Mandibles

by Jeff Strand

  He hung up, and then pulled Gary closer to him. "Thank you for not making me shoot you, kid. Your mom should be proud."

  "You think they'll try to screw us over?" asked Hack.

  "It seems like a pretty strong possibility. But they'll be sorry if they do. I hate to overuse all of the references to shooting people in the head, but if they try anything funny, we'll have to shoot some people in the head."

  "Amen to that," said Hack. He glanced outside and frowned. "What's going on out there?"

  Making sure to keep Gary in front of him as a shield, Slash leaned over the counter and looked out. "No idea. That's pretty weird."

  Three or four of the officers had left their spot outside the convenience store. Maybe there'd been a massive car accident, or a shooting, or something else that overshadowed a pair of lunatics with hostages.

  "You think they're trying a sneak attack?" asked Hack.

  "Nah. They're all panicked. What's their problem?"

  A gunshot rang out from outside. Hack wrapped his arm more tightly around Louise's neck. "This is messed up, Slash. I don't think we're gonna get our car."

  More of the officers rushed out of view, leaving only two of them stationed outside of Seth's Quik-Stop. The two cops were clearly trying to keep an eye on the situation inside the convenience store, but kept watching whatever was going on to the side.

  "What do you think? Make a run for it?" asked Hack.

  "Hell no! Just wait."

  "It's creeping me out, man. Cops aren't supposed to act like that."

  Suddenly a cop lurched into view, right in front of the door. He was covered with what looked like ants, except that they were far too big. The cop spun around in a circle, frantically trying to get the things off of him, then stumbled out of view again.

  "What the shit was that?" Hack demanded.

  "I don't know!" Slash shouted. "Shut up!"

  Another gunshot went off.

  And then Dustin noticed a few of the things crawling along the ground. They looked and moved like ants, but they were far too big. Regular ants were nowhere near as big as...

  Just what kind of top-secret research had he been called here for?

  "You have to let me go," he insisted. "I told you, I'm an entomologist. My specialty is ants. I need to find out what's going on out there."

  "Yeah, right," said Slash. "Stay where you are."

  The ant-covered cop stumbled into view again. This time he dropped to the ground, still struggling to get the ants off of him but with substantially less strength.

  "It's a fake-out!" said Hack. "They're trying to make us panic and rush out of here."

  "Yeah, that's what it is," said Dustin, sarcastically. "Need to take care of a tense hostage situation? Try simulating a fake onslaught of giant killer ants!"

  "Shut up!"

  More of the ants came into view. Many, many more.

  "All right, Slash, this is getting way too bizarre for me," said Hack. "We've gotta do something besides just stand here."

  "Well, what exactly do you suggest? You want to run out there and start pulling their legs off?"

  "Oh, real funny. I wish I could be that -- "

  A pair of gunshots rang out, and the lower half of the door to the convenience store came crashing apart in a shower of glass.

  * * *

  *-CHAPTER THIRTEEN-*

  Gunther Clarke wasn't scared of anything. A guy who outweighed him by eighty pounds had once mugged him with a knife, and though the mugger did end up getting away with his wallet, Gunther had been proud of the way he'd remained calm and composed. He'd once fought off a rabid dog with his bare hands, never even breaking a sweat.

  Only one thing truly scared him.

  Dragonflies.

  He couldn't quite figure it out. During a trip to Arizona, he'd picked up a tarantula and let it crawl along his arm, but dragonflies petrified him. Fortunately, he didn't see many of them, and was quite content to keep that little phobia to himself. As far as his friends and family knew, Gunther Clarke wasn't scared of anything.

  However, the ants currently crawling all over his windshield were definitely a source of concern. He'd never seen ants that big. He'd once petted what the sign said was the World's Biggest Caterpillar, which probably wasn't, but he'd never seen an ant that was two inches long, let alone dozens of them.

  Maybe this was God's way of telling him that parking outside his ex-wife's house in an attempt to catch her with her new boy-toy wasn't such a good idea. Or at least that he shouldn't fall asleep in the car while he was doing it. Either way, while he certainly wasn't scared of them, he figured he should at least find a car wash or something to get rid of these ants.

  Margaret's garage door opened, and he forgot about the ants for a moment.

  * * * *

  "Isn't that your ex-husband's car?" asked Darren Metcalf, placing his hand on Margaret's bare leg.

  "Oooh, your hand's cold!"

  "Sorry." Darren quickly pulled it away.

  "Yeah, that's his car. What a loser. Why don't you stick your tongue in my ear to make him jealous?"

  "Seriously?"

  "Nah, that would be mean."

  "So, does he hang outside your place a lot?"

  "Every once in a while, yeah."

  "Don't you think you should call the police?"

  Margaret shrugged. "He's harmless."

  "Are you sure? It seems kind of spooky that he'd be stalking you. Maybe he was peeking through the windows or taking pictures."

  "Then he caught a good performance."

  "Thank you very much." Darren glanced in the rear-view mirror. "What's that on his car?"

  "Dirt."

  "No, it looks like bugs."

  "I dunno. Is it love bug season?"

  "Nope."

  "Then I don't know."

  "I guess it doesn't ... whoa, look out!"

  * * * *

  Ian Rush almost fell off his skateboard as the jerks in the car nearly ran him over, but regained his balance and skated back up onto the sidewalk. It wasn't even dark out yet. Drivers really needed to pay more attention.

  There was something on the sidewalk up ahead. A dead squirrel, it looked like. Time to test his jumping skills again. His mom would freak if she knew he was doing jumps without his helmet or kneepads, but Ian figured that since he didn't smoke, drink, do drugs, cheat on tests, or knock up the girls at his school, he could at least be rebellious as far as personal safety was concerned.

  Hmmmm ... there were a lot of things crawling around on the sidewalk next to the dead squirrel.

  Were those ants?

  Ian made the leap, but too early. The front wheels of the skateboard landed on the squirrel with a disgusting _splat_ and Ian flew forward, throwing out his arms to break his fall. He slammed into the sidewalk and slid forward a few inches, accidentally biting down hard on the side of his mouth.

  He lay on the ground for a few seconds, moaning. He didn't have to look at his hands to know that they were raw and bleeding, and he could taste plenty of blood in his mouth. His birthday was coming up in a couple of months, and now was the time to start pestering his mother about a new, less crappy skateboard.

  As bad as his hands hurt, the pain was nothing compared to the sting on his leg.

  * * * *

  At the end of the block, Ernie Rushton chuckled softly. "That dumb kid," he said. "Did you see that, Dent?"

  Dent didn't respond, preferring to vigorously tug on his leash. Ernie could never figure out why the dog didn't choke itself to death.

  One half of the dog's face was black, and the other half was a light tan. The two colors were divided almost equally down the front of its face, so Ernie had named it after Harvey Dent, the alter ego of Two-Face in the Batman comics. It was not the brightest dog ever to come into existence, but as long as it didn't eat its own feces in his presence, Ernie wasn't all that picky.

  Dent continued to struggle against the leash. Ernie tugged the dog backward. "C'mon,
let's go this way," he said. If they didn't take a different street, he'd probably end up having to help that dumb kid. As far as Ernie was concerned, kids who did tricks on skateboards deserved whatever injuries they received as a result.

  Why was the kid rolling around like that? Some sort of temper tantrum? It was hard to tell from this distance, but it almost looked like things were crawling on him. Maybe he should go over there and check it out, just in case.

  "Dent!" Ernie shouted as the dog's leash popped out of his hand. "Come back here!"

  The dog, of course, didn't listen, and took off down the block toward the busy road.

  * * * *

  Adrienne Webster slammed on her brakes as the dog rushed out into the street. Her new car screeched to a halt just as the dog changed its mind and hurried back onto the sidewalk. A split second later, Adrienne jolted forward as another vehicle hit her from behind.

  "Dammit!" she cursed. She was twenty-eight years old, and this was the first new car she'd ever been able to afford. Hadn't even had it for three weeks. It was insured, yeah, but now she had to deal with the frustration of filling out all that paperwork and having to fight with the insurance company and having the mechanic screw things up even more and having to bum a ride off her deadbeat boyfriend until it was fixed.

  Well, maybe not. It was probably just a fender bender.

  She pulled into the McDonalds parking lot and got out of her car at the same time as the other driver, a cute guy about her age. "What was that all about?" he demanded.

  "A dog ran in front of me."

  "So then you swerve, you don't brake. Or else run it over."

  "Hey, just calm down," Adrienne told him. "It's not a big deal. Look, there isn't even any damage to your car."

  "That I can see."

  "Here, I'll write down my address." Adrienne dug into her purse, searching for a pencil and notepad. "I'll need yours, too."

  "Nah, that's okay. I'm sure you didn't hurt my car."

  "Well, you might have hurt mine."

  "It looks fine."

  "As far as I can see, yeah."

  The guy looked at the ground. "Look, I kind of don't have insurance."

  "You're not insured?"

  "I _was_, but, no, not right now."

  "Oh, well, that's just wonderful."

  "But your car looks fine."

  "Driving without insurance is illegal, you know. You'll probably lose your license."

  The guy flashed her what he undoubtedly thought was a charming smile. "How about I take you out to dinner to make up for it?"

  "Do you at least have medical insurance for when I punch you out?"

  "That's a personal threat. I could sue you but I'm not going to. Now we're even." The smile broadened.

  "You're not a tenth as cute as you think you are," Adrienne said.

  "That still makes me pretty darn cute, though."

  Adrienne started to disagree, but then looked over her shoulder. "Do you hear screaming?"

  "What kind of screaming?"

  "Shhhh."

  They both listened for a moment. Then Adrienne began to scream herself.

  * * * *

  Neil Hadigan nearly wet himself as the chick started screaming for no reason. She was hot, no doubt about it, but maybe she had mental problems.

  She lifted her foot and began batting at it with both hands, and Neil realized what she was screaming about. There was a big red ant on her leg. No, two of them.

  "Hold still!" Neil told her, but the crazy chick just kept screaming and hopping around. Near the Wal-Mart entrance, some other people were screaming, too.

  The chick finally got the ants off her leg, and quickly got inside her car. Since Neil obviously wasn't going to get a date or get arrested for driving without insurance, he got back into his own car, started the engine, and pulled out onto Dale Mabry after the crazy chick.

  As he drove down the road, he noticed a lot of pedestrians moving around like something was attacking them. This was just plain freaky. If there were killer ants invading Tampa, he was driving his butt back to Sarasota, pronto.

  As he saw an ant-covered man running toward his car, arms outstretched, Neil pulled into the center lane of traffic.

  * * * *

  Why wouldn't anybody stop? The ants were stinging him to death, and it took every last reserve of Lance Magin's strength just to stay on his feet, but the cars just kept driving by.

  Moments later, his strength gave out, and he toppled forward onto the street.

  * * * *

  Clarissa Thompson saw the man fall in front of her car, felt the jolt, and even heard the hideous sound as the tires went right over his torso, but she had more important things to worry about, like the huge ant that felt like it was trying to dig its way into her ear.

  * * * *

  Rose Dobbs slammed on her brakes at the sight of the man getting run over and hurriedly got out of her vehicle to help. The car that'd run him over hadn't stopped, so she stared at the license plate number, trying to burn it into her mind.

  The man was beyond saving, but even if he hadn't been, Rose knew she wouldn't be going anywhere near him. Ants were swarming his body. She ran back to her car, rolled up the windows, and locked the doors.

  * * * *

  "Wow, didja see that?" asked Jeremy Pepin, peering out the back window. "Some guy just got creamed!"

  "Did he really?" asked his mother, looking into the rear-view mirror. "What happened?"

  "A car ran him over! It was gross!"

  "Oh, the poor man. I hope he's all right." Maggie Pepin sighed as the vehicles in front of her came to a halt. "So why are we stopping? What is it with this traffic?"

  "Hey, Mom, there are bugs on the ground."

  "There are always bugs on the ground, sweetie."

  "Not like these."

  Maggie started to turn around to humor her son, until she noticed the black mass moving along the sidewalk a couple of blocks up ahead. What could that possibly be? It almost looked like a swarm of insects, but there'd have to be thousands of them.

  * * * *

  "Henry, turn around!" Trish Valencia said. "There's something coming!"

  "I can see it ... what is that?"

  "I don't know, but I'm scared!"

  * * * *

  "Honey, I think I'm going to be late," said Christopher Hult into his cell phone. "There's like this huge swarm of ants coming down Dale Mabry. No, I mean huge. I'm not kidding. No, I'm not at a bar. I'm serious. There must be ... oh shit, some guy on a motorcycle just fell over! No, I'm not kidding! They're swarming him! Damn it, honey, I'm being serious!"

  * * * *

  As the ants stung him to death, Marcus Murray's only thought was that his ten year-old daughter had been right about motorcycles being dangerous.

  * * * *

  "Stay in your vehicles!" a police officer shouted through his car's intercom. "Pedestrians, get to shelter! I repeat, stay in your vehicles! Do not open your doors for any reason! I repeat, do not open your doors for any reason!"

  He watched the ants take down the woman carrying a sack of groceries and crossed himself.

  * * *

  *-CHAPTER FOURTEEN-*

  "Do you think she got away?" asked Roberta.

  Dr. Ruiz nodded. "Agnes is fine. She just got scared and left us. I'll have to cut her salary this week." He smiled, but it was forced.

  "I can go out there and look for her car," Zachary offered for the second time, his speech somewhat slurred from the Novocain.

  "We need to stay here," said Dr. Ruiz. "There are too many of them."

  Roberta looked back outside and felt another involuntary shiver. There were at least twice as many of the ants as there were before. The parking lot wasn't exactly a huge red mass with no pavement visible, but Roberta definitely didn't see many places that you could step without your foot coming down on one of them.

  Dr. Ruiz sighed. "This is all my fault. We should have left as soon as something was wrong, yes?"
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  "We had no idea it would get this bad," said Roberta, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder.

  "Agnes did."

  "Really, I can go out and check for her," Zachary offered. "No goddamn bugs are going to keep me cooped up in here."