegetation, half-buried in the mud on the shore, half-floating in the brown river. Swirling eddies attempted to pry it loose to continue its journey along the rapids into the lagoon, but the earth held it fast.

  "Sayana," he said in Quechua. Stop.

  The boys looked up at him, then slowly backed away, their fun spoiled. One, a shaggy-haired boy of about twelve in a filthy polo shirt and corduroys that were far too short, peeked at Merritt from the corner of his eye and gave the corpse one final poke. All three whirled and sprinted back into the jungle, laughing.

  Merritt eased down the slippery bank. The mud swallowed his feet to the ankles and he had to hold the limp yellow ferns to maintain his balance. A quick glance at the ground confirmed the only recent tracks belonged to the barefooted boys. He breathed a sigh of relief. There was a long list of creatures he didn't want to encounter in his current compromised position.

  Merritt hauled himself up onto the snarl of branches that shielded the body from the brunt of the current and crouched to inspect the remains. Judging by the broad shoulders and short hair, the corpse belonged to a male, roughly six feet tall, which definitely marked him as a foreigner to this region of northern Peru. The man's shirt and cargo pants had both absorbed so much of the dirty river that it was impossible to tell what color they might once have been. Twin black straps arched around his shoulders. His left leg bobbed on the river, the laces from his boot squirming beneath the surface. His right foot was snared in the branches under Merritt, the bulk of the leg buried in mud. Both arms were pinned somewhere under the body.

  Back home in the States, this was when the police would arrive and cordon off the scene so the forensics team could begin the investigation. But he wasn't back home. He was in a different world entirely. A world far less complicated than the one he had left behind, one that had initially welcomed him with overt suspicion, but had eventually introduced him to a culture that had made him its own. And although his white skin would always brand him a mithmaq in their midst, no place in the world had ever felt so much like home.

  He looked to the sky, a thin channel of cobalt through the lush branches that nearly eclipsed it from either bank. Blue-capped tanagers darted through the canopy in flickers of turquoise and gold, and common woolly monkeys screeched o
ut of sight. The omnipresent cloud of mosquitoes whined around his head, but showed little interest in the waterlogged corpse, which already seethed with black flies.

  Merritt had seen more than his share of bodies during his years in the army, and approached this one with almost clinical detachment. That was the whole reason he had run halfway around the world to escape. There was only so much death one could experience before becoming numb to it.

  With a sigh, he climbed down from the mound of sticks and rounded the body again.

  "This is so not cool," he said, leaning over the man and grabbing one of the shoulder straps.

  He braced himself and pulled. The body made a slurping sound as he pried it from the mire and dragged it higher onto the bank. Silver shapes darted away through the water, their meal interrupted.

  The vile stench of decomposition made him gag, but he choked down his gorge. It wasn't as though this was the first corpse he had ever seen. A flash of his previous life assailed him. A dark, dry warren of caves. Smoke swirling all around him. Shadowed forms sprawled on the ground and against the rock walls. One of them, a young woman with piercing blue eyes---

  Merritt shook away the memory and willed his heartbeat to slow.

  He blew out a long, slow breath, then rolled the corpse onto its back. The angry cloud of flies buzzed its displeasure.

  "For the love of God..." he sputtered, and drew his shirt up over his mouth and nose.

  The man's face was a mask of mud, alive with wriggling larvae, the abdomen a gaping, macerated maw only partially obscured by the tattered remnants of the shirt. Merritt had obviously dislocated the man's right shoulder when he wrenched it out of the mud. The entire arm hung awkwardly askew, while the left remained wrapped around a rucksack worn backward against his chest, the fingers curled tightly into the fabric as though afraid to release it even in death.