by Burke Bryant
Chris checked her pulse. “It’s picked back up.”
“Good. Let’s wake her up now.”
Nick reached back into his kit and pulled out a small, cylindrical tube of ammonia inhalants. He cracked it in half, placed both sides under the woman's nose.
Her body jerked and her eyes flashed open. She coughed from the smell, as she spasmed, the surprise of pain racking her body. Her legs kicked and her arms began to flail, and when she saw the strangers around her for the first time, her face contorted with fear.
Chris held her still, trying to keep her terror from ripping out her stitches. He spoke slowly, calmly, as one might speak to a frightened animal, because that’s exactly what the woman was.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. Relax. You’re going to be fine. You were in a plane accident.”
The woman slowed down her fight and looked around. She reached for her abdomen, but Nick stopped her hands before she could feel the fresh stitches. Her gaze swept down her body and her eyes tightened as she saw her wound for the first time. A tear broke and ran down her cheeks.
“It hurts. It hurts so fucking bad,” she cried.
American. She was American.
“You’re going to be all right,” Nick assured her. “It’s taken care of now.”
The woman gritted her teeth. The pain had to be excruciating.
“Breathe,” Chris reminded the woman. “In through your nose, out through your mouth. You need the extra oxygen.”
At first the woman looked like she would argue. She pursed her lips, but she pulled in air through her nose, and then opened her mouth and let it back out. She took a couple more breaths and Chris felt her body relax in his arms.
“What’s your name?” Chris asked when he thought she might be up to speaking more than about just her pain.
The woman looked up and locked eyes. “Maria.”
“I’m Chris,” Chris introduced himself.
He pointed to Nick, then Caroline. “This is Nick, and that’s Caroline. She’s the one who got you out of the plane.”
Caroline nodded.
You’re welcome, Chris read in her icy blue eyes.
Maria watched Caroline for a moment and then looked beyond to Grace and Natalia in the distance. Her eyes seemed to stall on the small girl.
“Who are they?”
Chris paused for a moment. “That’s Grace. She’s with us. The girl is Natalia.”
She watched Grace for a moment then laid her head down.
“Did anyone else make it?” she asked. “From my plane. Were there any other survivors?”
Chris hated this part. “No, I’m sorry. You were the only one.”
Maria took a deep gulp of air. Pushed it out through her lips.
“Is there anything left of the plane?”
“No, it all burned to the ground.”
The woman watched as Nick tightened his lips and nodded at her. She looked away and back to Chris, then back down to her abdomen as the information assembled in her mind. It took a while sometimes, for trauma survivors to understand what had happened. What was left.
“Thank you,” Maria said finally.
Brannon nodded in reply.
“Where am I now?”
“We're really not sure,” Chris said, which was true. “The same storm that took down your plane pushed us off our trail. We haven’t had time to regroup.”
Maria’s brow crinkled, then relaxed. “What are you doing out here anyway?”
Should he tell her the truth? Not all of it, he decided. They still didn’t know who she was, or what she was doing out this far into the jungle. It was best not to divulge anything more than strictly necessary.
“We’re on our way to Pueblo Del Arroz. Grace is sick—we’re in need of more medical assistance than Nick has in his pack.”
The woman’s eyes widened, and Chris felt her pulse speed where she still laid in his arms.
“What’s wrong with her?”
Nick stepped closer. “We’re not sure. She seems to have some type of respiratory illness, but it doesn’t behave like anything I’ve seen before.”
“Any other symptoms?”
Her pulse was beating fast now, faster even than when she’d woken up—than when she’d first opened her eyes to pain and terror.
She knows something.
“Are you a doctor?” Chris asked.
The woman stared hard into his eyes, then looked away.
“No. I was just wondering.”
Chris looked over to Nick, then Caroline. All three of them were thinking the same thing.
Something wasn’t right.
“Let’s all try and get some more sleep,” he said. “The sun will be up in a few hours.”
10
At dawn they were all awake.
The rains had left, and the clouds had pulled apart, revealing a bright blue sky. The team packed, preparing to continue toward Pueblo Del Arroz. Now they had two in need of medical assistance, and Natalia would need to be taken into consideration as well. As much as Chris couldn’t deny his attachment growing toward the small blind girl, there was no place for her on the Rake team.
“Okay, the way I see it we’ll be there in about four to five hours,” Chris said, debriefing Nick and Caroline as Maria joined the small circle. Natalia tucked close into Chris’s side. ‘The rain set us back, but we’ll make it in today.”
Maria held one palm pressed against her injury. Her eyes were glassy with pain, but she said nothing.
“Maria, you can work point with Hunter—”
“No,” Caroline interrupted.
She didn’t elaborate, but she didn’t need to. Chris knew when to push his second, and this was not the time.
He nodded. “Maria, you can walk with us. Hunter will take point. Brannon and Grace will pick up the rear.”
Nick’s gaze swept the area. He pulled back, his brows furrowing as he took a second look.
Chris recognized the expression. Someone’s missing.
His eyes darted to beneath the tree. Grace was missing.
“Where’s Grace?”
The woman was gone.
Caroline dropped her pack and ran over to where the grass was matted down beneath the trees. Grace’s water bladder and a small cloth set next to her spot.
“Nothing,” she called back.
Chris’s pulse beat in his throat. “Find Grace.”
Everyone began searching—Chris established a perimeter, Nick moved toward the tree line, and Caroline searched for tracks where the dirt had turned to mud from the storm. Maria held back, situating herself next to Natalia who stood rooted to the spot, her teeth biting into her lower lip.
Where the hell could Grace have gone? Chris wondered. Her condition wouldn’t have allowed her to get far. Not without them noticing.
“Over here!”
Nick’s voice erupted from beyond the trees and Chris darted in that direction, Caroline hot on his heels.
Grace’s body lay prone at the base of a large blooming fern. Her eyes wide open, unblinking. Her skin, chalky white. She was still, and if she was breathing, it was not enough for her chest to show any sign of movement.
Nick dropped to a knee, checked for her pulse. He looked up at Chris, and there was a certain emptiness in his eyes, the sort of hollow look one got when there was nothing they could do. Nothing that could change what was.
“I’m sorry, Rake. She’s gone.”
Dead.
Caroline dropped her head into her hands as the sound of Maria’s footsteps on the grass sounded behind her. They stopped suddenly then retreated as the other woman stepped backward, then walked away.
Chris wasn’t aware of time passing. He had no idea how long Nick knelt beside Grace, trying to put together any evidence of what had taken their fourth team member’s life.
He knelt back onto his heels. “Respiratory failure. That’s the best I can come up with. Doesn’t make a damn bit of sense, but whatever got her, she couldn’t
keep breathing.”
The earth was hard beneath Chris when he dropped to his knees, harder and more unforgiving than wet muck had any right to be.
This wasn’t supposed to happen, not on my watch. Chris took a deep breath and raised his head, pushed himself to his feet.
“It happens man,” Nick was saying. “We know it happens. Grace knew it, Rake. We did the best we could, and we came close but there were too many unknowns on this one.”
Yeah, he knew. Life and death were just two sides of the same coin, after all. They’d all lost people they’d loved—friends, brothers-in-arms. It was part of the job. But this … this was different. How was he going to explain this to Tatiana? How was he going to explain the loss of the woman that raised her—the woman she called mother?
Chris looked at Nick. “We damn well better find out what did this to her. We owe her that much.”
Nick nodded. Yes.
“How do you want to manage this?” he asked.
“Take a blood sample. Then we bury her.”
“Okay.”
When the job was done, Chris and Nick returned from the trees, both of their shirts covered in grave dust and sweat. Caroline was sitting atop a rock next to Natalia, talking. She was trying to keep the girl calm, Chris knew, but Natalia had seen worse—had experienced things more horrific than the simple sudden death of a woman she’d barely known.
He thought again of the charred corpse in one of the huts and shivered.
Maria stood near the edge of the cliff, staring into the valley below. She kept her distance, but Chris didn’t know if it was out of respect or something else.
Don’t much matter, he decided.
“We lost one of our best, but we have to keep moving,” Chris told his team. “Brannon and I buried Grace. We need to get the rest of the group on the move.”
Caroline signaled toward their gear, already packed. “Let’s go.”
As she had the day before, Caroline led the team. They moved faster without Grace to support, but Maria still slowed their pace. Still, without the previous day’s rain the trek was easier, almost pleasant. Most of the dirt on the trail had dried by mid-morning. The sun and wind throughout the night and most of the early morning had helped cool the mud, firming the dirt down the small narrow trail. The wind had stopped.
Everything was still. Quiet.
Just like Grace, Chris thought, and then just as quickly, he banished the idea from his mind. He blinked, saw Karen and Joy, saw the remains of Natalia’s village, but he blinked again, and those images were gone, too.
Natalia rode atop Chris’s shoulders as they moved through the jungle, continuing on toward the village stamped on the rice bag’s side. She hummed a song for several hours, and the team let the tune fill the silence, sparing them the burden of having to speak.
Maria seemed to be holding up well. Over the course of the last four hours they had stopped three times. In each instance, Nick checked and cleaned the wound. So far, there were no signs of infection.
After about five hours of hiking, as they rounded a small bend alongside the hill, distant noise could be heard in the valley below.
“We’re close!” said Natalia from atop Chris’s shoulders. “I can hear the people in the village below. We’re almost there!”
Chris smiled. “We’re almost there.”
The rocky trail smoothed to a worn dirty path as they began to descend the mountain side. Lush green enveloped the path, punctuated by banana trees, bright flowers, and long, lush grass.
“I love the way it smells,” Natalia said, raising her nose into the air and taking a huge whiff.
A gong could be heard ringing in the distance not far from there.
“The village,” Chris said.
Suddenly Caroline stopped dead in her tracks ahead. She raised her right arm up and clenched her fist.
Stop.
She dropped to a knee.
Chris swung around the motioned to Maria to drop down. Nick had already done so.
Chris watched Caroline, still as a rock on the trail in front of him. A small, thin man could be seen a few yards down the trail. He held a long spear in one hand, and he froze when he caught sight of Caroline.
The man and Caroline watched each other for a moment, then the man turned and ran back the way he had come. Caroline turned back and looked at Chris.
Weird. Her gaze said.
Weird but not dangerous. Chris shrugged and shook his head, motioned ahead. They all rose and began advancing once more toward the village.
The sounds of the village got louder. Abnormally louder—like people in panic. Chaotic.
Chris braced himself. Not again. Whatever they were walking into, hopefully it wasn’t the same thing that had preceded the smoking pit of bodies in Natalia’s village.
When the trail finally opened up into a large clearing, dozens of people scrambled about. The village was in chaos—people ran, hid. Packed belongings. Babies cried.
Caroline paused at the trailhead, and Nick, Chris—with Natalia still on his shoulders—and Maria caught up.
“Does this seem … right to you?” Nick asked, watching the villagers running about.
“Not even a little.”
“Look!”
Caroline pointed to four men scurrying out of a large grass hut, carrying a man on a stretcher. They disappeared into another grass hut across from the one they had come out of.
Maria began to inch forward as she watched what was happening, but Chris grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop.
“Let’s see what’s going on here. Stay alert. Don’t split up.”
They moved forward through the grass and into the perimeter of the village. Maria followed behind Chris as he set Natalia down and held her hand to walk at his side.
Two men in the distance caught sight of them. One yelled, and instantly two more men appeared, dashing out of another one of the huts. The group huddled together, stared at the Rake team. One of the men pointed.
Caroline slowly reached for her knife. “Well, we’re going to know what’s happening soon enough. We’ve been spotted.”
Nick reached out and touched her arm. “Easy, Hunter.”
She swiveled to glare at Nick, but Chris weighed in, his tone full of authority. “Not this time.”
Caroline’s eyes narrowed, but her hand dropped away from her belt. He knew what she was thinking—this better not be a mistake.
Suddenly four men rushed toward the Rake team.
“Lift your hands into the air, all of you,” Chris said. “We don’t want them to think we’re hostile. Let’s see if we can get through this without anyone else getting killed.”
Grace flashed before him—eyes closed, chest still. He blinked the image away.
Chris, Nick, Maria, and Caroline raised their hands into the air, palms open, as the men surrounded them. Tension encircled the group as minutes of silence ticked by, the four members of the Rake team staring at the four villagers surrounding them. Then, one of the men—a small, portly man with a pair of oversized pants on and no shirt—spoke.
“Who are you people, and why are you here?”
He was staring at Nick, so Nick spoke, motioning at Maria. “We need medical help. This woman is hurt.”
The man studied Maria. His eyes moved from the large pool of dried blood staining the lower section of her shirt and the upper portion of her pants.
Chris continued, “The last village we came from was burned to the ground. This was the only other option we had.”
The four men studied them all for a moment without saying anything.
They don’t believe us, Chris realized. Even worse, the hard glint in the man’s eyes suggested he thought they might be somehow to blame for whatever insanity currently gripped their village.
Suddenly, a tall, thin man with long black hair spoke from the edge of the gathering.
“Natalia?” the man said, moving forward. His eyes squinted as he did his best to focus on the
small girl hidden behind Chris’s legs.
“Martees!” Natalia’s hands began circling around in the air as if searching for something. “Yes, yes, it’s me, Natalia.”
“Who are these people you’re with?” the man called Martees asked.
Chris watched the man. Prepared. Was he a friend—a family member?
“These are my friends, Martees. They saved me.”
“Natalia, where is Partiko?” the man asked in a hopeful tone. “Where is my brother?”
Natalia lowered her head. “Papa did not make it.”
Family.
Martees let out a long sigh, pressing his lips together. The expression on his face was sad, but not disappointed. He’d likely already known his brother would not be found alive.
Moving carefully with his palms up in a placating manner, Martees walked to Natalia and put his arms around her. The two embraced, and something clenched in Chris’s heart loosened.
“Natalia is my niece,” Martees explained as he let go of the girl. “I did not think she was alive. I live here but we have problems here now too. We have to be very careful.”
Maria stepped forward, curious. “What kind of problems?”
Chris and Nick looked at each other over her sudden assertiveness. Why was she so interested?
“We’re not sure. The people have come down with a strange illness. Something is attacking them inside, but we do not know what it is.”
The man’s voice trembled as he spoke, and for the first time Chris noted there were ash stains on his dark skin. He thought of the fires, of the pit full of burned bodies. The charred corpse in the hut. Sick, he’d said. The villagers were sick. Grace had been sick, but her illness hadn’t spread to the rest of the team. The two must be connected … but how?
“Do you know what happened to Natalia’s village?” Chris asked.
Another taller, much larger man, spoke up. “Yes, the same thing that is happening here.”
“But—”
He’d meant to say that this wasn’t how contagion worked, it didn’t spread like wildfire, not between villages so far apart. Not so quickly, and not without a connection—without a patient zero. Even then, there were symptoms, signs of infection. But Grace’s symptoms hadn’t affected the rest of their team, and they’d been in close quarters. Still, something had to connect whatever illness had mysteriously attacked two villages, stolen the lives of so many.
