Night of the Bat (The Zone Unknown) Page 4

  If that guy’s here, then who’s with Hanuma? Jake thought with alarm. He counted heads. Everyone was standing around the grave except Hanuma. Did you leave Hanuma alone? Jake wanted to shout.

  Jake turned as a cry shattered the night. Hanuma was standing in front of the blazing fire—the center fire roaring from extra logs and branches piled on to keep the creature away. The old man’s hands clawed up toward the sky, as if he were trying to strangle a phantom. “Ranca di!” he screamed. “Gara di ranca!”

  Several of the men at the grave cried out as Hanuma walked forward into the fire, wailing the words over

  and over.

  “Gara di ranca!”

  Dangari raced toward him. He and Muras reached him as the hem of his robe caught fire. He collapsed with a final scream.

  The men tore the burning robe off Hanuma. Magyar scooped water from the drinking trough and spilled it on Hanuma’s legs. They lay him down. Dr. Lefkovitz was at his side, kneeling, checking Hanuma’s feet and ankles. His feet were calloused, black with charcoal. The other men surrounded them now, and Dr. Lefkovitz heard the fear in their stammering.

  “He isn’t burned,” Dr. Lefkovitz said, finally. “A little singed hair on his legs, but he’s fine.”

  Dangari translated the English for those of the men who didn’t understand.

  “We should leave now for the village,” Muras said.

  Dr. Lefkovitz nodded.

  Dangari and Muras covered Hanuma’s naked body with a sheet and carried him to the beached pirogue they had prepared. They lay the old man down gently on a bed of crushed palm and young ferns arranged in the dugout and lifted the pirogue into the shallows. Muras took the bow seat, Dangari the stern. Workers waded into the water and guided the pirogue until it was clear of the shallows. The rapid central flow of the river caught the dugout. Dangari and Muras grasped their paddles and began deep, rhythmic strokes into the dark water.

  8

  THE FALLS

  Jake waved a solemn farewell with the others on the bank as the pirogue moved off swiftly downstream through the mist and moonlight. He asked his father, “Did you give them a gun?”

  “We have no guns,” his father said.

  “That’s not too smart, is it?”

  “It’s the law here, enforced by tribal decree. We are guests here for research. Spears. Traps. Poison darts and blow guns are used to slay animals for food. The Murdaruci can hit a parrot a hundred feet high the trees.”

  Jake felt nauseous, but his own shivering had stopped. He was frightened about Hanuma’s journey. He knew that the trip downstream to the missionary village wouldn’t be long. He remembered the trip upstream very well, and estimated the pirogue would reach Dark Angel Falls in less than an hour.

  “There are two other smaller falls between Dark Angel and the missionary camp,” his father said.

  Jake recalled them and knew those wouldn’t be a problem. What he worried about was how difficult it would be for Dangari and Muras to carry Hanuma and the dugout down the steep, rocky bank and past the violent whirlpools at the base of the tremendous drop of Dark Angel Falls.

  The men returned to the grave. The sound of shovels thrusting into the dirt, and the thud as each scoop fell, was like the ticking of a clock. Jake wanted to put his hands over his ears.

  “What is ‘Gam di ranca’?” Jake asked Magyar. “What was Hanuma saying?”

  “It is Murdaruci,’” Magyar said. “Hanuma was furious at the sky and the Great Spirit. He had fever. A sickness in his head. I’m certain that he didn’t know what he was saying. It was a question.”

  “What?”

  “Hanuma asked the Great Spirit why it had sent us doom.”

  Dangari worried as the mist of the river became as blinding as fog. He and Muras paddled quietly, doing nothing to mute or sully the sounds of the rushing water. They knew the pure sounds of the river, and, if they listened carefully, they could navigate a pirogue on it blindfolded. They would hear the white water and falls in plenty of time to find a favorite safe pool or backwater near the bank.

  There was a break in the mist and they saw a flight of pink ibis fly across the front of the bow and up into the moonlight. White-collared marabou storks strutted along a marshy bank. Muras caught a glimpse of a jaguar sitting high in a rubber tree.

  Soon, the blinding mist returned and closed down upon them like a white ceiling. Dangari leaned forward and placed a cool hand on Hanuma’s brow. The old, thin shaman looked like he was sleeping. His waist-long hair fanned out at his sides and stirred in the river wind.

  “We’ll soon be at the village,” Dangari whispered in Murdaruci. Soothing. Wanting the old man to know he was with his good and trusted friends. His favorite workers …

  Hanuma’s eyes opened. He moved his lips, but no words could be heard.

  “You rest,” Muras said. “The Fathers will be happy to see you.”

  Hanuma smiled. He listened to the sound of wavelets slapping at the hull. The pirogue rocked gently with each plunge of a paddle. He stared up at the billowing whiteness above him, felt as if he could reach up his hand and touch it like a ceiling. He heard the sounds of the ibis and jumping fish, the movement of a large alligator across the muddy bank. Hanuma wanted to believe the journey would go well. He heard the rush of the water against the rocks. Without raising his head, he knew exactly where they were on the river.

  “We will be at Dark Angel soon,” Dangari said.

  Hanuma nodded. He thought about sleeping until then. He turned his head to the side and smelled the freshness of the palm and fern bedding beneath him. He wouldn’t think about the bat. The creature. He was too weak for that. He decided to believe he was in a swing. Yes, that was it. The dugout was a hammock—like the one his father had once made for him out of twisted vines and the bark of a kapock tree.

  But there came another sound.

  Dangari heard it first. His hearing was always the best. At first, he believed it was a large stork or night heron taking flight upstream. It was a flapping of wings. Large wings. Something large flying toward them.

  The flapping noise grew louder. Whatever it was, it was just above them now. Something flying, hidden by the mist.

  Something following them.

  9

  EFFIGIES

  Jake knew Hanuma’s outburst had terrorized the workers. From time to time, he had seen frightened people at accident scenes in Manhattan. Firemen as they arrived at a tenement that was a flaming inferno. Victims strewn on the sidewalk of Fifth Avenue after a bus jumped the curb and plowed into a crowd of Christmas shoppers. Frightened men and women had a look in their eyes. Time seemed to stand still, and sometimes they babbled nearly incoherently. They walked in circles and blessed themselves and wept.

  The Indians tonight moved quickly to set several more camp fires about the grounds and shouted at the night to try to keep the monstrous creature away. The fires blazed, fueled by the logs and kindling that had been intended to last at least three more weeks or until the floods hit.

  Dr. Lefkovitz didn’t try to stop the men from their fire building. He knew it was what any jungle villagers would do if a man-eater was on the prowl.

  With Dangari and Muras transporting Hanuma downstream, only Magyar had enough English to communicate clearly what was happening. Several of the men had taken hammers and what remained of the two by fours brought up from Manaus. Others tore apart a lean-to and began to make a dozen or so of what appeared to be large crosses.

  “What are they doing?” Jake asked his father.

  “Making effigies,” his father said.

  The workers began to gather bundles of yellow reeds and young bamboo from the bank, and tie them onto the wooden structures so they appeared to have arms and legs and heads. The figures took shape and, when held upright, stood five and six feet tall.

  “It’s really weird,” Jake said. “Shouldn’t they be doing something else?”

  “It’d be like telling Kansas farmers they can’
t have scarecrows,” his father said. “They think the effigies will fool the bat like they can trick a jaguar. I’ve seen tribes do it in India and Africa, too. Scarecrows to fool man-eaters—rogue lions and tigers—in thinking that there are many more warriors than there really are. In the South Indian swamps, the families make effigies and wear masks on the back of their heads.”

  “Why the back of their heads?”

  “Most big cats don’t attack from the front. They don’t attack if you’re looking at them. The masks on the back of the natives’ heads are a trick that works for a while, but sometimes the animals catch on. They get so they can tell—perhaps smell!—which are the real faces and real people. Then the masks don’t work any more.”

  The workers used hammers and an ax handle to drive the base of the life-size effigies into the soft ground. Jake found the sight of the scarecrows standing around the camp really scary. “Why don’t we just get out of here?” Jake said.

  “There are some very important things I need to do before I can leave,” his father said. “I can arrange for a couple of the workers to take you downstream in the morning. These men aren’t experienced enough to be on the river at night.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jake said. “I’m not leaving without you. And I’ve got Gizmo. You’ve got to see what Gizmo can do.”

  For a moment, Jake thought his father could see how he’d changed. “I could use every man,” his father said, finally, “but it’s best if you go.”

  “Hey, you need me.”

  His father dropped his gaze. “We’ll talk about this later. Now I need to talk to the men. It’d be better if you wait in the hut. The men would feel strange with you there.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jake said. “I forgot, I’m not a member of the team.”

  Jake spun on his heel and marched himself into the hut, slapping closed its canvas door flap so it made a whaaack. He heard his father calling Magyar to gather the men around the central campfire. Jake threw himself down on his cot, and clasped his hands around the back of his neck. He stared at the yellowing, thatched ceiling. Why does the bat eat brains, he wondered. What kind of creature feasts on the human mind?

  Dangari was thankful the sound of the wings had gone away. It had been something above them for a few minutes—something hidden in the thick night fog, and then had moved on.

  “We should start to head for shore,” Dangari said to Muras.

  “Yes,” Muras said.

  The river was narrowing before the falls, and the flow was faster. Dangari was thankful when they passed around a final turn and there was a break in the mist and river fog. Moonlight lit the way clear to the falls. There was ample time to rudder the boat toward the largest backwater pool on the left bank. It was as they guided the boat toward the haven that they saw a dark shape hanging from the gnarled trunk of a grandiflora tree.

  Dangari tried not to sound frightened. “We must head for the other shore.”

  “Yes,” Muras agreed.

  Hanuma stirred from his sleep. He had somehow heard fear creep into his friend’s voices. He began to send his thoughts skyward to ask the Great Spirit to protect them. Get us to the village safely, Hanuma prayed. If I have ever been a kind and good shaman, let us pass the Dark Angel … let us pass. …

  His body started to tremble again. He tried to raise his head, but he was too weak.

  Dangari and Muras turned the boat. The falls were still far enough away for them to make it to the right bank of thick, lush jungle. Even without a backwater pool or cover, they could grasp the dense overhang of mogno branches and berry vines, and stop the boat.

  The bat waited until the pirogue was in the middle of the river before it dropped away from the tree trunk and took to the air. Dangari saw it gliding toward them, its immense, shining wings strangely beautiful in the moonlight.

  “Faster,” Dangari told Muras.

  Muras dug his paddle harder and deeper into the water. The current was treacherous now. It would take all their strength to reach the bank before the eddies and white water would totally seize the boat.

  Dangari needed to keep his focus on plunging his paddle with more power. Deeper still. He couldn’t think about the flapping sound. The sound of the wings behind him came closer. He felt a shadow pass between him and the moon.

  Muras, too, cut his paddle into the water with more strength and speed than he’d thought possible. Panic began to creep into his stomach, and a stench of rotting carrion descended and burned in his nostrils. The fluttering of wings became drowned out by the roar of the falls. Dangari leaned forward as he stabbed the water with his paddle. There was still a chance, he thought. As long as the creature didn’t attack. As long as they could keep the boat lunging forward toward the land.

  Just make it to the overhang.

  They would be safe.

  Abruptly, the blackness swooped down. That was all Dangari could see at first: a huge, rippling blackness in front of him. He felt the pirogue shudder and rock as the dark thing struck the boat. Muras was immediately spilled into the turbulent water. There was no time for words. Or cries for help. Muras tried to swim out of the current which took hold of him with the force of a whirlpool.

  Dangari struck fiercely at the water with his paddle. Alone, he changed his stroke, driving his paddle deep, then turning it outward to maintain a shred of rudder control. For a few moments longer, he wanted to believe there would be an escape.

  Suddenly—frighteningly—Hanuma’s body began to rise in the boat. At first, Dangari thought the old man was helping to ward off the bat.

  It looked like he was standing.

  Finally, Dangari understood. The bat, its wings flopping wildly, had grasped Hanuma by his throat. It held him high, biting violently at Hanuma’s neck, holding him aloft like a rag doll.

  There came a scream from ahead, and Dangari glimpsed Muras being washed over the falls. Dangari swung his paddle at the bat. He tried to stand and tear the creatures glistening wings, but he was thrown off balance and the dugout capsized.

  The bed of palm leaves and ferns scattered about Dangari like confetti and the current seized him. As the river hurled him toward the great drop, he saw a moss-covered rock near the edge. For a second, hope swelled in him, but he was swept past the rock. He saw the overturned pirogue and tried to grab onto it. Perhaps it would become wedged between rocks or sunken branches or …

  He couldn’t hold on.

  Preparing to die, Dangari saw what looked like a clump of weeds floating in the current with him. His hands grasped at the long flowing white strands. For an instant they felt like a heavenly silkiness. They made him think of an angel’s hair. Delicate hair. Flowing. An angel had come for him. That was his final thought before he glimpsed the open dark mouth and the glint of a gold tooth in the moonlight.

  For a moment, the current buoyed him. As he was washed over the brink of the falls, he realized he was clutching Hanuma’s severed head.

  10

  SOUNDS

  Dr. Lefkovitz took the first two-hour shift as (lookout, feeding the campfires in case the bat decided to come back. The terror of the night and jet lag had knocked Jake out. He fell into a deep sleep.

  Several of the younger men worked on their life-size effigies long into the night, until the silhouettes and mud faces looked eerily real in the flickering firelight. Two of the strongest workers took the second shift, and Magyar asked to handle the watch closest to dawn—when he’d have to be up anyway preparing food for the men.

  Magyar waited until everyone was asleep before he decided to scout the perimeter of the camp. He found the morning shift more inconvenient than frightening. He hadn’t seen the bat himself, and, in truth, he was used to the exaggerations of his tribesmen. They were always coming to him with tales of a ten-foot carp they’d seen in the river, or an alligator as long as a tree. Magyar knew, as a rule, to cut in half the size of any animal or lizard or fish anyone ever claimed to see anywhere.

  He’d seen the
bodies of the two men, but small bats and ocelots or a jaguar could have inflicted the same mutilations. He knew there was a large bat that had been blamed, but he’d seen as few as a handful of rodents and large beetles devour half a dead human within a day or so. They, too, went for the eyes, the easiest entrances to soft, moist flesh. Carcasses of any sort never lasted long in the jungle.

  What Magyar was concerned about was the meat supply for the two weeks remaining before the expedition was to head back to Manaus. As he scouted close to the edge of the jungle, he heard sounds of small animals and, perhaps, night herons scurrying about in the undergrowth. He knew the men would be happy if he could make a fresh kill. A roast tapir or a few large white monkeys would pick up everyone’s spirits. He could hear the praise he’d get if he could serve something freshly caught.

  One deep rustling caught Magyar’s attention where the jungle thickened into a hammock of mangrove trees at the river’s edge. There, amid the vines and branches, he’d harvested several large snakes and turtle eggs over the last few weeks. He took a hunting dart from his chest sling, slid it into his blowpipe, and headed into the shadows.

  He heard the rustling again.

  Magyar could feel his mouth go dry and his pulse begin to quicken. The hunt always excited him, and he was certain he’d outsmart whatever was hiding in the maze and darkness of the mangrove roots. He could already smell the fresh animal flesh cooking on a spit turning over the fire. He knew he’d use the drippings of a fresh monkey or parrot to mix with flour into a blood paste, a delicacy among his tribesmen. He knew a good blood paste would boost everyone’s morale, and they would forget about the silly bat.

  As a head cook and hunter for many years, his eyesight in darkness was as keen as a river hawk. He took a few steps, then halted and listened. Another step. And another, and then stopped again.