Jungle Stakes (SHORTLIST Open Novella Contest II)

Chapter 6

Helena paused to hold a hand out and catch the rays of the mid-morning sun that had managed to break through the canopy and shine on the forest floor. She loved the jungle, but always spent a day lying on the roof of their apartment building soaking up sunshine whenever they went to the city.

She snapped a twig under her foot, just to see if it startled anything in the underbrush or overhead. Nothing moved. It was as if the animals had deserted the area. Only the bugs remained.

She had almost completed the perimeter sweep and was approaching the tomb again.

She hoped Jake was feeling better now than when she'd gone in this morning.

He'd been lying curled up on his side, shivering uncontrollably, clutching the sheet to him.

"Jake?" She brushed his sweaty hair back gently from his forehead.

He mumbled something, and his eyes fluttered.

"You've got to drink something, babe." She helped prop him up and held a cup of water to his lips. He took a sip and struggled to turn his head away. "No, Jake. You need to drink."

Twenty minutes later she took the empty cup to the canteen tent. Jake wasn't running a fever, and had almost vomited the water a few times. She'd left him a bucket and just prayed he'd keep it down. He'd flat out refused even a cracker. Maybe she'd try him on coconut water later.

"Fitzy?" She called at the entrance to his tent.

"Come in, Helena," he replied weakly.

She unzipped the flap and went in. Fitzy was laying in bed, wrapped up tightly in the sheet. "Do you want a blanket?"

He shook his head. "The sheet is enough. The nausea is starting to pass, but I'm not up to a patrol. I might be able to sit outside the tomb and guard, but I'd be useless if anyone tried to get in."

Helena sat and felt his forehead. It was cool and clammy, like Jake's, but Fitz looked a hundred times better. "I've got Javier on guard duty right now."

Fitzy's eyebrows shot to his hairline. "I'm surprised his mama allowed that."

She shrugged. "I didn't let him ask her. Just pressed him into service. I'll leave a walkie with him. I'm going to check the perimeter. When your up to it, go and relieve Javier. Jake is really sick. When the professor gets up we need to discuss getting Jake to a doctor."

"He's that bad?"

"I've never seen him like this. He nauseous, cold, clammy with sweat, but no fever. He almost threw up the water I made him drink."

"It could be just a flu bug. Doesn't always come with a fever."

She picked at a tiny knob of cotton on the sheet. "Yeah, maybe this is the worst of it, and he'll be better in the morning. But without those cameras we can't leave the site unguarded. I don't know how long Javier will be willing to help out. And I need to check on Jake regularly to make sure he's drinking. And..."

Fear for Jake clawed at her insides. If he needed a doctor, they'd have a four hour hike out to the closest road, if it could be called that. Helicopter rescues were only for extreme situations.

Then there was the leaf she thought she'd seen in the corpse's hair. She rubbed her eyes. She was sure it had been there.

Fitz reached over and squeezed her knee. "Give me a bit more time to recover, and I'll drag my ass out there. I'm still woozy, but it's passing. I'll get more fluids into Jake before I go on duty."

"Thanks, Fitz."

Since the operations tent was empty, she went to the professor's tent next. Rumbling snores came through the canvas walls, so she quietly unzipped it and poked her head in. The professor was laying on his stomach, spread-eagled across his bed in a pair of boxers. His pasty white skin was easy to see against the dark bed in the dim light. She called his name, but he didn't stir. She shone a light around inside, then crossed quickly and silently to read the label on a bottle of pills on the side table. They were a common, but powerful, sleeping pill. A bomb could go off and he probably wouldn't hear it.

She decided to leave him a note and an extra walkie talkie in the operations tent where'd he probably once again spend the day trying to reach anyone who could help with the translations.

Slipping back outside, she realised that the professor hadn't complained yesterday about feeling sick, and he looked perfectly fine now compared to half the camp who again felt ill. In fact, only herself, the professor, and Javier's mother hadn't been affected. Everyone else, either yesterday or today, wasn't well. Only Jake and Fitzy were down with it both days.

She had tucked the observation away for later and gone to do the perimeter check she was currently almost finished.

She closed her hand around the sun's rays, wishing she could keep the ephemeral light in her hand.

With a sigh she turned towards the tomb, carefully scouting for disturbances in the jungle on the way.

For no clear reason, her scalp prickled about five hundred yards from the tomb. It was a feeling that had saved her numerous times in the past. She stopped and blended into the shadows. Her radio had been silent the entire trip, so the threat was somewhere nearby.

Pressing herself flat against the trunk of a tree she listened for the slightest sound or change in air pressure to signal someone's passage.

Minutes ticked by with nothing but the drip drip drip of water off a nearby plant.

On stealthy feet she crept through the tall plants, doing wide sweeps of the area.

The smell hit her before she actually found them. Pushing aside a fern taller than herself, she looked down into a natural depression carpeted in smaller ferns that bore the mangled bodies of three of the hired local help.

In the jungle heat, anything that died decomposed rapidly, but these bodies were torn apart as if an animal had been chewing on them and breaking open the bones to suck out the marrow.

They hadn't heard any of the usual jungle racket, but it didn't mean the jaguars or other large predators had left.

They'd only been in this camp for four days. She wasn't an expert, but she'd bet good money these bodies had been here at least two or three.

So why didn't Javier report them missing to her?

Pulling out her GPS, she got a location then beat her way back to the path and jogged as quickly as possible back to the tomb.

Javier owed her some answers.

But as she approached the site, Javier's screams had her running full out. Leaves and branches whipped her body and cut her skin in her desperation to get to him.

"Stupid, Helena," she ground out as she ran. She should have left him a gun. He was a decent shot and could have handled it. If a jaguar attacked him unexpectedly, he'd be defenseless if weaponless. 

She recognised the area now. It was only twenty feet to the hill. But the thick plants meant she couldn't see what was happening.

When Javier gave a bloodcurdling scream, she ran straight for the edge of the cliff and pushed off the edge.