“Why, anything wrong?” Gemma called back.
“You might say that,” Max replied.
Ally could hear the cows vocalizing their alarm like an agitated herd before a stampede. “Is something attacking the livestock?”
“We better go see,” Gemma said. “The calf should be fine here.”
They hurried through the trees and reached the spot where the small group of cows had been languishing in the shade but the animals had already gotten on their feet and were trotting away, even the calf’s mother.
“They must be really scared for the mother to leave her calf,” Gemma said.
Ally saw three giant shapes marching across the greensward toward a flock of sheep that were scattering in all directions.
The hairy brown tarantulas stood ten feet tall.
One of the arachnids hopped thirty feet across the grass and landed on a young ewe. It lowered its massive bulk and sank its fangs into the sheep’s back.
Ace approached a giant spider and opened up with his M16. The heavy barrage ripped off a thick leg. Max flanked the creature. He fired into its abdomen, puncturing its exoskeleton, commingling its internal organs into pate.
The two Eco-Marines moved in to put the spider down.
Ally watched in horror as the third tarantula went airborne and came down directly on top of Ace, knocking him to the ground. She could hear his muffled scream under the giant creature as it buried its fangs and injected him with enough poison to kill twenty men. He struggled to crawl out from under the arachnid. Ace’s puffy face had swollen to twice its size as the extreme overdose of deadly venom burst through his veins, its sole mission to destroy living tissue.
It was so hideous to watch, Ally had to finally look away.
“Son of a bitch!” Max waltzed right up to the murderous spider and offloaded an entire clip. He popped the spent one out, stuffed in another flesh clip, and was so mad, he emptied 30 more rounds into the thing.
Julie and Johnny were following the last tarantula as it carried off the dead sheep toward the edge of the trees, but they couldn’t shoot because the mammoth creature was heading directly at Ally and Gemma.
“Ally, back into the woods.” They spun around and raced through the trees until they reached the calf. The newly born animal was trying to get to its feet, but was having a difficult time, as it was still groggy from the nymph’s venom.
They could hear the spider’s massive legs traipsing over the leaf-covered ground.
Ally looked over her shoulder. The spider had dropped the sheep and had set its sights on a new prey and was coming for them. Max, Johnny, and Julie were tramping through the trees after it but couldn’t shoot without fear of a stray bullet hitting Gemma or herself. She turned to the veterinarian and saw the doctor trying to steady the calf and knew with stark realization that they had nowhere to run.
Suddenly, leaves came raining down on their heads. Ally looked up and saw a black creature blocking out the sun, hovering above them with bright red wings.
“Get down!” Gemma yelled.
Ally crouched next to the doctor and watched as the giant tarantula hawk alighted on the arachnid’s back. The spider tried to buck the wasp off but its attacker had already hooked its claws and was delivering an incapacitating sting. It took a couple of minutes before the paralyzing venom took effect. The tarantula rolled over onto its back with its legs pointing up in the air and stopped moving. The wasp squatted over the spider’s abdomen, released a single egg then flew off.
“Is the spider dead?” Ally asked.
“No. When that lava hatches, it will burrow inside the spider’s abdomen and feed on the less crucial organs in order to keep the spider alive as long as possible. Later when it becomes an adult it’ll eat its way out.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Nature’s never subtle. Look on the bright side; we’re still here.”
”Yeah, thanks to the wasp.”
“You guys all right?” Max asked as he came over. Julie and Johnny were standing by the tarantula, making sure that it wasn’t going to suddenly revive and attack them.
“Yes, we’re fine. Max, do you mind carrying this little guy back to its mother,” Gemma said, bracing the calf so it wouldn’t fall over.
“Sure.” Max handed his assault rifle to Johnny. He came over and placed his arms around the calf’s front and back legs and picked it up.
“I’m so sorry about Ace,” Gemma said.
Max didn’t say anything and trudged off with the calf.
Ally was saddened to see tears in his eyes.
24
Dillon stared up at the clock hanging on the wall above the chalkboard behind Miss Shelly’s desk. Even though his teacher’s last name was Green and she was married, she preferred that her students called her Miss Shelly. He wondered if the timepiece was broken, as the hour hand wasn’t moving. His mom always said if you were too anxious for something to happen, it was like standing in front of the stove and waiting for a pot of water to boil. The short hand finally clicked to the next increment on the clock face.
One more hour until school was out.
He glanced over at the new girl. Her name was Amy Waters as Miss Shelly had made Amy introduce herself to the class. The newcomer was shy and nervous and had turned red as an apple when she spoke about herself.
Amy sat right across from him in the next row. She was marking her paper, putting Xs in the multiple-choice boxes that seemed like the best answer, and was almost done with her test.
Dillon didn’t think it was fair for Miss Shelly to make Amy take a test on her first day but Amy didn’t seem to mind and said she pretty much knew the definitions of a few sample words that were going to be on the exam.
Afraid Miss Shelly might catch him looking at Amy’s paper and think he was cheating, he quickly turned back to his own test. He was almost done and knew all the words so far as he loved to read, especially when it was a DC Comic. He snuck another glance over at Amy. She had turned her test paper facedown and placed her pencil on the desk. She was sitting up straight with her fingers clasped together, facing the front of the classroom.
Five minutes later, Miss Shelly called time and told everyone to put their pencils down. Dillon had three unanswered questions left, which he didn’t know but went ahead and marked off a box for each one figuring he might make a lucky guess and pick the right answer.
“I have some wonderful news, class,” Miss Shelly said as she walked down a row, collecting papers. “We’ve just gotten a new shipment of books.”
By a new shipment, Miss Shelly meant that someone from the teaching staff had gone out on a scavenger hunt and gathered up reading material from the local libraries and schools and abandoned bookstores for the students. It also meant there were boxes of books intended for the adult readers that lived in the barracks. Most of the time no one bothered to differentiate one from the other and the children and adult books were lumped together, which was exciting for the children but embarrassing for the teaching staff.
Dillon was particularly fond of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and The Adventures of Captain Underpants whenever he didn’t have his nose pressed in a DC Kids comic book. He also liked the pictures of the animals in National Geographic and wondered what kind of treat the photographers gave the tigers and lions to pose for the camera.
He heard a loud snort and looked under his desk. Winston was snoring, fast asleep by his feet. Whenever Miss Shelly was teaching class, Dillon’s mom would leave Winston under her care instead of taking him with her on a patrol. She told Dillon sometimes it was better Winston didn’t come as it was too dangerous where they were going. Dillon knew the real reason his mom wanted Winston to stay behind was so he could protect Dillon, Miss Shelly, and the other kids in the class.
Miss Shelly collected the last of the test papers and put them on her desk. She walked over and opened the door to the adjoining room. “I want everyone to stand and file into the Reading Room, one row at a
time.”
Dillon and the other thirty kids jumped out of their seats and formed lines, bumping into one another, glad to be out from behind their desks.
“Today, I want the class to break up into groups of two so each student will have a reading partner,” Miss Shelly said. “If you don’t already have a partner in mind, don’t worry, I’ll pick one for you.”
Dillon turned to Amy. “Want to be reading partners?”
She looked at him and half smiled. “Sure. What’s your name?”
“Dillon.”
“Is that your dog?”
Winston was stretching under Dillon’s desk with his butt up in the air.
“Yeah. His name is Winston.”
“Is he named after someone important?”
“Yeah, I think.”
Dillon, Amy, and the other students marched single-file into the next room and quickly dispersed to rummage through what had to be over fifty cardboard boxes up against the walls, filled with magazines and books.
Dillon and Amy crossed the spacious room that had once been a large storeroom and went over to the boxes stacked under the window. Winston trotted right behind and found a patch of sunlight on the rug to bask in.
Opening the closed flaps of a box, Dillon looked inside, and found it filled with magazines. He dug through the pile and came upon issues of Time, Newsweek, People, and Popular Mechanics, none of which interested Dillon, though he did keep a Popular Mechanics that he knew his big brother, Ryan, would like to read.
Amy was hunched over a box. “This one’s full of comics.”
“Really?” Dillon said, excitedly.
“Come over and see.”
Dillon scooted next to Amy and looked inside the box. He took out a small stack of comics and leafed through them. “Holy moly. Here’s some Pitt.
“What’s Pitt?”
“He’s this bad ass alien dude who comes to Earth to protect this boy, Timmy.”
“Did you just say, bad ass?” Amy whispered so the other kids wouldn’t hear.
“Yeah, I guess I did,” Dillon said and they both laughed. He kept rifling through the comics. “Look, here’s some issues of Gen13, Young Justice, The New Adventures of Superboy, and an Infinite Crisis with Batman and Superman. Hey, check this out.” Dillon showed Amy the front cover of a Marvel comic with Daredevil and Electra in a passionate embrace, kissing.
“Any with Barbara Gordon?” Amy asked.
“You mean, Batgirl?”
“Ah, yeah! She’s my favorite.”
Dillon kept looking and picked up another stack. “No, sorry, there’s...” he glanced back inside the box. “Ah, you’re not going to believe it. This is so cool.” He reached inside and took out a 500-page Showcase volume of Batgirl and handed the heavy book to Amy.
“Oh my God,” Amy said, opening it up and smiling as she perused the black and white frames.
Dillon browsed through more comics. “Here’s some Ball and Chain.”
“What’s Ball and Chain?”
“It’s this married couple that are always arguing and one day get superpowers. Only they don’t know their powers only work when they’re together. Just before they’re supposed to go up against this evil villain and his minion army, they get into a silly fight and split up. Which puts them in danger as they no longer have superpowers.”
“Sounds kind of sad.”
“Oh my God,” a girl squealed from across the room.
“Looks like someone else found what they wanted,” Dillon said.
Winston had been stretched out on the rug but was suddenly on his feet, snarling.
“What is it, boy?”
More kids started to yell and scream and were backing away from the boxes.
“Everyone, go back to the classroom,” Miss Shelly shouted.
“What’s going on?” Amy asked Dillon.
“See for yourself.” Dillon pointed to a gray creature climbing out of one of the boxes. It had two antennas and a three-foot long tapered body. Once the thing reached the carpet, it was extremely fast and wiggled across the room like a fish out of water. More and more giant silverfish came out of the boxes.
“We gotta get out of here,” Amy said as the creepy bugs scurried every which way on the carpet. Winston was chasing a silverfish racing along the baseboard.
“They’re not that scary,” Dillon boasted.
“What do you mean?”
“You want to see Batgirl in action?” He held open his hands.
Amy gave Dillon the five-pound, 500-page book.
Dillon waited until a silverfish was close enough then tossed the book on top of the bug’s back. The three filaments at the end of its abdomen continued to twitch even though the smooshed insect was clearly dead.
He reached down and picked up the book, revealing a flat metallic smudge on the carpet. He looked at Amy. “Another book-eater bites the dust.”
Miss Shelly ushered most of the students into the classroom except for a few of the older boys and shut the door. She looked over at Dillon and Amy. “Amy, would you like to go back in the classroom?”
“No, Miss Shelly.”
“Okay. Everyone grab a broom, anything you can find.”
Dillon glanced across the room and saw Winston rolling around on his back on the remains of a dead silverfish. “Winston, stop it.”
“Why is he doing that?” Amy asked.
“I don’t know. Dumb dog.”
The older boys were having fun, running after the scampering silverfish, and smashing them. It took maybe ten minutes before Miss Shelly called a timeout. “I think that should do it.”
Dillon went over to the wash sink in the corner of the room. He pulled a couple paper towels from the dispenser, wiped off the back of Amy’s book, and gave it back to her. “There, good as new.”
“Thank you, Dillon. That’s so sweet.”
“Ugh,” Dillon replied trying not to blush.
25
Cass had been drained mentally and physically. She was bone-tired from trying to make contact on the ham radio and the almost disastrous spacewalk then discovering alien life forms had tagged along and were now in the spacecraft. She’d spent almost half an hour frantically checking all over her body, and then Rob, making sure they were no longer carriers before retreating back into the Harmony module. She’d turned off Rob’s power pack so that it could recharge and anchored the robonaut just outside her sleeping bay before slipping inside her bag and falling fast asleep.
Sometime during her slumber, she had a wild dream. She was alive floating out in space, and was completely naked, but couldn’t feel the cold from the black void as she was drifting into the sun. Solar flares erupted from the fiery star and encompassed her body but instead of charring her flesh, the heat warmly caressed her skin.
Rob passed by her and gave her a casual wave then exploded in a ball of fire.
That was just about the time the sun became a hideous face and opened its mouth...
Cass woke up in a sweat. She unzipped her sleeping bag and wiggled out of the berth, relieved to see Rob waiting inanimately with its legs fastened to the bulkhead.
She checked her wristwatch and was surprised she had actually been asleep for more than three hours. She hadn’t realized how worn-out she had become; like a car on empty, running on fumes.
Unplugging Rob’s charger, she restarted its power supply and booted up its operating systems. “Hello, Rob.”
Rob’s head turned so its visor was facing Cass. “Hello, Cass.”
It was a simple exchange and wondrous to hear even though the voice was computerized. She didn’t care, as it was someone—something—she could talk to and wile away the time still afforded to her. When you were marooned out in space, you learned to accept whatever you could get.
“Let’s have some lunch, shall we?”
Rob wasn’t programmed to respond.
“Follow me,” Cass said. She waited until Rob released its foot pegs then soared behind her throu
gh the compartment. She stopped at a shelf with various slots labeled with food names. Rob drifted beside her and anchored to the bulkhead.
She reached into a cubby and grabbed a pouch marked Banana Nut Squash. She inserted the tube between her lips, squeezed the bag, and sucked the bland baby food into her mouth.
Rob turned its head, and raised its right arm, pointing its index finger at the far junction. “Something has triggered my motion detectors.”
“What is it?” Cass said, letting go of the pouch and leaving it to free float.
She stared down the tubular compartment but didn’t see anything right away, and then a burly shape gradually appeared. It had to be close to six feet long and was floating slowly in her direction.
She had taken a couple of biology classes in college and had studied the microscopic animal and knew that it was impossible for it to grow this big.
But yet, there it was...
A tardigrade.
The conical snout looked like the end of a fire hose nozzle and was pushed into a faceless head. Its segmented body looked like a cross between loose canvas and the wrinkly skin of a Shar Pei. It had four pairs of pudgy legs and weird-looking stick-like claws for feet, and its wide girth took up almost the entire cylindrical passage.
During a drought, a tardigrade—sometimes known as a water bear—would go into cryptobiosis, a hibernation, and was so hardy it could roll up into a barrel-like ball called a tun and remain dormant for more than 25 years until it came in contact with water and was rejuvenated back to an active state.
Cass had no idea how long this one had been inactive inside the space station. She figured it must have gotten wet when she spilt the water while using the ham radio but that couldn’t have been what caused such an amazing transformation; certainly there had to be another reason.
Tardigrades were the most incredible creatures. They could endure extreme cold temperatures of –300 degrees and intense heat up to 300 degrees, withstand radioactivity 1,000 times over the lethal level, and even survive outer space.
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