They continued through the maze of alleyways and squeezes. They passed another body. Something was definitely wrong here. Frank paused long enough to lift a slack limb. No rigor mortis. The body even felt warm. A recent death. With a shudder, he let go.
Tucker hissed for him to keep up. He hurried after his partner. At the next corner, Tucker stopped again and waved Frank over.
He crept closer, holding his breath.
Ahead, a small communal square opened. A cold brick oven stood to one side. A scattering of black oil barrels smoldered with burning trash. In the center of the square, tarps had been draped over a row of bodies. Boots protruded from the shrouds’ edges.
More dead men. A dozen or so.
A few prayer cairns had been set up, consisting of stacks of rocks and tiny personal artifacts. Several candles burned, but most had guttered out into wax puddles. The melted candles suggested the bodies had been here for at least a day. Whatever had transpired here had happened within the past twenty-four hours.
But what?
Tucker set off through the square, skirting the edges. They had both seen enough death, enough dead bodies. Still, Frank headed into the square and crossed toward the tarps.
“What’re you doing?” Tucker whispered to him.
“I want to know what happened. It could be important.”
Tucker cursed him but angled over. “Just be quick about it.”
Frank reached down and tossed back one of the tarps. A familiar ripeness struck him, meaty and gagging. A coating of flies took wing, rising with an angry hissing. He waved them off and studied the pair of bodies. They lay on their backs, their limbs respectfully positioned.
He spotted no bullet wounds, no evidence of a mass execution or a militant attack. He dropped to a knee beside the closest body and examined a huge wound covering the man’s throat and cheek. The flesh looked melted, liquefied, both the skin and muscle beneath. Bone shone through the necrotic tissue.
“What the hell caused that?” Tucker asked.
“Toxic exposure.”
“To what?”
Frank shook his head. The neighboring body was similarly afflicted, though it was the flesh of the man’s arm that had sloughed away. It looked like someone had dipped the limb in acid.
He gingerly lifted the arm, examining it full around. The man wore a stained white T-shirt and boxers, like he had died in his bed and been dragged here. If so, it further supported that a majority of the deaths had occurred last night. The other bodies in the street must have succumbed more recently, within the hour.
“I need more light,” he told Tucker.
His partner slipped out a penlight and cupped the beam to further hide its flash of brilliance. A more discerning inspection of the body’s arm revealed that the pattern of tissue liquefaction followed the major blood vessels, forming a rootlike spread of necrosis.
Frank followed those lines up the dead man’s arm to the source. He pushed back the T-shirt’s sleeve, exposing a pair of deep punctures at the shoulder. He examined it closely.
It can’t be . . .
He recognized those marks. He had treated scores of such wounds on his own body. But this was far different. He pictured a necrolytic toxin flowing from those punctures and traveling down the vessels, burning and liquefying the flesh along the way.
“What is it?” Tucker asked.
Dizzy with the realization, Frank stood up. He stared skyward. He studied the clouds. A flash of lightning burst deep within them. The brighter spot revealed movement below the clouds’ bellies. A dark river flowed in smoky streams.
He turned toward the town’s operation center. Their floodlights speared the sky, revealing more of the same. A mass of shadows swirled in and out of the clouds.
He suddenly understood what the sirens had been warning about, why the town’s streets were deserted.
Tucker stared up, too. “What are those?”
Frank answered, “Bats.”
10:31 P.M.
Charlotte leaned against the trunk of a palm. She stared down at Kane’s transceiver, which was cradled in her hands. The camera feed showed the dog stalking though the forest, making a slow arc between them and the depths of the jungle. Similarly, Monk paced the same arc, but on the opposite side. As he kept guard, he studied the mining town below.
Everyone remained on edge, especially after the town’s siren suddenly went silent a few minutes ago.
Even Jameson had regained his feet, cradling his splinted arm. His eyes shone glassy with pain. Before leaving, Tucker had passed him two tabs of oxycodone from a tiny medkit in the soldier’s go-bag. The pills had only taken the edge off his agony.
Monk approached.
“Any word from Tucker?” Charlotte asked.
He shook his head. “Not since they reached the town’s outskirts. Just dead air. Tucker must’ve been right about the jamming being stronger down there.”
Charlotte had already suspected the same. The view from Kane’s camera had repeatedly stuttered on the transceiver.
Jameson swallowed hard. “Then what do we do?”
Monk shrugged. “We wait. Nothing else we can do.”
Jameson frowned. “We should’ve just stayed on the island. Fat lot of good it’s done us getting away from that place.”
Charlotte couldn’t disagree. She pictured Disanka and her boy. Guilt still ate at her for abandoning them. And for what?
Under a pall of gloom, they all returned to their own thoughts. Jameson sank back to a seat, hunching sullenly over his arm. Charlotte leaned against the tree, while Monk continued his agitated pacing.
She watched Kane, the only one oblivious to defeat. His determined patrol cheered her. She could almost feel herself stalking alongside him, which helped sharpen her own senses.
She heard a soft rustling of leaves overhead, along with a slight battering of branches. She stared up, suspecting it was some bird restless in its nest, bothered by their presence. A flickering glow caught her eyes. It came and went, almost like a heartbeat. She wanted to dismiss it as an illusion. Maybe lightning shimmering through the canopy. Yet the flickering seemed too rhythmic.
What is that?
Monk suddenly rushed toward her, startling her. He held a hand over his ear. “Kane’s growling,” he warned.
She jerked straighter and lifted the transceiver for them both to watch. On the tiny screen, the view looked like it had frozen, perhaps another stutter in the transmission—but then a fern frond waved on the screen. She realized Kane had stopped and stood dead still.
She squinted, trying to discern what had upset the dog.
What’s out there?
Monk reached to the transceiver and tapped a button on its side. The camera view dissolved into shades of green. Night vision. In the distance, hazily outlined figures approached cautiously through the jungle.
Six or seven of them.
“Up,” Monk ordered Jameson. Then he tapped the mike taped to his throat. “RETURN,” he radioed to Kane.
On the screen, the dog retreated backward, barely shifting a leaf.
Charlotte kept watch on the screen as the figures faded back into the dark as Kane left. Nevertheless, the patrol had been aiming in this direction. It was unclear if their group had been spotted. It could simply be dumb luck on the hunters’ part. Maybe they had been heading toward town, and Charlotte’s group just happened to be in their path.
Either way, she and the others couldn’t stay here.
Monk pointed behind him. “Down into town,” he whispered. “There’ll be more places to hide. Hopefully we’ll be able to reach Tucker by radio down there.”
Kane rejoined them, his eyes bright—but his gaze was focused upward, into the canopy. Only Charlotte noticed this.
Monk rushed them off. “Get moving.”
As they left, Charlotte heard that strange rustling again. Something took wing. It flickered a soft glow as it fled. She ignored it and hurried after the others. They reached the slope and climbed down as quietly as possible. The lights of the town grew ahead of them.