Blood Forest (Suspense thriller) Page 2

  She slid her knees back, lying down flat. With her body sprawled across the float, she shimmied closer to the edge. An inch at a time, she moved forward, her grasping hand making its way closer and closer to the floating branch.

  He held his breath, expecting her to hit the water at any moment. He pressed his face into the glass of the windshield, struggling to see over the nose. When he did, he saw the top of her head, her right shoulder and her extended arm. Her chest was dangling all the way off of the float, her body stretching until her fingers almost touched the branch.

  Suddenly her head snapped to the left, her hazel eyes widening.

  He followed her gaze. Where the crocodile had been resting a moment before, he saw only the gently swirling pond. The crocodile was gone. He burst into action, moving toward the door. He almost opened it, but stopped when he saw Sam slowly standing up. If he opened the door at all, he would block her path back into the safety of the Cessna. His wife watched the water around her, her arms extended to the sides, as if she were walking a tight rope.

  With sudden agility, she ran back across the float and tugged the door open. Brandon grabbed her shoulders and pulled her back into the plane. Once her legs were inside they slammed the door.

  “Thanks for the warning,” Sam chided.

  “Did you see where he went?”

  “I wasn’t the one who was supposed to be watching.”

  They heard a splash to the left of the craft. On the north embankment the crocodile pushed its head through the placid surface. Its long snout leading, it crawled out of the water onto the mud.

  The creature looked like something from another age, a dinosaur that had survived its cousins. The slender snout was pegged with razor sharp teeth. The crocodile’s skin was thick and ridged, almost armored. Despite its awkward gait it moved quickly and disappeared in the undergrowth.

  They both stared at the trees where it disappeared, expecting to see a sign of it there, or perhaps see it return to the pond. The forest remained still.

  The rebels were not the only ones who saw the single-engine plane making its way over the jungle. When the first shots fired, other eyes followed the Cessna’s tumbling course into the treetops. The pilot had landed in the river at the heart of his territory.

  At first, he worried that the militias might follow the aircraft, searching for a prize. A plane, even a wounded one, would be valuable to them. But when the rebels saw where the plane had gone, they abandoned their pursuit. Whoever had been in that plane would die anyway.

  Even the militias knew what stretches of forests to avoid. They were a superstitious lot and listened closely to the tales of the locals. Besides, any outsider stepping into that dense section of jungle would instinctively know that they did not belong.

  The plane had landed safely. The pilots were still alive, a foreign presence in a protected land.

  The forest darkened. A hideous cackle rose up, splitting through the trees. The cry sent shivers through anyone within earshot.

  A chorus of voices followed.

  2

  Clouds of dust hung in the air as the harsh sun beat down on the tiny Bantu village. Houses of clay and bamboo, grass and thatch, sat between stretching plantations of rice, tomatoes, and beans. The streets were dirt with small patches of grass. All around the outskirts of the village the towering jungle trees rose, forming a natural border that separated the agrarian people from the harsh world outside.

  Many of the villagers were at work in their fields, although a small portion gathered on the porch of Michanga, the local chief. They sat or leaned about, all deadly quiet. None wanted to speak for fear of bringing forth the wrath of whatever evil magic might be at work inside the hut.

  “Uya kivali.”

  Alfred Tabibu repeated the simple phrase that had haunted his dreams for the past three years. He hoped that hearing those words would jog the old man’s memory.

  The wrinkled, white-haired Bantu man lay back on the small cot. The old man suffered from severe dementia and already his own family and fellow villagers had begun to grow weary and suspicious of his condition. If he had not been Michanga’s uncle, their superstition might have turned them against him.

  Alfred’s attempts to get into the man’s troubled brain had so far spanned three different languages.

  Delani Ngedwa paced back and forth near the entrance to the hut, glaring menacingly at the Bantu villagers that dared to peer into the baraza. Delani was a monstrous-looking man, a muscled South African with a vicious scar across his left cheek. He would have been intimidating even without the Glock machine pistol resting on his hip.

  Two of his men, Kipwe and Gilles, stood near him, each heavily armed and looking nervous. The Mai-Mais that controlled the village had allowed Alfred to talk to the old man after extracting a “tax,” but the air was rife with tension.

  Nessa Singer stood to Alfred’s right. Her face looked, as always, pensive. She had wavy, brown hair that fell in a ponytail to her shoulders and caramel skin, seeming not at all affected by the tropical weather. Her brown eyes looked forward and, only because Alfred knew Nessa so well, could he see the frustration in them.

  Alfred lifted his left hand and rested it on the edge of the cot. The weight of the hand caused the bed to sag and drew the old man’s attention back. For a moment, the fog cleared from his eyes. He seemed aware of his surroundings.

  “Uya kivali. L’reconnaissez-vous?” Alfred asked.

  To Alfred’s relief the old man nodded, his eyes going wide. The old man began to describe a flower with ten overlapping, long bright-white petals, each marked with a soft blue star. Alfred listened with hope as the man told of a place where the rainforest dipped and turned into swamp. The shade from the canopy overhead and the cool moisture provided the environment that the plant needed to grow. Alfred had heard such a description before, but now the thirty-five year old chemist was on the verge of discovering the flower’s exact location.

  Alfred turned immediately to Michanga. The village chief had been watching silently with small eyes, set into a weathered face. The addition of a fur hat made the man appear more like a stuffed bear than a patriarch, but he seemed to think it made him look authoritative.

  “Do you know where this is?” Alfred asked.

  Michanga nodded, but he hesitated. “It is a place not far from here,” he explained. “But right now, that river is flooded. The area is underwater. In three months you can go there.”

  “Three months?” Alfred asked. He rapped his right arm lightly against his knee, feeling the hard prosthetic click against his bone. His actual arm ended at the elbow. The plastic extended up, replacing his forearm, and then ended in a curved, metal hook.

  “That’s a long time to wait to see if this old man is right,” Nessa whispered quietly near his ear. Although she seemed to be advising him, he knew better. She was telling him that they needed to find another place.

  “Three months and you can have your magic flower,” Michanga insisted with a nod.

  Alfred nodded, removing his glasses from his face. In the humidity they had fogged up, as they often did. He dangled the glasses off of the hook on his right arm and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket with his left. He proceeded to wipe off each of the lenses as he reasoned through the situation.

  “Do you know of another area that is like that?” he asked Michanga, who merely shrugged and shook his head.

  Nessa leaned over again and whispered to Alfred. “This man is an idiot. The only thing he knows about is his little village. We need to look at a map and see if we can find a place where the topography matches up.”

  Alfred nodded along with her suggestion. He needed to find a place that was dark and moist. The elevation needed to be lower than the surrounding area and the canopy would have to be especially thick. And then he’d have to hope an
d pray that he found the tiny plant—likely a species of Orchidaceae—and that he could recognize it when he saw it.

  Ike McGinley watched the gathering on the porch from across the small village. He kept his pistol tucked out of view under his shirt with his MP5K not far away, resting securely under the seat cushion of the closest Jeep. If trouble presented itself he could pull out the short submachine gun in time to put it to use. He doubted that would happen, but the presence of the Mai-Mai militia had him on edge.

  The Mai-Mais were a Congolese group opposed to foreign occupation of any kind. They battled mostly against the Rwandan and Ugandan militias that flooded the eastern portion of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The fighting had been intense and bloody for years. Four million had died in what was called by some the First African War, as small groups of government-backed rebels fought each other across huge stretches of land.

  The war had officially ended. The nations involved declared ceasefires all around. But the militias were largely autonomous and while they enjoyed the support of their parent nations, they did not agree to peace just because the governments had. The bloodshed continued, tempers flared, and all-out war never seemed very far away.

  Ike was white, which to the Bantu villagers meant European. But Ike was not European; he was Australian. He had short brown hair that matted at the top of his narrow head. He had a jagged nose, jutting chin, and steely-blue eyes. He wore brown fatigues and a white t-shirt under a light, billowy over shirt, opened at the front but still long enough to conceal his firearm.

  Two of the local children appeared around the back of a house, not far from where the two Jeeps were parked. They couldn’t have been older than ten. They wore ragged t-shirts and shorts that were too big for them. They hid back in the shadow of the building.

  Ike wondered if their curiosity had led them over, or if the villagers or the militia had sent the children to spy on him, the lone mercenary. He offered the children a friendly smile. One of them smiled in return, but the other one shrank back into the shadow of the hut. They would not come over, Ike knew. He turned his attention away, looking back toward the house of Michanga. Some of the villagers peered in the doorway into the baraza.

  A child’s scream echoed through the village, bringing Ike’s head up. He scanned the village quickly, noticing the two children who had come out to observe him cower again behind the building. Between a pair of huts he saw two Mai-Mai militiamen on the move, raising their rifles.

  Then he saw them. They came out of the forest, stepping through the trees, assault rifles raised. They were dressed in ratty stolen clothes, their faces battle-hardened and scarred. They opened fire.

  Ike didn’t have time to react. The invading militia unit fanned out around the village and started making their way in. He heard the ear-splitting report of rifles followed by screams of frightened villagers. He could not see all of the action through the village huts, but caught pieces of it, glimpses of children running in terror.

  The Mai-Mais returned fire as they darted between the huts. One soldier weaved around a corner and opened fire with his Kalashnikov, the barrel blazing. A moment later, tiny jagged holes erupted through the soldier’s back, spraying blood through his shirt. His body convulsed from the impact, and he staggered backward before falling into the muddy street.

  The Mai-Mais were outnumbered. The invaders would quickly take the tiny village. That could mean serious trouble for Ike’s small group. He contemplated heading straight for Michanga’s hut to get the others but knew that it would leave the pair of Jeeps and their supplies unprotected. And the Jeeps were their best means of escape.

  Ike crouched behind the closest vehicle, hoping that he hadn’t been spotted. He reached under his shirt and felt the cold handle of his Desert Eagle, pulling the weapon out of its holster. He had been in combat situations before—he was a warrior at heart. Still his mind raced and his heart pumped, reminding him that battle never felt glorious while it was happening. It was nerve-wracking and scary. There was always that fear that no matter how level-headed you were, no matter how well you performed, a random bullet or a lucky shot could end your life right there.

  He held the gun low, between his crouched legs. He was a foreigner and a neutral party in whatever conflict lay around him. The attacking rebels might not attack him if they didn’t see his firearm. Why should he take the chance of angering them?

  A woman screamed in the distance. Ike watched as an invader gunned down a pair of fleeing villagers.

  A military Jeep burst around the corner of the winding dirt road that led into the village. Militia soldiers filled the vehicle, armed and ready for battle. Two similar Jeeps followed close behind, carrying more soldiers. They were the cavalry riding in to mop through the chaos that the infantry created.

  This can’t go well, Ike thought. He looked to Michanga’s house. The villagers darted every which way, some running inside and some scattered about the small settlement. A moment later Delani emerged from the baraza, holding his Glock ready, but not raised. Kipwe and Gilles appeared behind their boss. The three Africans were tense as they tried to sort through the hell that had just descended on the farming village.

  A Bantu woman ran past Ike. She dropped a basket of tomatoes and the red fruit fell into the mud, breaking and splattering their juice. An invader followed close on her heels, a machete in one hand. He wore camouflaged fatigues and a filthy shirt. He had a grizzled black beard and a maddened look in his eyes.

  The woman ran toward a hut—the same hut that the two children had stood behind earlier. As she rounded the corner, she tripped and stumbled face-first into the mud. The invader was over her in a moment, but he didn’t swing his machete as Ike had expected. Instead he grabbed the woman’s arm and lifted her up, tossing her into the shadow of the hut.

  The man glanced around before joining her in the shadow. Ike knew his intention, and his stomach turned. As a matter of principle he did not want to get involved in the affairs of the militias. While this attack seemed cruel, he knew that all sides were capable of such horrors. The Mai-Mais would be overwhelmed and wiped out here, but in another village it would be them who would be the invaders. It was not Ike’s place to intervene. Joining the fight would be an act of suicide.

  The woman screamed from the side of the hut. A piece of cloth flew out of the darkness and fluttered in the thick air before settling in the mud.

  Ike cracked the muscles in his neck. That woman was not a member of any militia. She had not committed murder, theft, or genocide. The sounds of automatic fire filled the village as he stepped away from the Jeep, walking casually toward the hut. Approaching the bamboo house, he heard the sounds of struggling on the other side. Ike lifted his Desert Eagle slowly; his eyes scanned around as the invader had done a few moments before, checking for witnesses.

  Certainly one gunshot in a chorus of automatic fire would go unnoticed. If Ike had time to reach for a silencer he would have done so, but around the corner of the building he saw two pairs of legs twined together. The invader kneeled on the woman pinning her to the mud as he worked to keep her arms steady. The woman screamed, but her voice was lost in the chaos that filled the Bantu village. She was likely a sister and mother to many there, but nobody would come.

  The invader’s machete lay in the mud, both of his arms struggled with the woman. His back was turned to Ike, the woman’s face hidden under the bulk of the African man’s body.

  Ike extended the heavy .50 caliber pistol with both arms. The muscles of his biceps and forearms barely registered the weight. He had lifted that pistol many times, seeing the way the metal of the barrel glinted in sunlight. Many times he had pointed it at paper targets, but other times he had looked down it at an enemy. He could hear the man grunting in Swahili. He could see trails of sweat and filth soaking the back of the man’s shirt.

  He felt an explosion across h
is wrists as he pulled the trigger, followed by a deafening crack. He realized his mistake when specks of blood sprayed across his arms—he was standing too close. The majority of the spray flew forward, mixing with the mud and landing on the Bantu woman’s face.

  She stopped her screaming as the suddenly lifeless body collapsed on top of her. She kicked and squirmed, pulling herself out from under the man, eyes wide in horror at the hole in the middle of his head. She looked up at the Australian man standing over her.

  Ike scanned the village, trying to see if anyone had noticed, but no one was in direct sight. He turned again to the woman and uttered a single word. “Jificha.” Hide. He turned away from her, slipping the Desert Eagle back under his shirt. He tried to wipe the blood from his arms as he stepped out from behind the hut.

  The others were at the Jeeps, waiting for him. Tabibu and Singer were in one Jeep with Gilles, the hardened mercenary, at the wheel. Kipwe sat in the driver’s seat of the second vehicle with his boss, Delani, in the passenger seat.

  “Where were you?” Delani demanded as Ike vaulted into the backseat with one arm. The Australian didn’t answer, and Delani didn’t wait for an answer. “We need to leave,” Delani said.

  Kipwe stepped on the gas. The tires tore up mud as the Jeep rolled into action. He cut the wheel immediately, turning away from the single dirt road that led into the village. Delani directed with an outstretched arm.

  Ike understood what Delani was doing. A trio of armed Jeeps blocked the road, preventing escape. Instead, Kipwe gunned for a small path on the edge of the forest. Twisting undergrowth towered up in front of them, daring to grow at the jungle’s edge where the cleared area allowed sunlight through.