Infestation

by Timothy J. Bradley

  Shields nodded. He broke the gun open and inspected it, snapping it shut expertly. “My dad showed me how to use a shotgun. I’ve been using guns for a long time. Look for a box of shells, and we’ll be in business.”

  A small box beside the banged-up filing cabinets had been smashed open by some cinder blocks loosened by the earthquake. They couldn’t find any shotgun shells, but did come across several small cans of pepper spray, which they decided to leave, since they didn’t know if it would affect the bugs.

  “Oh, man!” crowed Shields. “Jackpot. Check this out!” He held up a large ring of keys and a small disposable lighter. “Pyro’s going to be in heaven.”

  They used an office chair to smash one of the glass windows that led to the outside of the school. Their shadows were long, and the breeze was getting cooler.

  “That feels great,” Shields said.

  “Yeah, but the bugs will be coming outside soon. I wonder if it would have been smarter to wait until the morning to try to get clear,” Reilly replied.

  The bus was sitting in a small parking area off the main entrance to the school. The door was open. Reilly and Shields slowly crossed the dead, scrubby grass to the bus. They climbed in, and Reilly dropped into the driver’s seat, trying the keys. None fit.

  “I was hoping one of these would work,” Reilly muttered. He ducked down to the floor of the bus and looked around the underside of the steering column. “Here we go….” he said, yanking a couple of wires loose from under the dashboard. He twisted the exposed ends of the wires together, and the engine sputtered to life.

  “Can you drive this thing?” Shields asked.

  “’Course I can.” He pushed in the clutch, and tried the long gearshift. A loud grinding sound came from under the floor. “Oops.” Reilly grinned sheepishly. He studied the gear diagram on the shift, and tried again. This time, the bus went into gear smoothly. They backed out of the parking space fitfully, and drove up onto the dirt schoolyard until they came to the broken window with the filing cabinet still standing outside.

  Andy leaned close to Joey, and said softly, “Joey … come on. Time to go.” Joey shook his head, eyes clenched shut.

  Andy tapped his shoulder, and Joey jumped, pulling away. “Don’t touch me!” he bellowed. He opened his eyes wide as bugs trooped by them.

  A horn honked outside the window: The bus had arrived.

  Hector and Pyro hefted the ladder lying on the floor and lowered it out the broken window. A hot breeze gusted through erratically. Andy looked outside. The sun was getting lower in the sky. They had to leave before nightfall, when all the bugs would start foraging for food.

  Shields climbed on top of the cabinet, and poked his head in the window. “C’mon, you guys, let’s move.” He climbed in and helped to maneuver Gerry to the window.

  The hallway was getting crowded with the boys trying to move Gerry outside to the bus. They finally lowered him clumsily outside, feet first. Reilly was waiting impatiently on the ground. The boys carried the unconscious biologist into a seat on the bus, where he slumped down against the window.

  The boys were all dripping sweat and panting. The bus’s engine rumbled fitfully, coughing out a cloud of gray exhaust.

  “All right, everyone on board. We’re getting out of here,” Reilly said. “Where are Andy and that slab of meat?”

  “Still inside,” Hector replied, “Something’s up with Joey. He won’t move.”

  “I’ll get him to move,” Reilly growled, and climbed in through the window. He crossed into the hallway through the broken window and jogged over to Andy and Joey. The bully looked like he was trying to squeeze himself against the wall as tightly as he could. His eyes were wide and staring.

  “What’s with him?” Reilly demanded.

  “Dunno,” Andy murmured, shaking his head. Two bugs trooped past them down the corridor, briefly touching the boys with their antennae. “He’s freaked, I guess. I can’t get him to move.”

  “Oh, come on! We’re almost out of here,” Reilly muttered. He shook Joey’s shoulder roughly. “Hey … hey! Get up, you idiot, the bus is right outside. We have to light this place up before the bugs get out.”

  Joey just shook his head, eyes clenched shut.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Reilly growled. He took one of the homemade slingshots from his back pocket and fitted a small glass tube holding a chip of sodium, and stretched the band back. He held the slingshot a few inches from Joey’s face. “Get up. Get up, you useless piece of trash, or you’re gonna have a face full of exploding glass.”

  Joey flinched and whimpered, but didn’t get up. Andy placed a hand on Reilly’s shoulder, and shook his head. “Fine. Stay here, you jerk,” Reilly hissed. He shoved Joey to the floor and ducked back out the window. He looked back and said, “We’re leaving with or without him in five minutes.” He lowered himself down to the filing cabinet and then to the ground.

  “I can get him to move,” Pyro said quietly from the window. He climbed into the room, dodging a bug as he crossed the corridor. He was carrying a cheap disposable lighter that he had found in the office, and a newspaper that the driver must have been reading.

  He handed the fire-starting materials to Andy, and knelt down next to Joey. He put his mouth next to Joey’s ear.

  “Joey. Joey, come on. We have to leave now.”

  Joey blinked. He slowly turned his head and looked at Pyro.

  “All we have to do is go across the hall and out the window. The bus is right there, and then we can leave.” Pyro kept up a steady stream of calm, quiet words as the bugs marched up and down the hall.

  Andy and Pyro slowly coaxed Joey to stand up.

  Pyro kept up his reassuring chatter. “We’re almost there, Joey, you’re doing great … just a little farther, and we can leave.”

  A bug marched past, its antenna brushing Joey’s leg. Joey tried to bolt, but Andy and Pyro hung on tightly.

  There was a momentary gap in the bug traffic in the hallway. The boys pulled on Joey’s shirt.

  “Here we go, Joey. Here-we-go, here-we-go, here-we-go,” Pyro said in a reassuring voice, slowly guiding Joey toward the window.

  Joey clapped his hands over his face. “I can’t, I c-c-can’t …” he stammered. He shivered as a bug passed them, clacking down the hall.

  “Look, Joey,” Pyro said in an encouraging voice. “We’re here, we’re at the window.” He stepped out of the window frame, down onto the filing cabinet. “All you gotta do is come outside the window. See? There aren’t any bugs out here, Joey.”

  A cool breeze blew in through the window. Joey took his hands away from his face and squeezed out of the window, just as another bug made its way down the hallway.

  Joey clambered down onto the filing cabinet, and then to the ground.

  Andy sighed in relief. Shields said, “Wow. The little dude did it.”

  The boys could hear Reilly’s voice commanding Joey to get on the bus.

  Pyro’s head poked back in through the window with a grin. His eyes were flashing.

  “All right, you guys … let’s barbecue some bugs!”

  “WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T DROP IT!” Andy said as he reached down from over the corridor ceiling and gingerly lowered a quart-sized glass jar that had a liquid, silver, syrupy substance suspended in oil.

  “Okay, I get it, I get it,” Pyro replied testily. He climbed down from the chair and placed the jar against the wall. Bugs were moving busily up and down the hall, and the boys didn’t want the jar knocked about.

  He climbed back onto the chair. “I’m the one who knows about this stuff, remember? You guys wouldn’t have known that cesium explodes in the air until it blew your head off,” he grumbled as Andy lowered a second jar.

  “Will you cut it out?” Hector pleaded. He was petrified by being back inside the school when escape was so close.

  “Hector, I promise: We’ll be out of here in no time.” Andy patted his shoulder, and lowered himself into the waiting c
hair. “Just be ready to pull us up.”

  Pyro’s eyes were like sparklers going off; he couldn’t wait to set this place on fire.

  They each carried one of the jars of cesium. Andy also had some emergency road flares, and Pyro had the cheap lighter in his pocket.

  The bug nursery was in a large room at the end of a corridor. The windows had been covered with some kind of mudlike substance. There were many bulky cocoons hanging from the ceiling. It was dark, still, and stiflingly hot.

  “Check it out.” Pyro pointed to spots on the ceiling, in between the hanging cocoons. The stubby shapes of sprinkler heads projected from the ceiling. Andy nodded. They could set the fire right under the cocoons.

  In an adjoining office, the boys located a small wooden table damaged in the earthquake; one of its legs had been snapped off, and it wouldn’t stand on its own. Pyro found the broken leg, and they moved the table into the nursery, dodging the bugs that were striding in and out of the area, constantly checking on the hanging cocoons. Andy peered closely at one, and could see an indistinct form wrapped inside. As he watched, the thing inside moved slightly.

  Pyro brought in a metal wastebasket, which he had filled with some of the papers strewn all over the floor. Andy held the table steady as Pyro placed the broken leg into the wastebasket. He was able to set the end of the leg against the tabletop. He slowly moved his hands away; the table remained standing. Andy gently let go and backed away from the table.

  “Like building a card house.” Pyro grinned. They placed the two jars filled with the liquid cesium on the table, letting go slowly, slowly.

  A bug bumped into Andy, and he nearly hit the table. Pyro’s eyes flew open wide, and he gasped. Andy managed to avoid nudging the table, and they both let out sighs of relief. Pyro tried to wipe the sweat from his eyes, but his arms were filmed with sweat as well.

  Lighter in hand, Pyro gathered up a handful of papers and lit the edge of one sheet. “We’re not going to need the flares; this will work. Okay, get back up to the ceiling.”

  Andy left; he ran back out to the hallway and hopped up onto the chair. Hector took his hand and helped him back up into the ceiling.

  Pyro watched the fire eat the papers in his hand. The flames were mesmerizing as they danced across the crumpled stationery.

  “Hey! C’mon!” Andy’s voice from the hallway reached Pyro, and he dropped the burning papers into the wastebasket. They flared up immediately.

  Pyro ran back into the hall and vaulted up onto the chair. Both Andy and Hector caught his arms and hauled him up. They watched as the fire and smoke spread.

  Inside the nursery, the papers were flaring up. The metal wastebasket kept the flames contained. The table leg started to smolder and smoke started to rise.

  The cocoons glued to the ceiling started to move and bulge. First one, and then more cocoons started to split open with a wet, ripping sound. The creatures inside would be free very soon.

  As the table leg caught fire, the small table itself started to wobble; the two jars clinked together.

  The smoke filling the room reached the smoke detectors in the ceiling and set them off in high-pitched shrieks.

  The sprinklers started spraying water in a gush. Sprinklers in offices and corridors nearby also went off, trying to contain a fire from spreading. What they did was spray a large number of bugs with the intruder chemical.

  The workers started scurrying about, attempting to move any undamaged eggs and immature bugs away from the fire.

  Suddenly, a worker dropped the egg it had been carrying in its mandibles. It turned and bit the leg off a worker beside it.

  Three workers fell on one another, ripping limbs and antennae from each other.

  A massive soldier dragged itself into the nursery, with several small sentinels cracking through its thorax with their razor-sharp mandibles, and one clamped firmly onto a hind limb. Its antenna touched a worker. The soldier opened its attack mandibles wide and sliced the worker’s head off, seconds before the fire consumed it.

  The bugs became frantic as the fire and smoke spread, and more sprinklers went off. The chemical added to the water drove them crazy. They attacked one another: soldiers, sentries, and workers.

  Some chemical signal reached the bugs in the cocoons, and they ripped out of their enclosures, the newly eclosed princesses crawling across the ceiling to escape.

  After seeing the bugs go into a wild frenzy, attacking and killing one another, Andy said, “Okay, guys, let’s get outta here.” The three boys moved as quickly as they could through the maze of wires and girders above the ceiling to where they could escape from the school.

  The sprinklers finally slowed, then stopped as the tank mounted on the roof of the building finally ran dry. Fumes from the intruder chemical sprayed out from the sprinklers had spread throughout the entire building, driving the creatures into a killing frenzy. Severed legs and antennae were everywhere.

  The smoke and flames were spreading and growing thicker. The bugs didn’t seem to notice. They were all locked in combat with one another. One of the enraged creatures crashed into the damaged table holding the two jars of cesium. The broken leg was jostled, and it fell. The table tipped, spilling the two jars, which smashed to the floor.

  The cesium splashed free of the oil, mixing with the air and water as spatters of the golden liquid metal were hurled around the room.

  The cesium reacted powerfully, exploding like a bomb. Blindingly bright purple sparks flashed, and roiling clouds of hissing smoke rolled through the room. Chunks of cement, splinters of burning wood, shards of glass, and bug parts were blown through the halls. All the windows in that wing of the school shattered.

  A hot blast of air pushed through the crawl space, as the volatile chemical detonated. The boys grabbed on to the nearest girder as the building shook for a moment.

  “That … was … awesome!” Pyro whispered.

  The three boys climbed down out of the window to the coolness outside. The sun was setting quickly now; there was barely any daylight left.

  As soon as they had jumped into the bus, they grabbed the nearest seat. Reilly shut the door and struggled to put the bus in gear with a rusty grinding noise.

  “Let’s go!” Shields yelled.

  The shift lever went into gear. Reilly yelled triumphantly, and he let out the clutch and stamped down on the gas pedal.

  The bus lurched backward.

  They were thrown from their seats as the rickety vehicle bumped over a curb and rammed the school’s exterior brick wall. They stopped moving and the boys picked themselves up off the floor. Joey pushed Gerry off his shoulder, back to the window.

  “Sorry about that,” Reilly called, and set the shift into first gear. The bus bounced back over the curb.

  Gerry groaned. “What … what the …?”

  “GO! GO! GOOOOO!” Shields screamed. He was pointing out the windows on one side.

  Andy looked. There was a huge number of bugs bursting out of the building. “They must have thought that was an attack on the nest!” he cried.

  Reilly looked into the mirror mounted on the side of the bus. He could see the creatures coming directly for the bus. “Whoa! WHOA!” he yelled, and stamped on the gas. The bus lurched forward.

  Suddenly, the sky lit up. The school building was destroyed in a huge fireball, rising into the sky in a mushroom of flame.

  “Hey, guys …” Hector began fearfully, but he never finished his thought. The bus was hit by the blast’s shock wave.

  They screamed as the rear of the bus was lifted off the ground. Reilly struggled to keep control of the front wheels as they were thrown forward.

  The shock wave swept past them, and the bus’s rear wheels hit the ground. Reilly stood on the brakes, and the bus shook as it skidded to a stop. They had been blown off the road and onto the packed dirt shoulder. The boys all looked at one another, wide-eyed.

  “Can someone tell me what’s going on?” a voice groaned. Gerry sat up, holdi
ng his head.

  Reilly steered the bus back onto the road, and slowly, the bus built up speed.

  From the back of the bus, Shields, Andy, and Pyro saw the flaming rubble of the school through the scratched emergency exit door. The flash from the blast had lit the desert up for a moment. Andy glanced over at Hector and Pyro. Eyes wide and glazed, Pyro stared at the flames. Hector looked briefly at him and shook his head, grinning. Hector gave Andy a silent thumbs-up.

  In the sullen orange light cast by the flames, the boys could see silhouetted shapes moving toward them.

  Andy squinted, trying to discern what they were. “What are those things?” he asked the others.

  Pyro shook his head. It was too dark to make them out clearly. “They must be bugs. I see four of them, I think, maybe more. They’re running.”

  The moon had risen, and once the smoke cleared a bit, they could see the creatures racing toward them like armored panthers.

  “Man, those things are fast,” Shields muttered. He turned and yelled toward the front of the bus. “Hey, Reilly … pick it up, they’re coming after us!”

  “I’m goin’ as fast as I can!” Reilly shouted back. He didn’t know if the bus could outrun the bugs for long. He glanced at the speedometer as it climbed toward sixty miles per hour. The temperature gauge was slowly inching toward “H.” He decided not to mention it just now. He flicked the heater on full blast, sliding the temperature lever over to as hot as it would go. That would help to take some of the heat away from the engine. The air blasting out from under the dashboard turned warm, then hot as the heater kicked in.

  It’s gonna be a race, he thought, to see what happens first: Either the bugs catch up to us, or the engine overheats, and then the bugs catch us. Either way, we’re dead.

  ANDY, SHIELDS, AND HECTOR CROWDED around the seat where Joey was helping Gerry to sit up. Gerry patted Joey on the shoulder. He winced when he touched the back of his head. “The last thing I remember, we were in the school, right?”

  The boys went through the events that had occurred after Gerry had been knocked unconscious.