Sergeant Kostos caught him. “Conger!”
“Get him inside!” Kelly snapped, ducking through the entrance.
The Ranger hauled the soldier toward the shabano’s door, but was having difficulty as the man thrashed. Private Carrera shouldered her rifle and bent to help. “Maintain your post, soldier!” Kostos barked, then turned to Nate. “Grab his goddamn legs!”
Nate dropped and hooked Conger’s ankles under his arms. It was like holding the end of a downed power line as the man’s body snapped and seized. “Go!”
As a team, they hauled the soldier through the narrow doorway.
Others came rushing up, awakened by the yelling.
“What happened?” Zane asked.
“Stand out of the way!” Kostos hollered, bowling the man over as he ran with the fallen soldier.
“Over here!” Kelly called. She already had her pack open and a syringe in hand. “Lay him down and hold him still.”
After lowering Conger to the dirt, Nate was elbowed aside. Two Rangers took his place, pinning the soldier’s legs to the ground.
Kostos knelt on the corporal’s shoulders, holding him in place. But the man’s head continued to bang up and down as if he were trying to knock himself unconscious. Froth foamed from his lips, bloody from where he half chewed through his own lip. “Jesus Christ! Conger!”
Kelly sliced open the man’s right sleeve with a razor blade, then quickly slid a needle into Conger’s arm. She injected the syringe’s contents and knelt back to watch their effect, holding his wrist clamped in her fingers. “C’mon…c’mon…”
Suddenly the man’s contorted form relaxed.
“Thank God,” Kostos sighed.
Kelly’s reaction wasn’t as relieved. “Damn it!” She pounced on his form, checking his neck for a pulse, then pushed the soldiers aside as she began CPR on his chest. “Someone start mouth-to-mouth.”
The Rangers were too stunned for a moment to move.
Nathan bumped Kostos aside, wiped the bloody froth from Conger’s mouth, then began to breathe in sync with Kelly’s labors. Nate’s focus narrowed down to the rhythm of their work. He vaguely heard the concerned chatter of the others.
“Some damn frog thing or fish,” Kostos explained. “It hopped out and bit Conger on the leg.”
“Poisoned!” Kelly huffed as she worked. “It must have been venomous.”
“I’ve never heard of such a creature,” Kouwe said.
Nathan wanted to agree, but was too busy breathing for the dying soldier.
“There were thousands,” Kostos continued, “chewing their way downstream toward here.”
“What are we going to do?” Zane asked.
Captain Waxman’s voice drowned everyone else out. “First of all, we’re not going to panic. Corporal Graves and Private Jones…join Carrera in securing the perimeter.”
“Wait!” Nate gasped between breaths.
Waxman turned on him. “What?”
Nate spoke in stilted breaths between attempts to resuscitate Conger. “We’re too close to the stream. It runs right past the shabano.”
“So?”
“They’ll come for us from the stream…like the Indians.” Nate was dizzy from hyperventilating. He breathed into Corporal Conger’s mouth, then was up again. “We have to get away. Away from the waterways until daybreak. Nocturnal…” Down he went to breathe.
“What do you mean?”
Professor Kouwe answered. “The Indians were attacked at night. Now this assault. Nathan believes these creatures may be nocturnal. If we could avoid their path until sunrise, we should be safe.”
“But we have shelter and a secure area here. They’re just fish or frogs or something.”
Nate remembered the black-and-white view through the night-vision goggles: the creatures leaping from the river, bounding high into the trees. “We’re not secure here!” he gasped out. He bent down again, but he was stopped by a hand on his shoulder.
“It’s useless,” Kelly said, pulling him up. “He’s gone.” She faced the others. “I’m sorry. The poison spread too quickly. Without an antivenom…” She shook her head sadly.
Nate stared at the still form of the young Texan. “Damn it…” He stood up. “We have to get away. Far away from the waters. I don’t know how far from the streams and rivers these creatures can travel, but the one I saw had gills. They probably can’t stay out of the water for long.”
“What do you suggest?” Frank asked.
“We travel to higher ground. Avoid the river and the little stream. I think the Indians believed it was just the river they needed to fear, but the predators followed the stream and ambushed them.”
“You’re speaking as if the creatures are intelligent.”
“No, I can’t imagine they are.” Nate remembered the way the dolphins were fleeing, while none of the larger river fish were bothered. He pictured the attack on the pig and the capybara. A theory slowly jelled. “Maybe they’re simply focused on warm-blooded creatures. I don’t know…maybe they can zone in on body heat or something, scouring both the water and the river’s edges for prey.”
Frank turned to Waxman. “I say we heed Dr. Rand.”
“So do I,” Kelly said, standing. She pointed to Corporal Conger. “If a single bite can do this, we can’t take the risk.”
Waxman turned on Frank. “You may be the head of operations, but in matters of security, my word is law.”
Private Carrera ducked her head through the roundhouse’s doorway. “Something’s happening out here. The river is frothing something fierce. One of the boats’ pontoons just blew.”
Beyond the walls of the shabano, the jungle awoke with monkey howls and screeching birds.
“We’re running out of options,” Nate said fiercely. “If they come up the stream and flank us, cutting us off from higher ground, many more will die like Conger…like the Indians.”
Nate found support in the most unlikely of places. “The doctor’s right,” Sergeant Kostos said. “I saw those buggers. Nothing’ll stop them from attacking.” He waved an arm. “Definitely not this flimsy place. We’re sitting ducks in here, sir.”
After a pause, Waxman nodded. “Load up the gear.”
“What about the motion sensors outside?” Kostos asked.