Infestation

by Heidi Lang

  The nearest one launched itself at her, hissing.

  Rae squeezed the nozzle of the Green On! spray and hit it full on. It staggered, then fell over onto its back, its many legs twitching in the air. Rae let out a breath. Patrick was right about this spray: it was very effective, like it had been designed specifically for these bugs. Rae caught movement in the beam of her light and sprayed just as another centipede charged her.

  “Get Blake!” she told Vivienne, spraying the next centipede, and the next. As much as she wanted to be the rescuer, she knew Vivienne was faster and had a better chance of saving him than she did. “I’ll keep our exit open.”

  Rae’s world narrowed to the thin strip of light from her headlamp illuminating the centipedes boiling out of hidden holes in the walls. She kept her finger on the nozzle, spraying each bug just as it charged, aiming for their creepy underside faces.

  How much spray did she have?

  Rae risked a quick glance over at Vivienne. Her friend had climbed one of the stalactites in order to reach the ceiling and was cutting away at the egg sac with her knife, her teeth bared in a silent snarl. She moved fast, slicing and then whipping around to spray a bug in midair before going back to Blake, her balance on that slender column of rock perfect.

  And then Rae realized Vivienne wasn’t snarling at all. She was laughing.

  Something hit Rae in the back of the knees, and she tumbled forward, catching herself on one hand. Immediately a horde of bugs surged forward. She could hear the awful clicking of their feet against the rock, her vision full of millions of legs.

  Rae scrambled up, spraying all around her, no longer aiming, just squeezing the handle of the nozzle and hitting whatever she hit. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. They were all around her!

  Another bug hit her legs, and she stumbled, then kicked it away. She soaked it in spray, spinning to take out a few more, her breath wheezing in her ears, the smell of fake orange cleaner filling her nostrils.

  It reminded her of Ava and the Super Citrus. And that helped her calm down a little. But it was still several more seconds before she could make herself ease up on the trigger, and by then the pressure of the spray had gone from a firehose to the gentler trickle of a shower.

  Rae finally took her finger off the trigger. Nothing moved, the cavern still and quiet, only the sound of her breath wheezing in her ears. She turned slowly, her headlamp illuminating a circle of corpses around her. The bugs lay crumpled on their backs with legs curled inward, a few of them still twitching. She felt sick.

  So much death.

  “I’ve got him!” Vivienne yelled. She dropped from the ceiling and did a forward roll, coming up just in time to catch Blake in her arms as tiny bugs poured down around them from the slit egg sac above. Blake groaned and clutched at her shoulders with one arm, his other clamped around his stomach.

  “The bug,” he moaned. “It—”

  “Shh,” Vivienne said, carrying him toward Rae and the entrance. “I’ve got you. Don’t talk.” She had to walk over a couple of dead bugs, their bodies crunching under her feet. “Ready to go?”

  Rae swept her headlamp around the cavern, still searching. “The queen.”

  “What?” Vivienne asked.

  “We haven’t seen her. We’re destroying her whole nest, and she isn’t here, protecting it. Why?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Rae frowned, turning, her headlamp creating a ribbon of light. But nothing moved in it.

  Something was wrong.

  “Rae, we need to get Blake back now,” Vivienne said. “Remember Priceless Art?”

  Rae did remember. It was too easy to imagine the same thing happening to Blake, his stomach bursting as the eggs inside him matured, the bugs exploding their way out. Still. “If we don’t kill the queen, then this”—Rae indicated the cavern, the bugs, Blake—“won’t end.”

  “I understand that. But if we don’t save Blake—”

  He whimpered.

  “Shh, shh, we’ve got you.” Vivienne dropped her voice, even though Blake was right there, so that hardly helped. “If he dies like that, there will be so much blood. So much.” Vivienne swallowed. “And then it might not be the bugs you’d have to worry about.”

  Rae frowned, confused.

  “I am barely keeping it together as it is,” Vivienne whispered. She was trembling violently, her eyes wide, teeth gritted.

  Sudden understanding hit Rae, faster and more terrible even than a killer alien insect. And she knew she couldn’t put Vivienne in that situation, mission or no. “We’ll come back later,” she decided.

  Vivienne relaxed. “Thank you.” She hoisted Blake up a little higher and started for the tunnel entrance.

  She never made it.

  A huge shape erupted from the shadows, slamming into Vivienne in a fury of legs. She cried out and dropped Blake as she fell back. The thing thrashed on top of her, its body rippling while it trampled her into the dirt.

  Rae slid her knife out from her thigh sheath and lunged forward, stabbing at the creature’s back. Her knife crunched through its outer skin, and it whipped around, its upper half lifting, the face beneath clearly visible. Multiple rows of eyes, black and cruel, a slit of a nose, and in the mouth, two sets of mandibles. It hissed, those mandibles clicking.

  Rae shot a blast of chemicals straight to its clicking head. The queen lurched back, and Rae pushed the trigger again.

  Nothing. Her spray was all used up.

  Rae stared into those rows of eyes and swore she could see triumph in them.

  Vivienne reared up and thrust her own knife straight into the queen’s mouth, stabbing deep and then twisting.

  The queen shrieked, legs flailing as it jerked hard… and then finally went still.

  Vivienne met Rae’s eyes above the dead bug’s head.

  Rae froze, her breath hitching. Something stared out at her from her friend’s face. Something cruel and inhuman. This wasn’t the same as gazing into the eyes of a mountain lion after all. It was more like staring into the eyes of a hooded cobra. Rae couldn’t look away.

  Vampire. The word sprang into Rae’s mind and stuck there.

  Vivienne didn’t have her magic sealing stone with her now. She didn’t have any special elixir. There was nothing keeping her curse under control, nothing to prevent it from taking her over.

  Nothing to stop her from leaping on Rae and tearing her throat wide open.

  40. CADEN

  Caden blinked.

  He was lying on the floor of the cabin. The candles had all sputtered out, but the front door was open, filling the room with enough light to make out the dim shapes of the couch, the fireplace, the discarded knife.

  And Ava, lying motionless in front of him.

  “No,” Caden whispered, scrambling over to her. The other Unseeing victims were gone now, and so was Aiden. “Ava?” Caden knelt, feeling for her pulse.

  It was there, but faint.

  “Ava!” He shook her gently. Her head rolled back and forth, but she didn’t wake up. Didn’t react at all.

  He checked her over quickly, carefully, and there weren’t any obvious wounds. No blood. Until he checked her hands. Across each palm spread a thin slice, already starting to heal. Tentatively he opened his senses, feeling for her.

  She felt like Aiden had felt. Like there was no one there at all.

  He didn’t know what he should do now. He had no experience with this kind of thing. He should have paid more attention to his mom’s lessons.

  Caden ran fingers through his hair, thinking furiously, his brother’s last warning echoing in his head. Nine outside to break the lock. Seven within to create the key. It sounded like one of the rituals his mom might have scribbled in her Book of Shadows.

  Caden sat back on his heels, studying the smeared remains of chalk on the floor, barely visible in the dim lighting. There had been eight victims of the Unseeing…

  And Ava.

  He went cold all over as he looked at
her lifeless face, felt her empty soul. Was she meant to be the ninth victim on the outside?

  Seven within to create the key.

  Aiden told him there had been three in already. Caden thought of the three Green On! employees that Aiden had said were dead now—or as good as—after pulling him out of the rift. Were they like Ava was now, empty vessels of flesh? Was that what Aiden had meant? If so, then the evil inside the Other Place just needed four more victims to wander into her prison.

  Caden scrubbed a hand over his face. He’d worry about all of that later. Right now, he had to focus on Ava.

  41. RAE

  Rae slowly, carefully raised her arms, putting her hands up protectively. Vivienne’s eyes narrowed, tracking the movement. “Vivi.” Rae made her voice gentle. “It’s me. Your friend. Rae-Rae.” She backed up a step. It was a mistake; she knew it the moment she moved.

  Vivienne’s lips pulled back in a silent snarl, her body tensing.

  Rae froze, not even breathing.

  Vivienne blinked, then blinked again, and life flowed back into her face. Her body relaxed, and she was herself again.

  Rae sagged and she put a hand to her chest, pressing on her heart.

  Vivienne’s expression crumpled. “I’m so, so sorry. I—”

  Blake screamed, his whole body arching, hands scrabbling in the dirt.

  Vivienne rushed to his side. “Hang on, Blake.”

  “I… can feel… them,” he gasped, clutching at his stomach. His freckles stood out like chicken pox against the ghostly white of his face, and his red hair was matted with sweat and some sort of goo from the egg sac.

  “Get him outside to Patrick quick,” Rae said. “I’ll do a quick final sweep, and then I’ll be right behind you.” Blake had gone missing only to turn up here. Rae wanted to make sure she wasn’t leaving anyone else behind.

  “Here.” Vivienne shrugged out of her pack and tossed it to Rae. “Just in case.”

  “Thank you.” Rae dropped her empty pack and pulled on Vivienne’s, clipping her bug spray nozzle in front.

  Vivienne slung Blake over her shoulders like he was a goat. “Don’t stay too long.”

  “I won’t,” Rae promised.

  Vivienne nodded, and then left. Rae watched her light moving down the tunnel and around the bend. Then it was just her inside the cavern. Just her, and a mountain of the dead.

  Rae shivered as she walked the perimeter of the cavern, sweeping her headlamp back and forth along the ground and the walls, checking the milky-white egg sac that spread across the ceiling like a giant web, purposefully not thinking about Vivienne and what had almost happened between them.

  Her light caught on a shape near the farthest corner of the cavern.

  Rae hesitated. Without Vivienne, her fear of the dark tunnels had started to eat away at her. The walls closed in, the shadows growing longer and hungrier. Rae squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath.

  It stank like rotting meat and decay.

  Rae opened her eyes, gagging. Before she could totally panic, she moved toward that corner, trying not to think too hard about what she might find. The sooner she checked, the sooner she could get out of here. Above her, the egg sac no longer crawled with bugs. All of the ones she passed were dead.

  She reached the corner, and the shape.

  It was a man, his upper half stretched out across the cavern floor, his feet still tangled in the webbing above. His torso was ripped open the same way Priceless Art had been.

  Rae staggered back, her hand over her mouth. She did not need to see more. She didn’t want to see his last agonizing moments stamped across his face; she already had enough nightmares.

  Click. Click. Clickity-click.

  Rae whipped around, frantically searching the dark for any movement. Her headlamp highlighted a bulge of gooey white just ahead, tucked behind a stalagnate. And sticking out of that bulge, a familiar leg clothed in neon orange and ending in a well-worn sneaker.

  “Oh no.” Rae eased herself around the pillar, her whole body trembling. Maybe she wasn’t too late. Maybe, just maybe, she could save one more person. “Coach Briggs?” She carefully slid her knife into the webbing and sliced it open, and her running coach tumbled out. A couple of tiny bugs burst from the egg sac to skitter around her, but Rae ignored them.

  Her coach’s mouth hung open, her glossy eyes gazing at nothing. She was dead.

  Rae backed away, shaking her head, like she could somehow will it not to be true. Her pack bumped up against the natural pillar.

  Click, click…

  Rae turned, but too slowly. A large, dark shadow slammed into her with the force of a tidal wave. She fell, the knife skidding from her hand, the bug looming over her. It was much larger than the queen Vivienne had killed. At least eight feet long, and wide, its legs spread on either side as its front half lifted.

  Rae stared up into its furious face. Rows of eyes, cruel and black, stared back at her. Its mandibles opened wide, exposing a second, smaller set behind them. Rae barely got her hands up before it shot a thick stream of yellowish-white goo at her face.

  It oozed around her fingers, splattering against her skin and into her mouth and eyes, all warm and sticky, smelling like battery fluid and sticking to her like rancid mozzarella.

  Rae retched and flailed backward, searching blindly for her lost knife. Her fingers found the handle, and she jabbed it upward just as the queen lunged. Her knife slid into the space between the queen’s head segment and the rest of its body, and stuck in deep.

  The queen screeched, long and terrible, before turning and scurrying into the shadows.

  Rae rolled over to her side. Everything hurt, her whole body battered. She spat the goo out of her mouth and scrubbed at her face with her sleeve, getting rid of as much as she could while she searched the dark for the queen. Her knife was gone, but she still had Vivienne’s bug spray. She unclipped the nozzle and held it ready, her hand trembling violently, fingers pressing into the metal so hard they went numb.

  Click. Click. Click.

  Rae couldn’t tell where the noise was coming from. Sound echoed strangely in the cavern. It almost sounded like… it was right above her!

  She threw herself to the side as the queen dropped from the ceiling and slammed into the ground.

  Rae lurched to her feet and pointed the nozzle, then pulled the trigger, prepared for the gush of spray.

  The queen paused, waiting.

  There was a loud hiss of air, and then a few tiny drops squirted out.

  Rae stared at it, then at the queen. “That’s not good,” she whispered, inching backward.

  The queen’s mandibles clicked together, sounding almost like laughter. The knife jammed into its body quivered, and just below its hilt, Rae spotted something strange. A small green tag, very similar to the one Ava had pointed out on the alien in her dad’s photograph.

  Shock rippled through Rae like a lake on a windy day.

  The queen charged, and Rae thrust her questions aside and ran as fast as she could.

  The bug was much faster. It knocked into her from behind, sending her flying. She skidded across the ground and crashed into a stalagmite. The queen scurried up her body, its weight crushing her legs, pinning her to the ground as it moved relentlessly up until its face loomed just above her own. Rae thought of stomachs bursting and imagined what it would feel like. Her hands were icy with fear, one of them still wrapped around the nozzle, the other pushing uselessly at the slick exoskeleton of the queen.

  She’d never get it off her that way.

  She had a sudden desperate idea and slid her hand into the front of her suit, pulling out the lighter. Patrick hadn’t given her a flamethrower, so she would make her own.

  As the queen’s mandibles extended, the second pair sliding forward, already dripping with goo, Rae flicked the switch of her lighter and held it in front of the nozzle of her chemical gun. She looked the queen straight in the face. “Eat this,” she said, and pressed the trigger. Th
e chemicals spurted out, hitting the flame and shooting out blue fire.

  The queen shrieked and fell back. Rae rolled away from it and pushed herself to her feet, watching as the bug writhed on the ground, the flames spreading as they touched on the corpses of dead bugs around it, leaping to engulf the remaining egg sacs. Heat rose up in a searing wall, pressing Rae back, until she turned and sprinted through the cavern and into the tunnel, leaving the nest to burn behind her.

  She wanted to feel victorious, but she kept seeing that shape rolling on the ground, unable to put out the flames, kept hearing that awful scream. And she didn’t feel good about any of it.

  It had to be done. Rae knew that. Those things had already killed plenty of animals and at least two people. But as she ran, she could feel the guilt keeping pace with her. She remembered what Patrick had said, that those bugs were just obeying their biological imperative.

  So did they deserve to die?

  Rae knew they could never coexist on this planet. Someone would have had to take out their nest eventually. But she began wondering why she and Vivienne had been the ones forced to do it. Because Nate was right; they were kids. They shouldn’t be the only ones standing between Whispering Pines and a serious infestation of alien bugs.

  And that tag… it was a Green On! tag, Rae was sure of it. Which meant the company must have known where the queen was the whole time and hadn’t done anything about it. If Rae hadn’t killed it, those bugs would have spread until all of Whispering Pines was crawling with them.

  Patrick said he had faith in them. But Rae knew that wasn’t the whole truth. He was up to something, using his interns like they were a part of one of his experiments, all in the pursuit of some unknown goal.

  She was sure of only two things now: First, that Green On! had been involved with the alien her dad discovered. Which meant they must have had something to do with his disappearance too. So Patrick really might know where he was.

  But the second thing she knew for sure was that Patrick was not to be trusted.