Instinct (2010)

by Kay, Ben

  ‘Don’t be makin’ that face,’ Taj said. ‘I thought we had a deal. Why you gonna think that’s your mom when there’s all these alive?’

  ‘But that’s easy for you to say. That’s not your mum down there. You didn’t see what I saw.’

  ‘OK, then, little man, this dead one here, it’s your mom.’

  ‘Don’t say that!’

  ‘Why not? It’s what you thinking.’

  ‘No it’s not!’

  ‘Yes it is. You looking like the whole world just caved in on you. You wouldn’t think that if this one here was Mills, would you?’

  ‘No, but …’

  ‘So you think your mom copped it.’

  ‘I bloody do not. Just shut up, will you?’

  Taj gave Andrew half a smile. ‘Now that’s what I wanted to hear. That’s not her, am I right?’

  Andrew’s voice was quiet and reluctant. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Am. I. Right?’

  Louder this time: ‘Yes. OK?’

  ‘Cool. And what you haven’t mentioned is the good news: Mills, Madison and Jacobs are down there and they all got together now. See?’ He pointed to the cluster of ‘live’ dots near the stairs of Level Two.

  ‘But if they got down, why haven’t they come back up? And why aren’t they moving?’

  ‘What do I look like – Superman? Gonna use my X-ray vision to see through that floor? There could be a million reasons. Like maybe one of ’em’s injured and they all checking him over. Or there’s something they need to work out about the climb before they get going. Jacobs and the others went down there fully strapped, so I’ll tell you one thing: it ain’t ’cos there’s a bug in the way.’

  ‘Maybe it’s got something to do with whoever just died.’

  ‘Oh … right … you think they having a memorial service. Maybe pouring out a forty for him.’

  Andrew looked confused. He could hardly spot Taj’s sarcasm if he had no idea what he was talking about.

  ‘What’s a forty?’

  ‘You don’t want to know, my friend. All I’m saying is they ain’t organizing a wake.’

  ‘Maybe it’s Webster and they don’t know what to do without him.’

  ‘Maybe it’s Bishop and they don’t know what kind of party to throw.’

  Andrew smiled and Taj felt that warm feeling again. Taking the kid from frightened despair to seeing the funny side of things in just a couple of minutes was a tough job well done.

  Andrew looked at his watch, but it was pointless because the only time that mattered was the countdown on Taj’s wrist. ‘How long have they got?’

  Taj looked at his watch, which showed they had twenty-three minutes left.

  ‘They got time,’ he said quietly. ‘Now keep watching the screen.’

  90

  Nobody dared move.

  The wasps stayed at the lip of the hole, their eyes and antennae focused on Level Two. It was as if they knew their prey was somewhere in the vicinity but they couldn’t pinpoint where. The movement of the other insects provided a distraction which meant the humans could not be located with any accuracy.

  It was hard to keep still with these creatures moving around them. Millipedes slithered between their legs, flies landed on their backs and spiders stumbled into them. The sound of beating wings had accumulated to a roar that brought to mind dozens of revving engines. Mosquitos swooped and arced through the air, criss-crossing with hornets, flies, beetles, termites and more. There were also the genetic corruptions, foul hybrids that flapped uncontrollably or walked like cripples, one or more of their legs or wings now useless.

  Trying to stay still was a tall order.

  ‘What the fuck are they doing?’ asked Mills, looking up at the wasps. They were still the only insects to show any interest in the frozen humans.

  ‘Don’t move. Shut up,’ said Laura, barely opening her mouth.

  A single wasp flew down and across them like a general surveying the field before battle. It seemed to know they were down there and wanted to take a closer look.

  ‘The other insects are confusing them. They know we’re here but they can only make out moving objects. If you take a step they will recognize your shape and know where we are,’ she continued out of the corner of her mouth.

  ‘So we’re just going to stand here? We need to move,’ said Madison, his stifled voice like an amateur attempt at ventriloquism.

  ‘We move, we die,’ said Webster.

  ‘We got just over twenty minutes. We don’t move, we die,’ replied Jacobs.

  ‘We’ve got five hundred feet of stairs to climb before this place goes nuclear. I’ll take my chances with a fucking bug,’ Mills shouted quietly.

  Before anyone could stop him, he turned around, crouched behind the others and scuttled back towards the stairs. Nobody else dared move even an inch.

  Mills had not seen what these wasps could do. In fact, he had seen very little of what any of these creatures were capable of. He was used to clinical operations where they overcame the insects with state-of-the-art weaponry and relative ease.

  Assuming he had the others as cover, he moved swiftly towards the stairs with enough weapons to ensure his escape.

  The floor was covered in small mounds of dried termite nest that had survived the explosion. These were difficult to see in the cloaking darkness, especially when combined with a frantic mess of oversized insects.

  As Mills made his way through these obstacles he did not notice his boot treading on the tail of a centipede. The shifting movement made him lose balance and he went crashing to the floor with the full weight of his collection of guns and ammo.

  Up to that point his escape had been obscured by the standing figures of Bishop and Webster. But now his position was clear and the wasps were keen to investigate.

  In his arrogance and ignorance, Mills still didn’t recognize the danger he was in.

  Then he heard that distinctive spridding sound getting louder. Even amongst other similar sounds it stood out: higher in pitch, louder in volume and more urgent in tone. But Mills simply dismissed it as the noise of any one of this menagerie taking to the air.

  Collecting himself and cursing under his breath, he resumed his escape.

  As he came to the entrance of the stairwell, he believed he was completely safe.

  Then the sound came so much closer and was so much louder that he was forced to stop and listen.

  With single-minded focus the wasp swept past the frozen people, its right antenna almost grazing George’s cheek, before speeding onwards.

  No one could give a warning. The others remained still and silent, like a row of shop dummies.

  A second later, the soft breeze of the wings was beating inches from Mills’s ear.

  Finally he knew that the sound was meant for him and his spine collapsed from the inside.

  As that ear-shredding brrrrrrrrr tore through his brain, the mandibles gripped like pliers, cutting sharp and swift into the base of his neck, the exact same place those exact same mandibles had gripped Van Arenn.

  Then, as easily as before, the ovipositor slid in smoothly under the shoulder blade, the jaws passed the neck meat back into the mouth and the poison gushed through Mills’s bloodstream.

  The others bristled as the company of wasps flew through them to feed on the carrion of the soldier. He was face down on the floor now, his expression that familiar confusion that froze before the frenzy took over.

  Clothes were ripped from skin, and skin was ripped from muscle, which was ripped from bone. They feasted with the relish of animals that had waited a long time and worked very hard for their meal, taking satisfaction in a job, or part of a job, completed.

  But now they were finished and they knew, just knew, there was more nearby.

  There were now eight wasps crawling and hovering around the humans, extending their antennae to find the very specif
ic signs of life they had been hard-wired to search out.

  Laura shuddered. The wasp that had finished off Mills was stroking its antennae against her leg to see if there was anything significant about those tiny spasms at her ankle.

  It was still clumsily feeling its way, giving no indication it knew what it was touching. Laura shuddered again, harder this time.

  The wasp showed more interest, as if a switch had ignited another part of its brain.

  It started tentatively, the antenna fingering further up to the point where Laura’s left thigh joined the knee.

  She did all she could to keep still, but her leg had begun to wobble.

  It was the sign the wasp had been looking for. Gripping Laura’s trousers with its claws, it started a slow but purposeful ascent up the back of her thigh.

  She tried not to scream but the shudder became stronger.

  Laura was now gently but insistently rocking her entire body back and forth in a failing attempt to suppress the pounding horror.

  She knew she was losing this battle, but the harder she tried to stay still, the more exaggerated her movements became.

  Her face was riven with the contortions of silent desperation. The back-and-forth sway was now joined by a small wave of side-to-side motion.

  And still the wasp continued its climb.

  Laura could feel it on her lower back. It was hanging heavily off the bottom of her loose T-shirt.

  Every so often a sharp burst of wingbeat would run another icicle of terror down her spine. The wasp gripped harder with all its claws to keep balance and gain height.

  Laura remembered how Van Arenn had been killed. If the wasp reached her trapezius, she knew she would die before she had the chance to see her son again. It was beyond a miracle that they had both survived this far. Now they were so close to being reunited, to end it like this was too much to bear.

  The climb of the wasp was like a chilling countdown, every step another effort it no longer needed to make.

  The others stood completely still, even Mike, the only one with a view of Laura’s back.

  He was trying to think how he might prevent her death without harming the wasp and releasing the defence pheromone that would whip the others into furious action. They currently posed no threat, watching what was happening to Laura in a scrabbling, buzzing huddle.

  At last the wasp reached Laura’s neck.

  It would take two more steps before it was in position to sink its stinger into Laura’s shoulder. She shut her eyes tight and wondered how long she had to live.

  If she was going to die then couldn’t she do something? Couldn’t she just reach around right now and jam her fingers into those black eyes or rip off a wing? The paralysis of fear meant she could not. Besides, she knew that doing anything like that would bring the livid attention of the rest of the swarm.

  Now the wasp was in position. Laura’s face was soaked with tears and she finally gave a whimper.

  This seemed to please the wasp. It took another step and climbed over Laura’s collarbone, moving its head as if sniffing at her neck.

  The last embers of the nest fire were burning out nearby. They cast a sepia glow over Laura’s tortured face, the malevolent eyes of the insect just visible in the half shadow below.

  She could feel one of the wings, surprisingly firm, tracing across the nape of her neck like the edge of a finger.

  At last the wasp moved backwards over Laura’s collarbone and took a good look at what it was about to sink its mandibles into, almost as if it were raising a knife and fork.

  Then the claws ripped out of Laura’s back and a furious buzzing burst from behind her.

  She was still alive.

  How could that be?

  Slowly, she opened her eyes. There was no weight on her shoulder, no mandibles at her neck.

  To her left there was a frantic thrash of wingbeat. She couldn’t see what was going on until a wasp rolled into one of the orange rectangles of firelight. It was obscured by three flies, which were pinning its wings down with their claws and snatching at its flesh with their mandibles.

  Around them, the other wasps were trying to escape as more flies tore into them.

  ‘Robber flies,’ Mike whispered.

  Laura peered closer, a huge smile covering her face.

  ‘What the hell’s a robber fly – except for my new best friend?’ asked Garrett.

  ‘Natural enemy of the wasp,’ said George.

  ‘They gonna win this?’ asked Webster.

  ‘Who cares?’ said Jacobs. ‘We’ve got eighteen minutes left to get up those stairs and on to the plane.’

  91

  Andrew and Taj watched as another dot turned blue. Andrew took on a look of desperate worry but Taj knocked it back with an admonishing glare which declared the subject closed.

  Looking back at the screen, they couldn’t understand why the dots had stayed still for so long. Andrew knew they were near the stairs, so he wondered what was preventing them from escaping.

  Taj kept taking subtle glances at his watch, wishing the passing seconds would slow down.

  ‘Look! They’re moving,’ said Andrew, as if he had just spotted Santa Claus.

  ‘They are that. Looking good, looking good.’ Half of Taj’s face was taken up with a grin. He’d never known something with such high stakes come in at such long odds.

  Andrew was tugging at his T-shirt. ‘How long are they going to be? If they make it, I mean.’

  ‘Wow, uh, I’d give ’em fifteen minutes,’ said Taj hopefully, checking his watch for the hundredth time. ‘They gonna be taking those stairs three at a time, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we get over to the hatch?’

  ‘I think so. And don’t you worry, the first one out gonna be your mom.’

  Andrew had managed to keep everything in when his dad had died, but this time something turned the taps on full blast. He was standing in front of Taj, only able to give a jerky nod while the tears dripped off his chin.

  Taj wrapped him in a big hug. It wasn’t his usual thing, especially for a kid he hardly knew, but he remembered his grandma doing it when the time was right and he knew how good it could feel.

  When they separated, Andrew gave a draggy sniffle and left a big trail of snot on Taj’s shirt.

  ‘We best get over there now, you know. I bet Jacobs told your mom that you up here, so you’d best be the first thing she sees.’

  Andrew nodded and they set off for the hatch.

  92

  Although the wasps were definitely the hardest obstacle to overcome, they were by no means the only one. The rest of the Abdomen was fully active, and anything aggressive enough to believe it could take on a human would be keen to give it a go.

  This became clear as soon as the celebrations began. The elation was cut brutally short by a wild scream from Mike: a Siafu ant caught his movement and sank its razor-blade jaws into his shin.

  ‘AAARRRRRGGAAARR! Someone help me!’ he yelled. As he moved his leg into the sliver of available light, he realized he had a substantial weight attached to him.

  ‘Fuck,’ said George as he caught sight of it. ‘Siafu.’ The smaller versions were well known for their tenacity: once the jaws clamped shut, they would not let go, even if the ant were decapitated. This one was the size of a rat, leaving George with only one option.

  He turned to Webster. ‘Give me your knife,’ he said urgently. The major handed over his ka-bar immediately. George knelt down next to Mike and wasted no time in cutting the ant’s body off, leaving the head and jaws stuck into the leg like a pair of scissors.

  ‘Sorry, man,’ George said, as Mike continued to grunt in pain, ‘you know the Siafu. We can’t get that out until we hit the surface. Better grit your teeth.’

  They could all feel each second thumping by like the boots of a marching army, but they also knew they couldn’t just
run up the stairs and hope to make it out alive. They went back to standing still as Webster took charge one more time.

  ‘Jacobs, what have we got to blast our way out?’

  ‘Not a lot. The explosives might screw the stairs up, so all we got left is a shit-load of old-fashioned semi-autos and a flamethrower you’re going to have to take off Mills’s back.’

  ‘OK, I’ll use the fire on point to clear the way ahead. Whoever’s used a semi-auto before, use one now; if not, grab a handgun. We can’t risk you guys firing weapons with massive recoil in a confined space. Garrett, I want you at the back taking out anything that follows. OK? Let’s move.’

  The soldiers grabbed the M-16s and AR-15s, loading their clips and slamming them home. Then they took the safetys off the Beretta 92Fs and M1911 Colts and passed them to the scientists.

  ‘Just aim and squeeze the trigger like you seen in the movies. Ain’t nothin’ to it,’ said Garrett to a clearly nervous Susan.

  Now that everyone was armed, Webster took aim with the flamethrower and sent a vast cone of fire into the stairway. He knew it would attract some of the insects, but he had to clear the way and give everyone a view of where they were heading.

  ‘Let’s go!’ Webster shouted, jogging towards the stairs with a small limp rolling off his ankle. He sent another blast into the bottom flight, burning up what was left of the nest. He also set fire to a swarm of bulldog ants the size of mice, which burnt out quickly.

  Jacobs, Laura and the scientists were following about ten feet behind, with Bishop at the back of this middle group.

  Further back, Garrett and Madison were fighting a rearguard action against the insects that had been attracted to the fire. The sound was putting some of them off, but others, fuelled by their unnatural boldness and aggression, were coming at them at full speed.

  ‘Get up there,’ Garrett shouted to Madison. ‘If we don’t get into the stairs, we’re never going to get out of here. We need a smaller gap to funnel them into.’

  Madison ran into the stairwell while Garrett fired behind her. The insects sensed prey and were following in numbers, but the spray of bullets took care of them with messy efficiency.