Minutes to Burn

Chapter 65

What in the fuck are we gonna do?" Justin said as they stumbled into Frank's camp. "Jesus fucking fuck what the fuck are we-"

Cameron grabbed him hard around the head, her thumbs pressed firmly into his cheeks. She pulled his head down so his eyes were level with hers. "Calm, baby. Calm down. Look at me." Justin's swearing fell into mumbling. His head relaxed in her hands and his lips stopped moving.

Cameron leaned back against the aluminum specimen freezer, feeling its coldness through her shirt. Pressing her hand tightly to her forehead, she tried to ease the throbbing in her head. Every time she tried to focus, an arrow of searing pain shot up from the base of her neck, disrupting her thoughts. She tapped the freezer door behind her with her knuckles, her stomach roiling. The sight of Szabla was the worst thing she'd ever seen. Thrashing around like that, still alive-alive to the very end. She shook off a shudder.

"Jesus Christ," Justin said. "Did you see Szabla?" Panic hid under his voice, waiting to erupt.

Cameron nodded solemnly, the image of Szabla's partially gnawed head still in her mind. She stepped into one of Frank's tents and started digging through the abandoned supplies to see if there was anything of use. There wasn't.

"We gotta get our hands on the explosives again," she called from the tent. "In the meantime, we have specimen hooks from the freezer, we have the spikes, we have canvas, four flares left-shit, just three, Derek had one-we have rope."

Cameron emerged from the tent, holding a battered underwater flashlight. She paused, chewing her lip. Tank and Justin watched her intently.

"If we just had some kind of a projectile." She bolted forward, snapping her fingers. "The speargun from Diego's boat. Rex knocked it over board-it's down in the water still."

Justin nodded tentatively. "If the currents didn't take it."

"Can you find it? Do you think you could find it in the night?"

"It'd be easier in the morning," Justin said.

Cameron tore a solar cell from Tank's shoulder and snapped it into the underwater flashlight. "We might not have till morning."

She clicked the switch on the flashlight and tapped it near the lens with her palm. A dim light flickered once, then stayed on. She handed the flashlight to Justin.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

Cameron jerked her head toward the vesicle. "Back for Savage."

"All right. I'll establish contact via transmitter as soon as I hit shore." He turned to go, but she caught him by the shoulder and spun him around. "What?" he asked gently.

"I don't…I don't know." She felt pressure along the bridge of her nose, tears pushing to get out, though she didn't know why. "Don't fuck up and let anything happen to you," she said.

His face softly lit in the moonlight, he reached out and moved her necklace clasp to the back. Beneath the line of her straight blond hair, her neck was bruised with dark purple blotches where Tank had grabbed her.

Justin turned and disappeared in the darkness.

Justin moved with excruciating slowness down to the coast, making his way through the clusters of transition zone trees until he passed the watchtower, then inching down the trail through the arid zone, past palo santo trees and cacti. Finally, he reached the cliffs above Punta Berlanga, careful not to startle any birds from the masked booby nesting grounds. He hiked down the thin trail cut into the hard walls.

Casting nervous glances up the beach, he made his way to the water and stripped to his boxers, laying his clothes in a neat pile. The breeze raised goose bumps on his arms.

The flashlight was tied to a thin braided rope that he looped over his shoulder. Though the rope was strong, he still gripped the flashlight by the handle.

He turned and faced the smooth dark bay. The water came up around him in a rush as he dipped beneath the surface. He dolphin-kicked underwater, heading toward the unbroken arc of the horizon.

When Cameron finished searching the biostation tent, she noticed Tank squatting, an elbow light on and swinging between his legs. She reached over immediately and turned it off. "No light," she said.

Tank nodded. He was holding his right arm tenderly, resting the elbow in the cup of his left hand.

"Lemme see," she said, crouching beside him. He shook his head. "C'mon, hero, you fucked it up rescuing me, the least I can do is take a look." She reached for his arm, but he pulled it away, so she slapped him lightly across the face. "Behave!"

She cuffed up his sleeve and saw that the flesh of his arm was swollen almost to the point of bursting. It was a deep bluish-black, bulging along the back of his forearm just beneath the elbow.

Tank read her face immediately.

"I think you've got a compound, kiddo," she said, trying not to sound concerned.

"Nope," he said. "Woulda felt it snap."

"Just swollen, then?" she asked. "Or a hairline?" He nodded. "Want to splint it?"

Tank shook his head. Suddenly, he leapt to his feet, pushing Cameron behind him. She whirled around but there was nothing there. Down the road, the watchtower howled.

"Sorry," Tank said.

"That's okay. Let's check on Savage. Then we should get ahold of the explosives and figure out somewhere to hole up for the night. The forest has the most cover, but the mantid's also got the advantage there." Cameron thought about how she had rested her arm right across the creature's back without noticing her. "The forest is definitely her habitat. Hopefully, she went back there with her kill." She ran her tongue along the inside of her cheek, pushing it out. "Ready?"

Tank nodded. "I'll take point," she said. She headed for the road, taking five paces before Tank followed, sliding to her right.

They eased slowly through the lines of balsas into the eastern field.

The remaining torch near the hole came into view, the last flickering spot of light in the darkness. At one point, it disappeared for a moment, as if some large body had passed before it, but Cameron couldn't be sure.

They crossed the field at a laborious pace. Cameron tried to feel the ground before every step, knowing that the slightest noise, even the overturning of a small rock, could be sensed by the mantid's antennae were she anywhere near. Tank was so quiet behind her she could barely hear him. Cameron sidestepped two giant tortoises that had bedded down for the night, twinning shadows rising before her.

She had been on more missions than she could count on both hands: missions where death surely awaited several members of her platoon. And she had gone into them unshaking, unflappable. But enemy soldiers killed cleanly and swiftly. A blade across the throat, a bullet through the back of the neck, even a frag grenade in the gut and you died on the spot. If there was any, the pain was typical. If it was excruciating, at least she'd known to expect it.

What waited for them now, up ahead or in the forest, between torch-lit tents or trunks of trees, was unlike anything she'd ever thought she'd have to contend with. A clawing, biting, grasping death, an awareness even as something began to feed on your skull.

She thought about Szabla twisted in the arms of the creature-her mouth open in a scream, her eyes rolling, her arms dangling from her hunched shoulders like those of a mannequin.

The three remaining tents quivered in the wind. The dark curve in the ground where they had built the fire looked like a crater. When Tank passed the log near the fire ashes, he picked up the spike that was leaning against it. She was glad to see him with a weapon back in his hands. With cautious steps, Cameron circled the base camp once. No sign of the mantid. With two fingers, she signaled to Tank that she was moving for-ward. They eased along the grass toward the vesicle on their toes, the heels of their boots never touching the ground.

The torch waned, flickering dimly across the yawning mouth of the hole. A few broken branches protruded, flared like the feathers of a pea-cock. The torchlight played sharply off the woven mat of leaves and fronds that had covered the hole, outlining the waving foliage on the field. The shadows bounced and dipped on the grass like puppets.

Leaning forward, Cameron inched to the edge. She peeked over, pulling back quickly in case the mantid was waiting there. Among the broken branches and fronds, Savage lay, his arms and legs bent at unnat-ural angles, one hand still tightly gripping his knife. The whites of his eyes flashed as he blinked. She knew right away that he was paralyzed. He did not cry out.

There was a mound of fresh rock at the base of the northern wall. Cameron signaled Tank to stand guard and used the knotted rope to climb down. Tank stayed close to the edge, his head and shoulders visi-ble from the bottom of the hole.

The ground was moist on the far side. In the corner, there appeared to be a pile of clothing, but Cameron couldn't quite make it out in the darkness. When she realized that it was a heap of Szabla's bowels, she almost retched, her stomach rising until she felt a pushing at the back of her throat.

Savage's eyes followed her as she approached him.

"Hey there, soldier," she said.

He smiled but it turned into a grimace. Cords stood out along his neck as he tried desperately to move his limbs. Cameron watched him and felt her breathing intensify.

Savage relaxed, then cracked a smile. "Ain't life a bitch?" he said.

Cameron started to talk, but her throat was gummed up with mucus, so she cleared it and tried again. "You're gonna be okay. We're gonna get you out of here."

The red blocks of TNT peeked out from beneath his stiffened leg. He shook his head, nearly imperceptibly. "No, you're not. You're not gonna do that to me."

"I can-"

He laughed quietly, but it ended like a sob. "I done a lot of shit," he said.

Cameron crouched, then stood again.

"I done a lot of shit, but I never left a man down." His eyes mois-tened. "I never left a goddamn man down."

Cameron had to wait a moment before speaking. "I was responsible for Tank and Justin. I had to make a choice."

"Well, now you have to see that choice through." His eyes were nei-ther angry nor accusatory; they were pitiless.

She glanced up the steep wall of the hole. "We can make a stretcher, maybe haul you up with rope." Her voice sounded hollow, even to her.

Savage's snicker tangled in his throat. "Yeah. Good thinking. Sit around and nursemaid me so we all die."

They faced each other, breathing together, though even this was a struggle.

"I was knocked out, so I didn't see where the bitch went," Savage said. He tried to turn his head to the mound of rock the mantid had left when she'd scrambled out, but he couldn't. "I'd bet back up to the forest." Cameron nodded. "You're gonna kill her," he said. It was not a question.

"Yes," she said. "I know."

He faced her, unflinching. "Take my knife."

She shook her head. "I can't."

"My knife." He gazed at the knife still clutched in his useless hand. "Take my knife."

She felt her face trembling.

"You're not gonna leave me down again," he said. A drop of sweat rolled from his temple and lost itself in his beard. Another clung to his ear, stubbornly refusing to fall. "Come on. Let's get this done." He licked his lips. "Take my knife."

Cameron felt her eyes moistening. "I can't. I don't…I can't." She looked back to Tank, as if in appeal, but he held his ground, his eyes scanning the dark outskirts of the field.

Savage's forehead wrinkled with his scowl. "No, goddamnit," he said, the veins on his neck standing out. "Don't look to him. You. You need to do this."

Her face felt hot. She raised a hand and brushed a wisp of hair from her eyes.

"Take my knife."

"I can't."

"Cameron. Take my knife."

She stared at him for a long time, until she felt something inside her die down. As she leaned over Savage, she pressed her lips together to keep them from shaking. He held the knife in a death grip; it took all her strength to pry it from his hand. She stood and faced him. Without his knife, he seemed naked. He lay there, sprawled and broken.

He looked up at the dark figure towering over him. "You sure you want this?" it asked.

He strained with all his might to nod his head. The figure stood there, tall and unmoving. "What the fuck," he rasped. "You gonna take all night?"

The figure bent, crouching over him. He refused to close his eyes.

Tank took a few steps away from the edge of the hole and waited patiently, keeping his eyes on the forest. After a few minutes, Cameron emerged holding the blocks of TNT, Savage's knife sheathed and stuck in the back of her pants.

"All right," she said, moving slowly next to Tank. Her voice was husky, her hands stained to the wrists with fresh blood. "Let's hit base, grab the flares and some more of the explosives."

Her stride was different as she led across the field toward base camp-more purposeful. She set the blocks of TNT on the ground by the fire pit and headed for Diego's old tent, where they'd left the rest of the explosives. The flap was unzipped, and she whispered loudly back over her shoulder as she ducked through. "We should grab a change of clothes so we can burn our-"

Her voice stopped so sharply it sounded as if she'd been swallowed. Crouched awkwardly, bent at the legs, the mantid filled nearly the entire space of the tent, her enormous abdomen curled to fit inside. She stood over the cruise box in which they'd kept the larva. Probably drawn by the scent.

The breadth of her body almost touched the opposing walls of the tent. Both of the sleeping pads had been pushed aside to allow her ample room. She'd stretched the wide entrance flap of the GP tent to pull herself inside.

Cameron's upper body leaned through the opening of the tent, her legs and waist still outside. She didn't dare to exhale. The mantid had not yet noticed her; the amplified sound of the wind against the canvas walls had evidently drowned out the vibrations of her and Tank's approach.

The mantid's head was at the far side of the tent. Cameron was no less than two feet from the back of the creature's abdomen; she could have reached out and stroked the shiny cuticle had she wished.

She bit her lip to keep the panic from spilling through her, curling her shoulders into a hunch as she eased back out of the tent. Any sound could attract the creature-the rubbing of her shirt against the zipper around the flap, the slightest click of her teeth.

It was a miracle that the mantid hadn't sensed her coming through the flap. Cameron stepped back, keeping her torso bent, hoping to extract her shoulders and head with the movement of her legs alone. She was aware of every noise she made-her shirt folding against itself as she doubled at the waist, the beating of her heart, her tongue scraping along the roof of her mouth. In a heart-stopping moment, the heel of her boot ground against a rock, but the mantid didn't sense the vibration.

The mouth of the tent passed her ribs, then her shoulders. It was just around her neck when she felt something behind her. She gasped with fright.

The mantid's head turned nearly 180 degrees on her neck, swiveling like a periscope. Her mouth opened as if in a scream, but there was only a horrid silence. Cameron shoved back hard into the thing behind her, knocking it over. She turned, fist raised, to see Tank lying on his ass.

"Get up!" she screamed. "She's in there!"

The GP tent reared up off the ground behind them. One of the strainers flew at Cameron's head, trailing a sharp stake, and she ducked it just in time.

The tent rattled and screeched, then split down the sides as two long deadly legs burst through it. The sharp spikes sliced through the canvas like razor blades, and the mantid's head emerged from one of the holes. She struggled to free herself from the tent, swinging her legs wildly at Cameron and Tank.

"Back to Frank's camp!" Cameron screamed. She grabbed Tank, hauling him to his feet. One of her hands closed on his wounded arm and he cried out in pain.

Wriggling her body as if she were molting, the mantid freed her tho-rax from the tent. She lunged forward and swung at Tank, the hook on the end of her leg slicing through the back of his shirt. His grunt sounded like a bark. The slit immediately began gushing blood, but Tank didn't stop moving.

The mantid leapt after them, but the tent had fallen around the base of her abdomen, tangling her legs. She fell to the ground, air rushing through her spiracles with a screech, her front legs bearing her weight.

Tank glanced back over his shoulder. The creature's raptorial legs were pushed into the grass, unable to strike. He ran toward her, raising the spike behind his head in his left hand, winding up for the swing with his entire body.

He yelled something Cameron couldn't make out, braced with his right leg, and threw his entire weight into the swing, aiming for the man-tid's eye.

At the last moment, the mantid ducked and his blow glanced off the top of her head. The force was great enough to snap her head to the other side, but her strong cuticle didn't even crack. The spike fell from Tank's hand to the ground. The mantid kicked free of the tent and rose, but Tank was gone before she had regained her raptorial legs.

Cameron reached Frank's camp before Tank, almost losing her footing as she ran between the tents. Tank appeared a moment later. They could hear the soft swishing of the mantid's approach as she crossed the road and headed onto the western field.

"Where are we gonna go!?" Cameron gasped, a line of drool spinning down her chin. "Where the fuck are we gonna go?"

She looked around frantically. The forest, two canvas tents, the dark open expanse of the field. There was nowhere safe to take cover. The rumbling in the darkness was getting closer. She could have sworn she smelled the creature approaching. She spun around, looking for some-where to hide, then fell to her knees. "Fuck!" she screamed.

Her hand closed on a cyanide jar and she hurled it into the darkness. It shattered against something with a metallic ring. She rose, her eyes wide with realization. Tank hesitated, but she pulled him forward.

They had no choice.