Blood Forest (Suspense thriller) (17 page)

But Ike proved faster. He swung the knife in a wide arc, the long blade connecting just under the serpent’s chin. The hissing stopped and something popped. The cordlike torso fell heavily onto the ground, twisting about aimlessly. The serpentine head bounced away, fangs snapping a few times before life faded completely.

Brandon gasped, holding his chest. He wiped the mud from his body. Sam did the same as she climbed to her feet. She watched the ground cautiously, alert for another snake.

“The snake’s dead,” Ike said.

“That’s not a snake,” Temba protested. “Mamba.”

Sam had heard stories of the black mamba, the most venomous snake in Africa. But this snake was green.

Alfred walked over cautiously to inspect. He bent over and prodded the snake’s body with his hook. The serpent remained limp and headless. “Was anyone bitten?” he asked, looking up.

Sam, Brandon, and Temba all shook their heads.

The chemist breathed a sigh of relief. “Its venom kills in less than five minutes.”

Sam chilled, remembering the feel of its leathery skin on her ankle. Around her, every stick and vine wanted to spring to life in the form of a green snake. The babbling of the nearby river even sounded serpentine.

“I can still hear it,” Brandon said.

“Hear what?” Alfred asked.

“It’s a buzzing,” he replied. “It’s not a bee though. I’ve heard it before.”

Alfred shook his head, confused. “I don’t hear it.”

“I do,” Nessa said. “I hear it. I’ve heard it before, too. It’s not a bee. It’s in your head.”

“It’s not in my head,” Temba protested. “How could we all hear it—?”

“I don’t know,” Nessa answered. “But it sounds like power lines.”

“Power lines?” Ike asked. “In the jungle?”

Three rapid bangs sounded heavily, causing everyone to jump. Ike crouched down reflexively, pulling his pistol out.

“What the hell was that?” Brandon asked.

“Automatic weapon,” Ike answered. “And close.”

Gilles smelled the faint scent of gun smoke. The firearm warmed in his hands. His eyes scanned the shadows around him. The light had materialized from nowhere. It charged straight for him, closing rapidly, although never quite reaching him. Gilles had opened fire, a single three-round burst. He could not be sure if he hit the light, or even if it had any substance to hit, but it vanished as quickly as it came, leaving him once again alone in the darkness.

Eyes peeked out of the dark foliage and every leaf became a sinister face. They leered at him. Gilles trembled, wondering where his imagination ended and reality began. He could not remember being this frightened since he was a little boy. This wasn’t the type of fear you faced in battle. Instead it was a pure, helpless terror; that fear of the inexplicable, of the unknown.

As he spun, his eyes caught a shape in the darkness. Gilles began to make out arms and legs, a torso and head. The shadow solidified into a three-dimensional form, translucent but palpable. The apparition had no distinguishable facial features and no defined musculature or clothing.

He froze, staring at the figure. With certainty, he knew it was there, but still could not wrap his mind around the idea. Surely he was seeing a ghost. Its face gave no clue as to whether it looked at him or even knew he was there. The two stood completely motionless.

Watch out.

He could not tell if the warning was his own or if the specter was trying to communicate.

“Gilles?”

Gilles.

The mercenary tore his eyes away from the shadow, turning toward the source of the voice, rifle raised. He saw only darkness, but began to hear the crunching footfalls of someone approaching.

“Gilles? Where are you?”

The voice sounded like Delani’s, but Gilles couldn’t be sure. In that instance his doubts felt compounded. He couldn’t trust anything.
Don’t trust everything you see or hear.
A hushed warning followed the voice, echoing through the trees. The footfalls fell silent.

Gilles held his breath, staying absolutely still. Only his finger moved, easing over the trigger of his rifle. His instincts told him he was being hunted.

Don’t let them get you.

Delani crept through the branches. Ike wasn’t far behind. When they had heard the gunshots, the two mercenaries quickly located each other. That was when they noticed that Gilles was no longer at his post. Although the gunshots sounded like his weapon, they couldn’t be sure.

Delani called out to Gilles, but Ike hushed him. Gilles could be wounded or dead and the danger might still remain. Delani took the point and Ike circled behind and to the right.

Both men held their pistols ready, but pointed at the forest floor. They didn’t want to trigger a confrontation or fire a stray shot at a friend. Delani also held a small flashlight, ready to flick it on if need be.

Delani led the way, pressing through the low hanging branches. He found his way into a small thicket and became lost in the darkness. The leaves were too thick to let through light from the sky or from the campfire behind. He raised his flashlight and flicked it on.

Gilles waited in the gloom for him, standing in the darkness, his rifle raised and pointed at Delani. The thick barrel aimed straight at the South African, ready to erupt.

Delani froze. “Gilles, lower your weapon,” he ordered.

Gilles kept his weapon trained, his expression torn and confused. The whites of his eyes flashed.

“What are you doing?” Delani demanded. “Lower your weapon!”

He shined the flashlight into the man’s eyes. Gilles didn’t flinch. Delani’s pistol stayed pointed down, fearful that if he lifted it, Gilles would fire.

A tiny noise alerted Gilles, and he spun to the left. Ike stopped and crouched in the undergrowth, invisible in the darkness. Gilles began to retreat. His rifle barrel danced between Delani and Ike’s positions.

He stepped slowly, nearly tripping over the undergrowth. For a brief moment his rifle faltered. Delani’s gun came up and Ike exploded from the bushes. Before Gilles could fire, Ike tackled him, the pair crashing to the ground, their weapons pinned off to the side.

He cried out, struggling to break free of Ike’s grasp. Both men were strong and evenly matched. They rolled across the ground, vines and roots tangling around them. They stopped when Gilles’ back struck a tree. He yelled in pain and weakened, giving Ike the advantage.

Delani circled the pair, ducking to avoid the barrels of their weapons, until he got close enough to grab Gilles’ rifle by the barrel. In the process he dropped the flashlight and it bounced away. He angled the pistol toward the crazed mercenary’s face. Then with one swift motion, he struck Gilles atop the head.

Gilles stopped his struggling. He writhed and groaned, held prone by Ike.

The Australian looked up to Delani. “I wonder what got into him.”

Delani shook his head. Not a second later, an eerie call rose up in the distance. It sounded to him like the trumpeting of an elephant. But then, it twisted into the caw of a bird.

Ike’s face scrunched in confusion. He sat up, holding Gilles down with one arm. His eyes scanned the forest in a futile attempt to see what was nearby. The darkness was too thick and the call was distant.

Delani raised his hand, taking comfort in the pistol resting there. When the bird caw ended, a leopard coughed three times, making both men start.

“You hear that, mate?” Ike asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“You know what that sounded like?”

Delani nodded, still uncertain.

“It sounds like it’s coming from the same place.” Ike stood, taking Gilles’ rifle with him. Both men forgot about their unconscious companion.

They listened to the eerie noise. Again, it trumpeted like an elephant, cawed like a bird, and coughed like a leopard, but all in the same hollow voice. As it did, the sound grew more distant as if the caller was moving away.

“That isn’t an animal,” Ike decided. “And it’s not our imaginations.”

Delani gestured to Gilles’ form. “Let’s get him back to the camp.”

Ike nodded and stooped down to lift the fallen man by the shoulders. Together, they walked back toward the light of the fire.

The eerie noises descended over the camp. At times it mimicked the sounds of the forest animals, but at other times it broke into an eerie echoing tune. The notes drifted melodiously, filling the whole forest rather than originating in any one place.

Sam stood beside Brandon as they stared out into the darkness, their backs to the light of the fire. The three mercenaries had disappeared into the forest before the noises began. It was unnerving. At first she thought it was another crazed animal, overcome with madness and charging about the forest. To her right, Temba and Kuntolo whispered in their language.

“It seems we’re not alone out here after all,” Alfred pointed out.

Nessa nodded. “But who is it?”

“It is a song of the
molimo
,” Temba said.

“What is a
molimo
?” Sam asked.

When Temba hesitated, Alfred said, “A
molimo
is a pygmy funeral ritual.”

“I thought you said the BaMbuti left this region of the forest,” Brandon protested.

Temba nodded. “They did.”

They all turned at the sound of movement through the nearby brush. Sam was relieved to see Delani and Ike returning, but her eyes immediately fell to the third man being half-dragged by the Australian. Gilles moaned and rolled his head to the side.

“What happened?” she asked as they made their way into the firelight.

“He took a little tumble,” Ike replied.

Delani turned to Alfred. “Would you check him? He was acting mad.”

Sam felt a sense of dread. She remembered running through the forest, pursued by her husband.

“We’ll keep a close eye on Gilles tonight,” Delani said. “We will keep our watches in closer to the camp. We should keep an eye on one another.”

Ike added, “We could use a little a help too. We’re down a man, and it’s a long night.”

“Sam and I can take a watch,” Brandon offered.

Temba nodded, pointing to himself and Kuntolo. “We will take a watch.”

Delani nodded his approval. “Two must remain awake at all times.”

The distant song broke into many voices, making everyone pause. An elephant trumpeted, a baboon barked. The forest seemed to come alive around them, stirred into motion by the strange melody.

16

T
he entire morning Brandon spent looking over his shoulder, but each time, his eyes revealed nothing. He resolved to ignore the paranoid feelings and accept that his instincts were haywire.

The others had more trouble. Delani and Ike kept a constant prowl along the perimeter of their procession. When one of them wasn’t off to the side, creeping through the jungle, they enlisted Temba or Kuntolo to help out. The two pygmies stood at constant attention, eyes scanning the green foliage. Every so often, Brandon spotted a log or tree that looked familiar. Occasionally when he glanced to his right, he saw the black water of the river through the thick foliage.

At one point Temba fell back to walk beside Sam and Brandon. He spoke in a low tone. “Why is it so dark?”

“What do you mean?” Sam asked.

Brandon glanced around the forest. Sunlight poured through, especially near the river where the canopy did not cover everything. Despite that, the natural shade of the jungle covered most of the area they walked in. But there was something else—a thick haze.

“I do not understand it,” Temba tried explaining. “It’s like a black cloud above us. But when I look, the cloud is not there.”

“I think it’s a trick of the mind,” Brandon offered.

Temba shook his head, obviously not satisfied with that answer. He kept walking, not pressing further.

Up ahead the forest exploded. Feathered birds cawed angrily, rising up in a whirlwind of flapping wings as they left the forest floor, disappearing in the canopy. Kuntolo held his spear like a walking stick. He perched on a log looking down at the base of a tree.

Sam walked faster, nearly breaking into a run. Brandon moved to keep up. He recognized the tall tree with twisting bark stretching high in front of them. At the base of the tree, the ground was stained with carrion.

“Something died here,” Ike called.

“It was an okapi,” Brandon explained as he joined the mercenary.

“You’ve seen it?” he asked.

Brandon nodded, looking down at the ground. Only tiny pieces of ragged skin and bone remained. Among the torn flesh, insects twisted and crawled. The majority of the remains had been picked clean.

“The dead okapi lay right here,” Brandon described. “The crazy one showed up later. He came from over there and started to chase us away from the tree.”

Ike crouched, joined by Kuntolo and Temba. The three men inspected the fragments and insects as if expecting to find a clue.

“If these animals are so aggressive, why haven’t we seen any?” Nessa asked.

“What about the mamba?” Sam suggested.

“It’s a snake,” Nessa replied. “That’s completely different. Reptiles have different behavioral patterns than mammals.”

“We are too large of a group,” Temba answered. “The animals can hear us coming from far off and they move away. That is why when you walk through the forest you talk and sing. It keeps the animals away. They don’t like to be surprised by people creeping through the jungle.”

“But an okapi?” Sam pressed.

Temba chuckled as if the idea was ludicrous.

“I don’t think we doubt your story here,” Ike said. “We all saw and heard things last night that are forcing us to rethink some things.”

Gilles stood in silence. Ever since his ordeal, he had been stripped of his weapons and his pride. He had told the story about the lights in the forest, how they sprang to life and came at him. Alfred had suggested the possibility that Gilles had seen a will o’ the wisp. He reasoned that they were approaching marshy lands, the type of areas where such strange phenomena were often sighted.

Alfred’s reassurances hadn’t helped Gilles feel less embarrassed about his reactions. He admitted that he hadn’t recognized Delani or Ike when he saw the two men in the forest.

“Either way, the quicker we’re in and out the better,” Alfred said. “We should keep moving.”

“We should turn around and go back,” Gilles said. His head hung low, his face dark. He gazed up at the others, his eyes wild. “This place is cursed, I know it.”

Gilles stood up straighter. “If we stay here, it will not be long before we see more. Don’t be surprised if you hear its voice in your head, telling you to do things. And don’t trust anyone around you. You cannot know if it is truly them inside.”

“Try to relax, mate,” Ike said. Gilles’ assault rifle hung off the Australian’s back.

“How much farther to the pond?” Nessa asked Brandon.

“We’ll have to camp one more time before we get there, I think,” Brandon told her. “I think we’re moving at about the same speed as Sam and I did.”

“We need to pick up the pace,” Nessa said.

At first, the party remained together. Not even Ike wanted to move alone. But as the moments passed, they fell back into their earlier rhythm.

“None of this makes sense,” Sam said as she walked beside Brandon. She kept her voice low so that no one could hear except for Temba and Kuntolo, who walked close by.

“I know it doesn’t.”

“The song the other night,” Sam went on. “I’d think Temba would know if there were other BaMbuti in the forest, wouldn’t he?”

“I guess he would.”

“The man I saw in the tent wasn’t a pygmy.”

“Excuse me.” Temba said. “Kuntolo and I have been talking and we think there is something very wrong with this forest.”

Brandon bit his lip. He ran a hand through his hair, feeling sweat covering his scalp.

“We do not know about ghosts,” Temba admitted. “But the animals are too noisy. They’re not right. Maybe in the way that Gilles is not right. And I feel something, right at the back of my neck. It feels like there is an eyeball floating right behind me and every time I turn my head, it moves to the other side.” Temba mimed the imaginary eyeball with his hands as he spoke, holding them behind his head whenever he turned.

“We want to know,” Temba went on. “What would ghosts be doing in this forest? Why would they want to do these things to us?”

“Well,” Sam gnawed on her lower lip. “Here’s the thing. People say that ghosts are the souls of people who were not able to go to heaven. They think it’s because something happened to those people when they died, or before they died, that was so horrible they were in too much pain to go on.”

“Like what happened to Mbogo’s people?”

Sam nodded. “Maybe, yeah.”

“You think Mbogo’s people are in the forest as ghosts?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why would they want to hurt us?” Temba shook his head. “It doesn’t seem true.”

Brandon wondered about the man Sam had seen in the tent. Her description didn’t make sense. She said that he had melted into the floor. “That
molimo
song,” Brandon asked. “Is it really a funeral song?”

Temba shook his head. “That’s just what Alfred thinks,” he explained. “Alfred doesn’t know anything about BaMbuti.”

“Then what is it?”

“BaMbuti belong to the forest. It is our master, and it is our protector. As long as we live in the forest it will make sure that nothing too bad will happen.

“But sometimes, like you or I, the forest will fall asleep. When it does, bad things can happen. Sometimes someone good will die, sometimes food will be scarce. All of these things can happen when the forest doesn’t protect us. When we see these bad things, we sing the songs of the
molimo
.

“It wakes up the whole forest. Usually we’ll call for the
molimo
for only a few nights. When something very bad happens, we will keep singing the songs until everything is right.”

It was a prayer then, Brandon realized. A superstitious ritual designed to end a period of particularly bad luck. If you were a wronged pygmy spirit, the ghost of a raped and cannibalized people, how long would you sing the
molimo
songs?

For the most part, Ike kept out of sight from the others. He shadowed their movements, keeping a close eye on the forest. He reasoned that if someone or something ambushed them, he could surprise their attackers and turn the tables.

As the darkness of night approached and the strain of the day’s journey took its toll, he wandered back toward the main group. Nessa had moved to the rear, walking alone. Alfred, her usual companion, chattered with Raoul in French, lost in a conversation about palm wine. Ike moved up beside her. A glance out of the corner of her eye was his only hint that she knew he was there.

“How are you holding up?” he asked.

“Just lovely.”

A few moments of awkward silence passed, until she looked up at Ike. “How well do you know him?”

“Excuse me?”

Nessa nodded to Gilles. The sullen mercenary walked with his arms at his sides, looking more like a captive than a party member.

“I’d say I know him pretty well,” he replied. “Why? You think he has a screw loose?”

“I’m just curious as to how prone to superstition he might be.”

“Well, it’s pretty common out here.”

“Maybe superstition is the wrong word,” she replied. “Imagination.”

“Look, I’m not sure if I’m ready to go believing in ghosts or anything either, but if you’re asking if I think he made it all up, I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Hm.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Ike spat accusingly. “Delani, Gilles, and me. We’re just a bunch of meatheads. Or Muppets or whatever it is you like to say. We’re not smart thinkers like you and Alfred. We believe in crazy things like aliens and goblins.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, but you meant it,” he replied. “Well, good for you and your college education. I’m glad you’re here to sort it all out for us drongos.”

“Don’t think you know me,” she protested. “Just because—”

“Just because what?” Ike asked. “Because we shagged a few times?”

She stopped walking, glancing nervously at the others. Luckily they were too far away to hear the conversation.

“Does your fiancé even know you?” Ike went on. “Poor bloke has no idea what he’s getting into.”

“Every time I think I know what level of stupidity you can sink to, you find another one,” Nessa hissed.

She walked faster, moving ahead of him. Ike tried to follow at first, but if he pursued her further, he would end up making a scene. As the moments passed he felt shame setting in. He ran both hands over his scalp.

“Nessa, wait,” he called. He cleared his throat. “Ms. Singer.”

She stopped and looked over her shoulder. She let him catch up to her. “What is it?”

“I’m sorry. I should apologize.”

Nessa narrowed her eyes. “You want to apologize to me?”

He nodded, feeling every part the dumb oaf. “I’ve got no right to talk to you like that.”

She stared at him in disbelief.

“You’re right. I don’t really know you all that much.” Ike swallowed hard, wondering why this was so goddamned difficult. He was acting like he’d never talked to a woman before. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to get to know you more.”

Nessa seemed taken off guard. She looked away at the darkening forest. When she turned back, the coldness returned. “Be serious, Ike. You don’t want to get to know me. You’re just horny.”

Ike felt like he’d been slapped in the face. She didn’t give him a chance to respond, moving up to walk beside Alfred.

The Australian adjusted the rifle on his back, feeling comfort in its weight.

“This is the tree,” Sam confirmed. “You can still see where the flare hit.”

“You’re sure?” Alfred asked. “Baboons are highly territorial.”

She nodded, circling the base of the tree. She stepped carefully between the twisted roots. They had moved away from the campsite to investigate, using only Brandon’s flashlight to see in the darkness. With night around them, the noises of the forest multiplied tenfold. Every insect sang in their ears. Every animal call sounded crisp as a gunshot.

“How close are we to your plane?” the chemist asked as he examined the surrounding canopy.

“Probably a five-hour hike,” Brandon offered.

“Do you think we can see the swamp from here?”

Brandon and Sam exchanged glances. Alfred had a hopeful look in his eyes. Sam shrugged.

“I wish I could get up there,” Alfred said thoughtfully, following the tall trunk with his eyes.

Temba, the fourth and last of the group to leave the campsite, spoke up. “I can climb that.”

Alfred turned to the pygmy in surprise. “You really think so?”

Temba nodded, giving the chemist a cocky grin. “It is not so hard.”

“Could you climb up there and see if you can find a place where the ground dips?”