by Nate Granzow
"Hmm. Quite the adventure, isn't it?" he asked to no one in particular before sliding back into his sleeping bag.
*******
Olivia awoke again an hour later to a pained human cry and a rustling of branches. The ordinarily raucous jungle had become silent save for that one distressing cry. Sitting bolt upright, the researcher threw aside her sleeping bag and lunged out of the tent before Henri or Christian had even risen.
"What the hell was that?" she asked as Bisari and the natives huddled in a circle around the dying fire embers, spears and blowguns facing out. Pulling her into the ring, Bisari whispered, "A beast has taken one of the men. Stay close."
Exiting the tent slowly, Christian and Henri entered the circle, similarly confused.
A distant whimper, followed by the final cleaving sound of flesh separating from bone, silenced everyone.
Looking around, Olivia asked, "Where are Austin and Jeremy?"
"I don’t know," Bisari replied, gripping his rusty break-action shotgun as he strained to see into the darkness. "They were gone when I awoke."
As the words left his mouth, a pair of chartreuse eyes, dull at first, materialized in the distance. A guttural chuckle rolled through the night air, the eyes growing more vivid, nearer. Someone, or something, whistled sharply from the distant trees.
"Do something," Christian urged, slapping Bisari on the back. "Shoot it!"
The guide reluctantly slid his shotgun to his shoulder and fumbled as he tried to thumb back the hammer.
The beast neared.
The gunshot that followed surprised everyone, as it didn't issue from Bisari's weapon, but from one behind them. The creature cried out in pain as a lead slug slapped against its skin, the eyes disappearing as it turned and escaped into the depths of the jungle. A cloud of gun smoke rolled by, the black night punctuated by two bodies entering the camp.
"You see? If you just carried a gun in a caliber that didn't go extinct a century ago, you would have killed it," Jeremy nagged as he and Austin came into view.
"But I hit it, didn't I? Would have taken you a full magazine to do the same, and you’d have had as much chance of hitting one of our own as you would the target," Austin countered as he approached, straining to see where the creature had gone. "Besides, last I checked, we're in the jungle, not the streets of Detroit. Don't you suppose it's about time you retired that bloody thing?"
"Where the hell where you two?" Olivia asked, her heart pounding, the image of those demonic eyes seared into her memory.
"We just had to step out for a moment. Looks like we got back just in time. What the deuce was that thing, anyway?" Austin asked as he lowered the Webley’s hammer and returned the revolver to its holster.
"Hekura. Hekura." The tribesmen chanted.
"They believe it is the white man’s ghost that has taken their brother," Bisari said.
"Yeah, okay," Christian scoffed. He yawned, only half awake. "Dr. Rouillard, are there not dozens of jungle animals that could have attacked that man?"
"Maybe not dozens, but there are a few species indigenous to this area capable of inflicting violence on humans—cougars, jaguars, even Andean bears. But statistically, unprovoked animal attacks are very unlikely. And those eyes…I’ve never seen an animal with such eyes."
"Unlikely, but not impossible, right? That guy was probably being careless, went out to take a leak or something, and ended up cat food."
"Christian, a little decency. A man just lost his life," Olivia scolded.
"I'm not saying it isn't sad, but it's perfectly explicable. It's a jungle for fuck's sake. Anyway, I’m going back to bed. I’d suggest you all do the same," he grumbled. "Especially if we have to march through this shit for another day. Christ."
Watching the intern and Henri reenter their tent, Austin approached Olivia. "Proper prannock, isn't he?"
"He’s just immature."
With arms crossed and held tight to her chest, Olivia shook visibly in spite of the sultry night air. She wore only a pair of shorts and a sleeveless tee shirt. Austin retrieved his jacket from his hammock and cast it over her shoulders gently.
"No reason to worry," he said quietly. "We'll figure this out and be squared away to continue in the morning." Austin saw in her expression what she was thinking: If a man's death isn't enough to stop this expedition, what is? With a frown, Olivia ducked out of his jacket, reentering the tent following the other scientists.
Scooping his coat from the dirt, he dusted it off and tossed it onto his hammock. "Prick teaser, that one."
Jeremy, typically quick with a laugh, remained silent as he approached his friend and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Cofrade, what the hell was that thing?"
Austin sniffed and stared thoughtfully at a single raindrop hanging persistently from the edge of a leaf overhead. Flicking the stem with his finger, he said, "I don’t know. Nothing I’ve ever seen."
"Look at the tribesmen. They're freaked. These guys live in this jungle, man. They're warriors—expert fighters that ain't scared of shit. You don’t sneak up on the Yanomami; they sneak up on you. Something came in and grabbed that guy without anyone seeing it?"
"And they’ve got no idea what it may have been. Maybe the kid was right. What if it was an animal?"
"Have you ever seen one with eyes like that? Shit, man." The Brazilian crossed himself and whispered, "Di meliora." Heaven send us better times.
Pulling a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket, Austin extracted a bent smoke, straightened it gingerly, and mumbled, "It can only mean one thing: I’m pulling first watch. I’ll wake you in an hour."
As Jeremy turned toward his hammock, still cursing and mumbling to himself in Spanish, Bisari approached Austin.
"Mr. Stewart, we must not stay another night. Let’s turn back. These creatures are very deadly, and they will strike again as we get farther into the jungle."
"You're familiar with these things?" the Brit asked angrily.
"Well, yes, but I didn't think they'd be a problem. They only come out at night, and only in the deepest parts of the jungle. I’ve never seen one so near the tribal land."
"Don’t you think that was something you should have told me before we embarked?"
"I didn't expect you to bring so many people along—we could have made it to the plant and gotten back to safety before nightfall if we weren't hindered by the others."
"Yeah, but we are. What are these things? Animals?"
"They are the white man's hekura."
"Enough with the juju superstitious bollocks, Bisari. What are they, really?"
Shaking his head slowly, the man repeated matter-of-factly, "They are hekura. The spawn of an angry jungle."
FIFTEEN
The deal had gone wrong. Austin, slumped alongside a row of rusty fuel barrels stacked at the airstrip's edge, looked down at his teenage body and cried out in pain and terror. Dark blood pumped in spurts from two holes in his abdomen where 7.62mm NATO rifle rounds had burst through.
A dozen Sierra Leone Army soldiers—skin the color of onyx, the hair on their heads shaved close—prodded the dead bodies of his flight crew and the Revolutionary United Front troops they'd come to trade with using the muzzles of their FAL rifles. One ripped open a wooden crate and began digging through the straw inside, unearthing pinecone-shaped grenades by the dozen.
The leader of the men approached Austin slowly, keeping his pistol trained on the Brit as he neared.
"Please don't. Please," Austin whispered.
Kneeling before the young man, the officer allowed his handgun to dangle between his knees. The soldiers’ Toyota Hilux idled loudly behind him, the vehicle's rusted muffler dangling into the grass.
"How old are you?" he asked in broken English.
"Fifteen," Austin groaned, kicking his feet in pain as he cradled his wounded middle.
"In this country, many die long before they reach fifteen. Why should I spare your life?"
"I don't want t
o die," was the only response Austin could formulate, his mind consumed by the throbs of intense pain assailing his senses.
"No one wants to die. If they wanted to die, they would already be dead," the officer said. Behind him, one of the soldiers fired his weapon into the skull of a wounded man. Austin shuddered both from fear and shock.
"Please, don't let me die here," Austin moaned, gritting his bloodstained teeth.
"Is my country not good enough for you to die in?" the man asked, raising an eyebrow. Deciding he'd had enough of talking with the wounded youth, the officer stood and thumbed the hammer back on his pistol.
"Wait!" Austin raised a hand toward the soldier. "Wait. If you save me, if you let me live, I'll tell my countrymen of the benevolence of the men in the Sierra Leone Army. That they had the chance to kill me, but showed their humanity and goodwill by letting me live. Please, just don't shoot me again."
The officer eyed him curiously for a moment, and then grinned, letting his pistol's hammer down slowly. "I like this. Perhaps I will let you live."
*******
Austin started as Henri shook his arm.
"Have you been up all night?" the Frenchman asked. The first rays of sunshine broke through a mauve-colored Ipê tree overhead as the camp began to stir. Austin numbly chewed the stub of a spent cigarette.
"Certainly feels like it, Doctor. I'm knackered." Dark rings surrounded his bloodshot eyes as they shifted from Henri to the lush verdure of the valley sweeping below, treetops bathed in violet and golden shades from the morning sun.
"Have you determined what the creature was that took that man?" Henri asked.
"Not yet. We've been keeping watch. My hope is that whatever these creatures are, they're strictly nocturnal, like Bisari says. Hopefully we'll be out of their hunting grounds by tonight. We'll go look for signs of the lost tribesmen after breakfast," Austin said, rolling his shoulder and cracking his back.
Henri nodded. "The creature's nocturnality is a form of crypsis, and the aggression we witnessed suggests that it's part of their predation strategy. You see, predator and prey of all ecosystems are perpetually locked in a battle to evolve and gain an advantage over the other to survive. The beast that took that man hunts in the darkness because it may not be swift enough or well-camouflaged enough to hunt in daylight, so it waits and uses the cover of night to disguise it. Perhaps it has superior night vision—and considering its rather bizarrely colored eyes, that wouldn't surprise me—and uses that to its advantage as well."
"Sure," Austin replied, shifting his attention back to the view, more interested in the landscape than in Henri's lecture.
Jeremy emerged from the bushes nearby with a toothbrush stuffed in the corner of his mouth.
"Morning all."
"Keeping those choppers glistening white for all the ladies?" Austin mocked.
"Something you could benefit from, dude."
Spitting the cigarette stub into the dirt, Austin replied, "Shows how little you know, Jeremy. The smoke from these little devils has been proven to kill 99.9 percent of oral bacteria."
"Is that right?" Jeremy smiled and replied sarcastically, "I'll have to take up the habit, too. Since it's so good for your health."
"Bloody right."
"I heard someone say something about breakfast," Christian said, running his hands through his thick nest of hair and yawning.
"Yeah, if you're hungry, now's the time to eat," Austin said.
"What are we having?"
"I don't know what you're having," the Brit said. Slipping a can of baked beans from his bag, he grabbed the lid's aluminum tab and rolled it back before strolling over to the fire and shoving the can into the embers. "I'm having a can of beans."
Following the pilot’s example, Christian slipped a can of ravioli from his bag and asked, "Anyone bring a can opener?"
"You know, most people heading into the jungle with canned goods would naturally think to bring an apparatus for which to open them," Austin said irritably as he stepped toward the young man, withdrew his pocket knife and plunged the blade into the lid, cutting an opening. "And what's this then? Italian for breakfast? You must be in university."
"What? It's good, man. Thanks for opening it."
The pilot grunted and wiped his knife on a leaf.
"I wish someone had thought to bring coffee, though," the young man complained.
"A crude drink for uncivilized colonists," Austin chided. "I'd sooner drink mud mixed from the dirt affixed to my boots."
"Well it can't compare with the warm tap water you limeys call tea, but I like it, and I'm going to have a nasty headache if I don't get some soon. Besides, this is South America; isn't this where all that coffee's grown?"
"First, I don't care for tea, either. Beer is my preferred drink. Someday, you'll be old enough to try one and you'll understand why," the Brit teased. "Second, you'll have to forgive me for not feeling the least bit of sympathy for your forced abstinence from coffee. We're all making sacrifices on this trip."
Unzipping the tent flap, Olivia entered the morning sunshine. Shaking her long chestnut hair loose before pulling it into a ponytail, she smiled at the crowd. Austin found himself staring into her topaz-colored eyes, brown with specks of gold, and following the smooth lines of her cheeks to her impeccably white smile. Suddenly, Jeremy's joking aside, Austin felt self-conscious about the nicotine stains on his teeth.
Henri gingerly touched Olivia’s shoulder as he passed by, taking her place inside the tent to change clothes.
"How'd everyone sleep?" she asked, looking at everyone but Austin.
"Like a baby," Jeremy said, guffawing as he exchanged a glance with his friend. "Up every two hours." Neither of them had gotten more than a couple hours of rest. Just when one would get comfortable and reach their deepest sleep, the other would nudge his shoulder, waking him for guard duty, and take his place.
"I slept all right after that whole spider episode, but you move a lot when you're sleeping," Christian said to Olivia as he carefully placed his can at the fire's edge. Austin felt a stab of jealousy; not only did he not get any sleep the night before, he didn’t get to lay beside a beautiful woman, either.
"I'm sorry. I must have been upset about what happened last night," Olivia said, kneeling by the fire.
"You were talking, too," the intern said as he licked tomato sauce from his pinky finger.
Suddenly looking embarrassed, Olivia changed the subject. "Has anyone been out yet this morning to see if they could find that poor man?"
"Not yet. We'll go out shortly." Pulling a spoon from his bag and wiping it against his pant leg, Austin stirred his beans as they began to bubble and steam, the bottom of the can charred black. "You may want to eat something—we won't have much time to rest today. I'd like us to get this plant and get our arses back to the plane before nightfall, so we're going to need to make some decent progress today."
"Well, I’m prepared to set out as soon as you’re ready," she said, slapping her knees. "I’m not much for breakfast."
Picking out a fly that had landed in his beans and been boiled, Austin pointed his spoon at Olivia and said, "We’ll see if you’re singing that same tune in an hour."
When the men had eaten and packed their bags, the expedition set out to search for the fallen tribesman. Christian, still blinking away sleep and trying unsuccessfully to heat his breakfast beside the now-dying fire, offered to stay behind and look after their things. The remaining natives reluctantly joined the search, clearly still shaken from the attack the night before.
Olivia sidled up to Henri as they scanned the ground and trees for signs of blood or struggle.
"Henri, you're more familiar with the ecology of these jungles than anyone I know. What was that creature last night?"
Turning to his mentee with a look of consternation, the researcher shook his head and stroked his cheekbones worriedly.
"It's unlike anything I've ever seen or read about. I'm not so presumptuous as to t
hink that we humans know of every species to exist in the wild. There are new species discovered daily, particularly in this part of the world. But something so incomparably violent and aggressive; I'm at a loss for what it could be."
"Reminds me of the Tsavo Man-Eaters," Olivia said, alluding to the pair of lions that preyed on dozens of railway workers in Kenya at the turn of the 19th century.
Henri nodded. "Those lions were unique in that they hunted humans together, but it's not uncommon for carnivores with injuries to turn to hunting humans. We're slow, careless, and typically defenseless. It's certainly a possibility that whatever attacked that man last night was likewise injured and looking for an easy meal. That's no less worrisome."
Wrapping her slender hand around the Frenchman’s arm as they walked, Olivia said, "It's all very foreboding."
"I agree wholeheartedly. I hope that, whatever it is, it’s gone from here now, and will leave us alone for the rest of our journey."
Up ahead, a voice called out, "Guys, I've found something."
Jogging toward the sound, the two doctors arrived to find Jeremy, Austin, and Bisari in a semicircle. The natives could be heard sprinting away from the scene, crashing loudly through the underbrush as they made their escape.
"What is it?" Olivia asked.
Austin, his face ashen, turned around and, placing his hand against Olivia's collarbone, pushed her back gently. She slapped his hand away.
"Whatever it is, I can handle it."
Stepping around the Brit, she looked down to find a man—or what had once been a man—flayed from waist to skull, flaps of skin hanging loosely from bone and exposed muscle. His legs were missing entirely, raggedly torn from the pelvic bone. His eyes, drained of color, stared out wildly, swarmed by small black flies.
SIXTEEN
Olivia felt the bile rising from her stomach, her vision blurring with tears, and despite her attempts to suppress it, she turned and wretched into the side of a termite mound.
"Holy shit," she heard Jeremy mutter. Henri moaned and moved toward Olivia, pulling her away from the scene as he rubbed her back soothingly.
