Mandibles

by Jeff Strand

  "I'm not going anywhere."

  "I think you're wrong."

  Tyler took the gun out of his lab coat pocket and pointed it at Zachary. "I think I'm right."

  Though clearly enraged, Zachary let it drop and turned to Jack and Moni. "You two wait for us. We'll be back."

  "Here," said Tyler, handing Roberta his red pass card. "The other doors are open, but you'll still need this to get into the building. Better that each of you have one in case there's a death, don't you think?"

  "What about the venom antidote?" she asked.

  "You'll find some test tubes with a blue liquid in each of the rooms with specimens."

  Zachary opened the door, and then he and Roberta ran into the hallway, pulling the door closed behind them.

  "Do they stand a chance?" asked Jack.

  Tyler shrugged. "I'm certainly not sticking around to find out."

  * * * *

  Most of the butterflies were still focused on Hack's body and hadn't left the cage. Roberta couldn't see his arm very well, but she thought she caught a glimpse of bone. Slash was lying on the floor of his cage, still unconscious.

  These two minor sources of relief were far outweighed by the sight of what was pouring out of the cage at the end of the hall by the dozens.

  Spiders.

  Ones that were as big as her hand.

  Roberta hated ants as much as anybody, but she was absolutely _terrified_ of spiders. Even though she had no clue what made them so much scarier (the extra two legs?), the fact was that if she had to face a hundred ants and one spider, she'd pick the ants.

  Zachary shoved her forward. "Don't even look at them! Just run!"

  Caterpillars were starting to emerge from one of the other cages, but she barely noticed them.

  _They aren't real_, she told herself. _They're just very sophisticated animatronic arachnids on loan from Disney. If Mickey Mouse can handle being around these things without completely losing his mind, then there's no reason you can't, too. They aren't real_.

  The things being crushed under her feet certainly _felt_ real.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed something in another one of the cages. It looked like a spider leg that was the size of a human leg.

  She reached the end of the hallway, threw open the door, and continued down the connecting corridor. _This is ridiculous! Calm yourself! You've had your entire body covered with ants; you can handle some fake spiders_!

  At least she wasn't screaming hysterically, although she didn't think that such a thing was too far off.

  She forced herself to stop running. Zachary caught up with her and took her hand in his. "Are you all right?"

  "I'm not ... I think ... yes, I'm fine." She took three deep breaths. "I don't do spiders well."

  "They can't hurt you. Come on, you passed the door."

  They turned around, opened an unmarked wooden door, and stepped into a laboratory.

  Mistakes.

  Roberta could think of several words for the things that were crawling out of the ten or twelve cages that lined each side wall of the room, but "mistakes" was far too tame.

  A scorpion, two feet long, moved along the floor. Its giant pincers were frightening enough, but it also had a human-shaped mouth filled with sharp, metallic teeth.

  A cucumber-sized maggot crawled along on eight spider-like legs.

  A foot-long bee flew around in wild circles, red blood dripping from its head.

  And ants. Ants of various sizes, some with extra body parts, some with absurdly oversized stingers, some with bodies so deformed that they merely wriggled inside their open cages.

  The shelf was against the far wall. Only twenty feet away.

  The scorpion rushed toward Roberta, pincers snapping.

  * * * *

  Moni followed Tyler out of the building. "How can you just run away from this?" she asked.

  "Simple," said Tyler, quickly looking away from Dustin's body. "I'm intelligent. You're more than welcome to join me."

  The old Hispanic dentist had opened the door of the truck and was trying to climb out, though it was obvious he wasn't up to the task. Moni went over to him.

  "You should wait in the truck. We'll be getting out of here soon."

  The dentist looked around. "The ants ... they're gone, yes?"

  "No. They just aren't around here," Moni said. She felt like she should help him back into the truck, but there wasn't much she could do with her broken hands.

  The dentist leaned his head back and said something unintelligible. Moni leaned in closer to him. "What was that?"

  He shook his head. "Nothing. I just hoped they went away. Sorry."

  "I wish they'd go away, too. Maybe we'll get lucky and..."

  She stopped as she remembered that they _had_ gone away at one point.

  Maybe that was it!

  * * * *

  Roberta kicked the scorpion as hard as she could, expecting it to fly across the room like a soccer ball. Instead, her foot broke through its side and became imbedded, so she ended up with her foot in the air, a huge scorpion stuck on the end of it.

  She screamed as it pinched her ankle.

  Zachary grabbed the scorpion with both hands and ripped it off her foot. It pinched his arm, drawing blood, as he threw it across the room. It struck one of the cages, white chunks splattering out of its body.

  As if simultaneously realizing that there just wasn't time to be scared, Roberta and Zachary both rushed toward the shelf. The spider-maggot scurried toward her at an alarming speed. Zachary ducked out of the way of the bee, which then bounced against the ceiling.

  An ant fell out of its cage and practically exploded upon impact, as if it were filled with nitroglycerine.

  Another second wave-sized ant ran toward her, its stinger almost as long as the rest of its body combined. She stomped on that one, and then stomped on a second with two heads.

  Zachary cried out as the bee suddenly flew in a circle around his head, and then slammed itself stinger-first into his chest.

  * * *

  *-CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT-*

  Zachary doubled over momentarily, then stood back up, grabbed the bee with both hands, and ripped it away from his chest, leaving the stinger behind.

  Roberta pulled the stinger out, but there wasn't even time to ask him if he was okay. Two more scorpions were crawling out of their cages, as was a millipede with bright red streaks across its back, and a spider.

  A spider with twice as many legs as normal, but still unquestionably a spider.

  Zachary looked dazed, but grabbed the larger of the two silver canisters, which was about the size of a beer keg. Roberta saw a wooden holder with two tiny test tubes in it, took both of them, and slipped them into her pocket. Then she took the smaller canister, the size of a gallon jug, and they made a run for the exit.

  * * * *

  Moni rushed over to Tyler, who was about to get in his car. "When one of the biggest ants came to Lavin, Inc., the other ants ran away. I mean, all of them. Is that supposed to happen?"

  "It wasn't planned, no, but it had something to do with the signals the ants send out. I'd actually hoped that Dustin would be able to shed some light on it."

  "But will that always happen?"

  "Apparently so, yes."

  "Do you have any of the giant ants inside?"

  "One, but it's not exactly tame. What exactly are you planning to do?"

  "Tell me where it is."

  * * * *

  Roberta kicked the maggot out of the way. It landed on its back, legs twitching helplessly in the air as it tried to right itself.

  They emerged from the lab and Roberta slammed the door shut, pinching the millipede in half. Zachary nearly lost his grip on the canister and leaned against the wall.

  "Are you allergic to bee stings?" Roberta asked.

  Zachary shook his head. "Not normal ones. Oh, crap, I screwed up bad. I should've been watchin' more closely."

  "It's okay," said Robert
a, reaching into her pocket. She took out the test tubes and slipped them into Zachary's pocket. "You take that canister out to Jack and Moni, and then take care of Dr. Ruiz. I'll handle the ones in the building."

  "Hell no."

  "I'm not arguing this. Get out of here."

  * * * *

  Moni entered the hallway, which was filled with insects. Slash was still in the cage, and though he was now conscious, he looked groggy and unthreatening. She ran down the hallway, no longer cringing at the sound of bugs being squished under her feet. Hard to believe she could get used to that sort of thing.

  She pushed down on the door handle with her elbow, then wedged her other hand into the handle and pulled it open, ignoring the pain.

  Roberta and Zachary were in the hallway, holding silver canisters, as she entered.

  "I've got it!" she shouted. "I know what to do!"

  "What's that?" asked Roberta.

  "The giant ants, I mean, the really big ones! The other ants run from them! If we bring one of the giant ants with us, maybe we can herd all the other ants into the top floor, and _then_ set off the chemical!"

  "So, what, we put it on a leash?"

  "Basically, yeah."

  Roberta patted Zachary on the shoulder and then kissed him on the cheek. "Get that stuff to the right folks. We're counting on you to be our hero."

  "Yeah, well, let me tell you somethin'. You damn well better be around for my follow-up appointment, understand?"

  "I promise."

  * * * *

  Zachary wished he could let go of the canister long enough to wipe the sweat from his brow, but it was all he could do just to free his hand enough to open the door. He felt dizzy, sick to his stomach, and almost wanted to cry. Jack would definitely be doing the driving.

  As he entered the hallway, Slash stepped out of his cage. He took a moment to steady himself against the glass, and then nodded at Zachary.

  "Hey, buddy. Whatcha got there?"

  Zachary would've thrown the canister at him, but he didn't have anywhere near enough strength. The way he felt now, he probably couldn't take him in a fight. Hell, he probably couldn't take _Moni_ in a fight even in her current condition. He could feel the hand-sized spiders crawling up his legs.

  Slash began to walk down the hallway, not even looking down at the insects and spiders that crawled around his feet. "You don't look so well. Golly, I hope an ant didn't sting you."

  Zachary knew this tactic wouldn't work, but decided to try anyway. "Thousands, hundreds of thousands of people might die if I don't get out of here with this canister. You can't possibly be evil enough to let that happen."

  "I don't know, buddy, I'm pretty evil. Actually, it seems to me that a canister that can save hundreds of thousands of people has a pretty good market value, don't you think?"

  The gap between the two men narrowed to six feet. Slash had never proven himself to be an outrageous brainiac, so if only he were dumb enough to get close enough that Zachary could simply drop the canister on his foot...

  Slash turned his head to the left, let out a high-pitched shriek, and then was knocked to the ground as a six-foot-long tarantula burst out of its cage and pounced upon him.

  "_Help me_!" Slash wailed. "_Please help me_!"

  Slash struggled to push the hairy spider off of himself, but it was far too heavy. It buried its immense fangs into Slash's face, muffling his screams. Slash's legs shook violently, but within seconds the shaking had diminished to a mild twitching.

  The tarantula crawled most of the way off his body. Slash lay on the floor, still clearly alive but paralyzed, his mouth wide open. A centipede crawled into it and vanished from sight.

  The tarantula dug its fangs into Slash's leg, and began to slowly drag him into its cage. Slash looked over at Zachary, eyes wide with terror, mouth moving as if trying to beg for help.

  Zachary just watched, his entire body suddenly numb.

  Slash disappeared into the spider's cage.

  _Come into my parlor..._

  * * * *

  Jack breathed a sigh of relief as Zachary emerged from the building, although the spiders and other insects crawling all over his legs didn't look good. He limped over to him and took the canister, while Zachary started brushing off the bugs.

  "Where's Tyler?" Zachary asked.

  "He took off. Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll crash into a telephone pole."

  "We can only hope." Zachary finished getting the bugs off his legs and headed for the truck. "You're driving."

  They wasted no time getting in the truck and speeding off. It was a little awkward using his left foot to work the gas pedal, but Jack figured that Moni and Roberta were undergoing a far greater challenge than simply using the wrong foot to drive.

  "Aw, crap!" shouted Zachary, patting his pocket, which had a wet splotch on it. He reached inside, then breathed a sigh of relief as he took out a few shards of broken glass and a second intact test tube filled with blue liquid. He popped off the cork top and waved it in front of the dentist's mouth.

  "Dr. Ruiz? Got something for you."

  Dr. Ruiz opened his eyes weakly. Zachary put the test tube to his mouth and tilted it. The dentist drank the liquid and grimaced.

  "That will save my life, yes?" he asked.

  "Yes," said Zachary.

  "With taste like that, better to be dead." Dr. Ruiz smiled and closed his eyes again.

  "So, we're off to save the day," said Jack. "Do you think the ladies stand a chance?"

  "They'd better, or there won't be a day to save."

  They drove in silence for a moment.

  "That comment really doesn't make any sense," Jack pointed out.

  "I'm still numb from my root canal this evening and I got stung in the chest by a giant bee. Give me a break."

  Then Zachary smiled. Up ahead was not one but two ambulances.

  "Gentlemen, I think we've just had a stroke of luck. Let's hope the same thing happens to Roberta and Moni."

  * * *

  *-CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE-*

  Roberta and Moni entered the room across from the "mistakes" lab. This one held two large Plexiglas cages.

  Inside the first cage was a fire ant, not quite the size of the couch-sized ones. Its body was bloated, and it was surrounded by what looked like thousands of slimy white eggs. Definitely a queen. Some dead rat-sized ants lay in the cage as well.

  The second cage contained one of the largest sized ants. It was facing away from the cage door, but started to turn around as they entered the room. Roberta sped over and pushed the cage door closed seconds before the ant reached it. Good. This process would be much easier if the ant weren't running around loose.

  Moni looked around the lab. "Do you see anything we could use as a leash?"

  "What about that extension cord?"

  Moni didn't respond.

  "Is something wrong?"

  "No, I'm fine. Bad extension cord experience."

  It wasn't difficult for Roberta to fashion the extension cord into a makeshift lasso. She was sure the people who actually worked with these creatures (or used to) had a much more efficient and less dangerous system, but this was the best they could come up with.

  A metal rod hung on a small shelf bolted to the wall. A handwritten sign next to it read _AntProd 3000_. "This should control them a little bit better than a broken rake," said Roberta, taking it. "How much time do we have?"

  Moni checked her watch. "Oh, shit. Not even seven minutes."

  "Okay, okay, we can do this." She tied the other end of the extension cord tightly around Moni's arm. As she did so, she noticed a miner's hat, the type with the flashlight attached to the front, resting on one of the tables. Obviously the ant building didn't have standard lighting.

  "Is there any way you can hold the ant prod?" Roberta asked.

  "I can't even move my hands. The only way I could hold that thing is if you put it in my mouth."

  "You know what? You were joking but that's what we're go
ing to do. Open up." Moni opened her mouth and closed it over the end of the metal rod. "If the ant tries to get out of the cage, poke it."

  Moni nodded.

  "By the way, your husband is a lucky man." Roberta put on the miner's hat and flipped on the light just in case she wouldn't have a hand free to do so later, and then got ready to open the cage, wishing she'd spent less time in dental school and more time in rodeos.