Her eyes were pleading.
Paul held out a hand. “Let’s see that map.”
* * *
It felt like they were walking in circles. Paul continually turned the map of the bunker upside down and then right side up, scratching the side of his head. “Right … no left,” he kept muttering. Kendra fought the urge to confiscate the map, having learned that men had fragile egos when it came to directions. Choose your battles, she told herself as they headed toward the south end, the deepest part of the bunker, composed mostly of bedrock tunnels with few working lights. It was dead quiet, musty and dark, but according to the diagram this passage was the only place, besides the elevators, marked with an exit sign.
“That must be it,” Paul said. At the end of the tunnel was a steel door cut into bedrock and a sign marked NO ACCESS—AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. A sensor for a card key was placed beside the door, along with a final warning that entering was strictly forbidden without authorization. Paul took out his ID.
“Sure you’re authorized?” Kendra asked.
“We’ll know in a second.”
He slid the plastic through the scanner and the light blinked red. He tried again; still red. He turned it around, upside down, rubbed it on his pants and bent it straighter; red, red, red.
“Damn.” He sat down and leaned against the cold metal door.
Kendra took the card from his hand and glided it gently through the slot. The light flashed green. The door slid open with a swish.
“Ah. Must have loosened it,” he said, as they crouched through the doorway.
They were at the bottom of a circular pit dug from the earth. A black light in a metal cage gave their skin a blue zombie-like sheen that matched the glistening surface of the rough bedrock walls. Kendra’s white shirt and Paul’s lab coat glowed bright violet. There was a damp, clammy texture to the air, along with the sound of a slow water drip somewhere.
“Where the heck are we?” Kendra asked, her voice rising into an echo.
“The end.”
“The end of what?”
“The end of the bunker,” he said, looking at the diagram. “I suppose this is the way out for any survivors of a nuclear catastrophe.”
“There’s no elevator or even a door.”
“No. Just a hatch, way up at the top.”
“Where?”
“Up the ladder,” he said, pointing to the map. “Far end of the wall.”
She walked over to a steel ladder painted red and looked up into the darkness, already feeling dizzy. “Wonder how high it goes?”
“Mayor said we’re three hundred feet below sea level.”
“Great.”
“I can promise you sky at the top. It looks like all we have to do is open a hatch door and you’re out in the cool air.”
“Yeah, like you opened the last door.”
“Hey, we could go back to the ant maze, hunker down in the laboratory and share a bologna sandwich.”
“Now you’re being an ass. Let’s go.”
They began to climb.
* * *
Night had fallen. The horizon was a marvelous smear of pink and lavender, the sun just a sliver between two skyscrapers. Paul and Kendra emerged from the bunker onto the roof five stories above the streets. She was out of breath and shaking from the climb. A cold wind chilled the air but the blacktop was still warm and spongy. Kendra breathed deeply into the breeze, relieved to be outside again.
“How does it feel?” Paul shouted over the wind.
“Great. But it’s cold.”
He took off his lab coat and swung it gently over her shoulders. Kendra turned from him, feeling suddenly self-conscious, but Paul wrapped his arms around her waist. He leaned over her warm cheek and smelled the scent of honeysuckle and desert sand in her hair, touched the short blond locks and examined them curiously.
“New look?” he asked.
“New everything,” she answered.
“Well … I like it.”
Kendra was fairly sure he hated it, but was glad he hadn’t said so.
“I missed you,” he whispered.
“So what happened, Paul?”
“I don’t know. My job. Your job. I guess whatever we had just slipped away.”
No, she thought. Not for me. Kendra walked to the edge of the roof. Below, the East River shimmered like glass and to the west endless smokestacks stood against the deepest blue.
“Eight million people,” she said. “What if the ants really do launch an attack? It might happen any day. Next rainfall, next high tide or some other trigger.”
Paul followed her to the ledge. “We’re going to destroy these monsters. Then maybe we can put us back together.”
“I can’t play second fiddle to your career again.”
He nodded, knowing he’d screwed up the first time.
Kendra’s gaze drifted to the skyline. Twilight brought out the stars in the east and they twinkled.
“I’d forgotten about the lunar eclipse.” She was staring at the moon, an oversized sphere of orange, slowly darkening to red. “My students will have some crazy day with the ants. An eclipse always sends them into a … frenzy.”
Kendra gaped at Paul, his face as stark as her own.
CHAPTER 18
THE FIRST SOLDIER APPEARED on Ninth Avenue, along a strip of soil lined with dogwood trees. From the center of a mound, a hole sprang open. The ant peered out, her oversized head pivoting right and left like a water sprinkler. Over jewel-cut eyes stretched long antennas, wiggling fingers assessing wind currents and ground cover. Her exceedingly long jaws were shaped like elephant tusks and could pierce through a rattlesnake.
Like a leviathan from the deep, the ant emerged. Her sleek black body was immaculate, as she was compulsively neat and incessantly cleaning herself. The ant stood on hind legs and her head sprang up toward the cool night sky like that of a hunting dog sniffing for scent.
Prey was detected in every direction. It was a go.
In an instant, holes burst open and soldiers poured out like a treacherous river, at a rate of six hundred thousand per minute, swallowing the soil and small tufts of sprouted grass.
The regiment didn’t have to go far. A man, known only as Phil, was passed out in a nearby alley with an empty bottle of vodka in his soiled lap. The procession gathered at his feet and spread around his body like the chalk tracing of a homicide victim. They climbed up his dirty tennis shoes and into the pant legs. They charged up his neck and across his torso, raiding a flimsy undershirt.
Phil was nearly covered in ants by the time the first bite was taken. Like razor-sharp hedge cutters, mandibles snipped and slashed, repeating the process again and again.
The old man stirred, and then groaned, as smaller soldiers rushed into the bloody area quickly, strong jaws chewing the softer inner flesh. Even 90-proof alcohol was not enough to anesthetize the pain. Phil flailed helplessly under a growing weight across his chest. But such thrashing was useless and brief. While the sensation from a thousand living stings was excruciating, paralysis from the toxins set in quickly, and all he could do was shriek inside his mind as the agony continued.
Ants spilled across his bloated face, searching for the most succulent flesh. The thin skin of the eyelids was a delicacy and they sliced it up quickly, boring into the soft eye tissue.
Some tunneled into nostrils, all the way to the sinus cavities and down the throat, while others pushed through parched lips, engorging the mouth and continuing down passageways to the lungs and esophagus.
Once these fragile areas were reached, the ants inserted their tubes and pumped their liquefying agents into the flesh. A new round of formic acid was released, drawing thousands of other ants. As the enzyme traveled through his body, Phil lost all movement and faculties. Brain cells were bursting. Liver and kidneys ceased functioning. Every muscle broke down to a rubbery mass, and thick blood passed through veins as soft as noodles. The entire torso was marbled a dark purple from pools of ma
ssive hemorrhages under the skin.
Finally, a ripping sound came from Phil’s trousers like a burst of flatulence. It wasn’t air he expelled but an explosion of his stomach and intestinal lining and a tremendous amount of blood. It seeped out through his baggy pants and trickled down the alleyway.
After Phil was blinded, asphyxiated and nearly skeletonized in about nine minutes, the army moved out. Partly through instinct and partly through genetic mangling, Siafu Moto were programmed to exterminate; feeding the colony was crucial but secondary. The ants set off on their next mission, heading toward a brick apartment building and leaving a deadly pheromone trail in their wake.
They knew brick buildings were like giant refrigerators.
As they neared the entrance, the ranks broke off in a hundred directions. They scurried up the face of the building and burrowed under doorways and into windows, air vents and cracks in the walls, following pipes, ducts and stairwells.
Within minutes, they blanketed the building.
CHAPTER 19
IN A CRAMPED STUDIO apartment along Twenty-ninth Street, Donny Peltzer lay in bed wearing nothing but striped briefs and a Fender guitar slung across his chest. He picked up the roach clip in the ashtray and sucked in the last of the joint, thinking how expensive it was to live in Manhattan just to keep the creative juices flowing properly.
Donny was practicing “Crossroads” for the gazillionth time. It had to sound perfect. If he got this gig at B. B. King’s he could give up his dog-walking business. Donny hated dogs. He licked a scrape on his knuckles, where Scotty-the-ugly-schnauzer had bit him, and then pressed the triangle pick to the wire strings.
It was the slow and easy Robert Johnson rhythm, not the upbeat version by Cream, and the melody drifted nicely through the room, lingering with the stench of pot, dirty laundry, soaking dishes and the mustiness of a sagging purple sofa that was always damp for some reason. Most everything in Donny’s apartment was old and dingy—except the posters. Hanging from the walls were dozens of chrome-framed Broadway theater posters. A Chorus Line. Grease. Hairspray. Mamma Mia! Wicked. All the classics. Theater was Donny’s passion and each time he played a sleazy club, he felt one lick closer to an orchestra pit.
Just as he reached the second verse, the part that goes “I’m going down to Rosedale, take my rider by my side,” Donny paused midstrum and looked at the front door. Muffled voices were shouting in the hallway. But there was something else. A hissing sound in the kitchenette. It was a bit late in the year for steam to be rising from the radiator, especially since the heat was turned off in February, but hey, this was New York.
The sounds abated and Donny played the first chords again—and then his fingers suddenly lost their grip. The pick fell to the mattress. He froze with fear.
Donny stared at the wooden bedpost by his foot and the massive silhouette of an ant crawling across the top. It was the biggest, blackest ant he’d ever seen; big as a water bug, almost an inch long. He put the guitar on the bed and tucked his legs to his chest.
Instinctively, his eyes moved to a copy of a newspaper lying on the floor. There was a caricature of a scary ant on the front page. What did the articles say? They traveled in packs.
Oh great. Donny’s heart was pounding as his gaze shifted over the room and bare carpet. Finding no buggy friends, he settled once again on the ant, which was now spiraling down the bedpost. It ran along the mattress, straight for the guitar. It vanished under the instrument and Donny held his breath. He was too scared to move.
The ant appeared again, having eclipsed the guitar, and stood out boldly against the spruce grain. It seemed to be staring at Donny, who reached down to the floor and grasped the newspaper. Slowly, he rolled it into a heavy tube and raised it high in the air, ready to strike. But he didn’t. Instead, Donny leaned in closer to the creature. It was cleaning its face and antennae with nimble front legs. It stood very still for a moment and then it moved an inch to the left, then to the right, then cleaned some more. It appeared to be sort of—harmless.
Donny’s heart slowed and he chuckled. It’s an ant, he thought, quite correctly.
With the tip of his index finger, he gave the critter a shove. It flipped upside down, kicking its wiry legs above the smooth wood. Feeling more courageous, Donny rolled it back onto its feet. With a slight pinch, he plucked the insect off the guitar and dropped the little fella into his palm.
The ant didn’t move. It seemed rather powerless against the mighty force of a human hand. Still, Donny had never seen an ant this size. It may have been abnormal but certainly not dangerous. Suddenly the hysteria in the city seemed ridiculous, and Donny curiously inspected the tiny suit of armor. It had a bulky helmet head that reminded him of Darth Vader and made him smile.
“I am your father, Luke,” Donny said in a raspy voice and then breathed through his teeth, sounding like an air regulator.
A sudden pain ripped through his hand, as if a searing-hot skewer had pierced straight through the center of his palm. Donny howled and tried to shake off the ant as another burst of pain hit again, so acutely he fell to the carpet.
The ant was still hooked to his skin, slicing and stinging again and again. Donny stared wide-eyed and raked his nails over his palm, until all that remained was one pincer embedded under the skin.
Caught between a wave of shock and pity, Donny lay on the floor, crying like a baby and rubbing the wound, which was trickling blood. His hand burned red and swelled so much that his fingers looked like hot dogs. It hurt to make a fist, but Donny found a rolled-up sock and squeezed it to stop the bleeding.
Then the lights went out.
Donny bolted upright in the dark, holding his breath and wondering if the ant was still alive, looking for him with one missing claw. He heard the steam growing louder and that’s when he realized it didn’t really sound like the radiator after all. Didn’t the newspaper say the ants made a buggy noise? This wasn’t good, not good at all. Donny wanted to get out of the dark, badly.
With a quick and cautious hand, he reached under the bed for a flashlight and patted over familiar objects. Baseball bat. Rollerblades. Stack of Hustler. Bong. The carpet felt rough and irritating to his overexcited nerve endings. He squirmed farther under the box spring, until his hand hit the wall.
Then the hissing stopped.
Donny shimmied out from under the bed and sat in the dark, dumbly listening to nothing but his own irregular breath. His bare foot touched something cold. Small. Metal.
Donny snatched up his lighter. With one trembling hand he flipped open the cover and pressed his thumb to the trigger that spun wheel against flint.
It sparked. It sparked again. Come on, come on, man.
The flame lit and relief came to his face. Now there was a soft glow to the room. It was brighter yet somehow darker. What was different? His posters were missing. The walls were completely black. Holding the lighter over the bed, Donny backed away and screamed. He sprinted to the door, but never got past the triple dead bolts.
Not that it mattered. The murky hallway was packed with frantic neighbors, covered in blood and ants, screaming and crying out in pain. Shaking candles and flashlights revealed flickering images of insects crawling over ceiling and walls, down to the elevator. Desperate crowds headed for the emergency exit, but like most of the buildings in Manhattan, the stairwell was completely infested.
CHAPTER 20
“N ZÀI NĂL?”
Chen Jinsong, a fragile old man with a red pinched face, stumbled to the top of the storage cellar and cried out to his wife, who was sweeping the back of the bodega.
“Dào zhèl Lái!”
She hurried to him, clutching the broom. “How I know! Go see yourself!”
There was commotion in the street. High-pitched screams, breaking glass and shouts of alarm carried Chen back to the terrifying nights of his childhood when the Chinese army would invade his village, and summoned images of fleeing men and women grabbing their meager belongings.
Chen stepped into the street.
The outdoor market of Chinatown’s Mott Street was in chaos. Pedestrians ran wildly in every direction, knocking down tables of brightly painted dolls, silk fans and slippers. They sprinted past strings of bright red paper lanterns and Chinese signs in neon green, as the smell of fear mixed with the usual odors of spices, fish and smoked meats.
The street was packed. Chen could see long lines of cars blocking the road, some abandoned, others crammed with people honking and yelling and going nowhere. Tourists held fast to their children, fighting their way out of restaurants, past windows of hanging duck and roast pig, as fellow merchants shouted to each other in Mandarin. Frantic commuters poured out of the subway entrance, stepping over slower-moving victims while trying to escape the underground assault.
Chen watched in horror as a screaming Asian woman, swatting a baby carriage, was knocked to the pavement by a man in an expensive suit. The woman crawled to the curb and sat down crying, as ants covered her legs and blanketed her bright yellow dress.
A wide ribbon of insects flowed across Chen’s fruit bins like the billowing black silk of the New Year’s Dragon. He doubled back, knocking over carts of mangos and apples until the sudden blast of a car engine spun him around. Hurling toward him was a dark vehicle painted with ants. The monster truck jumped the curb as pedestrians scrambled out of the way. It struck a homeless woman, her shopping cart and two teenagers zigzagging in its path. Chen froze as the headlights hit his face. He shut his eyes and the engine roared.
Crrrrkkkk! The sound of crashing metal nearly shattered his eardrums as the car hit a concrete wall of the bodega. The horn blasted steadily and the man behind the wheel was still, his face pressed against the broken windshield, covered with ants and blood.
“Li Mei!” Chen cried, running through a cloud of plaster to the back of his general store.
“Here!” she yelled over her shoulder, frantically beating away ants with a broom as they swarmed from the cellar. Chen grabbed his trembling wife around the waist and half dragged her to the back exit.
The Colony Page 10