by Greig Beck
Garmadia shrugged. ‘I was trying to get behind our attacker, but I am afraid I got lost. I am not familiar with this part of the jungle, Captain Hunter — no one is.’ He holstered his gun and looked away.
Aimee let go of Saqueo and walked quickly to Alex. ‘We have to get him back. Now!’
Sam moved slowly into Alex’s line of sight. ‘Boss, I wouldn’t advise it. There’s a lot of hot rain about to fall.’
Aimee glared at him. ‘What? Sam … no.’
Garmadia held out his hands, palms up. ‘Sorry, señora Weir, but the soldado is right. It is not advisable. Besides, the boy probably ran away. He will be home before we are.’
‘Shut the fuck up,’ Aimee yelled, making Saqueo jump. She rounded on Alex, ignoring both Garmadia and Sam. ‘Alex, you’re better than that.’
No, I’m not, he thought. He looked at Sam, who just shrugged and turned away, keeping his eyes on the surrounding jungle. Alex stood motionless for a few seconds, until he thought of the way González had ruthlessness crushed Mak’s face and then tried to do the same to him and Franks. A small fire lit in his belly.
He pulled a small black box from a pouch at his waist and looked at the tiny glowing screen. The approaching V22 was one red dot, and the rendezvous point another. Their position was shown in blue — they weren’t that far away. He made his decision.
‘Let’s find him.’
Even Alex himself wasn’t sure whether he referred to the boy or the priest.
THIRTY-THREE
The lighting around the camp’s perimeter had died long ago, and even the dull red glow of the fires had become just a few wisps of smoke leaking over the rims of the barrels. Maria sat in the dark cabin, her face lit by a green screen inside the silver case she had open on the desk before her. Beside it was a small communication device showing six rows of five alphanumeric characters. Nothing else; no effusive thank you, or religious references, or even the promise of a small brass plaque stuck to a park bench somewhere.
Her eyes blurred. She wiped them clear and sighed as she began to type. A question appeared on the screen before her: Countdown Duration? The field was three spaces long and measured in minutes. She wanted to type ‘1’ and then just close her eyes. She was tired of it all.
‘Last promise I ever have to keep,’ she said to the screen.
She entered 240, the maximum available, and closed the case. Its electronic locks engaged and sealed it from the world. The countdown would be relayed back to CDC headquarters. It was all out of her hands now.
She got to her feet and went to the bunk she had made up. She lay down and stared at the ceiling. Despite the thick, humid air enveloping her, she shivered as she crossed her arms over her chest.
* * *
The miasma of evil was so thick, Alex felt as though it was coating his nose and throat. He looked ahead at Sam — the large HAWC seemed oblivious. Perhaps he couldn’t sense the wrongness they were walking into.
Sam froze like a hunting dog, and motioned with his head at something just through the branches. When Alex nodded his understanding, Sam proceeded for another dozen paces, then stopped behind a veil of heavy fronds. A glint of gold was visible behind the greenery. Aimee and Saqueo came up beside Sam, Garmadia on his other side. Alex pulled aside the ferns. It was a bell — heavily tarnished, but still shining gold in patches. Alex heard Saqueo suck in his breath and whisper something in his mix of Spanish and Indian. Sam looked at him and put a finger to his lips. The boy was silent again.
Sam whispered without turning. ‘Remember when we saw those people leaving the area? They spoke about a legend — cuidado debajo de la flor de oro. It translated as beware the golden flower. You know what? I think the bell is the golden flower.’
Alex nodded slowly. ‘They also said that when it bloomed, the devil would rise. Just like in Castillo’s journal. And that bell has been recently moved, judging by the tracks across the clearing. The blooming could mean that it’s suddenly become visible again.’
Sam nodded. ‘Uh-huh, and, boss, just before the journal ends, Castillo wrote that he thought the old priest was poseído por el demonio — possessed by the devil.’
‘He’s possessed by something, that’s for sure.’
Alex took another cautious step forward and pulled more of the heavy fronds out of the way. A large clearing was revealed, covered in scattered debris. The silver moonlight made a pathway to a stone building huddled beneath an enormous banyan tree.
Dull pain flared in Alex’s head as he tried to determine if the priest was inside the structure. Normally he could pinpoint a living entity if he concentrated, but all he was getting was chaos — the swarming white noise turning to a roar. To Aimee and Sam, the building probably looked silvery and silent; to Alex, it was enveloped by a mass of swirling souls, howling in confusion and terror. He shook his head to clear it and sucked in a deep breath.
In a standard approach, Garmadia and Sam would have advanced from one side of the clearing, and he would have taken the other. Aimee and the boy would have remained behind, under cover. Instead, the pervasive feelings of danger made him order a different tactic. He wanted open ground — the heavy green curtain concealed too much, even for his advanced senses.
‘We’ll go in together, nice and tight — straight up the middle.’ He looked at Aimee. ‘Ready?’
She mouthed yes back to him, gave a small smile in the dark and raised her handgun.
Alex turned to Sam, nodded once and pushed through the last fronds.
* * *
Casey Franks had been running hard for an hour, only able to ignore the burning pain in her calves and thighs because of the greater agony in her throat. She slowed to a jog and pulled the bandana cloth from around her neck. She wiped it over her face, neck and hair, then held it up over her open mouth and squeezed hard — a small stream of salty fluid dribbled down between her lips and she swallowed greedily.
She pulled in a giant breath and quickly checked her coordinates in relation to her current position, destination, and Alex Hunter. She frowned: her commanding officer was travelling west, away from the designated meeting point.
She grunted and shrugged. Orders unchanged, she thought as she re-tied the cloth around her neck.
From a pouch at her side she removed a small foil-covered capsule. She tore open the foil and snapped the pellet in half under her nose, inhaling sharply, then screwing up her eyes and throwing her head back from the jolt. After another second, she exhaled and opened her eyes, their pupils now enormously dilated. She stood a little straighter, the chemical stimulant giving her a burst of artificial energy.
‘Fuck, yeah!’
She drew in another lungful of the warm, fetid air and started running again. She still had a long way to go.
THIRTY-FOUR
The small group had covered half of the clearing when Alex held up his hand then lowered it, palm downwards. Everyone sank to the ground.
Aimee stared at the broken earth and picked up one of the pieces of debris. It was bone, fairly fresh, still discoloured by blood and sinew. She glanced around the clearing — it wasn’t littered with pieces of sharp rock as she’d first thought; now she saw shards of bone, skull fragments and tufts of hair. A nauseating jolt ran through her as she realised this was probably all that remained of their missing workers.
She whispered to Alex, ‘It’s bone, not rocks … all around us.’
Garmadia’s voice was nervously loud in the clearing. ‘I don’t like this, Captain Hunter.’ Aimee noticed how round his eyes were in the moonlight. He looked ready to bolt.
Alex half-turned and spoke softly. ‘I don’t like it either, but we’re here.’ He faced back the other way. ‘We’ve got company — can’t tell from where yet.’
As soon as Alex said the words, Aimee sensed the presence, like a dark pressure wave closing in on all sides.
Sam, who had been bringing up the rear, turned his back on the small group, pulled free his sidearm and held up his g
auntleted arm. Both weapons pointed at the wall of green, ready to fire.
Aimee swallowed; her mouth was dry. Any other time she might have laughed at the almost comical way Saqueo clung to her back. But, huddled in the centre of a killing field with something evil tracking them in the darkness, humour was the last thing on her mind.
‘Incoming!’
Alex’s shout felt like an electrical shock to her already stressed system.
* * *
Alex stood and held both gauntlets up, his head whipping back and forth. He could feel it — almost right in front of him — but still couldn’t determine its exact location.
The jungle had once again fallen into a vacuum-like silence — not a chirrup, croak or rustle; everything was either holding its breath or in hiding. But now, cutting through it, came the sound of something airborne sailing towards them. A shadow briefly fell across the moon and Alex swivelled to point one arm up at the sky, before yelling, ‘Move!’
As the group scattered, something struck the ground wetly where they had been huddled. It bounced once, then lay lifeless in the dirt.
Alex could see it clearly in the moonlight. It was Chaco. His little body had been savaged, his throat torn out, leaving flaps of ragged skin and a small line of crushed cartilage. He looked unnaturally floppy, as if every one of his bones had been pulverised or removed.
Alex moved to stand between the mutilated body and Aimee and Saqueo. Sam didn’t say a word when he saw the body, simply crouched and scanned with his weapons the direction it had come from. Garmadia, however, threw up onto the dry soil.
He reached over to grasp Alex’s arm, his voice nearly hysterical. ‘You must get us out of here immediately. This thing will kill us all. That is an order!’
When Alex didn’t acknowledge him, he tried again, half-turning towards Aimee so she could hear. ‘I’m sure señorita Weir does not want this boy to share his brother’s fate.’
‘Keep Saqueo away,’ Alex told Aimee quickly.
Garmadia spoke again, but Alex’s brain refused to assemble the sounds into words. There was something circling them, at such speed that it seemed to be all around them at once. He looked down at the tiny, mutilated corpse and felt his body begin to shake as a red wave of anger washed over him.
He pushed the Paraguayan aside and stood with his legs planted wide apart, his face lifted to the air as though sniffing it. Where the fuck are you? He was boiling with frustration — he couldn’t fight what he couldn’t see.
Then he froze with indecision as he processed Garmadia’s attempted command. He’s right, we should leave. With the boy dead, the missing drill-site workers all obliterated, the reasons for being here had fallen away. He should get them out of the clearing and head for their rendezvous with the chopper. Time was against them.
His logical mind knew that, but there was another voice in him that demanded something different. It wanted the confrontation; it screamed for vengeance for the attacks on his people. It wanted him to take on González again; it wanted blood.
He still couldn’t move. What if he was killed? What chance would Sam have, let alone Aimee and the boys? They’d all be doomed. Perspiration beaded his brow, and he groaned as a wave of pain rippled from behind his eyes, up and over his forehead, then down his spine. Why can’t I decide? The decision should be easy.
Alex already knew the answer: the rage inside wouldn’t let him.
To the others, he would have seemed like a statue, silent and still as stone. But inside, he was already fighting; wrestling with his furies, pushing back their lust for destruction, even if only for a time.
We cannot stay!
He blinked and felt like he was breaking free of a slab of ice that had formed around his body.
He looked at Aimee. She had one hand on Saqueo’s back, keeping him flat on the ground, and in the other held the gun. She was looking directly at him and there was terror on her face.
‘We’re leaving,’ he said, and smiled at her.
She continued to stare at him, then started to speak, but her words stretched and her mouth moved so slowly. As he watched, the sensation of being just outside of time grew stronger. Aimee, Sam and Garmadia looked like they were in a movie that been set to slow play.
Then he realised that the world wasn’t slowing around him; he was speeding up. His heart rate had increased to over 400 beats per minute; his body had taken over. In the instant it took him to wonder why, the thing came at him from the jungle’s edge, crossing the thirty feet of clearing before he had a chance to turn.
He felt a blow to his head that was like an explosion; he actually saw stars, just like in a comic book. Something lifted him bodily and threw him backwards into the undergrowth, where he slammed sickeningly into a tree trunk.
González had arrived.
* * *
Sam was only aware that they were being attacked when he heard the crash of Alex’s body striking the tree. He saw Garmadia on all fours, his movements unsteady, as though he’d been knocked to the ground and was suffering a concussion.
Sam spun quickly with the honed reflexes of a Special Forces operative, but where their opponent should have been, there was nothing. The man moved too quickly for them to engage him. Sam struck out time and again, but González disappeared and reappeared beside him as though materialising from the air. The tall priest smiled, and Sam saw the rows of needle-teeth shine wetly in the moonlight.
Sam brought his arm around towards the leering face, firing off a stream of frozen spikes, aiming to saw the black-clad figure in half. But González easily caught his arm and, with a brief jerk, pulled the gauntlet free and threw it deep into the foliage. With his other hand, he grasped Sam by the upper arm and lifted, flinging him backwards as though he were weightless.
Sam hit the ground hard, but managed to roll and come to his feet with his handgun pointed at the priest, who was standing over Aimee and Saqueo. The boy was curled into a foetal position. Just as Sam was about to fire, González’s attention was drawn to Captain Garmadia, who was staggering groggily from the clearing. Perhaps a fleeing prey was too attractive to ignore. González was a blur of dark movement as he scooped up Garmadia and returned with him to stand again over Aimee and Saqueo. The struggling captain cried out as the fingers that held him buried deeper into his flesh. With one hand, he tried to prise away the grip around his throat; the other brought his handgun up towards González’s face.
González smiled, and took hold of the captain’s arm at the elbow, almost gently. He looked down at Aimee and Saqueo, his mouth behind the red-streaked beard lifting as though in a smile, and jerked once on the arm. The bones of the clavicle splintered within the shoulder, and the large flat deltoid muscles tore free from the upper back and chest. The sickening sound made Sam grit his teeth.
Garmadia was silent, his mouth opening and closing in shock. The priest dropped him to the ground and watched as blood pulsed from the terrible wound, splashing like black oil onto the dry soil.
González looked down at Aimee and Saqueo again. As he reached for them, Sam charged, gun and knife raised.
He knew the advance was futile, but he hoped it would offer Aimee a few seconds’ diversion to try to flee into the jungle.
Just as before, the priest moved so quickly, it made Sam feel he was standing still. One minute the creature was kneeling over Aimee and the boy; the next, he had closed the few feet between them and held Sam in his grip.
González seemed to be enjoying himself. He nodded at Sam and smiled. Sam smiled back, determined not to show fear or pain. He knew that the human body could survive fifty per cent blood loss, removal of several organs and limbs, and blinding pain, but the real killer was shock. Sam gritted his teeth hard and prepared for the pain.
Steel-like fingers dug deep into the muscle of his upper arm and grated on the bone. The only thing that prevented them piercing flesh was the tough synthetic suit he wore — but Sam knew that wouldn’t hold for long.
Shots rang
out from behind him: Aimee. Sam saw bullet holes pit the black-clad torso. They distracted González and he turned towards their source, giving Sam a few seconds. He’d dropped his sidearm, but was able to swing his blade up and into the nexus between the man’s neck and shoulder, deep into the trapezius muscle bunching. A good strike — fatal if deep enough, and certainly debilitating in combat.
González didn’t even flinch. His attention remained firmly on Aimee and the boy, as if he’d remembered what he really wanted all along.
Sam tugged the knife free. No blood spurted from the deep rent in the dead flesh. He drew his arm back again, this time planning to drive the laser-sharpened blade into the creature’s face. But, as if tiring of his antics, González shook him hard to disorient him, then, in a blur of strength and speed, threw him backwards like a discarded bag of trash.
As Sam hit the tree line, he regretted he hadn’t give Aimee her time. González hadn’t taken his eyes off her.
* * *
Alex burst from the undergrowth, enraged by the way the priest had knocked him aside so easily, causing him to leave those under his protection exposed. He was just in time to see Sam’s large body flung into the jungle as if it were weightless. Smallarms fire rang out, and he saw Aimee firing point-blank into the chest of this thing that looked like a man but wasn’t.
Alex raised one arm, pointing the gauntlet at the monster’s chest. González lifted Aimee and Saqueo, one in each hand, and held them close to his face and body. Alex didn’t know if he was shielding himself from the ice gun, or savouring the smell of their sweating flesh.
Almost faster than Alex’s eyes could follow, the priest was at the door of the small stone building. He looked back once over his shoulder, his dark eyes issuing a challenge, then vanished into the darkness beyond the opening. There was a deep grinding sound, and by the time Alex had made it to the top of the steps, a giant stone blocked the doorway. The priest was sealed inside — with Aimee and Saqueo.
