Уолтер Мосли - Blue Light

The girls made breakfast for the camp with Addy’s help. I ate the baked beans and canned black bread with no taste or hunger. I ate because I needed strength.

The numbness that followed my convictions left my mind unencumbered. Freed as I was, I could remember what we saw without being overwhelmed by the trappings of fear or awe.

The first five or so miles through the woods that morning were not very different. The road had been torn up and blocked by trees, and we hoped that this was why Reggie had deemed the place safe. I couldn’t see how, but maybe the inaccessibility made it partially secure from Gray Man.

By afternoon, however, the changes became more spectacular.

“Look at those leaves up there,” Addy said, pointing to the roof of pine forest. We were in a large clearing. “They’re like a rainbow.”

And big. Some of the blue and yellow and orange leaves were as large as serving platters. They seemed to be blowing in the wind, some floating on currents of air and others falling lazily to earth.

“Them’s butterflies,” Wanita said matter-of-factly.

“Oh, God.” That was me.

The cavernous roof of leaves above us must have held hundreds of thousands of them. Many had wingspans of nearly two feet, some even larger. We were all stunned into silence by the beauty. In that hush we heard the soft fluttering of their wings. The sound was like the thrumming of a fast-pumping vein. It was exciting and a little bit scary.

A giant orange-and-black monarch with iridescent blue eyes etched in its tail sailed down, landing on Reggie’s shoulders and back. Its wingspan was almost a yard. The impossible insect unfurled its tubular tongue, gently lashing the young man’s small Afro.

“It tickles,” he said.

Alacrity giggled, and Addy and I smiled.

“We better run,” Wanita said.

Just then the butterflies overhead formed into a great multicolored blanket that began to descend.

“Let’s go!” I shouted.

Reggie took off, leading us down a corridor through the trees.

The thrumming of butterflies became so loud that it was almost a rattle. They were very fast, coming quickly and intently through the leaves and branches.

We made it through the corridor and into a dense stand of pine. The butterflies kept coming, though. Three ivory-colored ones grabbed on to Wanita. They seemed to want to lift her off the ground. She screamed, but Alacrity killed them with a branch.

The children were beset by butterflies.

We all took up branches, swinging about our heads as fast as we could, smashing the rainbow fliers into the same trees that impeded our escape. Addy and I could more easily kill the creatures because the butterflies didn’t want us. Once in a while one would land on me with feet that felt like grasping Brillo pads. But as soon as that long tongue tasted my skin, it was off after the kids.

The touch of the butterflies’ tongues had the tickle of mild electricity or the beginning of an acid burn.

We kept swinging and trying to run. The butterflies died easily enough. Their wings ripped from the slightest touch and their soft bellies came open, shedding thick green blood.

We were overcome by the crush of butterflies. Choking on the dust that rose from their battered wings. They came on in a flood of color and dust. The girls choked and cried. Reggie fought hard but was covered by tongue-lashing insects. I jumped on top of the boy, using my body to crush the insects as well as to protect him.

The butterflies’ touch seemed to sap the children’s strength.

The thrumming rattle of insect wings overwhelmed our cries. The crush of bugs stopped our advance completely and slowly pushed us downward. The children and Reggie were already on the ground. Addy and I stood above them, on our knees, beating off our attackers with thick branches.

And then came a thump in the air. It was the sensation of a sudden and powerful vacuum. I lost my balance and consciousness at the same moment.

“Chance! Chance, wake up.”

Alacrity was shaking me by the shoulder. Reggie was trying to prop up Addy into a standing position. She was unconscious, or mostly so. The forest floor was littered with the bodies of brightly colored butterflies. They weren’t dead, only stunned like I had been. Their giant fanlike wings waving slowly. A few of them were standing on weak, shivering legs.

“We gotta go, Chance,” Reggie pleaded.

In my stupor I was still amazed by the size and nature of the beautiful predators.

“C’mon, Chance!” Alacrity yelled.

Her voice was strained and commanding. I jumped up and took Adelaide from Reggie. If anyone was going to lead us away, it was him, and his pack was already large enough.

As soon as I hefted the swooning woman over my shoulder, Reggie was off. When I turned to run, Addy’s head slammed into a tree. It was a hard knock, but there was no time to stop.

He took the lead, zigzagging through the trees ahead. The waist strap of his pack had loosened, and the load pounded up and down loudly against his back. Alacrity ran behind Reggie, wielding a long branch like a sword. She turned full around every now and then, still running, looking for danger.

Wanita shadowed Alacrity, moving more like a normal child, slipping and wavering as she went.

We didn’t have the strength to run for very long — no more than ten minutes. I fell to my knees, exhausted. When I laid Addy out on a bed of pine needles, I saw that her head and face were lacerated. She was bleeding pretty hard.

“Come on, Reggie,” Alacrity said, throwing him a branch the size of a cartoon caveman’s club. Then she pointed to where he should stand for defense.

I took the gauze bandage from my first aid box and pressed it hard against the long cut down the side of Addy’s face, cursing myself for being so rough and careless.

“I don’t hear anything coming,” Reggie said.

“Nothing?” asked Alacrity.

I was trying to hold together the flaps of Adelaide’s skin under the bandage. The thought of the butterflies’ coming through the dense woods and the feeling of the blood slipping between my fingers somehow increased my feeling of numbness. The breath in my chest felt like a cold breeze through a deep cave.

For the next hour we sat there: Alacrity and Reggie on the ready for any attack; Wanita hugging on to Reggie’s leg; and me pressing on the big white bandage that I had tied around Addy’s head.

The forest was unnaturally quiet except for an occasional moan from Addy.

“I don’t think they’re gonna come,” Reggie said.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“No, I’m not sure,” he said petulantly. “What do you want me to do?”

Night fell and Addy became delirious. She went out of her head with fever and nightmares. We huddled around her in the tent, trying, I guess, to press her back to health. I dissolved aspirin in water and made her drink, but she was still burning up.

“Why not?” she begged some unseen torturer. “Why can’t we? No. No. We love the children. We love them.”

She begged all night, thrashing and crying.

I stayed up as long as I could, but sometime in the early morning hours I dozed off.

In the dream I met a man who wore a one-piece suit that sheathed him from head to toe; only his red-brown face could be seen under a hood of woven branches and fur that had flowers nestled within. The flowers, asters and small yellow daisies, seemed to be rooted there, growing out of the man’s head. The rest of his costume was no less unusual. It was a loose-fitting patchwork of cloth and skins, metal and wood, ceramic and bone. From the belt looped over his shoulder hung a large wooden knife, a dark quartz crystal, a small hide sack, and a handmade wooden mallet with a tree branch for a handle.