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  “Why do you need my help so badly?” Jerry inquired.

  Vogan laughed harshly from the darkness. “As you know all too well, my political views leave me with few friends, and a great many enemies in powerful places. At this point, most government officials would be very happy if I simply disappeared out here in the jungle. Without your contacts and assistance, I will be unable to warn anyone of anything. No one will believe me.”

  Jerry considered this for a moment. “Angel, what do you want to do?” he asked.

  The guide still sat nearby, his cigarette glowed red in the darkness. “The Kindu are real it seems,” he said grimly. “We must destroy them.”

  As if in reply, a horrible gurgling moan echoed dimly to them through the trees.

  “We cannot fight them in the darkness,” Vogan stated, switching on his light. “We have to stay ahead of them, at least until the dawn.”

  Vogan led the way through the trees and had to stop and shine his light backwards so that Angel and Jerry could follow. The three men walked on through the jungle, but they made slow progress. They could dimly hear their pursuers in the night behind them. An hour passed, then two. Jerry began to falter and stumble. He was utterly exhausted, and did not possess the endurance of the other two men. As Jerry feared, Vogan’s flashlight grew dimmer as they walked and finally it went out completely. They staggered to a halt.

  “What time is it?” Angel asked from the darkness.

  Jerry looked down at his wristwatch. “It’s four. How long until dawn?”

  “At least another two hours,” Vogan answered.

  “What do we do now?” Jerry moaned.

  “I can make a light,” Angel suggested. He cast about in the darkness; Jerry could hear him snapping branches, and ripping cloth. Suddenly, a flame appeared as Angel lit a makeshift torch. He had wrapped cloth around a branch and soaked it with alcohol from his stove. Three more were clutched in his left hand. The small torch burned fitfully.

  “These won’t last long,” he warned. “We must hurry.”

  The guide led the way, holding the flickering light over his head. The torch barely cast a circle of illumination a few feet wide, but they could see well enough to move again.

  They stumbled on and on through a dim green well of mud, rocks, and roots. Jerry went down again and again. Each time, Angel stopped to help him back to his feet. The field agent’s knees were bloody and bruised, and his boots were coated in thick clinging mud. To his horror, the echoing moans of the dead behind them seemed to be getting closer.

  Angel burned through his first torch; he paused to light the second and flung the stub away. The small torches burned far too fast. The second and third burned away as they struggled through the darkness, and then Angel lit the last one. Jerry held his watch close to his face. It was only five.

  Jerry jumped as a low moan echoed through the trees, directly behind them. Angel stopped and lifted the fitfully burning torch higher, peering into the darkness around them.

  “That sounded really close,” Jerry whispered.

  “Yes, I’m afraid they are moving faster than we are,” Vogan replied gloomily. “We seem to be wandering a bit; no offense, Angel.”

  “Damn,” their guide replied. He blew on the dying torch; it gave off a brief shower of sparks, and then died away to glowing red amber. Angel cast it aside.

  “This is just fucking great,” Jerry complained. “Do you see now why I hate the jungle?”

  To his surprise, Angel laughed, and then Vogan did too.

  “I will lead us,” Angel volunteered. “I can see just a little.”

  Jerry couldn’t see jack shit, and said so. Angel took his hand and Vogan’s so they would not become separated. Angel slowly felt his way forward through the darkness. They were moving very slowly now; Jerry was sure the corpses would catch them at any moment.

  The weird, undulating moans of the dead grew closer and closer. To hear that ghastly sound in the pitch darkness of the forest was utterly terrifying. Jerry was close to a panic; his hands were slippery with sweat.

  “Can’t we climb a tree?” he groaned.

  “We’d be trapped for sure,” Vogan grunted back. “Just keep moving.”

  Fear gave Jerry the strength to continue. He put one foot in front of the other in a blind haze, but the nightmare chase went endlessly on, and finally, Jerry was done. He collapsed into the mud again and again, his legs giving out. Angel wrapped an arm around his shoulder and half carried him onward, pulling him over roots and vines. Still, the sounds of pursuit grew louder. Jerry didn’t dare look back. He was glad now that he could not see through the impenetrable darkness; he knew the cadavers were right behind them.

  “Angel,” Jerry grunted painfully through clenched teeth. “Stop, put me down, I can’t go any further.”

  The big man stopped and gently lowered the agent to the ground. His voice was determined in the darkness. “I will die fighting, not running. We will stop here and meet the Kindu.”

  “Wait!” Vogan yelled. “I see a light ahead, through the trees! Look!”

  Jerry looked through the darkness, but he saw nothing.

  Angel shouted with joy, “I see it!” He snatched Jerry back up and pulled him along at a fast limp. The moans were very close now.

  Dimly at first, and then more clearly through the trees, a small red light moved towards them. It materialized into a diminutive, naked man carrying a torch. He shouted at them in French, “He ici!”

  Vogan knelt down and embraced the man, who hugged him back, and then stepped away, motioning hastily for them to follow. He led them deeper into the jungle.

  “Is that a Pygmy?” Jerry groaned.

  “Yes,” Angel replied. “There are more. It seems that we are saved.”

  More torches appeared to their left, moving away from them, and the Pygmies made strange hooting noises, and shook the branches of the trees. The corpses began to follow them away into the trees. As Jerry, Angel, Vogan, and their guide slowly moved to the east, the moans of the dead faded into the distance behind them.

  “Saved from corpses by Pygmies, what next?” Jerry gasped as he passed out.

  A/O Field Agent Foster.

  Proceed immediately to Gatou and establish location of missing loggers as previously instructed.

  This office is aware of dangers presented by viral outbreak in region; proceed with due caution, but secure requested information.

  Word future reports to this office with more discretion.

  Johannesburg, SA, Regional Supervisor Sharpe.

  Chapter 6

  11:02 a.m. Zulu

  Pygmy Village

  The Congo

  Jerry sat upright and looked around. He wiped the crud out of his eyes, and blinked in the bright sunshine. He was on a muddy tarp in the middle of a Pygmy village. Flies buzzed around his head in great numbers. He was as stiff as a board, and for the life of him, couldn’t remember how he had gotten to his present location. He yawned mightily, stretched, and looked around.

  Naked Pygmies strolled past him on their daily business. One noticed he was awake, and bent down to help him up. The small man led him further into the village. They emerged from a cluster of thatch huts and stepped into the village’s center. Many Pygmies were seated or standing near Vogan, who was animatedly telling a story. Angel sat nearby, chewing on a huge joint of cooked meat. He waved Jerry over, and made room for him to sit. A cook fire was burning, and the savory smell of roasting meat filled the clearing. Jerry suddenly realized that he was very thirsty, and starving.

  “So you lived,” Angel laughed, his white teeth flashing.

  “Where the Sam hells are we?” Jerry asked bemusedly.

  “For a CIA agent, you are not too bright, my friend,” Angel laughed again. “We are in the Pygmy village. They are friends of Vogan’s. There is the man who saved us.” He pointed out a Pygmy who sat nearby. Apparently, he and Vogan were telling the story of the Kindu chasing them through the forest. Pygmy chil
dren sat at their feet, giggling and screaming.

  Angel passed a cup of tea to Jerry, who happily sipped at it. A Pygmy brought Jerry a piece of greasy, black meat wrapped in a palm frond. Jerry gingerly accepted it. He unwrapped it and looked at it doubtfully. “What is this?” he asked.

  “Bushmeat,” Angel replied. “Eat it,” he suggested.

  “Bushmeat,” Jerry shot back. “There’s no telling what it is.”

  “It is probably wiser not to ask,” Angel stated. “If you don’t want it…”

  Jerry hesitantly bit into the unidentifiable meat and chewed off a small chunk. “Fuck it,” he mumbled. He wolfed the meat down and chased it with hot tea.

  “The Pygmies are stupid, but they are decent hunters,” Angel stated between bites.

  “What have you got against the Pygmies?” Jerry asked. He knew that most of the Congo’s people considered the Pygmies to be an inferior race. “They saved your ass.”

  “Only because I was busy saving your fat ass,” Angel retorted.

  Jerry shook his head, but then added, “Thanks for that.”

  “Don’t mention it.” Angel smiled back. “You know, I have been needing a new truck.”

  Vogan wandered over to join them. He knelt down on his haunches and poured himself some of Angel’s tea. “Are you alright, Agent Foster?” he asked with a grin.

  “I’ll live,” Jerry replied with a grunt. “Did the Pygmies tell you anything?”

  “Not yet, I wanted you to be awake. They have agreed to let me talk to their elder about the sickness,” Vogan answered. He grew serious. “We can do that now.”

  He finished his tea and rose to his feet. He and the Pygmy guide spoke briefly.

  Jerry stood and waited for Angel, but the big man remained seated. “Aren’t you coming?” the agent asked.

  “No,” Angel replied. “There is no such thing as a Pygmy wise man.” He rolled a cigarette and lit it. “You are wasting your time.”

  Vogan and Jerry followed the Pygmy to a small hut. They had to bend down to fit inside. A wizened, bent little man sat against the far wall. He was so small and shriveled that Jerry thought he must be dead already, until he coughed and opened his eyes. The man was blind. His milk-white eyes stared sightlessly from his crinkled black face.

  Their guide spoke softly to him. He nodded and tilted his head forward.

  “He will speak to us,” Vogan said. The biologist asked the guide a question, and he translated it to the oldster in Pygmy. Then he translated the answer back to Vogan in French. Vogan then translated the answer to English, so that Jerry could understand.

  He asked the old man to tell them of the sickness, and the dead returned to life. The old man listened, and then spoke in a soft lisping voice to their guide.

  Finally, Vogan translated to Jerry. “They call the dead the Dahulu, the old ones. They say they are the spirits of the trees. When the old trees are broken or burned, the spirits become angry. They leave the trees and possess the bodies of men, turning them into the Dahulu, who seek to slay and drive the men away.”

  “Spirits, like ghosts?” Jerry asked.

  “No, more like natural forces; like the beliefs of the ancient Druids, I think,” Vogan answered excitedly. He continued, “The old man says the ancient trees are sacred, they must not be cut. I have been saying that for years.”

  Vogan spoke to the guide again; he translated, “When the old man was a boy, his father’s father told of a time when the spirits were very angry, a time of great storms. Many of the Dahulu walked the forest. The Pygmies hid until the spirits’ anger had faded, and the people were forgotten. The Dahulu returned to the trees.”

  Vogan asked if there was anything that would defeat the Dahulu, or drive them away.

  The old man replied and Vogan translated, “There is no return for those taken by the spirits, and only fire will destroy them.”

  Finally, Vogan said, “He says there is nothing more, the Pygmy must flee and hide, until the Dahulu have forgotten them.”

  Vogan thanked the elder, and they left. As they walked back to the fire, Jerry pondered the old man’s words. “What do you make of it?” he finally asked.

  Vogan responded slowly, “There was much that was simply superstition, but many superstitions have some basis in fact or truth. I had hoped there was some natural cure for the virus, but that does not seem to be the case. Fire destroys it, but I already knew that. There is still something that I’m missing.”

  Angel had gathered his gear, and stood apart near the edge of the village. He waved them over. “What now, boss?” he asked.

  Jerry looked to Vogan; the biologist explained, “The Pygmies are retreating deeper into the jungle; it is their way. They have invited us to go with them, but I explained that we cannot go. I want to study the virus and, I must remain here in the jungle to do it.”

  No one spoke for a moment as Jerry considered his options; finally, he decided, “I want to return to Kinshasa; it’s too dangerous to operate out here with no support. But, I think we should make another pass at Gatou. I have to find out something about my missing miners. Then we can try to contact Bob and make for the landing strip at the Guma mines. You should come back with us, Vogan. What good can you do out here?”

  “I may discover the key to this whole thing,” Vogan answered. “It’s very important that we figure out what is causing the reanimation; how the virus operates. At the very least, I need to track it to its source.” He paused for a second, then continued, “I think we should go back to Gatou. It is on the way to the airstrip. I need to be close to the virus to study it.”

  “Wait a minute,” Jerry argued. “You’re actually agreeing with me on something?”

  “Could we sneak back in there, Angel?” Vogan asked.

  The big guide considered it. “It depends on how many of the Kindu are still there. They are not fast, but they are very determined. Also, I think you are being too cautious. The Kindu frightened me, but I have had time to master that fear. They were men once; they are still only men. They cannot be killed as we can, but I will wager they can be destroyed.” He pulled his 800 Wildcat around and hefted it in his hands. “I wish to see if the Kindu are bulletproof.”

  “I want to sneak past them, not shoot them. You fuckers are nuts,” Jerry complained.

  “We can get close to them, we have done that before. We should be able to do it again,” Angel countered.

  “They are attracted to loud noises,” Vogan stated. He nodded his head towards Angel’s gun. “Once you fire that thing, all bets are off. I figure that rifle is loud enough to attract every Kindu in the Congo.”

  “There are other ways to kill a man,” Angel suggested. He pulled his machete partially from its sheath and slammed it back in.

  “I’m going on record right now as against making any contact with the cadavers. Angel, I hired you, you work for me, remember?” Jerry asked.

  “I am sorry, Jerry. I must prove myself against them,” he explained. “It is something I must do.”

  “Two to one, Agent Foster,” Vogan laughed. “Besides, what we are doing falls under your jurisdiction, you will be able to report all that we learn. I just wish I still had a cadaver here to work with. It would help us tremendously to know how their sensory functions operate before we try to sneak past them.”

  “We could get another,” Angel suggested with a wicked grin. “I am not just a guide, you know. I am also an expert tracker and hunter.”

  “It would be dangerous,” Vogan warned.

  “Not the way I would do it,” Angel retorted. “All I need is my rope.”

  They ate again, and watched as the Pygmies pulled up stakes and disappeared into the jungle, abandoning their village. Vogan explained they would simply build another.

  The three men walked cautiously back to the west, moving as quietly as possible. Angel ranged far ahead on point; he could step as silently as a panther, and leave no trace or sign of his passage.

  They covered the
ground much more quickly than they had the night before. Only once did Angel rush back to them, and swing them far around to the south to avoid a group of wandering undead. They saw no one else, living or dead, but the jungle was oddly quiet.

  Angel stopped them just before they came back out onto the road. He led them through the thick underbrush until he found exactly what he was looking for: a large mahogany tree with branches that stretched out across the track, a good thirty-five feet from the ground. He pointed it out to them. Vogan smiled, but Jerry had no idea what his guide had in mind until Angel whispered, “I’ll help you climb it, boss.”

  Angel went up the big tree until he reached the first horizontal branch. He secured the rope and dropped it down to Jerry. Vogan helped him secure it around his waist.

  “I could just wait down here,” Jerry suggested.

  “You wanted to climb a tree last night,” Vogan reminded him.

  Jerry began to climb as Angel pulled him up. Sure enough, he slipped and would have fallen, but Angel belayed him, and finally, he was safely on a huge branch, looking down at the road below him. Angel retrieved the rope and dropped it down to Vogan. The burly biologist climbed the rope hand over hand, and pulled himself onto their branch.

  “Showoff,” Jerry hissed.

  “Quiet now, boss, no noise,” Angel whispered. The guide coiled his rope and tied a slipknot noose in one end. He shinnied even further out onto the branch until he was directly over the center of the track, and pressed himself flat on the limb. He waited.

  The men lay motionless as the afternoon wore on. Jerry had a hard time staying awake. He had just dozed off when Vogan poked him. The biologist held his finger to his lips, and pointed down the trail. Jerry was about to complain when he noticed movement on the track below him. A large group of cadavers was stumbling down the roadway, directly towards them. Jerry held his breath and froze in place.