by Greig Beck
The sharpened hooves skidded again and again on the slick stone, unable to get purchase. Chaco slipped down a few inches and yelped. The beast opened its mouth wider. Alex needed to act.
The boar heard him running towards it and turned its head, uttering an ear-blasting squeal that would have frozen any normal man. Alex heard Chaco’s wail as he and the beast came together in a thud of flesh and bone that echoed around the small cave. Alex had enormous strength, but he was easily outweighed by the boar, and its thick neck and shoulders gave it immense power. He drove his blade deep into the band of muscle across the beast’s shoulders, but, as the animal tossed its head in pain and surprise, he lost his grip on the knife.
He grabbed the creature by its two, foot-long curved tusks and tried to keep its jaws away from any soft tissue on his body. Its crushing maw was easily capable of pulverising bone or tearing free large chunks of flesh. Though Alex planted his legs and strained with all his energy, the creature’s huge bulk pushed him back again. He skidded a foot as the boar started to gain traction, and remembered something his father used to say when he was a boy: Catching a tiger was easy; deciding what to do with it after that is the hard part.
The blade wasn’t far from his grip, but he would need to release one hand to reach up for it. He knew he was quick enough – then he could aim for a more vital area of the boar.
Just as he was coiling his muscles to act, there was an explosive splash behind him.
‘Cuidado! Allí viene el jabalí!’
Chaco’s high-pitched voice was frantic, but Alex was locked in a death struggle and couldn’t chance looking at the boy to try to work out what he meant. I really hope you’re telling me that my friends have arrived, he thought. The boar dipped its head and lifted it quickly, nearly wrenching itself from Alex’s grasp.
The boy was yelling again. ‘El otro, el otro.’
Alex knew only a little Spanish, and by the time he’d registered the words, the other one, there came a crushing blow to his back that forced all the breath from his body and pushed him into the face of the male boar.
The female razorback had obviously regained consciousness and had come in search of its mate, leaping down into the sinkhole. Now it joined the battle, and Alex found himself sandwiched between two stinking pigs, both determined to rip him to pieces and probably devour the remains.
The female’s massive teeth clamped around his upper arm and started to grind together. Alex yelled as pain burst through his body in a red-hot wave. He had to let go of the male or the flesh would be ripped from the bone of his arm. His body was on fire: his arm burned, and his ribs were agonising bands across his back. But nothing was as intense as the inferno of rage that consumed his brain.
He yelled into the male boar’s face and, with a massive burst of strength, twisted his hand sideways, snapping off its deadly tusk and swinging it up and into its eye. Any thought of sparing the creatures’ lives had evaporated the moment the rage had taken him.
The male screamed in pain and threw its head up and away. It gave Alex enough time to swing his free elbow around and into the side of the female’s snout, stunning it long enough for him to pull his arm free and turn to grab its head. In one motion, he swung the 350-pound beast around and brought its body down on the back of the male. The weight of the female, combined with massive G-forces, flattened the male boar into the water.
Alex leapt at it, pulled his knife from the male’s shoulder, and used the hilt like a club as he punched down with all his strength onto the centre of its skull. The deep crunch bounced off the walls of the cave and the massive animal didn’t pull its head up out of the water again.
Still, Alex continued to rain blows down on the broken skull until the head was a flattened mat of coarse hair, shattered bone and gore. The limestone smell of the cave was replaced by the coppery scent of blood.
The female hobbled over to one side of the underground chamber, its frame bruised and battered after the encounter with Alex.
For Alex, a red haze blurred everything. He turned to the smaller animal, the black blade still in his hand, and felt a mix of triumph and exhilaration at the thought of delivering it the same fortune as its mate. The boar turned and faced the wall, standing quietly – probably not wanting to see the alpha predator that was about to bring its death.
Alex gripped the blade harder. Kill it. Tear it in two! a voice screamed in his head.
He lifted the blade; he would bring it down in the centre of its head. Penetrate the skull and brain in a single powerful blow. No, that was too quick, he wanted the beast to feel pain. He would disembowel it first.
The boar grunted and lowered its blunt snout even further.
Alex took another step closer to the animal. While it lives, it’s a risk. Kill it. Exterminate it, annihilate it… The voice was getting louder. Alex put one hand up to his head and pressed his knuckles into his temple.
The red haze engulfed him. Images flashed through his mind like a movie projector stuck on high speed. Who is that? Hammerson’s Monster. Kill it…now!
Over and over again the voice roared in his head. Alex felt outside of himself, a spectator watching from a back row as squeals and screams bounced around the walls. Fists rose and fell time and again. Like machines, blurring with speed and ferocity. The warm, coppery scent intoxicated him, but then came the more disgusting odours of freshly torn flesh, viscera, and opened bowels.
The squeals stopped but the screams continued. Alex blinked as blood stung his eyes. The screaming was coming from behind him, not from the boar. He looked down: the beast was barely recognisable. Its limbs and flesh were rent, but not by a blade…more as though it had been torn apart.
Alex looked down at his hands: they were soaked in blood. He could see grazes and cuts crisscrossing the skin the gloves didn’t cover.
No witnesses. The boy…finish it.
‘No!’
He screamed the word aloud, feeling a shock wave pass through his body as he rebelled against his subconscious. The chaotic storm of impulses in his mind started to calm and his breathing slowed. He knew he should feel revolted by what he had done. Instead, he felt a sated glow deep inside that troubled him.
Chaco slid down from the stalagmite, but when Alex looked at the boy he flinched and wouldn’t come any closer.
‘I’m okay now,’ Alex said, holding out his hand and motioning the boy nearer.
Instead, Chaco moved to the cave opening and looked upwards, then quickly back at Alex, fear on his ashen face. Then he called out his brother’s name, his voice watery and tremulous.
Alex glanced down and caught sight of his reflection in the still water around his legs. He grimaced at the mask of blood and gore that stared back at him. He kneeled down and washed his face and chest, and rubbed the mess from his gloves. He got to his feet and stood for a few moments, staring into the darkness. What were the military doctors doing to him in his medical sessions? Why was he becoming more like this – enjoying the blood and the death, even revelling in it? He would speak to Hammerson, and to the doctors, Graham and Marshal, when he got back. This time, they would answer him, or else.
‘Sam, are you reading me?’
Alex’s communication was immediately picked up by his second-in-command at the surface.
‘We’re at the edge of the clearing, boss. Been here for a while, wondering how to get you back up to us. Captain Garmadia’s warned us not to get too close to the edge of the hole as it may collapse the entire area on top of you. What’s going on down there? We’ve heard plenty of shouting and squealing. I hope you aren’t anywhere near those giant bacon trucks that went after the boys.’ Sam paused for a moment, then said more quietly, ‘Are you okay in the cave, boss?’
Alex smiled grimly in the dark. Sam was only a few years older than Alex but acted more like a big brother some times. He knew of Alex’s distaste for dark caves following his Antarctic mission beneath the ice; Alex had been one of a few survivors but ended up with deep p
sychological scars that still woke him up in sweats and violent rages. Aimee Weir had also survived – Alex often wondered what her burden was.
‘Yep, I’m fine, Uncle. The pigs are…gone.’ Alex looked at the mountains of flesh bleeding into the water.
‘Kid okay?’ Sam knew about Alex’s rages too; how, when they took him over, it could be extremely dangerous for anyone close by.
Alex looked at Chaco, who stood silent and still like a small ghost at the rear of the cave. ‘Yeah, he’s fine too. Just reckons it’s time to leave…like me.’
‘How you want to do it?’ Sam asked. ‘As I said, the captain here gets real jittery if we step out into the clearing.’
Alex looked up to the cave ceiling. ‘How much rope have you got? We’re about twenty feet down under a lip of weak limestone – some areas more solid than others. You’ll need to stay well clear – at least forty back.’
‘We’ve only got about forty feet of rope overall. We need to tie it off to one of these tree trunks, or sink a ground anchor, then run it across the open space and drop it down to you – I reckon we need about sixty at least. I could crawl across and try to anchor it a bit closer to the edge, but that’s about it.’
‘No, stay clear; the roof’s already raining down on us in some areas.’
Alex heard Sam check with the CDC scientists for more rope. The reply wasn’t promising. Then he heard Garmadia’s voice speaking Spanish, probably to Saqueo.
‘Hold for five, boss,’ Sam said. ‘Garmadia has an idea.’
While he waited, Alex held his hands up under the column of light pouring into the cave. Where they had been cut and battered moments ago, they were now streaked with pink scars. He grunted to himself and looked at the boy. Chaco was shivering in the dark, his thin arms wrapped around himself.
After another moment, Sam came back online. ‘Seems this jungle is a toolbox as well as a lunchbox for the locals. Saqueo has brought some vines that look like intertwined horsehair, and plenty strong too. Should give us an extra thirty feet. Be on its way down to you in two minutes.’
Alex nodded to Chaco and pointed to the hole in the ceiling. ‘Time to go, son.’
The boy wouldn’t move. Alex swore softly. He recognised shock when he saw it.
‘Was it that bad – was I that bad?’ He shook his head. ‘Sorry, kid. I guess I’m not a superhero, after all.’
Sam’s voice: ‘Heads!’
The rope, tied to a fist-sized stone, came hurtling into the pit. Alex shot out a hand and caught the rock before it hit the water.
‘Good work,’ he called back. ‘We’re coming up.’
The climb was harder than he’d anticipated. He had to bind Chaco to his back, as he kept trying to break from Alex’s grip. Now he hung there motionless, but continued to call to his brother. In addition, their combined weight caused a sawing motion on the broken edge of the roof. The rope started to smoke and fray, and pieces of stone rained down on them – some the size of a truck tyre. Alex tried to keep the debris from the boy’s exposed head, batting the stones away, but that meant having to suspend the climb and hang one-armed. As they got closer to the lip, more stones broke away, many striking Alex on the shoulders and face.
He felt the boy wriggling on his back, then the rope he had used to bind him loosened. The boy had freed himself. The fraying rope could not be used a second time, so Alex reached around quickly with his free arm and grabbed Chaco as he started to slide away. He flung him upwards and out through the opening.
As he no longer had to protect the boy, Alex could concentrate on climbing, and the slight loss of weight meant he reached the top of the hole almost immediately after Chaco. He saw the boy was already up and running to his brother, who grabbed and hugged him. The small boy cried and chattered rapidly, and Saqueo frowned and stared over his head at Alex.
Alex wiped his hands on his pants, then slowly bent to retrieve and wind up the rope. Another great day at the office, he thought, as he walked over to a grinning Sam Reid.
FIFTEEN
Aimee sat on the floor of her pre-built cabin and leaned back against the wall. She stared at the skirting board and the line of mould that had started to grow there. It hadn’t rained again last night, but she knew the respite wouldn’t last, and if the damp and humidity were bad now, just wait until it was bucketing down outside. Ugh, she thought, a heavy weariness settling over her.
She surveyed the room. Piles of soiled clothing created small islands on the floor, and a pair of very muddy boots with their tongues out lay beside the door like a pair of dirty sleeping dogs. She needed to urinate, but couldn’t bring herself to step outside. She looked up at the empty washbasin, considering it.
It was mid-morning and Francisco and the men still hadn’t returned. Deep in the pit of her stomach she knew they never would. The jungle ate them, she thought miserably. She lowered her head onto her arms. She was beyond tired and had a headache that extended from behind her eyes all the way down to her neck and shoulders. She closed her eyes and exhaled; sleep seemed like something that had happened to her in another life.
A loud bang on the door made her jump, and she laughed out loud. Perfect, I’m a nervous wreck as well as a physical wreck.
A voice in Spanish muttered an apology then the banging started again. Aimee placed the heels of her hands in the sockets of her eyes and rubbed hard until they ached. Get up, Aimee Louise Weir. She wondered what Alex would say if he saw her sitting on the floor in a giant lump of dirty clothing, mud and sweat. She stood slowly and groaned.
She looked out the window and saw a group of younger workers standing just beyond the door, apparently debating whether to knock again. It was hard to tell: nearly everything sounded like an argument in the rapid local language.
‘If you’ve brought me a cheeseburger and a soda, come on in,’ she muttered.
When the men spotted her, they waved and stood back from the door. She should have expected this to happen. With Alfraedo and Francisco missing, she was the remaining member of the gerencia, the management. She needed to tell them something, or at least be strong for the men who were sick and dying.
She lifted her water bottle and tipped it to her lips; its contents were warm and not refreshing at all. She tipped the rest of it over her face and let it run down the front of her T-shirt to mix with the perspiration that beaded between her breasts.
She sucked in a breath and pulled open the door.
‘Habla inglés?’ she asked.
Her Spanish was weak, and the thought of trying to keep up with the lightning-fast language made her feel even more exhausted. She needed someone to translate for her. ‘Uhhh, habla cualquiera inglés?’
Towards the back of the group, a small, wiry man tentatively put his hand up and smiled, displaying a mouth missing its front teeth.
‘Fantastico. Your name…?Aahhh, qué es su namo?’
Blank stare; the men looked at each other.
‘Es su namo…su nombre?’ Ah, forget it. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Mi nombre es Tomás, señora Weir. Si…yes, I speak tiny English.’ He held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart and grinned broadly, seemingly oblivious of the vampire effect his lone canines had on his smile.
Aimee nodded in relief. ‘Thank you, Tomás. Can you please tell the men what I am saying?’
‘I try, señora Weir. But please, not fast for me.’
Tomás threaded his way through the small crowd towards Aimee. Some of the other men slapped him on the back, as though he had just been elected mayor, or had scored a date with her. Aimee couldn’t help grinning at the thought: she was the tallest person in the camp and towered above the locals.
She put out her hand for Tomás to shake. He looked at it for a moment, then grasped it, pumping it hard and turning to grin over his shoulder. Aimee was sure a small blush appeared on his weathered cheeks.
‘Tomás, please tell everyone that Alfraedo and Francisco are still out in the jungle scouting for the me
n who recently fled the camp. They wish to bring them back, or at least make sure they are all okay.’
She waited while he translated. He seemed to use unnecessarily long strings of words, but she had no reason not to trust his translation. A few of the men asked questions, and Tomás nodded and turned to Aimee. She already knew what he was going to say.
‘The men, they already know this, but they say to me, when will they be returning?’ He gazed up at her, waiting for an answer.
Returning? Never. The jungle ate them – didn’t you know?
Aimee smiled, or at least lifted her lips and cheeks into the semblance of a friendly and confident expression. She thought quickly. Best if she responded as she did in board meetings when asked a detailed question that she didn’t have an answer for: camouflage it by giving a bit of information then changing the subject.
‘Alfraedo and his men will only be in the jungle for as long as necessary. I believe this will only be for a short time. I’m sure he would not want you to worry about them. There is, however, another team of doctors arriving either this evening or tomorrow.’ Please be true, she thought. ‘They are coming to assist us and tell us when we can go home.’
She nodded at Tomás, signalling she had finished. He was quiet for a moment, obviously thinking over what she had said, then he turned to speak to the men. They talked among themselves, some looking at Aimee with expressions of disbelief or resignation, then the group started to break up and head back to their tents.
Aimee now noticed that the tents had been moved. The majority were packed tightly together, almost in a ring, at one end of the camp – close to one another for security, but as far away from the isolation cabins as they could get without actually being in the jungle.
Aimee looked at Tomás. His face was a mix of annoyance and frustration. ‘What did the men say?’ she asked.
The small man looked briefly over his shoulder at the retreating men, then turned back to her and spoke without looking up into her face. ‘They are afraid, señora Weir. Many wish to track back to the river, where they hope to find transport to the city. They do not care that this may cause them to lose their bonus pay, or that there is a cuarentena order.’ Tomás looked over his shoulder again, as if to check the men were out of hearing range. ‘They are frightened of the nights here now. They say a demonio is loose in the jungle.’
