Hornets and Others

by Al Sarrantonio

  For three days I stayed in my apartment, alternately trying the television and radio for some signs of life, spending the remainder of my time at my window with a pair of binoculars. Aside from a few airborne birds I saw no signs of life. Always having been something of a loner, I at first thought that my time had finally come and that I would now be afforded the solitude I had always craved; however, that hope quickly vanished with the prospect looming that I would run out of food, a prospect which was now imminent. I surveyed the pathways outside and was chagrined to find that there was little chance of my traversing them in the same fashion I had before: large sections of road and sidewalk were alternately moving up and down, like predatory mouths, and I knew that those openings were large enough to swallow a human being whole, snowshoes and all.

  I resolved to stay on as long as possible, stretching my food in the hope of some lessening of activity outside; but, when my water suddenly dried up in the tap in the middle of my fourth day of self-imposed captivity, I knew my fate in the city was sealed.

  I made up my mind to get as far away as possible, making it, if I could, to the suburbs. From there I would hike, using whatever stealth and guile was necessary, to the mountains I had recently left, where perhaps this activity was less ravenous. I knew that reaching the country-side alone would not solve my problem-1 had seen, on the television before it was cut off, reports showing dirt roads breaking up under those walking on them. I had the feeling that even forest trails and whatnot were susceptible. What then could I do? I must admit my plan was tenuous, but I did feel that I must make my way as far from the city as I could.

  And so began my journey of adventure. I spent most of the morning of my leaving with gathering together whatever from my apartment I deemed necessary for my well-being. I remember packing the shortwave radio, forgetting completely that it required electricity to run on, and that electricity was the one thing I would probably be finding less and less of as I traveled, except in battery form. I also packed a few treasured books and sentimental possessions, and water from my tub which I had managed to drain out of the pipes before everything went dry—this I put in various Tupperware containers, some of which worked perfectly and one, a lettuce storage container which was never meant to hold a quart and a half of water, which burst all over most of my aforementioned treasured possessions. After making exchanges (a Kafka for a Roethke, as I recall) I donned my ridiculous snowshoes and made for the exit.

  Those ridiculous snowshoes proved my salvation. Running and leaping like a madman, I managed to make it to the sporting goods store, where I outfitted myself with every piece of camper's equipment I could carry. I resembled Admiral Byrd himself at the end of my shopping spree, and I even managed to locate a book which informed me of all the best and lightest gear I would need for keeping myself alive in all climates. I left the store twice as confident as when I had gone in. Then, leaping and jumping once more, I made my way to the grocery market where I stocked up with whatever material I was unable to find in the dry foods section of the sports store.

  As I said, my snowshoes proved my salvation. Portions of the ground were literally alive with appearing and disappearing holes; but with cunning and no small bit of luck I was off. As I hopped my way to the edges of the city the activity of the ground lessened somewhat; apparently its strength was regulated by population. I still barely managed to escape a few encounters with pot holes which suddenly materialized out of nowhere; once, when two popped into existence so close together as to form virtually one hole, I managed only with a great show of strength born of fear to yank my legs free from whatever had grasped them from below.

  I won't relate all of my experiences with hiking, sleeping in trees, and the avoidance of wild animals which I found myself faced with over the coming weeks; let it suffice for me to state that I stayed alive, and even thrived a bit. I never saw another human being in all this time, and (rightfully so, I believe) I began to fancy myself as the Last Man on Earth.

  Eventually I reached my string of northern mountains, and was encouraged when the lack of activity under foot decreased dramatically as I climbed; and then, to my great relief, ceased altogether. When I finally topped a high portion of one peak, which, I guessed, had hardly if ever been visited by human beings, I at last began to feel safe and secure again. Picking out a high level spot near the summit with a commanding and clear view of all below, I made my home. I built, over the next two months, a rough-hewn cabin, and, from then until the present, have maintained a periodic survey of my surroundings, here and below, for any sort of activity, in the ground or otherwise.

  There hadn't been any up until yesterday. But early in the morning I noticed some sort of odd movement through my binoculars at the base of the mountain. And then last night I spied a ring of campfires halfway up the peak. And so at last I'm faced with having to think about everything that's happened, and what might happen from here on.

  These new developments disturb me, because I really have been convinced for the past few months that I am the last man alive on earth. I can't really explain why I've been so sure that there are no other human beings alive; it's more of a gut feeling than anything else. And that of course forces me into thinking about who or what is sitting around those campfires down there.

  And I've come up with a funny theory. Early on after settling down here I tried to sort out just what might have happened below, in the cities and everywhere else. I thought about earthquakes, of a scale and strangeness never before seen, but that didn't seem right. There had been those "hands" I'd thought I'd seen and where there are hands there must be someone connected to them. So I thought about a huge underground race, like H. G. Wells' pasty subterranean Morlocks from The Time Machine. But that didn't seem right, either—and neither did twenty other theories.

  But finally I hit on one that I couldn't shake. Again, I had a gut feeling about it.

  The way I see it, those figures below me, who hiked all day today up toward me, out of sight, and are traveling that last mile toward me now by the light of torches, just out of range of my binoculars, are either men or they're not. If they're men, that's fine and good; it means the world down there is safe once more and that maybe we survivors can get about the business of building things back up again. And if they're not men, they must, of course, be something else.

  And a curious scenario popped into my head. Like I said, a gut feeling. What if, I thought, another race, the quietest of all races, had decided that it was time to trade their world for this one. What if they had determined that it was time for us on the surface to inhabit their world and they ours? What if these quiet ones—the dead, of course—had decided to switch places with us? To take back what they had once had? What if that was who was behind those bobbing torches, just coming into focus in my binoculars? The silent, stealthy dead. How many early cultures had cosmologies that designated the underground as the abode of the dead? Suppose that now it's time for a switch of living quarters?

  I can now see down through my window, with my binoculars, the first pale, fleshless faces in the flickering torchlight as they break through the brush and my crude fences.

  Hornets

  Too warm for late October.

  Staring out through the open door of his house, Peter Kerlan loosened the top two buttons of his flannel shirt, then finished the job, leaving the shirt open to reveal a gray athletic tee-shirt underneath. Across the Street the Meyer kids were re-arranging their newly purchased pumpkins on their front stoop—first the bigger of the three on the top step, then the middle step, then the lower. They were jacketless, and the youngest was dressed in shorts. Their lawn was covered, as was Kerlan's, with brilliantly colored leaves: yellow, orange, a dry brown. The neighborhood trees were mostly shorn, showing the skeleton fingers of their branches; the sky was a sharp deep blue. Everything said Halloween was coming—except for the temperature.

  Jeez, it's almost hot!

  Behind him, out through the sliding screen door that led to th
e back yard, Peter could hear Ginny moving around, making an attempt at early Sunday gardening.

  Maybe it's cold after all.

  He opened the front screen door, retrieved the morning newspaper he had come for, and turned back into the house, unfolding the paper as he went.

  In the kitchen, he sat down at the breakfast table and studied the front page.

  The usual assortment of local mayhem—a robbery, vandalism at the junior high school, a teacher at that same school suspended for drug use.

  In the backyard, Ginny cursed angrily; there was the sound of something being knocked against something else.

  "Peter!" she called out.

  He pretended not to hear her for a moment, then answered, "I'm eating breakfast!" and began to study the paper much more closely than it deserved.

  On the second page, more local mayhem, along with the weather—sunny and unseasonably warm for at least the next three days—as well as a capsule listing of the rest of the news, which he scanned with near boredom.

  Something caught his eye, and he gave an involuntary shiver as he turned to the page indicated next to the summary and found the headline:

  Hornets Attack Preschooloers

  Another shiver caught him as he noted the picture embedded in the story—a man clothed in mosquito netting and a pith helmet holding up the remains of a huge papery nest; one side of the structure was caved in and within he could make out the clumped remains of dead insects—

  Again he gave an involuntary shiver, but went on to the story:

  (Orangefield, Special to the Herald, Oct. 24) Scores of preschoolers were treated today for stings after a small group of the children inadvertently stirred up a hornets' nest which had been constructed in a hollow log. The nest, which contained hundreds of angry hornets, was disturbed when a kick ball rolled into it. When one of the children went to retrieve the ball, the insects, according to witnesses, "attacked and kept attacking."

  Twenty eight children in all were treated for stings, and the Klingerman Preschool was closed for the rest of the day.

  The nest was removed by local bee-keeper Floyd Willims, who said this kind of attack is very common. "The nests are mature this time of year; and can hold up to five hundred drones, along with the Queen. Actually, new drones are maturing all the time, and can do so until well into fall. With the warm weather this year; their season is extended, probably well into November The first real cold snap will kill them off"

  Willims continued, "Everyone thinks that yellow jackets are bees, but they're not. They're hornets, and can get pretty mean when the nest is threatened. At the end of the season, next year's Queens will leave the nest, and winter in a safe spot, before laying eggs and starting the whole process over again with a new nest."

  As of last night, none of the hornet stings had proved dangerous, and Klingerman Preschool will reopen tomorrow.

  Peter finished the story, looked at the picture again—the bee keeper holding the dead nest up—and gave a third involuntary shiver.

  Ugh.

  At that moment Ginny appeared at the back sliding door, staring in through the screen. He looked up at her angry face.

  "I can't get that damned shed door open!" she announced. "Can you help me please?"

  "After I finish my breakfast—"

  Huffing a breath, she turned and stormed off.

  "Aren't you going to eat with me?" he called after her, hoping she wouldn't turn around.

  She stopped and came back. "Not when you talk to me with that tone in your voice."

  "What tone?" he protested, already knowing that today's version of 'the fight' was coming.

  She turned and gave him a stare—her huge dark eyes as flat as stones. She was as beautiful as she had ever been, with her close cropped blonde hair and anything but boyish looks. "Are we going to start again?"

  "Only if you want to," he said.

  "I never want to. But I don't know how much more of this I can take."

  "How much more of what?"

  She stalked off, leaving the door open. After a moment, Peter threw down the paper and followed her, closing-the--sliding screen door behind him and dismounting the steps of the small deck. She was in front of the garden shed, a narrow, four foot deep, one story-high structure attached to the house to the right of his basement office window.

  "Well, I'm here," he said, not at all surprised that she momentarily ignored him.

  Jeez, it is hot! he thought, looking up at a sun that looked summer-bright, and then surveying the back yard. The colored leaves fallen from the tall oaks that bordered the backyard looked incongruous, theatrical. There was an uncarved pumpkin on the deck of the house behind theirs; it looked out of place in the heat.

  Peter turned to stare at Ginny's little garden, to the right of the shed, which displayed late annuals; they were a riot of summer color which normally would have been gone by this time of year, killed by the first frost which had yet to come.

  "I've been weeding by hand," she explained, "but I'd like to get some of the tools Out and get ready for next spring. I've been having trouble with the shed door again."

  He stepped around her, pulled at the structure's wooden door, which gave an angry creak but didn't move.

  "Heat's got the wood expanded; I'll have a look at it when I get a chance." He gave it a firmer pull, satisfied that it wouldn't move. "Isn't there anything you can do about it now?"

  "No." He knew he sounded nasty, but didn't care.

  She reddened with anger, then brought herself under control. "Peter, I'm going to try again. We've been through this fifty times. You're punishing me, and there isn't any reason. I know it's been rocky between us lately. But I don't want it to be like that! Can't you just meet me halfway on this?"

  "Halfway to hell?"

  She was quiet for a moment. "I love you," she said, "but I just can't live like this."

  "Like what?" he answered, angry and frustrated.

  "No matter what I do you find something wrong with it—all you do is criticize!"

  "I. . . don't," he said, knowing as it came out that it wasn't true.

  She took a tentative step forward, reached out a hand still covered in garden loam. She let the hand fall to her side.

  "Look, Peter," she said slowly, eyes downward. "I know things haven't been going well for you with your writing, believe me I do. But you can't take it out on me. It's just not fair."

  Male pride fought with truth. He took a deep breath, looking at her, as beautiful as the day he met her—he was driving her away and didn't know how to stop.

  "I. . .know I've been difficult—" he began.

  She laughed. "Difficult? You've been a monster. You've frozen me out of every corner of your life. We used to talk, Peter; we used to try to work things out together. You've gone through these periods before and we've always gotten through them together. Now..." She let the last word hang.

  He was powerless to tell her how he felt, the incomprehensible frustration and impotence he felt. "It's like I'm dry inside. Hollow..."

  "Peter," she said, and then she did put a dirt-gloved hand on his arm. "Peter, talk to me."

  He opened his mouth then, wanting it to be like it had been when they first met, when he had poured his heart out to her, telling her about the things he had inside that he wanted to get out, the great things he wanted to write about, his ambition, his longings—she had been the only woman he ever met who would listen to it, really listen to it. He had a sixth sense that if he did the wrong thing now it would mean the end, that he had driven her as far away as he dared, and that if he pushed her a half step farther she would not return.

  He said, "Why bother?"

  Again she reddened with anger, and secretly he was enjoying it.

  "I'm going out for the day. We'll talk about this later."

  "Whatever you say." He gave her a thin smile.

  She turned away angrily, and after a moment he heard the screen door slide shut loudly, the front door slam, and the
muted roar of her car as she left.

  Why did you do that? he asked himself.

  And a moment later he answered: Because I wanted to.

  The screen was still blank.

  At his desk in his basement office, Kerlan sat staring at the white clean sheet of the word processing program. It was like staring at a clean sheet of paper. Maybe that's why they settled on that color, so that writer's block would be consistent in the computer age.

  He cringed at the words: writer's block.

  After a moment he looked up over the top of the monitor at the casement window over his desk. Outside the sky was high and pallid blue and the window itself was open, letting the unnatural warmth in. It felt more like late August.

  While he watched, a hornet bumped up against the window screen, followed by another. After tapping at the unbroken screen in a few spots, trying to find entry, they moved off with a thin angry buzz.

  Not gonna get in here, boys.

  Again the thrill of a shiver went up his spine as he remembered the story from the morning paper.

  Too bad I can't turn that into a piece for Parade magazine...

  The phone rang.

  He grabbed at it, as much in relief from the prospect of work as in annoyance.

  "Pete, that you?" a falsely hearty voice said.

  "Yeah, Bill, it's me."

  His agent Bill Revell's voice became guarded. "I hesitate to bother you on a Sunday, but..."

  "I'm not finished with it, Bill."

  A slow long breath on the other end of the line. "They need the story by Tuesday, Pete. Halloween's a week from today and they have to coordinate artwork with it and—"

  "I know all that, Bill," he said, with annoyance. "It's just going slow is all."