Demons in the Jungle

Chapter 23

  I don't know how long it took me to reach Amy's camp.

It could have been the poison, or it might have been a result of the life I had been living, but time ceased to have meaning. I judged the passage of time by watching the fire spreading to the east. It looked to be dying down by the time I found my way to the shore of the southern island. I abandoned the boat and kept on my way, toward the direction I knew the camp to be. The flames were now coming from across the water, isolated to only half of Chawe Islands. I started looking for local landmarks, and found one; the beach I had observed when doing target practice with Amy, and the little island of rocks where his once-living dummies were still slumped. I was close to his camp. I picked up the pace.

Something was happening at the camp. I could hear voices shouting, mostly in Portuguese. One of them sounded like it was coming through a loudspeaker. As I got closer, I began to see lights, and men running back and forth. Everyone was carrying guns, and everyone was taking cover behind something solid. The voice on the loudspeaker spoke again, coming from the camp's docks, and while I couldn't understand it, the intent was obvious. Amy's operation was about to be raided.

It was difficult to make my way around with the world still wrong through my eyes. The poison was still running strong, changing the colors of the world, filling my ears with that horrible music, the men at the camp gaining the voices of monstrous things that barked like animals to one another. However, through it all, I managed to find my way into the middle of things, searching the huts, trying to find any sign of Amy or his prisoners. Everything was stripped bare, as though the men had been cleaning up shop before the authorities arrived. Maybe they were; they had planned to disappear and never be seen again, but they were too late.

Suddenly guns were going off, and I fell back into one of the huts, ducking low. Men were shouting and rifles were being fired in short bursts. Bullets echoed off metallic surfaces and embedded in the ground everywhere. One went through the window of the hut I was in, shattering the glass before it stopped in the opposite wall. I looked around at the other huts desperately. I had to do this fast.

I spied a single hut near the rear of the camp, where nobody was moving in or out. The light was on. It was the only place I could think to look, since I didn't see him amongst the troops at the beach battle. Besides, the troops seemed to actually be avoiding it. It had to be him. Amy had to be there. I ran, keeping low and trying to avoid the line of fire of the many armed men at the docks.

Nobody was guarding it, so I slipped in without much difficulty. Inside, the hut was stripped completely bare, except for a single wooden table. There, Amy stood, bent over a map that he had laid out on the table, along with a pistol and its magazine. He looked big and imposing, the strange shadows of the hut turning him into a gigantic monster through my eyes. He didn't look real. How had this horrific creature, this wolf in a bigger wolf's clothing, done this to me?

I didn't waste any further time. I drew my kukri silently, snuck up, and stabbed down with it, aiming for the back of his neck. However, at the last second, the man shifted slightly, and the blade glanced off his shoulder, slicing down his skin as he spun around in shock.

"Tommy boy!" He shouted, and before I could move, he had grabbed me by my hair and shoved my head down. I slammed into the table hard and fell back in a daze, still holding my kukri out defensively.

"Why won't you just fucking die!?" Amy roared, kicking me in the ribs, hard. I convulsed and then spun, swinging my foot out and tripping him. I screamed as I dove, driving the knife down at him. I didn't see him do it, but he moved his head to one side, the blade stabbing the wooden floor as he scampered out from beneath me. We both rolled away from one another and came to our feet.