by Weston Ochse
The only one who didn’t like it was Batista. He’d had eyes for nothing but the emergency bunker and the young Mexican girl who waited inside. Until the monsters returned, he wouldn’t even be allowed to get close to her. So it was that every day when they were checking the mine controls and cabling, that he complained and griped and groaned. He’d wax graphically about what his plans were for the young girl. He’d detail the unspeakable acts he’d perform. He’d wonder philosophically if she’d like him for what he did, perhaps even love him and beg for more.
Never once did he think that his partner thought otherwise, because Andy remained silent through it all. Andy prayed that it was all talk. In his mind, he might have been Tarzan, but intellectually he understood the difference between pretend and reality. When it came down to it, Batista was a ruthless killer and Andy only pretended to be one. If one were to believe his coworkers, then he was nothing but a coward afraid to do anything but lay huddled in a ditch, begging the universe not to kill him. If that was true, then what good would he be to the girl?
But things were looking up for Batista. Three days short of two weeks, he found his chance. A hurricane had jumped the Baja Peninsula and was eating its way up the Sea of Cortez. In a divinely poetic set of circumstances, the storm was dubbed Hurricane Edgar.
As Batista voiced his plan, all Andy could think of was how he could get the courage to foil it. Looking at the bunkers with the wind picking up, Andy finally voiced the words that had been rattling around his mind for his whole life.
“Me Tarzan. You Jane,” he whispered.
And the words steeled him for what he’d have to do.
THE UAVS WERE grounded. The satellites were blind. Winds were cresting at fifty miles an hour with gusts up to seventy. Rain poured from a dark, hollow sky until the ground could take no more. The hurricane had slammed ashore at 2 A.M., annihilating shoreline homes, small boats and jetties in Puerto Peñasco. The storm didn’t tarry. With an angry fury, the hurricane grew legs and moved inland. Those not sane enough to stay inside found that Edgar was making life a wet, windy, miserable hell as it shuffled laconically across the land.
Batista made his move at 3 A.M. Wearing a camouflage-colored rain jacket, he slipped out of their bunker and into the storm.
Andy noted the sidearm Batista carried and strapped his own on before following. He waited a few moments, then cracked the door and slid into the night. Through the wind and rain he could just make out Batista running hunched over towards the emergency bunker where the Mexicans were being held. To Andy’s right was the minefield. Beyond that gaped the blackness of the Rift.
Andy hunched low and gave chase.
Running was miserable. Every third step he’d slip and fight for balance. The desert sand was already soaked with water. What remained slid away along paths of least resistance. The water, likewise, found its way into his cloak and seeped down his back and into the top of his pants.
But he kept on. The look of his neighbor and the Mexican girl in the bunker merged into one impossibly imploring gaze that pulled him forward through the squall. He fell twice more, once face first, the slick, cold earth coating his teeth.
Andy was so miserable with the weather that he was almost upon Batista before he noticed the man had stopped. Andy windmilled his arms, skidded half a dozen feet, then managed to crash hard on his rump. The sound of his movement was lost in the stormy din. He quickly rolled over and tried to merge with the earth. Not ten feet ahead of him was Batista doing the same thing. From beneath their hooded brows they watched a file of black clad men marching towards the bunkers. Andy instinctively reached down to check his sidearm was still there.
The door to the bunker opened, the men went inside, then it closed behind them.
Andy waited.
So did Batista.
It seemed like an hour, but was probably only a few minutes. To keep from screaming, Andy recited the titles of the fifty-seven Tarzan episodes starring Ron Ely. He got stuck twice in the middle of the second season, but finally remembered the episode that had been troubling him – Creeping Giants.
Batista leaped to his feet and broke into a run.
Andy had become part of the soil, afraid to move lest he’d be seen. His vantage couldn’t be better, however. This he told himself to make his cowardice reasonable.
Batista reached the side of the bunker. He pulled his pistol and held it ready. As he slid into the shadows on the other side of the door, he pulled a knife out as well. Then he blended into darkness.
They didn’t have long to wait. Soon, the black-clad men exited the bunker, each with a Mexican in tow. Andy strained to see if the girl was one of them, but he couldn’t make out any faces through the rain and distance. He didn’t have to. If the girl had been taken, Batista would have made his move. Instead, he waited until the group was halfway back to their trailers before turning and opening the door.
Batista probably hadn’t counted on one tarrying.
He met a black-clad man face to face in the doorway.
Andy watched as Batista raised his knife and brought it down in one quick move. The other man blocked it by making an X with is arms. Then he grabbed Batista’s wrist and pulled him to the ground. Both men rolled in the mud, as each scrambled for traction.
Andy stood. He was torn by his fear and the idea that this might be his only chance. He took two steps, but was almost knocked down by a gust of wind. Rain stung his face.
Just then three small figures darted out of the bunker door and into the night. Batista was still struggling with the other man, and wasn’t able to stop them. Andy squinted through the gloom and spied one who had the shape of his Jane-girl running straight for the minefield. What sold him was that she also wore a baseball cap. Gritting his teeth, he took off at a run.
He had the angle on her, but she was fleeter of foot. He had to stop her before she entered the minefield. Once she tripped one of the monitors, there’d be no chance to save her. He poured on all the speed he could muster. He was almost to her when he realized he’d never make it. He opened his mouth to call to her but didn’t know her name. His only hope was to get her attention, so he used the only name he knew.
“Jane!” he screamed.
She slowed as she turned to look at him. She had the same Meso-American complexion and the same baseball cap, but it wasn’t her.
His heart sank. Still, he couldn’t let this girl die.
“Stop! Minefield!” he cried and pointed in front of her.
She caught some semblance of his meaning, slowed and finally stopped. She stood like a deer, ready to bolt, watching his feet and hands. He took a step toward her and she took a step back. She glanced around for a way to escape.
Andy put his hands out for her to stay where she was. Just as he gave her a warm smile, she was plucked from the earth into the sky.
“No!” Andy screamed.
A tarantula wasp had her in its grip a hundred feet off the ground. This close it was bigger than Andy had thought. Easily as big as a Cadillac, its shiny black body and orange wings glistened in the wet stormy gloom. It flew a few dozen feet away, then dropped her to the ground. Andy felt rather than heard the girl’s back snap. The wasp hovered for a second, then fell to its prey, stinger first, piercing the girl’s abdomen. Her mouth opened into an impossibly wide scream, but nothing came out. As Andy watched as several eggs pushed their way through the thin stinger and into the girl’s stomach. He thought he was going to be sick.
But then he noticed that the wasp had landed three rows into the minefield. Andy wondered what was taking so long. The girl’s back arched. Her hands reached into the air. Then the scene disappeared in a massive explosion as several Claymores fired their deadly cannonade. The ball bearings ripped through the wasp and girl with ease, adding a crimson mist to the gusting winds.
Andy turned and wretched into the mud.
&n
bsp; Then he heard a scream.
Batista stood over a slender figure about fifty yards away. His hulking form reminded Andy of the slash monster in the neighbor girl’s closet. A rage descended upon him that he’d never felt before. He no longer cared about his own safety. All he cared about was the girl.
Andy broke into a loping run. He pulled his pistol from the holster. From his mouth came the Tarzan yell that Johnny Weissmuller had made famous the world over, copied by kids from Chicago to China. But Andy was no longer a kid. He wasn’t even a man any longer. Finally, amidst Hurricane Edgar and the death of the girl at the hands of the giant wasp, he’d become that being he’d spent his whole life denying. He was the King of the Jungle, imbued with savage strength and animal instinct. His need to save superseded his desire to survive. He’d finally become the man Tarzan could be.
Batista heard him and turned towards the sound. The smile on his face faltered as he spied Andy rushing towards him.
Andy didn’t give him a chance to make a move. He raised his pistol and fired three times. At least one of the rounds hit, knocking Batista to the ground.
Then all hell broke loose.
From behind him, the Vulcan cannons opened fire. The gunners couldn’t have been able to see, so they must have been firing blindly. Mines were exploding all over the place. The signature explosions of Hellfire missiles accentuated the mines with their deeper concussive blasts.
Andy felt something coming towards him and dove for the earth. A wasp swooped past him, foiled by his instinctive maneuver. Andy rolled to his back, and took aim with the pistol. He fired four times as the wasp swooped and came back towards him. Each round found a home on the underside of the shiny black carapace. He managed to roll away at the last moment as the giant winged creature crashed dead to the earth.
Clawing his way to his feet, Andy ran the rest of the way to the girl. He fell to his knees beside her. He felt her shoulders and her head to make sure she was okay. She stared at him in terror.
“It’s okay, Jane. Everything’s going to be okay.”
He smoothed her hair. Her expression softened a moment, then exploded into a preternatural scream.
Before he could turn, Andy felt himself buffeted by half-a-dozen blows on his back. He fell hard to the ground, his breath gone. Then something bit his leg. He kicked out and managed to free himself.
He rolled to his back and brought his pistol to bear. But what he saw froze him in place. Even his scream locked in his throat, blocking his breath.
Covered entirely in black and brown bristly hair, the tarantula stood ten feet tall. Its legs arched from the ground to a body with sections the size of VW Bugs. Its front two legs were poised directly above him. Andy drew his attention from the multifaceted eyes to the tips of the spiders fangs, poised to pierce his chest.
Finally his scream tore loose.
He fired the remaining bullets from his gun into the giant spider, but it had no effect.
Andy scrambled backwards.
The tarantula followed.
Out of the corner of his eye, Andy saw that the girl was stock still. Good – if she moved it might draw the monster’s attention.
He scrambled backwards again and threw his gun into the face of the creature.
The spider stopped. It shuddered once, then twice, then shuddered for a long time.
Andy scrambled to his feet just in time to get out from beneath the giant spider as it fell. He stood shakily. The girl ran towards him and threw her arms around him.
They both watched as the tarantula shuddered once more and then died. Who would have thought that he could have killed it so easily?
But then they heard buzzing coming from the spider’s back. Andy and the girl backed away. Horror dawned in Andy’s mind. Was it going to...?
A hand reached out and grabbed his ankle, pulling him off his feet. Batista! As he fell, the back of the tarantula exploded open and three wasps, each the length of a broom, clawed their way free. They appeared hungry and eager and mean.
The girl was transfixed.
Andy tried to scream, but a hand clamped around his throat.
“Fucking Tarzan puta!” Batista growled as he climbed on top of Andy. He clamped his other hand around Andy’s throat and began to throttle him. “Who the hell do you think you are to try and stop me?” Blood foamed at the corners of Batista’s mouth.
Andy struggled to break free, but no matter his newfound Tarzan desires, he couldn’t match Batistas’ strength. He felt his vision dimming as Batista cursed him.
The hand suddenly relaxed. Light went out of Batista’s eyes. Abruptly his chest blossomed a long thin stinger. Andy watched unable to move as a golf ball-sized egg pushed down the length of the stinger and squirted free of the end. It landed on his chest, then rolled to the ground.
Andy screamed and heaved Batista backwards until they both fell, crushing the baby wasp to the ground.
Looking toward the girl, Andy felt his universe implode. Something bestial came over him.
He barely remembered breaking off the stinger from Batista’s chest and rushing over to the other baby wasp that had its own stinger deep inside Jane.
He barely remembered stabbing the giant insect with its brother’s stinger until it fell dead beside the girl.
He barely remembered taking her into his arms and heading away from the Rift, what was left of his battalion, and the miserable mess that Batista had left.
All he knew was that when he came to, he was carrying her, it was daylight, and he was past exhaustion.
THE DESERT WAS nothing like he imagined. There were no sand dunes. No camels. No pyramids. Nothing to show the timeless mythic quality of the deserts he’d seen on television and the movies growing up. Nothing at all like he’d imagined from reading The Lion Man.
Just as Tarzan had been bringing a jungle cure for malaria to Jane in the famous desert Tarzan book, so was Andy taking his Jane to find a cure for the thing gestating inside of her. Somewhere in the distance over the border was a hospital. He hoped it was close, because her stomach had already begun to extend. He only prayed that he wouldn’t be too late.
She whimpered as he stumbled, then caught himself.
He grunted and thumped his chest with his free hand. “Me Tarzan. You Jane,” he said.
Then he adjusted her weight against his back.
He felt something move in her stomach.
She whimpered.
He had Batista’s knife. If need be, he’d use it. He thought about giving a Tarzan yell, but he hadn’t the strength, so he just trudged on.
* * *
Notes from the Author: I grew up reading Edgar Rice Burroughs beneath the sheets of my bed with a flashlight. I’d read until I fell asleep, often continuing the action as I slumbered, self-narrating the action. When I began to put together a collection of stories for my first collection, Multiplex Fandango, I decided I wanted to include a good old fashioned monster tale. I also wanted to pay homage to Tarzan, who was always more an elemental force to me, than a person. This story is the result of those two desires. And yes, there are such things as tarantula wasps, only they’re really only as big as your middle finger, which is scary enough, if you ask me.
My Daddy’s Private Things
The enemy’s face was carved with the careless strokes of time and the hardship of an immutable earth. He lay atop the others. His grimace had slipped like the side of a hill after a summer rain until his expression gathered into a mask of unuttered surprise. His gaze no longer held the glare of hatred, but had rather captured the blue of the sky that ran so high and hot above. So soft in death, if the flies hadn’t been making a meal of the boy’s eyes, this was probably how he’d looked before the war, sleeping in the shade of a hut, the idea of violence still a bad dream to come.
As Trent stared at the face only a few feet away he couldn
’t help but think that the boy was too beautiful to hate so well. Trent wanted to reach out and touch the boy’s cheek, to comfort him and tell him that he was going to be okay. But Trent had shot him dead and in so doing, had killed the one beautiful thing in the whole damned country.
A sound came from his left. Trent swung the heavy barrel of the machine gun and opened fire. His bullets ate more of the side of the building away. Brick and mud flew in chunks and bits. The air became a cauldron of dust and sound.
As the dust enveloped him, he glanced down at the other members of his platoon illuminated by the sunlight streaking through the grime like an old silent movie – still life in sepia.
They’d help me if they could, he whispered to the jacaranda.
They’d protect me, he whispered to the earth.
I’d tell them I didn’t mean to do it, he whispered to the wind.
That is if they weren’t already dead, he told himself.
He ceased fire and peered across his weapon at the building where the rest of the skinnies were hiding. He tried to see past the darker shadows that surrounded him, his friends, and fellow platoon members. He listened for any sound, ready to sense distance and direction if needed. But all was silent except the almost imperceptible ticking from the machine gun’s barrel, as the air cooled the hot metal. But he had to know. Had he finally done it? That sanguine angel of death, so pretty in his white wrap, was he dead?
Trent tried to relax, but the pain was too great. He couldn’t even shift his position without great jets of agony encompassing his being. His legs had been shattered by the roadside bomb, leaving him pinned beneath what remained of the rear axle and a half ton of United Nations rice. As much as he tried, they were just too heavy to move, twisted impossibly, broken certainly. So he stayed, trapped with his past and the bodies of his friends.
“Wake up, boy,” came a cold hard voice.
Trent snapped awake. The sun was so hot he didn’t even sweat. His skin felt like road after a mile long convoy. His eyelids fluttered, disturbing the flies that had lit when he’d dozed, thinking him dead, or not caring.
