Fragment

6:22 P.M.

Ten feet inside the shadowy crack stood a skinny figure in a bright tie-dyed T-shirt. He had a black eye and his broken glasses had been crudely repaired. His blond mop of hair was dirty and tangled. “Get away! STAY BACK!” he yelled.

Stunned, Nell gaped at him with disbelief. “Oh my God!”

Zero laughed. “Hey, how the hell-”

“STAY BACK! THEY’RE COMING!” At Andy Beasley’s heel, Copepod hunkered down and growled. Andy pointed at the edge.

Zero pivoted immediately, pumping the water-rifle; but the nozzle was clogged with salt crystals. It put out a pitiful squirt.

The jungle noise roared like a hurricane as a horde of creatures poured onto the rocky, sunlit ledge from below. The flood of predators swept toward the small cave, a tsunami of leaping, flying, running, buzzing, spinning shapes and colors.

Nell, Geoffrey, and Zero ran toward Andy and squeezed into the uncertain sanctuary of the slashing fissure.

Zero turned and dropped to one knee. He banged the water-rifle’s nozzle against the rock, jarring loose the salt clumps, and pumped the trigger. Finally getting a spray, he swept it high and low through the entrance at the advancing swarm.

The wall of wasps retreated in a wave of warning pheromones, but one wasp slipped through into the cave.

It buzzed above them, bouncing off the walls, and then dropped down before Copepod. The dog grabbed it with a snapping growl, chewed it in his powerful jaws, then spit it out, barking vigorously at the remains.

Watching from the Hummer, Dr. Cato gripped the dashboard, trying to peer into the gloom of the cave on the far curve of the ledge. “They’re trapped!” he shouted.

“I knew this would happen,” Cane yelled furiously.

Thatcher watched in fascination over Cato’s shoulder.

Geoffrey and Nell sprayed their rifles over the crouching Zero’s head at the cave entrance, and a sunlit mist of water fell in the opening between them and the swarm.

Outside the spray curtain, a mass of voracious creatures continued to fly and leap over the cliff, gathering in front of the cave. The mass swirled in dizzying, constant motion, the flying bugs whirling in figure-eights and circles as they advanced and retreated. Any creature that paused too long among them was descended upon and torn to pieces. With each blast from the soakers, the swarm retreated and then re-surged.

“OK,” Geoffrey said. “I’m ready to concede there are no benign species on this island, so let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Nell merely gasped, which didn’t reassure Geoffrey.

As if coalescing from the light and mist and the jungle behind it, a spidery shape suddenly appeared, hanging in the cave entrance before them. Its thick silvery fur seemed to reflect the colors of the sky and jungle. What seemed to be a face became visible at the bottom of its body, a wide mouth slowly opening above two large oval eyes, staring at face-level at the four humans. Its cello-shaped body dangled by one slender tendril as it unfolded six long limbs to either side of the cave, trapping them inside it.

From inside the Hummer, Cane and Thatcher saw the animal suddenly shimmer into existence, hanging on the cliff face between the advancing swarm of creatures and the cave’s opening.

The sergeant cursed and reached for his rifle. “I told them not to go!”

“Wait!” Thatcher peered through the windshield at the strange animal, which seemed to fade in and out of the shadows.

“Oh my God, Nell…” Cato muttered.

“It’s a trap!” Zero hissed, crouching inside the fissure. “Andy was the bait!”

Nell fought off the fear that threatened to paralyze her as she stared at the grinning face of the creature in the cave entrance. She grabbed the Beretta and raised it.

The monster’s head emitted a loud, warbling voice: “It’s VEEE-EEE-DAAAAAAY!”

Nell, Geoffrey, and Zero were dumbstruck, uncertain if their captor had spoken or simply made sounds that resembled words.

Zero remembered the animal he had heard echoing his own voice in the jungle. He turned to Nell. “Shoot it!”

Inside the Hummer, Thatcher’s fascination turned to alarm at the piercing voice.

“Oh no, no, no…” Dr. Cato murmured.

Cane’s mouth gaped open in surprise, his grip tightening on his rifle.

The door opened and Cane and Thatcher saw the old scientist jump out of the Hummer.

“Fuck!” said the soldier.

Dr. Cato slammed the door shut and vaulted over the log.

Thatcher watched with amazement as the scientist ran around the bend of the cliff, shouting “Hey! Hey! Hey!” and waving his thin arms.

“What the hell does the old fart think he’s doing?” Cane yelled.

Nell ignored Dr. Cato’s shouts. She kept her eyes locked on the eyes of the spider-like animal that now imprisoned them in the fissure.

A second wave of beasts leaped shrieking onto the ledge from the jungle below, including two spigers the size of African lions.

Dr. Cato suddenly appeared, shouting near the edge of the cliff.

One of the spigers swung toward the scientist.

“Come on! HEY!” Cato shouted, and in a micro-second the nearest spiger stabbed a two-meter spike straight through his polo shirt and out his back.

“Noooo!” Nell screamed.

A surge of creatures swarmed the old man’s body, temporarily distracted from the humans in the cave.

Nell’s scream drew them back.

Like a wall of eyes, teeth, and claws, the stampede, led by the spigers, one of which was still swallowing Dr. Cato’s right leg, rushed the humans in the cave.

Nell pointed Cane’s Beretta with shaking hands at the dangling creature that had trapped them. Closing her eyes, she squeezed the trigger.

“No!” Andy screamed, shoving her hand, but it was too late.

The gun fired as the creature spun on its tail in a blinding motion toward the oncoming rush of animals. With six arms, it flung six dark disks through the air.

The curving disks thudded one after another into the two leaping spigers, which dropped instantly, their hindbrains severed. The dying spigers shrieked like erratic police sirens and convulsed, gouging their spiked forearms into the ground as they struggled to drag themselves forward toward their spiderlike attacker.

The entire mass of rats, badgers, wasps, and drill-worms swerved back from the cave to tear greedily into the writhing spigers.

The hanging creature dropped to the ground. It rolled from its four spidery arms onto its two multi-jointed legs as its tail coiled into a cavity under its belly. Standing nearly seven feet tall, it flung four more disks: four smaller animals went down.

Then the creature crouched, standing only five feet high as its “knees” bent like muscular grasshopper legs to either side. Walking forward on second calves that extended where a human’s ankles would have been, its “legs” ended in flat, furry hand-feet. White fur shimmered with rainbow colors over the entire creature, which Nell thought now resembled a crablike kangaroo crossed with a praying mantis.

Copepod ran to the creature’s side.

Nell darted forward to protect the dog.

But then she stopped as the dog wagged its tail.

The creature patted Copey with two left hands, swiveling its eyestalks to observe the humans in the cave. With a cupped hand, it gestured at them, then it trotted toward the Hummer on its two springing legs. Copepod stuck right by its side.

“He wants us to follow.” Andy ran forward, then turned to look back at the others. “You need to come with him if you want to live.”

Zero looked at the others, his mouth open. Then he ran, following Andy’s lead.

Geoffrey hesitated only a second, then followed, pulling along Nell, who seemed to be in a state of shock.

Andy nodded toward the ravenous pile of creatures squirming by the cave entrance as he ran toward the waiting Humvee. “They’ll be finished feeding soon. Then they’ll multiply. You don’t want to be around the babies, believe me.” He glanced back at Nell and Geoffrey. “Move it!” he urged.

They glanced over their shoulders at the snarling riot as disk-ants began rolling in white lines over the ledge into the explosion of red and blue gore.

Sergeant Cane froze as the bewildering creature climbed nimbly over the fallen tree, the dog leaping and scrabbling at its heel. It pushed itself up with two hands on the hood of the Hummer and looked through the windshield right at Cane and Thatcher. As he lifted the radio mike, Cane could swear the damn thing smiled at him.