Outbreak (12 page)

All afternoon they struggled. At times they would stumble upon natural clearings where ordinarily Ben would feel safer, relieved of the all-encompassing oppression of the rainforest; but they knew they could not stay long in the open. There were men after them, and they had to stay hidden. After a couple of hours, though, they found themselves on a steady incline, and at one stage they had to scramble over rocks to gain height. The low evening sun was blood-red in the sky when they found themselves on the bald summit, above the thick line of the trees. They sat there catching their breath, watching the sun slip easily across the sky. When it was threatening to disappear, Ben pointed in its direction. 'West,' he said shortly. 'Or near enough.' He stood up and turned round a hundred and eighty degrees. 'So we need to travel in that direction. Or as near to it as we can - it won't be easy keeping our bearings.'

Halima came and stood next to him, and for a few moments they looked in silence over the vast expanse of the African rainforest. It stretched as far as they could see, undulating and magnificent, punctuated in places by mountainous peaks, elsewhere by deep troughs that seemed to be filled with hazy steam. They could still hear the noise of the forest from where they were, but it was peaceful nonetheless. 'It is very beautiful, is it not?' she murmured. 'When men disturb what has been here for so long, no good can come of it. It is no wonder the ancestors are angry.'

Ben turned to look at her. 'It's not the ancestors, Halima,' he said gently. 'It's a virus.'

Halima smiled. 'You have great faith in your science,' she observed. 'But answer me this. If a snake bites you at your home, what would you do?'

'Find a doctor,' Ben replied. 'And fast.'

Halima nodded her head. 'It is true,' she said, 'that a doctor might be able to cure you. But would he be able to tell you why the snake bit you? Or what it was doing at your home? Or who sent it?' She looked back over the rainforest. 'Scientists do not know everything that goes on in this world.'

Dusk was falling, and Halima's words were disconcerting. 'We need to find somewhere to sleep,' Ben muttered to change the subject. 'Maybe we should stay here - nobody will be able to see us in the dark.'

'No,' Halima said. 'Animals will be here after dark. They will smell us, and we will be too exposed. And besides, it will rain soon. We do not want to be caught in it. We need to get back down, find some shelter.'

Ben took a final look across the trees into the African skies. 'Come on, then,' he said. 'Let's go.'

CHAPTER ELEVEN

They set up camp at the foot of a tall tree that Ben didn't recognize. It had large, flat mushrooms growing up the length of it like a spiral staircase, reminding Ben how hungry he was. Halima saw him eyeing the mushrooms. 'You are not thinking of eating them, I hope.'

Ben glanced guiltily back at her.

'If you eat plants you do not recognize,' she warned, 'you will do Suliman's work for him.'

'OK,' Ben said, a bit humbled. He knew he could last a long time without food; water, though, was a different matter. His throat was raw with thirst, and they would have to make it a priority tomorrow.

They sat in a small clearing, no more than ten metres wide. Clouds of insects swarmed in the air above him, and more than once Ben found himself slapping his skin to rid himself of a mosquito - real or imagined. He felt like things were crawling all over him. Now that they were not moving, the twilight crescendo of the wildlife around them became almost deafening. The chorus of cicadas formed a constant backdrop to the other sounds, which seemed to be reaching a frenzy before the setting of the sun finally robbed the rainforest of light: birds chirruping incessantly in the trees; monkeys screaming at each other; and the occasional more sinister sound - an unexplained rustle of the bushes, a rumble of something that could have been thunder but might have been something else, a dry hiss.

It was not cold, but Ben found himself shivering.

Suddenly he saw something. It may only have been a trick of the rapidly fading light, but it looked for all the world like a face, peering at him from behind a camouflage of leaves. Ben blinked, his stomach lurching. Was it one of the men? He had started to stand up before intuition got the better of him. If it was his pursuers, he would be dead by now. He looked at Halima, who was staring into space, hugging her knees; when he glanced back, the face was gone.

For a few moments he tussled with the idea of telling his new friend what he had seen, but he soon decided against it. It had probably been nothing, a figment of his overactive imagination. And if not - well, it clearly wanted nothing to do with them. No point worrying Halima further, so close to night.

And then, as though someone had turned the lights off, it became black; and as if at some prearranged signal, the noise around them ebbed away. Now the silent air was only punctuated by more alarming noises - the occasional scream, or shuffle. 'We need to stay close,' Halima whispered. 'Lie still, and don't run away, no matter what you hear. If we lose each other at night, we will never meet up again.'

And so Ben lay down. Underneath him was a soft, mossy covering that made it not as uncomfortable to lie there as he expected, but there was no chance of sleep - at least not yet. At every sound his body jumped, and the blackness all around him was so complete it was like nothing he had ever experienced. To keep track of time was impossible in such absolute darkness, and Ben didn't even try as he lay there, focusing instead on listening to the heavy sound of Halima's breathing, and trying to ignore the itching, crawling sensation that had started to cover his skin. He wanted to ask her if she was still awake, but didn't dare, for fear of alerting predators to their presence. Occasionally the sound of breathing would disappear, and in his night-time paranoia he would panic that Halima had left him there alone; but then she would start breathing heavily again, which at least came as some relief.

It was the other sounds that made Ben's blood run cold, though. Alien sounds. Inexplicable sounds. Some far away, others terrifyingly near. And all he could do was lie there, statue-still, and pray that whatever was making those noises would not detect their presence.

Eventually, however, after how many hours Ben could not say, the exhaustion of the day overcame him and he fell into a fitful sleep, his dreams haunted by images of his ailing father and the grim faces of the armed men, who he knew were out there somewhere. Searching for them. Ready to kill them.

At first, when he heard Halima's urgent whispering above the crashing volume of the dawn chorus, he did not know if it was a dream or reality. He lay there for a moment with his eyes closed, confused as to where he was and listening to her repeating the same words over and over again.

'If you are awake, Ben, whatever you do, do not move. Do not move, Ben.'

Ben opened his eyes and rolled his head to the side to look at Halima. She was precisely where she had been when night had fallen, lying on the ground just like him, but her gaze was directed between them, down towards Ben's leg. 'Whatever you do, don't move, Ben,' she reiterated.

'What is it?' Ben asked, even as he started to look in the same direction as Halima.

It took every ounce of self-control he had not to jump up in horror.

There, lying just below his knee, was a snake. It was coiled up and perfectly still, but the tail end of its body was draped over Ben's leg.

He froze.

'Two-step,' Halima said cryptically.

'What?' Ben breathed.

'Black mamba. We call it the African two-step. If it bites you, you take two steps and you--'

'Yeah, thanks, Halima,' Ben interrupted her. 'What are we going to do?'

'Do nothing. Now is the most dangerous time of day. It is cold and sleepy. If we disturb it, it is more likely to attack.'

Great, Ben thought. He closed his eyes.

'We need to lie still, wait for it to warm up. Hopefully then it will move away.'

'And if it doesn't?' Ben asked, but Halima did not reply.

They lay there in silence, neither of them daring to move. Around them the rainforest continued the process of waking up, but Ben paid it no attention; all he could do was focus on the gun-metal grey of the snake. Even though it was coiled up, he could tell it was long - a good two metres - and the end of its body started to feel heavy on his lower leg. He licked his lips, but his parched tongue felt dry against them. Almost as though looking in some grotesque mirror, he saw the snake's tongue flicker out. With horror, he realized that it was starting to move. Its head stayed flat on the ground and the coils did not change position, simply slinking round in a circle. The tail end slid off Ben's legs, which was a relief; but the head end was closer to them now, and there it stayed still.

Ben found himself transfixed by the terrifying sight of such a dangerous animal so close. It was impossible to tell by the sight of its beady black eyes whether it was awake or asleep, and the line of its jaw extended around almost the entirety of its almond-shaped head, giving the impression of a wicked smile. Again they lay there - for a few minutes or half an hour, Ben could not tell - but the sleepy mamba didn't move again. 'What do we do now?' Ben asked Halima.

'If we move, we need to do it very slowly,' Halima answered under her breath. 'And one at a time. If it senses movement from both sides, it may think it is under attack.'

'OK.' They were silent again for a minute. 'You go first,' Ben told Halima weakly. 'If it moves, I'll try to distract it.'

They looked into each other's eyes. Desperately slowly, Halima sat up. The snake remained still. She got to her feet and started moving in a large circle around Ben and the snake, walking backwards so that she could keep tabs on what was happening.

Crack!

Halima set foot on a loose twig, and the sound of it breaking was like an electric shock through Ben's body. She froze, her mouth open in shock as they both waited for the snake to wake. But it didn't. Ben nodded shortly at her, and she continued moving carefully to the edge of the clearing.

Now it was Ben's turn. The mamba's head was a matter of inches from his right arm, and he felt that he had never moved so slowly or so quietly. Using his left arm, he pushed himself up from the ground, taking the utmost care not to lose his balance; if he fell on the snake, it would be the end of him. Once on his feet, he started to creep deftly away, choosing - unlike Halima - to keep his back to the creature.

He was almost side by side with her when she gasped.

Almost involuntarily, Ben spun round, just in time to see the mamba raising its body into the air. It must have been unbelievably strong, because by the time Ben had staggered back to Halima it was supporting almost its entire body weight so that its head was nearly a metre and a half above the ground. It wavered in the air, swishing delicately like a deadly pendulum. Ben felt himself being mesmerized by its stare; half of him wanted to turn and flee, the other half found itself rooted to the spot. The immobile half won the unseen battle, and both he and Halima remained locked by that venomous gaze.

Don't move, Ben told himself. If you move, it'll attack.

The snake began to hiss - not a single warning, but a sequence of repeated sibilance that sounded like it was working itself up to something.
Hiss . . . hiss . . . hiss . . .

Stay where you are. If you turn and run, it
will
get you.

The hood around its neck started to flare up, its sleek head instantly becoming something much more sinister and aggressive.

And then it struck.

Ben saw it happen in slow motion. The snake's body coiled back, like a whip, before propelling itself through the air. He heard Halima scream and his own body went into a seizure of panic as the reptile flung itself towards them and downwards, finally coming to a stop on the ground half a metre in front of them.

There was a squeal. Ben felt his knees almost buckle as he saw the true object of the mamba's attention. A bush rat, furry and not much bigger than a fat hamster, convulsed in the mamba's jaws. The snake, firmly holding its prey, turned its head and slipped back to the far side of the clearing.

Ben and Halima turned to each other, nodded, and fled.