by Jeff Strand
Michelle sat up with a gasp, and then bellowed at the top of her lungs as the movement caused a dozen ants to simultaneously dig their mandibles into her skin and jab her with their stingers. They stung her over and over as she clawed at them, bawling.
* * * *
Herbert Layman listened helplessly to the sounds of the terrified children. It was his fault they'd crashed, and he would gladly have sacrificed his own life to save them.
Unfortunately, his own life wasn't worth a whole hell of a lot right now. His entire body was burning, and he knew it wouldn't be long before he succumbed to the ants' venom.
* * * *
Michelle and Andy were fortunate. Their minds were unable to cope with the horror and shut down completely. First Andy's, and then Michelle's. Their final minutes were spent in a protective haze, unaware of what was happening to them, and certainly unaware of what the ants would do to their bodies after they perished. It was almost peaceful.
Herbert Layman was not so lucky, and remained completely aware of his surroundings and the ghastly pain until the very last second of his life.
* * * *
The two men stared at the bodies of Herbert Layman and the children. It was the twenty-first of October, just over eight months before the other unpleasantness began.
"What do you think, success or failure?" asked the first.
The second man sighed. "Failure. If those brats hadn't stumbled onto the site, the ants wouldn't have attacked at all. It's like I told you, we need more control."
"You're the boss. We'll abort the natural habitat plan."
"We should never have even gone down this route. A waste of time. Get this mess cleaned up before anybody comes looking for these people."
"Yes, sir."
"You look a bit upset. It doesn't bother you that children were involved, does it?"
"A little, yes, sir."
The second man chuckled. "At least we didn't have to shoot them ourselves. Get over it. I don't want you distracted. We have a lot of catching up to do."
* * *
*-CHAPTER ELEVEN-*
"I'm fine."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure! It was just an ant bite, for crying out loud."
"Sting, Trevor," Abigail explained. "Dogs bite, ants sting. And it was a sting that knocked you out of your chair."
"I know, but I'm fine now," said Trevor. "I just wasn't expecting it to hurt so much." He looked at the ugly red welt on his hand, which was nearly an inch across ten minutes after the sting, even with an ice pack pressed to it.
"And you're certain you're not allergic?"
"Yes, I'm certain."
"Do you think you can drive yourself to the hospital?"
"I don't need a doctor," Trevor assured her, even though he was having a little trouble breathing. "My hand isn't going to fall off or anything. People get stung by ants all the time, this just happened to be a fairly large one. Maybe I should go home and get some rest, though."
"To the doctor or back to work, Trevor. Your choice."
Trevor shrugged. "All right, I probably should see the doctor. Yes, I can drive myself."
"I'll expect a doctor's note on Monday."
"Are you kidding me?"
Abigail raised an eyebrow. "Have I ever once kidded you?"
"No. You should start, though."
Moni and Jack walked over to Trevor's cubicle. "How's the patient doing?" Jack asked.
"I'm driving him to the doctor," Abigail said.
"Bummer. That's worse than overtime."
"You don't need to drive me anywhere," said Trevor. "My hand is fine. It barely even hurts."
Then a huge wave of nausea hit him, and he tumbled out of his chair again.
* * * *
The idiot kept insisting he was fine as he was led down the hallway, Moni on one side, Jack on the other. Abigail was walking a few paces ahead of them in her usual I-am-a-woman-on-a-mission-so-don't-mess-with-me stride, a stride that Moni could do a remarkable impression of but didn't dare share with the others.
Moni hated that she'd probably be stuck here until the wee hours of the morning, but at least her husband would understand. Phil would probably crack some joke about her having an affair, and she'd make some sweet comment like "Just keep being you and that'll never happen," and then he'd make kissy noises into the phone that she wouldn't return because, after all, she was at work, and when she got home they'd stampede for the bedroom.
Well, she supposed she could handle postponing her passionate ecstasy for two or three hours. Trevor's hand _did_ look pretty bad, and if there was any chance of permanent damage it was definitely for the best that they took him to the hospital. But she was still really annoyed that he'd been stupid enough to play around with that ant.
They got Trevor into the elevator then rode it down to the ground floor. Abigail walked ahead of them, turned the corner, then looked back at them and frowned.
"There's no guard."
"Maybe they let him go home early for the holiday," Moni suggested.
"No, there was supposed to be a guard here until ten this evening."
"Then he must be taking a leak," said Jack.
"If he is, he's in big trouble," said Abigail, walking behind the desk.
Moni and Jack led Trevor to the small couch that was by the door and helped him sit down. His eyes were bleary and unfocused, and he was perspiring heavily.
Then Moni noticed the ants.
The pavement outside was filled with them. So many that you probably couldn't take a step without your foot coming down on one. And they all looked approximately the size of the one that had stung Trevor.
"Whoa!" said Jack as he noticed them. "Trevor must be one hell of a dedicated smoker to go out in that!"
"How are we going to get out of here with that many of them outside?" asked Moni. "I mean, they're all..."
She trailed off as she saw a body lying facedown on the grass. She couldn't see the face, but she definitely recognized the Lavin, Inc. guard uniform underneath the swarm of ants.
Abigail came out from behind the guard's desk. Moni had never seen the woman express anything resembling intense emotion, but the way her face tightened was the equivalent of any normal person running around while screaming and flailing their arms in panic.
"I'll call the police," she said.
"I'm ... I'm feeling kinda sick..." Trevor admitted in a slurred voice, bracing himself upright by putting his hands on his knees. "I'd kinda like to go to the doctor now ... if that's all right."
"I'm not sure we can make it to a car," said Jack. "If they brought down the guard, we don't stand a chance if we're out there trying to hold up Trevor."
"It says all circuits are busy," Abigail announced, now with a slight tremor in her voice.
Outside, a woman stumbled into view, twenty or thirty ants crawling on her body. She ran toward the entrance, weaving wildly as she did so, finally slamming face-first into the window.
"Open the door and let her in!" said Abigail.
"No way!" protested Jack. "Those ants will get in!"
"Do it! That's Cindy from marketing!"
The woman began pounding on the door with both hands. Moni pulled the door open and the woman burst inside, tripping and falling to the floor. Ants ran off in all directions as Moni frantically pushed the door shut again.
Jack began to stomp on the ants as they crawled off the woman, while Abigail swiped them off with a manila folder she'd taken from the guard's desk.
"Cindy? Can you hear me?" asked Abigail. There was no response from the woman. "Roll her over," Abigail ordered.
Jack took a couple of seconds to find a spot where he could push the woman without his hands getting stung, then rolled her onto her back, crushing several ants underneath her in the process. Moni stomped nine, ten, eleven ants before she'd killed all of the ones that had gotten in through the open door. She joined Jack in stepping on the others that were crawling off Cindy.
&n
bsp; Abigail gently patted the woman's face. "Cindy? Talk to me, Cindy."
Cindy opened her eyes. She gave the faintest hint of a smile and spoke, so softly that she could barely be heard. "Lots ... of bugs ... out there..."
Moni realized that a half-crushed ant was still stinging Cindy's arm, so she squashed its head with the toe of her shoe. The woman was completely covered with red welts like the ones on Trevor's hand.
"Jack, try to call 911 again," said Abigail.
Jack stepped on another ant, then went over to the guard's desk and picked up the phone. "Still no good," he reported a moment later.
"Do you think she'll be okay?" Moni whispered to Abigail.
Abigail shook her head. "She's dead."
"Oh my God!"
Abigail stood up, dabbing at the corner of her right eye with her finger. "Jack, give Mr. Kamerman a call and tell him to come down here, then keep trying to get through to 911. Moni, you stay with Trevor while I check the other entrances."
"All right," said Moni. Then she noticed that there was an ant on Trevor's shoulder, stinging him repeatedly. Trevor was just sitting there, staring ahead, not reacting.
Moni slapped her palm against the ant, and then wiped its remains off on the wall, cringing as if it might still be alive. She did a very quick scan of the room to make sure the ants were gone, then crouched down next to Trevor.
"Trevor? Trev? Talk to me!"
Abigail crouched down next to him as well, then put her hand on his wrist. "There's no pulse."
"Trevor! Snap out of it!" Moni began to shake him. His head lolled forward, revealing another ant clinging to the back of his neck.
Abigail stood up as Moni smashed the insect. "I think he's dead, too."
"No! He can't be dead! He only got stung a few times ... you can't die from that! He's just in a coma or something!"
"He'd have a pulse if he was in a coma."
"Shit!" Moni screamed. "How the hell did all these ants come from nowhere? We're in the city, for God's sake!"
Jack lowered the phone. "Is Trevor really dead? He can't really be dead, can he? I mean, he was just -- "
"I need to check the other entrances," said Abigail, cutting him off. "Maybe the ants aren't as bad around one of the other doors and we'll be able to make a run for it."
Moni shook Trevor again as Abigail stepped around Cindy's body. As much as she wanted to believe that he wasn't really dead, gazing in his eyes left no doubt that the stings had killed him. She lifted his head back up, resting it against the wall, and then closed his eyelids with her fingers.
"I'll go with you," she told Abigail.
The two women walked out of the lobby and into the main hallway. Several ants were crawling on the carpet about twenty feet away, next to an open door, and were quickly joined by several more.
The open door led to the loading dock, where trucks pulled in to deliver the mail, office supplies, inedible cafeteria food, and whatever else. If that sliding door had been left open, those few ants scurrying toward them were unquestionably just the beginning.
* * *
*-CHAPTER TWELVE-*
Dustin looked around for something to use as a weapon, but somehow pelting the two psychopaths with Skittles didn't seem like the right approach.
Hack caught his eye and grinned. "You just stay calm and keep out of trouble. I'm not saying we _will_ start executing hostages, but it's definitely something to keep in the back of your mind."
"Are you seriously going to go through with this?" asked Dustin. "You've just murdered somebody in cold blood. The cops are going to take you out, I guarantee it."
"Is that so?" asked Hack. "Then I suppose there's no real reason to keep the three of you alive, is there?" He pressed the gun more tightly against the woman's head, making her wince. "What's your name?"
"Louise."
"Full name, please."
"Louise Youngman." Her breathing was so rapid that she sounded ready to hyperventilate.
"And your son? He is your son, right? You're not just his sugar momma?"
"Yes, he's my son."
"What's his name?"
"Gary."
"Well, Louise Youngman," Hack said, "would you mind so terribly much if I were to shoot Gary?"
Louise began to cry.
"Because your friend over there seems to think that I'm screwed, and if I really am in a no-win situation, I can't see any good reason to keep hostages around. What do you think, Louise Youngman? Am I in a no-win situation, or would live hostages improve my chances of getting out of this unpleasant little pickle?"
"Okay, you've made your point," Dustin said.
"Was I asking you? Are you always this rude?"
"All right, shut up, both of you," said Slash. The phone behind the counter began to ring, and Slash dragged Gary over to it.
"Don't let him step in the cashier's blood," Hack said. "I'm sure Louise paid good money for those shoes."
There had to be a way out of this, but Dustin was damned if he could see one at the moment. Sprinting for the door would do nothing but get him shot in the back, and he couldn't take any real action while the mother and son both had guns pressed to their heads.
The scariest part is that neither Hack nor Slash appeared particularly concerned about the presence of the cops outside. Did they have some sort of foolproof escape plan? That seemed unlikely. The lunatics weren't even wearing facemasks. From what Dustin could see, they didn't much care if they got away with the robbery or not, which probably meant that they didn't much care if anybody else got murdered or not.
It wasn't hard to imagine that the cashier was only the beginning of the body count.
Slash shoved the teenaged boy against the wall and kept the gun pressed against the back of his head, while answering the phone with his free hand. "Seth's Quik-Stop. Lowest beer prices in town. How many I help you?" He lowered the phone after a few moments. "Hey, Hack, it's the police. They seem a bit ruffled about something."
"Uh-oh. I suppose you'd better find out what displeases them so," Hack suggested.
"Yes, I suppose I should." Slash winked, and then spoke into the phone again. "Here's the deal. It's nice and simple, so don't worry about taking notes. We have three hostages, a mother, her son, and some nerd. We will kill them without hesitation, and if you consider this a bluff, you'd better put on a raincoat before chunks of brain start flying through the air. Got it?"
"I didn't give you permission to use my raincoat comment," said Hack.
Slash waved at him to be quiet, and then lowered the phone again. "I think they're going to need proof." He gestured toward Dustin with the phone. "Why don't you drag your dead friend out where they can see him?"
"No."
Slash rolled his eyes. "Oh, don't even pretend you're going to start some kind of power struggle with me. Let me rephrase the request. Drag the bloody, disgusting, gruesome, mangled corpse of the dead kid out from behind the counter, or I'll pull the trigger and then make you drag both bloody, disgusting, mangled bodies out from behind the counter."
"You forgot gruesome," Hack pointed out.
Slash glared at him, and then returned his attention to Dustin. "What do you say, nerd-boy?"
Without a word, Dustin walked behind the counter and knelt down beside the cashier's body. A large pool of blood had formed underneath him, but Dustin was able to simply grab his feet, keeping his hands clean as he dragged the surprisingly heavy body out to where the cops could see it from outside the store.
"See that?" Slash asked into the phone. "Not too pretty, is it? I'm guessing you don't want to see anything else like that, so I'd appreciate it very much if you'd do me a big favor and not mess up my request. We want a truck out front in five minutes. If it's not here in five, the nerd dies. If it's not here in ten, the brat dies. If it's not here in fifteen, his mother starts losing body parts. Got it?"
There were at least six cars and a dozen police officers out front by now, but Dustin noticed that several of them s
eemed distracted, as if something was going on to the left. What could be more interesting than a hostage situation?
"They've got it," Slash told the others. "Good," he said into the phone. "Five minutes. If there aren't any problems, you can have the nerd. The mother and son will stick with us for a while just to keep you on your best behavior. Talk to you later. Tell the wife and kids I said hi."
