This Green Hell

NINETEEN

Aimee felt a lump in her throat as she watched Alex disappear with the Paraguayan soldier into the jungle. The green closed around him so quickly it was as if he had been consumed before her eyes.

Maria Vargis stepped up next to her and followed her gaze. ‘Strong, handsome man. You are close friends — lovers once, I think? But not anymore?’ Maria raised her eyebrows and gave Aimee a half-smile.

‘Yes, no…I mean, yes, we used to be friends and still are, but no, not that close anymore. Not like that anyway.’ Aimee exhaled and rubbed her face.

Maria folded her arms under her large breasts and nodded slowly. ‘Good. We all need clear heads now.’

Michael Vargis stepped forward as Aimee rose slowly to her feet. ‘Dr Weir, we’ve reviewed all the information on the Clavicula occultus microorganism you sent us. I have to say, we found it fascinating. We’ve had no up-to-date data since you went into a communication blackout though, so it’s critical you bring us up to speed on anything else you’ve learned.’

Aimee laughed mirthlessly. ‘Clavicula occultus, my little hidden key — what a joke. It would’ve been better named something like Infernum morbus — the Hades Bug — much more appropriate for this little beast, considering the hell it’s causing us. I can’t tell you how happy I am to have someone I can share this with. I don’t have the equipment or the training — it’s gotten way beyond my capabilities now. Let’s get to work. I’ve been saving my computer battery’s energy so I can show you the results of my latest analysis. Then we can take a look at the subjects we have in isolation.’

She stepped up into her cabin and reached for a towel on the ground that was already stiff with the reddish mud of the camp. She scraped as much of the stuff off her bare feet as she could, then threw the cloth down beside the door again. ‘All right, come on in, but be warned — it’s going to be a bit cramped.’

Maria and Michael scraped their boots on the edge of the step before entering the tiny cabin. Casey Franks poked her head inside, looked left and right, then stepped back down. ‘It’s okay. I’ll wait out here, Dr Weir.’

Aimee’s desk was covered with empty water bottles, dirty T-shirts, notebooks marked with red-mud fingerprints. ‘Maid’s day off,’ she said, and swept the lot of it to the floor. She sat down, lifted the lid of her computer and switched it on. After a few seconds, it gave the warning for low battery level.

‘Let me start at the beginning,’ Aimee said, selecting a document from the list onscreen, ‘and quickly bring you forward to where we are now. My work is in petrobiology. I specialise in seeking alternatives for our rapidly diminishing fossil fuels. I came down here for a number of reasons. My primary objective was to assist a friendly nation confirm a significant natural gas cavern and advise on its safe extraction, super compression, and plan for its delivery to the coast. My secondary objective was a little less official.’

She opened another folder and brought up images of molecular chains breaking apart and recombining with each other. ‘We know that at least twenty per cent of the world’s natural gas is generated from microbial activity. This process, called methano-genesis, represents the key to a possible renewable resource. To date we know a lot about the high-level process, but the actual microbial-related elements of the conversion are still a mystery.’ She flicked though some more screens. ‘To find trace evidence, let alone a sample, of the methanogenesis key could lead to the solution for synthesising the microorganic fuel-production process in a laboratory. Cheap and unlimited natural gas for everyone — the golden fleece of microbes for a petrobiologist.’

‘Impressive,’ Maria said, standing behind Aimee’s chair. ‘But let me guess. You found your golden fleece and it turned out to have sharp teeth.’

Aimee nodded slowly and switched to the samples from the drill head. ‘You could say that. I needed a primordial sample — deep, dirty and not yet fully cooked — to be able to detect and extract any living microbes.’ She sat back and ran her hands through her hair before swivelling to look at Michael and Maria. ‘Yeah, it has teeth all right. Turned out to be very efficient at converting polymers and hydrocarbons to the base components of petroleum and natural gas. Has a huge appetite for hydrocarbons. In fact, it turns out it has a taste for all types of carbon, even biological. One of the men must have gotten some into his system somehow — it literally ate him down to nothing. I’m not talking about a bleed-out or even severe necrosis; it was more like some type of biocorrosive got into his body and converted him into…something other than flesh and blood.’

Aimee stood up, stretched her back and indicated that someone else should take her seat. Michael sat down and immediately increased the magnification of the bacterium on the screen. He studied it closely for a few seconds, frowned and leaned his chin on his hand.

‘Well, it’s got a weird protein coating, but there are certainly bacterial chains…and we’ve seen that primitive strep-type organisms are similarly linked.’ Michael shrugged. ‘After all, one of the haemolytic streptococci is responsible for necrotising fasciitis symptoms, and once that little monster gets established under the skin, its sole focus seems to be to liquefy flesh — at a rapid rate too.’ He looked up at Aimee. ‘There are documented cases of it destroying flesh at nearly one inch every six hours.’

‘An inch over six hours, huh?’ Aimee nodded wearily at the screen. ‘Well, this thing fully dissolved an entire grown man down to some type of black liquid in under twenty.’

Michael stared at her. ‘That’s ah, around one inch every fifteen minutes…definitely not strep-based then; and maybe too fast to treat by the time infection is identified. And, in any case, treat with what?’ He turned back to the screen and traced the outline of one of the microbes with his finger. ‘These are strange — the spheres are just slightly more oval than spherical, and there seems to be a rigid mobility filament.’ He swung around in his seat and looked at Aimee again. ‘Your Hades Bug is aggressive and seems in a hurry.’

‘For every attack there’s a counterattack,’ Maria said. ‘We just need to learn more about our little invaders. Let’s have a look at the men in isolation and draw some samples. Then we can do some further analysis. Is there somewhere we can set up, Dr Weir?’

Aimee thought for a few seconds. Cabins were becoming a scarce resource now the sick were multiplying and their infirmaries eventually became their funeral pyres.

‘You can use Francisco’s cabin,’ she said eventually. ‘He’s the camp doctor. I’m not sure when he’s coming back.’

She sat down on her cot and pulled on her mud-encrusted boots. There was no point bothering with socks; all she had were dirty ones — stiff, they’d be more abrasive than the tough leather. She gathered her gloves and mask, and glanced at the hat with corks that Francisco had given her. Not sure when he’s coming back? I don’t think he’s coming back at all, she thought. None of them are.

Aimee felt underdressed as she accompanied Michael and Maria to the isolation huts. The CDC scientists were covered head to toe in disposable coveralls and wore fitted gloves, a hermetic mask and perspex laboratory goggles. Aimee was in her usual bio-hazard uniform: stained and mud-crusted clothing, cotton surgical mask, rubber gloves and sunglasses.

Casey Franks followed at the rear, chewing gum. When she saw Aimee glance back at her, she nodded towards the two scientists and said, ‘Happy Halloween!’

At the entrance to the first isolation cabin, Aimee hesitated; it was quiet inside. Usually there was moaning or swearing. She looked at Michael Vargis. He was very pale behind his goggles, and where the suit met his skin a line of perspiration glistened. For a disease specialist, he’s pretty scared, she thought.

Maria Vargis looked much more in control. She raised her eyebrows behind her goggles and nodded towards the door. Get on with it, the motion implied.

Casey Franks went to enter first, but Aimee stopped her. ‘Sorry, you can’t go in without some form of bio-protection.’

The HAWC looked at Aimee’s clothing and pulled a disbelieving face. She drew some wrap-around sunglasses from a pocket and put them on. ‘Happier?’

‘No. I mean it, Franks; you’re not coming in.’

Aimee stared hard into the brawny woman’s face; she could tell Franks was thinking it over. Her job was to guard the medical team, but Aimee knew her brief didn’t extend to fighting with them over an area that wasn’t within her expertise. After another few seconds, Franks reached into her left sidearm holster and pulled out a handgun. She spun it in her hand and handed it butt first to Aimee.

Aimee took the gun without hesitation, checked the slide and number of rounds expertly, then sighted along the short black barrel. When she was done, she stuck the gun in her waistband.

Franks nodded with approval. ‘Pretty cool, Doc.’

‘Thanks. We won’t be long.’ Aimee turned back to the door, feeling strangely more secure now she was armed.

‘Okay, but first sound I’m coming in — germs or no germs.’ Franks noticed Michael watching and winked at him. ‘Hey, anyone ever tell you you look kinda cute when you’re terrified?’

Aimee took a breath through her nose and pushed aside the plastic sheet to get to the door. She wished she had a proper bio-mask filter like Michael and Maria — it was always the smell that first revolted her. With the doors and windows sealed tight, there were few places for the gases to escape, and the odour particles created an airborne soup that mixed blood, faeces and stomach gases with a strange oily, toasted scent that defied biological classification.

As Aimee felt the rank humidity on her skin, she worried again about whether the microbe was able to become airborne. She decided to get the task over with as quickly as possible and moved to the first bed.

‘This man was admitted just over twenty hours ago,’ she told the scientists.

She pulled back the discoloured plastic curtain that surrounded the bed. There was no body left to see. The sheets were stained dark red, black and grey, and the floorboards below looked as though several buckets of ink had cascaded over them. The blurred outline of a torso on the sheets was the only proof that a human had once lain there. Our own personal Shroud of Turin, Aimee thought as she held her breath.

There was nothing to examine, nothing to sample. She let the plastic drop. The next three beds were the same.

At the final bed, she hesitated before pulling back the thick plastic. ‘This man came to us just twelve hours ago.’

Aimee kept her eyes on Maria and Michael instead of looking at the bed; she had seen the horrific sight too many times already. The Vargises’ eyes widened behind their laboratory goggles. Aimee could see the reflection of the remains of the man on the cot in Maria’s protective lenses. His arms were gone. His legs were stovepipe-shaped stains leading to a dark jellied substance that oozed from his steaming chest cavity.

Maria blinked twice behind her glasses. The second time, she kept her eyes closed for several seconds.

As the junior attending scientist, it was Michael’s job to collect the samples. His shaking hands came up holding a glass vial and a small spatula. But that was as far as he got. Aimee could see he was having trouble convincing his legs to propel him forward. He rocked slightly and Maria put her hand up to stop him.

‘I’ll do it,’ she said.

She took the implements from Michael, squeezed his wrist briefly, and stepped towards the mess on the bed. Slipping into professional scientist mode, she began to talk through her actions as though conducting an autopsy. She was breathing hard as she spoke and Aimee could tell the process was her way of coping with the situation.

‘Subject appears to be in final stages of total bacterial disintegration. Flesh, blood, osseous material, all physical substance seems to be…’ Her voice trailed off as she moved up the bed towards the man’s head. His entire face was blackened and glistening as the skin and skull beneath dissolved. Maria shook her head slightly before going on. ‘Simply amazing. I’ve never seen anything like this, anywhere in the world.’ She prodded the man’s cheek with the spatula, and looked down at the liquefying flesh below the chest. ‘I’m unable to determine if the biological degradation is the result of some type of protoplasmic conversion or is simply an excreted waste product — the end result of a digestion process.’

As she prodded the man’s face again, a glob of black jelly plopped onto the sheet from the top of the chest cavity. A few drops of the black fluid splashed into the air but didn’t land on Maria. Nevertheless, Aimee saw her freeze and draw in a sharp breath. Bio-hazard suit or not, no one wanted anything this dangerous touching them.

Maria took a scraping from the man’s cheek, coaxed it into the small vial, then sealed it tightly. She did the same with the gelatinous mound at his chest cavity, and finally took a smear of the black liquid that was dripping from the bed to leak between the cracks in the floor.

She carried the three vials to Michael, who was ready with a small silver suitcase. The hiss it made when he opened it told Aimee that it was a hermetically sealed portable unit for chembio sample containment. The lid hissed again when he shut it.

‘We should be working on this agent in a level-4 bio-hazard laboratory,’ Maria said, checking her gloves and her arms for any residue. When she’d finished, she looked across at Aimee in her dirty clothing and simple cotton mask. ‘Well, at least you’ve got a gun, darling.’

Aimee smiled tightly behind her mask.

Maria took a last look around the small cabin then back to Aimee. ‘Okay, Dr Weir, I think we’ve got all the information we can gather. Any further exposure now is just inviting more risk. This isolation room needs to be sterilised.’

Aimee nodded; she’d been thinking the same thing. Time for another bonfire.

The contents of the isolation hut had shaken the three scientists. But if they had looked below the hut, what they would have seen would have frozen them in disbelief and horror.

Long, black, greasy-looking stalactites hung from the underside of the cabin’s floor, dripping into the pools that hadn’t yet dried out into the dark red mud. At first, the drops sank to the bottom of the shallow puddles. Then, as if heeding some inner call, they began to roll along the bottom of the pools and coalesce together.

As the dark mass grew, it also started to move, straining and stretching towards the life it could sense above. It sank back into its small liquid world; not large enough or strong enough yet.

Where the other huts had stood, small black stains on the mud below the charred ground attested to the matter’s previous attempts to free itself from its prison. These dried residues lay trapped among the fine silt.

Trapped, but only temporarily.