The Passage Read Online Free PDF Page B

twenty kilometers from the site. The topography is consistent with the satellite recon—dense jungle plain, but along the river, a deep ravine with cliffs of limestone pocketed with caves. Even an amateur geologist could read these cliffs like the pages of a book. The usual layers of river sediment, and then, about four meters below the lip, a line of charcoal black. It’s consistent with the Chuchote legend: a thousand years ago the whole area was blackened by fire, “a great conflagration sent by the god Auxl, lord of the Sun, todestroy the demons of man and save the world.” We camped on the riverbank last night, listening to the flocks of bats that poured out of the caves at sunset; in the morning, we headed east along the ravine.
    It was just past noon when we saw the statue.
    At first I thought maybe I was imagining things. But look at the image, Paul. A human being, but not quite: the bent animal posture, the clawlike hands and the long teeth crowding the mouth, the intense muscularity of the torso, details still visible, somehow, after—how long? How many centuries of wind and rain and sun have passed, wearing the stone away? And still it took my breath away. And the resemblance to the other images I’ve shown you is inarguable—the pillars at the temple of Mansarha, the carvings on the gravesite in Xianyang, the cave drawings in Côtes d’Amor.
    More bats tonight. You get used to them, and they keep the mosquitoes down. Claudia rigged up a trap to catch one. Apparently, bats like canned peaches, which she used as bait. Maybe Alex would like a pet bat instead?
    —J

    From: [email protected]
    Date: Saturday, February 18 6:51 p.m.
    To: [email protected]
    Subject: more jpgs
    Attachment: DSC00481.JPG (596 KB), DSC00486.JPG (582 KB), DSC00491.JPG (697 KB)
        Have a look at these. We’ve counted nine figures now.
    Cole thinks we’re being followed, but won’t tell me by who. It’s just a feeling, he says. All night long he’s on the satcom, won’t tell me what it’s all about. At least he’s stopped calling me Major. He’s a youngster, but not as green as he looks.
    Good weather, finally. We’re close, within 10K, making good time.

    From: [email protected]
    Date: Sunday, February 19 9:51 p.m.
    To: [email protected]
    Subject:

    From: [email protected]
    Date: Tuesday, February 21 1:16 a.m.
    To: [email protected]
    Subject:
    Paul,
    I’m writing this to you in case I don’t make it back. I don’t want to alarm you, but I have to be realistic about the situation. We’re less than five kilometers from the grave site, but I doubt we’ll be able to perform the extraction as planned. Too many of us are sick, or dead.
    Two nights ago we were attacked—not by drug traffickers, but bats. They came a few hours after sunset while most of us were out of our tents doing the evening chores, scattered around the campsite. It was as if they had been scouting us all along, waiting for the right moment to launch an aerial assault. I was lucky: I had walked a few hundred yards upriver, away from the trees, to find a good signal on the GPS. I heard the shouts and then the gunfire, but by the time I made it back the swarm had moved downstream. Four people died that night, including Claudia. The bats simply engulfed her. She tried to get to the river—I guess she thought she could shake them off that way—but she never made it. By the time we reached her, she’d lost so much blood she had no chance. In the chaos, six others were bitten or scratched, and all of them are now ill with what looks like some speeded-up version of Bolivian hemorrhagic fever—bleeding from the mouth and nose, the skin and eyes rosy with burst capillaries, the fever shooting skyward, fluid filling the lungs, coma. We’ve been in contact with the CDC but without tissue analysis it’sanybody’s guess. Tim had both his hands practically chewed to pieces, trying to pull them off Claudia. He’s the sickest of the lot. I