Minutes to Burn

by Gregg Hurwitz

  What waited for them now, up ahead or in the forest, between torch-lit tents or trunks of trees, was unlike anything she'd ever thought she'd have to contend with. A clawing, biting, grasping death, an awareness even as something began to feed on your skull.

  She thought about Szabla twisted in the arms of the creature-her mouth open in a scream, her eyes rolling, her arms dangling from her hunched shoulders like those of a mannequin.

  The three remaining tents quivered in the wind. The dark curve in the ground where they had built the fire looked like a crater. When Tank passed the log near the fire ashes, he picked up the spike that was leaning against it. She was glad to see him with a weapon back in his hands. With cautious steps, Cameron circled the base camp once. No sign of the mantid. With two fingers, she signaled to Tank that she was moving for-ward. They eased along the grass toward the vesicle on their toes, the heels of their boots never touching the ground.

  The torch waned, flickering dimly across the yawning mouth of the hole. A few broken branches protruded, flared like the feathers of a pea-cock. The torchlight played sharply off the woven mat of leaves and fronds that had covered the hole, outlining the waving foliage on the field. The shadows bounced and dipped on the grass like puppets.

  Leaning forward, Cameron inched to the edge. She peeked over, pulling back quickly in case the mantid was waiting there. Among the broken branches and fronds, Savage lay, his arms and legs bent at unnat-ural angles, one hand still tightly gripping his knife. The whites of his eyes flashed as he blinked. She knew right away that he was paralyzed. He did not cry out.

  There was a mound of fresh rock at the base of the northern wall. Cameron signaled Tank to stand guard and used the knotted rope to climb down. Tank stayed close to the edge, his head and shoulders visi-ble from the bottom of the hole.

  The ground was moist on the far side. In the corner, there appeared to be a pile of clothing, but Cameron couldn't quite make it out in the darkness. When she realized that it was a heap of Szabla's bowels, she almost retched, her stomach rising until she felt a pushing at the back of her throat.

  Savage's eyes followed her as she approached him.

  "Hey there, soldier," she said.

  He smiled but it turned into a grimace. Cords stood out along his neck as he tried desperately to move his limbs. Cameron watched him and felt her breathing intensify.

  Savage relaxed, then cracked a smile. "Ain't life a bitch?" he said.

  Cameron started to talk, but her throat was gummed up with mucus, so she cleared it and tried again. "You're gonna be okay. We're gonna get you out of here."

  The red blocks of TNT peeked out from beneath his stiffened leg. He shook his head, nearly imperceptibly. "No, you're not. You're not gonna do that to me."

  "I can-"

  He laughed quietly, but it ended like a sob. "I done a lot of shit," he said.

  Cameron crouched, then stood again.

  "I done a lot of shit, but I never left a man down." His eyes mois-tened. "I never left a goddamn man down."

  Cameron had to wait a moment before speaking. "I was responsible for Tank and Justin. I had to make a choice."

  "Well, now you have to see that choice through." His eyes were nei-ther angry nor accusatory; they were pitiless.

  She glanced up the steep wall of the hole. "We can make a stretcher, maybe haul you up with rope." Her voice sounded hollow, even to her.

  Savage's snicker tangled in his throat. "Yeah. Good thinking. Sit around and nursemaid me so we all die."

  They faced each other, breathing together, though even this was a struggle.

  "I was knocked out, so I didn't see where the bitch went," Savage said. He tried to turn his head to the mound of rock the mantid had left when she'd scrambled out, but he couldn't. "I'd bet back up to the forest." Cameron nodded. "You're gonna kill her," he said. It was not a question.

  "Yes," she said. "I know."

  He faced her, unflinching. "Take my knife."

  She shook her head. "I can't."

  "My knife." He gazed at the knife still clutched in his useless hand. "Take my knife."

  She felt her face trembling.

  "You're not gonna leave me down again," he said. A drop of sweat rolled from his temple and lost itself in his beard. Another clung to his ear, stubbornly refusing to fall. "Come on. Let's get this done." He licked his lips. "Take my knife."

  Cameron felt her eyes moistening. "I can't. I don't…I can't." She looked back to Tank, as if in appeal, but he held his ground, his eyes scanning the dark outskirts of the field.

  Savage's forehead wrinkled with his scowl. "No, goddamnit," he said, the veins on his neck standing out. "Don't look to him. You. You need to do this."

  Her face felt hot. She raised a hand and brushed a wisp of hair from her eyes.

  "Take my knife."

  "I can't."

  "Cameron. Take my knife."

  She stared at him for a long time, until she felt something inside her die down. As she leaned over Savage, she pressed her lips together to keep them from shaking. He held the knife in a death grip; it took all her strength to pry it from his hand. She stood and faced him. Without his knife, he seemed naked. He lay there, sprawled and broken.

  He looked up at the dark figure towering over him. "You sure you want this?" it asked.

  He strained with all his might to nod his head. The figure stood there, tall and unmoving. "What the fuck," he rasped. "You gonna take all night?"

  The figure bent, crouching over him. He refused to close his eyes.

  Tank took a few steps away from the edge of the hole and waited patiently, keeping his eyes on the forest. After a few minutes, Cameron emerged holding the blocks of TNT, Savage's knife sheathed and stuck in the back of her pants.

  "All right," she said, moving slowly next to Tank. Her voice was husky, her hands stained to the wrists with fresh blood. "Let's hit base, grab the flares and some more of the explosives."

  Her stride was different as she led across the field toward base camp-more purposeful. She set the blocks of TNT on the ground by the fire pit and headed for Diego's old tent, where they'd left the rest of the explosives. The flap was unzipped, and she whispered loudly back over her shoulder as she ducked through. "We should grab a change of clothes so we can burn our-"

  Her voice stopped so sharply it sounded as if she'd been swallowed. Crouched awkwardly, bent at the legs, the mantid filled nearly the entire space of the tent, her enormous abdomen curled to fit inside. She stood over the cruise box in which they'd kept the larva. Probably drawn by the scent.

  The breadth of her body almost touched the opposing walls of the tent. Both of the sleeping pads had been pushed aside to allow her ample room. She'd stretched the wide entrance flap of the GP tent to pull herself inside.

  Cameron's upper body leaned through the opening of the tent, her legs and waist still outside. She didn't dare to exhale. The mantid had not yet noticed her; the amplified sound of the wind against the canvas walls had evidently drowned out the vibrations of her and Tank's approach.

  The mantid's head was at the far side of the tent. Cameron was no less than two feet from the back of the creature's abdomen; she could have reached out and stroked the shiny cuticle had she wished.

  She bit her lip to keep the panic from spilling through her, curling her shoulders into a hunch as she eased back out of the tent. Any sound could attract the creature-the rubbing of her shirt against the zipper around the flap, the slightest click of her teeth.

  It was a miracle that the mantid hadn't sensed her coming through the flap. Cameron stepped back, keeping her torso bent, hoping to extract her shoulders and head with the movement of her legs alone. She was aware of every noise she made-her shirt folding against itself as she doubled at the waist, the beating of her heart, her tongue scraping along the roof of her mouth. In a heart-stopping moment, the heel of her boot ground against a rock, but the mantid didn't sense the vibration.

  The mouth of the tent p
assed her ribs, then her shoulders. It was just around her neck when she felt something behind her. She gasped with fright.

  The mantid's head turned nearly 180 degrees on her neck, swiveling like a periscope. Her mouth opened as if in a scream, but there was only a horrid silence. Cameron shoved back hard into the thing behind her, knocking it over. She turned, fist raised, to see Tank lying on his ass.

  "Get up!" she screamed. "She's in there!"

  The GP tent reared up off the ground behind them. One of the strainers flew at Cameron's head, trailing a sharp stake, and she ducked it just in time.

  The tent rattled and screeched, then split down the sides as two long deadly legs burst through it. The sharp spikes sliced through the canvas like razor blades, and the mantid's head emerged from one of the holes. She struggled to free herself from the tent, swinging her legs wildly at Cameron and Tank.

  "Back to Frank's camp!" Cameron screamed. She grabbed Tank, hauling him to his feet. One of her hands closed on his wounded arm and he cried out in pain.

  Wriggling her body as if she were molting, the mantid freed her tho-rax from the tent. She lunged forward and swung at Tank, the hook on the end of her leg slicing through the back of his shirt. His grunt sounded like a bark. The slit immediately began gushing blood, but Tank didn't stop moving.

  The mantid leapt after them, but the tent had fallen around the base of her abdomen, tangling her legs. She fell to the ground, air rushing through her spiracles with a screech, her front legs bearing her weight.

  Tank glanced back over his shoulder. The creature's raptorial legs were pushed into the grass, unable to strike. He ran toward her, raising the spike behind his head in his left hand, winding up for the swing with his entire body.

  He yelled something Cameron couldn't make out, braced with his right leg, and threw his entire weight into the swing, aiming for the man-tid's eye.

  At the last moment, the mantid ducked and his blow glanced off the top of her head. The force was great enough to snap her head to the other side, but her strong cuticle didn't even crack. The spike fell from Tank's hand to the ground. The mantid kicked free of the tent and rose, but Tank was gone before she had regained her raptorial legs.

  Cameron reached Frank's camp before Tank, almost losing her footing as she ran between the tents. Tank appeared a moment later. They could hear the soft swishing of the mantid's approach as she crossed the road and headed onto the western field.

  "Where are we gonna go!?" Cameron gasped, a line of drool spinning down her chin. "Where the fuck are we gonna go?"

  She looked around frantically. The forest, two canvas tents, the dark open expanse of the field. There was nowhere safe to take cover. The rumbling in the darkness was getting closer. She could have sworn she smelled the creature approaching. She spun around, looking for some-where to hide, then fell to her knees. "Fuck!" she screamed.

  Her hand closed on a cyanide jar and she hurled it into the darkness. It shattered against something with a metallic ring. She rose, her eyes wide with realization. Tank hesitated, but she pulled him forward.

  They had no choice.

  Chapter 66

  The smell when she swung the specimen freezer door open was over-powering. Since they had burned through the lock, the freezer had not been properly sealed, and the mangled bodies were rotting in the heat. The odor pressed into their noses and pores, making their eyes burn. The air inside was so humid it felt liquid. Cameron took a deep breath of the fresh air outside and pulled the door shut behind them.

  The blue light from the compressor barely lit the inside of the freezer, but it was enough for her to make out the shadowy outlines of the mutated bodies swinging overhead. Because the heat had softened the bodies, the hooks were tearing through the rotting flesh.

  The canine-headed creature dangled from its jaw like a fish, the hook having pulled through its neck. Puddles of dark viscid liquid lay beneath each of the bodies, spotted with floating chunks of flesh and tangles of vessels. Another body had rotted right off the hook; it slumped on the ground as if sitting upright. The meat of its face had slid down, hanging loosely inside the translucent cuticle like water in a sac. One of its limbs had come off when it struck the ground and was lying beside it like a dis-carded toy.

  Cameron's stomach rose immediately at the thought of the virus running through the bodies around her, its presence thick in the air. An icy terror trickled through her when her mind turned to the child she was carrying, and to the ways the virus could alter and distort the fetus. She thought of the gnarled little creature that had split Floreana open when she birthed, and felt herself go weak with fear.

  She raised her hands to her watering eyes and choked down another breath, feeling the rank odor fill her chest. She turned and vomited twice into the corner. Behind her, Tank looked as though he were fighting to keep his stomach where it should be.

  She wiped her mouth and went to lock the door. The two empty braces, one on the door and one on the freezer wall, protruded in paral-lel curves. But there was no bolt.

  A chill ran from the base of her skull down her spine when she remembered that Tank had removed the bolt to use as a weapon. Now it was lying somewhere in the forest. She glanced over at Tank and a look of resignation passed between them.

  She grabbed a specimen hook from the corner and tried to get it through the braces, but since it was curved, it wouldn't fit through both of them. Setting the hook down quietly, she pressed her ear to the door; she heard nothing over the hum of the compressor and the wind out-side.

  Without speaking, she turned Tank around and examined his cut as best she could in the bad lighting. It was deeper than she would have guessed from how well he'd been moving, but Tank was tough like that. She pressed down on the cut with her hand and he winced a bit, the mus-cles in his back tightening into a plate. Her hand came away drenched with blood. She'd have to do something to stop the bleeding.

  She unbuttoned her shirt quickly and pulled it off. She wore an army-green tank top beneath, the kind Szabla used to wear. She held up the shirt, finding the seam. The sound of the material ripping filled the freezer.

  It was when she pressed the strip of cloth to Tank's back that they first heard the scraping. Cameron froze, keeping her fingers on Tank even as the blood seeped through the fabric. The noise was agonizing- a delicate scraping against the outside of the freezer door, like finger-nails on a chalkboard. Cameron and Tank shivered at the sound, stepping back although there was nowhere to go.

  If only they had the bolt.

  The scraping started again-probably the mantid's climbing hook screeching down the aluminum. Cameron's whole body went damp. She was breathing as quietly as she could-short inhalations and exhalations that didn't even expand her chest all the way.

  She glanced over at Tank, but his eyes were on the door, glued to the empty braces. He chewed his lip, a thick trickle of blood spilling over his stubbled chin. He watched the door, working his lip.

  A deafening bang echoed through the freezer and Cameron couldn't help but gasp. She could see the beginnings of a dent in the thick door. They braced themselves for another bang, but there was nothing, only the compressor's labored hum.

  Then the scraping started again, seeming to come from higher up. The freezer shifted a bit and then there was the sound of claws on the solar panels above, scrambling to take hold of the slick surface. Terror flooded through Cameron, but she blinked hard, pushing it away. The next strike set their ears ringing-small dimples appeared toward the top of both metal walls simultaneously as the mantid clawed around the freezer in a bear hug. Cameron noted with terror the span of the deadly front legs.

  They heard a screech and then the freezer jumped, rocking in its foundation. It was all Cameron could do to keep her balance. In the cor-ner, one of the rotting corpses fell from its hook and went to pieces on the ground.

  There was a scrambling sound, like a person running on ice, and then a dull thud as the mantid fell from the freezer roof onto
the grass. "She can't grip," Cameron whispered.

  The silence that followed seemed endless. Tank and Cameron tried to regulate their breathing, standing side by side among the bodies swaying crazily on the hooks. Cameron no longer noticed the smell, only the rank humidity against her face. She exhaled sharply through her nostrils, expelling the virus-laden air from her body.

  The mantid's hook clicked against the metal. It slid down the freezer door, stopping when it encountered the handle. It grinded around the handle, and Tank lunged for the door just as it yanked open with tremen-dous force. He grabbed the empty brace on the door with both hands, yelling as the cut on his back split open like a burst seam.

  Blood splattered across Cameron's face. She grabbed Tank around his waist and held onto him, pressing her cheek to his hot, sticky back.

  The mantid's head appeared for a moment in the gap of the door, her mouth spread open, silent and wild with movement. Tank grunted and yanked back on the brace, crying out in pain. The mantid's hook slipped from the handle, and the door banged shut.

  Tank fell back on top of Cameron and they lay there for an instant, collecting themselves before standing. Tank stared at the empty braces, his breath coming as if he were sobbing, though he was not. Beads of sweat stood out all through his crew cut. His neck looked raw and red, even in the dim light.

  Let her go away, Cameron thought. Just let her go away.

  The specimen hooks creaked as they rocked, the bodies dripping hemolymph into the puddles beneath them.

  There was a gentle tap on the freezer door. The mantid's hook screeched as it drifted down toward the handle again. Tank and Cameron stared at the door, their eyes lowering with the hook as if they were watching it through the metal.

  It ticked against the handle and stopped.

  Tank looked over at Cameron, his eyes moist with fear and affection. "Back vent," he said. "Go."

  He stepped forward and rammed his bloated arm through the two braces. The door yanked, the braces tearing his arm in opposite directions. He roared as the swelling popped, sending a spray of watery blood across the back of the door.