He placed the torch on the ground and let it slowly burn in the dirt.
His shadow shone eerily on the hut wall.
He saw a sliver of light, bent down, and peered through the slight opening in the wall.
Outside, women and children were congregated as if expecting a major event to take place. Men were carrying wood and stoking a big fire while a few women set up Y-shaped stands on each side of the pit.
Two pigmies carried a long pole and set it on the yokes just above the flames.
Ben realized what he was observing.
They had just erected a rotisserie.
It wasn’t bad enough they were headhunters; they had to be cannibals, too?
38
Ally saw Macky sidestep the snapping jaws of a caiman and nearly go down, but he held onto Dillon. When the crocodilian turned, Ally jumped over its back as though she were leaping over a low hurdle. Macky stumbled across the sand but stayed on his feet and picked up the pace into a determined jog.
Ally snuck a quick glance over her shoulder. Most of the caimans had already turned to resume guard over their newborns. She was pretty sure they were no longer a threat and were outside of the nesting ground and was about to slow down when a humongous caiman burst out of the short grass. It was larger than the others, over sixteen feet and extremely fast as it raced after them on its stubby legs.
“Why is it still chasing us?” Ally hollered.
Macky kept running and turned his head to look back. “That must be a bull. He’s making sure we never come back.”
“So how long is he going to keep chasing us?”
“I don’t know.” Macky suddenly cried out and disappeared off the path.
Ally tried to stop in time but she was going too fast and flew off the steep embankment. She splashed down into the water and went under for a moment. She came up and saw Macky a few feet away. Dillon was floating nearby but didn’t appear to be hurt. Ally was thankful she’d insisted he keep on his life preserver.
They had landed in a pond half the size of a football field. Large, green lily pads floated on the surface. Ally looked around and saw most of the surrounding shoreline was about eight feet up from the water with sheer walls of thick intertwined vines that could be used to scale up. There was one sandy bank across the pond raised in a mound with visible burrow holes.
Ally swam over to Macky who was treading water and still able to hold onto Dillon. “What now?”
But before Macky could reply they heard a loud commotion as the black caiman slid down the embankment, snout first and slammed into the water.
“This way!” Macky yelled. He swam frantically with one hand, kicking his feet as he towed Dillon through the lily pads. Ally did the sidestroke so she could keep an eye on their pursuer.
“Ally, look out!” Dillon yelled when the crown of the black head emerged twenty feet behind them.
Ally watched in horror as the entire body and tail began to show.
Macky and Ally poured it on and churned up the water with their feet.
Reaching the shore, Macky grabbed hold of a vine and hoisted Dillon out of the water. “You’ve got to climb up,” he instructed the boy.
Dillon reached for a vine but his hands were wet and he slipped. Macky boosted him back up, and this time, Dillon was able to seize a vine and grapple another and start his ascent.
Macky was waiting for her to go next but time was running out. “Go!” she yelled, and clutched a vine.
The caiman was fifteen feet away. Raising its upper jaw.
Ally tried pushing up with her feet but her right boot got snagged in a coil of roots. The only way for her to get loose was to slip back down.
Macky snatched a vine to pull himself up but when he saw Ally was having trouble, he extended his hand. “Here, let me help you.”
“I’m stuck.” Ally heard a loud splash. She peeked over her shoulder and saw a brown shorthaired animal had jumped into the pond. Four more similar-looking thick-bodied creatures come out of the burrow holes on the sandy bank and entered the water.
Ally looked up at Macky. “What are those?”
“Giant otters,” Macky replied. “Seems like we’ve not only stumbled into a caiman’s nesting ground, now we’re trespassing through giant otter territory.”
“Oh my God.”
“But it can be a good thing.”
Dillon had climbed up the vines like a little monkey and was already at the top.
Ally watched the five otters torpedo through the water. Judging by the one she saw jump in the water they were all probably around six feet long, more than a hundred pounds each—but certainly no match against a 1400-pound alligator.
“They don’t have a chance,” Ally said, still trying to dislodge her boot from the underwater vine.
“Oh, you’d be surprised what these guys can do,” Macky said.
The caiman must have sensed the vibrations in the water as it began to turn its body to face the approaching otters head-on. But instead of a full frontal assault, the otters dove under the surface.
An otter’s ball-shaped head popped out of the water directly in front of the caiman. The gator slowly opened its mouth.
The other four otters burst out of the water and were all over the caiman, climbing on its ridged back. The smaller creatures were fierce as a group and sank their sharp incisors deep into the reptilian’s armored flesh. As the croc tried to shake off its tormentors it went into a death roll and flipped around in the water thrashing its tail, making the mistake of exposing the softer tissue of its underbelly.
Ally could hear the otters screeching as they harassed the formidable interloper, forcing it toward the far embankment.
Cornering the caiman against the shore, three of the otters pinned the larger animal down while the other two otters set about biting through the reptilian’s neck to finish it off.
Ally tugged again and finally freed her boot. She grappled with the vines and pulled herself up. She gazed across the pond and watched as a massive amount of blood pooled to the surface, staining the lily pads.
“They just saved our lives.”
“Ally, those otters could care less. They were just protecting their own.”
39
Enzo stepped out of the jungle onto the shore. He climbed aboard the rescue boat and went inside the pilothouse. He put the cluster of bananas and a bagful of herbs and berries he had collected, on one of the bench seats. He checked the clock on the console by the helm. It was near time to sound the siren so he twisted the knob and gave the alarm a shrill shriek then switched it off.
He glanced out the window and saw a bevy of quail burst out of the brush. Every time he blasted the siren, it always scared something.
He stepped out of the wheelhouse and went aft to check his drop lines. He had half a dozen draped over the side, thin filaments with barbed hooks and segments of worms on the ends, enough to attract small fish as he was only fending for himself and didn’t need much.
Unlike Murilo, who had grown accustomed to resort living and being around people, Enzo preferred his solitude, which is why he had volunteered to stay with the boat.
He pulled up one line after the other and dropped the small silver fish into a pail.
Enzo heard an echoing shriek and saw a twenty-pound harpy eagle with a seven-foot wingspan swoop over the middle of the river. Its gray head was crowned with a double crest and had a broad black band across its upper chest with a full plumage of black and white slate feathers.
A live monkey dangled from the raptor’s talons.
Enzo watched the mighty bird soar away into the darkening sky.
He carried the pail to the forward deck and fired up the cook stove.
An hour later he had finished his meal and had made sure he hadn’t left any food scraps lying around that might attract any unwanted predators onto the boat. He went inside the pilothouse to relax in the cabin and escape the bothersome bugs.
At night, Enzo kept only a sin
gle low-wattage light on so as not draw on the battery. He waited until it was time and sounded the siren. He switched off the light and stretched out on one of the bench seats.
He had almost fallen asleep when he felt a thump against the hull. He heard voices outside.
Slipping off the bench seat, Enzo stayed low and crept over to the window.
A full moon was shining in the night sky and Enzo could make out three silhouettes in a small boat alongside.
He knew right away who they were. He chastised himself for being so stupid. He’d brought the pirates right to him by sounding the siren.
The first pirate stepped out of the small boat, carrying a machete, and climbed aboard. The next man was armed with a rifle. Enzo couldn’t tell if the last man had a weapon as he was still seated by the outboard motor.
Enzo looked around in the dark for his shotgun. He’d left it by the door. If the first intruder were to come inside, he’d surely brush up against the barrel leaning against the panel. Enzo didn’t like the idea of being trapped inside the cabin with only one way out.
He got down on his hands and knees and scampered between the bench seats but as he got closer to his shotgun, the door slowly opened. Enzo would have to reach in front of the open doorway to grab his gun, which might mean losing an arm to a machete.
Instead, he reached down for his knife and pulled it slowly out of the sheath.
He tucked himself in the corner and waited for the man to enter the cabin.
A bare foot stepped in.
Enzo brought his knife down and stabbed the man’s foot. He yanked out the blade as the man screamed. He jumped to his feet and stabbed the man in the chest once then pulled out the blade and shoved it back into his heart.
The second man was already on deck and charging the door.
Enzo pushed the man he had just stabbed to death into the other pirate. He reached over and grabbed his sawed-off shotgun. The man with the rifle had fallen with the dead man on top of him and was just pushing the corpse away when Enzo shot him in the face.
Turning, Enzo saw the man in the small boat tugging on the starter rope in an attempt to escape. He shot the man where he sat and watched him slump over the motor.
Enzo dragged a dead pirate over to the gunwale and dumped his body over the side into the motorized dugout. He went back and tossed in the other man so all three were sprawled in the boat.
He opened the cap on a five-gallon gasoline can and poured the contents over the bodies and most of the boat. Using a long-handle fishing gaff, Enzo pushed the boat adrift. He waited until the canoe was twenty feet away and then fired a projectile from his flare gun at the gasoline-doused boat. The craft erupted into a funeral pyre and burned bright, lighting up the shoreline and the surrounding jungle.
Enzo watched the blaze on the river until it became bubbling smoke and sank with a loud hiss.
He walked back inside the cabin and looked at the clock.
Soon it would be time to sound the siren again.
40
Frank leaned over and chucked some more wood into the campfire. James and Kathy had already fallen asleep, and Ignacio was somewhere not too far off, combing the immediate area and staying vigilant.
Frank sat back against a boulder and looked over at Wanda. She was staring pensively at the mesmerizing flames.
“How’re you doing?” he asked. It had been a long day and he could tell she was tired by the strained look on her face.
“I’m all right.”
“He’s out there. We’ll find him,” Frank said. He thought by giving her constant reassurances he could convince her not to give up hope and somehow put her mind at ease, though deep down he was beginning to have his own doubts.
Wanda turned and looked at Frank. “Will we?”
“You have to have faith.”
“Right now, I’m not really big on faith.” Wanda picked a stick up from the ground and waved it at the fire. “Do you think Ally and Dillon are okay?”
“They’re fine. Murilo won’t let anything happen to them. Let’s just concentrate on Ryan.”
Frank thought he heard the distant chirp of the siren. It was difficult to be sure the way sound could play tricks in the night. For all he knew it was a dumb bird.
Wanda tapped the stick on her knee. “I have a bad feeling. It’s been three days since we’ve seen him and now we’re not getting a signal from his phone.”
“Ben and Jackie have been here more than once. Between them I think they have enough survival skills to have made it this far. You just have to think positive.”
“Think positive, right.”
“Did you know there’s an insect that can clone itself and reproduce without mating?”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s called a walking stick.”
“And why is this relevant?”
“Because you’re holding one right now.”
Wanda looked at the stick in her hand and saw it had four legs. “Oh, jeez,” she said and flung it away. “My God, this place.”
Ignacio stepped out of the brush. He had his shotgun cradled across the crooks of both arms and stood on the opposite side of the campfire. His shadow made him look like a giant cast on the backdrop of the jungle.
Another shadow crept toward Ignacio’s silhouette.
It was huge and bulbous and crawling straight for Ignacio.
Wanda yelled, “Ignacio!”
Frank jumped to his feet.
Ignacio looked down at the ground and began to laugh.
James and Kathy must have heard Wanda’s outburst because they were rushing over to the campfire. “What is it?” James asked, groggy-eyed. Kathy was clutching his arm.
Frank dropped to one knee as Wanda came up behind him.
“What in the world is that?” Wanda asked.
“That,” Frank said, “is an assassination bug.” Even though the insect was only two inches long, the glowing fire made its shadow look like an enormous abomination of twisted appendages straight out of Dante’s Inferno. “It piles dead ants on its back to make it look larger and intimidating.”
Wanda shook her weary head. “Walking sticks, assassination bugs, what next?”
Everyone turned suddenly when a man stumbled out of the jungle and fell to his knees in front of the campfire. The Indian’s body was slashed with ribbon cuts. His eyes were wide as saucers and he looked completely mad. He kept mumbling and stared into the fire.
Ignacio crouched beside the crazed man in an attempt to communicate.
After a moment, Frank asked, “Any idea what he’s saying?”
Ignacio glanced up with an incomprehensive look. “Only that his village was attacked by demons, and his name is Diogo.”
41
Ryan had watched a few Bear Grylls episodes where the wilderness survivalist would take a famous celebrity to a remote, rugged location and they would rough it for a few days. Grylls had a way of getting the other person to open up and reveal something private about their life. Ryan thought back and tried to remember one of Grylls’s key survival tactics—how to build a fire—which wasn’t going to be much use to Ryan, as Grylls used a magnesium-flint fire starter tool.
Which left Ryan with only two choices.
He could rub two sticks vigorously together and create enough friction to get the wood to burn, or he could strike his knife blade on a flinty rock fast enough to generate sparks.
As he had recently sharpened his knife, he was worried he might wear away the metal. The worst scenario he might snap the blade.
He asked Jackie to scout around for kindling, anything dry enough that might catch fire easily. She came back with a handful of bark chips and clumps of moss.
“That should work,” Ryan said. He’d already cleared a small patch of ground and placed a flat piece of wood on the dirt inside a fire pit he’d arranged with rocks, and had found two foot-long sticks perfect for the task.
Jackie placed the moss loosely on the flat
surface of the wood.
“Do your stuff,” she said.
Ryan grabbed both sticks and began rubbing the ends together over the moss. It was strenuous work but he kept at it. Soon he was surprised to see a tendril of smoke. He rubbed even harder and saw a tiny flame igniting the tinder bundle.
Jackie added more moss and a few thin pieces of bark as Ryan built a teepee of wood strips and branches over the blaze.
Soon they had a nice fire they could cook on.
“You’re sure this is okay to eat?” Ryan asked. He was referring to the giant snail they had found. He was used to seeing the small garden-variety type no larger than a ping-pong ball, not a monster the size of a halved bowling ball. Even Jackie was a little surprised at how big it was.
“There’s always the snake,” Jackie said, nodding to the dead serpent by the fire she had killed earlier with her spear. She’d taken the initiative and skinned it with Ryan’s knife, even chopping it up into four-inch chunks for easier consumption.
Ryan added more wood to the fire. He picked up the snail, figuring it had to weigh at least two pounds, and placed it on the hot rocks. Still alive, the snail’s muscular foot sizzled as it tried to escape but Ryan kept it stationary with a stick and flipped it over so it would cook in the shell, much like in its own stewing pot.
Jackie threw on the cutup snake, which crackled like bacon.
As they watched their dinner cook, Ryan sat back and said, “You know, I can’t stop thinking about that praying mantis. What could have caused it to get so big?”
“My guess, it’s the result of some kind of DNA breakdown. Maybe caused by some chemical.”
“So you’re saying, someone is using the jungle as a toxic dumping ground.”
“Sure, why not.”
“Sounds more like a conspiracy theory.”
“Okay. What about radiation? I’m sure there are radium deposits all over this jungle.”
“So now we’re talking Godzilla?”
“I’m being serious.”
Deep In The Jungle Page 10
