Pray for Darkness: Terror in the Green Inferno (19 page)

Thirty-nine

Ben and Brooke were sprinting blindly through the darkness, hands locked together as they attempted to navigate the jungle maze. They heard the bloodthirsty shrieks of their pursuers approaching from behind, only yards away and closing fast, and they knew it was only a matter of time before they would be forced to turn and fight.

Ben led the way on instinct, ducking and weaving, cutting sharp angles through the underbrush. He was so decisive in his movements that if Brooke hadn’t known better, she would have believed he actually knew where he was going. Hurling themselves through the netlike vines and brambles, they came upon a narrow strip of sand, a rutted trail that arrowed straight into the forest—no, not a trail, exactly. In all likelihood it was probably just a dried-up streambed or an animal run. Either way, it would have to do.

Pulling free of the brier, they leapt down onto the hard-packed sand. The impact momentarily loosened their grip on one another, and Ben turned in time to see Brooke reaching out to him, her eyes round with fear. Grabbing her hand, he began to lead her down the right-hand trail, which divided the vegetation like a natural corridor. Now that the going was easier, they ran even faster, boots crunching softly against the naked sand. All was going well, it seemed. A minute passed. Then five. It seemed like longer, much longer. Soon the trail petered out, and they were back in the thickness of the trees. Eventually they arrived at a dead end; an impenetrable wall of underbrush that skirted the forest like an endless hedgerow.

Brooke took a couple of steps toward the green wall.
A mouse couldn’t fit through there
, she thought.

“Come on,” Ben urged. “We’ve got to keep moving.”

For the next twenty minutes, they hurried along the outskirts of the hedgerow, trying to put as much distance between themselves and their stalkers, desperately searching for a means of egress.

Ben stopped short, raising his hand in a bid for silence.

“Listen,” he said.

Holding her breath, she did.

WOOOT!-wooooh!

Somewhere off in the distance came the extraordinarily loud voice of the Screaming Piha, the tiny bird whose flirtatious wolf-whistle had been such a source of amusement during the boys’ first day at the Amazonia Lodge.

“That bird,” Ben whispered. “I’ve never heard it at night, have you?”

WOOOT!-wooooh!

“I—I’m not sure. I don’t think so. But the sky—”

He looked at her, puzzled, and saw the outline of her face etched in gray. She was standing with her lips slightly parted and her head tilted back. Not quite understanding, Ben looked up and saw the source of her fear. Behind the clouds, the sky was beginning to blush. Until then he had not noticed how clearly he could see her, and he knew it was only a matter of time before the sun came out and their stalkers would spot them hiding amongst the brambles.

There was a very long silence and then:
WOOOT!-wooooh!

But there was something else, too. They seemed to hear it at the same time. Something that sounded like the wind in the leaves, only there was no wind at the moment. The trees were perfectly still, and yet—

She clutched his hand. “Ben—”

“I know. When I say ‘run,’ we’re going to head straight toward the sound of that bird, okay?”

In the ruddy light, Ben saw her head bob up and down in quiet understanding.

There was a soft crunching of leaves behind them on the trail, and then a twig cracked only a few yards away. It was now or never.

“Run,” Ben hissed, and they took off at full speed, straining to hear the piercing cry of the Screaming Piha. Now the forest erupted behind them and they could hear the conspicuous sounds of footsteps, the breaking of branches, the guttural vocalizations of the inhumans as they closed in for the kill. There was no more guile in their movements. There was no need. The human invaders were almost completely surrounded, and there was no chance they could escape.

They sensed rather than heard the creatures bearing down on them. Visualizing the inevitable battle before him, Ben hoped that when the time came, he would be brave and that he would be able to fend them off long enough for Brooke to escape unharmed. He was steeling himself for the fight of his life when he noticed a strange ball of light bouncing along the underside of the canopy. The light winked on and off, and again he heard the familiar wolf-whistle of the Piha, only now it sounded much closer, and he was suddenly certain, absolutely certain, that it was not the cry of a Piha at all. It was Ernesto, signaling to them from somewhere up ahead.

Invigorated by this knowledge, Ben pushed onward through the lushness of the forest, still gripping Brooke firmly by the hand. The hedgerow ended abruptly and then the land began to slope upward to form a steep incline. Slipping and sliding on the layers of wet leaves, they began to climb. They were halfway up the hill when Brooke’s foot caught a root and she fell forward on her hands, but then Ben was beside her, yanking her to her feet, and she was somehow able to right herself. They were nearing the summit when a flutter of movement caught her attention. Out of the corner of her eye she saw two dark shadows running low to the ground, matching them stride for stride. Then the shadows separated, one of them streaking ahead, trying to outflank them.

With her last ounce of strength, Brooke dug her boots into the muddy earth and pushed. It seemed to take forever to reach the top of the ridge, but at last they did. There was a moment, a terrible moment, in which they both lost their balance, but then the ground leveled out beneath their feet and their momentum carried them forward onto even ground. Muscles burning, lungs screaming, they threw themselves up and over the crest. Crashing through a thicket of ferns, they saw an empty hollow before them, a place devoid of vegetation, and immediately took this to be the downward slope of the hill.

“Look!” Ben gasped.

A circle of light had appeared ahead of them, perhaps a hundred yards way. It hovered for a moment, bobbed up and down for one or two seconds, and then winked out. Ben and Brooke ran faster.

They were still running when the ground dropped away beneath them and they fell, legs treading air as they tumbled down, down into the empty space below.

***

They did not have time to hold their breath.

They did not have time to think.

Even as the water closed over their heads, several seconds passed before they were able to comprehend what had happened. A moment ago they were running, and then they were plunging into a liquid tomb. Instinct kicked in and they clawed their way up, arriving at the surface at approximately the same time. Coughing up mouthfuls of the thick black water, they saw that they were floating in a scum-covered swamp. Overhead, the clouds were beginning to break apart and the first scattered rays of dawn were filtering down into the forest.

“Swim! Swim!” Cooper’s passionate cries came to them from the other side of the mire. A light flashed on and off as someone signaled them with a headlamp.

Several feet away, Brooke was slapping the water with both hands, struggling to stay afloat as her stomach expelled the black soup, forcing it back out of her mouth in a violent flood. Swimming up behind her, Ben reached under her armpits and pulled her against him so that her head was resting against his chest. “I got you, okay?”

He felt her head move up and down as she nodded. Gagging, she turned her head and spit.

“Can you swim?”

“Yeah,” she gasped, able to breathe at last.

Pushing her ahead of him, Ben began to paddle for the opposite shore.

Cooper was hopping up and down, motioning to them from the bank. “Faster! Swim faster!”

Taking wild strokes, Ben turned his head and saw a row of shadows gathered along the steep embankment from which he and Brooke had fallen. Though the inhumans made no move to follow them, he urged Brooke to paddle harder, thoughts now shifting to all the many deadly creatures that liked to lurk in swamps, lying in wait for an easy meal. Standing on the opposite side of the swamp, Auggie used his headlamp like a beacon, guiding them safely to shore. Ernesto and Cooper were waiting for them on the water’s edge. Trembling with fear and exhaustion, Brooke and Ben arrived together, slipping and sliding in the deep mud.

“Oh, fuck, man,” Cooper cried out. “Your leg.”

Looking down, Ben saw the butt-end of a stick protruding from a hole in his pant leg. The branch had impaled his calf like an arrow, and now that his adrenaline was crashing, the muscle began to throb with a sharp pain. Limping forward, he grabbed Brooke around the waist and lifted her out of the mire.

“Got to…” Brooke was panting heavily, not really walking so much as falling forward onto her feet. As they reached dry land, her legs buckled and she slipped out of Ben’s wet hands. Tumbling forward, she began to crawl up the embankment. “Keep moving…”

Ben managed to get an arm underneath her and was trying to help her to her feet when a dull light caught his eye. The morning sky had appeared above the canopy, an ashen sky, the first harbinger of daybreak.

“Keep moving…”

Ernesto was standing with his back to them, gazing out across the black mirror of the swamp. “Is okay,” he said in a razor-thin voice. “They are gone now.”

Forty

“This… will not feel good,” Ernesto said, dropping down on one knee.

From where he was sitting on the ground, Ben looked at Ernesto’s face in the dreamy light and almost laughed. “You have a wonderful way with words,” he said with a wan smile.

Using his knife, Ernesto had cut away a portion of Ben’s pants in order to get a better look at the injury. Roughly five inches long and one inch wide, the branch protruded from the side of Ben’s calf like a giant splinter, embedded deep into the fleshy ball of muscle; just how deep was anyone’s guess. Surprisingly, there was little blood—only a thin scarlet ribbon oozed from the puckered wound around the point of impact. By some miracle, there was little pain, no worse than a charley horse, though Ben had a strong suspicion that was about to change in a moment.

Auggie was on all fours, using both hands to hold down his leg. “Are you sure we should pull it out? I mean, sometimes they say it’s better to leave it in. You know, to stop the bleeding?”

Ben’s blue eyes took in every movement around him. Now they focused on Auggie, who was looking back at him with a clinical detachment. “I don’t have much choice. If I leave it in there, I might do more damage to the muscle. And I can hardly walk, never mind run, with that goddamned thing sticking out of my leg.”

“Okay, okay.” Auggie knew there was no point in arguing the contrary. Once Ben made up his mind, it was impossible to change it.
The stubborn bastard would never flinch, realized Auggie. Not even if you killed him.

“Just make sure you’re ready with the bandage.”

Ernesto’s first-aid kit had been lost along with the
peki-peki
, so they had been forced to improvise. Digging deep inside his backpack, Auggie had found a pair of antimicrobial socks he had purchased online a week or so before the trip. Supposedly conceived for the military, the socks were lightweight and breathable, and were designed to prevent the growth of bacteria. Better still, they were the only things in his pack—perhaps the only things in his possession—that were not completely filthy.

Right now, Auggie had one of the unrolled socks draped across his shoulder, ready to be used as a tourniquet or bandage as soon as the spike was pulled. “I have it right here,” Auggie assured him. Then he turned shyly to Brooke, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground, rubbing Ben’s hand. “Maybe you should sort of get behind him,” Auggie suggested. “You know, in case he faints.”

“Me, faint?” Ben said from behind his teeth. “I’ll bet you a beer that you pass out before I do.”

Auggie grinned humorlessly. “I’ll take that bet.”

“You’re gonna lose.”

“Not if you lose first.”

“I have a motherfucking tree sticking out of my motherfucking leg. I think I already lost.”

“Well, since you put it that way, I guess you owe me a beer then.”

Ben smiled at him, grateful for the distraction of some gallows humor.

Meanwhile, Brooke had repositioned herself behind him, putting her arms around his shoulders and cradling his head against her chest. Bending her neck, she placed a loving kiss on his forehead and smiled at him encouragingly. They looked at one another for a very long time. She did not want to be here. She did not want to witness this impromptu surgery, or see him suffer, but in the end she stayed—for him.

Caressing her cheek, Ben’s eyes wandered across her face. Lips cracked and bleeding, eyes ringed with dark circles, hair lank with oil and knotted with leaves, Ben thought it was still the loveliest face he had ever seen.

“Hey,” he said, smiling up at her.

Her fingertips danced lightly over the thick stubble on his chin. “Hey,” she whispered back.

“I was just thinking of how bad it’s gonna suck,” he said, chuckling, “that I’ll have to go back to physical therapy again.”

Brooke pressed her lips together in a counterfeit smile. “Don’t be such a wimp,” she sniffled, trying hard not to cry.

Ben was about to tell her that he would be fine, that the pain was really not so bad at the moment, when he caught of flurry of movement out of the corner of his eye.

“Coop.”

Cooper had spent the last five minutes pacing back and forth, tossing his hands in the air and muttering to himself, but now he stopped at the sound of his own name. He raised his eyebrows. “What?”

“Stop,” Ben grunted. “Just stop. You’re freaking me the fuck out.”

Standing guard down by the water’s edge, Oscar looked on in silence. Over the course of the last few days, he had grown quite fond of the Americans. But now, watching the others tend to the injured leader, with his calm humor and stoic attitude, Oscar discovered a newfound respect for them as well. In a strange way, the terrible events that threatened to pull them apart had also brought them closer together. Oscar had never been good at articulating his feelings—or words in general, for that matter—and for the first time he felt a sense of kinship with the
turistas
. His only brother was dead; these four Americans, along with Ernesto, were the closest thing he now had to a family, and he would do anything to protect them.

Puffing out his cheeks, Ben took several quick breaths, steeling himself against the coming pain. “Okay.” He nodded as though answering a question. “Let’s do this.”

Brooke picked up a stick and held it above Ben’s face. “Bite down on this,” she said.

Ben opened his mouth and she placed the stick between his teeth like a horse’s bit.

Ernesto wrapped his slender brown fingers around the end of the shard. He tilted his head toward Ben. “Mmm. Ready?”

Ben nodded. “Do it!” he growled around the bit.

Ernesto did.

Ben winced in anticipation, but there was only a strange sort of tickle as the spike slid up and out of his flesh. Ernesto sat back on his legs, examining the oversized splinter in the dusty light. All told, the branch was close to eight inches long from shaft to tip, the last three inches stained dark with blood. There was a pause, a brief one, in which everything seemed frozen, as though time had come to a sudden, grinding halt. No one seemed to move or breathe. Spitting the bit out of his mouth, Ben began to chuckle. He opened his mouth to say something, some crude joke that would lighten the mood, when a white flash of pain exploded before his eyes and his fingers clawed the earth in agony.

Ben Sawyer’s scream echoed through the forest, and the others—even Ernesto—looked away.