The Artifact: Natasha Burrows Series Book One

by Phillips, Michelle

  “I’m not sure. My uncle said that he hitched a ride with a small mining company, he didn’t give the name of the village he went to, but he did give us the mining companies details.”

  “Ok, so we go there. See if we can hitch a ride on their next plane out.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” She stood up, stretching and straightening herself out.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Awakening

  As soon as they stepped off the plane a humid warmth washed over him, carrying the aroma of rainforest trees and automobile exhaust. Ciudad Bolivar was only an hour away from Caracas by air, but it was vastly different to the city they had just left.

  It was like they had stepped back in time, with many houses and buildings still standing that dated back to the colonial period. It had more of a relaxed, touristy feel about the place.

  They found the offices of the mining company easily enough, located in a small building near the city centre, marked by a small handwritten sign taped to the door that simply said ‘out to lunch’ with a mobile number included for a man named David.

  “Well I guess that is our cue” said Xavier “we should go and have some lunch too.” He pulled out his phone and started calling David. “Hi David?” he said “I’m not sure if you are expecting us. My name is Xavier and I’m travelling with Natasha Burrows.” Xavier nodded a few times “Ok, we’ll meet you there.”

  “He’s just around the corner” said Xavier, “and he was expecting us.”

  “Of course he was” said Tasha rolling her eyes. “Is there anyone in the entire universe my Uncle hasn’t told?”

  “He thinks that we are research scientists.”

  “Oh ok” said Tasha slightly relieved.

  “Come on, let’s go and have lunch.”

  They walked around the corner, spotting a restaurant a few buildings down. They walked to the restaurant, to find David, sitting at one of the tables at the front, napkin firmly around his neck, hunkering down on something that Tasha could not identify. He waved wildly to them like a madman, in case they had missed seeing him.

  David looked like he was around forty and doing well for his age. He appeared to be Spanish in descent with an olive complexion and thick dark hair and eyes. He looked fit, the kind of fit that you get from working outdoors, and not from pushing pencil behind a desk.

  “Hi, I’m David” he said standing and extending his hand to them his face flashing with one of the largest smiles she had ever seen. “I stayed back, your uncle told me you would be coming.” His English was very good, with only a slight trace of an accent. They introduced themselves to him and he plunked himself back down, motioning for them to sit down.

  “Eat, eat. You have to try the Cassava bread” David stuffed a piece of bread down his gullet like a hungry seagull at an all you can eat chip buffet. “It’s well known around here.”

  “I think I’ll have what you are having” Xavier eye his meal hungrily “I’ll have the Carapacho De Morrocoy Guayanés.”

  “What is that?” Tasha asked her eyes widening at the sight of something that looked like a stew in a weird oblong misshapen grey earthen dish. The smell emanating off it was aromatic and salty like the ocean.

  “Turtle” said Xavier “or more correctly tortoise. How great is this?” he said gleefully looking at David’s meal, “they serve it in its shell.”

  She really thought at this moment she was going to be sick. “Turtle?” she repeated weakly wanting to yak.

  “What's the matter?” asked Xavier looking concerned.

  “I’m a vegetarian” she grimaced, “do they have anything with… less turtle in it?”

  “They don’t know the meaning of that here” Xavier joked.

  David smiled accommodatingly. “I’ll get you a plate of vegetables.” He motioned to the waiter with the wave of two circling fingers and placed their order.

  “So,” said David, glancing at them both. “I have been waiting on you. I need to head out and join the others on the concession. “Your uncle” he said looking directly at Tasha “left with my business partners a few days ago.”

  “Where is your concession?” asked Tasha innocently.

  “I can’t really say, it is a bit of a secret, don’t want anyone else crashing our party, but I can say that we will be at least several hundred miles into the jungle south of Ciudad Bolivar, towards the Brazilian border.” He looked at them both quizzically. “It’s quite a long way out for you guys - what are you researching out there?”

  Tasha silently cursed her Uncle. “Didn’t my Uncle tell you?” she asked innocently.

  “No, he didn’t really say much” David said, slurping down some stew with a piece of bread, feigning disinterest.

  “That would be a first” she muttered to herself. “We are here to study the Yanomami people.” David’s eyes narrowed slightly, it was hard to discern what he was thinking.

  “She’s too modest” said Xavier, “she is actually a doctor. She does a lot of work with the indigenous people.” David smiled nodding and went back to piling his mouth full of food. Tasha shot daggers at Xavier kicking him under the table.

  They finished eating and David stood up, wiping sauce from his face with his napkin, dabbing it from his face like he was at a five-star restaurant. “Well” he said motioning to the door. “If you guys are all refueled and rested, then I’m ready to go.”

  Xavier nodded “We’re ready.” He gathered up their bags, and they followed David who hailed a taxi which took them to a private airport. The taxi was in such a state of disrepair, there was a chain holding up the driver's seat, and she didn’t have a door handle to get out, she was stuck once she got in, whether she liked it or not.

  He drove them through the traffic to a small landing strip that they would shortly depart from on the way to the concession.

  Xavier and Tasha waited whilst David arranged to have the aircraft pushed out onto the runway by half a dozen or so of the airport workers.

  “You didn’t have to kick me like that” he growled turning to her.

  “What the hell,” she shot out petulantly at him. “A doctor? I thought when you told a lie you should keep it as simple as possible, you know, to avoid being found out.”

  “Trust me honey” said Xavier holding his hands out doing spirit fingers, overacting as if he was gay, “he wasn’t buying your whole…. we need to study the natives’ routine.”

  “Well, ok then genius, what do I do now if anyone… you know… actually needs a doctor?” she asked exasperated, putting the emphasis on the word need.

  “Fake it” he replied without a second thought.

  “Are you serious?” she said flabbergasted by his flippancy. “What the….?” she had caught a glimpse of the small six-seater aircraft and it wasn’t pretty.

  To say the dual engine aircraft was not in the best state of repair would be an understatement. Tasha looked in horror to see the engine shrouds were held on with bailing wire, some of the cargo doors were held together with duct tape. She grabbed at Xavier’s arm in horror.

  “Please tell me that is not our plane.”

  “That is not our plane” he said.

  “Wow, you’re a laugh a minute. I can’t go on that thing” she was starting to have a panic attack. She was breathing in shorter, shallower breaths and the world felt like it was slowly closing claustrophobically in around her.

  “I’m afraid you have no choice. There are no commercial airliners that will do this kind of run.”

  “I know that” she said angrily “I’m not that silly, but isn’t there some kind of aviation standard in this country?”

  “You did see the taxi we arrived in, didn’t you? This is a third world country.”

  “Well I won’t be going on that plane” she said adamantly folding her arms like a two-year old. “You can’t make me.”

  “Suit yourself, you have come this far.” He tried calling her bluff.

  “I haven’t prepared my will, and I don’t
have a funeral plan” she joked wryly. “Plus, on the coroner's death certificate, my cause of death would have to be labelled as death by misadventure and not by accident because of the condition of that plane, and I’m pretty sure my insurance company doesn’t pay out for that…”

  Her voice trailed off when she noticed it was only falling on deaf ears. She looked miserably at the plane. She didn’t know how she was going to get on it without a serious amount of Valium in her system. The worst part was, Xavier seemed to enjoy her apprehensive observations about the plane whilst their luggage was being loaded.

  David looked at her, and seeing her misgivings tried to improve her mood. He smiled cheerily at her and proudly told them that the aircraft company they were using had the best record of non-accidents in the whole country.

  However, he made the mistake of adding that the landing strip on the concession was quite small and hard to get onto because of a large hill that had to be dropped over quickly in order to touch down at the beginning of the runway. In fact, he informed them that the company had lost one of their planes trying to land on the concession only a couple of weeks before.

  “Gosh, was anyone hurt?” asked Tasha her eyebrows raised.

  “All dead,” replied David with that infuriating smile still on his face.

  Tasha turned to Xavier “get me out of here” she said in a barely audible tone. “This guy is either insane or a psychopath, take your pick.” Xavier ignored her and clambered on the plane.

  “Xavier” she called, leaning to try to catch his eye. He continued to ignore her.

  “Damn it” she muttered. It was either get on the plane or be left alone in a country where she didn’t have a hope of surviving alone. She climbed charily into the plane.

  “Good god!” she exclaimed seeing that the instrument panel was held in place by safety pins, some which were not holding very well. She looked up and through the front window and saw a large bank of dark clouds rolling in. It was somewhat unsettling. “Is that a storm coming?” she asked. “I could swear the sky was clear not barely ten minutes ago?”

  “Welcome to the Amazon” said David; you guessed it, smiling.

  Welcome indeed she thought, silently vindictive against him. Was she the only sane one here?

  The flight, Tasha reckoned by anyone's account would be terrifying. As soon as they were in the air, the rains started and they were in and out of clouds for the remainder of the flight, much of the time with zero visibility outside the airplane.

  Inside the airplane, Tasha had the misfortune to note that both the fuel tank gauges were on empty. When she pointed this fact out to David his reply was “Yer, they don’t work properly.” All with that stupid grin on his face like a moronic mad hatter. She was a hairsbreadth away from ripping it of his sardonic face. She remembered what her father used to joke, under certain conditions, anyone could become a murderer. She now understood the truth of it.

  She started fanning herself. She noted with disgust that she was sweating profusely, both of her underarms were satched with sticky sweat. She didn’t even have any wipes handy. Normally she would have considered this to be a disaster, but in the light of what she was currently facing she was able to see the insignificance of this for the first time.

  Occasionally they would break through the clouds and see nothing but dense jungle below them, as far as the eye could see. They were now in the North Coast of South America along the Caribbean Sea, deep in the Amazon. The further south they flew; the larger and denser the clouds became. Fear twined and turned in her stomach, like a vicious rampageous parasitic vine growing in the rainforest below.

  “There's a lot of things out there in that jungle that want to kill you” said David looking down at the rolling green trees in between a break in the clouds.

  “Xavier has been telling me” said Tasha her face a combination of white with flushed cheeks, a bit like a painted Matryoshka Russian nesting doll. She didn’t realise it could be possible to be both at the same time.

  “That’s why I carry this beauty,” crowed David, pointing proudly to a double barrel shotgun he had packed beside him, as hundreds of miles of jungle rushed beneath them in what felt like the blink of an eye, and yes, there was that smile again.

  The engine droned on, seeming to struggle at moments, or so she thought. She closed her eyes and tried to think of other things, other than listening to every rattle and clank, but quite honestly nothing came to mind.

  Frankly it would take a whole lot more than her favourite things to make her forget the rust bucket they were now imprisoned in. She loved the Sound of Music, but honestly, Julie Andrews must have been on Prozac to come up with that song. Unarrested, her fear lurched large inside her, a runaway elephant trampling every other thought that came to mind.

  Finally, after quite some time, through a break in the heavy clouds, David caught a glimpse of their landing site and pointed it out to them.

  “Thank goodness” he said. “If visibility had remained like this we would have had to turn around and try again.”

  The landing site was a short runway raggedly cut out of the jungle. At first Tasha could not believe that they truly were going to try to land there. But sure enough, it was the base camp for the concession. David decided to make one low pass over it

  “Look!” said Xavier, pointing out the window. “There is a small local village right near the base camp.”

  Tasha looked out of the side of her eyes, not really wanting to watch whilst they were landing. She had caught a glimpse of the landing strip on the fly by and saw that it was filled with puddles and looked to be mostly mud. She thought they would have a better chance landing in a crater on the moon than that dank quagmire of a swamp masquerading as a landing strip. She couldn’t see how a pilot could even land on such a short muddy strip, and she had no idea if David was actually classified, legally that was, as a pilot. She looked at Xavier, who seemed to be enjoying every second of the adventure, and instantly felt like she wanted to vomit. His shoes looked like a good place to do it too, she thought vindictively.

  In order to land on the strip properly, David had to fly just over the treetops, around a ridge and drop quickly over a hill almost in a full dive just to get low enough and fast enough to meet the beginning of the runway. Never in her life had she been in a plane that had actually tapped the tops of trees as it was going in for a landing. She made a silent prayer, that she would never again be afraid to fly if she ever made it through this landing and out the other side; alive.

  The thump, thump of the trees hitting the wheels of the plane put her into somewhat of a panic. Like an ant trapped under the concentrated rays of a magnifying glass, running helpless, safe in no direction, her hands fretting continuously along the leather seams of her chair armrests, biting her lip until it felt frayed.

  She clasped Xavier's hand tight, by the looks of him he was revelling in it. She hated herself for her vulnerability in that moment, but she was too far gone to even care. The plane landed with a thud and jerked unsteadily across the muddy pools. She sighed a sigh of pure relief as it pulled to a stop, and realising she was still holding Xavier's hand, pulled away for it was all for nothing. They had arrived safely in the jungle, and she felt like cheering that she was still alive.

  David turned to them. “Well guys I can say that we are at least several hundred miles in into the jungle south of Ciudad Bolivar and towards the Brazilian border. Any which way you go from here, you are deep in the Amazon.” Yet again, he had managed to instill fear into her every crevice without even trying. From now on in, they were going to continue on foot, and from all accounts that wasn’t going to be easy either.

  One of the first things she noticed was actually the smell, it was similar to what you would experience in a well planted greenhouse; the combined scent of vegetation, moisture, soil and decaying plants and wood. It was also fresh and crisp, and unpolluted. She took a deep breath of the pure unadulterated air, letting it fill her lungs completely,
and released it gently trying to recentre herself after the stress of the flight.

  She looked around taking in the beauty of the jungle. It was a remote and exotic location, like another universe, but she was soon to find out that the conditions were extraordinarily terrible.

  She stepped off the plane, legs wobbling like jelly freshly released from its mold.

  “Tasha!” it was her Uncle, arms outstretched happy to see her.

  “Uncle” she cried falling into his arms, so overwhelmed she burst into tears.

  “Oh come now,” he said pulling away from her “are you that glad to see and old fellow like me? What indeed has the world come to?”

  “No you don’t.” She said, lightly slapping him on his upper arm. “I’m not, I’m actually really quite mad at you!” she exclaimed.

  “Oh, come, come” he said putting his arm around her like he did when she was a child. “Come now, everything is alright Tatty dear.

  “Are you serious?” she said, looking at him closely in the eyes.

  “Come now,” he said looking aside at David. “We’ll catch up after you have a rest and something to eat.”

  She saw the direction of his glance and realised she needed to hold her tongue. “Ok” she said reluctantly, aching to give him a verbal tongue lashing, realising it wasn’t in her best interests at the moment.

  Tahsa’s Uncle Eugene was like a father to her. Ever since her own father had died when she only twelve her uncle had stepped in and taken the reigns so to speak. Her mother had been hysterical, harping on about how her father just couldn’t help getting himself into trouble like it was his middle name or something.

  Uncle Eugene would always bring her back down again. “Sylvia, Sylvia” he would say “you have the girl to think about now. Okay?” Mostly though, her mother was just sad, vacant like a discombobulated doll on Prozac, with interspersed moments of teary anger at her father, Reginald Burrows Jr, for leaving them in the lurch.

  Her mother was loving but strict, a straight arrow so to speak, and certainly no substitute for the fun loving, rambunctious Reginald who always returned from strange and exotic places laden with gifts and tall tales filled with adventures.