Eight Read online

  E I G H T

  Deep in the Amazon lies the solution to the global energy crisis—a mysterious source of power that will end our dependency on oil.

  It’s not the only discovery.

  When entomologist Rebecca Riley receives a series of strange photographs from expedition leader and former partner, Ed Reardon, she finds herself heading to Brazil to join the team of scientists assembling there. She hasn’t seen Ed for more than a year, and their relationship didn’t end well.

  His revelation, however, is impossible to ignore.

  What she uncovers is beyond imagination: strange statues in the jungle… a ruined city built by the refugees of a lost Pacific continent… and a terrifying new species.

  She knows this is no ordinary animal. When the team is attacked, the mission becomes a desperate race for survival, and Rebecca must confront a crippling childhood phobia she’d thought long dead and buried.

  An ancient enemy has awakened, one whose very existence has implications for all of humankind… and the planet itself.

  Terror has a new species.

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  Prologue

  The Find

  1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16

  The Rain

  17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21 • 22 • 23 • 24 • 25 • 26 • 27 • 28 • 29 • 30 • 31 • 32 • 33 • 34 • 35 • 36 • 37 • 38 • 39 • 40 • 41 • 42 • 43 • 44 • 45 • 46 • 47 • 48 • 49

  The Nest

  50 • 51 • 52 • 53 • 54 • 55 • 56 • 57 • 58 • 59 • 60 • 61 • 62 • 63 • 64 • 65 • 66 • 67 • 68 • 69 • 70 • 71 • 72 • 73 • 74 • 75 • 76 • 77 • 78 • 79 • 80 • 81 • 82

  The Prey

  83 • 84 • 85 • 86 • 87 • 88 • 89 • 90 • 91 • 92 • 93 • 94 • 95 • 96 • 97 • 98 • 99 • 100 • 101 • 102 • 103 • 104 • 105 • 106 • 107 • 108 • 109 • 110 • 111 • 112 • 113 • 114 • 115 • 116 • 117 • 118 • 119

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  A request from the author

  Copyright

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  For their help with this version of EIGHT, special thanks must go to Julie Sampson, Leslie Lutz, Jeroen ten Berge and Rob Siders.

  For my family

  PROLOGUE

  The DHC-3 crawled through the darkening sky, skimming the jungle canopy. From the air, the forest was an impressive sight, an unbroken carpet of green stretching endlessly in all directions. But it was the distant horizon that had stolen the attention of Carlos Juarez as he sat at the controls of the tiny aircraft. Ahead, blackened clouds amassed, raked by lightning at the point where the jungle met the sky.

  A storm was building.

  Carlos shook his head. Of all the luck. Evening thunderstorms weren’t unusual in western Amazonia, but he hated flying in bad weather.

  “So much for the perfect getaway,” he murmured, turning to Maria in the seat beside him. He spoke in Brazilian Portuguese, and his voice was low. “Looks bad.”

  For long seconds, Maria stared into the gathering veil. “Not that bad,” she said, and shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.” She turned to meet his gaze. Normally bright, her almond-coloured eyes were now dim with indifference.

  Carlos disagreed about the storm but wasn’t going to argue.

  Below them, endless shades of green slid smoothly beneath the plane.

  Changing the subject, Carlos said, “I’ve made arrangements for the boat to Monte Oeste. We leave tomorrow morning.” As he spoke, he realised he was staring, drawn by the contours of Maria’s face and the smoothness of her unblemished, deep olive skin. Her long, shiny dark hair hung in waves that stretched halfway down her back.

  God, she’s beautiful.

  Maria must have noticed the scrutiny. “And what of your plans till then?” she asked, running her fingers through his close-cropped hair.

  Carlos grinned. “And spoil the surprise? I don’t think so.”

  Still grinning, he turned again to the view beyond the cockpit, where lightning flickered in sheets through the distant blackness like a faulty fluorescent tube.

  Soon, everything will be different, he thought. Safe. Serious once more, he considered their escape to Monte Oeste, his mind drifting to the promise of a second chance, a new life.

  He cocked his head, listening. The sound had only lasted a second—a pop, followed by a pause in the otherwise steady drone of the engine. He glanced at the instrument panel: no blinking lights or flashing gauges caught his eye. Again, he listened. The floatplane was his brother’s, but he’d flown it dozens of times and knew its every tick. He was sure he’d heard something.

  The engine purred comfortably. The plane pushed through the glowering sky.

  “Carlos, honey—are you alright?”

  Perhaps he’d imagined it after all. He smiled faintly. “Of course, everything’s fine.”

  The words had barely left his mouth before the first drops of rain crashed hard against the cockpit glass. Carlos refocused, the incident forgotten. “Here we go.” He braced himself… and flew straight into the storm’s dark maw.

  A rush of wind batted the aircraft, tossing it like a ship in heavy seas and jarring the tiny plane violently. Shades of dark grey and black pressed against the cockpit glass, though on all sides came flashes of brilliance as lightning sparked and flared.

  “You’ve seen worse?” Carlos said as rain pounded the shell of the cabin. A fork of blinding white split the sky before them, and he jumped. It was close. Too close.

  Maria chose not to reply, and—though trying to hide it, as was her penchant—was now sitting tensely upright. Carlos felt a knot of dread tighten in his stomach.

  He hated flying in bad weather.

  He turned to voice his detestation but was cut off by a deafening boom and a burst of light so bright that it came seemingly from inside the cabin. With a sizzle, the instrument panel shut off, plunging them into darkness. Maria screamed.

  The plane had been struck by lightning.

  Like a school of startled fish, remnants of the flash jagged across Carlos’s vision. He blinked, hearing at the same time Maria’s cry of terror give way to a high-pitched wail. She was calling to him.

  But there was a greater demand of his attention.

  The sound he had heard only seconds earlier had come again, and this time there was no mistaking it. A pop—then silence.

  The engine had died.

  Without warning, the engine roared back to life, revving loudly. The instrument panel surged back as well, but it was now dotted with numerous, flashing red lights.

  “Carlos, what’s happening?”

  Carlos stalled, taking stock. “We’re losing altitude.” He heard Maria’s breath catch in her throat, the resolve that some mistook for coldness having all but fled her.

  “Oh God…what are we going to do?”

  Carlos squinted through the near-dark and found no safe place to land the stricken plane: no rivers, no clear stretch of water. To both the north and south, the ground was elevated and uneven. The shallow valley between, running west in the direction they flew, was covered in the same thick, unbroken jungle that blanketed every square mile—every square inch—of the visible world.

  He wrestled with the controls and got minimal response. They were already too low anyway.

  “We don’t have a choice,” he said. “We’re going into the valley. If I can keep her level… the jungle might cushion the impact.” He turned to Maria. There was no disguising her terror; tears welled in her wide eyes, and she gripped the instrument panel so hard her knuckles had turned white. Carl
os gripped the steering yoke, his own fingers pale and trembling. “Hold on,” he said redundantly.

  The earth rushed up to swallow them…

  • • •

  The plane tore into the canopy, roaring.

  Glass shattered. Metal screamed. With sickening force, Carlos was flung in his seat. The cabin alternated between light and dark like a malfunctioning strobe. Something hit him in the head, stunning him. Outside, thick branches snapped like matchsticks against all sides of the plane, filling his ears with thunder. Cutting through it all were Maria’s hysterical wails. Carlos prayed her death would be painless.

  But then just as everything was too fast and the noise too loud there was a release… and a sensation of slowing… and then time paused…

  …before strangely, speeding up again, but gently, and it seemed the physical world was transforming, softening to deliver the plane to safety.

  Carlos felt…

  …a momentary sense of weightlessness….

  Then, the screeching metal was no more. Everything stilled.

  Carlos blinked, disoriented. Blurry veils winged across his vision like a flock of dark birds, threatening to drag him from consciousness.

  “Honey? Carlos?”

  The voice hauled him back to his senses, and his eyes refocused. He turned his head, pain shooting into his temples. Maria was slumped forward, her hair messed and across her face. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Maria groaned. “I… I think so.”

  It took a moment for the shock to clear and for Carlos to grasp that the two of them were still alive. Only then did he become aware of the seatbelt biting into his flesh, supporting the full weight of his body. They appeared to be hanging nose-down tail-up above the ground, tangled in the canopy.

  Outside, the afternoon’s storm-filtered light was rapidly dissolving into blackness, and an inky gloom permeated the cabin. Carlos strained to see through the windshield, but it had become a silvery maze of cracks and the plane’s right wing—which had twisted across the front of the aircraft—blocked his view. With effort, he turned and glanced through the window in the door beside Maria. The glass there had shattered, affording him limited visibility. Strangely, though, and despite the lack of light, he didn’t see the leaves or branches you’d expect to find in a jungle canopy.

  What the…

  Rain pummelled the fuselage, drumming on the De Havilland. The aircraft swayed gently. Metal groaned and strained.

  And then there was another sound.

  Scratching. On the outside of the cabin.

  Heart pounding, Carlos was for a fleeting moment reminded of his youth, of a time when he and his brother Ramos as kids would go to the beach collecting crabs in a tin pail. The way the crabs would claw and scramble…

  A scurrying across the roof echoed inside the cabin, and a dark blur streaked past the right-rear window.

  A monkey?

  “Carlos!” Maria cried, her voice tightening to a squeal. “Did you see that? There’s something out there!”

  More scrabbling, followed by a long silence—again, just the rain and soft creak and tick of metal. The strange sound didn’t return.

  “Stay quiet,” Carlos whispered. Holding onto the seat, feet propped against the instrument panel, he released the clasp of his harness with a gentle click.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to look outside, get us out of here.”

  “Outside?”

  Carlos climbed carefully towards the tail of the plane. His head throbbed with the effort, in keeping with the galloping pace of his heart. He tasted blood in his mouth.

  Outside, the tattoo of rain continued.

  At the rear of the plane, set into the wall behind the seats, was a tiny storage compartment. With a push of a button, Carlos snapped it open to expose a gleaming, chrome-plated automatic pistol. He retrieved the Colt, in the process catching sight of the palm-sized cloth bag tucked up behind the weapon. He paused to stare at the item, then abruptly closed the compartment with the bag still inside.

  Working quickly, Carlos checked the .45, noting the scratching sound hadn’t returned. Satisfied the Colt was fully loaded and in proper working order, he climbed back to the aircraft’s battered door. Hesitating there, he braced himself and took a deep breath. Pistol in hand, he forced the door open and peered out.

  Nothing could have prepared him for what lay beyond.

  “Meu Deus…” he whispered, crossing himself.

  He sensed a presence in the shattered window beside Maria. She didn’t get a chance to scream. Nor did he.

  Outside, the scurrying became more frantic, thunderous above the drumming rain.

  UPPER REACHES OF THE RIO TEKENU, THE AMAZON BASIN

  TWO YEARS LATER…

  Ed Reardon glanced at his watch and cursed. Forty minutes had passed since he’d planned to break at the peak; now, standing upon it amid waist-high ferns and in the deepening shadow of the canopy, he realised he’d been kidding himself. In less than two hours it’d be dark, and by nightfall he’d hoped to be at the first marker. At this rate there seemed little chance of that, even less if he didn’t keep moving.

  “It’s not far to the bottom,” he said at last, turning to his companion as the call of a solitary woolly monkey echoed somewhere in the understorey. “I’ll get a fix on our position from there.”

  Robert Sanchez had already removed his pack and stared intently at a hand-held GPS receiver. He looked up. “Amigo,” he said, his small brown eyes little more than narrow slits, “we should stop and confirm our position now. Once already we have strayed, and we can little afford to do so again.”

  Distracted, Ed listened to the monkey’s cry trail off before running a hand through a mess of hair wet with rain. Sanchez was right, and he hadn’t the energy to argue. Frustrated, he slumped, exhausted, against the enormous root of a kapok tree. “We’re close, though, Robert,” he said, pulling maps from his pocket. “I can feel it.”

  Sanchez said nothing as he adjusted the hood of his poncho against the drizzle. Ed did so, too. For much of the day, the downpour had been relentless, easing only in the last hour. Mostly, he’d been thankful for it. Any relief from the humidity was a godsend.

  With a grunt, he slipped from his pack and made room for his friend to slide beside him. Sanchez passed Ed a cigarette before rolling one for himself, his small brown eyes as dark and impenetrable as the jungle they scanned.

  Ed inhaled and relaxed a little. “I swear I don’t ever want to give these up.”

  He let the cigarette hang from his mouth, fumbling with an old military map marked with handwritten notes. Blowing a line of smoke, he pointed to an area of the chart circled in red. “This is the place Owen told me about. As far as I can tell, we’re here.” He moved his finger to the right, just outside the circle.

  Sanchez cross-referenced this with his own map and took GPS readings. “As I’ve warned you already, he’s marked only a general area. It could take days to search.”

  “It’s the centre of the circle I’m interested in. This spot here.” Ed pointed enthusiastically.

  Punching data into the ruggedised laptop he’d removed from his pack, Sanchez nodded in that same needle-in-a-haystack way he always did. Deep down, Ed shared his companion’s concerns. In jungle like this, and lacking accurate directions, they could pass within ten feet of the site without realising it. But what choice did they have? He wouldn’t be swayed, not now.

  He checked the GPS, made some calculations and glanced at his watch again. “There’s still enough light to reach the spot Owen has marked. If he’s correct, we won’t need to search.”

  They got to their feet, heaving their packs. Sanchez took the lead, cutting with a strength and ferocity that belied his slight frame. For the next hour the two men hacked through the green maze without a word passing between them.

  Soon, they were inside the area circled on the map. They pushed on. Ed’s plan was to get to the spot he’d earlie
r identified, take a GPS reading, then search for the first marker by spiralling outwards with foliage-penetrating, infrared binoculars.

  The rain intensified, thrumming through the trees. Ed checked the time. Ninety minutes had passed since they’d checked the maps. He’d counted on another half hour of daylight, but now only a handful of the sun’s rays penetrated the canopy, none of them strong.

  Frustrated, Ed cursed. Time had beaten them.

  We still have tomorrow, in full daylight. We’ll find it then.

  With that, his focus shifted to where they might break for camp. The jungle was no place to be caught—

  With a suddenness that caused Ed to jump, Sanchez spun and seized him by the arm. “Look! Over there!”

  Surprised by the rare show of emotion in his friend’s voice—feeling it, too, in the firmness of his grip—Ed followed his companion’s gaze.

  Ahead, not more than a dozen yards away and covered in a thick tangle of vines and lianas rose a thick pillar of stone. Ed’s heart leapt as he peered through the gloom.

  The totem. They’d found it!

  In a rush, Sanchez pulled and hacked at the clinging vegetation, nearly tripping in his haste. “It’s beautiful, amigo! Don’t you think so?”

  Ed could only stare in wonder. When at last he found his voice, it was low and breathless, and he suspected most of his words inaudible. “It’s real,” he stammered. “I can’t believe it… it’s real…” He turned to his companion, spinning him around by the shoulders. When he spoke again, there could be no mistaking him. “My God, Robert! WE’VE FOUND IT!”

  On legs that felt like jelly, Ed lunged forward, stripping away the remaining vines and running his fingers over the totem’s smooth, exposed stone. It was cool and moist from the rain. “What are you doing here?” he whispered, pressing his cheek firmly against the intricate carving. “You’re so far from home, aren’t you?”

  • • •

  They set up camp only yards from the totem, finishing as the jungle swallowed the last of the light like a sated predator.