Chris Ryan - Outbreak

It was preparing for another attack.

Ben knew what crocodiles did – it was the stuff of playground horror stories. Once it had one of them in its jaws, it would disappear with them to the bottom of the river until the struggling had stopped. Then it would store them in an underwater hiding place until the meat was slightly rotten before eating it.

It seemed to happen in silent slow motion. The water above the animal parted as it headed towards them, picking up speed as it came and opening its mouth, gaping wide.

One snap of those jaws and they would be crocodile food.

It was two metres away. Ben raised his oar.

Just as the crocodile was upon them, there was another movement in the water. For the second time in only a few minutes, Ben saw the boulder-like hump of a hippo emerge to the side of the crocodile. With surprising speed for such an ungainly animal, the hippo opened its lumpy jaws. The hippo's teeth were not as numerous as the crocodile's, nor as sharp; but they were huge and strong, like elephant tusks. As they closed round the body of the crocodile, the reptile started flailing in sudden pain and panic. Its lizard-like tail swung up in the air, showering Ben and Halima with a torrent of water. When they had wiped their eyes, they were only just in time to see the hippo submerging itself, its almost dead prey still clamped firmly in its prehistoric jaws.

There was no time to be relieved. The bulk of the hippo and the frenzied wriggling of the croc had caused the still water to become treacherous; and the holes the reptile had ripped into the side of the boat were allowing water to gush inside. Ben plunged the oar back into the river, and with all his might started sculling towards the bank; but they were sinking fast. It was clear they weren't going to make it.

'We're going to have to swim!' Ben shouted.

'I cannot!' Halima cried.

Ben sized her up. She was about his height, but slighter of frame. It was perhaps fifteen metres to the shore; he was going to have to carry her. It was that or let her drown.

Quickly he pulled his saturated shoes from his feet, and with all his strength threw them to the shore. 'Give me yours,' he told Halima; when she did so he threw them ashore too.

They had less than a minute before the boat was completely submerged. A sudden calm fell over Ben; he knew exactly what he had to do. He crouched down. 'Climb on my back and hold onto my shoulders,' he instructed Halima, whose eyes were now wide with fear like he had never seen. She did as she was told. 'Not so tight round the neck,' Ben said. Halima loosened her grip, but only slightly. Neither of them said what they were both thinking: that there could be anything between them and the shore. They were just going to have to trust to chance.

Ben had intended to hurl himself from the boat – that would have given him an extra couple of metres' start; but suddenly he became aware that the bottom of the hull had disappeared from beneath his feet. Halima's weight sent him under, and he kicked as hard as he could to bring them back up into the air, where they both spluttered. Then he started to swim.

The current was stronger than he had anticipated now that he was in the water, so he had to head on a diagonal towards the bank. The strain of going against the flow, together with the weight of Halima behind him, meant that soon the muscles in his arms, along his back and into his legs were burning with exhaustion. Every few strokes he would find himself going under, and he had to gather all his remaining strength to push the two of them back up to the surface of the water.

Ten metres to go.

Five metres.

The pain in his arms was too much. He was sinking. He did his best to gather his energy for one final surge up above the water, but it simply wasn't there. He was going down. He closed his eyes and held his breath.

And then his foot hit the bottom of the river. It felt hard, stony and slippery beneath him. Halima was wriggling and struggling on his back, but she kept holding on tight – too tight, around his neck. Ben looked up and opened his eyes to see sunlight streaming through the surface of the water. It was close. They couldn't be far from the edge now. Battling against the current, he took a step through the water. It was like wading through treacle, but somehow he managed it. And then another step. And then, if he stood on tiptoes, he could just get his head above the water. He gasped loudly, filling his air-starved lungs with a deathly rasp.

Halima was still on his back, so her head was already above water. 'Put me down,' she ordered. 'I can walk from here.'

Ben did as she said. And then he made the mistake of looking behind him. His eyes just above the level of the water, he could see the telltale mounds of crocodiles in the middle of the river, like floating logs. 'Hurry up,' he gasped. 'We have to get out of the water.' They waded towards the shore, urgently trying to get there as quickly as possible, but frustrated by the resistance of the water. It seemed to take for ever.

Gradually, though, the water became suddenly less deep, and they were able to run out, desperate to put distance between themselves and the circling crocs, despite the fact that the stones were cutting into their bare feet. Quickly Ben gathered their shoes; but once he had done so, he felt his legs collapse, jelly-like, beneath him. He was dizzy with exhaustion.

But Halima would not let him sit down. She started pulling at his arm: 'We have to get away from the river, Ben. The crocodiles are coming!' Ben looked out over the water to see she was right; the mounds were not so far away now, and getting closer. He forced himself to stand up, and then the two of them ran, still holding their wet shoes, behind the trees that lined the river.

The forest was less thick here, and if Ben's body had not been so desperately tired they could have run faster. But after a couple of minutes he could go no further. 'Stop!' he tried to say; but all that came out was a hoarse, high-pitched wheeze. Then he bent over and, unable to help himself, started to retch.

He would have been sick, but there was nothing in his stomach to come up.

It took Ben a good fifteen minutes to recover. He sat on the stump of a felled tree, struggling for breath and bent double with pain. Halima sat on a stump too, her wet hair sticking to the side of her face as she gazed at him with a kind of wonder.

Eventually Ben found his voice. 'You OK?' he asked weakly.

Halima nodded with a mysterious smile. 'Yes,' she said. 'I am OK. Thanks to you.' Her eyes seemed to bore straight into him.

Ben found his face reddening, and he was suddenly overcome with the urge to change the subject. 'I wish we could find some dry clothes,' he said, looking down at himself so as to avoid Halima's gaze. The sunlight beneath the trees was too dappled, and the humidity was too intense, for them to dry off.

Halima smiled. 'It will rain soon. Then we will be even wetter, if we do not reach the village beforehand.'

'We'd better go then,' Ben agreed. He forced himself onto his feet, and was alarmed by how stiff his muscles were. Best to keep moving, he thought to himself. If I sit here for too long, I'll never get up.

There was no road as such leading to the village, but Halima led the way confidently enough. Ben tried to ignore the wetness of his shoes, which were causing blisters on his skin as he walked, and it was with a certain sense of satisfaction that he saw the trees thinning out even more. 'Here,' Halima said finally. She sounded subdued.

Ahead of them was a clearing. It was deserted, but it was obvious that there had recently been activity here. It was surrounded on three sides by trees, although on one of those sides the greenery had been crudely hacked away to make room for a rough dirt track. A long pile of earth was mounded up alongside a wide trench; parallel to these were other trenches that had clearly been recently filled in. Ben felt sick as a realization gradually dawned on him – a realization that was confirmed when Halima spoke. 'My mother and father lie here,' she whispered.