“I don’t understand something, Allen.”
“What’s that?”
Colby taped a square of cotton to the inside of his elbow and rolled his sleeve back down. “Lots of animal poisons are mildy narcotic, right?”
Allen nodded. “Lots of them are neurotoxic poisons, too. What’s your point?”
“Well, in the case of narcotic poisons, the victim falls asleep, making it easy for the predator to finish them off, right? Or, in the case of a neurotoxin, it kills the prey quick. That’s evolution in action. The poison is designed, in one way or another, to take the fight out of the victim quickly so the predator can eat.”
“True,” Allen said. “But I still don’t—”
“Quick. What are the effects of PCP?”
“What does that have to do—”
“Humor me. What are they?”
Allen’s brow wrinkled, and he folded his arms across his chest. “Hallucinations, violent and erratic behavior, paranoia, and even the deadening of pain receptors, among other things.”
“So why would an animal need to instill those qualities in its prey? Why make the prey more violent, instead of less? What purpose does that chemical have for being in the grubs’ saliva?”
Allen started to open his mouth, then closed it. His eyes widened. “That’s a damn good question, Colby.” He looked at the grub squirming in his jar on the table – the last one; it had eaten it’s way to the top, apparently – as it bit at the sides of the jar. The tiny clink it made as it bit the glass merged with the other dozen or so small noises the rest of the grubs made as they did the same.
“What the fuck are these things?” Colby asked.
Before Allen could reply, Janice’s scream tore through the camp.
***
Colby ran outside. Clouds overhead obscured the moon, making it hard to see more than a few feet in front of him. The floodlights of the camp could only do so much against the encroaching darkness. And, he noted, several of them were out. How the hell did that happen? He looked around and noted the others emerging from their tents or portable labs and into the night, looking confused and afraid. As well they might.
Janice screamed again. It sounded like it came from her tent. Colby sprinted across the clearing to the only tent in the camp that served a single occupant. Janice, as the only woman in the expedition, had her tent all to herself. Or she had, anyway. The shadow on the wall of the tent showed two figures inside, clearly involved in a struggle. Colby drew his .45 and ran to the flap, thumbing off the safety as he went.
He saw the tripwire just before he hit it, but it was too late. His foot caught on a strand of heavy fishing line. It wasn’t so strong that he couldn’t break it, but it didn’t have to be. It was enough to throw him off balance and that’s all it took. He fell face first into the dirt and dried leaves that covered the floor of the clearing, landing on the hard ground with enough force to blow the air out of his lungs and send his pistol flying away.
“Thanks, Colby,” a gruff voice said. It sounded like Bock. “That makes things much easier.”
When his vision cleared, he looked up and stared straight down the barrel of his own gun. Behind the rear sight, Bock’s face glared down at him, his eyes thin slits in the dark camp and his nostrils flared open like a wide animal’s. Just visible through the opening of his shirt was a single grub, face planted in his flesh and body undulating and pumping forward like a slower version of a cartoon water hose. Bock’s smile turned Colby’s spine to ice.
Janice’s muffled voice drew his attention to the left, where she and the thing that used to be Harper emerged from her tent. Harper had a firm grip on her, and despite the fact that half his muscles and flesh had been eaten away by the grubs, Janice couldn’t seem to break free. Somewhere behind him, Colby heard the sound of retching. Probably Allen again, but he couldn’t tell. The rest of the camp was silent as death. Colby didn’t have to look around to know what the rest of the team would be doing. They’d probably be frozen where they stood, waiting to see what would happen next. That’s scientists for you, he thought, all wait-and-watch and no action. But one of them, at least, proved him wrong.
“Hey,” Steinman said, and Colby heard leaves and twigs crunching under someone’s boot. Steinman was moving. “Leave her alone, you bastard.”
Bock never blinked. He brought the pistol up and pointed it somewhere behind and to the right of Colby. The gun boomed once and jerked backward in Bock’s hand. A few seconds later Colby heard the empty thump of a body falling to the ground. Janice screamed through Harper’s decaying hand, and the sound of someone in the camp throwing up started anew. Colby also heard the sound of running feet as one or two of the guys bolted. He couldn’t blame them, he supposed. When a psycho with a gun comes along and starts pulling the trigger, running like a rabbit is a sound strategy.
He tensed, getting ready to spring up while Bock’s attention was diverted elsewhere and hopefully take the gun away. But Bock didn’t stay distracted for long. He smiled again and turned the pistol back to Colby, aiming it right at his forehead, just slightly to the left of center.
“I think I owe you one, Sarge,” Bock said, and pointed at the red stain on the front of his shirt.
Bock thumbed back the hammer with an ominous click, which Colby barely heard over the ringing in his ears.
Chapter Eleven
Colby tensed, waiting for the moment that would end his life. He refused to shut his eyes, preferring to face his death as a man. Bad enough he was going to die laying on the ground, he wouldn’t go out a coward, too. He sneered at Bock, mentally daring him to pull the trigger and get it over with. At least he wouldn’t have to watch as another failure attached itself to his name.
Because his eyes were open, Colby saw what happened next: Bock’s finger tensed on the trigger, but Janice’s leg shot out from under her and her workboot crashed into Bock’s knee. Colby heard a cracking noise, and in the split second before the gun fired he realized Janice must be wearing her steel-toed boots.
Bock grunted, and the gun banged to life again in his hand. Colby heard the whiz of the slug as it zipped past his ear. Janice had knocked Bock off balance just enough to ruin a point-blank shot, God bless her.
Colby got his feet under him and launched his shoulder into Bock’s solar plexus. Bock, already injured, swore as he crumpled over in a pile of flesh and flailing limbs. The .45 went flying again, and landed several feet away, but neither man was close enough to reach it, and Janice was still in Harper’s grasp.
Colby wrestled Bock to the ground and jammed his healthy knee into Bock’s injured one. Apparently the PCP wasn’t doing its job, because Bock screamed obscenities in his ear. Colby couldn’t keep a satisfied grin off his face.
“Guess you owe me two now, huh?” Colby said.
“Fuck you,” Bock replied.
Colby brought his knee down on Bock’s a second time, but this time Bock’s grunt of pain was less satisfying. It obviously still hurt, but the dope in his system must be compensating for it. Colby checked the grub on Bock’s chest and sure enough, it pumped more furiously than ever. He had to get rid of it somehow, so Bock could sober up and return to normal. But how to do that when his hands were occupied keeping Bock on the ground and on the defensive? He couldn’t let go long enough to grab the gun, and Bock was starting to twist and squirm beneath him, soon he would get a hand free and then the blows would start. Colby didn’t have any illusions of being able to win a fistfight with someone hopped up on Angel Dust. How could you beat someone down who didn’t feel pain?
Just then Bock wrenched his right arm free of Colby’s grip and launched an elbow at his nose. The blow struck Colby in the face, and for a second he could see nothing but a bright white flash, like looking at a blank movie screen. Another blow to his gut sent him sprawling forward, his breath stolen from him again and stars dancing in front of his eyes.
While his vision returned, he scrabbled through the leaves and twigs in a fra
ntic attempt to regain his feet. A solid blow to his right side rolled him onto his back and caused him to gasp in pain. Most likely he’d have a nice boot print there tomorrow, if he lived that long.
His vision cleared enough for him to see Bock, eyes ablaze, looming over him. He scrambled backward as Bock kicked him in the gut, sending a shockwave of pain through his torso. He flopped backward, fighting the urge to vomit, when his hand settled on something cold and metallic just behind him. The gun!
He grabbed the gun blindly and rolled to his left to avoid Bock’s next kick, which would have caught him in the temple but only managed to graze his arm. Colby rolled up and got to his knees, aiming the .45 and squeezing off three quick rounds in rapid succession. His military training held true, and Bock’s head snapped backward as the back of it exploded in a shower of blood, brains, and bone. The second bullet took him in the shoulder and spun him around, his arms flailing wildly beside him. The last bullet missed, but only because Bock’s chest was turned sideways by the second bullet, otherwise it would have cracked through his sternum and into his heart.
Bock’s body fell to the ground with a muffled thump and landed perpendicular to Steinman’s, which Colby now saw had a fresh, gaping hole in the chest. Blood poured from both corpses and pooled in the dirt beneath them. Colby looked at the two bodies. Bock’s legs lay over Steinman’s torso. This was too much shit for one day. He could barely believe this had all started as a simple deforestation survey.
A scream behind him brought his mind back to attention. Janice! He’d forgotten all about her. He turned just in time to see Harper vanish into the woods with Janice in tow, kicking and thrashing for all she was worth. The two disappeared into the brush on the other side of the clearing.
Colby took off after them. There wasn’t much of Harper left, if he could get one good shot he’d be able to drop the bastard like a bad habit, but he had to be close enough to see him first. Shooting blindly into the woods was out of the question. For one, his revolver only had two bullets left, and he didn’t have any spare ammunition or his speed loaders on him. A stupid mistake, but he hadn’t expected the attack to come so soon. His rifle had a full clip, and two others sat in his pocket, but he’d left the rifle in Allen’s tent when Janice started screaming. Another stupid mistake. His old Drill would have put a boot up his ass for that.
Nothing to do now but keep going and make those last two bullets count; Janice didn’t have time for him to go back and grab the rifle. Harper could kill her any second, or worse, the grubs could be eating her alive already. He plunged through the treeline and scanned the immediate area. Nothing. He peered into the woods for some sign of them, but he couldn’t see anything.
Then he caught a flash of bright yellow about forty yards into the trees. It looked like the same color as Janice’s shirt. He sped off in that direction and was rewarded by the sound of a struggle and Janice’s muffled voice. He imagined trying to force a strong, wiry woman like her to walk through the woods while trying to cover her mouth and keep her restrained. Good luck with that.
There was a thud and a grunt of pain, then the sound of struggling stopped. Colby froze in his tracks, listening to the woods and hoping to hear Janice’s voice cry out in victory, or at least defeat, as long as he knew she was still alive. Instead there was only silence. He peered into the trees ahead, looking for some sign of movement, but the forest was still. Even the birds had ceased to call, and with all the recent gunfire, he couldn’t blame them.
He stepped cautiously through the trees and walked toward the last place he’d seen Janice, or at least the yellow of her shirt. He came to a spot where the brush was trampled down and bits of yellow fabric clung to the twigs. There were spatters of blood everywhere, as well as some loose, lonely grubs wriggling through the undergrowth, probably looking for a new host. There were even a few of them on the tree next to him, climbing up the trunk and into its branches. And the stench; that rotten hamburger smell clung to the air around him and almost made him gag. He reached over and squashed one of the grubs as it made its way up the trunk.
Wait a minute… climbing up the tree? The grubs that fell off Harper previously had always headed straight back to him. Did they always do that?
A shrill scream off to his left was all the warning he got as Harper dropped from the tree to land right beside him. It was enough, however, for him to sidestep the branch in Harper’s hand and get a quick bead with the pistol. Another loud crack and what was left of Harper’s head disintegrated in a cloud of red mist and two-inch long grubs.
The body fell to the ground and landed on a small bush, rustling the leaves as it fell through them. Before it had even settled Janice was on him, sobbing loudly and hugging him tight. She said thank you over and over again like an MP3 player on a continuous loop. He dropped the pistol and held her, whispering to her that it would all be okay, and she was safe now. Her shoulders bobbed up and down as sobs wracked her body, and Colby figured she probably needed to get all this out before she could go back to camp. She must have been terrified.
After a few minutes she calmed down enough to pull away and stare at the ground, looking a tad embarrassed. Colby started to tell her it was all right, then decided against it for fear of making her feel even more awkward. Besides, he didn’t want to lie. Their situation was pretty far from all right. Instead, he reached down and picked his pistol off the ground, then he tucked it into his waistband and turned back to camp.
Janice jumped and let out a yelp. Her hand shot to her pants leg and pulled it up. There, stuck to her calf, was a grub. It swallowed the piece of her leg and took another. Janice yelped again and slapped her palm on top of the grub, reducing it to a pulpy mass of goo.
Another yelp, and she lifted her shirt. Several more grubs had started the feast. Colby noticed the grubs on the ground had started moving toward Janice, who had large splashes of Harper’s blood in her hair and clothes. He recalled how the grubs had jumped from Jared’s hand to Bock and Harper, but only after they got blood on them.
“It’s the blood,” he said to himself. “They must be able to smell it.”
By now, Janice was slapping frantically at her skin as more and more grubs grabbed hold and started to eat. Colby picked her up and, ignoring the painful bites as several grubs fell from her and dug into his shoulders, ran to the small stream by the camp.
“We need to wash off the blood, Janice,” he said. “Or the fuckers will keep coming.”
Janice nodded. “Put me down. I can run.”
Colby set her down and slapped off another grub as it made its way to her neck. “Fine, let’s go.”
Together they sprinted through the woods, heedless of the slapping of branches on their faces and arms. As they ran they pulled grubs from their bodies. Thankfully, there weren’t many. Most of the grubs had gone back to Harper’s body to finish eating.
When they arrived at the stream both Colby and Janice jumped in, shedding their clothes as they went. He spotted a grub on her shoulder and pulled it out, then spent the next few minutes examining every inch of her body to make sure there were no others. Once satisfied that he’d gotten them all, she did the same to him, pulling a grub from his thigh and another from his shoulder. Neither one hurt, though both took a chunk of flesh with them. The area around the wound felt numb. Was it PCP? Colby didn’t feel high, so he doubted it. But wasn’t that what Allen said?
Maybe Allen was wrong. Maybe the grubs just had a numbing agent in their saliva, like ticks or leeches. Either way, the thought gave him the creeps.
Janice finished her examination and pulled on his shoulder. He turned around to face her and she threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in his chest. They stood naked in the stream for several minutes, catching their breath.
Finally, Janice pulled away. She was dripping wet with stream water, her nipples poking into the cool night air. Damn, she was beautiful. He looked into her eyes and felt a stiffening in his crotch.
Not now,
he told himself, thinking about the bodies back at camp. There must be something seriously wrong with his head if he was thinking about sex at a time like this. He pushed away from Janice, a little more roughly than he’d intended. She looked at him. The confusion and hurt on her face begged for an explanation. How could he explain what he didn’t understand? She would be leaving soon, and he’d still be alone. He turned and made his way to shore, gathering his clothes as he went.
“We should get back to the camp,” he said.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “They’ll be waiting for us.”
As the two gathered their things, he couldn’t help but steal glances at her naked body. What the hell was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he let this one go?
He shoved his clothes into the water and rubbed them together, trying to get the blood out. He was right, they did need to get back to camp. He still had a job to do. There were still people to protect.
He hoped.
***
Edison sat in a quiet clearing by the stream. He’d been taking a drink when he heard bodies crashing through the woods towards him and scrambled up on the bank to hide in some bushes. From there, he’d watched as Colby and Janice leapt into the stream, tearing off their clothes and slapping grubs off each other’s bodies.
At first, his heart swelled when he saw Janice alive and well. He’d have bet anything that she would be dead by now. But Colby had saved her, apparently.
He almost jumped out of the bush and ran to her, wanting to take her in his arms and cry his relief into her hair, but he didn’t.
Colby had saved her. Not him.
When it counted most, Edison had left her in danger and run like a squealing coward. Not Colby. He’d run after her without a second thought, risking his life for her like some knight out of a fairy tale.
Edison squatted in the bushes and watched his wife standing naked in a stream with another man, and he finally started to understand why she left him.
Nasty Little F___ers-Kindle Page 7
