by Greig Beck
He waited. Some faces were blank, some were creased in confusion or disbelief, but a few were smiling. Of course. He let the silence stretch for a few more seconds before continuing.
‘I’ve translated what I can, and so far the totem scripts tell of the Ndege race that has lived here since the beginning time. According to the poles, they are the guardians of the teocuitl and something called the blood jungle.” Matt swung the bag in his hand. “Somewhere, there is a river, lake, pool, or some body of water, where the Ndege dive down and pass through into their hidden sacred land.” He looked at Steinberg. “Through to where your specimen came from.”
“Teocuitl?” Megan tilted her head. “That name is familiar. That’s early Incan, for …” She trailed off, looking excited.
Matt nodded. “I think so. The language is a mish-mash of ancient South American flavors, spiced with some of their own inflections. The word looks the same, but I might be pronouncing or translating it incorrectly. Hell, I could be translating it all incorrectly.”
“Teocuitl — gold?” Megan folded her arms.
Matt nodded. “More precisely, the Aztec word for excrement of the gods, but yeah, gold.”
“Gold?” Kurt’s eyebrows shot up.
Steinberg was grinning broadly and nodding his head. He looked like he was about to break into applause, and in fact he brought his hands together in a single clap. “Well done, my boy. So, all we need to do now is find it … ah, find the way in, I mean.”
Matt nodded. “The way in, the way under, the way through …” He shrugged.
Steinberg turned to Kurt, his face becoming serious. “We set off tomorrow morning. Find me that water source.”
CHAPTER 15
Dr. Francis Hewson watched the sealed dump trucks move single file toward the rear of the massive Atlanta CDC buildings. He swallowed, feeling his Adam’s apple bob on his neck. It hurt from the dryness — nerves, he guessed.
The board had recalled him twelve hours ago — events had proved him right, and now valuable time had been lost. He looked again at the line of trucks — it wasn’t just time that had been lost. He glanced at the rear of the building, where the professional façade gave way to more industrial architecture. Smoke stacks pushed out plumes of grayish smoke — there were no illusions about what this part of the complex did. The factory was designed for just this type of scenario.
Hundreds of bodies were being burned every day now. The public had been told it was due to lack of cemetery space, but this was only partly true.
The bodies were seized by teams in hazmat suits, zipped into airtight bags, and then quietly transported here, or to one of hundreds of new disposal facilities dotted across the country. The glossy black bags were unnamed, unloved, and simply tossed onto a conveyor belt to be fed into the heart of an industrial furnace, where they, and their millions of hungry passengers, were consumed in an instant.
Hew looked a little farther down the block, where another row of trucks was pulling out of a side exit, undoubtedly now empty.
“Off for the next pick-up, eh boys?” he muttered.
The double doors opened behind him, and the silent woman beckoned him in with a nod of her head. As he passed by, he leaned in close to her.
“I guess we’re all staying silent now, aren’t we?”
CHAPTER 16
Matt sat between Carla and Megan and watched as Kurt spread a green map out on the flattened dirt. Moema squatted beside the map and used a stick to point at different invisible landmarks. As far as Matt could tell, the map was almost useless. It showed endless lumpy green, and only the largest of rivers appeared as slim lines between towering tree canopies, woven together by millions of years of chasing the sunlight.
Megan nodded at them. “I suppose if anyone can find water, it’ll be Kurt.”
Matt groaned and rubbed his head. Carla looked at him momentarily, and then shrugged. “Doubt it; more like Moema.”
Megan tilted her head. “Well, it’s not home turf for either of them, so we’ll see.”
Carla nudged Matt, mischief in her eyes.
He grunted. His first instinct was to offer little more than a disinterested shrug. But then he decided he wasn’t going to play the surly boyfriend just because of some teenage game Megan was playing with Kurt.
“Well, for what it’s worth, I think the water, or the water entrance to this Blood Jungle or Old Place, or whatever it is, may be something like a sinkhole — a small pool of water only a dozen or so feet across.”
“Maybe it’s underground.” Megan lifted her chin to try and see where Kurt and Moema were pointing on the map.
“Maybe. Anything is possible. I just get the feeling it’s somewhere that is generally inaccessible. A tunnel behind a waterfall, a sunken cave, a river — it could be anything. Who knows, it might be something we can’t even imagine.” He got to his feet.
Megan and Carla followed him as he walked over to stand at the edge of the map.
“Anything interesting?” Matt asked.
“Nothing,” said Moema.
“Maybe,” said Kurt.
Matt glanced at Megan, who raised her eyebrows and smiled. He waited a few seconds for Kurt to continue — he didn’t.
“Ah, any clues for us city folk, Kurt?”
“Not yet, leave it with me.” Kurt didn’t look up, continuing to stare at the impenetrable green map. Matt felt like they were being dismissed — fine with him.
Megan squatted. “Can I help?”
“Megs, I don’t think …”
“I don’t know, can you?” Kurt gave her a boyish grin.
Matt stifled a groan and clamped his annoyance behind clenched teeth.
Carla leaned in close to him. “Easy, cowboy.”
Megan frowned at the map. “You need to cross-reference this against the satellite images — have you got them?”
Kurt snorted, but with good-natured humor. “Sure, but they’re worse than useless — nothing but green on green on green. Don’t expect to pick up something clever like sun reflection, it just won’t happen.”
She smiled winningly. “Humor me, I’ve done my geography homework.”
Kurt looked at her for a full ten seconds before he shrugged and turned to Matt.
“Can you get me my tech-pad, in the large pack?” Before Matt could snarl something back, he turned back to Megan. “It’s not real time. The satellite is way out of range, but …”
Matt stomped away and managed to pull almost everything from the pack as he dug through it. At the bottom he found an unopened pack of Trojans. “Be prepared, huh?” Disgusted, he went to fling them out into the jungle, then paused. That might be worse, he thought. “Asshole.” He pushed them back to the bottom, punched the packet once, and pulled the slim technology pad from its folder.
“Here you go.” He flung it Frisbee-style to the big bodyguard.
“Careful.” Kurt frowned as he caught the slim computer, and Megan scowled up at him.
Matt mouthed what?, then turned to watch as Kurt switched the device on and called up some data images. He tapped at some more keys and located a small red dot in a sea of endless green. “This is us, as of about twelve or so hours ago. We’re still around the same area now.”
“May I?” Megan took the small screen and then clicked one of the dropdown menus to see what options he had. “Okay, good.”
She flicked over to 3D view and tilted the image, so they were looking at the landscape from slightly to one side.
“I knew it.” She showed them the results.
Kurt’s head blocked Matt and Carla’s view, and they had to jostle to see what Megan had found. She pulled down the menu again, found the geographical contour lines, and added them to the image. Distorted blue lines appeared all over the green landscape. For the most part they were spread wide, indicating little change in the landform, but toward one section the lines started to bunch, just a few miles from the small red dot. She pulled the image back a few hundred miles.
“Yep.” She pulled back another few hundred miles, and there it was — the lines were forming gigantic contour rings.
“Impact crater.” The land looked to be consistently flat up close, but in fact, there was a significant depression, and not all that gradual. The crater’s wall formed a barrier, possibly only a hundred feet high and less than that across, before it fell away to the floor of the geological depression. The crater wall was steep, almost vertical on both sides — high, but potentially climbable.
Matt slapped his thigh. “Unbelievable. You are good.”
She turned and grinned. “Not just a pretty face, huh?”
“What is it?” Kurt grabbed the pad and turned it around. “What am I looking at, some sort of hidden valley or something?”
“Bigger. Valleys are small — this thing looks to be twenty miles across, easy. But you’re right about it being hidden.” Matt pointed at the screen right under his nose. “That, sir, is a crater; possibly hundreds of millions of years old, and exactly what we are looking for.”
Megan nudged Kurt in the ribs and took the small screen back, looking again at the display options. She found the thermal imaging, and started to check for variations. Sure enough, the temperature inside the crater was a few degrees cooler than outside. “Only a few degrees, but something in there is keeping it shielded. Could be a water source … a big water source, like a lake.”
“It’s like a different landmass; an island within a continent, where the flora and fauna could be sealed off from the land out here — like some perfectly preserved game park.” Matt zoomed in. “And I’d say that the nearest edge of the crater is about five miles …” he turned and pointed, “… thatta way.”
* * *
Matt had spent the last fifteen minutes updating Steinberg, and correlating their discovery to his recent translations. When he was finally able to break away from the producer, he wandered back to their small campsite. The group had been instructed to pack light, preparing to travel fast and minimally encumbered in search of the crater wall.
He didn’t know why Steinberg couldn’t have gotten the information from his trusted bodyguard, although Kurt had made himself scarce recently. Coming back, he saw Carla and Jian in conversation, close to where his and Megan’s gear was stacked but not stowed away. He saw that Megan hadn’t quite finished — distracted by some new wondrous thing, he guessed.
He looked around. “Hey Carla, where’s Megan?”
Carla looked up briefly and shook her head. Jian did the same. Matt circled the small area to where John and Joop were sharing a joke with Moema. “Hey guys, have you seen Megan?”
Joop nodded. “Maybe ten minutes ago; she and … she, went to look at something in the jungle.”
John wouldn’t look him in the eye. Matt felt a funny fluttering of trepidation in his stomach. “Okay. Ah, which way did they go?”
He was greeted by silence. Matt saw that Carla had ambled closer, her hands in her back pockets. He turned to her. “Well, I’m assuming Kurt was with her … which way?”
Joop shook his head. Carla spoke. “Forget about it Matt; she’ll be back in a minute or two. Get ready, we’re leaving soon.”
He swore softly, feeling his face go hot from embarrassment. He doubted they were just looking at something in the jungle, and he doubted anyone else thought that, either. He crossed to his pack, thinking through the dozen or so things he felt like doing to Kurt. Matt pulled the unnecessary items from his pack, lightening his load, and dropped them to the ground for later retrieval — this would be their secondary base camp.
It only took him a few minutes. He eyed Megan’s chaotic mess. “You can do your own.” He straightened and looked out at the jungle, suspicion growing with every passing second. He continued to mumble softly. “Nice one, taking my girl on a jungle date — think you’re pretty hot shit down here, don’t you?” He saw that Kurt’s pack was neat, but open for a change — his mind whirled.
Matt looked over his shoulder at his fellow travelers and, seeing that they were absorbed in their own tasks, moved quickly to the big guide’s pack. He dug down, deep, to where he had seen the pack of condoms.
He felt stupid, paranoid, and like a jealous teenager. His hand closed over the small box, and he immediately recoiled in shock. The new packet was now open.
He dropped the box as his heart sank, and he backed away, feeling an unfamiliar mix of humiliation and defeat.
* * *
Matt was by himself, back with the totems, when he heard Kurt and Megan come back into the Ndege compound. He looked back down at his notes, but couldn’t concentrate, didn’t see them. Instead, he saw his girlfriend in a hundred different acrobatic positions with Kurt. He felt ill.
He sighed. Forget about being chased by a Kraken beneath the Antarctic ice, or a giant missing link on the Black Mountain. This was different, this hurt in ways that went beyond the physical.
“Get, your pack. We’re moving out soon.”
Matt spun, and saw Kurt standing behind him with a toothy grin.
Matt just glared. Kurt waited a few seconds, and then jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
“Come on, Professor. Time to get physical. Come and help your future wife.” He grinned again.
The sarcasm and suggestive tone were too much for Matt. “Why don’t you just fuck right off, asshole?”
“What? Hey.” Kurt pulled back. “What’s up with you?”
Matt got to his feet, and before he knew it, found himself right up in Kurt’s face. “Are you deaf as well as dumb, huh? I said fuck off, before I …” Matt’s anger, frustration, and humiliation took over. He threw a roundhouse punch that only managed to complete half its arc before the big man jerked sideways, moving way too fast for someone his size. Kurt’s retaliatory punch hit Matt square on the jaw, and then the lights went out.
* * *
The party moved forward in a single file. The path they followed was heavily overgrown, although it was probably only a few days or week since the Ndege had stopped using it. The jungle’s insatiable hunger for open ground was matched only by its tenacity, clinging to every thread of material or patch of bare skin.
The humidity crushed down on them, adding weight and years to their frames. After an hour, the track broadened briefly, and Megan caught up to Matt.
“That looks like it hurt.”
Matt didn’t try to respond — doing so would send a deep ache from his teeth to his ear.
“Hmm, a lot of deep thinking going on — everything okay?” She nudged him.
He kept his eyes on the ground as he walked, mumbling in return. He could feel her watching him as he continued to ignore her, feeling her gaze intensify. He glanced up briefly and saw that her smile had dropped away.
“So what’s up?”
He spun around, the accusation on his lips, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak the words — not now, not here. He knew that the last thing the group needed was a couple of kidults fighting over bruised egos — well, one bruised ego, anyway. He turned away, flinging words over his shoulder.
“Nothing.” He sped up, leaving her behind, regretting it almost immediately.
He came up next to Moema, hoping to distract himself by practising his language skills, but the small man seemed agitated and on alert. His eyes were round and his shoulders hunched.
“Okay?”
“Okay?” Moema echoed, clearly not understanding his question.
“Sorry, I meant are you feeling okay? You look … concerned.”
Moema straightened. “I’m not scared.”
Matt nodded and waited. Moema put his head down and walked on for a few seconds, then looked up at Matt and at the treetops hundreds of feet overhead. His eyes came back to Matt, the worry still visible. “Can you not feel it? Smell it?”
Matt inhaled deeply through his nose. Amongst the ever-present odors of the jungle, he could smell the pervasive sweetness he had detected b
ack at the camp. He nodded.
“I can smell something sort of sweet. Do you know what it is?”
Moema shook his head. “I don’t know, but it is getting stronger … and I feel like the ghosts of the Ndege are with us.” He gave Matt a crooked smile.
Matt just raised his eyebrows, knowing not to make light of the man’s suspicions — or his superstitions. He knew Moema was doing his best to put on a brave front, but he undoubtedly believed that the spirits of the dead tribe were walking with them. And in the Amazon’s dark center, not all spirits had a reputation for being friendly.
Moema looked up at Matt again. “I don’t think I am happy I came now.” He put his head down, walking quickly and leaving Matt behind, clearly signaling that the conversation was over.
“Making friends again?” Megan and Carla were walking just behind him and had obviously been watching.
Matt spoke softly. “He’s scared.”
“Oh great … of what?” Megan’s voice carried a hint of sarcasm.
He still couldn’t look at her. “Don’t know. Maybe just his superstition, but one thing he’s right about … that damned smell is getting stronger.”
“Thank God it’s not just me. Phew. That is one cloying odor.” Carla blew air out through her lips, as though to disperse the sickly-sweet smell.
“Well, I reckon we’ll find out what it is soon — we must be getting close to it.” Megan sniffed loudly.
“Sooner than you think …” Matt stopped suddenly, causing the women to collide behind him.
The group fanned out. Kurt was standing off to one side with Steinberg looking around.
“That is some barrier.” The path they had been following simply ended at a wall of thick, woody vines covered in crimson flowers. Every inch of the knotted canes was covered in thorns — some as large as a finger, some the size of hairs. They all looked sharp enough to pierce even the toughest clothing, let alone skin.
Matt leaned forward. “There’s your smell … the flowers. Any ideas?”
