Demons in the Jungle

Chapter 18

  There was no pause, no moment of sleep. An instant later, I was in the jungle, surrounded by trees and the sound of life. I was back to what I knew.

I wasn't asleep. I could tell that immediately. But the lens through which I was seeing the world had definitely been replaced. Everything was strange and distorted, sounds echoing around my brain from side to side. I was awake, but I had been drugged. Again.

My kukri was in my hand and I was immediately at the ready. I moved into the jungle and felt it envelope me, the leaves making way for me before closing behind me like a veil. I crossed a creek, feeling it move beneath me, the flow of the water going from left to right. I could practically see the destination it ran to, the ocean opening up wide to swallow it whole. Back into the trees, and now I could feel the roots of them intertwining, an entire world beneath my feet. If I severed this vine, the golden Tamarin monkeys would have no place to jump from this tree to the next. If I lifted this log, I'd see the world of insects that had recently been devastated by the reaching tongue of a giant anteater. There was sense to the chaos here. Here, the living paid for their existence with force. Here it was blood for blood, and there was a lot of blood to spill.

I kept on my way, knowing I would find my way to the shore sooner or later. I could smell it. The lack of animals that dwelt within the trees. The salt of the ocean. And what was that, in the air? Coconut? There were palm trees. That way to the beach. I knew it.

I came to some sort of cove, hidden within the jungle, a high rock cliff on one side, with a waterfall. I followed it, taking a long drink from the water near the falls. Somewhere, in the back of my head, I could hear music. It was those horns and steel drums that had been playing in the bunker, coming down out of the clouds. God, I hated that music. I splashed a little water on my face and then looked up, blinking up into the sky and doing a double-take.

Two people were up at the top of the waterfall, on the rocks. They were dancing. As I watched, I realized first that the two people were Mimi and Milli, and they weren't dancing on top of the rocks. They were standing on the waterfall itself, sideways, defying gravity. As I watched, they jumped suddenly, falling through the air and down into the water, where they vanished.

I blinked and looked up the river, hearing the music growing louder in my ears. Within the trees ahead, something leaped out, appearing from the left and then disappearing to the right. I watched and waited, seeing it creep out of the jungle once more to regard me with cool, predatory eyes. It didn't make any sense, as they didn't live in South America, but there it was. A tiger.

The animal was leading me somewhere. I kept on him as he came in and out of the trees, looking back periodically with low growls and a keen gaze. I was in a daze, my ears filled with that irritating music, the sky turning purple and the jungle becoming red like blood. The tiger had turned bright white ahead of me, turning into a regal beast in a wild place, a mighty warrior from a land that no longer seemed so strange to me.

At some point, there was a new sound, above us in the trees. A low, throaty growling, dozens of creatures letting out their calls at once. The tiger and I both looked up, the cat baring its teeth and me baring my kukri. I could see them over my head, lining up on the branches and roaring down at us, all teeth and fur. Howler monkeys. I spread my arms wide and roared back at them, hearing the tiger do the same, and suddenly the trees were rustling and branches dipping low as the monkeys took off, the mighty hunters' roar overpowering their own. The tiger ran onward and I followed in his wake, determined to reach the end of wherever we were going.

We came to a clearing suddenly, and I skidded to a halt, eyes going wide at what I saw. Amy stood there, pacing back and forth with a pistol in his hand. He was standing in front of three people with bags over their heads, and it took me several seconds to realize it was my friends. Jay, Debra, and Ariel. They were lined up before him like dogs.