Carpathian 23 - Dark Storm

the same phrase
     over and over. “Hän kalma, emni hän ku köd alte. ­Tappatak naman. Tappatak naman.”
    Riley heard the words clearly as the porter repeated them over and over. She knew
     most of the dialects of the tribes spoken in this part of the rain forest. She knew
     Spanish and Portuguese. She knew European languages and even Russian and Latin, but
     this was nothing like she’d ever heard before. Not Latin in origin. Not any of the
     dead languages she was familiar with, but the words meant something to the porter
     ­and—­she glanced at Jubal and ­Gary—­to the two researchers.
    Raul chanted the sentences over and over in a guttural, hypnotic voice. His eyes glazed
     over. She’d seen ceremonies that had placed recipients into trances and the porter
     definitely appeared to be in one, which made him doubly dangerous. Sweat poured from
     his body, dripping from him to ­
splatter darkly across the leaves that were now crawling with thousands of ants. He
     shook his head continually, as if fighting the sound in his head, stumbling backward
     a few feet and then relentlessly moving forward again.
    Her mouth went dry as the bats overhead began to descend, dropping to the ground like
     menacing raptors, creeping through the vegetation. Beady eyes stared at Annabel as
     they used their wings like legs, propelling themselves toward their prey. Raul shuffled
     closer, his movements awkward, very unlike his normal easy movement, the murmured
     chant growing in volume and intensity with each step forward. Closer now, the jaguar
     gave another haunting, grunting cough. Riley could not believe what was happening.
     It was as if everything hostile in the rain forest was out to kill her mother.
    Riley lit her torch, holding it away from her body, and quickly began lighting the
     torches she’d placed around her mother. The torches flared, forming a low wall of
     light and fire around Annabel.
    Raul kept coming in spite of the fact that he tried desperately to stop himself. Each
     time he succeeded in moving backward, away from Annabel, his body would begin a forward
     motion again. Not fast. Not slow. A programmed robot, chanting louder, that same phrase
     over and over. A command now. A demand. “Hän kalma, emni hän ku köd alte. Tappatak naman. Tappatak naman.”
    The porter appeared not to see the macabre bats with their disturbing wing crawl.
     His glazed eyes remained fixed on Annabel, the machete in a two-handed grip as he
     approached.
    “Riley,” Jubal said. “Get inside the circle of light and keep the bats off with your
     torch. Let me handle Raul.”
    She tried not to be relieved. It was her duty to protect her mother, but the porter’s
     diabolical mask, filled with some insane, fanatical zealous purpose, was truly horrifying.
     She slipped back into the circle of fire closer to her mother.
    Jubal Sanders lifted a gun as he raised his voice. “Pedro, Miguel, Alejandro,” he
     called to the three guides. “Stop him before I shoot him. And I will shoot. If you
     don’t want Raul to die, you’d better restrain him. He’s got about seven more seconds
     and then I pull the trigger.”
    There was no doubt Jubal was fully prepared to shoot the porter. His voice resonated
     with command, although delivered in a low, firm tone. Time slowed down. Tunneled.
     Riley saw everything as if in a distant dream. The inevitable turn of heads, the expressions
     of fear and shock. The shuffling forward of the bats. The porter one step closer.
     Jubal, calm, gun in hand.
    Miguel, Pedro and Alejandro, all brothers, rushed toward Raul while the others stood
     undecided, apparently in shock at the porter’s clear intention of murdering a woman.
     Dr. Patton and his two students seemed to notice for the first time that something
     was wrong. All three stood up quickly, staring in horror at the scene unfolding. Flames
     rose eerily from the main fire pit and streamed from the torches placed in the ground
     as if a wind had suddenly gusted, but the air was still.
    “Hän kalma, emni hän ku köd alte. Tappatak naman. Tappatak naman.” Raul continued to chant the foreign phrase over and over.
    Riley could hear the words distinctly now. She recognized the strange cadence buzzing
     in her ear, as if that same refrain, although distant for her, was being fed into
     her mind—into all of their minds. There were dozens of hallucinogens in the rain forest
     that the guides and porters, probably the researchers