Gregg Hurwitz - Minutes to Burn

She flipped the light and caught it by the end. The sound of the rain was soothing and ineffably exciting. She was oddly aware of each muscle in her body-the ripples of her stomach, the solid curve of her thighs, the divot that split her deltoid when she raised her arm. She jerked her neck to one side, and it cracked all the way from the base. The wet tank top clung to her chest, forced out by the points of her nipples.

She thought about Savage's body, hard and untan. The thin patch of hair across his chest. She'd caught him looking at her a few times, staring at her mouth until she could almost feel it growing hot under his eyes. She bent her head to the top of her biceps, licking the beads of water.

They were salty with the ocean mist, even up here in the highlands. She lowered a hand, pressing it down the slope of her stomach.

She rose suddenly and walked to Savage's tent, ducking inside. He was sleeping peacefully on his Therm-a-Rest. Szabla pulled her shirt over her head, quietly removed her boots, and then stepped out of her pants, one leg, then the other.

Savage's eyes remained closed, his breathing constant.

She crossed naked to the sleeping pad and sealed his mouth, pressing her palm firmly over it. He struggled awake, one hand shooting to his knife like a reflex, but she was already working at his pants and had him out. He was hard from sleep.

His eyes widened as he recognized her, and he froze, blade pushing against the soft flesh of her bruised neck. She sat on him with a shudder, arching her back. She saw herself from far away, her knees pushing into the pad on either side of him, her hand clamped down over his lips, her teeth biting the inside of her cheek. She worked on him quickly, vio-lently, the blade against her throat, her hand pressed over his mouth the entire time.

He was pinned down so tight he couldn't even react to her move-ments, but she felt him building as she came, biting even harder on her cheek as her hips rotated with a mind all their own.

She pulled herself up off him, her throat leaving the blade, and he gasped for air when she removed her hand. His pants loose at his hips, hand still stretched upward holding the blade, he looked around as if trying to figure out where he was, what had happened. She got dressed with her back to him, then turned calmly, amused by his shocked expression. A thin scratch, beaded with two tiny drops of blood, stretched across her throat where the knife had been.

"Thanks, soldier," she said, not untenderly. She ducked through the flap and disappeared into the rain.

28 Dec 07

MISSION DAY 4

Cameron shot from sleep, her body drenched with sweat. She ran from her tent, awash in nausea. Derek called after her, but she did-n't stop until she was clear of base camp, falling, her knees pressing in the dewy grass, and then she was heaving, hard and heavy, bringing nothing up.

Derek was two steps out of the tent when Justin passed him, running for his wife. Szabla poked her head through the flap behind Justin. "What the fuck's going on?" she shouted.

Justin caught up to Cameron, crouching before her. He rested a hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off.

"I'm fine," she said. Between gasps, she wiped her mouth, leaving a smear of dirt across her chin. Sweat darkened her blond hair along the temples.

The others were out of their tents now a good distance behind them, mulling around and glancing over at them. Diego had set up the radio again and was clicking his way through an SOS.

"Morning sickness?" Justin asked.

The grass felt slick and cool beneath her hands. "Where am I without this?"

"Without what?"

She gestured blindly behind her at the base camp. "I never realized how much I need it," she said. "Orders, mission objectives, chain of command. Heat-'n-Serve priorities. They keep things simple. You do your job, and that's all you have to focus on. No mess." She pushed her-self back into a sitting position and spit out a gob of saliva. Justin waited for her to catch her breath.

"The teams have always kept things neat for me. Kept them in control. Locked away behind a starched uniform." She laughed, a short stutter that died quickly away. Off behind them, she could hear Tank taking a leak against a tree. "I'm an adult, and I hardly know how to think for myself."

Justin rested a hand on her cheek and she let him.

When she spoke again, her voice was soft with fear. "How can I have a baby if I don't even know how to think for myself?" She shook her head. "I can't. I can't have this baby."

Justin brushed a wisp of hair off her forehead. He leaned forward to kiss her, but she pulled away.

"Doesn't this upset you?" she asked, her eyes fierce and daring.

Justin swallowed hard. "Only one thing upsets me."

"What's that?" Cameron said.

He rose, letting his hands slap to his thighs. "That you never asked what I wanted."

The larva made its way through the thick vegetation, pulsing along with ripples of its abdominal segments. Its remarkable head pivoted slowly from side to side, its large, round eyes taking in the surroundings.

The larva had fared well in its brief time in the forest, surrounded by an inexhaustible supply of vegetation. The previous day, it had acciden-tally felled a large Scalesia after eating its way through the base, but it had escaped unharmed. Remaining close to the ootheca had proved advanta-geous, as its fellow broodmates had spread out rather than remaining nearby and competing for food.

Overlying the epidermis and basement membrane beneath, the larva's cuticle was beginning to flake where it scraped the ground. Its cuticle was loose all around so that it shifted within it when it moved.

The larva was growing. It would soon molt.

The cuticle split behind its head, and it began to wriggle forward. The small hooks on its prolegs anchored to the substrate to keep the cuticle from moving with it. The larva continued to struggle forward, stretching against its own skin and gulping air, broadening itself. The split in the cuticle widened, and the larva pulled itself through the top of its old body, its tiny true legs scrabbling on the ground. Its new exoskeleton was an even more vibrant green.

The new skin was wet and tender. It had not yet hardened, nor had the muscles firmly attached to it. It needed to remain immobile until its new cuticle hardened.

The larva tensed at the quiet scrape nearby. Limbs stiff with age, the feral dog broke from his hiding place in a patch of ferns, lunging at the larva. The larva curled into a protective ball, but not before the dog's mouth closed over its head, its teeth piercing the top of its thorax. The dog swung his head once and the small green body flapped in his mouth like a doll, rotating under the captive head with a sickly crunch.

Drawing his kill up in a bunch between his legs, the dog slid to his belly and began gnawing on the larva's rich tissue. As he worked his way through the head, the dog bit into the larva's mandible. The pointed end pierced the dog's gums, coming free from the head, and he let out a series of yelps.

Backing up and shaking his head, the dog thrashed until the mandible fell to the forest floor. He mouthed the larva, pulling it away through the underbrush. The larva's abdominal segments dragged on the ground behind it, kicking up a trail of rocks and dirt.

"What in the Jesus Fuck was that?" Justin whispered to Szabla, the dog's yelps vibrating in his ears.

Szabla held up a hand to quiet him. Aside from the usual sounds, the forest was silent. "Dog," she said. "Sounded like."

Justin raised the canteen and shook it, allowing the last few drops to fall into his waiting mouth. They'd been surveying the forest for the bet-ter part of the morning. Since Rex had headed off with Derek and Cameron to set the third GPS unit near the lagoon, he'd charged Justin and Szabla with locating suitable bedrock within the forest.