The Anthrax Protocol

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Bernal Díaz del Castillo stumbles over some unseen object and falls. He lands on his hands and knees, his face mere inches from the pustule-covered body of one of his soldiers. “Aiyeee,” he cries, pushing the ghastly corpse away, scrambling over dusty soil to escape the stench of putrefying flesh.

The effort causes him to begin to cough again. He crawls on hands and knees in the dirt. A boiling tropical sun bakes his back while he coughs and retches, vomiting blood until he collapses, exhausted.

Scarlet tears, tinged with blood, fill his eyes and run down his cheeks, forming slender rivulets until they begin to clot in his coarse beard. Raising his head, he peers across a clearing surrounding the temple. The place is littered with bodies, lying where they fell. Indian workers lying next to and, in some cases, upon his soldiers like rotting flotsam on a grassy sea of heat, humidity, and death.

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