Insects: A Novel (23 page)

Hamel, who crouched in the corner of the bed behind the driver’s seat, had found Boyd’s video camera in the pile of gear and was aiming it at Boyd. Boyd gave Hamel a puzzled look.

“You can keep an eye out toward the front. Stephanie will do the rear. Right, Steph?” Duncan said.

Boyd, Rankin and Peeples snickered and exchanged glances.

“What’s so funny?” Duncan asked.

“Nothing, nothing,” Rankin said. “Let’s keep our eyes peeled.”

Suddenly, Duncan found himself with nothing to do. The same with everybody except Boyd and Rankin. Hamel continued filming, watching the LCD screen intently. No one was talking. The air was heavy with the sound of undulating water, interrupted by occasional unidentifiable animal noises. Thunder continued in the distance, the storm now moving away. Or so he hoped.

They all started to nod off, exhausted, the adrenaline rush giving way to the adrenaline crash. Even Duncan could not keep from laying his head on the cab roof momentarily.

“Oh, my, God!” Peeples said, enunciating each word slowly as she stared through the binoculars. “They’re coming.”

Like a slap in the face, this brought everyone to their feet, all except Hamel who continued to watch everything through the camera’s LCD screen. Azevedo flooded the area with the searchlight, revealing several smaller rafts seemingly headed toward the truck.

“Fill all the cups,” Duncan said frantically, as he watched the mats of insects approach.

Peeples and Johnson lined up five cups on the cab roof and gingerly filled them while Duncan brought one to the rear of the truck. The bugs weren’t close enough yet to light a splinter. With two rafts, one in front of the other, Duncan’s anxiety increased. Could they defend themselves against two of them, one after the other?

“Alison, Carlos, each of you bring two cups. Cody, dig out some more splinters. I need them right away.”

The trio moved quickly and were at Duncan’s side with the cups and splinters.

“You have a lighter?” Duncan asked Boyd.

“Yeah, right here,” Boyd said, pulling a butane lighter from his shorts pocket.

“OK, when I tell you to, light one of the splinters. I’ve got one, and I’ll use it for the first cup. Can you light it for me?”

Duncan handed the splinter to Boyd, who prepared to light it when Duncan stopped him.

“Not yet, give it a minute. They need to get closer.”

Now it was up to the current and the debris. Duncan hoped the rafts would catch on debris that would re-route them, break them up or stop them altogether. But they seemed to have a clear path, moving rapidly toward the side of the truck, almost perpendicular to it. Instead of hoping that they would miss the truck entirely, his new concern was that they’d hit the front of the truck where he couldn’t reach them. What would they do then?

“Professor, Professor,” he said, “can you roll up your window?”

Although he’d been able to lower the window, Azevedo struggled to raise it, pulling the glass with one hand while turning the crank with the other.

“No, it won’t roll up. Why? You think they’re going to hit me?”

“Can you move to the driver’s side, or better yet, is there any way you can get back here?”

“I can move over, but I don’t know how I’d lift myself.”

“I can help,” Boyd volunteered.

“That’s nice of you,” Azevedo replied, “but what can you do?”

“I can help push you. If you can just get out on the driver’s side.”

“I’m too fat and heavy. You’re not a weightlifter, are you?”

Boyd looked at Hamel, who aimed the camera at the younger man’s face.

“Can you help, Mister Hamel?”

“I’m not getting into the water. Sorry.”

Boyd sighed deeply.

“Well, then give me my camera. I’m not gonna let you use it if you’re not going to help.”

Hamel became defensive, hiding the camera behind his back with one hand while holding his other arm in a parrying fashion as if to ward off an attack. Boyd frowned angrily.

“I’ll do it,” Johnson said. “There’s no time to waste.”

But before Johnson could hand his two gasoline-filled cups to Maggie Cross, Duncan said, “They’re almost here. They’re headed right to where I’m standing. Get ready. Where’s the splinter? Cody?”

Boyd stopped in his tracks and put a flame under one end of the splinter while shuffling to Duncan’s side. Once the flame was going, he handed it to Duncan. At that point, he could see the bugs. They were within ten feet of the truck. Bugs were jumping madly as Duncan leaned over to pour the gas into the water just in front of the bugs, dropping the lighted splinter into the water seconds later.

The air burst into flame again, the heat forcing Duncan to turn away. Insects let out high-pitched screeching. Grabbing a cup from Peeples, he braved the heat to pour it alongside the truck, protecting his face with his free hand. Then he threw a third cup, some of which almost immediately was carried under the truck. But nobody paid attention as everyone focused on the insects, some of which were again landing on the truck and its occupants.

Suddenly, Peeples dropped the cup she was holding and started screaming. Gasoline splashed across the wood plank truck bed, splattering on people’s shoes and ankles. Peeples writhed as insects landed on her chest and in her hair and swiftly started their gruesome work.

Rankin was the first to respond to Peeples, pulling off several of the bugs almost immediately. The ones in the hair were the hardest and, for Peeples, the scariest. They became entangled, and when Rankin tried to pull them off, all she ended up doing was painfully pulling Peeples’ hair. By this time, Boyd had handed his cups to Duncan, pulled out his pocket knife and, wrapping his hand around a bug’s body along with a hank of hair, sliced through the hair and threw the bug and hair into the water. Working quickly, he made short work of the insects in Peeples’ hair while Rankin finished with the others digging into Peeples’ chest. The young woman then collapsed against the side of the cab and sobbed, joining Hamel who was recording again.

Cross handed a cup to Duncan who threw its contents into the water, hoping to cover the remainder of the first raft, which was breaking up and its remnants floating under the truck. They heard the faint pinging of bugs as they jumped under the chassis and into oblivion.

Peeples wasn’t the only person struggling with insects, but the others were able to bat them away or crush them under foot. Cross took the flexible panel at the bottom of her backpack. It was thin but tear proof, measuring about sixteen inches by twelve. She used it like a flyswatter. Rankin used her hands and, seeing the success Cross was having batting the jumpers into the water, tore into her backpack to pull out its panel.

Duncan’s fear that the bugs would collide with the front of the truck became real. With everyone fending off bugs behind the cab, nobody was watching, except Hamel, who watched everything through the camera’s LCD. A cluster of insects broke off from a larger raft and was floating toward the passenger side front fender. He understood that if the bugs were able to climb onto the hood, many more could follow depending on the current. He also understood that Azevedo would die if the bugs managed to establish a foothold. Given time, even a handful of bugs could kill a person by attacking the eyes or other soft spots. Once they latched on, if they weren’t quickly killed the way Rankin and Boyd had killed the bugs attacking Peeples, they would slowly, excruciatingly consume their victim.

With only a moment to plan, Duncan crawled onto the cab, sat on its front edge and asked Cross to hand him two cups of gasoline and some splinters.

“I don’t have any? Where are they?” she asked, her voice betraying panic.

“Just pull ‘em out of the flooring,” Duncan said.

Cross fell to her knees and dug at the boards with her fingernails, but to no avail.

“Quickly,” Duncan said, his voice rising. “Give me something, anything I can light. I don’t care. Paper, anything.”

Boyd joined Cross and, knife in hand, dug into the edges of a board, slicing out a long, sharp splinter, which he broke in half and handed to Duncan. He lit it immediately and, holding it away from his body, poured a half-full cup of gasoline into the water alongside the passenger side wheel well, dropping the flaming splinter after it. The flames spread quickly, surrounding the right front and the passenger side to the door. But it wasn’t enough as a cloud of insects filled the air, many coming down on the hood and onto Duncan, who waved his arms like a madman to swat them away. Although he got most of them, several had landed on his legs and just that quickly he was no longer in the fight, focusing instead on tearing them away from his body, which he did, leaving parts of them embedded in his flesh. Blood dripped down his calves, and though he was in pain, he ignored it. Then another raft hit the side of the truck, almost dead center on the passenger door. Duncan lit another splinter, poured gasoline into the water and set it ablaze. But he was a little late with the flame, and plenty of them had already launched themselves into the air, landing on the hood, the cab and inside the cab onto Azevedo’s lap.

While this was going on, Boyd grabbed one of the gas cans and was on the verge of pouring it into the water but stopped with Azevedo’s first screams. The old man let go of the searchlight, which hung precariously from its mount, pointing downward, illuminating only a small area near the front fender. Were it not for the flames on the surface of the water, those on the truck bed would have been in near total darkness. Everyone knew instinctively that the situation was out of control.

The professor leaned against the door, pushed it open and rolled into the water like a potato sack, through a patch of flame and insects. Even though he wore size forty-four pants, the water was high enough that he was completely submerged. Duncan saw the old man tumble in the water, shouted and watched as he submerged out of sight, but the immediate problem was the insects at the front of the truck. The bugs were infiltrating the cab through the open windows and more were coming.

Duncan leaned over as far as he could toward the front of the cab and poured a cup of gasoline followed by a lighted splinter, and the front of the truck and its underside erupted in flame, sending a cloud of bugs into the air, most of them falling back into the water. Duncan and Boyd stood against the cab and batted away the bugs that didn’t land in the water, but there wasn’t much they could do against the ones that were inside the cab. The two exchanged glances. Without a word, Boyd lit a splinter while Duncan leaned over and tossed gasoline into the cab. Boyd leaned toward the driver’s side and threw in the lighted splinter. The cab exploded into flame, filling with screeches and smoke, setting what remained of the upholstery on fire. Acrid smoke billowed out of the windows, but the slight breeze pushed it away from the truck. By now, it was clear to Duncan that they were fighting a losing battle. Already one of the gas cans was empty, and the remaining can was less than full.

Suddenly, not far from the front passenger side, Azevedo poked his head out of the water, gasping for breath.

“Professor!” Duncan shouted.

The old man struggled to keep his head above water, craning his neck as he did so. Fatigue and his generally poor physical condition prevented him from pushing himself to his feet. Duncan, Boyd and the others crowded together, all of them shouting at Azevedo to get on his feet. The old man shook his head and mumbled something. Antonio Suarez shouted at him in Portuguese, jumped into the waist deep water and grabbed Azevedo from behind. He tried to lift him to his feet, but Suarez was too small and the professor too large as both men briefly submerged.

“Can you move?” Suarez asked.

“No, I can’t. Save yourself. There’s nothing you can do for me.”

Suarez shook his head.

“As long as I can stay underwater, I’ll be safe from them,” Azevedo said, reassuringly. “That’s why I got into the water. Some of the insects were on me, but they seem to have drowned.”

“What about all the junk in the water? There’s all kinds of stuff, I can feel it.”

“It’s not so bad, so far. Anyway, I have no choice. I can’t even stand up, I’m so ashamed.”

“Professor, I’m not leaving you.”

Boyd was the next to join the pair in the water. Splashing to them, he kneeled alongside Azevedo, his head just above water, and put his shoulder under the professor’s arm. Seeing this, Suarez did the same on the other side, and the two tried to lift the old man, but fell back. It was like trying to lift a bag of wet sand out of a mud hole.

“I can’t even help you!” Azevedo shouted. “I can’t even help myself. Go away before it’s too late. Let me take my chances.”

Everyone on the truck was scouring the area for more insects, but there was little illumination since the searchlight was pointed toward the water. Even though the interior of the cab continued to smolder, Johnson climbed inside through the driver’s side window and gingerly perched on what remained of the seat, feeling with his feet for cool spots. At the same time, he raised the searchlight and swept it across the area from the front to the rear of the truck.

“Guys,” Johnson shouted, “Bugs are comin’ right at you. Look!”

“Get out of there,” Duncan urged.

“We can’t leave Doctor Azevedo,” Boyd shouted.

“You have to,” Azevedo said. “You’re young; I’m old. I’m finished. Let me be.”

For the first time, Azevedo struggled against his would-be rescuers. He could see the approaching insects as well as the others. With one last burst of energy, he pressed his shoes into the muck and managed to push himself forward, away from Suarez and Boyd, disappearing for a moment under the murky water. The young men shouted after the old man, but he remained under water.

“Get away from there,” Duncan shouted. “We can’t use the gas as long as you’re in the water. There’s nothing else to do. If you don’t get out, you’re endangering the rest of us.”

Suarez wanted to stay, but Boyd pushed him toward the truck, and the two clambered up the front bumper, onto the hood and then over the top of the cab onto the bed. Duncan handed a splinter and his lighter to Maggie Cross, who lit it and held it, using her hand to shield the flame. Just as he was about to pour gasoline onto the water, he saw Azevedo’s head pop out of the water, now more than twenty feet away from the truck. Although he wasn’t directly in the way of the insects, some of those that were jumping landed on him and underwater he went.