Nasty Little F___ers-Kindle (17 page)

***

Janice woke up and fought the urge to vomit. Her head throbbed and her vision swam in lazy circles. She tried to rub the painful spot on the back of her head and noticed she couldn’t pull her arms in to her body. To make matters worse, something sticky covered her mouth, making it impossible to talk. She forced her mind and eyes to focus and found she was sitting on the ground with her back to the trunk of a tree, which she confirmed as a Maple by looking up at the lower branches. Her arms were stretched taut by two ropes, which held them up like a crucifixion and stretched to two nearby birches. A breeze stirred on her chest and she looked down, noticing for the first time that her shirt and bra were gone, leaving her bare-chested with her breasts jutting outward and her nipples standing at attention. Her ankles were taped together and tied to a stake in the ground a short distance away, she did not even have enough slack in the rope to stand up.

Fighting panic, she pulled and tugged at the ropes until her wrists bled, but she couldn’t get loose. She tried to scream, but the tape on her mouth kept her silent.

Who the hell would tie her up like this? And why?

The ‘who’ became clear as Moretz stepped into view, brandishing Colby’s pistol and looking extremely pleased with himself. “Don’t struggle, Janice,” he said. “Those knots are plenty tight, I promise you.”

As she watched, Moretz slid his hand into the front of his pants and started to stroke himself. Then she knew the answer to the other question, the why. She shook her head as tears built in her eyes. She couldn’t stop him this time. Not with her legs tied behind her.

“So pretty,” Moretz said, grinning. “It’s all right. Don’t cry. There’s no need to pretend anymore, Janice. It’s just you and me. We can finally be together.”

She tried to scream through the tape again as Moretz took a step toward her.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Anzer answered on the third ring. “Anzer speaking,” he said, sounding a little annoyed.

“Anzer, it’s me, Colby.”

Silence on the other end of the line.

“Anzer? You there?” Colby checked the phone to make sure he hadn’t been disconnected. The call clock kept ticking upward. Forty-five seconds. “Anzer?”

“Yeah,” Anzer replied quickly. “I’m here. How the hell did you call me?”

“I’m up in a fucking tree about ten miles from base camp. Listen—”

“What the hell are you doing in a goddamn tree? You’re supposed to be with the others. I’m not paying you to—”

“They’re all dead, Anzer.” Colby’s cheeks flushed, and he could feel the heat of his face rising as he fought down his anger.

“Dead? What the hell do you mean they’re all dead? All of them?”

“All but Janice and me. Some new kind of grub or something. Allen was studying them before he disappeared. Little bastards ate Jared and Harper alive, but that’s not all. They got Bock, too. But he...”

He stopped there, not sure what to say. What the fuck
had
he seen, anyway? Would Anzer believe it?

“But Bock what?”

“Nothing. Just get a fucking chopper here ASAP and get us out of here.”

“How am I supposed to do that when I’m not sure where you are?”

“Call the cell phone company and have them track the GPS.”

Another long silence. Did Anzer really have to think about this? Colby stared at the readout again, the call was still active. “Anzer? You still there?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m here. I think—”

“No, don’t think. Just shut the fuck up and get me a goddamn helicopter! There’s no room to think, Anzer. Just do it.”

“All right, all right,” Anzer said. He somehow managed to make it sound like Colby’s request was the most unreasonable thing on the planet. “Leave the cell phone on so they can track it, okay?”

“Roger that. It’ll only stay charged for a couple of hours, though.”

“Then I suggest you find a nearby clearing and sit tight.”

What a prick. “Got it. See you in a few hours.”

Colby flipped the phone shut, disconnecting the call before Anzer could respond. There’s just something about cell phones that make hanging up angry feel like an empty gesture. No good slam to show how pissed off you are. Instead it’s a little button or a fold, and you can’t do either with too much vigor or you’ll have to buy a new phone. Colby flipped it open again and shut it quickly, just for effect, and then shoved it in his pocket.

Sit tight
, Anzer had said. What the hell else was he going to do? Hit the local bars and two step his way to Bangor? Maybe grab a stripper and a case of Mike’s Hard Lemonade for good measure? What an asshole. Colby fumed. When he finally got to see Anzer again, the prick would be so sore he wouldn’t want to sit for two weeks. Colby’s cell phone wasn’t large, but he was willing to bet Anzer wouldn’t like having it shoved up his ass.

He looked down the trunk of the tree. It would take a few hours before a chopper could get there. Plenty of time to climb down and scout around for a suitable spot to sit and wait. He and Janice could eat the rest of the jerky and maybe find a small stream to refill their canteens. Food, drink, and Janice for company. It wouldn’t be such a bad time, he supposed, if she was willing to talk to him, anyway. If not… well, it wouldn’t be the first time Colby sat in silence waiting to be rescued.

Then he heard the gunshot.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Janice watched Moretz as he approached, his right hand stroking himself under his pants. He said nothing, just stared at her with an all too eager expression, doubtless thinking of what he was going to do to her.

A loud bang sounded somewhere off to her left, and Moretz’s head exploded in a burst of red, sending blood and pieces of skull in a wide radius. She closed her eyes, but still heard the fluids and bits of brain fall all around her. It sounded like a heavy rain. Then came a muffled thump as Moretz’s body fell to the dirt.

When the last droplet of blood fell, landing squarely on her forehead, she dared to open her eyes and look in the direction the shot had come from. There stood Allen, holding Colby’s AR-15. He held it across his chest, not pointing it at anyone, but he didn’t put it away, either.

“Stupid bastard,” he said. Allen stared at the body and shook his head. “I told him to leave you alone.”

Janice tried to speak, but her mouth was still covered by duct tape. The best she could manage was a muffled yelp that sounded nothing like the cry for help she’d been hoping for. She kicked her legs in the dirt as much as the rope would allow, trying to get his attention. It worked. Allen looked from Moretz’s body to Janice.

She felt the corners of her mouth lift under the duct tape. Allen would help her, of course he would. Then she, Allen, and Colby could get the fuck out of here. And she would be sure to patch things up with Colby. She had to let him know she cared, no matter what he thought of her. She couldn’t leave until she’d told him the truth; that she thought she might be falling in love with him.

But Allen didn’t approach.

“Sorry, Janice,” he said. “I’d cut you loose, but they’ll be coming for you soon, and it’s better if you can’t move. They’ll want him, too,” he jerked the rifle in the direction of Moretz’s body. “The only difference is you’ll still be alive, like me. Now that Moretz is dead he’ll be more like Edison back there.” Allen pointed somewhere behind Janice.

She turned her head and twisted her waist to see behind her. If the tape hadn’t been over her mouth she would have screamed at the sight. There stood Edison, or what was left of him. The wounds from the big cat were still visible, but they could barely be seen under the writhing, crawling mass of grubs that traveled the length and breadth of Edison’s once plump academic’s body.

Everywhere she looked, they squirmed over him. Grubs feasted on his eyes, on his chest, even his lips. One particularly fat grub squirmed into Edison’s mouth while she watched, presumably going after his tongue. She felt the bile rise in her throat and forced it down, knowing if she threw up with duct tape covering her mouth she could very well drown in her own vomit.

A lump of flesh behind Edison also crawled with grubs, but it lay on the ground rather than standing upright like a man. She thought she recognized a dull green shirt and camouflage pants, however, and she shuddered.

“Yeah, that’s Bock,” Allen said, confirming her suspicion. “He finally fell down about twenty minutes ago and hasn’t gotten back up.” Allen chuckled. “There sure was a lot of meat on him.”

She looked away from Edison and Bock and back to Allen, her vision blurring as she fought back tears. What the hell was going to happen to her? She sobbed, a strangled, subdued sound beneath the tape.

“Don’t worry, Janice,” Allen said. “You’re still alive. That means you’ll be like me, not like Edison and Bock. Or Moretz, for that matter. He really was an idiot, anyway. Always thought with his cock. The flies will put eggs in him, and he’ll come back for a bit, but he’ll be better. He’ll still be dead, though; they can only lay their eggs in dead tissue. But you’ll be fine.”

She shook her head, not understanding.

“The grubs,” Allen continued, “need living people to spread. Dead people are just food, although they can be useful to folks like us. Don’t worry, they won’t hurt either of us as long as we’re carrying.” Allen opened his shirt and pointed to a pair of grubs attached to his chest, just above the left nipple. They hung there like leeches. “Buggers got loose in the tent and nabbed me before I could stop them. Neat, huh?” He closed his shirt back. “I was studying some fecal matter I found on the outskirts of the camp at the time, looking for any sign of Jared. Needless to say, I didn’t find any. He was probably killed by that mountain lion, and the grubs brought him back after.

“I was just about to get Colby under control, but Bock ruined it by showing up at the campsite and causing a ruckus,” Allen shook his head. “Stubborn fucker. Always had to do things his way. Didn’t help much, though, did it?”

Janice stared, unable to speak and not knowing what she would have said anyway. Her mind was locked; she couldn’t think straight anymore. Bock, Moretz, Edison… all hijacked by a bunch of
grubs?

“I can hear them,” Allen continued, pointing to his temple. “In here. Not sure how they do it, though. They didn’t give me a lot of time to examine them, but from what I can tell there are two types. Feeders – or drones, if you will – like those on Edison. And queens, like the ones on my chest. There aren’t any queens near enough, or any feeders, for that matter. Moretz had two, but I blew them apart when I shot him. My fault, they were on his neck. I should have shot him center mass, but I’ve never been much of a marksman. No worries, though. They’ll be along soon. I told them where we are.”

Janice sat, hunched in the dirt and tied to the trees, trying to make some sense of what Allen had just said. Could it be true? Or was he just crazy? Either spelled trouble for her. She began to sob again, unable this time to prevent the tears from spilling from her eyes and rolling down her cheeks.

“Now, come on, Janice,” Allen said. “It’s not bad, I promise.”

She turned away, unable to look at him.

“No, really,” he continued. “It’s quite beautiful actually. So simple and pure. You’ll be amazed at what these little guys can do. Patching into dead nervous systems and releasing chemicals that allow them to talk to our minds is just the start. You’ll see. It’s really quite fascinating.”

As soon as he finished talking, she heard a distant buzzing, like a cloud of flies gathered at a carcass. Allen must have heard it, too, because he perked his head up and cocked his ear toward the sound.

“Ah,” he said. “Here they come, now.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Colby was hurrying down the tree when he heard the buzzing. It reminded him of the cloud of flies he’d seen devouring the bear carcass; the ones Bock had tried to push him into. That was when he killed Bock. Or when he
thought
he killed Bock. The bastard kept coming back. Was he out there even now? Or had he fallen to the grubs, too?

Colby wasn’t a genius, not like some members of his team, but he had enough smarts to realize the grubs had something to do with all the dead people walking around. And what were grubs but baby flies? Those big, three-inch bottle flies could very well be the mommies and daddies of all these fucking grubs. If they were coming, Colby knew it could only mean trouble.

And Janice was still down there!

He scrambled down the branches as fast as he could go, oblivious to the cuts and scrapes on his hands and arms, and focused on getting to the ground. The sound of the flies rose as he descended the tree, finally becoming a fevered crescendo while he was still about seventy-five feet up. He peered through the trees, trying to see what was going on, but from this height the foliage blocked his view.

“Janice?” he called. “Janice, are you all right?” He didn’t know if she could hear him, he could barely hear himself over the droning of the flies, but he shouted and climbed, just the same.

“Janice! Answer me!”

He reached down for another branch, going as fast as he dared, when the sound of the flies stopped. He craned his ears, trying to determine the reason for the silence, and he thought he heard a muffled sobbing coming from somewhere below. He tried to see through the foliage, but it was useless. “Janice?” he called again.