Pray for Darkness: Terror in the Green Inferno (20 page)

Forty-one

The sunlight felt good upon their faces.

The swamp eventually led them to the mighty river, and now they were gathered on a small peninsula, a thin strip of sand that curled out into the water like a bent finger. Engorged by the recent storm, the water had risen several feet along the shore, and scores of branches and leaves and entire trees sailed past them, overtaken by the brown swell.

“How’s your leg?”

Squinting into the light, Ben shaded his eyes with his hand. Brooke was sitting cross-legged on the sand, her face angled toward the sun with a look of extreme serenity. Soiled and torn, her T-shirt and hiking pants were in ruins. She had attempted to wash her face in the river, but only managed to smear the dirt around, leaving streaks like war paint across her forehead and cheeks. Surrounded by a halo of golden light, she reminded him of some pagan goddess, some fallen deity cast down from the heavens. Her calm composure only strengthened his resolve to keep her safe, to get her out of this mess, and he wished, more than ever, that he could just snap his fingers and whisk her away from here—whisk them all away from here.

“Oh, I think I’ll live,” he replied with his usual good-natured grin. He patted the side of his thigh. Farther down his leg, the pants were shredded open, and Auggie’s sock was fastened around the wound. A red circle had blossomed on the makeshift bandage, but the bleeding was beginning to slow. “See? Good as new.”

There was a hard block of silence as they sat looking at one another, no one wanting to broach the forbidden subject. Until at last, Cooper did.

“Those things… they’re not people.” He glanced around challengingly, as though daring someone to contradict him. When no one did, he continued. “They aren’t human,” he said at last, and this otherwise simple statement sent vibrations of fear rippling throughout the group. Had he been up and pacing as he had done before, talking in riddles and half-finished sentences, they could have dismissed his words as so much gibberish. But Cooper was sitting calmly, his eyes clear as the day, and the cold certainty in his voice frightened them. They listened intently. They were not just watching but staring at him now, as though mesmerized. And in a way they
were
mesmerized, for he was finally able to put to words what they themselves had refused to acknowledge to one another.

“They aren’t human,” he repeated, nodding. “But I think they were human once...” His stopped to push the hair back from his face. “And I know how completely fucking crazy this sounds, but hey, you saw them. You
smelled
them. Those things—” Cooper gestured toward the verdant jungle, and they could not help but to look, afraid of what they might see looking back at them from the permanent gloom of the vegetation. But there was nothing there, of course, just endless fathoms of green.

“Those things are not alive,” he continued. “Not in the way we think of it, anyway. So I’m just gonna toss all my cards on the table and say it, okay?”

There was a collective silence as they held their breath.

Don’t say it!
Auggie pleaded silently.
Don’t you dare say it!

“They’re—”

But Cooper never delivered the forbidden word.

He felt a strange rattle within the hollow of his chest, a wet rattle, followed by a painful contraction of his abdomen. Then something slimy and thick seemed to leap up into the back of his throat, making it difficult to breathe, and he doubled over coughing. From somewhere in the trees, a bird screeched like a banshee, as though trying to complete the appalling revelation.

“Are you okay?” Ben started to get up but Cooper waved him away.

Still gagging, Cooper turned his head and spit a glob of yellow mucus onto the sand. Wiping his mouth, he looked at them dizzily. “I know it sounds crazy,” he went on in a raspy voice. “Believe me. I think it’s crazy, too…” Now losing his train of thought, he could continue no further. He stopped, suddenly feeling both relieved and exhausted. So Cooper never said the dreaded Z-word; he didn’t have to. His omission was just as effective, perhaps even more effective, for it forced them to accept, in a private and personal way, what each of them already knew to be true. He’d said enough, and now it was his turn to listen and for someone else to speak.

Now the that the cold light of truth shone upon them, there was no denying what they already knew, no matter how irrational it might seem. Cooper was right: it did sound crazy. But compared to what? There were Felix and Felipe, who were both dead; and Janie, who was snatched from her tent in the middle of the night; and now shadow people were chasing them through the jungle. Yes, it sounded crazy, but so did everything else.

“Whatever
they
are,” spat Ben, “whatever you want to call
them
, I don’t care. What I do care about is how to avoid them. And, if it comes down to it, how do we kill them?”

“They’re fast,” Auggie stated simply. “And they’re strong. But we learned something about them—”

Ben gave him a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”

“Well, for one, we know they don’t like water. Maybe they can’t swim.”

Ernesto was nodding. “We will stay closer to the river, uh-huh. Where is safe.”

“What else?” asked Ben.

“They can communicate with each other.” Brooke shuddered as she recalled their primitive vocalizations. “Those weren’t just random noises they were making; it was a language of some kind.”

Auggie nodded grimly. “These
things
,” he said, using the only word he could allow himself to say. “They’re not like the ones in the movies. They can run and climb and
think
—”

“How do we kill them?”

Ernesto gestured toward his spear, which was jutting out of the sand beside him.

“And if that doesn’t work,” Ben said coldly. “We’ll do exactly as they do in the movies. We’ll smash their fucking heads in.”

In spite of the fact that he did not understand English, Oscar had been following their exchange with interest, trying to translate the tone of their voices, their expressions, their body language. Now he turned to Ernesto for an explanation. In a muted tone, Ernesto relayed the gist of their conversation.

When Ernesto had finished, Oscar sat thinking with his head bowed to the sand. When he lifted his head again, there were tears sliding down his cheeks. He opened his mouth to speak, hesitated a moment, and then uttered a string of words that seemed to end in a question.

Ernesto paused a moment and then answered him with a grave expression.

All at once, Oscar began to sob, his shoulders rolling forward as his large body trembled and shook.

“What is it?” asked Brooke, standing. “Why is he upset?”

Ernesto studied the river for a moment, thinking. Then he turned back to the group. “He does not want his brother to be like
them
.”

Lowering herself onto the sand, Brooke put her arms around Oscar’s shoulders. He lifted his boxy head, the good eye focusing on her face, the lazy eye drifting toward the river. Both eyes had the same look, though, and that look was complete and utter hopelessness. Leaning into her, he wept against her chest, giant paws latching themselves around her in a child’s embrace. Words tumbled out of his mouth, and then he fell silent, blubbering softly against her shirt.

Ben watched all this from the other side of the circle, and he was ashamed by the flame of jealousy that seemed to ignite in the pit of his stomach. He turned to Ernesto. “What did he say?”

“He say…” Ernesto bowed his head, unable or unwilling to meet their eyes, “he say he saw Felipe last night…”

“What?” Ben’s voice jumped higher in surprise. “Where?”

The diminutive Peruvian scooped up a handful of sand, let the grains slip through his fingers.

“He say he saw Felipe in the dark… walking with the dead people.”

Forty-two

After leaving the peninsula, Ernesto guided them back into the green encroachments of the jungle where they followed the river for several hours in search of a place to bed down for the remainder of the day. Eventually, they discovered a ferny hollow not far from the river, and Ernesto directed them to build a
maloka
, or hut, beneath the natural arch of a fallen tree. The sun was now directly above them, and the humidity squeezed the sweat from their bodies as they sluggishly scouted the area in search of palm fronds and branches with which to construct their temporary shelter.

Wielding the knife, Ben began the now-familiar process of cutting leafy boughs and fan-like ferns. While he gathered the stock, Cooper carried the cut vegetation and delivered it to Auggie and Brooke, who were busy weaving the walls and roof of their shelter. Though their movements were painfully slow, they worked with an efficiency borne out of necessity, and it was not long before the
maloka
was completed.

After, Ben divided up the last of the protein bars into even squares and handed out the sorry rations with a look that said,
You’d better enjoy this while you can
. They were running dangerously low on food, and soon they would be forced to rely entirely on whatever they could forage from the jungle—grubs and flowers and unripe bananas and God only knew what else. They had already sampled these items and, save for the bananas, which were stringy and bitter but not entirely inedible, they did not relish the thought of trying them again. So they savored every last crumb and drank water from the vine to wash down their daily sacrament while Ernesto carved a new brace of spears to replace the ones they had lost. High morale did not come easily in the jungle, especially at night, and he wanted them to rest as long as possible before the sun went down and—

***

Darkness came to greet them.

It arrived as it always did in the jungle, with the fleeing of daylight through the trees and the sudden deepening of shadows. The bright, cheery birdsong was replaced with the rising crescendo of insects and frogs. Fast asleep inside the flimsy
maloka
, the Americans did not witness the day’s descent, nor did they awaken at the throbbing rhythm of the alien chorus. When at last they did wake up, it was to the sound of Ernesto calling softly for them to gather up their things again.

“How’s the leg?” Brooke asked, helping Ben put on his backpack.

“It’s good,” he replied. She was silent, so he added: “No, really, it’s fine.”

But before they resumed their nocturnal passage, Ernesto brought them down to the riverbank. The water rippled darkly, shot through with streaks of silver moonlight. As they watched, Ernesto climbed over a small drop and lowered himself through the tall grass to the water’s edge. Boots landing with a wet slap, he crouched low to the ground, the spear held out before him in a defensive posture. A cluster of birds was luxuriating in the shallows, and they fluttered away in a storm of beating wings. Eyes surveying the water, he dropped to one knee, scooped something into his hand, and climbed back up the bank to show them.

Now they were slathered in mud from head to toe; this was Ernesto’s idea.
Ocultación
, he’d explained to them, gesturing with his hands and then demonstrating how one can apply the claylike earth as a sort of mask. They had watched him, nodding. The others did not know this Spanish pronunciation, just as Ernesto did not know its English equivalent, but the meaning was clear enough. So they’d done as he’d instructed, helping one another apply the rich brown mud to their faces, arms, and clothing.

After, they regarded one another with a combination of satisfaction and fear. The familiar features were gone, buried beneath the thick layers of clay. Their eyes bulged at the sight, for they looked nearly as frightening as the creatures that were stalking them.

The night passed slowly, as all nights in the jungle do. The moon had plumped toward fullness, transforming the forest into a world of extreme contrasts, and soon their eyes adapted to its otherworldly glow. Ernesto’s idea to follow the course of the river seemed a good one. The trees and bushes that grew along its banks, while not exactly sparse, were spread far enough apart to allow easy passage. At some point they happened upon a cluster of large moss-covered stones that gave the impression of an ancient fort or foundation, and not even Auggie gave these ruins more than a cursory glance, for it was far too easy to imagine the people who once lived there… and to wonder what had become of them. And it seemed likely, only too likely in this world where anything was possible, that the spirits of the ancients still dwelled there, searching for a few more souls to keep them company on the lonely path to eternity.

On occasion, they heard signs of wildlife—a chirp here, a squeak there—and more than once their hearts froze at the sound of movement, only to hear the telltale patter of hooves, the stir of leaves as some small woodland creature bulled through the underbrush ahead of them. Travelling swiftly through the black and white landscape, the six humans found their rhythm, moving with the fluidness of shadows.

They continued all through the night, beyond the point of exhaustion, beyond the point where their muscles trembled and their feet burned with blisters, beyond the point where conscious thought became abstraction. In the absence of awareness, their bodies became machines, working faster and with greater efficiency than they would ever have imagined. They had resigned themselves to the punishing journey, and now it mattered little if they had five miles or fifty miles ahead of them; they were determined to push forward, even if it killed them—and there was little doubt amongst them that it probably would.

Forty-three

Cooper was in a bad way. After making a perfunctory attempt to scrub away his mud mask with some damp leaves, he plunked himself down against the trunk of a giant Ceiba and did not get up. Arms and legs trembling in the throes of a high fever, his half-painted face sparkled in the early morning light, and his once blond hair was plastered to his head in filthy clumps. As the light gathered strength, Cooper squinted up at them, eyes sunken and watery, hands folded neatly on his lap. “How did I get here?” he asked in a childlike voice, and smiled at them dreamily.

Ben thought he had never seen anything so touching in his entire life. It reminded him of when they were kids, all those long ago Halloweens when they would gather at Ben’s house before heading out into the chill October air to go trick-or-treating. In that simple, golden era of their childhood, aeons before they would set foot within the cursed jungle, Ben, Auggie, and Cooper would help each other assemble their costumes, dabbing the special effects makeup and fake blood on one another’s faces in order to complete the astonishing transformation from boys to monsters. Later they would return to Ben’s house to take stock of their plunder, dumping their jack-o’-lanterns on the floor in a flood of color; snack-sized versions of Mallo Cups, Reese’s, Kit Kats, and candy corn, their joy instantly elevated by the rare appearance of a full-size Hershey bar. It was all so innocent; it was all so simple. But now they lived in a world where there were no treats, and the only tricks were tricks of the mind. A world where every night was Halloween, and the monsters were all too real.

“Are you okay, Coop?” Brooke asked, crouching down beside him.

“I’m so c-c-cold,” he stuttered.

Pulling the torn-up poncho from her ever-shrinking backpack, Brooke gently placed it over Cooper’s chest and shoulders. “Th-thanks,” he said weakly.

“No problem.”

“Coop?” Ben asked. “Do you want anything?”

Still shivering, Cooper looked at him and chuckled. “Yeah. I’ll t-take a real bed p-please. N-no, f-f-fuck that, I want a Tempur-Pedic.”

“Adjustable or regular?”

“Adju-ju-justable,” Cooper said. “And s-some f-food. M-maybe Ch-Ch-Chinese. F-f-fuckin’ crab rangoons, m-man.”

Ben smiled sadly. “Tempur-Pedic and some Chinese food: got it. Anything else?”

Cooper looked at him for a long time. “I ju-just w-wanna g-go h-home, man.”

Ben knelt down beside him and patted his shoulder. “You will, man. We all will. And when we do, the crab rangoons are on me.” Ben looked up at Auggie and Brooke. “What do you say, guys? You want to go out for some Chinese when we get back? My treat?”

Auggie nodded so enthusiastically it looked as though his neck might break. “Yeah, that sounds great. We can drink a few of those what-do-ya-call-’ems—scorpion bowls?—and make a night of it.”

“That sounds perfect,” Brooke said, choking back tears. “We’ll all get drunk, pig out, and sing some karaoke.”

“I d-didn’t know you could s-sing.”

“I can’t,” Brooke replied with a strained laugh. “I can’t sing for shit. I totally suck. But what I lack in talent, I make up for in enthusiasm. But just in case, we’ll all get drunk first. Then you might actually think I’m pretty good.”

“Now
that
,” Ben chimed in, “sounds like an excellent plan.”

Smiling serenely, Cooper closed his eyes, his breathing already falling into the steady rhythm of sleep.

“We’ll be back in a minute, Coop,” Brooke said softly, but he had already gone to wherever people go when they dream. Giving Auggie and Ben a disquieting look, she gestured for them to follow her to a place just a few yards away. When they were out of hearing distance of Cooper, she turned to them with her arms folded tightly across her chest.

“What is it?” Ben asked in a hushed voice.

Brooke looked away for a long time. When she looked back at them, her face was tight with a grim expression. “Those things,” she said, and she did not need to elaborate, for the two boys knew precisely which
things
she meant. “Those things,” she continued, “seem to be infected or something. Do you remember Felix’s bite mark?”

Both boys nodded. Though it already seemed like a memory from another age, they could not forget the ghastly oozing pustule that had overtaken the riverboat driver’s forearm when he returned from his ill-fated fishing trip.

“I think that’s how they become that way, from some kind of infection.”

Ben was quiet for a moment as he considered this. “When I was a kid, there was this big old raccoon that wandered into our neighborhood one summer. It looked dirty and confused, and it tried to bite one of my neighbors as she was getting out of her car. The cops showed up a little while later, and they took one look at the thing and put a bullet in its head. They said it probably had rabies, and that there was nothing they could do for it. I remember thinking that same thing about Felipe: that he was acting like a rabid animal. Do you think it could be something like that? Something like rabies?”

Brooke shook her head doubtfully. “I’m not sure. I keep thinking about those monkeys we found, the way they were hanging. It looked as though they just latched onto those branches and hung there until they died. Almost like… like they had done it on purpose. Like they had
wanted
to kill themselves. I know this sounds weird, but there was something about them that seemed vaguely familiar, like maybe I read about something like that once, only I can’t remember what or when.”

“Let’s assume you’re right,” Auggie said. “Let’s assume it’s some kind of infection. Felix and Felipe were exposed to it, and then they turned. But we were exposed to Felix and Felipe… and we’re all fine, right?”

Again, Brooke shook her head. “It’s hard to say. We don’t know how it spreads. Maybe Felix and Felipe had direct contact with it.”

“What are you saying? That it’s some kind of parasite?”

“I don’t know.” Brooke took a deep breath. “But here’s the thing: malaria is caused by a parasite that is transmitted by blood. Now I don’t know exactly what this infection is; I know it’s not malaria. But what if the Malarone is protecting us from becoming infected, or at least helping to slow it down?”

“Shit,” Ben murmured, turning to Auggie with a look of concern. “Do you still have the pills?”

Auggie couldn’t bring himself to meet Ben’s eyes. “They’re gone, man. They turned to mush after we fell into the swamp.”

“Fuck.”

“The locals don’t take Malarone,” Brooke said. “They drink the tea.”

“Maybe Ernesto’s tea will help,” Auggie added hopefully.

“A lot of good it did for Felix and Felipe,” Ben muttered bitterly.

Brooke looked back at the place where Cooper was still sleeping soundly, his mud-streaked face poking up from the shredded poncho. “Right now,” she murmured, “it’s all we have.”