by Jacob Hammes
“We leave the vehicles here with Henry and Stephen. David, Cynthia and I will accompany you. If we see that something has gone wrong, we turn tail and run—no shots fired. We aren’t here to start a war, nor are we here to fight someone else’s.”
“Sounds good,” Stewart said, making sure his glasses were seated comfortably on his pointy nose. “I will take all the help I can get. If we see anyone, we will just turn tail and run until the cavalry arrives.”
“Phillip,” Marcus whispered loudly over the noise of the drone and the rapids from the river. “Do you have control of the drone?”
A few thousand miles away, Phillip was grinning behind the best video game he had ever played. The large television in front of him showed a very serious Marcus centered in a camera while ten different adjustments controlled the drone itself. The small machine had six rotating blades which gave it the ability to move like a miniature helicopter. Though it seemed difficult to operate, Phillip had it under control in a matter of seconds.
“Got you, boss,” he answered. “Just get me into a clear area so that I can take off, vertically.”
“Fly this thing toward the river, straight ahead,” Marcus responded, turning the drone and letting it go. It floated noisily, but effortlessly, in midair. “There, you should be able to get above the canopy and scan the area. Just remember to use the thermal camera so that you can cut through the bushes.”
Phillip did as he was told and the drone was sailing high above the trees in no time. Henry was nearly invisible behind tree branches while Stephen grinned near the truck. Together the team could take on a small army, though none of them really relished the thought.
Without another word, Stephen set himself on the back of the truck and watched a feed from the drone while Henry took up a good overlook position. The drivers, Ekundayo and his counterpart plus the few other guards would flank the team alongside the river in order to get a better view. The rest crept quietly out into the woods, well away from the road, and started moving silently forward.
Within minutes they were in eyeshot of the village. About twenty or so plywood houses with tin roofs lined each side of a single dirt road. The place was self-sufficient as far as Marcus could tell. To the far end of the village was a clearing with something that looked like a small farm, an aid station which was clearly marked, and a garage. Though only a few trucks were present, the garage seemed as if it was the most used building in town.
Marcus immediately spotted people, though not the kind he had hoped for. There were between thirty and forty people lying face down in the street, all bathed in blood. Some had very noticeable injuries while others appeared as though they might still be alive. He knew better, though. Those bodies just weren’t massacred like the others.
In the center of the street very close to where the team was hiding was a round cluster of rocks that Marcus knew was a well. It even had a rope that went down into the low circular wall, yet with a river nearby he wondered what use it would serve.
“What happened here?” Marcus whispered. Cynthia cursed audibly behind them.
“Guerillas,” spat Stewart. “Either that, or something to do with our mineral deposits. It may be that this is the reason that box has just surfaced—someone knows something we don’t.”
Marcus started wondering about the missionaries. They had complained of strange symptoms like they had experienced around the boat, yet the team felt nothing where they stood. He wondered if the village had been massacred by one of the machines that made people hallucinate.
If a boat full of sane people could be swayed into killing one another, perhaps an entire village could as well.
A buzzing sound that reminded Marcus of a mosquito sounded from overhead. He looked up to see the drone slowly making its way across the small village.
“What the hell,” Stephen said over the radio. “This entire place is dead.”
“Anything you can tell us that we don’t already know?” Marcus chided.
“I’m not picking up any heat signals in the city,” Phillip replied, since he was the one operating the drone. “Whoever did this must have left quite a while ago; the bodies are all cold.”
Marcus cursed under his breath. He didn’t really want to walk into a village strewn with dead bodies. The thought of coming up on someone that wasn’t exactly dead made his skin crawl. To add to his trepidation, he knew the drone couldn’t see through walls. That meant that they would be going door-to-door.
“Might as well get a move on,” David said, standing up behind a tree. “You guys move forward and I’ll cover you.”
“I think we should stick around and scope the area for just a few more minutes,” Marcus said. “There could easily be some people in those buildings. I would rather come out of this with my head attached to my shoulders.”
They all agreed caution was the best course of action and waited silently in the brush. Besides the sound of the water flowing through the steep walled cliffs only a hundred or so meters away and the buzzing of bugs, bees, and the drone above, the team could hear nothing. Not even the distant sound of local wildlife broke the constant sounds of the rapids
“I’m going to go check it out,” Stewart finally said, popping his head up.
Marcus didn’t like the idea of moving. They had hardly just arrived and Stewart wanted to make his way into an obviously hostile situation. It simply seemed like a bad idea to him.
“We’re going to make a few passes around this place first,” Marcus said.
“Go ahead,” Stewart said, anger lining his voice. Before anyone could stop him, he bolted from cover and headed for a small stone wall that formed a circle in the opening between the trees and the houses. Marcus cursed and tried to make Stewart turn back, but he waved him off and continued forward.
Marcus knew his team would never make such rookie mistakes, but Stewart was not a part of that elite team. He ran from cover in pursuit of Stewart, as much to protect him as to scold him, staying low every step.
He arrived, angry and ready to berate the man, but something stopped him. In the distance, a flock of birds took flight over the trees. It was ominous, as the quiet clack of a weapon quickly followed their departure.
Before anyone could make another move, Ekundayo motioned for everyone to stop what they were doing and hold still. They all complied, knowing full well the native Nigerian had heard something, too. To everyone’s simultaneous dismay, the sound quickly became audible for everyone to hear—trucks motoring in from the opposite side of town.
Before they could make a break for the trees, the trucks came into view, forcing Marcus and Stewart to seek shelter on their bellies. In a matter of seconds, they screeched to a halt before one of the buildings, sending dust and dirt up into the air beneath their tires. Men, all huge and unaware they were being watched, poured from inside the trucks. They all seemed jovial enough, but the weapons which they held nonchalantly belied their true intent.
They were guerillas.
Neither dared peek around the corner. Marcus held his weapon low and kept one arm over his counterpart so that he couldn’t move either. They lie motionless for a moment, listening to the men laughing amongst one another. Lying quietly, he could hear them shuffling about but thankfully not approaching.
Marcus rolled slowly over to his back, cognizant of the fact he had to remain low. Above him, just over the tree, Marcus saw something that couldn’t possibly go unnoticed. The drone, only sixty or seventy feet above them, was buzzing noisily in his direction.
“Get that drone out of here,” Marcus whispered violently into his microphone. “We’ve got a bunch of bad guys that look armed to the teeth and so far they haven’t seen us. I’d like it to remain that way.”
Luck was not with them.
As Phillip steered the drone away from the clearing, it buzzed louder than usual. The extra noise alerted the group of guerillas to the drone’s presence. Savage men acted just like Marcus figured they would. While some ducked bac
k inside their trucks, afraid that the might be the target of some form of attack, others started shooting.
Though their guns weren’t extremely accurate, they were automatic. Marcus had no way of telling which one of the three men who started shooting had hit the drone, but he knew one of them had when the buzzing stopped and the drone fell in a mangled heap from the sky.
Marcus started regretting the fact that he had left the shelter of the woods. How on earth they had such bad luck was beyond him.
The sinking feeling of dismay replaced what used to be hope as Marcus realized the drone had fallen directly between them and the cover from which they had just left. He knew then there was no way they were getting out of the ordeal without the use of firearms. As he resigned himself to the fact, he made sure his weapon’s safety was disengaged.
“Looks like we’re in for it,” Marcus whispered. “Any ideas?”
The three men who had been firing at the drone were now cautiously approaching, cutting the distance between them and the wall with every step. It would only be moments before they rounded the low stone barrier in hopes of figuring out what the smoking drone was. Then, they would see two hiding Americans.
“We have them on two angles,” Stewart said, pointing to their own drivers, hiding behind a building near the stream. Already, they had their weapons pointed at the backs of the approaching individuals. The presumed murderers were sure to have four sets of weapons leveled on them, yet Marcus didn’t feel any better.
Yet another heap of dismay came crashing down upon the team as a building door cracked open. More men, these ones with the discarded remains of what used to be human beings, walked calmly through the opening. There were ten or fifteen—Marcus couldn’t tell from his angle. All he knew was that now, with the approaching men and the people who were coming out of the buildings, they were outnumbered five to one.
Something about the situation made Marcus suspicious. How had they been taken by surprise like they had? It felt strange that men would be hiding only to show up when the team ended up in the open.
Marcus couldn’t tell who started firing first, but the men who had just walked out of the door started dropping rapidly. The three who had set their sights on the drone wheeled around as quickly as they could. From where they stood, they could see Ekundayo and his counterpart firing into the crowd. They opened up on the two drivers, turning them and the wall behind them into an unholy mess.
Stewart acted as well. Whether it was from rage or training, Marcus couldn’t tell. He stood up and shot two of the men through the back before the third turned and took aim. He never got a shot off, though, as he fell in a heap of lifeless flesh and bones after Cynthia took a chunk out of his skull.
More men were shooting now. Besides those who had already come from the houses, more started appearing. The buildings were close enough to each other to provide a small amount of cover between structures, so most of the men dove in between the plywood walls. Others ran for the trees to take up flanking positions and even more simply stood in the street and met quick ends.
“What the hell,” Marcus roared. “Where did all these guys come from?”
“They must have taken over the town a few days ago,” said Stewart, squeezing off round after round over the low stone wall. “I’ve never seen this before.”
“Stephen,” Marcus crowed into his own collar-mounted microphone. “We’re going to need assistance up here, quick.”
“No can do, boss,” Stephen replied. “They must have set a trap for us. Someone knew we were coming. The road is blocked behind us and there are at least five men shooting at us.”
Marcus cursed and shouted loudly. How could it be possible someone had known they were coming? Perhaps they knew the mine was still usable and figured someone would come to check it out once the locals stopped responding. Maybe it had something to do with the box after all. Marcus wondered whether or not they had been lured into an elaborate trap that had started with that box.
“We need to evacuate the area,” Marcus said to no one in particular. “Cynthia and David will keep us covered until we get back into the trees, then we can regroup and get out of here.”
Stewart nodded his head. Marcus stood up and fired a few rounds toward the bad guys, all the while intending on sprinting into the woods as quickly as he could. Unfortunately, something happened Marcus had not counted on. Stewart, in his strange attire and his shining glasses, had blood leaking from his mouth. Marcus looked at him, astonished he had been hit so quickly. A dark red spot was spreading from a central point in his chest, leaking down his stomach rapidly.
“Son of a bitch,” he groaned, stumbling hard into Marcus. Marcus knew what was coming, but couldn’t do anything to stop it. He tripped over a fallen rock, slammed his butt on the top of the low wall and grasped wildly for anything that would keep him from falling over. Though his hands worked hard to snag the stones as he fell, his fingers refused to find purchase. He toppled over backwards into the dark abysmal depths of what he had thought was a well.
“Marcus!” screamed Cynthia, nearly running out from the cover of the forest to help her team leader. “Marcus, no!”
Bits and pieces of trees started splintering away as whoever the bad guys were saw their new targets. They fired round after round, unable to hit anything but trees. It was enough to make David throw Cynthia to the ground and cover her with his massive body. After a moment, he took an opportunity he figured he would not get again. In one swift movement, he hauled her up off the ground and started tugging her through the trees.
The high screeching sound of an incoming rocket sent them back to their bellies. The blast and subsequent heat wave forced them to shove their faces into the dirt, hoping they wouldn’t be blown to bits. Trees fell as the rocket propelled grenade exploded, cutting through the wood like hot steel through butter. Shrapnel peppered both the teammates, though nothing serious enough to stop them in their tracks.
They both got up and ran in unison, knowing all too well that they were leaving their team leader down a well shaft to die, if he hadn’t already. David was like a bull in the thick underbrush, tossing tree limbs aside as if they didn’t even exist. Cynthia merely trailed behind, fearing less for her own life than for Marcus’s. She turned and fired a few potshots off as she ran, hoping that they would deter the men from following too closely. She couldn’t see anyone behind her, though she could feel them moving forward as if they were part of her crawling skin.
“We need to move,” Stephen said over the radio. “We can’t take on this many people. We’re going to move out into the woods farther. Meet us due east of the trucks.”
“Sounds good,” Cynthia said breathlessly. She could hear the semi-automatic and automatic weapons firing in unison from wherever they had been. The two moved farther into the woods away from the road and the sound of the river, but the gunfire only got louder. It made her nervous and worried that they might be stumbling into yet another ambush.
David was first to break through into the small clearing. He was met almost immediately by the barrel of a gun pointed straight between his eyes. The breath of relief he sighed came only after he realized the man on the other end was their own teammate, Stephen.
“Where’s Henry?” Cynthia asked immediately. “He should be here, too, right?”
The look Stephen gave her nearly broke her heart in two. Something had gone seriously wrong with this mission.
Chapter 10
The ride had been mostly quiet and dark. The man who had taken her away was named Edwardo Rodriquez. He was from Venezuela, yet somehow knew exactly who Amy and her family were. His broad-brimmed hat hid a mess of black hair, and the blue eyes set too deep inside his young face contrasted wildly against his dark features. This man was something she had never seen, though she wouldn’t really know if she had.
Amy tucked her legs up under her as she ran her fingers down through her short black hair. She tried to think positive thoughts, but could hardly keep
her mouth shut because of all the questions she wanted to ask. After just a few minutes in the car, she decided she couldn’t keep it in any longer.
“Who are you?” was her first question. Edwardo answered without hesitation, not worried whether or not Amy knew who her savior, or kidnapper, was. “And how do you know my family?”
“I was sent here to find you,” he answered bluntly again. “Your family is very wealthy. They are aware of the horrible experiments that have been done to you. Your blood was drained and you were shocked—just look at your arms.”
She did so, at the gruesome circles that adorned both of her arms right where they bent. She hadn’t given them much thought until now. It just raised more questions.
“I’m confused,” she whimpered.
“You will be for some time,” he said. “We will have to treat you medically before you will start remembering anything.”
“Medically?” Amy whispered. “Why couldn’t the hospital do that?”
“Because they are part of the problem,” the man comforted her. “They do not know what was done to you by those cruel scientists aboard the ship. I do. I can reverse what was done and get you back to normal. That is why I was hired.”
“What was done to me?”
He sighed. Whether it was because he did not want to answer or because he didn’t have all the answers, Amy couldn’t guess. All she could feel was the burning inside her chest as she yearned for knowledge. Why she was taken or where she was going was very low on her list of priorities now.
“The men aboard the ship kidnap young women from around the world,” he started. “They take them somewhere private and brainwash them with those terrible machines. Then, they use them as sex-slaves and mindless zombies. You’re very lucky that we found you when we did. You’re also lucky the machine backfired and ended up killing those men.”
