by Warren Fahy
“I knew this would happen,” Cane yelled furiously.
Thatcher watched in fascination over Cato’s shoulder.
Geoffrey and Nell sprayed their rifles over the crouching Zero’s head at the cave entrance, and a sunlit mist of water fell in the opening between them and the swarm.
Outside the spray curtain, a mass of voracious creatures continued to fly and leap over the cliff, gathering in front of the cave. The mass swirled in dizzying, constant motion, the flying bugs whirling in figure-eights and circles as they advanced and retreated. Any creature that paused too long among them was descended upon and torn to pieces. With each blast from the soakers, the swarm retreated and then re-surged.
“OK,” Geoffrey said. “I’m ready to concede there are no benign species on this island, so let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Nell merely gasped, which didn’t reassure Geoffrey.
As if coalescing from the light and mist and the jungle behind it, a spidery shape suddenly appeared, hanging in the cave entrance before them. Its thick silvery fur seemed to reflect the colors of the sky and jungle. What seemed to be a face became visible at the bottom of its body, a wide mouth slowly opening above two large oval eyes, staring at face-level at the four humans. Its cello-shaped body dangled by one slender tendril as it unfolded six long limbs to either side of the cave, trapping them inside it.
From inside the Hummer, Cane and Thatcher saw the animal suddenly shimmer into existence, hanging on the cliff face between the advancing swarm of creatures and the cave’s opening.
The sergeant cursed and reached for his rifle. “I told them not to go!”
“Wait!” Thatcher peered through the windshield at the strange animal, which seemed to fade in and out of the shadows.
“Oh my God, Nell…” Cato muttered.
“It’s a trap!” Zero hissed, crouching inside the fissure. “Andy was the bait!”
Nell fought off the fear that threatened to paralyze her as she stared at the grinning face of the creature in the cave entrance. She grabbed the Beretta and raised it.
The monster’s head emitted a loud, warbling voice: “It’s VEEE-EEE-DAAAAAAY!”
Nell, Geoffrey, and Zero were dumbstruck, uncertain if their captor had spoken or simply made sounds that resembled words.
Zero remembered the animal he had heard echoing his own voice in the jungle. He turned to Nell. “Shoot it!”
Inside the Hummer, Thatcher’s fascination turned to alarm at the piercing voice.
“Oh no, no, no…” Dr. Cato murmured.
Cane’s mouth gaped open in surprise, his grip tightening on his rifle.
The door opened and Cane and Thatcher saw the old scientist jump out of the Hummer.
“Fuck!” said the soldier.
Dr. Cato slammed the door shut and vaulted over the log.
Thatcher watched with amazement as the scientist ran around the bend of the cliff, shouting “Hey! Hey! Hey!” and waving his thin arms.
“What the hell does the old fart think he’s doing?” Cane yelled.
Nell ignored Dr. Cato’s shouts. She kept her eyes locked on the eyes of the spider-like animal that now imprisoned them in the fissure.
A second wave of beasts leaped shrieking onto the ledge from the jungle below, including two spigers the size of African lions.
Dr. Cato suddenly appeared, shouting near the edge of the cliff.
One of the spigers swung toward the scientist.
“Come on! HEY!” Cato shouted, and in a micro-second the nearest spiger stabbed a two-meter spike straight through his polo shirt and out his back.
“Noooo!” Nell screamed.
A surge of creatures swarmed the old man’s body, temporarily distracted from the humans in the cave.
Nell’s scream drew them back.
Like a wall of eyes, teeth, and claws, the stampede, led by the spigers, one of which was still swallowing Dr. Cato’s right leg, rushed the humans in the cave.
Nell pointed Cane’s Beretta with shaking hands at the dangling creature that had trapped them. Closing her eyes, she squeezed the trigger.
“No!” Andy screamed, shoving her hand, but it was too late.
The gun fired as the creature spun on its tail in a blinding motion toward the oncoming rush of animals. With six arms, it flung six dark disks through the air.
The curving disks thudded one after another into the two leaping spigers, which dropped instantly, their hindbrains severed. The dying spigers shrieked like erratic police sirens and convulsed, gouging their spiked forearms into the ground as they struggled to drag themselves forward toward their spiderlike attacker.
The entire mass of rats, badgers, wasps, and drill-worms swerved back from the cave to tear greedily into the writhing spigers.
The hanging creature dropped to the ground. It rolled from its four spidery arms onto its two multi-jointed legs as its tail coiled into a cavity under its belly. Standing nearly seven feet tall, it flung four more disks: four smaller animals went down.
Then the creature crouched, standing only five feet high as its “knees” bent like muscular grasshopper legs to either side. Walking forward on second calves that extended where a human’s ankles would have been, its “legs” ended in flat, furry hand-feet. White fur shimmered with rainbow colors over the entire creature, which Nell thought now resembled a crablike kangaroo crossed with a praying mantis.
Copepod ran to the creature’s side.
Nell darted forward to protect the dog.
But then she stopped as the dog wagged its tail.
The creature patted Copey with two left hands, swiveling its eyestalks to observe the humans in the cave. With a cupped hand, it gestured at them, then it trotted toward the Hummer on its two springing legs. Copepod stuck right by its side.
“He wants us to follow.” Andy ran forward, then turned to look back at the others. “You need to come with him if you want to live.”
Zero looked at the others, his mouth open. Then he ran, following Andy’s lead.
Geoffrey hesitated only a second, then followed, pulling along Nell, who seemed to be in a state of shock.
Andy nodded toward the ravenous pile of creatures squirming by the cave entrance as he ran toward the waiting Humvee. “They’ll be finished feeding soon. Then they’ll multiply. You don’t want to be around the babies, believe me.” He glanced back at Nell and Geoffrey. “Move it!” he urged.
They glanced over their shoulders at the snarling riot as disk-ants began rolling in white lines over the ledge into the explosion of red and blue gore.
Sergeant Cane froze as the bewildering creature climbed nimbly over the fallen tree, the dog leaping and scrabbling at its heel. It pushed itself up with two hands on the hood of the Hummer and looked through the windshield right at Cane and Thatcher. As he lifted the radio mike, Cane could swear the damn thing smiled at him.
6:52 P.M.
“This is Blue One. We found a survivor. Repeat, we found a survivor. Copy?” Cane’s voice quavered. Over the radio, he heard the others cheering at his words.
Andy appeared right behind the creature and opened the passenger door, and the creature, to Cane’s amazement, climbed inside the Hummer. Copepod and Andy jumped in behind it, as the others scrambled into the back, squeezing Thatcher against the window. Cane grabbed his gun from Nell’s hand and pointed it at the creature.
“Is the survivor OK, Blue One?” came a voice over the radio.
Sergeant Cane, with the radio mike in one hand and his pistol in the other, could hardly breathe as he looked at the large thing that now sat beside him and folded its multi-jointed arms and legs. Turning its long neck, it studied him with colorful, swiveling eyes and its mouth opened wide, revealing three curving teeth as wide as hatchet-blades on its upper jaw. Cane was too frightened to know whether it was grinning or snarling at him now.
“Blue One, do you copy? Is the survivor all right?”
“I’m all right, tell them!” Andy urged.
“Uh—affirmative! We… will uh…we’ll bring him back to base,” Cane managed.
Thatcher peered at the animal from the backseat, a strange chill gripping him and cold sweat breaking out on his forehead.
Rats began thudding like softballs against the sides of the Hummer. Drill-worms landed on the windows, twisting their maws into the bulletproof glass and actually leaving scratches.
“You better turn that faucet on,” Geoffrey warned from the backseat.
“That’s great news, Blue One! Great news! In that case, I’ve got a lot of scientists who want to do some specimen-collecting down here. Copy?”
Cane remained frozen as the creature began touching the roof and steering wheel with four hands while its eyes darted rapidly in different directions.
“Uh, copy that, Blue Two,” Cane muttered into the radio.
“Come on, Cane, turn the water on!” Nell said.
Confused, the sergeant set down the radio mike and opened the roof-faucet, spraying saltwater over the Hummer, keeping his gun on the creature. After a moment, the bugs scattered and the creature pointed excitedly at a drill-worm the size of a locust stuck to the windshield. The struggling worm’s three wings had popped out of the panels under its head and were pressed flat against the glass by the water’s surface tension. The writhing arthropod sprayed some kind of oily chemical from its abdomen, creating a rainbow sheen on the glass as the windshield wiper knocked it off.
The creature in the front seat nodded at Cane and made a kind of thumbs-up sign to Andy using both thumbs on four hands. It turned its head on its twisting upper body and widened its mouth at Cane, nodding rapidly. Its bristling, translucent fur flashed with stripes and dots of colored light.
“Blue One? Are you there? Copy?”
“Answer them, Cane!” Geoffrey said.
Cane picked up the radio mike. “Um… we might… uh … uh …collect some specimens, too. Blue One out.”
“Go where he’s pointing!” Andy yelled.
“What in the FUCK is going on!” the soldier hollered.
The creature hummed as its six-fingered hands traced the contours of the dashboard, stroking the words on the controls and gauges.
“I do not like this!” Cane continued.
The creature recoiled a little from the sergeant. Then it grasped his wrist with two hands and plucked the gun from his fingers with two other hands with such speed and strength that Cane was disarmed before he could even think of squeezing the trigger. With one protruding eye, the creature peered curiously down the weapon’s barrel.
“No, Hender! Here, give me that, OK?” Andy said. “Very bad!”
The creature turned its head to Andy. Then it tossed him the gun, which Andy caught nervously.
“Oh my god,” Nell murmured. “He understands us?”
“Give me my weapon!” Cane screamed as anger ignited the adrenaline in his bloodstream.
“Don’t worry!” Andy assured him, handing him back his gun.
The creature made a zither sound from the small sagittal crest on its head as it stroked the brown, tan, and green pixels of camouflage on Cane’s uniform. For an instant the pattern seemed to be projected over the creature’s plush coat.
“Come on, you guys, you’ve got to see where he lives!” Andy told them.
“Does that thing…speak English?” Thatcher asked in a hoarse whisper. He sat frozen and staring with wide eyes at the beast in the front seat.
“No, he doesn’t speak English!” Andy rolled his eyes, and smirked at the ruddy scientist. “This isn’t a Star Trek episode, dude! He saved my life, that’s all I know. And he saved Copey. He makes great chili, too.”
“No way.” Zero laughed, a wide grin fixed on his face as he videoed feverishly from the backseat. “Sir Nigel Holscombe, eat your heart out, baby!”
Cane kept his gun on the creature, which made musical noises as it investigated everything around it while continuing to look at Cane with one motionless three-striped eye.
“This animal,” Thatcher spoke with slow, quiet urgency, “is more dangerous than anything on this island.”
Geoffrey, who was only now shaking off the shock of their close call on the ledge, watched in astonishment as the creature patted the panting bull terrier on the head. “You were just saying what an atrocity it would be to destroy life on this island, Thatcher. Change your mind?”
“This is different.”
The Hummer rocked gently as a powerful earthquake rumbled through the ground.
“Come on, let’s go,” Zero said. “We shouldn’t stay in one place too long!”
The creature put all four hands on its head and its eyes retracted under furry lids.
“You guys feel that?” The voice of Blue Three’s driver crackled over the radio.
“Yeah, that was a bad one,” the driver of Blue Two answered. “Whoa, check it out!”
A piece of the unbroken rock wall on the south side of the island crumbled and crashed down, leaving a fang of blue sky in the island’s rim.
“We might have less time than we thought, guys,” Blue Two’s driver said.
“Keep on task till they call us back to base,” Blue Three crackled.
“Roger that,” Cane replied. “Out.” He turned to the others. “I’m not sure what we’re doing driving around with one of the things we’re supposed to be nuking, God damn it!”
“What?” Andy looked at Nell, bewildered.
“The President gave the order to sterilize this island, Andy,” she explained.
“Great,” he said. “But what about the people?”
Sergeant Cane was sweating visibly. “You call that… a person?” He stared warily at the creature that was examining him. “Are you sure it doesn’t speak English? I mean I swear we heard it speakin’ English back there, God damn it!”
Andy looked at Cane’s uniform suspiciously. “So is he in charge now? Are you the guy with the nukes, Commander G.I. Joe with the karate grip? How much have I missed here, anyway?”
“It’s OK, Andy,” Nell soothed. “The President also asked us to see if any life on this island could be saved.”
Geoffrey stared at her in surprise. “Change of heart, Nell?”
She looked at him as tears welled in her eyes. “This is different …”
“Come on,” Zero yelled. “We gotta check this out! This is fricking amazing! Go where he says, man! Go! Go!”
“We need to find out what we have here and then report to the President as soon as possible, Sergeant,” Nell said. “Everything depends on it. OK?”
Cane gritted his teeth. The creature’s hands ceaselessly tested everything around it, including Cane’s helmet. He closed his eyes, breathing hard. “All right. But I’m under strict orders about not allowing anything unauthorized off this island alive!”
“Does that include us?” Andy wanted to know, seething. “Are you going to nuke us, too, Commander BUTTHOLE?”
“Don’t push me, sir.”
“Yes, don’t push him, Andy,” Nell agreed.
Geoffrey nodded. “Let’s all just get along, now.”
Cane backed the Hummer out slowly and then he gunned it up the slope.
“Wheeeeeee!” the creature fluted.
7:03 P.M.
The Hummer’s Mattracks rolled to a stop beside a towering baobab-like tree at the north rim of the island. About a dozen of these gargantuan trees clung to the edge of the island. From a distance they’d looked like toadstools, with vast umbrellas of dense green foliage.
“It lives here?” Cane was staring.
“Wait till you see his hobbit hole,” Andy said. “Oh, hey, if we’re going to transport them off the island before all the nukes go off we better take something to pack their things in!”
“Them? Pack their things?” the soldier said.
Andy nodded.
“We can use the specimen cases in the back here.” Nell glanced at Geoffrey; he nodded and reached for them.
Co
pey barked enthusiastically and jumped out first. Up here, near the island’s rim, the air was considerably fresher. The sound of the jungle below was a buzzing high-pitched white-noise.
The scientists each carried one of the aluminum specimen cases from the back of the Hummer.
Now that he was outside the vehicle, Cane carried his M-1 assault rifle, glancing warily at the branches overhead. They were far away from the teeming jungle at the island’s heart—but what lurked in the giant tree above them was anyone’s guess.
“Are you sure we’re all right, Andy, next to this thing?” Zero pointed his video camera up into the tangled canopy.
“Yeah, we’re fine if we stay close to the tree.”
A perimeter of salt seemed to have been excreted into the soil around the tree’s trunk. This seemed to hold back the Henders clover from attacking the creamy gray surface of its trunk, which was as wide as a house. Stepping stones led over the salt perimeter like a Japanese rock garden.
Though it had originally appeared to them like a spider with six legs radiating four meters, the creature now seemed compact. Two legs folded up in back like a spider’s. Its middle arms apparently acted as forelegs, and its upper arms tucked up against its long neck so that the first joints or “elbows” resembled pointy shoulders from which surprisingly human arms hung down. The hands on all six of its limbs had three fingers and two opposable thumbs. The scientists and the cameraman drank in the details of its anatomy and its elaborate and effortless motion with speechless wonder.
The long elastic tail from which the creature had dangled over the cave was now coiled inside a potbelly. A sheen of color played over its thick fur like the Aurora Borealis. Its head was onion-shaped, with an understated sagittal horn on top. It had a high-browed forehead over a wide and graceful mouth, and no sign of a nose. As it looked at them, its large oval eyes had a sly, feline look, moving independently in different directions. The eyes blinked with furry eyelids whenever their stalks retracted. Slanted triangular lobes projected to either side of the creature’s sagittal horn like brow-ridges over its eyes.
The shape of its wide mouth and lips had a duck-like friendliness, with smiling corners and an eager peak on its wide upper lip. Its expression had an elegant confidence that the humans found disconcerting. Reaching out one of its upper hands, the creature touched the barrel of Cane’s assault rifle with delicate curiosity.
