The Nest

by Gregory A. Douglas

  FOUR

  That night on their side-­by-­side cots, Elizabeth and Bonnie were dismally aware of the missing bed. It had been moved into Peter Hubbard’s room for Elias Johnson to use. With families gone off the island, the other men remained in the lighthouse for an early start to hunt the roach nest at daybreak. They were in sleeping bags on the laboratory floor, except for Ben Dorset who was spending the night with the volunteers in the firehouse. Stephen Scott was in his own home, feeling ill, he said.

  The overall plan was clear and agreed. With dawn, they could scout the pirate cave Elias Johnson had mentioned that afternoon. Assuming the woodland would be cooled by the rain that had fallen on and off, the forest should be safe enough for bringing in cans of gasoline. If they found the nest, Peter Hubbard would use carbon dioxide—in gaseous form—to immobilize the insects while he studied them. Then the flame would put an end to the scourge. Hubbard believed that most if not all of the roach armies would have swarmed back to their hub, especially after the disturbance of the forest fires. If there were individual strays, they could be dealt with in time, probably with baited traps.

  On the other hand, if the nest was not discovered, then Elias Johnson was to call in the U.S. Public Health Service. Officials would have to be advised of Wanda Lindstrom’s body and of the mysterious disappearances on the island. It was going to be a tangled nightmare of red tape, Johnson thought as he turned on his cot with a sigh of despondency.

  Peter Hubbard had remained silent about “Plan B.” Time enough to interpose it if it became necessary. It would have been a little easier with Wanda’s help, but he could manage it alone.

  Bonnie Taylor murmured to her friend, “Get a good night’s sleep. Things will look brighter in the morning. That’s what my mother always said, and she was always wrong.”

  Elizabeth Carr could not sleep. Wanda Lindstrom’s gashed face stayed in her mind. Elizabeth was weeping for the woman with an honest, open grief that wracked her body and mind. These were tears of self-­knowledge, too. All at once, the daughter of Jessica and Richard Carr saw herself not with her own self-­centered eyes but with the judgment of a world outside. What a long way she had to go before she could match Wanda Lindstrom’s self-­sufficiency, and the value of the woman’s work! And what a long way to be worthy of Peter Hubbard in the way Wanda Lindstrom had been.

  For the first time in her life Elizabeth Carr, lying on a bumpy mattress in a wind-­leaking lighthouse on a roach-­infested island, was led to take stock of her weaknesses and failings instead of basking in her taken-­for-­granted strengths and blessings—her family’s wealth, her own good looks and innate brains and charm. They were a heri­tage, not earned. She had never really applied herself fully at school. She resolved strongly that in her senior year and her graduate work thereafter she would stretch herself. It would be a way of remembering Wanda Lindstrom for giving her life for Peter Hubbard. Who, Elizabeth considered palely, had very nearly sacrificed his own life for her!

  She could not keep her eyes closed. A lemon moon was out after the storm, shining through the window over Bonnie’s blanketed shoulder. The rain was gone, the wind and waves were easing off. Elizabeth raised herself on an elbow. How lovely things could be. The sand was a curious lavender hue and the sea a contrasting pewter color in the yellowish moonlight.

  Bonnie’s dark face against this strange combination of night colors was even more beautiful than ordinarily. Egyptian princess? She had a nobility. And Craig had his own, of the sea itself . . .

  The woman’s musings were interrupted by a faint clicking sound from outside. She put it to loose boards. This lighthouse’s walls would be flapping like seagulls in the next big blow, she groused. Elizabeth dropped back to her lumpy pillow, and closed her ears against the sound. With the men leaving at dawn, she’d have to be up unearthly early to put the coffee to the kettle . . .

  FIVE

  In the New Place of dark, warmth and rechambered food stores, an irritating odor was thickening the air and creating disquiet and restlessness. Around the pulsing central Dome of the Nest, the creatures stirred and fanned the gloom with their antennae.

  The smoke seeping in from the forest fires was not the only cause of the community agitation. Their spiracles had known such a stinging from time to time when they were back in the dump. Now it came along with a confusion of signals, difficult to sort out, baffling to decision. The murky air carried urgent roach calls as well as the smoke. Some of the roach signals were clear, such as alarm and urgency, but there was something else—something the straining sensories in the Nest could not take in or use for action. As a result, contradictory emanations were coming from the Dome in the center. The disarray was making some of the insects wild, leading them to sudden cannibalistic assaults on neighbors.

  Many of the layers of roaches lay quiet, however. Most waited torpidly for some clear stimulus of hunger, thirst, sex, alarm.

  Suddenly, the Dome ceased its uneasy pulsations. The Nest grew quiet, silent, motionless. Not an antenna stirred. As suddenly again, the Dome heaved, shuddering so violently that many layers of roaches were displaced. The disturbing message from outside had finally been deciphered! . . . Roaches outside were captives . . . They were relaying not only their own call for help, but an urgent message . . . “The Nest itself was threatened. . . Large animals were seeking the Nest, to destroy the Colony . . .”

  Defend! Defend!

  The Dome heaved violently: Send out the fighters! . . . Follow the scent, and attack! . . . Launch another raid! Besiege and storm the Enemy!

  The central Dome spasmed again, and great roaches raced up the exit tunnels after their captains who had rushed to the front. Something magnetic in the Yarkie night was now tiding the roaches irresistibly—urging, requiring, dominating. It had to be responded to by each insect. It had to be fulfilled, as stomachs needed food, as wombs needed sperm. Survival was at stake! . . . Kill! Destroy whatever was inimical! . . . Strike first! Strike and protect! . . . March! Strike! . . . Protect the Colony! At all cost!

  Layer after layer of the great roaches peeled off the Dome. Roach platoons formed up quickly in orderly fashion, multiplying into battalions, with designated commanders in charge. Thousands upon thousands of the roaches hastened out through the freshly dug tunnels until the only insects left in the Nest were the egg-­laying females—who were depositing their oöthecae early because of the disturbance—and the palace guard around the Dome, which, having completed its commands, now subsided into a slow rhythmic pulsing.

  The guard roaches, in thousands surrounding the Dome, were truly mammoth insects—as much as eight inches long and well over an inch around, with mandibles and teeth as viciously dangerous as any jungle animal. The huge mouths and sawteeth could chop through bone as easily as pulp. These were literally the killer sharks of the Colony, especially bred and programmed to be the royal protectors. They circled in an endless, fearsome procession of deadly intent around and around the Throne of the Roach Society.

  SIX

  The roach commanders led the advancing fighter horde confidently through the forest as the signal odor grew stronger and more intense, a funnel of pheromones narrowing toward the lighthouse. The slithering roach formations looked like great snakes sliding through the ashes of the forest fire. These were sinister reptiles with endless bodies, reaching out of the Medusa’s head of the Dome in the Nest.

  Nearing the edge of the trees and the open space of the lighthouse beach, the phalanx was halted. Scouts were dispatched. They hurried away, keeping to the clumps of dune grass that were almost phosphorescently gray-­green in the now-­fading moonlight. The vulnerability of the open space must be risked. The messages coming from the Great White Tree ahead of them were more urgent than ever. Their swiftness was on their side. If the Enemy spotted them, they would still be strong in combat, for they would strike at the huge Tree from every arc.

  The scouts raced back to the main body. They tattooed a new message: The easiest prey
was not on the level from which the roach signals were coming, but from a space above. Easy to reach, easy climbing. And no signs of counter­attack, no Enemy lurking. Quietness everywhere, little sounds only, unfrightening, no threatening vibrations.

  As the roach troops moved out of the shadows of the trees, the beach seemed to quiver and come alive. It was as if the grains of sand took on life and motion, rolling toward the lighthouse and starting to climb the white exterior. The climbing insects were like a rising brown wash on the walls.

  Up and under the loose shingles of the lighthouse, roaches crawled easily, easily found the broken window of the room where Wanda Lindstrom’s body lay. Inside, the insects jostled each other in their haste to enjoy this new human repast. Their shells clicked against each other as they quarreled for position at the feast. The cockroaches were hungry now. In changing nests, it had been necessary to leave much food behind, and the transferred supplies had gone first to the Dome and the palace guards, with the females next. These fighters and workers had been waiting their turn. In their greed now, they began to exchange loud droning hisses warning each other off as they snatched at the corpse’s flesh before them.

  The noises of the scuttling, clicking, and puffing came down the open staircase to the room where Elizabeth Carr and Bonnie Taylor were sleeping. It was Elizabeth in her restiveness who heard it first. She nudged Bonnie with a terrified whisper, “Something is upstairs!” Half-­asleep, she almost imagined Wanda Lindstrom’s ghost coming down the steps.

  But the women both knew at once what the “something” was. Bonnie came bolt upright. The hissing noise pierced her ears like a branding iron. She would never forget the terrible sound that had drawn Sharky to his death. “My God, the roaches are here!”

  Both women had the same horrifying thought—the insects had found Wanda Lindstrom and were at her body. From the loudness and scuffling, it was clear that this invasion of the lighthouse was not just strays or a small group but a multitude of ghouls.

  Despite the horror upstairs, the women were thankful. At least they had a chance to warn the others and to escape.

  Grabbing clothes blindly, the two dashed into the men’s dormitory. They took care to be as quiet as possible. They were veterans of roachmanship now, Elizabeth thought wryly. They knew too well that they must avoid sending vibration signals of their own to the invaders.

  Elizabeth whispered to awaken Peter Hubbard, as Bonnie did to Craig Soaras. Hubbard jumped off his bed wearing pajamas. Craig leaped up stark naked. It was no time to be embarrassed. The men ducked for their clothes, waking Elias Johnson, Russell Homer and Amos Tarbell.

  The sheriff directed, “Everybody grab a tank and get outside to the cars! We’ll be able to freeze them off if they come after us.”

  Peter Hubbard handed a specimen jar to Russell Homer. “Save this one!” He himself ran for the red box in the corner.

  At that moment, before anyone could reach the door, the ceiling gave way, blocking the exit. It was the rot of the old wood, newly strained by the storm.

  Avalanching with the debris, with Wanda Lindstrom’s doubly ravaged body, with the dust, and the sand, came a cascade of the deadly cockroaches. For a moment, the falling insects were as stupefied as the humans, but they immediately scuttled to reorganize into attacking formations. A fresh imperative knit them quickly into a new army against the humans. It was almost as if the roach leaders had raised flags and pennants proclaiming these humans the Enemy they had been dispatched to fight and destroy. The Dome had not sent them for the corpse higher up. That had been an accident, a diversion they should not have allowed themselves. Now they were in harmony with each other and with the Dome again. They knew where the signals had come from—their fellow roaches, captive in the jars on the shelves! The signals from their maddened brothers were overwhelming now—not only the call for assistance, but the companion message: Protect the Nest! . . . Destroy the Enemy!

  The invisible pheromonic surges were sweeping the air powerfully between the Nest and the room: March! Kill! Protect! . . . Consume the Enemy, that it will not consume the Nest!

  The exchange of the vibrating insect messages—like a grim parody of radio waves traversing space—gave the beleaguered people the moment they needed to open their own attack on the insects. From the kitchen, Ben Dorset and Craig Soaras passed the deadly dry-­ice extinguishers into the debris-­filled laboratory. The black horns of the tanks began to spurt carbon dioxide. The ice vapor formed everywhere over the roach brigades in lethal, exterminating streams.

  Amos Tarbell was shouting, “The back window! Quick!”

  Holding the tanks like flame throwers, the people backed hastily from the ever-­advancing roach battalions. Tarbell yelled again. “Elizabeth! Bonnie! Go on out while we cover you!”

  To the sheriff’s amazement, Peter Hubbard was pushing Elizabeth aside to get out first. Amos Tarbell would have bet the man was no coward, but now he was showing his colors! Bastard! What the hell was so precious in the red box? Why didn’t he leave it and get the hell out of the way?

  Antipathy for the scientist was swept from the sheriff’s mind when he saw a flying roach go for Hubbard’s neck. The avid insect had already pinched up flesh in its mandibles and slashed a deep wound, sucking blood. Holding on to the red box, Hubbard could not use his hands to defend himself. Tarbell thought of going to his aid, but he had to use his tank to defend his own position; and roaches were threatening all around the others.

  Elizabeth heard Hubbard’s gasp of pain. She darted to him, her fingers reaching for the roach. He yelled at her furiously, “Don’t touch it!” She disregarded his warning and yanked at the insect with all her hatred. Sickeningly, its body came off in her hand, while its head remained obscenely fastened on Peter Hubbard’s neck. Shuddering, Elizabeth remembered his telling of ants that acted the same.

  The sheriff was ordering her angrily to climb out through the window. She was just in time to turn her tank on a rush of roaches coming at her bare feet from one side. Elizabeth splashed them with a furious jerk of the tank, and bobbed her head in deep satisfaction as the vapor immobilized them. Filth! she cried to herself. Die! Die!

  Tarbell saw Hubbard still awkwardly blocking the window. He bellowed furiously, “Let the women out, damn it!” Peter Hubbard heard the accusation of cowardice in the man’s shout.

  The sheriff swore in his rage. Something was going on he did not understand, and had no time to consider further. Roaches were closing in on him from all sides. He had to spin like a top, spraying a fast and widening circle to keep the slithering fiends at bay.

  Behind him, he heard another cry of alarm. A flying roach was attacking Bonnie Taylor’s face. Craig Soaras trained his extinguisher her way before realizing he could not spray the dry ice without injuring the woman herself. He dropped the tank to rush to her side. The roach came off in his hand. Thankfully he saw only a small spot of crimson on her dark cheek. Her eyes were safe. “Craig,” she moaned. Just his name, but in it he heard not only her gratitude for his risk but a tenderness he had not dared to dream about.

  In the moment Soaras stood beside Bonnie Taylor without his protective tank, a quick crescent of the cock­roaches got at his feet. They struck as a gang, as if at one command, so that the man had no time to regain his tank. He gagged with the pain of the knife-­like incisions. Desperate, Bonnie made a precipitate decision and triggered carbon dioxide at his feet. He might be hurt by the dry ice, but the roaches were worse.

  As if maddened by Bonnie’s attack after tasting Craig’s blood, a flight of roaches zoomed at his unprotected head. They were like small savage bats arrowing toward his eyes. There was no way Bonnie could help without blinding him or killing him with her dry ice. His own flailing arms could not keep off all the swarm.

  In torment, Bonnie watched helplessly as more insects landed on Craig’s head. One rested obscenely on his mustache, lifting its body as if to crow cockily. Its companions had already started their terrible destruction o
f eyes and flesh. One huge roach aimed for and reached Craig Soaras’s jugular. His blood spurted onto Bonnie Taylor’s arm as she tried to come to his rescue.

  The woman took the man’s dying agony into herself. His groans of pain were hers as he kept trying to yank the clinging insects off his skin, out of his ears, away from his clenched mouth. Bonnie wanted to embrace the man, tell her love, hold him for the life they could never now have together.

  She could not move to save him, or herself. She was paralyzed with the horror of his murder as the killer roaches took his face to pieces before her eyes. Her own dry ice tank dropped from her fingers in her anguished defeat. She prayed that the roaches would end her too, and fast. She hardly heard Elizabeth Carr screaming, “Come out, Bonnie! Hurry!”

  Amos Tarbell stamped to Bonnie with his tank spraying roach death fiercely. He kept the killers away from the woman, but she was blind with her loss, with the devastation of the impossible raid. Not her flesh but her mind and heart were being despoiled.

  The sheriff tried to pull the woman to the window where the others were now outside, reaching in to help). Hampered by his tank, he could not get hold of her and she remained rooted, staring at the insects now covering Craig Soaras’s still-­twitching muscles. Tarbell kicked the woman’s legs to make her move. She looked up from the dying man on the floor. Tarbell could see that he was a stranger to her. Her eyes were a zombie’s. But she started to the window. With Tarbell’s tank protecting them both, they reached the eager, outstretched hands of their friends. Tarbell kept triggering the killing spray at the oncoming marauders, overcome with his own loathing and fury. To him the formation of the roach heads, their eyes, mandibles, mouths, gave them the appearance of laughing monsters—monstrosities mocking all the humans! This, he thought, was what the demons of Hell must really look like: Roaches! Satan himself a deformed, giant roach!