Defeat the Darkness (Hearts of Darkness) (5 page)

Chapter 4 Operating Tent

“Doctor. We need your help,” the English nurse called out to him.

He waved at her and struggled to recall her name. With the otherworldly woman staring at him, he could barely remember his own name. He forced himself to think.

Edie.
He shook his head to bring back his memories and thought.
Her name is Edie, and she’s a surgical nurse, a widow from outside London with three grown sons.

Saved from having to walk past the strange woman, he turned away and abruptly jogged off to the triage tent. He felt more grounded, and his memory returned as he put distance between himself and her.

Seeing the team waiting for him, with Carmen ready to assist him into his scrubs, things suddenly seemed back to normal. He brushed off the extraordinary encounter. After this shift, he would need sleep, but then he’d ask around about the charity’s directress.

“What do we have?” Kyle asked Carmen who was the one native member of their surgical team.

“An open chest wound. Mauled. Fifty-year-old male with injuries to his head, neck, and chest. The chest is the worst,” Carmen said, and then recited the patient’s stats.

Kyle scrubbed quickly, slipped into his gloves, and stepped through the flap dividing the operating suites.

Suites?
Closets would have been a more appropriate description of size.

“He is in very bad shape. I believe it was a jaguar attack.” Victor Salazar’s eyes were dark and serious above his mask as he worked.

“Hell, a jaguar? Really? I didn’t think the rumors about the jaguars hunting so close by were true. Where do you want me?”

“You take the chest. I cannot bring the worst of the bleeding under control.”

Kyle shook his head as he approached the patient, working quickly to assess how to help. They switched positions. The patient was a mess, torn and bleeding, muscles ripped from his chest, flesh hanging in shreds around the gaping wound. “You think a jaguar did this?”

“Someone saw a jaguar near our perimeter this morning, doctor.”

“Damn. Julian is out there somewhere.”

“Julian?”

“The teenaged boy who knows where to get the antibiotics we need when our supplies run short.”

“Oh, that one. I’ll inform the men as soon as I finish helping Dr. Salazar with the leg wound,” Edie said.

The room was unnervingly quiet as he began working, and he quickly lost track of time. He’d clamped and stitched vessel after vessel, suctioned re-circulated blood, sweated out gallons of perspiration, over-used his own muscles, and drained every ounce of energy he had.

Three hours later, the man died on the table as Kyle tied off the last stitch.

Kyle ripped off his gloves and his scrubs, slammed them in the marked containers, and walked outside.

Dr. Salazar clapped him on the shoulder. “Doctor, you did your best.”

“Sorry, Victor. There was too much. We need a whole trauma team to handle something like that.”

Carmen crossed herself and whispered something Kyle couldn’t make out. “What did you say?”

“The jaguar is rogue. We must burn the man’s body before the full moon.” She glanced nervously in the direction of the dead man.

“Rogue?” Kyle asked.

Victor frowned at the woman. “That is merely village superstition.”

“What superstition? What’s she talking about? I could use a little diversion at the moment.” Kyle stepped behind the privacy screen and stripped the rest of the bloodied scrubs from his body, disgusted at his failure, and tossed them in the hamper. He picked up a fresh pair and dressed quickly.

Carmen kept up the diatribe about the local legend. “The jaguar didn’t eat him. Just mauled him. Killed for the sake of killing. He is one of the men of the jaguar-shifter tribe. See the mark on his chest? If he isn’t burned, he will rise and turn rogue.”

“Wait a minute. Rogue? Shifter? What are we talking about here? Some paranormal mumbo jumbo?” Kyle glanced at Victor.

“I told you it was just local superstitions. They believe legends claim there are men who turn into jaguars.”

“Like were-wolves?” Kyle asked with a smile curling his lip.

“Some turned rogue when the vampire tried to turn them. They didn’t find their true mates in time to prevent the change.” Carmen added. “They become infected when bitten.”

“What? Vampires? True mates?” Kyle asked. “So you want to clarify this legend?” A fleeting image of the dark woman skittered through Kyle’s mind and he released a nervous laugh.

“There are real dangers to worry about,” Victor said. “Enough of this nonsense.”

Kyle pulled on a pair of gloves and took a moment to inspect the wounds on the body growing cold on the table.

“These injuries do look like they were caused by an attack by a rabid animal. I can understand why the villagers might believe a crazed jaguar, a ‘rogue’ jaguar, might have done this. But where in the world did they come up with the shifter and vampire part of the legend?”

Kyle looked to Carmen for an explanation.

“Men disappeared from their villages. When they returned they were different—stronger, more virile. They healed faster and had greater stamina. They aged more slowly.”

Kyle glanced at Victor. The man seemed undaunted by the hours in surgery, and Kyle wondered aloud. “Sounds like you. Do
you shift into a jaguar when the moon is full? Or, have you discovered the Fountain of Youth here in the jungles?”

“No.” Victor’s laugh sounded genuine. “No, Fountain of Youth. Apparently, I am from very good stock. My family has excellent genes, I am told.”

“Don’t you ever get tired?” Kyle collapsed in a nearby chair.

“Yes, of course. I have learned to pace myself, unlike a certain young doctor who believes he is the only one capable of saving these lives.” Salazar softened his rebuff with a slow smile.

Carmen snorted. “Make funnies. This is no joke.” She pointed to the dead man.

“No. You are correct, Carmen. This is serious. Warn all the others to be careful when outside the perimeter,” Victor said. He ran his arm across his brow, all of a sudden appearing concerned. “And we are running low on antibiotics. Find Julian and ask him to procure more from the miserly bastard in the next village. The old man steals our supplies and sells the stuff out the back door.”

“Speaking of Julian, has anyone warned him about the jaguar danger?” Kyle hadn’t seen him around since earlier this afternoon when he’d run off into the jungle.

Carmen went pale. “The boy is in the jungle?”

“Maybe. I saw him run off in that direction earlier this afternoon.” How long had it been? Kyle’s stomach knotted. “I mentioned it to Edie, and she said she’d tell the men to keep an eye on him.”

“No need to panic. Perhaps he has returned. We will inquire after the boy.” Victor turned to Carmen and gave her a strange look. “Carmen, gather whoever we can spare, anyone on break, and check the camp, please.”

The way Victor took charge had a way of calming Kyle down. The man’s reassuring tone was a true gift.

~~~~

The moon wasn’t quite full, but the heavily treed area kept the night quite dark and the sun was due to rise in a couple of hours. A sprinkling of lights lit the camp, but the use of the generators and the fuel for them was rationed—the greater portion set aside for the medical section.

It was too dark to send out a full-blown search party. Kyle checked his watch. An hour yet until he was supposed to start morning rounds.

Maybe Kyle should check with Julian’s mother. She was the most likely person to have seen him after Kyle did. Besides, although Tomas was showing signs of improvement earlier, Kyle wanted to make sure the little guy didn’t take a turn for the worst. The trust Kyle saw in Julian’s eyes was one more reason he very much needed to keep the little boy alive. When he reached the tent, Mrs. Ramirez held little Antonia on her lap and gripped Tomas’ hand.

“Julian?” he asked.

Her worried eyes provided his answer. She shook her head, and her concerned glance darted to the jungle.

“Dr. Salazar is questioning some of the men.” While he checked Tomas’ vitals and the charts of the other patients, he tried to reassure her and himself. “Let me find out if anyone has seen or heard from him.”

He stepped outside and glanced at Carmen, checking her face for good news. She shook her head. “No one saw Julian after you did.”

“Where’s Dr. Salazar?”

“His is in the communications tent.”

Just then, Victor opened the tent flap and headed in Kyle’s direction. “I radioed the next village, and no one has seen him there, either.”

“We have to find the boy.” Convinced that Julian was in danger, he insisted they set up a search party.

Salazar agreed with a nod. “We must search, but we will wait for first light of day.”

“How soon?”

Salazar looked up at the concealed sky. “Perhaps one hour or two.”

“How many men can we spare from the camp?”

“Do not worry. I will organize the search. You need to rest.”

“I’m good.”

“No, doctor. You are not.”

The man made eye contact with Kyle, forcing him to do an honest self-evaluation. Kyle felt like shit. Victor was right. He desperately needed sleep if he was going to go out looking for the boy, later. If he didn’t get at least a few minutes sleep, he was going to be good for nothing.

He’d passed the point where he could argue. Ten minutes later, Victor Salazar had everyone in the compound rounded up in the center of camp. Everyone was in agreement. At the first sign of dawn, every able-bodied man would check the perimeter and then a few of them would form a search party.

“Go, doctor. Get some sleep,” Victor said softly. “We will have someone wake you in an hour.”

Despite his anxiety, Kyle felt a calm pass over him. Sleep would come easy after thirty-six hours on call. With an hour or two yet until the meager light broke through the thick canopy, he went to his tent. Leaving instructions to wake him in an hour, he stripped and washed up before slowly sinking into the mattress and oblivion.

Chapter 5 Search

An hour and a half later, Victor grabbed Kyle by the arm. “Not you, Dr. Lachlan,” he said.

The man was stronger than he looked.

“You must not go after the boy. It is too dangerous. More jaguars were reported in the jungle outside the other village last night.”

“I can’t sit by while the kid’s in danger, Salazar. He’s been too much of a help to our group to abandon him now.”

“Dr. Lachlan, I implore you, let the local men look for him. We need every doctor here.”

“Dr. Salazar is right. The men know what they are doing. The boy knows the dangers.” Carmen frowned, her worry for the boy less evident as her worry for him.

“I know my way around in the wilderness.” They must wonder what sort of an imbecile would go off into the jungle untrained. He hadn’t shared how he’d spent months preparing. “Besides, what if he’s injured? You saw what the jaguar did to that man. Julian won’t stand a chance of making it back to camp alive.”

“He is from this area. The boy knows this jungle better than most. The men will find him and take care of him,” Salazar argued putting a hand on Kyle’s shoulder.

“If he’s hurt, he’ll need immediate medical attention.” Kyle shook off Victor’s hand and threw provisions and medical equipment into a backpack. “Are you worried those legends are true?”

“Legends, true or not, the jaguars roaming the perimeter of our compound are real. And deadly.”

Kyle strapped on his holster, checked his gun and ammunition, and shouldered his backpack full of medical supplies.

Ten minutes later, the search party assembled outside the main building. Luis Gutierrez headed up the party giving Salazar a questioning glance when he noticed Kyle.

Salazar lifted his shoulders, and the short stocky bull waved them over. In broken English, Gutierrez mapped out the details of their plan for Kyle. He reminded him to stay close to his guide and, when they were outside the compound, they would separate into groups of two. The plan was for him to stay with Luis. Since the cell coverage was shaky in the mountain jungle, they would stay in communication with each other and the others using short wave radios.

“Stay close,” Gutierrez said. “It is easy to become separated within a few feet of one another.”

Kyle nodded. “What are our chances of finding him out here?”

“I don’t think he needs us.” Luis shook his head. “He is jungle wise—knows how to seek cover and how to hide his scent. I believe a smart boy such as he would stay overnight in the canopy, not risking the dangers here below, before going on to the next village looking for the supplies. We will probably find him returning to us as we go out to meet him.”

The words sounded forced and the man’s hard jaw clenched, making it impossible to believe him. He was hiding something.

“Let’s hope so.” Kyle didn’t appreciate bullshit. For the kid’s sake, he prayed Luis was right and not just blowing smoke to humor the American doctor. “I’ve seen the damage a jaguar can render on a full grown man. I don’t want to see what one could do to the teen.”

“Then we will go, quickly,” Luis said, gathering the men and muttering to them in a dialect of Spanish Kyle had only heard spoken here among the natives. He thought he heard a reference to the “dark one” and something else about the
gato.
He knew they were referring to the jaguar, not some feral camp cat, but what did they mean by their reference to “the dark one”?

He fell in behind Luis and followed him out of the compound with an uneasy feeling. The compass he carried pointed northeast.
He glanced around to situate himself in the dense jungle. There was no way he could tell direction through the filtered jungle light. Northeast. They were taking the southern path heading toward the riverside village. Two of the other men took the northern path and the second set took the path circling around the compound to check out the surrounding jungle where Julian could have decided to back track.

The path they took grew more dark and dense as the elevation decreased. From his training, he recognized the bird sounds and monkey chirps were a good sign nothing lurked close by.

Soon the terrain leveled out, but the path was a tight fit for two big men. Julian could fit. Or a jaguar.

“This path separates and meets up on the other side. You go that way,” Luis said, pointing left, “and I will meet you where they come together so we do not miss him. We should not split up, bu
t I do not want to risk him slipping by us. Be careful and stay to the path.”

Kyle liked the plan, but noted how much darker the jungle had grown in just the last hour. Impenetrable by the slightest breeze, the temperature and humidity rose, growing almost unbearable as the path reached deeper into the jungle. The heat from the invisible sun high evaporated the previous night’s dew and form
ed a steamy mist similar to fog that prevented good visibility. Occasionally, Kyle heard Luis call out to Julian in that familiar native dialect, and the radio squawked enough to let him know it was still operational.

For now, the path was visible with the lantern he carried, and Kyle couldn’t hear the others in the distance anymore.

“Luis,” he called out. No response greeted him. Nothing but silence. The path must have turned and moved farther away from the other branch at this point.

Although it was day, it wasn’t daylight. The path was barely visible and everything grew darker, until anything outside the scope of his light was pitch black. And even more disturbing was how the animal and insect chatter changed.

Suddenly, the jungle went silent and the radio quit squawking. Total quiet blanketed the forest. The complete absence of sound raised the hair on the back of his neck.

That was when he heard it—the low rumbled threat of a large cat on his right. No, his left. And then behind him. He unsnapped his gun, took off the safety, and chambered a round.

It wasn’t one cat or two. He was surrounded and they were stalking him, working together like a pack—an ability completely uncharacteristic of the solitary jaguar. He turned three-hundred and sixty degrees, gun pointed with nothing but sound to aim at.

Before his heart rate had time to accelerate, a sudden blur of black engulfed him. He fired.

The first jaguar roared and dropped to the ground then the next led the attack. The powerful jaws clamped down on the back of Kyle’s neck just as another cat struck head on, grazing his chest with his claws. Razor sharp teeth sank into his shoulder while the fourth cat tore at his thigh.

He fired again without aiming, unsure of hitting anything. Surely, Luis and the others must have heard the gunshots.

All he could hear were the cats’ roaring growls that sounded like thunder. The dark and the pain blinded him to anything other than the vicious presence of the jaguars’ attack until he heard a woman’s voice—her soft local dialect, command them to stop. As suddenly as it started, the attack ended. Was he hallucinating? The woman never showed herself—didn’t attempt to help in any other way. The cats and the woman disappeared into the jungle. Soon the animals resumed their nervous chatter.

His neck, his gut, his thigh—the injuries were life threatening. Even if he received help immediately, his wounds were too serious for him to survive. How long would it be before he bled out?

Not long now.

Still believing that before he passed out, his last thoughts were those of relief. He was thankful the jaguars obeyed the woman’s command and stopped when they did. As if
, that somehow helped. He wanted to laugh.

Where there is life there is hope.
Who said that, he wondered?