Terror in the Andes

[KingMonkey]

No answer was forthcoming from the other side of the pool, though there was a crash in the underbrush as though something large was moving away. Between the darkness of the night and thickness of the foliage, it was impossible to determine who, or what, that something large might be.

Ilsa and Ilona huddled together, the latter doing her best to comfort the former and Viktor hovered nearby, looking for all the world like he wanted to join in their little hug and not for the usual reasons. His eyes were as large and fear filled as Ilsa's and every sound sent him jumping and spinning as he tried to seek out the cause.

The guide was visible for only a moment as he disappeared into the underbrush, but that moment was long enough for anyone paying attention to see that he was carrying a well used, but apparently functional automatic rifle.

There was no disturbance in the underbrush as he moved through it and he was completely impossible to find after that momentary appearance. Long minutes pass and the sounds of the jungle slowly build once more, playing a soothing background to the sobbing and gibberish coming from Ilsa.

So, when the Guide suddenly pops up on the other side of the pool and several yards deep in the underbrush with his flashlight under his chin, things have calmed down just enough that the shock makes Ilsa scream again.

"Senors! Come look, you want to see what made the noise? Maybe the ladies, they no want to see, just the Senors."

Ilona snorts. "I'll be damned if I'm staying here like some shrinking violet," she said as she disentangled herself from Ilsa.

The other girl falls into hysterics again. "Now, Ilsa, Viktor will stay with you. We'll be back in just a few minutes and you can see us. No need to get upset. There must not be any danger or the Guide wouldn't be yelling like that."

Whether Ilsa accepts the logic or if Ilona is just forceful enough to get her way is not clear but after a few moments, the tall, leggy blonde is deposited in Viktor's arms and the short, dark haired girl is hiking her way into the underbrush.

[Danger Boy]

"Godverdomme," Willem hissed under his breath as he caught sight of their guide plunging into the thick undergrowth by the glow of the truck's headlights. He prayed that Ilsa was just overreacting, as his melodramatic fellow student tended to do, and the disturbance in the brush nearby was just an animal that would be frightened off as soon as the gun-toting local barreled in after it. If it was a large predator, or if it really was a person, their guide might find himself in a lot of trouble, very quick.

"What the hell's going on out there?!" Professor van Drakmoor's roar suddenly cut across the camp just as Willem was bracing himself to take off after the guide. The historian leading the expedition stumbled halfway out of his tent a moment later, doing a face-plant into the hard dirt that covered the ground and muttering a string of slurred curses.

Realising that the senior academic was still half-asleep, Willem shook his head and started toward the underbrush at their guide's call, waving his guardian back with one hand. "Stay there! I'll go!" he shouted as he jogged across the camp to where the local man had slipped out of sight. Knowing the professor, he would probably be the biggest danger to himself; he'd probably trip over a root and sprain his ankle or something. Willem made it to the edge of the brush at the same time as Ilona, and carefully picked his way through the tangled branches and roots after her. As he'd guessed from the sound of the guide's voice when he'd called them over, it didn't take long before his silhouetted form became visible to Willem. The young student slipped up to the local man's shoulder, squinting through the gloom in an attempt to make out whatever he was looking at. "What is it?"

[KingMonkey]

Ilona seemed a bit irritated that Willem caught up with her and seemed intent on arriving at the same time if not earlier than she did. She rolled her eyes at his apparent eagerness and forged a path through the thick underbrush.

She drew up short with some surprise when they arrived at the guide's location. It was easy to get disoriented and lose a sense of distance in such dense underbrush.

The guide put out a hand to hold them back and nodded down at his booted feet. What lay there was a somewhat disturbing sight, at least for people who weren't accustomed to it. Laying on the packed turf was the body of a wild pig. Of medium size, it had the ferocious tusks and bristly fur of its kind but neither natural defense had apparently helped it. Its innards were no longer in and there were wounds on its flanks and even its head. It had clearly died a very violent death.

"Your friend probably saw whatever killed this pig," the guide said. "No big deal, really, but we should pack up and move on. Fresh meat is just going to attract more predators and we don't want any of them getting curious about what kind of food might be inside the tents."

Ilona put on a strong face, but covered her mouth with her hand as she looked down at the corpse. And when Viktor shouted to find out what was happening, her surprised scream was as loud and high pitched as any of Ilsa's. She scowled in irritation and embarrassment afterwards, though, glowering at both men as if to dare them to say anything about it.

[Danger Boy]

If anything, Ilona's shriek took Willem more by surprise than the grisly scene played out all over the undergrowth at their feet. She was nothing like the other female student in the expedition, who he was sure would scream at her own shadow, so seeing - or in this case, more like hearing - that sort of emotional reaction from her wasn't quite what he ever expected. Recovering quickly from the jolt that had given him, Willem rubbed at the back of his neck and tossed a glance over his shoulder at the camp, then turned back to face the guide and his colleague, and nodded his agreement. "I'll... go tell the professor," he volunteered, and quickly started back the way they had come. On his way, he answered Ilona's glare with a pointed glance of his own to silently communicate his understanding. He tended to get along with Ilona quite well, maybe even consider her a good friend, but if there was one person in the expedition group he'd rather not cross, it was her.

Even by the time Willem had made his way back into the camp, Professor van Drakmoor only barely just extricated himself from his tent. His young assistant made a beeline straight for him, only stopping when he was well within range for his hushed words to be heard. "Whatever Ilsa saw in the bush, it gutted a wild boar, or something similar. The guide doesn't think we have much to worry about now, but the carcass might attract other predators, and he suggests we relocate."

The elder academic considered his former ward's words while he straightened his wide-brimmed hat, then nodded. "That would probably be best. Viktor... Viktor! Get your hands off that girl and help us pack up camp!"

[KingMonkey]

Ilona and the guide remained in the bush for several more minutes, the latter to examine the carcass and surrounding area more carefully the former because she didn't want to trek back through the growth between herself and the others alone.

Ilona had the good sense to look sheepishly back at Willem as he went by, apologizing without words for her glare. Level headed as she was, she disliked showing weakness with her scream and had blamed him for scaring her. It took her only a moment to realize how unreasonable that was.

Viktor, for his part, seems quite content to keep his hands on the other girl. In fact, once he knows that whatever was lurking out there has gone and there's no immediate danger to his life, he takes the time to relish the contact. He holds Ilsa quite close in the name of keeping her safe and comforted.

And, luckily for him, Ilsa wants the safety and comfort, cuddling up to her fellow student like a frightened puppy.

"But professor...." Viktor whines, only the beginning of a great deal of whining as he reluctantly breaks his hold on the girl and goes sullenly about the task of packing up the camp.

The guide and Ilona return and the guide turns on the headlights of the truck to illuminate the camp to aid in striking it. In only a few minutes, insects are swarming the lights, their primitive brains lured to the bright lights and causing strange shadows to fall over the camp.

"We walk from here, amigos," the guide says with the jolly tone of a drill instructor who's just announced that his trainees are going to jog ten miles. He checks the truck a final time, before setting foot on a trail that barely merits the name and beginning the climb into the mountains.

He casts his glance back once, looking at the spot where the pig was found, a shiver going through him as he remembers the bite marks on the beast. He's seen kills made by every type of animal in the jungle, but the wounds caused to the slain pig weren't created by any beast that walks on four legs.

It is too dark to see the spot clearly from this distance and too dark to see the pairs of eyes that look back at the hiking group for a few moments before the owners of those eyes fall once more to the task of eating the still warm remains of their prey.

[Danger Boy]

While the others occupied themselves with disassembling the camp and preparing to move out to whatever new location their guide had in mind for them, Willem saw to helping the professor prepare his gear. The elderly man was in better shape than most others his age, but it was a fact that he wasn't anywhere near as spry and hardy as his twentysomething students were, and he felt responsible for making sure he made it to their next destination in one piece. His motivation for pulling his guardian aside was not solely out of concern, however. While he was helping the professor settle his backpack over his shoulders and adjusting the straps to fit snugly around the older man's torso, Willem's eyes cut back to the others in the camp; safely out of earshot, his voice dropped to a low whisper, "I don't like this, Professor. Something feels wrong about it."

Christiaan van Drakmoor's bushy white brows scaled up the slope of his wrinkled forehead as he glanced up to hold his prized student in his watery green stare. "You suspect our guide is up to something?" the venerable academic probed.

Willem shifted uncomfortably at the question, and quickly diverted his gaze away from the professor's eyes. The man wasn't really his father, but he always seemed to know how to put him into awkward situations like this all the same. "N-not exactly. I don't think he's given anyone a reason to suspect him. It's just a feeling I have about this situation in general."

"A feeling!" the professor snorted contemptuously. "Did Carver run away with his tail between his legs because he had a bad feeling? Bingham? Gilbert? I'll tell you where you get this feeling, all those crappy movies you watch about monsters and vampires. We're scientists, not walking blood sacks in a horror film. Now get moving!"

Duly chastened and with a defeated sigh, Willem nodded. He was thankful that Professor van Drakmoor had kept his voice low enough so the others wouldn't hear that tongue lashing, and that it was dark enough to hide the burning flush in his cheeks. "Alright, let's go." The student settled his own pack onto his shoulders and led the professor back to where the others had lined up to follow their guide up the treacherous mountain path one-by-one. Maybe the old man was right. They weren't in Amsterdam anymore. Things like this happened in the wild all the time. He was letting his imagination run wild on him, which was not proper for someone in his profession; he had to be detached, objective, not frightened and paranoid.

With a final glance back at the thick growth over his shoulder, Willem sighed one last time and followed their guide into the mountains.

[KingMonkey]

The group was in for a long, hard day. The flat expanse of the desert gave way to rugged mountains, but unlike the mountains further away from the equator, these were not sparsely vegetated due to the thinness of the soil. Rather, plants grew everywhere. From creeping vines to towering trees, there was a riot of verdant life anywhere the explorers chose to look.

And of course, anywhere there were plants, there were animals. The hoots and cries of monkeys competed with the raucous calls of birds and every few minutes there would be a rustle in the underbrush as the group frightened some animal out of its hiding place. These animals were seldom seen, though, the vegetation too thick to reveal them even as they fled. Of course whether it was a jaguar or a capibara that was frightened away, Ilsa was frightened every time so the jungle was punctuated by a high pitched, terrified scream every few minutes.

It soon wore thin on Ilona and even Viktor after a time. Both students began to grumble each time the girl released one of her high pitched screams. But strangely, the Guide didn't seem to mind at all.

He continued moving along, occasionally plucking a piece of fruit or handful of nuts from a tree that he passed. He paid little mind to the many biting insects that swarmed around him or the sweat that flowed down his face in the heat and humidity. Nor did he seem to care about the thinning of the air as they got higher and higher.

He stopped the group for half an hour just after noon for a quick meal before setting out again. A few more rests followed, but for the most part, he simply continued to climb until night fell. Darkness was fast approaching when he called a halt and began to set up camp.

The guide lit a fire and the group was blessed with a hot meal before bed.

The sun rose abruptly the next morning. It seemed that one moment, the sky was dim and gray and the next there was an explosion of bright light as the sun came over the mountains.

And in that bright light, it would be easy for the group to discover that their Guide was gone along with all of their money and other valuables, including their compasses and GPS systems. Anything small enough for one man to carry had disappeared, though their food and clothing was all left untouched.

[Danger Boy]

Willem stuck close to the professor for the entire trip up the rough mountain path, never straying more than a couple steps behind the elder van Drakmoor in case the venerable academic had some sort of mishap. On a slope this steep, something as innocuous as twisting an ankle could lead to a far more serious tumble, far from any sort of medical help. The old man could be surly from time to time - to understate things - but he was the only real connection Willem had to the rest of the world, the closest thing to family so to speak, so he watched out for the professor like he would watch out for his own father. Although 'like his own grandfather' would probably be more precise.

From his vantage point behind Doctor van Drakmoor, the PhD student watched the dusky silhouette of their guide with interest as he gathered food from the local foliage. For someone whose only memories were of life in the big city, and a nascent academic curious about the world around him to boot, he found the Chilean man's ability to identify and pick the proper berries and nuts to be quite impressive. If any of the graduates on this expedition tried it, they would probably end up poisoning themselves.

As the day wore on, Willem found himself becoming more and more exhausted, in more ways than one. He was in good enough shape, probably better than the other students in the expedition party, but after a few stops his joints had begun to ache and his muscles burn. He was generally known for having a deep reservoir of patience, but with the onset of physical fatigue, the well was beginning to dry more and more every time Ilsa started up with her theatrics. By the time they reached their camp grounds for the evening, Willem was tired, sweaty, short-fused, and at this point wanted nothing more than to say "To hell with Pizarro's tomb!" Regardless of how run-down the day long hike had him, however, he would never be so unmindful of those around him to behave that way, so instead he settled for a brief meal and an early start on a good night's sleep.

Early the following morning, Willem was woken by the sound of the professor shouting unintelligibly at Viktor just outside his tent. Rubbing the caked-on sleep from his eyes, he pulled on a set of clothes and crawled out to see what all the commotion was about. "What's all the shouting about out here?" he casually inquired around a yawn.

[KingMonkey]

"What's wrong? What's wrong!" Viktor shouted hysterically, his face red with anger. "What's wrong is that we're stuck up here on this mountain with no way down and no guide to lead us down. Unless you've got another guide hidden in your pocket we're going to die up here!"

The two girls wander out of their tent about this time, both of them bleary eyed. The sleepiness in their eyes quickly disappears as they hear Viktor's words. Ilsa's bright blue eyes go wide and her lips begin to quiver. Desperately, she looks around as though seeking out the shape of the guide despite Viktor's words.

"The guide's missing? Do you think that animal got him? Do you think it followed us up here? Oh God, it's stalking us! What are we going to do?" Her voice rises and rises in pitch as she speaks until, at the end, it seems that she might get so high that only the animals she fears will be able to hear her.

Ilona curses creatively and extensively in both English and her native Dutch. "I knew we shouldn't have trusted him!" she finally managed to grit out between swears. "Now what?"

She turned to Willem expectantly, as did the other two students. Apparently, they all were expecting him to save them.

The landscape has changed somewhat here. The steep slopes have mellowed out and, though there are still some rather high hills, they are clearly on a sort of plateau. The jungle has thinned out as well and, in a few spots, a person can even see across a mile or so of the canopy.

[Danger Boy]

Gone... The single, unspoken word was like a cold metal spike driven through Willem's heart. A panicked glance around the camp site tried to deny Viktor's claim, but it only took a second for him to realise his colleague was right: likely at some point in the middle of the night, their guide up the mountain had apparently packed up all of their gear and took off. Although, inexplicably enough, all of their food and necessary supplies had been left behind. Completely caught off-guard by this development, Willem felt anxiety begin to set in, which very nearly manifested in Ilsa having her head bitten off the moment she started to speak once she and Ilona had crawled out of the tent they shared. He managed to keep himself from saying something that he would most likely regret later, though, instead drawing in a deep, calming breath and purging his lungs with a low sigh.

Although his eyes were closed, he could feel the expectant stares of the others fall upon him, as if all of their worries were being piled on his shoulders in a heavy, unwieldy load. Why was he the one they expected to come up with a way to get everyone out of this? He was a city-boy from Amsterdam, the same as the rest of them. If anything, it was the professor who was best qualified to answer Ilona's question, yet the only signal he got from the elder van Drakmoor was a thin, delicate hand on his shoulder, as if to lend him confidence. The gesture confused and angered the student. He didn't want to be depended on that way, expected to know the answer when there was no reason to even think he would. So why? Willem frowned and shook his head, then opened his eyes to take stock of their surroundings. Things seemed hopeless almost immediately - there was a view from their vantage point, but he couldn't see anything but treetops from here. Turning away from the downward slope where he believed, but couldn't be sure, they had come, his steel-blue eyes scaled up one of the hills to the opposite side of the camp.

"I think the first thing we need to do is look at our surroundings. We should be able to get a better view from up there," he declared, stabbing a forefinger at the crest of the tall hill. "If we're lucky, we might be able to spot the camp we abandoned last night. The pond should stand out. Take whatever you can carry with you, but make sure you get every scrap of food and don't leave so much as a power bar wrapper behind. We don't want to attract every animal in the area if we have to come back here later." With the tentative plan formulated, Willem got to following his own advice and began packing up all the food his backpack could hold, then rolling up his and the professor's sleeping bags and collapsing their tent. When the camp was fully disassembled, he led the small expedition into the undergrowth that covered the hill, blazing a trail as he went with one of the machetes their double-crossing guide had neglected to take with him. He could only hope that they would find something once they reached the hilltop, or things were going to go from bad to worse very quickly for this expedition.

[KingMonkey]

Willem's plan may not have been the best in the world, but the rest of the group acted like it was. Where there was desperate expectation in their gazes a moment before, there was now relieved hope. Perhaps it was simply that he HAD a plan that helped calm the students, or perhaps they just needed something other than their dire straits to occupy their minds.

In either case, they moved quickly to break camp, though Ilsa clung to Ilona for a few fearful moments. Of course, they weren't quite as skilled as Willem at taking down their gear so a few tense minutes passed before everyone was completely packed up and ready to move out.

No one spoke as they followed the trail Willem blazed, even Ilsa was quiet. Not even the rustling and animal sounds in the underbrush that now surrounded and encroached on them pulled fearful cries from the slender woman.

It quickly became quite difficult to tell how far away their destination was or even if they were still traveling in the right direction, though periodically the foliage would break enough for them all to get a glimpse of the surrounding countryside.

After perhaps two hours of exhausting hiking and cutting a way through the verdant foliage, Viktor called for a halt.

"Hey, Willem," he said in a stage whisper, as though fearing anything louder would attract some vicious jungle predator. "I have to answer the call of nature."

Waiting just long enough to get a confirmation that they wouldn't leave him, he ducked off the trail to find a suitable tree to water. Of course, the tension of the moment was enough to make getting the process started difficult and it wasn't until he started whistling softly as his gaze darted about for danger that he was able to get anything accomplished.

A rustling nearby put a stop to the flow and he spun around with a small yelp of terror. There was a flash in the underbrush and he caught a glimpse of something moving. It took only a moment for him to recognize a flash of thigh, arm and long, dark hair. A person!

Quickly, and haphazardly pulling his pants back up, he followed. "Hey! Hey! We need help! Hey, stop! We're lost."

Viktor rushed through the underbrush, ignoring the scratches and scrapes from the surrounding vegetation until he came to a small clearing. The person was there, and, much to his delight, it was a woman. Her back was too him and he got a good look at her shapely figure and long, shiny hair.

A small grin covered his face. "Hey. We're friends," he said. "We just got lost and maybe you could point us back to a city or something."

He approached the woman slowly, as though she were a skittish deer and he feared spooking her. He continued to talk the whole time in what he hoped was a soothing, friendly tone.

He was only a couple steps away when he realized something was wrong. The luxurious hair was tangled and matted and there were small tears and rips in her clothes. "Hey, are you ok? Did something happen to you?"

He reached out to grasp her shoulder when she suddenly spun around. The last thing Viktor saw as she leaped for his throat were her red sclera where the blood vessels had ruptured. He didn't even have a chance to shout before her teeth crushed his voice box and she was immensely strong for all her small size. Before the pain and terror set in, he had just enough time to notice how unbelievably hot her skin was.

The minutes ticked away as Viktor remained absent from the group and both Ilona and Ilsa began to fidget with nervousness. Their gazes flashed to every sound that came from the jungle.

[Danger Boy]

Willem was about as talkative as the rest of the expedition party was while they made their way up the slope of the mountain. In fact, the only conversation he held the entire way was with the trees, grunting with each swing of his machete-wielding arm as sweat born of exertion and the oppressive humidity that permeated the air around them poured down his face. After two hours of bushwhacking, he began to feel a sharp, liquid burn in his muscles and his limbs seemed to grow progressively heavier with each step and every swing. Despite his own fatigue, though, he nearly told Viktor to tough it out and keep hiking, but as he turned to do so he noticed the worn expressions on the others' faces. Professor van Drakmoor, he only just realized, was breathing pretty heavily as well, despite the old man's efforts to hide it. "Yes... yeah, you're right," Willem answered at length, not quite able to hide the guilt he felt at his own single-mindedness from his voice. "We'll stop here for, ah, how about twenty minutes?"

With a round of nods and unguarded expressions of relief from the rest of the group, Willem drove the blade of the crude sword-like tool into a thick branch. While Viktor wandered off into the thick undergrowth to find a private place, the expedition's other male student saw to the task of helping the professor settle down for a break, finding a sturdy log for him to sit on and helping him with his water canteen. "You shouldn't have let us go so long if you're this tired," he scolded the venerable academic under his breath, quietly enough that he wouldn't shame Christiaan allowing Ilsa or Ilona the chance to eavesdrop. "You're not a spry, young sixty-year-old anymore, you know. If you collapse out here it'll only make it twice as hard for us to get through this. You need to take it easy."

At first, the only response Willem got from the old man was a testy grunt, more or less what he'd come to expect every time he brought up the subject of the historian's frailty. Managing to overcome the natural urge of a man parched and in peril, Professor van Drakmoor sipped carefully at the canteen when his assistant pressed the spout to his lips. Unlike the balance of his students, he'd ventured far from human civilization more than his share of times; forays into the wilderness like this one might be a young man's game, but he had the wisdom and good sense to take care of himself despite his age. "By the time Viktor finishes his business, I'll be ready to go on," he reassured his prized student gruffly.

Willem lowered the canteen when the professor pushed it away, took a small swig of his own, then screwed on the cap. The conversation fell away for a moment while the younger van Drakmoor replaced the water in his backpack, his features creased by a thoughtful frown. Finally, once the bag was zippered again, he looked up at the professor and locked him in his steely blue stare. "Professor... why did you all turn to me back there? Like I was the one who would come up with some brilliant idea to get us all out of this?" It wasn't that he was complaining about the faith that the others seemed to have in him, of course. It had just been a lot of pressure - even more now than it had been back at the old camp site, since the idea turned out to be a total failure. They couldn't see anything down the slope of the mountain from here, least of all their original trail up from where they had abandoned the pond and their guide's truck.

For an instant, a troubled expression washed across Professor van Drakmoor's features. The look only lasted briefly, however, so much so that Willem wasn't sure whether he just imagined it before the old man's leathery features reset to a more neutral arrangement. "Viktor's been gone for a long time," he pointed out rather matter-of-factly, with a slight nod in the direction of the fidgeting women. "You should go find him. Unless you want someone else to go instead...?"

The young man hesitated for a moment, slightly taken aback by the realisation that his colleague had been gone for much longer than it should have taken to find a private spot and empty his bladder. Willem's lips pressed into a grim line, and his brow furrowed into a dark frown that said, We'll continue this later, as he rose to his feet. "I'll go see what's taking him so long," he announced loudly enough for Isla and Ilona to hear, then turned and stalked off into the woods, machete in hand to clear out the tangled brush in front of him. As it turned out, finding Viktor's path wasn't hard - the guy had blasted through the undergrowth like a herd of charging boars, although there really wasn't much need for him to be stealthy about it in the first place. Willem plunged ahead into the thick vegetation, following his fellow student's gently curving trail for a few minutes until he began to see a clearing coming into view ahead. Judging that it was as good a place as any for Viktor to stop and relieve himself, Willem cupped his free hand to one side of his mouth and called out, "Viktor! What's keeping you? We have to get moving again!"

[KingMonkey]

Ilona was doing her best to keep Ilsa calm, though the taller woman was clearly on the edge of hysteria. She'd apparently grown accustomed to the general sounds of the jungle, though. At least she didn't jump and scream at every noise. Still, she had the enormous eyes and darting gaze of a hunted animal.

Both girls simply nodded their acknowledgment as he went by and announced his intentions, though Ilsa cast a quick glance at the Professor as though trying to size him up as a protector in Willem's place. There could be little doubt that he would be a poor substitute, but she didn't voice her concerns.

As Willem approached the clearing and called out, he would get no answer. In fact, as he got closer the only noise he would hear was a wet slurping noise and pleased grunting. Once he broke the final tree line he would discover that Viktor was not alone.

The man was sprawled on his back on the forest floor, though from his angle, Willem would only be able to see his legs and arms. The rest of his body was hidden by a supple and obviously female form. Her legs were almost completely bared and dirty where they straddled the young man's hips. Her long, dark hair was similarly matted and filthy, but Viktor did not seem to mind as she rocked back and forth over him. The grunts seemed to be coming from her, at least they were timed with her motions, but Viktor was surprisingly silent.

Leave it to him to not only find the only young woman in the jungle, but also to figure out some way to seduce her before bothering to find directions or let his companions know that there was some level of civilization nearby.

Before Willem could admonish him, though or even call out to him again, the woman heard his approach. She spun like a feral animal and when her face came into view, Willem would find that her mouth and chin were stained bright red with a thick fluid that could only be blood. The blood stained her chest and torn shirt as well and it took only a moment to find its origin.

Viktor's throat laid open, the flesh under his skin clearly exposed and just as clearly mauled. His eyes were opened wide but stared up at nothing. His neck and chest were covered in his own blood, though his face itself was shockingly clean.

The woman sprung up from her meal ferociously and came charging towards Willem. Her hands extended before her, the fingers crooked like talons and her mouth was opened wide in a savage snarl. It was clear that she was planning to make Willem her victim.

[Danger Boy]

Willem was startled at first to find a woman in the clearing kneeling over a man who he presumed to be Viktor, but his first instinct about what she was doing to him wasn't anything like the gruesome reality. The sight didn't even invoke a feeling of concern from the graduate student - only a loud sigh of annoyance. Leave it to Viktor to find another woman lost in this wretched jungle, then find his way into her pants in less than ten minutes. If only a local girl who was halfway pretty would hang around the base of the mountain where they'd come up from, they would be saved in no time. "Viktor," he testily called out to his colleague, "I'm sorry to interrupt you, but we have to start moving ag--"

The student's words hung in mid-speech as he suddenly found the breath stolen from his lungs when the woman turned around, revealing her blood-soaked face and chest to him - and the torn-open throat of his young colleague. For a moment, Willem found himself unable to do anything but stand rooted in place, eyes wide in disbelief. Even when the crimson-dyed woman sprang up and rushed at him with clearly murderous intent, he felt numb, frozen by his mind's inability to process the unthinkable fact that Viktor was dead. Not just dead, but murdered, mutilated. The sound of the feral woman's voice finally snapped him out of his daze, but not until she was practically on top of him. Before he even thought, he sprang into action, reflexively crouching low and stepping inside her reach - rather than retreating, as he would have thought his instincts would dictate - then swung hard at his attacker's abdomen with the machete still grasped in his white-knuckle grip.

[KingMonkey]

Willem's blow was quite accurate. Or perhaps the woman's attack was simply quite clumsy. In either case, the machete dug deep into the woman's flesh, slicing it open much easier than it cut through the vines and leaves it was designed to destroy. Her shirt and skin parted easily and blood started to flow from the wound. Much worse, though was the fact that the blow was enough to open her guts up and they spilled out onto the jungle floor.

It was a savage wound and it gave her pause. But only pause, it did not stop her. She hesitated for a moment, staring down uncomprehendingly at the puddle of intestines that pooled around her ankles. Then, with a savage growl, she lurched at Willem again, grabbing for him with her hands but also lunging forward to try to bite him.

As though the woman's incoherent growls and snarls were some sort of language that called them forth, a pair of men, both just as dirty and unkempt as she was and with the bloody red eyes that she possessed, stepped into the clearing from the surrounding foliage.

Their mouths were slack, their eyes staring until they spotted Willem. Upon seeing him a transformation washed over them, their faces twisting with malevolent rage and they charged forward to join the fray.