Insects: A Novel (27 page)

86

Civil Police Inspector
Eduardo Dias assembled the six Americans in a small conference room two days after they were found. Several had received medical treatment for small wounds. The leader, Howard Duncan, sat at one end of the rectangular wood table while Dias sat at the opposite end. George Hamel and Maggie Cross sat on one side, facing Cody Boyd, Stephanie Rankin, and Alison Peeples. In his notebook, he recorded the Americans’ somber mood.

“Is everybody here?” Dias asked in passable English.

“Our guide isn’t here,” Duncan said. “He kinda disappeared after we were found.”

“You have his name?”

“Antonio Suarez.”

“Anyone else?”

The Americans exchanged glances.

“Three people were killed; you know,” Duncan said.

“Three?”

“Yes,” Duncan said. “We had another guide, he was the first one, then Professor Azevedo and Carlos Johnson, one of my students.”

“We also found some bodies,” Boyd added. “There was a guy and his dog, that’s the first one we found, and then in this clearing we saw some skeletons, but we don’t know where they came from.”

“These are human skeletons?”

“Oh, yes,” George Hamel said. “You have to understand, there were animal skeletons all over the place. It was like a battlefield or something.”

Dias noticed some of the others nodding their heads in agreement.

“And these people, these skeletons, they were killed by insects?”

Everyone acknowledged this was the case. The lieutenant put his pen down and leaned forward in his chair.

“I must say, I have never heard such a thing. I’ve heard of killer bees killing people but nothing like this.”

“These aren’t bees,” Duncan said. “They have a name,
reptilus blaberus
.”

“I’ll have to look that up on the internet,” Dias said, making a note.

“You probably won’t find it,” Duncan said. “The name hasn’t been accepted yet by any scientific organizations. You see, the habits of this insect changed radically over the past several months or so. That’s why we were in the forest in the first place. To find them and collect specimens. Prior to that, there weren’t enough of them to harm anyone. Now, there are probably millions.”

“These are the same bugs that allegedly killed a Mr. Raul Barbosa?”

“Yes,” Duncan said quickly. “As far as we know, Mr. Barbosa was the first victim.”

“If these things are so deadly, how do you explain your survival?”

Duncan, with the help of others, summarized what they’d gone through, what they did to fight off the insects and how they escaped by finally outmaneuvering them after their companions had been killed.

“You see, they can’t swim, but they can float, but they’re subject to the current so when they were coming toward us, we moved to the side and just kept going, we hoped putting distance between us without running into another colony,” he said.

“We were lucky,” Peeples said quietly, her head down.

“So you kill them with fire, correct?”

“As many as we could, but most of them survived.”

“Maybe if we had a flamethrower we could have done better, but all I know is that I’m never going to look for them again,” Rankin said. Several of the others nodded in agreement.

“As soon as we’re done here,” Cross said, “I’m flying out. I’ve had about as much entomology as I can handle.”

“Oh, you say that about everything,” Hamel scolded softly as she squinched her nose.

The meeting wound up in less than an hour with only Duncan and Boyd offering to help with the investigation. The two remained in the room after the others had left.

“Tell me, from what you say about these insects, what was it that saved you?”

“The flood,” Duncan said. “It trapped us at first, but in the end, it protected us.”

“If only we’d figured it out sooner,” Boyd said, “but if the truck hadn’t gone off the road, we’d probably never have left it.”

“And we’d be dead,” Duncan added.

“So, if these things attacked when it wasn’t flooding?”

“We’d be dead. Our guide took a video of his boss being killed. He may still have it though we lost everything we had when the truck went into the water.”

“They attack without warning. You can’t get out of their way,” Boyd said. “We watched the video. We saw the body, or what was left of it. I watched one of my friends die. I’m willing to go back, but only to recover Carlos’ body and Dr. Azevedo’s body. Otherwise, I want to go home.”

“What about you, Professor?”

“I’ll help. I’m not sure if we’ll find them or not. But we’ve got to take precautions.”

“What kind of precautions?”

“Flamethrowers,” Boyd said. “I’m not kidding. These things can jump ten feet, three meters, into the air, and they’re like army ants when they attack. They don’t stop unless you kill them.”

Wrapping up the conversation, Dias said, “My last question is why we haven’t heard about these insects before? I understand, you said they changed their behavior. I just don’t understand. Did this happen overnight?”

“We don’t know,” Duncan said. “We thought we knew something about these insects, but it turns out we don’t. They could be the top predator in the forest, and if that’s what they become, you’ll know about it, and you’ll wish you didn’t.”

“Obviously, this is an open investigation,” Dias said. “We will locate the guide and get whatever he has to offer. And we’ll try to recover the bodies, but as you mentioned, they may no longer be there. But we’ve been in contact with a wildlife officer who is at Mr. Barbosa’s cabin. According to the message I got, they’ve found bodies, and they marked them with a GPS, so maybe those we can recover.”

“Really!” Duncan said, surprised.

“That’s the word I have. We will join them perhaps as soon as tomorrow. We’ll retrace steps and get a handle on this. As for the flamethrower, I don’t think the department has one. I’m sure we can find something that will do. Meanwhile, if we find these insects, we’ll wipe them out.”

“How?” Boyd asked quietly.

“Perhaps we’ll spray them with a poison. Get some sprayers, fill them with insecticide. Problem solved.”

Duncan and Boyd smiled wanly, shook hands with the lieutenant and left the meeting.

On the cab ride back to their apartment, Boyd confided, “If it wasn’t for Carlos, I don’t think I’d go back. Not now. Maybe a year from now, but not now. It’s too soon. Hell, two days ago we were fighting for our lives in the dark. I feel numb. I’m exhausted still, and I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“You know, since they have coordinates, they don’t need us,” Duncan said. “Maybe I’ll call him this afternoon and tell him we’re no longer interested.”

Boyd gave his boss a stunned look.

“I can’t believe you just said that,” Boyd said.

“You’re right,” Duncan said. “I need to find some specimens, even dead ones, for the papers I have to write. Really, if it weren’t for that, I’d call it off. But I was just thinking, what am I gonna do if I can’t write a paper on this? I’m a scientist for chrissakes.”

“That’s more like it,” Boyd said. “For a minute there, I thought someone else had taken over your body.”

“So, you’ll go, too? I sure could use you.”

“Yeah, I’ll go. But, like I said, it’s for Carlos. I think we owe him.”

THE END

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