Gregg Hurwitz - Minutes to Burn

She was dying.

Cameron tried to climb down the other side of the trunk but ended up falling. She landed on her hip and screamed, the pain watering her eyes. Her vision dotted, then cleared, and she pulled herself toward the creature.

The mantid couldn't lift the back of her head from the dirt. Her mouth gnashed at Cameron, moving as if trying to free itself and attack her on its own.

The smell of the rotting mouth rising to her, Cameron lowered her face right above the mantid's, her reflection clear in the creature's remaining eye. Glaring into the black eye, she knew, somehow, that the mantid sensed her life draining away.

The mantid struggled, trying desperately to lift her head so she could crush Cameron's face in her jaws. But she was too weak; she succeeded only in turning her head meekly from side to side. Cameron reached for the protruding spear stock, the movement causing her to lean over the mantid. Her blond hair fell in neat curves around her cheeks. Her chin was awash with saliva and blood; she inadvertently drooled a thick cord into the quivering maw. Cameron grabbed the stock of the spear with both fists. The whole head lifted when she drew back her arms. She smashed the head back against the ground, driving the spear stock deeper through the cuticle. The mantid's mouth gaped in its awful silent fashion. The spear tip continued to press through the creature's head, which yielded with a moist crackling.

The mantid shuddered beneath Cameron's hands, then convulsed, her cuticle rattling against the tree trunk that was now part of her abdomen. Her mouth still spread wide, the mantid stopped shaking and her head rolled up and to the side.

Spitting a mouthful of blood down the front of her chin and onto the ground, Cameron started to sob. She wept lying flat on her stomach, tears cutting through the dirt on her face, her fists still gripping the last protruding inches of the spear.

Cameron lowered her head, resting it on her forearm as she fought for control, pushing her lips together until they stopped quivering.

Savage's knife was lying where it had fallen in the dirt nearby. She closed her fingers around the black Micarta as if to draw strength from it. Raising her aching arm, she plunged the Death Wind into the top of the tree trunk that lay across the creature's chest. The knife rose verti-cally, like a cross from a grave.

She thought of Justin and tried to rise, but could not. A few dry sobs escaped her, shaking her shoulders. She rolled onto her back, the stars above blurring into a fantasia of pinpoints and yellow streaks.

Darkness claimed her.

La Carretera al Canal, a poorly paved highway that led over the high-lands of Santa Cruz to the northern side of the island, was forty-two kilometers of mess. Scarps and cracks slowed the truck to a cautious crawl in the night. A few times, Diego had to stop before driving across a fissure, and wait for Rex and Ramoncito to remove the two planks from the bed of the truck and lay them across the gap. They hit one scarp particularly hard and Rex was convinced they'd blown a tire, but the truck rattled on, undeterred.

After what seemed a lifetime, they drove down the far side of the hill, coasting to the dock at the Itabaca Channel and gazing across the dark stream of water at the airport lights on Baltra.

The truck skidded to a halt, and they hopped out.

Rex looked at the stretch of water and cursed. "I forgot about that," he said. "There's no boat. What are we going to-" He glanced over, but Diego had already stripped down to his boxers.

Diego leaned back in the truck, grabbing the handcuffs from the rearview mirror. "I'm going to stop that plane if I have to handcuff myself to it," he said. He ran a few steps and hit the water with a graceful dive.

Ramoncito groaned and began to strip down. Rex watched him for a few moments before following suit.

Cameron awakened with the helo blowing sheets of wind across her body. Guided by the IR strobe, it flew low over the road, landing in the grassy field between base camp and the air vesicle. A soldier sat crouched behind the M-60 mounted in the door.

Three figures scurried from the helo, running to her body under the yellow blanket of the spotlight, white bands with red crosses standing out on their arms. They stopped dead in their tracks, Berettas drawn, when they saw the mantid's body beneath the tree. One shouted back to the gunner and two men emerged with flamethrowers. Cameron coughed, her throat lined with dirt and blood.

The flamethrowers burst to life with sporadic belches, obliterating the remnants of the virus from the base camp. Cameron raised a weary hand and held up two fingers, then pointed in the directions of Ramon and Floreana's house and of the specimen freezer-the two additional sites that needed to be sterilized by fire. One of the soldiers nodded and jogged off down the road, flamethrower in hand. This was all relevant, she realized, only if the water samples had come in clean.

Two figures moved in cautiously, eyes on the creature, and lifted Cameron onto a stretcher. Cameron tried to speak, to tell them where Justin was buried-that despite her last correspondence with Samantha, he was still alive-but her throat was caked with dust and no sound came out. Despite her protestations, they carried her briskly but carefully back to the helo. Behind her, the flamethrower claimed the mantid's body.

Cameron thrashed on the stretcher. "Stop, we have a man down," she managed to croak, but her voice was barely audible over the burst of the flamethrowers and the whir of the rotors. She pointed to the mound of upturned soil under which Justin was buried, but they moved right past it. Her and Derek's old tent was ablaze, along with the note she'd pinned to it.

She threw herself from the stretcher, grunting when she hit the ground. Justin's body was buried about ten feet away. The figures stopped, concerned, then leaned over her. She saw a needle flash in a gloved hand-a sedative. She rolled on her back, swinging roughly, and the figures backed off.

She turned and pulled herself toward Justin's grave, feeling the pinch of the needle in her ass. The world blurred and swam. She fought off unconsciousness, dragging herself forward with bloody fingernails. The figures waited for her to pass out.

Grunting, she yanked herself toward the plastic tube that protruded from the ground. Spots dotted her vision. She finally reached it and swiped away a handful of dirt, revealing the edge of Justin's cheek. One of the figures crouched over him, checking his neck for a pulse.

Cameron felt her body floating away.

Strapped to the stretcher, she came to when the Blackhawk struck pave-ment at Baltra. One of the corpsmen fiddled with an oxygen line. She leaned over Cameron and checked her pupils with a penlight, first pulling on a second set of latex gloves.

Resting in the tangle of an oxygen tube on her chest was a transparent Ziploc bag that held her necklace and wedding ring. The corpsman must have removed them from her neck to get a clear line to her pulse. Afraid the ring would get lost with all the activity, Cameron reached out weakly and fought the bag open, pushing the ring onto her finger. The necklace slid from her chest, falling to the helo floor. She wasn't used to wearing the ring properly-it felt large and unwieldy, yet comforting.

Cameron rolled her head limply to the side. Justin lay on the stretcher across the helo, his glassy eyes staring up at the roof. His face was pallid, like a corpse's, and awash in sweat and dirt. Cameron's eyes traveled down to his fingernails. They were blue; he was shunting blood to his heart and brain. A single tear rolled from the corner of his eye, but he did not blink.

"Baby," she said, her voice choked and broken. She sniffed and wiped the mucus roughly from her upper lip. Justin's body stiffened as a wave of pain wracked him, his thighs straining the vinyl straps, his back arched and contorted. His eyes seemed drugged, insensate, and for a moment Cameron thought she'd lost him already despite the steady blip of the monitor.