Nate hurried along the top of the bank toward the soldiers. Kelly followed, her blood beginning to race. The guards were positioned where a small stream emptied into the river.
“Corporal Conger, could I borrow your flashlight?” Nate asked.
“They’re just dolphins,” said the other soldier. It was Staff Sergeant Kostos. The swarthy man scowled at them. “We’ve seen lots of the damned things while patrolling at night. But, oh yeah, that was while you all were sleeping in your beds, all tucked away.”
The younger Ranger was more cooperative. “Here, Dr. Rand,” Corporal Conger said, passing his flashlight.
With a mumbled thanks, Nathan accepted the light. He moved down the bank, shining the light upriver. Dolphins continued to pass but not in as great a number. As Kelly looked on, Nate widened the cone of the light, splashing it down the river.
“Damn,” Nate said.
Almost at the reach of his light, the river’s surface seemed to be churning, like white-water rapids over sharp rocks, frothing and gurgling. Only these rapids were moving toward them, flowing down the current.
“What is that?” Kelly asked.
Another dolphin bumped into the shallows, bellying into the mud, but this one didn’t quickly flip away. It rolled against the bank, squealing a high-pitched wail. Nate swung the light. Kelly gasped and took a couple steps back.
The tail end of the dolphin was gone. Its belly had been ripped open. Intestines trailed. The current rolled the pitiful creature back into the river.
Nathan swung his light back upstream. The churning white water was already much closer.
“What is it?” Corporal Conger asked, his Texas drawl thicker. “What’s happening?”
From up the river, the piercing squeal of a pig woke the night. Nesting birds took wing. Monkeys, startled awake, barked in irritation.
“What’s going on?” the Texan repeated.
“I need your night-vision goggles,” Nate ordered.
Kelly stood behind his shoulder. “What is it?”
Nate grabbed the Ranger’s glasses. “I’ve seen rivers churn like this a few times before—but never this much.”
“What’s causing it?” Kelly asked.
Nate lifted the goggles. “Piranhas…in a feeding frenzy.”
Through the night-vision lenses, the world both brightened and dissolved into a monochrome green. It took Nate a moment to focus on where the waters churned. He fingered the telescopic lenses to bring the image closer. Within the roiling waters, he spotted flashes of large fins—dolphins caught by the razor-toothed predators—and in brief flickers, the silvery flash of the deadly fish themselves as they fought over their meal.
“What’s the threat?” Kostos said with thick disdain. “Let the dumb f**ks chew up the dolphins. They ain’t gonna get us on dry land.”
The sergeant was right, but Nate remembered the bodies of the massacred Indians…and their fear of the river. Was this the threat? Were the waters here so thick with piranhas that the Indians themselves feared to travel the rivers at night? Was that why they had fled on foot? And this behavior, attacking dolphins…it made no sense. Nate had never heard of such a slaughter.
Motion at the edge of his goggles drew his eye. He turned from the churning water, and spotted a carcass lying on the bank. It appeared to be a peccary, a wild pig. Was it the same one that had screamed a moment ago? Something smaller, several of them, hopped around the carcass, like huge bullfrogs, except these seemed to be tearing into the dead pig and dragging it toward the water.
“What the hell…” Nate mumbled.
“What?” Kelly asked. “What do you see?”
Nate clicked the telescopic lenses up a few notches, zeroing in. He watched more of the bullfroglike creatures leap out of the water and attack the carcass. Others joined it, flying high over the bank to disappear into the riverside foliage. As he watched, a large capybara burst from the jungle and ran along the muddy bank. It looked like a hundred-pound guinea pig racing beside the river. Then it suddenly fell as if tripping over its own feet. Its body began to convulse. From the waters, the creatures flopped and hopped, leaping at this new meal.
Nate suddenly knew what he was seeing. It was what the village Indians must have seen. He remembered the shaman’s words. The jungle rose out of the river and attacked them. Down the bank, the capybara ceased writhing as death claimed it. Hadn’t Kelly mentioned something about the corpse she had examined showing signs of a convulsive event?
He ripped off the goggles. The line of white water was now only thirty yards away. “We need to get everyone away from the river! Away from all waterways.”
Sergeant Kostos scoffed. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Corporal Conger retrieved his glasses. “Maybe we should listen to Dr.—” Something knocked the corporal’s helmet askew, hitting with a wet plop. “Jesus Christ.”
Nathan shone his light down. Sitting in the mud was a strange creature, slightly stunned. It looked like a monstrous tadpole, but in the stage where its muscular hind legs had developed.
Before anyone could react, the creature leaped again, latching onto Conger’s thigh with its jaws. Gasping, the corporal bludgeoned it away with the stock of his rifle and took a few shaky steps away. “Damn thing has teeth.”
Kostos slammed his boot heel atop the creature, squashing it and shooting entrails down the bank. “Not any longer it doesn’t.”
As a group, they scurried away from the river. Conger fingered the pant leg of his fatigues, hopping along. A hole had been torn in the fabric, and when he lifted his hand, Nate spotted blood on the corporal’s fingertips. “Practically tore a chunk out of me,” Conger said with a nervous laugh.
In no time, they were back at the shabano’s entrance.
“What’s going on?” Private Carrera asked.
Nate pointed back to the river. “Whatever got the Indians is coming our way. We need to clear out of here.”
“For now, maintain your post,” Kostos ordered Carrera. “Conger, you get that leg looked at while I go report to Captain Waxman.”
“My med pack is inside,” Kelly said.
Conger leaned against a beam of bamboo. “Sarge, I’m not feeling so good.”
All eyes turned to the man.
“Everything’s gone sort of blurry.”
Kelly reached to help him. Nathan saw ropes of drool begin to flow from the corner of the man’s lips. Then his head fell back, followed by his body, already convulsing.