Ew. He shuddered. He was afraid of spiders, and this one was black and hairy. Even though it was squished from his slap, it had been big. And then he had to clamp down on a scream as he realized this spider was part of the black wave that had washed over the guide, his bodyguard, and the three models. Jesus. A swarm of them.
He’d gotten to his feet and done his best to walk in a straight line, hoping that sooner or later somebody would come looking for him. Billionaires didn’t just disappear without people noticing. After a period of time that he thought couldn’t have been more than an hour, he stumbled out of the jungle and found himself standing on a paved road. “What the fuck?” He looked around, but there was no indication of which way he should go. He turned around a couple of times and then just chose a direction. Miracle of all fucking miracles, within three minutes he was waving down a Jeep carrying two scientists from the research center in the preserve. He’d offered them thirty thousand dollars to drive him directly to the airport, no questions asked.
By the time he was sitting in one of the leather seats on his Falcon 7X, he thought he’d already started having a fever. He’d made the scientists stop twice on the way to the airport so he could go to the bathroom, and the first thing he did upon boarding the jet was take some Imodium. That had done the trick with the diarrhea, but now he had the sweats and a pounding headache. His ankle was throbbing and he thought that maybe the cut was already infected. Fucking jungle. Fucking bugs. He couldn’t wait to get back to the USA for some good old American antibiotics. He was more than done with being an international adventurer. Who was he kidding? Why would he bother with hardship? He was sticking to nice hotels from now on. Hot water and gourmet food. If he was going to seek the company of super-hot models, he wanted to get his blow jobs while lying on six-hundred-thread-count sheets. That, Henderson thought, was a good way to spend some of his fortune. Screw the jungle.
He knew there’d be some questions when he landed, though. No matter how many billions he had, there was the little matter of the missing guide, the bodyguard, and the three models who’d flown to Peru with him. Well, the guide probably didn’t matter much, and the bodyguard’s death had been an occupational hazard, but even he couldn’t just make three semi-famous models disappear. Fortunately, he wasn’t prone to drugs or violence and didn’t exactly have a history of leaving bodies in his wake. When the questions came, he’d direct them to his lawyers and simply tell the truth: some sort of animals had attacked them, and sick, injured, and disoriented, he’d panicked and fled. For right now, what he was most concerned about was whether the spiders he saw swarming over the interior of his jet were real or part of a nightmare.
He could hear a steady drone and see the spiders growing like black moss on the walls and ceiling of the jet. He could feel them crawling on him. His skin itched and he jerked and swatted. He sat up with a start and blinked hard. He’d been dreaming. A nightmare. A dark speck floated across his vision and he rubbed his eyes to clear them. Nothing. He saw one of the flight attendants, a brunette named Wilma or Wanda or something like that, staring at him, and he tried to straighten up in his seat. He knew he looked like a mess. The movement made him wince. His head, his stomach, his ankle, the fever. He felt like hell. Screw it, Henderson thought, and he stayed slumped in his chair, not even bothering to try to give her a smile.
She walked down the aisle and over to him to touch his arm. “We’ll be touching down in about ten minutes, Mr. Henderson. Can I get you anything before we land?”
He thought he saw something moving in the corner of his vision, another black spot, but when he flinched and turned, there was nothing there. Just his reflection in the window. He rubbed his eyes again, and that seemed to chase away the floating specks that teased him. “A tonic water would be good,” he managed. “And see about turning down the temperature. It’s hot in here.” She started to turn, but he called her back. “And get my assistant on the line. I feel like shit. Tell her we’re going straight to my doctor.”