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An hour or so later, with my ears still ringing and chilly from the cold ass-chewing delivered to me by my sweet wife, I heard Keith again calling from the front yard.
“Dad! Dad! C’mere! Daaadd!”
I ran outside to see what was the matter.
Keith saw me. He pointed and shouted, “Look!”
I looked in the direction that he pointed. What I saw shocked me.
Manuel, Susan, Michael, and Bobby were coming out of the trees. Bobby held a rope. Tied to that rope, and being dragged behind him, was one of the flying creatures that they had gone after. It was dragged headfirst, and the rope was tied in an elaborate harness. Its wings were duct-taped to its body. It, too, had milky, empty eyes. But, even with empty eyes, it gave off an almost overpowering feeling of anger...at us.
I looked around. “Welcome back! And I see you brought a visitor!” I looked toward the trees. “Bobby, where’s Nick?”
Bobby shook his head once. “Long story. We’ll tell everyone everything later. We’re all exhausted. Where’s Dr. Case?”
“Keith, go get Dr. Case! Hurry!” I said to my son.
“We found the nest. It’s gone. This is the sole survivor, as far as we could tell,” huffed an exhausted Michael.
“Alive, just like Dr. Case ordered,” added Susan.
Manuel mumbled something in Spanish, ending with the word, muerte.
Death.
On that cheerful note, Dr. Case burst through the front door of the cabin. He came to a stop within two feet of Bobby’s big game trophy. His voice could barely be heard.
“Oh, my God.”
“Listen, Doc, don’t get too close to the ass end of that thing. Trust me on that. It’s not just a stinger.” Michael’s face showed distaste.
“What do you mean?” asked the doctor.
Bobby sighed. “It’s also a reproductive organ. We saw it with Tyrese, and with Pablo. These things had laid eggs in them. The eggs hatched, and both men were still alive.”
At that point, the creature screamed. Again, like the one that screamed in the front yard during the bug attack, it was loud and very high-pitched. Its single antenna vibrated with the scream, and its snout was opened wide. After a few seconds, the scream faded.
“Oh, yeah,” said Susan. “We forgot to tell you that it does that every so often. Like it’s calling for help.”
I looked at her. “And you guys wiped out its nest? And everything alive inside it?”
Susan nodded. “We did.”
Bobby was almost to the point of collapsing. “I’m hoping there aren’t any others.” He handed me the rope. “I’m going to lie down on something soft, and sleep for a day or two. You’re welcome, Dr. Case.”
Dr. Case perked up, remembered his manners, and said, “Oh! Yes! Thank you, Bobby!”
After Bobby and the rest of his team went into the cabin, I handed the rope to Dr. Case. “Here you go, Doc. This one does not come inside the cabin!”
***
THAT EVENING, EVERYONE gathered outside, under the stars. The temperature was comfortable, in the mid-fifties, so it wasn’t too cold to enjoy the night. Everyone had jackets or extra shirts on, so the clothing raid was a success.
The rocking chairs and porch steps were reserved for the four members of the search-and-destroy team. Everyone wanted to hear the story, so, after dinner, we all gathered around.
Bobby started. “There are two things I should mention before we tell this story. One is that we didn’t see any form of natural wildlife at all, except for a few birds. So, unless these creatures can be safely eaten as meat, we’re in trouble in that respect. Second, those wasp-things aren’t the only bugs in these mountains.”
There was a collective gasp at that remark. Dr. Case didn’t seem surprised, and I had suspected it.
Bobby continued. “I have a theory about that. If I’m not mistaken, most of these creatures are warm-blooded, and have lungs.”
Dr. Case nodded his agreement.
“Dr. Case agrees. So, if these things are warm-blooded, and have lungs...well, the mountains aren’t as safe as we were told.” There were murmurs around the crowd. Bobby held up a hand. “It’s not so surprising. We call these things ‘bugs’, but they have DNA from other animals, too...even humans.”
Murmurs of agreement went through the crowd. Most of them had seen the moth-creature at some point during the day.
Bobby looked at me, and then glanced around the crowd. “We started out that, and had gone about a mile, when we came to a huge hill of dirt. There was an opening at the top of the hill, but we didn’t venture close enough to see what was inside. We had seen one of its residents going into the hole, and we didn’t want any part of them.”
Manuel looked very frightened. “They were mostly ants! Big, ugly-looking things!”
Bobby nodded. “They did seem to have more ant parts to them more than anything else. We left that alone, because we weren’t looking for them. We can save a raid on them for another day.
“We snuck past the anthill, or whatever it was, and kept going. We had to hide twice more within another mile, both times to hide from huge millipede creatures. One was carrying a dead pig.”
I interrupted Bobby long enough to tell him about the millipede in Pine Valley that had been carrying a cow.
Bobby nodded. “They seem to be dangerous, but they aren’t fast moving. We were able to evade one that chased us. We just ran, and it couldn’t keep up.
“By the time we had put five miles behind us, we heard the buzzing well before we saw the nest. The wasp-creatures had found a natural cave to use as their nest.”
Keith spoke up. “I know that cave! Remember, Dad? We all hiked to it last year!”
I smiled and nodded. “I remember.”
Bobby smiled. “I’m glad you know the place. Nick volunteered to ease up to the entrance, to see what we could do about it. He had just peeked inside when one of the creatures – maybe it was a sentry – came out of the cave. It pounced on him, held on with its claws, and punctured his body several times with its stinger thing. Then it carried him inside the nest, and Nick was screaming all the while.” Bobby wiped his forehead with his hand. “Suddenly, the screaming stopped, right in the middle of a scream. We never knew what had happened to him, but we knew he was gone for good.”
Bobby took a sip of coffee from the cup he was holding.
Susan picked up the story. “We sort of fell apart when Nick was pulled into the nest. I wanted to bull my way in there, and start shooting every one of them. Manuel held me back, bless him...because what we did was brilliant.
“We had noticed that the rocks above the cave looked looser than they should have been, so Bobby came up with a plan.”
Michael added, “It was brilliant the way it worked.”
Manuel nodded. “Si. Michael and I moved around until we were in throwing distance of the rocks. Bobby and Susan moved so that they could cover the entrance with the flame throwers.”
I could see what they had planned, and so could several others. I smiled to myself, because it was a beautiful plan.
Susan laughed. “When Bobby and I opened up on the entrance with the flamethrowers to keep the creatures inside, Manuel and Michael each threw a grenade at the rocks above the entrance. When the grenades exploded, the rocks closed off the cave, and the wasps were trapped inside.”
“Our P.O.W. was outside the cave when we attacked, and tried to get inside. A loose boulder rolled down the hill and smacked it directly on the head,” added Bobby. “Knocked the bastard unconscious. We taped and tied that sucker up as fast as we could. Otherwise, Dr. Case wouldn’t have had his specimen.”
As if on cue, the wasp-creature screamed again.
Bobby shook his head. “That thing has been doing that ever since it woke up!”
“Are you absolutely sure that those things can’t get out of the cave?” I asked.
“Unless there’s another way out, or if those things are stronger than I thought, I don’t see how they could,” answered Bobby.
I was thinking to myself. Maybe the wasp-creatures weren’t strong enough...but what if the ant-creatures that the team saw were? Could two species of these things work together? And could they communicate with each other? I needed to get Bobby, Michael, and Dr. Case alone, and talk this over with them.
That pretty much ended the group meeting. It wasn’t as big a group as it was previously, but still a good-sized group.
Bobby came up to Phyl and I, and actually asked about it. “Did some of the group leave?”
Phyllis answered him. “Yes. About twenty people left, right after Paul got back from the raid on Pine Valley. They just crept away in the night.”
I added, “And we may lose a few more, since you spoke about that anthill. That, and the fact that other bugs are in the mountains.”
Bobby shook his head. “I hate to see them go, but we may be better off without them.”
“You, too?” said Phyllis. “That’s almost exactly what Paul said!”
Bobby shrugged. “Hey, they might have the right idea. Moving around may be better than staying in one place. We just don’t know yet.”
I kept my voice low. “Hey, I’d like to talk to you and Michael. Think you guys can meet me in Dr. Case’s room in about ten?”
Bobby nodded. “Sure. Let me round up Michael.”
I told Phyl that I’d be up to bed later, and went to find Dr. Case.
***
THE FOUR OF US WERE in my former study. The moth-thing was staring at us with its empty eyes.
I started the discussion. “I have a couple of things that I want...no, need to know, and I want input from all of you.”
Everyone nodded.
“Something occurred to me during the team’s story, and I need some speculation. Can these different species communicate with each other? Can they work together? What have you found out, Jeremiah?”
Dr. Case crossed his arms and thought about it for a minute. “I’ve noticed that since the team brought back the wasp-creature, this little fella has calmed down considerably.” He tapped the plywood on top of the aquarium. “It’s possible, I suppose.” He nodded, mostly to himself. “Probably quite likely. I don’t know of any instances of any of the bugs attacking each other.” He looked up at us. “So, if I had to guess, I’d say yes, they can communicate.”
“Oh, shit,” said Michael.
“Not good,” agreed Bobby.
I stood up. “We need to kill both of these creatures now, before they can tell anything else where we are.”
Michael stood up. “If they haven’t already.”
Dr. Case nodded. “Okay. I’ll take care of this one. I would guess that a bullet in the head would take care of the other one.”
“I’m on it,” said Bobby.
“I’ll come with,” I said. “Michael, do you want to help the doc?”
“Sure.”
“Good. Bobby and I will be back in just a minute.”
As Bobby and I left the room, Dr. Case was opening his chloroform bottle, and getting a cloth ready.
When we got outside, the wasp-thing screamed again.
“It almost has to be calling the troops,” I said. “And, if it is, we’re in big trouble.”
Bobby jacked a shotgun shell into the chamber as we walked. “We probably already are in big trouble, Paulie.”
The creature was behind the cabin, left out in the open. As we walked up, Bobby aimed his gun at the thing’s head, and pulled the trigger. The things head exploded, and it’s body relaxed. It was dead, as near as we could tell. Bobby jacked another shell into the shotgun’s chamber, and this time delivered the shot into the thing’s chest. The chest also exploded.
“That should do it,” he said, calmly turning and walking back to the cabin.
I followed behind my cop friend, wallowing in my own deep thoughts. I didn’t notice until we stopped that Bobby didn’t go back into the cabin. He had stopped beside the gasoline tanker, and picked up one of the five-gallon cans we kept full.
Understanding that we were about to burn the creature, I picked up a second can and followed.
Bobby doused the creature liberally with almost the entire can, set it down, and pulled out a pack of matches. The creature ignited with a loud “FWOOMP”, and we settled in to watch it burn.
“Paul, I can watch this, if you’ll go inside and get the other one. We need to burn it, too.”
“Good idea. I’ll be right back.”
As I entered the cabin, I met Michael and Dr. Case. They were carrying the aquarium. The moth-thing looked dead, and I said as much.
“Dead as a doornail,” said Michael. “We were bringing it outside. We didn’t want to leave it in there.”
“Good,” I replied. “Take it around back. We’re burning the big one, and we’re going to burn this one, too.”
When we got to the back, the big creature was still burning. I took the plywood off of the aquarium, and tossed it into the fire. Dr. Case tossed the moth-creature into the fire, aquarium and all.
The good doctor was quite serious when he said, “Let that be the end of it for a while.”
We could only pray that his request was heard.
***
THE NEXT MORNING, AFTER breakfast, Richie ran into the cabin to get me.
“Paul! You gotta come! Billy heard something on the gas truck’s CB radio!”
I’m sure that my eyes were as wide as saucers as I ran outside with Richie and over to the cab of the gasoline truck. Bobby was already there, and so was Michael.
“Is it true?” I asked breathlessly.
Bobby was grinning ear to ear. “Check it out for yourself!” He flipped a thumb back to the cab of the truck.
Billy was sitting inside the truck, listening to the broadcast. “I tried to respond, but we’re apparently too far away from them. This radio doesn’t have enough power to reach them. They must be boosting their power somehow.”
The radio jumped to life. “This is Fort Simon Air Force Base. We are located twenty miles northwest of Pine Valley. All civilians are welcome here, if you can make it safely. The bugs are in control of most of the world, but we are secure here, with food, water, and shelter.”
There was a pause, then the broadcast began again. There were variations in the wording, so we knew that it wasn’t a recording.
The voice on the radio began speaking again. “Hi! Great to hear from you! What’s your position?”
“They’re talking to someone!” said Billy.
“Hey, that’s great! Sure, we have room. Our scouts have reported that there are a few millipede creatures between you and the base, but you should be able to avoid them easily.”
We listened to the silence, then the voice came back.
“We could send out an escort if you’d like. We have teams of four volunteers each that are sent out each time we contact a new group. They’ll escort you in, and help fend off any bug attacks.”
Silence again.
When the voice came again, there was laughter in the speaker’s voice. “I’m Sergeant Hayes, sir. I’ll be glad to meet you, too. We’ll send a team to you at that location, and they’ll bring you here to safety. I’m going to ask you to switch to another channel, channel thirteen, so that we can continue broadcasting on this one. Good luck!”
Silence, and then Sergeant Hayes began the broadcast we had heard earlier.
Billy turned the radio off. We were all quiet for a moment.
I broke the silence. “Wow. Twenty miles, but bugs.”
Bobby agreed. “Yeah. Bugs.”
I sighed. “Okay, meeting time, I guess. Everyone needs to know about the army base, and I guess we can vote on whether to go or not.” I looked at them. “Do you guys mind helping me notify everyone? We’ll meet in the front yard.”
Everyone agreed, and set off to notify our group of survivors.
***
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, everyone in our group knew everything that we knew.
One man in the back of the group said, “So you’re saying that we should go to this Air Force Base?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m only saying what we heard on the radio. On something this big, we vote on what to do.”
A woman standing beside him said, “What do you think we should do, Paul?”
“It’s Brittany, right?” The woman nodded. “Brittany, I don’t have a clue.” Everyone chuckled a bit at that, but it was mostly nervous chuckling. “Here, we have food, shelter, and some defenses. At Fort Simon, Sergeant Hayes said that they had those things, too. I’m sure that their defenses are stronger than ours, but, get too many people together in one place in a situation like this, and it’s hard to defend everyone. You’re more likely to be a casualty while you’re waiting for someone to tell you what to do.” I shrugged. “The choice has to be made by the group this time. It would be a long, dangerous trip through the mountains, and God only knows what we’ll find along the way.”
There was some low murmuring through the group. Michael stood up, and waved his hands for attention.
“I just want to say one thing, folks. Keep in mind, we’ve been damned lucky so far, if you stop and think about it. Of those of us that have stayed, we’ve only lost a few people to bugs...and that’s saying a lot, considering the rest of the world! Sure, a few people have left our group, and I pray constantly that they’ve made it to safety. Personally, I would rather stay here, but I’ll go where the group votes to go.” Michael abruptly turned and sat down. His face was bright red.
Someone yelled, “What do you think, Bobby?”
Bobby stood and looked around slowly at everyone. You could have heard a pin drop. “I think we should go.”
The crowd began talking, with some saying, “Really?”, and others saying “You’re kidding!” Bobby raised his hands for quiet, and the crowd quieted down.
“We’re sitting ducks here,” continued Bobby. “We have good defenses, but the bugs will find us sooner or later. When they do, can we hold up against a sustained attack from them? Sure, we can burn them, but what else do we have? What else can we use?”
Walt raised his hand. “We have chemicals. Boric acid. Bug spray.”
Bobby nodded. “Yes, we do, Walt. But we don’t have a lot of any of that. Our food may last until spring, but what do we do after that?”
Uncomfortable murmurs could be heard throughout the crowd.
“I don’t think the bugs will let us plant any crops to amount to anything, do you?”
Cries of “No!” could be heard.
“But...if we’re among a group of soldiers, and we all do our part and keep a good guard around, we might be able to plant and survive at Fort Simon.” Bobby started back to his seat, then stopped and faced the crowd. “That’s my thinking, anyway.” He sat down.
“Do we want to discuss this all day?” I asked the group. “I mean, we can, if that’s what you want to do. But I strongly recommend that we vote, so that we can start planning, whatever the vote may be. You all know what we know, so it boils down to speculation. Do we take a chance and head for Fort Simon, or do we take a chance and stay here through the winter?”
Most of the group just looked around at each other. Phyllis looked at me, asking me with her eyes what I wanted to do, and I shrugged. I didn’t know. When Phyllis shrugged, I knew that we would stay here, regardless of how the vote turned out.
I turned to Michael and Bobby, and asked them to help me keep count of the vote. Both nodded and stood.
I raised my hands to quiet the group. “Okay, it’s time to vote. Raise your hand as I ask each question.” Several people nodded their understanding. “Okay, those of you who think we should...HOLY SHIT!”
The chainsaw noise was fast and loud as the sky over the yard was filled with wasp-creatures. At the same time, millipede-creatures burst through the treeline with a determined pace. Directly behind them came several ant-looking creatures, picking up trees and throwing them several feet away from them as they scrambled toward our group. Flying alongside the wasp-creatures were about fifty of the same kind of bugs that we had seen in the grocery store back in the city. Each one still had that long, sharp proboscis, and the single antenna between their black, empty eyes.
The bugs had caught us all off-guard.
And they were working together.
“The children!” I shouted. “Phyllis, get the children inside the milk truck and shut the door!” She gathered up the five children still with our group, and hustled them toward the milk truck.
I didn’t have to tell anyone to start shooting at the bugs. They were shooting anything that flew, or was larger than themselves. But, the surprise was complete – many of us didn’t have our weapons in our hands when the bugs came, and we wasted precious seconds picking them up, switching off safeties, and making sure that they were fully loaded.
“Flamethrowers! Get the flamethrowers!” I shouted. “Billy! Get to the gas truck! Fill the moat!”
Billy heard and ran in that direction. Before he had taken five steps, an ant-thing got him. It snagged him in its pincers, and snapped him in two. As Billy died, he fired his shotgun into the thing’s head, and the ant-thing died along with him.
I counted ten of the millipede-creatures. Seven of them had people in their mouths, and were carrying them away, back into the treeline. They had armor, much like an armadillo, and bullets didn’t seem to penetrate it.
Richie had decided to take over for Billy, and made a run for the gas truck. He made it. We had rigged a sort of filler pipe that ran from the place that normally would hold the hose used to put the gasoline into underground tanks at your local gas station, to the moat we had built. All that had to be done was to flip the trip switch, and the gasoline would flow through the feeder pipe into the moat. Richie began filling the moat. He was dodging fly-creatures as he waited, shooting one every so often. The wasp-creatures couldn’t get to him, because the bus was parked very close to the gas truck. The big fliers couldn’t get between the two vehicles to get to Richie.
Someone had brought out the three flamethrowers, and had given one to Michael. He strapped it on, and aimed it at one of the wasp-things. It soon was enveloped in flames, and had some of the fly-creatures following it as it crashed into the ground, screaming and burning. I could hear other screaming, and I hoped that it was from the mouths of bugs as they died, and not from any of our people.
To my horror, I could see an ant-thing trying to topple the milk truck. As I watched, I tried to aim at the bug, but someone jostled me as I pulled the trigger, and the shot went wild. A second ant-thing appeared beside the first, and the two of them were able to first rock the truck, then topple it over onto its side. I only hoped that Phyllis and the children weren’t hurt inside the solid compartment on the back of the truck.
Michael saw the ant-things then, and turned the flamethrower on them. They immediately screamed and made a mad dash back into the trees surrounding the property. Some of the underbrush caught on fire, but I didn’t care.
Several people were on the ground, with fly-things feeding from their body fluids. Each fly-thing’s proboscis was jammed into the person’s body, and looked like half-inch-wide tubes inserted into each person. The fly-things must have been part mosquito, because they would literally gorge themselves on whatever fluids they could drain. Most of the people they had landed on were not moving, and the creatures were very sluggish once they had their fill. They couldn’t fly very well, and were dispatched quickly. The people were not so lucky.
Richie had to run away from the gas truck, because some of the ant-things were crawling under the truck to get to him. As he ran, a flaming wasp-creature crashed into the moat on the opposite side of the property, and the moat flamed up quickly. It caught four of the millipede-things, and caused them to burn. Ant-creatures were cut off from escaping, and we began executing them quickly. Several of the fly-things and wasp-creatures were also engulfed by flames as the fire spread along the moat. Two of them crashed into the cabin, and it was soon burning merrily.
The moat worked beautifully, except for one small problem.
Richie had not been able to shut off the gas flow from the truck before he got away from it.
The flame found the path to the overflow pipe, and quickly traveled up to the truck itself. Adding to the madness, the truck exploded with a huge fireball that engulfed all of the other vehicles that were parked nearby. The only surviving vehicle was the milk truck, and it was on its side.
The concussion from the blast knocked down most of the surviving people in our group, and caused the bugs to retreat...those that could retreat, anyway.
Now, every building on the property was burning, and the front yard was littered with dead and dying people...and bugs. We had to get out of there, and quickly.
I ran to the milk truck, and pried open the door to the back. Phyllis and the children all crawled out. Bobby came from nowhere, and helped me get them all to their feet. They were all bruised, but nothing was broken.
Susan, running up to us, said, “We have to retreat to my cabin! Let’s go!” She had a cut on her head that had bled, and the blood covered half of her face. “The fire is dying along the moat! We can jump across! Come on!”
We followed her, along with what few survivors were left.
There weren’t many.
Phyllis and I, Bobby, Susan, Latisha, Richie, Walt, Teresa, Michael, Millie, Dr. Jeremiah Case, Heather, and the five children – Keith, Clarissa, Zach, Martin, and Emily. Seventeen people. We were all that was left.
