Fawcett knelt down beside the young man and pushed back his hair to get a better look. He did not resemble the natives of this region. In fact, he had a distinctly Mediterranean look about him.
“Who is he? Where did he come from?”
“We don’t know,” Adam replied. “He came staggering into camp and collapsed. He hasn’t stopped babbling. Alberto understands some of what he says, but he can’t make out the half of it.”
Fawcett listened closely. The language was an odd one. Some of the words were recognizable as a dialect similar to that of the natives of this region. The rest was…
Fawcett gaped, the pipe falling from his mouth. He found that he could understand much of what this young man was saying, but the language was…
It couldn’t be!
“Adam, be a good fellow and fetch my book and my pen.” Heart pounding, he stared down in excitement and disbelief at the strange young man who had so fortuitously stumbled into his encampment. And if Fawcett understood his words correctly, this youth just might be the key to what Fawcett had been searching for all these years.
Chapter 1
Thomas had never felt so hot in his entire life. The heat was sweltering, unrelenting, and scarcely a breeze stirred beneath the canopy of green. Creeping, clutching foliage dogged his every step. And the insects! They were an unrelenting cloud, biting and stinging him, and invading his every orifice. Civilization’s finest insect repellent had waged a losing battle against the onslaught.
“It’s getting late.” Denesh, his neck twitching in that annoying nervous tic of his, glanced up at the tattered bits of sky visible through the canopy of trees. “You know how quickly night can come on in this jungle. I don’t want to be stuck out here when it does.”
“I know.” Thomas took another look at his notebook. He had found all the landmarks up to this point, but this next one continued to elude him. Perhaps just a bit farther. Of course, he’d been telling himself that for the better part of the last hour, with no success. With a sigh, he tucked the notebook back into his pocket. They were close. He just knew it. His research had proved to be accurate up to this point, with all the landmarks exactly as they should be, so there was no reason to assume it would not continue to be so. They were on the verge of a discovery that would rock the world.
“Did you hear that?” Denesh shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking all around. He looked like a nervous bird, his head jerking to and fro as his eyes probed the jungle.
“I didn’t hear anything.” The truth was, Thomas was so focused on his thoughts that a truck could have driven over him and he probably would not have noticed until it was too late. “Let’s head back. Tomorrow we’ll get an earlier start and see how far we can get. We might even break camp and haul the gear along with us. That way we can range even farther.”
Denesh’s coffee complexion paled at the suggestion, but he nodded. A brilliant graduate student, he was finding the expedition difficult, to say the least, but he had braved it all without complaint. The young man had potential, assuming Thomas could ever get him back out into the field after this experience. He now stood stock-still, his knuckles white as he clutched the hilt of his machete. “I’m not crazy, Professor Thornton, I swear I heard something. It was the strangest sound. Like a giant sheet of sandpaper being dragged across the ground.”
“That’s probably what it was, then. Congratulations. You’ve solved the mystery.” He elbowed Denesh in the ribs, coaxing a weak smile. “All right, it’s time to test your woods craft. Do you think you can guide us back to camp without getting us hopelessly lost?”
Denesh took up the challenge, and only managed to lead them off course twice, but both times he found the trail again without any help from Thomas. By the time camp was in sight, he had a bit of bounce in his step. The promise of food, no matter how poor, and a camp bed beneath a screen of mosquito netting, seemed like high living in this part of the world.
Thomas sensed something was wrong the moment he entered camp. A quick inspection revealed nothing obvious that might be amiss, but still, things were not right. There was a tension in the air, as if the world were as taut as piano wire.
Derek and Emily appeared from the shadows on the far side of the encampment and hurried to meet him. They both appeared agitated.
“Doctor Thornton, I did not sign up for this trip only to be stranded in the middle of nowhere.” Emily’s freckled face was bright red, but whether from sunburn or anger he could not tell.
“Wait, what are you talking about? We’re not stranded.” The psychological toll this place took on travelers sometimes caused a person to crack. He hoped this was not the case with Emily, who, despite having a face and body that screamed ‘delicate flower,’ had been a trooper up to this point.
“Victor is gone.” Her voice trembled as she spoke and she looked like she was on the verge of tears. “He said he was going to hike back to the lagoon, take one of the boats, and go home.”
The news struck Thomas like a punch to the gut. If their guide was gone, that left him alone to get three students back to civilization. He supposed he could do it, but this meant the expedition was over. Damn. Another day or two might have done it. With serious effort, he regained his composure. Under the circumstances, it would not do to appear rattled in front of the others.
“But we still have the other boat, so we aren’t stranded.” He stared through the trees in the direction of the lagoon, as if his eyes could penetrate the miles of tangled greenery and see their remaining boat, their only path back to civilization, waiting there beside its dark waters. “But why did Victor just up and leave? Did he say anything?”
Emily gave Derek a look that said, “I told you so,” and Derek nodded.
“I think it’s been coming on for a few days, Professor,” Denesh said. “He didn’t like it here, and kept telling us it was a bad place and that we should not stay. He knew it would do no good to say anything to you, though. You were so focused on whatever it is you’re still doing out here.” He held his hands out to his sides in a gesture of confusion. “I do think Victor was on to something, though. There’s a wrongness about this place, and it’s got us all spooked.”
“Superstitious nonsense.” Thomas was embarrassed that he had been so focused on his search that he had failed to notice that one of his team was on the verge of abandoning the group. “He got into your heads, that’s all. He fed you tales about spooky stuff, and it took root in your psyche. Don’t let it control you.”
“It’s not just that, Professor,” Derek said. “I had to kill an opossum today.”
“Chestnut-striped,” Emily chimed in, proving she had been paying attention to her field guide.
“An opossum,” Thomas repeated, unable to keep the disbelief from his voice. He could not begin to fathom where Derek was headed with this.
“I know how it sounds,” Derek protested. “You had to be there, I suppose, but it’s not just that I killed it. I had to kill it. It came marching into camp in the middle of the day, which is strange enough in itself, and it went straight for our food. It ignored me when I tried to shoo it away. Then I kicked it and it…” He swallowed hard. “It attacked me. Turned on me, made this crazy noise, and sprang up like a mountain lion or something. It tore up my pants leg, but I got hold of it by the tail before it could bite me. Even then, it kept snarling at me.”