This Green Hell

could get without actually being in the jungle.

Aimee looked at Tomas. His face was a mix of annoyance and frustration. ‘What did the men say?’ she asked.

The small man looked briefly over his shoulder at the retreating men, then turned back to her and spoke without looking up into her face. ‘They are afraid, senora Weir. Many wish to track back to the river, where they hope to find transport to the city. They do not care that this may cause them to lose their bonus pay, or that there is a cuarentena order.’ Tomas looked over his shoulder again, as if to check the men were out of hearing range. ‘They are frightened of the nights here now. They say a demonio is loose in the jungle.’

Oookay, a demon now. Great, Aimee thought. She had enough real problems to worry about without agonising about imaginary ones. She pulled her tired face into another smile, hoping to show she empathised but without acknowledging there was anything to fear.

It must have worked. Tomas smiled his vampire smile at her and said, ‘They are young, and most have families. But I am not afraid…and I am not married.’

Aimee laughed at his bravado and small attempt at flirting. She patted him on the shoulder. ‘I am not afraid — or married — either.’

The sun inched above the tall tree line, bathing the campsite in its yellow rays for the first time, even though it was already mid-morning. Aimee turned her face to the warmth and inhaled. The sunlight banished the last of the jungle’s humid shadows — for a time. Momentarily, she could almost believe everything was normal.

‘Stay close to me, Tomas,’ she said. ‘You are promoted to communications manager.’ He looked confused so she tried again. ‘Uhh, you are now director de comunicaciones, si?’ She patted his shoulder once more.

‘Si, si, thank you, senora Weir.’

Tomas wiped his hand on his shirt and held it out to her, trying to stand a little straighter. Aimee smiled and shook it. He made a gesture with his hand, as if writing in the air. Aimee watched him for a moment before catching on.

‘Oh, you want me to write the title down for you? Sure.’ She nodded and Tomas beamed once again.

* * *

As Aimee approached the isolation cabins, she could hear sobbing — tears of despair from the damned, she thought before shaking the morbid impression from her mind. They had two cabins full now, and there would be need for another shortly. As before, once all the men died, they would seal and burn the cabin. It was a waste of a finite resource, but there was no one to clean them, and they could not risk further infection from the liquid debris.

Aimee had found coveralls, latex gloves and surgical masks for them both. When helping Tomas pull on his protective clothing, she noticed he had pinned her note to his dirty T-shirt. He had insisted on transferring his new job title to the chest of his coverall and it hung there now, like a creased paper sheriff’s badge.

As they stood at the door of the first cabin, she saw the fear in Tomas’s eyes. Everyone in the camp knew of the disease and what it meant to enter the muerto cabana — the death cabin: there was no return.

She pushed through the door and under the plastic sheeting. The smell that greeted her was both acrid and faecal — like shit and diesel fuel mixed together. She saw that Tomas was shivering and touched his shoulder. He looked up briefly and nodded. His eyes were very large and his brown face was tinged yellow from fear.

There were four beds, all occupied. Two of the men recently brought in were conscious and had needed to be tied down to prevent their escape when they learned they had the melting disease. Now they lay still and sobbed black tears onto stained pillows. Plastic sheeting had been hung between the beds to shield the men from seeing the progression and effects of the disease on the poor soul lying next to them.

Aimee indicated with her head towards the two conscious men. ‘Tell them help is coming.’

Tomas nodded and spoke softly, his voice weak with fear. As he stepped closer to the beds, one of the men started shouting and jerked against his bonds. He spat at Tomas, and Aimee only just pulled him out of the way before the black gobbet struck the plastic sheet in front of him and slid slowly to the floor.

Tomas’s hands were up and pressed together in prayer and she could see his mouth moving behind his mask. Good idea, she thought.We could definitely do with some help here. She took him by the arm, led him to the exit and held open the plastic. ‘Wait out here for me, Tomas.’

She closed the door, drew in a strained breath through her mask, and turned to the last two beds at the rear of the hut. Her eyes watered and she blinked to clear them. The man on the first bed was little more than a torso, black column-like stains the only sign of where his arms and legs used to be. The restraints that had bound him sat limply on the discoloured sheets. Aimee moaned before thinking and his head slowly turned towards her. She couldn’t tell whether he actually saw her, as his eyes were totally black, from sclera to pupil. But she felt as if he was looking at her and his despair darkened her soul.

I’m goddamn helpless, she thought. I have no idea what to do. The more she found out, the more she realised how little she knew. She still had no idea how long it took between initial infection and the liquefying symptoms; she knew it was fast — faster in some than others — but just how fast? The lingering question that bothered the hell out of her though was how many infected and infectious people were walking around outside without knowing it?

What she did know was that once the symptoms were apparent, the disease was irreversible. It seemed the nerve endings died first, so the necrotic symptoms were not accompanied by pain — at least, as far as she could tell. Perhaps the brain just refused to believe the signals it was receiving, or became infected itself.

So many questions, she thought. Without power to access the internet or radio communications, she could do little more than record the data and then watch the men die. Just as these men are going to die, she thought miserably.

She backed up a few steps and stood in the centre of the cabin, staring at the floor as her mind worked. She noticed black liquid from one of the beds oozing into the cracks in the wooden flooring. She would have to seal off the cabin soon. Better still, burn it, but she doubted if she could find the strength to do that alone.

She needed to prepare another isolation hut, but she was running out of cabins. And what happened then?

* * *

Below the cabin, the black fluid continued to drip to the ground. Once the rain stopped, most of the clearing dried out quickly, but under the cabins small pools of moisture remained, teeming with mosquito larvae. The growing puddle of black fluid was located next to one of these pools. Its surface surged, as though disturbed by a small wave, and the black fluid slid into the natural pool. The jerking and spinning waterborne larvae within it stopped moving, then, one after another, they all turned black.

SIXTEEN

Alex and Sam walked together in silence, listening to the chaotic commotion of the jungle all around them. It was still only mid-morning and the temperature hadn’t yet reached anywhere near its peak, but the humidity had already begun to climb as the evening’s moisture lifted into the air as a heavy vapour. The steam dragged with it all the smells of the jungle, from the living to the recently dead — rich, dark soil, heavily scented flowers, rotting plants and hidden carcasses. The cycle of life and death was speeded up here: animals and plants died brutally and quickly, and decomposed back into the earth just as rapidly.

Saqueo and Chaco weaved in and out of the foliage just in front of the HAWCs, keen to stay close since the boar attack. But the younger boy avoided even looking at Alex.

The communication stud in Alex’s ear pinged twice: headquarters. He held up a clenched fist and the HAWCs stopped immediately. Sam called to the two boys, and Michael Vargis caught on after bumping into Franks’s back.

Alex walked a few paces ahead. ‘Arcadian,’ he said.