Wasp Season

by Jennifer Scoullar

  Helen’s previous laissez faire attitude, now worked to her advantage. Her naivete during the course of their short relationship had caused Mark to lower his guard. He dismissed his partner as being both unwilling to, and incapable of, involving herself in financial affairs. But it is never wise to underestimate the enemy, and things were about to change.

  One morning after Mark left for work, Helen went into his home-office and sat down at the computer. Until today, she’d never used it for anything more than emailing and shopping online. Now she tried to access their bank accounts. It soon became clear that a password and pin number were required. Undismayed, she systematically emptied the contents of the desk draws. An exhaustive search revealed nothing. Helen replaced everything as neatly as possible, hoping it would not be too apparent that things had been disturbed. She needed to think. Mark was a careful person who wouldn’t just leave things lying around.

  Suddenly she had an idea. In their bedroom was a small safe on the floor of the wardrobe. It contained her more valuable jewellery and a small document file. She hurried upstairs, entered a number into the safe’s keypad and opened it. Removing the document file, she quickly found what she wanted within. Two little yellow and black cards entitled “Netbank. Make it Happen!” one in Mark’s name and one in hers. She found other information too. Passwords and account numbers relating to Mark’s accounting practice. Helen did not know what they were all for, but she meticulously copied them down in any case, just as Konrad had suggested.

  After replacing the contents of the safe, she returned to the office to try out the netbank client numbers. The first gave access to various accounts in her name. How foolish she felt looking at her own fiscal information for the very first time. Another gave access to the line of credit, and yet another was for Mark’s personal accounts and investments conducted through the bank. Sifting through the files, Helen found to her surprise that they weren’t quite as well-off as she’d imagined. In truth, her prolific gambling had substantially drained Mark’s funds, and recent bouts of depression had led him to neglect their affairs. Helen logged off, hoping Mark would be too complacent to notice the time of the last log-in. Carefully she slipped the transcribed information from the small document file into her handbag.

  Helen’s cell phone rang.

  “Hello.”

  ”It’s me, baby. Where are you? You said you’d come over!”

  “I’m on my way. I just have to drop Chance at daycare. Actually I can’t wait to see you. I’ve got a favour to ask.”

  “Ask away. Just hurry up will you? It feels like I’ve been waiting all day!”

  “O.K. Be there soon. I love you”

  Helen dressed Chance quickly and left, anxious to speak to Jason. Today she would discover how far he was prepared to go to prove that he loved her too.

  The next morning Mark left for the office without his laptop computer. Despite conducting a cursory search there remained no sign of it and eventually he left without it. As he did so, an uneasy Jason quietly slipped out of his car that was parked opposite the house in a position that offered a clear view of the driveway. Helen opened the front door for him as he approached it, anxiously ushering him inside and through to the office. She indicated to him where Mark’s laptop computer lay on the desk, along with the collection of cryptic numbers copied from the hidden document file upstairs. Jason slipped on some thin cotton gloves and set to work, matching up the passwords and security-clearance codes with Mark’s client and trust account numbers. It didn’t take long. After half an hour or so Jason pushed his chair back from the desk and looked at Helen, examining her worried face for any sign of hesitation or doubt. To his dismay he found none.

  “Well?” she said expectantly.

  “Do you really want me to go through with this?” he asked.

  Helen slowly smiled as the meaning of his question became clear. Jason had succeeded in gaining access. Now she was in a position to financially compromise her errant boyfriend in a serious way. Jason reluctantly began to transfer large amounts from client trust funds into Mark’s personal and investment accounts.

  Ten minutes later he stood up.

  “There!” he said, astonished by what he had just done.

  Helen, who had been watching entranced as bank balances tumbled and mounted as if by magic, was speechless with delight.

  A feeling of dread overcame Jason and he thought for a moment of undoing his crime while there was still time. But one look at Helen was enough to quell his regret. She was not about to change her mind and he was not about to disappoint her. The die was well and truly cast.

  “Don’t fiddle with anything else,” he warned. “You don’t want any money turning up in your accounts. You’ll be under enough scrutiny as it is.”

  Helen nodded in agreement.

  ‘She’s not the only one who’ll be under scrutiny,’ he thought to himself, staggered by the extent of his folly.

  Jason’s growing anxiety was tempered by his excitement about Helen and her baby moving in with him. They’d booked a removal truck to arrive at lunchtime to collect Helen’s things and some furniture. Tonight, and every other night from now on, Helen would belong to him. His desire for this to happen outweighed any fear of the consequences. He was in so far over his head now anyway, that it appeared the only path lay forward.

  “Jason, you’d better leave. You don’t want anyone to see you here. I’ll follow the truck over to your place this afternoon. Thank you so much.”

  A fatalistic Jason, feeling like he’d been dismissed, kissed her and left.

  As soon as he was gone Helen returned to the office. She had one more task to complete. Logging back onto the internet banking site, she reopened the line of credit account linked to the house. Taking a piece of paper from the pocket of her jeans, she carefully typed the account number it contained into the ‘transfer to’ box. She then selected the maximum amount of credit available and typed this figure into the ‘amount of transfer’ box. After confirming the transfer she sat back for a moment, satisfied that now Mark could not afford to keep the house after she left. Then she rang Konrad to tell him it was done.

  CHAPTER 24

  The large ant grasped the fluffy, golden, decapitated bee head between her powerful jaws. The ground beneath the bee tree, strewn with the remains of the bloody battle, provided easy pickings for the Bull-ants that lived on the edge of Beth’s garden. They possessed a keen sense of smell located in their antennae and the stench of death attracted them in great numbers. They also possessed excellent vision. As they entered the battlefield they could clearly see with their large, compound eyes, the thousands of velvety golden orbs, slightly sticky on one side with smeared bee blood. The Bull-ants, in common with the wasps, had plenty of young of their own to feed and this windfall was most welcome.

  As the ant returned to her nest, she repositioned her load a little, in order to maintain her balance. Not that the bee head was much of a burden to her. She was a giant, by ant standards, measuring over thirty millimetres and equipped with long, toothed mandibles for biting, and a very well developed sting. Her tough, chitinous body was glossy black and boasted, in certain light, an iridescent dark green sheen. The Bull-ant was an ancient ant, not much changed in form and feature from her ancestors trapped in resin over fifty million years ago. Her colony was large, with over one thousand individuals. Due to her size and shape she somewhat resembled a wingless wasp, but in contrast to that distant relative, the social structure of her colony was quite primitive.

  The ant mound itself was broad and obvious, measuring nearly a metre across. The surface was decorated with pebbles, pine needles and other pieces of plant material. Underground it consisted of a number of irregular galleries, connected by passages and extending a metre below the earth. There were several entrance holes, allowing for flexible escape plans and ensuring rapid defence of any area of the nest. Not for these proud insects the fate of the imprisoned Honeybee queen; trapped behind the blocked si
ngle entry hole, waiting in darkness to die.

  As she entered her nest mound, she passed her own queen, who was venturing out on a trip to the forest to collect bee heads. In contrast to the bee and wasp queens, it was actually quite difficult to distinguish this queen from her workers, as she was approximately the same size. She was no pampered, housebound princess, but was instead a long lived warrior queen, who ranged side by side with her daughters, defending with them and hunting with them. More than ten summers ago she bore wings, participated in her single nuptial flight, and then established her colony. All but a small fraction of the millions of sperm she received a decade ago, remained alive inside of her. Her body provided them with nutrients and an environment in which they continued to thrive. The sperm was always available to the queen whenever she required it to fertilise an egg. With luck, she could expect to lead the colony for many years to come.

  She had few maternal instincts and believed in the notion of ‘tough love’. Her eggs were not tenderly placed in intricately designed cells like those of the wasps and bees. On the contrary, she dropped her eggs randomly about her underground chambers. Neither the queen nor her workers gave the young much attention. Feeding too was a rough and ready affair, for the adults generally dropped unmasticated lumps of dead insect near the larvae, and then left them to fend for themselves. These babies needed to learn to eat raw meat right from the start. This caused them to be so aggressive, that they cannibalised their weaker siblings if given half a chance. The grubs were covered with rough, spiky hairs on their bodies, to protect them from their fierce sisters. They pupated in cocoons as tough as leather and then emerged, without assistance, as fully functional and highly independent adults. In one respect however, they displayed a fierce allegiance to each other. Nest protection. In defence these insects were magnificently courageous, defiant and supremely confident. They possessed a powerful sting, and were well known by animal and human alike for their ability to use it. As such, they were treated with respect by all, and had few natural enemies. Even the ant eating Echidna viewed them as a meal of last resort, preferring the softer-bodied ants and termites.

  But unlike the introduced European wasp and Honeybee, this formidable native ant was a very valuable member of her bushland community. Oddly enough, these fierce Bull-ants performed a similar function to the harmless earthworms by excavating their nests and thus aerating the soil and improving plant growth. They also kept the forest floor clean by scavenging anything dead or unhealthy. The Bull-ant adults were not vegetarians, like adult wasps and bees. They considered meat their proper food. They occasionally lapped-up sweet plant juices for variety, but they were primarily carnivores.

  The Bull-ant entered the nest and dropped the severed bee’s head in the vicinity of several larvae. The hungry, hairy, eyeless, legless grubs sensed the presence of food and attempted to wriggle towards it. Indifferent to their struggles, the ant returned to the surface and headed back into the forest to collect more meat. She followed no scent trail, as other ants commonly did. Having lived in the garden for all the three years of her life she knew her way around perfectly well by sight.

  As she approached the bee tree she noticed the human child. Resenting this intrusion, she decided to repel him. The boy bent down, curious about the golden fluff that covered the ground and floated in little eddies in the light breeze. He reached down his hand to touch the stuff. The Bull-ant seized her opportunity. Using her powerful hind legs almost like a grasshopper, she propelled herself with surprising speed in leaps and bounds towards the child. It was a bold attack by such a tiny creature. She was an ant with attitude. Unseen, she landed on the back of the boy’s hand.

  Rick felt the bite first. The ant gripped his skin tightly with her long, straight, serrated mandibles. The boy shook his hand vigorously, trying to dislodge his attacker. But the Bull-ant’s reputation for ferocity and determination was well deserved. She held on doggedly to her victim with jagged jaws and curled her abdomen underneath and upwards, thrusting her long, barbless sting into the soft skin of the child’s hand. Then she injected her poison, a potent combination of formic acid and a proteinaceous venom, similar to that of wasps and bees.

  Rick felt a river of pure fire engulf his hand. With a scream he ran off, dislodging the ant with a final flick of his arm. She landed safely on the ground, little the worse for wear. The noise and pheromone production caused by the initial attack, motivated dozens of other Bull-ants, similarly engaged in foraging, to also mount an assault. They took the offensive, jaws raised, pursuing the boy some ten metres along the path, a savage sisterhood programmed to attack. Trying to ignore his pain, Rick ran straight towards the house, crying loudly. His mother, who was collecting salad greens for lunch from the vegetable garden, heard his cries and came running down the path to see what was wrong.

  For a horrified moment or two, Beth thought that her son had also suffered a wasp attack. His agonised crying reminded her all too clearly of the incident with Chance a few weeks before. It was with enormous relief that she discovered instead that he’d been stung by a single Bull-ant. Excruciatingly painful as this was, there was no comparison with a mass envenomation by the local European wasps. Comforting her injured child, she guided him up the path to the house, and applied an ice-pack to the swelling.

  “Where were you when you were stung?”

  “Along the forest path a bit,” Rick sobbed.

  “I saw this yellow, fluffy stuff on the ground and I bent down to touch it. Then the ant bit my hand.”

  “What was it? Wattle blossom or something?”

  “I don’t think so. It’s right in the forest where there’s not enough sun for Wattle trees.”

  Beth gave Rick an analgesic to ease the pain, and sent him to lie down with the ice-pack on his hand. Twenty minutes later the burning sensation began to ease. Once Beth saw that her son was improving she took her own walk back down along the forest path. Just as Rick had said, several metres into the forest shade she found an old Gum tree with a fuzzy, golden carpet at the base of its trunk. At first she thought she was right, and that it was fallen Wattle blossom. She leant down for a closer inspection, forewarned about the danger of the lurking Bull-ants, and noticed several of them carrying the fluff in their jaws. Definitely not any type of blossom, she thought. These ants, like the wasps, required protein for their young.

  Beth studied the stuff a while longer, carefully scooping some up with a leaf for a closer look. With a jolt she recognised the tiny, severed head capsules of dozens of Honeybees, lying in the curl of the gum leaf. She gazed around her in horror, as the sheer scale of the massacre became apparent. Looking upwards she noticed a tree hollow high above her with a steady stream of European wasps coming and going. She re-examined the contents of the Gum leaf, and distinguished the odd wasp head amongst those of the bees. Clearly the invaders had suffered their own casualties.

  Carefully dropping the leaf, Beth stepped back, still wary of the Bull ants scavenging about in the detritus. She despaired for the creatures of her garden. This was not competition; this was annihilation. Firmly, Beth resolved to complete the mission she’d procrastinated about in the weeks since the attack on Chance. The wasp’s nest must be destroyed and she would do it tonight. Her sympathy and admiration for Zenandra remained undiminished. How could one not admire the sheer magnitude of the queen’s achievements? In the space of a few short months, from a meagre and solitary beginning, she’d conquered Beth’s garden, and now extended her dominion into the surrounding bush. No predators existed in this new homeland to challenge her imperial design. But fear now tempered Beth’s admiration. If a new generation of queens colonised the local bushland, Beth believed the wasp scourge would become unstoppable.

  Beth knew what to do. She’d already decided against a professional pest exterminator. If she was to betray the queen, then she needed the courage to do it herself. Walking slowly back to the house, she slipped through the fence and made the familiar detour to the woodpile.
There, beneath the dry grass and piles of old logs, lay the nest. To the careful observer, the constant to-ing and fro-ing of the worker wasps disclosed the location of the single entrance. Beth felt unbearable pity for the insects, going about their daily activities, with no inkling of the looming disaster. Always until now she had spared them. This time she would not. It was inevitable. Beth felt as helpless and impotent as the wasps were to change what was to come.

  She returned to the house in the scorching mid afternoon heat, to check on Rick and to prepare her chemical weapons. Everything was planned and ready to go as it had been for weeks. Beth’s regard for Zenandra had prevented her, time and time again, from following through on the attack. There would be no reprieve tonight however. The survival of her garden and even the safety of her children depended on it, and she determined not to let her personal feelings distort her judgement. After all, she felt certain that the wasp queen would suffer from no such sentimental compunctions should their situations be reversed.

  Rick’s hand was still painfully swollen, but he was otherwise in good spirits. Beth didn’t tell him that the fuzz in the forest consisted of severed bee heads. It somehow seemed too gruesome. She prepared a drink and a snack and brought it to him before she went out to the garden shed to check on her preparations for the night. From an old cardboard box she removed a bee keeper’s hat and veil, a pair of double-lined gauntlet gloves, a long-sleeved denim shirt, a dust mask and some overalls. At the bottom of the box lay two tins of Carbaryl insecticidal dust, two cans of fast knock-down residual insect spray, and some sheets of red cellophane. The only other thing she needed was a torch.