This Green Hell

‘What is it, Father? I am here.’

Castillo wiped the man’s brow and whispered a silent prayer when he felt how cold his flesh was. He held his hand over Gonzalez’s face to shield him from the sunlight.

‘Nos libre … Nos alimente …’ Then more soft squeals and liquid-sounding moans.

Free us, feed us. Castillo was confused. ‘Are you hungry, Father?’

Castillo grimaced as the man’s face blistered in the light and he tried to keep his hand over the steaming skin as his body writhed and squirmed.

The old Jesuit’s mouth closed with an audible clack, then slowly opened again like a trap being reset. More words came forth although his lips behind his beard did not seem to move. ‘La piel de este mundo debe estar abrirse para que seamos libres.’

Castillo turned away from the smell emanating from Gonzalez’s mouth as he tried to decipher his meaning.This world’s skin must be opened for us to be free.

He shook his head. ‘I don’t understand, Father — we are free.’

The men placed the cot at the base of the massive stone altar and Castillo sat on the ground beside it. He should have been thanking God for the miracle that had restored the old priest, but now he wasn’t so sure it was God’s hand at work. Gonzalez was almost glowing with vitality … which should have been impossible considering he had survived on nothing but water dripped between his flaking lips.

Father Castillo made the sign of the cross over his old friend, closed his eyes and said a silent prayer. As he opened them, a tear ran down his cheek. Placing one hand on the priest’s forehead, he said, ‘What is happening to you, Father? Is it really your soul still in there?’

* * *

The screams ripped him from his sleep, leaving him disorientated with a pounding headache. Father Castillo sat silently in the dark, listening for a few seconds, feeling the perspiration running down his face as the night heat of the jungle steamed his skin. His fingers clutched at the damp bedding, hoping the sounds had just been a fever- dream — a dreadful remnant from his exhausted and overworked imagination.

A shout and the sound of running came from just outside his hut, and his hope that it had been a dream fell to pieces. He swung his legs out from under the clinging sheet and wiped his face with his hands. The clamour was now rising all over the camp, and he could hear only Guarani words — no one spoke Spanish anymore. In among the shouts of terror and confusion, he could make out that the remaining children had been taken — some from within the arms of their mothers. He went outside and tried to ask some of the Indians questions, but they shrugged him off or just hissed angrily at him.

The village fire was relit and flaming torches spread out quickly through the jungle, looking like flaming birds as they darted from tree to ground to fern and then flew on again.

Father Castillo saw the medicine man, Nezu, standing in the clearing. His was the only face that didn’t contain fear, anger or confusion; instead, he looked triumphant. It was clear he was blaming the Jesuits for the missing children. Castillo groaned as he noticed the harmless gourd in Nezu’s hand had been replaced by a war club — two feet of fire-hardened wood, sharpened on one side so it looked like a cross between an axe and a paddle.

Castillo grabbed a torch and headed quickly for the church. Pushing open the large wooden doors, he crossed himself, then walked to the centre of the solid stone room. He felt an immediate sense of dread: Father Gonzalez was gone.

He held the torch higher and saw that the basement trap-door was open. He crept lightly towards the black pit. Passing the altar, he snatched up the brass crucifix and clutched it to his chest as he stared down into the stygian darkness. A smell rose from the opening like nothing he had ever encountered before, ranging from sharply metallic to thickly corrupt. He shuddered and gripped the crucifix a little tighter.

‘Father Gonzalez? Padre … are you down there?’

He crossed himself again, drew in a breath and straightened his back; he would be safe in the house of God. He leaned across and lit one of the lanterns beside the altar, then dropped his burning torch into the pit. Instead of the sound of it hitting dry packed earth at the base of the steps as he expected, it splashed thickly, as though falling into mud, then fizzled and went out.

‘Mierda!’ He cursed, then quickly crossed himself for profaning in a house of God.

‘Father Gonzalez, are you hurt?’

He paused for a few seconds, looking up towards the altar and the face of the Saviour carved above it. He knew he didn’t have a choice.

He licked his lips and spoke softly into the mephitic darkness. ‘I’m coming down, padre.’

Father Castillo descended the rough stone steps on stiff legs, concentrating on his foot placement and breathing through his mouth so he wouldn’t have to taste the fetid air. It was a difficult descent as he refused to relinquish his grasp on the items he carried: in one hand he held up the brass crucifix; in the other, a shaking lantern, grasped so tightly his knuckles stood out like white knobs. He prayed softly, his lips moving rapidly with the words and also because of the trembling of his chin.

His first foot left the steps and he felt himself sink into a soft rubbery wetness that slid from under his feet and oozed up between his toes. He lowered the lantern and looked down; a sob escaped his lips as he beheld the ruination beneath him. He had stepped into a pile of ropy tendons, fat, tissue and fragments of bone.

He put the hand holding the crucifix across his mouth to stifle any sound, but still a combination of strangled gurgle and execration leaked out. He had found the missing children — or what was left of them. He was in a charnel house of humanity: all around him were strewn arms, legs, bodies with their skin rent from their bones, chewed or drained and discarded like leftovers from some mad demon’s banquet.

Among the mutilation, a small lifeless face stood out, its beautiful dark brown eyes still open — little jewels that had flashed with such gaiety and mischief when the child had given him the flower. That moment seemed a lifetime ago.

Above the sound of his frantically beating heart, Father Castillo heard a vile sucking coming from a darkened corner. He lifted the lantern. ‘Ay, Dios mio, Dios mio.’ Bile rose in his mouth and he fell to his knees, holding the cross to his forehead as he prayed with lips cold and wet from fear and the tears that streamed down his face.

A darker shadow loomed over him and he crushed his eyes shut as the crucifix was torn roughly from his fingers. In his head came a voice he recognised: We need you. He opened his eyes one last time and couldn’t hold back the shriek that burst from his lungs to bounce around the small stone-lined basement.

There was a deep grunt, the sound of something moist being roughly torn, and silence for a few seconds — then the vile sucking began again.

TWO

Mining Base Camp, Paraguayan Northern Jungle; Present Day

Aimee Weir squinted up at the supply helicopters buzzing through the air like prehistoric dragonflies. From her pocket she pulled a damp handkerchief and used it to mop her brow and cheeks, wincing as the material passed over the rash of red lumps dotting her skin. The gallons of bug repellent that needed to be applied twenty-four hours a day were playing hell with her complexion. Great choice, she thought, either I get little itchy lumps from the poison I’m covering myself in, or I leave off the bug spray and get eaten alive resulting in big itchy lumps. Welcome to tropical paradise.

Truth was, she had lotion to apply to the rash, but couldn’t be bothered. Besides, who cared how she looked down here. She blew strands of her dark hair out of her blue eyes and leaned back against the doorframe. The distant clank and whirr of the drilling machinery had fallen quiet days ago, to be replaced by the living buzz and thrum of the jungle. Drilling had been shut down for forty-eight hours now, with the men refusing to travel out to