Pulse

ELEVEN

The darkness consumed.

Reality twisted, then fled, and the surreal invaded.

King floated past lines of bodies, brutally disassembled and strewn across the desert. A battle had taken place. No. He'd seen battles. This was a slaughter. The stars above glistened like beads of water, thick and wet, stuck to the black blanket of the sky. The view spun away as his ethereal form drifted higher, sliding away from the grisly scene and up toward the heavens.

King had never pictured death. In his line of work a fear of death often quickened its arrival. Fear of pain did wonders, but fear of death could immobilize even the most well trained soldier. But this — floating out from his tomb, drifting over the dead, and rising up — defied even stereotypical near-death experience. Where was the white tunnel? The relative to guide him on? Shouldn't his sister be here? Where was Julie?

"Julie," he said. "Show me the way, Jules."

There was no reply, only the sensation of rising through a thick ooze. His thoughts turned to Hell. The bodies. Clearly tortured. The cold. He felt cold. Was Hell cold? Maybe Hell really did freeze over. Ha. He wanted to laugh, but could not feel his body. He no longer had a body.

He tried to will his spirit, or whatever this was, in a new direction, but he continued up and away, steadily forward to an unknown destination. The stars beckoned to him, then faded from view. He slipped back into the abyss thinking of his sister again.

"Sir," a voice said. "Drink."

Liquid filled King's mouth. He took a breath. Gagged. Sat up quick and felt a blow to his head like a spike being driven through. The pain pulsed there like a flashing streetlight.

"Stay still," the voice said, barely a whisper. "She will hear you."

"Julie?"

"No. The old one." "Who are you?" "Atahualpa."

King's eyes shot open as his mind fell back into his body. The vision. He wasn't floating. He'd been carried. But that meant— King squeezed his eyes, erasing the nightmare. With fresh eyes he took in his surroundings.

Atahualpa knelt next to him. The man looked pale. Perhaps from the moonlight. Perhaps something more. The stars above, no longer bulbous, twinkled in the crisp, clear night sky. They sat in the dirt between two parked trucks. Atahualpa handed him a bottled water. "Drink."

King took it and downed all twelve ounces. The liquid, cooled by the desert night air, chilled his stomach and quenched the fire in his mouth and throat. He felt life returning. He took a second bottle offered by Atahualpa and pulled from it more slowly, allowing the liquid time to be absorbed by his body and offered as a feast to his dehydrated cells. He met the doe-eyed driver turned traitor's eyes.

"You saved me. Dug me out."

The man nodded.

"Why?"

"They said no one would be hurt."

King didn't like the sound of that. His mind replayed the field of dead from his vision. He prayed it was a vision. "Who was hurt?"

"I could hear them screaming. I hid in a truck. For hours I hid. Then the screaming stopped. I looked from the window and saw her."

"Who?"

"The old one. The gray-haired woman."

"Molly?" King sat up straight, fighting the throbbing pain in his head. "She's alive?" "She is the devil's."

King sighed. Information steeped in religious paranoia would do him no good. "Skip what you learned in church and give me the facts."

Atahualpa squinted. "I have never been to church. But I know a devil when I see one. Blood covered her body. Red. Pieces" — he sniffed, fighting back tears—"there were pieces of bodies… their insides… clung to her body. To her lips. Her belly…" He arched his hands out and around his own belly. "Like a pregnant woman. Filled with their bodies."

King tensed. "Whose bodies?"

With a shaking finger, Atahualpa pointed the way. "The workers."

King realized he was pointing toward the dig site, toward Pierce's dragon. He launched to his feet and stumbled, catching himself on the side of the red pickup's flatbed.

"You must be quiet," Atahualpa said. "She fled into the desert, but who is to say she will not return."

"I'll take my chances," King said, draining the remainder of his second water bottle, then staggering toward the dig site. A hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Take this."

King turned and found his handgun offered. It was a peace offering. He could have let him dry out in his tomb. Judas wanted to team up. His pleading eyes begged. Forgive and forget.

King took the gun, checked the magazine, and slammed it back home. He turned to Atahualpa. The man had been duped and used. King had done the same to men just like him. Desperate for money or food. Willing to trade trust for survival. King nodded at the man. Forgiveness granted.

They fell in together, walking low, slow, and quiet. If there was danger lurking in the dark desert the only warning they'd get was the sound of feet crunching stone. King fought against waves of dizziness, and kept his gun aimed at the dark, willing his eyes to dilate just a little bit more, suck in the moonlight. They reached the hill's crest and looked down.

Melding with the dark, bodies lay in the sand, still resting where they had the previous afternoon. But no heads turned at their approach. Several lacked heads altogether. King felt himself descending back into the hell he drifted by as Atahualpa carried him from his desert tomb. It wasn't a nightmare. It was real. How many bodies lay scattered across the hillside was impossible to tell. Body parts and organs splayed across the scene held in place like sick sculptures by congealed and sun-dried blood. The sand was thick with the stuff. It crunched beneath his feet, chipping away like maroon crackers.

King held his shirt over his mouth and nose as the slightest breeze brought the rising stench down around them. He'd smelled death before, but this — bodies and organs exposed to the blistering heat of the day, cooked and bleached — he was reminded again; this had been no battle. These people were slaughtered.

He found the woman he'd startled and knelt down beside her body. What was left of it. A leg was missing. Following a trail of blood he saw it had been used to bludgeon a man's head. Her arm, still attached, was missing large chunks from shoulder to elbow, as though an ogre had mistaken it for a corn cob. He lifted the dry arm, stiff and heavy and inspected the missing flesh. The bite marks were unmistakable.

Human.

King tried to imagine a tribe of cannibals descending on the group of workers. It was the only thing that made sense. But it lacked any kind of logic. There were no cannibals in Peru, and they certainly couldn't run around the desert eating people without drying up and withering. Plus, he had an eyewitness.

"How did this happen?"

"The woman. Molly."

King shook his head. "Not possible."

Atahualpa made a stabbing motion over his chest. "They shot her. Dead. Injected her with something. She came back. They were gone when she woke up. I offered her water. Like you. She said she was hungry. Tried to bite me. I ran through.." He motioned through the dead bodies. "She stopped at the first man." Shaking his head, rubbing out the images, he pointed to what little remained of the first man. Bones and bits of flesh. A large stain. And next to it what looked like a pile of vomit.

King found several piles throughout the scene. If his story was true, she was eating her victims, vomiting them up, and moving on to the next. One after another, the zip-tied crew had no chance of escape. "You could have cut them free."

Atahualpa looked down. "I am not a brave man."

King finished searching the bodies for familiar faces and found none. McCabe was missing, which corroborated his story. But Pierce was missing, too.

"They took my friend?"

"Yes."

"Alive?"

He nodded.

"How did they leave?"

"Truck," he said, pointing north. "That way."

King rushed away from the blood-soaked hillside and entered the camp. Atahualpa stayed behind him, urging quiet, but King ignored him, rummaging through tents and personal belongings of the deceased. He found a flashlight and turned it on. His search sped more quickly and he found what he'd been looking for — a satellite phone. He turned it on and basked in the green glow of its digits. Help was a phone call away. Then he noticed a photo on the floor of the tent. It sucked the breath from his lungs. He placed the phone down and trained the light on the photo. Julie and George. Smiling. Happy. Streamers in the background revealed a party. The sparkle on her finger reflected the promise of what was to come. A life never lived. He picked up the photo, put it in his pocket, and dialed the phone.

After a few clicks, the connection was made and the phone on the other end began to ring. A digital female voice answered. "Hello, I'm sorry, but we cannot come to the phone right now. If you leave your name, number, and the time of your call, we'll get back to you as soon as possible." With the recording finished, the line beeped.

"King," he said.

"Voice print confirmed."

The line beeped three times, then clicked. "That you, King?" King felt his body relax. Deep Blue. "I need some help down here." "You need company?" Deep Blue's voice became serious. King didn't ask for help unless people were dead and someone had to pay for it.