The Deadly Curse of Toco-Rey by Frank Peretti Page A

doing!”
    â€œMy primary purpose here is not biological research, Doctor!” Basehart objected loudly. “I’m here to find the treasure of Kachi-Tochetin—and so are you, I might add!”
    Dr. Cooper spun around, eyes blazing, clenching a fist, ready to strike. He quickly controlled himself but struck hard with his words. “Put your greed on hold, Dr. Basehart, until we find my daughter!” He turned and continued pushing through the brush.
    Armond Basehart followed, clearly offended. “I beg your pardon!”
    â€œYou heard me! You and your boss can just—”
    They burst into the clear.
    Juan screamed. The others froze, guns in hand.
    They were standing before the crumbling stone wall of what had been an Oltecan dwelling. On the ground at the base of the wall, a human-shaped mass of squirming, slimy blobs boiled, crawled, hissed, and squeaked.
    For a moment, no one moved. No one could think of what to do.
    Tomás came up behind Dr. Cooper and whispered in his ear. “They are turning from yellow to green,” Tomás noted. “They may be more timid now.”
    Dr. Cooper approached cautiously, machete and spray bottle ready to take on any carvy that came near him. Some of the slimy creatures began to notice him and half-fly, half-hop away.
    So suddenly that he startled the others, Jacob Cooper yelled and flashed his machete back and forth, causing a commotion that sent the carvies fluttering into the trees and ruins like a flock of frightened birds.
    â€œOh no . . .” said Dr. Basehart as he looked, horrified, at what remained on the ground.
    Tomás took one look and then crossed himself.
    Jacob Cooper approached cautiously, shining his flashlight on the remains of a person, now nothing more than a skeleton covered with green slime, propped against the wall. “It’s Brad Frederick, one of the Cory party.”
    The others moved closer in shock and amazement, flashlights illuminating the dead, grinning skeleton before them.
    â€œHow can you tell?” Dr. Basehart asked.
    â€œRemember the video?” Dr. Cooper responded, shining his light in the skeleton’s face. “That big, white grin is unmistakable.”
    â€œNo one touch it,” Dr. Basehart cautioned as he knelt beside the skeleton to scrape off a sample of the green slime with a stick. “I’ll take this sample back to the lab and see if I can match it with the slime we took from Lila earlier today.” He carefully folded the stick in his handkerchief and placed it in a vest pocket. “But now it all makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?”
    â€œDoes it?” Dr. Cooper asked.
    Dr. Basehart looked up at the group. “The slug toxin. The Kachakas use it to tip their darts. We found darts at the Corys’ camp, so we know the Kachakas must have attacked them. This man, Brad Frederick, must have been hit with a poison dart, and he contracted the same symptoms as your daughter: madness and extreme paranoia, followed eventually by paralysis and death. He fled the scene of the attack, wandered among these ruins, and finally succumbed here. The carvies are the jungle’s housekeepers. They have, uh, cleaned up the remains in their own way.” Now he directed his words to Tomás, Juan, and Carlos. “So this ‘curse’ you’ve been so afraid of is nothing more than the toxin the carvies produce in their slime. Nature itself has found a way to guard the treasure of Kachi-Tochetin: poisonous slugs.”
    Tomás tried to argue. “But Señor Basehart, Juan and Carlos and I have all touched the green slime before. We have handled the green slugs. We have never gone crazy. The slime does not hurt us.”
    Basehart thought that over. “Your ancestors have probably developed an immunity over the generations. The slime, regardless of its color, could produce a very different reaction in foreigners.” He looked at the Coopers.