Gregg Hurwitz - Minutes to Burn

From the opposite side, Justin took the branch and lowered it to the lip of the hole. With painstaking care, Szabla set her end of the branch down, where it just missed the last inch of ground. She threw the branch aside.

"Fuck it," she said. "Maybe we'll only need five."

She jumped down into the hole and laid the block of TNT on the ground, dead center. The wire ran up and out of the hole to the Clacker, which lay in the grass about five feet from the edge of the hole. Using the knotted rope, she climbed out.

Savage notched the remaining five branches deeply in the middle to ensure their breaking under the mantid's weight, then they laid them across the hole and smoothed wide fronds on top of them. One end of the hole remained exposed, showing the blackness beneath.

"We're gonna need one more branch," Savage said.

Tank patted Cameron on the shoulder, angling his head toward the forest.

"All right," Cameron said. "We'll be right back."

"I'll go instead," Justin said.

"No, it's fine. We got it."

Justin started to protest, but she raised an eyebrow to silence him. Tank leaned over and plucked the freezer bolt off the ground. It was at least a thirty-pound bar, but he carried it like a Wiffle-ball bat, tapping one end casually against his palm.

They walked in silence to the edge of the field. Cameron scanned the forest, hoping to see the end of a fallen branch peeking out from beneath the leaves, but there was nothing. Except for mounds of leaves, scattered twigs, and the husks of a few rotting oranges, the ground was bare. The forest receded into blackness between the tree trunks. The noises of living things echoed from the void.

There was never silence in the forest, Cameron had learned. Birds cackling, rain pattering, rats scampering, but never silence. Even the air seemed to be alive, seemed to move and feel and whisper all around them.

"We're gonna have to go farther in," she said. "I don't see any here."

Tank raised the bolt from his shoulder, gripping it by the knob like a nightstick. The spike Cameron held against her thigh seemed delicate in comparison.

She started into the darkness, Tank following closely behind.

The mist turned slowly to rain again; they heard it first in the treetops. Drops danced along the leaves, bending them under their weight until they dipped at the stems, spilling. The rivulets darted through openings, drizzling down in streams around them.

"Gimme a six-pace lead," Cameron whispered loudly. She had to raise her voice; the sound of the rain was amplified beneath the canopy.

The strength of the downpour increased until it sounded as if they were under fire. Despite his size, Tank was incredibly graceful, moving through the undergrowth with the agility of a deer. Cameron had to turn and make sure he was following. Were he Derek, she would have known exactly where he was at all times. She wouldn't have had to check his location, wouldn't have had to point to direct him. Tank was excellent, but Derek had been the best. Derek had been like a part of her.

Floreana's deformed baby clawed its way back into her thoughts and she drew her head back slightly at the image. She noticed her fingers trembling and she balled her hand into a fist, clenching it until her fin-gernails dug painfully into her palm. When she opened her hand, her fin-gers were still trembling, so she slapped herself once across the face, hard. Tank saw her halt, heard the ring of the slap, and waited unquestioningly for her to move again.

She inched forward, fighting desperately to clear her mind. There would be time to mourn, she hoped, for Derek and for other things lost. Now was not the time to go limp with grief or weak with horror. Cameron was trained precisely not to mourn or pity, not to cower at times when she most should. She had already let it in, the softness of her emotions. And now, as she stalked through the forest, bending aside fronds with her arms, chest, and face, she swore it would not happen again.

As she moved, she overturned heaps of leaves with her boot to see if they hid any lengthy branches from sight. They needed just one branch: one more branch and the trap would be ready.

A flash of lightning illuminated a small clearing ahead, and she saw a bough sprawled across the fecund ground like a knotted snake. Thickly gnarled, bowed up toward the middle, and seared by lightning at one end, it lay amongst a scattering of bark peels.

Cameron raised her hand, snapped her fingers once, and pointed. Tank swung wide, holding back to keep surveillance behind them. Out of habit, she winced as she stepped into the clearing. Years of ops had made her accustomed to sniper fire; she hated moving from cover, no matter the circumstance.

She leaned back to survey the treetops, envisioning the creature swaying upside down from the branches overhead. The trunks rose up into darkness, shadowy and dripping with ants, but free of danger.

She felt her shoulders relax as she moved farther into the clearing. She circled the branch once, her eyes picking through the trees around her, then backed up until she felt it against her heel. She stepped back so the branch was between her feet and glanced down at it quickly. With relief, she noted that it was long enough to stretch across the hole. Keeping her eyes on the forest, she crouched to grab the branch.

As if on cue, the rain stopped the instant her hand touched the bark. It didn't taper off; it ceased at once and completely. Cameron could sud-denly hear how hard she'd been breathing. She started when water splashed on her shoulder.

Her fingertips rested on the bark of the branch. With the cessation of rain, the forest seemed unnaturally quiet. She felt that the silence should have enabled some clarity of thought, but it did not. Something chirped near her, in the leaves.

She was paralyzed in her crouch. The trees surrounded her in their various sizes, some towering up through the canopy, some just beginning to spread their branches, others thin and bare like telephone poles.

With increasing conviction, she sensed that something was wrong, though what it was she could not figure out. Her breath coming in short quiet gasps, she stared at the trees around her, the dense foliage curling from the soil, even the branch beneath her fingertips, but everything seemed in order. When she rose to stand, both her knees cracked loudly at the same time.

She looked for Tank and he flashed her a dour thumbs-up when he read her expression. Things were clear behind them.

She stepped toward the far end of the clearing, wielding the spike like a saber. She stopped at the edge, resting an arm against the nearest tree trunk. The bark felt smooth against her sleeve. Her eyes tried to pierce the darkness beyond, but she couldn't make anything out. Her knees tensed as she waited for something to fly out at her.

Nervous about leaving the darkness unattended, she risked another quick glance back at Tank. He was holding firm, scanning the terrain behind them. The glint of the steel bolt in his hand calmed her a bit, but her confidence wavered when she turned back to the forest. It was breathing, the forest. It was alive-near her, on top of her, all around her. It was watching her.

She choked down the fear rising in her throat, setting her bottom jaw forward and clamping down on her upper lip. The pain brought her back from the edge. She sucked air deeply, drawing it into the far corners of her chest, and exhaled through her nose. She was fine. There was nothing out there.

Leaning back on her heels, she shoved off from the tree. Above her, the tree moved. A head swiveled around on an impossibly elongated neck. It looked at her, eyes as wide as globes, mouth a quivering mess of blades and parts.

Cameron yelled, stumbling back.

Slowly, deliberately, the mantid pivoted, her upper body leading her abdomen. Her front legs had been resting on the tree trunk next to her, holding her body almost perfectly upright on her rear legs. The mantid's abdomen resolved into view, the wings folded along her back but not protruding past the tip of the abdomen. Cameron noted the wing length, even through her terror, and realized that it was a female. Even worse.