by David Coy
“Ain’t that a sight,” the guard’s voice said. John looked over at the bastard and was tempted to charge the door. At the sound of his ugly voice, Rachel retreated further.
“What do you want?” John asked.
The guard sucked his teeth. “Time to move along down the road,” he said. “Time for your surprise.” He put his key in the door, and it buzzed open. He came through followed by two other guards and a tall, blond man in a lab coat.
The guards flanked them and the lab-coated man slipped between and crouched in front of John and Rachel. In his hands was a small metal case with a handle.
“My name is Gerome Ehrlich,” he said. “I’ll be performing your alterations.”
“Alterations?” John said. “That’s a laugh.”
“You won’t be laughing for long,” the guard said. Ehrlich looked over his shoulder and shot the guard a look.
“You should consider yourselves very lucky,” Ehrlich said.
“Go away!” Rachel said without looking at him. “Go away!”
“You should consider yourselves lucky,” he said again, ignoring her, “because you’ll live for a long, long time.” He started to open the metal case. Inside it were two large syringes filled with clear liquid. He opened a foil-wrapped swab. “This is just a sedative,” he said. “It will make things much easier for you. Give me your arm,” he said to Rachel.
Erhlich’s hand reached out and pulled at her wrist. Rachel stiffened and pulled tighter against John, but her arm finally came away from his shoulder, stiff and resistant. Ehrlich rubbed an area just below her elbow with the swab. The smell of alcohol drifted on the air. Ehrlich reached for the syringe. John sat motionless until the urge to act, like steam in a boiler, reached an explosive level. He slapped the syringe out of Erhlich’s hand and punched at his face at the same time. The blow glanced off. The three guards were on him instantly, forcing him down on his face with his arms behind his back.
“Let go!” he yelled. “Get off me!”
“Hold him there!” Ehrlich barked.
Rachel cowered against the wall with her legs drawn up. Erhlich reached for her arm again. This time, she let him take it. It drifted light as a feather toward the second syringe.
“What are you going to do?” she asked like a child. “What are you going to do to me?”
The needle touched her arm. Erhlich hesitated and looked in her eyes. “Change you,” he said. “Just a little change for the better.”
“But, why?” she whimpered.
Erhlich thought about it. “To make you immortal,” he said. “I promise it won’t hurt.”
“Promise?”
Erhlich grinned. “Yes . . .”
Before the needle could pierce her flesh, Rachel grabbed his arm and bent it away. Erhlich lost his balance and fell sideways in slow motion.
“Somebody grab this bitch!” he yelled.
The dirty guard, twice her size, threw his weight on Rachel and wrapped his arm around her neck. His sweat-slickened arm went under her chin like something wet and alive, and she could smell his terrible odor.
She struggled for a moment then was still. Ehrlich came at her again with the syringe. “No,” he said. “You don’t want it, so you can’t have it. No sedative. Take them to the lab. Restrain them and drag them by the hair if you have to. I’m tired of this shit.” He tossed the syringe in the box, snatched it up and stormed out.
“Give me a hard time,” the slovenly guard said to Rachel, “and I’ll beat you senseless. That’s my kind of drug.”
The other guards laughed.
* * *
“There're two ways in,” Paul was saying, “one through corridor A and one through B. They both lead to the lab.”
“So which one?” Donna asked.
“You decide,” he said.
“B.”
“B it is. Ready?”
“Sure,” she said with a note of sarcasm. “I’m always ready to storm the gates.”
* * *
He adjusted her loosely-tied bonds. “How’s that?” he asked. “Can you get out of them?”
“I’ll have to wiggle a little, but I can do it.”
“You look just like a real prisoner,” he said. “Who knows? Maybe they’ll give me a medal for bagging the infamous Donna Applegate. Let’s go,” he said and slid the transport’s door open. The jungle’s air rushed in at them, wet and angry like the breath of some hot beast.
The first wasp raced straight at Donna’s head, making her duck away from it.
“Aaah! Shoo!” she said. Paul took a swipe at it. The wasp dodged the blow and hovered at a safe distance. “Go away!” she said to it.
Suddenly the air around them was filled with the sound of buzzing wings. Awash in the scent of ancient prey, a hundred wasps buzzed close to exposed skin, testing the air. As Paul swiped at them, the wasps moved away from the arm as if pushed back by some invisible shield.
“Jesus!” Donna cried.
“I don’t like this!” Paul said, waving at the air. “We’d better get back inside!”
Then, as quickly as they’d come, the wasps were gone, the sound of their wings lost in the deep green foliage.
“What the hell was that?” Paul asked, lost in astonishment.
“I have no idea,” Donna replied. “Guess they didn’t like us.”
* * *
There were tables, operating tables in the room. Rachel could see them. They were long and wide and shiny, but too big. They were the kind of tables on which you might operate on a horse. Above them hung tangles of the Verdian tools like dark hands and fingers, turning and coiling at the end of vine-like arms. One of them opened and closed long and sinister fingers rhythmically.
It has waited for me, this place. It has waited an eternity for me.
Rachel closed her eyes and felt herself tremble. She let herself be guided, eyes closed, into the nightmare. She blocked out its images, but the thing slid around that feeble barrier and assaulted her other senses. With the scent of antiseptic and odd, faint sounds from the strange machinery, its coils tightened around her soul. It was too much. She heard herself whimper, and a few steps later, her legs turned to putty and refused to carry her. They lifted her up under her arms and dragged her the rest of the way.
* * *
She opened her eyes to see Erhlich standing next to the operating table, his dull white coat smeared with dark stains. In his hand was that large syringe. He held it up, propping his elbow in his hand with his head cocked, waiting, slightly perturbed, like some pissy demon. Two assistants busied themselves behind him. She detected a splat of the color blue in her peripheral vision, but she refused to look directly at it. The blue robe could only mean Jacob. She forced herself to look, but all she saw was an empty blue robe hanging on a hook. But he was there somewhere. She could smell him.
She wanted a seizure. She wanted one that would be so strong she would never wake up from it. She would make it come. By the strength of her will alone she would force open those doors of chaos and seek refuge there. She clamped her eyes tight and rolled her mind backwards over itself again and again. But when she needed it most, oblivion escaped her. Reality held her down, pressed her to the soiled floor of this horrid place like a damp and giant foot.
“You bastards!” John yelled. “What are you doing!”
“Please don’t . . .” Rachel said weakly. “Please don’t do this . . .”
“It won’t be that bad,” Erhlich said. “You’ll still be alive. I’ve got it all worked out. It’s magic. You’ll see.”
“I don’t want this . . .” she said.
“But you dooo . . .”
“I don’t.”
“Oh, for shit’s sake,” Erhlich said. “Hold her down. I’ve got work to do.”
Rachel felt herself bent backwards and pressed down like the limb of a weak plant.
“Stop,” a voice said. “Not yet.”
Rachel knew the voice; one made soft and gentle by practice—
a voice designed to fool you.
“Release her,” Jacob said. “Take off those restraints. Give her some air. She looks like she can’t breathe.”
She couldn’t see him, but she could feel him. When he was close enough, she turned to face him. He was naked, and the sight of his body made her reel with disgust. The flesh looked as if it had been poured on him and dripped from his arms and chest and legs like thick, pale goo.
“That one tried to kill me,” Jacob said, nodding slowly at John, “just when we were going to consummate our love once more. The good doctor brought me back. He’s a good, good man.”
“Thank you, Jacob,” Erhlich said.
“I should have put that bullet in your head when I had the chance,” John said.
“God stayed your hand,” Jacob intoned. “It was His will. I will not die until God’s will is done.” He turned to Rachel and leaned in toward her, his arms hanging down like weak ropes, his neck stretched out. Rachel heard him sniff the air.
“You have the same scent,” he said. “You have the same scent as her.”
“As who?” Rachel asked. “As Bailey Hall?”
“Yes,” Jacob said and swallowed with his mouth open. “You have her scent.”
“But I’m not her, Gilbert,” Rachel said. “I’m not Bailey Hall.” At the use of his real name, Jacob blinked. “Gilbert,” he said. “How did you know my name?”
“I read Bailey’s journal. I read all about you and what happened to you.”
“Everything?”
“Yes.”
“Then you must know who you are? You must know that.”
“My name is Rachel Sanders. I am not Bailey Hall!”
Jacob studied her with his drooping eyes. “You are her as surely as I am he.”
“But I’m not her!” Rachel cried. “Leave me alone!”
“What is this?” John said. “What are you talking about?”
“He thinks I’m Bailey Hall,” Rachel whimpered. “He thinks I’m that girl who betrayed him . . .”
Jacob’s thin hand reached up and caressed her face. The clammy touch of his fingers made her pull back and shake her head to rid herself of it. The hand pursued her until it caught her again. With nowhere to go, she let the spider crawl over her face and neck. “I hate you,” she said. “I hate you.”
“You are the first and the mother to many,” Jacob said. “We shall populate this planet, you and I. Our seed will find root here and flourish in this good soil.”
“No!” she cried.
“We shall inherit this rich heath and fill it with our flesh. We shall grow and multiply like the wheat of the field.”
“You’ll ruin it,” she whimpered. “You’ll ruin this sweet place.”
“Ruin?” he asked, smiling his madman's smile.
“You’ll spoil it.”
“God’s plan cannot ruin . . . anything.”
“No, God’s plan can’t destroy it,” she said. “Only you can do that.”
Jacob raised his twisted head toward Heaven and extended his arms. The flesh hung from them as if the thin bones had been dipped in gray tar. “Glory to God! Glory to God Almighty! He has delivered me to this place to save it!”
Rachel stood helplessly and looked at the creature in front of her and began to sob. Her shoulders shook, as she wept openly, without restraint. From deep inside her the wails came and gushed out, swirling, mixing hatred, fear, grief and frustration with Gilbert’s words.
“Glory be! Glory be! I am the one! I am come into this place to deliver it to the Lord, our God!”
“You’ll kill it!” she gasped.
“I will fill it with the word of God! I will give it as a sweet fruit to my God!”
“No!”
“Get away from her, you bastard!” John screamed.
“I am the one blessed!” Gilbert raved. “I and no other!”
“No!” Rachel screamed.
“You are mine!”
“No!”
“You are my field!”
“You’re evil!” she cried. “Your God is evil!”
Jacob’s hand came across in a straight line and slapped her, nearly knocking her down. “I will save you from yourself! I will deliver you from yourself!”
“Stop it!” she begged.
“You are mine to fill!”
“Please, stop.” Her voice was exhausted.
“Mine!”
“No.”
Rachel wailed and sobbed. Then she sank slowly to the floor in a heap. “No . . . no . . .” she whimpered.
Gilbert looked down at her and smiled, his slack mouth drawn loosely away from his teeth.
Suddenly, Gilbert cocked his head as if he’d heard something curious. Back and forth, he cocked it. Then he turned in a circle, trying to locate the source of the inaudible sound.
“Jacob?” Erhlich said. “Is something wrong?”
“Can’t you hear it?” Gilbert asked, smiling stiffly. “Can’t you? Are you deaf? Can’t you hear it?”
“I don’t hear anything,” a guard said.
“Me, neither,” another said, confused.
Gilbert hobbled over and quickly put his robe on. Then he pinched it tight at the neck. “I have to get out of here! I have to get in . . . side something! I have to hide!” He turned in a staggering circle, searching the room.
“What is it?” Erhlich cried out, thinking Jacob had slipped into madness.
“It’s closer!” Gilbert screamed. “Put me in something, goddamn you! Hide me!”
“From what?”
Gilbert’s face went blank and seemed to droop even more. He looked up and closed his eyes. The words seemed to fall out of his mouth.
“From the worms . . . of God . . .”
The first of a million wasps flew into the room, stopped and hovered. The sound of its buzzing wings filled the space like something solid. Then it zipped here, there—a flash of black and white. It sampled the air. When it came to Rachel, it moved slowly to within an arm’s length. It hovered. Rachel looked up at the insect’s iridescent form, and smiled at its perfection.
The wasp zipped away.
“What . . . ?” Erhlich said.
The wasp moved like a shot and hit Erhlich in the face with a loud smack! Erhlich jumped back, blinked, and then felt the spot with his hand, leaving a smear of blood where his fingers touched. He shook his head as if clearing it, then staggered against the table. He slumped to the floor and rolled onto his back.
Then the wasps swarmed into the room by the hundreds, filling the air with a fury of buzzing wings. One of the guards ran for the door, waving his arms around his head, but was hit time and time again. John was knocked to the floor as the guards holding him ran. Waving their arms, they ran, screaming, out of the room and down the tube. Erhlich’s assistants backed against the wall and froze. The insects slapped into their faces and arms.
Rachel crawled through the cloud of buzzing wings. When she got to John, she covered his body with her own. “I’ll protect you,” she said. “I’ll protect you.”
Moments later, the virulent buzzing began to diminish. Soon it died to the sound of just a few, then none.
They found Gilbert on the floor with his blue robe splayed open. His naked body was crawling with dozens of silent wasps, many with ovipositors buried deep in his gray flesh. His face stared up sightless and blank.
“Is he dead?” John asked.
Rachel looked down at Gilbert and felt no pity. None.
“No,” she replied with no feeling in her voice. Then one corner of her mouth turned slightly up. “Not yet. But soon.”
20
Rachel said she thought it was best to bury Jacob’s body deep in the jungle where no one would ever find it. John had offered a less forgiving twist on the idea. “Burials are for people you want to remember,” he’d said. “I’ll drop it in the green. It’ll be bug crap in a few hours.”
Donna had echoed a similar sentiment and the decision to provide absolutely
nothing in the form of ritual remembrance for Gilbert Keefer, known of late as Jacob No Name, was made firm in their minds—if not in the minds of the group as a whole.
Rachel, Donna and John were not the only contributors to the decision. Just over four hundred people had survived the wasp storm, a good half of them Bondsmen with a sentimental or emotional attachment to the memory of their stumbling, lopsided leader.
The issue would clearly take time to work out. When someone suggested just keeping the body in a cooler, under guard, until a resolution could be reached, a few in the room echoed the wisdom of it. Others, however, wanted to organize the funeral right then and railed with discontent. Soon the meeting was out of control.
To Paul Kominski, the decision about what to do with Jacob’s corpse was just another line item on a growing list of things to do. As the President Pro Temp of what was left of the colony, he calmly and dutifully made a note of it on his pad, then tapped on the table with his pistol to call the meeting back to order.
“Okay,” he said. “There’s a motion on the table to keep Jacob’s body on ice until we can look at the issue closer in committee. With no further discussion, I’ll call for the vote. All in favor of keeping Jacob’s body on ice for the time being, vote with a show of hands.”
Seven of the nine members of the new council raised their hands. Paul counted them.
“All opposed?” he asked.
The remaining two raised their hands.
“The motion carries,” Paul said firmly. “We keep the body on ice. And we’ll form a committee to figure out what to do about the, uh, burial, and when it will take place. The council will act on the decision of the committee. End of discussion.”
“Who’ll be on that committee?” a portly Bondsman named Jones asked with a sneer in his voice.
“I’ll make sure the committee has fair representation from all interests concerned. End of discussion,” Paul replied and tapped the table with his lethal gavel once more. The room went dead quiet. “Let’s move on,” he said. “We have a full agenda and a lot of ground to cover. Next, Rachel Sanders will report to you on her research about the wasp attack—if she’s ready.” He looked over at Rachel.