This Green Hell

THIRTY-THREE

The lighting around the camp’s perimeter had died long ago, and even the dull red glow of the fires had become just a few wisps of smoke leaking over the rims of the barrels. Maria sat in the dark cabin, her face lit by a green screen inside the silver case she had open on the desk before her. Beside it was a small communication device showing six rows of five alphanumeric characters. Nothing else; no effusive thank you, or religious references, or even the promise of a small brass plaque stuck to a park bench somewhere.

Her eyes blurred. She wiped them clear and sighed as she began to type. A question appeared on the screen before her: Countdown Duration? The field was three spaces long and measured in minutes. She wanted to type ‘1’ and then just close her eyes. She was tired of it all.

‘Last promise I ever have to keep,’ she said to the screen.

She entered 240, the maximum available, and closed the case. Its electronic locks engaged and sealed it from the world. The countdown would be relayed back to CDC headquarters. It was all out of her hands now.

She got to her feet and went to the bunk she had made up. She lay down and stared at the ceiling. Despite the thick, humid air enveloping her, she shivered as she crossed her arms over her chest.

The miasma of evil was so thick, Alex felt as though it was coating his nose and throat. He looked ahead at Sam — the large HAWC seemed oblivious. Perhaps he couldn’t sense the wrongness they were walking into.

Sam froze like a hunting dog, and motioned with his head at something just through the branches. When Alex nodded his understanding, Sam proceeded for another dozen paces, then stopped behind a veil of heavy fronds. A glint of gold was visible behind the greenery. Aimee and Saqueo came up beside Sam, Garmadia on his other side. Alex pulled aside the ferns. It was a bell — heavily tarnished, but still shining gold in patches. Alex heard Saqueo suck in his breath and whisper something in his mix of Spanish and Indian. Sam looked at him and put a finger to his lips. The boy was silent again.

Sam whispered without turning. ‘Remember when we saw those people leaving the area? They spoke about a legend — cuidado debajo de la flor de oro. It translated as beware the golden flower. You know what? I think the bell is the golden flower.’

Alex nodded slowly. ‘They also said that when it bloomed, the devil would rise. Just like in Castillo’s journal. And that bell has been recently moved, judging by the tracks across the clearing. The blooming could mean that it’s suddenly become visible again.’

Sam nodded. ‘Uh-huh, and, boss, just before the journal ends, Castillo wrote that he thought the old priest was poseído por el demonio — possessed by the devil.’

‘He’s possessed by something, that’s for sure.’

Alex took another cautious step forward and pulled more of the heavy fronds out of the way. A large clearing was revealed, covered in scattered debris. The silver moonlight made a pathway to a stone building huddled beneath an enormous banyan tree.

Dull pain flared in Alex’s head as he tried to determine if the priest was inside the structure. Normally he could pinpoint a living entity if he concentrated, but all he was getting was chaos — the swarming white noise turning to a roar. To Aimee and Sam, the building probably looked silvery and silent; to Alex, it was enveloped by a mass of swirling souls, howling in confusion and terror. He shook his head to clear it and sucked in a deep breath.

In a standard approach, Garmadia and Sam would have advanced from one side of the clearing, and he would have taken the other. Aimee and the boy would have remained behind, under cover. Instead, the pervasive feelings of danger made him order a different tactic. He wanted open ground — the heavy green curtain concealed too much, even for his advanced senses.

‘We’ll go in together, nice and tight — straight up the middle.’ He looked at Aimee. ‘Ready?’

She mouthed yes back to him, gave a small smile in the dark and raised her handgun.

Alex turned to Sam, nodded once and pushed through the last fronds.

Casey Franks had been running hard for an hour, only able to ignore the burning pain in her calves and thighs because of the greater agony in her throat. She slowed to a jog and pulled the bandana cloth from around her neck. She wiped it over her face, neck and hair, then held it up over her open mouth and squeezed hard — a small stream of salty fluid dribbled down between her lips and she swallowed greedily.

She pulled in a giant breath and quickly checked her coordinates in relation to her current position, destination, and Alex Hunter. She frowned: her commanding officer was travelling west, away from the designated meeting point.

She grunted and shrugged. Orders unchanged, she thought as she re-tied the cloth around her neck.

From a pouch at her side she removed a small foil-covered capsule. She tore open the foil and snapped the pellet in half under her nose, inhaling sharply, then screwing up her eyes and throwing her head back from the jolt. After another second, she exhaled and opened her eyes, their pupils now enormously dilated. She stood a little straighter, the chemical stimulant giving her a burst of artificial energy.

‘Fuck, yeah!’

She drew in another lungful of the warm, fetid air and started running again. She still had a long way to go.