Minutes to Burn

by Gregg Hurwitz

  "We can't leave you all here," Rex said. "With… with the possibility of-"

  "We have TNT," Cameron said. "We're soldiers. You're scientists. And you'd better get that kid out of here in case all hell does break loose." She looked at the other soldiers. "We came here a squad, I say we stay here a squad. We still have some business to take care of."

  Tank nodded first, then Justin murmured his assent.

  "What the fuck," Savage said. "Got nothin' better to do."

  Szabla stared at Cameron long and hard, the line of her cheekbones glistening with sweat.

  "You'll be in charge," Cameron said.

  "Girl, that gets harder and harder with you around." Szabla shook her head. "Fuck it. We can't all fit in that boat, and it's our responsibility to clear the civilians." She nodded at Cameron. "I'm in."

  "We shouldn't leave you here," Rex said.

  Szabla smirked. "No need to be valiant for the sake of the ladies when we can both kick your ass."

  Rex nodded seriously. "True," he said. "True."

  Szabla stretched her arms with a groan. "We're minute to minute here. What's our defense if we can't get to those last two larvae in time? The adults are pretty antsy, pun be fucked. I can't see one just staggering into a pile of explosives and det cord. Look at the Rambo shit Savage had to pull just to get near it." She let out her breath, puffing her cheeks. "I mean, we can't exactly lob around blocks of TNT."

  "Why not?" Rex asked.

  Szabla bit back a smile. "This ain't a Road Runner cartoon. If we throw it, we can't time the explosion. Timing sucks in general with TNT, since it's not meant as a killing explosive. It's too unreliable to light a fuse set for less than thirty seconds anyways. It's always better to detonate it."

  "The fuses aren't made for that," Cameron concurred. "Plus TNT has no frag-there's no shrapnel to expand the killing radius. We need to lock the creature's location before we detonate, hold it close to the explosives. Hopefully within an enclosed space so it'll blow like an inter-nal charge. Walls won't allow the explosion to dissipate as easily."

  Rex nodded. "Greater overpressure."

  Tank formed a gun with his hand and tilted it at Rex with a clicking noise. "Freezer?" he asked.

  "I don't know." Rex shook his head. "It would be tough to lure one in there without live bait, and we've already noted the island's lack of dogs and goats. Plus, I don't see her ducking into a metal box without great provocation."

  "I agree," Szabla said. She turned her fist, making her biceps slide up and down.

  "So what the fuck are we gonna do?" Justin asked. "Dig a pit?"

  "Yeah," Savage said. "We are." They turned to him, surprised. "Once you get someone in a pit, you own 'em," he said. "You got elevation, you got 'em trapped-you can do anything you want to them. We lost guys in pits sometimes in Nam, steep pits. They'd try to scramble up the sides, but the mud would give way under their hands. Right in the middle of combat, with us retreating. They were fucked. I had an LT that'd shoot 'em before leavin' 'em there for the gooks to play with."

  The silence that followed was broken by Cameron's laugh.

  "What's so funny?" Justin asked.

  "Nothing," she said. "I was just debating whether I should mention that I find the term 'gook' offensive. I guess the civility of my response seemed oddly out of place." She looked at Savage, amusement lingering on her lips. "I forgot who I'm dealing with."

  A smile flashed somewhere in Savage's beard.

  "But I do think it's a good idea," Cameron continued. "The pit. We'll camo the top of it, rig the bottom with explosives. All we need is to slow the fucker up for a split second to blast it." She glanced over at Diego. He looked upset but said nothing. "Let's get to digging."

  "You don't have to," Rex said. "There are natural cavities all around this island. Gases within the lava that didn't rise and escape to the air. Sort of like trapped bubbles. Some of them barely break the surface, and then the tops erode." He turned east, raising a hand to shade his eyes. "I noticed a number of them just past the base camp," he said. "You should be able to find one of suitable size."

  Ramoncito stepped through the flap, his face red from the sun and his tears. Rex walked over to him, removed his Panama hat, and set it on his head. "Ready to head back?" he asked.

  Ramoncito nodded, still sniffling.

  Rex signaled Diego and they headed to Diego's tent to gather the water samples.

  The soldiers stood dumbly in a half-ring around the boy, waiting for the scientists' return. Ramoncito's face broke, and he started crying. Szabla and Savage turned away uncomfortably, and Tank chewed his lip. Ramoncito swayed, still light-headed from his sun exposure.

  Justin stepped forward to steady the boy. After a moment, Cameron joined him.

  Loaded down with bags full of water samples, Diego and Rex stood at the edge of the road near the rows of balsa trees that Diego so loathed. Tank flipped Rex an extra tube of sunblock and Rex nodded his thanks.

  Cameron checked the watch face sewn into the inside of her pants pocket. "It's 1500 now," she said. "That should put you back at Santa Cruz at 0700. You'll have about fourteen hours to set up your gear, run tests, and reach Fort Detrick with your results."

  Justin removed his long-sleeved shirt and gave it to Ramoncito to protect him from further sun damage on the ride back. The sun was still strong, but it had softened, already beginning its arc to the horizon.

  Ramoncito took it from him, gratefulness in his eyes. He probably wanted to decline the offer like a man, but the pain of his sunburn made him swallow his pride.

  Justin smiled. "You'd better wait to smell the thing before you thank me. It's a touch ripe, but it'll keep the sun off you."

  Cameron stood beside the two scientists, even after the other soldiers nodded their good-byes and began to convene near the tents. Rex shifted his canteen strap on his shoulder, squinting into the sun in Cameron's direction. "Guess you guys aren't so useless after all," he said. His cheeks had taken on color, just beginning to redden. He waited for Diego and Ramoncito to look away. "Thank you," he mouthed.

  Cameron shrugged. "What were we gonna do? Draw straws and leave some of our squad behind?" She shook her head. "I don't think so."

  "So that's it?" Diego asked. "Strictly a military decision?"

  A sulfur butterfly danced a clumsy circle around Diego's head. It flut-tered down, landing on his backpack, a pale yellow spot. Cameron reached over, plucking it gently off the fabric by clasping its wings between her fingers as she had seen Diego do earlier. She took the but-terfly's thin body between her thumb and finger and turned it over, blowing gently on the closed wings. They splayed under the soft pres-sure of her breath, spreading open beautifully across her hand. She swept her hand upward, releasing the butterfly, and they watched it navi-gate the gentle southeast winds. "Yes," she said. "It is."

  "We'll do our best to get back and convince the government that we know more about science than they do," Rex said. He glanced at the sweep of the dark forest. "Just two more larvae constitute the account-able virus reservoir." He nodded once, slowly, and they both understood the unspoken implication. Taking a small step back, he checked his watch. "You have about nineteen hours to pickup. Are you sure you'll be okay?"

  Cameron shook her head. "No." She ruffled Ramoncito's hair roughly and pointed down the road. "Get out of here," she said.

  They turned and began walking down the road toward the watch-tower and the thin trail beyond. After a few paces, Ramoncito stopped and turned. Cameron was still standing there, watching them leave.

  Chapter 60

  We're gonna split duty," Szabla said, standing before the fire pit. She jerked her chin, indicating Cameron. "You, Justin, and Tank recon, try to beat the clock. Make sure you sweep up along the cliff faces to the east-no one's checked there too thoroughly yet. If you find Derek… " Szabla turned her eyes from Cameron and continued. "Kill the larva he's protecting, and him if you have to." She raised a finger at Cameron, though Came
ron had not reacted. "Don't you go all woman on me again now."

  "Can you handle that?" Savage asked, eyeballing Cameron.

  Cameron stood up and slapped her muscular thighs with her hands. "Of course."

  After Cameron left, leading Tank and Justin into the forest, Szabla hydrated, then poured water from her canteen down her sweaty neck and back. When she turned to survey the expanse of the pasture to the east, Savage was already about fifty yards off, poking through the high grass and looking for holes.

  It was fortunate there were air vesicles in the open field; searching the forest was a greater risk, since the foliage provided cover in which a mantid could hide. Plus, if one of the larvae did metamorphose, it would be better to lure it somewhere out in the open where they could keep an eye on it-after dusk, of course, so the sun wouldn't drive it away.

  The heat was unforgiving, so Szabla pulled off her cammy shirt. Tossing it to the side, she headed out toward Savage in her black tank top. Savage was shirtless, his bandanna dripping-he must have doused it with water from his canteen. He was crouched, shaking his head. As she drew nearer, she realized he was laughing.

  "I think I just solved the mystery of Dr. Frank Friedman," he said, pointing through the waving grass into a hole in the ground.

  Szabla bent over, drawing aside the grass. The odor hit her hard and she drew back, waving an arm in front of her face. Savage laughed, a low grumble in his throat. Pulling her tank top up over her nose bandido-style, Szabla leaned over the hole again, looking down.

  A bloated corpse lay at the bottom of the narrow twelve-foot drop, the sharply angled head indicating a broken neck. Having worked on the body for over a month, maggots, ants, and other critters had reduced the face and hands to grotesque appendages-clothes remained over the rest of the body, seemingly holding it together. A fisherman's hat lay on the ground a few feet from the head.

  "All the shit going down on this island," Savage said, "and the fucker died taking a header into a goddamn hole." He shook his head again.

  It took them the better part of an hour in the baking sun to find an air vesicle appropriately sized for the trap. About ten feet deep, six wide, and twelve long, it was originally a spherical gap in the lava. Decades of erosion had worn away the top, creating sheer walls. Since the vesicle collected shade and moisture, and slowed evaporation, it contained an entirely different ecosystem: ferns flourished in shafts of light; stubby miniature trees sprouted up between the mounds of rubble.

  Szabla and Savage stood facing each other across the length of the hole. Szabla's undershirt was pasted to her body and drenched through all around. She tried to spit, but it dangled from her bottom lip, a thick pasty cord. She spit again and it spun to the ground.

  Base camp was about a hundred yards west, and the forest several hundred yards upslope. "This is good," Szabla said. "Nice and open. Nothing can sneak up on us here, and it's close enough to the forest that the motherfucker could see it and come if it had cover of night."

  Savage nodded, his fingers rasping in his beard.

  "Let's get some of that rock cleared from the base of the walls," Szabla said. "Make sure nothing can crawl out."

  They headed back to base camp to retrieve shovels and some rope, steering clear of the hole in which Frank Friedman's body lay rotting.

  They trudged through the forest, Cameron hacking with the spike as if it were a machete when the foliage grew thick. Tank and Justin followed her silently.

  When she heard the cooing, her legs went slack with the memory of the thing she'd beaten along the floor of the cave. She slowed down, Tank and Justin immediately halting to see what was wrong.

  The sound was coming from behind a plant with thin elongated leaves cascading to the sides. The leaves' serrated edges cut her hand as she pulled them aside, expecting to be greeted with the engaging face of another larva.

  When she saw the dark-rumpled petrel's white face and black bill, her eyes welled with relief. The petrel had scraped a burrow in the soft soil and was guarding over her full nest of eggs. She squawked at Cameron indignantly, her wedge-shaped tail fluttering, and Cameron withdrew.

  She stood up right into Justin, who had moved close behind her with the spike, ready to take care of the kill to spare her having to go through it again. A perversely sweet gesture. She leaned back into him just to feel his body against hers for a moment. His hands around the circle of her waist calmed her, and she winked at him before turning and cutting back into the trees.

  The fact that she'd been certain of her obligation-that she had to kill the larva last night-had not made the task easier for her. She'd had to fight every instinct in her to swing the spike, to batter the thing to death.

  She had not been trained to kill animals. Only other men, men with weapons and harsh accents. Combatants. Maybe she found killing the larva difficult because they were not political or malevolent, because they did not wish her harm or know how to wish at all. Or maybe it was because she was participating in the elimination of a life form-a task so vast, momentous, and irrevocable that she seemed to lose herself in the scope of its ramifications. At the very least, she found it simultaneously ironic and natural that it should give her greater pause than ending a human life.

  The larvae were extraordinary, and literally unique. But the price they would exact were they to continue to exist was immense. The distorted thing Floreana had birthed refused to leave Cameron's mind even for a second; she carried it in every moment, a second, vicarious pregnancy on top of her unsettled own.

  To the east, Cameron saw where a sheet of land had fallen away in the most recent earthquake, the forest ending suddenly in a cliff. She sat down on the edge, letting the spike clatter on the rocks beside her. Banging her heels against the precipice like a little girl, she kicked loose some pebbles, which spiraled down several hundred yards. She lost sight of them before she could see them splash in the water. The blood rushed into her legs in pins and needles. They'd been walking since sunrise, and the nonstop activity of the past few days was taking its toll.

  The thought of the squad's rebellion filled her with shame and self-revulsion. Though she knew she'd been right in opposing Derek, she hadn't yet forgiven herself for it. The emotions playing through his face as he'd looked at them. Loss, confusion, fear tinged red with anger.

  Justin sat behind her, his stomach against her back, his legs outside hers. Tank plopped down next to her and rested one of his paws on her shoulder.

  "I'm gonna kick both your asses if you keep babying me like this," she said. "I'm fine, you know. Quit touching me."

  Tank withdrew his hand, and Justin made to strangle her from behind, but she caught a pressure point under his elbow, and he released his grip quickly.

  "Ouch!"

  "Yeah, ouch. There's more where that came from, too." A breeze brought them the scents of the forest. "I'm feeling a little hopeless looking for these things," she conceded. "Needles in haystacks."

  "We should head back," Justin said. "Help them with the hole."

  Despite her earlier complaints, Cameron leaned back slightly into her husband.

  Before them, the water stretched clear and endless to the horizon. It whispered against the base of the cliff beneath Cameron's feet, stirring in swirls of white, frothy bubbles. Fronds dipped in the breeze next to them, bowing politely.

  "You're pregnant," Tank said. "Aren't you?"

  Cameron sucked her bottom lip. It was salty from the air. "When did you know?"

  He shrugged. "When I picked you up at your house."

  They sat quietly for a few moments.

  "I won't let anything happen to you," Tank said.

  His voice was low and steady as ever, but something in it made Cameron bite her lip to keep back the emotion. After a moment, she reached for his hand, but Tank hesitated and looked at Justin, as though he'd been caught doing something wrong.

  Justin nodded at him, as if to say, go ahead.

  Tank's hand was large and warm-it envel
oped hers easily. Cameron leaned between the two men, letting herself feel calm and safe, if only for a moment.

  Tank pulled his hand back and the three sat again in silence. The blue-footed boobies plunge-dived to the waters and popped to the surface. American oystercatchers hopped along the rocky coast, their bright-red bills and yellow eyes standing out against the dark lava.

  "In another life," Tank said, "this would be a beautiful place." He leaned back on his hands, the red skin of his scalp visible through his thin, bristling hair.

  Cameron looked from the stunning view to the spike lying beside her, the end still stained with the larva's fluids.

  "Yeah," she said. "It would."

  Chapter 61

  The sky drained quickly of color. Derek murmured and dozed in fits, the leaves soft against the side of his head. He was back outside his house The Night Of, his legs weak and fluid beneath him, knowing something was dreadfully wrong. The house had looked like a church, a demonic church.

  Panic had seized his guts, gripping him like a cramp, but he'd fought it off, refusing to run, refusing to lose his head. The front door hadn't been hot to his touch, not hot as he'd imagined it would be. It had swung open slowly, uncreaking, a coffin standing on end. He'd managed to choke out his wife's name once, and then again. When she'd answered, her voice had been light and airy, like silk afloat on wind. "In here," she'd called. Her voice had seemed to issue from the dining room.

  He'd staggered through the kitchen, knocking over a chair, leaning on the countertop to gain his balance. The knife block had been on its side, a black slit where the largest blade should have been.

  He'd paused just short of the doorway to the dining room before shuffling weakly forward, sucking air, his chest heaving, his face blotched crimson.

  He'd seen Jacqueline standing at the head of the table like a high priestess over an altar, a ghost in the blurry movement of her night-gown. He'd seen the curtains fluffed behind her with the night breeze. He'd seen the smudge of blood across Jacqueline's cheek. He'd seen the small flaccid limb, the arch of the tiny dough-soft fingers on the lac-quered rosewood, four slivers of crescent moon. He'd felt his heart beating in his temples, his hands, his eyes. He'd looked at her, transfixed, unperceiving. He'd known what she was going to say before her mouth moved, before he'd heard the words.