Burial Ground

BURIAL GROUND

Michael McBride

Copyright © 2011 Michael McBride

Also by Michael McBride

Novels

Bloodletting

Innocents Lost

Predatory Instinct

Vector Borne

Novellas

Blindspot

Brood XIX

Remains (from The Mad & The Macabre, with Jeff Strand)

The Calm Before the Swarm

Xibalba

ZERO

TABLE OF CONTENTS

BURIAL GROUND

Bonus Material

Excerpt from VECTOR BORNE

Excerpt from INNOCENTS LOST

Excerpt from PREDATORY INSTINCT

For Madison...and your adventures to come

Special Thanks to Jeff Strand, Gene O'Neill, Leigh Haig, Bill Rasmussen, Ann Collette, Shane Staley, Brian Keene, my family, and all of my loyal readers, without whom none of this would be possible.

BURIAL GROUND

Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.

--- Aesop

Out of the dusk a shadow,

Then, a spark;

Out of the cloud a silence,

Then, a lark;

Out of the heart a rapture,

Then, a pain;

Out of the dead, cold ashes,

Life again.

--- John Banister Tabb

The person who runs away exposes himself to that very danger more than a person who sits quietly.

--- Jawaharlal Nehru

Prologue

Andes Mountains

Northern Peru

October 11^th

9:26 p.m. PET

The screams were more than he could bear, but they didn't last long. Panicked cries cut short by wet, tearing sounds, and then finally silence, save the patter of raindrops on the muddy ground. From where he crouched in the dark recess of the stone fortification, hidden from the world by a screen of tangled lianas and the sheeting rain, he had listened to them die.

All of them.

The signs had been there, but he and his companions had misinterpreted them, and now it was too late. It was only a matter of time before they found him, and slaughtered him as well.

Hunter Gearhardt donned his rucksack backward, and wrapped his arms around its contents. He'd managed to grab a few items of importance once he'd recognized what was about to happen, and he needed to get them out of the jungle. More bloodshed would follow if he didn't reach civilization. With their inability to access a signal on the satellite phone, there was no other way to deliver the warning. It was all up to him now, and his window of opportunity was closing fast.

His breathing was ragged, too loud in his own ears, his heartbeat a thudding counterpoint. He couldn't hear them out there, but they had attacked so quietly in the first place that the silence was of little comfort. They were still out there, stalking him. There was no time to waste. He needed to put as much distance between himself and his pursuit as possible if he were to stay alive long enough to get down off the mountain. And even then, they knew this region of the cloud forest far better than he did.

He wished he'd had the opportunity to find his pistol, but it would have been useless against their superior numbers. His only hope was to run, to reach the river. From there he could only pray that he would be able to survive the rapids and that they wouldn't be able to track him from the shore. It was a long shot. Unfortunately, it