Barry Malzberg - Phase IV

Her only thought was for the filly; she must somehow save it from its agony. Rearing to seven or eight feet, the horse was frantic, eyeballs rolling, hooves clattering against the posts, and then Kendra saw what had happened to the horse. Ants hung from the body in little distended clumps that at first she took for welts or growths, ants nesting together, biting at the animal; and as the horse reared, a shower of ants fell like a waterfall, translucent, filtering toward the ground, the horse screaming. Kendra screamed too, breath fighting for release in her throat, screamed and lunged at the window; her only impulse was to get to the horse, but now lights were going on all through the house, and she was battering herself against the wall, helpless, her need to get to the filly overwhelmed by shock. Breath moved unevenly in her lungs, and then as she felt a tingling at the calves, she screamed, slapped down there, watching a small, spreading smear of red.

Ants. They were on her.

“Clete!” Her grandfather was shouting from the next room. “Clete, they’re here!” His bellow showed less surprise than the confirmation of something long expected, and there was, she thought with horror, something joyous in it. He’s glad; he’s glad they’re coming. She turned, her only thought now to get out of the room, and something caught her by the wrists, pulled her through the door, and shoved her against the outer wall. “Kendra!” her grandfather said. “Are you all right?” He was holding a rifle.

“The horse!” she said. “They’ve got my horse!”

“I know,” Mildred said, coming from her own bedroom. “They’re here!”

“Please,” Eldridge said, holding Kendra still in that one-hand grasp, the other shoving the rifle barrel at the floor. “Please, you’ve got to be calm.

There isn’t anything we can do—”

But she broke free of him then, screaming Ginger! her strength demoniac out of terror, and she burst through the living room, flung open the door, and ran into the yard. Somewhere Clete ran past her carrying his own rifle, his eyes glaring and terrified. A cluster of insects seemed to be on his shirt, or perhaps Kendra was only seeing this in her panic and terror. The horse: that was all that mattered, she had to get to the horse. It was not that Ginger meant so much to her, although she meant enough; it was that she could not take the suffering, the idea that the animal was in such pain. I didn’t know you cared so much, a cool mad internal voice advised her. Behind her she heard her grandfather and Clete calling to one another, shouting orders; they seemed to want to light the oil in the ditches. In the darkness she did not know what was underneath her feet; all she knew was that she was able to keep her balance. Mildred was screaming in a high wail of terror and doom; fire sputtered, missed, and then with a whoomp! one of the ditches went up, spilling fragments of flaming oil, arcing them into the sky. Kendra fumbled with the gate and got into the corral. The filly had reared up against a post and stood there now in frieze, its eyeballs blackened with the forms of ants. It was quivering through the skeleton and involuntary muscles, but was otherwise poised and quiet. Kendra did not know what to do. The filly looked at her without recognition. Shoot it. That was what you were supposed to do, of course: get a rifle and shoot it. She had never touched a firearm. How could you shoot another living thing, no matter how it was suffering? It was still murder. More fires went up, the glaze of fire lighting the corral to the pitch of day. Her grandfather and grandmother appeared at the fence, their faces illumined and streaked by the fire.

“Wait,” her grandmother said. “We’ll do something.”

“No,” Kendra said. “No!”

“Get me the gun,” Eldridge said, and Mildred went away, came back in a moment holding a rifle uncertainly. She passed it over to Eldridge. He took it and checked the barrel.

“No!” Kendra said. “You can’t do it!”

“It’s got to be done,” Eldridge said. “I was wrong. We should have left when they told us to.”

“You can’t shoot my horse,” Kendra said.

“There’s no other way,” said Eldridge. He pointed the rifle. Clete appeared in the middle of this, looked at the horse, then at Kendra, his eyes wide and confused. “ Where are the little bastards?” he said.

“Everything’s on fire.”

“Get her in the house,” Eldridge said.

Clete came toward her hesitantly. “Don’t kill her!” Kendra screamed.

“Don’t kill my horse!” And the screams whipped Clete into action as pleas, probably, would not; he seized her by the arms and began to tug her through the gate. The filly was screaming again now, struggling against the post. Kendra fought free of Clete desperately, but only for an instant; then he had her wrapped up in his arms again, and she felt a curious, absent passion almost as if she and the hired man were lovers and in the next moment he was going to penetrate her. Insanity. She pushed him away with a last effort of will, and then allowed him to drag her by the hand toward the house. “What are they going to do to her?” she said.

“You know what they’re going to do.”

“They can’t!” she said, but she did not try to resist him this time. She left her hand in his. “They can’t do it!”

“They’re going to take care of her,” Clete said. “It’s got to be this way.”

And then they were inside the house, and as the light from the ditches flared up, Kendra saw it fully and screamed again.

Ants were all through the house. The fire must have driven them from the safety of the earth; now they had enveloped the beams, the ceiling, the walls… even as she watched, stiff with shock, pieces of ceiling plaster collapsed under the weight of ants, shattering on the floor, the struggling forms scattering with the impact. Clete, stunned, reached out a foot and stamped on one clump of ants, then another, a slow shuffle step. Kendra thought that she might be laughing. She did not want to put a hand to her mouth to verify. Better not to know certain things; all that she did know was that she had to get out of this house. More plaster dropped, rattled, squirming little things scuttled from it, some of them moving across her shoe-tips. Suddenly she felt herself weightless, being lifted from the floor and through the thick air of the house, and she screamed again, feeling as if it were a blanket of ants that had somehow appropriated her, but no, it was Clete, his face close to hers. “I’m getting you out,” he said. “Please, don’t scream; we’re getting out.” His face was stricken and youthful in the light. She tried to show him that she understood, that she knew he was trying to help her, but no words would come. And then she was being tossed, roughly but precisely, over the tailgate of the truck, Clete vaulting behind her. They were in the back of the pickup. Eldridge, at the wheel, leaned over, looked through the open panel. “Is she all right?” he said.

“I’m all right,” Kendra said and stretched out on the wood. “I’ll be all right.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Mildred said, and Eldridge turned back to the wheel. Kendra felt a terrific force shoving her against the panels, and then the truck was in flight, Clete supporting her, bumping and rolling down the road. Fires illuminated their path; in the fires, she could see the black forms struggling. Some of them seemed airborne. Groups of them slapped against the slats of the truck like birds. “It’s all right,” Clete said again.

“We’re getting out. We’re going to be all right.”

“Is Ginger dead?”

“Yes,” he said. “She didn’t suffer. She’s dead.”