Dead of Eve (12 page)

A howl pierced the haze. Darkness pinned me down. A string of whines rang out, high-pitched and relentless. I jerked up, landed on the balls of my feet, the carbine in high ready.

My eyes adjusted. A fog hung over the glade and clung to my skin. Moonlight thickened the haze into a squatting cumulonimbus.

The dog stood a few feet away, nose pointed at the tree line, haunches up. His withers spiked in golden tufts. His whine deepened into a throaty growl.

I trained the carbine on his point. Through the scope, through the fog, through the shadows of the raving sweetgums, a silhouette flickered. A tennis court length away, the distance was nothing for the carbine and scope. But spirally stems and broad leaves concealed the kill shot. I inched into the clearing.

The hunched-back figure pulsed, varying its illumination. Alien vocal cords filled the air with a screech as it sprang forward with the strength of its mutated legs. The dog spooked and darted into the woods. The bending and snapping of woody hurdles narrated his parting. The crackling faded and eventually died. He was gone.

I couldn’t stop my disappointment from distracting me. A swell of heat spread inside me, simmered into convulsions that made my hands tremble. Losing the dog resonated a hollow thud in my head, muting all other sounds. Screw the kill shot. I lowered the carbine a few inches, moving the sight to the shoulder. Was that one alone? I scanned the area with a hunter’s calm. Alone indeed. Exhale. Squeeze.

The thing thrashed backwards against the impact, buzzing and snarling. Its arm hung by mangled sinews. I sighted its other shoulder and repeated the shot. It fell down, but quickly regained its footing. Gristle and bone coruscated under black blood pumping from the crater that was its arm.

The aphid crept closer. The torso seemed to float on its double-jointed legs. I sighted between its eyes. Twenty yards. I knew where the kill shot was. But I knew little else about its defenses. Fifteen yards. Could it regrow limbs? Did it need its organs? Joel had won the arguments against capturing and experimenting on one. Ten yards. I lowered my scope, settled on its knee. Time to test some theories. I squeezed the trigger. It squealed and dropped. Then it leveraged its bloody stump and rose on one leg.

Its remaining arm lolled by a string of muscle. I shot it off. The aphid spun around. A pit blossomed on its side. It landed on its back. I closed the distance. Three yards. I aimed at its good leg. A sting of snapping rubber bands rippled through my gut. What the hell was going on with me? I pulled the trigger.

The aphid’s torso lay in a welter of life and limbs. It stretched its jowls. Fleshy bits wormed in the mouth, arranging themselves around the tusk-like tube. The meaty fingers melded to form a sheath for the spear. Perhaps a casing for airtight suction.

Carbine on my sling, I released a dagger from my forearm sheath and swiped. The aphid’s remaining weapon plopped in the goulash.

I picked up an amputated arm. The aphid’s orbs followed my movements as I flipped the arm back and forth, stretching the pincers and clamping them shut. Rows of sharp barbs jetted in one direction on the forearm. Tiny hairs furred the thin green skin.

Its chest heaved. Sputters purled from its throat. It choked. Something like static pinched my insides. I tossed the arm and kicked its torso, rolling it on its side. Then I crouched next to it.

Blood coursed from the shredded mouth and with it the aroma of rot. I flicked the dagger in front of its face. Its eyes stared. No blinking. No expression. I rubbed my stomach. A vibration sparked under my hand. I gripped the carbine, sat back and rested it over my knees. Would it regrow new limbs or would it bleed out? How long would it take?

The tiny aphid pupil didn’t move. A hum churned inside me. I wiped my palms on my jeans. The hum I felt should’ve been the twinge of mercy. But it wasn’t. I waited.

I opened my eyes against the light penetrating the forest canopy. Blood and decay tainted the warm breeze caressing my shoulder. Shit. I flipped over and met face-to-face with the still breathing aphid. Its wounds had soldered sometime during the night. Black leaking holes were dried and closed. No regrowth. At least not yet.

The aphid’s hanging jaw twitched. I should experiment more, remove some organs, and try to bleed it out. My stomach groaned. Food first. Then weapon cleaning. Then I’d deal with the aphid—

A twig snapped in the scrub across the glade. I lifted the carbine. A blur of tan and black splayed the fronds. I gulped a breath and dropped the gun on its sling.

The dog bounded toward me, tail to the sky, tongue flapping. My knees hit the grass and he licked my hand. I stroked the top of his head, relishing the silken warmth of his coat. A prickle broke out on my spine. Then a strangled buzz from the aphid behind me. The dog scrambled backwards.

“Oh no, wait.” I lunged after him, palm out. When he nudged my hand, I led him away from the bug, scratching and rubbing his ears as we walked.

How was it that he and I survived when so many hadn’t? Was it genetic or environmental? Did some kind of Peter Parker freak exposure make us
super
? Maybe I watched too many movies. Whatever the reason—survival of the fittest, natural selection—the dog and I survived. The knot of loneliness in my gut loosened, cracked, and the sharp edges fell away.

“I’ll call you Darwin.” A symbol of his unfavorable survival against nature.

He barked and lathered my cheek.

We shared an MRE and I cleaned the carbine and daggers. That done, I perched beside the mutilated aphid, dagger in fist. Then I took a steadying breath and sawed through its neck. It took longer than expected. My stomach twisted and burned. What was happening to me? I wanted to do it. When the neck snapped and the head rolled off, the eyes went flat. The tension in my guts uncoiled.

I dragged the head into my lap and scored the skin to peel it from the bone. With another knife wedged as a chisel, I pounded it under the top of the skull and pried it off. The pinkish gray brain had two halves and filled the bulbous cranium. I scooped them out and scraped off the membrane covering, revealing a tofu texture. I didn’t know what an insect brain looked like, but I suspected it was very different from the human-like brain in my lap. Did it mean they still had emotions? Memories? Christ, what if they were still human, trapped in these bodies?

My mouth went dry. I couldn’t think like that. They showed no anger, no remorse. An aphid wouldn’t hesitate to kill me. Which was why I had to kill them first. I tossed the brain onto the heap of limbs. Then I washed my hands with my camel back and joined Darwin at the tree line.

We plowed east through Missouri’s Ozark Mountains. I followed Darwin up and down rugged slopes, his paws hooking around boulders and loose rock with ease. I chased him along the river way, wheezing, my calves burning. Often, he sprinted too far ahead and disappeared into the bush. Minutes felt like hours until he returned, bearing fresh water fowl.

A week passed and I grew dependent on his low growl, his aphid alarm. He sensed them before I did. For fear of losing him again, I’d herd Darwin in the opposite direction of the threat. I knew I was just tarrying until our peacetime lifted. The buzz of aphid hunger vibrated the air. I couldn’t run from the aphids forever. I needed to test the dog’s reaction to gun fire.

“
Hier
, Darwin.” He ran to my side and leaned against my leg. I scratched his head and kissed the bridge of his snout. No doubt he knew more Schutzhund commands than I did. Maybe he’d been a police dog.

“
Fuss
.”

He obeyed, heeling as I walked along the riverbed toward an open field. The field animated with sunflowers, swishing and stretching to the summer sky.

“
In Ordnung.
”

Darwin took to the field, romping through the yellow blooms like an adolescent whitetail, spraying them to and fro in his wake. Then he stopped and looked back at me. He was really enjoying himself, his playfulness contagious. Focus, Evie.

I targeted the carbine on the trunk of a dead cottonwood bridging the river. Exhale.
Pop.

He pricked his ears, the only thing he moved.

I sighed my relief and tramped to his side.”
Sitz
.”

Darwin sat on his haunches.

I raised the AA-12. Sighted it down field. Told him to stay. “
Bleib.
”

Exhale.
Clap. Clap.

Shotgun still in high ready, I gave Darwin a sidelong glance. His eyes met mine, his body stiff with attention. My lips twitched. Wouldn’t it be something if Darwin were there because of Joel’s doing? Joel always knew what I needed. My injuries were healing without infection and Darwin kept my mind off them most days. The dog numbed my pain.

I bent and hugged him. “Well done, boy.”

With a raised hand, I sheltered my eyes from the sun’s glare and scanned the field under the Ozark highlands. The hills tinged blue under the haze of the humidity. “Where to now, Darwin?”

He bounced around me and prodded me to play. We should’ve only been a few miles from the highway. That meant we’d see civilization soon. Sweat trickled down my spine. We’d find a car and maybe sleep in a soft bed. I gathered my gear and hiked east. “
Fuss.
”

Darwin followed.

The sun dropped below the hillside and sketched shadows on the dam saddled by Highway 65. We climbed the bulwark and gaped up and down the highway. An old pickup truck sat in the southbound lane. Darwin wet his nose with his tongue and resumed panting.

I knew the area, had traveled that highway dozens of times. The lake was only ten miles behind us. But thanks to the August heat, the overgrown woods, the continuous stops to rest my injuries and ease the weight of my gear, it’d been the longest ten miles of my life. With languor setting in, I trudged to the truck while Darwin led the way.

The unlocked doors on the Ranger made entry easy. The missing keys offset my luck. I stripped my gear and chased away images of the truck’s prior occupant emerging from the woods and slashing me open with an insectile mouth.

I crawled under the steering column. After a few sweaty minutes of wire tapping, the engine came to life. The needle on the gas gauge swung to
F
. I blew out a breath.

Thank fucking God for my old Chevy. I hated that clunker when I was a kid. Had to hot-wire it to start it. Memories of hunkering under the dash, late for school, fingers trembling over the wires in frigid temperatures. Never imagined I’d be looking back on that with a smile.

Now for a grocery store and uninhabited housing. Sedalia offered the best chance of that. Only an hour north.

But a town of its size could be rife with men. I jolted at the shiver that ran down my spine and gripped the steering wheel. Ugly reminders discolored my wrists. My limbs grew numb. My body labored against heavy breathing. The pain in my chest felt like a heart attack. I knew it wasn’t. The sudden sweating, dizziness and accelerated heart rate were telltale symptoms of a panic attack. I needed Joel.

I rolled down the window and gulped fresh air. Then I lit a cigarette. I wasn’t prepared to come to grips with my wounds. Facing one of my own species terrified me far more than fighting an army of blood spitting bugs.