Hornets and Others

by Al Sarrantonio

  "Murdered. By me."

  "Or someone else, Mr. Kerlan. Is there anyone else we should be looking at?"

  "Could it have been a random thing, a serial killer—"

  He had the feeling Grant almost laughed, but instead the detective said, "That's not a logical scenario at the moment, Mr. Kerlan. Like I said, is there anyone else. . .

  "No. Nobody I can think of."

  "Then if you were me, and thinking logically..."

  "You think I killed her. You think I went into a jealous rage, and murdered her, and hid her body, chopped it up with an ax, put it in a blender..."

  Grant wasn't laughing on the other end of the line, and Kerlan suddenly realized the man might take him literally.

  "I write horror fiction for a living, detective."

  "Yes, I know." The voice was a bit harder-edged.

  "I didn't chop her up and put her in a blender."

  Silence.

  "Should we be talking further about this, Mr. Kerlan? With perhaps a lawyer present?"

  "I didn't kill my wife, detective."

  Almost all of the civility was gone from Grant's voice. "Didn't you, Mr. Kerlan?"

  "I didn't."

  "Can you blame me for thinking such.. .well, horrible thoughts?"

  "I can't, but you're wrong. If Ginny is dead I didn't kill her."

  "Do you think she's dead, Mr. Kerlan? After what I've said?"

  His voice caught. "I don't know. I hope to God she isn't."

  "I'll be in touch, Mr. Kerlan," Grant said, and there was an ominous note to his voice.

  The line went dead.

  Tomorrow, Peter thought, the previous night's dream coming into his head. He said I'd see her tomorrow.

  He worked the rest of the day and into the evening in a fog. Two more complete Sam Hain outlines rolled across his monitor, along with sketches for three more which already begged for his attention. And all the while he heard the faintest of buzzings, going so far as to stop his feverish work at one point and search his office. But no matter where he searched the buzzing was faint and out of reach, and finally he went back to pounding the keys until exhaustion made him stop, with yet another moon, even fatter, rising across the window over his desk.

  Without eating, he fell into bed and dreamed again of the black shrouded specter, the bleach-bone fingers gripping his shoulder, the whispering voice, dry as August in his ear: Tomorrow...

  He awoke to Halloween.

  Even after all that had happened, the day was somehow different than all other days. He noted a slight cooling in the air, and saw with surprise that the sky was the deep sapphire blue of a true Autumn day. The radio promised dropping temperatures all day, into the forties by dusk. Perfect Halloween weather.

  Across the Street the Meyer kids were busy, along with every other kid on the block. The streets and lawns were full of children, mounting decorations, stringing pumpkin shaped lights, transforming the neighborhood into the festival of orange and black it always became. Pumpkins seemed to have sprung up everywhere—not only on stoops and porches but in windows, perched on flower boxes, back decks, and, at one house, lined along the entire front of the house, an orange army guarding the lawn and fallen leaves. At the house next to the Meyers, a huge spider web of pale rope was being erected, pinned from the highest bare tree limb and stretching to the house's gutter, anchored in three places on the ground to make it stretch like a sail; two boys were hauling a huge and ugly black plastic spider from the garage to set in its lair.

  A steaming mug of coffee in his hand, Peter watched the frantic progress that would continue all day and culminate in a wonderland of Halloween by the time the moon replaced the sun.

  He felt the first tendrils of cold weather coming, and shivered for many reasons, turning to go down to his office and work.

  When he entered he heard insistent buzzing, and the chill down his spine broadened.

  It's got to be in my mind.

  He sat down before his monitor and began to work.

  Another Sam Hain outline. And another. Sam and Holly on Mars. Sam and Holly Meet the Undergrounders. Sam and Holly and the Halloween Comet.

  The buzzing wouldn't go away.

  Morning melted into afternoon. Through the open casement window he heard shouts and laughter, and, finally, felt a cold breeze which deepened to the point where he had to close the window. For the first time since the previous winter, the house was chilly. Somewhere upstairs he heard the heat tick on.

  Have to close those windows later.

  At the casement window, leaves rattled against the screen, and something else bumped it and stayed.

  A hornet.

  He stared at it, as another joined it, crawling, half flying, almost hopping, from the left of the window to cling to the screen.

  What the—

  The hornets, looking sluggish, crawled off, one of them making an attempt at flying before falling back with the aid of the wind to cling to the screen before dropping from sight.

  He remembered what the bee-keeper had said: that they would be active until the first cold spell, which would slow them down and then kill them off.

  Another hornet appeared, and another.

  With effort, he turned his mind back to the screen and continued to work, pausing to bundle what he had done for the day and send it as an attachment to Revell. He was rewarded with an almost instantaneous return email which effused: "keep 'em comin', son! They love everything I've showed them so far! You'll be doing these wonderful things for the next ten years—THE KIDS WILL EAT THEM UP!"

  He erased the message and went back to work.

  In the back of his mind, like a growing hope, was the promise of the dream, that today he would see Ginny.

  Please, he thought, please let her come back.

  But the buzzing sound increased, becoming insistent, almost angry now. He paused once, thinking to do anything necessary to make it stop—rip the walls out, burn down the house, but the computer screen drew his eyes back:

  Sam and Holly and the Texas Tornado.

  Sam and Holly Meet the Leprechauns.

  Sam and Holly and the Hornets of Doom.

  He stopped, breathing hard, and stared at the screen.

  That's it, he thought. Enough.

  He pushed himself away from the desk, turned in his swivel chair and got unsteadily to his feet.

  The buzzing sound was getting louder.

  "Stop!" he shouted, putting his hands to his ears.

  He pushed himself from the office, stumbled to the basement stairs, somehow dragged himself up to the main floor.

  The house was dark, and cold, and suffused only by orange light from outside.

  For a moment he was disoriented. Then he remembered it was Halloween.

  He staggered to a window, closed it, and looked out.

  A wonderland of orange met his eyes.

  The lights in the neighborhood had been lit—strings of them in trees and across gutters and around door frames, orange and white. And all the pumpkins had been carved and lit with flickering light—the world was filled with sickle grins, some with crooked teeth, all with round or triangle noses and evil triangle eyes. As he closed another window he could smell pumpkins, their scooped insides sweet-cold and wet, the smell of whispered cinnamon, allspice.

  For a moment he was lost in the smell and lights, and tears ran down his face and he was cold and helpless

  Ginny, come back to me!

  The doorbell rang, a jarring, booming sound, and he stood rooted for a moment before stumbling over Ginny's things in the hallway to get to the door.

  Maybe it was her!

  God, please!

  He yanked the door open, throwing on the porch light as he did so, and blinked at two miniature pirates who held open pillow sacks out to him. "Trick or treat!"

  He stood staring at them for a moment, and then the smaller, bolder one thrust his sack out again and demanded, "Trick or treat, mister!"

  "Just.. . a
moment," he blurted, turning to stumble into the kitchen where he rummaged in an overhead cabinet where he knew they kept the candy they had bought on sale weeks before. He saw flour and unopened cans—and then, behind them, his fingers found the bags and he pulled them out.

  Two were filled with candy bars melted from the recent heat—a third contained miniature boxes of jawbreakers. He tore that bag open, took two handfuls of candy and went back to the front door.

  The smaller pirate was scowling; his buccaneer friend already turning away.

  "We thought you was gonna welch," the little one said.

  Peter pushed open the door, thrust a multitude of tiny boxes into the pirate's bag. He followed it with his other handful.

  "For your friend," he said.

  "Thanks, Mister!" the kid shouted, turning away to consult with his compatriot. Peter looked out to see the street filled with children in groups, cars and vans moving slowly up one side of the Street and down the other, ferrying other costumed congregations.

  He went back to retrieve whatever candy they had, and spent the next hour stationed at the door, pushing candy into the open mouths of trick or treat bags.

  He noticed one car parked in front of his house that didn't move with the others.

  A curl of cigarette smoke rose from the open window on the driver's side, and he noticed the man sitting there looking his way now and then.

  It looked like Grant, but he couldn't be sure.

  The night grew colder, more blustery; leaves began to dance around the few remaining children, until the groups trickled to a few older uncostumed kids, out for fun with shaving cream cans or rolls of toilet paper.

  Then, abruptly, it was quiet. The vans, engorged with little riders, drove off, leaving only the single car in front of Kerlan's house, and the curl of smoke.

  Some of the lights went out; pumpkin flames were snuffed by the wind, leaving the block quieter, more eerie.

  He closed the front door; locked it; closed the remaining windows, found a sweater in his bedroom and went back down to his office. It was cold inside—and was filled with the sound of buzzing.

  When he stepped into the room, his foot crushed something alive and wriggling on the carpet.

  A hornet.

  Others were moving over the rug, crawling slowly up the walls from behind the couch; one made a feeble try at flying up toward the light but fell back, exhausted, to land on the coffee table which held manuscripts in front of the sofa.

  "What in God's name—!"

  He ran to his desk, jabbed at the phone, rifled through the stacks of papers on his desk, looking for the phone number of Willims, the beekeeper.

  A hornet was crawling tiredly across the front edge of the desk, and he swatted it angrily to the floor.

  There were more yellow jackets, scores of them, moving toward the desk from the far end of the office, more climbing up the walls—

  He found the number, punched keys, waiting impatiently.

  Be there, dammit!

  A sleepy voice answered the phone, yawned "Hello?"

  Peter identified himself, and almost shouted into the receiver: "They're back, dammit! All over the place! What the hell is going on?"

  The bee-keeper yawned again. "Fell asleep in front of the TV," he explained. "Watching 'Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman.' Good flick." He laughed. "Don't get many trick or treaters. Kids are afraid of bees." Another, more drawn-out yawn. "You say they came back? Impossible. We killed that nest dead."

  "Then what the hell is happening?"

  A pause. "Only thing I can think of is that there was a second nest, like I mentioned to you. Real unusual, but it does happen. Two females, probably from the same brood originally, established nests near each other. This ain't the original nest we're talking about, but a whole new one. Wow. Haven't seen this in a long time."

  "Can you get rid of it?"

  "Sure. What's probably happening now is the cold is killing off the drones. You must have missed a spot in the baseboard, and they're being driven from the nest to the light and heat in your office. Why don't you look for the opening in the baseboard while I get over there—plug that up with tape and that'll take care of your office. Then we'll find the new nest and knock 'em out in no time. They're on the way out anyway." He laughed shortly, giving a half-yawn... "Wow. Two nests. That's somethin' ..."

  "Just get over here!"

  Peter slammed down the phone and stalked to the sofa. He moved the coffee table in front of it, then angled the couch out, away from the wall.

  A mass of sluggish hornets were clustered on the rug in front of a gap in the baseboard.

  More in anger than in fright, he grabbed a wad of papers from the coffee table, rolled them into a makeshift tube and cleared the front of the opening of hornets. They moved willingly. He ran back to his desk, retrieved a length of cellophane tape, and, with a practiced motion, wadded it as he went back to the baseboard.

  Already another hornet, followed by yet another sluggish insect, was crawling through the space.

  Peter thrust the wadded cellophane at the opening, pushing the two new intruders backwards as the hole was plugged.

  The sound of buzzing was very loud behind the wall.

  And now, being this close to the wall, he noticed another sound.

  A rustling movement, a thin sound as if someone was scratching weakly against the other side of the wall.

  And then a pained, tepid whisper:

  "Peter..."

  "What—"

  He stood up, brushing a few slow-crawling hornets from the wall and put his ear flush against it.

  It came again, the thinnest of rustling breaths heard behind a thick chorus of buzzing: "Peter, help me..."

  "Ginny!" he shouted.

  "Yes..."

  "My God—"

  "Peter..."

  He drew back from the wall, balling his fists as if he would smash through it—then he turned, throwing open the office door and dashing through and up the stairs. He ran for the back sliding door, nearly tripping over Ginny's things in the hallway, his mind feverish.

  "My God, Ginny..."

  He pushed himself out into now-cold night, a full October chill hitting his face as he shouted, "Ginny!"

  The backyard was lit by the sharp circle of the moon, by a few orange and white lights still lit in houses behind his, visible through denuded oaks. A pumpkin on a back deck railing, now carved, was still lit, the candle within it flickering wildly in the chill breeze, making the features wild.

  "Ginny, where are you!"

  He heard a rustle to his right, against the house, in darkness.

  He stumbled down the back deck steps.

  "Ginny!"

  "Here, Peter, help me..."

  Breathing heavily, he found himself standing before the garden shed, its bulk looming in front of him. The sound of buzzing was furious, caught in the cold wind.

  "Peter..."

  He screamed, an inarticulate sound, and pulled at the shed's door, which wouldn't budge.

  My God, she must have been caught inside the shed. The door must have closed on her and trapped her inside!

  His mind filled with roiling thoughts. He pulled and clawed and banged at the door, trying to open it.

  "Help me please, Peter. .

  "Jesus!" The door wouldn't move. He looked wildly around for a tool, something to pry it open with—and then spied the short handle of a spade lying close by on the grass.

  He picked it up, noting faint scratches on the spade's face—this must have been how Ginny had gotten the door open originally...

  "Peter..."

  "I'm coming!"

  Mad with purpose, he pried the spade into the thin opening between wooden door and jamb, began to work it back.

  There was a creaking sound, but the door held firm.

  "Dammit!"

  "Peter, please..."

  He hammered on the handle of the spade, driving it deeper into the opening. He angled it sideways and suddenl
y the wooden handle broke away, leaving him with the metal arm which had been imbedded in it, attached to the blade. He pushed at the blade, getting faint purchase but shouting with the effort.

  "Dammit!" The handle slipped, slicing into his hand, but he ignored the pain, the quick line of blood, and kept pushing and banging.

  The door gave a bit, but still wouldn't open.

  Buzzing filled his ears, an angry sound now—he realized that when he opened the door the hornets might rush out at him but he didn't care.

  He drove the thought from his mind.

  "Peter. .

  The voice was growing fainter.

  He shouted, and became aware that lights were going on around him—still he beat at the handle.

  The door gave way another fraction; it was almost open—

  "Jesus! Open, dammit!"

  With supreme effort, which caused the broken metal handle of the spade to push painfully into his open wound, the door opened with a huge groaning creak and flew back on its hinges.

  "Ginny!"

  "Peter..."

  There was darkness within, a seething fog of flying things—and then something stumbled out into his arms, something white and alive, a human skeleton with a skin made of hornets. Writhing alive orange and black insects covered her skull, her arms, her fingers which gripped him tightly as he stumbled backwards screaming in its embrace. The thing walked with him, holding him tightly, hornets making Ginny's face, boiling alive in the empty eye sockets to make eyes, and hair, and lips on the skeletal mouth.

  The mouth moved, the opening jawbone hissing with the movement of hornets. The writhing face showed something that was almost tenderness.

  "Kiss me, Peter Kiss me..."

  He screamed, pushing at the thing which would not let him go, aware suddenly that there were others nearby. He turned his head to see Detective Grant and the bee-keeper Willims standing side-by-side, rooted with horror to the spot they stood in, flashlights trained on him.