by Greig Beck
Aimee was convinced one of the priest’s eyes bulged and swivelled to look at Francisco while the other remained fixed on Alfraedo.
What? Must be a trick of the light, she thought as the priest’s head turned and both eyes fixed normally on the small doctor.
‘I’m not too far away, and my flock varies in size,’ he said. ‘The children of the forest come and go and need much guidance. I have been ill and not very active for a time, but I am healed now. I feel strong again; as if my own stone has been rolled back and, like the God, I have been reborn to carry on their work.’
Aimee felt the priest was both smoothly evasive and a little too fervid, and what was with the God reference? She’d never heard that expression before. There was something about him that made her feel very uncomfortable.
González gave another closed-mouth smile and turned his hands palm upwards. ‘I would be happy to come here if that is your wish, but I assure you that any man in my care will be safe. I would like to suggest they come in small groups in the evenings for mass. Simply being in my church will be spiritually beneficial to the men.’
Francisco remained expressionless but his tone was a little terse. ‘We found evidence of a terrible attack by a large animal on a group of men just a few days ago. I feel it is too dangerous for our men to enter the jungle at night, and you shouldn’t be out there either. Perhaps, for your own safety, you should move into our camp temporarily. Then you could perform a morning mass for the men—’
González cut him off abruptly. ‘My days are extremely busy, and if there were any large animals they have surely moved on by now. The jungle is safe, I assure you. I feel you are in more danger from your own men, who grow angrier and more fearful every day. Such emotions can be soothed through prayer.’
The priest glared at Francisco, and Aimee noticed that his eye seemed to bulge again.
Alfraedo cleared his throat and gave an apologetic little bow. ‘Thank you for the offer, Father. We can talk again tomorrow evening. Please may I ask of you one thing? If any more of our men come to you, could you please tell them to return to the camp…for their own safety?’
The priest looked around at the circle of men craning to hear the conversation. ‘I am sorry, I cannot do that. These men have the gift of free will; they may choose to exercise it by staying with me or travelling back to their own homes.’
Aimee heard Francisco hurrumph under his breath, before continuing to needle the priest.
‘I must warn you padre that I will need to inform the authorities of the men’s potential movement back to the cities…and of your providing assistance to them in violation of a formal quarantine order.’ He held the priest’s gaze.
Aimee could feel the tension building between the two men, and decided to ask a question before the doctor finished with one of the sharp but polite insults she had seen him use on boorish bureaucrats.
‘Father, did you see any sign of bandits in the jungle?’ She made a sweeping gesture with her arm to indicate the dark wall of green around them.
The priest tore his eyes away from Francisco and looked at her for a few seconds as though trying to see behind her eyes. ‘There are no bandits out there, there are no soldiers out there, there is just us.’
There was a hint of a smile on his lips as he looked at each of them individually, before letting his gaze rest on Francisco for a final few seconds. Then he turned and glided smoothly back into the jungle.
Aimee noticed Francisco shivered despite the evening’s humidity. She was feeling pretty spooked herself. Who mentioned soldiers? she wondered.
TWELVE
The scream of tearing metal woke the camp at around midnight.
Aimee sat up and blinked in the inky blackness. The camp lights were out and, as the moon wasn’t directly over the clearing, the darkness in her cabin was total. She sat still and listened…it was if the whole camp was holding its breath. She lifted her damp pillow, used it to wipe the perspiration off her face, flung it down and then threw back the mosquito netting.
She got unsteadily to her feet, feeling groggy, and staggered a little as she groped around on her table top for a lantern. She had to screw her eyes shut for a moment against the sepia yellow glow; her eyeballs felt swollen and grainy.
By now Aimee could hear shouts and running footsteps throughout the clearing. She pulled back the elasticised curtain at her window to peer outside. Electric lanterns darted across the muddy clearing like a swarm of giant fireflies, all drawn towards the southern end of the camp.
She pulled on her boots and was about to head out the door when she remembered the insect repellent. Night-time was the worst for bugs; she wouldn’t make it ten feet without getting bitten, sucked or injected by some multi-eyed thing that saw her as a moving bag of food. She sprayed herself all over and also some on her hands, wiped her face with the fluid, then spat a couple of times to rid her mouth of the bitter taste on her lips.
Yelling men careened past her in the dark, their panic filling her with a sense of urgency. As she jogged past Francisco’s cabin, she saw it was empty, so continued on to the camp’s version of a command centre. Aimee heard Alfraedo before she saw him. He was bellowing in Spanish, and then she saw his large head above the men as he yelled and pointed at them as though accusing them of some crime. Francisco was standing next to him. When he caught sight of Aimee, he held up his hand for her to stop, and stepped around the crowd to join her at the rear.
‘Some more men have disappeared, but unfortunately it seems they didn’t leave quietly in the dark like the others.’ Francisco looked over his shoulder as some of the men started shouting back at Alfraedo. ‘This time there has been damage to the camp,’ he continued. ‘They destroyed our generator – that’s why we have no lights.’
‘But why would they? Why…’ Aimee stopped as she realised the full extent of the damage. No power meant no lights, but it also meant no refrigeration and no water purifiers. ‘You’ll have to tell your government ministers that we can’t stay here now; they’ll need to supply another generator or move us to a new quarantine site closer to the city.’
Aimee knew that once the Paraguayans agreed to move the campsite, she wasn’t going to let them quarantine her again; she was going to keep going, all the way back home.
Francisco took her hand. ‘I’m afraid we cannot inform them of anything, Dr Weir; we cannot inform anyone of anything. It seems the men also destroyed our communications room, the satellite uplink and even the computer equipment.’
‘What? They’ve blinded us…why? Why would they do that?’
‘Most of the men are very angry about being stuck here; and, though they will be paid for the time spent in quarantine, they will miss out on their performance bonuses. Also, there is great fear of the melting sickness. But still, that is no reason to make it difficult for us to communicate with—’
Francisco stopped as a man rushed up to Alfraedo and gestured to the jungle behind the mob. Alfraedo listened for a moment with gritted teeth, then roared to the men, pointing at individuals in the crowd. They cheered and rushed off, looking overjoyed at having some concrete task that they could channel their anger or fear into.
Francisco turned to Aimee. ‘They have found a trail leading into the jungle that is strewn with broken machinery parts. Alfraedo is organising a party to bring the men back. I am sure he will deal with them harshly.’
Alfraedo waded through the remaining workers like an icebreaker pushing through bergs in the Arctic. He nodded at Aimee and Francisco. ‘These men cannot have more than thirty minutes start on us. If we hurry we can bring them back to face justice for destroying the company’s equipment. I think we may need some extra guns, Doctor, and you would be most welcome as well, Dr Weir.’
‘No.’ Francisco stepped in front of Aimee waving his hand back and forth. ‘No, we do not need Dr Weir. She needs to continue her work on the disease. I am happy to accompany you and your men, Alfraedo, and bring my weapon, but I will not condone anything other than
accidental injury during the apprehension of these men.’
Alfraedo thought for a moment, then said, ‘Okay. But I think it best we have all of the weapons with us, Doctor. These men have proved that they can be violent, and it is very dark in the jungle at night. I would prefer to have the guns and not use them, than need them and not have them.’
Francisco exhaled slowly through his nose and nodded. He turned to Aimee with an anguished look on his face, and raised his silver eyebrows as if pleading for her consent. ‘I am sure Dr Weir would be happy to give us her weapon.’
Aimee was frozen with indecision. So far she had given little thought to the gun, but now realised that she felt secure with it hanging at her hip. She didn’t want to give it up. She looked into Francisco’s eyes and could tell he really didn’t want her to trek into the jungle at night. For that matter, neither did she – the thought of it made her shudder.
‘No problem,’ she said, undoing her belt buckle and sliding the holster off the leather strap.
She handed it to Alfraedo, who nodded his thanks, unbuckled his own belt and threaded the holster onto his hip. He then spun on his heel and started to yell in Spanish to the assembling men.
Aimee watched the line of lights bob out into the jungle – Alfraedo and Francisco, both with powerful flashlights, and four men carrying battery lanterns.
She thought of the hurried conversation she’d had with the dapper little doctor just before their departure. She had thanked him for intervening on her behalf and asked how he had known she didn’t want to go. His reply still made her feel uneasy. Because something is not right in this jungle, Dr Weir. Something ripped apart those soldiers and I do not believe it was a jaguar. Furthermore, I believe that whatever it was is still out there.
Aimee shivered despite the thick heat and hugged her arms around her body. As she turned back to her cabin, she saw one of the workers sitting at the jungle’s edge weeping. Even from a distance she could see the tears that splashed onto his knees were an oily black. A small cloud of mosquitoes whined around his head and shoulders.
Francisco could hear his own breathing – a rasping combination of exhaustion and nerves. Louder than usual, it was true, but he still shouldn’t have been able to hear it above the sounds of the jungle. Where are all the forest creatures? Have we frightened them into silence?
Alfraedo called a halt just over two hours into the search. The trail they followed was faint, but the scatterings of machinery parts and sections of broken foliage were a useful guide. Francisco could not shake the unpleasant suspicion that it was almost too easy to track the men. Alfraedo reached out his hand to a broad leaf at head height – it came away sticky with blood. He pulled free one of his revolvers and held it up beside his face as he whispered over his shoulder, ‘Silencio.’ He hunched down and carefully moved forward.
Francisco noticed the men had bunched up – no one wanted to be too far away from the main group. Even he found himself walking so close behind the large and reassuring frame of Alfraedo that he accidentally kicked the man’s heels several times. The foliage they pushed through was wet; even in the dark, Francisco could see glistening blood and gore. It was everywhere: on their clothes, their skin; it dripped down on them and squelched beneath their feet. It was clear to Francisco that someone was very badly hurt, or dead.
Francisco knew he was breathing harder and faster, and Alfraedo half turned to him to slowly bring the muzzle of his gun to his lips, before waving them on. Francisco’s mouth immediately dried, but he gulped anyway.
The moon broke from the clouds and lit a clearing just behind a thin veil of tangled vines and ferns. A figure sat naked and alone in the centre of the silvery open space. The powerful frame seemed misshapen, and was hunched over what looked like a large, skinned monkey. The creature held the object to its face, jaws working, burrowing.
Alfraedo made a guttural sound and parted the curtain of green. He took a single step forward, straightened his back and trained his light on the figure. It seemed oblivious to the shaking beam and continued to gorge itself on the carcass in its hands.
A floating sensation filled Francisco’s head, as if it was disconnected from the rest of him. He realised his knees were shaking and his heart pounding. He too moved forward, just one small step, barely aware of the movement.
The other men entered the clearing, forming a line either side of Alfraedo, their lanterns illuminating the space with a yellow glow.
‘Hey, señor…’ Alfraedo’s usually strong voice sounded small and frightened, and ended with a little quiver. He swallowed and tried again. ‘Excúseme, señor.’
This time the naked figure looked up. Francisco gasped as he recognised the face: the priest.
The man’s long colourless face, the stark eyes, could have been a carnival mask floating in the torch beams. Blood and viscera coated his arms to the elbows and also his beard, as if he had pushed his entire head into the corpse he held. As Francisco’s gaze fell on the carcass in the priest’s hands, he recognised it as that of a human being.
Bile rose in his throat as he recalled the desecration of flesh that had once been the American soldiers. So this is our jaguar, he thought as he opened his eyes once more on the terrible scene. Santa Madre de Dios, he whispered and crossed himself with a shaking hand.
The lifted lanterns also served to illuminate the forest behind the bloody figure. Several carcasses dangled from branches, their ankles bound and throats crushed. The faces of some were bloated and darkened by settling blood, indicating they had been hung upside down while they still lived. With others, it was impossible to tell, as the skin had been ripped from their bodies and flung into higher branches to hang there like drying garments after washing day.
‘We have been waiting for you.’ The voice seemed to well up from deep within the man, as though his vocal cords had receded into his core. He smiled, showing row upon row of needle-like teeth, still coated with flesh and gristle from the feast he had been enjoying. He turned his head to look at the bodies hung behind him and smiled again. ‘Yes, we took them all…we needed them.’
He turned back and his eyes bored into Francisco. ‘As we need you. As we need all of you.’
Francisco could smell the acrid tang of sour sweat and urine among the men he stood with. This is what fear smells like, he thought, as two of the men holding lanterns fled back into the jungle. He would have liked to run as well, but his legs refused to do anything more than shake.
There was a roar like thunder that shook the trees around them and made Francisco cringe and cover his ears in pain and terror. The priest vanished, and Francisco felt a breeze pass by him. He assumed González had entered the jungle in pursuit of the men.
Without the priest’s physical presence, the spell was broken and Francisco felt his legs return to him. Just as he was contemplating his own escape, the priest reappeared, both men clasped in his hands. One hung by the ankle, moaning, his leg clearly broken, a shard of bone extruding through the flesh. The other was held by the throat, the priest’s hand compressing flesh and bone to about a quarter of its normal size. The man’s head wobbled as if held to the torso by skin alone.
González dropped the men onto the pile of human debris at his feet. ‘I am sated now,’ he said. ‘They will be for later.’ He looked at the hanging bodies again. ‘All are needed; all will join with us by being consumed.’
Alfraedo lifted his gun and fired five shots. Despite the close range, he only managed three hits; the bullets making a damp thwacking sound as they struck the priest’s chest. González made no move to dodge them; it was as if he welcomed them, Francisco thought; as though he wanted to test his body against them – and found himself to be superior.
González opened his mouth and roared again. It was an inhuman sound that conjured images of hell and cold and darkness, and made Francisco’s bowels loosen in terror. In a blur, the priest was in front of Alfraedo, his hand around the large man’s throat. He lifted him in one hand, a
nd Francisco heard squeaking noises come from the mining manager’s nose and mouth.
Francisco was weeping with dread now. He retched, bile spilling onto his silver goatee. The men with him had fallen to their knees; they looked as though they were praying to the priest, even though he was now something very different. González brought Alfraedo’s face close to his own and smiled, his needle-sharp teeth glistening red in the moonlight. He dug his taloned fingers into the meat of Alfraedo’s neck and ripped away a large flap of skin from the front of his throat. Arterial blood spurted over the priest’s face and shoulders. He opened his mouth, wider than seemed humanly possible, and the red fountain sprayed into its black cavity. Even before the body was drained, González opened his hand and let Alfraedo flop to the ground, his legs and arms still twitching as though being touched by an electrical current.
Francisco was running – he didn’t know how – his legs must have just taken over. He hadn’t even thought of reaching for his gun; it remained in its holster, forgotten. He had dropped his flashlight – he couldn’t remember when or where – all logic had been washed away by a tidal wave of fear, revulsion and panic. He had made it through the first barrier of ferns when he was knocked from his feet by a blow so powerful he heard the sickening crunch of the large bone in his thigh breaking before he felt it. Then the pain came and it was excruciating; mercifully, he passed out.
Consciousness returned too soon. His ankles were bound together and he was being dragged along the ground, tied to other bodies in some ghastly procession of cadavers and weakly struggling men. He didn’t bother fighting; like a small animal in the jaws of a predator, he knew he was without hope. He knew his fate: he and the others were little more than sacks of food to be consumed at leisure by something that was no priest, was no man at all really. Indeed, it was something probably older and infinitely more powerful than any mortal. Perhaps demons do exist after all, he thought in his near delirium.
