Minutes to Burn (2001)

by Gregg Hurwitz

  With one swift motion, the mantid lashed her legs at her squirming sibling, raking it from the hook. Clenched in her spikes, the larva screeched, the sound continuing even after its head rose into the crea-ture's mouth and was severed with a single bite.

  Cameron felt her stomach churning, but she continued her slow pace, careful not to disturb the occasional rock on the road. As she backed up, her heel caught on a lip of the road raised in the recent earthquake, and she went down softly on her ass.

  But not softly enough.

  The mantid's antennae snapped erect, and she rotated her head and front legs, peering into the night. Cameron felt her stare, felt her locate her in the darkness. The creature's head split in a gargantuan soundless scream, the pieces of her mouth flailing in the cavernous rictus. The larva's head fell from the mouth.

  Panic rose like vomit through Cameron's chest and she tasted it at the back of her throat. The road dug into her chafed palms as she watched, frozen.

  The mantid's legs snapped once, discharging the larva's small, limp body.

  Moving to the edge of the shed, the mantid extended her slender neck, sticking her head out into the open air and fixing Cameron in her stare.

  Relax, Cameron thought. You still have time. She's gotta climb down the watchtower. You can still make it past the trip wires.

  The mantid stepped forward, her four back legs crowding the edge of the shed's entrance. Folding her raptorial legs to her chest, the mantid leaned forward even farther into the open air. Slowly, her enormous inner wings slid out from beneath the tegmina, fanning behind her and spreading across the expanse of the watchtower. The red light shone through them, casting a bloody glow over the road.

  Cameron tried to swallow, but her throat had tightened into a ball.

  The mantid tipped forward from the edge of the tower, drawing her massive wings up behind her like the sail of a hang glider. Their span was so wide it dwarfed her body. She stepped from the watchtower, her sharp front legs hanging beneath her like missiles.

  She was gliding. She hurtled up the road at Cameron.

  Cameron screamed and started sprinting for the forest. She had nothing by which to gauge the creature's progress, no sound of footsteps, no crunching foliage. Blindly, terrified, she ran, the trees watching solemnly over her from both sides like spectators at an execution. Her legs seemed to move in slow motion; her boots felt as if they were made of concrete. The hammering of her breath filled her entire body. Her heartbeat pounded in the tips of her fingers and the backs of her knees.

  The mantid was at her back; Cameron could sense her closing in. If she could have died instantly, simply melted into the ground before the creature seized her, she would have.

  The mantid screeched, sending a fresh wave of terror through Cameron. She chanced a glance behind her. The mantid was about twenty yards back, swooping down fast.

  Cameron whirled back around and saw the first trip wire right in front of her. With a yell, she hurled her body in the air over it, rolled once side-ways across the road, and was up running, having barely slowed down.

  The explosion should have come right behind her, but Cameron real-ized that the mantid was up too high, that she had glided right over the wire. Cameron would have to trip the last wire herself. But if she ran into it, it would slow her down, and she'd never make it off the road before the trees crushed her. If she tried to roll under the wire, the creature would be on her instantly.

  She had ten walking steps until the next trip wire, that much she remembered. Her body flew forward, her mind racing. Air from the plummeting mantid blew across her shoulders. She had no time to think. The thin wire gleamed in the moonlight, mere feet away.

  Reaching behind her, Cameron yanked the knife from the back of her pants, pulling it from its sheath. It slid smoothly out. She twirled it in her hand, never slowing, angling it down her forearm with the blade out, just as Savage used to do.

  The blade met the wire with a click and bent it forward as she ran through it. The explosives went off with a deep roar, sending fragments of bark and tree chunks flying. A plug of pulp whistled just over her head. The blasts were blinding, flashing one after another and illuminating the road like a strobe light.

  The mantid was momentarily startled, but she kept her eye on her prey below, trained on the kill.

  The wire stretched to its limit against the knife and then broke with a twang, whipping off to both sides. Cameron's legs didn't stop pumping for an instant.

  Above her, the mantid drew her raptorial legs up under her chin. They were coiled, ready to flash out like the talons of a hawk.

  Higher still, the balsa trees started their downward crash, sporadically lit by the explosions. The twelve blocks of TNT had been too much for the quinine trunk, blowing it straight off the stump. It went horizontal almost instantly. Heavy with branches, the top end of the tree clubbed through the air.

  The mantid sped down at Cameron's back. The raptorial legs flexed, pausing a split second before the lightning-fast strike.

  Cameron felt the whole island closing in on her, the falling trees blocking out the sky, the flying predator at her back, and it seemed her blood itself was adrenaline as she raced toward the end of the constricting road.

  The quinine tree struck the mantid across the back, knocking air through her spiracles with a screech and sending a splattering of digestive juice across Cameron's shoulders. Knocked off balance, the mantid careened upside down, one wing crunched to a worthless flap. The momentum from the blow shot her ahead of Cameron on the ground, and Cameron leapt over her gnashing head, dodging the snap of a leg midair. The mantid rolled once and began a fast limp after Cameron.

  The airborne quinine smashed the ground behind them, tripping the second wire. The road lit with another blaze of light. The air filled with flying wood, the fragments zooming overhead. The other trees crackled on their stumps as they tipped in on Cameron and the mantid from both sides.

  The tree closest to the forest, right at the end of the trap, was falling ahead of the others. The TNT had blown out a huge section of the trunk, hastening its plummet.

  Cameron sprinted at the shrinking space beneath the final tree, the mantid dragging herself rapidly after her. If Cameron didn't squeeze under the tree before it hit the ground, she'd either be caught by the creature or crushed by the other trees. Overhead, the air was filled with falling timber, flash-lit, so it appeared to crash down in great jerks.

  Gasping, Cameron threw herself under the last tree as it closed to the ground like a guillotine. Her shoulder barely glanced off the trunk as she skimmed under, but it was enough to send her flying. Pain clawed through her back, tempered only by her relief that she hadn't been crushed. She spun in the air 180 degrees, landing flat on her stomach and chest, facing the imploding road.

  Above the fallen trunk of the last tree, she could see the mantid reared up to her full nine feet, hurtling forward even with the left side of her body crushed. A tree smashed to the ground behind her, barely missing.

  Oh God, Cameron thought, what if they don't hit her? What if they all miss?

  The mantid leapt forward, screeching as she barely outran another falling tree, and Cameron tried to get up and run, but she was limp with fear and exhaustion. Her body had nothing left.

  No images flashed before her eyes, no childhood memories, no thoughts of Justin--there was just the charging creature, the road dig-ging into her chin, her mouth full of dirt.

  She had resigned herself at last to death, when the last falling tree smashed across the mantid's back, pounding her into the ground with such force that Cameron's eyes couldn't even track her movement down.

  A large tree trunk blocked the creature from view, but Cameron heard her screech turn into a rasping whistle. The air filled with settling leaves and dust and a magnificent silence, broken only by an occasional rustle from the mantid, which she heard even over the ringing in her ears.

  Cameron slid the knife back into the sheath behind he
r pants and tried to rise, but pain raked through her back and she crumpled up with a yell. Her hip was completely numb, and her leg did not respond when she tried to move it. Pulling herself forward, her fingers clawing holds in the dirt, Cameron scraped along the ground toward the fallen tree trunk that was blocking the mantid from view. The dirt felt like steel wool across her stomach, and a few sharp stones stung her through her ragged tank top.

  As she neared, the rasping grew louder. She used a knot to pull herself on top of the trunk. The mantid was lying on her back, the massive trunk having crushed her abdomen nearly flat. Though her head and prothorax still extended from beneath the tree, her raptorial legs were pinned beneath it, the razor spikes smashed somewhere in the mess of tree, guts, and earth. Her head moved slightly back and forth, her mouth opening feebly.

  She was dying.

  Cameron tried to climb down the other side of the trunk but ended up falling. She landed on her hip and screamed, the pain watering her eyes. Her vision dotted, then cleared, and she pulled herself toward the creature.

  The mantid couldn't lift the back of her head from the dirt. Her mouth gnashed at Cameron, moving as if trying to free itself and attack her on its own.

  The smell of the rotting mouth rising to her, Cameron lowered her face right above the mantid's, her reflection clear in the creature's remaining eye. Glaring into the black eye, she knew, somehow, that the mantid sensed her life draining away.

  The mantid struggled, trying desperately to lift her head so she could crush Cameron's face in her jaws. But she was too weak; she succeeded only in turning her head meekly from side to side. Cameron reached for the protruding spear stock, the movement causing her to lean over the mantid. Her blond hair fell in neat curves around her cheeks. Her chin was awash with saliva and blood; she inadvertently drooled a thick cord into the quivering maw. Cameron grabbed the stock of the spear with both fists. The whole head lifted when she drew back her arms. She smashed the head back against the ground, driving the spear stock deeper through the cuticle. The mantid's mouth gaped in its awful silent fashion. The spear tip continued to press through the creature's head, which yielded with a moist crackling.

  The mantid shuddered beneath Cameron's hands, then convulsed, her cuticle rattling against the tree trunk that was now part of her abdomen. Her mouth still spread wide, the mantid stopped shaking and her head rolled up and to the side.

  Spitting a mouthful of blood down the front of her chin and onto the ground, Cameron started to sob. She wept lying flat on her stomach, tears cutting through the dirt on her face, her fists still gripping the last protruding inches of the spear.

  Cameron lowered her head, resting it on her forearm as she fought for control, pushing her lips together until they stopped quivering.

  Savage's knife was lying where it had fallen in the dirt nearby. She closed her fingers around the black Micarta as if to draw strength from it. Raising her aching arm, she plunged the Death Wind into the top of the tree trunk that lay across the creature's chest. The knife rose verti-cally, like a cross from a grave.

  She thought of Justin and tried to rise, but could not. A few dry sobs escaped her, shaking her shoulders. She rolled onto her back, the stars above blurring into a fantasia of pinpoints and yellow streaks.

  Darkness claimed her.

  Chapter 75

  La Carretera al Canal, a poorly paved highway that led over the high-lands of Santa Cruz to the northern side of the island, was forty-two kilometers of mess. Scarps and cracks slowed the truck to a cautious crawl in the night. A few times, Diego had to stop before driving across a fissure, and wait for Rex and Ramoncito to remove the two planks from the bed of the truck and lay them across the gap. They hit one scarp particularly hard and Rex was convinced they'd blown a tire, but the truck rattled on, undeterred.

  After what seemed a lifetime, they drove down the far side of the hill, coasting to the dock at the Itabaca Channel and gazing across the dark stream of water at the airport lights on Baltra.

  The truck skidded to a halt, and they hopped out.

  Rex looked at the stretch of water and cursed. "I forgot about that," he said. "There's no boat. What are we going to--" He glanced over, but Diego had already stripped down to his boxers.

  Diego leaned back in the truck, grabbing the handcuffs from the rearview mirror. "I'm going to stop that plane if I have to handcuff myself to it," he said. He ran a few steps and hit the water with a graceful dive.

  Ramoncito groaned and began to strip down. Rex watched him for a few moments before following suit.

  Cameron awakened with the helo blowing sheets of wind across her body. Guided by the IR strobe, it flew low over the road, landing in the grassy field between base camp and the air vesicle. A soldier sat crouched behind the M-60 mounted in the door.

  Three figures scurried from the helo, running to her body under the yellow blanket of the spotlight, white bands with red crosses standing out on their arms. They stopped dead in their tracks, Berettas drawn, when they saw the mantid's body beneath the tree. One shouted back to the gunner and two men emerged with flamethrowers. Cameron coughed, her throat lined with dirt and blood.

  The flamethrowers burst to life with sporadic belches, obliterating the remnants of the virus from the base camp. Cameron raised a weary hand and held up two fingers, then pointed in the directions of Ramon and Floreana's house and of the specimen freezer--the two additional sites that needed to be sterilized by fire. One of the soldiers nodded and jogged off down the road, flamethrower in hand. This was all relevant, she realized, only if the water samples had come in clean.

  Two figures moved in cautiously, eyes on the creature, and lifted Cameron onto a stretcher. Cameron tried to speak, to tell them where Justin was buried--that despite her last correspondence with Samantha, he was still alive--but her throat was caked with dust and no sound came out. Despite her protestations, they carried her briskly but carefully back to the helo. Behind her, the flamethrower claimed the mantid's body.

  Cameron thrashed on the stretcher. "Stop, we have a man down," she managed to croak, but her voice was barely audible over the burst of the flamethrowers and the whir of the rotors. She pointed to the mound of upturned soil under which Justin was buried, but they moved right past it. Her and Derek's old tent was ablaze, along with the note she'd pinned to it.

  She threw herself from the stretcher, grunting when she hit the ground. Justin's body was buried about ten feet away. The figures stopped, concerned, then leaned over her. She saw a needle flash in a gloved hand--a sedative. She rolled on her back, swinging roughly, and the figures backed off.

  She turned and pulled herself toward Justin's grave, feeling the pinch of the needle in her ass. The world blurred and swam. She fought off unconsciousness, dragging herself forward with bloody fingernails. The figures waited for her to pass out.

  Grunting, she yanked herself toward the plastic tube that protruded from the ground. Spots dotted her vision. She finally reached it and swiped away a handful of dirt, revealing the edge of Justin's cheek. One of the figures crouched over him, checking his neck for a pulse.

  Cameron felt her body floating away.

  Strapped to the stretcher, she came to when the Blackhawk struck pave-ment at Baltra. One of the corpsmen fiddled with an oxygen line. She leaned over Cameron and checked her pupils with a penlight, first pulling on a second set of latex gloves.

  Resting in the tangle of an oxygen tube on her chest was a transparent Ziploc bag that held her necklace and wedding ring. The corpsman must have removed them from her neck to get a clear line to her pulse. Afraid the ring would get lost with all the activity, Cameron reached out weakly and fought the bag open, pushing the ring onto her finger. The necklace slid from her chest, falling to the helo floor. She wasn't used to wearing the ring properly--it felt large and unwieldy, yet comforting.

  Cameron rolled her head limply to the side. Justin lay on the stretcher across the helo, his glassy eyes staring up at the roof. His fac
e was pallid, like a corpse's, and awash in sweat and dirt. Cameron's eyes traveled down to his fingernails. They were blue; he was shunting blood to his heart and brain. A single tear rolled from the corner of his eye, but he did not blink.

  "Baby," she said, her voice choked and broken. She sniffed and wiped the mucus roughly from her upper lip. Justin's body stiffened as a wave of pain wracked him, his thighs straining the vinyl straps, his back arched and contorted. His eyes seemed drugged, insensate, and for a moment Cameron thought she'd lost him already despite the steady blip of the monitor.

  The soldiers disembarked, hardly taking note of them.

  Cameron cleared her throat and fought to enunciate, but her words still came out a scratchy drawl. "Baby," she said. "Baby, look at me. Look at me."

  A glimmer of recognition rippled through his eyes, and Cameron bit her lip, fighting not to sob from relief. He turned, his eyes finding hers. A thin line of drool dangled from the side of his mouth.

  "That's right," she breathed. "Just look at me. Look at me."

  He watched her, his eyes lit through with pain. Weakly, he raised a trembling hand. It hovered in the space between their stretchers, reaching for her. Despite the excruciating pain in her shoulder, she reached for him too. For an instant, there was nothing else--no noise, no pain, no hammering rotors overhead, just the feeling of her husband's hand in hers, his eyes on her face.

  The door swung open, and she saw a montage of images in the night--Rex sprinting for the open helo door, the B1 bomber on the tar-mac ready for takeoff, Diego lying down before the plane, his wrists handcuffed around the forward landing gear. It seemed as if Rex and Diego were wearing only boxer shorts.

  Cameron blinked lazily, trying to make sense of everything. The bomber should already have taken off; it should have been heading to Sangre de Dios by now, bearing the neutron bomb in its belly. Diego must have delayed the takeoff by handcuffing himself to the wheel. A UN soldier pinned down Diego's arms with his knees as another strug-gled to undo the cuffs with a key. They came free, and the soldiers dragged Diego away struggling and shouting. A button popped from the soldier's shirt, pattering on the tarmac. Ramoncito, wearing a dirty pair of underwear, ran forward from seemingly nowhere, pounding one of the soldiers' backs weakly with his fists.