Invasive Species (22 page)

ONE RING OVER
the speaker. Two. Three.

Trey remembered reading that the first few rings you hear when making a call on a cell phone are phony. They're generated by your phone to keep you occupied while the signal is bouncing off various satellites and cell towers. The person you're calling doesn't hear them.

Five rings. Seven. By now Jack's cell phone would be ringing.

Trey could see that Sheila's eyes were growing frantic and knew his own expression must be a mirror of hers.

The squawk of Jack's voice. “Yeah?”

“Where the hell have you been?” Sheila's voice was breathless. “I've been trying to reach you all afternoon.”

“At the movies.”

Sheila rolled her eyes. “Where are you now?”

“Walking down Eighty-first Street. Heading back to the office.”

“Turn around.”

“Say again?”

“Just listen to me.” Sheila took in a breath. “Trey was infected. I removed the larva—”

“Holy shit—”

“Jack, he's okay.”

She held up the phone. Trey called out, “I'm fine. Now shut up and listen to her.”

“So the old man was right,” Jack said. “If you remove the larva early enough, it can't set off a sufficient immunocascade—”

“Yes,” Sheila said. “We'll tell you everything when we see you. Now—”

“Trey, what did you see while you were dreaming?”

“Jack—”

“'Cause I have some theories about that, too.”

Sheila was holding the phone tightly. “Wait—are you still walking?”

“Sure. Told you: I'm heading to the office.”

Sheila squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. Then she opened them and said, spacing the words out as if she were speaking to a child, “Jack, listen. Trey left his bag, the one he took to Australia, there. In your office.”

That shut him up for a moment. Then he said, “Ah.”

“Yes,” Sheila said. “Ah.”

After a pause he said, “Trey, do you have any memory of seeing the adult? In your rental car in Port Douglas, maybe?”

Trey worked through his dim memories of the past few days. Or were they visions? Created by the presence he could still feel shifting at the edges of his consciousness?

Finally he said, “I don't know.”

“Doesn't matter.” Even over the phone, Jack's excitement was evident. “This is so fucking cool. Come right in so we can talk.”

“Jack, that's not—”

They heard his muffled voice speaking to someone else.

“Jack!” Sheila's voice was like a whip crack. “Where are you?”

No answer for ten seconds. Then Jack's voice: “Inside. Now I'm waiting for the elevator to the fifth floor.”

“Are you listening to me?” Sheila said.

“What? Oh, hang on, I'm getting on the elevator. Cell service sucks in here.”

“What are you doing? Stop!” Red spots had risen to Sheila's cheeks, and her left hand had, unbidden, risen to pull at her hair.

In other circumstances, Trey might even have found it funny: Sheila's powerful force meeting the immovable object that was Jack Parker.

But not here, not now.

Jack's voice came over the line, clearer.

“On five. What were you saying?”

Sheila's voice was despairing. “We're saying there might be an adult thief in your office.”

They heard him laugh. “Yeah, I got that part.”

“So don't go in.”

“Don't go in my office?” He sounded disgusted. “The hell I won't.”

Trey said, “I've seen those bugs, Jack. They're fast, and they know what they want. If one's in there, even if you think you're ready, it could still get the jump on you.”

“Blah,” Jack said, “blah blah. Trey, could you keep it down? I'm listening at the door here.”

Trey stopped talking.

Jack said, “I don't hear any angry buzzing coming from inside.”

“They're pretty close to silent, Jack,” Trey said.

“It was a joke.”

Trey said, “Ha.”

“There you go.” Static on the line. Then, “I'm going to put the phone down and go in.”

Sheila closed her eyes. “Oh, Jack.”

“I know. You don't know what you miss till it's gone.”

A clunk as the phone was placed on the floor. The creak of a door swinging open. Footsteps.

Sheila said,
“Shit.”

They could hear Jack's voice in the distance: “That smell—”

Sheila's eyes opened wide. Trey was sweating.

Jack said in a singsong tone,
“
Oh,
ladrón
,
where are you?”

Then, in a different tone: “Hey!”

A crash. Another.

“Hulk, smash!”

A hissing sound.

Silence.

Thirty seconds of silence that felt like forever to Trey. What was he doing here in bed? He should have been there with Jack.

He was supposed to be on the front lines. He was
always
supposed to be on the front lines.

A rustling sound over the phone, and then Jack's voice, much closer. They could hear his breath. He was panting.

“Got her,” he said, “before she got me. She's dead.”

Unmistakable triumph in his tone.

“You're okay?” Sheila asked. Her voice was strained.

“Told you, I'm fine.” A laugh. “More than fine. I'm great.”

“Hulk smashed it?” Trey said.

“No. That was a joke. We need it undamaged.”

“You sure it's dead?”

“Oh, I'm sure. It's dead. It is no more. It has ceased to be. It is an ex-thief.”

“How did you do it?”

“Come in and I'll show you.”

Sheila said, “Trey can't travel yet.”

But Trey was already swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He still felt shaky, but far stronger than he had when he'd first awoken. “I'm fine,” he said, getting to his feet. “Just give me a minute and we'll go.”

“Good,” Jack said. “Get a move on.”

*   *   *

“TAKE OFF YOUR
shirt,” Sheila said the moment they walked into the office.

Jack looked at her. Opened his mouth to make a joke, then quailed a little at her expression. “I told you, I'm fine. She didn't get near me.”

Sheila crossed her arms. Jack's beard bristled. Then he caught a look at Trey, all sallow skin and shaky legs, and his expression turned thoughtful.

“Okay,” he said.

It was hard to see the skin of Jack's round belly underneath its generous covering of black hair. After a close inspection, though, Sheila pronounced him unmarked.

“For now,” she said.

“Told you,” Jack said.

“Yeah, well, that doesn't mean we can be sure. We'll check again every few hours.”

“Can't get enough of me, huh?”

He walked up to Trey and gave him a once-over. For a moment his expression turned serious.

“I feel better than I look,” Trey said. “A little. I'll feel even better when my pee isn't dark brown, though.”

“I want every detail.” Jack paused. “Well, except the pee part.”

Trey nodded.

“But first—look.”

It was Trey's bag, where he'd left it on the floor near the windows. There was a ragged hole just beside the zipper, where the thief had chewed its way out.

Trey drew in a deep breath. How many hundreds, thousands, of other thieves had already traveled the same way?

“Here she is,” Jack said.

The dead adult lay on her back on Jack's desk, her bloodred wings folded, black legs crossed in death like any insect's. Her body seemed undamaged.

“How did you kill her?” Sheila asked.

“Take a breath and guess.”

Trey breathed in deeply. Under the harsh smell of the thief, he could detect another odor. After a moment, he figured out what it was.

“Pyrethrum,” he said. Then, to Sheila, “What they use to fog trees and plants when they're collecting bugs. Deadly, but only to its targets. Plus it breaks down fast and doesn't harm the specimens.”

“Kills them without harming them, a neat trick.” Jack nodded toward a half-full plastic plant sprayer sitting on the corner of his desk. “Mixed up a little of my own solution before walking in here, and knocked her out of the air when she came for me.”

He frowned. “She was damn strong, I'll give her that. It took a couple of shots.”

“Still, they can be killed,” Sheila said.

Trey said, “They're just
binatang
.”

“It's easy to forget,” Jack said, “but it's true. Individually, they're easy enough to defeat.”

“Individually,” Sheila said.

Trey's hand crept up to his shirt. He touched the sterile pad on his belly and felt something stir deep inside his brain.

Sheila reached into her shoulder bag and took out the jar containing the dead larva. Opening the jar, she tipped it out onto the desk beside its parent.

In silence, they all looked at the two still forms.

“That's all they are,” Sheila said in a wondering tone.

“Smaller creatures than these have brought civilizations crashing down,” Trey said.

Jack shrugged. This sort of conversation didn't interest him.

He brought his face close to the two thieves, larva and adult. “Okay,” he said to them, “tell us everything you know.”

That
was what interested him.

Charleston, South Carolina

MARY FINNERAN SAT
in the shade under the live-oak trees in White Point Garden and looked out at Fort Sumter. The hazy summer sun, high in the sky at midday, had turned the harbor shimmering silver. The ferryboats and yachts left meteor trails across the choppy water, and farther out a cruise ship heading for land caught the sunlight and flashed white like a semaphore flag.

The skies were nearly as crowded. Wide-bodies brought tourists from all over the world, corporate jets carried executives for a round of golf or festivities at a plantation, and fighter jets and huge, creeping C3 cargo planes, which seemed as unlikely to achieve flight as snails, shuttled back and forth between nearby military bases.

Whenever Mary looked at these airplanes,
any
of them, she wondered whether they were carrying stowaways. What was aboard that no one knew about.

She let her gaze fall, come to rest on her hands. They looked like claws to her. She knew she'd lost weight since they'd come here, which was ironic in a town where you couldn't walk twenty feet without tripping over a place that served shrimp and grits, mac and cheese, barbecue, and gallons and gallons of sweet tea.

She felt her lips compress. She knew exactly what happened to you when you were old and lost too much weight. You got shaky. Your mind started to wander. You fell, breaking wrists as fragile as dry sticks and hips as sharp as bone knives. You lay in bed for weeks, as one system after another—heart, kidneys, brain—gave out, shut down.

You died.

If you wanted to live, if you wanted to be there to protect your granddaughter, who had nothing and no one without you, you kept eating. You kept the weight on. You made sure that you didn't waste away.

Maybe later they'd stop by Jestine's for fried okra and fried chicken. Hush puppies and Co'Cola cake. You couldn't waste away at Jestine's.

In the meantime, Mary rummaged for the plastic bag of pretzels she carried around. At the same time, her eyes sought out Kait, who was sitting perched on one of the shiny black cannons that aimed so bravely out toward the water.

Mary rarely took her eyes off her granddaughter, even though she knew full well that watching never saved anyone. It was magical thinking, but still you fell for it. A kind of deal with God: If I never look away, she will never come to harm.

And if the worst happened anyway, Mary was going to be there, right beside her. The last thing Kait was going to see was the face of someone who loved her more than life itself.

Kait put her cheek against the rough, freshly painted metal of the cannon's barrel. There was something about powerful weapons that drew kids, even girls. Even Kait, who usually just wanted to stay home reading or drawing pictures.

Pictures that she kept in a folder that resided deep in the back of a dresser drawer.

Mary ate a pretzel, then sighed and sat back against the bench, sweating in the shade. It was a hot day. They were almost all hot days in Charleston in the summer, hotter even than down on Marco Island. The kind of wet, unmoving heat only gulls and pelicans could love.

She wasn't complaining. It was nice here. The people were friendly enough. Mary's standards were based on how they treated Kait, and most of them—guessing that there was some tragedy in the story somewhere, but far too polite to ask about it—were unfailingly kind to the near-silent ten-year-old.

There had been more open arms than Mary could count, more attempts to bring Kait together with other children her age. Failed attempts so far. Kait preferred her own company. She always had.

“Grandma! Look!”

Mary's old heart pounded. She'd allowed her attention to wander.

But Kait's voice held no fear. She was standing balanced halfway down the barrel of the cannon. A tightrope walker, a high-wire artist, arms out, face split by the wide grin that used to come so often, and now so rarely.

The slippery barrel. Even as Mary swore she wouldn't, she found herself calling out, “Be careful, Bunny.”

Damn.
Let the girl have some fun.

Kait frowned. “I will.” Then she took another step, wobbling a little before setting herself again. The grin returned, unbidden, as she concentrated and reached out for her next toehold.

A movement at the edge of Mary's vision. Her alarms went off. Again. Adrenaline flooded her poor worn-out system. Again.

As Kait reached the end of the barrel and jumped back down to the ground, Mary forced herself to turn her head. A man was coming in their direction, moving with purpose through the sunstruck tourists and moseying dog-walkers.

A tall, shambly sort of man wearing an expensive gray suit and carrying a leather briefcase. Perhaps fifty, the length of his legs and the way he held his head reminding Mary of an egret. On the street behind him, at the curb outside the building where Mary and Kait had rented a one-bedroom apartment, a black limousine idled.

Somehow she knew immediately that he was coming to see her. She looked back and saw that Kait was standing still, her face a blank but her hand up near her mouth. Her position and expression of stress, worry, not so different from when she was little and sucked her thumb.

The man stopped, far enough away not to be seen as a threat. Mary had the sense that he'd chosen the distance carefully.

“Mrs. Finneran?” he said. It was a question, barely. He knew who she was.

There was something familiar in his stance, in his face, as well. “I am,” she said.

Kait hopped down and came trailing up to them. Using that hesitant way of moving she'd developed, every stride containing an escape clause.

“My name is Jeremy Axelson,” the man said.

A familiar name, too, but she couldn't remember where. “Can I help you?”

He said, “Perhaps I could sit and explain?”

Again, not really a question. Mary frowned. “If I said no, would you sit anyway?”

He smiled at her. There was kindness in the smile. Or maybe he was just wooing her.

“Most likely,” he said.

“Then go ahead and sit.”

He folded his skinny frame onto the bench. Close enough that their talk would be intimate, private, far enough away that she didn't feel crowded.

The man was good at what he did, Mary realized. Whatever that was.

Kait dipped past them, picking up her Totoro backpack and taking it to a bench across the path. In Mary's sight lines, but far enough away to be separate. A moment later, she had her sketch pad and colored pencils out and was bent over, drawing.

Mary hoped she wasn't drawing another picture of those creatures. She'd sneaked a look at Kait's hidden trove. Almost all of them were of the wasp-things.

The man was sitting there, patient. Mary had the unsettling feeling that he'd been able to read her thoughts while her attention was elsewhere.

She looked into his calm face. “I do know you,” she said. “From somewhere.”

“Television, perhaps. I show up on the news shows a lot, since I work for Anthony Harrison.” He paused. “The presidential candidate.”

“I know who Anthony Harrison is,” she said with asperity. “And now I know who you are. You're his . . . mouthpiece.”

He seemed unoffended. Rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a photo ID.

“Communications director,” he said. “So, yes: mouthpiece.”

“You,” she said, taking a moment before finding the word, “spin.”

He smiled. “I prefer to put it another way: It's my job to make sure my candidate's thoughts and views are presented properly to the press and understood fully by the public.”

She tilted her head. “Q.E.D.”

He laughed.

“You're convincing on TV,” she said, “but I don't envy you trying to spin your man's chances.”

Axelson looked into her eyes. There was something in his expression beyond the calm intelligence he projected. Something eager, electric.

“Oh,” he said, “there's plenty of time for things to change before Election Day.”

It was in his tone, too. Mary felt a spiderlike sensation creeping across her stomach. Dread.

She said, “Speak your piece, Mr. Axelson.”

“I will. But first let me show you something.” Yet even as he reached into his briefcase and pulled out a small sheaf of papers clipped together, she knew. Maybe she'd known from the first moment she'd laid eyes on him.

The first page showed a photo. A lousy one, most likely captured from a computer screen. Lousy but recognizable.

Mary didn't even have to look at the rest, but she did, paging quickly through them. The last was a drawing, stiff and far from lifelike. A drawing done by a bureaucrat, not an artist.

“You want a halfway-decent picture of one of these creatures,” she said, “get my granddaughter to do it.”

Axelson nodded, but didn't directly respond. “You know what really killed your son and daughter-in-law, don't you?”

Yet again a statement couched as a question. Spoken in a quiet voice, but Mary knew that Kait had heard. People always underestimated how well she listened.

“You know what's going on,” Axelson said.

Mary said, “Why are you here?”

Again instead of replying, Axelson reached into his case and withdrew another pile of papers, a thinner stack. Not a hodgepodge of photocopied photos and drawings this time. A memo. A briefing.

He handed it to her. Across the way, Kait put her art materials into her backpack, stood, and came over to stand beside Mary. One hand rested lightly on her grandmother's back, as much physical contact as she granted these days. Mary moved the papers on her lap so she could read them, too.

Axelson shifted a little in his seat, but didn't intervene.

The title of the briefing was “Spiderweb.” Below this heading was a series of bulleted paragraphs, each beginning with a location and date in boldface. Patagonia, Arizona, in May. Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in California, and Galveston, Texas, early in June. Later the same month, Biloxi, Mississippi.

This data was followed by a few words of description. “Two seen by birders at Falcon Dam.” “Found dead inside town hall.” “Host: Rhesus monkey.” “Possible human involvement.”

Possible human involvement.
Mary raised her eyes.

Axelson gave a tiny nod.

“Look,” Kait said. “There's us.”

Marco Island, Florida. “Host: Bottlenose dolphin. Emergence? Yes.”

On the next line: “Probable human involvement.”

Mary felt sick to her stomach. She said to Axelson, “These witnesses, survivors—are you visiting all of them?”

“Someone on my staff is, yes. I wanted to see you two myself.”

He pointed at the papers. “Keep reading.”

The locations on the first two pages were almost all from the southern tier of states. Nothing north of Georgia or Oklahoma or New Mexico.

“Any in South Carolina?” Kait asked. Her face was a shade paler than usual, but mostly she looked merely interested. Unlike Mary, she'd always liked lists.

“Nothing that's risen to a level of certainty,” Axelson said.

She looked at him as she worked out what his words meant. “You're saying,” she said at last, “that you've heard they're here, but you don't know if the stories are true.”

His look was thoughtful. “Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.”

“But they are,” Kait said. “If they're in all those other places”—she pointed one slim forefinger—“they're here, too.”

Axelson said, “Read a little further.”

Mary turned a page. More reports. More sightings. More “human involvement.”

In northern California. Baltimore. Portland, Oregon, and Portland, Maine.

Outside Chicago.

In Davenport, Iowa, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

More than two dozen reports from nearly as many states. Southern, northern, coastal, and landlocked.

A C3 rattled the ground as it cruised overhead. Mary raised her gaze to watch it, then met Axelson's eyes.

Kait got it, too. “They're everywhere,” she said.

Axelson nodded. “Two dozen reports might not seem like that many,” he said, “but those are only the ones we know about, only the ones we've confirmed. How many others have gone unreported? And how many more will we hear about today? Tomorrow?”

Mary and Kait were silent.

“It's an invasion,” he said. “Our country's being invaded, right here, right under our eyes, and nobody's doing a thing about it.”

Mary gestured at the papers. “So many reports—why aren't the newspapers and TV all over this?”

“Two dozen reports over many weeks in a country as big as ours—well, that's not quite an avalanche,” Axelson said. “Especially not when the deaths are reported to be from ‘natural causes,' allergic shock, or killer bee attacks.”

Now there was an edge of anger in his voice. “But the government should know what's going on. The question we need to ask is, Are they asleep at the switch? Or is it something else?”

Mary said, “What do you want from us?”

He gazed at her. Calculated sincerity and hope and compassion mixed in his expression, and beneath them, excitement. Avidity.

It was the look of a spinner who's seen the opportunity of a lifetime.

“Come with me,” he said. “Come meet Governor Harrison, and he'll tell you.”