by John McNally
To those nymphs already burying themselves in the new corpses that lay scattered around the nest it fed deposits of hormone.
As the minutes passed and the smoke subsided, it began to collect and farm the dead nymphs. It landed on them, razored through their outer membrane with its mouthparts and sucked them dry.
It then flew to the living nymphs and regurgitated the vile remains into their gaping maws.
After an hour, it moved on to the Alpha corpse and devoured that too. It carried on past exhaustion, supping its dead twin, vomiting its remains over its young, passing on its rich hormone load. The nymphs must mature and fulfil their destiny…
Swarm.
By the time the sow badger had stopped smoking altogether, the temperature was dropping fast.
Rest… rest… its every cell needed rest… protein to repair.
It burrowed into the swollen gut of the cat, already half consumed by the nymphs, and fed, sunk its jaws into the warm, rich, fizzing innards, drinking it, draining it of life-giving, cell-repairing, replenishing gall.
Live…
Kill…
* * *
“Diddly dee diddly dah, diddly dee diddly dah…”
The little kid kept repeating his impersonation of a train. He was a small boy in a pirate T-shirt with a mop of red hair. Young enough and dumb enough to stare at the stranger sitting opposite him in the carriage, trying with childlike curiosity to see the face beneath the shadow of the hood.
The kid made Kane sick. Crazed. The hyper-sweet aroma of artificial strawberry and vanilla from the bag of sweets he kept digging into. The stains around the kid’s mouth, from drying sweet saliva that couldn’t help but leak out. The constant—
“Diddly dee diddly dah, diddly dee diddly dah…”
The train had been largely empty since it left East Croydon. At Waterloo it had been packed with commuters returning home, and full of a most unusual thing for a London commuter train – talk.
The evening newspapers, snatched for once from the hands of their vendors, had screamed ‘Toxic Gas Alert’. In calls to loved ones, to friends, and in person to each other, the Surrey commuters discussed one thing – how fast they were going to get out. Trains travelling in the opposite direction were already packed. Rumours of looting and imminent disaster were traded, and overexcitement led to small acts of recklessness (one woman ate six chocolate muffins).
Everyone avoided Kane. The way he carried himself was warning enough. Face deep in his hood, gaze fixed on his phone, bad music distorting from filthy earphones, repelling those around him like a force field.
Fear.
Everyone understood fear. Everyone apart from this one irritating, sweet-munching, stupid little kid.
“Diddly dee diddly dah, diddly dee diddly dah…”
Kane had an IQ of 196 and, like every Tyro, an ingrained sense of absolute superiority.
They had passed the first of the stations in the ‘affected area’ and entered the newly established Exclusion Zone. The kid’s mother was tearful as she made arrangements with her husband over the phone.
Willingham was coming up. Kane’s stop.
“Diddly dee diddly dah, diddly dee diddly dah…”
Those sweets… That smell…
Kane pushed back his hood a fraction and stared.
The boy saw a face. Not black, not white, not Eastern, not Western… Alien. A face set to kill, with speckled eyes that bore into him. The boy froze. Fear gripped him. He could not break the stare. His eyes filled with tears.
As the train came to a halt at Willingham, Kane’s arm shot forward, snatched the boy’s sickly sweets and pinched the skin on his arm as hard as he could. Drawing blood. And screams.
By the time the boy’s mother could react, the train doors were closed and Kane was gone.
The boy was six years old.
TWENTY-FOUR
Finn glanced back as he and Delta took off up the path to the house, but Stubbs had already merged into the dark. He wanted to say good luck, or at least goodbye, but that wasn’t Stubbs’s way.
Finn jogged on, keeping up with Delta.
“Sure you’re up to being my wingman, Noob?” she’d asked before they set off.
“Sure you’re up to being mine?” said Finn.
“Good job.”
They were running right up the middle of the garden path. It was made of smooth sandstone and they wore LED headlamps to scan ahead, so they could travel relatively fast.
The path gave them clear sight of any threat. Only black ants and disinterested small beetles had crossed ahead of them so far. Nocturnal predators would more likely be lurking in the lawn – spiders, rodents out looking for grubs, grass snakes, adders…
Just keep going, thought Finn. Concentrate on the run. One step at a time.
Easy enough to say. He was already starting to struggle. As well as the M27, he carried a backpack containing, among other things, a spare ammo clip, two litres of nano-water and three of the remaining flares – red, white and blue.
After ten minutes of steady, lung-bursting running, Finn was extremely pleased to hear Delta call, “OK, let’s take a minute.”
They stopped and panted, leaning against each other for support, the beams from their headlamps cutting through the total darkness like lightsabers.
Then from somewhere above they heard – SCHHHHHRRRERECCHH!
“What was that?”
Their headlamp beams wheeled and searched. Delta drew her pistol.
“I think it was just an owl…” said Finn. “We’re too small for an owl. It’s probably just calling its young anyway.”
Up at the house, they could see the family still packing up and a row was breaking out about what was going to make it into the back of the 4 × 4.
SCRATCH.
Another sound on the path ahead.
They swung round and their beams bounced back at them off the shining exoskeleton of a stag beetle the size of a camper van, its terrifying, extraordinary gloss-black antlers raised as if to strike.
“Wait!” said Finn, again holding back Delta’s gun arm. He was bowled over, not just by its size but by the shiny detail and textures on the stag’s hammer head. “He’s just a big vegetarian!”
The stag’s mouthparts twitched and sampled their scent.
“With that rack on his head?”
“Just for show.”
“Men…” sighed Delta with a shake of her head. The stag turned his mighty frame and scurried back across the path, back to black.
“Let’s get out of here. You good?” said Delta.
“I’m good,” said Finn.
SMACK – something hit the ground ahead of them.
“What was that?” said Delta.
SMACK – behind them now. They spun.
SMACK SMACK SMACK
“Uh-oh…” said Finn as – SMACK – what felt like a bucketful of water exploded on the ground at their feet. “Rain!”
“Go!” yelled Delta.
SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK – merciless fat raindrops the size of basketballs started hammering down as the skies opened and a heavy summer shower broke.
BOOSH! Finn copped a direct hit and fell to his knees, punched from on high and drenched. He struggled up, trying to get his breath.
BOOSH! Delta copped one beside him. She tried to shout something, but all he could hear was SMACK-A-SMACK-A-SMACK-A-SMACK-A-SMACK-A-BOOSH!-SMACK-A-SMACK-A-SMACK-A-SMACK-A-SMACK-A-BOOSH!-SMACK-A-SMACK-A-SMACK-A.
Water exploded all around them. They clung to each other and tried to keep their feet, but the path was turning from yellow brick road to raging torrent as water cascaded down the impervious slope bringing with it a speeding shrapnel of vegetation, grit and insects curled into rock-hard balls for their own protection, some heavy enough to – BASH! – knock Finn clean off his feet.
Down Finn went, torn along the path, tumbling over and over
in the flash flood, fighting to stop himself, fighting for breath.
With some relief, the stone path gave way to thick, soft mud which gave way in turn to firm lawn grasses which at last slowed his progress, if not the flow. Up to his chest in rushing water, he fought to cling on and find his feet. Around him was a violent blur.
He tried to call out, “Delta!” but it was hopeless.
SMACK-A-SMACK-A-SMACK-A-SMACK-A-SMACK-A-SMACK-A-SMACK-A
There was no point in trying to move in the downpour. He anchored himself as best he could and held firm. He had no real idea of how far he’d been driven from the path or where Delta was.
After a further five minutes of relentless noise, the deluge – almost as suddenly as it started – began to fade out.
Finn’s ears rang. The water sank around him, diminishing into a quagmire. Mud and trickle.
“Arrrrrghghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
He called out – “Delta!”
“Arrrrrhggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
“Delta?”
Slosh slosh slosh – Finn slogged through the dense, uniform lawn grasses, trying to cleave a way through the tall stems as if through a field of sweetcorn, headlamp picking out a pinprick path ahead.
“Keep screaming!”
“Arrrrrrrrrrrgghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
She sounded like she was being eaten alive. Why wasn’t she shooting?
Slosh slosh slosh
When he saw her, his stomach turned.
There were thousands of them. They were crawling over every bit of her.
“Arrrrrrrrgghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
Translucent baby spiders, trapped in the fishing net of a web, covered her; each the size of a rat, each in a frenzy; a colony reacting as one to attack. A garden spider’s nursery web1 must have been beaten from the shrub above them and she’d somehow run into it.
“Aaarrghh!” she screamed, convulsing.
Finn tried to scrape and slap the beasts from her, but there were too many.
He grabbed the top of her pack and dragged her backwards through the grass and mud, trying to shake off the glutinous web. She kicked and pawed and, bit by bit, like she was wriggling out of sleeping bag, it came away – taking most of the vile creatures off with it.
“They’re biting!”
“It’s OK, it’ll wash off!” Finn said, splashing and soaking her and slapping off the last glassy, skeletal young, scraping the slime off her. “It’s only acid.”
She scrambled up and grabbed him. Gripped him round the throat in pure aggressive terror as if she was about to kill him.
“Acid! Only acid!” she barked, shaking in shock and struggling to control herself. “When I get out of here, I am going to kill your goddamn uncle!”
“It’s OK,” he said to her. “It’s all right to be afraid every now and then, y’know…”
“Who said I was afraid? I am not afraid of goddamn spiders! I hate them. But I am not afraid. You get me?”
“OK, I hear you. Not so hard, I’ve got to breathe,” Finn gasped.
“OK. I’m going to let you go now… I’m going to let go… Three… two… one…”
She unclasped and he fell back. She was still shaking. Rebooting. She’d briefly regressed to a traumatised child, now the adult was fighting back.
“Don’t ever tell anyone about this… or I’ll have to kill you too.”
“OK!”
“Joking. I joke, you know…” said Delta, regaining control.
“You’re never going to make it as a clown,” said Finn.
“Don’t be such a smartass! You’re worse than Carla.”
“Your sister?”
“Uh-huh. She’s like you. Louder maybe.”
And for a moment, as her anger faded and she thought of her sister, she looked vulnerable. Not so superhuman. Normal. And Finn suddenly thought of his mum, and wanted to say what he couldn’t say. About how he missed her, yet how she was always never very far away. Which made it worse yet better all at the same time. Stupid stuff like that which you can never say so he shut up. Then, for a fraction of a moment, he thought she must have sensed it because Delta drew breath and said: “Oh Momma…”
Finn’s heart skipped – right up until she grabbed him and threw him down – SPLASH! – on to his back and out of the way of the jaws of a vast, seriously ticked-off mummy spider, a climbing frame of implacable rage.
Delta growled and snatched at her Beretta – but it had fallen from its holster.
As the mother monster rose to strike her down – fangs scythe-sharp, extended, about to pound through her – Finn just managed to get his finger on the trigger of his M27.
DRTRTRRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRRT!
The bullets whizzed and cracked through the spider’s skull, taking its head clean off and leaving the rest of its body to collapse on top of him, oozing yellow goo.
Delta dragged him out.
They were soaked, exhausted, they’d lost one of the weapons already, but at least…
Finn felt something wriggle beneath his foot. He jumped.
“Ahhh!”
What the…? He aimed the gun at the mud. A shiny-wet copper head appeared – an earthworm the size of a crocodile that writhed out of the ground.
“Let’s get out of here!” Delta shouted, then spun and stamped as behind her a much larger one poked its head out.
“Heavy rain brings them to the surface,” said Finn. “We need to find the path. Fast.”
“Aren’t they harmless?”
“They are – but the things that feed on them aren’t.”
Right on cue – THUD-SPLASH – an elephantine spiked dinosaur charged and bit into the wriggling earthworm with evident, beastly delight. A hedgehog, but definitely not the cute creature of children’s stories.
“This way!” Finn cried, and they pushed on…
Slosh slosh slosh slosh slosh
…until they found themselves in a bald patch of lawn, right now a mudslide.
They skidded into what seemed like another worm – until it twitched.
A tail.
CHITERTERTERTEER!
Finn slid right to see a wood mouse – a bus-sized, black-eyed beanbag of a thing – also clearly slaking its bloodlust, tearing the worms to pieces and making the most of the unexpected bounty.
“Get back!” barked Delta. But before they could scramble away to the grass, the mouse caught their lamps in its peripheral vision and, in a heartbeat, twitched round to face them.
“Run!”
Slosh slosh slosh slosh slosh slosh slosh…
They made it to the grass but then – THUD – the mouse pounced, landing alongside, intrigued by the dancing headlamps, trying to make sense of them, trying to keep up – THUD.
Finn reached for the M27, but as he swung round to fire he tripped, the dense grass suddenly giving way to the path again, and he landed heavily at its edge, the butt of the gun taking his impact, the ammo clip cracking out and skittering across the surface.
THUD. The mouse was on him.
Delta roared and ran for him, slipping and falling as the mouse opened its mouth and bore down…
Then froze – its black eyes literally popping out.
Over it, above it, the jaws of a giant fox cub had snapped shut – blood-slick fangs the size of tusks emerging from the furry red cliff of its face.
The cub bit down hard and shook the mouse back and forth for the sheer primal killing hell of it.
Blood sprayed everywhere, the cub’s massive head whipping to and fro, before it tossed the corpse aside to run and snap up the next roden
t.
Finn and Delta just lay there for a few moments on the wet path, covered in blood, waiting until their hearts stopped pounding against their ribcages.
“And that’s what they call the circle of life,” said Finn.
TWENTY-FIVE
Radar-cloaked and powered by whisper jets, the drone cut through the night sky, maintaining a cloud-cover trajectory and dropping to 2,000 feet as it prepared to release its cargo.
Advanced aerodynamic and navigation technology meant the payload could be floated within two metres of the target. Cold gas vernier thrusters had been fitted to control the descent as required.
At 21:34:23 BST the drone released its payload at a speed of 163mph. Parachutes deployed after 5.8 seconds and, after a descent lasting 111 seconds, the thrusters kicked in, guiding it, hissing, to its final destination.
* * *
Kane waited. He had finished the sweets. A sugar-slick coating covered his tongue and mouth.
To come across Kane in a dark wood was the stuff of nightmares. But he was quite alone.
He checked his phone again and looked up into the wet night sky, plucking the canister out of the air as it fell to the earth.
Inside the package, among other high-tech gizmos, Kane found an ultra-sensitive thermal-imaging device.
He tested it, pointing it into the woods. The display showed the wood alive with glowing orange pinpricks of life. Half a dozen small rodents nosed through the leaf litter while the trees contained nesting birds and sleeping squirrels.
Satisfied, he slogged on into the woods.
* * *
“We need to regroup. We need a vehicle, and firepower,” said Delta. “It’s a jungle out here.”
They were still lying flat out on the path, recovering.
“Just keep going,” muttered Finn.
“What?” said Delta.
“Got to keep going,” said Finn. “It’s a family tradition. Don’t you have family traditions?”
“Just court appearances in the Pennsylvania Family Division,” said Delta.
“Kelly would keep going,” said Finn.
“Kelly would chew off his own arm.”
