Blood Forest (Suspense thriller) (6 page)

5

S
am awoke in a sweat, whether from her terrible nightmare or the jungle humidity, she didn’t know. She sat in near darkness. Only a soft green glow illuminated the small tent.

She had fallen asleep lying to one side with Brandon’s arm draped over her waist, but she awoke sprawled out on her back, staring up at the peak of the tent. Brandon had rolled over on his side, and she could barely see the back of his head in the dim light. She tried to move her legs, but it was as if there was an oppressive weight on top of them. She glanced down at her bare legs and saw that they were free of blankets.

That was when she began to feel it. A thick cloud loomed above her, just barely visible in the shadows. Whatever it was held her pinned and helpless on her back in the small tent. Suddenly fearful, she began to try to kick and wriggle, but to no avail. She tried to scream but only a voiceless hiss moved through her throat.

As the cloud pushed closer, tightening around her body, she dared a glance at Brandon. His right arm jerked again and he rolled slightly, as if caught in the depths of some nightmare. The darkness moved around him as well. It permeated the air.

She heard a stream of whispers. There were voices outside, people moving around the tent. She debated whether to call out to them and ask for their help.

The voices, strangely, slipped into the tent and lingered in the air about her. Then a single voice echoed, calling her name over and over again among a stream of less distinguishable words.

Sam tried again to scream, but the sound caught in her throat.

The voices moved into her head. The whispers became one with her thoughts. She felt the black cloud consuming her body, taking up residence in her mind. The thing knew her thoughts. It smelled her fear.

The presence seemed driven on, strengthened by her fear, and she wondered where her thoughts ended and its thoughts began. She felt a deep, overwhelming chill.

And then, near her legs, not far from the still-zipped tent flap, she made out a form. A spectral shape sat inches from her feet. The apparition stared at her as it penetrated her thoughts.

Go away,
she mentally bade it. She worked up her inner resolve, commanding it more forcefully:
Go away.

The presence solidified, although the shadows masked its details. The visage looked ashen gray, a face of cold hatred. In the deepest recesses of her own mind, it echoed her words back at her.
Go away!

As if it had made its point, the figure melted into the ground and vanished into the dark corners of the tent.

She was up on her elbows immediately, her paralysis lifted. She stared around the tent, still sensing the dark presence everywhere. She looked to Brandon again, his right arm jerking spasmodically, as though locked in the clutches of a terrible nightmare. Maybe the presence had him as well.

Stop it,
she told herself.
You’re not thinking rationally. It’s just a dream.

She grabbed his arm, trying to shake him awake. His body rolled to the side, but he remained asleep.

Sam grabbed the edge of her bedroll and pulled it over her body. She felt eyes on her back and sought the comfort of a blanket over her.

He stirred and sat up.

“Brandon.” She heard the tremor in her voice and hated it.

He turned to her slowly and, in the shadows, his eyes were sunken and sagged. That was not her husband.

“Sam?” he asked.

Sam?

She retreated, crawling backward toward the edge of the tent. She did not know what she was seeing. She did not know what anything was.

“Can’t sleep?”

Can’t sleep?

He reached out to her and she panicked. “I have to go,” she mumbled and unzipped the tent flap, scurrying outside.

A cool breeze hit her face as she stepped into absolute darkness. She could hear Brandon—but not Brandon—struggling with the tent flap, calling out to her. He acted afraid, but it all felt wrong, like a thin ploy.

You’re being unreasonable,
she told herself. If that truly was Brandon, then she was acting insane and flipping out on him for no reason.

But if it wasn’t . . .

Brandon or not, she had to be away from it. She moved into the jungle, feeling her way through the undergrowth. Brandon let out a cry of protest from somewhere behind her.

“Just leave me alone,” she yelled.

Tiny branches whipped at her face and legs and a row of jagged thorns cut into her thigh. She didn’t run, fearful that it might chase her if she did.

She emerged into a dense thicket, where moonlight found its way through the canopy. She tried pushing through the branches, but they gripped her legs and slowed her down.

She heard footsteps behind her and then something crashed into the clearing behind her. She reacted without thinking, spinning on her aggressor and tightening her fist. Her knuckle connected solidly.

Brandon gripped his left eye, wincing.

The presence, whatever it was, had vanished. Or had it been there at all?

“Oh my god, Brandon,” she cried. “I’m so sorry.”

“What the hell is going on? Why did you hit me?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, feeling guilt welling up inside. “I—I just panicked.”

“Sam, you scared the hell out of me.”

She kneeled down, feeling jagged branches scrape her legs. She helped him up so they were both crouched, the thicket towering around them.

“I was having a nightmare and—” his voice trailed.

“You were?”

“Yeah,” he replied with a shiver. He looked around at the dark forest, before grabbing her roughly and hugging her tight. “There was this thing . . . and it . . . it had you.”

“
What?
”

“It was inside you,” he tried to explain. “And then you were running away from me . . . like you were someone else and you didn’t know who I was.”

She felt the chill. Was the presence still there in her mind? It was hard to tell the difference between dreaming and awake. “Brandon, that last part happened . . . I ran away from you.”

“I know. It felt like part of the dream.”

A noise cut through the forest, a guttural cough. “Maybe we should head back to the tent,” she said.

Together, they crept back to the tent. They did not hear the noise again, but neither of them could shake what had happened.

Dream or not, they remained awake for the rest of the long night.

Morning shone through the canopy in amber hues, illuminating the swiftly flowing waters of the jungle stream. With the sun came the thick heat and humidity and, because they stood by the river, swarms of biting insects. Brandon swatted at one landing on his neck. He felt the stinging slap on sunburned skin and the satisfying squish of a mosquito.

Their water was low, and Brandon suggested they crawl through the dense brush at the waterline to inspect the stream. He hoped the stream had originated in the mountains and would be drinkable.

Sam stepped to the edge of the water and crouched on the bank, holding out the empty water bottle. She stared at the glassy surface, gazing at her own reflection. She appeared transfixed by the trickling stream.

“Does it look clean?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “What does bacteria look like again?”

“Is it clear though?”

“Yeah . . .”

“So touch it.”

She dipped the tips of her fingers into the sparkling water. After a moment, she looked at him and nodded. “It’s pretty cold.”

She dipped the water bottle, watching the bubbles roll out of the top and get swept downstream where they disappeared in the froth. Cold water meant water that had moved swiftly from its source, the melting snows in the nearby mountains, and was less likely to be contaminated.

She lifted the full bottle to her lips and took a sip. She tasted it carefully, letting the liquid collect in her mouth before swallowing. “Mmm, tastes like Ebola. Want some?”

Brandon took a few gulps, tasting the fresh, icy liquid. He felt good about his suggestion to follow the river. They had moved out of the marshy lowlands and were heading east toward the mountains. As long as they stuck to the water and kept out of trouble, they could survive indefinitely.

Keeping the stream at their left, they moved through the forest. As the morning wore on, the temperature got hotter.

Around midday, the forest came to life in the distance. Wild cries rose up; frenzied screams came through the trees. They stood still, not making a sound, as the screams turned to wails.

“What do you think that is?” Sam whispered.

“Lizard,” he answered quickly.

She looked at him doubtfully. “Actually, it’s the mating call of the red polka-dotted Ituri chameleon. One call from him and the females come scurrying from miles around.”

He laughed, and they resumed walking.

The forest opened up around them, blue light playing on the roots of the massive trees.

A creature lay awkwardly against the root of a tree. The tan coat faded to black and was crisscrossed with white stripes near its hindquarters and along its upper legs. The legs, white near the hooves, dangled limply.

As they moved around it cautiously, Brandon made out the shape of its head dangling on the other side of the root. The animal’s black throat was caked in blood and its round sunken eyes were open wide, giving it a terrified look. A long blue tongue hung limply out of its open maw.

“What is it?” Sam asked. “An okapi?”

The okapi was a relative of the giraffe, only smaller and lacking the long neck. In the Ituri forest they were plentiful, but didn’t exist anywhere else in the world.

“I think so,” he replied.

She moved closer and crouched down near its limp head. “It looks like something tore its throat open.”

The body looked fresh and lacked insects. It couldn’t have been there for very long. “We should keep moving,” he said.

She leaned closer, tugging at the hide around the gash, examining it. “Do you think it was a baboon?”

Tiny beads of saliva mixed with the blood in the wound, signifying a bite wound. He could not imagine the small, dog-like primates reaching the throat of such a large animal and making a single clean bite. Instead, they would have surrounded the okapi as a group, nipping and clawing.

A sickening grunt ripped their attention away from the dead animal. A second okapi stood a few yards away. The creature stared at them, its wide flat ears raised, its body on alert.

Okapis were herbivores, normally docile. They were skittish animals, like deer or antelope.

But this one was not normal. Its long snout quivered, dripping thick wet globules of crimson. The blood shimmered and rolled over its lips before dropping to the jungle floor.

“What the hell?” Sam said.

The creature startled a little at the sound of her voice and took a threatening step closer.

“Sam . . . when I say, I want you to run,” he told her in a low tone. “Stay close to the river so I can find you.”

“Don’t be stupid. We’re not splitting up.”

“It doesn’t look right.”

“I am
not
running away from some deformed giraffe,” she insisted. “Not even a
rabid
deformed giraffe.”

“Sam.”

She reached down among the tangled roots and tore free a twisted branch, holding it up in front of her like a staff.

Her movement must have startled the creature, because it darted toward them. With its shoulder reaching six feet off of the ground, the animal stood over them. Its neck was not as long as a giraffe’s, but its head towered in the air, ears outstretched to make it look even taller, and it easily weighed more than a horse.

She stepped forward over the root of the tree and swung the stick at the charging okapi. The stick batted against the animal’s nose ineffectively, and at the last second, she staggered back, falling against the tree. The okapi moved around her, circling, and swinging its head in her direction.

He grabbed the animal’s hind leg with both hands. The okapi staggered, and Sam backpedaled out of its reach. She climbed around the tree, putting the trunk between her and it.

The hind leg kicked out suddenly, and the hoof connected solidly with Brandon’s abdomen, blasting the air from his lungs and blowing him back several feet. He collapsed into the mud, gasping for breath. His insides throbbed from the blow, sending out nauseating pain.

The okapi circled the tree, chasing Sam who climbed across the roots, using her hands and feet to weave through the twisting landscape. In this way, she managed to keep ahead of the beast, as its four legs struggled between the thick roots.

She shouted at the animal, her angry cries echoing through the branches. The blood-covered okapi ended the chase and turned its anger on the tree, tearing at the bark with its teeth and beating the trunk with its snout.

She backed away from the trunk and ran over to Brandon. They watched as the okapi struck its head against the tree, sometimes so hard that it staggered and almost fell over.

“That is one very sick animal,” he said. Sam helped him to his feet, and he winced in pain as he stood.

“Do you think so?” she asked. “Do you think the baboons were sick?”

He nodded, remembering their ferocity and comparing it to the okapi. He thought of Sam’s behavior the night before. His vision was still blurred in the eye where she had struck him.

We could be sick,
too,
he thought.

“Let’s go,” he suggested.

Even the birds seemed angry. Their dreadful caws ripped through the landscape, surrounding Sam and Brandon. And through it all, they felt those malevolent eyes upon them. The whole forest seemed to be telling them to get out; that they didn’t belong.

At times he grew paranoid, seeing shapes in the leaves and hearing voices on the wind. Twice, he thought he heard Sam right behind him, keeping pace, and then turned to find nobody there.

“The sun’s setting,” Sam pointed out, as she gazed up at the canopy.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked, his words escaping in a hiss.