Burial Ground

  BURIAL GROUND

  Michael McBride

  Copyright © 2011 Michael McBride

  Smashwords Edition

  Burial Ground copyright © 2011 by Michael McBride

  Cover painting copyright © 2011 by Algol

  Excerpt from Vector Borne copyright © 2011 by Michael McBride

  Excerpt from Innocents Lost copyright © 2010 by Michael McBride

  Excerpt from Predatory Instinct copyright © 2011 by Michael McBride

  All Rights Reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Michael McBride.

  For more information about the author, please visit his website: www.michaelmcbride.net

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Also by Michael McBride

  Novels

  Bloodletting

  Innocents Lost

  Predatory Instinct

  Vector Borne

  Novellas

  Blindspot

  Brood XIX

  Remains (from The Mad & The Macabre, with Jeff Strand)

  The Calm Before the Swarm

  Xibalba

  ZERØ

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  BURIAL GROUND

  Bonus Material

  Excerpt from VECTOR BORNE

  Excerpt from INNOCENTS LOST

  Excerpt from PREDATORY INSTINCT

  For Madison...and your adventures to come

  Special Thanks to Jeff Strand, Gene O'Neill, Leigh Haig, Bill Rasmussen, Ann Collette, Shane Staley, Brian Keene, my family, and all of my loyal readers, without whom none of this would be possible.

  BURIAL GROUND

  Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.

  --- Aesop

  Out of the dusk a shadow,

  Then, a spark;

  Out of the cloud a silence,

  Then, a lark;

  Out of the heart a rapture,

  Then, a pain;

  Out of the dead, cold ashes,

  Life again.

  --- John Banister Tabb

  The person who runs away exposes himself to that very danger more than a person who sits quietly.

  --- Jawaharlal Nehru

  Prologue

  Andes Mountains

  Northern Peru

  October 11th

  9:26 p.m. PET

  The screams were more than he could bear, but they didn't last long. Panicked cries cut short by wet, tearing sounds, and then finally silence, save the patter of raindrops on the muddy ground. From where he crouched in the dark recess of the stone fortification, hidden from the world by a screen of tangled lianas and the sheeting rain, he had listened to them die.

  All of them.

  The signs had been there, but he and his companions had misinterpreted them, and now it was too late. It was only a matter of time before they found him, and slaughtered him as well.

  Hunter Gearhardt donned his rucksack backward, and wrapped his arms around its contents. He'd managed to grab a few items of importance once he'd recognized what was about to happen, and he needed to get them out of the jungle. More bloodshed would follow if he didn't reach civilization. With their inability to access a signal on the satellite phone, there was no other way to deliver the warning. It was all up to him now, and his window of opportunity was closing fast.

  His breathing was ragged, too loud in his own ears, his heartbeat a thudding counterpoint. He couldn't hear them out there, but they had attacked so quietly in the first place that the silence was of little comfort. They were still out there, stalking him. There was no time to waste. He needed to put as much distance between himself and his pursuit as possible if he were to stay alive long enough to get down off the mountain. And even then, they knew this region of the cloud forest far better than he did.

  He wished he'd had the opportunity to find his pistol, but it would have been useless against their superior numbers. His only hope was to run, to reach the river. From there he could only pray that he would be able to survive the rapids and that they wouldn't be able to track him from the shore. It was a long shot. Unfortunately, it was also his only shot.

  Tightening his grip on his backpack, his muscles tensed in anticipation.

  Through the curtain of lianas, the rain continued to pour, creating puddles in every imperfection in the earth and eroding through the steep slope ahead, which plummeted nearly vertically into the valley below. If he fell, they would be upon him in a flash. And that was only if he didn't slide over the lip of the limestone cliff and plunge hundreds of feet through the forest canopy to his death.

  Hunter drew a deep breath and bolted out into the night. Narrowing his eyes against the sudden assault of raindrops, he focused on the rocky path that led down toward the river. The ancient fortress wall flew past to his left, a crumbling twenty-five foot structure composed of large bricks of chiseled obsidian nearly consumed by the overgrowth of vines, shrubbery, and bromeliads. Every footfall summoned a loud splash he could barely hear over his own frantic breathing. The mud sucked at his boots as though he were running through syrup. He barely managed to stay upright long enough to reach the path, little more than a thin trench between rugged stone faces. The ground in the channel was slick and nearly invisible under the muddy runoff. His feet slipped out from beneath him and he cracked his head on a rock. His momentum and the current carried him downward onto a flat plateau dominated by Brazil nut trees draped with vines and moss.

  The roar of the river became audible over the tumult of rain. He was so close---

  A crashing sound from the underbrush to his right.

  He glanced over as he crawled to his feet and saw nothing but shadows lurking behind the shivering branches.

  More crashing uphill to his left.

  He wasn't going to make it.

  Willing his legs to move faster, he sprinted toward the edge of the forest and the cliff beyond. The waterfall that fired from the mountain upstream was a riot of mist and spray that crashed down upon a series of jagged rocks. Hopefully, there was enough water racing through now thanks to the storm to have raised the level of the river above them. Either way, he'd rather take his chances with broken bones than the hunters that barreled through the jungle, leaving shaking trees in their wake.

  They were all around him now and closing fast.

  If he could just reach the rock ledge, he could leap down into the river and allow it to whisk him away.

  Ten yards.

  Through the trees, he could see only fog, but he'd been down here enough times to know that the foaming whitecaps flowed only fifteen feet below. He would then need to navigate a series of waterfalls, and keep from drowning long enough to reach the bottom of the valley and the start of the real trek.

  Five yards. Another four strides through the snarl of brush and he could make his leap. Just three more strides and---

  Searing pain erupted in his back as he was slammed from behind. Something sharp probed between his ribs to either side of his spine. The mist-shrouded cliff dis
appeared and he saw only mud rising toward his face. The backpack against his chest broke the brunt of his fall, but his forehead still hammered the ground. He saw only blackness and tasted blood. The weight pounded down on his back, knocking the wind out of him. Something clawed at his shoulders as he slid forward.

  The pressure on top of him abated and whatever had stabbed him was yanked out as he rolled over the ledge and tumbled into the fog toward the frigid river, unable even to scream.

  Chapter One

  I

  Pomacochas, Peru

  October 14th

  8:38 a.m. PET

  By the time Wes Merritt caught up with the children, they were giggling and prodding the corpse with sticks.

  This certainly wasn't how he had envisioned starting his day.

  He had been down on the rickety floating dock on Laguna Pomacochas, loading his 1953 DHC-2 #N68080 seaplane with supplies for a quick jaunt down to the City of Chachapoyas, capital of the Amazonas Province of Peru, when the three boys had raced up the wooden planks and begun chattering at him in Quechua. Far from fluent in the native tongue, he had captured just a handful of words here and there, but the few he understood told him he wouldn't be making the flight that morning. Two words had stood out specifically. The first, aya, meant "dead body." And the second, undoubtedly the reason they had come directly to him rather than the policía, was a word that he had been called on more than one occasion himself.

  Mithmaq. The Quechua word for stranger.

  As Merritt approached the bank of the river and the partially concealed body, he wondered if the children had been mistaken. What little skin he could see was mottled bluish black, and the hair was so thick with mud and scum that it was nearly impossible to determine the color. The Mayu Wañu, or, roughly translated, Resurrection River, rose and fell with the seasons, alternately climbing up the steep slope behind him in the spring into the primary rainforest, where the massive trunks of the kapok trees bore the gray discoloration of the water, and diminishing to a gentle trickle mere inches deep during dry spells. The body was tangled in vegetation, half-buried in the mud on the shore, half-floating in the brown river. Swirling eddies attempted to pry it loose to continue its journey along the rapids into the lagoon, but the earth held it fast.

  "Sayana," he said in Quechua. Stop.

  The boys looked up at him, then slowly backed away, their fun spoiled. One, a shaggy-haired boy of about twelve in a filthy polo shirt and corduroys that were far too short, peeked at Merritt from the corner of his eye and gave the corpse one final poke. All three whirled and sprinted back into the jungle, laughing.

  Merritt eased down the slippery bank. The mud swallowed his feet to the ankles and he had to hold the limp yellow ferns to maintain his balance. A quick glance at the ground confirmed the only recent tracks belonged to the barefooted boys. He breathed a sigh of relief. There was a long list of creatures he didn't want to encounter in his current compromised position.

  Merritt hauled himself up onto the snarl of branches that shielded the body from the brunt of the current and crouched to inspect the remains. Judging by the broad shoulders and short hair, the corpse belonged to a male, roughly six feet tall, which definitely marked him as a foreigner to this region of northern Peru. The man's shirt and cargo pants had both absorbed so much of the dirty river that it was impossible to tell what color they might once have been. Twin black straps arched around his shoulders. His left leg bobbed on the river, the laces from his boot squirming beneath the surface. His right foot was snared in the branches under Merritt, the bulk of the leg buried in mud. Both arms were pinned somewhere under the body.

  Back home in the States, this was when the police would arrive and cordon off the scene so the forensics team could begin the investigation. But he wasn't back home. He was in a different world entirely. A world far less complicated than the one he had left behind, one that had initially welcomed him with overt suspicion, but had eventually introduced him to a culture that had made him its own. And although his white skin would always brand him a mithmaq in their midst, no place in the world had ever felt so much like home.

  He looked to the sky, a thin channel of cobalt through the lush branches that nearly eclipsed it from either bank. Blue-capped tanagers darted through the canopy in flickers of turquoise and gold, and common woolly monkeys screeched out of sight. The omnipresent cloud of mosquitoes whined around his head, but showed little interest in the waterlogged corpse, which already seethed with black flies.

  Merritt had seen more than his share of bodies during his years in the army, and approached this one with almost clinical detachment. That was the whole reason he had run halfway around the world to escape. There was only so much death one could experience before becoming numb to it.

  With a sigh, he climbed down from the mound of sticks and rounded the body again.

  "This is so not cool," he said, leaning over the man and grabbing one of the shoulder straps.

  He braced himself and pulled. The body made a slurping sound as he pried it from the mire and dragged it higher onto the bank. Silver shapes darted away through the water, their meal interrupted.

  The vile stench of decomposition made him gag, but he choked down his gorge. It wasn't as though this was the first corpse he had ever seen. A flash of his previous life assailed him. A dark, dry warren of caves. Smoke swirling all around him. Shadowed forms sprawled on the ground and against the rock walls. One of them, a young woman with piercing blue eyes---

  Merritt shook away the memory and willed his heartbeat to slow.

  He blew out a long, slow breath, then rolled the corpse onto its back. The angry cloud of flies buzzed its displeasure.

  "For the love of God..." he sputtered, and drew his shirt up over his mouth and nose.

  The man's face was a mask of mud, alive with wriggling larvae, the abdomen a gaping, macerated maw only partially obscured by the tattered remnants of the shirt. Merritt had obviously dislocated the man's right shoulder when he wrenched it out of the mud. The entire arm hung awkwardly askew, while the left remained wrapped around a rucksack worn backward against his chest, the fingers curled tightly into the fabric as though afraid to release it even in death.

  Merritt groaned and knelt above the man's head. He really wished he'd brought his gloves. Cupping his hands, he scooped the mud from the forehead, out of the eye sockets, and from around the nose and mouth. The skin beneath was so bloated it felt like rubber.

  Even with the brown smears and discolored flesh, Merritt recognized the man immediately. He had flown him and his entire group into Pomacochas from Chiclayo roughly three weeks ago. So where were the rest of them?

  His gaze fell upon the rucksack. If it was still here when the policía arrived, nothing inside would ever be seen again. Corruption was a way of life down here.

  Merritt unhooked the man's claw from the fabric, pulled it away from the bag, and set it on the ground. He unlatched the clasp and drew back the flap. At first all he saw was a clump of soggy plants. He moved them aside and blinked in astonishment.

  "Son of a bitch."

  II

  Hospital Nacional Docente Madre Niño San Bartolomé

  Lima, Peru

  October 15th

  9:03 a.m. PET

  Eldon Monahan, Consul-general of the United States Consulate in Peru, waited in the small gray chamber, handkerchief over his mouth and nose in preparation for what was to come. At least this time he'd had the foresight to dab it in Vicks VapoRub before leaving the office. He wore a crisp charcoal Turnbull & Asser suit with a navy blue silk tie, and had slicked back his ebon hair with the sweat that beaded his forehead and welled against his furry eyebrows. His piercing hazel eyes absorbed his surroundings. It took all of his concentration to suppress the expression of contempt. Slate gray walls lined with ribbons of rust from the leaky pipes in the ceiling surrounded him on three sides. The fourth was a sheet of dimpled aluminum that featured a single door with a wide horizontal handle, the
kind of freezer unit they installed in restaurants. Twin overhead sodium halide fixtures were mounted to the ceiling on retractable armatures. The diffuse beams spotlighted the scuffed, vinyl-tiled floor in front of him.

  God, how he hated this part of his job.

  A baccalaureate degree in Political Science from Stanford and a doctorate in Politics and International Relations from Oxford, and here he was in the basement of what could only loosely be considered a hospital by American standards, in a backward country half a world away from where he really wanted to be. Paying his dues. Mastering the intricacies of foreign diplomacy. Whatever you wanted to call it, it was still about as far as a man could get from a seat on the Senate floor. Here he was, thirty-six years old and not even an actual ambassador.

  The screech of his grinding teeth reminded him of his hypertension, and he tried to focus on something else. Anything else.

  The door in the aluminum wall opened outward with a pop and a hiss. Eldon took an involuntary step in reverse. The morgue attendant acknowledged him with a nod as he wheeled the cart into the room and centered it under the lights. A sheet, stained with a Rorschach pattern of mud and bodily dissolution, covered the human form beneath.