by Chris Fox
They passed Luca’s café, the town’s only restaurant and the last structure before the north road. Jefe was waiting in the jeep. He wore his signature uniform, a pair of faded blue jeans and a black leather jacket. His salt-and-pepper hair was slicked back, reminding Liz of The Fonz, from that old show Happy Days.
“Liz. Get in, please. We have much to discuss. Rafael, go down to the station and tell them I want a patrol sent north. Turn back anyone heading up to Villa Milagros. No access. Tell them it’s quarantined,” Jefe commanded. She’d never met someone with such a confident air. His demeanor was something the entire village relied on. He was part mayor, part police chief.
“Yes, Jefe,” Rafael replied with a quick bob of his head. He hurried back into town at a fast walk while Liz slid into the passenger side of the battered jeep. The door gave a groan of protest as it slammed shut, spattering her white shirt with mud.
“Great.” Liz flicked off what dirt she could.
“You’ve heard I served in Desert Storm, right?” he asked as the jeep lurched up the dirt track. The locals called it a road, but Liz disagreed. Roads were paved. This was more like a goat trail, and calling it that was being generous. It jounced them about like a horse trying to shake its rider.
“Yes, I’d heard that,” she called back, over the roar of the engine. Jefe hadn’t ever discussed his past with her. Something big must be going on for him to let his guard down even this much. “Is that why your English is so good?”
“It is,” he admitted, resting a commanding gaze on her before shifting back to the road. “I saw a lot of really bad things there, things I won’t ever talk about. This is worse. I must ask your forgiveness for showing you this horror, but I don’t have any idea what killed these people. I need you to tell me what did this.”
“Killed?” Liz repeated, numb from the weight of the words. Her hair whipped in the wind as the jeep reached an alarming pace. “People are dead? How many? How did they die?”
“All of them. Except one,” Jefe replied flatly. The man was stone, as unconcerned by the hazardous drive as he was by the murders. “He’s still alive, and we don’t know why. We haven’t been able to wake him. I’m hoping you can, because if you can’t I’m not sure we’ll ever know what happened. I think he’s an American, maybe European. Blond hair.”
“What can you tell me? Is it sickness?” she asked, unaware of any disease that could wipe out an entire village in so short a time, unless some sort of chemical warfare was involved.
“No, not sickness.”
“But you told Rafael that Milagros is quarantined,” she said. The jeep ground over a steep rise, nearly toppling backward. Jefe just kept driving.
“Because I don’t want anyone seeing what really happened. These people were murdered, Liz. Violently,” he explained. His tone was as dispassionate as if he were counting bushels of corn.
“By who?” she asked so softly she wasn’t sure if he heard. The jeep jounced another fifty paces before he finally answered.
“No by who. By what,” he said, gunning the engine. The muffler belched a cloud of acrid exhaust as it labored up the trail, burning her eyes. “It looks like some sort of animal, like a bear or a lion.”
“But we don’t have either here. There isn’t anything capable of killing a man, let alone an entire village. There isn’t even a zoo for a couple hundred miles,” she replied, her mind working furiously to conjure something that could have killed so many.
“You begin to see why I brought you. Nothing I’ve ever heard of could do something like this,” Jefe said, shifting into a low gear as the Jeep angled up a slope no sane man would attempt to drive over. She clenched her eyes shut, gripping the seat for all she was worth. This was the spot Liz hated the most on the road to Milagros. “If it is an animal, then we must find and kill it. If it is a man, then we must find him, though I do not see how such a thing could be possible. No man could do this, no matter how evil.”
They fell into silence as the jeep lumbered up the hill, dense foliage pressing the trail from both sides. A cloud of green macaws burst from one of the trees, winging their way north in a riot of noise and color. The birds were beautiful in a way she knew she’d never find back home in California. She wished she could share the sight with Trevor. He was so serious most of the time, but she knew the flock would have brought out one of her brother’s boyish grins.
“We’re nearly there,” Jefe said, rather unnecessarily. She could clearly see the ramshackle houses in the distance. Villa Milagros was even more poverty stricken than Villa Consuelo, and she always had a difficult time coming up here.
Normally both parents and children would be in the cornfields by now, weeding and pruning to ensure the best harvest possible. The rows of corn on three sides of the little town stood empty, untroubled save for the slight summer breeze. There was no sign of anyone moving between the homes, in and out of the town’s shops, or even around the bar. Marta’s little Honda Civic was parked outside her house, and Sandoval’s tractor stood idle next to his field. Until she got closer, Liz thought the place looked deserted. Then she saw the shattered doors hanging in frames, the spatters of blood on dirty windows. There were furrows in the mud where something heavy had been dragged.
Jefe parked the jeep just outside town, close enough to see where the carnage had apparently taken place but far enough away to not smell the blood. It was still closer than Liz would like, and she was thankful that the breeze was coming from the south, blocking whatever unwelcome odors filled the town. No longer caring about the mud spattering her t-shirt, she exited the vehicle. Mud seemed so trivial in light of the tragedy that had befallen these people.
“Gonzalez has been gathering the bodies into a grave,” Jefe said, his voice subdued for once. He started up the road, pausing long enough for her to catch up. “I’d like you to examine them before they are buried. Just to see if you can identify the wounds. Then we will take you to the survivor and see if you can wake him.”
The pair walked in silence as they navigated the dirt road through the town. Like Villa Consuelo, the town only had one road, so they passed every house and business as they walked. All had been damaged. Doors kicked in or a window shattered. A few had bullet holes, though those were rare. Who had been shooting? And at what?
“Over here,” Jefe said, leaving the road to pass through rows of corn.
Liz followed, growing increasingly nervous about what horror might lie waiting. She’d seen a dead body once, but the woman had died in her sleep. It wasn’t at all the same thing. She steeled herself as they finally left the corn, emerging near the clearing the village used as a graveyard. Gonzalez stood shirtless in a hole that came to his waist, shoulders flexing as he heaved another shovelful of dirt from the mass grave he was digging.
Next to him lay neatly stacked bodies, dozens of them. Men, women, and children. All were covered in blood. Some were missing a limb, others a head. A few had been torn entirely in half. Most had been partially eaten. The gore was more than Liz could take, and she dropped to her knees, retching the remains of her breakfast onto the damp soil.
“Take your time, Liz,” Jefe said, resting a calloused hand on her shoulder. “I am sorry you have to see this, but we must know what caused these wounds.”
Liz wiped her mouth with the back of a hand and wobbled to her feet. She approached the stack of bodies, which had already attracted a thick carpet of flies. The corpses stank, cloying and acrid at the same time. She knelt next to one of the bodies, a partially eaten man.
“Jesus, I need a cigarette. You know I’m not a real doctor, right? Everything I know about forensics comes from TV shows,” she admitted, when she could finally speak.
“I know. You’re all we have, Liz.”
“I’ll do what I can. I’m guessing the jaw is canine, from this bite,” She said, voice quavering but as steady as she could make it. “I don’t see any obvious claw marks, not the sort you’d expect from a great cat. It might be a bear, b
ut the wounds are the wrong shape for that. This is like a dog attack. Or a wolf, maybe. Something with a muzzle.”
“If it was, then it must have been a really big dog,” Gonzalez said, pausing to wipe sweat from his forehead. He didn’t meet Liz’s gaze.
“So, a dog then. Perhaps a mastiff or a large pit bull?” Jefe asked.
“Maybe, but I doubt it. Look at this. The arm has been crushed, like in a vice. This thing must have had one hell of a grip,” Liz said, strangely fascinated by the carnage. What had attacked these people?
“Is there anything else you can tell us?” Jefe asked, placid calm back in place.
“No, not without a real autopsy. That’s not something I’m qualified to perform, anyway.”
“Very well,” Jefe said, moving to the far side of the grave. He squatted near the base of an enormous sycamore tree, its wide canopy providing the only shelter from the sweltering sun. “Come and take a look at this. I have never seen the like.”
Liz followed Jefe, picking a trail through the thick mud. She knelt next to the area he’d indicated, understanding immediately why he wanted her opinion. The track was far too large to be that of a wolf or a dog. It might even be too large to have been a bear, but she suspected the markings might be around the right size for a grizzly. The shape was all wrong, though.
“What do you think?” Jefe asked after allowing her to study the track.
“From the size, I want to say it’s a bear, but the track is too long. It’s more what I’d expect to see of a primate, like a gorilla,” she mused, picking up a stick that had fallen from the sycamore. She used it to illustrate as she spoke. “But see the front end of the foot? It has four pads just like a dog. I have no idea what it is. Maybe we can take a picture and send it on to the university at Cajamarca?”
“I’ll get my camera from the jeep, but first we have business to attend to,” Jefe said, rising to his feet. “It’s time to wake the survivor and see what he knows.”
Chapter 18- Not Dead
Blair returned to consciousness by degrees. His own deep, sure breaths were the first things he latched onto. They felt so different from the ragged gasps he last remembered. Then came his heartbeat, strong and steady. He shivered, eyes opening as he remembered his heart stopping. It was the last thing he remembered. Should have been the final thing he remembered. Dying.
He raised his head and examined his surroundings. That was something else he shouldn’t be able to do. Where were his glasses? He was all but blind without them, or at least he should have been. Yet he wasn’t blind. He could see with a clarity not even his glasses had afforded him. Details leapt out at him: the rust spots on the metal counter, the worn plastic of the four chairs arrayed near the door, the faded lettering on the stoppered bottles in the wooden cabinet across the room. Penicillin. This place must be a clinic.
A detached part of his mind guessed that the team had flown him to a hospital, but the rest was latching onto the obvious. Not only was he alive, but he’d also been changed. Changed by whatever had happened with the statue. The incident paralleled a number of bad movies, really. The mousy scholar inherits super powers from a long dead alien race, or in this case, a vanished culture.
Blair looked down and realized that he was naked save for a thin white sheet. Well, not quite naked. There was a handcuff around his right wrist, and it was chained to the bed’s ancient metal frame. What the hell? That wasn’t all he noticed. His carefully cultivated wine gut was gone, replaced by abs Hugh Jackman would envy. Prehistoric Aliens—even better than the gym.
It is part of the change, Ka-Dun.
He froze, unable to process the voice that had just echoed in his own head. It was deep. Powerful. And it could hear his thoughts. Before he could answer, his neck whipped around, toward a new sound.
“He is inside. Doesn't seem hurt, but he won’t wake up,” a gruff voice said from outside the warped wooden door in the front of the small clinic. Footsteps were approaching, thundering in his ears. Three distinct sets—two heavier and one, either a woman or a child, lighter.
“It could be a concussion. Head wounds sometimes cause trauma, and if there’s swelling in the brain, it could prevent him from waking up,” came a muffled female voice. Was that a Californian accent?
The door groaned open, the top hinge very nearing pulling free from the wall as it did so. The breeze that accompanied it made Blair aware of just how stifling the room was. He was drenched in sweat. He relaxed, feigning sleep while watching the door’s warped reflection on the metal cabinets beneath the counter.
Two blurry figures entered the room while a third cast a shadow across the doorway from somewhere outside. The first wore a leather jacket and was definitely tall. His companion was a shorter woman with long copper hair. He couldn’t make out much from the reflection, but tan shorts exposed long, creamy legs.
“We think the killing happened last night. Gonzalez found the bodies this morning, and this man was unconscious, covered in blood. Gonzalez cuffed him to the bed in case he goes crazy when he wakes up,” the man explained. Who the hell were these people? And why were they worried he might go crazy?
“He’s already awake,” the woman said, circling the bed. She kept carefully out of his reach. “His back is too tense, and I can see him watching our reflection in that metal cabinet.”
Blair rolled over slowly. No sense in hiding anymore. He pulled his knees to the kind of chest he’d always envied, stifling questions as he took a better look at the pair. The woman’s hair fell just past her shoulders, and she wore the sort of large sunglasses Audrey Hepburn had made famous. She had a mud-spattered t-shirt and khakis that revealed shapely legs. Very shapely.
Her companion had slicked-back hair and eyes like flint. His gaze seized Blair, weighing him on some invisible scale as he took slow steps toward the bed. Blair could glean nothing from the man’s expression, but the way his hand rested on the gun belted to his side spoke volumes.
“Who are you?” the man asked, looming over the bed. His breath stank of tobacco.
“Who are you?” Blair growled back, taken aback by a surge of anger. His shoulders squared almost of their own accord, and he held the man’s gaze without flinching. “Where am I? Why am I cuffed to a bed? And why the hell am I naked?”
Silence grew. The man reached into his jacket and withdrew a pack of cigarettes. He offered one to the woman, who seemed on the verge of taking one before finally shaking her head. The man turned back to Blair.
“Most interesting. You are angry and confused by your predicament. And why not? You awake naked and chained to a bed. Not a position to envy,” the man drawled, tapping the pack against his palm. “We, too, have a predicament. We are distraught over the slaughter of this entire village. Let us put emotions aside and try to reason this out. Why don’t we begin with names? I am called Jefe. This is Doctor Liz. The man you can’t see outside is Gonzalez. And now it is your turn.”
“All right, I can be reasonable. My name is Blair Smith. Professor Blair Smith,” he said. He emphasized the title Jordan had given him, thinking it might make him sound more legitimate than a teacher at a junior college. And right now, he needed any credibility he could muster. He was acutely aware of his nakedness. It was unsettling. It made him feel trapped. Anxious.
“Very well, Professor Blair Smith,” Jefe continued, dragging a plastic chair toward the bed and turning it to face Blair. He slouched down into it, slipping out of his leather jacket and allowing it to wrap over the back of the chair. The pack of cigarettes was still clutched in one hand. “Why don’t you tell me what you remember last?”
The woman he’d identified as Liz pulled up a chair of her own, though she kept it much further from the bed. He didn’t blame her for being cautious. Naked American teachers were probably a pretty rare sight.
“I was at a dig site up in the mountains, someplace called Cajamarca. There’s a pyramid there. A very old pyramid,” he said, fumbling through the fog in search of memor
ies. “We found a way into the inner chamber, but the door was trapped. I was poisoned, I think. I thought I was dead.”
“You had companions with you? People that can verify this dig site?” Jefe asked, posture straightening as his gaze intensified. Blair got the sense that his next words were very important.
“I had a team with me, but I don’t know where they are. I guess it’s possible they could have brought me here for treatment,” Blair reasoned, glancing at the doctor. He couldn’t read her with those sunglasses on. “You know, you probably know more than I do. Why am I cuffed? And what was the point of taking my clothes?”
“You were naked when we found you,” Jefe said, finally tapping a cigarette out of a pack. He cupped the end with one hand and lit it with a lighter fished from another pocket. He took a long drag before continuing. “We cuffed you because everyone in this village is dead. Everyone except you.”
Blair collapsed against the bed, strength deserting him even faster than Steve and Bridget had. Everyone was dead? What about Bridget? Or Sheila? Were they dead too? If they were, how had he gotten here? And what had happened to these people?
“Look at his reaction,” Liz broke in, rising from her chair and taking a step closer to the bed. “You can see from his expression he’s as shocked as we are. He doesn’t know anything.”
“Maybe,” Jefe said, blowing a lungful of smoke in Blair’s direction. “Maybe not. He could be a good liar. Or he could be crazy. What if he doesn’t remember what he did?”
“Let’s give him a chance,” Liz demanded, staring hard at Jefe over the rim of her sunglasses. It was Blair’s first glimpse of her eyes, shockingly blue, like a patch of sky just after a storm. “Blair, we’re in the Cajamarca region of Peru. Can you describe this dig site? Where was it?”
