Niles sighed and ran his hand through his hair. I could tell he was a little upset at what had just happened to us.

“I can’t believe that,” he said, “They honestly thought that was an encantado. I thought they were more civilized than that.”

“It was pretty convincing,” I said. And it was. I myself didn’t know what to believe. How could somebody pull off something that complicated in such an out of the way place?

Niles turned and looked at me, disbelief written all over his face.

“Don’t tell me you believe that was an encantado, Judy. It was a joke. Somebody pulled off a very good sleight of hand trick to mess with a drunken foreigner.”

“But how’d they do it?” I asked.

“I don’t know. It couldn’t have been that hard. If David Copperfield can make a jet airplane disappear in front of an attentive television audience I’m sure somebody could switch a man playing dead with a dolphin corpse in front of drunken villagers.”

I shrugged my shoulders. Niles was making sense.

“The shaman seemed pretty convinced it was real,” I said.

“He’s old. He’s lived every moment of his life thinking these stories are real. He’d be the last person to be convinced it was a joke.”

I nodded. Niles was right. What was I doing thinking that was really an encantado? Stories didn’t just come to life. Victor’s brother had been a part of a good joke. Victor had probably been in on it too. That explained his quick disappearance. It was all so simple. Yet it still plagued my mind.

I looked out into the rainforest. I don’t know why, it’s not like I could see anything. The moonlight and starlight didn’t even begin to pierce the forest canopy. It was all formless shadow, a great, black expanse that boggled the mind. Who knew what secrets it was privy to, what arcane mysteries lay in its intimate depths?

But though the forest was dark, it was not silent. Its nocturnal inhabitants howled, hooted, and woofed in a vicious cacophony of animal sounds. Birds squawked, insects buzzed, and somewhere in the night a jaguar screamed in lust. All of this assaulted my ears and I covered them in a vain attempt to protect them.

Niles reached over and fiddled with the radio. A blast of rock music sounded over the speakers and shook me with its intensity. I shook my head. This was even worse than before. I walked over to Niles and stood beside him. He wasn’t paying attention to me. He was too busy navigating. I reached over and turned the music down.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, disturbed by the loss of his music.

“That’s worse than the jungle noises,” I said, crossing my arms.

“I disagree,” he said. He reached over and turned the music back up. The wailing of the electric guitar threatened to pierce my eardrums. I decided to find a place out of the reach of the speakers before I was turned deaf.

I made my way to the back of the boat. Here there were no speakers, so the music was not quite as loud. I sat down on the stern, my hair trailing out behind me. I looked over at Pete. He was still asleep in his hammock, drool running out of his mouth in a disgusting stream. I was going to have to mention this night when we got back to the university. Though this was the first time he’d actually gotten violent, it wasn’t the first time his love of the bottle had gotten u in trouble. The first time had been in Belem, when he’d insulted our diplomatic liaison. If the university wanted to be welcomed back here in the future, they were going to have to let Pete go.

I shook my head and looked back over my shoulder at the river. It was a deep shade of purple beneath the waning moon. I’d spent a good month traveling down this river, and yet it still never ceased to hold my fascination. It was so big, and so deep. I found myself wondering just what secrets it held beneath its murky waters.

A wave of exhaustion came over me. I guess all that dancing at the party had finally caught up to me. Sleep sounded really good right about now. I walked over to the door that lead inside the boat and opened it. It was dark and musty inside the boat. I felt my way along until I came to the cot that I used as a bed. I flopped down on it, too tired to think about changing clothes. In no time at all, despite the smell and the loud music, I had fallen asleep.

I don’t know how long I slept. It may have only been a few hours, but I’m not sure of that. But when I did wake up, I noticed that something was wrong. Everything was dead silent. The motor wasn’t running, Niles’s rock music wasn’t blaring, not even the animals were making their noises. The only sound was the river. I could hear it through the boat, rushing past as it always had.

I got up slow, careful not to trip on something in the dark. I made my way back towards the door, holding my hands out in front of me like a zombie in a bad horror movie. They found the wood of the wall, then the metal knob. I turned it and opened the door.

Everything outside was still dark. Morning appeared to be an eternity away. We were drifting downriver now, the current taking us along wherever it wished. I swallowed a lump that had formed in my throat. Something was wrong. I could feel it.

“Niles?” I called out into the dark silence.

“Not so loud,” I heard him whisper from somewhere near the pilot house, “Grab the shotgun and come to me. Hurry. Don’t ask questions.”

I turned around to find the shotgun. I didn’t know why he wanted it, but I didn’t doubt his seriousness. Too many things could happen in Amazonia to joke about stuff like this. The shotgun was in its place beside the door. I grabbed it and stepped out onto the deck.

I clutched the shotgun as I made my way up the deck towards the pilot house. I saw Niles crouched in its shadows. He motioned for me to hurry and I did. When I got there he took the shotgun from me. I was all too grateful to let him have it.

“What happened?” I asked him.

“Pete’s gone,” he said, “About ten minutes ago everything just shut off. I turned around to go check the motor when I saw what looked like people standing over where Pete was sleeping. He wasn’t there anymore. There were just a few fishes flopping around on deck. I hid after that.”

“Who were they?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t really get a good look at them. Bandits probably. Though what they wanted with Pete I didn’t know. I don’t know how they got here or if they’re gone, so I’ve just sat here trying to decide what to do.”

Typical Niles. Fearful, but still practical under pressure. I stuck my head out and looked down the deck. Pete’s hammock was empty, but there didn’t seem to be anybody nearby. Then again, everything was shrouded in shadow, so it was hard to tell.

“See anything?” Niles asked.

I shook my head.

“We need to get to the motor and see what’s holding this tub up,” he said as he crawled over beside me.

“What about Pete?” I asked. We couldn’t just leave him, drunken tendencies or not.

“I don’t know. I’d like to figure out where he went to, but right now we need to get this boat moving or we might run aground. Pete is going to have to wait. Besides, he’s a grown man. I’m sure he can take care of himself.”

I didn’t want to leave Pete to the bandits, if that was who had him. He was a fellow human being; you didn’t just do that to somebody. Yet I also saw the logic in Niles’s thinking. If we didn’t figure out a way to get the boat moving we wouldn’t be able to do anything about Pete even if he was still on the boat.

“What do we need to do?” I asked.

“We need to get down to the engine and get it running again.”

Niles stepped out into the moonlight. He was nervous; I could tell it from the way he held the shotgun. He was gripping it even tighter than I was. I followed after him. I had no desire to be left alone out there, the dark jungle all around.

Niles opened the door that I had just come out of. He stuck the shotgun through first. Then he followed suit. I crept in after him. He pulled a flashlight out of his pocket and flipped it on. It cut through the darkness of the boat’s interior like a knife. We made our way to the stairs that lead down to the engine room. Our steps were slow and quiet. I was half expecting something to leap out of the shadows with a hideous Bob’s-yer-uncle grin. I wasn’t satisfied, thankfully.

We made our way down the stairs. They creaked beneath our weight, protesting at having to support two people at once. We ignored them, and descended into the engine room. It sat down there all alone, a twisted conglomeration of pipes and metal completely foreign to my eyes.

“Shoot anything that comes down here,” Niles said as he handed the shotgun to me.

I turned around and pointed the shotgun back up the stairs. It felt like a dead, heavy weight in my hands. Niles took the flashlight and began to examine the motor. I watched the door, waiting for a shadow to obscure what little moonlight shone there.

“I don’t get it,” Niles said, “We’re not out of fuel. The batteries look okay. Everything else is where it should be. So why are we dead in the water?”

I shrugged my shoulders, though I doubt he saw my reaction in the darkness. I didn’t know the least bit about motors. All I knew was that we were going nowhere in the middle of a dark rainforest that was still eerily silent.

“Well, I guess there’s nothing else we can do but go up top and wait for help,” Niles said.

He walked up to me and took the shotgun from me. Needless to say, I was glad to let him have it. I didn’t like it. It was too powerful for me.

Niles lead the way back up the stairs. I still followed in his wake. It felt good to have somebody who at least acted like they weren’t scared by all of this. I was content to let him play the big, strapping man while I fell into the role of the helpless girl.

We reached the door that lead back out onto the deck of the boat. All of a sudden a dark figure obscured the moonlight. I barely had time to be afraid of it before Niles raised the shotgun and pulled the trigger. In that small space it sounded like an atomic explosion. The hot buckshot tore into whatever stood in the doorway. It fell to the deck, lifeless.

I caught one horrifying glimpse of it in the moonlight. Though mangled in horrible ways by the shotgun, there was enough of it to be identifiable. It had grey, hairless skin, webbed hands and feet, and a long, snouted face with a blowhole in the top of its head.

Then it shifted right before my very eyes. I screamed, startled and terrified. Now it was the corpse of a freshwater dolphin, just like the one back in the village.

Niles stumbled onto the deck. I clung to him, desperate for something plausible, something logical, even though what lay before us defied the laws that governed such things.

“It’s just a joke,” he said so faint it was nearly a whisper.

“That’s no joke!” I screamed. How could it be a joke? There was no way possible.

“It’s just a joke,” he repeated, though I don’t think he even believed himself anymore.

I heard something splash and slap its way onto the boat near the stern. The hair on the back of my spine went up and my skin grew cold and clammy. I did not want to look, did not want to see what had clambered up from that ancient river. The sounds of wet footsteps and hissing air met my ears. Niles looked and his face grew pale in horror. I could take it no longer. I turned behind me to see what I already knew was there.

They stood in the moonlight in all their mythic and cosmic horror. These creatures from a dark place and a darker time were now fully illuminated by the awful light of truth. They looked at the both of us, me trembling with fear, Niles still babbling on about how it was all a joke.

They advanced forward. I backed away from Niles. I reacted to survive. He had killed one of them, just as Pete had. I had no doubt now that these same creatures had dealt with Pete for that. And now they would do the same with Niles. But they wouldn’t harm me, would they? I hadn’t killed one of them, so I had nothing to fear from them, didn’t I? I backed into the shadows of the pilot house and curled into the fetal position, praying that was the case.

Niles turned towards me with a pleading look in his eyes as they came closer. He seemed unable to speak, mouth frozen shut in sheer terror. His eyes talked for him though, pleading with me to help him, to save him. But I couldn’t. I was too scared. He had damned himself, and I left him to that damnation.

Niles turned back towards the creatures. I guess he thought that he had nothing to loose, because he raised the shotgun to fire upon them. But before he could pull the trigger, it shifted in his hands. He screamed and dropped it onto the deck. A boa constrictor slithered away from him and over the side of the boat into the Amazon.

He backed away from them. I could hear his breath coming out, short and harried. Then he tripped over his own feet and sprawled out on the deck of the boat with a crash. He looked up at them with a hand out, talking quickly as though he sought to bargain with these beings who sought retribution for the loss of their compatriot.

“I didn’t know! I didn’t know! You’re not supposed to be real. Just stories! You’re all just supposed to be stories!”

Niles opened his mouth to speak again, but instead he made an odd choking noise in the back of his throat. He turned over on his side and retched hard, making a noise I hadn’t know a man could make. Something small, dark, and wet flopped out of his mouth onto the deck. I screamed when I saw that it was a fish. Niles tried to say something, but all that came out was a low moan. I realized that the fish had once been a part of him.

Now Niles held his stomach as though he was about to throw up all the food he’d had for the past week. I held my hand to the mouth. I had a hint of what was happening to him, and just the thought of it made me feel pity for him.

Niles threw up more fish. They poured out of him in a black, copious stream. I saw that his skin was starting to turn the same sickly color of black as well. Then fish began to fall out of his pants.

Niles began to flop and writhe around on the deck like the fish that were coming out of him. The creatures stood nearby, watching their horrible revenge upon the murderer of their kin. Niles looked towards me with an expression of stark and primal terror etched on his face. Then he exploded into a shower of black fish. I could bear it no more. I turned away and screamed my lungs out.

I heard wet footsteps on the deck behind me. Was it not enough for them to kill both Pete and Niles, I asked myself. Were they now coming for me? I shook and muttered prayers to whomever would listen.

A wet hand touched my shoulder. I whirled around and found myself staring into the face of an encantado. I would have screamed, but it put a webbed hand over my mouth.

“Now, now,” it said, it’s voice coming out in an odd squawk, “There’s no need for that.”

I stopped struggling, my blood running cold. Even though it was distorted, I recognized that voice. And the implications of it made my mind begin to go mad.

“Victor?” I asked.

“That is not my real name. No human tongue can pronounce my real name. Of course, you will be saying it very soon. And I shall give you a like one as well.”

I could smell the encantado’s breath. It was just as one might imagine, like fish. It leaned out and stroked my cheek with a webbed hand. I moaned in fright.

“It is not so bad. We have eternity now. And you were such a lovely dancer.”

I wanted to run. Every muscle in my body screamed at me to run into the boat, shut the door behind me, and pray I didn’t explode into fish or turn into some other slimy river creature along the way.

I tensed up my muscles, ready to run. And then I took one look into the encantado’s eyes. They were pitch black, blacker than the jungle, blacker than anything else I had ever known. And in that blackness I saw something. I saw my fate and knew that I could not deny it. There was no choice. I would go down to dark depths and love every minute of it.