Blood Forest Part 32

"A pygmy!"

Raoul looked up in confusion, hands held up defensively. He said something in French that Gilles ignored.

"Wait . . . what pygmy?" Delani demanded. The South African took a cautious step toward Gilles, ready to step between the two men if necessary.

"I saw them in the forest," Gilles insisted. "They were hiding in the shadows. They've been following us all along and he's been talking to them."

"He says he was only singing," Delani replied. "You're sure you saw them?"

Gilles' eyes flashed to the forest, and Brandon caught a glimpse of the fire in them. Suddenly, he understood what was happening. When Gilles looked back to Raoul he lifted the gun and squeezed the trigger.

"No wait!" Brandon cried, stepping in front of Raoul.

Gilles froze a split second before firing the shot. His wild eyes turned to Brandon.

"It's the forest," Brandon tried to explain. "It's affecting you. Don't believe it. Don't do anything crazy. It's making you imagine these things."

Gilles shook his head with a small hint of uncertainty. "I'm not imagining. I saw him. He is a liar and a traitor!"

Delani looked warily back and forth between Brandon and Gilles. His hand had slipped to his belt and fingered the grip of his own pistol, but he didn't draw it yet. "He's right. Put down your weapon so we can sort this out."

"He's lying!" This time Gilles turned the pistol on Brandon, the thick barrel aimed at his face. "Think, Delani. He's the one who led us into this cursed place. He's the one who said that we had to stay here when we tried to leave. He wants our souls, don't you see?"

Brandon stood powerless, held in place by the Desert Eagle.

Gilles whispered in French to a steady rhythm. Although Brandon couldn't understand the words, he knew the meaning of the intonations. It was a prayer. Gilles regarded Brandon as though staring into the eyes of a demon.

Delani moved unexpectedly. Instead of drawing his firearm, his arm flew up, striking Gilles' wrist. The Desert Eagle was thrown wide and Delani tackled him. The two men collapsed to the mud, pistol waving wildly.

"Do you know what these are?" Guy asked as he slid long sheets of paper in front of Sam. They were line graphs with sharp peaks and dips. In some areas the peaks grew more rugged and in others they flattened out to a gentle ripple, like waves on a seismic chart.

"No, I don't."

"They're brain waves recorded by an electroencephalograph. An EEG machine," he explained. "They measure electric activity inside the human brain. When individual synapses fire in your brain they give off an electrical current. The EEG measures the sum of these currents to determine which parts of your brain are active and which are inactive."

He pointed to a line of particularly dense peaks, packed together like a compressed spring. "The waves with the smaller amplitudes are beta waves. You will find these in conjunction with active thought and higher learning. Your brain is most likely giving these off at this very moment."

Guy slid his finger to a point where the peaks spread out. "If you were to close your eyes and relax in your chair, your brain waves would reduce in frequency until they became alpha waves like these here. You're still awake but you are not problem- solving or partic.i.p.ating in active thought.

"Theta waves have larger amplitudes. They are more common in children, but adults will experience them when they reach either a state of drowsiness or one of arousal. Some have reported detecting them during meditation and they are also commonly a.s.sociated with hypnosis."

Guy watched her for a moment, as if his last point was important. His finger fell on a series of wide peaks, the widest on the page. "Finally, we have delta waves. These are common in infants, but occur in adults during sleep."

She took another sip from her gla.s.s. The champagne only quenched her thirst for a moment. After every drink, her mouth felt drier than before.

"On any day, your brain generates this electrical field through alternating frequencies, each frequency dependent on your level of brain activity. Now this has led some to wonder, what happens to these brain waves when they are subjected to waves from an outside source, such as radio waves or such as the waves generated by your cell phone?"

She glanced curiously down at her cell phone. She rarely thought about how the thing actually worked. To her, it transported voice to her ear as if by magic. She took it for granted, forgetting that the signals were a form of radiation.

"A group of researchers performed an experiment on just that effect," Guy went on. "They attached human subjects to EEG machines and then exposed them to radio waves of the amplitude and frequency that pa.s.ses through the cell phone, as it would pa.s.s with the phone held against your ear. In a matter of seconds, they detected a change in the EEG readouts. While the radio waves were administered to awake subjects, ordinary alpha and beta waves were joined by aberrant theta and delta waves. That is, the waves you experience while you are sleeping, resting, or . . ."

"Hypnotized?"

"Yes. Under normal conditions, these aberrations only occur in adults in the case of certain disorders."

"What does that do?"

"At such a level? Not very much. Perhaps a cell phone can make you feel drowsy or tired. Perhaps it makes you more p.r.o.ne to 'zone out.' Perhaps even, you are more p.r.o.ne to suggestion, or perhaps nothing. What the study does tell us is that beyond any doubt, radio waves affect the human brain.

"People have reported all manner of ailments due to strong electromagnetic fields and the waves given off by power lines: depression, paranoia, aggression, hallucination. When every thought you have is nothing more than an electrical signal and everything you see and perceive is brought to you by means of an electromagnetic field, doesn't it make sense that these outside waves could disrupt those very processes?"

Sam scoffed. People were more than just brainwaves. She held her opinion in check. Instead of speaking, she took another sip from her gla.s.s.

"Would you like more?" her captor asked, tipping the bottle in her direction.

She ran a hand through her hair, knowing she should refuse. She shook her head.

"In experiments on laboratory rats, pulsating radio frequencies have been shown to affect behavior. Certain frequencies increase exploratory behavior when the rats are placed in mazes and others feed their fear and inhibition. Their mood can be changed simply by turning a dial. The same is true with humans."

Temba watched mystified as the baboons advanced on the leopard. It hissed angrily as it backed away through the thick green fronds. Soon Temba lost sight of the animal.

The buzzing in his ear persisted, but he had reduced the sound to background noise. The rest of his senses were on alert. Something pulsed through the forest and it felt very strong here, as if he stood on some mystical node. His teeth gritted and his fingers tore into the bark of the tree. His muscles yearned to break something, what didn't matter.

Through the darkness and the pounding rain, Temba saw more shapes close in on him. He recognized the hunched forms bounding on all fours as baboons. The creatures meant to make a meal of him.

Let them try, Temba thought angrily. With his whole body ready for a fight, he felt like he might have the strength to rip each of the creatures in two.

At least a dozen surrounded him, cornering him against their sacred tree. Temba reached back and felt Kuntolo's spear, but the long c.u.mbersome weapon wouldn't satisfy his rage adequately. A spear was a weapon of balance and control. He wanted to beat something. So his hand fell to the axe at his belt and thought of it thudding into baboon flesh.

This is insanity.

Insanity . . .

Such angry magic could not be good magic and certainly not wise. Temba resisted the urge to leap at the closest baboon. He a.s.suaged his anger by promising revenge on them later, one at a time and under circ.u.mstances he could control. Why fight the creatures on their own terms? He needed to escape.

Temba glanced up the tree. It stretched out of sight, raindrops streaking past like deadly arrows. His palms gripped the ridges in the bark and the sides of his feet locked against the thick trunk. He scrambled up the first ten feet until he reached the first knot and got a good grip with his fingers. He looked down past one dangling leg at the baboons circling the tree. Their clawed limbs gripped the trunk easily; one-by-one they climbed after him.

He scrambled up the next stretch of tree. He realized the weight of his predicament when one of his palms slipped on the wet bark. The ground loomed far off, the small fumble reminding him how deadly a fall could be. Temba steeled his nerve, using his anger to fuel his adrenaline. He climbed the next length without looking down, his eyes fixed on the closest branch. Finally he looped his wrist around it and pulled himself up. The branch shuddered under the sudden weight.

A baboon closed quickly, already nearing his branch. It bared its fangs and barked at him. Temba pulled his bow from his shoulder and nocked an arrow. He took aim and released. He lost sight of the arrow immediately in the rain and the darkness, but he heard the thump as it struck the small primate.

The baboon stumbled for only a moment, before closing once more. Temba unleashed a second arrow, the tip striking the creature in the shoulder. This time it let go, and he watched it tumble to the ground landing among the roots with a heavy crash.

Temba shouldered the bow and climbed on.

As he climbed higher, the branches grew thicker. Soon he weaved among them, nearby leaves swaying with his movements. But although the branches made the climb less perilous, they also slowed his movements. A second baboon closed in.

Temba paused in a crook between two branches and nocked another arrow. He waited until the baboon climbed onto the nearest branch so he could see its angry yellow eyes, even in the stormy darkness. He released the arrow and watched the creature tumble out of view.

Another came up right behind it. This time, as he reached for an arrow, he found his small quiver empty. The baboon moved in, maw opened to rend his flesh. Temba struck out with his bow, beating the tender wood across the creature's snout. The shaft broke immediately, and he jabbed the broken tip at the baboon's neck.

Baboon and bow tumbled off the branch and out of view.

Temba continued up into the canopy where the rain drove down fiercely. A blinding flash arced across the sky, followed by equally deafening thunder. From somewhere nearby, he heard wood splinter and a heavy trunk crash to the ground.

Three parallel lines pa.s.sed only ten feet overhead, connecting to a strange metal device at the top of the tree. Through the thick leaves, he spotted what looked like a dish turned on its side and stuck with a fork. The dish, it seemed, faced toward the river. The buzzing was unavoidable now. Although it seemed to originate inside his head, Temba felt he was near its source.

The baboons did not relent. As the branches spread out from the trunk, they too spread out. No longer could he battle them one at a time. Instead they moved in from all directions.

As the baboons closed in, he put his back to the trunk and wedged himself between a pair of branches.

"My grandfather came to this region of the Congo to conduct his research. Radio waves and mind control didn't seem so far-fetched back then. We were just beginning to understand their significance, those mystical beams of energy. When colonial Africa ended, the work was forgotten and abandoned."

"Until you came along."

"Precisely. When he pa.s.sed I was able to examine his lab notes, the ones he left back in Europe. I became convinced that, in light of the recent studies that I just mentioned, there was evidence that this forgotten field had merit. I came here and found the power station in place and four radar dishes facing toward one river."

"You use the river as a sounding board."

Guy tilted his head, obviously impressed. "Yes, the electromagnetic field is enhanced by the presence of the water. The hardest part was experimenting with different frequencies. Many produced no noticeable effect. I stumbled upon one that increased levels of cortisol and serotonin in the brain. You see? I was able to increase aggression, and to exceptional levels."

Sam attempted to bite back her disgust.

"You've seen them. The animals are far more aggressive. They attack at a much higher degree of regularity. Maybe you've even experienced it yourself. You might become agitated or quick-tempered. When someone enters this forest that is not welcome, I can dial up the waves and ensure that the jungle is hostile."

Raoul crawled back from the dangerous brawl, slipping in the mud.

Delani rolled on top of Gilles, trying to pin him down. His wrist locked against the arm that held the pistol and pushed it out wide and to the ground. His knee drove into Gilles abdomen, stealing the man's breath. As Gilles gasped for air, Delani raised a fist over his head and swung down. Knuckles connected with cheekbone with a firm crunch.

Brandon watched Delani pummel Gilles. Overwhelmed with anger, the South African did not relent, even as blood coated his swinging fist. Brandon saw the danger. He watched the pistol too, wary that a sudden gunshot might kill someone or alert the militia.

If the soldiers found them in such disarray and without Ike to help them, they wouldn't stand a chance.

Distracted by the two mercenaries, Brandon didn't notice Raoul slipping away until he crawled into a pair of bushes and stood up. The Frenchman looked back one final time before sprinting away.

"Raoul, wait!" Brandon cried, darting after him.

He caught up to Raoul before the man collected his balance enough for a run. Brandon planted both hands against Raoul's back and drove him to the ground. Raoul collapsed to his belly, coughing as Brandon pushed down on him. Suddenly feeling guilty for attacking the man, he relinquished the hold.

Raoul elbowed Brandon in the ribs, cursing in French and jumping to his feet. He recovered from the blow and started after Raoul again, certain he could overtake the older man who was drunk and out of shape.

He put his arms out meaning to grab Raoul around the shoulders. They caught only empty air. Stunned by the quick move, Brandon didn't have time to react as a fist struck him in the abdomen. He doubled over onto Raoul's waiting shoulder and then flailed helplessly as the Frenchman flipped him over his back. He fell headfirst and rolled into the mud.

He lay there, stunned, as raindrops poured onto his face.

He heard a subtle click and a slight flash to his right. A short blade had appeared in Raoul's hand. The Frenchman leapt on top of Brandon, bringing the knife toward his throat. Brandon's forearm blocked the attack as the sharp metal sliced the air inches from his cheek.

Raoul gritted his teeth and pushed the blade down, easily overpowering Brandon in his p.r.o.ne position. The look in the Frenchman's eyes was chilling. Instead of crazed anger, like Gilles or Delani, there was patient, calculated aggression.

The knife drove downward, until it pressed into the skin of Brandon's neck.

"My eventual goal is to produce the opposite: pacification. Imagine a prison with no need for bars," Guy said. "Violent criminals can live in peace and harmony with each other as they await the end of their sentences. No need for guards. No prison fights. Virtually no security except for the radio waves that pa.s.s through the air.

"Areas of high crime can be virtually eliminated without invasive police patrols. With aggressive tendencies reduced or eradicated we could see an end to violent crime altogether."

"That would never happen," Sam argued. "n.o.body would ever agree to it. No government I mean. It's too . . ."

"Too what?"

"Unethical."

"You think that it is unethical?"

"You said you can only cause aggression," she reminded him. "You can't get rid of it. Is that why the animals?"

He nodded. "As I said before, you have already witnessed the results of my research. Perhaps you've even experienced the influence on your brain first hand. That puts you in an excellent position to understand it."

"I remember seeing things and hearing voices."

"Those are side effects," he a.s.sured her. "An American scientist has performed experiments on the human brain, subjecting them to intense electromagnetic fields. His theory is that certain supernatural events, alien abductions, ghosts sightings, and even encounters with mystical beings such as angels, can be caused by the presence of geo-electric signals.

"When an electromagnetic field interferes with the one inside your mind a form of disa.s.sociation occurs. The disruption throws off your brain patterns until your mind can no longer recognize its own thoughts. Feelings and ideas originating in your brain seem to come from someplace else. This results in a feeling of paranoia and also the distinct impression that you are not alone.

"Now, when neural signals are interrupted, particularly sensory signals, the brain responds to the lack of input and fills in the gaps. The result is a hallucination. What form the hallucination takes is based on what the brain expects to see, rather than what it actually sees. So, if the mind thinks it is not alone the hallucination takes a human form. Or in the case of one of these experiences, a near human form. Certain basic primordial features are exaggerated. Head, eyes, the length of the fingers and the arms-"

"So they see aliens? Or ghosts?" Sam asked, incredulous. She remembered the man she saw melting into the floor of the tent. But he didn't seem to fit one of the hallucinations Guy described. He felt more like a dream. She remembered what Guy said about sleep and brain waves. Could the waves disrupt her sleep cycle? Make her feel like she was dreaming when she was awake?

"Yes, ghosts," he replied with a wry grin. "Not even the BaMbuti believe in such silly superst.i.tions."

Curved claws gripped the round branches. The leaves of the nearby branches formed a protective circle at Temba's sides, so the first baboon advanced from straight ahead.

Temba yanked the axe from his belt as the baboon leapt. He swung the weapon blindly, eyes half shut. A heavy impact rippled up his shoulders and he heard the satisfying rip of flesh. The animal screamed, its new momentum slamming it into the branch at Temba's left. The leaves shook from the impact and he had to steady himself against the tree. The baboon tumbled down catching a branch a few feet below Temba. It dangled there for half a second before its claws slipped and it fell out of view.

A second baboon hooked its front claws around Temba's perch to climb up from below. Temba's heel came down on the claw, grinding the animal's digits until it let go. It still held on with its other paw, so he bent down with one leg and kicked out with the other, his foot striking the creature's shoulder, dislodging it.

When Temba looked down he saw at least six more advancing through the branches, fanning in around him. He kept his axe at the ready. This time the baboons waited. One climbed into the branches above him and the others moved in from the sides and below. He couldn't hope to fend them all off at this rate. As much as his heart wanted to stay and fight, as much as his adrenaline raged with bloodl.u.s.t, Temba knew he had to seek higher ground.

He planted one foot against the trunk and leaped up to the next branch, landing on his feet. The wood bowed under his weight and then snapped back up. He used the extra force to propel him onto the branch the top baboon perched on. Temba almost rolled right over it, but he wrapped both arms around the wood and caught himself, axe wedged against his chest.

The baboon barked angrily. It crouched on its haunches ready to spring. But as Temba hopped to his feet, he did not brace himself to meet this attack. Already the lower baboons were moving up. He needed to get higher still.

The canopy spread out, and he saw the stormy sky, forks of lightning arcing across the horizon, lighting the trees in flashes of green. Temba's eyes locked on the next branch and sprang. He grabbed the wood with both arms, as the baboon jumped under him, finding only trunk and not Temba. The baboon turned and leapt at his hanging legs. He felt the rush of claws near his skin and bent his torso, tucking his legs underneath him. Temba pulled and twisted his legs until his ankles locked around the branch. He pulled himself up until he sat on all fours on top of the branch.

Static coursed across his body and he heard a rush of air. Lightning blasted across a nearby branch, rupturing wood into splinters. The heat from the bolt seared the left side of his body and sent the world spinning. It took all of his effort to hang onto the branch as the thunder rolled over him, shaking every bone and muscle.

When Temba's eyes opened again, the branch had fallen into the canopy, becoming caught amongst the leaves.

For a moment, he hoped the lightning bolt had deterred the creatures, but when he looked down, he saw the baboons closing relentlessly.