Jamie Freveletti - Running from the Devil

“We will never help you,” Mathilde said.

“It’s not for me. You see, my crazy friend here chopped the arms off all of the guerrillas he could find, and he left them there to die. They need help quickly, or they will bleed to death.”

A woman to the far right of Emma squeaked. Mathilde waved a hand in the air for silence. Her eyes narrowed.

“Perhaps you take us to these freedom fighters, and we will see to their wounds.”

“Of course. Please remove all of your guns and ammunition first and place them in a pile. We wouldn’t want the rifles to discharge by mistake.” Emma smiled her own snake-oil smile. She heard the chopping sound of a helicopter’s rotors, somewhere in the distance, growing louder. She wanted to scan the sky, to see if friend or foe approached, but she didn’t think it wise to take her eyes off Mathilde.

“Put down our guns? Never,” Mathilde said.

It appeared they were at a standoff.

Sumner settled it. He pointed the rifle at Mathilde’s feet and pulled the trigger. The sound exploded in Emma’s ears. Dirt flew up at Mathilde’s face. The bullet left a crater in the ground, two inches from her toes, and ricocheted into the forest. Mathilde jumped, but recovered so fast that it was impossible not to feel a grudging respect for her. When the dust settled, Emma looked around. The woman at the spit was gone, and the bickering women emerged from a hut with guns drawn.

Then all hell broke loose.

The huff huff of the helicopter overhead grew louder. Mathilde glanced up and blanched. The tops of the trees bent with the force of the propellers, and dust kicked up all around them. The helicopter came into view, looking like a large spider. It hovered over the clearing, engaged its guns, and blew away the hut and the bickering women with it.

“Down!” Sumner yelled.

Emma threw herself to the ground as the bullets strafed the clearing. They drew a dotted line in the dirt, and the explosions rang in her ears. She ate dust as she screamed into the dirt. Sumner pulled her up by her hair and dragged her to the trees just as the helicopter made a turn and aimed for them. The machine-gun blasts rattled again and Emma heard a woman howl.

They ran toward the tree line near the pig on the spit. Sumner never let go of her hair. He propelled her forward by pushing his fist against her skull. The helicopter swooped past and turned again toward them.

It made another pass, the bullets ripping up the dust and hammering into the bodies already there. It hovered in one place for a moment, then began to swing its tail from side to side, spraying bullets the entire time. It shot past Sumner and Emma before turning and facing them.

Sumner changed direction so fast that Emma felt he would pull her hair out of her head. They turned and ran perpendicular to the helicopter. As they did, Emma saw the man sitting in the open door toss something out.

Sumner pushed her the final steps into the trees. He didn’t follow her. Instead he turned to aim at the helicopter. Emma heard its guns begin their staccato noise and looked back to see the bullets crack into the dirt in a line toward Sumner. Emma watched as he raised the rifle to shoot, taking care to aim even as the bullets ran toward him.

He fired the grenade launcher.

The helicopter exploded, spewing metal shards everywhere. A fireball rose into the air, and pieces of burning helicopter landed in the clearing. The copter flung itself sideways as one of its propellers broke off. It flew to the side, all the while losing speed. After sixty seconds, it turned, runners up, and then dropped like a stone. It landed in the forest and exploded on impact. A second explosion released another fireball into the air, and the tops of the trees went up in flames.

Sumner watched the treetops burn for a second before he bent to help Emma. She stood up, and her legs wobbled with fear. She turned on him.

“They were saving us! Why did you shoot them down?” Emma could feel the cords in her neck as she raged.

Sumner shook his head. “They weren’t saving us, they were killing them.” He waved at the clearing. Emma looked around, still unable to believe what had happened. The women were all dead, lying in their own blood. Mathilde was not among them.

“That was a drug runners’ copter,” Sumner said. “The guerrillas must be nearby.”

“How can you be sure that wasn’t the military sent to find the jet?” Emma still shook with her anger at the missed opportunity to get out of this jungle hellhole.

“Caldridge, they shot at us.”

“Because they thought we were part of the camp. You can’t be sure that they weren’t the good guys.”

“I’m sure,” Sumner said, a grim note in his voice. “They left a calling card.” He waved at the thing thrown from the helicopter. At first Emma thought it was a bomb that hadn’t exploded. She moved toward it to get a closer look.

It was a human head.

Emma stared at the thing in horror. “Oh my God.” Her voice was a whisper.

“Let’s get out of here.” Sumner reached down to grab Emma’s arm. She jerked out of his grip and stalked to the spit. She shook with an all-encompassing anger. Anger at Sumner, anger at the killers in the helicopter, even anger at the women who lay dead all around them. She took the pig off the fire and placed it on a piece of wood.

“Come help me cut this thing up,” she said. “This may be the last food we see for a while.”

She ignored the dead women all around her as she opened a bag that sat next to the spit. She pulled out carving knives and tongs, as well as several dishes. Sumner made an impatient sound and strode over to her. He grabbed the bag, turned it over, and dumped its entire contents into the dirt. He picked the pig up and shoved it in, whole. He threw the knives in, stood up, slung the bag over his shoulder, and pointed to the jungle.

“I liked you better when you had a fever,” Emma snapped at him.

Sumner headed back into the forest.

Emma followed, still simmering with anger and frustration. It didn’t take long for the second helicopter to arrive. This one sank below the tree line and shot along the stream. Sumner and Emma ran into the growth along the banks, crouched behind a bush, and watched as the helicopter flew by. Emma stared hard at its sides. It didn’t bear any markings. A man in jeans and a black polo shirt sat in an open door with a rifle in his hands. Another sat in the passenger side and scanned the area with binoculars. They shot past Emma and Sumner’s hiding spot and disappeared around a corner. Emma slid the backpack and tent off her shoulders and let them drop to the ground. She rubbed at her sore shoulders.

“Just give me a minute. This thing is heavy,” she said.

Sumner just stood next to her, waiting.

Emma pulled the pack back up. “Let’s go.”

Sumner took it away from her.

“How’s your wound?” she asked. “The strap will rest right along it and might inflame it again. Frankly, I can’t afford to have you fall back into a fever.”

“And yet that’s when you like me so well,” Sumner shot back.

He slung the backpack over his shoulder; she hauled the bag with the pig onto her back, and they continued downstream.

27

THEIR PROGRESS WAS RIDICULOUSLY SLOW. IT WAS OVER EIGHTY degrees and the humidity made it feel as though they were walking through fog. The banks of the stream consisted mainly of mud, and it sucked at their shoes. Every so often Emma would see a snake slither past. One was black with orange bands in a geometric pattern. None of the wildlife seemed inclined to attack them, but she kept her distance nonetheless.

Clouds of bugs hovered in the air. Emma and Sumner waved at them with their hands, but there were too many. They flew into Emma’s eyes and ears and clung to the edges of her lips. One crawled up her nose and she snorted like crazy to get it out.

“God, that’s disgusting,” she said.

Sumner looked at her and nodded as he smacked at the black buzzing veil of bugs.

They pitched camp. This time they built a fire and warmed the pig. Sumner shaved pieces off the side and handed them to Emma. She pulled out the small bottle of red wine from the pack.

Sumner burst into laughter.

“You’re like Mary Poppins. Always pulling something good out of that bag.” A smile creased his face and real delight shone in his eyes. Emma was stunned by the reaction, but recovered enough to grin back at him.

“Fresh meat deserves a fine wine.” She held the bottle out like a sommelier at the Ritz. “Sir. Bolla, Valpolicella, vintage yesterday. Our finest offering.” She twisted off the screw top and took a sip, rolled it around in her mouth, and swallowed. “Excellent.” She gave it to Sumner and he swallowed his own large gulp. They ripped into the pork.

“God, this is great.” The pork fell apart in Emma’s mouth and tasted like heaven. Sumner nodded and carved some more for her.

They ate in silence. Sumner retreated into himself and his private thoughts. It was as if the burst of laughter had never occurred. After eating, Emma shoved a small steel bowl she’d pilfered back at Mathilde’s checkpoint into her backpack and used it as a pillow. She stared at Sumner, thinking about his shot at the helicopter.

“Where did you learn to shoot like that?”

“My father.”

“Where did you grow up?”

“Minnesota. Guns came with the territory.”

“What do you do for the Southern Hemisphere Drug Defense?”

“I monitor unidentified planes flying under radar in and out of Miami.”

“Ah. So that explains your extensive knowledge of the habits of drug runners and your excellent Spanish.”

Sumner shrugged and stayed silent.

“How many languages do you speak?” she said.

“Four.”

Emma was impressed. “I speak two. Well, three, really. English, German, and Latin. As a scientist, Latin is the language I probably use the most, which is odd because it’s a dead language. Is German one of the four you speak?”

Sumner nodded. She wanted to press him for more personal information but decided that further interrogation wasn’t necessary. Besides, his one-syllable answers made for slow going. They had plenty of time to get acquainted, and the mosquitoes were out and eating her alive.

“I’m headed to the tent. I’ve had enough of bugs for one day,” she said.

Sumner nodded again and continued to eat the pork. Emma scrambled into the tent, smashing two mosquitoes that had found their way in behind her. She rolled onto her side, but rather than sleep she found herself waiting for Sumner to join her. There was something reassuring about his quiet presence. She liked that he rarely spoke unless it was required, and that he hadn’t been swayed by Mathilde’s beauty into relaxing his caution. Emma had dealt with intense people before. Many of her ultramarathon friends had the same quiet intensity, and she herself could not be described as a social butterfly, far from it.

She also liked that he seemed at ease with the isolation. In Emma’s experience, few people were so content with themselves as to spend long periods of time alone, and the ones who were tended to be damaged in some way. She had the feeling that this man might be one of the few who could handle both isolation and society with aplomb.

Sumner pushed aside the netting door and crawled into the tent, taking care not to touch her. Emma pretended to sleep while he arranged himself against the far wall. He lay down on his side, facing her. The nights were so dark that Emma couldn’t see anything, least of all Sumner’s face, but she had the distinct impression that he was awake and staring in her direction. She stayed still, and after fifteen minutes more, she heard him sigh. She fell asleep.