The Calm Before The Swarm

IV

"Jesus," Cranston whispered.

Lauren echoed his sentiment. That was the most horrible thing she had ever seen. So many people in pain, so many dying in the worst possible manner.

Cranston looked at each of them in turn.

"I need to know what the hell those things were, how they got into that elephant, and why they attacked like that. I want to know where they went. I need to put a name to every single one of those bodies. And I need to know what in the name of God was in those stingers." He spun a slow circle. All eyes were on him. "What are you waiting for?"

The group spurred to life at once.

Lauren turned and headed back toward the tent. She was already making a mental checklist in her head. She needed tissue and blood samples from the elephant, a cross-section from several different corpses---

"Hey, doc!" Cranston called after her.

He jogged to catch up with her, took her by the elbow, and spoke softly so that only she could hear.

"I don't have to tell you that time is a critical factor here. With what's lined up in Atlanta, we need this resolved as quickly and quietly as possible." He paused. "I really don't like the timing of this."

Lauren nodded.

Cranston searched her eyes for a long moment, nodded back, and then turned away to rejoin the others.

She hurried into the tent and began the slow, arduous task of cutting tissue from various points along the elephant's digestive tract, from its tongue all the way through to its rectum. By the time she finished, she'd found four more intact wasp carcasses, minus their stingers, which she could only assume were embedded somewhere in the mucosal lining. She aspirated milky fluid from the boils on several of the human corpses, took samples of blood and cerebrospinal fluid, and collected more stingers and the striated skin around them. The medical examiner would perform a thorough examination of the remains to provide a conclusive mechanism of death. Right now, Lauren just needed to make sure there were no virulent microorganisms or otherwise contagious agents in the stingers. From there, she could move on to toxins and allergens, and determine if an immediate injection of antihistamines or steroids would counteract the life-threatening effects.

Her thoughts drifted back to the video recording. The wasps had chewed their way out of the animal's bowels as she had suspected, but there were several things she had noticed that didn't quite make sense. First, there was the high-pitched tone that had come from the speakers. It hadn't been feedback. The sound had been too regular, unwavering. It not only appeared to have surprised the audience, but the performers as well. And it was shortly thereafter that the wasps had emerged from the elephant's abdomen. Was it possible that the two were somehow related? Then there was the second occurrence after everyone was already dead, softer, as though attenuated by distance. That had been when all of the insects had flown away, hadn't it? And what about the mystery man? He had to be someone with a measure of authority within the carnival. The elephant handler had approached him as though he were in charge. And then in the middle of the chaos, while all of the performers had been converging in the center ring, he'd been moving in the opposite direction in a big hurry.

A mental image formed of the man, staring down at the dying pachyderm, his face blank, a stark contrast to the mortified expression on the woman's.

Lauren gathered her sample-filled case and exited the tent. She had just veered toward the path that would lead her back to her car when she heard someone shout from the eastern side of the grounds, past a series of smaller tents and a row of decrepit rides. A group of agents was already running in that direction. She followed out of curiosity, passing bumper cars and a toddler-size Ferris wheel and various concessions booths until she reached the edge of the forest. Voices carried through a maze of sycamores and cypresses bearded with moss. Moonlight glinted between the trunks from a large body of water. When she finally emerged from the wilderness, she found the agents fanned out along a stretch of muddy bank bordering a lake. She could barely see the wall of trees on the other side. Several men crouched at the water's edge, while others passed around binoculars.

Small waves shushed toward the low-water mark. In the spring, there would be standing water throughout the woods.

"Well," Cranston said. He separated from the others and walked over to her side. "That's one problem solved."

She raised her eyebrows and waited for him to elaborate.

He simply pointed at the sloppy ground. She hadn't noticed it at first. The waves carried small black wasp carcasses onto the shore, where they formed a ridge several inches deep, like the ring of scum around a bathtub.

All of them dead, all missing their stingers.

"Grab as many as you like, doc," Cranston said. He clapped her on the shoulder and rejoined his team.

Lauren fished a collection bag from her case and stuffed it full of soggy wasps. What could possibly have caused the entire swarm to drown itself?

She loaded the bag into her briefcase and stared out across the lake in the same direction as the agents with their field glasses. There was something out there, low on the water. A dark shape with a shallow profile. She strolled over to the man who held the binoculars.

"May I?" she asked.

The man passed them to her without a word. Lining up the lenses with her eyes through the plastic shield was a difficult proposition, but she finally succeeded and zeroed in on the black silhouette. Magnified, she could tell exactly what it was.

A small rowboat gently rose and fell on the waves in a shimmering reflection of moonlight. Its cargo consisted of two large rectangular shapes.

Massive black boxes.

Amplifiers.