This Green Hell

by Greig Beck

  ‘I think there is no doubt that they are now also infected,’ Francisco said from behind his paper mask. His eyes were red and drooped with fatigue and sadness. Even his proud little silver moustache had lost its vigour. ‘As a general practitioner, I am lost on this, Dr Weir. Do you, perhaps, have any ideas?’

  Aimee pursed her lips tightly behind her mask and gave a half-nod, half-shake of her head. ‘I have a few thoughts, but they’re too way out to share just yet. I’ve sent some images back home. Hopefully the experts can give us some clues as to what we’re dealing with.’

  ‘Good.’ Francisco looked at the men on their beds. ‘I think we should burn their tent.’

  Aimee nodded without taking her eyes from the three bodies slowly decomposing before her.

  ‘Of course they’re scared…and so am I, Alfred.’ Aimee paced back and forth in her cabin, kicking clothing out of the way to create some space, as she talked to her boss on the other side of the world. ‘We’re trying to keep things quiet, but…’ she paused to listen for a few seconds before continuing. ‘Yes, Alfred, we’ve got the men who shared the tent with the primary contamination victim in isolation, but down here everyone seems to know everything as it happens. It’s such a small community – you can’t keep secrets. Francisco says he’s overheard some of the men talking about leaving.’

  ‘Aimee, there’s no evidence that the disease, or whatever it is, is airborne or that there are any vectors involved – you said that yourself. As long as you use basic sterilisation procedures, everything will be okay. It’s usually you telling me this stuff, not the other way around.’

  ‘Alfred, you didn’t see the infected body – it literally dissolved in front of our eyes. It was horrible. I should be wearing a full bio-hazard kit, not a sweaty T-shirt and paper face mask.’

  Alfred’s warm, deep voice rose slightly. ‘Okay, okay, stay calm, my dear. Do you really think it’s your little Clavicula occultus that’s culpable? I like the name, by the way. But how could it be? I doubt one microbe could be responsible for converting hydro-carbons to oil and gas and also somehow cause the human body to simply fall apart. I think we need more information, and you need some help. As you suggested, I sent your data to the CDC; they were very interested and have dispatched two of their specialists.’ He cleared his throat and then sounded as if he’d leaned in closer to the speaker. ‘I had another call this morning, Aimee. Someone I hadn’t heard from in ages. You remember our friend Jack Hammerson?’

  ‘Jack?’ Aimee remembered Jack Hammerson only too well – Alex Hunter’s commanding officer. He had always been in the background, controlling, overseeing Alex’s treatments, and advising him. As her relationship with Alex had started to change as he became more secretive, as he worried more about the uncontrollable rages that would shake him from his nightmares in the middle of the night, and finally as he had confided to her his fears that he wasn’t sure he was even human any more, Jack Hammerson had always been there. She had begged Alex to get a second opinion from doctors outside the military. But Jack had refused to allow it. She knew the colonel had saved Alex’s life – brought him back from the dead – and Alex would never forget it, even though by doing so he had allowed the HAWC commander to turn him into a killing machine – at the mercy of what seemed to be an unstoppable anger; an inner demon that threatened his sanity.

  It had seemed to Aimee that Alex had chosen Hammerson and the military over her. Her concern for his safety and mental state, or perhaps it was her pride, had driven her to refuse to accept his decision – and that had been the end of them. She would never forgive Hammerson for not giving him the chance to start a new life outside the Special Forces. Yes, she remembered Jack Hammerson very well.

  ‘Good, I knew you’d remember him. Well, he’s sending in some of his people to follow up on some military matter,’ Alfred went on.

  Aimee grimaced as she recalled the horrific scene in the clearing. She hadn’t told Alfred about her and Francisco’s grisly discovery, or their suspicion that it had been caused by something other than a jaguar. Hammerson had clearly been charged with finding out exactly what had happened to the Green Berets.

  ‘I believe he’s sending Captain Hunter – he should be with you in a day or two. I’m going to see if the CDC team can jump a ride with them. Stay safe, Aimee dear, talk soon.’

  Alfred ended the call in a hurry, obviously not wanting to deal with Aimee’s reaction to the news.

  She switched the phone off speaker, and sat back with her legs splayed. She lifted the water bottle from the table, sipped a little, then let a good stream pour over her forehead and neck. It ran over her lips and she blew out, causing a plume of spray to fan out above her. She watched it settle to the floor as she allowed her mind to drift.

  In the time they had shared together, Alex Hunter had taught her to ride a horse, shoot a gun, deep-sea dive and more. She recalled the time he had taken her rock climbing – she had slipped and twisted her ankle, but Alex had caught her and carried her down the cliff and then for five miles back to their cabin as if she weighed nothing at all. Her lips turned up at the corners as she remembered what else had happened in that cabin, the intimate times they had shared there and in many other locations she could never have imagined herself visiting. The few men she had dated since had seemed so ordinary, so…boring.

  When she had walked out on him, it had seemed the right thing – for both of them. But now she wasn’t so sure. She was confused and nervous at the thought of seeing him again. Confused, nervous…and a little angry.

  She put her hand up to her cheek and ran her fingers over the red rash bumps. The first time I see him in two years and I look and feel like shit, she thought. Just great.

  A cough at the doorway interrupted her thoughts. She looked up to see Francisco standing there looking worried.

  ‘What is it?’ Aimee asked.

  ‘The government has ordered the gas well to be capped,’ Francisco said. ‘I am so sorry, but they have locked us down. They suspect we have some form of hantavirus burning through the camp. No one is allowed to leave and no one will be coming in.’

  ‘We’re in fucking quarantine?’ Aimee was on her feet, her blue eyes drilling into the small doctor, who backed up a step at the ferocity of her tone.

  ‘I am sure it is just temporary, Dr Weir. I’m so sorry this has happened.’ Francisco was wringing his hands together, and his eyebrows turned so far down they looked as though they were about to slip off his face.

  ‘Those assholes! I don’t believe it. I don’t fucking believe it.’

  Aimee was building up to another onslaught when she realised she was taking her frustration out on the only friend she had in the camp. ‘Ohhh, God. I’m sorry, Francisco. I’m tired and I don’t know what’s happening. This is well beyond the limit of my expertise.’ A sudden thought panicked her. ‘Are they allowing the CDC specialists through?’

  ‘Si, I believe so. The bureaucrats say it is at their own risk.’

  Aimee nodded and sat down heavily. She lifted her shirt front and used it to rub her face free of grime. ‘At least it’s stopped raining. Any more infections?’

  ‘I am afraid so. There are now five men in the quarantine hut. I do not expect them to survive past tomorrow.’

  ‘It’s spreading,’ Aimee said. ‘I don’t think it’s airborne – there’s not enough nasopharyngeal irritation to produce aerosolising of the bacteria – the men aren’t coughing or sneezing to give it lift-off. There must be a vector – the water, insects, something else we’re sharing…’

  ‘I agree. If it was fully airborne, we would all have been infected by now. I will have the camp checked for vermin and ensure all the men are using insect repellent.’ Francisco paused then added, ‘The well needs to be capped now, but the men are refusing to go back out to the drill site until they know what is causing the infection. They are calling it “the melting death”.’

  Aimee leaned back in the chair and shut her eyes. ‘I don�
��t blame them,’ she said. ‘Nope, don’t blame them at all.’

  That night, three more men were taken. But not by the disease.

  In the darkness, something glided through the jungle and came to a halt at the edge of the camp, drawn there by the seed that had been brought to the surface. It sensed the sparks of growth that had been ignited. Now, they needed to feed. It needed to feed.

  It moved quickly across the clearing towards the back of one of the tents. It could sense the three men inside – could hear their heartbeats, smell their blood. It needed them, all of them, every bit of them. It needed to be strong to protect the growing brood.

  Under a single, long, sharp fingernail, the tough waterproofed canvas parted as easily as if it was being unzipped. The creature reached out to the first man and wrapped a long, taloned hand almost entirely around his throat. The man’s eyes shot open and his tongue bulged, but no sound escaped his lips as soft tissue and his upper spinal cord were swiftly crushed together. His head flopped onto his shoulder, attached only by an empty tube of compressed skin.

  The creature moved to the next man and crushed his neck in the same manner, careful not to spill any fluids or cause any damage to the surroundings. The tissue ruptured slightly and it was forced to bring its mouth down to the blood that was seeping from the split in the crushed skin. The flow subsided quickly as the heart stopped pumping and the blood settled in the man’s lower extremities. The creature lifted its head slightly and sniffed, savouring the tangy smell of the ruptured flesh.

  As it bent over the third man, he woke. The long fingers circled his neck like hot cables and it brought its face close to look into his eyes. There was no compassion, or even interest, in the creature’s gaze; it was the look a hunter would give a dying hare as he held it up to check its weight. The man’s eyes ran with tears and he dragged in a last strained breath as the pressure around his neck increased.

  The wide mouth pulled open further, black gums receding to reveal rows of needle-like teeth encircling the entire ring of the oral cavity. A long tongue lolled out to lick at the man’s tears. It squeezed tighter and watched the eyes bulge and become glass-like. The man’s head flopped to the side, his face a deep purple from the trapped blood.

  The creature gathered the three men in its arms and stepped from the tent. If anyone had been awake to see it re-enter the jungle, they would have thought its passage little more than a breeze stirring the foliage.

  NINE

  Alex looked out the porthole window of the massive Talon Blackbird, and down at the patchy green landscape and the giant runway that had been scraped out of it. The secret base at Mariscal Estigarribia, northern Paraguay, was one of America’s best-kept secrets. Four hundred US personnel were permanently stationed there, their role to closely observe what they believed to be regional rogue governments determined to destabilise the entire South American continent. The base was in a prime strategic location due to its proximity to Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia, as well as the fractious Venezuela.

  Though Alex appeared outwardly calm as the plane made its descent, impatience churned within him, knotting his stomach. He thought of Aimee somewhere in the Paraguayan jungle, and remembered the unidentifiable roar on the recording of the attack on the Green Berets. Now, the Paraguayan government had placed the camp under a quarantine order. Aimee needed his help. Why was it taking so long to get to her?

  The aircraft touched down smoothly and, even before the rear ramp had fully opened, the four HAWCs and the two CDC scientists were leaping onto the tarmac. The CDC had sent one of their leading scientists from their infectious diseases division: Maria Vargis. Alex guessed she was in her fifties, but she was still a very handsome woman with an olive complexion, thick wavy dark hair with silver streaking back above her ears, and a figure that could be described as Rubenesque. Her large brown eyes showed a sharp intellect and what was either a sparkle of humour or an impatience just as keen as Alex’s own to get to the drill site. Accompanying her was her son, Michael, also a scientist. Hammerson had assured Alex that the man deserved to be there in his own right, not merely as his mother’s assistant.

  It didn’t take long to unload the HAWCs’ gear: each soldier travelled with a compressed backpack that carried most of what he or she would need – the bulk of the carry-weight was reserved for weaponry. For this mission, that meant knives of varying lengths and thicknesses, each in a scabbard, plus a powerful H&K USP45CT pistol on each hip. The smooth, matt-black sidearms were made of a moulded polymer with a hostile environment coating and had a variant trigger for faster discharge. Finally, each HAWC had been issued with a stripped-down XM29 dual munitions burst rifle. The top barrel was a light cannon that fired bursting munitions using a ballistic computer to program the round, telling it where to explode. The bottom barrel was a 5.56mm assault rifle with integrated laser rangefinder, thermal- and night-vision capabilities, and up to 600 per cent telescopic magnification. The plastic stock and polymer-cased ammunition made it lightweight but with all the lethality intact.

  The scientists had more equipment and the HAWCs helped with the unloading.

  ‘Fuck!’ Casey Franks grunted as she hefted one of the smaller boxes. ‘What the hell have you got in here – freakin’ house bricks?’

  Michael Vargis laughed. ‘Sorry, I should have said something. It’s our batteries – six 3R12 zinc-chloride dry cells – just in case it’s the only power we can get access to. Very powerful but also very heavy – about fifty pounds altogether. Let me help you.’

  ‘Nah, just give me room, baby face.’ Franks’s forearms bulged as she lifted the box. ‘Took me by surprise was all.’

  An ex-SEAL, Franks had been a HAWC for a number of years. Standing five eight in her combat boots, she had ice-blue eyes and a snub nose. Her face might have been called attractive once, but a cleft scar running from just below her left eye down to her chin pulled her cheek up slightly, giving her what looked like a permanent sneer. Her green and black tiger-striped uniform was tight across her chest, but not because of a cleavage like Maria Vargis’s; rather, taut bands of pectoral muscles gave Franks the shape of a female body builder. She had multiple tattoos on her forearms – daggers, dragons, names of high-power motorbikes, and a rose with the name Linda written in curling calligraphy underneath.

  ‘I expected it’d be hotter,’ she said as she looked around, the unloading completed.

  ‘Not much of a jungle either,’ said the tall, dark-skinned HAWC who had come to stand beside her. He pulled a mono-scope from a side pouch and focused it on the high mountains just visible to the north-west.

  Makhdoum Basasiri Safieddin, Mak for short, stood at nearly six foot four, his wiry frame like corded wood. He had been one of the elite Republican Guards in Iraq and had worked with the Americans after the war. For that, his entire family had been wiped out by one of the local militias. Mak had come to Hammerson’s attention when Alex had met the Iraqi after the completion of the Dark Rising assignment in the region. The US had been looking for good men who could train up local defence personnel. Mak had learnt quickly and with purpose. Now, he couldn’t wait to get back to Iraq – there was a certain militia he looked forward to revisiting.

  Sam took Mak’s scope and scanned the nearby peaks for himself. ‘We’re about 1000 feet above sea level here, basically at the foot of Bolivia’s Cordillera Mountains. But don’t fret, children, where we’re going it’s roughly 800 feet below sea level. Down there we’ll be getting into some of the densest, darkest, most impenetrable jungle on the face of the Earth. Plus all the heat and humidity you can suck up. Enjoy the cool breeze while you can.’ He tossed the scope back to Mak.

  ‘I love the heat,’ the Iraqi said. ‘The sun’s warmth is a gift from Allah.’

  ‘Yeah, but according to you, everything is a gift from Allah,’ responded Franks.

  ‘Ha, and so it is!’ Mak turned his face to the sunshine and smiled, showing strong white teeth.

  Alex looked up and down the ru
nway, then did a 360 turn. His jaw was set in annoyance.

  ‘Something bothering you, boss?’ asked Sam.

  ‘Something’s missing – where’s our chopper?’

  Alex looked at his watch and swore. Their visit was top secret, so they hadn’t expected a parade, but they had expected to pick up some supplies and then head out immediately on a waiting helicopter that would drop them into the drill site. All up, no more than another six hours of travelling.

  ‘Best laid plans, huh?’ Sam said, turning his own face up to the sun.

  Alex spun again as he heard something on the other side of the runway. Two men had emerged from one of the small flat buildings in the distance and were jogging to meet them. One was in the jungle-striped camouflage of the Paraguayan military; the other wore nondescript drab green coveralls. American, Alex thought. He knew none of the US men and women stationed here wore rank badges or identifying insignia.

  ‘Action at last,’ Maria Vargis said, putting her hands on her hips.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ Alex said.

  He stepped forward as the men halted before him.

  The Paraguayan saluted and held his hand out. He had a close-cropped beard and wasn’t particularly tall. ‘Captain Hunter, I assume? I am Captain Fernando Garmadia. I will be taking charge of your team.’

  Alex ignored the display of authority. He didn’t return the salute, just took Garmadia’s hand briefly, then turned to the other man.

  ‘Sergeant Banks, sir,’ he said. ‘Glad you and the team could make it.’