Mandibles (15 page)

*-CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE-*
As Dustin continued staring at the giant anthill, he wondered if the tunnels inside stretched beneath the floor of the warehouse. How well hidden was the queen?
If ants were infesting twenty different parts of the city, there were probably twenty of these anthills, possibly in warehouses similar to this one. This information wouldn't help eliminate the rampaging ants already out there, but they could certainly destroy the queens and keep further infestation from occurring.
Of course, there might be more than twenty of these anthills out there. A lot more.
And who was to say they were only in Tampa?
Maybe his friends back in Texas were under attack at this very moment.
Well, he'd worry about that later. For right now, it was good enough to know that this was definitely a man-made situation. Whoever started it might know how to stop it.
And now it was time to find that person.
He walked away from the warehouse and back toward the stolen motorcycle, happily stepping on an ant along the way. Another ant came at him, and Dustin nearly lost his balance as he moved back to get away from it.
This one was six or seven inches long.
That was impossible. Ants just didn't get to be six or seven inches long.
Then again, they didn't get to be _two_ inches long, either.
This was just too bizarre for words. Dustin kicked the ant as hard as he could, sending it flying up into the air and onto its back, then rushed over to the motorcycle, wondering what other entomological impossibilities were in store.
* * * *

"You married?" Hack asked Roberta.

"None of your business."
Hack smacked her across the face again. "Now that was extremely impolite. I don't think there's any need for that kind of behavior, do you? We're going to be having a lot of fun pretty soon, so I think we should at least be on civil terms."
Roberta wanted to spit in his face, but it would probably amuse him more than it would piss him off. Though she was absolutely terrified, she knew that an opportunity to escape would present itself. Hack was too confident. He'd make a mistake.
"You ever have a white guy?" Hack asked. "I understand that my race isn't quite as well-endowed as your own, but Slash and I together might be able to compensate for that."
"That's what you guys call yourselves? Hack and Slash?"
"Yeah. You like?"
"It's retarded."
Hack shrugged. "Then you have our permission to scream out whatever names you want. Or you can just scream. Your choice."
"I'll feed myself to those ants before I let either of you touch me."
"Well, that would be a viable option if the decision was yours to make. But, alas, it isn't. Hey, Slash, why don't you pull over now so we can start the party?"
"We have other stuff to worry about right now," Slash told him.
"Oh, come on, don't be such a workaholic. Let's see if this dental assistant knows how to perform proper oral care."
Roberta's stomach tightened, but she maintained her outward composure. "That's right, I'm a dental assistant," she said. "That means I'm an expert on biting."
Hack laughed. "Then maybe you'd better teach us about extractions, so that doesn't become a problem. Pull over, Slash."
"Not now."
"Be a sport!"
Slash stopped the car and turned around in his seat. "Listen to me, you psychopathic dipshit, it's time you started to take this problem seriously."
"Aw, what's the big deal? Either the ants get us or they don't. If it's the end of humanity, we should at least get in a nice gangbang before the ants take over the world."
"No. We're only using her for a bargaining chip when we deal with Bug Boy. She may not be a cute innocent little baby to rescue, but she'll do."
"Yeah, she'll do whatever we tell her to," said Hack. He waggled his tongue in an obscene manner. Slash turned away from him and resumed driving.
"Why don't you grow up?" Roberta asked. "You know what they say about guys like you, don't they?"
"No, what?"
Instead of answering, Roberta slammed her elbow into Hack's injured arm. As he let out a howl, she grabbed for his gun.
Missed.
Hack punched her in the jaw.
Slash slammed on the brakes.
Hack punched her again, this time in the stomach, and then pressed the barrel of the gun between her eyes. "You gonna behave? Huh?"
She didn't respond, so he pushed the barrel harder against her skin. "Answer me, you bitch!"
"Yes," she whispered.
"Yes, what?"
"Yes, I'll behave."
He removed the gun, then grabbed her by the neck and slammed her against the door of the jeep. The handle dug painfully into her back.
"Good. See that you do."
"There he is!" said Slash, excitedly.
Hack and Roberta both looked outside. A couple of blocks ahead, the ant expert was on the sidewalk, just about to climb on his motorcycle.
"Let's teach Bug Boy a lesson," said Slash. "He won't recognize the jeep. As soon as he drives off, we'll run his ass down."
"Sounds like a plan," Hack agreed.
The ant expert got on his motorcycle and started driving down the street. Slash gunned the engine and went after him.
* * * *

Dustin couldn't believe it. Six-inch ants.

How many of them were out there?
How powerful was their venom?
Suddenly, the ants in the area started running off in the direction from which Dustin had come, almost as if something was chasing them.
What was up with that?
His thoughts were interrupted as something ran out onto the street at the next intersection. He stopped the motorcycle and just gaped.
* * * *

Slash stepped on the brakes again and all three of the passengers in the jeep stared silently at the ant.

This one was the size of a wolf.
A really big wolf.
"Uhhh..." said Hack.
"So, what do we do?" asked Roberta.
Slash thought for a moment, clenched the steering wheel tightly, and slammed his foot on the gas pedal.
"We run it down!"

*-CHAPTER THIRTY-*
Jack sat up and quickly brushed off the pair of ants that had crawled on his face. There were more of them on his shirt and pants, but before he could worry about those he had to get someplace safe.
The safest place right now was on top of the desk.
Horrible pain shot through his leg as he stood up, but he managed to climb up onto the desk. As he wiped the ants off his legs, he saw that one on his chest had dug its mandibles into the jacket and was trying to sting him, but the extra padding was doing its job. He knocked them off, lay down to crush any that were on his back, and then sat up again.
There was nothing stopping the ants from climbing up the desk legs, but that really only left him with the four desk corners to defend. He should be able to handle that.
"Are you okay?" Moni called out, leaning out of the window.
"I messed up my knee."
"Oh, Lord. How bad?"
"I don't know. It hurts like hell. I'll be amazed if I can run on it."
"Shit."
"Yeah. How's your hand?"
"You mean hands. Plural. The table smacked into the other one. Half of the bones are probably broken."
"You mean, you smacked it into the table."
"No, I mean ... don't worry about it. Either way, I can't use my hands and you can't use your leg. Kind of a pathetic lot, aren't we?"
Jack kicked off an ant that tried to crawl up the lower right corner of the desk. "Pathetic is a pretty good word for us. So if I can't run to the car and you can't climb down here, what are our options?"
"I can get out. This department has a glass door. I'll just run down the stairs and out the main entrance."
"What about the fire?"
"It's got to be safer than jumping out a window."
"All right. I'll meet you down here. Be careful." He cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted. "Mr. Kamerman! Yo! Mr. Kamerman!"
"Do you think they got him?"
"I'm sure they got him. The question is, how bad? But you'd better go now. The fire is only going to get worse."
As Moni left, he continued calling out his boss's name, not really expecting a reply.
* * * *

Moni pushed the mail cart with her elbows, building up as much speed as she could, then released it. It crashed into the glass door, but didn't break it. A second attempt cracked the glass, and a third attempt shattered it.

She made her way through the door, and then used her foot to push open the door to the stairwell. A thin layer of smoke billowed out, but downstairs she could see more smoke pouring in underneath the door to the first floor hallway.
The question was, would the smoke keep the ants away, or just make it impossible for her to see them?
Her eyes were already watering as she reached the bottom of the stairs. The employee entrance was only a short way down the hallway and around the corner, so even if she had to hold her breath the whole time she should be able to make it.
Of course, using her hands to feel her way around was going to be a problem.
She inhaled deeply, and then pushed open the door.
Smoke poured out into her face, making her eyes burn. The entire hallway was completely filled with smoke, and she could see tall flames up ahead.
Too many flames. The smoke was too thick to tell exactly where the fire ended, but the entire area around the employee entrance was burning.
She'd have to take the long way.
She hoped the desk was still holding back the ants in the delivery area.
She began to walk at a brisk pace down the hallway, holding her breath and unable to see a thing through the smoke. It didn't seem to be thinning out any, but she didn't think there were any flames this way.
Her eyes were burning so badly that she had to close them.
Moni desperately wanted to cough, but refused to let herself. She put her hands out in front of her and picked up her pace.
This _had_ to be too hot for ants, right? Didn't ants usually only come out of their nests when it was cooler?
Regular ants, yeah.
Pain shot through her right hand as she ran into a wall. She couldn't be at the end of the hallway already, and only one hand had struck anything, so she must not have been walking straight. She corrected her direction, hopefully, and continued moving.
Her lungs were aching. She couldn't hold her breath much longer.
She opened her eyes and immediately regretted it. The smoke wasn't clearing.
She didn't know which was worse, the pain in her eyes, lungs, or hands.
Something was crawling on her ankle.
Or was she imagining it?
No, there was _definitely_ something there.
She broke into a run. It was really, really going to hurt when her hands finally bashed into the wall, but that was better than getting stung by one of those things.
There were at least two of them crawling on her legs.
When Moni struck the wall, the pain was every bit as devastating as she'd expected, shooting all the way through her arms to her shoulders.
What she hadn't expected was that her reaction to this pain would be to lose consciousness.
* * * *

Jack felt like a complete loser. Mr. Kamerman might be dying up there, Moni might be burning to death, and there wasn't anything he could do except sit here on a desk out on the lawn.

Then his concern changed from his boss and co-worker to himself. Mr. Kamerman would have stayed up there anyway, but if Moni didn't make it through the first floor, he'd have to get off the desk at some point and try to get to his car.
Or would he? Unless the lawn caught fire as well, there was no reason he couldn't just sit here and keep defending the four corners of the desk. Somebody had to come by eventually, even if it wasn't until tomorrow morning. It wasn't like he'd have trouble staying awake out here. He wasn't going to get any sleep tonight no matter where he ended up.
Yeah, sitting on a desk all night was an option, but a real man would go in the building to find Moni.
Jack wasn't sure he was a real man, though.
This really sucked.
All right, if she didn't come out of there in two minutes, he was going in after her.
Probably.
* * * *

Moni opened her eyes. How long had she been out?

Considering that she wasn't dead, it couldn't have been long. But there were at least two more ants crawling on her legs.
Though the air was better here this close to the floor, it was still plenty smoky and burned as she took a breath. She ran her arm across her legs, knocking off what were indeed ants, and then stood up.
Crawling would have been a wiser idea, but her broken hands eliminated that possibility.
Now, which way had she been going...?
* * * *

This really, really sucked.

The two minutes was up. Jack knew he was going to have to go in there after her. Yeah, he only had one good leg, but ... well, he could hop.
Hop on one foot into a burning, possibly ant-filled building to save his lovely co-worker.
If he didn't start getting dates after this story leaked out, he was going to be pissed beyond belief.
* * * *

Tears were streaming down Moni's face and her violent coughing spasms were making it difficult to keep moving. She ran her elbow along the wall as she walked to keep her direction straight. It was getting scraped up pretty badly, but a boo-boo on her elbow wasn't exactly a major concern at this point.

She ran into something.
A door?
* * * *

Jack hopped across the grass, jostling his bad leg but squishing ants with each hop.

"This is stupid," he said. "So very stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid."
* * * *

It
was
a door. It had to be the one Trevor always used when he went out for a smoke break. The one where he'd found the first ant.

You didn't need a pass card to get out through this door, only to get in.
She pushed the door open, releasing a thick cloud of smoke outside of the building, held her breath for a few more seconds as she ran out of the smoke's range, then took a wonderful breath of fresh, clean air.
* * * *

"Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid," Jack repeated, as he hopped over to the employee entrance.

* * * *

Jack was gone.

Had he gone to the parking garage himself? Surely not with his leg so badly hurt.
Had the ants gotten him?
She could see Abigail's body, but not Jack's.
She ran across the lawn toward the desk, coughing violently. At the very least, she needed someplace to sit for a few minutes, while she recovered from the smoke and gave the pain in her hands time to subside a bit.
She got up onto the desk, kicked some ants away, and sat there for a moment, rubbing her eyes with her right wrist as she continued to cough.
Jack wouldn't have gone in the building after her, would he?
No. Not a chance.
But then again, she never would have thought she'd see him climbing down the side of Lavin Inc. with an extension cord around his waist.
This was becoming a comedy of errors.
Then Jack hopped into view. He looked a bit sheepish as he saw her, then quickly hopped over to the desk and got on it. "I was just coming to get you," he said, brushing the ants off his legs.
"Why'd you change your mind?"
"I couldn't get in the door, and I didn't have anything to break the glass with."
"Ah."
"I think we've broken enough glass for one day, anyway."
"You're probably right. Were you really going to come in after me?"
"Yeah. It was just some dumb chivalry thing. It'll never happen again."
"Well, you're still my hero."
"Cool."
"Of course," said Moni, "now we have to figure out how to get out of here when you can't run and I can't drive a car."