Plague

CHAPTER 49

Samantha ran for over an hour. By the time she stopped her lungs burned and acid rose in her throat. She fell to her knees, her hands buried in the soft dirt, gasping for air. She knew it wasn’t a good position for deep, heavily oxygenated breaths so she slowly rose and held her arms above her head, stretching out her lungs as far as she could.

It took almost ten minutes for her heart rate to slow to the point where she felt comfortable walking and she held her hands to her hips and looked around. There wasn’t a single thing she recognized and she didn’t know whether it was because she hadn’t paid attention as they came up this road or because she was somewhere new. Either way, from the position of the sun, far west on the horizon, she could tell it was late afternoon. Night would fall soon and unless she could make it to a town she would be camping out here. Aside from the local tribes who might view her as an invader, she would be exposed to jaguars, snakes, venomous insects, and poisonous fire ants. Without something to keep her off the ground and a fire, she might not make it through the night. She checked her cell phone; no reception.

There was only one thing to do: she had to go back to the infected village. She had to check on Duncan and find their other cell phones. If she could find Cami they would have a much better chance of survival. Donner would be on the road. She glanced to both sides and chose east, going off the road about twenty feet. Enough that she could see her tracks but could duck under the jungle’s vegetation if she had to.

She took a deep breath and started walking.

Every few minutes she looked back over her shoulder and looked down the road. She would stop and listen to the jungle but it was such an alien environment she didn’t know what she was listening for. Someone could be walking right behind her but the noise of the insects and animals and river drowned everything else out.

Though the shrubbery wasn’t thick it varied from razor sharp to blunt and sticky. It tore at her clothes and the exposed skin on her ankles and arms. She tried to distract her mind from the itchy, burning pain by thinking about home and what she would do first thing when she got back. She thought about her relationship with Duncan and whether…

The thought of Duncan pounded in her head. She shouldn’t have left him. But what could she have done?

She thought of this and other things; her career, her relationship to Ralph, anything that would take her mind off the idea of reaching down and tearing at her flesh to relieve the pain.

By the time she looked up she was in familiar surroundings; the clearing right before the village where she had left Benjamin and Cami. The sun was setting but it was still light and she crouched down and watched the sunbeams glisten off the leaves and grass.

She wasn’t sure how long she stayed there or what she was even looking for, but after a lengthy time she felt comfortable enough to get up and start making her way into the village.

It was as quiet and empty as it had been before. As she walked toward the hut she had left Duncan in, she kicked herself for not checking Benjamin for his cell phone as hers would soon be out of power.

The hut was right in front of her and she froze. She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, but when she did move her heart was beating so fast she felt like it might tear out of her chest.

Samantha made her way to the hut and looked in. Duncan sat up, holding leaves to his shoulder just above the acromion bone. She ran in and threw her arms around him.

“Easy easy easy,” he said, grimacing from the pain. “I’m okay. I’m okay.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes as she cupped his face in her hands. “I’m so sorry. I never should’ve left you.”

“It’s okay. It’s okay. We’re okay now.” He pulled himself up a little stiffer, glancing down to the wound and then back up at her. “I need stiches, Sam. In Benjamin’s bag I had a med kit. Can you get it?”

“Yeah, wait here,” she said, wiping the tears away from her face and taking a deep breath.

“Wait, where’s Billy? What happened?”

“I don’t know. He came after me.”

“Forget the med kit, we should get outta here. He’ll be back.”

She helped him to his feet and wrapped his arm around her neck. He didn’t need stitches, Sam knew. She could see that the wound was only lightly bleeding now but he appeared ghostly white and was trembling; he was bleeding internally. Something had been nicked or punctured.

She stepped out of the hut and was startled by an image next to her. She saw Cami standing next to the hut, her face red and caked in sweat. Before Sam could say anything, Cami raised a small, black Beretta handgun and placed it against Sam’s temple.

“What the hell are you doing?” Duncan said.

“Both of you back in the hut, now.”

“Cami-”

“Right now or I finish the job.”

They stepped back a few paces as she entered the hut with them. Sam noticed the quill of arrows and walked in front of it.

Cami kept the firearm away from her body and up at shoulder height, not low. Sam leaned against a wall of the hut and kept Duncan’s weight on her.

“He’ll be back soon,” Cami said. “We’re all just gonna wait right here.”

“Who are you?” Sam said.

“You don’t need to know.”

Duncan said, “There’s no need for this. Just let us go. We won’t tell anybody anything. We don’t know anything. We don’t even know your real names.”

“And you guys will just go back and not tell anyone that your own country gave a biological weapon to our enemies? You’ll be able to keep your mouths shut, huh? You must have some serious self-control ‘cause I couldn’t do that.”

“Cami, he’s going to die if we don’t get him to a hospital.”

“He’s going to die anyway.”

“Fine, but he won’t die here because of me. I’m taking him to a hospital.” She took a few steps toward the door and Cami put the gun to her forehead.

“Then I guess you die with him,” Cami said.

“You first.”

Sam swung out with the arrow she was holding behind Duncan’s back. It jammed into Cami’s neck up to the shaft. Sam grabbed the gun and lowered it to the ground as Cami screeched. Sam ripped out the arrow, tearing away a large chunk of flesh, and lifted it above her head. She swung down and slammed the arrowhead into Cami’s eye. It went through it like a knife into a tomato and the blood began to pour as Sam took the firearm and stepped away.

Cami fell to her knees, screaming as she frantically pulled at the arrow, causing more pain as it tugged at the flesh and arteries. Sam aimed the weapon at the back of her head. One shot to the back of the head was instant death, but she couldn’t do it. She lowered the weapon.

Duncan had fallen on the ground and Sam rushed over to help him up and out of the hut, the screaming from inside fading in the distance as they hobbled down the road.