“What did she say?” Agent Donner asked.
Cami wiped the tears away from her eyes. “She said she wants to be buried in the States. She’s from California and she wants to be buried there next to her mother. We need to make sure that can happen.”
“What else?” Agent Donner said. Sam assumed he was thinking what everyone else in the room was thinking; there was no way they would let her body return to the States.
“She said something about a canister. Some canister they found on their tour and that’s how they got sick.”
“She didn’t say any of them were bit by an animal?” Duncan said.
“No, she said it was a canister. They found it and that’s when Michael got sick.”
Agent Donner said, “Where is the canister now?”
“They gave it to someone in a village, a little boy.”
“What village?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ask her.”
Cami looked to Agent Donner. “No. Let her sleep.”
“She’s slept enough, Dr. Mendoza. Ask her what village. You can ask more gently than I can. If I have to wake her up, she won’t enjoy it.”
Cami stared at him a moment and looked like she was about to say something, but didn’t. Instead, she leaned down next to the patient’s ear and whispered something. The patient whispered something back but it was inaudible to Sam.
“She says it was a Pisac village on the route they took. She gave it to a little boy there.”
Agent Donner immediately left the room. Sam didn’t follow. She stood quietly and stared at the woman lying in the gurney, half alive and half dead, blind and going deaf. Soon the world would be nothing to her but darkness and pain.
“We can’t leave her like this,” Sam said.
Cami nodded. “I know. Please leave.”
“I can help.”
“No, just leave. I brought us down here. I talked Ben into coming. She can’t suffer like this. This is something I have to do. Please just leave, Dr. Bower.”
Sam waited a moment longer, and then turned to leave the room. Duncan held her by the arm. She wasn’t sure if it was to help her or himself.
CHAPTER 42
Dr. Gerald Amoy looked down at the streets of Honolulu. Streets he had once loved and known like the inside of his home. He grew up running around on these very streets with a gang—not much more than just some neighborhood kids calling themselves a gang. They would steal candy bars and throw water balloons off buildings. Later, in their teenage years, they would break into cars and sell marijuana at school. As far as he knew, he was the only one of his childhood friends that hadn’t been to jail.
“Doctor?”
He turned and saw a nurse, Heather Yang, standing there in blue scrubs. She had volunteered to stay at the hospital and help those that needed help; one of only twelve out of a staff of hundreds.
“Yes?”
“Our runner came back from the urgent care clinic. They’re out of antibiotics as well. They did have a few boxes of gauze and rubber gloves but I think we were good on those.”
“Okay,” he said, sighing. “What about the pharmacies?”
“I’ve heard they were cleared out a long time ago.”
“They might not have taken the antibiotics.”
“Maybe. I don’t think your average dopehead knows the difference. They probably took everything to sort it out later.”
“Send someone around anyway.”
“You got it.”
“And Heather? It’s coming to the point where we’re not doing anything but keeping these people comfortable. I don’t need you here for that. You should go home.”
She looked to the floor. “Tim died two weeks ago.”
Amoy didn’t say anything at first. It was something he had heard so much of that he’d grown numb to it. But he knew that some sort of condolences were the proper response and so he said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
She nodded, fighting the tears that were rolling down her cheeks. “This takes my mind off it. I’d like to stay if that’s okay.”
“Of course. Please let the rest of the staff know that they can leave at any time.”
When she left, Amoy collapsed into the chair at his desk. He was exhausted; his back and neck felt like they’d been pumped full of acid. His head ached constantly and if he didn’t try to take catnaps every couple of hours he’d develop a migraine. He looked out the window again and wondered if he should have left when he had the chance.
Some of his friends had left on yachts to port in harbors that would keep their departure quiet. He knew many people had taken boats to the nearest island, Molokai. Many were inexperienced seamen and had no doubt been stranded or drowned. It was thirty-two miles of treacherous water. An annual race had developed there. World Class yacht masters came from all over to compete there, knowing the reputation of the waters as some of the most treacherous in this hemisphere.
Of course, the only people with boats were those of means, which meant that only the poor were absolutely stuck on the island. He wondered if it had always worked this way throughout history.
There was commotion outside. He looked down and saw a group of men trying to tear down the barrier that had been built at the entrance of the hospital. At first it was to keep people in and make sure the patients didn’t get out to infect others. But more and more, it was becoming a barrier to keep people out that were looking to raid the hospital’s supplies.
He ran downstairs to find the nurses gathered around the front entrance. Heather was standing with her hands on her hips, staring at the front doors.
“There’s a lot of ‘em this time,” she said.
“Has anyone told them we don’t have anything?”
“They’re starving. I don’t think they’re going to care.”
Amoy ran down the hall to check on the patients. Three days ago there had been over sixty in the ER. Now there were less than twenty. One of the major concerns had been what to do with the bodies. They didn’t want to leave them outside as he wasn’t entirely certain this virus wasn’t airborne, so instead they piled them up on the fifth floor, hoping that the height would contain the smell. It didn’t.
He found Doug, their only security officer, asleep on a gurney.
“Doug, wake up. They’re back.”
He roused himself awake and swung his legs over the gurney. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes before standing.
“Yeah, so?”
“There’re a lot this time.”
Doug stepped out of the room and went down the hall, Amoy behind him. They came to the front entrance where they all stood around, staring at the doors as if an alien were about to land on earth and they were to be the first contact they would have.
“Fuck me,” Doug said. “How many a ‘em are there?” He turned to Amoy. “I only got six rounds and a Taser.”
Amoy stared at the doors a long time. The furniture they had piled in front of the doors was slowly decreasing as the men outside patiently worked to clear a path.
“I’ll be right back,” Amoy said.
He ran upstairs and to the second floor. He went to a window facing down on the street and looked down.
“We don’t have anything here,” Amoy shouted to the men. “There’s nothing for you here.”
One of the men, a white male with tattoos over his bald head and no shirt on, wiped his brow with the back of his arm. He looked to Amoy and said, “Well that ain’t true now. You got yourself a few honeys in there. They be worth something.”
Amoy felt a chill down his spine. “They’ve stayed here to help the sick at the risk of their own lives. Leave them alone.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll take good care a ‘em. They gonna get lots a lovin’ from the homies.”
Amoy stepped away from the window. He stood there silently; his arms limp by his side. All he wanted to do was sit down, so he did. There was a chair behind the desk and he sat and put his feet up, his arms on
his chest. There were at least thirty men out there.
He sat staring at the ceiling a long time and began dozing off. After what seemed like an eternity, he heard yelling and screaming and the sounds of shoes running on linoleum downstairs.
Shots began to be fired.
He counted them. One…two…three…four…then there was silence. He heard a woman’s scream and then the laughter of men. He felt no emotion at all, only a dull ache in the pit of his stomach, but warm tears flowed down his cheeks. He stood up and headed for the stairs.
He walked up three more flights of stairs and went to the end of the hallway on the fifth floor. Another set of stairs led to the roof and he took them.
The sunshine was bright and warm. A breeze was blowing and it was the type of breeze that under normal circumstances he might have noticed. It carried the salty scent of the ocean and cooled his face, which felt hot though he hadn’t been outside all day.
Amoy walked to the edge of the roof and climbed the stone barrier. He looked down to the men that were still outside, and the few that were coming out. He thought they looked like bugs scrambling around and it gave him the adolescent pleasure of feeling bigger and stronger than those around him. He smiled.
And then, he jumped.
CHAPTER 43
Samantha followed Benjamin Cornell, who was led by a guide they’d hired in Iquitos, into the deadly green maze that was the Amazon Rainforest. Ben had translated as the guide explained that, encompassing 1.7 billion acres, the Amazon was the planet’s largest eco-region on land and contains—it’s believed—more unknown species of insect, bird, rodent, and small mammal than there are catalogued and identified species currently known to science. Wet, tropical rainforests are the richest biomes of life, and the Amazon is king among them all. Sam, who had previously known this, had always wanted to visit the forest.
The bulk of the forest is found in Brazil with only a small fraction found in Peru. But that small portion is rough and uninhabitable for those not accustomed to its harsh climate, its deadly insects, and the constant threat of exposure. The days swell to temperatures over 130°F and the nights, though they have the potential to not be much cooler, can dip to temperatures requiring winter clothing and sleeping bags, depending on the season.
Now that Samantha was here, she couldn’t remember why she had wanted to come.
Her mind travelled off and she thought about the last conversation she’d had back in town yesterday. It was with Ralph and they’d spoken over a landline at the hotel.
He sounded weak, as if he hadn’t gotten any sleep the few days before they’d talked. He coughed incessantly, every few sentences, but when Sam would press him on it all he’d say was, “I’m fine, I’m fine,” and then move on to a different topic.
“I’ll be back in eight days,” Samantha had assured him. “Four in the forest and four to get back to Atlanta. Hopefully there’ll still be a job waiting for me.”
“Always, my dear,” he said wistfully. “Always.”
They’d said goodbye and Ralph told her that he’d like to speak with her again after they found whatever it was they thought they were looking for. But he’d said that in case they didn’t speak again, he wanted her to know that careers in the government didn’t last.
“You’ll love the CDC,” he’d said, “but she won’t love you.”
He sighed and said goodbye and Samantha had sat for nearly five minutes afterward, pondering why he would have ended the conversation the way he had.
Sam stopped and took a sip out of a Nalgene bottle that was attached to a backpack that carried her supplies. Villages along the way would offer food and shelter for next to nothing, but just in case, their guide had told them, it was best to bring your own camping gear. You never knew who would offend one of the local Indians and cause the group to be denied entry to the village for the night.
Duncan, Cami, and Agent Donner were behind her. All of them, panting and sweating and red-faced, had to stop every mile or so for a sip of water. The humidity soaked their clothes and made them feel sticky and wet; like they’d taken a bath in cola. The heat cooked it onto their skin so that it would begin to itch. The guide told them if they didn’t stop and rest to air themselves out, the skin that was covered by clothing could peel.
“You doin’ okay?” Duncan looked at Sam and wiped his forehead with a bandana.
“Yeah,” she said, taking another sip of water. “How far you think we’ve gone?”
“Twenty miles maybe, give or take a few. I have a pedometer on my iPod but that ran out of juice. Anybody’s cell working?”
They all checked; none of them were getting reception.
Benjamin yelled out behind him, “Don’t slow down. We’ve got a village about ten miles from here. We can make it before nightfall if we hurry.”
They continued the slow, grinding work of putting one foot in front of the other as their feet swelled in their boots and the last drops of moisture leaked from their skin. Sam kept her head low but would occasionally glance up at the beautiful scenery around her. It appeared like something out of an Ansel Adams photo. It was haunting and beautiful simultaneously, and somehow, perhaps subconsciously, it frightened her. The fear of the unknown. Deep in this jungle were things that lay undiscovered, just waiting for a living organism to pass by.
The day grew hotter and the insects seemed to get worse. They were a constant blanket around her, their buzzing growing unbearable in her ears. They went for the moist parts of her face: her nostrils, eyes, mouth. And they were unrelenting. She would bat several of them away only to have double that amount swarm in to take their place.
Soon her Nalgene bottle was empty and she began getting pasty-mouthed. It amazed her how quickly dehydration set in. When her lids closed they felt like sandpaper against her eyeballs and the warm breeze that was blowing gently through the rainforest wasn’t helping.
The terrain grew rough for a while, turning uphill on a steep slope, but it soon declined and she leaned back and relaxed her thigh muscles, letting gravity do the work.
“There’s a bug out here,” Duncan said from behind her, out of breath and panting, “that stings you on your lips or in your eyes. But it’s not a sting, it’s an injection. It lays its eggs inside you and you won’t even know until you get a big bump that eventually hatches.”
“Thanks,” Sam said.
Sam counted three and a half hours before the dense vegetation began to clear and they were in a valley. She could see huts in the distance and as they drew closer she could make out children playing in front of the village, goats tied to stakes, a couple of donkeys, and the glistening brown figures of the villagers. They dressed modestly compared to what she expected; the women’s breasts were exposed but other than that, they covered up everything that would have been covered back home. Some of the men wore sneakers and T-shirts. The Nike slogans and 80s mantras on the T-shirts—thrift store donations all of them—looked out of place in the serene and majestic background of this lush wilderness.
The guide began speaking with a group of men that had come out to meet them. Sam noticed that two of the men were carrying rifles, a gift from the modern world. No doubt along with cigarettes and alcohol and chewing tobacco. Indigenous tribes rarely adopted anything good from civilization; there was no money in teaching them about books and computers. Instead, Coca-Cola and Marlboro were the greeters at the door.
The guide turned and spoke to Benjamin in hushed tones before Benjamin turned to the others.
“Okay,” he said. “He says we can stay here for fifty cents apiece. That includes dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow.”
“That’s nothing,” Cami said. “I think we should pay them more. Dinner by itself’ll be worth more than that.”
“No,” Agent Donner said, “we can’t let them think we have money to burn. They’ll rob us and dump our bodies in the river for the piranhas. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s no police out here.”
“He’
s right, Cam,” Benjamin said. “These people are noble ‘cause they live off the land, but they don’t think the same way we do. They only see survival.”
“Noble my ass,” Duncan said, motioning with his chin toward the village.
They turned to see what he was looking at. A man was strangling a woman while she fought against him with everything she had. As she fell to the ground, he began to kick her in the head before some of the elders ran over to restrain him. No one helped the woman up.
Sam sprinted over as Benjamin yelled, “No, don’t get involved.”
The woman was bloodied and the strangulation marks around her neck were bright red. Her nose was bleeding profusely and Sam held her hands open, hoping she understood that she was not here to harm. She took a first aid kit out of her pack and used guaze to control the bleeding, tilting the woman’s head back and squeezing the nostrils shut. When the bleeding had stopped, Sam checked her other wounds. A bruise on her eye was causing it to swell shut but she had no ice to give her.
“Are you okay? Bueno?” she said, realizing that the odds of her speaking Spanish were no better than her speaking English.
The woman rose without a word and began walking away before disappearing into one of the huts.
“What was that about?” Duncan asked.
Benjamin asked the guide and replied, “He says the woman had disobeyed her husband.”
“Disobeyed how?”
Benjamin asked and then translated, “He doesn’t know.”
Sam rose and turned to see the group of men leering at her, venom in their eyes. The man that had beaten the woman was waving his hands at her, clearly furious and causing a scene, like he wanted to come over and do the same to her. Just in case, Duncan walked over to her and put his hand on her arm.
“Funny thing about being out in the jungle,” she said to him. “People seem to forget their civility.”
“It’s not that, Sam. I think this might be what we naturally are without God.”
“Guys,” Benjamin shouted, “let’s get our huts set up. They’re having dinner soon and if we miss it, there won’t be any leftovers.”
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