by Sara Clancy
A deep whoosh covered the sound of the droning hive. Blistering heat washed over him and scorched the fine hairs on his neck. He flattened himself into the water but the river wasn’t deep enough to let him escape the flames. Then, just as suddenly as it began, it all faded away.
Rearing back, he gasped for air and tried to peer through his swelling eyes. His vision cleared just as Basheba turned to face him, an aerosol can of antiseptic spray in one hand and his Zippo lighter in the other. Shock coursed through him as he watched her bring the items together. The spray caught the flames and released a guttural whoosh.
She wielded the makeshift flamethrower with focused determination, systematically setting the swarm alight, turning them into burning embers that spiraled through the air and fell like ash.
Cadwyn choked on a breath as she suddenly shifted, bringing the flood of fire barreling toward him. Snapping one hand up, he gripped the back of Mina’s head and forced her down into the water. There was barely any depth for her to retreat into.
Her screams bubbled and gasped as the icy stream flowed around them. His front froze while his back burned. Mina never stopped fighting him, forcing him to tighten his grip and bring her to the brink of drowning. His head was spinning and his limbs felt like lead when Basheba finally pushed the flames aside.
His arms trembled as he forced himself up onto all fours and dropped to the side, gasping for air, relishing the swell of his lungs even as his throat throbbed with agony. Mina sputtered but couldn’t stop sobbing. Propping her up against his shoulder, he looked downstream, searching for Basheba again.
She stood only a few feet away. Her small chest heaved and her raw hands trembled. But her eyes blazed with focused fury as she glared toward the riverbank. Cadwyn desperately searched for Ozzie before catching sight of him around Basheba’s legs. The boy was beaten, shivering, too horrified to move from his seat within the Arctic stream, but alive.
Cadwyn braced his hand on a submerged stone and rocked himself into motion. But before he could get his feet under him, he recalled that Basheba was staring something down.
A man stood on the banks. Thick and sturdy, several feet taller than Cadwyn himself. The surviving bees crawled over him, clustered into a squirming flesh of ebony and brilliant yellow. The only part of the man’s actual body that was visible under the swarm was his eyes. Catlike, putrid yellow, and terrifyingly familiar.
For a split second, Cadwyn felt himself thrown back in time, back to when he was just a boy and something demonic had slithered under his brother’s flesh.
It can’t be the same one.
An almost humanoid shape stared them down. Waiting. Glaring at Basheba with a hatred that matched her own.
Basheba snapped her hands up. Before she could reignite the spray, she dropped. Her last act before disappearing under the surface of the water was to toss the two items she held into the air. Ozzie’s shout snapped Cadwyn from his shock. The teen had thrown his entire body forward, managing to catch both the lighter and the aerosol can, keeping them in the air and sending them toward Cadwyn, leaving him no way to break his fall.
Ozzie body-slammed the jagged stones, the impact sending up a wall of water. It struck Cadwyn like liquid ice as he lunged for the items. They fumbled across his fingertips until he was able to pull them into his grasp. Holding them tight, he glanced over to find Ozzie half submerged; his head and torso lost within the sloshing water as his legs restlessly searched for a nook to lock his toes in.
A sharp drag pulled them deeper into the impossible sinkhole. Slick stones clicked against each other as they toppled out of the way, leaving Ozzie with nothing to hold onto. Cadwyn started toward them just as Mina screamed.
Whirling around, his limbs moved before his conscious mind could catch up. He released the flammable antiseptic spray and lit it. The heat of the flames pulsated against his river-numbed fingers, the glow stung his eyes, making his already limited vision ripple.
The human hive burst at the first contact with the flames, shattering apart into a million tiny insects that swept around to encase them. He raked the fire back and forth. Years of muscle memory warned him the can was becoming too light. It was going to run dry.
Ozzie reared back, his face barely breaking free of the frothing water. “Mina!”
The boy trembled with the strain it took to bring Basheba up. It took all of his strength to lift her enough for her to gasp once before the unseen force caught her again. Whatever had her, dragged her down with enough power to almost claim Ozzie as well.
Cadwyn shifted, trying to carve a clear path for Mina to reach the others. Only when Ozzie cried out again did Cadwyn realize Mina hadn’t moved. He glanced over to find her where he had left her. Curled into a tight ball, she screamed and whimpered, clawing frantically at herself until blood stained the shallow pool she sat in.
“Mina! Help!” Ozzie pleaded.
Her screams became a string of nonsense.
Cadwyn looked from her to the others, and realized he was trapped. If he moved to help Ozzie, Mina would be left unprotected. If he didn’t, the young boy might drown along with Basheba.
While Cadwyn hesitated, Ozzie brought one hand out of the water, bracing it on the rocks to push himself high enough to bellow.
“Buck!”
The dog didn’t come to the stranger’s call. Ozzie slid forward a few inches until his mouth was barely above the dark inky liquid.
“Buck!”
Cadwyn twitched with the need to run to them. He turned back to Mina, a desperate plea on his tongue. All he needed was a split second to know there was nothing he could do. Her panic attack had a tight hold on her that only time could release. Seconds passed in a blur, each one bringing him to the point of no return. If he didn’t choose who to save, they were both going to die.
The swarm’s drone diminished Ozzie’s half-wild cry while the whoosh of fire and Mina’s whimpered sobs crowded into Cadwyn’s skull.
Make the call.
An abrupt bark spared him. Head low and back protected, Buck sprinted through the wall of swarming insects with single-minded determination. Reaching Ozzie’s side, he barked and paced the edge of the pit. Ozzie flopped out his one free arm to try and catch the dog.
The swarm took Cadwyn’s attention and, by the time he looked back, Ozzie had twisted his body around to plant his feet against the stones on either side of the pit. All his efforts barely managed to drag Basheba up. It was more her backpack than her actual body, and he almost lost his grip when the bees clustered.
Cadwyn swung the flame around to drive off the onslaught. The brilliant glow filled his vision for an instant and, by the time it cleared, Ozzie had hooked one of Basheba’s bag straps around a spike protruding from Buck’s armor. A swift smack to the dog’s rear sent the Rottweiler plowing forward. The soaked material snapped taut while the water frothed. A few of the stitches popped. Buck’s muscles trembled. Ozzie scrambled up to help and then, just as quickly as it had begun, it all stopped.
The bees vanished. The pain they had brought lingered even as the stings dissipated. Basheba didn’t shoot free from the pit. Instead, the riverbed simply returned to its original form. A shallow brook barely large enough to find her torso.
Now, without the resistance, Ozzie was flung to the ground and Buck took off at a sprint. As she coughed up a lungful of water, Basheba managed to croak out a command for him to stop. The dog’s obedience was instantaneous, and she was left to flop over the sun-warmed stones.
In the sudden stillness, the heat pressing against his hands was brought to the forefront of Cadwyn’s awareness. He hissed, dropped to one knee, and, after sparing a second to toss the items onto a nearby stone, he dunked his hands into the frigid water. The chaos of noise that had filled the forest was now reduced to sporadic gasped breaths, Mina’s sobs, and the soft trickle of water flowing over the rocks.
Cadwyn pushed aside his confusion and brewing panic to call out. “Ozzie? Are you okay?”
> “I don’t know.”
“Is anything broken? Can you see bone?”
There was a brief pause. “No.”
“Take care of Mina.”
With that, Cadwyn jumped up and ran to Basheba. The heavy waterlogged pack kept her on her back, each mouthful of water she spat up sloshing over her face. Carefully, he rolled her into a recovery position, barely able to assess the damage as Buck nuzzled her with concern. Her lips were blue, her body shook, and her chest heaved as it tried to work the icy liquid out of her lungs.
Get them somewhere warm and safe.
The simple thought played across his mind as the sun began to sink behind the dense forest and the shadows crept in.
Chapter 15
“But I felt them,” Mina whispered to herself.
She pressed her torso against her thighs and stared at the ground before her, willing herself to concentrate, to dislodge the fog that had wrapped around her brain. There has to be an explanation, she told herself. A logical explanation. I just have to think.
The distorted face of the hanging man filled her mind’s eye. She could almost smell the honey the hive had gathered within the rotting skull. Her stomach convulsed. Throwing herself to the side, she retched. Bile and spit splattered over the dead leaves.
“Really, Mina?” Basheba sighed. “In the middle of the campsite? You couldn’t have walked a few feet in literally any direction?”
Her fingers shook too hard for her to wipe her mouth with any kind of dignity. Think, Mina. Find the answer. There has to be an answer.
The fire Basheba had started did little to fight off the gathering shadows, but it did work to ease the ice that had encased her bones. Mina had been the only one to lose her backpack. If Cadwyn hadn’t had the forethought to put a thermal blanket in his med-pack, she would have been left naked with only the fire to warm her. No one had a similar size.
The looming threat of nightfall had shifted everyone’s priorities. Darkness and hypothermia seemed more important than making peace with the madness they had just experienced, especially when thin snow had started to fall, gathering with the lingering mist to leave them all shivering. There was no shelter in sight. Only an endless stretch of bone-white trees and shadows. They wouldn’t last the night without the sleeping bags Cadwyn had stowed in her bag when he had redistributed the weight amongst the group. So the boys had hurriedly changed into somewhat dry clothes and set off to retrieve her pack, leaving them to set up camp.
Basheba hadn’t waited for them to be out of sight before she instructed Mina to just sit down and keep out of her way. There was a practiced efficiency in everything she did, a quiet confidence in how she performed her tasks. From picking the perfect location amongst the trees for the tent, to how she constructed the fire. In those few moments that Mina’s mind strayed away from the problem before her, she watched Basheba.
Her first action had been to start the fire. A healthy, fat teepee of flames that reminded Mina of family bonfires. The tent had gone up almost instantaneously under her skilled manipulations, and she had been busying herself ever since with tasks Mina couldn’t name. She had never really been into camping.
Mina’s thoughts returned once more to all her unanswered questions and dwelled there ever since. She studied her hands. The firelight turned her skin copper. There wasn’t a single welt.
“But I felt them,” she mumbled.
“You know what’s a fun game?” Basheba said abruptly. She sat back on her heels; forearms smeared with mud from the pit she was digging. “Silence. Let’s play silence.”
The words swirled in Mina’s head until they fell into some kind of meaningful order.
“What are you doing?”
“Building a fire.”
“We have one.”
“A cooking fire,” Basheba said, stocking small twigs into the pit. “Dakota holes are also good for drying clothes.”
“Dakota holes?”
“Large hole for fire. Smaller hole for the chimney. Link the two with a tunnel. You get concentrated heat without exposed flames.” Basheba rattled off the facts while unpeeling a few tampons she had retrieved from her pocket. Noticing Mina’s glance, she smiled and wiggled them in the air. “They’re great for tinder. And come in handy as waterproof packs.”
She reached into the pit, her slender shoulders shifted slightly, and a bright orange glow emerged from the hole. Smiling contently, Basheba took a moment to warm her hands. It was the only time she had been still since the boys had left.
“You taught yourself all of this?”
Basheba closed her eyes and huffed. “What happened to playing the silent game?”
“Do you have a problem with me?” Mina asked.
“Several,” she replied with an almost playful shrug.
Anger trickled into Mina’s stomach, twisting with her fear until she had to clench her jaw to keep from screaming. Taking in a sobering breath, she schooled her features and forced her voice to come out calm.
“We should talk about that.”
Basheba barked a laugh, pausing in her activity to spare her one fleeting glance.
“Why?”
“It seems important that we get along.”
“We’re never going to get along,” the blonde replied airily, busying herself with twigs and leaves once again. “We’re born to be at odds, little girl.”
Mina rolled her eyes. “Why? Because two women can’t work for a similar goal without a cat-fight breaking out?”
Basheba blinked at her, a smile creeping across her face. “Wow. You just full-on channeled your daddy there, didn’t you?” She shrugged. “I guess the arrogant, self-righteous fruit doesn’t roll far from the tree.”
Mina couldn’t stifle her snort. “Those are two qualities you’re in no position to be accusing others of.”
Basheba’s smile carried all the venom her dead eyes were incapable of. Mina tightened her arms around her knees and forced herself to meet her expressionless gaze.
“You really want me to tell you why we can’t get along? Because you’re clearly not going to get it on your own.” Feeding the submerged fire made light dance across her pale face. “We want fundamentally different things. And since we’re both goal-driven, we’re bound to clash. I can’t get on board with your hero complex. Or the superiority one for that matter.”
“Both better options than your Napoleon complex,” Mina shot back.
Basheba giggled. It wasn’t the reaction Mina was aiming for.
“Yeah, I suppose you have me there,” she dismissed almost wistfully. “My point is that you want to save the world. You want to be the one to fling open the gates and save the poor, inept, ignorant villages from their self-imposed dark ages.”
Mina squirmed but lifted her chin. “And what do you want?”
She hummed pleasantly. “If I had all the money in the world, I’d build a wall around all of Black River. A large, impenetrable wall.”
“Okay.” Mina frowned in confusion. It wasn’t what she had been expecting.
Light danced in Basheba’s eyes. “And then I’d lock the gate and set it all on fire. The town. The forest. Just sit back with a beer and watch it burn.”
“What is with you and fire?”
“I don’t know. I just think it’s neat.” Poking a stick into the concealed flames coaxed flickering embers to drift up and dance across the night sky. She watched it all with a dreamy smile. “I’d love to see how many of those fine townsfolk chose to burn with their crops. They’re more than willing to see us die for them. Bet they’ll have a different view on human sacrifice when they’re the ones on the altar, though.”
“Wait,” Mina cut in as her stomach rolled. “In your fantasy, you’d locked all those people in when you burn the town?”
Utter confusion scrunched up Basheba’s face. “Duh. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
Is she really this twisted, or is it just a show? A self-defense mechanism?
Either way, it
left a sour taste in Mina’s mouth. It was the contentment in Basheba’s eyes that scared her the most. The glassy, doll-like orbs finally had some life in them. Something that, until now, only Buck had managed to accomplish. But even as dread gathered inside her like a coming storm, she couldn’t fight off her exhaustion. It sunk down to her bone-marrow and pulled at her eyes. She would have probably fallen asleep where she sat if it wasn’t for her constant shivering. Hard, rattling shutters that left her breathless and were impossible to stop.
Mina wanted nothing more than to end the conversation. She knew now nothing good could come from long discussions with Basheba Bell. But each time she kept her silence, she felt panic sparking along the edge of her awareness. Without a distraction, she’d fall back into hysterics. Already, she could almost hear the bees again. If Basheba was her only option to keep control of her brain, she’d take it.
“Why do you hate them so much?” Mina asked.
“Really? They allowed the complete slaughter of my entire family because they were given apples, and you wonder why I don’t like them?”
She’s insane, Mina decided. A loud buzz passed behind her and she flinched, twisting around to study the woods.
“Did you hear that?”
“It’s the woods at night,” Basheba said, already working to construct a rack out of twigs. “There’s a lot to hear. Care to be a tad more specific?”
Mina pulled the thermal blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Bees.”
Basheba stilled and stared lifelessly in front of her. “Nope.”
The silence that followed worked on Mina’s nerves. She needed conversation.
“Not your entire family.”
Already arranging the makeshift clothesline over the fire pit, Basheba sighed dramatically. “I know I’m going to regret asking this, but what are you babbling about?”
“You said the town killed your entire family. That’s not true.”
“They killed all the ones who mattered,” Basheba dismissed.
“Why do you hate your uncle so much?”
Basheba jabbed the rack into place and began arranging the damp clothes to dry. As calm as her body was, her face was in constant motion. Shifting rapidly between a manic smile, a furious snarl, and a tearful sob. Eventually, her features settled into a smile completely devoid of any emotion.