Burial Ground (15 page)

Dahlia watched over his shoulder as he
traversed the path, ascended the toppled trunk, and dropped again
to the ground. The crowd ahead had begun to disperse, and was now
spread over a span of roughly twenty feet, at the end of which
several crouched amid the ferns, inspecting something on the
ground. Whatever they had found held them enrapt. Her heart raced.
It took every last ounce of restraint to keep from commanding Jay
to run ahead. This was the perfect opportunity to build dramatic
tension. If the viewer felt even half of the anticipation that she
currently experienced, their film would truly be something
special.

"I want to see it like they did when they
discovered whatever's down there," she said. "Stick to the path
until you can clearly tell what's going on, then go over to where
those guys are kneeling."

Jay followed her direction perfectly. By the
time he broke off to the right, she had an unobstructed view of
what had attracted so much attention. Between the roaring buzz of
the swirling flies, the curls of desiccated skin and fur, and the
wash of blood and broken bones, it reminded her more of news
footage from Serbia than anything she had expected to find in the
jungle. The sheer ferocity with which the animal had been
slaughtered was frightening, beyond even the aftermath of the
attack of a great white shark. What could possibly be responsible
for such carnage?

"Are you getting this?" she asked. Her voice
trembled with excitement.

"Hard to miss."

Jay slowed his pace and angled the camera in
such a way that if she craned her neck, she could see the monitor
too. Part of her had expected the scene not to translate through
the lens, but if anything, the camera and the level of the zoom
served to amplify the atrocity.

When they finally caught up with the others,
Merritt was holding up a fractured section of the cranium.

"Give me a tight zoom on that part of the
skull. Make sure to get the hole."

Merritt noticed the camera in his face,
dropped the bone, and backed hurriedly away.

Camera shy
, Dahlia thought. Now that
she truly pondered it, she didn't have any footage of the man's
face at all. Only his back and shoulders as he rode in the boat
ahead of theirs or hacked through the jungle. Interesting. She made
a mental note to test his reaction to the lens the next chance she
got. There was definitely something strange about his response, but
not nearly as strange as what had happened here. The jaguar hadn't
simply been killed. It had been obliterated.

"Cut," Dahlia said. Jay stretched his back
and rolled his head on his neck. "Let's get one more shot looking
straight down this mess from the edge of the tree line. Zoom in
past the remains, and then zoom out as fast as you can. It looks
like the animal was torn apart while it was running. I want to see
if we can replicate the effect on film."

She turned and headed toward the wall of
foliage, listening to the crackle of Jay's tread on the detritus to
ensure he was following, the only sound other than the muffled
voices and the static buzz of black flies. She paused. That in
itself was noteworthy. Where was the dissonance of the calling
birds, the screeching monkeys, and the croaking frogs? It was as
though nearly all other life had vacated this region of the
rainforest.

After just a few short minutes in the
blazing tropical sun, she felt the cold emanating from the shadows
beyond the trees. Hackles stippled her triceps and crept up her
spine as she turned her back on the watchful jungle.

"Stay right there," Jay said. He had nearly
reached her, but now stood in place, ever-so-slowly raising the
camera in her direction. "Don't move."

The way he said it made her want to scream
and run back to join the others, yet the sudden onset of fear
rooted her to the ground.

"What is it?" she whispered. Every muscle in
her body grew taut. Her heartbeat thumped in her ears.

"Just don't move. You're going to have to
see this to believe it."

Jay approached her slowly, but without
trepidation. She noted he focused the camera past her and above her
left shoulder. Her stale breath finally escaped and she started to
relax.

"For the love of God, Jay, tell me what
you---"

"Shh! Hold still. Just another few seconds
and...aw, man."

He lowered the camera and walked toward her,
grinning.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" She
punched him in the shoulder. "You scared me half to death."

"Believe me. You'll thank me when you see
this."

He stood at her side and positioned the
camera's screen so they could both see it. Sensing she was still
wound as tight as a spring, he offered a crooked smile and nudged
her with his hip. "Relax already." He rewound the scene and played
it back at normal speed.

Dahlia saw herself against the gnarled green
backdrop of the forest. The pastel blossoms of bromeliads poked out
from where they were rooted to the branches and trunks. She heard
the scuffle of feet and then Jay spoke. On the small screen, her
body tensed and the blood drained from her face.

Jay chuckled, and she pinched his arm.

"Ow! Just watch, would you?"

Over her smaller self's shoulder, Dahlia saw
twin dots of an almost turquoise color, and below them, a jagged
slash of white. It looked like the face of some terrible predator:
slanted eyes and a savage snarl against an olive-green face.

And then the face collapsed in upon
itself.

The camera zoomed past her shoulder and
focused on it. When the face folded open again, she recognized it
for what it truly was. One turquoise eye encircled by a black ring
dominated each forewing, while each hindwing featured half of the
sharp-toothed mouth. Thin ebon veins mottled the wings in such a
way as to create the impression of scales.

The massive butterfly closed its wings
together to reveal its gray thorax and legs against a plant that
reminded her of aloe, then opened them again and took to the air,
flapping away into the shadows.

"You could have told me it was just a damn
butterfly."

"Your reaction was far more entertaining,"
Jay said. "And it wasn't
just
a damn butterfly. Didn't you
see it? That thing had a freaking face on its wings. Have you ever
seen anything like it? How cool would it be if we just recorded it
on film for the first time ever?"

She had to admit he had a point.

Jay started to pull the camera away. She
noticed movement on the monitor and grabbed his wrist.

"Wait."

"What?"

"Rewind that last bit."

He held up the screen and rewound to the
point where the butterfly fluttered back out of the jungle.

"Now play it back at half speed," she
said.

The wings opened and closed, flashing the
face of evolution and then nothing, face and then nothing. There
was a moment when the forest was perfectly still, and then she saw
it. A silhouette shifting through the shadows.

"Pause it."

The image was slightly pixellated, but she
could still clearly see the distinct outline of a man with the
faint reflection of the sunlight on his eyes and on teeth that had
been filed to points.

Jay allowed the film to run, and the man
vanished into the darkness again.

11:15 a.m.

"What do you make of it?" Leo asked.

They had left the light gap and the terrible
stench behind them in favor of pushing deeper into the jungle.
Morton now took his turn chopping through the overgrowth while the
massive Swede Sorenson and the tattooed Rippeth carried the
delicate sensing equipment between them. Webber hung back with
Colton and him as they discussed the implications of the video in
whispers. Dahlia had gathered them all around and shown them the
recording mere feet from the remains of the jaguar. While the
appearance of what they assumed to be a native hadn't caused panic
to descend upon the group, they weren't far from it. Everything
about the man had been unnaturally dark, save the sharp teeth. The
fact that he had been able to encroach to within ten yards of their
position without betraying his presence was unnerving. How many
more of them were out there at this very moment, stalking them
unseen from the shadows without so much as the sound of crinkling
leaves? Had the man been responsible for the carnage in the
clearing? It seemed impossible that even a group of men could have
been capable of doing such a thing to so ferocious a creature, and
if they had, what did that mean for Leo and his party?

"I'm not exactly sure," Colton said. "If
there's more than one of them out there, as I suspect, they could
have already attacked us ten times over. My guess is they're just
curious for now, however, I can't rule out an ambush down the road.
As far as whether or not they're responsible for what happened to
that jaguar, I tend to think not. I can't see even an experienced
hunting party being able to bring down the animal in that fashion.
The way the carcass was spread out across the field suggests it was
overcome while running at a high rate of speed and torn apart even
before its momentum died, which is beyond the physical capabilities
of any number of men without a pair of Gatling guns."

"So you think it was shot?" Leo asked. "If
the natives have the kind of firepower to---"

"I didn't say that. A barrage of
large-caliber rounds would have shredded the whole area."

"What about the hole in the skull?"

"It was too large to have been inflicted by
a bullet. Besides, there would have been carbon scoring around the
wound, and I doubt the bone would have been fractured in such a
manner. My guess is those fissures were the result of an inordinate
amount of pressure on the skull by whatever punctured it."

"Punctured?" Leo asked. He and Colton shared
a knowing glance. In his mind he saw the twin wounds on the bare
back of his son's body on the autopsy table. "You don't
think---?"

"I don't think anything at this point. As
far as I'm concerned, we have no choice but to reserve judgment
until we have enough information."

"But if we're in agreement that the jaguar
wasn't shot, and that no amount of men could have killed it like
that, then what could have?"

Colton was silent for a long moment, during
which the only sounds were the whine of mosquitoes and the crackle
of their footsteps.

"Honestly," he finally said, "I can't figure
out exactly how the animal was killed. I'm sure we could dream up a
thousand plausible scenarios, but operating under a faulty
assumption can be deadly. Let's keep an open mind. For now, we need
to continue moving, cautiously, and keep an eye out for these
men---"

"
Supay
," Santos interrupted. The
diminutive man had obviously been eavesdropping. He stopped in
front of them, face ashen, eyes wide. The darkness under the canopy
had necessitated he don an alpaca-wool sweater, yet he still walked
barefoot across the mat of dead sticks and leaves. "Is
legendario supay
in
selva. Necesitamos dar vuelta
detrás
."

"There are no demons in this jungle, and we
are not turning back," Leo said. This needed to be nipped in the
bud right now before the guide spooked the entire party. He looked
to Colton, who gave a hesitant nod to Morton. The freckled man
parted his khaki vest to reveal the SIG556 automatic pistol under
his left arm. Santos's stare darted to it, then back to Leo. He
returned to the path and scurried ahead to join his fellow guides,
for the time dissuaded from spouting his superstitious
nonsense.

"That's going to cost us," Colton said.
"First chance they get, they're going to bolt."

"Let them. They served their purpose and got
us up the river. They don't know this area of the jungle any better
than we do. Why should we hang on to guides who can't guide
anymore?"

"That's not the point. If we end up
confronting these natives, having darker-skinned men fluent in
Quechua would be helpful. Even if the natives don't speak Quechua,
the sound of the language ought to be much closer to theirs than
English."

"Sam speaks Quechua."

"She's a white
woman
. Most native
cultures still see women as inferior. The mere idea of her speaking
directly to them could be seen as provocation."

"Would you rather I let talk of demons
undermine the entire expedition?"

"No," Colton said. "You did what you had to
do. I'm just sorry it had to be done in the first place."

The conversation lagged for several minutes
before Sam dropped back to join them. She wore an expression of
extreme concentration.

"I've been thinking about the man in the
jungle," she said. "I would guess he's a member of some offshoot of
the Chachapoya tribe. The shape of his eyes was almost Caucasian,
and he was significantly taller than most indigenous Peruvians.
Those were the trademarks of the Chachapoya people. Some historical
accounts even referred to them as 'white.' Or I could totally be
off-base. Without being able to see his clothes or the structure of
his facial bones---or anything for that matter---I can only speculate.
But here's what I
know
. We can't be very far from the rest
of his tribe. They must have a village within walking distance, and
I'd be surprised if it's more than a day or two out."

"It could be in any number of directions,"
Colton said. "We could be heading in the complete opposite
direction."

"Which would make the village somewhere near
the mouth of the river where we camped last night. That's always a
possibility, but I'm not inclined to think so. Granted, very few
people travel that river. I just don't see any indigenous tribe
staying so close to civilization. To remain autonomous, they would
need a less accessible region, and one not visible from the air.
That means they're ensconced in either a heavily-forested section
of the jungle, or like their ancestors, they've built their village
on the steep face of a tree-covered mountain. I favor the
latter."