Minutes to Burn

Chapter 68

31 Dec 07

MISSION DAY 7

Cameron's trembling subsided as suddenly as it had started, though she was still breathing so hard and fast that she thought she might hyperventilate. She stared at the small black squiggles of the graffiti lichen on the bark before her, tracing them with her eyes and waiting for her breathing to slow. Though it was still quite dark in the forest, the sky was just beginning to draw light from the still-unseen sun.

Life was so far from her here in the forest, as far as it had ever been. She couldn't remember ever driving a car, cooking dinner, getting dressed. A line of ants crawled across her thigh and she let them.

Grief came not as a sharp stab but an ache. It spread itself inside her like a deadly flower. Her eyes glazed over; her tongue went numb against her teeth.

She pressed her face to the tree and wept. She gave herself time to cry, relearning as she went. It was an indulgence of sorts, a dark under-current that carried her soothingly even as it drowned her. Her pain was bottomless and calm, and chilling for its purity. She cried softly until her throat went hoarse, cried until it seemed as though the burn in her eyes would never subside.

She had been widowed here, in this tree; everything had changed since she'd shinnied up the trunk. Part of her didn't want to go back down. The loss and defeat weren't entirely real as long as she stayed up in the tree, as long as she didn't have to walk, or speak, or eat.

Death had always been the third member of their marriage, with the work they did, but she'd never thought it would come down like this. It wasn't as if she hadn't prepared herself mentally-she'd never let herself think about rocking chairs and grandchildren, she didn't look older cou-ples in the eye, and it seemed she'd gone through what life would be like without Justin or for Justin without her a thousand times-but still it felt like a blind side punch.

And his cries, Jesus, his cries. They still rang in her ears.

Maybe she could stay up here until she died. Maybe she'd waste away, her skin rotting from her bones until she was just a skeleton perched on a branch, arms wrapped around the trunk. Her resolve to live drained away with her tears; she felt weak, deflated. It was an effort just to wipe her cheek-she couldn't even comprehend continuing the battle against the thing that waited for her in the forest.

Her head throbbed from the base of her skull through her forehead. The dark purple bruises around her neck stood out, dead flowers against her pale skin.

The creature was out there still, Cameron knew.

And there was still another larva unaccounted for. For all she knew, it had already slid into the cool sea and made its way to open waters, its body brimming with virus. If it was on the island, it would be metamorphosing soon.

Cameron imagined being trapped on the island with two creatures. If only she could survive another sixteen hours, she could escape in the helo. But there was no way she'd make it from nightfall to her 2200 extraction, not alone. She imagined the death that almost surely awaited her.

She thought of her father-in-law's gentle hands and white hair, a Christmas table fully set, the slope of Justin's shoulders, the smell of him right before she kissed him, the grocery store, cold fall mornings, the blue sheets on their bed back home, and the reddish glow of their alarm clock. She thought of these things and began to sob.

The agony compounded wherever she tried to turn her mind- Tank's swollen arm laced through the braces, Derek's wobbling voice through the transmitter, Szabla's body shaking as if she were having a seizure, Juan, Savage, Tucker.

There were no tears left. She opened her mouth, expecting something to come out, but nothing did. Snot ran down her upper lip and she tasted its saltiness before wiping her nose with her forearm. Her shoulders curved forward as she slumped into the trunk, spent. She wasn't sure how long she sat with her face pressed to the tree, but when she leaned back, her cheeks felt raw.

Her voice was throaty and uneven, and the operator at Fort Detrick barely understood to patch her through to Samantha Everett's room.

"Yes, Samantha here. Everything all right? Cameron? Cameron?"

Just hearing a familiar voice reduced her to tears again. "Samantha."

"Yes. Are you all right? Cameron, talk to me. Tell me what's going on."

Cameron tilted back her head to prevent more tears from spilling. "It's down to me," she said. "It's just me. And it."

"Everyone's gone? Even your…Even Justin?"

"Yes," Cameron said. Samantha could do nothing to help, and they both knew it, but Cameron didn't want to let her go, because then she'd be alone floating up in a tree in the middle of a forest on this godfor-saken island. Now, she at least had a connection to the world, to another life, to another person she could hear breathing in the darkness. She pressed her forehead again to the rough bark and let it scrape against her cheek. "Are you married?" she asked.

"No. But I have kids."

Cameron was winded, as if after a long run. "You hold on to them. You hold on to everything you can as tight as you can because there's a time… " Her lower lip wavered a few times before she caught it. "Because there's a time you can't anymore."

"I will," Samantha said. "I will."

More silence. Something chirped.

"There's nothing I can say or do that will be useful, and I'm not gonna fake it," Samantha said.

Thank you, Cameron thought. Thank you for knowing and admitting.

"And things are going to get worse, probably, before we can get you out of there," Samantha continued. "But you make me one promise.

When you hit bottom, you keep going. You find that small part of your-self that's unbreakable and grip it until your fingers bleed. It may not seem worth it to keep fighting, not now, but it is and someday-in a month, in a year, in five years-you'll know that again." She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was filled with intensity. "Don't you give up. Don't you roll over on me."

"Don't worry," Cameron said, her voice edged with a rasp. "I don't know how." Her eyes stayed shut when she blinked, and she let them.

Cameron was in another state of consciousness, though it was not sleep. A swarm of gnats circled her head, and she grew drunk on their whirring. She was trying to fight her way back to alertness, but it was like swimming through mud. Her eyelids felt leaden.

The morning light was finally filtering through the leaves. She had not gotten any true sleep. Her face was swollen, her lips parched and sore. Her contacts felt as if they were glued to her eyeballs; she was amazed she hadn't lost them.

Sorrow struck her from all sides, like a talon closing. She braced her-self against it, closing doors in her mind, containing the damage. She could count her breaths, that much she could do. If she counted her breaths, she'd know she was still alive. Pushing away from the trunk and holding it between her hands, she began to regulate her breathing, focusing on her knuckles. She lost count around 190, so she began again, lis-tening to the breaths rattling through her chest, wiping her mind as clear as a pane of glass.

She fought against the weariness, her lips still moving even as she started taking longer and longer blinks. Her head bowed, then snapped back up. She had been trying not to rest it against the trunk, but finally, she gave in. Her eyelids shut, her forehead pressed to the tree, and sleep washed over her like a salve. If she wasn't aching so much, it would have felt divine.

The rhythm of her counting continued, though the numbers were no longer there. Instead of numbers, there were knocks, even and firm, like a blacksmith's hammer. The knocking pulled her up through the layers of sleep, through grief and fear and hunger, and then she felt the tree bark against her cheek.

She opened her eyes.

The knocking continued, continued from below.

Cameron glanced down and saw the mantid halfway up the tree, pushing the hooks of her front legs into the bark, pulling herself up using her claws. Cameron's mouth opened to yell, but her vocal cords were raw, so her scream came out as a rush of air.

She popped up to a crouch on the branch, glancing around. The trees nearby were much shorter, the closest branches a good twenty feet out and below. She had only about five more steps out before the branch would give under her weight. Even with her strength, she could never make that jump.

The mantid pulled herself toward Cameron, each knock of her hooks against the bark followed by the drag of her body up the trunk. Cameron could hear her breathing, feel the air from her spiracles. About ten inches of the spear protruded from the mantid's cuticle, just above the broken eye-Justin had gotten off the shot. The eye was out, shat-tered through the middle in a run of ooze, and Cameron looked franti-cally for anything to plunge into the other. The twigs were all too small.

There were no bushes on the ground to break her fall, and the thirty-foot drop would certainly leave her wounded. About fifteen feet to her right was another quinine with a long, thin trunk. It had been snapped in an earthquake, so it was missing its conspicuous crown. She might make it in a fully-extended dive, but if she misjudged her leap, she could be impaled by the sharp, broken trunk. She looked around at the other trees, but they all seemed much farther away.

When she edged farther out on the branch, it started to bend under her weight, so she shuffled back toward the trunk, her heart rising in her chest as the mantid's head pulled into view. A long leg shot out and hooked onto the branch.

With a cry, Cameron scurried forward and kicked the mantid's leg away, jabbing with her heel. She wobbled like a performer on a high wire, sensing the curve of the branch beneath her arches. The mantid reeled as the hook came loose, but swung right back into place. Cameron knew she would be up and on her in seconds.

She had to move or she was going to topple over, and she couldn't step to the trunk for support because she'd be within the creature's grasp. The mantid wrapped one leg around the branch, the other around the trunk, and began to pull herself up. Her back legs found their footing.

Cameron inched away from the mantid, her boots scraping off bits of bark, sending them spiraling to the ground. She stared at the nearest Scalesia branch. At least twenty feet away. There was no chance.

Behind her, she heard the mantid slide up onto the branch, mere feet away from her. The branch dipped under the weight. Cameron almost fell but regained her balance by doubling over at the waist and waving her arms.

A raptorial leg snapped shut less than an inch from her skull as she pulled herself upright. Having been meticulously cleaned, the spikes were perfectly smooth, the chunks of flesh removed. Cameron saw a tuft of her blond hair dangling between two of the spikes.

She glanced at the narrowing branch, the step and a half she had left, and the drop beyond. The broken quinine was her only realistic option. She'd have to jump far enough to make the trunk, and pray she hit it safely below the jagged end. Whether she could hold on or not was another question, but she didn't have time to debate it.

The mantid was wrapped around the branch and trunk like an odd growth. Having stabilized herself, she was readying her raptorial legs for another strike. They jackknifed in, folding to her chest.

The massive eye stared through Cameron, the antennae on end. The creature's mouth was a fearful hole; the mandibles glistened with digestive fluid, and the labrum looked soft and spongy, though Cameron knew it was not.

The mantid tilted her head to the right. There was no more time. Bending deep at the knee until her ass brushed her heels, Cameron uncoiled like a spring, flying from the branch in a horizontal dive. Though she couldn't see the legs snap shut behind her, she heard them.

Her shoulders led her body as she began to descend, and her stomach left her in a rush. The air whistled in her ears; the ground blurred beneath her; her eyes watered. The trunk approached.

For a moment, she was sure her momentum wouldn't carry her, that she'd fall short and wind up a tangle of bones and limbs at the base of the tree, but she kept moving forward even as she plummeted down.

The trunk struck her shoulder with the force of a major-league swing. She hit it in a flying tackle, clenching it in the circle of her arms as she jarred to a halt, feeling the transmitter in her shoulder go to pieces beneath her flesh. The bark scraped along her cheek, drawing blood. Her torso and legs swung down into the tree beneath her, her breasts and crotch smashing into the trunk. Pain seared through her, her mus-cles contracting all at once.

Losing her grip, she slid down the trunk, clawing and digging at it with her ankles and hands. Twigs broke off beneath her as she fell, and she squeezed with her arms, trying to pull her chest tight to the bark even though it was flying past like a belt sander.

A knot protruding through the bark miraculously flew between her legs, but it nicked her chin, knocking her torso away from the trunk. The brilliant green of the canopy zoomed overhead and she spread her legs, then clenched them around the trunk, flexing so hard through her thighs and calves she thought her muscles would snap like pieces of twine. Her heels dug like spikes into the trunk, stripping away sections of bark.

Her arms were extended back over her head, bouncing with her torso as she ground to a halt. Though her thick cammy pants provided some protection, the burning through the insides of her legs was excruciating. She winced as she pulled herself upright, flexing through her stomach to bring her chest to the trunk.

She was fifteen feet above the ground.

Immediately, she tried to locate the creature on the branch but could not. Then she saw the bulge of the abdomen behind the trunk, the legs wrapped around the bark. The mantid was moving down already, down to the ground.

In something of a halting fall, Cameron slid down the remaining fif-teen feet of the trunk, squeezing occasionally with her arms and legs to slow herself, trying to ignore the pain. Her teeth knocked together when she hit the ground and she sprawled flat on her back for an instant before rolling onto all fours.

The mantid sprang from the other tree, dropping to the ground. Her wings fluttered for a moment but did not spread wide.

Cameron found her feet before the mantid drew herself up, and she turned and sprinted into the foliage, praying she could remember the correct direction. Her arms were a blur of motion as she knocked vines and fronds out of her way. Kicking through bushes and leaping over fallen trees and boulders, Cameron moved as quickly as she ever had.

She didn't know how she was running so fast, especially after the slide down the tree, but her body was feeding off adrenaline, hurtling forward through the forest on autopilot. She should have been weak and tired- she couldn't even remember the last time she'd eaten-but she felt a sec-ond wind sweeping through her.

Not far behind, the mantid crashed through the undergrowth. Cameron rolled under a fallen tree with one end propped on a boulder and counted the seconds until she heard the mantid smash through it. Six. There were six seconds between her and the jaws.

The rumbling neared, a semi truck bearing down. Praying she'd see the low grass of the fields, Cameron pushed through bush after bush, slid between tree trunks, leapt across creeks, but there was only forest and more forest.

Just when she was convinced that she'd been running the wrong way, the ground went out from under her and she was enveloped in black-ness. She slid down a slope and found herself lying flat on her back about ten feet beneath the earth's surface, staring up at the small circle of sky above.

She turned her head and pain shot down her neck. The realization dawned slowly on her; she'd fallen into the lava tunnel. She searched overhead for the remains of the ootheca they'd found earlier, but it was nowhere to be seen. A few roots had made their way through the entrance along the roof; they curled against the rock like enormous mag-gots-crawling things fat with life.

The lava tube was smaller than she'd remembered; it was only about two and a half meters high, and two wide. She realized she must be on the other end-the northern end closer to the heart of the forest.

The tube curved back out of sight, running horizontal to the ground, the top of the tunnel a few feet beneath the surface. Calcium carbonate textured the walls like coral, and stalactites hung from the ceiling like lone fangs. Iron had oxidized on the lava in yellow-reddish patches. Long and slender, the lava tube looked like a corroding subway tunnel, or the intestines of some immense beast.

A shadow fell across Cameron's face, and she looked up at the man-tid's head, a dark silhouette framed perfectly in the lava tube's entrance. She rolled to all fours, pain screaming through her, and limped a few steps down the corridor. The mantid tried to navigate the drop through the narrow entrance but could not. She backed away, seemingly frus trated.

She would just have to wait.

Cameron's bloody knee was visible through the leg of her ripped cammies. A deep sob shook her as she realized that, if it had survived on her clothing, the virus could have leaked through the cut into her blood-stream. Her mouth loose and wavering, she looked up at the mantid's head waiting within the small patch of light.

She remembered Diego saying that the lava tube was about 350 meters; she'd just have to walk its length and emerge through the south-ern opening, closer to base camp.

The flesh over her broken transmitter was bruised, raised in a few hard edges from the metal pieces. She whispered a test command into it, but she knew it was dead even before she was greeted by silence. She couldn't remain in hiding here in the lava tube; she'd have no way to con-tact the helo when it arrived. She had to make it back to base camp and the dirt road, and set the infrared strobe to guide the helo in.

She turned and limped a few steps farther down the tube; when she glanced behind her, the creature was gone. What appeared to be bur-rows potholed the ground, worn into the rock from the unremitting drip of water from overhead. Her shoulder brushed a fragile stalactite, sending it crashing to the ground.

She walked a few more steps, surrounded by the echo of her breathing and dripping water. A trickle of dirt landed on her shoulder. She thought at first that it was an earthquake coming on, and she was sure she'd be buried here, beneath the earth's surface, but the trickling dirt stopped. She took another step and felt a tiny vibration, then another trickle of dirt fell from the roof, clouding into dust around her head.

The mantid was shadowing her overhead, sensing Cameron's move-ments with her delicate antennae, even through the earth.

Cameron stepped and paused, and sure enough, a moment later, another thin stream of dirt dropped from the ceiling. She leaned against a wall, the lava moist and claylike against her back. Sobs rose in her chest, but she choked them down. She dropped to all fours, wincing as her ten-der knee struck lava, and crawled forward as quietly as she could. She froze, waiting to sense the small vibration overhead.

There was none.

She continued at that tedious pace for what seemed days, crawling slowly forward and pausing, listening for the vibration of footsteps overhead.

It was pitch black now that she was a good distance from the north-ern entrance; for all she knew, the lava tube would drop off at any point into a bottomless cavern. The humidity made it difficult to breathe, but she fought to control herself, inching forward, regulating her inhalations and exhalations.

Finally, she rounded a corner and saw a dot of light ahead. Another endless stretch of time as she pulled herself, slowly crawling, to the northern opening. She saw the ootheca overhead, the shriveled cords still dangling from it like wood shavings. When she stood, her legs immediately cramped and she took a few silent moments to get the blood running back through them.

She peered cautiously around the entrance of the lava tube, but there were no signs of danger. Tentatively, she stepped through the partial curtain of ferns into the forest. There was nothing waiting for her.

She glanced quickly behind her just as the mantid pivoted atop the lava tube's opening, seemingly surprised that Cameron had emerged behind her. The mantid scrambled down from her perch, the wind from her snapping legs rushing across Cameron's face. Because of her pierced eye, the mantid's strikes were slightly imprecise.

Cameron screamed, adrenaline shooting through her body, and hit a dead sprint in four steps, heading for camp. The mantid pursued, leaves and branches shushing around her cuticle. Her remaining eye was still acutely sensitive; it wouldn't be long before she adjusted her movements.

The knotting in Cameron's legs intensified, and just when she was sure she could sprint no longer, she burst through a line of trees onto the field about fifty yards west of the road, her feet skidding on a wash of rocks. A few scattered Scalesias still studded the ground, and together with the tall balsas that lined the road, they provided irregular shade.

She barely had time to look back at the forest's edge before the man-tid flew into sight, a whirlwind of legs and spikes and mandibles screaming down on her. Cameron got her feet under her just as the mantid slid on the rocks, and she was two paces toward base camp when the mantid lost her footing, screaming and flailing.

When Cameron saw her husband stumbling up the road toward her, bare-chested, weak, and bleeding, she thought at first that she was hallu-cinating. Her chest heaved as if her heart had flipped over in her ribcage, and she sprinted toward him, wanting to fall into him with an embrace. But there would be no time for that, no time for relief or joy or affection.

Justin leaned heavily on the trunk of a balsa at the road's edge, almost falling over. A thick stream of blood ran from his shoulder, crusting across his chest and abdomen. His mouth moved weakly and she knew, somehow, that he was trying to say her name. He was still a good thirty yards away, though Cameron was running to him as fast as she could.

Behind Cameron, the mantid popped up, her head rocking on her long neck. She started after Cameron. Lowering her head, she closed the space quickly, turning the ground over beneath her legs.

Cameron had not even reached her husband when she realized there was no way, in his weakened state, that he could possibly escape. Perhaps she could outrun the creature if she only had herself to worry about, but she could see even from a distance that Justin was barely holding on. He didn't stand a chance.

Behind her, the mantid was picking up speed. Cameron reached back and yanked out Savage's knife, twirling it once so the butt protruded from her fist. She closed in on Justin and he stretched out an arm to her, his eyes loose and rolling. He managed to call her name once before she shoved him, spinning him face-first into the tree trunk. She brought the butt of the knife down squarely on the back of his skull, and he crum-pled to the ground. The mantid was no less than ten yards away from her and moving fast.

Shoving off Justin's body, Cameron sprinted up the road. She felt the creature bearing down, sensed the spikes only feet, then inches from her back, and she pumped her arms as hard as she could, sprinting for the watchtower and panting so hard the air almost choked her. She broke from the shadow of the trees, then the mantid screeched and Cameron ran toward the watchtower screaming and swinging her arms wildly, knowing the creature was upon her.

But she wasn't.

Cameron turned and saw the mantid watching her from the edge of the shade, her legs snapping reflexively. The dirt felt hot even through Cameron's boots.

Cameron sank to her knees, throwing her arms wide and looking up at the sun. As Rex had said, the mantid wouldn't expose herself directly to the baking sun during the day; it would dry out her cuticle. Though she owned the whole island at night, she was limited to the forest's cover during the brightest daytime hours, needing the protective cover of the canopy.

Justin's body lay in the road just behind the creature. Cameron had swung the butt of the knife so that it would strike him between the ear and the back of the head, a region where the skull plate was solid, so it wouldn't crack, and strong enough to absorb a blow that could knock a man unconscious. The mantid only attacked moving prey; she'd left Sav-age in the ditch earlier when he was unconscious.

The mantid turned and examined Justin's body, lying still in the shade provided by the balsas that lined the east side of the road.

"Don't you touch him!" Cameron screamed. "Don't you fucking touch him!"

The mantid leaned over Justin, scanning his body with her massive head, the spear stock sticking up like a black feather. She paused over his face, her mouth inches from his cheek. Justin's eyes remained closed, but Cameron noticed one of his fingers twitching. The mantid's legs snapped, as if she were debating picking him up for a closer look.

"Oh, Jesus," Cameron whispered. "Don't wake up. Oh, baby, please don't wake up." She shook her head, her lips moving quickly, as if in prayer.

Justin's hand rose an inch above the ground, then fell. The mantid was too intent on his face to notice.

Cameron stood up, waving her hands to get the creature's attention. The mantid raised her head to Cameron as Justin stirred on the ground beneath her. "Justin!" Cameron yelled. "Just stay perfectly still! Play dead and she'll leave you alone!"

She thought she saw the flash of Justin's eyes, and then he seemed to be agitated, fighting off panic. His body trembled, his head rocked side to side.

"Don't fucking move!" Cameron screamed.

The mantid's head snapped down, but Justin lay perfectly still. Cameron felt herself go limp with terror, and she collapsed on the ground. She'd never felt so helpless.

"Stay still, baby! God, please stay still!" Justin wasn't stirring; either he was still out cold or had registered what she was shouting to him. The wound on his shoulder glittered.

Cameron sat on the road, her legs curled beneath her, the sun blazing down, and watched the mantid at the edge of the shadows. The mantid met her stare. As the sun rose, shortening the shadows the balsa trees threw across the road, the mantid was forced to step back off Justin's body. Cameron began to sob with relief, continuing to call to her hus-band, reassuring him and telling him not to move.

Every few minutes, the mantid had to step back to remain in the shade. Her front legs remained just at the edge of the shadows, and she moved back only when forced to by the sun, her remaining eye never leaving its focus on Cameron.

Finally, when the heat grew too intense, the creature turned and scur-ried back to the edge of the forest proper.

Cameron ran forward to her husband. He stirred under her touch.

"The speargun," Justin said. "I lost the speargun." He was trembling and sweating. The wound on his shoulder was deep and bleeding freely.

"That's okay," Cameron said. She pressed her cheek to his, helping him sit up.

When the mantid saw Justin move, she stepped forward into the sun-light, air issuing from her spiracles, but quickly withdrew again from the heat.

Cameron looped Justin's good arm around her neck and half-carried, half-dragged him across the eastern field to base camp. To the north, the creature shadowed them, moving among the trees at the edge of the forest.

Justin was delirious, mumbling to himself. "Gotta go into the forest," he muttered. "Gotta find my wife."

"It's okay, baby. I'm here. I'm right here."

When they neared the tents, Cameron's legs gave out. Justin grunted in pain when he hit the ground, then he passed out.

The mantid watched them from among the waving trees, then turned and lumbered back out of sight. Cameron collapsed on top of Justin.

They had survived the night.