

In The Beginning

Chapter One in

The Creation Series

The Behrg

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## Also by The Behrg

Still Born

Housebroken

Text Copyright © 2015 by The Behrg

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission from the author.

This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

## TABLE OF CONTENTS

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## CHAPTER I – IN THE BEGINNING

## A Note from the Author

## About the Author

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## DEDICATION

## To the driver in the Gran Sabana, who miraculously kept our jeep from flipping when the back wheel of the vehicle suddenly dislodged and flew forty feet into the air, and to my companions on that trip: my then soon-to-be wife, though she didn't know it at the time ... (I certainly did); and to our chaperone, and my dear friend from Maturin, Javier.

##

## And to anyone who doesn't appreciate a run-on sentence.

"It comforts me to think that if we are created beings the thing that created us would have to be greater than us, so much greater, in fact, that we would not be able to understand it.

"It would have to be greater than the facts of our reality and so it would seem to us, looking out from within our reality, that it would contradict reason.

"But reason itself would suggest it would have to be greater than reality or it would not be reasonable."

\--Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

## "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

## Genesis 1:1

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## IN THE BEGINNING

##  ______________________________

## Chapter One

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## Verse I.

Contributed by USGS National Earthquake Information Center

A 5.1 magnitude earthquake struck South Eastern Venezuela late Saturday evening in the region known as the Gran Sabana. The moderate quake hit 28 kilometers west of the southern Brazil border, its epicenter 12 kilometers from the former mining town turned logging community of Santa Elena de Uairen.

Saturday's quake occurred at 7:33 local time (UTC ) at a depth of 68 kilometers along the geologically complex southern boundary of the Caribbean Plate, a mostly oceanic tectonic plate underlying Central America and the Caribbean Sea off the northern coast.

Government officials have thus far received no estimates of casualties. Several indigenous tribes also populate the southern Amazonian area, though there has been no word as to their status.

This boundary is a rich area of seismic activity with the collision of the Caribbean and South American plates. The Venezuelan petroleum fields are believed to be a result of this complex plate interaction.

This is the first time in noted history that an earthquake has occurred at such a southern point along the Caribbean plate within the country.

## Verse II.

"Don't you want the lights on?"

Frantz ignored the interruption, sitting behind his BIFMA level-three-certified desk. He didn't bother glancing at the time on the upper right corner of the laptop he was working at, he knew the hour was ungodly.

"Ruin those pretty eyes, with nothing but the glow of a computer screen. They say it's like staring at an eclipse."

It wasn't, but he saved his breath.

Light sprang from the florescent bulbs overhead, causing Frantz to blink through the sudden change. He was surprised to find what his mémé had always called the sandman's boogers at the corners of his eyes.

He stifled a yawn on the back of one hand, dimly aware of how bare his office looked when lit. Small round black table of reclaimed wood, three Hiyashi stools in the far corner, synthetic poly-wood bookcase still waiting to be filled, and not a painting or poster on the walls. From the look of it, he could have moved in yesterday. Perhaps there were reasons he preferred working in the dark.

"It's late. You should be home," he said, his French accent thicker than normal.

Faye Moanna moved to the window overlooking Bryant Park. She twisted the hanging cylindrical stick, the slats of the blinds opening like a hundred synchronized eyes. She wore one of her business suits, a black powerful Ellecante that only served to accentuate her small figure and contrasting golden auburn hair.

She was striking; the kind of woman every man noticed though few were brave enough to approach.

Or that insane.

She stared down at the garden, mushroomed tops of trees entrenched on all sides by monolithic skyscrapers. Not an inch of room to grow or expand. Frantz had often stood there himself. Respectfully, he gave her time.

Moving their headquarters into the Bank of America Tower last year had been beyond controversial despite the building being considered the greenest skyscraper in all of Manhattan. But to affect change you had to stand out – do things differently.

The next few days would certainly accomplish that.

Faye finally spoke, though she remained at the window. "You heard about Venezuela."

Frantz noticed it wasn't a question. "Did President Maduro pen an apology to the U.S.?"

"I want to go."

Her bangs hung over her right eye keeping most of her face hidden. From this angle she could have passed for an average attorney or up-and-coming politician's aide.

No, Frantz thought, average was not a word to describe Faye Moanna.

She turned from the blinds, walking towards him with her purposeful stride. Seeing the other half of her profile always gave Frantz pause.

The left side of her head was shaved, a tattooed arm with claw-like talons reaching from below her collar up behind her ear and over the side of her left temple, visible even through the few days growth of fuzz. Her face carried more sharp lines than curves, her nose ring, a diamond stud, twinkling both coyly and menacingly at the same time. The smart business woman had been replaced with a hardened street junkie who had just robbed a fashion store.

Frantz wondered, not for the first time, which side more accurately represented the real Faye Moanna.

"We have to go," she said, pushing his laptop aside and sitting at the corner of his desk. "You know what an opportunity this is."

"We looked at their operation and it –"

"When? This is the first I've heard of any lumber mill in southern Venezuela."

Frantz adjusted the small wire frames on the bridge of his nose. This was an argument he had hoped successfully avoided.

That damn earthquake.

"It wasn't right for what we're trying to accomplish," he finished.

Her green eyes glinted, acknowledging his lie. She knew he had kept that location off their reports for other reasons, reasons they both pretended he didn't know.

"I need you in Guatemala. It's too late to be making changes –"

"Don't bullshit me, Frantz." She accentuated his name with a poor imitation of his accent. She scooted further onto his desk, her skirt sliding up. It had been short to begin with. "We change our strategy; go in bringing aid to an area even the local government's ignoring. You know Red Cross won't touch this; maybe you'll get some Mormons down there, but in Venezuela even that's iffy. This is headline news."

"It's too dangerous."

"It's advantageous! Almost ... meant to be."

"You know there weren't any reported deaths," Frantz continued.

"You did read the article."

"We can't let personal –" He stopped, not wanting to say the wrong thing. His fingers thrummed against an invisible keyboard as they always did when he was searching for the right way to phrase something in English. Unfortunately all his mental keyboard came up with was "asdf;lkj."

"It is personal. For every one of us." She stood, flipping her hair as she moved back towards the door.

"I won't allow it," Frantz said, standing. He somehow felt smaller than he had when seated in his chair.

Faye paused at the doorway, the tattooed hand scraping against the side of her head seeming to sway back and forth. Waving goodbye or beckoning him onward? Or maybe it was the calculated rise of claws just before the first strike.

"It's late, Frantz. You should go home."

The lights went out.

Frantz fell back into his Cobi chair and immediately picked up his phone, dialing the first of many numbers he would need to call. His night's work apparently had just begun.

## Verse III.

James Dugan brushed back a branch, letting it snap back behind him as he joined the small group gathered before the sheer face of solid earth. Up close, these plateaus felt unnatural.

Tepuis, they were called, table-top mountains, like floating islands in the sky. They dotted the savannahs of this part of the Amazon rainforest, jutting from the jungle floor upwards of a thousand meters. Their natural evolutionary state created some of the most isolated fauna and flora known to man. The locals however knew them by another name.

Temples of the Gods.

And Dugan had ascended every one.

"What's the problem?" he asked.

"She's afraid of heights." Rojo, his thick red beard rising to meet a complete absence of hair on top, spit a glob of brown juice onto the ground. His chest was almost as wide as he was tall; dressed in dark khakis and a flannel shirt, he could have passed for a lumberjack – except that all the leñadores around here were Venezuelan.

The source of their delay recoiled at Rojo's words. "I am not!"

Dugan removed his shades. The Venezuelan girl before him was the fourth student the University of Maturin had sent in the past six weeks, the third whose name escaped him.

He hoped it remained that way.

"Then what's the problem, Negra?" He loved how calling someone by their skin color or stereotype wasn't seen as offensive in this country.

"He is telling me we have to climb up, that the helicopter won't take us." Her accent was thick, despite her grasp of the English language.

"Did you ever consid-ugh –" Dugan's words were lost as his throat tightened. A familiar wheezing rasp soon became the gasps of a dying muffler, heavy and wet.

He was forced low to the ground, eyes watering, covering his mouth with one fist while he unslung his shoulder pack and began rifling through it.

A thick native in cargo pants and a leather jerkin pushed past the girl, raising Dugan back up. His long black hair, thick as a horse's mane, covered most of his sagging cheeks and pock-marked face. In his hands he held a cigarette.

Dugan dropped the pack, taking the cig in a shaky hand. He brought it to his lips, fighting the cough leaping out, as the native lit it for him. He inhaled, holding the breath in. Not until his lungs felt at the point of bursting did he let the smoke curl out from his nostrils.

"Thank you, Oso," he said, his voice throaty and sore.

The native tilted his head in acknowledgement and stepped back behind the girl without a word.

The girl's face suddenly lit up. "Is that why you're doing this? To find a cure?" She pronounced the word coor. "You're like the guy on Metastasis ... the, uh, the Walter White. Breaking Bad? With, uh, Jesse? Y las drogas?"

Rojo avoided looking at Dugan. Of his entire team Dugan was the only one to not take a nickname. Not that they hadn't tried.

"My grandmother had cancer," the girl continued. "She died. Do you think we will find something up there today? Something to help cure the cancer?"

"Negra," Dugan said, his breathing still raspy. "We're not Indiana Jones. We don't go into a temple and walk out with a holy relic. We take samples; endemic plants or flowers, the root of a heliamphora, stem of a bromeliad, and we send these to labs, far from here. The results of those tests may not even come back in our lifetime. It can take that long just to figure out what we're testing for, much longer if it proves of any worth. That, my dear, is phytopharmacology – we don't look for cures, we pick lotto tickets whose numbers won't be pulled 'til we're long dead."

The girl's brow furrowed, a line forming at the corner of her mouth. "You won't talk me out of going."

"Good, then grab the rope."

Rojo swung it toward her, the knotted cord dangling from the abyss above.

"You're joking," she said.

Dugan exhaled another plume of smoke then flicked the cigarette into a nearby brush. At the girl's sudden panic, he added, "We're in the rainforest, Negra, nothing dry enough to light."

Trust me, we've tried, he thought.

"Now strap in or we leave. Your choice."

"But the helicopter ..."

"Does not land on a tepui," Dugan said. "Ever."

Rojo held up a harness, spitting more brown juice onto the unsuspecting plant life around them. "We tie you in. It's not even dangerous."

"Why can't we land on top?"

"Ground's ... unstable," Dugan said.

Temple of the Gods.

Rojo glanced at him, recognizing the lie, or half lie. Still it was better than the truth. Sharing with her the fate of their last student who had fallen through a sinkhole, the weight of the helicopter causing the shifting sandstone to break loose and drop out from beneath them, certainly wouldn't improve her chances of climbing to the top. Tepuis channeled the unknown, each harboring their own distinct evolutionary tract. But one thing Dugan did know, despite the endemic species of plants and animal life found atop each one, what he was searching for was hidden somewhere else.

The young girl's head tilted back, continuing until the muscles on her neck were strained.

"Twenty two hundred meters high," Rojo said.

In the end Dugan had to hand it to her, at least she tried. Harnessed in she hadn't gone up fifty feet before she was screaming to be brought back down. Rojo took his time lowering her, his childlike grin never leaving his face.

Dugan however hadn't been smiling. Half a day wasted all to keep up pretenses they most likely no longer needed. He sent the girl back to town in the helicopter accompanied with promises he had no intention of keeping.

Now they could go back to their real task, not searching for a what, but a who.

## Verse IV.

Zachary Morley sang the guitar solo to Led Zeppelin's "Good Times, Bad Times" as he rolled his chair across the seamless white tile floor. The hard crunch of electric guitars and Robert Plant's wailing shrieks overpowered the blips of hospital equipment – computers, monitors and electrical devices unable to keep tempo with the song.

At the chair's arrival, with one too many forced foot thrusts to counteract the sheer mass Morley had become, he pulled himself up into a standing position.

Set on a roll-in table was a large glass sphere held in place by a metallic pedestal. It was filled with a viscous liquid, a two foot almost alien-like mass of grey tissue, suspended at its center like a deflated basketball. Thick tubes connected to the sphere from above, entering the controlled environment with smaller tubes hanging down, connected to the growth.

"Think this little guy knows what it means to be alone?" Morley asked.

A heavy set Venezuelan woman in white, germ mask strapped over her face, did not reply. Not that Morley had expected her to. They never sent him help that could speak English.

As if they couldn't afford the additional cost.

"After we finish here how 'bout we head on over to my place?" He laughed, his entire body shaking from the effort. Remaining sane could be a task in this country, he had discovered, and Morley had never been one for multi-tasking.

The assistant's eyes darted from him to the large glass sphere. At least this one had some meat on her, he thought.

"Quieres el pollo?" the assistant asked, Morley catching only the final word.

"Yes, pollo. Pollo, pollo, pollo. Let's do the pollo again," he sang to the tune of the Time Warp, motioning for her to get on with it.

She approached the sterile aluminum counters against the back wall of the room, fiddling with the latch to the crate set on top. Out came a chicken, its feathers pressed flush against its body. The assistant closed the crate, deftly placing the bird against the metal counter, one hand wrapped around its body.

With the other, she lifted a heavy butcher's blade.

Morley turned his head. He hated this part of the job.

The metallic thwank of metal against metal was as harsh as a hand lifting the needle from a record player.

"Over here," he said, keeping his sight away from the limp and headless body dangling from the assistant's rubber gloved hand.

She finished feeding the pollo through the Blender, a small chamber with precision blades that ground the chicken – meat, bones, feathers and all – into a pasty mulch.

At the glass sphere, Morley hummed along to the next track on the album, a song he never remembered the name to. The warm paste remains of what had moments ago been a live chicken moved through the tubes and began its descent within the sphere.

"Open wide," he said, unable to control his laughter.

The assistant pulled down her mask. Several thick black hairs lifted from her upper lip like a spider's legs.

Morley thought he might throw up.

"Que es esta brujeria?" she asked.

Though Morley spoke no Spanish, he understood what she was asking. At least in principle. He decided for the easy answer. After all, she'd have no one to tell. Not after today.

There was a reason he was assigned a new assistant every day.

"It's a stomach. A human stomach. And we're feeding it."

## Verse V.

Faye's condo was what New Yorker's considered a flat – a studio apartment with one room, kitchenette and bed separated only by a half wall. The only door, beyond the entrance, lead to the shower and bath. Totaling just under five-hundred square feet, and at twelve-hundred dollars a square foot, it was an atrociously expensive way to guarantee a place to rest her head. Especially considering how little she was there.

Her job required more travel than most commercial pilots saw in a year, and when it wasn't work, it was Donavon, who lived almost three-thousand miles away in the smog-ensconced hills of glittering Hollywood.

In December she had actually taken the time to add up the number of days she had been in town last year, dividing it by her monthly mortgage, to determine how much her place truly cost. She could have had her pick of the most luxurious hotels in the area and still saved a quiet fortune. But, she argued to herself, no hotel maid service – no matter how prestigious – would give the kind of love Georgie and Penelope required.

"You know, every time you bring me back here, I start to question our relationship," Donavon said from the bathroom.

Faye set down her watering pitcher and rubbed Penelope's stems. "Did I forget to hide the used rubber in the bathroom again?"

Donavon laughed, a sound that always began like a bark that could no longer be contained. "Well I wonder whether you come out to see me or if it's just to sleep in a room with enough space to sneeze."

The water from the sink shut off and Donavon stepped out, running his hands through his thick black hair. "You know we can afford a bigger place."

"I like a small place and besides, I'm not sure I'm the one needing to make a change. I mean the garage for your servants is three times as palatial as my humble abode."

"I don't have servants," he said, moving toward her.

"Oh, I forget, you Hollywood type refer to them as 'personal assistants.'"

He grimaced. "That's not fair."

Faye reached up and kissed him, her pierced tongue pressing briefly against his. She always felt tiny next to him, his barrel chest and linebacker physique so much more intimidating in person than on screen. "You're amazing," she said, "and the fact you changed your plans to do this? Well it makes up for at least half the emissions of your army of yes-men."

He laughed, relaxing, his whitened teeth showing the chip in front that only made him more perfect by revealing him flawed. "Only half?"

"And that's generous. Make the bed?" Faye said, twisting out of his arms. "Or is that a skill you've forgotten?"

"If I wanted this much abuse I'd visit my mother," he said, though he picked up one of the pillows that had been thrown to the floor.

"You weren't complaining when you flung them off the bed."

She returned her attention to Penelope. The tips of her smooth leaves had curled inward like a dog wagging its tail at its master's touch. A Mimosa pudica, Faye had groomed this particular strain for the past four years. Its blooming lavender and violet-tinged flowers, like dandelions gone to seed, were the largest she had ever seen on such a plant.

Georgie, on the other hand, was a shingle plant of the apocynaceae family. His flesh-colored leaves shone with an interior gloss when cared for. Little clusters of cream blooms hung from the pot dangling by the window.

Donavon called Georgie the White Rastafarian.

After saying goodbye she cracked the window before turning to leave. Donavon stood at the mirrored dresser next to the bed, the lumps beneath the bedspread something she was willing to ignore. She wondered what trinket had captured his fascination this time – the petrified wood specimen from Bali or maybe the carved fertility statue that, when picked up, revealed a large wooden dong that stuck straight out.

As she joined him she felt the temperature in the room drop though she knew it was her imagination. He wasn't looking at her collection but the postcards hanging from the top of her mirror.

Borneo Island.

Mount Cameroon.

Angel Falls.

"You never told me you'd been there," Donavon said. "Venezuela?"

Faye ran one hand against the side of her shaved head, the tiny bristled hairs massaging her fingertips. "I haven't."

"Well, nothing like a redeye," Donavan said with a chuckle, lightening the mood.

Faye pressed her body against his back, hugging him from behind. Of all Donavan's traits she was most grateful for his uncanny sense to know when not to press, to let her open up as she was ready. There had been a lot of opening up in the sixteen months they had been together and still they were barely at the surface. Did he have any idea how deep her scars ran?

Her hands moved down from his pectorals, following the ridges of his tight abdomen beneath his shirt, then slid between the gap of flesh and jeans, continuing lower. Maybe there were other traits she appreciated more, she thought with a smile.

"I just made the bed," he said.

"Yeah but I can do it better."

A few seconds later the pillows were back on the floor.

## Verse VI.

Fingertips cradled over the lip of the large armoire like blind larvae; searching, searching, finally alighting upon a small brass key. A thick carpet of unmolested dust covered the top of the dresser except for the few inches of wood in front of the key where prints frequently tread. Like a worn path where snow hadn't time to settle.

Remmy Shumway walked the narrow room in his thick heavy robes. His right eye twitched with the spasm of a dying dog's last kick. The tile of the floor was cool against his bare feet, at such odds with the dampness at his neck and pits, and crawling up his lower back.

He was old – at seventy three he should have been long retired, living in some form of luxury. Even a nursing home, at times, seemed preferable to his circumstance. Instead he bore the weight of each day like the mule he had become, trudging in an endless circle of scenery that never changed.

His eye twitched.

At the end of the long room he knelt before an old chest. Its unlacquered wood and rusted bronze straps allowed it to pass without remark. Like a well-worn disguise. Often Remmy found himself looking in the mirror, wondering when the wrinkles would peel back from his skin, his white hair returning to its natural dark roots, staunch flesh regaining its once smooth texture.

Some masks, when worn too long, could no longer be pulled away.

The thick heavy sleeves of his robes hung down as he pressed the key into the lock at the chest's center. This was the moment he always feared and yet secretly longed for – that small key bending at the weight of the gears within. One day it would snap and he would pull out a handle that would no longer open a passage to the past, the only escape he could afford, and that barely. But today was not that day.

Above him, a crucified Savior looked away with mournful eyes.

Remmy lifted the heavy lid, its hinges groaning. He stared down at the contents of the chest.

Prayers were useless now.

A knock sounded at the door, startling him.

"Quien es?" he asked, his voice anything but calm.

"Father?" a young man's voice asked from the other side of the door, heavily accented. "There are more people. Refugios."

The knock came again.

"Father?"

Remmy looked longingly at the artifacts in his chest, his left eye twittering, reminding him of his want – his need. A few minutes and he could be back on his knees, praying to the only God who had ever answered his cries.

He almost laughed. Instead he blinked back heavy tears.

"Father?" the voice came again from outside.

The heavy lid fell back, brass key disappearing into an inner pocket of his robe. Remmy dabbed his forehead against the arm of one sleeve, then opened the door.

Josue stood in the outer room, a look of concern flashing across his face like sunlight breaking through clouds, gone almost before there was time to notice. At fourteen he was a scrawny kid, malnourishment accounting only partly for his childlike frame. He had a black birthmark the size of an open fist just beneath his left eye that looked like a mole had exploded outward, spreading like a fungus. The deformation had been so prominent at birth that his parents had left the child at the doors of the church, the previous pastor not finding the crying baby until the following morning.

In a town the size of Santa Elena one would think it easy to uncover the culprits of such a crime. But small towns, Remmy had learned, held to their secrets tighter than their riches.

He reached one hand out, resting it atop Josue's head. "Thank you, my son."

He only spoke English to Josue, one of the few semi-bilinguals in the community. A good thing, considering Remmy's Spanish was as crude as a newborn's. "I thought we had reached everyone in need?"

Josue answered as they walked down the narrow hallway. "They were in the campos when the terramoto hit."

"Earthquake."

Josue continued as if Remmy hadn't interrupted. "They just returned to discover their homes perished. I know we are full but I remember the mother Mary and the men who said there was no room."

"Innkeepers."

"Innkeepers," Josue repeated. "They could have made some room, somewhere, no?"

Remmy's heart was still hammering in his chest, like being worked up almost to the point of orgasm only to have your partner walk away – that excitement still took a moment to fetter down, yet he knew what the boy was hinting at. Damn him, he knew the boy was right.

It was a problem a few days ago they could never have hoped for, the average weekly attendance less than fifteen, and those comprised of several women and their many children. Even at Christmas or el Domingo de Pascua they were lucky to have half of the church pews filled.

The building itself was small, an open assembly hall with two rows of six wooden benches that had all been stacked and pushed to the side to make room for the displaced families. The earthquake hadn't been that strong but these homes, many made of sheet metal and slats of aluminum or tin, required barely a huff and a puff to be blown in.

Sheets were strung up in the assembly hall, sectioning off areas of the room for some semblance of privacy, while the families waited. For what, Remmy wasn't sure.

God?

Their government?

Both had been equally silent.

Of the four adjoining rooms to the small building – a kitchenette, small classroom they used for a nursery, Josue and Lucas's room, and Remmy's own quarters – his was the only domicile occupied by one.

Unless you counted their storage room, but Remmy had no intention of changing that.

"I can sleep outside. On the dirt," Josue said. "I have done it before."

"Let us see what God will provide."

They walked into the main assembly, Remmy ducking beneath a rope, to greet the two families standing near the entrance. Seven, no eight children.

A baby's wail reverberated in the hollow room.

"Bienvenidos," Remmy said.

The cold eyes and hardened faces that met him didn't soften in the slightest. Even when you have nothing, seeing it ripped away could be devastating.

Before he could tell them there was food, a large voice carried from the church's entrance into the hall. It felt like a gust of wind vanquishing every lit candle at once.

"El pastor de las ovejas!"

Every muscle in Remmy's fragile body went taut.

A bull of a man stepped in from the entrance dressed in dark grey army fatigues, a fedora gripping tightly to his massive head. General Marco Gutiérrez, the alcalde or mayor of Santa Elena de Uairen. Also their chief of police. He was one of the most corrupt men Remmy had ever known, which said a lot.

The General was mustached, his face moist, covered in a constant sheen of sweat he seemed unaware of. "Por que no veo un carnero aqui," he shouted in his booming voice. Laughter followed, both from the man and his cohorts around him, thinner and younger soldiers with equally cruel eyes.

"If you're going to insult me at least do it in English," Remmy said. "You brought these people?"

"Dey are gifts, Pastor! More souls for jou to save."

More laughter followed from just outside the church. The General never went anywhere alone.

"And where do you expect me to put them? Look around!"

"Maybe jour God will tell you," Gutierrez answered.

"Close the tavern for a few days. You can put a roof over these people's heads while homes are repaired or rebuilt."

"The tavern is a private business. I cannot dictate what does or does not happen dere."

"A private business you yourself own!"

"Ahhh," Gutierrez spread his hands wide as if caught. "Is it a sin to be, uh, investing?"

"If you and your men spent half the time you do in that alehouse whoring about we'd have whole homes rebuilt already. These people need leadership! Someone who can help them pick up their lives and start over."

Gutierrez snorted then spit onto the church floor. It splatted near Josue's feet. "What do you know of da needs of a Venezolano? A woman, a beer. Dose are our needs. Not jour God or jour hope."

"Get out!" Remmy shouted. He could feel his cheeks flush, his frame quivering.

The General's face darkened. "Careful, Pastor. Or perhaps it will be a new spiritual leader the people demand."

He left without another word, lugging his heavy frame through the open door. His lackeys followed him out.

Remmy was shaking, the confrontation taking more from him than he had to give, at least at the moment. Than most moments, he admitted to himself. Josue closed the entry door.

What he had said was true; these people needed someone to lead them. But the General was just as correct – Remmy was not that man. He felt the pull toward the locked chest in his quarters and knew at least he could forget for a time.

How often will I fail them? he wondered, his eyes looking upward. For once he was grateful God had no answer.

## Verse VII.

The Gran Sabana was an interesting playing field, some parts spread open in great rolling savannahs, other areas as dense as the thickest jungles. Add the hundreds of cenotes and waterfalls, tepui mountains, above and underground rivers, and it was no wonder Dugan's work had brought him back here.

The Amazon rainforest was home to over a third of the world's population of animal species; over two thirds of all plant species. It was believed a third of the fauna and flora had yet to even be identified. With a quarter of all medicine used today having some form of their origins in the rainforests, and with almost every plant known to have anti-cancer properties coming from the Amazon itself, there was enough work here to last lifetimes.

But Dugan didn't have lifetimes. His own clock was running perilously close to its slow-winding end. An end he might be able to prevent.

He bent down inspecting the leaf of a Puya raimondii. It was the largest species of bromeliad, a family that included the pineapple, and was typically found in higher elevations like the Andes. Its stickered flower spike, like an elongated pine cone, rose a good eighteen feet into the air. The plant was useless; Dugan had no intention of carrying a sample back, but the bent tips of its pointed leaves near its base were of concern.

Dugan turned, stepping back the way he had come, his boot catching the end of the leaves to see how it would crease with his weight.

Someone had been here, and recently.

Beneath the cover of towering trees and brush that prevented any sunlight from reaching the ground, Dugan had tread into an area the vehicles were incapable of entering. Fallen logs and stones the size of Venezuelan houses littered the grounds, undisturbed for who knew how many millennia. His team had followed orders, taking the Humvees and leaving him behind.

A silver beam of sunlight shot through a solitary crack in the branches above. It looked like the trail of a bullet passing in slow motion. The amount of particles and mites floating in those snatches of light always made Dugan question his need to breathe.

He paused, casting his eyes about.

Something wasn't right.

The air was as thick as ever, a humidity that hung on you. The many toned calls of native birds and insects, animals and snakes rustling leaves and plants; all continued as if Dugan weren't present. And yet he sensed something ... off. Something he couldn't explain.

Two tiger-herons sprung from the trees above not from a sudden noise but perhaps the lack thereof. They leapt from tree to tree, gliding on their short wings before disappearing with a crackle of leaves.

A mining frog, its red bulbous eyes unblinking, crouched at an intersecting branch a foot away. Dugan had had great hopes with that one; the poison secreted from its glands long used by natives on the tips of arrows. But that had been before he had come in contact with the Makuxi.

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," he 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 of 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 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.

There was no doubt 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 ringing 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 more 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, glancing 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," she said.

## Verse IX.

A rough gulley in the unpaved road caused the left side of the Humvee to bounce hard, Dugan biting 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.

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 showing 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 it 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 gas-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 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.

"Woah, what the hell man?" The Kid barely caught himself from slamming into Zephyr's headrest. "Why we stoppin'?"

"Shut up," Zephyr said.

On the far side of the road a line of trees came hurtling down, crashing branches hiding what Zephyr knew was coming.

And then the others heard it.

The distinct thrum of a helicopter.

Rojo was the first out, dropping to the ground, his short-barreled machine gun raised, scanning the treetops and glimpses of sky. Zephyr joined him, grabbing his own Vektor, a futuristic-looking assault rifle manufactured in South Africa. It fit into the crook of his arm like a football; where it belonged.

He attached the 40mm grenade launcher in a single motion as he climbed onto the roof of the vehicle. He lay prostrate, sighting at where he expected the copter to appear.

The men in the other Humvee popped out, Dugan opening his door and propping himself up. He looked calm compared to the men scrambling for purchase, beetles scattering at the first drop of rain. The Kid appeared next to Zephyr, sitting on the rear window with his open mouthed sneer. He disappeared briefly inside the Humvee then was back, raising a heavy barrel up onto his shoulder.

The Grom.

A heavy green cylinder with a shoulder harness and black bulb for a trigger, it was a single-use rocket launcher designed specifically for surface-to-air defense. There wasn't a surprise in the world their team couldn't handle.

The whirring of the copter grew into the thundering of a hurricane – wind whipped at the tree tops around them, leaves like flightless birds flapping to no avail. The Venezuelan laborers in the clearing paused, looking upward, mechanical beasts stalled just before the next lunge.

Through the gaps in branches Zephyr caught sight of the gravity-defying machine. A faded blue, it had three elongated side windows, typically a feature reserved for commercial purposes. He closed his eyes as the torrential wind cut through the branches overhead, the skin on his face jiggling while his camouflaged clothing flapped.

As the wind tunnel swept past, he opened his eyes catching a glimpse of the helicopter's side. Something EXCURSIONES. All he needed to see.

Still this little copter was far from the Falls.

It swung out above the clearing, unaware of the artillery tracking its progress from below. The laborers raised their hands, shielding their eyes as wood chips and split branches blasted back at them, the byproduct of their handiwork rising to avenge.

"Dugan," the Kid yelled. "It a problem?"

Anything out of the ordinary was a problem, they all knew it. There was a tension in the air caused by much more than the settling forestry.

"Dugan?" the Kid called out again.

Dugan held up a fist.

Wait.

Zephyr caught the curse under the Kid's breath.

A second copter suddenly joined the first, this one a darker shade of blue. Before Dugan could change his mind they both passed beyond the clearing, disappearing from sight.

Two helicopters. More than a problem.

The Kid's body turned, still following the trajectory the helicopters had taken.

"BANG!" he shouted, glancing back at Dugan with a foolish grin. And then the Humvee behind them rocked wildly, glass exploding out its back. Dugan caught himself on the door, barely keeping from a hard tumble.

Zephyr slid to the edge of the roof to get a better view. Watched as a body hit the ground.

The native.

Blood trailed down his arms, dripping onto the grass and brush as he rolled to his feet.

"You muku!" the Kid shouted. He aimed the rocket launcher at the now fleeing native.

Without thinking Zephyr launched himself at the Kid.

His shoulder struck the Kid's arm as the rocket released, a loud thwump of hot air compressing into itself. A trail of smoke zipped out as Zephyr and the Kid both fell to the jungle floor. They hit in a tumble of body parts and weaponry, Zephyr's assault rifle flipping out onto the ground, a knee colliding with his chest.

The explosion that followed was deafening – a plume of black smoke rose, bark and debris from the trees it had struck raining down in front of them as a wave of heat swept past. A burning palm tilted and fell, crashing mere feet from the Humvee, raising all matter of dust and pollen.

Applause and sharp whistles sounded from the loggers across the road. The once captive native, having paused at the explosion, now continued to flee.

"Stop him!" Dugan shouted.

The Kid ditched the now empty launcher, unclipping Zephyr's side-arm, an X-2 CO2 pistol. He raised it while still on one knee and fired.

A dart sunk into the shoulder of the native.

"Got him!" the Kid shouted. "Ya baby, I got him!"

The native plucked the dart from his back and dropped it to the ground then continued toward the smoking trees unfazed.

Zephyr struck the Kid in the face with a right hook just as the honkie turned toward him. Felt the bones in the Kid's nose shatter behind the force of his swing.

As the Kid dropped, Zephyr grabbed his arm, raking the dart gun from the Kid's grasp. He flipped the barrel port, a second dart rotating into the empty steel sleeve with a click. Sighting, he only had a chance to get off one round, the distance between them too far for the pistol.

The dart struck the fleeing native in the back of one leg. Zephyr flipped the barrel port to the last dart, already knowing it was too late. The native disappeared into the trees.

"Agh, wahrt the fark," the Kid said, head between his knees, blood spouting from his nose. His bottom lip was split in two and oozing. He hawked a big glop of blood onto the ground. "Like ta sree you jru that when I'm ready forj it."

Zephyr stepped into a kick, his steel-toed boot connecting with the side of the Kid's head. He went sprawling against the back of the Humvee. Blood spurting against the high bumper.

"Weren't ready for that one either? You're the muku," Zephyr said. "It takes three darts to drop a Makuxi."

The Kid pulled himself up, blood plastered on his face like a poorly shaven goatee. A switchblade sprung into his hand, his eyes wild. He flipped the blade to point outward as he brought his fist up. "One djart will djrop an elephrajnt!"

Zephyr raised his pistol and fired, point blank.

The Kid's head whipped back, a dart protruding from his long neck. The switchblade slipped from his fingers. Without a word, the Kid collapsed.

"Next time it won't be a dart."

Rojo laughed, coming up beside Zephyr. "Muku. Kid doesn't even know what it means."

Cy leaned into the back of the second Humvee, breaking off stray pieces of glass. "There's blood everywhere, Dugan. He must have had something with him, on him. Cut the bonds. Sharp necklace or stone; something."

"And the blood?" Dugan asked.

"His own," Cy answered. "Sliced through his wrists and ankles while cutting the ties."

"Motivated bastard," Rojo said.

"You blame him?" Zephyr looked off in the direction the native had run. More leaves and a burning branch dropped from somewhere above.

Oso, his long black hair draping his face, tore off a sheet of paper from a small spiral notepad and handed it to Dugan. The ugly native ignored Zephyr's glare.

Zephyr understood why Dugan kept the animal around, he needed someone who could communicate with these primitives; what he didn't know was why Dugan trusted the mute. Anyone who had their tongue cut out was certain to be a traitor. At least in Zephyr's book.

"You want us to track him?" Kendall asked, slapping at a mosquito on the back of his hand.

Zephyr knew the answer before Dugan spoke.

"We'll follow the tracer, till it wears off."

"Could work out better," Kendall said. "Homeboy thinks he flew the coop; could lead us right to him."

Him. The Shaman.

Kendall's words were met with an awkward silence, no one willing to voice the concern they all shared.

All but Dugan.

And maybe the mute bear.

No one could deny the miraculous abilities of the tribe they were hunting, distant cousins to the Pemoni's, a larger clan out of Brazil. Larger and stupider; the clan Oso had been banished from. But months of chasing rumors had led them nowhere as to the supposed being who had divided the two clans, a ghost who, despite two hundred years having passed, was supposedly still alive.

Dugan insisted if you followed a shadow long enough you eventually caught whatever was casting it.

Zephyr preferred real targets to shadows. They bled easier.

Dugan kicked lightly at the Kid's limp body as he lit a cigarette. "Toss him in the back. We'll pick up whatever trail remains in the morning."

Zephyr moved to obey, but not without adding a kick of his own. It wasn't nearly as light.

## Verse XI.

By the time the helicopters touched down in a dirt field in the small village of Santa Elena de Uairen, twilight was approaching. Faye stretched her legs out in the field, a duffel bag in one hand, staring at the changing tapestry in the sky.

"I've never seen so many colors," she said.

Donavon paused, hefting a large suitcase, a computer bag hanging from his shoulder. "I'm colorblind; just looks like one big giant swirl to me."

"You are not," Faye said, hitting him.

"On my mother's grave," Donavon said, a wild grin on his face.

Faye's smile slipped like the colors of the sky fading to dark purple.

"That was supposed to be a joke," he said.

"I know."

"Not that I'm colorblind; I really am, but 'cause my mother's still alive ..."

"It gets funnier the more you explain it. Hey!"

A young Venezuelan boy, no older than eight, snatched Faye's duffel bag from her hand, dragging it behind him through the dirt. He had shaggy hair that fell to his chin, a tattered shirt and no shoes, unless the layers of dirt and grime on his feet offered some form of support.

Faye ran the few steps to catch him and yanked the bag back. The boy, not expecting resistance, toppled backward, rolling over onto his bottom. Several other young children laughed, calling out either encouragements or insults. Most likely the latter.

"What do you think you're doing?" Faye asked in Spanish. The bewildered boy looked up at her with wide eyes. "You think you can steal from us just because we're Americans?"

Donavon crouched down beside her, offering his hand to the fallen child. "Chamo," he said, the slang word something he had picked up from one of his admirers in the airport or bus. "Take this one."

He unslung his computer bag, handing it to the boy who stood to take it. Donavon slipped the kid a twenty dollar bill. If his eyes had been wide when looking at Faye they now looked like they might pop out of his head.

The other children ran back to the helicopters, helping Grey and the others unload equipment or bags and truck them across the field.

"My chamos!" Donavon yelled, the children all hooting and calling back. Several gave Donavon a high-five as he held his hand out for them.

Faye felt like a complete idiot.

"He was only trying to help," Grey said, walking past. He pushed a large dolly filled with crates of the supplies they had brought for the survivors.

They followed the children toward an unpaved road barely large enough for a single vehicle. Chickens skirted around them. In the distance Faye heard a bird's cry that sounded almost like a child's scream.

"Where are their parents?" Faye asked, catching up with Grey.

"Drunk on some street corner, who knows? Look I grew up in the Bronx; I know it wasn't like this, but some things never change no matter where you are. Places like this, as a kid? You learn to fend for yourself or you don't survive."

Faye let Grey continue past, waiting for Donavon. He adjusted his sunglasses as he approached, several of the children marching along at his side. On his face he wore that contagious smile that had probably landed him his first role however many years ago. Behind him the other two camera men hefted a heavy canvas bag between them, their disproportionate heights not making the task any easier.

"Figures," she said, as she joined Donavon. "If you don't bring an entourage you just contract a new one."

Donavon squinted into the setting sun, not responding to her cut. He blew on his glasses, wiping them on his shirt.

"I'm sorry, that wasn't fair. It's been a long two days, not that that's an excuse for my bitchiness."

"Hey I had two sisters, I get it. Not saying I understand it, but I get it." Donavon's confident and relaxed smile let her know everything was okay. Sometimes she wondered what he saw in her.

"Comes with the territory, that what you're saying?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I think everyone's doing pretty well considering what we've gone through to get here. Can't wait to see what fancy accommodations await us. If we're lucky they may even have running water."

As they turned down the dirt road, hardened tracks where vehicles had passed crusted into grooves, Faye tapped Donavon on the arm, pointing.

"Over there," she said.

Though the location she was referring to was hidden from their vantage point, its poison rising into the air was impossible to miss. Twin plumes of black smoke rose like a devil's prayer sinking into an ever obscuring night.

"My god," Donavon said. "Is that a fire?"

"I think that's the lumber mill," she said.

The harsh contrast from the colors dancing in the sky to the affront rising in the distance caused them both to fall silent. They weren't the only ones to have noticed – Grey and one of his helpers, Kenny, Faye thought he was called, were pulling out equipment and cameras.

This would make for an indelible shot.

"The equivalent of thirty-five football fields of forest destroyed every minute," Faye said softly. "People don't have a clue. What we're doing to ourselves. The future we're creating?"

Donavon found her hand, squeezed it tightly. "You can't blame people; it's the agri-corps and governments allowing this to happen."

"No. It's every ignorant person who believes the world will remain the same while we toss our trash into giant heaps and pollute our air with our vehicles and consume and consume with our insatiable appetites hoping the next generation will figure out a solution. We're the monsters; we just don't realize it."

A dog yipped at a passing child, a girl with ratted hair and pimples on her arms. Her too-thin frame suggested her nourishment was close to non-existent.

"I'm glad you're here with me," Faye said, squeezing Donavon's hand back. "I know it probably wasn't easy, to make it work, but it means a lot."

Donavon, who was staring intently at the distant smoke, didn't seem to hear.

## Verse XII.

The only hotel in town, the hotel de Maracao, was completely booked. All five of its rooms.

The local police had requisitioned the building for families who had been displaced during the recent earthquake. To Grey it looked like they were trying to fit a village into each room – he had never seen so many shirtless children pour out of a single door.

Apparently the damage from the quake had been greater than they had imagined. Back home a five-point-oh earthquake might knock over a few portraits; here it collapsed walls. Then again when your homes were as sturdy as a child's fort built out of blankets and kitchen chairs, it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise.

The kids who had been so willing to help with their luggage and equipment vanished after Donavon had emptied his billfold leaving Grey's team with two truckloads of gear to transport amongst the three of them. Considering they had been wandering rather aimlessly over the past half hour, both Kenny and Malcolm were past complaints – they had shut off their cameras.

They decided to park the equipment while Faye and Donavon went in search of a place they could stay. Grey was more than happy to oblige. He sat on a step leading up to the city square, literally a square of concrete, with a bronze statue of some historical figure at its center. The statue's features were so worn it could have passed for anyone.

If this was the town park it was pretty pathetic; no shade, grass or trees. Not even a bench to sit on. The stickered weeds growing through cracks in the concrete were the only flora in the area. Maybe when you were surrounded by trees and forest you craved something concrete.

He smiled. He'd have to share that one with the guys.

Across from the square was a small church in great need of some paint. Homes made of brick and cement ran alongside the square to the left, all standing, unlike the thin metal huts they had seen collapsed near the field. Someone had music playing at an absurd decibel level, the heavy beat of house music only abetting his headache.

So this is Venezuela, he thought, waving off a drunk man whose eyes were pink instead of white. The man staggered down the remaining step and trailed away.

What the hell had they been thinking?

Kenny came back from a small bodega, a tiny store operating out of the front window of someone's house, with three ice cold beers. He was an ugly dude, six-foot-two with long curly brown hair that hung to his neck and a belly that would have looked seven months pregnant on a woman.

Grey was one of the few people who knew Kenny still lived at his mother's, though of course he chalked it up to "caring" for her. As if he was doing more than just living off her dime. In his grey-green plaid button up and aqua denim shorts, Grey wouldn't have been surprised if Kenny's mother still dressed him.

"You're a godsend," Malcolm said, grabbing a mud-colored glass bottle and pressing it against his forehead. "Seriously how can it be this hot at night?"

Malcolm was an intern, another Asian-American protégée that, by being brilliant, had become just like everyone else. A blurred face in a crowd. And so to be different he had rebelled, ditching his scholarship at Georgetown to pursue his dreams of being a filmmaker. What the kid had yet to figure out was that he had only traded one insecure crowd for another. His face was destined to remain blurred.

Grey grabbed the other open bottle from Kenny, taking half the beer down in a single swallow. "Oh, gawd, tastes like drain water from a carwash."

"They say it's an acquired taste," Kenny said.

"Who? Carwash attendants?"

Malcolm laughed in the middle of a swallow, beer fizzing and dripping from his nose. He squinted in pain. The stuff was bad enough going down, Grey couldn't imagine it coming back up.

Kenny set one foot on a crate containing some of the supplies they had brought for victims of the quake. "You should see, I went by where the grocery store's at, shelves are empty. These cervezas cost me ten bucks, way more than it should have."

"That's 'cause you're a gringo who doesn't speak a lick of Spanish," Grey said, finishing the rest of his beer. Dirty water or not, he needed the buzz.

"No, what I'm sayin' is what we brought? It won't make a dent," Kenny continued. "And these people'll rip us apart wanting more. They're savages. And they look at us like we're millionaires."

Comparatively speaking they probably were, Grey thought, even when you removed Donavon from the equation.

He stretched out, leaning against a large duffel bag, his feet extending out into the dirt. Despite the hard object pressing into the middle of his back, it felt great to lie down. "Good thing we're not really here to help them then," he said, unable to keep from yawning.

"What do you mean?" Kenny asked.

"I mean all this goodwill crap and care packages? It's just for show. The truth, I don't think Faye even cares about these people. If we don't find a place to stay? It's fine by me. Just ups the time-table, maybe gets us home sooner."

"Yeah, makes sense," Malcolm said.

Always the yes-man, Grey thought. "You catch where the pilot was staying?"

"I look like I speak Venezuelan?" Kenny asked, following his words with an obnoxious burp. "Hey Mal, if you got a ten I'll get us another round."

Grey must have dozed, though not long; Faye and Donavon's approaching steps enough to bring him back.

"Any luck?" he asked, eyes still shut.

The voice that answered was not the one he had been expecting.

"Oye, amigos, que tienes aqui?"

Grey quickly sat up. Three men in uniforms stood together, their faces in shadow. Light from a nearby porch glinted off the submachine guns hanging at their sides.

Shit.

"Whas in the bags, amigos? Drogas?"

Before Grey could open his mouth he heard Kenny begin to blubber. "We ... we brought uh blankets and emergency packs for the uh, for the earthquake?"

"For de uh, uh, earthquake?" one of the soldiers said, mocking him. The others laughed.

"We're here to help," Grey interjected. "All this – it's food; blankets."

"Cervezas?" one of the faceless men in shadows asked.

"No, no, food. Supplies. Help." Grey wasn't sure how much they were understanding.

One of the soldiers said something in Spanish. Where the hell was Faye?

The soldier in the middle, much larger than his companions, stepped forward. He wore a dark fedora and seemed to be in charge. "We have enough peoples begging on the street," he said in a thick accent.

"No, no, we're not begging," Kenny said, "we're just here to help! We're friendlies!"

Grey wanted to slap his forehead with an open palm.

"Jour with Red Cross?" the large man asked.

"No," Grey replied, "but we're like Red Cross."

"Jou are with de others? De Americans?" the man asked.

"Yes! A woman and a man – have you seen them?"

"De, uh, woman, she is asking queshions about a man. Why she is looking for him?"

"What? No, she's just looking for a place for us to stay," Grey said.

The large man snorted and again said something in Spanish. The men on either side of him brought their weapons up.

"Jou need to come with us."

"Wait, no – the rest of our group, they won't know where we've gone!"

"Don't worry, we have a place for jou to stay," the man said. "But jou will come with us now."

Grey looked at Kenny and Malcolm, both staring back at him with uncertainty. How the hell had he become the leader here? "What about our stuff?"

"We will take care of jour tings," the man said. "Don't worry, everyting is going to be a-okay."

The large man's laugh sent a shiver through Grey's entire body. As the two younger soldiers stepped forward, herding them away from their gear, Grey realized, not for the first time, that he really hated this country.

## Verse XIII.

Morley's footsteps reverberated through the underground warehouse that had been dubbed the Freezer by all who knew about it. The nickname came not from its temperature, which was abnormally cool compared to the rest of the Facility, but because of what was kept within its walls. Housed there, you might say.

No one was allowed into the Freezer without Morley present yet often times he would find himself here alone, sharing a meal amongst friends. Silent, incapacitated friends.

The best kind.

His stomach grumbled and he realized he hadn't stopped for dinner again. It was impossible to remember everything he was supposed to do. No matter, food could wait. Dugan had called in with reports of a new playmate. Morley had a bed to prepare.

His thin LED flashlight lit his path just to the point where his feet made contact with the tiled floor. It provided no comfort against the darkness enveloping him on all sides. His flesh broke out in goose bumps beneath his lab coat as his steps echoed back to him with a steady clop – clop. He reminded himself it was just the cold causing the arrector pili muscles to contract at the base of each hair on his arms, making them stand erect. A very natural reaction.

Aren't all erections, he thought with a smile.

Down each aisle the flooring curved slightly inward to a line of drains that ran across the Freezer's floor, a recent addition he had added to make clean-up easier.

He turned down Aisle E, humming along to an old patriotic song he hadn't heard since grade school. This Land is Your Land. He wasn't sure why the song had popped into his head but found it soothing and more than fitting.

"From the Amazon forests to the floating islands," he sang. Shadows on either side of him loomed like great sentient beings intent on his demise.

He arrived at E-Seventeen and pressed the remote clicker he had snagged from the entrance. A bright spotlight shone down on an empty hospital bed with stained rust-colored sheets. Shiny steel shelving was visible behind it, a rolling metal tray next to the bed with several instruments atop.

Morley moved to the shelves, sliding open the bottom one and pulling out a thick inflatable polyurethane bag which he hung on a rolling metal rack.

"From the sweeping grasslands to the empty chasms ..."

A sharp rattle sounded an aisle over, Morley's heart leaping to his throat. He listened intently, peering out just beyond the radius of light.

It came again – the sound of chains clinking against railing.

Morley's breathing slowly returned to normal. For a moment he had forgotten his place in the world, a lion frightened at the sudden and unexpected movement of a gazelle.

He moved past the empty bed, slipping between the faux walls separating one aisle from the next. Another bright light shot down from overhead with the click of a button, reflecting off the forehead of a middle-aged woman.

She lay in the bed, eyes open but unseeing. IV's slipped from her neck and wrists into the hanging bags of poison at her side, a concentrate of synthetic opioids, halothane, and ketamine. She was nude, her dark native skin and thick unwashed hair giving her the look of a witch rather than an Indian.

Morley hovered beside her, unable to take his eyes away. Her breasts sagged along with her belly but he liked the fact that her eyes were open.

"From Mount Roraima to the Cruz cenotes ..."

No upper lip hair. That was a plus.

The scraping sound came again, reminding Morley of his task. He brought up two fingers, kissing them, then pressed them against the dry and cracked lips of the bound native woman on the bed.

To be continued, he thought.

He moved on, following the sound of that lightly grating metal. His heart continued to pound but not from fright. The woman native had gotten him aroused. There would be plenty of time to make acquaintances.

Her eyes were open! he thought.

He clicked on the second button on the remote, the entire Freezer coming alight like the glow of dawn rising. This was a button Morley rarely used, preferring to keep his work in the dark, but his appointment with the open-eyed native had given him a sense of urgency.

Row upon row of hospital beds now had lights shining down on their occupants – naked native women and men; some dead, in various stages of decay, others unconscious yet alive, with missing limbs or gaping holes and hideous scars. Wires and tubes ran from bodies to machines like intersecting webs.

He located the culprit of the noise, a dangling arm caught on an IV line, the metal ring strapped to the native's arm wiggling ever so slightly with the tubing's pull.

No boogie monsters here.

Except for me, he thought.

In a loud tenor voice he belted to an unhearing audience, his voice echoing in the giant hall. "This land was made for you and me!"

## Verse XIV.

Three young soldiers carried crates, boxes and luggage from the town square to a dark brown jeep that was running. Faye rushed toward them.

"Hey, those are our things!"

Donavon kept his sigh to himself, content to watch Faye attempt the impossible. He had no idea he'd be spending his time down here just trying to keep her from stepping on the wrong person's foot. Sometimes he wondered if she truly had a death wish.

She had been abrasive to most of the people they had met, seeking a place to stay. Donavon couldn't blame them for shutting their doors to the visiting gringos. How many Americans would open their homes to a host of strangers visiting from another country? He knew the answer wasn't many.

While Faye could put on the charm like few women Donavon had met, her composure broke down when she didn't get her way.

"What are you doing? ... Set those down!"

The soldiers moved around her like a small stream skimming past a newly lodged rock. The engine of the jeep revved.

"Faye," Donavon said but she ignored him, instead latching onto one of the soldier's arms. She spoke something to him in Spanish. He responded with a sneer. "Faye?"

"Are you just gonna let them take our things?" she asked, turning on him.

"They could be bringing it to wherever the film crew's at. Like the kids that helped with the luggage. You consider that?"

"And have you considered why the others aren't here?"

"Not everyone's out to get you, Faye. People are a lot better than you give them credit for."

She spun back, snatching a box away from a surprised soldier with a crew cut. The other two uniforms raised their weapons, pointing them right at her. Heavy automatic-looking rifles, similar to guns Donavon had used in a film or two.

Though these were probably not loaded with blanks.

"Hold on," he said, walking forward slowly, palms out. He knew his presence was intimidating; he had at least a foot and a half on the tallest of these guys. But if anyone was going to diffuse the situation, it would have to be him.

The soldier's gun in the rear gravitated toward him.

"We brought this stuff for you. It's okay!" he said. "Here, we'll help you load it."

Donavon picked up one of the wooden crates from the ground and moved to follow the soldier. The man in the back with high cheekbones and a forced squint, despite the cover of night, rattled off something quickly in Spanish.

"What'd he say?" Donavon asked.

Faye's jawbones set as she ground her teeth. "He asked if we would like to join our friends."

"See? I'm telling you, you get a lot more with honey than you do with a flyswatter."

"In prison," Faye said.

"What?"

"We can join our friends in prison."

With one of the men standing his ground, rifle pointed at both of them, they watched in silence as the rest of their gear was loaded. The soldiers even took the crate Donavon had been holding. Before they left, one of them demanded Faye's backpack and Donavon's laptop bag. He slipped a movie script from the bag, its pages curling upward, then waved off the bluish-grey exhaust spilling from the jeep as it jolted forward, leaving them in the dark.

Faye glared at him almost as if the entire charade with the soldiers had been his fault. Her skin was shiny from the sweat and dirt of their travels which made him wonder how bad he looked. Even at night his clothes stuck to him from the humidity, the air stifling.

"Okay, so that didn't quite go as planned."

"You think?"

"Why don't we try the church?"

"I'd rather sleep outside." Faye stepped off the square onto the dirt road and began walking. A rambler's walk; the tired shuffle of a person with nowhere to go.

"There's gotta be a consulate or whatever-you-call-it around where we can get help," Donavon said, joining her.

"In Venezuela? I doubt there's even one in Caracas let alone the middle of freaking nowhere. The United States is not their number one ally."

They walked in silence, the buzzing of insects louder than ungrounded electrical lines. A gate rattled shut, a stout woman in a light-colored mumu watching as they passed in front of her home. After a few more houses, Donavon gave up waving to the local residents.

He regretted not letting his agent book the trip for them though he was sure if he had brought it up, David Sedall would have told him no.

Not just no, but absolutely you've-got-to-be-shitting-me-for-even-asking no. Especially considering he was leaving the country.

"Do you want to look guilty?"

"I am guilty."

"No one's guilty in this country, especially not celebrities. You get a get-out-of-jail card every time you pass 'Go' my friend. In fact, you're overdue for something like this to happen, some shit storm to clog up the tabloid drains for a week."

And what a shit storm he had walked into.

Or driven into.

The conversation in his head continued as if he had simply paused a DVR recording and had now hit play.

"I had to get out, had to get away; the fact that one of my gf's was leaving the country seemed like the perfect opportunity."

"This is why you don't make decisions without consulting with me first. Like driving home from Lure at two a.m. with half a bottle of scotch and a quarter mile of marching dust in you? Those are the times you're supposed to call me first so I can talk you down, keep the mosquitos from biting. I'm not just your agent Donny, I'm your friend. Probably the only real one you have."

The fact that his only real friend was an imaginary version of his agent was not lost on Donavon. And considering that friend called him by the name he despised more than any other – Donny – really brought some questions into play.

"I killed them."

"You don't know that."

"I couldn't see through her windshield it was so splattered with blood."

"It was the cracks – the splinters in the glass that kept you from seeing in. And besides, she could have veered out of your way – she wasn't paying attention! Probably on her phone."

"They'll nail me to the wall with this, after last year's DUI."

"Only if you let them."

"But if I'm involved in a cause – the face of this global eco-revolution, it could change their opinions ... get them to see I'm doing good in the world. Make them love me. Make them forget."

"It's a stretch but ... it could work."

"They'll see my passion for saving humanity. The trees, forests; children. The future."

"It could change your entire public image. Push you to A-list status. Where people flock to theaters for you and you alone."

"That's why I left the country, not to hide but to shine, spotlights beaming down on –"

Donavon plowed into a man who had stepped into the road from a shadowed alley, sending the man tumbling. He hit the dirt and rolled, shouting out in pain.

Not again.

Donavon stood frozen, remembering that night, that windshield, the dark smoke seeping from the sides of the engine.

The drips falling from the edge of the car door, bent inward at a sharp angle. Dropping to the black pavement with a

Plop.

Plop.

At times he could convince himself it was just oil.

Oil spilling out of the driver's side door.

The man Donavon had bowled over stuck a carved wooden cane to the ground like a skier's pole, using it to raise himself up. The handle of the cane was decorated with a snarling wolf's mouth, its ends plated in gold.

"Are you okay?"

It took Donavon a moment to realize Faye was asking him, not the older gentleman. "Fine," he answered. "You came out of nowhere, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to knock you over." He looked back at Faye. "Can you translate?"

"Don't think I need to," she said.

The older man stood, dusting off his slacks with a gloved hand. His grey hair sprouted from the top of his head like wild weeds, barely covering the bare earth beneath. He had a large nose and crooked teeth and eyes so bloodshot Donavon could barely spot the whites.

The man looked at him curiously then twisted his neck to both sides letting loose a series of disturbing cracks. "Do I know you?"

"You're English?" Faye asked.

"British," the man answered. "Though I have dual citizenship." He opened his mouth and picked between two teeth with a long fingernail. "Not Britain and England, mind you, but here, Venezuela. And, of course, back home."

The smell of alcohol hung from him like a cloud. "Now don't tell me, it'll come."

Donavon smiled and the man's eyes lit up.

"You're the, uh, oh don't tell me, the ... that's it! You were the guard in Concentration, the one with the accent that was so bloody awful."

Donavon's smile fell though he saw Faye chuckle. "That was one of my first roles ..."

"Ze plane, Ze plane," the man shouted, laughing.

"That wasn't my line."

"Yes, commander, I will go and kill that Jew. Right away, sir."

"Look, you're obviously drunk and –"

"We need a place to stay," Faye said, cutting him off. "Just for the night."

"Well, my darling, you have stumbled onto the right man. Sir William Francis, the third, at your service." He dipped an imaginary hat, almost falling over in the process. "Mi casa es su casa though I hate to admit I wasn't planning on guests."

"Just a roof over our head would be amazing."

"Do we want to talk about this first?" Donavon said, Faye giving him one of her glares.

"I, for one, thought we were doing exactly that." Sir William chuckled, a light frothy sound.

"You're sure you don't mind?" Faye asked, ignoring Donavon.

"A pretty lady such as yourself? I'd have to be insane to mind that. And will the German be joining us as well?" Sir William said with a terrible attempt at a German accent.

"Come on, I wasn't that bad," Donavon said.

"Hail Hitler!" Sir William shouted, saluting. This time he did lose his balance, falling back onto his rear.

The old man beamed up at them with a childlike smile and Donavon found himself offering his hand to help the man back up.

"The German would love to stay in your abode," Donavon said, speaking in a much more authentic German accent.

"My commode?"

Donavon felt himself flush. "Abode! Your house. We'll – yes, we'd love to stay with you."

Sir William clapped once. "Ha-ha, Spree will be so pleased!" He took Donavon's hand and rose back to his feet. "Come, come, it's not far and I have brandy."

Donavon fell in beside the old man, Faye mouthing the words "thank you" to him. Donavon nodded. Hell, it beat staying in a prison.

## Verse XV.

Dugan walked the halls of the Facility, his home away from home for the past fourteen months. In truth he had no home to go back to, so what did that make this place?

Una policia acostada, as the Venezuelans referred to them. A speed bump. Just one amongst many on life's little journey.

The Facility entailed three connected buildings, all but invisible by air through clever camouflage and cover of jungle growth. The amount of money put into these buildings was probably equivalent to Venezuela's annual GDP.

The first structure was a carport; the Humvees for his team parked alongside a line of ATV's and dirt bikes for those few civilian employees allowed to visit town. The carport was an open walled steel structure hidden beneath a thick blanket of tree branches and leaves. Their single helicopter stayed out in the open, covered with a heavy camouflaged tarp. Even by satellite it was impossible to notice.

The second building was the barracks. The kitchen with their staff of chefs, laundry, and individual quarters serving an encampment of close to eighty. There was a grocery store the village of Santa Elena would have been jealous of, a movie theater, basketball court and gym, even an indoor pool. When you lived where you worked for months on end having a bit of distraction was a necessity for most.

The center building connecting both barracks and carport was for operations and, much like an iceberg, was larger underground than above. It was through these halls he walked, the hour guaranteeing his thoughts would remain solitary.

He flashed his badge at a security station and turned his face upward toward the camera in the corner. The heavy steel door before him buzzed. He opened it, stepping through into a room the size of a broom closet, a second vault-like door in front of him.

The door behind rattled closed, locking itself firmly in place. The room invoked a sense of claustrophobia on even the most anxiety-free men and women. Dugan stood up straighter, stretching his left arm down with his palm open, fingers spread. He had been told it was unnecessary but followed the practice every time he entered.

A bright flash left him temporarily blinded, the multimodal biometric scanner simultaneously running facial recognition, hand geometry and palm vein authentication. If even one of the tests came up negative the room would remain on lock-down, an oxygen concentrator in the ceiling whisking away the air, leaving only nitrogen and carbon dioxide behind.

The death, Dugan was told, would be painless.

He blinked through the white flashes as the door before him gave its pressurized release, allowing passage. He walked through entering a second hall.

The war hall. Because whether the world admitted it or not, there wasn't a person out there who hadn't engaged in some form of warfare with the only common enemy they shared.

Mortality.

Zephyr stood outside a doorway, one leg propped up against the wall. A thin wisp of smoke rose from a cigarette in his hand.

"You don't smoke," Dugan said.

Zephyr held the cigarette out for him. "Compliments of the Bear."

"He's not coming?"

Zephyr shook his head.

Strange; he rarely left Dugan's side. Dugan grabbed the cigarette and walked into the room. Zephyr closed the door behind them.

The Callis room always made for tight quarters. It was the only board room Dugan had seen without a single chair. A large circular table in the center was the only piece of furniture in the room. Nothing on the walls and of course, being underground, no windows.

"I'll make this quick."

Marcus Stanton stood opposite Dugan across the table, heavy bags under his eyes. He was tall, grey peppered hair and a lean physique, wearing his typical white button-up shirt with blue jeans. Probably had his cowboy boots on as well. Besides Cy he was the only one in the room who looked clean-shaven. If you didn't count his assistant.

Stanton was the official chief of operations for the project here in Venezuela though everyone knew he was only the handset corporate used to reach those with the real power. Seeing as Dugan had no desire to dosey-doe with the executives, the arrangement served them all.

Dugan nodded to Doctor Morley on Stanton's left, the only other man in the room as dangerous as himself. The mad scientist tipped his mug toward Dugan before taking a sip. There was an unspoken agreement between the three of them enabling Stanton to keep some visage of control in settings where a group was involved.

Stanton's assistant, a blonde knock-out at least half his age, handed him a folder. It was common knowledge she assisted Stanton in matters both work-related and personal. If she was as efficient under the sheets as she was with managing the day-to-day operations, Stanton was a lucky man.

"By the end of the month we're going from off-books to on," Stanton said without opening the folder. Though they all knew what that meant, he continued. It's what men like Stanton did.

"Our center will be open for inspection by the CDER and ITOB. We're expecting an immediate EIR to prove compliance, which gives us an estimated two weeks before inspection. Shannon will see you each have a copy of the Regulatory Procedures Manual as well as the CPG, Compliance Policy Guides, for your designated office. Dugan, I'll need your men to supervise any ... flashing." Stanton glanced around at using the word, as if there were ears who might overhear. "No more deep-sea excursions. I'm sorry."

"Son of a bitch!" Morley hurled his mug against the wall. It bounced off without shattering, black coffee slathering the wall and ground. Not quite the effect he had been looking for. "How long have you known?"

Stanton swallowed hard, looking down at his folder now for the first time. Not for answers but an escape.

"How long, you bastard?" Morley shouted.

"Umm, it's been –"

"A few days is all," Shannon replied, cutting her boss off.

Morely was right to be upset. Stanton may not have held any real power, but the stockholders and investors pulling invisible strings? They could make them all dance if they wanted.

Zephyr walked out, letting the door slam behind him. Cy rubbed at his bald head, the deep lines carved into his face multiplying.

"Dugan! Aren't you going to say something?" Morley asked.

"What's there to say?"

"What's there ... What's there to say?" Morley's face had turned beet red. "They're shutting us down! When we're this friggin' close!"

Dugan blew out a stream of smoke then dropped his cigarette, grounding it into the smooth tiled floor. "Shouting at a tidal wave won't keep you from drowning."

"Bullshit. This is bullshit. Bullshit!" Morley stormed from the room.

Cy bent down to retrieve the fallen mug, holding it out for Shannon to take. "No matter where you run you're a cog in someone's wheel," he said.

Stanton shifted uncomfortably. "Dugan, I'm sorry. You know if I could do anything ..."

Dugan's glare stopped him cold. "A few days?"

"I ..." Stanton tossed the folder onto the table, throwing his hands into the air. "I've been up to my eyeballs swimming in this! Do you have any idea what it's going to require to pass code in this short of time?"

"A graveyard," Dugan said.

Shannon's face went a shade whiter, her eyes darting to Stanton. Though they both knew what went on behind locked doors they preferred to feign ignorance. Who could blame them?

"Find your own Flash team," Dugan said. "My men are busy."

"What, chasing rabid dogs? Newsflash – that's over!" Shannon said.

"We're in clean up mode." Stanton's voice was much calmer than his side kick's.

"You're in cleanup mode," Dugan said, pointing with his finger. He felt the anger racing through his veins, pulsing in his head. He needed to hit something. Destroy something. Instead he balled his hands into fists and brought them down to his side. "Give me a week."

"Dugan, I can't ..."

"A week!"

Shannon took a step back, holding one hand protectively against her chest.

Stanton nodded. It wasn't like Dugan had been asking. "Okay but I've got to prep for this, beginning tomorrow," he said. "I wait a week and we'll all be strung up. You understand. Tell Morley I'm sorry. It's ... been a good run."

"You get in my way, and you won't be here by the time the inspectors arrive. Understand?" Dugan said.

This time Stanton's nodding looked like a man begging for his life. "A week," he said. "Then I expect your full support."

"A week and you'll have it," Dugan said. "Shannon." He tilted his head as he ducked from the room, stepping over the ground up cigarette that she would no doubt be cleaning up.

Somehow Oso had known. Dugan had no idea how, but it was the only explanation for why the man had opted not to come. Cy, Zephyr, and Oso made up his executive team – their opinions were ones he trusted and they were men he could not only rely on, but that would bring their own unique insight.

A week.

What the hell could he hope to accomplish in a week that he hadn't been able to in the past year? Maybe throw a coup and supplant Stanton in more than just influence.

Coups did seem to go over well in this country.

Dugan felt his hand touching the notebook in his breast pocket. He had given up everything for this. What did it matter if others were asked to sacrifice the same?

Or what did it matter if they were never asked.

## Verse XVI.

"Welcome to my humble commode," Sir William said.

The house, if it could be called a house, looked like a complex mathematician's problem. Its base cylindrical with a dome atop, sporting odd sharp angles in some sort of polyhedral equation. Faye was pretty sure the sum of those parts did not add up.

"Looks like a giant golf ball on a tee," Donavon said.

"Maybe a deformed golf ball," Faye said.

"Yes, yes it does."

"What's it for?" Donavon asked.

"The golf ball? Or the tee?" Sir William chuckled.

A low block wall encircled the home with an awry gate that shrieked with their entrance. Off to the side of the yard was a garden with all manner of vegetables in neat planted lines – beans, pumpkins, tomatoes, and a few Faye didn't recognize from their eager sprouts.

Sir William led them to the front door below a stooped perch, unlocking it and gesturing them through.

As soon as Faye entered she was attacked.

Something grabbed her, snagging onto her hair and clawing at her back. She screamed – reaching out to the wall for balance as she batted at her head.

"Get it off! Get it off!"

Beside her Donavon laughed.

The creature freed itself, landing on top of a wooden rocking chair. It leapt from bookshelf to picture frame then disappeared up a twisting iron-wrought staircase. A spider monkey, its fur golden brown with a black tail.

The picture frame fell to the floor with a clatter. There was no glass in it; apparently this wasn't the first time it had fallen.

"You'll have to excuse my flat-mate, I hadn't the chance to inform him guests would be arriving." Sir William closed the door behind him.

"Where's the camera crew when you need them?" Donavon said, still smiling.

Faye shivered, the thought of that thing crawling all over her.

"Spree?" Sir William made a sucking sound with his teeth. "Spree? Oh, now, you've scared him off!"

He dropped his cane against a couch and moved toward the small kitchen in the back, walking with a slight limp. The room was crowded with furniture, old sitting chairs and sofas with tight end-tables between, piles of books stacked across most surfaces. A drooping counter separated the living room from the kitchen. Tiny cockroaches fled into cracks at the kitchen lights coming aglow. A large wrinkled map was draped over the far sofa, partially opened next to a topographical globe, one of the old-school ones, that spins within its casing.

Sir William banged around in the kitchen, pots clanging together as he called out to make themselves at home. Donavon asked about a bathroom and went to the door just past the stairway.

"Don't flush the toilet paper," Sir William shouted after him. "There's a can by the sink! Pipes are sensitive that way."

Something on the arm of the couch caught Faye's attention, a streaked stain that ended in a hardened clump, almost like a mold. She scratched at it with a fingernail, pieces breaking away like clay. She brought it to her face, instantly regretting it.

Feces.

Hopefully the monkeys.

On the way to the house they had told Sir William their reason for being here. Surprisingly he had been almost as excited as Faye herself, telling them how he hated that infernal refinery, his term for the lumber mill. They discovered he had been living in the country for twelve years now, was an astronomer, philosopher, widower, aspiring author, and highly functioning drunk.

Those last two go hand in hand, he had said.

The 'Sir' came from marrying well, though he hadn't been inclined to expound other than to tell them when his wife passed he had felt the need to lift the chains of responsibility and flee to the remotest place he could find.

He had been here ever since.

When Faye had mentioned what had happened with their colleagues, Sir William casually stated he was friends with the governor of the state. He'd place a phone call in the morning that would see their friends released from prison. Faye hoped that wasn't the booze talking.

With Donavon out of earshot, she sat at the counter, their host preparing a drink in the kitchen. A concoction of fresh vegetables, juice and a lot of brandy.

"Have you met any other Americans here in the past two years?" Faye asked, trying for casual conversation.

"Some. Most tourists never get down quite this far South, less lately though who can blame them."

"What about someone who's not a tourist? A scientist, named James Dugan. Have you heard of him?"

"I make it my practice to know as few people as possible. Safer that way. You should try it." He turned the blender on, its mechanical roar keeping the conversation from continuing.

When Donavon returned he did so with a friend. The spider monkey sat atop his shoulder, one arm wrapped around his thick neck, its tail flicking across his back.

"You name him Spree for the candy?" he asked.

"Candy? No, for the trouble he's caused me," Sir William answered. "One continual destruction spree after another. Last month he sent my computer monitor down the stairs. Honestly I don't know why I have anything nice."

As Donavon sat next to Faye, the monkey jumped down onto the counter and scrambled across, jostling dishes, before climbing up their host. Once comfortable, it bared its teeth at Faye and hissed.

"Now, now, manners," Sir William said, filling four glasses with the green mulch-like liquid from the blender. He set one in front of each of them, leaving the fourth by the sink. Spree hopped down, overturning the glass and began to slurp it up with both paws.

Sir William uncorked a bottle of rum, emptying its remains into his glass. "Cheers!" he said, eyes heavy and red but all smiles.

After a light meal of crackers, salty and wet cheeses, and fresh deli meats, along with several more glasses of "magic juice," as Sir William called it, he led them up the winding staircase.

Faye caught her breath as she entered the room above. The odd angles and sharp faces of the dome outside came together in an intricate design, its black ceilinged walls reflecting an array of stars like she had never seen before. It was like watching the galaxy form around you.

She spun in a circle, staring up at what could have passed for sky, only hundreds of light years closer.

"It's amazing," she uttered.

Donavon moved over to a network of telescopes aimed up through an open slat in the ceiling. "How did you ..."

"I've always had an affinity for sleeping beneath the stars," Sir William said, a tinge of sadness to his words.

Beyond the telescopes and computers networked to a globed projector, a mattress lie in the corner almost as an afterthought. One worn dresser and a desk crowded with overturned books, papers and drawings.

"Look here," Sir William said, using a laser pointer to circle an array of stars displayed on the ceiling. "The constellation Scorpius, the only scorpion you'll find in these parts. Those three stars in a row form its head, then we follow it down with the curve of its tail here. Proof that our ancestors had imaginations, no? This brighter red star in its center is Antares, fifteen times the size of our sun. Can you imagine? And here, this shiny cluster near its tail almost in the shape of a butterfly? That's M7, commonly referred to as Ptolemy's cluster. Astronomers have been staring at these same stars, these exact formations, for centuries. Nothing like the heavens to ground humanity."

"You built this?" Donavon said.

"Engineered it, yes, though the benefit of having some money enables me to delegate the physical labor. I'm sure one day you'll get there, chap," he said, clapping Donavon on the shoulder. "If the blinking lights on the ceiling keep you from sleep, this lever here will close the window above." He pronounced the word 'leever.' "There are fans in the corner, I'll see to some clean sheets. It is a bit drab. I'm afraid I've never had a need for more."

"It's amazing," Faye said.

"Where, uh, should we –"

"The bed, of course," Sir William said. "It's not often I have a celebrity and a beautiful woman grace my home."

"You don't have to ..." Faye began.

"Oh, shush, I prefer the couch. Just don't be surprised if Spree joins you at some point in the night. He loves to spoon."

Once they settled in, new sheets on the mattress and Sir William shutting the lights out below, Donavon held Faye's hand as they lay next to each other staring up at the brilliant stars.

After a while, Faye spoke. "It's just like the rainforest; looking up at all these stars. You don't realize how big it is until you see it. Makes you feel small but ... important. Like your part of something bigger. Connected."

"I wonder if I could hire whoever built it for him," Donavon said.

"Stop." Faye hit him lightly on his chest. "Some things are so beautiful you can't replicate them."

"Like you?" he asked.

"That was reaching, even for you."

He barked out a laugh beside her.

"We are like these stars, though," she continued. "You put one of us out there in the dark, all alone? You won't even see our glow. But put us all together and we make the heavens shine. We're making a difference here. Tomorrow. You'll see."

Soon Donavon's breathing became heavy, his grip relaxing in her hand. Faye finally dozed off, her thoughts flitting like the gaseous streaks of a thousand suns regarding the incredible potential of humanity. For generosity and kindness, even to complete strangers. And also its potential for cruelty and destruction.

## Verse XVII.

Dugan watched the monitors scroll from screen to screen, crouched beside a computer terminal. One of the IT tech-heads, a runner by his lean physique and thick calves, navigated at the computer, a scowl on his face.

Oso sat to the tech's right on a fold-out metal chair, sharpening one of his curved long blades on a whetstone. Dugan still wasn't sure what the blade was made of, its metal dark and black, almost liquid in appearance. He could almost see the invisible threads where the sheets of metal had been folded into itself, layer upon layer, like a samurai's sword.

"I'm not finding anything," the tech said, running one hand through his bed-head hair. "I'd almost have to repurpose the software ..."

"We've done it before," Dugan said, blowing a cloud of smoke toward the wiry man. He and the technician had already resolved the issue of the 'no-smoking' policy in the control room.

A stream of formulas appeared on a new blue screen, the technician typing away then looking to the second monitor on his left. "The FV-5 is a sedative not a homing device. It's not meant to track animals but bring 'em down."

"You're wasting my time," Dugan said with an air of finality. "Can you do this or do I need to get someone more competent?"

The technician's mouth pulled to the side, a nervous twitch or tic he was probably unaware of. His fingers rattled against the keyboard. "Yeah, I can do it."

While the majority of the employees here were kept in the dark as to his team's real research, Dugan's reputation was such that when he asked, they jumped. Only afterward would they inquire if it was high enough.

Oso slid his long knife onto the tech's desk, the bleary eyed man pausing only briefly before continuing. Oso pulled the marker from behind his ear, his small notebook open on his lap. When he had finished writing he ripped the sheet free and handed it to Dugan.

Something wrong

"With what?" Dugan asked.

The technician turned around. "What?"

"Not you." Dugan turned back to Oso. "Not him, right?"

Oso shook his head once.

The tech pulled on the collar of his shirt nervously. Dugan couldn't blame him.

"You don't think we should go after him?" Dugan asked.

The lines in Oso's face crinkled. He wrote:

Not that

Then what? Dugan thought.

If he hadn't held Oso's instincts in such high regard it would have been easy to dismiss him out of hand. But experience had made Dugan a believer. At least in trusting the native's intuition.

It was strange having a mute as your confidante but Dugan had never known anyone who could understand his thoughts as clearly as the native. Sometimes he even found himself wondering if Oso, like many of the supposed aboriginals, didn't have some spark of telepathic ability.

Oso began writing then tore the page out, crumbling it into a ball and tossing it at the waste basket below the desk. His next message he handed to Dugan, his eyes wide, head shaking.

Can't explain

"Is he still out there?"

Oso nodded. He knew Dugan wasn't talking about Guayanata.

"He knows we're looking for him?"

Another nod.

"What kind of animal'd you say it was?" the technician asked.

Dugan watched as the closest monitor revealing a map started diving in, an after image of each screen shot morphing into a closer and closer view. Finally the screen settled, a red crosshairs blinking at its center.

If only you knew how appropriate that was, Dugan thought.

"I had to re-triangulate the coda, capturing an increased expression in isoforms of haptoglobin caused by the serum's blotting of protein –"

The tech cut off as Oso stood, leaning over him to jot down the coordinates.

"I don't need to know what happens when I flick a light switch," Dugan said. "I just need the light to turn on."

Oso's hair fell into the man's face, the tech turning slightly while trying not to make it obvious. As Oso finished, he grabbed his knife from the desk, the side of the blade brushing against the tech's arm. The tech gave an almost imperceptible squeak.

"Wake the others," Dugan said. "I need to see Morley before we're off."

As Oso turned to leave the room, Dugan reached down and grabbed the crumpled paper the native had tossed away, unfolding it as he followed the man out.

"You know you could at least say thanks!" the technician shouted after them. "All the crap we do for you, at your beck and call regardless of the hour ... do you even know my name?"

The thud of Dugan's boots coming to a stop on the tiled floor seemed to quiet even the tower of servers buzzing behind him. Cords and wires floated to the ceiling before snaking invisibly through the rest of the facility.

On the discarded note were written the words:

Maybe a trap

Dugan turned back, the technician wilting beneath his stare. "Trust me pal, you don't want me to know your name."

## Verse XVIII.

The prison was more like a horse corral: dank, dark, and eerily deserted. Windows within each cell allowed a drift of light into the long corridor, enough to see you didn't want to see more. The smell of the place was overpowering, like the mortar between blocks had been crafted from human excrement and re-applied daily. It required all of Faye's efforts not to turn around and march right back out.

The guard who led them swung a rusty iron gate to the side, opening the way in. She hoped it would remain open on their way out.

Eight cells, four on either side.

More than the hotel rooms in town, Faye realized.

"Oh gawd that's foul," Donavon said.

The ground was covered in matted and muddy straw, sticking to their feet as they trod through. Further in, the smell only worsened.

Faye pulled her shirt up to cover her nose and mouth. Ordinarily the act would have made her feel foolish, but this was no ordinary stench.

As the guard passed the second cell on the right, liquid sprayed out as if thrown from a bucket, sloshing between the bars and catching him by surprise. It splattered his uniform, dripping down the side of his face and coat arm.

Donavon extended one arm out in front of Faye protectively. This was new territory for both of them.

The guard turned toward the cell without even a change in countenance. A bubbling laughter spilled from the other side of the bars, rising like a monkey's chortle, definitely the voice of a woman.

That's the sound of insanity, Faye thought, wishing there were some moments you could take back, voices you could erase from memory.

It wasn't the first time that wish had crossed her mind.

The guard spun through his ring of keys pulling a baton from his side belt then dug the key in to the side door. The gate swung out and he stepped inside, Faye losing sight of him. She closed her eyes at the sound of his club striking flesh again and again, another violation she didn't want in her head.

Thwack – thwack – thwack.

It continued long after the laughter subsided, the whimpering began, and the howls followed. It continued until whoever was in that cell was incapable of making a noise.

Thwack – thwack.

Donavon held Faye's arm just below the shoulder; she wasn't sure when he had grabbed hold of her but was grateful he had.

Minutes past. What felt like days.

When the beating finally stopped, the guard exited. He didn't even bother closing the gate to the cell, instead nodding for them to follow. He continued as if nothing had happened, moving to the final cell in the back.

Donavon brought his arm around Faye's waist, keeping her away from the cell. "Don't look," he said.

They stepped around the sloshed liquid, Faye once again covering her nose and mouth. No wonder the guard had been so upset. She was sure now those clumps of matted straw sticking to her shoes were not mud.

Despite Donavon's warning, and her better judgment, she couldn't keep herself from glancing inside the cell as they passed. The first thing that struck her was how bare it seemed. No toilet, no sink, no mattress or cot, just an overturned bucket and lumpy pile of discolored blankets on the ground. The straw here too was stained with liquid, but not feces; blood.

It was spattered all around the blankets, the woman trying to ward off the blows with a thin layer of cloth. And then Faye's mouth dropped.

She looked away, her breath catching.

There were no blankets in the cell – that lumpy form huddled into a misshapen mass of spoiled color, was the prisoner. The only thing that kept her from going to her knees was Donavon at her side. Still, she had to swallow the bile slipping up her throat.

Inside the last cell three faces stared out at her, all ghostly pale. The big guy, Kenny, looked like he had been crying. The intern was the only one standing, the exhaustion in his eyes a clear sign he hadn't sat since entering last night. Both Kenny and Grey were hunkered on the floor, Grey's knees brought up to his chest, both leaning against a filthy and probably disease-ridden wall.

"Hey," Grey said.

"Hey," Faye answered, followed by a sharp intake of breath. The guard rattled through his ring of keys.

"Come to join us or we joinin' you?" Grey asked.

Faye nodded, Donavon catching her inability to speak.

"We're getting you out," he said.

"Thank God," the intern said.

Grey swallowed hard, nodding. "Find a place to stay?"

Faye felt the tears break through the dam, rushing down her cheeks. She wiped at them quickly, callously. "You're okay?"

"No," Grey said. "This was not okay."

"Come on, we're leaving here now." Donavon extended his hand down, pulling Grey to his feet.

"We going home?" the intern asked, his voice like a child's asking his parent for permission.

"Yeah," Donavon said.

Eventually, Faye thought.

## Verse XIX.

"'In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.'"

Josue repeated the words but in Spanish, switching from the worn King James Bible to the smaller Reina-Valera Spanish translation. He always read from both hoping to instill a desire to learn English in any who studied with him. Not that there were many who did.

Or any, ordinarily.

A small group of children sat at his feet, their parents watching from a distance in their partitioned four-by-four cubicles made up of stained sheets and faux-marbled floors. Natural disasters and tragedies often had a way of bringing people to God, but the parents of the families who had come to the church for shelter weren't yet ready to seek a deity who had so recently struck them down. Remmy couldn't blame them.

One of the children, a girl with light skin and eyes too large for her face, raised her hand before Josue could continue. He called her by name, asking what she wanted. Remmy didn't understand her response, the Spanish spoken much too fast for his old ears.

Instead of answering, Josue turned to Remmy. "She has a question that I do not know the answer. What was there before the beginning?"

"By definition, the beginning is the start," Remmy said.

"But did God exist before the beginning? Or how could he have created everything?"

"The scriptures don't talk about it, neither should we."

"Did he create the earth from nothing?" Josue asked.

The absolute innocence and faith staring back at him made Remmy want to answer. Even if it was a lie. "I don't believe God is a magician. But maybe to us, what he does looks like magic. I believe he's bound by the laws of science, even if we can't comprehend them. Like the first cavemen. They were in awe over fire, almost worshipping it. Its science, they just didn't understand it yet."

"Were the cavemen after Adam and Eve?" Josue asked.

Remmy realized he was opening more doors than he cared to close. "God probably created the earth and the heavens using ... materials that were here just ... unformed. He fashioned them, so to speak, put them together. Took chaos and put it in order."

"So chaos existed before the beginning?"

And ever since the beginning, Remmy thought.

"Theologians have debated these things for centuries, Josue, but no one knows for sure. Why don't you use the picture books for the young ones? They'll understand them better."

He pushed past the small group, leaving before Josue could ask him another question. Questions to which there were no answers.

In the adjoining classroom where the kitchenette resided, two motherly women were busy at the gas powered stove. A pot of black beans and another of rice. Cachapas cooking in a frying pan filled with grease.

The contents weren't enough to feed half of the mouths in the church and their small storage shelves held little more than what was being used. Funds were almost non-existent; he wouldn't be able to support this many people for long.

If there was ever a time for miracles, this was it.

Remmy squeezed by the two women, thanking them for their help, then went through the back kitchen door. He closed it behind him with effort, the cut of the oversized door scraping against the bottom frame.

Once outside, he leaned back against the stone wall of the church, sucking in gasps of air. The sun beat down on his face and he closed his eyes against its affront.

It was important, on occasion, to recognize that the prison bars around you weren't there for decoration.

The panic attack finally ran its course, Remmy's breathing returning to normal. Or at least what amounted to normal when stuck behind a life that wasn't his.

"In the beginning, God created heaven and hell. The earth, that was hell," Remmy said. He wiped at the sweat on his face before turning back to the door, jostling it with his shoulder to get it to open. "And God saw that it was good."

## Verse XX.

Grey unzipped a pocket on the waist strap of his Kenmore pack removing a pair of Rayban sunglasses. The sun had already crept over the trees in the East and was enough to give him an early headache. That and the smell of feces with every breath of air he inhaled. God, what he'd give for a shower.

He and his band of unlucky desperados marched down the dirt road leading back to the center of town, luggage and equipment in tow. At least most of it. The emergency supplies and food were gone; Faye had been told the local police would be distributing them. Grey suspected not even the officer speaking with Faye had believed that tall tale.

One of their camera bags had also vanished as well as every iPad and cellphone. At least they had recovered a few of the laptops, though Grey's MacBook and Malcolm's Dell had gone missing. Luckily, Grey had backed up his content on several zip drives. Malcolm had been livid, but Grey convinced him not to bring it up. When the mob steals from you, you don't ask for your money back, you just thank God you lived to tell about it.

And then you never tell about it.

Several baby chicks darted beneath a crumbling fence on the side of the road disappearing into patches of weed and snag-grass. Kenny hiccupped loudly, a long drawn out chortle that was unlike anything Grey had heard before. Grey quickly decided against asking him what was so funny. The biggest realization of how dejected they were came when he noticed not a single one of them had thought to film their walk from the prison. Maybe it didn't matter anymore.

"I should never have come here," Malcolm said. "I don't even like Mexican food."

Despite everything, Grey laughed.

"This ain't Mexico, bro. You seen any Taco Bells around?" Kenny asked, followed by a loud hiccup. The large rolling crate of camera equipment he dragged behind him left a jittery trail in the dirt.

"Helicopters ready?" Grey asked. "They're still here right?"

"One of them, yeah," Faye answered. The bag hanging from her shoulder pulled her beige collared shirt down, revealing more of the tattoo than Grey had seen before. It made him wonder where the rest of that calligraphic beast had wound itself.

"Only one?"

"The other left soon after we arrived," Faye said.

"So how do we call it back?" Kenny asked.

Here it comes, Grey thought.

"We have to wait until it returns. Besides we haven't accomplished what we came here for."

Both Malcolm and Kenny stopped, a loud hiccup escaping from Kenny. They both turned to Grey, the silent and unanimously-chosen ambassador of the film crew. Though that vote had apparently been taken without his knowledge.

This was a battle, however, he was ready to fight.

"Do you have any idea what we've been through?" He kept his voice calm. Something that required an immense amount of effort. He let his pack slump to the dirt road. "We could have been killed in there and no one would have known. Do you honestly think anyone would notice a few more missing bodies amongst the wreckage from this earthquake?"

"There's not that much wreckage," Faye began.

"You don't get it – these people, they don't have rules! They locked us up because we're American. What do you think'll happen when we try shutting down their plant? A nice civil conversation? Open negotiation? No! They're likely to shove machine guns down our throats!"

"He's right," Donavon said, folding his arms. "It's not worth risking our lives over."

Faye let her bag slip down off her shoulder, not bothering to straighten her shirt. A white tank top poked out from beneath. No one else spoke, yet she looked at each of them in turn, her barrel of a boyfriend included.

A loud hiccup escaped from Kenny's open mouth.

"That's it? One setback and you're ready to jump ship? After everything it's taken to get us this far, two years of planning, preparing for this day, this event! I mean did you really think we wouldn't encounter some opposition? That we'd march in to cheers on the streets, streamers in the air? That we'd be heroes? Is that what you thought?

"Well get over yourselves! This is bigger than you or me or any one of us. I don't care if I have to set up a tripod and march around in a circle filming myself, I am going to get this footage and I am going to shut this plant down even if it's just for a single day, a single hour, because I believe in our cause. And I believe there are millions of others who would fight right alongside us if they just knew how; knew that others cared. That they could ... make a difference."

She waited for a response but no one had one.

"There's a reason our campaign is called Regener–Nation," Faye continued, speaking softer. "We can't do this alone. We need a nation, an army, the whole world on our side, but if you make me, I'll do it alone. I'll try. I'd die trying."

Twenty minutes later Grey found himself standing in front of the road to the lumber mill recording a now disheveled looking Donavon as he told the story of how they had been thrown into prison. Dirt had been applied to his face like makeup before a scene, his clothing torn. He carried it off like a hero, jaw set, his eyes full of sparkling hope.

"No obstacle will stop us from doing what we came here to do," he said. "Because each of us, no matter our circumstance, can make a difference."

He just needed someone to give him his lines, Grey thought. Maybe they all had.

He smiled back at the performing actor, giving a thumbs up and said, "Perfect."

## Verse XXI.

A great big splotch of green crème fell from the pastry Zachary Morley bit into, hitting the ground with a disgusting splat. Ear buds hung from the top of his faded Aerosmith t-shirt, dangling down between the flaps of his lab coat.

Dugan flicked his fingers impatiently against the leg of his Columbia pants, the fabric making a flitting noise. Not surprisingly the screen on the wall display Morley tapped at was filthy with dried swipes of oily food from whenever he had last entered the Freezer.

The section of the hallway they stood in rocked side to side briefly, a precursor to their descent. And then a four foot section of flooring began to lower, Morley stepping away from the wall. As soon as they passed beneath the ground level, a replacement floor slid into place.

The faux flooring was eight feet thick, all but guaranteeing it would go unnoticed by any casual observer in the Facility. Not that anyone with access to the area above could be considered casual, but with the stakes as high as they were, no precaution had been deemed unnecessary. Not even Stanton knew where the entrance to the Freezer was located.

"When were you gonna tell me?" Morley shouted at Dugan once the flooring overhead had sealed completely. His words echoed in the thick polycarbonate tubing they rode through.

"You think I knew about them pulling the plug?"

"Screw the plug, we just find another outlet. Plugs are universal." He made a ring with one hand, sticking his finger in and out. "I'm talking about your man. Escaping. Flying the coop."

"We'll get him."

"You're gettin' old, Dugan," Morley said. "Losing your touch."

"Yeah? Well if you had your shit together I wouldn't be forced to look for alternatives. God knows we have enough guinea pigs for you to work on."

"Ah, I don't believe that for a second. You'd find some reason to keep up the hunt. It's what men like you do." Morley stuffed the last of his pastry into his mouth, wiping his fingers on his coattails. Green goop clung to the front of his beard.

"At least one of us gets results," Dugan said.

"Man, the stuff we're doing down here? No one'll come close to in twenty years. If I could publish this I'd be set for life."

"You'd also be in prison."

"Eh, to each their own. Remember, no smoking."

Dugan felt the drop in temperature immediately as the platform lowered into the center of the dark warehouse. Even without being able to see much there was a sense of vastness here, like you had entered a huge cavern with no end. The air felt electric; alive, as if unimaginable creatures were pressed to the very edges of where the light failed.

"Be a shame to see all this go to waste," Morley said absently. He pressed a button on a small penlight keychain, grabbing a remote from a pillar next to the landing.

Dugan followed him through a winding path in the dark.

"You haven't asked what I'm about to show you," Morley said.

"You're about to show me. Why should I ask?"

"New guy working out?"

"The Kid? Yeah, he's alright."

"You should have seen the knockers on the assistant they sent me the other day. Would've made Dolly Parton look flat!" Morley said, his breathing heavy from their walk.

"What, was she tripping on them?"

"We all were!" Morley said, laughing.

They stopped in front of a number painted on the ground. D-114. Reflecting off of Morley's light, the numbers seemed to glow with an eerie luminescence. Morley pulled the remote from his pocket, a device that looked like a smartphone. Keyed something in.

A sharp light broke through the darkness from overhead, shining down on a lone hospital bed. The body of a small native child lay prone upon it, cords and wires zipping from his arms, neck and head.

He was unconscious, eyes not even roaming behind his closed lids. Only the slight rise and fall of the sheet above his chest gave sign that he was in fact alive. The bed dwarfed him, making it feel as if the white sheets and mattress were slowly consuming him.

In a way, Dugan thought, they were.

The machinery and hospital equipment surrounding the bed were half cast in shadow, humming softly in a language no human understood.

Morley stepped to the edge of the bed, pulling the sheet back from the boy's body. He was naked beneath, a grotesque scar like a maniacal smile crossing his lower abdomen.

"You know we don't even bother stitching them anymore?" Morley traced the jagged curve of the scar with one finger. "I mean look at this, after two days? The acceleration of fibrous tissue and collagen equates to almost four weeks of recuperation."

Dugan remained where Morley had left him, the light passing just over his head. "Now I'm asking. I know you didn't bring me here to admire your artwork."

Morley's finger continued sweeping across the boy's skin, his face enraptured. "We broke new ground with this one. Removed his pancreas, intestines and stomach."

"How long?"

"I told you, two days ago. And he's still here, clinging to life. But it's the organs, Dugan, that I'm really proud of – they're still alive! Repairing themselves almost as fast as they're dying! We're close." Morley put his face next to the child's skin and inhaled deeply. "I want to do a heart next. See how long it'll keep beating."

"Congratulations. You're a modern Doctor Frankenstein. Now while you're busy diddling your ex-experiments do I need to hire someone who will actually do what needs to be done? Isolating whatever it is that gives these primitives their regenerative abilities?"

"There is no way to isolate it! Not when there's no it! If you were a little smarter I would go into the pathogenic mutations in their millions of genomic variants and the billions of microbiomes unique to their exome sequencing. The homozygous variants we've identified through SNP microarrays during the prioritization process contain more potential causative mutations than horny school girls at a Justin Beiber concert. In layman's terms, it's like looking for a particular person with squinty eyes in China."

"So much for being close."

"Oh, man, really? You're really gonna go there? You and your band of outlaws searching for a mythical sasquatch?" Morley left the bed, coming over to stand directly in front of Dugan. The overhead light shone on the top of his head, highlighting his greasy brown and greying locks. "Even if you found him – if he even exists – what makes you think he'd sign up to help you, this Shaman? Your profound reciprocity?"

"He exists. And trust me, he'll have no choice. Not if he wants to save his people."

"What if he doesn't?" Morley asked. "I mean, if he was out there don't you think he would've shown himself by now? If for no other reason than to stop you? Look around, Dugan. I'm surprised there are any natives left."

A squawk sounded from the walkie-talkie on Dugan's belt. He turned away, using it as an excuse to break from Morley's terrible breath. "Yeah."

Zephyr's voice came from the small device. "Boyscouts're ready."

"Be there in five," Dugan said.

"Copy."

Dugan clipped the walkie-talkie back in. "We're going to find this Shaman and he's going to break open whatever code you and your boys have missed and then you and I and everyone involved with Umner Corps are going to change the world. Morley?"

Dugan stepped around the man who stood as if frozen in place. He was only semi-conscious of his own mouth dropping open.

The native child in the bed was sitting up.

Dugan unholstered his gun, a semi-automatic Glock, in a single motion, raising it to point at the child. He glanced from side to side. Of all the monsters creeping in the dark one had just woke. How many others were conscious?

"No way, man, no frickin' way. This can't be happening," Morley said. "It's impossible."

"If the past year has taught us anything, it's that that word has ... limitations," Dugan said.

The kid twitched violently, body going taut. His back began to arch, head staring straight up. It looked like he was being controlled by invisible strings, his body torquing in ways Dugan had believed only possible in the movies. Movies like the Exorcist.

Morley was panting. He kept blinking and rubbing at his eyes, maybe wondering if he wasn't hallucinating. Dugan knew the man was wont to the occasional acid tab, finding occasions with some regularity. Maybe he thought he was just on another trip.

"Why isn't he bound? Morley!"

"I, uh ... I must have forgot." Morley hit into the metal shelving, having backed up as far from the bed as he could. A scalpel and thin pair of forceps fell to the floor with a rattle.

Still staring up at the darkness above, the kid opened his mouth as if preparing to speak.

Instead he screamed.

Shrill and unearthly, his cry was worse than a siren's blare. Morley moaned, squeezing his head with both hands.

Dugan shot forward to put an end to the hysterics when the boy's head whipped around, his scream silenced. He stared directly at Dugan. Looking but not seeing. One arm stretched out toward him, a finger extending. Then the child began to chant.

"Shan'ti K'lompi Lia'hona K'lan Malaki-ahkan ..." The kid continued speaking almost without breath.

"Get Oso down here now!" Dugan shouted.

Morley's feet skid on the tiled floor as he turned and fled. Dugan unsnapped his walkie-talkie. "Zephyr, get the Bear to the war hall asap. Doc's on his way." He didn't register whatever Zephyr said in response, listening instead to the monosyllabic message spilling from the kids' mouth.

"... Bela'aal Shan'tu-kompi Inktomi ..."

A penetrating alarm sounded from everywhere at once, bleating in rhythmic pulses. One by one every overhead light flickered on, the entire room awash with an artificial glow. Dugan blinked, letting his eyes adjust.

"... Fehener Takushkansh'kan La'a'ione ..."

Takushkansh'kan.

The name of the Shaman.

Dugan stared into the vacant eyes of the child wondering who was looking back at him. Like staring into a camera lens trying to glimpse whoever was on the other side. His heart pattered at an accelerated rate, his throat tightening. Without looking away he pulled the worn pack from his back pocket, shaking out a cigarette and bringing it to his lips.

Looking into those unseeing eyes, he shouted, "I'm coming for you. You hear me in there? I'm coming for you!"

Around him row upon row of hospital beds now had lights shining down on their occupants – men, women, children, their names in the only book Dugan believed in.

The book that would change the world.

The book in the pocket of his blazer.

"Tell him if you can," Dugan said. "I'm coming."

## Verse XXII.

The perimeter around the lumber mill was cordoned off by a thick fence of standing logs dug deep into the earth. Totem poles, one lined up after the next, bolding pronouncing the sins of a corporate machine fed by greed and avarice. It created an impenetrable wall twelve feet tall or higher, blocking all but the tallest of structures within from sight.

The dirt road leading into the mill was wide, a thick metal gate pulled back on both sides of the fencing. Even from outside the noise was overpowering – saws screaming, engines rumbling, heavy equipment and machinery in constant motion.

Sir William stood at the entrance leaning heavily on his wooden cane. He wore a dark silver suit with a ruffled white shirt beneath and looked more like a has-been rock star than a philanthropist astronomer. Faye was surprised to see him.

"You came," she said.

"My dear, was there any doubts as to whether I might?" Despite the early hour, the smell of sour brandy poured off his breath. "I see you managed to save the day?"

"You're the one who deserves that credit. Meet the rest of our group," she said, introducing them one by one. Grey came to her rescue with the name of the intern. Malcolm. She needed to remember that.

"Sir William was kind enough to open his home to us last night," Donavon said, sensing the group's questions. "He also pulled some strings to help us get you out this morning."

Grey nodded, Kenny and Malcolm offering awkward thanks.

"I should have mentioned he might be joining us," Faye said. "He liked the idea of our protest and wanted to help." She didn't mention she had thought he'd be too hammered to remember.

"So do we have a plan?" Sir William asked.

"Storm the gates?" Kenny said.

"Try not to get arrested again?" Grey added.

Faye frowned at him. "We stick together; that's the plan. And whatever happens, do not stop filming."

They entered the dirt path between the two fence posts, Faye making sure Grey and Kenny both got shots of the log fence. Kenny recorded the group walking while Grey's camera roamed over the large yard. Malcolm carried a microphone attached to a long pole he had assembled from one of their bags, a boom mic, they called it.

Along the perimeter of the fence were bundles of stripped tree trunks. Strapped together, they were easily wider and taller than a house. They were bound with thick metal wire then stacked atop each other in pile after pile. Thousands of trees lying inert. Helpless.

"Most milling companies claim to plant a tree for every one they cut down," Faye said, facing the camera. She raised her voice to be heard over the chaos around them, despite Malcolm's mic hanging overhead.

Donavon moved in next to her, his jaw set as he looked off in the distance.

Faye continued, "From the sheer amount of deforestation taking place around the world we know those numbers are an impossibility. According to the FDFAO, approximately five thousand acres of forests are disappearing every hour, victims to the kind of butchery you see before you. And for every thousand trees that are torn down for consumption, a single sapling will be planted. Considering the average maturation for a tree to yield enough lumber for harvesting is between twenty to forty years, we're looking at a cycle that is unsustainable, cannibalizing itself within the next two decades."

"Unless something changes," Donavon said, giving the camera his best soap opera stare.

As they walked, Faye pointed across the lot to where the finished timber was stored beneath aluminum canopies. Each covered canopy stretched further in length than a football field.

"Most mills such as the one here in Venezuela convert their logs into lumber for easier transport. Over half of the world's timber and almost three-fourths of the world's paper goods are consumed by just a fifth of the world's population: The United States, Europe and Japan."

Faye and her team moved off the road as several heavy duty trucks rolled past and out the gates. Wood chips and sawdust flew into the air with their passing. Faye rubbed at her eyes, trying to remove the microscopic slivers.

Some of the trucks dragged open inverted trailers meant to transport logs; others carried smaller yet more dangerous vehicles, the ones with twisting arms and angular saws, mechanical centipedes that were always hungry and never satisfied.

Grey shouted, "It's too loud – let's just pick up the shots and we'll overdub voice work."

"Probably better to have Donavon saying this anyway," she said.

Grey nodded in agreement.

Large cranes bowed overhead with the load of logs, transporting them to where their dissection would begin. Sawdust spit from a giant tower connected to one of a series of buildings. A dump truck below whisked the pulp to an incinerator manned by several Venezuelans all wearing heat masks, the two rising plumes of smoke they had spotted the previous day being vented out of two shafts.

Other workers moved about ignoring Faye and her companions, forklifts trucking past, men – and even women – all wearing heavy gloves, plastic goggles and earplugs. She was surprised there were no hardhats.

"Where to?" Donavon bellowed.

Faye barely heard him over the sheer level of noise, the sounds of industry at war with the peacefulness of the jungle beyond the fences.

"Is there an office?" she yelled, looking about.

Sir William shrugged nonchalantly. "It's Venezuela, darling."

It was answer enough, she supposed.

"Then we go inside. The conveyor lines!"

They moved toward the main industrial building. Roll-up gates wide enough for tractors revealed a labyrinth of machinery inside. A few workers watched as they passed, not a single one coming to investigate their reason for being there.

Well if you don't come to us, we will certainly go to you, she thought. Donavon clamped his hand on her shoulder and she knew, that in this moment, they were about to make history.

## Verse XXIII.

Footfalls echoed in the Freezer, the sounds of someone being chased. At the end of the long row of hospital beds and occupants, a haggard Dr. Morley appeared. He bent down, hands resting on knees. Even from this distance Dugan could see the heavy rise and fall of his chest, his heart working overtime.

Oso quickly appeared, passing Morley without pause. Another man and woman were a few steps behind him, both in lab coats.

None of Dugan's men had ever set foot in the Freezer before, content to play their part and nothing more. They all knew what happened down here to some extent. Rumors of this place were alive everywhere in the Facility, a security issue Blake was not only aware of but encouraged. Hushed whispers and dark secrets spreading from ear to ear created an environment of fear and exaggeration, the perfect combination to keep employees in check. In most facilities those rumors would grow to overshadow any of the actual work being done. Here, Blake wondered if they even came close.

The young native sitting in the bed began to convulse. The IV lines and tubes running from his body carried those tremors up to the machines they were attached to, metal racks and equipment rattling around him. His chanting never ceased.

"Te'lakum Shyan'do'hal Inktomi Ma'falak."

"He keeps repeating part of it," Dugan said as Oso arrived.

Oso brought out his notepad, grabbing the felt marker from his ear. Dugan stood over his shoulder, reading as he wrote.

End beginning

Oso slashed through the words hurriedly.

Beginning ends

He paused as if unsure how to interpret what he was hearing, then turned to a new page.

Destroy the world

He crossed out the first word and replaced it.

Create

Is the same

He circled both the word he had crossed out and the new word written next to it. Destroy and Create.

Oso flipped to a new page.

Darkness comes

Death becomes

Life

Oso's face suddenly went pale. He tore at a new sheet.

Stop him now

"Who? The Shaman?"

The child

Stop him

NOW!!!

Dugan had never seen Oso use punctuation in his sentences. Ever. He looked from the native beside him to the one on the bed, this child in the throes of some power beyond himself.

"Get me a tranquilizer," Dugan yelled.

The two scientists had joined them during Oso's writing, the woman moving quickly to the long metal cabinet alongside the bed at Dugan's command. She threw open a drawer and began searching through it.

"What's he saying?" the other scientist asked.

"The end is coming," Dugan answered.

"Not very original," Morley said, having just arrived. His breaths were labored, sweat running down his face.

Dugan noticed Oso writing again and glanced down at the notepad. No new message; Oso was underlining the word "NOW" repeatedly.

Frantically.

His marker wearing through the page and beginning to scribble on the blank one beneath.

"The tranq!" Dugan shouted.

"Here!" the woman said, holding a capped syringe high. Instruments on the metal tray next to her began to rattle, though it wasn't attached to the child on the bed.

Morley stepped forward, almost falling. He braced himself against the bed's rail then immediately pushed back, abhorred at having come that close to the ranting native.

The woman scientist's eyes roamed the room, a look of abject horror on her face. Every bed on the aisle was now shaking, the noise like being trapped in some elaborate pinball machine. The native child's eyes had risen into his head, the soft white of his sclera interlaced with red weepy veins.

"Just another tremor," Dugan said. "Hold on! We ride it out."

Dugan heard the Shaman's name again from the child's lips just before Oso held a fresh page before him, a haunted look in his eyes.

Too late

The jolt that hit was like a bomb exploding from beneath them, a geyser of rock and concrete displacing everything within its path. Bodies flew – equipment tumbling, beds colliding, from the pressure of some unseen force. A god swatting at a fly.

## Verse XXIV.

Faye stood atop a motionless conveyor belt, the husks of tree trunks no longer moving toward the fifteen ton machine at the end of the line. The wicked blades and discs jawing outward like crooked fangs from a gaping mouth had finally fallen idle.

As they should be, Faye thought.

She waved the red banner above her head, its tail trailing, aware of both cameras pointed toward her. Below, the intern marched with Donavon and Sir William as well as a few workers who had surprisingly abandoned stations to pick up signs. Bright signs that would contrast beautifully with the dull metal of the machinery around them.

STAND – UNITED

STAND – FOR OUR MOTHER

STAND – FOR OUR CHILDREN

STAND – FOR OUR FUTURE

In thirty two milling operations throughout the US, Canada, Asia, and South America, protests just like this would be video-recorded and broadcast over the internet and news stations across the world. It was a massive undertaking, the coordinated effort of a small army and more years than Faye wanted to admit, but Regener-Nation's voice in a dozen countries would spread to the entire world.

With a little luck that voice would be heard for generations.

Grey tracked his camera between the rusted scaffolding supporting the weight of tracks and bins filled with slats of lumber. The sheer amount of machinery and moving parts, conveyor lines whisking trees through the automated process of dissimilation, was incredible. The workers standing before them were more for quality assurance and maintenance than anything, a human hand not even needed to turn a tree into a sheet of plywood.

"We're here, today, because our earth can't wait for tomorrow," Donavon said as Grey brought the camera forward, microphone hanging just overhead. "We're here, today, because we want there to be a tomorrow!"

He was good; Faye couldn't keep the smile from her face. Frantz would see – despite what they'd had to go through, this would be worth it in the end. Even if she didn't get what she had really come for.

Three men approached from the back of the building, their confident strides at odds with the shuffled walk and confused faces of the gathered laborers. Faye recognized them immediately, despite their lack of formal apparel.

These were "the suits." The ones in charge.

She was surprised it had taken them this long. Two of them looked local, though well off; Venezuelans who had gladly exchanged the rape of their countryside for a small pot of gold. The third was probably American. Whatever his title might be, he would be the one they needed on camera. You had to put a face to evil in order to rally people against it, and his was a face people could hate.

Faye leapt from the conveyor belt to the ground as the men pressed through the small crowd before them. Kenny came around behind her in a wide shot. Now was her time to shine.

"Donny Hughes," the tall executive said as he approached. "It's an honor to have you here on our yard!"

The executive's face was freshly shaved, grey hair sharp and cut short. His eyes were small, like they had been pressed too far into his head, the arch of his eyebrows jutting out disproportionately. In a tucked-in white polo shirt and khaki pants he stood with perfect posture, one arm outstretched.

Donavon seemed taken aback that he had been recognized so quickly but Faye knew they probably had cameras trained on them from the moment they had entered the yard.

"We were hoping you could join us for a conversation somewhere a little cooler. We have an air conditioned office – believe me, it's a novelty down here." The man held a soft friendly smile on his face that never rose to his eyes.

"We're not going anywhere," Faye said, moving to stand next to Donavon.

"Miss Moanna, please, we'd love to address any concerns you might have; in fact bring the cameras with you. We have nothing to hide."

Kenny let his camera fall from his face. "How does he know ...?"

"Oh, I know everything about you, Kenneth Moore, and your little group. Grey Peters, Malcolm Wu. You even recruited the town drunk into your retinue I see."

"I'm not drunk," Sir William said, his words only slightly slurred.

The man continued, "What is painfully obvious is that you know nothing about us. How, for instance, we are in full compliance with the APPCDLA, the Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Deforestation in Legal Amazon. How every truck that enters or leaves our plant does so with numbered plates. How this tiny village's economy has been reinvigorated by our presence. Did you know we employ over forty percent of the town's population?"

Donavon deferred to Faye, taking a step back and glancing around. This was not going to plan.

"Who you should be targeting are the dozens of illegal operators set up just miles around us, those heating wood and falsifying papers. We are as horrified at such groups as you are. Illegal logging is a bane we have donated millions of dollars towards thwarting, though not with the results we all would want. We are more than willing to help in any way we can."

"Those are nice words," Faye said, "and I'm sure rehearsing them helps you sleep better at night but your conscience is far from guiltless. We're here to put an end to the abuse."

To Faye's surprise, the man before her smiled. "You and your kind are all the same. Decrying pollution while taking commercial jets to your next conference; bewailing the decadence of this generation while purchasing your latest iPhone; screaming the world is ending, the sky is falling, without ever lifting a hand to hold it in place.

"Well, I have news for you. The world is not ending. But the seven billion people who make up the habitants of this planet have needs which are not going away. We are part of a sustainable logging operation that sees to those needs."

"There's nothing sustainable about what you people do," Faye said.

"There's a saying," the man began, "if a tree-hugger yells in the woods and no one's around to hear, is it any different than when they're in front of a crowd?"

"I thought it was, 'does it still make a sound?'" Donavon said.

"Exactly."

Faye felt her face flush. "You're wrong – people are listening. They want change, they just don't know where to start."

The man took a step back, sniffing loudly as if dismissing them. "Señor Madrid, call the policia. These people are trespassing on private property. Maybe another night in a cell will do them some good."

"How did you know –"

Faye extended one hand, cutting Malcolm off and hoping to calm the others. "We stand united," she said, "not as a few people making a stand but as nations, decrying the desecration that you and others like you have subjected –"

"Forget the police," the man said. "Call in the watchdogs. God knows Dugan owes us a favor."

The world stood still, Faye barely able to take in a breath. "Who did you say?"

The man looked down at her derisively. "I wouldn't wait around to find out."

"You said Dugan. James Dugan?"

The man's eyes widened just a fraction. "What are you really here for?"

Before Faye could answer, an audible rumble rose in volume around them. The sound of an avalanche.

The legs of scaffolding and metal racks began to vibrate, shaking violently, sawdust spilling from grates in the tracks above. A forklift rattled nearby, lines appearing in the dirt beneath where its shifting tracks were visible.

Faye heard one of the workers shout "terramoto" as the crowd began to disperse, fleeing toward exits in a panicked rush. Others took cover beneath machinery and scaffolding. Though they had a few moments warning, no one was prepared for the quake that hit.

The ground shot forward, Faye's feet flying out from beneath her, her chin cracking against the hard earth. The taste of blood swarmed her mouth. Groans from machinery and equipment swaying were overshadowed by screams.

Nearby an overhead track rattled loose, heavy tree trunks careening to its edge. A cable snapped with a deep wiry twang and the thousand pound trunks slammed into railings on their way down. Rather than stopping their fall, rails shrieked beneath the bending of metal, debris showering outward.

One worker caught a metal shaft through the throat, his body trampled by those around him, and then the first of the logs hit the ground. Indecipherable shouts as hands were raised to ward off a tidal wave of lumber, and then the bodies simply were no more, flattened as easily as a swarm of beetles beneath stampeding hooves.

As the logs continued to amass they rolled over each other, tipping and overturning heavy equipment. Like a line of falling dominos, one triggering the next, the destruction spread.

A metal tower swayed then collapsed, a leg dropping out from beneath it. A man screamed, coming down with it. A landing platform smothered the suits, burying them in a cloud of dust and rubble. An arm protruded from the cracked and broken platform as the swirling dust settled, the only evidence that three men had stood there just moments ago.

Faye cried out in shock as she was lifted again from the ground, a ragdoll callously kicked by an uncaring child. She slammed into a metal rail, the breath knocked from her body. Flames erupted to her left, the heat washing against her.

Where was Donavon?

The chaos in the building was at its apex, bodies everywhere – running, fleeing, others clearly unmoving. Overturned equipment and fallen logs. Laborers trampled by others attempting to escape. The air was thick with heavy mulch and sawdust, the rain of dirty particles that never fell but continued to float indefinitely.

"Donavon?" Faye yelled, choking on the air.

A loud crack sounded behind her, metal creaking, breaking. She turned in time to see the assembly line tilt toward her, its long tracks and metal beams like arms preparing for an embrace. One that would be her last.

## Verse XXV.

Dugan rolled from the shelving unit he had landed against, covering his head with his fall. Tiny pebbles of concrete rained down like scattered hail.

Hospital beds screeched against the tiled floor as they slid, clanging against metal cabinets. Overhead lights wavered as they swung, their intended targets no longer stationary while beneath them bags of fluid burst, IV lines breaking. A steel pipe fell from the ceiling, clanging against a bed or cabinet.

A few yards away the native child directed his mad orchestra, arms outstretched, his words spilling out in that monotonous chant. It seemed to Dugan that the child's bed was the only thing not moving, as if the epicenter of this earthquake, the eye of the storm, began and ended with him.

Another hospital bed had slid from somewhere, colliding with the young native's, the lifeless body of an adult male lying in a heap of sheets. Dugan might just be able to reach it.

He turned at the sound of a woman's cry – a heavy white pedestal that reminded Dugan of a dentist's X-ray machine, toppled toward her. Oso appeared, barreling into the falling machine, its crane-like arm barely missing the woman scientist. It crashed against the ground, sending tiles flying.

The woman stood on shaky legs, supporting herself on Oso when a metal drawer flying through the air struck her in the face.

She went down, legs no longer shaking.

Oso caught sight of Dugan and with his lips pointed toward the child. Dugan nodded. He looked about for Morley but couldn't find him. The tranquilizer the poor woman had found could have been anywhere by now.

Fortunately there were other ways to knock someone unconscious.

Dugan leapt toward the second bed, grabbing hold of the railing. The earth rolled beneath him, his body momentarily rising in the air. A naked native woman missing both of her eyes collided into him as he hit the ground, her limp body slung halfway beneath the bed. Those sightless dark sockets seemed endless.

He wondered on what page of his book he'd find her.

He also wondered what Morley had done with her eyes.

Breaking his gaze from those black pits he rose, leaning heavily against the bed. He used the rail to make his way around, the end of this bed perpendicular to the child's. If the young native was aware of him, he didn't make it known.

As Dugan reached the end of the bed he noticed a capped syringe caught within the sheets.

The tranquilizer!

The rattle of a tray or nearby table being overturned caused him to duck. Instruments flew like shrapnel from a grenade, something slicing into his left calf. Other objects struck him in the back and shoulders, several whirling past. He braced himself for something heavy to find its way to him. It never came.

He opened his eyes and reached out to grab the syringe when the body of the male native lying in the bed jolted upright. Bloodshot eyes met Dugan's, mere inches away.

The thin native opened his mouth – sharp teeth that had been filed to pointy ends jutting forward, a line of spit hanging from the roof to the bottom of his mouth.

Dugan remembered this one.

With one flick of the thumb he uncapped the syringe and brought it up, plunging it deep into the native's neck. His eyes lost their focus and then his body fell back toward the bed.

Amidst the popping of glass and the sound of another cabinet crashing, Dugan barely registered the cough ripping from his throat.

## Verse XXVI.

The screams of men, women, and children.

They often came to Remmy in his sleep, whether he had partaken of the forbidden fruit or not. And while he had finally shot himself full of that sweet yet damning nectar, he recognized that these cries weren't echoing in his head, but coming from the neighboring assembly hall.

Panic. Fear. Hopelessness.

Not the feelings one should ascribe to finding in a church.

He knelt beside the toilet in his quarters, his arms wrapped around the porcelain throne, as he listened to the destruction taking place. Loud thumps and clangs; pews sliding, crates from the storage room breaking, and – whether he wanted to admit it or not – the sound of bodies colliding. Falling. Breaking. And the wails that accompanied their shock and pain.

He cringed at the thought of children being tossed to and fro, like a ship with no rudder, on the waves of a sea.

An angry sea.

From an ancient and angry God.

It's my fault. I've failed you.

A shelf broke somewhere in his room, books clattering to the ground with the sound of a vase shattering.

Please, don't punish them for my mistakes!

The ground kicked; Remmy was thrown forward into the bowl, his forehead connecting with a solid thud. Water sloshed out as if children were inside, splashing and playing in the bowl.

Never again. I swear, I will forsake it all if you spare these people.

"Please ..." Remmy croaked.

But he knew his words were in vain. What good were the promises of an addict to a god who had heard them a thousand times before?

## Verse XXVII.

In the time it took for the section of assembly line to go from tilting to falling, Faye was able to draw in a single breath. Within that breath thousands upon thousands of regrets swarmed over her, a colossal infestation seeking to rip apart her mind. Black gnats, darker than night, tearing at memories and filling the gaping holes with their defecation of doubts.

She should never have come here, should never have broken Frantz' trust, should never have sought to do something so much bigger than herself.

Why had she thought she could change the world? and that that change would make her feel again? fill the black hole she forced herself to squirm out of every morning of every day?

And then the gnats tore deeper, their vociferous buzzing increasing in volume and strength.

She is a little girl again, brushing her teeth before bed, walking past her parents' room to tuck herself in. Her door, which always creeps closed, propped open with a pair of sparkly pink Keds shoes. The lights off in her parents' room. Dark downstairs. Six years old and home alone, but routine – there has never been time to be a child.

Then a startling noise from downstairs.

Glass. Breaking.

Faye, unsure whether to stay put or go investigate.

The silent collaboration of her dolls nestled on a shelf.

She has her father's spirit and her mother's lack of fear, the rustling from downstairs something new, something different. A puzzle to solve.

A flip of a switch and the hall lights come on.

Nothing there.

Her stuffed bunny with the disproportionately long arms and legs is held close but not because she is frightened.

Faye is never frightened.

She has to reach up to hold the wooden banister as she walks down the curved stairs, her fingertips fitting between the inlays of the bowed wood. Her bare feet are silent on the soft carpeted steps.

Through the living room to the back kitchen where the glass-paned French doors are missing a pane of glass.

She smiles, realizing how well that rhymes with "pain in the ass." The door is closed but unlocked.

The door is never unlocked.

Her smile flees, her heart thumping as fast as if she had finished a race and before she can turn around, a shadow swallows her.

A shadow in the shape of a man.

A large man.

For the first time in her young life she recognizes fear.

She is not alone.

She is so alone.

And there is no one there to save her.

She closes her eyes, the drowning drone of the gnats so loud she feels she might vomit, the poisonous warmth of the dark hands reaching out to take her when –

A body slammed into her from behind, driving her forward.

"Come on!"

Donavon!

She ran, almost tripping on the banner she still carried, the arm around her suddenly at her lower back. She was shoved, her feet leaving the ground, body propelled forward. Bracing herself, she hit, her elbows skidding across rough bits of bark and sawdust.

The towering line collapsed, hitting the ground with a tumultuous thud, more sawdust and dirt puffing from the ground in a thick cloud. It now looked like a roller coaster where part of the track had inexplicably collapsed, the jagged edge of the remaining line ending abruptly.

Faye scooted herself further beneath the remaining rail, her breath ragged. She wiped the water from her eyes – from the dust, not the memories. The buzzing, she realized, had come from the electrical lines that were now severed in so many places.

"Are you okay?" she asked. And then she realized the man next to her – the man who had saved her – was not Donavon.

Grey wiped blood from his eye, huddled beside her. "I'm, yeah, I'm ... okay." He had a gash on his left eyebrow that continued to seep.

More equipment came crashing down further away in the building, the ground below them not finished with its quaking.

Grey glanced at the rickety legs they sat beneath, metal railings extending to the conveyor line above.

"We can't stay here," he said.

Faye tore off her shirt, buttons ripping open, and reached out, pressing it to Grey's swelling forehead. "You're bleeding badly."

She wore a white tank top beneath but it wasn't her figure Grey was staring at, it was her tattoo. More of the demon she carried with her at all times was now visible, wrestling down her right shoulder and continuing beneath her shirt. "It's just ink. It won't bite, I promise."

Grey breathed out a smile, putting his hands over hers for a moment as she let him take the shirt, applying pressure. He was looking at her as if studying her eyes, her face, her hair – so out of sorts at the moment.

As close as they were to each other it was easy for her to lean in and kiss him full on the lips. He sat up straighter but she broke the kiss before his eyes had adjusted to his shock.

"Thank you," she said. "You saved my life."

He nodded, struggling for words. "We're not out yet," he finally managed.

As if on cue, a low rumble sounded behind them, different from the throaty roar of the earth. Saws and blades came to life above in a deafening thrum, attached to the gaping mouth of the machine the assembly line fed into.

"No!"

Faye scrambled from beneath the legs, shielding her eyes with the banner from the wood chips which sprayed down at her. The last tree on the assembly line was being devoured by the machine above.

"No, no, no!"

A ripple in the earth spilled Faye forward, her feet giving out. She clung to the railing of the line she had stood upon only moments before. Tears made her vision blur.

They were failing. In epic proportion.

Something chugged above her and Faye was suddenly swept off her feet, the sensation not unlike being pulled from a boat on skis. She rose into the air, eyes wide, her side banging against the rail, knocking the breath from her.

Her banner – it was caught in the machine.

Spinning discs and blades several feet in diameter buzzed their death chant as the banner began to disintegrate between them. Faye heard Grey shouting but couldn't make out his words.

She released her grip on the pole but felt the polyvinyl fabric wrap around her hand, cinching it in, her arm almost pulled from its socket. Still she rose toward those grinning metallic teeth.

"I'm not afraid!" she shouted, ripping at the fabric with her other hand. Her whole body was raised high enough that she could see the pounding of metal teeth, the gnats back in her ears in the form of rotating blades.

At the last second the fabric tore free, releasing her from its grip. She fell, hitting again against the rail before tumbling to the ground on her back.

She laid there, the world breaking around her, waiting to see if her body would allow her to move. Above, shredded strings of red ribbon floated down like tufts of falling snow, the remnants of all she believed in, the death of innocence.

Like watching blood fall from the sky.

## Verse XXVIII.

Dugan gripped the railing of the bed, his chest heaving harder than the ground around him. He felt like he was vomiting glass, vaguely aware of the wet chunks flying with every forceful cough. His throat, lungs and gut spasmed, seeking to expunge an entity that wasn't there.

Or that was everywhere.

Despite the burn in his larynx and his lightheadedness he pressed on, moving in front of the native child. To his surprise, the boy turned, looking directly at him.

His eyes were swallowed in white, as if his irises and pupils had been removed. The sutures from the scar on his stomach were broken open, fluid leaking like the trickle of gasoline from an already full tank.

Another coughing bout seized Dugan like a sneeze, taking the reins out from under him. It took everything he had just to continue holding on to the hospital bed.

White spots swam before his vision. He wasn't getting enough oxygen, every attempt to suck air back in met with an explosive assault.

In his peripheral, he saw the child turning his outstretched hands upward, palms facing out. The muscles in his twig arms looked ready to pop from his skin, as if he were holding a heavy weight, his hands shaking.

A large crack shot down the wall at the end of the walkway, dust and rock from the ceiling beginning to fall. Dugan felt like he was coughing up burning coals, flames licking upward from his insides.

This is hell, he thought, and it's everything I deserve.

He swung at the child with one arm, missing and nearly collapsing to the floor. Unable to straighten his body, he knelt at the bedside, the shreds of his throat coming up with each cough.

I'm coming, he thought. I'm coming!

He staggered to his feet, head bowed into the sheets where splotches of blood and mucus congealed in growing pools. He needed ... needed to ... quench ...

Dugan bit into his left hand, tearing through skin and muscle and lapping at the blood that sprung from the wound. He sucked, fighting back the compulsion to retch, until he was able to swallow a second, and third mouthful, the thick blood slowly coating his throat on its way down.

"I'm coming," Dugan said, his voice throaty and harsh. "And there's nothing you can do to stop me!"

This time when he swung, his whole body was behind it. His fist struck the child in the side of the head, his forward motion rocking the kid's neck and body to the side.

The chanting came to an abrupt halt.

Immediately the room settled, ground no longer shaking beneath them. The occasional thwump or clang of metal continued as heavy beds, workstations, and equipment, settled into their new placement.

Blake's fist burned where he had connected with the boy. He wasn't sure if he had ever hit anyone quite that hard and yet the child was still sitting, not yet unconscious.

Oso strode to the bed, overturning a chest of metal drawers in his path. He glanced uneasily around at the destruction that had taken place. Or maybe it was the sheer number of native bodies that now lay on top of, or buried beneath, odd equipment.

Dugan coughed into his arm, only vaguely aware of the blood dripping down the fingers of his left hand.

The child traced the scar on his belly with one finger, raising it up to look at the seepage. His eyes met Dugan's, no longer all white, dark pupils beading at their center.

"Inktomi," the child said calmly, barely more than a whisper. "Fehener Takushkansh'kan. La'a'ione."

With the words he sunk back to the bed, eyes still open but no longer seeing. His chest remained still, just another lifeless body amongst hundreds.

The crashing of equipment continued as men and women scrambled out from beneath machinery throughout the room. Dugan heard his name being called.

"What'd he say?"

Oso stared at the dead child in the bed with an eerie reverence.

"Oso? What'd he say? Something about the Shaman."

Oso broke his gaze with effort, reaching for the marker behind his ear which was gone. He brought out a pen from a pocket and began writing in his book, ripping the page free.

Cannot trust his words

"I still need to know what he said." Dugan lit a cigarette, holding the nicotine-filled smoke in his lungs as long as he dared. He dabbed the side of his hand against his vest, a splotch of blood remaining. "Fehener Takushkansh'kan, find the Shaman, right? What's the rest, Oso?"

Oso looked down before finally writing.

Not find

Found

"Found the Shaman?"

Laaione is Death

"Death found the Shaman. Or is it a threat? Our death if we find him?"

Maybe both

Dugan turned his head to the side, blowing out smoke. "He wants us to think he's dead. After all of this, seems a little pointless. What about Inktomi?"

A series of shouts caused Oso to whip his head around, his hair flicking into Dugan's face.

"I'll see to him," Dugan said. He left the native, moving toward the noise which had progressively gotten louder.

Two bays back he found Morley lying on the ground, a large ceramic basin crushing his lower half. Amongst the wreckage of cords and equipment that had toppled onto him, a native's body hung, face down yet arms extended toward him as if reaching.

"Ah, thank God," Morley said, flinging one of the arms of the native away. The arm only rolled back, fingers brushing at Morley's belly. "Get this thing off me!"

"What, the equipment or the native?"

Morley gave him a deadpan stare.

Dugan's eyes kept returning to the native's limp body until he finally realized what was wrong with it. From the angle he laid, Dugan had thought at first that the native's legs had been buried by debris as well. But not so. His torso had been cut clean in two.

He turned back to the scientist that he both revered and loathed, one of the few men he was frightened of. The man was a monster. A genius, sure, but one of the most dangerous men Dugan had ever met.

Not so different, are we, he thought, a trail of smoke spilling from his nostrils.

"I thought I told you ... no smoking."

Dugan smiled, despite himself. "D'you do that to the body or is that from this quake?"

"What do you think?" Morley said. Each time he tried to wiggle free from the weight atop him, the native's arm flopped back down. He swatted it away. "Come on, this hurts like a bitch! Think my hip's shattered ..."

"Oh, I'll help you, as soon as you tell me."

"I don't know!" Morley shouted. "His incision ... they're all a blur."

"Still think we're chasing shadows?"

"Damnit Dugan," Morley said, his face red with pain.

"Well, do you?"

The native's arm flopped back toward him. This time Morley let it stay. "Look, Dugan, if your man did this? God help us if you actually do find him."

## Verse XXIX.

Although the ground had stopped shaking, Grey took every step with a measure of caution. He felt like he did after riding one of those flat moving escalators at the airport and then stepping off onto normal ground – the surprise at having to lift your feet in order to move.

Standing at the roll-up door of the building he had come from, he surveyed the lumber yard. He wasn't sure if he had ever seen this scale of destruction.

Dust and smoke still swarmed up from the ground like an early morning fog. The tower that had been spraying sawdust had toppled, its bent metal scraps like a giant's carcass splayed out on the ground.

Cranes had overturned, their loads either falling or rolling free from the standing stacks of uncut logs near the front. Tree trunks had collapsed onto buildings, crushing vehicles and laborers alike. A fire burned in the distance, visible flames no incinerator held contained.

He wondered if this was what it felt like walking the streets after a war. An almost out of body experience. The corpses lying around you nothing but decoration, like props on a movie set.

Voices yelling, screaming, in distress, were heard but unregistered, as if he had buried himself beneath a body of water; all of the noise and chaos taking place above might as well have been in another realm.

Laborers roamed the grounds like zombies, staggering directionless. A woman, leaning heavily against another man, paused briefly, turning to look back at Grey. Half of her head was caved in. Her skull looked like a pumpkin that was rotting from the inside, her forehead dimpling inward. One of her eyes, he realized had turned blood red. Despite everything he had seen today, he couldn't stop from staring.

Grey felt something grip his insides. And then he vomited.

He stumbled past the pile of puke, noting the woman and man had continued on. Then he caught sight of Donavon moving toward him. He had one arm wrapped around Sir William's shoulder, his other held close to his chest as if injured. A gash ran down his cheek that looked more like makeup than the real thing. Add in his limp and he looked just like a warrior strolling out from a battle he should never have survived.

All that was lacking was the triumphant background music.

Grey reached up and wiped at the blood on his own eyebrow with Faye's shirt. His whole left eye was stuck closed, sticky with the gore. But unlike Donavon he probably looked like an injured imbecile.

Sir William gave him a sweeping grin, his suit now covered in a thick film of dust.

"That was incredible," he shouted with a hoot. "Utterly incredible! Imagine the headlines – Mother Nature Strikes Back! The Earth Avenges it's, uh, Whatever! It's bloody brilliant. Theatrics, pyrotechnics, the world is going to love it."

As they drew closer the lanky Englishman wrinkled his face, squinting at Grey. "Your head is bleeding, chap."

Grey brought the beige, crumpled shirt up – now more black than beige – and pressed it hard against his head.

"Have you seen Faye?" Donavon asked.

Grey managed to nod and pointed over his shoulder. "Inside. She's fine," he said, but Donavon had already moved past. Your welcome, he wanted to add.

Thinking of Faye made his heart beat faster. He felt a flutter in his gut and wondered if he was going to vomit again but no, this wasn't that kind of anxiety. He pictured her tearing her shirt open and ripping it off without a second's thought; the way she had moved into him – deliberately. In control. And God, that kiss.

Once the earthquake had finally ceased, Grey offered her his hand to help her up but she refused, brushing him off. As if the moment they shared had already been forgotten.

"Where's your camera?" she had asked.

He didn't know.

"You mean you missed all of this? Me almost dying!"

"I was too busy saving your life!"

It's what he should have said. What he would have, if he hadn't been so confused by the complete reversal of her attitude towards him. Even now he felt his anger and desire mix together, a slew of emotions he could no more control than the ground that had been shaking mere moments ago.

He had to be careful.

He supposed they all did.

"What about the others?" Grey asked. "Malcolm? Kenny?"

"The, uh, larger fellow made it beneath a cab and chassis; seemed to be alright. I never saw the Asian, thought he stayed behind with you," Sir William said.

Grey pushed past the old man, searching in the debris filled yard. He counted six bodies before seeing Kenny wriggling out from between two giant wheels. The loader he had huddled beneath seemed to be intact.

Kenny spotted him and shouted, "Dude!"

"You seen Malcolm?" Grey asked.

Kenny scrambled out only to fall back to the earth, tripping over a dislodged sheet of metal. He got back to his feet. "Dude I got it! The money shot!"

"What are you talking about?"

Kenny held up his camera triumphantly like a trophy. "Donavon! He totally saved some dude's life – came out of nowhere and caught this tumbling block. I got it all on tape!"

Of course you did, Grey thought, knowing no one had filmed him risking his life for Faye. Would she even tell them? Probably not.

"He looked hurt," Grey said.

"He's gonna be a hero after this! Hold on, I wanna shoot some of the wreckage." Kenny brought his camera up to his shoulder then paused. "What happened to your camera?"

"Long story. Did you see Malcolm?"

"Nah, man, I was just hauling ass, you know."

Grey nodded, circling back through the yard. The intern couldn't have gone far; Grey just prayed it wasn't his body lying beneath one of the scattered logs or twisting metal rails.

He passed two Venezuelan workers who shied away from him as if he were the one who caused the damage. Others ignored him, heading toward the front gate, seeking escape rather than to help their fallen brethren.

Grey headed back to the building he had left, Sir William still standing sentry at the front. "Lord I need a drink," the old man said beneath his breath. "And you need a bath."

Grey ignored him, reentering the labyrinthine maze of fallen scaffolding and collapsed machinery. He stayed hidden as he spotted Faye huddled in Donavon's arms. The movie star kept his left arm back, holding it away from her protectively.

"And he caught it on camera?" Faye asked. "You're sure?"

"Yeah, he caught the whole thing."

"Oh, thank God!" Faye grabbed his face with both hands and kissed him. "This is perfect!"

Grey suddenly felt the urge to vomit again.

Or break something.

Or someone.

"We should leak some of the footage immediately rather than holding it for the documentary," Donavon said.

"You may be right. I've got to check with Frantz first, we may want to coordinate ..."

Grey left them, wandering further into the building.

That kiss.

The taste of puke on his breath.

When he found Malcolm, he recognized him not by his face but by the clothing he wore – his long striped basketball shorts and Adidas shirt, his neon blue tennis shoes. Where Malcolm's head should have been, however, was nothing but the pulp of a grape that had been squished. Caught beneath a log or rail that had since rolled off, his brains and skull had splattered in a crest extending out from the bulk of his chest that hadn't been flattened.

It was the first time Grey could remember thinking how grateful he was he didn't have a camera. Still, he knew this image would be forever engrained in his mind.

He kicked a piece of timber out of the way and sat beside the body trying to remember how to breathe.

None of them had signed up for this, to risk their lives for a cause. It was just a paycheck, a way to pay the bills while that low-budget film project they were all working on – because what videographer didn't have a project they were secretly working on – got a little closer to being ready.

He reached out and touched Malcolm's outstretched hand, his arm undamaged. He was surprised and disturbed to find it still warm.

"Oh, man, I'm sorry," Grey whispered. "So sorry."

Sorry he had chosen the wrong person to save.

To look out for.

But who was looking out for him? For any of them? Certainly not Faye. And if she remained in charge, how many more of them would end up dead?

"I'll tell your parents. Tell 'em what a bunch of assholes they were for not understanding ..." Grey picked up a thick bolt lying at his feet and threw it against the crumpled rails nearby. It twanged loudly, a deep resonant sound. "But maybe they were right, you know. You should have stayed in school, should have realized this dream was just that – an impossible wish. Everyone wants to be famous until they are and then, well, they just want to take it back. Like you. Now you're famous. Or you will be; I'll make sure of that. It's just – no one ever tells you what it's going to cost, you know. And I think it costs everything. Everything we have.

"I don't want to be famous. And I shouldn't have to be, to be treated with ... respect."

Just like the metallic twang still vibrating, Grey felt an inner note inside him thrum to life. A dissonant chord, struck with distortion and rage, only this note grew louder with every passing second until even thinking was an impossibility.

Only one thought remained in its wake, pressing through the pounding in his skull and the beating of his heart.

Someone has to pay.

End of Chapter One

To continue reading Chapter Two

In The Creation Series

Purchase The Creation now

In Chapter Two, Axis Mundi, the results of the devastating earthquake are revealed, the world transformed beyond collapsed buildings or destroyed lumber mills. Each of our two separate groups, led by Faye Moanna and James Dugan, will finally confront what they have been seeking. But finding what they want will have consequences they could never have foreseen.

As the hunters become the hunted, the final seeds are laid for the end of the first day in the Creation. The end of humanity as we know it has begun, and what will take its place is darker and more twisted than anyone could imagine.

Continue the journey in the full-length novel, The Creation, which includes both Chapters One and Two in the thrilling supernatural series.

## A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

Originally I planned The Creation as a series of six or seven novella-length titles, each coinciding with one day of the Creation period. In choosing to self-publish my work, however, I opted instead to release them as a trilogy of novels, wrapping two of the novellas (or chapters) into each book. This, I feel, provides not only a better reading experience, but a cheaper solution for readers, having only to purchase 3 rather than 6 works.

Yet, as a fairly unknown author, I've decided to release the first chapter which you've just completed as a free ebook. Hopefully it gives you enough of a taste of my style of writing and enough of a hook to interest you in continuing this journey.

If you've enjoyed what you've read, I would be honored if you would consider leaving a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or another media outlet. Reviews make such a difference in the algorithms of a book's discoverability, and are the best "virtual tip" an author can receive.

I'm excited to continue this journey with you through the seven day period of The Creation, although a slightly more deranged version than you may be familiar with. What's coming is more frightening than you could ever predict. Thank you again for reading my work and supporting independent authors by embarking on this journey with me. I promise there will be many more to come!

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## ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The Behrg is the author of dark literary works ranging from screenplays to 'to-do' lists. His debut novel, Housebroken, was a first-round Kindle Scout selection. He has had numerous short stories published both online and in print anthologies. His 'to-do' list should be finished by 2016 (though his wife is hoping for a little sooner).

A former child actor turned wanna-be rockstar, The Behrg served a mission for his church in Venezuela where his newest series, The Creation, takes place. He lives in Southern California with his four children, pet Shih-Tzu, and the many voices in his head.

Stalk him at TheBehrg.com.

