Border Alert- Terrorist Penetration

by Glenn Ball

  But into the second day of waiting she was beginning to question the wisdom of hanging out in the middle of nowhere like that. The days were as stifling as a sauna, and the nights chilly and soggy. She had no food and was beginning to daydream constantly, fading in and out of reality. Her bottle of water had run out.

  Mosquitos and gnats were constantly pestering her. She could hear the buzz of a mosquito as it landed on her ear to feast on her blood. She swatted it but missed.

  How she hated mosquitos she mused. Her mind drifted back to the plaque of zika she had experienced when she was six years old.

  Her mother had taken her deep into the ‘Mixe Region’ to her grandmother’s house. It was one of the few times she had seen her aunt and the last that she had seen her grandmother. It took a day and a half traveling in the back of a “Nissan” (a four-door cab pickup with a canvas covering over the bed and cab to permit passengers and luggage) through the jungle to get to the remote village of Ixquintepec. Though her tailbone ached from the bench bouncing on the rough dirt road, she thrilled at the scenery.

  Hours on end they passed through plush green mountains, with waterfalls and streams, gigantic ferns and leafy tree branches overhanging the road. The sights were unforgettable. Sometimes they would be up on the top of a mountain overlooking many kilometers of land, with flocks of parrots flying underneath them. Sometimes they would be at the bottom of the valleys where the streams ran, and multitudes of birds sang on all sides. Tropical flowers were everywhere, including poinsettias and hibiscus. Mountains peaked above the clouds, and everywhere the air was fresh.

  Once in a while they would pass through a village, but they were few and far between. They would go for an hour without a sign of human life. When they approached the outskirts of a village, there would be goats and cattle being herded with crude switches, men walking to the fields with their machetes in the early morning fog, and ladies young and old hauling “leña” (firewood) on their backs with a sling wrapped around their foreheads to gain leverage. Soon that firewood would fill clay stoves with fire for cooking their handmade tortillas.

  As they neared a village called Encinál, she saw a coffee plantation. There were people harvesting the coffee beans. As they passed through the village she saw coffee beans everywhere drying on rooftops and on petates spread out on the ground.

  Everything had been going fine on their trip. But as they entered Ixquintepec Alicia was startled by the appearance of a young boy with a deformed head running awkwardly behind the truck. His head looked as if someone had done brain surgery on him and left him with a chunk of his brain missing and the skull squeezed down to accommodate the missing portion.

  The truck stopped and a man got out with his backpack and took the boy by the hand. She felt awkward and curious at the sight. Shortly after she saw a little girl standing by the side of the road with a similarly deformed head. Her mother told Alicia to stop staring. At that a couple of others in the truck began to talk about the zika plague they had had a few years back, and what a shame it had left those kids deformed like that.

  It had been a gruesome introduction to Ixquintepec for Alicia. As a little girl herself her imagination began to run wild thinking that maybe there were monsters in this small town. And what if she got the “zika”? She didn’t want to be turned into a monster.

  That night they were sitting in the kitchen. As was typical of many Mixe homes, the kitchen was an adobe hut separate from the main house, with palm branches for the roof, and a clay floor. They sat in small wooden chairs around a crude wooden table. There was a fire in the clay stove keeping them warm while they warmed fresh café to drink with their “pan dulce” (freshly baked sweet bread). The fire gave off a flickering glow that danced about the room like ghosts.

  “It was only just last week that they got the road cleared,” her aunt was commenting to her mom. Her grandmother was already asleep in the other room. “It was lucky you got through. With the rains we’ve been having the road has been getting washed out a lot.”

  There was a smack as her mom killed a mosquito on her leg. Alicia herself had been bitten several times already. They were trying to stay close to the fire for the smoke to ward off the mosquitos.

  “Yeah, the mosquitos are really bad, this time of year,” her aunt went on. “A few years ago, they were like this, and a couple of pregnant women got the zika virus. They were bad up. You can see how their kids turned out. And now they’re saying that it’s getting around.”

  Something about her aunt’s eyes haunted Alicia when she spoke of the zika. It was like her aunt was looking at another world; like she could see into a nightmare. It gave Alicia the chills.

  That night she went to bed envisioning monsters. She couldn’t get to sleep for her fears. The mosquitos buzzing in her ear invaded every restful thought that she could muster. “Try not to let the mosquitos bite you. They might be carrying zika,” her momma had warned her. Shadows moved about the room as her eyes became heavy. She began to see herself turning into a monster. Her head began to swell to twice the size of her body, then to deflate into a distorted shape.

  Suddenly a wail broke out on the night air startling her out of her nightmare. Her stomach turned as she recalled the visions in her dream. With the mosquitos buzzing in her ear she thought she would never rest. But gradually she faded off into a deep though fitful sleep.

  They had been there for several days when the first signs of the zika plague struck the village. She had been walking back to the house with her grandmother at twilight when she passed a woman coming out of the “miscelanea” (general store). She looked up into the face of the lady and was taken aback. The lady had the eyes of the devil. Where the whites of the eyes should be, they were all red. Her skin too had turned red; all over her body it was covered with tiny red bumps. Alicia thought maybe the lady was turning into a vampire. The lady moved stiffly like the Frankenstein Monster.

  Alicia took off running and didn’t stop till she got to the house. She had completely left her grandmother in her fright. When her grandmother arrived, she announced to the family that the lady they had seen with the red eyes had gotten the zika.

  Over the next few days people all over town were coming down with the virus. The authorities said that the roads had been closed till further notice due to quarantine.

  In the days that followed shops were closed all over town. The streets became desolate during the day. Those with zika had been warned to avoid the sun as it magnifies the symptoms. People only came out at twilight and early evening to run any important errands, and then were not out for long. They meandered about town at a snail’s pace, shuffling their feet like zombies. Alicia felt like she had entered into a horror movie and was trapped in the middle of a ghost town surrounded by the living dead. She begged her momma to take her home but was told she couldn’t because the roads were blocked.

  Then when her mom and her aunt both came down with the virus, they were bedridden for a day with high fevers. There was almost nothing to eat that day. And that night she herself became sick.

  Her lower back began to hurt, much like the pain kidney infections cause, though it was later in life that she learned about kidney infections. She became weak and feverish.

  That night she sweated profusely from her fever. She kept getting chills and heat flashes alternatively. Eventually the fever was so intense that it knocked her completely out.

  ********

  The memory of that fever was vague, but somehow seemed so familiar here in the steamy woods of Louisiana. Due to lack of food and water she was beginning to black out. The air felt heavy like syrup filling her lungs. In her swoon-state her memories of zika in Ixquintepec were becoming more real than her present situation in Louisiana. In her mind she was awakening with her skin drenched in sweat from that fever so long ago; the past experience now swallowed her consciousness.

  ********

  It was a clear morning in Ixquintepec when she finally awoke. Deep in her bones was
a throbbing pain. It was like she had a headache through all the bones in her body. A kind neighbor had stopped in to help out having discovered the predicament of the family. Both mother and aunt were still bedridden. The grandmother had been trying to prepare a soup, but there was not enough firewood, and she was too old and feeble to bring back firewood. It was hard for her to get around at all.

  Her grandmother asked Alicia how she felt. Alicia tried to answer and realized that her throat hurt. Her voice came out in a bare raspy whisper.

  With the help of the kind neighbor lady the soup was eventually prepared successfully. Her grandmother proceeded to feed her some. It revived her a little. She wanted to get up, but as she tried to sit up her joints creaked, and the pain shot through all the bones in her body. She lied back down; her muscles swollen all over. She had no idea that her face had become puffy as if it had been stung by bees and she was suffering an allergic reaction.

  Over the next few days, it became harder and harder to eat, drink or talk. She couldn’t see them, but she had huge open soars on her throat. Even to breathe or to drink water hurt. It was as if her throat had been in a fire and all the flesh burned off. The soars were caused by her high fever.

  Due her difficulty eating and drinking she became progressively weaker. She was in and out of consciousness for a couple of days. On the third day she came to with a face looking over her. As she opened her eyes, she got a fright. Someone with devil eyes was within a foot of her face staring down at her. The glowing red eyes and the red rash on the swollen face reminded her of the fear she had of turning into a monster. She wanted to get up and run, but it was as if someone had tied her arms and legs to the bed, and whatever they had used to bind her limbs was causing a terrible ache in her bones.

  As her eyes came into focus and her mind became somewhat alert, she realized it was her mom looking over her.

  Alicia started to cry.

  As her fevers subsided, she thought she was beginning to get better. Then she broke out in a rash. It was like she had been stuck in an ant pile and was being bitten by thousands of ants at once all over her body, from the soles of her feet to the top of her head. It began to itch terribly.

  Over the next few days her eyes began to burn, as if someone had skinned them. When she saw herself in the mirror she went into hysterics. Her eyes had turned red like the other “zombies”, her face was swollen and puffy and her skin red all over. Her mom and aunt tried to calm her but couldn’t understand why she was so upset. They had no idea that she thought she was going to turn into a monster. It was her grandmother that reached down to embrace her. But as she did so she had to hold back. Alicia’s crying fit was interrupted with cries of pain. She started having spasms and cramps in the muscles around her ribs. It was like her rib cage had been put in a big vice and was being squeezed to the breaking point. It hurt so badly she could no longer cry. After a few minutes it subsided, but it gave her family a bit of a scare.

  Over the next day she had difficulty breathing. The vice had let up some on the pressure but had become more constant.

  She had been in bed a couple of weeks due to the virus, but in the third week finally began to recover. Her bones still hurt some of the time, and she was very weak, but she was able to get up and around. She wanted to go outside and play in the sunshine, but her mom wouldn’t let her. “You could have a relapse,” she told her. She didn’t care at first, because her mom was never really concerned about her. Why should she pay attention to her?

  Then a worse thought hit her. What if she had already turned into a monster and her mother was just too ashamed to let her be seen? The thought was too much for her and she began to cry uncontrollably.

  At that moment her grandmother sat down next to her and gently embraced her. “Why are you crying dear? We just don’t want you getting sick again. That’s why nobody has been going out in the daytime, because the sunshine can make it all come back again until you get the virus completely out of your system. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah; the zika has turned me into a monster and mom doesn’t want anyone to see how ugly I am.” She whimpered in a soft broken voice that only her grandmother could hear.

  Her grandmother didn’t know how to respond to that at first. “What do you mean turned into a monster?” Alicia explained how she heard her aunt and mom talking about how the zika had made those “monster” kids the way they were.

  Grandma had a chuckle in her eye as she kindly told her little granddaughter that it “Don’t work like that. What’s more, zika didn’t do anything to change you from the beautiful princess that you are. And to prove it, I’m going to give you something worthy of a princess. I have been keeping these pearls just for you. They were my mom’s. She gave them to me when she passed away. I want to give them to you. Keep them always as a reminder that you are my special princess and will always be beautiful. With that she pulled out a string of genuine pearls and hung them around Alicia’s neck.

  Now come see how they look on you. Her grandmother then led her to a crude mirror. She was afraid to look at first, remembering how awful she had looked some days previous. But the thought of seeing the pearls on her was too much to miss. As her eyes were magnetically drawn upwards to view the pearls, she caught her breath. They were absolutely stunning on her; truly the most beautiful sight she had ever seen. Her face was normal again. There were no longer any red bumps, and her eyes were white like the pearls. She felt pure and clean again, and beautiful.

  Zika had been a horrifying experience for a six-year-old, but the fear of it had been worse. The terror inside of her at becoming a monster had been unbearable even though totally unfounded. But she had had to get through the ordeal first to understand that. As bad as things could get, she would never again fear the unknown. The cost of the fear was not worth it.

  Alicia came out of her reverie in the Louisiana woods. A mosquito had landed on her neck and was piercing her skin with its blood-sucking needle, but she was too weak now to swat it.

  She felt the pearls in her hand and thanked God for her grandmother. Out of all the important people in her life she had known her grandmother the least, and yet it was she that gave her a lifeline that still gave her hope; that she was not a monster.

  CHAPTER 8

  Death Squad

  The two men that Ochoa had sent to follow the coyotes had spent the last half a day on the trail of the eighteen-wheeler. There could be no slip-ups. This trailer had the illegals and Antonio’s precious shipment.

  They followed in a Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo. The younger one took the cigarette from his mouth. “Why’s he so uptight whey? He ain’t never sent us to tail no coyotes before.”

  Oscar had a scar on his cheek. He ran his finger down the scar, then stroked his mustache pensively, as he steered the car with his other hand. He was silent for a minute before he replied. “I don’t know man. I just follow orders.”

  The younger man, David, squirmed in his seat and faced Oscar. “Yeah but you know what those orders are, don’t you? What’s in that trailer anyway?” He sat back straight in his seat with a grunt.

  Oscar pondered for some time while he watched the road. At last, breathing slowly, he responded. “All I know is he popped Javier for letting his “pollo” (girl) get away, and I don’t want to be next on his list.”

  “Ah, that’s why I haven’t been seeing Javier around no more.” David finally got quiet for a few moments, putting two and two together. “You knew about Javier, and you know what goes on at the warehouse where they loaded this trailer. Tell me, what did they put in there anyway?”

  “You want to end up like Javier! No? Then shut up!”

  As the truck turned onto a farm road ahead, Oscar pulled the Jeep into a truck stop to gas up. “If we follow too close the authorities might catch onto us and get interested in the eighteen-wheeler. They can only go one direction from here till they get to I-20, and that’s a long stretch. Let’s get a quick bite.”

  Ten minutes aft
erward they were speeding up the road to catch up with the truck. Gassed up and food in hand they could last the night. It made them somewhat more content about their task.

  The road ahead was growing dark as the sun set. Oscar welcomed the darkness. He was wary of border patrol. They weren’t only smuggling illegals and drugs this time. He did not want to be tried as a terrorist. He moped in silence as David began to snore.

  ********

  Pedro Romero had trailed off to sleep as the semi bumped down the backroad. Awakened by a nasty bump he felt the trailer tipping on a sharp turn. Pedro’s stomach churned from the breakneck speed.

  As he started to doze again, he was rudely shaken by screeching tires and the grinding of metal on metal. The trailer screeched sideways and turned over. Bodies went flying everywhere.

  Romero landed a little awkwardly on a heavy-set man which softened his blow. The trailer slid on its side sending sparks as it scraped the asphalt. Before the trailer came to a halt, Pedro had bumped into several bodies being tossed about. When at last it finished, he was surprised to feel no broken bones in his body or serious injuries.

  There were a lot of groans as everyone tried to get off one another. Some had apparently been knocked unconscious; but not everyone. One quick-witted fellow noticed that the trailer gate had become unhitched and that he could open the doors. It was not two seconds and he was out of there. Romero was not far behind.

  The moment he was on solid ground Pedro was running low to the ground toward the closest cover he could find. Not far from the road, there was a ridge where he could get out of sight and get his bearings.

  As he got off the road, he could see that the cab of the truck had smashed into a huge tractor and flipped. There was another car involved in the accident. If the driver of their truck was alive and conscious he would surely be preoccupied for the moment.