‘‘Basilisco’’ | ONE OF THE BEST STORIES I’VE EVER READ

it's time to sit back and relax with your favorite ring and this bar 1 the case of Sandra LaRoche if one were to travel down the Caribbean coast of Panama down to the farthest regions of the Isthmus near to the border with Colombia they'll find themselves in a region of singular and majestic isolation so far from the glitz and grime of the cosmopolitan world it's entirely possible to forget what decade even what century one lives in so ageless it seems with so few if any monuments to mankind's progress infiltrating it see it's time immemorial the cool clear waters of the Caribbean will gently lap the pale sands of its many beaches calm Shores its stretch for miles in both directions but a narrowing course with only a short stretch of space between the edge of the water to the brilliant green wall of foliage the short ways in that marking the stark transition from calm and flat ocean to dense and wild jungle standing at the edge of the water and looking in through the stand of looming palm trees that form the boundary the chorus of jungle wildlife can be faintly heard even over the steady gurgling of ocean waves giving off an astounding and even somewhat ominous impression The Palms in particular reinforces powerful and forbidding impression with the way they stand tall and even at the perimeter of the forest almost like hosts of a great fence or the ramparts of a castle that is simply sprouted from the jungle itself and he occasionally punctuated along its length by the various murky streams that work their way out of the Foley but even in such a remote seemingly isolated region such as this pockets of human civilization persist in small and easily hidden villages often situated in small clearings in the jungle hidden from the beach or tuk Cosley in the curve of short peninsulas that form small harbors here in the guna yala province of panama draw the descendants of the guna people a native culture that has lived upon these verdant shores for centuries whose modern relatives pursue their lives in a quite similar fashion in these small fishing villages the residents still largely subsist on the bounty of the ocean supplemented by small agricultural plots and learning an extra living on their handicrafts and entertaining the occasional tourist who stumbles upon their rustic corner of the world my sweat and toil they've hammered out an existence that look far from glamorous is simple and independent and actually provided by the land itself with few exceptions they're self-reliant way of life has always sustained their basic needs in spite of occasional misfortunes and the vagaries of nature be they hurricanes crop failures disease poor fishing and the general encroachment of an uncooperative and often hostile world however paying for such misfortunes may be for them to bear the people still persist undeterred firmly believing that with enough hard work the land shall always provide yet as far as these people are from urban civilization they are hardly the ignorant provincial peasants that one might assume them to be they are well aware of the conveniences and comforts of a more urban and upscale way of life and how their own hand-to-mouth existence must seem poetry by comparison indeed many villages especially the young have opted to try their luck among the more cosmopolitan fellows leaving their homes behind with sincere well wishes from the families who intend to stay many residents maintain close family connections with relatives living in the city connections that have acted as a conduit for modernity to work its way into the more remote communities but however distance from CID they may be elephants off modernity have steadily infiltrated their way of life over the course of many generations and even some quite obscure and random trinkets of cosmopolitan life can be found in their midst one man wears an athletic tank top with an adidas label prominently displayed one child wears a faded red San Francisco Giants baseball cap a fishing boat owned by a family is powered by a motor that there's a faded logo that says Honda on the side houses of wood plaster cinder blocks and corrugated sheet metal are erected alongside straw huts that seemed to be from another century the Twinner villages of biotope Alison Lai Isola are no different in this regard having selectively allowed elements of modern living in unique ways by here departs or the bay of peace is a fishing village tucked into a corner on the north side of a shop an insula that forms in natural harbour known for its calm waters populated by many aging piers and fishing boats a short distance north in a small coastal clearing and connected by an unpaved road is its immediate neighbouring village named playa Isola or the lonely beach in addition to their close proximity the two villages are very closely connected in both trade and family relations in fact the leaders of the two communities who traditionally refer to themselves as the cacique in the indigenous fashion are actually cousins whose families have resided there for decades in reflection of these close ties with Bahia de parson lie Isola are collectively referred to by the locals as I saw there's hermanos or the sister villages what change occurs in one village is something closely followed by the other for good or ill together they have weathered many storms and willingly shared in their hardships bolstered by their family ties and strong communitarian values have recovered from many disasters and persisted in the face of considerable adversity quite often the resilience of a population is better explained by their ability to recover from disaster as opposed to simply withstanding the damage it causes Rodrigo almost de la Vargas the cacique of biota pass an intelligent and philosophical man with a great knack for creating his own proverbs describes it bucks he can cut us down they will never pull us up by the roots at first glance one might wonder how many disasters he may have possibly survived despite his seniority in the village he is a relatively young man not much older than 40 and not the wizened patriarch one might expect in a place such as this indeed keen observer may have notice upon exploring the two villages that many of the inhabitants are relatively young typically under 30 years of age with quite few middle-aged individuals and only a handful of people who could be described as elderly however proudly Rodrigo Moore his cousin employer Sola may proclaim their strength and pride one could easily tell that the subject of past disasters is a very sore one and no amount of pride of bravado can conceal it one particularly painful subject this bravado may diminish entirely eliciting only hushed and fearful replies indeed asking any one of the village inhabitants old enough to remember the events of the summer of 1991 about the events of that time we'll leave them stricken with fear their eyes betraying a look of great trauma and emotional pain if they can collect themselves for long enough they may tell in hushed whispers and trembling voices what it is they remember they'll tell the story of the two Canadian doctors who visited their village now for what they know of The Curious Case of Sandra LaRoche Sandra Elena LaRoche was 27 years old when she arrived in the twin villages in the summer of 1991 a native of Sudbury Ontario Canada she was a recent graduate of the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine who'd volunteered for Oxfam shortly after completing a program during her time in medical school she befriended another young woman in the program named Emily Brady who held from Kitchener Ontario and who volunteered along with Sandra to be an aid worker hoping to bring her skills and medical knowledge to impoverished nations both were general practitioners whose goals included offering inoculations instructing in hygienic practices and and rendering general medical services in underdeveloped regions with limited access to health services with Oxfam Lee chose to be assigned to a location in Panama which was only recently reopened to foreign aid workers who before were not considered welcomed by the military from two of Manuel Noriega following Noriega ousting from power in early 1990 locations in Panama were once again open to foreign aid workers and so Sandra LaRoche and her friend Emily Brady was sent to the twin villages of biota paths and Playa sort they flew into Panama City on the 29th of May 1991 and a few days later arrived in Bahia de Paz where they were welcomed by the town kisi but were greeted with some coldness and skepticism by the villages such treatment of outsiders was not necessarily unusual for the people of the villages were generally suspicious of new faces intended to keep to themselves whenever the two women were around though this attitude would eventually softn was a very slow process that was never quite completed increasing numbers of people began to appreciate the services the doctors had to offer but earning the trust of the older residents of the village proved to be far more difficult despite having two knowledgeable and one equipped physicians at their disposal many villagers still made an effort to avoid visiting them sticking with folk remedies and even ignoring medical conditions for as long as possible to avoid soliciting medical services the inoculation program intended to vaccinate children and young people for measles and whooping-cough was greatly delayed as many families resisted allowing their children to receive the inoculations in one case an early man died from serious complications from an abdominal hernia which he refused to see the doctors about even though dr. LaRouche and dr. Brady would not have performed the life-saving operation they could easily have referred him to a hospital in Panama City but the man instead withheld it until he eventually died few of the villages could really name any reason for their suspicions of the two doctors even though the outwardly had no real reason to fear them some would say that it was the elder residents of the villages who warned off the others distrusting the unfamiliar modern medicine brought by LaRoche and Brady such suspicions grew when rumors circulated that the two doctors were actually agents of the American government who were conducting human experiments though such rumors were entirely unfounded they nonetheless confounded efforts for delivering medical services to those in need others would claim that basically saw no need for modern medicine being content with their folk remedies or generally discounting the practical need for advanced medicine when they subsist it quite well on their own at face value it would seem easy to dismiss their suspicions sister products of provincial ignorance a right off the village's is superstitious and irrational content with their backwards ways and resistant to change but when prodded further the people of the twin villages will in a secret conspiratorial manner voice another fear that simply overpowers all reason they may attempt to mention it in passing with a thinly veiled attempt at disinterest or dismissal but one cannot ignore that distinct look in their eyes when they say basilisk basilisk Oh translates to basilisk in English a creature of ancient legend with similar origins to tales of dragons and other mystical animals it is said to be a snake with a head of a rooster though historical tales tend to differ widely on the exact description one trait commonly described in all tales is that it is claimed that a basilisk is so incredibly venomous that it leaves a trailing cloud of poison in its wake its venom is so powerful staring it in the eyes will kill a man on the spot such is how historical legends describe it though obviously it's only a mythical creature but it begs the question what could they be describing using a reference to a somewhat obscure mythical creature what exists in nature that would resemble such an unusual descriptive comparison however much the villages were willing to disclose before now have nothing to say about what they mean by the term as Eliska whatever they mean when they say it it's clear that they firmly believe in the threat that it possesses they fear it enough that they were willing to turn away potentially life-saving medical care rather than take their chances with what is known is that a legend of this puzzle disco is inextricably tied to the events of 1991 in the case of what became of Sandra LaRoche for many years afterward the precise circumstances of what transpired were largely unknown the entire event was largely clouded by obscurity due to its unclear circumstances and mostly indeterminant consequences reports exist of an unspecified ecological event that occurred in the region at this time coinciding with the point where any official documentation on the event ends and where the story of the villagers begins in May of 1991 Sandra lavash and Emily Brady two Canadian doctors on an aid mission applied for and were granted visas to enter the country which they did on the 29th of May September 8 Emily Brady would make a sudden unannounced return to Canada alone without her friend and partner Sandra LaRoche and the circumstances she was most unwilling to explain she would resign her position with Oxfam within the week eventually fading into general obscurity when Sandra was officially classified as a missing person Canadian authorities initiated their own investigation if Emily Brady been labeled as a person of interest I was thought to have the best overall idea of what became of her former partner presumably the authorities interview Brady Oh to no apparent effect his little will be uncovered over the years following Sandra's disappearance with no actionable information gathered from Emily Brady the case effectively went cold and to this day Sandra Elena LaRoche is still classified as a missing person and presumed dead the case of LaRoche attracted moderate media attention at the time but public attention quickly faded as the investigation stalled and substantive leads will be uncovered it ultimately faded into the realm of urban legend becoming yet another unsolved mystery surrounding the extensive speculation now every new theory only seemed to have more questions popular suspicions largely focuses on Emily Brady and the circumstances of her abrupt departure from Panama without her friend and partner suspicion seemingly justified by her attempts to avoid official attention upon her return to Canada accusations of various kinds of foul play on Harper would follow Brady throughout much of her life compelling her to take various measures to avoid public scrutiny and persistent harassment in the 28 years since the event she has settled in various places in her native Canada and with public attention fading she might finally be able to find a peaceful obscurity in which to live out her life in spite of her nearly three decades of self-imposed silence Brady does indeed know the truth of what happened during a time in Panama the truth that defies virtually every fairy previously put forth by amateur investigators the world over her account of the events however unbelievable they may seem are corroborated by the accounts offered by the villages of piety partisan Maiasaura with so many individual accounts concurring in so many specific ways one can only conclude it was indeed the truth of the matter however much we may desire that hideous things did not happen in this world it would seem that with this testimony the case of LaRoche has been sold like every explanation before it it only raises a series of even more disturbing questions I might even ask what good could possibly come of knowing these terrible things at all do we truly believe that asking the right questions will bring us closer to the truth those who serve the truth do so for its own sake they do so even knowing that they will not like the answers they'll find they do so even if it means not knowing the truth of Sadri LaRoche but knowing the truth of Lies Eliska part 2 dr. Emily Brady MD it's hard to describe my first impression of Panama when I first laid eyes on it from the window seat of our flight into Panama City I slept through most of the second leg of our journey after transferring in Dallas when Sandra roused me from my nap to feast our eyes on the country that will be our home for the next six months looking out of the window I could see what at first looked like any other stretch of land but as I squinted I could see a vast inland lake connected to the ocean by a narrow channel that looked too perfect to be a natural river it was then that I realized that I was seeing the Panama Canal one of the seven wonders of the modern world and if I looked hard enough I could see all the way to the Pacific side of the country between the sprawling jungle the ocean and the clear sky the whole country seemed to shine with such a rich blues and greens that I've never seen before or since as you get lower during the approach into Panama City you can see whole convoy of ships crossing gatun lake giant freighters that seem miniscule compared to the lake itself landing in Panama City we feasted our eyes on the impressive skyline that rivaled anything we'd seen before back in Canada all the stings actually get off the plane out of the airport and standing on the streets of Panama City itself was a another different experience I suppose Sandra and I had expected something akin to a lush relaxed tropical paradise much like what we'd seen in brochures and from the airplane that's why as it turns out the hustle and bustle of the big city is more or less the same wherever you go granted Panama City did have a distinctly more relaxed vibe than most others I've seen the fleet of angry cabbies all jockeying for fares right outside the airport entrance instantly reminded me of downtown Toronto a place I've been hoping to get a break from thankfully the further out we got the more relaxed it became we arrived in the country a few days early in the hopes of getting some free time to do all the touristy things in the city before our main assignment seeing the Panama Canal up close this time visiting mid Teatro Nacional and generally hitting all the main tourist spots those were some of the best days of my life days full of promise when we still thought we could only come out of this as strong and more complete people well my enthusiasm dropped off a fair bit when the holiday phase of a trip came to an end and we were due to ship off to the remote fishing village we've been assigned to hell it's not that I was unwilling to help I was excited to meet new people experience another side of life and do some real good for Humanity especially since Panama had only recently become welcome to foreign aid workers but at heart I was still just the same suburban Canadian girl used to the plethora of modern conveniences that I grown up with and I was still not quite sure how well I could do without them so on the other hand was one of those people who can seemingly adapt to anything and get comfortable anywhere something I'd always envied about it especially at times when I was petrified of the idea of having to take a crap anyway how about a flush toilet but of course I didn't plan to give up there was something like that with somebody like Sandra I felt like even a comparative ninny like me could take on the world with better than even chances of succeeding and in a way suppose I did things got uncomfortable for me as we set out for the village we were assigned to health it started with a rather long bump in crowded bus ride from the city to the Caribbean coast where we then take a boat down the coast to the villages I have to say that the transition from the city to the actual Panamanian countryside was quite jarring experience it's almost like we'd entered an entirely different country on so far removed from a cosmopolitan delights of the city I could practically feel my heart dropping and resting on my stomach Sandra of course was unfazed the boat ride which lasted for nearly an entire day wasn't much more comfortable well at first I was glad to be away from the crowded interior of the bus until a combination of diesel fumes sea air and ocean waves aboard the boat began to make me sick which continued until the trip ended and there we were at last the villages of bajalia deposits and Maiasaura which we call home for the next several months the coast in this section of the country was spectacular just about the spitting image of what I'd originally expected to see here except that instead of a pleasant seaside bungalow there was a sleepy fishing village populated by an assortment of shacks was pleasantly surprised that these shacks and houses were more modern-looking than the miserable mad max-style hovels that I'd expected but still it was they never come down for me we were greeted as soon as we stepped onto the dock by the leader of the village his wife and his four children the village leader a man named florencio seemed genuinely excited to meet us though his family while reasonably friendly was somewhat more subdued if his family was rather sad you in the rest of the villages were to all appearances quite weary of us as we followed Florencia have the hill to his house we could see that many villages it turned out to observe us surreptitiously as they caused some continued about their business while others watch from afar but not suitably refrain from engaging with us I'd make eye contact with an old woman or a child watching us and offer a smile or a friendly wave but the locals never reciprocated and he continued staring at us with curiosity or even suspicion obviously this wasn't the sort of reception I was expecting after hearing stories from other aid workers have been treated almost like royalty while the people they were helping and this rather calm welcome diminish my spirits even further that night we had dinner at florencio s home with his family as well as his cousin and great-uncle who's the leader of the neighboring village Playa Sola his cousin Dario like Florence Jo is quite enthused by our presence his great-uncle Sebastiano was about as cold and skeptical as all the others in the village of being their wives had prepared a tremendous meal of several courses that took up most of the evening and all the while for NCO and Dario bombarded us with questions about life in America which prompted us to explain that we were actually Canadian Florencio and Dario both spoke pretty good English well better than my Spanish at least Sandra who actually spoke quite good Spanish managed to exchange some words with Sebastiano we spoke no English at all they had grand plans for all the services we could provide and we hoped to one day build a permanent hospital to serve both religious and about how he wanted us to start with inoculations and health exams as soon as possible Oh lofty as his ambitions were I still couldn't help but admire his dedication and willingness to do his best for his family and neighbours we told him we'd do our level best to make these ambitions a reality but of course we had to start off small and go from there Dario translated our assurances to Sebastiano who of course didn't seem terribly impressed and replied with a grunt what I assumed was skepticism at night I went to sleep in florencio as guestroom exhausted after a day of traveling feeling sluggish after eating must have been two pounds of fried fish at dinner I'm not quite sure how I managed to fall asleep while fighting off a mild panic attack I know I shouldn't really have felt that way Florencia have been so kind and gracious open his home to us and trusting our good intentions but even so I still felt like I always outside my comfort zone living in a poor and undeveloped village in a foreign land so far away from her especially when I felt I wasn't particularly welcome among all the other villages especially when I felt that I wasn't particularly welcome among all the others in the village my only comfort was know that I had a strong person like Sandra at my side to help me through this transition the next morning I was glad to see Sandra was still in good spirits and her steady confidence helped bring me at ease that day was spent with florencio and dario giving us a guided tour of the two villages an event that managed to bring out a few more people than when we'd first erupted as before they kept their distance if some even bringing out their children to see the visitors who the village leaders had claimed were there to help them I took that as a somewhat good omen perhaps the villages would eventually open up to it I heard the paths was a pretty typical fishing village where most of the local goings-on occurred around the docks and what pass were a waterfront in a place like this like all the rest the fishermen spared only a few curious glances of us as they went about their labors we strolled along the edge of the water with florencio pointing out a sizeable rectangular building at the edge of the village a sort of common space used by the village for certain events which he claimed we were to use as a clinic during our time here obviously we would have preferred some place with running warts and that really wasn't an option here so I'd have to do we traveled out of the village down the jungle path for a ways until we suddenly emerge into a clearing that contained another village we didn't even know was there from only a few meters back in the jungle this was playa Sola where great-uncle Sebastiana was ensured though the atmosphere was much the same as by at the paths at the edge of the village nearer to the jungle was a small field where what I assume was became being cultivated while on the road wandered a few chickens Leia Solo was more given to a traditional culture than buyer to pass though stacks of wooden canoes arranged near the beach attested to there being a some fishing going on as well the villages weren't much more friendly than before which I expected but when a young girl tentatively approached us she was assured back by a sharp command from who I assume was her mother it honestly felt more like a hostile suspicion than the disinterest or idle curiosity we've seen previously I could tell that florencio and Daario a stone again rather displeased with the unfriendly list of the villages which they must have taken as a personal affront when they brought this up in passing Sandra tried to reassure them that we weren't offended and we would be patient and earn their trust but Florencia was terribly annoyed with my mediocre Spanish I couldn't quite follow his brief rent but I got the gist that he felt that people were ungrateful and should have been happy to have us he switched to English and explained that the recent mood in the villages had turned sour though they had only just recovered from what I gather was some quite difficult times according to Daario the people here were generally wary of strangers and visitors especially after periods of hardship and loss which I could quite understand though I still wasn't comfortable with it yet when we asked about these hard times either fur NCO nor Daria will clearly explain just what had happened only hinting that it could have involved sickness or hunger resulting from crop failures or poor fishing these people if things aren't bad they get scared they don't trust others it is hard to find help when it's like this said Florencio morosely I think we understand that but I think if we really help the people will come around sod reply holidays maybe it is mostly from peasant legends no superstitions you know something strangers are bad luck or they are afraid of I don't know Vasily Scholl or something he said without much enthusiasm Basilisk Oh I've never heard about something like that and neither is Sandra apparently when she asked them what they meant they quickly dismissed it as nothing important just peasant superstitions not something that educated people like her should even worry about and his suggestion I just put it out of my mind and we continued our tour of the village at some point in the early afternoon we went back to Florence Jones home where we had lunch and spend the rest of the day planning out a program of service for the villages I was finally starting to get used to the idea of living in this place for the next few months and I was glad that florencio and Dario had validated my concerns about the rather frigid reception we'd received when we got here Sandra on the other hand now seemed less comfortable the first time on this trip might have seen her spirits lower at all as we made a look around the building which uses our clinic she seemed rather distracted I still wasn't feeling great about this whole adventure but I thought confiding in her might put both of us at ease to my surprise when I asked her about what was on our mind she told me that all she could think about was this as in this girl that fer nco had mentioned in passing during a tour at this point I'd almost forgotten about what he'd said so the fact that Sandra was still concerned now had me on edge Basilisk oh that's Spanish for basilisk what does that even mean she said with thoughtful curiosity basilisk isn't it something about the snakes or lizards or something I offered something like that it's some mythical creature by some kind of snake supposedly it kills people by looking them in the eyes she says so they're scared of a mythical snake wandering around the jungle and that sounds like a superstition to me I said scoffing no saying I don't even know why they brought it up but for instance eeeem too worried about it so maybe I shouldn't either she said dismissively and with that the subject was dropped Sandra's reasoning was sound to me Florencia and Daario weren't too worried sigh shouldn't be either she and I went back to work to the empire future workspace a place I wouldn't have chosen for something like this since it didn't have hot running water only a gravity-fed water tank that supplied a few spouts the building itself was mostly made of what I think was cinder blocks that have been aggressively painted over or her colored tiles grouted on and overall it wasn't very well lit this could have been managed so I wasn't overall excited about having to practice general medicine in a facility like this but this was all we could manage this is why we're here I've thought to myself it's about helping the less fortunate if they had more they wouldn't need a house it's strange how youthful naivety can make one forget basic things like that whatever our circumstances Sandra and I was still determined to make the best of things and do as much as humanly possible to make the lives of the less fortunate just a bit better even if we didn't have a perfectly sterile environment we still had our basic medical tools and a small amount of supplies and you'd be surprised to see how much can be done with only these resources the next day our opening day so to speak we were officially open for business earlier in the day a boat arrived carrying packages of our promised medical supplies gauze sutures sterilizing agent spare tools vials of basic antibiotics and most valuable a shipment of vaccine is adequate to inoculate dozens of people it wasn't quite enough vaccines to cover the population of the two whole villages but we've decided to prioritize children and young people which would stretch the available supply for quite some time our plan was to begin with inoculating children and infants for the basic stuff like MMR diphtheria tetanus and whooping cough for that day our first day of service we had a grand total of six people receiving vaccinations justsit the entire day well as far as we knew florencio and Dario did their part to spread the word about our services encouraging people to take their children in for vaccination but all we had all day was just six patients a few families have brought their children in seemed that the rest of the villages had no real interest in our services Sandra and I had expected most everybody to show up with lines running out the door the usual case from what I'd heard from other eight workers on you but we instead spent much of the day trying to stay busy by constantly doing infantry in between the aim frequent visits now needless to say this was a very discouraging turnout it really hit home that these people still didn't trust us granted we'd only been there for three days but I would have hoped that receiving a good word from florencio Ontario might have swayed them to take us more seriously fluency oh and his teenage son Rodrigo came in at about 4 o'clock to see how we were doing and he was almost livid to hear that so few people had showed up we tried to tell him that we didn't take it too personally that we'd be patient and wait for them to come around he was still greatly displeased by what he considered to be an utter lack of respect for not only us but for him as well within minutes he brought in his two younger children along with Dario's young daughter and infant son to receive their vaccines I was glad to see that he at least was taking this seriously he and Dario will just buy the only advocates we had in the villages he promised that both men will go out again to do some further prodding hoping that we would get a better turnout the next day well the next day came and it proved to be little improvement over the first it managed to persuade a few more families to come in to receive vaccines unfortunately these recipients were in the exact age range we wanted to inoculate infants and toddlers overall those two days were quite a disappointment for both of us Sandra was something of an optimist see cautious optimist but still an optimist I seem confident that things would improve pointing out that we shouldn't judge our results after only two days that every person we helped was a step forward we still had the firm support - florencio and dario and for all we know it was only a matter of time before we had patients flocking to her well that was a pretty good consolation for me but the thought that nobody would trust us still stuck in my head no matter how much I tried to be positive over the next several weeks Sandra and I settled into a decent routine taking patients to that clinic from nine o'clock in the morning to seven o'clock at night and taking the occasional call during the night to a number of patients we had increased and we very gradually see me at times that our progress was stagnating while at others we might get more takers than usual either florencio Dario or Florence your son Rodrigo would come around every day to see how we were doing bring us our meals ask how many patients we'd seen and occasionally vow to encourage others to take their medical complaints to us occasionally it worked we see a few patients for all sorts of maladies maybe vaccinate a few children and passing our time with infantry work at least we didn't run short of basic supplies since we always had time to request more shipments we treated a lot of injured fishermen one man who sliced his hand open with a fishing hook another getting a nasty chemical burn after spilling gasoline on his hands working on a motor those sorts of things eventually we got a few elderly patients which Sandra took is a good sign seeing as the old folks in town were the most suspicious and obstinate every night we went back to Florence Joe's home have dinner spend a relatively relaxing evening and wake up to do it all over again the next day discouraging as those early days were I'd like to think that they did make me grow as a person within a week or so of living there I've managed to get over most of my first world hangups and adapt to this new lifestyle I got used to the idea of mostly living on seafood I could stomach the water and I quickly found out that taking a crap in a ramshackle outhouse she's in quite as terrifying as I thought on slower days when we found ourselves largely occupied we could steal off to the beach for a swim it turns out bathing in the ocean is a decent alternative to showering when you don't have hot running water and house got too stifling to sleep comfortably I could always go out and sleep on the hammock in the patio drifting off to the sound of gentle waves from the bed it turns out that sometimes it's better to make the transition the hard way it's half of what makes it hard in the first place it's ultimately just meaningless stuff that you quickly find out isn't worth worrying about I think at the time I was starting to understand a bit about white people here didn't always take us seriously after all only a few weeks before I was still a middle-class college girl who could barely fathom that life was possible without hot showers and toilet paper as much as modern medicine but here I was doing both so you can imagine that if people who've lived this way all their lives might naturally think that doctors like us were a luxury not a need I started to understand why they might be content with things like midwives and home Rarity's and occasional prayer not that I was doubting our mission or anything but I did get it into my head that maybe I shouldn't just write these people off for being ignorant peasants the cultures and attitudes don't just change overnight but still as much as I do just it even this relative comforts wouldn't laugh part two in the middle of the night sometime in mid-july Sandra and I were rouse mostly by Dario and a villager from playa Sola the villager a roughly middle-aged man named Esteban was in near hysterics trying to explain his situation while Dario struggled to keep up while translating for us from what we understood esta vans elderly father use [ __ ] was in a grave condition having suffered from extreme pain in his lower abdomen for nearly two days yet both usable and his wife were extremely reluctant to seek our help but Esteban and Dario is urging we immediately grabbed our kits followed them down to Playa Sola when we reached his house we were accosted by who I assume was Esteban's mother who immediately engaged in an argument with her son and made as if to prevent us from entering and shooing us away I've somewhat expected this kind of reception but when it came to a patient with a potentially life-threatening condition I would have none of it Sandra and I simply pushed past her into the house with Esteban and we were immediately greeted with a strained groan from one of the back rooms we rushed into the room to see what was happening from the first look we already knew the prognosis was grim on the bed was an elderly man with his nightshirt hiked up to show his lower abdomen and even from a few feet away we could tell what the trouble was he had a sizable inquirer hernia just over his groin that had bulged nearly the size of an apple which he clutched at while moaning weakly and what must have been considerable pain even worse he was noticeably pale and practically drenched in sweat rocking his head from side to side Sandra said to inspecting his hernia while I took his vitals needless to say his vitals were not good he was running a very high fever with a quite rapid and weak pulse there were in his fevered delirium he did summon some strength to try and push me away while weakly muttering what I assumed were prayers is inguinal hernia had been strangulated a part of his intestines had slid out of place cutting off the blood flow to the bowel resulting in his commute and this had probably been the case for a day or two and now he's in the late stages of septic shock after his gangrenous bow had been perforated in this advanced stage as little we could do besides trying to ward off the septic shock using what antibiotics we had by the hernia and perforated bowel would have required surgical intervention to have a chance of saving him neither of us were trained surgeons and unless we could get him from here to a major hospital only a few hours we were effectively out of options we did what we could with some antibiotics and antibiotics to make him relatively comfortable after about three hours shortly before dawn he passed away Esteban and his mother were nearly inconsolable Sandra and I while trying to maintain a facade of clinical professionalism were gravely disappointed even heartbroken at our failure to help him true this man had ignored a quite serious condition and delayed treatment to a point where it was far too late and true we were still having a hard time getting through to the older folks in the village and perhaps there wasn't much to be done in his case but no doctor doesn't have regrets after losing a patient under these circumstances especially felt as if we'd lost much of the trust we gained over the last few weeks by failing to help this one man you Xavier's wife angrily ushered us away only a few minutes after we pronounced him deceased not at all interested in our questions or condolences Esteban was much more kind to us after leaving the house he found us profusely for doing our best to aid his father in his dying hours and apologizing for his mother suspicious and hostile attitude by this point a small group of other villages who gathered outside their houses to witness the commercial eyeing us in that same cold curiosity Esteban thanked us again we said our farewells is Dario escorted us back to Bahia departs a very somber mood hung over us the next day as we opened our clinic between a lack of sleep and painful loss of the previous night's spirits were about as low as they've been so far since we'd arrived he only saw two patients that morning well I suppose I could understand if the people were now skeptical of us after what had happened the last night I have surprised that these two doctors from a rich advanced country were not in fact capable of delivering miracles shortly before lunch Florencia and Dario came in looking terribly annoyed I assumed to speak about the events of last night however they came to us with another problem entirely apparently a man they called el curandero had arrived in playa Sala I recognized the term from an earlier conversation with Florencio curandero meant a traditional healer like something of a witch doctor according to him a curandera from another village had arrived to ply his trade in the village by offering folk remedies to the inhabitants Dario claimed this man was a familiar figure in Playa Sol who arrived every humans with an inventory of talismans elixirs and other traditional medicine the two of them were hoping that Sandra and I would accompany them supplier Saleh in order to confront the locals about trusting traditional medicine over the efforts of us to Train physicians but on this point Florencia and Daario were noticeably at odds florencio openly advocated confronting the Elcor and arrow but the intent of driving him off for good the daria was far more hesitant about this plan hoping instead to wait for him to leave before trying to educate the villages about trusting modern medicine over folk remedies neither sorrow nor myself were particularly interested in their plan while we certainly did hope for the locals to begin trusting us more this felt more like a matter of village politics and we were concerned that openly disrespecting their beliefs would alienate us further nonetheless we agreed to go with them to see this curandero hoping that perhaps we might at least get a look at what traditional folk remedies he was peddling when we strode in to apply asana we saw a decent sized crowd began to form in the village common area it seemed that the visitor had drawn out nearly the entire village who had crowded around him in his car as the four of us moved through the crowd we strained to get a better look at this traveling medicine man as we got close we could see that there was no getting a good look at him Elka and a dog turned out to be a moderately tall man who seemed to have covered nearly his entire body from head to toe showing no skin or even his face he wore a faded poncho over a simple brown cloth tunic and trousers that looked like an outfit from another century on his feet were not shoes but rough sandals worn over leg wrappings that went up to his shins and on his hands were rough gloves that look like they were made of bulla but his head and face were the strangest his face was not visible obscured by even more wrappings from with only a narrow slit for his eyes which were likewise covered with some kind of darken glasses but he wrapped under everything else his head was covered by a drooping wide-brimmed hat that slouched over his face and neck making it even more difficult to make out his features with him was a small car covered with talismans and small tribal fetishes that have been fashioned from sticks feathers small stones and even some animal bones in the lower basket was an assortment of clay pots and vials of dark colored glass along with a smaller basket of smooth stones of many colors with strange ruins scratched into them I have to admit was sort of fascinating hasn't never seen something like this outside of a documentary or a museum exhibit after gawking at his merchandise for a minute or two I looked up to see that the curandero had fixed his gaze upon Sandra and I boring interest with those empty but still utterly hissing eyes of his the crowd around him a quieted considerably shifting their eyes to the ground not even wanting to look at us he just stared his empty glare across our small group not saying a word not even appearing to breathe the palpable silence of the entire crowd we thought this strange and intimidating figure put all of us on edge even Dario Florencia met the man's gaze with some defiance florencio greeted him with an almost mock enthusiasm clearly confident of himself with us in his presence though Dario was throwing their butt sideways glances at his cousin he's a fine day for you to be here though it is a pity you did not come sooner florencio said with thinly veiled contempt Sondra and I flinched at that still wondering just what he planned to say you may be happy to hear that we have real doctors here allow me to introduce miss I mean dr. LaRoche and dr. Brady I've been with us for some time now he was just gloating he nervously exchanged glances suddenly uncomfortable with having any attention drawn to us vibes we'll be glad for a competition eh he said with a brief chuckle out of the corner of my eye I saw Dario's shifting uncomfortably on his feet edging away slightly from his bowl cousin Elka and arrow said nothing just staring right through us and many people here happy with them too many have already taken their troubles to them then you realize we don't need Brujeria to get well Brujeria which crowds no it was the crowds turned and nervously edged away still no response from the curandero and we even without expression his glass seemed to become even more piercing at the mention of witchcraft now how about do as you like granny some people here still trust you florencio said this time not even trying to hide a small sneer with that Florencia made a brisk about-face and walked out through the crowd which parted like the red sea as he went sandra dario and I all followed him sparing only one nervous look back to see the medicine man's empty eyes still following us as we walked away we left place Allah made our way back to Bahia departs when yo got into a sudden argument with his cousin I couldn't quite follow what they were saying but Daria was clearly agitated while florencio just scoffed with defiant scepticism whoever el curandera was Daario clearly shared the other villagers fear of him and disapproved of the way florencio had confronted him they argued most of the way back until they left us back at the clinic Sandra and I were both totally perplexed about what we just witnessed as we got back into our daily routine this meeting with Hale curandero had been a bizarre it's deeply unsettling experience and the more I thought about the icy wordless glare coming from the faceless figure the more I understood why Daario and the others were afraid of him now loud I half jokingly quipped that we should watch our backs after florencio zeal conceive confrontation with the medicine man Sandra just seemed lost in thought she pointed out to me that something about Elka and arrow didn't seem quite right yeah I noticed that's not it sarcastically no I mean this man wasn't like any Quran that I've ever heard of there like a shaman or medicine man or something like that but I didn't think people were afraid of them from what I've heard they're usually well liked and trusted and usually the curandera lives with the villages like they're supposed to be almost equal to the village chief but neither village has one instead they have a traveling one and these people were almost scared of him I didn't know quite how to respond to that well I just think was that things were just different here no no not everything would be like what it said in the books but I knew that if Sandra was concerned about something then I should certainly be worried well if he only comes once every few months maybe we won't see him again I said with a feeble attempt at reassurance hmm maybe well who knows we should go back there later see what he's been peddling the best the stuff could be useless but Wurster could actually do more harm she said I wasn't thrilled to have to show my face imply a solid again but she made a good point where are 3:00 in the afternoon we decided to take the day off early and go for a stroll along the beach it was a good way to work off a bit of stress especially after the rather bad couple of days we've just gone through I still thought about Esteban's poor father that was the first time I'd ever lost a patient and even though I knew it wasn't our fault really it still hurt to think about the horrendous pain the old man must have been in during his final hours we're still it made me doubtful about our own efforts even if we got to him earlier his condition would likely have needed surgery two trees something we couldn't provide especially not out here how much could we really do with just gauze and sutures or aspirin and antibiotics Shirley asked us were better than nothing that realistically there would be a few things that would be beyond our training but I was no longer eager to experience the helplessness I'd felt as we watch that old man done after dinner that evening we both collapsed into our beds having our sleep interrupted the night before had left us in pretty bad spirits finally getting a chance to lie down almost made me forget about the stressful and bizarre a day we just heard unfortunately this night we were again torn from sleep to face yet another crisis like the sense of urgency this time was through the roof within minutes we were out the door without doctors bags and following another young man from here in Bahia departs my Spanish had improved a bit by this point and I understood through his panicked exhortations that his infant son was desperately sick now that I knew a child's life was at stake I was extremely on edge and determined that we would not repeat the events of the previous night we arrived at his house on the edge of the village with his parents standing outside inside we could hear a baby just crying but shrieking the desperate wail of an infant in extreme distress the man's parents followed us in and quickly ushered his other children outside and we saw that the baby's mother was sitting on the couch cradling the infant trying almost hysterically to calm him down she was so desperate and afraid that we practically had to pry the infant out of her hands to get a good look with just one look we saw something that neither of us was prepared to win the infant kept shrieking as Sandra laid him down on the living room table gently palpitating the back of his skull I could plainly see that the top and back portions of the skull were noticeably swollen while his neck remained persistently arched I recognized those signs immediately meningitis the child was in an extremely dire condition and my heart sank when I realized that we couldn't guarantee he would survive this we immediately administered antibiotics and wanted to prep for a lumbar puncture but at this advanced stage we knew it was likely he would suffer from some amount of brain damage even if he survived as we unwrapped him from the blankets he was shocked to see it he was showing numerous angry red spots on his skin that extended all over his arms and torso and it's not uncommon for infants with bacterial meningitis to have an extensive rash but such a rash will be enlarged into connected patches like bruises these instead were small spots that on closer examination were actually due to small bleeds under the skin like a hematoma still bright red like arterial blunt now I was wondering just what I was looking at everything else seemed to indicate that this was indeed meningitis but the pattern of the rash if it really was a rash threw me off completely while Sondra tended to the baby I took the mother aside and asked her about how the condition had started she said they'd arrived home late the previous afternoon from visiting relatives in playa Sola and had taken the infant with her on arriving home she noticed that her baby was irritable and feeling poorly a situation that continued through much of the evening that night she nodded off on the couch while holding her son and was awoken by his crying at that time he developed a fever and couldn't be calmed and the situation escalated until they sent for us now that certainly sounded like the course of meningitis but it seemed like it progressed with unusual speed likewise the spots on his skin didn't quite match the ordinary symptoms Sandra yelled out from the other room for me to go back to our stash of supplies and get some extra antibiotics and when I moved to escort the mother with me she suddenly looked nauseous bigger that was just due to nervous tension then she suddenly vomited at the threshold of the front door and seems suddenly uneasy on her feet I helped her take a seat on the ground just outside and was turning to sprint up the hill to a clinic when I heard some incoherent shells coming from down the road at my Isola in the dark I saw the silhouette of a small figure that appeared to be staggering and stumbling along like a drunk person as it drew closer I could finally see that the figure was a young boy perhaps 9 or 10 years old with a vacant look in his eyes just staring at the moonlit sky the shouting behind him grew closer still off to the side I heard another villager gasp audibly while others kept inching back away from the road for getting my tasks I went forward to see what was happening with the boy when several villages began shouting for me to stay back I couldn't understand why at the time but when I look back a clearer view of the boys face like the baby inside his face and arms were just littered with those angry red spots but some of these were noticeably losing fluid that trickled down his body a large streak of blood ran from his nose down to his chin and onto his neck from this distance I could hear him breathing in short ragged gasps that came with much effort his empty eyes just rolled around without heat anything standing in front of him and he continued his lurching walk forward by now the shouts from behind them were revealed to be coming from a small group of men sprinting towards us while shouting at the top of their lungs their cries were finally comprehensible and I focused my attention on what they were shouting Vasily Scott know love doggies Basilisk oh don't touch him that's what they were saying I reflexively took a few steps back not at all sure what was happening now my instincts were starting to kick in and I was prepared to move forward and inspect the boy it was obviously severely ill and him badly in need of medical attention I couldn't just stand by idly whatever the villagers seemed to thing as I moved forward a middle-aged woman stepped in front of me and blocked my path repeating the warnings of the young men and trying to push me back when I tried to shut her aside I noticed that one of the men had raised a thin object he'd been carrying and I recognized the metallic blade of a machete glinting in the dim moonlight he had the blade raised high above his head with his right hand with his left he clutched a cloth handkerchief tightly over his face with horror I realized what he was planning to do as he closed in on the boy in panic i roughly shoved the woman aside hoping to stop what was about to happen but I was too far away and the machete-wielding man had closed the distance rapidly my shock state the scene seemed to play out in slow motion the man cocking his machete back the boys see me to briefly come out of his disease stupid to turn slightly around to see what was happening with a broad powerful sweep the man brought the machete down and buried it into the back of the boys exposing their body topple limply to the ground it's partially severed head noticeably slouching forward and colliding roughly with the death to this day I can still picture that hideous sight with perfect clarity these days the memory of that image feels excruciatingly Lirio but at the time it seems so unreal I was just riveted on the spot still not quite believing what I was seeing when I was broken out of my trance by the shrill scream of the infant's mother behind me she recognized who the boy was wailing his name at the top of her lungs she ran forward towards his lifeless body the same middle-aged woman stopped her in her tracks as I turned around I saw one of the men throwing what looked like a cloth tarp over her body while the other poured out the contents of a jerrican on top of it the man with the machete lit a book of matches and tossed it on top igniting the pile with a sharp one producing an orange cloud of flame that illuminated the entire scene while the young mother wailed at my side and not used to all the other spectators were almost silent regarding the burning pile with fear and revulsion rather than shock the man with the machete waved his back away from the flames his voice trembling slightly he will repair of long cloth gloves that went almost to the elbows and noticing a small spatter of blood on one of them he stripped it off carefully and likewise tossed it into the flames I turned to see that Sandra had come out to witness the commotion the look on her face show that she didn't quite understand what we just witnessed the acrid smell of burning gasoline was now tinged with the awful stench of burning flesh as the fire raged and abated the baby didn't make it she murmured sombrely into my ear my throat tightened up like it had just been clinched in a vise the infant's mother was still on her knees a few feet away still sobbing over the death of the boy he must have been a close relative of hers he was already so distraught over one loss that I was mortified at the idea of telling her that she lost her infant son as well what happened i croaked right after you left he had a grand mal seizure stopped breathing couldn't resuscitate call it only a minute ago she said quietly glancing nervously at the mother good grief I thought to myself I was starting to come back to reality as the shock wore off and my hands began trembling heavily I saw the man with the machete wiping the blade with a rag that he tossed into the fire before holding the machete blade itself against the flames Florencia finally arrived to see what the ruckus was about when he saw the men standing around the fire he strode sharply up to the man with the machete and shouted the question in Spanish the machete-wielding man just shook his head muttering only a single word Basilisk oh now I got Florence years attention and his expression of confused rage rapidly morphed into one of shock and anxiety the man pointed down the road to playa Sala without her words Gracia shot a quick look at us and signaled for us to follow him as he began a brisk trot down the road to the other village Sandra hesitated briefly before following suit giving the three men a wide berth while they just silently stared at the burning calls I was utterly taken aback by the response that everyone seemed to be showing at the time I thought I'd witnessed a boy being murdered in plain view with nearly an entire village of people and everyone just seemed to really accept it even Sandra was this something that happened in places like this well the boy looked gravely ill why would they have done something like that for somebody clearly sick but even more worrying the man had been crying buzzy Lascaux as they came up behind him telling us to stay away from the boy well the time I still didn't know what bozo Misco even referred to but I had apparently witnessed it for myself no still at a total loss after a few seconds I ran to catch up with Sandra and florencio who was still jogging down the road to Playa Sol as a caught up and got further from the flames I could see that another point in the distance was brightly lit up with a thick grey column of smoke rising from the center of another fire this time in the next village I was wondering just what in the hell was going on when he arrived in playa Sala to meet another large crowd of people ringing the center of this fire Florencia pushed his way through the crowd to see that his cousin dario was there at the front watching with the crowd as a house went up in flames the entire house was ablaze with gusts of flame bellowing from the windows in the opening where the door used to be and the entire roof seemed to have disappeared behind a wall of smoke and fire but I see a whisper something into Dario's ear who responded in kind nobody in the village into fiend in the blaze Sandra and I could only stand there staring slack-jawed with everybody else as we watched the house burned for another ten minutes or so mile an florencio and dario had turned around and sharply ordered the spectating villages to disperse and return to their homes not to fetch water to fight the flames or to consider rescuing anybody inside but to just go home they did so impassively throwing glances back at the flames with the looks of fear and grief but complying nonetheless with one final look florencio and dario turned around and strolled despondently back to the main path in the village we followed the two of them closely intent on demanding answers to what exactly it just happened during the night the two cousins were standing at the edge of the path talking quietly among themselves when Sandra confidently strode up behind them alright we've been here for over a month now you guys haven't given us a straight answer about what's going on around here so do us a courtesy could you explain what the [ __ ] just happened tonight Sandra is practically glaring daggers at the two Florencio and Dario traded glances for a moment clearly unsure how they could explain it well Dario said cautiously the people here they say it was a buzzy disco what does that even mean I've heard buzzer disco a dozen times now and I still don't know what the hell people are talking about Sandra retorted tersely florencio stared off to the side as if searching for the right words I see Scott that's what happened to the boy and the baby too I suppose he said thoughtfully oh that's what it means a sick boy getting his [ __ ] head chopped off in the middle of the road makes perfect goddamn sense I snapped alright help my silence long enough and all the emotion I felt after seeing that boy die began to bubble over no that is not what it means he eventually replied you said the boy was sick that his passively school that is what happened to him we think those men they did what needed to be done if they didn't it everyone in by Antipas would be sick now to Dario interjected I could barely believe what I was hearing and I was ready to snap at him when he spoke again the boy was suffering you could not help him if they didn't kill him bass in this car would happen to others too that's why they burned him Brian share pointed out suddenly that is why they burned the house - what do you mean what happened with the house Sandra asked Tess the boy's family he was sick too there was basa disco in that house so it had to be burned dario said Liliana the baby's mother well that was a brother's house away the boy was her nephew Timoteo Liliana and the baby visited here today that is how they got sick I think Florence Joe said quietly and what happened to the baby she's gone Sandra said I remember the look on her face when she said it that palpable sense of grief wait there were people in that house you burnt down that house with him still inside I said nearly hysterical with a thought of people being trapped in that blaze they were sick Dario said firmly if they didn't burn it and the bodies they would still be buzzing this guy in that house he pause for a second regaining his composure look he said in a consolatory tone we know what Placidus got us we have seen it before you have not I know it's not nice to see but we do what we must to stop it then believe me letting buzzer disco happen would look much worse as angry as I've been well kin Dario's eyes said it all I could see that he genuinely meant what he said he didn't like this situation any better than I did in fact he probably felt worse than me after all the people who died on his horrible evening were his friends and neighbors people he'd known his entire life what to me they were strangers Sandra and I was still quite agitated by the events of the past few hours but we couldn't muster much of a reply after Dario laid it out like that we had a word we followed florencio back to Bahia de paths all the while wondering just what the hell we'd volunteered for you know I don't know how I fell asleep at nights but I almost wish I hadn't my head was filled with murky unpleasant nightmares full of images of fire and burning buildings the kind of nightmares that make you feel like you're still awake when you actually wake up you feel like you haven't slept at all I'd nodded off on the hammock on the back porch and when I awoke I saw that Sandra was just sitting quietly in a chair watching the Sun rise over the bay after a while I asked her about what she was feeling that night she shrugged and that had a long sigh not great she said tiredly mystery diseases people killing each other burning houses and Families she trout up what do you think we got ourselves into I asked hoping she might put me at ease well she just shrugged again and shook her head slightly beats the [ __ ] out of me M I'm not too sure I want to find out she replied sardonically well I guess we were thinking the same thing but if we did find something new some new kind of disease we haven't heard of shouldn't we try and do something about it I told her I wasn't so sure about finding out either in fact I was half I wanted to just get the hell out of this place but I knew Sandra wasn't the quitting time especially where our professional obligations were concerned she was serious about getting to the bottom of this buzzer Lascaux business so I guess that meant I was too but if we wanted to look into whatever play get affected these people we'd need blood samples tissue samples and that kind of thing and all the infected bodies were already burned all I could think of for now was getting witness reports of Oz Eliska ask how it spread and the symptoms the general course of the disease florencio and dario in particular asserted they'd seen it before and knew how it progressed Sandra agreed with my idea we decided to spend the day asking the villages of about buzzer Lascaux and the events of the previous night about 4:00 we slept in a bit that day before setting out on this mission we'd had planned out it was surely before noon a time when the residents of Bahia de Paz should have been out and about with their daily Labor's but instead the entire village was silent as a tomb the main drag through the village was virtually empty of people as we made our way down to the Young Ones house catching only passing glimpses of the villagers trying to summit tisha Slee observe the two of us from their windows or back gates arriving the house we could see the young woman's husband and his parents standing outside the husband clearly distraught our mother attempted to console him as we approached the older woman got up and intercepted us on the short path leading to the front door before we could say anything the old wound telling us to stay away and not enter the house she pointed at the front door saying that there was a buzzer disco in the house and that everybody should be kept away especially us and she wasn't particularly hostile to us I couldn't help but be somewhat offended by her clear lack of trust in us saundra reasoned with her explaining that we only wanted to ask questions and that our intention was to help regardless of anything being said about us the old woman was quiet for moments when the older man her husband stepped forward saying that he was willing to will cooperate with us the old woman was about to interrupt when he shot her a baleful look as he walked off with us the situation was as bad as we feared the young woman from last night was now sick as was one of her other children and from what the old man described they were certain she would not last the rest of the day we were just flabbergasted by that news it was only a relatively short time ago that we've seen her record she devoted when I discord hit her from the house I'd originally just shot that up to nervous shock and now it seemed that she was in a far worse shape than I'd assumed I asked why they hadn't come to us earlier when she deteriorated but the old man just nodded mournfully saying there was nothing we could do to help according to him there was nothing to be done once buzzy Lascaux had progressed it was invariably fatal and she was practically doomed after handling her sick baby for so long within eight hours since the event she and one of her other children were now at death's door with no hope of recovery he explained that her symptoms manifested very quickly starting with fever and delirium and rapidly descending into her profoundly weakened state covered in those bright red spots leading from her nose and gums and occasionally vomiting a clear blood-tinged liquid with a deathly stench her other child had deteriorated even more quickly having only become sick early that morning they'd been left alone in that house for a few hours now and leaving there was no chance of recovery the rest of the family had left them inside for fear of being exposed as well all they could do now explain was just wait until the sweet mercy of death read his daughter-in-law and grandchild from their suffering what remained of the family seemed entirely convinced that there was nothing more that anyone could do at this point even the younger man entirely despondent and the thought of losing his wife and two of his children in less than a day sin resigned to what was happening Sandra and I on the other hand were not quite so pessimistic surely we realized that we had limited means with which to treat her and if her condition was this terrible then she lightly would not make it to receive care in a proper Hospital but even low doctors like her surrealist it definitely not fatalist Sandra pressed him a bit more saying that even if we couldn't save her we could still do some good by examining the woman and her child in the hopes we might found out what was happening at this point the young a man broke out of his despair and told us we had his permission to go inside and examine his wife his only condition was that we promised to find something anything that might help us save anybody else affected by basal disc we assured him that anything we would find would be helpful no matter how small and with his blessing we prepared to enter the house for my parts I wasn't so sure about doing this I mean we were thousands of miles from home risking being infected with some unknown disease that could kill us in less than a day all we really had for protective gear were gloves and a face mask better than nothing but quite enough for me to comfortably bet my life on there was nothing to be done for it we were committed to our mission and we considered our professional obligations to be inviolable so with a deep breath of fresh outside air we opened the door and crossed the threshold into the house the whole place was utterly ranked the house had no electricity and all the window shades had been pulled closed leaving the place mostly in darkness despite the darkness the rooms were quite warm and humid as if there was a repulsive and sweaty miasma that pervaded the entire building the temperature only got warmer as we made our way to the back rooms where our patients were spending what was probably the last few hours on earth as we open the doors in the main bedroom we were immediately overcome with a powerful and deathly stench even stronger than the one that hung over the rest of the house this room was absolutely stifling and could swear that I saw a cloud of vapor hanging over the bed which contained the young woman from before in the course of eight hours she'd become virtually unrecognizable to us she look completely drained her skin deathly pale and hanging loosely from her arms and face covered in those same red spots that face in particular was noticeably gaunt with large rings under her eyes and the skin sagging substantially I remember that she was a fairly petite woman but now she looked almost emaciated by every bit of soft tissue and her body had been drained out getting a closer look I could see that our eyes were bloodshot and the inside of her nose was stained with fresh blood she opened her mouth slightly to murmur something unintelligible letting out a breath of especially foul air that was clearly part of the stench that covered the whole room Sandra removed the damp blanket to take her vitals and reveal that the woman's child was next to in bed under the covers the child looked much the same as the mother but after checking her vitals he was clear that the child was already dead the woman's vitals were not much better her respiration rate was slower with a weak and rapid past there was typical of a significant loss of blood pressure I took a temperature and started to see that the thermometer registered a temperature of 112 degrees Fahrenheit I thought that must have been a mistake but after measuring again a few more times that was an accurate reading it was an astronomically high temperature for a fever and I could hardly believe that she was even still alive well a high fever would explain the low blood pressure across my mind that it might also be a product of severe internal bleeding brought on by extreme hypothermia the disease was from all the signs burning her alive from the ins we took a few blood samples some from the vein some from the red spots on her skin and took some skin scrapings as well sandra administered a mild antic directed to see if it managed the fever at all and i gathered up the samples and went outside i confirmed his family but the situation was as bad as they feared the old woman crossed herself silently gently thumbing a small relic that i assumed was a rosary but a second look showed it was a smooth pale blue stone it was exactly this sort of coal stone I've seen an elk curanderos car just the other day when he'd visited Lai asada and kept that observation to myself thinking that the old woman was wishing she trusted us first instead of a medicine man but the picture of that stone remained in my mind Sandra came out of the house and we carefully disposed of our gloves and masks in a small fire the old man had built just outside so now we had samples of whatever disease had killed all those people I was wondering just what exactly we do with what we found perhaps we could isolate some bacterial or viral particles and maybe if we were lucky you could formulate something like a vaccine for it but even if we managed that I couldn't imagine us earning enough trust to convince the others to take it Sandra and I discussed these ideas for a while we couldn't form any solid plans just yet I spotted Dario entering the village from the path to Playa Sola a look of consternation bordering on terror on his face before we could ask him anything in earlier just to follow him back to apply a solder immediately he was quite frantic and didn't explain himself coherently Sandra and I had a sick feeling that we knew what it was we entered Playa Sola to see that a large and noisy crowd was now gathering in the village square and the second we entered the village the entire crowd turned to regard us but previously I rates in aggressive four-hour fell silent and fixed their angry and suspicious looks on the three of us after a few 10 seconds the crowd dispersed without a word and quickly returned back to their homes eyeing us nervously Talia move to stop one man close to us who aggressively shook him off and went on its way without a look back Sandra and I were totally confused by this situation they are stereo what was going on but he responded wordlessly with a quick gesture to follow him as we moved across the village square I noticed a disturbing and all too familiar sight just afterwards the opposite end of the village al-quran Darrow a medicine man still swathe head to toe in his curious outfit dragging his cart behind him and giving us a shot but hissing look that transfixed us even at this distance Dario led us to a group of houses near the house that had been burned down the night before the house was little more than a smoldering ruin if only a small corner of the building remaining upright the small wisp of smoke still rising from the bed of embers where it once stood dario pointed to a group of four houses a short distance away houses that i could see had been altered since our last visit the doors were notably boarded up with planks while the windows looked like they had large canvas tarps either tied or taped over the windows above the door frames of each house were placed strange objects that how close I could see what idols or totems at the same kind L curandero had been hulking a few days before upon closer inspection I could see that the totems were made from a combination of sticks and more I think were animal skins that had been tied together to form something shaped like a man with a small string of those multicolored stones hanging from the feet of the figure I moved to try and pull it down to get a closer look but Dario aggressively pushed me back and taught me not to touch it this sudden outburst caught me by surprise and I immediately back to him Dario looked absolutely terrified and told us that we should all leave this place and not disturb anymore icons we saw Sandra and I pulled him aside to ask what these totems mens and why he was so afraid of them he explained that only today the families of these houses fell sick with buzzer disco and the totems of the entrance of each house were placed there by L curandero who had promised that they would protect the rest of the village and keep the sickness confined to these places at least until they could be burned I could hardly believe what I was hearing four more families have been affected this it all happened since late last night and now four more families were dead from this strange disease Sandra and I exchanged looks that showed both of us were a complete loss about what to do in this situation clearly the disease was spreading it was spreading fast this was verging on a full-scale epidemic that could by our estimates wipe out the populations of both villages within a week if it couldn't be contained did that have something to do with why it was called bacillus co was it some reference to how it spread or who contracted it after all the legendary basilisk was sent to be extremely poisonous enough that even breathing its noxious weight could fatally poison somebody I wonder if that was an allusion to how the disease was spreading as if each infected person had become like a basilisk themselves if he got close enough to look them in the eyes you'd already been exposed that was my theory anyway but if it was true then Sandra and I were in serious danger staying in this place however much we might want to get to the bottom of this I didn't want to end up the victim of an exotic disease especially this far from home we went back to the village square employ Isola to find that a small group of people had formed to meet us they glared at us balefully as we approached and before dario had a chance to greet them we were immediately subjected to a scolding by an old woman that seemed to lead the group I couldn't quite follow what she was saying but signs were translated for me she said that we were not to be trusted by ignoring the advice of Elle curandero we had brought this upon their people the people who had died of Basel Disko were those who had not accepted what we had to offer and that all those who had trusted the doctors were doomed to death the old woman continued ranting in this vein for several moments while Sandra and I could only listen in shock disbelief to see the suspicions being thrown about us wildly I thought to myself that this couldn't possibly be happening I mean how on earth could we be to blame for this it might seem silly to be offended at the spurious accusations of a group of distressed and afraid villages but the way they've confronted us so openly and directly firmly cemented the growing atmosphere of hostility and suspicion that was hanging over us like a dark cloud after a few moments of the old woman's ranting Dario finally stepped forward and interjected quite forcefully I'd seen him distressed and annoyed before I hadn't until then seen him truly angry and snapped at the woman and that the other people gathered behind her beginning a furious tirade in Spanish that even Sandra had a hard time keeping up with however I did notice a phrase he uttered several times Laura Dawe signor antis which from what I understood meant ignorant rubes or something similar the crowd kept their silence is Dario shoot them out saying nothing but returning their frigid hostile glares now for a few minutes of berating the crowd Dario finally ran out of steam by this time the crowd had noticeably grown larger with curious bystanders having assembled to witness the shouting match going on in the middle of town after taking a moment to collect himself Dario turned about to face the others who gathered around us for a moment he silently exchanged looks effects aspiration with the crowd but then he spoke up once more this time more calmly this is how it is you trust hell curandero but not real doctors any of you even know who this man is you think he still protects you but all this this has happened before he comes and you think you are safe from buzzer disco and you are for a little while ambassador Scott comes again every few years no matter how many times Elka and dad all comes to her some of you say he knows when buzzer disco is coming that is way cast wise to help us before it happens but how does he know ambassador score is coming do you ever think about this a sharp intake of breath came from the entire crowd who shifted uncomfortably on their feet I noticed that they tended to become extremely nervous when Daria or anybody else spoke ill of the medicine man as if they expected some kind of instant retaliation to fall on their heads these women he continued pointing to us come here to help us and you blame them for passing disco it has happened before long before they came to us my cousin and I invited them here because we need real help I know you don't trust them you think L curandero will be angry that he will stop coming if we turn to doctors instead of him I think about it if you can't trust dr. LaRouche or dr. Brady and how can you trust L curandero the entire crowd was deathly silent his darío finished his speech even the old woman who started the debate had nothing to offer in response instead she and her fellow elders stalked away quietly sending one last parting glance back at Daario look not of Rage or a friends but of what looked like pity with her departure the rest of the gathered crowd began to disperse in complete silence clearly not sure what to make of their village leaders terrain meanwhile Sandra and I only stood by awkwardly without saying a word darío certainly meant well and without his advocacy we wouldn't have gotten this far with the villages at all when I was extremely uncomfortable still with the attention that he and Florencia were drawn to us as much as I still wanted to help these people I was starting to feel that Sandra and I were getting too wrapped up in local politics for our tastes even after living with these people for several weeks we hadn't formed any kind of rapport with them so when it came to cross cultural relations we were quite out of our depth as frustrated as I was by their lack of trust I have no intentions of stepping on any toes during our time here when the crowd had finally vanished we followed Daario to a point just outside of Playa song we assumed that we'd be heading straight back to Bahia in two parts as soon as we were out of sight to the village he ushered us off the road a short way into the forest with a hush conspiratorial tone you press this together and began to talk quietly in English these people still don't understand I don't trust al-quran and ohon anything else these people tried to stop by the disco I haven't trust in him for many years but the people still do they're too scared to try anything else why are they still scared of him saundra honest I thought people in this region like medicine men that they trusted them all most people do most curanderos help their people what ours is not like that I don't even know where he comes from but he's been coming here for many years since I was very young at least dari explained he glanced nervously back towards the power clearly wary of any eavesdropping the people are scared that if they anger him he'll not help and then when Bosco comes again they would be helpless he comes every few months and they always ask him if as a disco he's coming they say he knows when it will happen and he is always right but in the village you said it was suspicious how he always knows when it will happen I pointed out you think he has something to do with it at all don't know for sure he said with a sigh I don't trust him but it's hard to accuse him I took a big risk saying that and crossed his arms let out a deep sigh and I could see how the stress was taking its toll on him these people are angry with me my people I mean make you think ill they think it offends hell curandero that you are here so they don't trust doctors who come even if they can help I have ideas how to convince them to think differently but and trailed off do you have an idea something that might work Sandra products if I don't trust that man either I think it's real suspicious that Bosley let's go came right after he visited I definitely don't trust any of the trinkets or medicines he sells that era started at this suggestion a flicker of that old fear in his eyes I have an idea he said very quietly coming in even closer and bringing our heads to I thought when he comes he always sells thinks it was the icons on the homes to protect from buzz let's go I was thinking on that one everybody sleeps we go into the village and we take the icons away then when they are gone we see if buzzy disco still comes if nothing is different when they are gone the people well they may see that l curandero doesn't help at very least we could check out one of the icons zadra responded and I've a bad feeling about those who need to examine one see what it does okay you will help then I will do it he said nodding his head in agreement only a few moments before he'd been aggressively exhorting us not to disturb any of the icons placed on the infected houses but now he is planning with us to embark on a mission to take them down his sudden change of heart perplex me I wondered if maybe he just didn't want me to take down the icon where everyone could see or if he'd really changed his mind when it costed by the angry woman in the village square whatever it was I wasn't sure I wanted to embark on the mission he and Sandra were planning really I was leaning towards getting the hell out of this place entirely but Sandra was determined and I knew it was unlikely I could persuade her otherwise and so I found myself agreeing with some hesitation to seeing this thing through of course I was plainly aware of the potentially dire consequences of our little request if we were caught there would possibly be held to play with the villages if we took down the icon successfully in Gaza let's go then while the place out we'd find ourselves in similar trouble and assuming the icons were a hoax you'd still have to stick around long enough to observe the effects and prove it and suspicions would almost certainly fall on our heads these rather unpleasant options and decided it was necessary to form an exit plan darío told us to meet him back there later at night for our new task however before then I persuaded Sandra to contact the boat man who brought us here over the radio and arranged a pickup within the next few days as much as I dislike the idea of running out on these people we were treading on some very dangerous ground to my relief sandra felt much the same way and she agreed that a hasty departure might be in order we said nothing about our leaving to Dario all is back to Bahia de paz to discuss our plan with his cousin perhaps unsurprisingly Florencia was strongly in favor of our plan almost to a wreckless degree and he was hoping for a more direct confrontation with ELQ around Darrow similar to the first one we'd witnessed and our plan to him seemed almost small-time in comparison we insisted that everything should be done quietly so as not to alert the villagers as we were certain they would react badly for as much respect as florencio and Dario commanded from their respective villages I doubted that even men of their stature could force them to stand down if we were caught a short time before midnight Sandra and I left for Playa Sola wearing the darkest clothes we could find in our limited wardrobe we met Dario in a spot in the forest a short ways off from the main trail leading into the village when I was definitely nervous about our plan before I became incredibly anxious when we gathered together to get a good look at the village laying eyes on the huts and houses suddenly made our ill-advised campus seem much more real we knew that if we were caught things was almost certainly end badly for us across my mind that we were now risking our lives carrying out this errand however important it might be for any epidemiological research fortunately we chose our time wisely the village truth Dario's word was practically quiet as a tomb at this time there were only a few flickers of light visible in a few House windows after a short reconnaissance we were satisfied at the proper moment to come and we emerge from the treeline into a small farmers plot at the end of the village he sneaks slowly through the field and made a beeline for the group of infected house is about three hundred metres ahead our route across the field had been chosen as it avoided passing through the main part of the village and was a fair distance from any currently occupied houses from which we might have been observed we got to the infected houses without much trouble well as we regarded the totem hanging over the door of one house I saw the derry-o had regained his previous hesitancy Sandra urged him forward and with a reluctant sigh he slowly stepped towards the door of the house his eyes fixed on the totem hanging over his head he boosted Sandra up quickly and quietly snatched off his hook and brought it down with Dario giving her a wide berth as she held and regarded it closely it was like the others tightly wrapped bundle of sticks and animal pelts arranged in a roughly humanoid shape with a sort of lanyard of smooth colorful stones strung from the bottom now that I myself had gotten a closer look at one of these totems I understood why Sandra said they gave her a bad feeling how close I could see that the animal pallets and sticks look quite weathered in all was rather than newly made trinket I assume them to be the bundle at the top seemed like it was covered with a thin layer of some kind of hardened wax observing this I wondered if Sandra should be handling this thing without gloves when she suddenly handed it off to me and turned towards the door to my surprise she began inspecting and tugging at the planks nailed in place over the doll I was about to ask her what she was doing when Dario worriedly snapped forward to stop evidently Sandra not only wanted to inspect the totem she also wanted to go inside the house I wanted to stop her - as we were taking a big enough risk as it was stealing the totems before I could get a word out she pulled a small iron bar out of her pack can began prying the boards off Dario was now practically pleading with her to leave it alone and continue with our task Sandra paid him no mind as she rapidly pried the boards off as quietly as she could manage all Dario and I flinched with every creak and snap of the boards within 30 seconds she'd freed up the front door and was testing the latch to see if it was locked with a light creak the door swung open slightly and Dario and I were petrified to see this house was reeking with the death and now lay open and its Sondra's snapped back at Daria telling him that she will be going inside to inspect it and then he could stay out here if he wanted he relented with a mournful groan sandra pushed the door open all the way and took a step across the threshold even though I'd objected to this course of action I knew it couldn't be undone in that Santa would not be dissuaded without a word slowly followed after her into the house as I expected the house absolutely reached with the stench of death and decay but I wasn't quite prepared for an odor this strong the air itself was thick with the same god-awful miasma as the last infected house we visited only the day before it was so noxious and rank then it felt like it was tingling and burning in my throat causing me to throw a handkerchief over my mouth and nose to keep it out in the light of the torch Santa brought with her I could see the body of an elderly man reposed on the couch in the living room his skin waxy in yellow and covered in those distinctive red spots which had darkened in the time he'd been lying there a large streak dark dried blood ran down from his nose across his mouth and chin and onto his neck it's my horror I saw that his eyes were revealing a pair of clouded eyeballs and won't look like a pale fluid seeping from under his eyelids saundra turned down the hall to the next room that rooms were an even stronger stench hung in the air she pushed open another door to reveal what was apparently a children's bedroom and on the one bed she's shown the lights to reveal three small bodies or tucked in next to each other these children of the household of much the same as the old man in the front room being covered in dark red spots and showing large crowds of blood emanating from their noses in the mists wasn't the worst sandra turned around to face a door on the opposite side of the hall which I took to be the parents main room from which was radiating and I was so powerfully they actually stung my eyes and made them water sandra pushed open the door and swung her lights on whatever was inside it was definitely the parents room who I took to be the father was lying face down on the bed while in a rocking chair in the corner sat upright the corpse of the mother but her corpse didn't look anything like what had become of the others what was left of her skin was that waxy yellow color with the red spots but a fuller examination showed that most of her skin had slough off there she was a practically skinned body missing what looking like nearly half the skin on her entire body revealing the lower dermal layers and even the muscle underneath the left half of her face sags substantially practically hanging off her skull and small splits in the skin were present at points where it was obviously about to separate and fall off by the absolute strangest thing was that the tissue exposed by her loss skin when the shades of pink you'd normally see with exposed viscera but were instead a sickly pale grey even green what looked like small spiderwebs of some dark-coloured a plaque were forming in the folds and creases of the flesh when I was totally flabbergasted by the sight of her badly degraded body from what I understood the people in this house had fallen ill and died less than 36 hours ago yet the body of this woman looked as if he had been decomposing for several weeks in fact the condition of her body didn't even resemble traditional decomposition the way the skin was coming off in large strips and patches while other portions looked relatively intact seemed to indicate something closer to Burns rather than straightforward decomposition the paleness of the exposed flesh underneath likewise indicated a high temperature environment he certainly was quite stuffy and warm in the house which can speed up certain decomposition processes but not to this degree and not in this short of a time around this time I remembered that the other woman who died only two days ago had been running an astronomically high fear that actually produced notable effects on the surface of her skin when I inspected the body's face more closely I would clearly see that the skin around her mouth was actually starting to peel and a fever blister was present in the corner of her mail this was when I got the idea that this woman hadn't just died of various complications from the illness her fever had been so powerful that she'd been literally cooked alive from the inside out even from a few inches away I could actually feel the heat radiating from her body sandra carefully placed the back of her hand against the dead woman's forehead and quickly withdrew it surprised to feel that the body was not only still warm and actually hot as if the fever was still burning in her lifeless body of all II have normal things going on this house that had to be the most art how could the body remain so warm from a fear of this long after her death well I did explain the advanced deterioration of the woman's body every answer we found only raised further questions at this point I had quite enough of being in this awful place i gestured for sandra to leave from up actually quickly withdrew a small life and scraped off some of the woman's skin into a small petri dish and took a blood sample using a pipettes when she finished we made our way back outside and at first I was relieved to get a deep breath of fresh air after the foul stifling atmosphere that pervaded the house but when I regained my senses I was confused to see that Daria wasn't waiting for us outside like we asked in fact we couldn't find him anywhere and and the grounds of a house my annoyance at his disappearance quickly became anxiety as I wondered what would happen to us if he lost his nerve and abandoned us if Sandra and I were caught doing this and we didn't have Dario to back us up we could find ourselves in even worse trouble than which faced already with Dario having wandered off I was prepared to ditch this mission entirely and settle for what we'd already accomplished but Sandra remained undeterred and her urging I agreed to go with her to visit the other house is incomplete our task all the way we approached the next house which like the first had a totem hanging over the front door and all the windows and door secured with planks and tarps at this point the village was still fairly quiet and undisturbed but as my nervousness grew I jumped it every sound I feared would raise the alarm among slumbering villages saundra quickly pried the boards off the front door and slowly cranked it open oh if the stench in the previous house was awful then this one was absolutely horrendous when the door slipped open I could feel a brief gust of warm foul air coming from within this house wasn't just stifling it was sweltering like walking into an oven as soon as we entered the main room Sandra's light illuminated a group of three figures sitting upright against the far wall clearly the remains of the inhabitants but quickly became clear why the house broiling inside all three of these bodies were in a similar state to the dead woman in the last house the large portions of skin having come loose and slid off their bodies one of the bodies a male from the looks of it actually had part of his face around his mouth and chin hanging off the side of these poor souls confirmed what we'd observed in the last house was not strictly an outlier this badly heat-damaged state was a distinct feature of the disease itself when we could no longer stand the awful heat and odor we quickly left the house to get some fresh air as I panted and regain my breath Sandra is too sharp warning for me to be quiet it's my horror I looked towards the village square and saw that there was no considerable activity going on we've had it I thought to myself we're gonna get caught and God knows what will happen to us while I was swaying on my feet trying to fight the urge to clash with fear Sandra kept her eyes fixed on the group of people moving in the village square to my shock she began gesturing for me to follow her in closer to the gathering crowd evidently wanting to get a closer look at what was going on as much as I admired Sandra and would have followed her anywhere I was prepared to bolt in the opposite direction and get their hand out of this place before we were noticed but then I realized that fleeing this place by myself and facing the consequences alone will being even more frightening prospects I swallowed my fear and followed a him closer to eavesdrop on the gathering from this distance I could hear voices chattering among the gathering crowd I couldn't quite make out what was being said part 5 we quietly made our way forward weaving between and around the houses to find a spot where we could observe the crowd without notice moving through the village we could see that more houses were starting to stir as if the whole place had been alerted to something going on Sandra and I found a spot in a narrow gap between two houses partly obscured by a stack of fishing equipment from this spot we were fairly concealed we could make out the most of what was going on but I was unsure if it would allow us a clear exit if things went south Sandra directed my attention to the crowd now fully illuminated by lanterns hung up on posts and carried by the villages MyPlate closer attention to the sound of the voices I realized I was hearing only one voice a familiar voice practically bellowing at the top of his lungs I recognized that voice just as the crowd shifted and I finally identified whose voice it was I was shocked to see that it was Florencia who had decided to accompany us on our mission after all shouting at the villages while his cousin dario now by his side cradling what appeared to be a bleeding head wound in a flash I realized what had happened apparently dario been found out by the locals now his cousin Florencia was standing over him clearly trying to protect him from an increasingly furious craft Dario was conscious not too badly wounded from what I could see but I could practically feel the crowd becoming more agitated and threatening the two of them even florencio as loud abuse and recriminations weren't driving them off it was clear that the two cousins were in serious peril that not even their high standing among the villages would save them from I wondered if perhaps Sandra was thinking of intervening to save him which is where I would have drawn a line we were in serious enough danger as it was just being this close instead she only continued watching the crowd intently positioned to make a quick escape if things went south Florencia shouting subsided abruptly as the crowd suddenly turned their attention to the road leading into the village from the opposite direction we instinctively followed their gaze and from our position we could see a tall figure whose head rose just above the crowd it was an all-too-familiar figure of a slouching white brimmed hat a ragged coat with a high collar and a face completely wrapped in scarves and cloth l caught under a crowd naturally parted for him as he silently strode forward to face the two cousins who shrank from his looming form florencio shifted for to put himself between Daria and the approaching figure is former bravado now wavering el condado took a position at the front of the crowd only a meter or two away from the cousins he silently regarded the two men through those piercing hollow eyes and then wordlessly took an object from beneath his coat and held it high in the air where both the cousins and the crowd could clearly see it we saw that it was the totem we've taken down and left with Daario moments before and he was presenting it as evidence to the crowd of their malfeasance he then tossed it forward onto the ground between himself and florencio turned back to the crowd and swiftly strode back through the gap they'd made for him as L could and arrow turned his back Florencia found the courage to resume his tirade hurling insults at the medicine man saying the villages were ignorant Falls in the al-quran Dara was taking advantage of them the medicine man stopped in his tracks and briefly turned his head back to Florencio who scarcely paused his rant el condado turned his back again and ignored him and continued on his way the villagers now began inching forward towards the two cousins fanning out in a wide arc to surround them on three sides - here directed his attention back towards the approaching villages who kept up their cautious approach one older man who I recognized as another village elder made his way to the front of the crowd quietly urging florencio to stand down and give up his defiant position for enshou instead turned his insults toward him and to the shock of the crowd he drew a revolver tucked behind him under his shirt swinging the barrel across the crowd crowd threw back a short way to the sight of his gun but then resumed their approach more cautious this time weaving side to side to avoid florencio pistol Florencia grew even angrier and more desperate shouting ever more loudly for the villagers to stay back gripping the revolvers so tightly that his knuckles went white the older man who had been trying to talk for NCO down took several steps forward this time off forcefully demanding that he stand down Lorenzo just locked eyes with him in silence for several seconds then the man moved forward and an ear-splitting pop around through the village square and the man clutched his chest and collapsed for - Lorenzo swung his smoking gun back across the crowd just as he opened his mouth again to scream at the villages surrounding him another gunshot rang out this time from within the crowd and florencio jerk sideways and clutched his right side and brought his gun to bear on the ground the second gunshot went off and he clutched again high up on his chest near his throat falling over and rolling onto his back with a loud strained breath Dario screamed in shock at the sight of his cousin being shot dead and sprang forward to reach for him a bullet struck the ground just in front of him and he turned in our direction to run for his life then one shot rang out and struck him in the back of his right leg and as he tumbled another shot went off and his head violently pitched forward and as he slumped I could see a string of blood pour from his mouth before his face violently crashed into the ground I imagined the whole scene itself probably played out over the course of a few seconds but I remember each excruciating detail so clearly that it felt like he was going in slow motion without thinking I let out a sharp scream that everyone in the entire village must have heard can you blame me I just witnessed two men being murdered men who were our friends and protectors during our time in the village when Sandra and I had come to like in trust with nobody else around here would give us the time of day I maintained enough presence of mind to clap my hands over my mouth to stifle the scream but it was a little too late the crowd snapped their heads to opposition and met our eyes for a few 10 seconds before I found the strength in my legs to run saundra and I just about fell over each other scrambling away through the narrow alley but as quickly as we attempted to make our escape the crowd had moved to cutter songs as soon as we emerge from the other end of the alley a group of four people descended upon us from both sides viciously tackling us to the ground having been in only one physical altercation in my life before this I'd forgotten just how rough and painful it could be especially when two grown men throw you to the ground and violently restrained all I could do was scream and thrash violently as the men squeezed my arms and legs and halt the two of us away in the dark we were dragged back towards the crowd in the village square both I was screaming and lashing out against our captors who only gripped tight through a response to our struggles feeling like a cornered animal I began lashing out more violently than I ever had in my entire life twisting and thrashing my arms with a strength I never knew I had snapping with my teeth at any exposed flesh I could reach as we rounded a corner past another house my twisting had managed to slip the grip of one of my captors just enough that I could reach his hand with my mouth and I jumped down as hard as I could on what I think was an index finger my captor recoiled reflexively to extricate his finger and his grip loosened just more enough and I slipped my right arm from his hands and grabbed it a long object hanging from the side of the house we were passing getting a firm grip and stopping them dead in their tracks the men holding me began tugging harder to make me let go but I maintain my grip and he even managed to pull myself towards the house a bit and I saw that what I grabbed was the pole of a large harpoon hung up on a rack as I kept pulling I felt the grip of my captors begin to fail and with one strong heave I broke their hold he tumbled to the ground together and as I fell back the harpoon came free from the rack and swung sideways with a hooked end striking one of the men on his face and giving him a good-sized gash he backed off immediately to clutch his face and howl in pain and the other man began to scramble to his feet to retaliate but I was just a bit quicker I lets my feet I swung the harpoon around and whipped it like a club at the other man bashing him on the side of his head and sending him tumbling to the ground like a wet noodle the men carrying Sandra turned back to regard the situation only to see me swinging his harpoon like a madwoman and their attention flag just enough that Sandra struggled out of their grip as she slipped through their arms charged forward flinging and thrusting the harpoon at them and with one swipe at the sharp end of the weapons slicing across his chest and sending him backwards with a scream Sandra hardly missing a beat grab my shoulder as she ran past and got me to turn and follow her my fury became exhilaration as I broke into a sprint shortly behind Sandra I made a beeline back for the trees at the end of the village no it was never terribly athletic but the adrenaline surging I felt like I could run a marathon without skipping a beat however before we got halfway across the field the villagers had recovered from their shock and were hot on our heels we sprinted past the tree line and into the jungle leaping over rocks and logs and tearing through foliage like it wasn't even there I had out hope that I held out hope that running into the jungle would get them off our trail pursuers were determined just as I noticed the sound of them tearing into the jungle after us scattered gunshots frightfully behind us a shout whizzed of bullets flying past me sure they could see roughly where I was and must were dangerously close behind the sound of the gunshots Somers shouted to me to split up and try to regroup somewhere farther down the road I stayed on a fairly straight course roughly parallel to the road well I could see that Santa was varying right further into the jungle I didn't really have time to think about her plan to split up before she'd run off in the other direction but I was so wound up that I didn't stopped a question Herman kept charging in the same direction when all gunshots rang out in the direction that Sandra went so it seemed that her plan to split their fire was working but scattered first occasionally found its way close to me my heart was pounding in my ears like a drum beats but even so my pace still steadily increased until the shouts of our pursuers became more distant when the voices trailed off completely I finally felt comfortable slowing my pace and decided to turn towards the direction of the roads as the adrenaline wore off my arms and legs began trembling uncontrollably to the point I thought I'd class but with my last reserves of energy and kept up a trot towards the road and finally emerged through the trees onto the path between the twin villages Sandra and I have now separated completely I can no longer hear any sound of gunshots or shouting in the direction she'd gone I looked back into the jungle and want did he fight either way for her here or venture back in to look for her but the longer I stared into that deep dark jungle the more my nerve began to fade for all I knew these people were still out there proud in the forest looking for us and I had no intention of taking further chances after all we split up in the hopes that at least one of us would get away and I had without adrenaline high Ralph's gained a greater awareness of my surroundings and decided to continue on my way back towards Bahia de Paz I didn't follow the main path directly instead tramping through the brush on one side of the road in the hopes nobody else might see me to my surprise a race for the jungle had brought me closer to buying at the pass than I'd expected as I was slowing down and see a figure standing by the side of the road and as I got closer I could see that it was Rodrigo Florencia is old his son until now I hadn't thought much about the shy skinny teenager but seeing him now was quite a relief at first and a close friend call for his attention as quietly as I could and in my possible Spanish I asked him if anybody had come back from Blair solar nobody had come back yet he said but some people in the village thought they heard shouting and gunshots coming from our direction when I approached him I got a good look at his face noticing for the first time how much he resembled his father no son struck by a sharp pang of guilt this could have no idea that his father and one of his cousins were now lying dead on the ground back in Playa Sala murdered by the very people they were entrusted to protect I resolved to tell him in time but for now I just needed a place to lie low in case anybody else was searching for me and his suggestion I followed him back up the hill to his family's home taking care not to be noticed by any other villages and there I checked up in my room blocking the door and closing all the windows and curtains now that I was out of immediate danger the real gravity of everything I'd just been through finally fell on me and I collapsed into a pile of soaring nerves all I could really do was slip under my blankets and curl up into a ball trembling and hyperventilating all the horrific events of the evening played endlessly in my head was a strange experience going from the powerful adrenaline high that made me feel unstoppable to then collapsing into a feeling of total weakness and helplessness I have no idea if Sandra was okay or if those people were still looking for me or if the boat out of here would arrive soon enough or at all the back of my mind I also knew that I had directly exposed myself to all those sick people and it was possible that by this time the next day I could be running a fever so intense that my skin melted and slid off my body on that point I wasn't quite sure signed written I had been exposed to Basilico on multiple occasions some more than two days ago from what we saw the sickness acted fast enough that the both of us would already be dead if we had contracted it but further scientific inquiry wasn't really on my mind in those dark moments all I really knew for sure was I was still alive for now somewhere in that black pit of despair I managed to drift off into a dreamless sleep I gave myself a rather rude awakening when I Genet to wake sometime early in the morning feeling like I was suddenly in danger before realizing that I've been asleep always quiet fortunately I peeked out the windows to see if there were any unusual activities going on in the village thankfully nothing seemed to be terribly immense but now it was just the same somber mood that had settled over the peoples ever since the deliciou scare had begun with some trepidation and left the relative security of my room wide out to see the rest of the family were gathered in the living area with worried and anxious looks on their faces the girl came back to me as I realized that they were still waiting full of fervor in Co the father of the family to arrive back from his sojourn in the next village he wouldn't be arriving back I knew so the painful task of telling them their father was dead would fall to me the mother sent away all but her two oldest children including Rodrigo and I sat them down in the living room to tell them what had happened if there's anything in this life I hope to never do again is having to break this kind of news to a worried family the mother obviously didn't take it well she collapsed into hysterics not understanding how what she believed was a simple errand had ended with never being able to see her husband ever again Rodrigo and his sister though distraught stayed strong and did their best to comfort their grieving mother they were in disbelief as much as her might Rico and his mother decided that they would let the other children know in due time but for now there were things to be settled this by the initial shock and grief was starting to morph into anger as the circumstances of their father's death became clear Rodrigo being a hot-headed teenager spoke angrily of heading straight over to Playa sora and killing anybody there who had something to do with his father's death his mother actually didn't seem opposed to that course of action to my sugary and I thought I'd inadvertently sown the seeds of a vendetta between Bahia two paths and playa Sola which only added to my guilt even more but for now this was the least of my worries Sandra was still missing the people of Playa sana wanted me dead and for all I knew the people of biood aparts might react the same way if they knew what we've been doing that night until new and I stayed inside watching out the windows for any sign of trouble from my side of the house I couldn't get a clear look at the path to the next village if I were to get any clearer look at the situation I'd have to venture outside and see for myself to me it was a calculated risk if there was trouble I could just hide out here until the boat came then again I didn't know for sure when or even if that boat would come in which case I'd need to seek out some other means to escape I reason that if I did go outside I should go incognito and avoid being identified by anybody so with the help of Rodrigo's mother I found some clothes that were reasonably concealing and in this disguise I hoped that I couldn't safely make my way around the village I left the house and made my way down the hill using some obscure paths that mostly ran behind many of the houses and shacks I found myself towards the main area of the village but the main path appears roughly intersecting as I rounded a corner I was dismayed to see that the events of last night clearly aroused notice among the villages and a group of them were congregating on the path and having loud anxious conversations about what was happening many were pointing off in the direction of the next village some were crossing themselves and others still kept an anxious vigil on the road the conversations I overheard mostly focused on the same thing as Elise they were talking about an outbreak that was happening right now in playa Sola not just the one that had killed those families of the other day now it was apparently raging through the village and several more people were known to have died my heart sank when I heard this apparently our efforts the previous night had not helped and in fact could likely have made things worse whatever we'd done with those totems have been worse than useless it was entirely possible that now by had two paths might be affected as well the rumbling of the crowd became a series of shouts and some people were pointing off down the road towards playa Sala and from where my heart lifted when I thought it could be Sandra to my disappointment it wasn't her instead I saw something that I'd feared ever since I came stumbling back to town last night it was a small group of men coming down the road man conspicuously armed with machetes and knives were clearly up to no good the men approached the villages evidently hoping to parlay but instead what commenced was a loud argument between them the people of behind to pass knew that Baz Eliska was running out of control in the next village and they didn't want anyone else from player Sala entering their village and spreading it here they are men on the other hand were pointing towards behind at the pass and demanding that they be allowed to pass as they needed has something that they claimed would help them fight the outbreak by that I assume they meant Sandra and I both parties became increasingly hostile and it seemed that they'd come to blows any minute now the armed men finally desisted and turned back towards their village this little confrontation confirmed my fears that the people of Playa Salomon not giving up the pursuit of Sandra and I and I was terrible to think this but at the time I secretly hoped that Baz Eliska would kill off whoever was left in Playa Sala if it meant being left alone but before that happened I was sure that these men would be back and I still had no certain escape planned even if I did work a way out of this place could I really leave Sandra behind but then against Sandra would have wanted at least one of us to make it out of this place all I could do is pray that she might come back with us or that she might find some other way back to civilization at the time I had another more pressing concerns the confrontation between the armed men and the people of Byatt the powers had subsided but a new argument too begun and when the villages themselves some were considering their offer and giving them what they wanted would be beneficial to everyone others were worried that the men would not be satisfied and that the violent confrontation was inevitable everybody knew the men will be back in a few hours and we had any clear idea of what they really wanted after few hours that debated subsided but now new Inklings of trouble was starting to manifest apparently two more people were now sick in their condition had rapidly deteriorated around this time people began to take notice of the fact that Sandra and I were nowhere to be found that our clinic remain closed some people were sent out to find but I had no intention of being found if I was around when those men came back they might decide to hand me over to them as much as it pains me not to be able to help and he was I couldn't risk revealing myself now even if I did it was probably nothing I could do for anybody sick with Basilisk the disease was simply too potent and too aggressive to be treated with anything we had in our clinic news of the sickness spread like wildfire among the village now people are up in arms clearly blaming the men from earlier for bringing it into their midst and the mob had gathered on the road intending to drive them back if they returned it honestly felt like a full-out war was brewing between these two villages and I couldn't help but feel that I was directly responsible the only idea I had was to retreat back to the house and hold up until the worst of it a blown over sure enough a group of armed men returned when they said they would late that afternoon the people of biood the paths were there to meet them and unsurprisingly the situation turned ugly within moments when it all started to kick off I left the safety of my room to get a better view of what was happening not a very good idea but I thought that if things got really bad in the men stormed the village some warning was better than none and I wouldn't be trapped inside if I needed to just run for it a ferret of all riot had broken out on the road with people from their respective villages trading blows from machetes pipes and other such weapons on the path near the docks and this wasn't some half-hearted skirmish either these people were really intent on murder after all they knew what was at stake and they were fighting for their lives the people of buying the paths knew that if they allowed the men to store in the village they'd all be exposed to Basel Isco I recognize many of the people who were down there fighting and dying I saw a fisherman whose hand I had once sewed up mercilessly hacking away at one man with a machete another man who'd brought his children in for a vaccination was brained by a metal pipe wielded by another in the last week I'd witnessed so much death and mayhem that I was hardly shocked by it anymore after some time I couldn't stomach carnage anymore and retreated back to my room I thought that if things turned violent then it would be a brief scuffle that would die down when somebody got seriously hurt instead this was a vicious battle that not only kept going but actually increased in intensity is the day wore on fighters from Playa Sola would retreat for a time but then returning greater numbers and renew the bloodshed they didn't seem to care how many of their men died I showed to think how bad it must have gotten in place although if they believe that all those who died so far were acceptable losses compared to letting their sickness work its courts the sounds of this brawl was soon punctuated by gunshots which they probably hoped would break up the battle but it raged on a bait it's my heart of the sounds of the bloodshed seemed to grow closer to the house with every hour I wandered for people of biood to pass were being pushed back with that realization I decided this could be my last chance to run so with great reluctance I stepped back outside looking for a good moment to make my escape escaping on foot was the last thing I really wanted to do but I figured that if the boat never arrived my best chance was to hoof it south towards the Colombian border as far as I knew there weren't any closeby pockets of civilization down that direction but I had a fake hope they were think better of following me across a national border they emerge from the house I braced myself for the worst and hope to god that nobody noticed me the fight had indeed gotten closer and closer to the house but to my surprise the battle itself was actually slowing down unfortunately I could see why fewer people were left to fight it seemed like dozens of wounded people lined the Main Street through the village all nursing some especially nasty wounds quite a few people were dead here and there I saw one armed person or another running about apparently wondering what to do next is the battle died down in better days Sandra and I would have had our work cut out for us but now I was only intent on leaving this place so if all these people had to make do without a doctor and that was just tough [ __ ] for them as I try to surreptitiously make my way down the hill I've got a closer look at many of the wounded I saw must have been over a dozen people sitting all sprawled out on the side of the main road cradling wounded limbs and other injuries but I was especially disturbed to see that many of them were clearly becoming sick several were vomiting and coughing while their skin began to take on the same sickly yellow color as the others who died sort of far as I made my way and further down I locked eyes with one older man cradling his partially severed right hand for a few moments we just stared each other in silence his expression showing total resignation to his face I could see that a small trail of vomit ran from his lips to his chin and in the corner of one nostril a faint spot of blood was starting to show after a moment he looked away as he began to cough and dry heave again expecting to just be left in his misery this same scene played out multiple times along the main parts there was a reached the bottom my attention was instead drawn to the column of black smoke erupting from the outlying buildings of the village I ducked out of sight of a group of men who I saw was still walking about the buildings and one of the men drew a bottle from his hip and had a Molotov cocktail through one of the windows of the our clinic within seconds of substantial blaze had erupted inside and another mineral two flames began emerging from the windows and consuming the building even though Sandra and I had spent so much time and effort setting up a clinic I was too emotionally burned out to feel anything seeing it go up in flames maybe it was for the best anyway I certainly had no intention of ever returning to this place so what became of our feeble humanitarian efforts no longer mattered I watched our health clinic and the two other houses burn for quite a while and after some time the group of arsonists turned back to head down the road to apply a solar as far as I knew the coast was now clear for me to make a run for it but I soon began to rethink my plan after all the vicious battle that had raged all afternoon into the evening was now with actively over with both sides having abandoned their reasons for fighting would waiting one more day make any difference I decided to cancel my plan to just hike out of the religion go south along the coast thinking that I might as well wait to see if the boat was or wasn't coming this way I could also take some time to make sure that Rodrigo and his family was safe before I left I owed them that much at least I was worried that Rodrigo might have decided to join the fight down in the village as I returned to the house I was relieved to see that he'd thought better of taking part in the violence he was a good kid and it made me proud of him to say that he'd stayed to protect his family rather than running off to get killed the family had gotten a clear view of the unfolding carnage that raged in the village and they were quick to ask me if anybody they knew might have been hurt or killed in the battle all I could really tell him was at least 20 people or wounded or dead down in the village many of them were also showing signs of the sickness when I mentioned how many people were sick their concern for their friends and neighbors gave way to fear even mild panic they quickly scrambled to block doors and cover their windows as tightly as possible they insisted and I agreed that I should stay at least the night and wait until the outbreak had subsided before departing this place were good that night we shared a simple meal at their kitchen table and Rodrigo and his mother said prayers for their dead father and his cousin I can only imagine the grief they went through losing first their father and many of their other friends and relatives in both villages having lost their father I worried about how they'd make ends meet or if there are enough relatives left to support them in this dark time Rodrigo certainly seemed ready to assume the role as man of the house which was only a small comfort compared to the enormous task of rebuilding an entire community shattered by the day's events if it could be rebuilt at all I slept poorly that night as I had for several nights prior rest only came in fits and starts and rarely seemed to last very long my mind drifted in and out of dark dreams that were a twisted jumble of horrible images with raging fires burning corpses and that wreaked of death various times I worked to hear low steady choruses of moans and cries of pain coming from the village below I wondered how many people were still alive down there I hadn't seen anybody attempting to aid the wounded likely in the fear that baby would contract the disease trying to do so instead the wounded and sick would be left outside to die if they hadn't already was a truly heartbreaking situation but I understood what these people were afraid of of course that didn't make it much easier on my conscience in emotionally turbulent times like these I tried to comfort myself with something my father had often said when I was younger my father had fought in the Korean War is quite open about the emotional scars he carried for the remainder of his life well I think he often told me in difficult times always stood out it hurts now for sure sometimes you wonder how you'll be able to think about anything else but when you're in a real tough spot you can't bug yourself down dwelling on it all just focus on getting through the here and now in one piece if you come out of it alive and you'll have plenty of time to think about it then believe me on that I tried to keep that sage bit of wisdom in mind as I passed the rest of the night sometimes shortly after dawn I was awoken by Rodrigo telling me that a call was coming in on the radio and momentarily forgot the horrible situation unfolding around me thinking that perhaps I had a chance to get out of here after all I ran upstairs into the makeshift radio room florencio kept in his house and answered the call with nervous excitement to my relief that court was indeed from the boatman who'd arrived for the pickup we called for a few days earlier running over the kitchen window I could see that ancient smoke belching fishing boats slowly sideling into the harbor that paint peeling tub could have been a luxury cruise liner for all I care Oh with great excitement I told Rodrigo and his mother that I'd be leaving as soon as possible but when they mentioned if Sandra would be going with me now struck with a pang of guilt after more than a day Sandra had yet to be found anywhere for all I knew she could even have been dead but remembering my father's words I knew there was nothing for it I wasn't in any position to stay and look for her assuring that she could be found in the first place so I swallowed my guilt I said my goodbyes to Rodrigo and his mother expressing my condolences for their loss and wishing them well in the future I'd grab my things and made a hasty exit jogging slowly down the hill towards the docks as I went I tried to survey the remains of yesterday's carnage the village itself was unearthly still and quiet as many of the bodies still laying where they'd been the day before mostly understand by this point the building set ablaze yesterday evening were nothing more than smoldering piles of chard embers while our health clique most of the interior burned out letting the roof collapse inside I went as quickly and quietly as I could through the village still wary of any hostile intent by any survivors from yesterday as I neared the bottom of the path and turned towards the docks I was horrified to see that a group of three men and emerge from around the corner of the furthest building for a few seconds we locked eyes in astonishment as I braced myself to sprint for the boat I could see that the group of men was preparing to run after me not wanting to make the first move I broke into a heaving sprint away from them and onto the docks while they raised their weapons and began to give chase shouting in comprehensible things as I ran towards the rickety docks and had a flat whoosh as an object flew only feet away from my back and splashed into the water the object bobbed up for a moment and I could see that it was a small hatchet which one of these men are throwing with terrifying accuracy towards me not missing a stride I finally made it to the boat and all but dived onto the deck at the feet of the astonished boatman it must have been confused as hell as to what he was seeing I yelled for him to get going but in the time it took to get the motor running and push away from the dock the three male had caught up to us in horror I thought I'd finally been caught as the men made a jump onto the boat I was suddenly stunned by a gunshot coming from behind me the boatman had pulled a weapon his own rather large handgun and he shot it connected with one of the men right in the middle of his chest the other men backed off their apparent ringleader reel back from his gunshot wound the boatman shouted explicit threats at the other two making it clear he would not hesitate to shoot any one of them have they tried to follow he kept his gun pointed at them as the boat pulled away from the docks and out into the harbor the two remaining men only stared impassively out dressed as we sailed away before finally turning to leave their dying comrade on the docks as we made our way out of the harbor I gave the village of Bahia two parts one last parting a look realizing how beautiful and peaceful it look from this distance greatly at odds with a dismal carnage being left behind by its human inhabitants as we made our way Northwest along the coast I saw more columns of smoke rising from the direction that I knew was roughly where player solo was located I urged the hesitant boatman to takes a bit closer in so I could see what was happening through a gap in the coastal brush line I could see that more buildings in that village were burning intensely and numerous human figures were sprawled about the ground while others wandered aimlessly amid the blazing pestilent remains of their homes looking closer still I could see one distinct figure standing perfectly still and following the movement of the boat with her piercing hollow gaze that I recognized instantly it was the tall green figure of a man covered head-to-toe in loose ragged clothing the parting gaze of el cordero there isn't much more to tell after this point the boatman seemed to know better than to ask questions or perhaps he already had some idea of what had just happened either way neither us said a word the whole journey back to the city up the coast from there I caught the same bumpy bus ride back to Panama City thinking and I probably look quite a fright to the other passengers in my rather filthy and ragged States I found my way back to the hotel we stayed at before booked a room and then took a good long shower to rid myself of the filth I'd accumulated over the last week in the hotel and made an international call to the head of Oxfam with Sandra and I had volunteered and told them brusque way that our aid mission had been cut short by unforeseen circumstances that I was returning to Canada I'll be resigning my volunteer position they must have been stunned by my Frank and unsentimental resignation but at this point I could hardly care the next day I caught a plane back to Toronto where I was briefly harrangue by customs when I told them my business in Panama City was charity work that have been cut short probably could have omitted that last parts and I was so desperate to be home but I wasn't careful about the things they said fortunately they let me go after I made something up later that day I arrived back home my parents house in Kitchener part six the rest is fairly well known after all the nosy journalists and our two sleuths caught wind of the story eventually Sandra's parents worried about her lack of Correspondence which she'd promised to do during our time contacted the authorities to inquire about her whereabouts and the authorities questioned me when they couldn't locate her and found out she and I had gone to Panama together for over a year I put up with a seemingly endless stream of rude accusatory questions from police reporters and all other kinds demanding to know their truth and a know what truth they thought I would provide but I never offered anything more than the basics we went on an eight mission in Panama the aid mission went poorly for a variety of reasons things in the villagers got risky and even dangerous and the two of us had to cut the mission short or I separated from Sandra that I had no idea what had happened to her I don't know if telling them all the other grim details about Basel is gone hell curandero and how the plague had virtually wiped out two villages in the span of a few days would have satisfied their curiosity and I think there's a pretty good chance they wouldn't have believed me if I told them everybody who asked seem to have already made their own version of the truth and they probably would have written me off as a liar if I didn't implicitly confirm their theories on a bad press I got abdun flowed over the next two decades following me just about everywhere I went I suppose my attempts to avoid everything look suspicious after all but I just didn't want anything more to do with the basilisk Oh affair and every time interest in Sandra's case reignited had to move further away to escape it I've relocated eight times in the last 27 years though it seems that the eighth time was the charm I'm living in Edmonton now working at a small family practice in the suburbs and keeping a generally low profile interest in the case of Sandra LaRoche has largely waned and finally gotten comfortable using my real name where I live and it's been a long time since anybody recognized it or thought to ask for years I've held off revealing what exactly happened in Panama back in 1991 until a few days ago I finally decided to put everything I remembered to paper I thought perhaps I was doing it in the belief that we really do live in a world where the truth matters but maybe people are finally ready for it but even that isn't totally accurate as far as a world knows Sandra LaRoche she's missing and presumed dead for 28 years now I believe this myself when I received a package in the mail last week forwarded to my address by Sandra's mother and we still alive as I write this I was surprised to see it knowing that her parents share the same opinion as everyone else about me and wanting nothing to do with me we're hoping the package I saw that it was a notebook with many of its pages filled with familiar handwriting that's when I realized Sandra LaRoche is not dead she's very much alive and in the pages of her notebook I found out what happened on that terrible jungle night in Panama in 1991 a statement of Sandra LaRoche I have to say that it's good to know you're still out there am I've heard all about what happened to you after we lost touch with each other in the jungle all those years ago in fact I learned about it not long after the stories first broke has it really been nearly 30 years but you might be wondering why I never turned up after getting out of there alive and I could have spared you and my parents a lot of grief if I'd returned to the world and let everybody know what really happened and for that I'm truly sorry hope that after I explained what happened and what I learned you'll understand why that wasn't possible for me I'm trusting that you'll know best what to do with everything I'm about to tell you and come what may I will respect your decision I imagine it can't have been easier for you to live with all the suspicion that's fallen on you but all I ask is that for the sake of humanity and all that is decent and sane in this world that I should be left where I am what I've chosen for myself is a lonely existence even a painful one at times but what I'm feeling is decidedly irrelevant next to everything else so I ask that you try to remember that night all those years ago the night you and I would see each other for the last time I'm sure you remember how we fled through the jungles with all those people on that trail when I split up with you and ran the other way I did it hoping that the people chasing us would have to split up as well that we'd have better chances individually instead of risking being caught together then neither of us would have made it out hearing that you were still alive I guess that was the right choice from what I heard some did follow you but most of the people kept on after me I was going deeper into the jungle and trying to find some place to hide but these people were faster and smarter than I gave them credit for as a forest got thicker I got slower while the chases were keeping up just when I thought it was over and I was expecting to be caught we ran into something really strange that neither I nor the other people have been expecting when we were all running through the brush I kept hearing strange sounds like sharp cracks and high whistles I thought maybe they were still shooting at me I heard some of the voices behind me screaming awful screams like they were being mauled by wild animals then I found out for myself just what we had run into traps in primitive traps but lethal man-sized traps laid out in the forest for whoever came along which of course was ass I found this out when I jumped over a log and stumbled on what I thought was a branch but there's actually a tripwire and when I fell I missed by inches being hit by what look like a giant dart when I got to my feet and ran a bit further the ground went out from underneath me and I fell against the edge of a large pit complete with wooden stakes which if I stepped one foot shorter would have impaled me I almost ran into several of these pit traps and at one point I was hit by a trap that consisted of a rope looped around a tree that snapped out like a whip and gave me a rather nice cut on my left arm the people chasing me seem to be doing even worse with the traps than I was those bastards must have had more balls and brains because they still kept after me since I was going quite a bit slower one of them finally caught up with me right as I'd found a place to hide in a tangled tree roots but didn't quite make it when the man chasing me leapt to my back and tackled me to the ground but here I got unbelievably lucky that's when I fell I hit a trip wire and gave out undressing him in a branch with a crude wooden spikes swung out from behind the tree smack this guy right along his arm shoulder and neck that branch whip impaled him but didn't kill him and I left him there screaming and thrashing as he Hunger suspended by the spikes no god I just about had a heart attack when I saw that I wasn't too sorry to see that poor bastard getting smite but I knew just the same it could have been me if I had been tackled just a second later I would have hit that tripwire and probably wouldn't be here writing this today I just took advantage of our but you know you get running again more carefully this time and finally the voice is faded and I was sure I gotten away of course now I was probably a kilometer into the forest and had no idea where I was but I could have figured it all out if I'd had the chance unfortunately I didn't get that chance I tried going back in the direction I thought was northeast but those goddamn traps were everywhere going around them got me disoriented again and when my attention failed for a moment one of the traps got me imagine my surprise when I broke tightened across my left leg and I was thrown over and hauled 12 feet into the air after bashing my forehead and face against the root of the tree and I'd seen snare traps like these in the movies but good grief they don't do justice to how much it hurts so there I was hanging like a piece of meat 12 feet up totally helpless and sure I had both a concussion and some nasty whiplash if I'd had more strength than I suppose I could have reached up and tried to get at the rope but I was still really woozy probably mildly concussed from that blow to the head so instead I mostly tried to keep from passing out an effort that was ultimately in vain as I drifted in and out of consciousness I don't know how long I was hanging there but I had a rather painful reintroduction to reality because I suddenly felt the Rope give way and I went falling to the ground from 12 feet out my landing was rather graceless I tried to stop my fall but instead mostly landed on my stomach in chest knocking the wind out of me as I lay on the ground trying to recover from this I thought something tight and around both of my legs near my feet which I saw was another row I was about to curse my rotten luck after falling from one snare trap into another and this new rope tightened and began dragging me along the ground off into the forest I was totally confused by this new situation but my attempts to flip around and reach the rope were useless as the speed I was being dragged suddenly increased the force pulling my legs was simply too strong for me to pull my body forward towards my feet the only thing I could do was start screaming and trying to grab whatever was planted in the ground and stop this but I was being dragged too fast to get a good grip on anything when I did grab something firmly I was shocked to see that the force pulling me was so strong that it pulled whatever plant I grabbed right out of the ground without slowing I should mention that for several seconds I had no idea who or what was dragging me through the jungle like this but when I came to a relatively open clearing I flipped over to see what was happening I saw a hunch to have a figure wrapped in some kind of dark cloth and covered so completely that I wasn't sure at first that it was human the figure walks strangely almost loping like a Bigfoot or something taking very long strides that explained why we were going so fast well after a few seconds I thought I recognized who the figure was and I'm sure you probably guessed it - yeah it was L curandero the creepy medicine man dragging me by a rope to god-knows-where in the middle of the Panamanian jungle I tried screaming at him but he didn't even acknowledge that I was there and just kept up his inexorable pace without regard to his burden as he dragged me across the clearing he started sinking into the ground until he finally disappeared into the jungle floor I saw that descended into a well-hidden hole in the ground and was pulling me in after him when I was dragged over the edge of the hole I tried to grab the underbrush that surrounded it but he was simply too strong plants I cry out was simply torn loose from the soil and I went tumbling down this hole to wherever my captor was taking me I know that I was dragged for some ways through a series of low tunnels dug through the earth but in the total absence of lights that little idea exactly how far the air down in those tunnels was stale and musty with a strong acrid odor that became progressively stronger the further we went after a ways we finally stopped in an area of total darkness when I was suddenly lifted up off my feet by a pair of terribly strong hands and flown into a shallow depression in the ground flat on my back knocking the wind out of me again my hands were still free but as I tried to heave myself up a heavy foot came down on my chest pinning me to the ground so tight I could hardly breathe when I tried to grab at the leg holding me down my arms were violently yanked up and rapidly tied together at the wrists so now I was totally restrained and helpless trapped in pitch-black darkness with el condado and with no obvious means of escape this whole time he hadn't said a word or even made any kind of sound though I could hear him shuffling around in the darkness occasionally rustling through unseen piles of material I tried to stay perfectly silent so I could hear where he was going in this cave of his but he must have noticed that I'd gone quiet after several minutes gasping for air and he finally made a sound the first sound I'd ever heard come out of his mouth but it was an odd sound like a low grunt mixed with a hiss and I heard him shuffle over to me still in total darkness until I could practically feel him standing over me he fumbled with something for a few seconds when a sudden light from a lantern illuminated his boat and I could see his silhouette and kneeling down next to me looking directly into my fangs he had removed his head wrappings and exposed his face from me to see my goddamn I don't even know if there's a way to describe that face of his it didn't even look human he was so twisted and gnarled up the skin was a lumpy patchwork of scars almost like Burton's or small pox scars pale and completely hairless yet no cheeks either and his entire mouth was exposed across the whole front of the head from ear to ear spraying all of his teeth his nose was almost non-existent just a flat lump of gnarled tissue with two small diagonal slits that fled open whenever he inhaled and then there were the eyes the eyes were the worst he had no eyelids and instead his pale yellow eyeballs were perpetually wide open and practically bulging out of their sockets and leering at me I remember they were white hazel eyes that darted rapidly in short spaces now maybe that was an effect of his missing eyelids revealing every tiny motion everything from the wide Sheila's mouth through the bulging eyes gave off that came across as a hideous sinister smile like the whole situation actually amused him he croaked out what sounded like an awful chuckle his breath hissing through his clenched teeth now I knew how he made that sound there are no words I can think of to describe the horror of seeing that face up cloaks without warning my brain just shut down and all I could do was squirm and scream and try to wriggle away from this for rific face but with my hands and feet bound there was no way of getting away from me when he was finished with me he walked away to another corner of his lair and began lighting up more lanterns to cover the entire space with a dim orange glow I can now see that where he'd taken me was like a workshop of his with an empty fire pit in the center a crude wooden bench said in the opposite wall an assortment of jars clay pots and small bowls filled with who knows what's on the bench was scattered a collection of bowls lengths of string and a pile of colorful stones clearly this was the place he'd been assembling the totems he was selling to the villages and several complete ones were hanging on lanyards strung from some place on the ceiling I looked to see that this man was rummaging through another pile in the corner which at first I thought was a pile of sticks however when he turned around carrying a bundle in his arms I saw they weren't sticks but bones human bones but no fresh ones these bones were gray and weathered almost ancient looking and looking at the pile where he'd retrieved them I saw that he was gathering them from a stone basin that looked rather like a sarcophagus I thought there must have been the bones at least a dozen people in that pile all quite aged as if their owners have been dead for a very long time he placed the pile of bones on the side of the bench and began taking individual sections and snapping small pieces off them then he took the pieces and began to grind them up using a mortar and pestle turning the bone into a fine powder from airy began using the powder and mix it in with various other liquids and powders I couldn't identify these ancient bones he'd been collecting were actually part of whatever elixir he was concocting for a long time I didn't know what to make of that I couldn't see any medicinal or nutritional benefit in such a thing while he was making his concoctions I noticed that the powerful acrid smell that permeated the cave was actually coming from all the substances he was mixing especially the bone powder I confused me should an ancient and a half desiccated bones be entirely older less but they reeks anyhow in spite of their apparent age after attire me to finish mixing the bone powder and other liquids into a gray slurry with a new smell one that I instantly recognized the same smell we encountered every time we found a patient affected by basilisk oh that's our deathly stench that made our eyes water when he finished with his work he strode over to me holding a long thin object than I saw was a holiday trees with a sharpened bevel tip like a syringe needle I tried to struggle against him but my struggles were useless this guy was simply too strong almost inhumanly strong he stuck the reed pipe into the vein in my arm he was pretty rough about it too you know he drained a frightening amount of blood from my arm into a clay bowl and any time I struggled he shifted and twisted the reed painfully in my arm threatening to tear the vein wide open if I didn't stop he filled the bowl about two thirds of the way before he was satisfied and I had lost enough blood to get a fairly dizzy all I got to stop the bleed was a dirty cloth wrapped around my arm he took the ball of blood away and began using it to the bench so not only was he using human bones in his elixir he also used a fair quantity of blood my blood in the mix he spent several minutes furiously mixing everything together and when he finished again like you see the grey slurry it becomes slightly pink I was wondering what he had planned for this mixture when he took a mostly complete totem off the wall of the cave and set it on his workbench where then proceeded to use a brush to paint the stuff onyx it strangely didn't leave any noticeable change in color but I can see that every end she painted with the stuff took on a waxy and almost glossy finish largely translucent but with a distinctive veneer across everything it taught do you remember now M now there was something strange about those totems that we couldn't quite place they weren't just a bundle of sticks and rocks after all l curandero was applying this stuff to everything he made and salt to the villages everything he claimed would protect the people things that ultimately didn't work and for which I blame myself until then at the time I had no idea I'd used my blood maybe thought I was immune and that mixing the blood into his concoctions would transfer some protective quality to them maybe it was just some symbolic thing in accordance with his beliefs whatever his beliefs actually were for all I knew I could have been immune we exposed herself to be infected people many times throughout our time there yet you and I never got sick when I saw it first left me completely confused and feeling rather guilty was he really helping these people after all had we unwittingly sabotaged the genuinely helpful efforts of this man unleashing basilisk go in the process I remember feeling incredibly guilty of that thoughts that our world meaning efforts doomed the villagers to suffer such a devastating plague for which no cure existed what I really wanted was a chance to examine these trinkets closer to see if any of my tacit theories made any sense I just had to know em to know if we were responsible for everything that had happened when he finished painting and preparing this fresh batch of totems I finally got my chance to find out why he left the cave after a few hours leaving me behind tied up in the small pit in the corner of his cave apparently unconcerned that I might try anything when I was sure he'd left I went to work trying to cut my bindings it was a rather difficult task he'd made the knots remarkably secure and the rope material he used was quite stiff and had little stretch in it I ended up having to shatter a clay pot in the corner and you just shard to slowly saw through the restraints which worked in that situation I suppose I could have immediately made a run for it but as much as I wanted to be out of there I needed to know what was going on I inspected all of his ingredients and materials comprised of various types of powders in many liquids of different colors confirm my suspicions that the bone powder was the source of the indistinct odor that's my surprise some of the intact bones I examined actually had marrow inside them granted the merit was decayed into a dark sludge but it was definitely bone marrow that was extruding from the broken ends bones that hold and whether it should have been mostly desiccated in the marrow reduced to powder but this Mara looked like it had congealed only recently not only that but the marrow itself was still warm this was the case with all the bones in the pile that I examined I'm sure you remember those victims of Bursa Lascaux we examined they were still burning hot to even long after death this was an opportunity to prove a theory I've been working out in my head since that day oddly enough among all of this man's arcane ingredients and primitive supplies I saw the deed actually had a microscope tucked away in a corner on his workbench it was a rather old model of microscope that I think he must have found around 50 years ago but in a relatively good condition so fortuitous find and puzzling one it seemed to suggest that el curandero had some kind of legitimate scientific curiosity that he was more than just a witch doctor working based on ancient traditions I smeared a bit of the bone marrow on a slide and put it under the scope what I saw on that slide was something that I have a Lisa spected there was a loss to actually explain through a scope I saw an ordinary collection of marrow tissue much of the cellular matter deadened beginning to liquefy but I observed something far more profound than that I could plainly see hundreds of microbes still living and quite active as it was suspended in the dying tissue I assumed it was a virus but unlike any virus I'd heard of this one was incredibly aggressive still highly active even though the infected tissue around it was effectively dead and could not have hosted it his bizarre finding was the only explanation I could find for why such intense fever persisted for so long after death that it was somehow stimulating the infected cells and tissues around it enough revoke continued immune response even after the organism had perished again this was only a theory and to this day I haven't fully worked out just how it occurs it's unusual and disturbing find raised many more questions in my mind foremost among them was why this man collected my blood and I wondered if there would be something unique about it that drew his attention I managed to extract a bit of my blood and place it on a slide when I looked closer I was horrified by what I saw that slide of blood made everything I believed or suspected suddenly makes sense and the truth of everything behind what happened over those last few days just fell into place I looked in the scope expecting some feature that would explain immunity but I wasn't immune in just the opposite I was infected in my blood I recognized those same viral particles not quite as prevalent as in the other sample but still there and still active but no immune response was triggered and I could plainly see that many of the macrophages in my blood were infected as well if they weren't triggering any kind of inflammation or other response so if I was infected then why wasn't I already sick or dead it's simple I'm not an ordinary victim I'm a carrier an asymptomatic carrier the disease was living in my body but without becoming fully virulent and killing me but I was still fully capable of spreading the disease myself makes a lot of sense when you think about it I thought I'd probably been infected by the very first patient the baby we first thought had meningitis after that I was probably the one who spread the disease to other places in the villages the second outbreak in Playa Sona I wasn't long after we went there when Florencia wanted to confront el curandero the night we came back to steal the photos well god knows how many people I could have infected there all that time I was unwittingly spreading the disease among the people I was trying to help that was why the man makes my blood into the stuffy slathered on those totems he wasn't trying to help them after all he was infecting people with the disease that was his goal that's how he allegedly knew when outbreaks were about to happen but if he was the one causing them the bones he was using the marrow still contaminated must have come from victims of Bazell Isco decades even centuries ago by a deposit player Sola weren't villages that he meant to help no they were like a biological weapons laboratory a group of subjects he would infect a well for his own purposes his methods may have been primitive but he knew exactly what he was doing well I can only guess what he was really up to but but if what the villagers said was crazy and he must have been doing this for decades who knows how old he really is every outbreak of bacillus goo in their history must have been his doing to what end we can only speculate but if he was committed to virtually annihilating the people of these two villages every few years and he must have had some greater goal in mind maybe he was perfecting the disease and maybe he had bigger things in mind for it bigger than just infecting to obscure fishing villages in a backwater region of Panama I thought maybe the scars that covered his skin look like burns not unlike those we found on some of the victims who were burned out by the fever perhaps these two things are connected this medicine man was Basile Disko itself the very personification of the disease and the legend a creature that spreads his poison wherever he goes laying waste at whatever poor soul he looks upon but at the end of the day all we can do is make educated guesses because the only thing I knew for sure was that he had a reason for keeping me alive and I meant to make him pay for that mistake I was examining his inventory of ingredients when I heard the echoes of shuffling feet coming back down the tunnel among the items I'd pilfered from his stash was a large bottle of some kind of strong smelling oil rather like kerosene perhaps fuel for his lamps when I heard the steps coming back down the tunnel I decided to take my former position in the shallow pit stashing the oil bottle behind another pile of clay jars next week I get to work out some plan to actually use it but I knew that something like this could it be useful I wrapped the severed remains of the rope back around my arms and legs to make it look like I was still bound which didn't work very well though I hoped in the darkness he might not notice just as I got settled in position he barreled through the entrance into the cave and he yanked off his head wrappings revealing that disgusting snake-like face of his my illusions that I fooled him didn't last very long he immediately became suspicious glaring at me and slowly walking through the cave to look for anything amiss I'm not sure what he saw but didn't take him long to realize I'd been up to no good maybe something was out of place in his workbench all he noticed the fragments of a broken jaw or maybe he even just smelled something off he turned his back to me for a moment to continue looking I tried to move slowly and positioned myself a bit closer to the oil bottle the second I loosened one of the ropes he whirled around with a horrible screeching hiss and bounded to wors where I lay on the ground I tried to throw my hands up to protect myself but he lunged quickly and delivered an absolutely vicious blow right into my face it was hard enough that I actually blacked out for a second and to come out of it a few seconds later and see a hand feel that he'd hoisted me up by my neck and was strangling me while my legs dangled above the ground he shook me around as he did so throwing me into walls and against his coveted jars of ingredients as he pinned me against a wall I decided that grappling his hands wouldn't work and I grasped around for a weapon I found one a heavy clay jug that I swung sideways and smashed against the side of his face he let out a scream of pain and rage that I had no idea could come from an ostensibly human throat and thankfully he let his grip falter enough for me to wriggle out of his chokehold I collapsed gasping to the ground and ignoring the pain in my throat crawled as fast as I could to the corner where I hid the oil bottle I still didn't quite know how I'd use it though any heavy blunt object could have been useful at that moment he recovered from that hit more quickly than I'd expected as I crawled towards the corner he began swiping at my back with his sharp object I couldn't see but I could definitely feel he got in a few good slashes that laid up and some fairly nasty gashes on my back but my whole body was on fire with adrenaline and even that didn't quite stop me I reached the corner just as he grabbed my legs with a shockingly tight and painful grip and yammy backwards but not before I got the oil bottle in my hand as he reeled me into nearly face level he brought up his weapon and prepared what I assumed was a death blood however it was just a bit quicker I thrust the oil bottle forward and clocked him on the mouth sending him reeling back and giving me a chance to get up on my feet I leaped up and began furiously swinging in the bottle smashing it open with the first hit and spilling the contents on him I kept slashing at him with this shattered remains at the bottle dishing some nasty gashes of my own when he suddenly brought up a foot and kicked me in the stomach with incredible strength pushing me back into the opposite wall just underneath where one of his lanterns was hanging still lit he came at me with a vicious blood-curdling war cry and I yanked my lantern down right when he was within arm's length of me I smashed the still burning lantern right over his head and the oil spilled on his clothing went up all at once em you should have heard the scream that came out of his mouth as he twisted and writhed on his feet trying to extinguish the flames in vain with him seemingly out of action I took this opportunity to rush past my burning antagonist and down the tunnel that presumably led to the entrance it was rough going through those low and narrow tunnels but to my relief I finally saw a shaft of daylight at the end of the path and the screams of the Burning Man were comfortably far away the shaft had been dug through some rather dense and sticky soil which made for convenient hand holes to climb up again I just kept plunging my hands and feet into the earth scrambling up was too relative freedom however I began to hear that screaming it ceased and was now replaced by cries of unfathomable rage and to my horror I saw him emerge into the light at the bottom of the shaft i quickened my pace upwards well he wasn't far behind heaving himself upwards after me finally I managed to pull myself over the crest of a hole and jump to my feet prepared to sprint back in the direction I'd come rather than get lost further in the jungle I dashed away from the entrance of the shaft and briefly took cover behind a tree trying to work out my next move when I saw buzzing Lisco or but jump out of the hole it was early morning now and I could see in the daylight that he was covered in fresh red birds that showed through his tattered rags he looked absolutely maniacal more than he had already I was furiously searching for me I thought I had a pretty decent hiding place until he suddenly turned in Maira direction he locked eyes on me this time I wouldn't freeze I immediately bolted off into the jungle while he screeched and hissed viciously what's wrong more shocking when I look back to see that he was managing to keep pace with me no matter how hard I forced my legs or how many turns I made equally dismaying was the fact that I'd now reenter trap country which I learned when I struck a tripwire and narrowly avoided a whip trap this held only a few inches above my head and saw a rather large gash into an adjacent tree but I had no choice but to keep going forward taking my chances with the traps wasn't very appealing but even less appealing was falling back into the hands of that monster so I kept up my pace trying to hop over any suspected traps rather than take the time to go around them I was doing exactly this when I leapt over a log only to find that the ground on the other side was at a surprisingly steep slope and I tumbled ass over teakettle down a hill thankfully I didn't break anything doing this but I banged my shin just hard enough that I faltered for a few seconds getting to my feet and I heard exactly what I was dreading in that moment a vicious screech coming over the top of the hill I ran as quickly as I could into the nearest stretch of forest I could see but my father closed the gap between us and I was rather shocked to see him leap like a damn jungle cat over the log on the hill and land skidding on his feet now my legs were beginning to falter adrenaline can only push you so far I now was grappling with the possibility that I might not be able to run any further my option became to try an out pace him through rough terrain rather than outrun him on open ground I turned and ran down a narrow gully jumping over any logs or rocks along the way but this new plan didn't work out as well as I'd hoped he was very much keeping up with me through this rougher terrain and when the gully ended I went back to flat ground ahead I saw a tree with a large and not trunk that I hoped would have some sort of hiding place among the roots assuming I could get there with enough time to avoid being seen which didn't seem likely so up his short rise in the land we should mean I would lose even more speed but my legs were preparing to give out anyways I chose to go up the slope and around the tree and in that time basilisk Oh finally closed the gap and was preparing to lunch I whipped around the corner to hear a horrible laugh like he knew something I didn't when I turned back to look behind me I swear I'm come around the corner prepared to pounce with my last ounce of strength I made a diving leap to the left and collapsed in a cluster of ferns narrowly missing his tackle when sailing past me and to my surprise the ground gave out beneath him it was a pit trap that he'd landed on and he gave a startled scream as he went completely in which turns shortly into a bestial roar of pain I looked him to see that he didn't paled himself on the steaks planted in the sides of the pit and it was down there thrashing and screaming like a wild beast but no matter how hard he struggled he couldn't free himself he was impaled through at least five places that I could see from his shoulder down through his torso and all the way to his leg grievously wounded though he was he was very much alive still even though several steaks had pierced all the way through stall so in spots that must have skewered some vital organs whatever the case I could hardly believe my luck in that fateful second I was mentally preparing to be caught and butchered by this horrible monster but in less than a second my fortune had changed so drastically I could hardly believe I was still alive I watched him thrash and scream for a few minutes while I caught my breath I thank my lucky stars that this son of a [ __ ] happened to forget where this particular trap lay still shaking I walked away in the direction I assumed was towards the coast his screams becoming faint so I was too far away to hear them at 7 finale when I saw some open sky I was able to regain my bearings and head in the direction of the coast at the time I wasn't sure what had happened to um I didn't know if you'd made it back to the villages or if you've been caught or if you were lost in the jungle as I was for a time when I decided against going back to the villages mantofa when I emerge from the jungle and on to the beach I went in the complete opposite direction I know that I called the boat because up the day before but I thought that those villages were still looking for us so I decided not to risk it fortunately there are villages dotting the coast here and there and after a day's hike down the beach I found a derelict Shack where I rested for a time I didn't know if I wanted to risk coming into contact with anyone else given my contagious condition but the alternative was walking all the way back to Panama City the next day I proceeded down the coast relieved to see that nobody else was following me and before long I found another village this time populated as much as I hated the thought of potentially infecting these people I still make contact to us for arise now fortunately these people were very gracious and helpful and within a day or so I managed to hire a driver with an all-terrain van who would drive me back to civilization it was some rough but passable trails to the city down the coast now the rest is relatively uneventful I was able to procure private transport back to Panama City and being wary of infecting anyone else I used alternate means to travel out of the country with a good sized bribe I was able to stow away on a cargo freighter going north to San Diego the thought of illegal immigration wasn't very appealing so I paid off the captain of the boat to stay aboard to the next destination which was Australia that's where I went and that's where I still am now I don't know if I should say exactly where but it's remote enough that I'm almost never bothered which is good for anyone not looking to contract a deadly disease despite getting off the boat with very little I've been able to make a decent life here far from any place my condition could threaten the lives of others lonely though it is it's the only way to keep everyone else safe there are times dark moments when I consider ending it all that offing myself might be the only way to keep everyone else truly safe however in the meantime I have taken to doing some research on my condition seeing if there's been any noticeable changes or symptoms thankfully there haven't been though every blood sample I've taken for myself for nearly 30 years since as shown the infection is still alive and well the only real complaints I deal with anymore losing my hair and flaky skin isn't aging wonderful oh this rate I might look like old buzzer let's go by the time I get old anyway that's my story I'm sorry I never contacted you before even though I've known you survived for over 20 years I just couldn't risk the idea that somebody might find me that I might endanger the lives of those I love if they ever came to me it's been hard for both of us that's much of the reason I'm riding chin now em I just want to let you know that I'm alive and reasonably well considering the circumstances and I wanted to apologize not only to you but to my family as well who've been wandering all these years what happened to that baby girl the package you received was hopefully forwarded by my family who received their own note and explanation of my absence granted I haven't talked quite as much for the truth to them as I have to you but the truth of it all is grotesque and unbelievable that I couldn't make anybody understand only you because you were there and you saw it all for yourself but there's one more reason I wanted to contact you in my research of my condition I've made some interesting but rather alarming discoveries the disease itself can act quite quickly most of the time killing his victim in less than a day from my condition I know that there are definite outliers in this regard on discovery I've made is that Mozilla score doesn't necessarily affect a person right away like me an infected person can become a carrier but another thing that can happen is the disease will be dormant for a time I'm sure you've been wondering all these years why you never got sick when you're exposed just as much as me no sometimes buzzer Disko can remain dormant but still contagious for a long time sometimes it remains dormant long enough that people will be infected before anyone shows symptoms when the dormancy period ends many people would become sick all at once I know it's an ugly thought and and I was hoping to put your mind at ease when I decided to contact you but I wouldn't be doing my duty as a physician if I didn't at least alert you to the possibilities I'm not saying that this is necessarily the case for you for all I know you could be completely fine if it has been this long perhaps there's nothing to worry about but I think the truth needs to be said especially now I've been hiding it for so long I don't want the cost of Lies or ignorance to fall on anyone else all I wanted to say in I'm just glad that now both of us know that the other he's alive and say it feels good to lay out everything we went through back then and I imagine it might feel good for you too perhaps we can learn to be happy with our lots given what could have happened instead as we can both learn to live with knowing that there is such a thing on this earth is basilisk oh oh my god I'm tired I'm tired oh this has taken so long to record my voice is about to give away okay I care so forgive me if this outro isn't too long I don't go into detail I think I need a glass of beer or something is that okay with you guys well this has been one hell of a journey getting this story out to you promised it to you a few weeks ago and finally it's here I need a break alright till next time very very sweet dreams bye Barney [Music] thank you so much for taking the time to listen to this story today really means a lot to me and to the author for this story of course well you want to know more about me I'm pretty much everywhere on social media you can find me on Facebook Twitter Instagram you can download my music on soundcloud I've got a patreon if you feel like throw me a dollar or two very much appreciated and of course on reddit I have a place where you can leave stories if you want me to read one that you've written well I want to see you all again very soon to land sweet dreams and by bar

Channel: Dr. Creepen

Views: 230,346

Rating: 4.8104959 out of 5

Keywords: dr creepens vault, dr creepen, dr. creepen, nosleep stories, creepypasta, scary stories, asmr stories, best horror stories, nosleep horror, creepypasta horror

Id: O3Y65yR0p9U

Length: 191min 20sec (11480 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 24 2020