This Green Hell

EIGHT

Aimee lifted the small glass tube that contained the sample and shook it. The fragment of flesh she’d collected had totally degraded into a viscous black liquid. She frowned, both horrified and astounded at the speed of the decomposition.

With something this corrosive, she knew she should have the sample under glass and be wearing some form of bio-suit. But here in the jungle, the best she could muster was two pairs of gloves, overalls and a surgical mask from Francisco’s medical stores. The extra clothing was only moderate protection, but made her so hot that the headband she wore was already sodden with perspiration.

She dipped a thin glass rod into the putrid liquid and smeared it onto a slide, then quickly placed it under her microscope viewer. This time she had the computer ready to accept the image, and as soon as she tuned back to the screen the dark pool was already in focus.

‘Whaaaat?’ Aimee softly breathed out the word in confusion.

She typed some commands and the screen split: half showed the live images from Ramón’s sample; in the other she called up earlier pictures from the drill head. In the drill sample there had been a community of different life forms whirring, whipping or floating in the tiny sea she had created for them. But in Ramón’s sample there was just one life form: spherical and joined in chains like a segmented worm — unmistakably the same bacteria she had extracted from the drill head.

Aimee knew it was far too soon to be postulating any theories, but this organism definitely should not have been in Ramón’s body. Other than in her own samples, this sub-terra lifeform shouldn’t have been anywhere else on the surface of the Earth. She sat back and mopped her eyes with her sleeve. It was impossible. Only yesterday this microorganism only existed solely a mile underground, and now it was in abundance in what remained of the man’s flesh. She went to place a hand on her chin, then changed her mind. Somehow, Ramón must have got some of the black material on his body and become infected.

She held up the glass tube again and swirled the liquid. How did it manage to degrade the flesh so quickly? Maybe there was something else at work; something she couldn’t see with this microscope’s level of magnification. As well as the bacterium, there could be some sort of underlying viral bloom, or perhaps even a unique chemical interaction occurring. Could be a hundred things she hadn’t even thought of yet.

She placed the tube in a rack and sat back for a moment, folding her arms and biting the inside of her cheek. She felt like she was digging for gold with a spoon. She needed help — from someone with a lot more scientific knowhow than was available to the local authorities. I need the big guns, she thought. I need the CDC.

Problem was she didn’t know anyone at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the thought of spending hours wrestling with government bureaucrats, trying to find out who she should really be talking to, and being put on hold time and again, was overwhelming when she was already so fatigued. But although she didn’t know anyone there, she knew who would.

She swivelled to her computer and started typing. ‘Always nice to know someone with connections.’ She finished her quick message to Alfred Beadman, attached her images and pressed send. The message took several minutes to be dispatched as it had to pass through a relay booster station the mining crew had brought with them. This deep in the jungle, even satellite uplinks needed a springboard.

Aimee opened the screen door of the cabin that had been hastily converted into an isolation ward. Thick industrial plastic sheeting hung over the windows and down in front of the doorway. She pushed the sheeting aside and entered the room where three men lay on cots, their arms and legs tied to the railings to stop them trying to flee. Each man’s exposed skin glistened in the artificial light of the cabin. One seemed to be asleep, perhaps unconscious. Another stared blankly at the ceiling. The last wept softly, black tears streaming from dark-veined eyes to stain the pillow under his head.

‘I think there is no doubt that they are now also infected,’ Francisco said from behind his paper mask. His eyes were red and drooped with fatigue and sadness. Even his proud little silver moustache had lost its vigour. ‘As a general practitioner, I am lost on this, Dr Weir. Do you, perhaps, have any ideas?’

Aimee pursed her lips tightly behind her mask and gave a half-nod, half-shake of her head. ‘I have a few thoughts, but they’re too way out to share just yet. I’ve sent some images back home. Hopefully the experts can give us some clues as to what we’re dealing with.’

‘Good.’ Francisco looked at the men on their beds. ‘I think we should burn their tent.’

Aimee nodded without taking her eyes from the three bodies slowly decomposing before her.

‘Of course they’re scared…and so am I, Alfred.’ Aimee paced back and forth in her cabin, kicking clothing out of the way to create some space, as she talked to her boss on the other side of the world. ‘We’re trying to keep things quiet, but…’ she paused to listen for a few seconds before continuing. ‘Yes, Alfred, we’ve got the men who shared the tent with the primary contamination victim in isolation, but down here everyone seems to know everything as it happens. It’s such a small community — you can’t keep secrets. Francisco says he’s overheard some of the men talking about leaving.’

‘Aimee, there’s no evidence that the disease, or whatever it is, is airborne or that there are any vectors involved — you said that yourself. As long as you use basic sterilisation procedures, everything will be okay. It’s usually you telling me this stuff, not the other way around.’

‘Alfred, you didn’t see the infected body — it literally dissolved in front of our eyes. It was horrible. I should be wearing a full bio-hazard kit, not a sweaty T-shirt and paper face mask.’

Alfred’s warm, deep voice rose slightly. ‘Okay, okay, stay calm, my dear. Do you really think it’s your little Clavicula occultus that’s culpable? I like the name, by the way. But how could it be? I doubt one microbe could be responsible for converting hydro-carbons to oil and gas and also somehow cause the human body to simply fall apart. I think we need more information, and you need some help. As you suggested, I sent your data to the CDC; they were very interested and have dispatched two of their specialists.’ He cleared his throat and then sounded as if he’d leaned in closer to the speaker. ‘I had another call this morning, Aimee. Someone I hadn’t heard from in ages. You remember our friend Jack Hammerson?’

‘Jack?’ Aimee remembered Jack Hammerson only too well — Alex Hunter’s commanding officer. He had always been in the background, controlling, overseeing Alex’s treatments, and advising him. As her relationship with Alex had started to change as he became more secretive, as he worried more about the uncontrollable rages that would shake him from his nightmares in the middle of the night, and finally as he had confided to her his fears that he wasn’t sure he was even human any more, Jack Hammerson had always been there. She had begged Alex to get a second opinion from doctors outside the military. But Jack had refused to allow it. She knew the colonel had saved Alex’s life — brought him back from the dead — and Alex would never forget it, even though by doing so he had allowed the HAWC commander to turn him into a killing machine — at the mercy of what seemed to be an unstoppable anger; an inner demon that threatened his sanity.

It had seemed to Aimee that Alex had chosen Hammerson and the military over her. Her concern for his safety and mental state, or perhaps it was her pride, had driven her to refuse to accept his decision — and that had been the end of them. She would never forgive Hammerson for not giving him the chance to start a new life outside the Special Forces. Yes, she remembered Jack Hammerson very well.

‘Good, I knew you’d remember him. Well, he’s sending in some of his people to follow up on some military matter,’ Alfred went on.

Aimee grimaced as she recalled the horrific scene in the clearing. She hadn’t told Alfred about her and Francisco’s grisly discovery, or their suspicion that it had been caused by something other than a jaguar. Hammerson had clearly been charged with finding out exactly what had happened to the Green Berets.

‘I believe he’s sending Captain Hunter — he should be with you in a day or two. I’m going to see if the CDC team can jump a ride with them. Stay safe, Aimee dear, talk soon.’

Alfred ended the call in a hurry, obviously not wanting to deal with Aimee’s reaction to the news.

She switched the phone off speaker, and sat back with her legs splayed. She lifted the water bottle from the table, sipped a little, then let a good stream pour over her forehead and neck. It ran over her lips and she blew out, causing a plume of spray to fan out above her. She watched it settle to the floor as she allowed her mind to drift.

In the time they had shared together, Alex Hunter had taught her to ride a horse, shoot a gun, deep-sea dive and more. She recalled the time he had taken her rock climbing — she had slipped and twisted her ankle, but Alex had caught her and carried her down the cliff and then for five miles back to their cabin as if she weighed nothing at all. Her lips turned up at the corners as she remembered what else had happened in that cabin, the intimate times they had shared there and in many other locations she could never have imagined herself visiting. The few men she had dated since had seemed so ordinary, so…boring.

When she had walked out on him, it had seemed the right thing — for both of them. But now she wasn’t so sure. She was confused and nervous at the thought of seeing him again. Confused, nervous…and a little angry.

She put her hand up to her cheek and ran her fingers over the red rash bumps. The first time I see him in two years and I look and feel like shit, she thought. Just great.

A cough at the doorway interrupted her thoughts. She looked up to see Francisco standing there looking worried.

‘What is it?’ Aimee asked.

‘The government has ordered the gas well to be capped,’ Francisco said. ‘I am so sorry, but they have locked us down. They suspect we have some form of hantavirus burning through the camp. No one is allowed to leave and no one will be coming in.’

‘We’re in fucking quarantine?’ Aimee was on her feet, her blue eyes drilling into the small doctor, who backed up a step at the ferocity of her tone.

‘I am sure it is just temporary, Dr Weir. I’m so sorry this has happened.’ Francisco was wringing his hands together, and his eyebrows turned so far down they looked as though they were about to slip off his face.

‘Those assholes! I don’t believe it. I don’t fucking believe it.’

Aimee was building up to another onslaught when she realised she was taking her frustration out on the only friend she had in the camp. ‘Ohhh, God. I’m sorry, Francisco. I’m tired and I don’t know what’s happening. This is well beyond the limit of my expertise.’ A sudden thought panicked her. ‘Are they allowing the CDC specialists through?’

‘Si, I believe so. The bureaucrats say it is at their own risk.’

Aimee nodded and sat down heavily. She lifted her shirt front and used it to rub her face free of grime. ‘At least it’s stopped raining. Any more infections?’

‘I am afraid so. There are now five men in the quarantine hut. I do not expect them to survive past tomorrow.’

‘It’s spreading,’ Aimee said. ‘I don’t think it’s airborne — there’s not enough nasopharyngeal irritation to produce aerosolising of the bacteria — the men aren’t coughing or sneezing to give it lift-off. There must be a vector — the water, insects, something else we’re sharing…’

‘I agree. If it was fully airborne, we would all have been infected by now. I will have the camp checked for vermin and ensure all the men are using insect repellent.’ Francisco paused then added, ‘The well needs to be capped now, but the men are refusing to go back out to the drill site until they know what is causing the infection. They are calling it “the melting death”.’

Aimee leaned back in the chair and shut her eyes. ‘I don’t blame them,’ she said. ‘Nope, don’t blame them at all.’

That night, three more men were taken. But not by the disease.

In the darkness, something glided through the jungle and came to a halt at the edge of the camp, drawn there by the seed that had been brought to the surface. It sensed the sparks of growth that had been ignited. Now, they needed to feed. It needed to feed.

It moved quickly across the clearing towards the back of one of the tents. It could sense the three men inside — could hear their heartbeats, smell their blood. It needed them, all of them, every bit of them. It needed to be strong to protect the growing brood.

Under a single, long, sharp fingernail, the tough waterproofed canvas parted as easily as if it was being unzipped. The creature reached out to the first man and wrapped a long, taloned hand almost entirely around his throat. The man’s eyes shot open and his tongue bulged, but no sound escaped his lips as soft tissue and his upper spinal cord were swiftly crushed together. His head flopped onto his shoulder, attached only by an empty tube of compressed skin.

The creature moved to the next man and crushed his neck in the same manner, careful not to spill any fluids or cause any damage to the surroundings. The tissue ruptured slightly and it was forced to bring its mouth down to the blood that was seeping from the split in the crushed skin. The flow subsided quickly as the heart stopped pumping and the blood settled in the man’s lower extremities. The creature lifted its head slightly and sniffed, savouring the tangy smell of the ruptured flesh.

As it bent over the third man, he woke. The long fingers circled his neck like hot cables and it brought its face close to look into his eyes. There was no compassion, or even interest, in the creature’s gaze; it was the look a hunter would give a dying hare as he held it up to check its weight. The man’s eyes ran with tears and he dragged in a last strained breath as the pressure around his neck increased.

The wide mouth pulled open further, black gums receding to reveal rows of needle-like teeth encircling the entire ring of the oral cavity. A long tongue lolled out to lick at the man’s tears. It squeezed tighter and watched the eyes bulge and become glass-like. The man’s head flopped to the side, his face a deep purple from the trapped blood.

The creature gathered the three men in its arms and stepped from the tent. If anyone had been awake to see it re-enter the jungle, they would have thought its passage little more than a breeze stirring the foliage.