Gregg Hurwitz - Minutes to Burn

She knew she'd have to be careful; there were sharp metal teeth lining the vent to catch it if pushed in from the outside. She banged her feet against the vent, straining through her thighs, but it budged only slightly.

Even if she could kick it out, she didn't know how she was going to dis-tract the mantid long enough to drag Tank through the hole.

Behind her, Tank's scream was unbelievably high. The mantid hooked the handle again, throwing her weight back as she snapped her front leg to her thorax. As the door yanked open, Tank's arm tore from his body, right in front of his face. He went limp for a moment, and then his legs straightened under him again.

The mantid collected herself from the ground and lunged for him, wrapping him in the tines of her legs. Tank yelled, struggling in her grasp. Cameron turned from the vent, scrambling across the slick floor to the specimen hook pile. Her fist tightened around a hook, and she rose and charged the mantid.

Tank's legs were crushed nearly flat and the ripped stump of his arm was pressed to his side, but his left arm was still free. He drew it back, forming a hammer of a fist, and drove it through the creature's eye to the wrist.

The mantid reeled, air rushing through her spiracles and creating a shrill, awful screech. She jogged Tank once to get a better grip and snapped her legs around him, severing him through his massive chest. His shoulders, head still intact, fell to the ground, landing upright like a bust.

Crying out, Cameron swung the hook, aiming for the mantid's other eye with the barbed point. The mantid jerked to the left, and the hook struck the hard cuticle above her eyes but did not stick. It clattered to the floor, ringing against the metal. Cameron leapt for the back of the freezer, sliding toward the vent. Beating against the vent with both feet, she smashed it outward. It bulged against the screws, the middle bowing.

The mantid stepped into the freezer, evidently confused by the twirling bodies all around. She snapped a dangling body from a hook with her legs, then dropped it. Another body spun to her right and she leaned back and seized it, the hook tearing into her leg. She ripped the corpse, specimen hook and all, from the ceiling, biting into the rotting flesh before discarding it on the floor. Her trembling antennae snapped upright and she turned, her good eye finding Cameron. The mantid started forward.

Cameron felt the vent about to give and she reared back and ham-mered both legs into it. One of the metal guard teeth ran a slit up her calf and she grunted with the pain but pushed through the end of her kick nonetheless. The vent left the back wall of the freezer, flying out onto the grass beyond.

Cameron felt the shadow of the mantid fall across her, and she dived forward through the toothed gap where the vent had been, the creature's raptorial legs snapping shut inches behind her. She curled up as she flew through the vent hole, dodging the teeth surrounding it. Tucking as she hit the grass, she rolled over her shoulders, still guiding her legs through the metal teeth behind her. One of the teeth caught her boot, swiping a section of rubber from the sole, but then she was on the grass and free.

The mantid rammed her head through the hole, her gaping mouth straining to reach Cameron. The metal teeth scraped into her cuticle and she expelled air in a breathy hiss, backing up and struggling. Her head stuck on the teeth for a moment before pulling free.

Cameron finished her roll, coming up and onto her feet immediately, and sprinted around the freezer. She kicked the front door closed as she passed, trapping the mantid inside. With its missing lock, the freezer wouldn't hold her, but Cameron hoped it would confuse her, buying time to escape.

She heard the mantid smash against one of the walls before she was more than ten yards away, a screech echoing in the cold aluminum walls. The wind picked up, howling through the watchtower and drowning out the fierce banging within the freezer.

Ignoring the burn setting in through her legs, Cameron sprinted for the forest.

Even with a mask, Justin's visibility underwater would have been extremely low. Hiding sea-urchin-dotted stretches of coral and sharp lava ledges, the inky water enveloped him. He progressed steadily toward the tuff cones, his strokes regular, his breathing calm. He surfaced frequently, the cloud-hazed moonlight seeping across the waters and his own wan face.

His foot tangled in a strand of seaweed and he doubled over under-water, calmly freeing himself. He resurfaced and swam slowly in circles, glancing around through the darkness. He felt for the flashlight but did not turn it on.

Turtlebacking slowly, he floated on the ripples and looked at the stars above. Orion was clearly lit, the point of the arrow like a beacon. As he headed back through the darkness, the near-full moon broke clear of the clouds. The first of the tuff cones was about fifteen feet away from him. He would have swum directly into it had the moon not made its fortu-itous appearance.

He gripped the side of the tuff cone, breathing hard, then eased his way around it, kicking gently to the next one in the chain. He swam qui-etly, the dark slumbering forms of the sea lions dotting the nooks of the rock. When he reached the third cone, he swam about five yards west, then dived beneath the surface and kicked to the bottom. He hit sand in seven strokes. The moonlight filtered beneath the surface for the first several feet, but down at the bottom, it was pitch black.

He drifted for a moment, his body limp, suspended in perfect black-ness. Once his torso had oriented toward the truest angle upward, he kicked, paddling fiercely until he broke the surface. He was barely winded.

His fingers were white when he released the flashlight. He clicked the switch and headed down, following the yellow-white shaft of light. He followed a sharp slope, the sea bottom about ten feet deeper at the far end. He paused when his feet struck sand, the flashlight illuminating a band of water across the bottom.

Tightening his grasp on the flashlight, he bent his legs beneath his body on the sand, raising the flashlight as he started to push off from the bottom. It shot a beam of light in front of him and he jerked back, his breath billowing out in a burst of bubbles.

Directly in front of him, no more than an arm's length away, was the head of a large blacktip reef shark. Its mouth opened, revealing row upon row of razor-sharp teeth, and Justin threw himself supine as it glided above him, knocking his face with the leathery bottom of its jaw.

Before shoving off for the surface, he followed the shark with the light until it glided up the slope and out of view. Then, he kicked up hard, pushing a few meager bubbles from his nose.

He gasped when he broke the surface, sucking in a mouthful of water. He swam to the nearest tuff cone, ignoring the barking sea lion he'd awakened, and gripped it tightly as he regurgitated a mix of salt water and mucus.

He clung to the tuff cone for a few minutes, breathing steadily until he calmed. Kicking west again about fifteen yards, he swam to the bot-tom, scanning with the flashlight. He returned to the surface more quickly than he had before.

The second and third dives were equally fruitless. He was breathing heavily again by the time he surfaced from the fourth.

Cameron ran into the forest until the searing pain in her lungs became too much, then she collapsed. Since it was night, the mantid could roam anywhere on the island; the forest, with its myriad hiding places, was probably Cameron's best bet.

She was heavily scented with her sweat, Tank's blood, and the rotting flesh of the body from the freezer. She stared at her damp, stained shirt, soaked with the Darwin virus, and knew she'd have to wash off as soon as she could get back to the water. There was no way she was going to risk another trip to the beach, though. Not until sunrise. She thought of the antibacterial gel at base-that would be her first priority in the morning.