Plague

CHAPTER 46

There was really no trail as Samantha was winding her way up the mountain, behind all the others and far behind the guide and Benjamin, who were pumping their arms like distance runners and trudging up the slope. It was a five-hour journey to the village they were heading to but the five hours turned to two days because of the terrain. In many areas, you had to walk so slowly that if you didn’t keep your eyes on the ground, you couldn’t be sure you were actually moving.

The humidity would go from completely dry to soaking wet in a matter of minutes and they were having to constantly stop and rest under the shade of a tree or next to a cool stream. They could hear the mighty river in the distance now but the guide assured them they weren’t near it.

Duncan looked back to her and smiled, slowing his pace to allow her to catch up. She had told him earlier about the conversation with Donner and he shrugged his shoulders and just said, “Since when are they ever honest with us?”

At this point everyone was exhausted and dehydrated. Even to Sam the question of who Donner really was and who he worked for seemed to fade in the distance. He was certainly government and he was certainly some type of law enforcement; that would have to be enough.

They made it to the top of either a large hill or a small mountain and they rested on some boulders, the tree-top view before them a sea of green against the backdrop of a sparkling blue sky.

Sam took out a breakfast bar and ate half, washing it down with half a bottle of water. They didn’t speak much and that was fine with her. She removed her pack, feeling the sweet release of lightening weight, and the tightness in her muscles instantly began to disappear. She felt like she could sleep right now, like she could close her eyes and lie down on the rock behind her and not wake up for years. Her stomach was queasy and had been for two days. She was concerned that she may have picked up a trematode worm from the water supply or the food. Iodine pills could only do so much.

“All right,” the guide said in his heavily accented English, “it’s not far.”

They continued down the path as Sam re-strapped her pack. It wouldn’t have been as bad if it was just clothing, food, and water, but she also carried biohazard gear and several laboratory kits to run preliminary tests in the field. Porters had offered their services in town for less than five dollars a day and she wished now she’d taken them up on it.

The sun kept beating down on them but mercifully they declined in slope and were eventually on flat ground; the jungle canopy above them shielding most of the sizzling rays that were slowly cooking them.

They hiked until night fell and they set up their tents near what could be considered a path but was little more than a worn trail where animals and people had gone down before. A stream flowed near them but the guide warned that camping next to a water source was a good way to get killed-either by native Indians or the jaguars whose roars were ever-present in the darkness.

The morning came and Sam placed Duncan’s pack on him and he did the same for her. He looked to her and brushed aside a strand of hair that was in her eyes.

“We need to have another dinner when we get back to the States,” he said.

“We will.”

They began the day’s long trek before the sun was even up but soon the rejuvenation of sleep was gone and the same exhaustion of yesterday was there.

Sam kept checking her watch incessantly. She tried to fight it, but every few minutes her eyes would wander down to her wrist seemingly on their own. She counted three hours of torturous jungle hiking before they came to a small clearing and the guide stopped and began speaking with Benjamin. He nodded several times and then came back to speak with the group.

“Well,” he said when everyone was gathered, “the village is just up ahead past that patch of trees. What do you guys want to do?”

“I’ll go,” Duncan said, placing down his pack.

“Me too,” Sam said. She glanced at Cami to see if she wanted to come but she had already sat down cross-legged on the dirt, leaning against her pack.

“Okay,” Benjamin said, “you guys check it out and tell us when we can head up.”

It took nearly twenty minutes for both Sam and Duncan to suit up in the yellow biohazard suits they had brought with them. The suits were thinner than those found at USAMRIID or the CDC, but they had two underlayers and thick plastic helmets that had been designed for the handlers responsible for testing chemical weapons.

They walked past the group of trees and saw the outline of huts in the distance. The suits kept the heat and their sweat contained, but abandoning their heavy packs was well worth the trade.

They didn’t speak as they neared the village. Duncan was readying sample casings, checking and re-checking the thin glass tubes to make sure any samples he took wouldn’t expose everyone else to what was inside.

“I don’t know if I love this or hate it,” Sam said.

“Hate it. Definitely hate it.”

The first thing Sam noticed as they neared the village was a lack of inhabitants, and then the vegetation that engulfed the structures. It eerily reminded her of some of the buildings in Honolulu once maintenance had been halted.

The path they were on led them to the center of the huts. There weren’t more than ten of them. It appeared less like a village and more like the encampment of a breakaway family. There were posts around each hut like there had been in the village they’d been to before, posts meant to tie up wildlife, but nothing was tied to them now, the tethers lying empty on the dirt. There was no breeze, just an unsettling motionlessness. In the distance Sam could still hear the river.

“Well,” Duncan said, “I guess the first hut’s as good as any other.”