The Colony

by A. J. Colucci

  And then there was Paul. Despite the underlying rage of being kidnapped, Kendra felt excited to be near him again. There was no denying the fluttering in her stomach. It felt less like butterflies than a flock of seagulls fighting over the last clam. She was disgusted at the way she licked her lips to make them glossier, instead of turning on her heels and walking out.

  “Well, well,” she said smugly. “Everything we need to save an entire city.”

  “I stocked the place myself.”

  “An actual electron microscope,” she quipped. “Guess you thought of everything.”

  “Yes,” he answered, eyeing her from head to toe. “I did.”

  She finally snapped. “Paul, what the hell is going on!”

  The spell was broken.

  “You heard what they said.”

  “I heard an utterly preposterous story. The very idea that ants can be trained like—like circus monkeys is ridiculous.” She folded her arms and blurted, “I don’t know why you chose me of all people to assist you, but if you were hoping for a cheery reunion, it’s too late. You blew it.”

  “I blew it? You’re the one who ran off to the desert. Besides, it didn’t take you long to get over me and move on to the next guy.”

  “Are you talking about Jeremy?” Her cheeks flushed. “That was a corporate merger.”

  “It was a merger, all right. The ant community is pretty small, Kendra. You had an affair.”

  “It’s not an affair when your divorce papers are sitting in the mailbox.”

  Paul was getting mad. “Can you forget about yourself for a moment?” he shot back. “We’re having a little problem here with some very scary insects.”

  Kendra let out a bark of laughter. She had already decided she wanted no part of this charade. It had been her view for quite some time that the world was going to hell and she had no intention of wading into the mess. National politics over oil, taxes and health care had reached the brink of insanity. Global warming. Genocide. Jihad. A neglectful husband. Mutant ants from hell sounded like just another man-made catastrophe.

  “I understand you’re angry,” he said, trying to sound calm.

  “Angry?” Kendra was fuming. “Why would I be angry!” She snatched up a specimen jar and the tiny ant braced itself. “I’m in the desert counting ants when Agent Double-O Psycho nabs me, only to find out my ex-husband—”

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” he cut in and swiped the jar from her hand.

  “You were right!” Kendra picked up a test tube and flung it across the room. It smashed into the wall.

  “Oh, that’s real mature,” Paul said.

  There it was. The same patronizing tone she despised. Kendra picked up another test tube and tossed it like a Frisbee. The sound of shattering glass had no calming effect at all.

  “Jesus, Kendra. You’re a scientist, for chrissakes.”

  She answered with a defiant poke to his chest. “I was about to make the greatest breakthrough in modern entomology. Save billions of dollars in lost crops, not to mention a dozen lives a year!”

  “What about the lives right here! There are seven people dead already.”

  Kendra stiffened and the shouting match came to a dizzying halt. The words spun in her mind but could hardly register.

  “Listen to me, Kendra!” Paul was all at once reeling. “This species is like nothing we’ve ever seen. It’s a freaking horror show. The mayor wants this thing quiet and I can’t do this without you.”

  Kendra let out a shock of air. “Can’t do this without me?” Even under the direst circumstances, it wasn’t like Paul to call in the cavalry. He had made his mark with the contributions of extremely bright minds in science but he never, ever, asked for volunteers. Kendra picked up the specimen jar and addressed a small fire ant. “What have you done with the real Dr. O’Keefe?”

  “Okay,” he admitted. “I’ve been a jerk. Too busy unlocking the secrets of the ant world with my own brilliant thoughts to consider anyone else’s.” His expression turned earnest. “I’ve changed, Kendra … and yes, I’m asking for help.”

  She wanted to make a run for it, let him know what it felt like to be abandoned. But there was no denying that a huge crisis was lurking and her professional ethics told her that desertion wasn’t an option. “Maybe you have changed,” she said with a reluctant shrug. “So, let’s see these monsters.”

  Paul appeared to spring back to life, keenly adjusting the microscope settings, moving with his usual flair. He was in his element and Kendra was slightly amused. “It’s really quite fantastic what they did with this crossbreed. They’re genetically altered to be bigger, faster, deadlier.”

  Kendra peered through the lens and her eyes widened in disbelief. “What the hell is this thing?” she gasped. The strange mutant head was tilted up, enormous mandible spread open in a roar.

  He threw out his hands. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

  She flipped the microscope to “view” and the ant image lit up on the adjoining monitor. The body was similar to any worker ant’s; thin, oblong and segmented with six multijointed legs, but it was abnormally long, over an inch. The head was tremendous and skull-shaped. “A face only a mother could love,” she said and scanned the entire body at highest resolution. “The exoskeleton has properties I’ve never seen. That’s some suit of armor.”

  “Indeed it is. I broke down the chemistry and found an enormously active enzyme similar to laccase-two.”

  She arched a brow. “Interesting.”

  The laccase-2 gene had been studied by entomologists for decades. Research showed that the enzyme was responsible for hardening the cuticles of newly molted beetles, providing remarkable strength and flexibility. The discovery was leading to a deeper understanding of insect defenses, as well as the development of numerous commercial products, such as football helmets and lightweight shields for aircraft and military armor.

  “Laredo must have figured out a way to supercharge the protein. The exoskeletons can be crushed with some effort, but pesticides flow off like water on a duck’s back. Therefore, you’re correct—toxins are out of the question.”

  “So what are the Three Stooges doing here?” she said, referring to the men in black.

  Paul averted his eyes. “I gave them all contracts—before realizing what we were dealing with.” There was an uncomfortable silence. “Pesticide companies have a place in science, Kendra. Why do you always make them out to be the bad guys? You can thank a dozen insecticides for helping to feed half the world’s population, which would go hungry—”

  She let out a disgruntled breath, annoyed they were still having this same conversation.

  “All right,” he said, gesturing defeat. “It was wrong.”

  Kendra looked satisfied enough and returned to the specimen. Even with calculation tools built into the scope, measuring ant parts was exceedingly difficult, but she was a pro and rattled off each astonishing number to the smallest micrometer. However, sheer size was not the only puzzle.

  “The gaster—that’s a lot of venom.”

  “You’re right, and it’s highly concentrated. A couple of hits could blind a person.”

  “The claws are unusual. Looks like three hooks instead of two, like a thumb or something.”

  “Better grip,” he replied. “Just like Siafu, they build intricate bridges. Millions can link together like cables spanning a hundred feet. Plus, they’re fast. Based on their locomotory behavior and morphology, I estimate they can hit speeds of eight miles per hour.”

  “So they can outrun most humans.”

  “It’s just a theory at the moment. Along with my calculation that they can chew through leather.” He tapped a pencil point toward the image of the head. “Take a look at those jaws. They spring shut at two hundred and forty kilometers an hour, which is by far the fastest body limb movement of any creature on earth. We’re talking about a bite force of nine hundred times their body weight.”

  Kendra focused on the
mandibles and inner mouth, where two long spikes protruded from each side like black sipping straws. “Are these stylets?”

  “Ah. Now we come to the scary part.” Paul leafed through autopsy reports until he came to a photo of a dead schoolteacher. He frowned over the image, rubbing his beard. “The ants are depositing some kind of chemical into the body that produces a heinous reaction. It acts like a digestive enzyme but it moves through the bloodstream like a deadly virus. Looks more like Ebola than ant venom. Shuts down the organs, ravages the brain, capillaries disintegrate. Finally the internal system just dissolves.”

  “So, you’re saying these insects liquefy their victims?”

  “Just like normal ants—but on a far greater scale. A couple of bites or stings aren’t lethal, but a hundred can kill a normal-size adult in seconds.”

  Kendra stared at the photo. On the floor of a child’s nursery, a man lay in a contorted position wearing shorts and a bloody sock. His gray body was bloated and streaked red. A mass of yellow sclera tissue lay on the floor near his face, pushed out of the eye socket by dark coagulated blood, his mouth stretched open in a scream of impending death.

  Kendra had seen photos of ant stings, disturbing pictures of farm animals and even human corpses covered in ants, but nothing remotely resembled this victim. She felt a shiver of cold terror and dropped the photo on the counter, not knowing what to say.

  “This is bad,” was all she could finally muster.

  “Yeah.” Paul took her hand and led her across the room. “Now for the demonstration.”

  “Demonstration?”

  CHAPTER 13

  FIVE TEENAGERS IN BLACK descended like bats at dusk. They crossed the wide intersection of Columbus Circle at Fifty-ninth Street into Central Park, under the awakening glow of old gas lamps.

  Leading the posse was Tabor Drake, a sixteen-year-old boy who was tall and striking with milky white skin and ebony makeup streaked across his lips and cheekbones. Long hair, dyed boot black, fell loosely over his forehead. His trench coat and pants were militant, oversized and, of course, black. Only the red teardrop tattooed below his eye saved him from a monochromatic fate. Tabor’s Goth followers were clad in equally gloomy attire.

  Except for Jimmy Porter.

  Porter wasn’t a true member of the group, not yet anyway, and he lagged behind the others. While they walked swiftly with purpose, he trudged behind hesitantly, adjusting a backpack crammed with wooden shovels. The handles continuously hit him in back of the head. His chubby build and short blond hair set him apart from the others, as much as his yellow Spiderman T-shirt and khaki shorts.

  Porter cast a pleading eye toward Sarah, his only ally in the group, but she was struggling to keep up her own cool facade. In truth, Sarah thought that their plan to sneak a jarful of killer ants into the teacher’s lounge was so junior high, but at fifteen years old she rarely trusted her own opinion. She stared down at her feet clomping around in heavy black boots and ripped fishnet stockings and thought maybe she would join a different group on Monday. Maybe the Granolas. She looked good in tie-dye.

  The vast plaza at the park entrance eventually broke into narrow trails. The ground was covered with the first signs of spring, creeping plants, moss and ferns, and the darkening sky was hidden by overhead canopies of sprouting oak branches that dimmed the last bit of evening light. It was dead quiet. Not even the sound of wild birds, so typical for this time of year, was heard from the treetops.

  “Didn’t you guys see all the signs? They said, ‘Warning! Park Closed!’” Porter croaked. “We should go back.”

  Tabor kept walking. “Shut up, Porker.”

  “It’s Porter.”

  “No. It’s Porker.”

  “I just mean, it’ll be dark soon.”

  “Duh. That’s the whole point,” said Chloe, Tabor’s sort-of girlfriend, an even more female version of himself. “They only come out at night, doofus.”

  Porter puckered his face. “You know they killed, like, seven people already. They’re probably gonna kill us too.”

  “Don’t believe what you read in newspapers, doofus. Fire ants only, like, sting and bite. The teachers are gonna freak.”

  “We’re gonna die.”

  “Sarah, what’s the deal with your fat friend?” Chloe snapped. “He won’t shut up.”

  A boy with three nose rings had taken the lead. When he stopped and pointed, the others fell in behind. “That’s the spot. Harley said they were crawling all over the place.” He was motioning to the Gapstow Bridge, a stone archway over the pond. Its thick, craggy vines snaked across the bedrock like bony fingers. The ground on both sides of the bridge sloped ten feet to the pond.

  Tabor walked toward the bridge, brushing back the tall grass and kicking over small stones. The other joined in, scraping their sneakers across patches of dirt and weeds, pulling back fronds with a light hand. Someone had a can of bug spray and the kids passed it around, misting their boots.

  “Here, take these,” Tabor said and pulled a handful of rubber bands from his pocket. “Wrap them around your sleeves and pant cuffs to keep out the ants. I know all about these bastards.”

  Porter looked down hopelessly at his T-shirt and shorts. While the others looped tight rubber bands over their wrists and ankles, he saturated his body with OFF!

  “Yo, Porker.” Tabor stuck out his hand, fingers snapping. “Give me a shovel.”

  Porter let the backpack drop from his shoulder and chose a short but heavy spade. He handed it to Tabor and whispered, “They’re gonna kill us, man.”

  “Hey. Shut the fuck up,” Nose Ring answered. “There’s five of us against—ants.”

  Tabor noticed a large area of dirt where the grass didn’t grow. He marched straight back to Porter and handed him the shovel. “You. Over there—dig.”

  “No way.”

  Tabor turned to Sarah. “You are so out.”

  She seemed to deflate. “Jimmy, just dig.”

  Porter reluctantly dragged his feet to the designated spot. He raked the shovel gently over the soil as if it were a minefield, but found the dirt was soft and loose and balled into pellets light as sawdust. So he dug with more gusto, taking a scoopful here and another there. Porter speared the ground one last time and the spade flew from his hand, plunged into nothingness.

  The earth had gobbled up half his shovel.

  Porter blinked hard. “I think we hit some kind—”

  Suddenly, the ground caved in like a sinkhole around him. The boy screamed and flung his hands in the air, falling into clouds of dirt, buried up to his chest in soil. Porter was invisible, just a coughing sound as the dust settled. Somehow, he managed to hoist his trapped arms free and wiped the grit from his mouth with his dirty fingers.

  “Shit,” he cried.

  The others just stared, mouths gaping.

  “Hey, you assholes, get me outta here!”

  Tabor took the first wary step, while the other kids fell back. He shuffled closer and paused a good three feet from Porter’s head, then dropped onto one knee, staring right into the face of the filthy boy.

  Tabor burst out laughing.

  “It’s not funny,” Porter wheezed.

  The fearless leader thought it was hysterical, but found himself laughing alone. “He’s fine,” he yelled over his shoulder to the others. “I always wondered how long the surface of the earth could hold your fat ass, Porker.”

  Tabor held out a hand to the boy, bracing for a ton of weight. But as their fingers touched, Porter jerked back violently—and screamed. Tabor scurried away in horror as the boy continued howling cries of excruciating pain.

  Beneath the soil, millions of ants were blasting tunnels to the boy’s body like desperate prospectors to a gold mine. They reached the torso and thighs in no time. Claws broke through supple skin effortlessly, foraged through muscle and ravaged their way inside the body.

  High-pitched barks of agony echoed to the edges of the park as Porter screamed and dug his fingernail
s into the dirt, staring in wide-eyed hysteria. His hands came up soaked in blood.

  Tabor once again reached out for Jimmy’s hand, but the trapped boy flew into convulsions, arms thrashing about wildly as the red stain seeped up his T-shirt to his neck.

  The ground was shifting below the teenagers and they backed away, slowly at first, and then they took off in a run. They shrieked with fright and cries of warning. They ran toward the park entrance and left the boy dying.

  All except Sarah.

  Instinctively, she dropped to her knees and began to dig Jimmy Porter out. Her fingers were stained with Jimmy’s blood as she clawed through the dirt, but it was useless. His arms disappeared. He sank to his chin. There was a gurgling in his throat right before it swelled shut. When he looked at Sarah, a peaceful expression settled over his face, blood pooled in his eyes and a trickle of pink foam dripped from his nose.

  Then Jimmy Porter sank into the earth. Gone.

  Sarah rose as the ground vibrated under her feet. She staggered down the steep embankment to the pond, arms turning like windmills to keep her balance. The sky turned dark and the air was suddenly cold. Standing on a rock at the water’s edge, she hugged her waist and clenched her chattering teeth, too terrified to even cry. Behind her, every plant and blade of grass seemed to quiver with life.

  They’re coming. They’re going to kill me.

  Sarah waded into the freezing water.

  Ants can’t swim, they can’t swim.

  She continued down a steep decline, taking long strides in the water, boots sloshing through the mud like suction cups. Panic gripped Sarah as the water reached her chest. Imaginary monsters nipped at her hands and elbows.

  A thick blob swelled along the shoreline like molten lava, dark and unformed. The creature stretched across the bank under Sarah’s gaze, driving her farther into the pond and filling the air with a strange song.

  Kerka kerkosh ker kerkosh kerka kerkosh ker kerkosh.

  The sound grew louder, from every direction, and she spun around, unsure where to go. The thing that blanketed the shore was now in the water, cast out wide like a fishing net. It floated across the surface, straight toward her, tiny forms linked together.