Mandibles

by Jeff Strand

  Winnie leaned out the window and looked up. "I have to brace the cord with something!"

  "Well do it quick!"

  Winnie vanished for about ten seconds, as the ant continued to crawl toward Jack, but then reappeared with the crossbow. He took aim quickly and fired.

  The arrow missed the ant and struck the drainpipe.

  Then the arrow fell back towards Jack.

  "Crap!" he shouted.

  Winnie made a grab for it but missed. A second later the arrow sailed past Jack's ear.

  Jack glared at him. "Put. The. Crossbow. Away."

  "Sorry," said Winnie.

  The ant crawled around the edge of the window, and then continued scurrying towards Jack. One more appeared over the top of the roof, followed by another two.

  "Lower me! Lower me!" Jack shouted. "But watch yourself!"

  Winnie ducked back inside the window. The second ant ran into the open window and disappeared from sight.

  Jack kicked at the ant that was coming after him. It crawled onto his foot and began to make its way up his leg while he vigorously tried to shake it off.

  Then the extension cord went completely slack, and he plummeted toward the ground.

  * * * *

  Mr. Kamerman smashed into a cubicle wall as the ant stung his face over and over. It was even worse than when his wife had mistaken him for a burglar and blasted him with pepper spray.

  This pain was not nearly as long lasting, however. He was dead before the other two ants even sunk their mandibles into his flesh.

  * * * *

  Jack stopped with a jolt, a few feet above Moni's head, feeling like he'd been punched in the stomach. The ant fell to the ground.

  "Mr. Kamerman!" he shouted. "Hey, Mr. Kamerman, are you all right up there?"

  There was no answer. What was he supposed to do now?

  He looked down at Moni. "Is there a table down there, or anything you can stick out the window as a platform? I may be able to untie myself and land on it."

  "I don't know, but I'll find something." She disappeared from sight.

  Jack dropped down just a bit. The corner of the desk they'd tied the extension cord to protruded over the edge of the window.

  This was somewhat worse than an arrow coming down at him.

  "Moni! We've got a time element here!"

  He should've had enough line to get to the ground before the desk made its appearance. The extension cords must've gotten tangled in the desk's legs, or tangled with each other. It was probably like the way Christmas lights could tie themselves into Gordian Knots simply by being stored in an attic.

  Jack dropped some more, so that his toes were just above the second floor window, and the legs of the desk appeared over the side of the window.

  This was it. This was how Jack Lacefield was going to meet his demise. And he'd always thought his death would come from a bar room brawl.

  "Moni! Now!"

  The desk made a cringe-inducing screech as it slid over the window frame. The back legs caught on the edge, and for an instant Jack thought it was going to stay in place, but then it continued to slide.

  Suddenly Moni was at the window. Using one hand, she hoisted a small circular table with the legs folded down and balanced it on the edge of the window, bracing herself against the other side to keep it sturdy. Jack quickly began to untie the cord around his waist. But as he struggled with it, he realized that he'd tied the knot way too tight and wouldn't be getting this thing off his waist anytime soon.

  Then the back legs of the desk slid all the way off the frame and it dropped over the edge.

  Jack landed on the table, which began to tilt dangerously toward the ground as Moni struggled to keep it straight.

  But even if the desk missed him, the jolt on the extension cord around his waist when it reached the end of the line would probably snap him in two.

  So he jumped.

  * * * *

  Moni gasped and let go of the table as Jack deliberately jumped backwards off of it.

  Suddenly the desk smashed into the circular table. The end closest to Moni shot up, striking her good hand with such force that for an instant she thought it had come right off.

  * * * *

  As Jack struck the ground, he heard a pop that immediately let him know that he wouldn't be doing any running in the near future. His knee crumpled beneath him and he dropped onto his side, landing close to Abigail's body.

  The desk struck the ground next to him, flipped as it bounced back into the air, then came down right-side-up directly over him, two of its legs landing on each side of his head.

  He couldn't believe it. He was still alive. In pretty bad shape, yeah, but still alive.

  Then the ants swarmed him.

  * * * *

  Moni stumbled backwards, her left hand now hurting even worse than her right, which was already purple and swollen. It was still attached, but she knew for a fact that her left hand had been broken. Possibly shattered. And she'd be lucky if her wrist wasn't broken as well.

  This would have been a wonderful time to just lie on the floor and have herself a nice long cry.

  But she had to find out what happened to Jack. She hurried over to the window, wondering how in the world she was going to make it out of this situation alive when she had two broken hands.

  * * *

  *-CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT-*

  Zachary was so angry that it took several moments for him to realize that he should be frightened as well. With Dr. Ruiz in his arms, he ran past the house closest to where he stood to a small one-story home with a heavily rusted brown truck in the driveway. The back of the truck was piled high with garbage bags and all sorts of other junk.

  Good thing the dentist was a small guy, or he'd never be able to run like this while avoiding the ants.

  He swung Dr. Ruiz's feet around, using them to brush off a few of the ants, and then opened the passenger door of the truck and set Dr. Ruiz inside. Zachary shut the door, looked through the window to ensure that no ants were in there with him, and took off toward the front porch, hoping somebody would be home to let him borrow the keys to the truck. If he made it through this alive, the first thing he was going to do was learn how to hotwire a car.

  He knocked loudly and then promptly opened the front door and stepped inside the living room. A few scattered ants were crawling on the walls, but most of them were swarming the body of a woman lying spread-eagle on the floor. There was absolutely no question that she was dead.

  Zachary shut the door behind him and grimaced at the sight of the ants digging deep into the woman's eye sockets.

  The keys. Where did people usually keep their keys? He kept his own keys on a hook in the kitchen, so that was as good a place as any to start looking.

  He entered the kitchen. There was sugar all over the floor, most of it covered with ants. A balding man in a bathrobe sat against the refrigerator, a huge gash across his forehead, his face almost completely stained with blood, and a gun in his hand.

  The man opened his eyes and looked at Zachary. "They like sugar," he said, pleasantly.

  "What happened to you?"

  "Oh, not much," said the man, gazing thoughtfully at the gun. "They got my wife. By the time I got out of the tub and ran out there, it was already too late. She was going to get us some ice cream. Those little suckers are quick, have you noticed?"

  "Yeah, I've noticed," said Zachary, pushing some of the sugar out of the way with his foot to make a path toward the man. "What happened to your forehead?"

  "Oh, you know. When your wife of thirty-one years gets eaten alive by ants, suddenly life doesn't seem worth living quite as much." He held up the gun like a child showing his mother a card he'd made for her. "It wasn't like I could shoot all of them, right?"

  "You're right." For some reason, this guy's calm attitude was creeping Zachary out much more than any of the screaming and panicking he'd seen so far.

  "So I figured, bang, it's all over. But I wimped out. St
ill pulled the trigger, but I moved the gun at the last instant. Does my face look bad to you?"

  Zachary shook his head. "You'll be fine."

  "I don't feel like I'll be fine. What about my wife? Does she have any skin left?"

  Zachary ignored the question. "I need you to do me a favor. If you tell me where the keys to your truck are, I can get you and my friend someplace safe."

  "Oh, I don't need to be someplace safe. I'm just going to sit here and work up a little more courage, and then give this suicide thing another chance. They say that people who kill themselves go to hell, but I think there has to be some sort of rule about extenuating circumstances. What do you think?"

  "I really don't know. But you don't need to do this. Just tell me where the keys are and I'll take you out of here."

  The man seemed to consider that. "Nah. I have everything I need here. Would you like to borrow some sugar?"

  "If you're not concerned about yourself, at least let me borrow your truck to save my friend. He's not doin' well, and he's got a family that depends on him. I promised I'd take him someplace safe."

  The man picked up a handful of the sugar and let it trickle through his fingers. "Promises are meant to be broken."

  "Not this one."

  "I think I'm ready now," said the man, putting the revolver to his head. "What do you think? Against the head or in the mouth?"

  "That's the coward's way out. I'm tellin' you, I can get you out of here."

  "You're a good man. But, no, I think I'm going to have to stick with Plan A." He removed the gun from his head and looked it over. "The mouth. That's the best way."

  He placed the gun in his mouth, looked cross-eyed at the barrel, and pulled the trigger.

  Zachary turned away from the gory sight and vomited onto the sugar. He left the kitchen, coughing and gagging.

  Perhaps he should just try another house.

  Then he remembered what the man had said. His wife was going to get ice cream. He might have meant that she was going to get ice cream from the kitchen, but that seemed unlikely if he was in the middle of taking a bath.

  The keys were probably in her purse.

  But as he looked at the ant-covered corpse, he didn't see a purse. Nor was there a purse anywhere else in the living room, at least that he could see right away.

  Maybe she didn't carry a purse.

  Maybe the keys were in her pocket.

  If so, that was it. He'd have to find a new vehicle. No way was he going to be able to get the keys out of her pocket without getting stung.

  He continued to look around for a purse, peering through the dining room, until he noticed what lay beyond the sliding glass door of the dining room.

  A screened-in porch with a barbecue grill.

  The ants were busy with the corpse and the sugar, so there were only a few in the dining room. He opened the sliding door, stepped out into the porch, and saw what he was looking for, next to the jumbo-sized bag of charcoal: a can of lighter fluid and a box of matches.

  Zachary took them, as well as a large plastic bowl from the dirty dishes on the table, and returned to the living room. He then began squirting lighter fluid on the woman. Defiling a dead body in this manner was probably going to earn him a seat in hell right next to the man in the kitchen, but at least his motives were honorable.

  He lit the match and dropped it onto the woman.

  The corpse burst into flames, and Zachary took no small amount of pleasure in watching the ants freak out as the fire got them. Some of them ran from the body, but their burning forms only lasted for a few seconds before the flames finished them off.

  "That'll teach ya," he muttered.

  As the body burned, he hurried into the bathroom and filled the plastic bowl with water from the tub. He returned to the corpse and poured the water over its waist, extinguishing the flames. The fabric of her jeans had mostly burned away, revealing the top of the key ring. He picked it up, wincing because it was still hot, and then headed back outside to the truck, taking the matches and can of lighter fluid with him.

  He got in the truck. Dr. Ruiz was leaning against the passenger door, eyes half-open. "How're you feelin', buddy?" Zachary asked.

  "My tooth hurts."

  "Really?"

  Dr. Ruiz gave him a faint smile and shook his head. "Joke."

  Zachary returned the smile. "Let's just see how funny those sons of bitches think it is when I catch up to them."

  * * *

  *-CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE-*

  As Dustin continued staring at the giant anthill, he wondered if the tunnels inside stretched beneath the floor of the warehouse. How well hidden was the queen?

  If ants were infesting twenty different parts of the city, there were probably twenty of these anthills, possibly in warehouses similar to this one. This information wouldn't help eliminate the rampaging ants already out there, but they could certainly destroy the queens and keep further infestation from occurring.

  Of course, there might be more than twenty of these anthills out there. A lot more.

  And who was to say they were only in Tampa?

  Maybe his friends back in Texas were under attack at this very moment.

  Well, he'd worry about that later. For right now, it was good enough to know that this was definitely a man-made situation. Whoever started it might know how to stop it.

  And now it was time to find that person.

  He walked away from the warehouse and back toward the stolen motorcycle, happily stepping on an ant along the way. Another ant came at him, and Dustin nearly lost his balance as he moved back to get away from it.

  This one was six or seven inches long.

  That was impossible. Ants just didn't get to be six or seven inches long.

  Then again, they didn't get to be _two_ inches long, either.

  This was just too bizarre for words. Dustin kicked the ant as hard as he could, sending it flying up into the air and onto its back, then rushed over to the motorcycle, wondering what other entomological impossibilities were in store.

  * * * *

  "You married?" Hack asked Roberta.

  "None of your business."

  Hack smacked her across the face again. "Now that was extremely impolite. I don't think there's any need for that kind of behavior, do you? We're going to be having a lot of fun pretty soon, so I think we should at least be on civil terms."

  Roberta wanted to spit in his face, but it would probably amuse him more than it would piss him off. Though she was absolutely terrified, she knew that an opportunity to escape would present itself. Hack was too confident. He'd make a mistake.

  "You ever have a white guy?" Hack asked. "I understand that my race isn't quite as well-endowed as your own, but Slash and I together might be able to compensate for that."

  "That's what you guys call yourselves? Hack and Slash?"

  "Yeah. You like?"

  "It's retarded."

  Hack shrugged. "Then you have our permission to scream out whatever names you want. Or you can just scream. Your choice."

  "I'll feed myself to those ants before I let either of you touch me."

  "Well, that would be a viable option if the decision was yours to make. But, alas, it isn't. Hey, Slash, why don't you pull over now so we can start the party?"

  "We have other stuff to worry about right now," Slash told him.

  "Oh, come on, don't be such a workaholic. Let's see if this dental assistant knows how to perform proper oral care."

  Roberta's stomach tightened, but she maintained her outward composure. "That's right, I'm a dental assistant," she said. "That means I'm an expert on biting."

  Hack laughed. "Then maybe you'd better teach us about extractions, so that doesn't become a problem. Pull over, Slash."

  "Not now."

  "Be a sport!"

  Slash stopped the car and turned around in his seat. "Listen to me, you psychopathic dipshit, it's time you started to take this problem seriously."

  "Aw, what's
the big deal? Either the ants get us or they don't. If it's the end of humanity, we should at least get in a nice gangbang before the ants take over the world."

  "No. We're only using her for a bargaining chip when we deal with Bug Boy. She may not be a cute innocent little baby to rescue, but she'll do."

  "Yeah, she'll do whatever we tell her to," said Hack. He waggled his tongue in an obscene manner. Slash turned away from him and resumed driving.