ENCOUNTER by Hep Aldridge (bill gates books recommendations .txt) 📕

were moving out. Joe’s LIDAR pass had borne fruit. We spotted what looked like a faint trail once the computer processed the scan, and it linked up with the one we had gotten a visual on earlier. That was the good news. The bad news was we were about six miles away from the path through the mountainous terrain—in our favorite direction, up.

We had packed supplies for four days and stashed the rest of our provisions and belongings in the wooded area not far from the village. We tethered the mules in what was left of a hut and left them food and water. If by some chance, we were tracked, the only indication of our presence would be the mules. We had armed ourselves, and I finally got to see what Uncle Harold had gotten for Dimitri. Yep, a Barrett fifty caliber sniper rifle. You know Dimitri and his damn zombies… We had procured a pair of AK-47s, carried by O’Reilly and Eduardo. Doc and I carried our M-16’s; Joe had his MP-90, and Reggie had her M-24 Remington, so I guess you could say we were “loaded for bear.” Joe was also carrying the carefully wrapped crystal artifact Father Gonzalez had given us.

Before we left, I had Joe hide two more of our trail cams, one with a panoramic view of our old campsite in the village and one on the trail we took when we left. If by some chance, we were followed, I wanted to know about it.

We found the trailhead an hour and a half later. We could easily have missed it if we didn’t have the LIDAR image and GPS coordinates it provided. It was obvious the trail had not been used in quite some time. But you could still make out where the rock surface had been worn smooth by years of foot traffic—a well-traveled trail of bygone times.

After four hours, we had broken out of the high-altitude jungle into the rocky area we had seen from the drone. Another hour and we re-entered the jungle but were still able to discern the trail. The climb and altitude were taking their toll. We slowed our pace, trying to conserve energy as twilight approached. We took a break and discussed setting camp for the night, but we decided to push on a little further before doing so.

We were all feeling the altitude and exertion; the torturous uphill climb was taking its toll. Muscles were screaming, and our lungs were burning from lack of oxygen. Damn, I had sort of sublimated this part or our previous explorations. Breathing the cold, dry air was like inhaling a lungful of razor blades, but we pressed on. Dimitri had point; I was next, followed by Doc Greene, Eduardo, O’Reilly, Reggie, and Joe was bringing up the rear.

We usually stopped as dusk approached and made camp, doing so while there was still light, considering our track too dangerous to be attempted at night. But today was different. Something seemed to be driving us onward. We had no idea how much further we had to go, only the vague descriptions of distance given to us by the Shuar elders and what info we had from the drone. The jungle had gotten thick, and we had to hack our way through much of it. It was full-on dark now; we had tied chem lights to our packs, and their ethereal yellow glow hanging from our backpacks kept us in line and guided us ever forward.

We cautiously made our way upward as if some unseen force was pulling us. For some reason, our surroundings sent a chill up my spine as I peered into the blackness, listening to the night sounds—real or imagined, I couldn’t tell. Spooky, I thought, not the ghost kind but just… spooky. I was lost in thought and mind-numbing pain when I ran into the back of Dimitri, who had stopped.

“What’s going on? Why did you stop?” I asked in a hushed voice.

He said, “Do you feel that?”

“Feel what?”

“Be quiet.”

Chapter Fifteen

Book 2 Epilogue: … Redux…

I obliged as word was spread backward to halt. The only things audible were some nighttime jungle sounds, almost covered up by my labored breathing and pounding heart. The chilled air, filled with a variety of unidentifiable odors, only added to the eeriness of the moment.

“I don’t know; my gut just lurched, and the hair on the back of my neck is standing straight up!” he almost whispered.

I was about to admonish him when I realized I was getting goosebumps on my arms and the hair on the back of my neck decided to come to attention… What the bloody hell…?

I turned back to Doc, “Do you feel anything?”

To my surprise, his voice coming from the dark said, “Yeah, I do; it’s like a tingling sensation.”

O’Reilly chimed in, “I got a weird feeling going on, all tingly too—almost like static electricity.”

There was an almost palpable sensation gripping us that had not been there a few minutes ago. Altitude, exhaustion, whatever it was, we all felt it. That’s not natural, I thought. This was the first time we had pressed on after dark, and I couldn’t tell you why. Was it possible we were being propelled forward by some unseen force?

We were all whispering when Eduardo quietly asked, “Senor Colt, what is happening to us?”

Joe’s voice came out of the darkness, “It’s cool, Eduardo, no problem,” and then, “Colt, what the hell?”

Dimitri started moving slowly forward again, inching his way upward. In a couple of minutes, he stopped and said, “What the hell is that?”

As I moved next to him, peering into the pitch black, I asked, “What?”

“Look ahead about twenty feet on the jungle floor.” As I did, I could see in the darkness an ever so faint blue glow in two small irregular splotches. Each was no larger than a silver dollar.

“What’s going on?” Doc exclaimed in a hushed voice.

By now, we had all bunched up and were peering through the