Insects: A Novel (12 page)

45

Duncan broke camp
early after a hurried breakfast of instant oatmeal and instant coffee. The forest floor was wet and muddy in places, the humidity undiminished. They shook out the tents and packed them while they were damp, but Duncan was acutely aware that time was running out, that the expedition was supposed to take only a week and that they were near the halfway point. With the discovery of the body, Maggie Cross and George Hamel thought they should turn back and made their opinions known to Duncan in private.

“Are we really going to continue?” Cross asked skeptically.

“Of course,” Duncan responded quickly. “Why not?”

“What about the body we found?” Hamel interjected.

“What good would it do if we turn back now? We’ve got only another day, and we’ll have to turn back anyway.”

“What about the body?” Hamel insisted.

“This is not the first body. You know that. There was the poor fellow at the cabin.”

“We didn’t see that body,” Cross said. “It wasn’t real. Now it’s real.”

“You’re worried about your safety?” Duncan asked.

“Of course,” Cross said.

“Definitely,” Hamel agreed. “Here we are, our guards have deserted us …”

“And where are our guides?” Cross added.

Duncan hadn’t expected this resistance, and his frustration was growing quickly. He resented the criticism. He thought he’d been doing the right thing. It wasn’t his fault that the satellite phone wasn’t working and that some guy and his dog stumbled into the wrong place at the wrong time. It made him wonder about the efficacy of inviting nonscientists to participate in an expedition, though he knew that the expedition wouldn’t have happened without Cross’ money. He wondered if any of the others had similar concerns, and whether he should bring it out into the open for a vote. He thought Boyd would support him, and he couldn’t imagine the students doing otherwise for fear of the consequences to their academic careers. It was a gamble to bring it up, but he felt it was the only way to end the discussion without upsetting Cross. What Hamel thought didn’t matter to Duncan, since he considered him to be Cross’ companion and nothing more.

Without telling Cross and Hamel, he gestured and called for the others to approach him. Everyone had finished packing, and some came forward with their cups filled with the last of the coffee. Sizing them up, Duncan thought they all looked tired, their clothes heavily wrinkled, their shirts sweaty, their hair unkempt but partially hidden under floppy hats.

The vote went as Duncan expected—four in favor of continuing, two opposed. Duncan abstained. Wasting no time, the group took the trail used by the guides, and presumably the guards.

Suarez reached them at mid-morning, covered in sweat and catching his breath.

“Mr. Howard,” he repeated several times as he drew near, “Javier is dead!”

Duncan stopped in his tracks. A look of disbelief crossed his face like a shadow. At first, no one said anything. They exchanged looks, tried to ascertain how everyone else was feeling about this. And then they started to buzz. They surrounded Suarez as he caught up with Duncan.

“It’s true, Mr. Howard; Javier is dead. I saw it with my own eyes.”

Reaching into his pocket, he held out his phone.

“Here, you can see for yourself. Look at the video.”

Duncan glanced at his group, each of their faces expressing some form of concern. He wished he had time to think. But he didn’t. He reached for Suarez’ phone. The screen was filled with an image of a man taken from a distance and overhead. Duncan started to move away from the group, but they stayed with him, as did Suarez. He sighed and started the video. The progress bar was about a quarter of the way from the starting point. He could see that the man was jumping and flailing his arms as if trying to bat away mosquitoes. Everyone squeezed around Duncan for a better view of the tiny screen. Suarez reached in to increase the sound. Now they could hear muffled screams and shouts.

“Is he calling for help? I can’t tell,” Maggie Cross asked.

“He’s calling in Portuguese,” Boyd said. “He’s saying ‘
me ajude
’.”

“Help me,” Allison Peeples said helpfully.

“I can’t tell what’s happening,” George Hamel said, frustrated by the fact he didn’t understand a word of Portuguese and that others were blocking his view.

“Sir,” Suarez said coldly, “my friend is dying.”

“Dying of what?” Hamel asked as he pushed himself into position for a better view.

“The bugs are killing him,” Boyd said matter-of-factly.

“I don’t see any bugs,” Hamel said.

Neither could anyone else. The man was too far away to make out details, but it was clear that he was frantic, much like the man in the video taken by the Labrador’s owner. All but Suarez and Fernando Azevedo were transfixed. Suarez moved away, upset with Hamel’s questions, which he considered disrespectful. Azevedo joined him, and they spoke quietly in Portuguese. Suarez explained what had happened, how he had spent a terrible night in a tree while the ground swarmed with bugs and how he did nothing to help his boss despite his pleas.

“Of course, if you’d tried to help him, you would be dead, too, don’t you think?” Azevedo said.

“I know, but I feel bad. I feel like I should have done something.”

“Sometimes there’s nothing can be done. If you hadn’t climbed the tree as your boss told you to do, you would have walked right into the colony with him, or they would have found you standing on the ground, and they would have been all over you just like they were all over Javier.”

“I know. I know. I was lucky that I climbed the tree. I mean, they were all over him just like that,” Suarez said, snapping his fingers.

“Maybe you were luckier than you think,” Azevedo said quietly. “There’s no reason to think they can’t climb trees, and you said they were jumping all over him, right?”

“Yes, that’s true. They were jumping around all over the place, maybe three meters high. I don’t know. Maybe two meters. But it looked almost like they could fly, the way they jumped. I could see them down below me. And they made this terrible noise, like screeching, not loud but with so many of them it was like something out of hell. I prayed all night, I tell you, and I’m not as religious as most of my family.”

“Sometimes that’s all we can do,” Azevedo said comfortingly to the distraught guide.

46

Scanning the faces
of his group, Duncan realized that if he took another vote about turning back, he might lose. Even Boyd looked concerned. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Azevedo and Suarez, leaning against a tree, talking. He watched as Azevedo patted Suarez on the shoulder several times and finally hugged him. Duncan even started to question whether they should retrace their steps back to the river. The thought of splitting up flashed across his mind, but he dismissed it quickly. They had only one guide.

As Suarez and Azevedo quietly rejoined the group, Hamel asked, “What are we going to do now? Shouldn’t we turn back?”

“No!” Suarez said emphatically. “We must go back for Javier.”

Out of respect for the obviously upset guide, the others hesitated before responding.

“What good would that do?” Hamel asked, looking at Duncan. “I mean if the bugs killed him, what’s to stop them from killing us?”

All eyes were on Duncan. Fear, which had been nonexistent until they found the Labrador and his owner, had grown to the extent that even Duncan could sense it in Cross and several others. It wasn’t just Hamel though he was the most outspoken. The students were more or less beholden to Duncan and feared him more than
blaberus
though that was changing.

“Why don’t you put it to a vote?” Cross suggested timidly.

Duncan wanted time to think. How much of a threat did the bugs represent? Obviously, if someone inadvertently walked into the colony, consequences were dire. But how likely was that? There was no way of knowing. The forest floor hid many things, including countless ways to die. He wanted to have a discussion but was concerned that he’d lose control of the conversation and the group. But he had to do something, show leadership, or he’d lose them anyway.

“Obviously,” he said, “whatever we do, we have to stick together. So splitting up is out. We only have one guide.”

“I’m going back for my friend,” Suarez insisted.

“What are you going to do when you get there?” Stephanie Rankin asked, more gruffly than she’d intended.

“Bring his body back. Or bury him. I don’t know. I just can’t leave him lying there.”

“What about the bugs?” Hamel asked.

“They were gone this morning. If they weren’t, I wouldn’t be here.”

“How far would we have to go to get there?” Boyd asked.

“It took me less than ninety minutes to get here.” Suarez didn’t mention that he jogged most of the way, stopping only for water breaks.

“Okay,” Azevedo said, “suppose we go back, and we find Javier’s body. Would it be all right with you if we bury him, mark his grave and then come back? You could come back later to retrieve it. Besides, we’ll have to notify the authorities. With two bodies, I’m sure they’ll send someone here to investigate.”

Suarez thought for a moment and nodded.

“Yes, yes, that would be good. Javier would be able to rest, and so would I.”

Although the expedition wasn’t conducted under democratic rules, Duncan felt that he couldn’t force anyone to follow Suarez to the body. But it was a question of whether to proceed or retreat, he decided.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Duncan said. “If you don’t go with us, you can stay here and wait for us to return. And tomorrow, we’ll start hiking back to the river. Anyone have a problem with this?”

It didn’t surprise anyone that Hamel and Cross decided to stay behind. But when Alison Peeples also asked to wait, Rankin, Boyd, and Johnson nearly gasped in unison.

“What!” Peeples said. “I just don’t feel like going, okay? I’m not feeling well. I think I’m coming down with something.”

The three exchanged muffled comments while Duncan gathered Hamel, Cross, and Peeples together to give them instructions. He cautioned them not to attempt to return to the river on their own.

“We’ll probably camp here another night and head back tomorrow, together. Any questions? Alison will probably want to get rest. And stay hydrated. This humidity is brutal.”

Even before the remainder of the group started the trek to bury Costa, their shirts were saturated with sweat. Humidity spiked, and huge gray clouds were piling up in the east. Although rain had fallen every day since the start, it was sporadic, and most of it came at night. As the two groups diverged, the three left behind busied themselves with setting up camp while the others tried to keep up with a fast-moving guide.

Cross, who was accustomed to getting her way and anxious after seeing parts of Suarez’ video, complained to Duncan just before he left.

“I don’t want to be insensitive here, but who’s paying whom here?” she said snarkily. “Can’t we just go back now and let the authorities deal with the body or bodies?”

“We’ve got no leverage,” Duncan said. “He’s going with or without us, and he’ll just quit if we give him an ultimatum, and we’d still have to pay him for the days he’s worked.”

“Couldn’t we just retrace our steps?”

“We could, maybe. Or we could get lost. Anyway, this is what we’re going to do and really, Maggie, please don’t try to hike out on your own. We’ll be back as fast as we can, okay?”

Unconvinced, Cross nodded and watched as Duncan rejoined his group and disappeared into the forest.

47

It wasn’t long
before the gray clouds grew dark, and the first drops dripped from the canopy above the campsite. Fortunately, the two tents were up with rainflies attached. Peeples laid on her air mattress while Cross and Hamel sat on a log they’d moved near their tent. It wasn’t long before Peeples joined them, unable to relax in her stuffy tent, the price of draping them with rainflies.

“Do you think it’s a good idea what they’re doing?” Hamel asked, rhetorically.

“Personally,” he continued, “I think our fearless leader doesn’t have our best interest at heart.”

“What do you mean?” Cross asked.

“I know you have a thing for him, sweetie, but you obviously were afraid to go. And what about you?” he said, speaking to Peeples. “Are you really ill or is something else going on?”

Peeples gave him a critical look.

“I’m not feeling well,” she said matter-of-factly. “This heat and humidity is getting to me. I’ve never felt like this before.”

“Stop it, George,” Cross said sternly. “Could be you and I have overactive imaginations. Maybe we’re just cowards. I know I am.”

“Well,” Hamel said, “when you put it that way, I suppose you’re right. I mean, I don’t mind being a bystander, but I’m not inclined to lead the charge.”

“You all think they’re in danger?” Peeples asked.

“I have no idea,” Hamel said. “I don’t want to think that, but you have to wonder whether we’re in danger just sitting here. What if the bugs show up? What then? It’s not like we can defend ourselves.”

“The guide said the insects left the area,” Peeples said.

“Yes, but he wasn’t talking about this place, in particular, and he didn’t say where they went. For all we know, they could be waiting for them.”

“Like an ambush?” Peeples said sarcastically.

“Maybe,” Hamel said, defensively. “Could be. You don’t know. Maybe they’re organized like ants or something. We don’t know much about them, do we?”

“For all we know, maybe they’re headed our way,” Peeples said and regretted saying it.

Cross stood and faced her companions.

“I don’t think this is very helpful. The reason I didn’t go is that I’m a physical coward. Always have been. I admit it. I like to take small risks, like trying out a new restaurant, but going into the jungle after a dead body, that doesn’t appeal to me.”

Hamel nodded in agreement. Peeples said nothing for a moment as she stared at Cross’s khaki shorts. She wondered whether it was fear that caused her to feel ill. She hadn’t felt this until it became clear that the previously harmless insects had turned into killers. It reminded her of her fear of snakes, which she tried to overcome but couldn’t. Twice she’d tried to desensitize herself to the reptiles and both times she failed miserably. She could watch them when separated by glass enclosures but shivered uncontrollably when handlers tried to present them to her. It didn’t matter whether they were garter snakes or poisonous. Seeing them in the wild caused her to run like a frightened child. The thought of thousands of the insects swarming over her body had a similar effect, except she couldn’t run from her thoughts or fears. It was the thought that made her feel ill, she decided, because sitting on the log she was not afraid and didn’t feel ill.

“I’m a coward, too,” Peeples blurted. “I don’t know, after seeing that video and the thought of those insects eating that poor man alive…”

“We all have a problem with being eaten alive,” Hamel said, trying to be supportive.

Peeples grimaced, and Cross sighed.

“Well, at least we can agree that we’re all cowards, right?” Hamel said.

“No question about that,” Peeples said, feeling better and unashamed.