Carrion Safari Read online

  CARRION SAFARI

  JONAH BUCK

  Copyright2016 By Jonah Buck

  www.severedpress.com

  In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

  A stately pleasure-dome decree:

  Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

  Through caverns measureless to man

  Down to a sunless sea.

  So twice five miles of fertile ground

  With walls and towers were girdled round;

  And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

  Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

  And here were forests ancient as the hills,

  Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

  But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

  Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

  A savage place! as holy and enchanted

  As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted

  By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

  “Kubla Khan”

  -Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  ONE

  DENIAL, ANGER, BARGAINING, & ACCEPTANCE: STAGES OF CONTRACTS

  June 6, 1925

  Denise DeMarco woke up to the sound of pounding on her office door. She sat up in the chair she’d fallen asleep in, her back creaking in protest as she did so. An empty bottle of whiskey sat on the desk, right next to a small puddle of drool where her head had rested during the night.

  The sun sent creepers of light around the edges of her office curtains, indicating that it was well into morning and probably closer to noon. She squinted against the feeble tendrils of sunlight, wishing for something to blot out the sun. A cloud. A plague of locusts. Anything would do.

  “Go away. We’re closed,” she called to whoever was rapping at her door. Her head felt like a swarm of centipedes wearing steel-toed boots were trying to kick her skull apart from the inside. While the sound of her own voice was enough to make her wince a little, the knocking on her door sounded like it was coming from a battering ram. Right now, she just wanted to curl up somewhere and let the world carry on without her for a decade or two, just so long as it did so quietly.

  The pounding stopped, as if whoever was out there was surprised they’d finally gotten a response. Then it started right back up again.

  “Ms. DeMarco? I’d like to speak with you,” a voice called through the door.

  “We’re closed, pal. If you’re looking for a safari tour or big game hunt, there’s plenty of other places in Cape Town.”

  DeMarco & Company Hunting Tours had been closed for months now, in fact. Before that, it had been one of the most successful safari companies in South Africa.

  But that was months ago. Now, Denise had shuttered the place, and she was so deep in debt she couldn’t see the surface anymore. She’d been living in the upstairs room since she stopped paying rent at her house and was kicked out by the landlord.

  She was the “& Company” part of DeMarco & Company. Her father, Cedric DeMarco, was the original man behind the company. He’d come down to South Africa from England during the Second Boer War to administer a military refugee camp and never returned to the United Kingdom.

  Instead, he took his experience in the bush and started a safari business for tourists who wanted to hunt African big game. Denise was his only child, and she’d taken over the business when he disappeared on a hunt a few years ago.

  “Ms. DeMarco, I would very much like to speak with you. I’ve been told you’re the best hunter in Cape Town.”

  “I was the best hunter in Cape Town. Was. Now go away.” Even if her head still felt like it had been kicked down the street by an entire marching band and then run over by a float, the black haze of sleep was starting to recede from her brain. She tried to hang onto it and go back into her hibernation, but the voice outside kept talking.

  “I’ve been instructed to deal only with you.”

  Denise wiped away the puddle of drool on her desk with her sleeve and opened up a drawer. She stuffed the dead bottle of whiskey inside, where it clinked against a couple more empties. Grimacing at the kink in her back from sleeping stooped over last night, she dragged herself to her feet. Her spine crackled like a string of wet firecrackers as she lurched upright.

  The voice outside was American. Denise heard plenty of accents when she worked as a hunter, guiding the rich and famous through the veldt to find the perfect trophy. She spoke English as well as Afrikaans, the form of Dutch the Boer settlers in the country’s interior used. In addition, she had a working knowledge of the Bantu languages, mostly Zulu and Xhosa, which was often useful in the field.

  This voice had the trimmed, nasally quality that was the calling card of the American Northeast. A hint of something else flavored the words, maybe some vestigial Bronx or Boston that even prep schools couldn’t quite scrub out of the palette.

  That accent was only going to get more nasally if she broke the nose of whoever was refusing to leave her alone. She plodded across the room, stomping in the boots she’d never bothered to take off last night. Stomp stomp stomp. Quite frankly, she was not a happy camper, and she didn’t want to deal with some rich twerp who wanted a stuffed lion’s head above his mantle.

  She threw open the door and leveled a glare that was meant to punch straight out of the back of the interloper’s head. Her glare shriveled into a squint as soon as she opened the door, and the bright African sunlight shoved daggers into her eyes.

  Her scowl wouldn’t have blown out the back of her visitor’s skull anyway. He was quite tall, and she found herself glowering at the knot in his tie before adjusting her sight upward.

  He didn’t even do her the courtesy of allowing her dirty look to scour the flesh off his face. Instead, he simply reached into a pocket and produced a business card. She took it without looking at it. If she just kept her focus, maybe her mental powers would kick in, and she could at least boil his eyeballs out of his head.

  If her visitor noticed she was trying to explode his skull with her mind, he gave no heed to the fact. “Ah, Ms. DeMarco. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’d like to discuss a certain business matter with you.”

  “I’m not open for business. Now scram.”

  “Maybe not, but I have it on good authority that you’re in arrears on your payments for your office here, and I also understand you’ve been removed from your residence for failure to tender rent payments as well. Your bank says they’ll be taking this place within a week.”

  That took some of the wind out of her sails. She calculated the date in her head and realized the man was right. Over the last few weeks, she’d lost track of time. She’d be on the street no later than Friday.

  However, that still didn’t mean she would go on a hunt with this schmuck. The few hundred dollars just wasn’t worth it to her. Obviously, this fellow heard she was out of the business but thought he could wrangle her into a deal with a bit of hardball.

  She looked down at the business card in her hand. The name of a company she’d never heard of, Yersinia Bioresearch, was printed in big bold letters on the top of the card. Beneath that was the man’s name, Roger Pick.

  “My finances are my business, and I don’t do hunts anymore,” she said.

  Pick raised his hands, and for the first time, Denise noticed he was carrying a small briefcase. A chain led from the handle of the case to Pick’s wrist, and Denise realized he was handcuffed to the briefcase.

  Casting a brief glance over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching, Pick opened up the briefcase an inch and tilted it toward Denise. She caught sight of neat, crisp bills stacked on top of each other.

  “There’s ten thousand dollars in this case, and there could be a lot more if you’re willing to help my organization with something.” Pick flashed a wi
nning smile that showcased a set of perfectly white teeth.

  Denise reached out and grabbed something propped next to the doorframe. She leveled the shotgun at Pick’s chest.

  “Listen, I don’t know what sort of shady business you’re into, but I know trouble when I see it. People don’t just walk up to your door with ten thousand dollars unless they’re up to something, and I don’t want any part in it. I didn’t want any part of it when I thought you just wanted to go on a hunt, but now I just want you out of my sight. Go.” She gestured with the shotgun to emphasize her point. Pick didn’t need to know the weapon wasn’t loaded.

  “Wait.” Pick threw up his hands, his eyes staring down both barrels. “This…this isn’t what you seem to think it is. I just want to hire you for an expedition. Have you ever heard of Yersinia?”

  “Not before you handed me your card.”

  Pick spoke quickly. “We’re a medical research firm. Based in New York. We develop medicines and pharmaceuticals. They sent me out here to talk to you. Herschel Hobhouse wants to hire you for an expedition. I’m just supposed to get you to sign on.” Pick’s voice dropped most of the clipped, upper-class polish and reverted to pure Bronx.

  “Ten thousand dollars for a single expedition? I don’t believe you,” Denise said. But a part of her did believe him. That was real fear in the man’s eyes.

  However, that still didn’t mean what he was saying made any sense. The only people who ever approached her with that kind of money before were smugglers and poachers, and they’d scampered away when she put the business end of a shotgun in front of their noses. Even when she was the most in demand hunter in Cape Town, she didn’t receive anywhere near that amount of money for a single hunt.

  Now, she didn’t hunt at all. She lowered the shotgun but didn’t put it away.

  “Mr. Hobhouse had heard of you, and he specifically requested you for this excursion.”

  “Who is Herschel Hobhouse?”

  “He’s Yersinia’s new head of research and development. He very specifically asked for you. All this money comes from Yersinia, and it can all be yours if you come with us for this project.” Now that he didn’t have a gun practically stuck up his nostrils, Pick had reverted to some of his salesman pitch. Denise almost preferred him when he thought he was about to die.

  “I already told you. I don’t do hunts anymore,” she said. She started to shut the door on Pick, but she took one last glance down at the stacks of cash still visible inside his briefcase.

  Sensing his opening, Pick pounced. “But this isn’t a hunt,” he said, placing his foot in the door to prevent her from shutting him out. “You don’t even have to fire a gun, and you can still get the ten thousand.”

  “Uh huh. You don’t come to the office of the best hunter in Cape Town and offer her ten thousand dollars for something that isn’t a hunt. Don’t piss in my lap and tell me it’s raining.”

  “The best hunter in Cape Town? I thought you were the best hunter in Cape Town, Ms. DeMarco.” Pick grinned as if he’d just scored a point.

  Denise internally debated taking the shotgun and loading it. There was some ammo in a cabinet nearby. She’d had about enough of this joker and his benefactor, Mr. Hobhouse.

  “You have five seconds to tell me what you really want, or I’m going to shoot you, stuff you, and use you as a piece of office décor,” she said.

  The smile fell off Pick’s face like the wind tearing a cheap sign off a building. “I can’t. Not right away.”

  “Five.”

  “It’s more complicated than that. That’s the reason there’s so much money involved.”

  “Four.”

  “Hobhouse instituted a policy. This is top secret stuff for Yersinia. No one else can know. Absolutely no one.”

  “Three.”

  “Look, please. Just hold on a second. Wait.” Pick reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope.

  “Two.”

  “You have to sign this non-disclosure agreement. Then I can tell you what this is about. You have to trust me. This is completely on the level. I just need your legally binding agreement to keep this a secret first. That’s all. Please. Just give me a chance.”

  Denise sighed. Despite her better judgment, she was curious. She was very curious indeed. More than that, she was about to be kicked onto the street.

  She glanced down at the briefcase full of money again and bit her lip. Pick smiled again. This time, he actually had scored a point, much as Denise hated to admit it to herself.

  That briefcase had its hooks in her. Frankly, she was pretty sure she didn’t want anything to do with Yersinia or Herschel Hobhouse or non-disclosure agreements or anything else that the man at her front door was promising. On the other hand, she knew damn well that she was slowly sinking into the quicksands of oblivion here. She barely had enough money left to feed herself, let alone keep herself from being tossed out on the street in the next few days.

  In theory, she could do something else. She didn’t want to hunt anymore, but she could become a seamstress. She could work as a hostess at one of the glitzy restaurants and hotels that served the British bureaucrats that administered South Africa or its tourist hunters. She could meet a nice man who didn’t fuss at her too much and pop out a couple of children and live comfortably.

  But she couldn’t do any of those things without also pulling out her hair in great fistfuls and going completely out of her mind. She’d grown up at her father’s knee out on the savanna. She wanted to roam and ramble and rove across the tip of the continent.

  And she used to be able to do that, but that was before she gave up hunting. She’d tried a few times since that one fateful incident a few months ago, but she just couldn’t do it. Denise DeMarco was born and bred to hunt, and yet she couldn’t anymore. She was like a hunting dog kept in an apartment all the time, growing more and more neurotic by the day as the wildlands outside beckoned.

  Maybe that’s why she opened the door wider for Roger Pick to come inside with his confidentiality agreement. Or maybe it was the briefcase full of money chained to his wrist. Or maybe it was just plain old curiosity, that famous serial killer of cats. Over the next few days, she would wonder to herself just which one of those incentives made her open that door.

  Even if there was no way to know it at the time, it didn’t take her very long to realize what a horrible mistake she’d made in opening that door.

  Pick nodded his appreciation and stepped through the doorway, unsealing his envelope as he did so. She walked over to her desk, and Pick set the confidentiality agreement down in front of her. Good thing she’d sopped up that drool earlier. A little housekeeping came in handy sometimes.

  She glanced over the agreement, just enough to make sure that she wasn’t contracting herself to do anything odious by signing it. True to Pick’s word, the various clauses swore her to secrecy about any details between herself and Yersinia. It also promised eye-popping litigation if she ever blabbed and the details leaked out to the wrong people. Her curiosity only grew stronger.

  Fishing out a pen, Denise slashed her signature across the bottom line. Pick smiled again. She was really beginning to dislike that smile.

  Pick was sitting directly beneath a blown-up black and white picture hanging from the wall. The wall used to be covered in mounted animal heads and trophies, but Denise sold all of those months ago for some quick money. The picture was the only decoration left in the whole office.

  Right in the center of the frame stood Teddy Roosevelt, America’s most prominent big game hunter, and its former president. Roosevelt stood with a long rifle in his arms, smiling like a man who’s fought the whole world and licked all challengers.

  He stood with one knee propped up on a downed rhinoceros, the huge beast laying where it fell mid-charge. There was a furrow in the grass behind Roosevelt where the rhino went down and slid.

  Denise hadn’t kept the picture for Roosevelt’s grinning presence, though. Standing next to the former
president was a figure smoking a pipe wearing a satisfied smile of his own. That was Cedric DeMarco, looking every inch the greatest huntsman in the Cape.

  He had his arm wrapped around the shoulder of a gawky teenage girl with pigtails and a rifle of her own. Teenage Denise smiled for the camera, but her eyes were tilted away to catch a better glimpse of Roosevelt and his prize.

  Since that picture was taken, Denise had lost the awkward coltishness of her teenage years and developed into an excellent hunter in her own right. Also, since that picture was taken, Cedric DeMarco had disappeared on an expedition into the Namib Desert, presumed dead, and Denise had taken over the business where the picture now hung.

  “Alright, I’ll carry Yersinia’s business secrets with me to the grave or Herschel Hobhouse gets my first born child, three arms, a leg, most of the money in South Africa, and a partridge in a pear tree. Now, what in the world is this all about?”

  Pick leaned forward and took the non-disclosure agreement. It disappeared back inside its envelope and found its way into his jacket.

  “There’s an island,” he finally said.

  “Whoop-de-doo.”

  “It’s a few hundred miles off the coast of Sumatra, deep in the Indian Ocean. It’s not exactly uncharted. A good map will include a little speck to indicate where it is, but it’s never been fully explored. There have been a few scattered stories, though. Mr. Hobhouse is under the impression that isolation has allowed some unusual organisms to thrive there. Possibly even…prehistoric organisms.”

  Denise snorted. “And your boss wants to pay me ten thousand dollars to go hunt dinosaurs with him? First of all, that’s crazy, and I don’t do crazy on my hunts. Second of all, I don’t hunt anymore. Full stop. End of the line. Do not pass go. Do not collect ten thousand dollars.”

  “No, nothing so absurd as that. And as I already mentioned, this isn’t a hunt. This island has attracted Mr. Hobhouse’s attention because Yersinia believes some of the organisms there might have some medicinal or scientific value. Mr. Hobhouse wants to assemble a team of elite hunters and trackers to catalogue and procure samples from the island. If this venture proves fruitful, Yersinia would turn the island into a private preserve for scientific study.”