Nasty Little F___ers-Kindle (8 page)

Somehow, he managed to remain conscious.

When the pain faded to a dull throb, he wadded up the cotton and placed it over the wound. He then wrapped a few strands of the tape around his body to hold the bandage in place and tied it off with a spare shirt from Bock’s pack. It wasn’t perfect, but it would hold long enough to get back to camp. And anyway, it was all he could do.

When he finished, he grabbed the last canteen and took a long swallow. He had a long trek back to camp, and it would be even longer if he had to spend it without water, but he was so thirsty. A little dizzy, too. Probably from the blood loss. He opened up the bag of jerky and started munching on another piece, knowing he’d need the protein.

Still chewing, he stuffed the jerky, bandages, cotton, canteen, and the rest of the alcohol back into the backpack, then he slung it over his shoulders, wincing again at the pain in his side, and set off toward the camp. This time, he paid attention to the noises of the woods around him, so it was easy to pick out the sound of someone following him.

Chapter Eight

“I told you to slow down,” Allen said. “You burned out your testicles, didn’t you?”

Moretz ignored him and shuffled to the edge of the camp, pressing the ice pack to his groin with his left hand. In his right hand he carried a can of gasoline for the generator. It was heavy, and carrying it hurt his swollen balls even more, but he needed to get away from the others. Janice hadn’t said anything, but the guys in the camp, with the exception of Allen, looked at him like they knew.

So what? Who cares if they know?
So Janice liked to play a little rough. Big deal. Moretz could play rough, too. This just meant there was more fun to be had, is all.

But damn, his balls hurt.

“Maybe next time you’ll listen to me,” Allen said from behind his back. “I hope you cleaned up after yourself, or Steinman’s going to be pissed.”

Moretz shot him the finger over his shoulder and continued his slow walk to the generator.

***

Moretz bent over the generator and filled the tank, which was hard to do with one hand on the gas can and the other holding an ice pack over his throbbing genitals. He had to balance the lip of the can on the mouth of the tank and pour very slowly to avoid making a mess. It would have been easier with two hands, but that ice pack wasn’t moving. Period. He was still cursing Janice’s sense of play under his breath when Colby burst through the treeline like a rampaging bull.

He was covered in blood from the top of his head to the tips of his shoes, and his eyes had a weird, not-quite-sane look to them. He whispered something that sounded like
Thank God
, then spent a few seconds looking around the camp. His lunatic eyes settled on Moretz, and he snapped the barrel upward and pointed it right at the scientist’s chest.
Great
, Moretz thought.
Fucking fantastic.

“Open your shirt,” Colby said.

“What? What the hell is wrong with—”

“I said, open your fucking shirt, Moretz.” Colby slammed the rifle’s slide home and gestured with the barrel. “I won’t ask again.”

Moretz glared at him, but couldn’t think of anything else to say. When a man covered in blood points a gun at your head and tells you to unbutton your shirt, it’s best to unbutton your shirt. So he dropped the ice pack, yanked his shirt out of his pants, and loosened the buttons from his collar to his belly. When he was done, he looked back at Colby. His groin protested the loss of the ice pack immediately, and he fought the urge to pick it back up.

“Happy?” Moretz asked.

“Open it up,” Colby said.

Moretz did. Colby stared holes into his chest for a count of about thirty, then seemed to relax. He lowered the rifle and smiled, which scared Moretz almost as much as the rifle had. “What’s with the ice pack?”

“None of your damn business.”

“Fair enough. Is everyone here?”

“Everyone but you guys.” Moretz said, buttoning his shirt.

“Good. Go and get the rest of them and have them meet me by my tent,” Colby started walking to the water tank. “We have to talk.”

“Where are Bock and Harper?” Moretz asked.

Colby laughed, but it didn’t have an ounce of humor in it. The sound sent an icy shiver up Moretz’s spine.

“Don’t worry,” Colby said. “They’re coming.”

Chapter Nine

Colby faced the remaining scientists: Allen, Edison, Moretz, Steinman, and Janice. As with Moretz, he’d forced them to open their shirts so he could check for Grubs. He’d thought Janice might fuss, but she simply lifted her T-shirt over her head and waited for him to check her over, a slight look of disappointment on her face, as if she felt betrayed by his mistrust. But then, she hadn’t seen the things he had. If the situation hadn’t been so dire he might have tried to soften the question, might have tried to make it a little less urgent for all of them, but he didn’t have time, and they didn’t need him coddling them right now.

Once he verified they were all clean, he filled them in on what he’d found of Jared, and what had become of Bock and Harper. Several times, Janice gasped aloud. More than once Edison snorted in derision. The other three looked at him like they couldn’t figure out if he was crazy or pulling their leg, but Colby pressed on, ending with his mad, injured run through the woods from the bear carcass to the camp.

“So that’s the story,” he concluded. “Any questions?”

“Did you bring back a sample of the grubs?” Allen asked.

Colby looked at Allen, a little taken aback. He’d expected to hear questions like
When are we leaving?
or
What do we do now?
But Allen’s calm query about samples surprised him. Then he remembered that, unlike Harper, Allen
was
an entomologist. “Yeah,” he replied. “Glad you asked. I almost forgot.” Colby was only too glad to hand him the small bag with the hand and grubs in it. Allen took it without even looking at Colby, then turned and vanished into his tent, never taking his eyes off the bag.

“I think you just made his year,” Steinman said.

Colby nodded. “Probably, but that doesn’t help the rest of us.”

“So what did you mean when you said Harper and Bock would be coming soon?” Moretz asked. “If those grubs got them, don’t you think they’re dead by now?”

“Someone followed me here. I could hear them behind me. I stopped and tried to shoot them a few times, but I could never spot them. Those woods out there,” Colby spread his hand behind him in a sweeping line, “are fucking dense. They could be twenty feet away and we wouldn’t be able to see them.”

Moretz looked doubtful, if a bit afraid. So did the rest of the group (except for Allen, of course, who could be heard exclaiming about his new find from inside his tent). That was good. Colby wanted them a little afraid; fear sharpens the senses. The trick was not to let them panic.

“Harper might be long gone by now,” he said. “But not Bock. Bock is almost certainly still alive.”

“Are you sure?” Janice asked.

Colby remembered how Bock had only a few grubs on him, and those didn’t seem to be feeding. If that hadn’t changed, then oh, yes…he was sure. In fact, Bock was probably watching them all right now, Colby would have bet his left nut on it. But how would he explain all that to her without scaring the living shit out of her?

“I’m sure,” he said simply.

“Ok, Sarge” Edison said. “So what’s the plan? What do we do?”

Just the question Colby had been dreading. “I don’t know.”

They all stared at him. His status as their guide made him the group leader in their eyes, and now they wanted him to lead them to safety. But they were hundreds of miles away from anything at all, with no means of communicating back to Anzer, and there wouldn’t even be a supply helicopter for another week. That didn’t leave a lot of options. In fact, it only left one.

“There’s not much we can do, is there?” Janice asked. “It’s too far to hike back, and we couldn’t carry enough food to make it, anyway. We’ll just have to wait until Monday.”

Colby looked at her and nodded, impressed that she’d reasoned it out so quickly. Her face was flushed, and her pale blue eyes sparkled with a mixture of fear and adrenaline. Yet her mind was sharp as always, and he found himself thinking about the hours ahead. He wondered if, during the upcoming mess, they would be able to find time for themselves. Probably not. The nights of sneaking into the woods were long over. He felt a twinge of loss at that, but it couldn’t be helped.

Three of his charges were dead or dying. He didn’t intend to lose any more.

“That’s about right,” he said. “We’ll sleep in shifts. Someone needs to be up and on their guard at all hours.”

“What about our work?” This from Edison. “We still have a lot to do here.”

Colby wanted to slap the man, but managed to hold himself in check. “Two people have died, and a third one is probably dying. Once that chopper gets here, I plan to get on it and get the fuck home. If you want to stay behind and finish your work here, be my guest, but you’ll be doing it without me.”

Around the group, every head nodded. No one wanted to stay behind after knowing what happened to Jared, Harper, and Bock. Even Edison seemed to accept the idea.

“All right, then,” Colby said. “Now that that’s settled, who’s hungry?”

***

Twenty feet from the edge of the science team’s campsite, Bock and Harper, or what was left of him, watched from the concealment of the brush. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he could guess it readily enough.

“They’re going to post a guard tonight,” he said.

Harper nodded, and a small group of grubs fell from his half-eaten face and landed on the ground. They quickly loped and crawled their way back to Harper, and began feasting on the remains of his toes. Soon Harper would be nothing but a pile of bones, just like Jared, and then Bock would be alone. He would have to make his move soon, before Harper rotted away and left him without any backup. Harper probably had another six hours before his muscles and flesh were so far gone as to render him completely immobile. Six hours, maybe eight.

Not a lot of time, to be sure, but if he could get Colby (and his gun) out of the way, then it wouldn’t matter. The rest of the team could be brought in at his leisure. He looked down at the hole in his belly and marveled that he was still alive. The grubs had taken care of him, fixing up the worst of the damage so that he could carry out their plan and bring more people into the fold. He’d have succeeded back at the bear carcass if the flies had any teeth, but they didn’t. They didn’t have the necessary proteins in their saliva, either. Only the larvae did. Only they could dig in and take control. The flies were just vessels for the eggs, and nothing more. Too bad.

He rubbed the hole where the bullet pierced his body. Fucking Colby. Should have just stood there and waited for a Queen, but no, he had to go and ruin everything. Well, Bock would get him for that, and the grubs would have him. He’d see to it.

“Tonight,” he told Harper. “We’ll move tonight.”

Harper smiled, sending more grubs to the ground.

***

Bock didn’t know it, but he wasn’t the only one staring at Colby and wishing him ill. Moretz stood at the entrance to his tent, watching Colby and Janice talk as they walked through the campsite, probably headed for the first aid tent so Janice could help tend Colby’s wound.

Leave it to that bastard to come in fucking shot. Janice had fawned over him like a mother duck over a duckling. He probably planned the whole thing, wanting to come back injured so Janice would have to take his shirt off and treat him. The son of a bitch.

He wondered for half a second if he should try and get shot, too. Maybe Janice would cluck and swoon over him. Then he shook his head. That was Colby’s trick. His method of trying to steal Janice away. Moretz didn’t need to resort to shit like that; he already knew Janice wanted him, even if she did like to play a little rough. Still, Colby’s obvious advances were starting to piss him off. As Colby and Janice disappeared into the First Aid tent, Moretz glared at their backs.

He might just have to arrange a little accident.

Chapter Ten

Later that evening, just before sundown, Colby went to see Allen in his tent. The pudgy entomologist hadn’t emerged since he went in, and Colby wanted to check on him. He kept his hand on his pistol as he ducked through the entrance. Allen didn’t notice him; he was bent over a microscope, peering through the eyepiece. Next to him on the table was a cut-up grub, its two crimson ends missing. In a small jar next to the dead grub, several live ones crawled around and over each other, probably looking for an exit. Every now and then, one would bite at the glass. Even from where he stood, Colby heard the tiny
clink, clink
of their jaws on the inside of the jar.

“Weren’t there more of them?” Colby’s hand tightened on the pistol’s grip.

Allen never looked up. “Keep watching.”

Colby did, and after a minute or two he watched one of the little bastards devour another. There was no fight or scuffle; the offending grub just opened its jaws impossibly wide, then proceeded to chew the other’s head off. The other grubs soon joined in the fray, and in less than thirty seconds, the number of grubs in the jar had been reduced by one.