Insects: A Novel (25 page)

80

Boyd and Duncan
had their lights on when Johnson went underwater. Then they lost him. Found him. Lost him. All the time, he was screaming, even underwater. They were the screams of someone being eaten alive. His eyes obliterated, unconnected, blind. They heard him scream “Kill me, kill me, kill me!” before the almost inhuman screech was cut off by water. Up. Down. Up. Down. And then the screaming stopped as suddenly as it had started. They’d lost track of him. They scoured the water for bubbles while at the same time keeping their distance from the raft of bugs.

Others huddled together among the compact stand of trees as if bracing themselves for an attack. Everyone was on edge from Johnson’s screams. Was he better off dead? No one spoke it, and Rankin continued to sob as if she’d just lost a loved one. Time seemed to stand still. And then Johnson stood up in the swirling water, blood pouring out of his mouth.

“Kill me, please, kill me,” he screamed again.

“For God’s sake,” Hamel yelled, “Kill him. This is unbearable.”

Suarez stepped forward, his machete in hand. He hadn’t been able to help the professor, but he realized he was the only one who could do what needed to be done. Bugs filled the air, many of them coming down in the water after their brief flights, as Suarez, holding the machete in front of him like a lance, dove underwater toward Johnson. With uncanny accuracy and without surfacing, he plunged the wide blade into Johnson’s abdomen. Surfacing briefly, he pulled the blade back, gave it two quick thrusts and then, as the bugs descended onto him, he dove underwater, surfacing behind the group, gasping for breath. Whatever bugs had landed on him had let go.

The others watched in shock over the brutality of what they’d just seen, but relieved that it was over. For a moment, no one said anything.

“We can’t stay here,” Duncan said, finally.

“The insects can’t be everywhere,” he said. “It’s our bad luck that brought us here. The forest is huge, and there can’t be that many of them.”

“Where we gonna go?” Peeples asked, as she comforted Rankin who struggled to regain her composure.

“Away from this place,” Boyd said. “Head back the direction we came.”

“Why not the other way, keep going like we were when we were on the road?” Hamel asked. “Isn’t there high ground somewhere?”

“Didn’t you see the bugs in front of the truck? We couldn’t have kept going anyway, we’d have driven right into them.”

“Okay, okay,” Duncan argued. “Cody’s right. Let’s just head back and get away from these things.”

With lights losing power, and virtually no supplies or gear and only a few water bottles, Duncan led the way with Boyd bringing up the rear, doing everything they could to preserve battery life while somehow lighting the way and avoiding holes and tripping over roots or themselves. They followed each other closely, afraid to be separated, and at the same time not wanting to be the first one to stumble or worse. But it was only a matter of time before the flashlights died, and everyone knew it. Nobody wanted to think about what they would do when that happened.

81

Daniel Rocha was
up at dawn to the smell of freshly brewed coffee, but it did not lead to the early start he’d hoped for, since Captain Gonzalo Juarez couldn’t be awakened as he snored quietly on a cot in the mostly dark cabin. Daylight was near at hand, and Carvalho couldn’t wait to find Professor Azevedo, but he was simply a passenger and the youngest man in the room. The other two were already on the deck sipping coffee while watching the relentless flow of the unending lake that surrounded them. When he approached them, Augusto Santos welcomed him.

“Think the water is higher or lower than last night?” Santos asked in Portuguese.

“I can’t tell,” Julio Carvalho said.

“I can’t tell either,” Rocha said. “Where’s the coffee?”

Carvalho directed him to the percolator on the small gas stove inside. The coffee was strong and hot, and the first sip burned his tongue. By the third sip, he felt more awake and returned to the deck where he leaned on the railing and idly listened to his companions who were talking about soccer. Rocha was one of the few Brazilians who had no interest in soccer, but listened anyway in an effort to avoid thinking about the professor and how they should be acting with greater urgency. It was a rescue mission, after all.

Sunlight occasionally broke through the clouds and the rain had stopped, and the only reason he could think of why they hadn’t already left was the sleeping captain. This gnawed at him, and when he went inside to refill his cup he stood over the captain on his cot and started talking as if the older man were awake.

“Don’t you think we should be going?” the young man said in a normal voice. “It’s not raining, and the other fellows are ready to go. You should try this coffee. It’s very strong and very good. In fact, I can’t see how you can sleep with the smell. It’s strong enough to wake the dead.”

The captain grunted and mumbled something unintelligible. Rocha gave him a moment and then held the pot near the captain’s head.

“Smell that? How can you resist it?”

This time the captain rolled over, his head pressed against his pillow, his dark eyes focused on Rocha.

“What time is it?” he asked in a low, gravelly voice, breaking into a brief coughing fit, which caused him to sit up to clear his throat.

“It’s nearly six-thirty,” Rocha said, filling a cup and holding it out. Juarez took it in both hands and sipped. Then another.

“Good coffee.”

“I didn’t make it.”

“It’s still good coffee. Nothing like fresh Brazilian coffee.”

“Shouldn’t we be on our way?” Rocha prompted. “This is a rescue mission, not a fishing expedition.”

Juarez frowned and took a deep breath.

“I don’t like your tone,” he said abruptly, rising to his feet. “A few minutes won’t make a difference.”

“You don’t know that,” Rocha insisted.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “Just let me finish my coffee.”

Rocha smiled victoriously, went to his cot, packed his belongings and returned to the deck where Santos and Carvalho were still talking about soccer. After a few moments, the captain emerged on the deck in his underwear.

“What’s for breakfast?”

“That’s a good idea,” Santos said, standing from his perch on a bench. “I’ll see what we have.”

“Hope it’s more than a can of beans,” Carvalho said.

Rocha felt his frustration build. Nobody seemed to have any sense of urgency about the mission. He thought he should remind them but saw how they brushed him aside as they went inside to rustle up breakfast. While he remained on the deck fuming, he heard someone shout something about eggs.

“Hey, we’ve got eggs,” Carvalho said, looking into the small refrigerator next to the stove.

“I’ll bet there’s a chicken coop down below.”

“We would’ve heard them,” Juarez said, “especially the rooster.”

“I don’t know,” Carvalho said. “Where else would the eggs come from?”

“Yeah,” Santos said, “it makes sense that the guy who owned this place would have chickens. He’s out here in the middle of nowhere. He can’t just go to a store.”

“Hey, young fella,” Juarez called. “Why don’t you go downstairs and let us know if you see a chicken coop?”

This angered Rocha. It was one thing to wait for breakfast, but this was worse. It was obvious that the captain didn’t care about what they were there to do, or so it seemed to Rocha. He began pacing and finally burst into the doorway.

“You ought to be ashamed,” he said defiantly. The three men turned to face Rocha. “Professor Azevedo and his friends could be dying right now, and all you’re interested in is breakfast and whether there’s a chicken coop. Well, I won’t stand for it.”

Juarez shook his head. The others exchanged puzzled glances.

“Listen, young man, whether you look for the chickens or not has no bearing on when we will get underway. I’m a man who likes to start his day with a hot breakfast. You don’t have to eat if you don’t want to. If it makes you feel better, you can just go out to the boat and wait there. It’s not going to take long,” Juarez said sternly.

“Try to relax,” Santos said sympathetically. “We’ll be riding in small boats and won’t be able to carry many provisions. You should eat now or you’ll be hungry later. It’s up to you.”

Santos prepared a breakfast of eggs and canned black beans mixed with weevily rice, which they devoured along with a second pot of coffee. Conversation revolved around how well stocked and organized the cabin was and how good the eggs tasted. While waiting for them, Rocha pulled two of the small boats to the side of the cabin. He loaded water bottles into each boat and thought he had everything ready when he looked up toward the deck and saw Captain Juarez shaking his head.

“What?” Rocha said.

“You forgot something.”

Rocha looked at the boats for a moment.

“What did I forget?”

“The motors.”

Rocha studied the boats. He slapped his forehead.

“They’re on the boat, don’t you remember?” Juarez said. “They’re too heavy to carry this far. Besides, you also forgot the fuel.” Pausing for effect, he added, “You see, it does one no good to be in a hurry.”

“Did you find any chickens?” Santos hollered.

Rocha took several aggressive steps toward the boat but halted when Juarez called, “Wait a minute. I’ll join you.”

The captain finished dressing and quickly joined Rocha.

“Let’s bring this boat back. We’ll bring back the motors and gas and anything else we might need.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, like a compass, a map. I see you already got the water. Good. Wouldn’t want to forget that.”

Within fifteen minutes, they were back installing the outboards and preparing to launch their journey. The captain questioned Santos and Carvalho about their boat handling skills. While setting his shotgun into one of the boats, Santos said, “We’re guides, guards, jacks of all things, ain’t that right, Julio?”

“True. We do lot of things, mostly legal, all for money, of course.”

“Well, know this, I’m not paying a single real,” Juarez cautioned.

Santos scrambled aboard while Carvalho held the boat steady. Moments later, they used canoe paddles to shove off, and after several false starts managed to get the old outboards running amid clouds of gray smoke. While Carvalho took the helm, Santos quietly opened a beer and announced, “This is going to be a good day.”

“Where’d you find that? Carvalho demanded.

“In a cabinet. There’s more. This is my reward for cooking breakfast.”

82

Captain Juarez entered
the coordinates that Rocha had given him into his small, handheld GPS. It resulted in a much more direct route than the Americans had taken. It took only three hours to arrive at the clearing, which was mostly underwater. They stopped there to consider their next move, which was to motor to the shed to see if anyone was there. Rocha called out multiple times but received no response.

“I assume there is some sort of road,” Juarez said, “otherwise, how would they get the lumber out?”

“It’s underwater now,” Santos said.

“Maybe they drowned,” Carvalho said.

“Don’t say that,” Rocha responded angrily. “It’s too soon to give up. We just got here.”

“Relax, young man,” Juarez said. “We’re not leaving, we just need to decide which way to go.”

Juarez instructed Santos and Carvalho to probe the western portion of the area while he and Rocha scouted the eastern half. They did this for about a half hour, using sticks to check for depth. Juarez thought that a raised area could indicate a road, and that’s how they found the elevated roadbed.

“This has to be it,” Juarez said. “It’s very close to the coordinates.”

The water was about waist high with debris piling up in small, slow moving islands. Unable to see the roadbed through the murky water, they used sticks much the way that Boyd and Suarez had used them to feel for the sloping edges. Progress was slow. Rocha was hopeful that this would lead them to the professor. For the most part, the current pushed against the side of the boats, which made it difficult to follow the road closely. But it wasn’t long before they found a partially submerged truck to one side of the road. It was an old truck, and it was impossible for them to tell how long it had been there.

They reconnoitered the area for fifteen minutes when Carvalho shouted.

“Over here,” he said, pointing to debris that had piled against a stand of trees.

Juarez had his boat alongside Carvalho’s boat in less than a minute and watched as Carvalho used a stick to pull at pieces of tattered cloth and beneath a body, barely recognizable as human. It looked as if it had been partially devoured, with chunks of flesh missing, particularly in what looked to be the abdomen. As Rocha stared at it, he realized it wasn’t the professor’s body but derived little comfort from it. He wondered who this was, and whether he or she had been part of Azevedo’s group.

“It stinks pretty bad,” Santos said, holding up an arm with his stick and then letting it drop into the water.

“This isn’t your professor, is it?” Juarez asked.

“I don’t think so. He was bigger, you know, fatter.”

“Maybe the animals have reduced his size,” Carvalho said.

“Why do you say such things,” Santos shot at his friend. “You’re just upsetting the boy. Can’t you see?”

“I can see that something has been eating this body,” Carvalho responded brusquely.

Rocha had tensed as Carvalho spoke but thought better of responding after hearing Santos’ admonishment.

“If I had gloves, I might check his pockets,” Santos said, “but I won’t touch a dead body without gloves.”

The boats slipped away from the body and moved alongside the partially submerged truck. Everyone had a look inside. It offered no clues.

“Anybody got any ideas where to look?” Juarez asked.

“Maybe we should separate, you try to follow the road, and we’ll head in this direction.”

Tapping the fuel tank in his boat, Santos said, “I don’t know. Do we have enough fuel? And look at the time.” He held up his wrist, displaying a cheap watch with a plastic band. “It’s a little after noon. How much time do we have?”

Juarez checked the fuel tank with a stick and threw it in the water. The gasoline on the stick blossomed in the water.

“We’re fine,” he said.

“Should we be calling out their names?” Rocha asked. “Maybe they can hear us, even if they can’t see us.”

Santos and Carvalho looked at each other and shook their heads.

“What should we say? We don’t know their names,” Santos said.

“The only one I know is Professor Azevedo. His first name is Fernando.”

“Okay, we can do that every once in a while, but I don’t want you shouting in my ear all afternoon. Just once in awhile, okay. And you guys, don’t go too far. We should meet back here, at the truck, by one thirty. That’ll give us plenty of time to get back, and if we haven’t found them in an hour, then we might have to wait until the flood goes down.”

Speaking quietly to Rocha, he added, “You may as well get used to the idea that we may not find them, and that they’ve met with some catastrophe.”

Rocha nodded and then, as they pulled away from the truck, he shouted, “Professor Azevedo, can you hear me?”