The Creation: Axis Mundi (The Creation Series Book 1) Page 3

  Everything had changed since then.

  Despite the quickening palpitations of his heart, he decided to press on. With his first step, he stopped – the guaco, twining vines that spread, covering the jungle floor like a series of veins, had scaled the base of trees here, creating a net-like appearance. And within its latticed network of interconnected tubular branches, a face peered back at him.

  A human face.

  Dugan exhaled slowly, wishing he had lit a cigarette.

  The longer he looked at the face, more details emerged, a Polaroid slowly fading to life. A man, brown-skinned and bare, black tattooed circles around his unblinking eyes. A thick reed threaded in and out of the skin beneath his bottom lip. His face was hard, all sharp lines and prodding jaw.

  The eyes blinked.

  “Makuxi,” Dugan said.

  The native stepped forward through the guaco which clung to him like a spider’s web.

  “Inktomi,” the native said, voice soft yet firm, the voice of someone used to being obeyed. His chest was covered in intricate tribal tattoos, their circular pattern spreading from his center like ripples in a pond. In his hands, he held a blackened wooden spear.

  Dugan ran.

  His worn military boots slid on the undergrowth beneath him as he abandoned the path he had taken, moving instead through denser jungle. Vines and strangling branches whipped at him, snagging at clothing and the pack bouncing against his back.

  A flesh-colored borer beetle the size of a swallow buzzed up near his head and he swatted it away. He leapt down a small gulley, following the wisp of a path created by some furrowing animal. His breathing, growing haggard.

  The path disappeared into scraggly brush too thick to traverse. The gulley had turned into a ravine on his right, loose dirt and rock climbing at an unscaleable angle. To his left, dense prickly-ash rose in a canopy as thick as woven tarps. Dugan’s weary-lined face contorted in pain – or the anticipation of pain.

  Then the coughing ensued.

  He slid out of the backpack just as he was wrenched forward, the heaves not simply coming from his chest but his entire body. He looked like a man possessed, unable to control his limbs as the coughing burrowed further, chunks of blood and pink tissue sputtering from his mouth. With one hand, he struggled with the zipper to the backpack now lying atop weed-like grass, the back of his other hand pressed to his mouth as if trying to keep his innards from spilling out.

  A rustling of motion from the trees behind him. Too large to be an animal.

  The native broke through, eyes darting, seeking, finding. Dugan saw now that he wore a crudely lashed cloth around his waist, his thick and muscled legs likewise covered in symbols down to his bare and leather-hardened feet. His earlobes hung almost to his shoulders, a thick spike of wood sticking from them, as if recently impaled.

  Another retching cough burst from Dugan’s lungs. He turned back to the pack on the ground in a desperate search, hands plunging into its depths.

  A howl ripped through the air as the native whirled his spear overhead and began his charge. With the pain of the coughs ripping apart his insides, Dugan found it easy to suppress a smile.

  Just as the native closed the last feet of distance, Dugan dropped the pack, turning to face the man with his finding.

  The native drew up, expecting a gun.

  Instead Dugan tapped a cigarette from a wrinkled and bent pack.

  A two inch flame shot from the lighter he had been searching for, the tip of the cigarette turning a smoldering red. He brought it to his lips and took a heavy drag. Speckles of black formed in his vision before he let the smoke spill from his nostrils.

  This close to the native, Dugan realized the tattoos covering his body like scales weren’t ink at all – they were scars.

  That’s new.

  The native lumbered back a step, sensing a trap but far too late.

  Seeming to materialize from air, Dugan’s men appeared from the jungle growth, some leaping from the rise above, others slithering out from between branches and brush. All in camouflaged gear, they surrounded the native, each carrying enough artillery equipment to start and end their own personal war.

  These were men who sweat violence.

  The native’s spear dropped to the jungle floor.

  Dugan blew out another long stream of smoke into the native’s face. This time his smile was unsuppressed.

  “Sorry, friend. I’m the one doing the hunting.”

  Rojo bent down to retrieve the native’s spear, handing it to Zephyr, the larger of the two black men Dugan employed. Zephyr’s arms were as thick as Dugan’s calves, veins pulsing on his barrel-sized neck.

  “And I’m the one doing the hurting,” Zephyr said in his deep voice before swiveling the blunt end of the spear upward, catching the native in the skull.

  Of the many predators that roamed the countless miles of Amazonian jungle – tigers, jaguars, pumas, and anacondas – none were as skilled or vicious as the men Dugan had surrounded himself with.

  He didn’t need a lifetime. They would find what they needed – who they needed – and then lifetimes would be a thing of the past.

  Verse VIII.

  Newark to Florida, Florida to Caracas.

  Over thirteen hours in cramped planes and insipid airports toting rolling cases that would have exceeded an airline’s weight guidelines, had Grey been willing to check them.

  Uncomfortable padded seats traded for cramped airplane chairs. With a four hour wait in Caracas, another five-and-a-half hours on what passed for a “luxury” bus in a third-world country, and Grey was not only exhausted, he felt dirty. That oily skin, clogged pore, sweaty to the point it wasn’t even attractive kind of dirty.

  They had gotten through customs with only minor hiccups, Faye’s boyfriend having to autograph paper, travel brochures, even an iPhone before they were finally through. Donavon Hughes wasn’t the biggest name in Hollywood, but for a celebrity he was a pretty decent human being. Grey had yet to spot the ego that clung to most celebs like a gorilla riding their backs. Hopefully the lack of luxuries down here wouldn’t change that.

  Grey watched the footage he had shot so far today, already uploaded to his MacBook Air.

  Faye descending the stairs from the plane in Caracas. Her reaction to the humidity that hit them like a brick wall. The uniformed security guards toting machine guns.

  Streets full of filth, graffiti the new form of advertising. Taxi drivers that turned road rage into a career. Pornographic billboards and dilapidated housing, and on every corner a handful of drunken men and empty bottles.

  Diseased and stray dogs so thin their ribs almost pressed through their skin. Children that should have been in school throwing rocks at a window.

  Donavon’s smile – that infectious grin that played so well on camera – as two Venezuelan children climbed on and over him while on the bus. Their filthy blackened feet leaving print marks on his Hugo Boss shirt.

  A close-up of the oblivious mother across from Faye and Donavan; hot little thing. The mother lifting her shirt to expose a swollen breast, taking her time to bring her infant up to feed. Looking back at the camera with a secretive smile.

  He’d have to edit that shot out, though he might forward it to a few of his film school buddies back in la-la land. He fast-forwarded through the remaining bus ride, then hit play. This next part he would have to find a way to work in.

  At the bus depot in Puerto Ordaz, a strike had been going on. But this was no American protest. Rather than holding signs out front, these protestors waved assault rifles and pistols in the air. The occasional shot rang through the town square.

  Panicked yells and curses from men so drunk they started fights with light poles and stray dogs.

  Shots of men lying in the street face down, though Grey suspected they were drunk not dead. Still, juxtaposition could be powerful.

  Because of the strike they had been forced to contract helicopters to get to their destination. Faye had been mo
re than upset, not because of the price but because of their “carbon footprint.” Grey suspected it had more to do with what others might perceive of them than the actual flights themselves. It wasn’t like they had walked to Venezuela in the first place. Considering their objective, however, she was probably right to be concerned.

  Grey looked up from the laptop shaking on his lap and glanced out the window at the surrounding landscape. He had never seen so much greenery in all his life. A sea of treetops stretched as far into the horizon as he could see, like looking from a plane window down at a blanket of clouds.

  If clouds were green, that was.

  He chewed off the end of a yawn, his jaw clicking. For about the hundredth time he wished the cafés here had coffees larger than the size of a thimble. No forty-four ounce beverages either, to give him the caffeine fix he so desperately needed.

  Over the gyrating thrum of the engine that rattled from his teeth all the way down through his boots, Faye leaned toward him, yelling into his ear. “This is why we’re here! Amazing, isn’t it?”

  She hadn’t taken her eyes off the landscape since they had risen into the air. Donavon, strapped in beside her, was out cold – mouth open, head back. Grey half expected to see a line of drool spilling over that enormous chin. Somehow celebrities were immune to such trivialities.

  “We need this footage,” Grey said, raising his voice to be heard. “Show the forest through the trees.”

  Faye’s smile was almost flirtatious. “It’s the other way around. And no shots of or from the chopper.”

  Grey nodded acquiescently. What Faye didn’t know was that one of his crew members in the other helicopter had been ordered to film the entire flight from the moment their birds lifted into the air. Faye would thank him when it was all said and done.

  The pilot’s voice cackled through their headphones. Grey was sure the heavy-set Venezuelan spoke English but insisted on speaking to them in Spanish. Once his indecipherable bark cut off, Faye bent forward again, leaning in close. How the hell she could smell so good after almost two days of travel was beyond him.

  “Over there,” she said pointing.

  Grey squinted, following her hand.

  “You see them? The plateaus?”

  In the distance he caught sight of a group of large rotund mountains, sheer cliffs on all sides. They jutted from the trees like the towering ruins of ancient castles.

  “What are they?”

  “Pilot called them tepuis. The highest waterfall in the world is atop one. Angel Falls. He says it’s not too far out of our way.”

  “But let me guess, you don’t want video of it,” Grey said.

  The coy smile on her face was enough of an answer.

  “Welcome to the Amazon.”

  Verse IX.

  A rough gulley in the unpaved road caused the left side of the Humvee to bounce hard, causing Dugan to bite his cigarette almost in two. He lowered the window, tossing it out, then lit another from the center console.

  “You get his name?” he asked, another jostle in the road rocking the vehicle.

  The long-haired native, Oso, glanced across at him from behind the wheel, nodding sullenly. He was always sullen. Despite his almost hairless face, arms and chest, the native had been given the nickname the Bear in Spanish. At his almost three hundred pounds of muscle, he was certainly large enough to earn it.

  It wasn’t his size, however, that had earned the Bear his name; as a mute he was unable to speak a single word. The few occasions he attempted communicating vocally, his words came out as a hideous growl. Hence, the Bear.

  Oso pulled a black marker from behind his ear, jotting something on the pad of yellow Sticky’s mounted to the dash. He did so without once glancing away from the road, or what passed for a road in this cancerous jungle.

  He tore the sheet from the pad and handed it to Dugan, replacing the marker behind his ear. Dugan read the name Oso had written.

  Guayanata.

  Dugan pulled a soft leather book from the inside pocket sewn into his blazer. Its faded cover no longer showed any sign of inscription. He untied the leather strip winding around its back.

  “Get a look at his chest? The scars?”

  This time Oso only nodded. If he had anything to add, he would have. The distinct smell of marijuana wafted up from the rear of the vehicle.

  Cy, a Vietnamese-American former U.S. army lieutenant, sat between Kendall and Chupa, shaking his head. He no longer wore the patch he had when he first joined them, the grey mucinous mass in his sunken right eye like an open wound that would never heal. The nickname however, short for Cyclops, had remained.

  The man was a brilliant tactician, had trained as a medical officer and was now here for the same reasons Dugan was. He was the only one of their group who had Dugan beat in age.

  “That shit shrinks your balls,” Cy said.

  “Good cause your mom couldn’t keep ‘em in her mouth last night, they’re so big,” Kendall said.

  Chupa, short for Chupacabra, sat opposite Kendall on the other side of Cy. He was a wiry black man originally from Somali, with dreadlocks wound tightly across his scalp, forming a bun in the back. In Spanish, the verb chupar meant “to suck.” Every one of them knew his nickname was a double entendre, the men taking every chance to call him by name when in public. Fortunately, Chupa was one of the few with a sense of humor in the group.

  Chupa reached over Cy, handing the joint off to Kendall. The white prom king soldier had gotten his nickname for looking like the Mattel match to the blonde plastic beauty – Ken doll.

  At least that was the version he told.

  “Whas’up, Doogon?” Chupa asked, his sunken eyes and hollowed cheeks always reminding Dugan of a skull.

  “This isn’t the glass house. Keep that crap in the other vehicle.”

  “So it’s okay for you to smoke but not for us?” Kendall asked.

  “Yeah,” Dugan said. “Exactly.”

  He ignored Kendall’s eye roll, turning back to his leather notebook. He fanned his finger across the pages almost reverently. “How’s our guest?”

  “Comfortable,” Kendall said.

  “Yeah, he is real comfor-tabul,” Chupa said with a laugh, glancing behind at the gagged and bound native.

  Guayanata.

  Dugan wondered if the man had any premonitions when he woke that morning that by day’s end he would be only a name and a number. Just an entry in a logbook.

  He barely registered Kendall tossing the joint from the window. The leather notebook fell open on his lap, the natural crease falling to two pages filled with names. Halfway down on the right, one name had been inscribed over so many times it had worn several holes through the page. No other names were written below it, though they continued on the next page.

  And so many after that.

  Two twin trails of smoke shot from Dugan’s nostrils as he quickly turned to the first open line in the bound book. He wondered if the remaining blank pages would be enough.

  In shaky lettering he added Guayanata’s name.

  Verse X.

  Mammoth eight-wheelers with long mechanical cranes crawled over a half-moon shaped area covered in fallen branches. The vehicles looked like monstrous scorpions, their cranes tails swinging to strike.

  The harvester’s heads, hanging from the crane’s end, attached to the trunks of thin pines, ripping them out with a single thrust. Thirty to forty foot trees fell, caught in the arms of the surrounding branches beside them. But the harvesters were far from finished. The trunks slid through the heads claw, a blade like a chainsaw slipping from its end and sawing the trunk into sections as its branches were simultaneously stripped. They fell to the earth like the bodies of fallen soldiers.

  Quick and efficient.

  Beyond the scorpions and their tank-like tracks, heavy loaders called Rhinos roamed behind, snatching the fallen logs and lifting them onto their backs. More Venezuelan loggers scouted the area, moving about on foot with rudimentary ga
s-powered chainsaws; ants squirming atop a hill. Many of them not old enough to shave.

  Zephyr steered the lead Humvee onto the dirt road connecting from the rough trail they had been on. He watched the desecration before them with equal parts approbation and indifference. In less than a minute an entire row of trees was uprooted and prepared for loading.

  Given the right circumstance he was confident he could do better. At least with the amount of destruction in sixty seconds.

  He ignored the dialogue taking place behind and around him – he wasn’t here to make friends. Besides, the new Kid was a white supremacist, not that former allegiances meant much down here.

  In his past life, as they all liked to call it, the Kid had been a professional cage fighter, running underground circuits. He had the blunt face and notched nose to prove it. When he had first arrived he had gone shirtless almost every day, his bony chest and thin muscled arms like a chicken leg whose skin had been pulled off. Now he kept the swastika tattoo on his chest covered, ever since Chupa had offered to skin it off for him.

  Zephyr probably would have joined in.

  They had yet to give the Kid a real name; it was something he would have to earn.

  Zephyr had a unique ability to push all surroundings into his peripheral, the Kid included, in order to hone in on a single target. It was how he had been recruited from the Navy Seals to the UIFL, Ultimate Indoor Football League, in early two-thousand four. How he had been able to lead the Stings to their first national championship. It was also how he permanently disabled four players from opposing teams within a single season, not counting the two from his own.

  But he didn’t regret giving up the game. Not that he had been given much of a choice. Still, his skills were far better served where he was now.

  Besides, Dugan paid better.

  Over the drone of conversation, he heard something he shouldn’t have. Without warning, he slammed on the brakes. They were almost rear-ended, the Bear pulling the second Humvee behind them at an angle, just in time.