A. Colucci - The Colony

The ladder shot out from beneath Paul’s feet and his legs kicked helplessly in the air. His body halfway through the hatch, he held tight to the center cable and pulled Kendra toward the hole, dragging her across the roof and over broken cable wires.

Kendra cried out, tumbling through the hatch with Paul and hitting the floor, just as the elevator slammed to the bottom with a crash.

PAUL AND KENDRA LAY flat on their backs in utter silence. The light flickered twice but didn’t go out. Paul was badly bruised, but remarkably, nothing was broken. Kendra too was banged up, but in one piece. They sat up nursing their aching bones. Paul unzipped his hood and flipped it from his sweaty head.

A shot of pain hit Kendra in her lower spine and she arched her back with a grimace.

Paul crawled to her. “You okay?”

“I think.” She threw off her hood and blinked hard. “Great. I lost a contact lens.” With a hopeless breath, she patted the floor.

Paul slowly got to his feet and limped to the door. He pressed all the buttons on the wall, but the elevator moaned like a beached whale. He tried to pry the doors apart but they wouldn’t budge. “We might be stuck here a—”

“Unnngh!” Kendra cried.

Paul dropped to her side. “What?” he cried. “What’s broken?”

She rolled onto her stomach, one hand reaching toward her lower back. “ Here, ” she winced. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

There was a thin tear in her suit, about the length of a pin, where the piece of cable had caught exactly onto the wrong spot, right along the zipper. It was the only part of the suit not made of woven steel.

Paul released the zipper and lifted her blouse. There was a streak of blood and… something else. He could feel his eyes bulge. “Listen to me, Kendra,” he shouted over her moans. “There are a whole bunch of ants on your back.”

“Well get them off, damn it!”

Paul reached for the backpack, knowing that any attempt to scrape the insects off by hand could leave the stingers intact. He took one huge breath to steady his nerves and fumbled through the pouch for his medical bag as his calm-doctor demeanor took over. He pulled out a scalpel.

“I need you to stay as still as possible.” He tried to steady her writhing body, climbing over her hips and straddling her legs, pressing a hand down between her shoulder blades.

Six ants were gathered in a row across the lumbar spine, clamped tight, as blood trickled between the vertebrae. A red rash covered Kendra’s back like welts from a flogging.

Paul could see the stingers working frantically up and down, and sprayed the area with an antiseptic that numbed the skin. The plan was to scrape the ants away with the edge of the blade, but the little bastards clamped on like Gorilla Glue, metal lodging between armor and skin. Three of the ants had already tunneled their way inside. He’d have to slice them off. Holding tight to the scalpel, Paul pushed the point a quarter inch into the flesh.

Kendra groaned as he started cutting, scooping out small chunks of tissue. She hissed through gritted teeth while Paul scraped the flesh into a glass vial, along with the ants, which locked on tight with a scissor-like grip. After the last of the ants was removed, Paul tried to control the bleeding with gauze and closely inspected the wound, making sure he removed every last bit of stinger. Even detached from the ant, a stinger could continue pumping poison into its victim and kill an allergic person in minutes.

And Paul knew Kendra was allergic to fire ants.

Gently, he turned her over, and immediately he knew there was a problem. Kendra’s pale face was feverishly hot and her eyes were droopy.

“Look at me, Kendra,” Paul mouthed the words loudly. He grabbed the medical bag and pulled out a syringe and two glass vials. “Don’t close your eyes, baby. Talk to me. I need to know—have you been taking your shots?”

He wasn’t getting any response. Cold sweat dripped from her forehead and her teeth chattered from severe chills. “Have you been taking your shots?” he yelled in her face. He tapped her cheek lightly and her eyes fluttered open.

She nodded and whispered, “Yes.”

Kendra had been giving herself shots of H-1 blockers for years, but it seemed to offer no protection against the Siafu Moto toxins. Her breathing became labored. Anaphylaxis was setting in fast.

Paul filled the syringe, striking the glass with two quick pings to get the bubbles out. The normal dose of epinephrine was .3 milligrams but he gave her twice the amount. He filled another syringe with an antihistamine. It was a dangerous thing to do, mixing large amounts of medications, but it was a last resort if she didn’t respond to the first dose, and she hadn’t.

As the needle jammed her arm, Kendra’s lips were turning blue and a hissing like a tire leak sounded from her mouth, signaling her throat was swelling shut.

All at once Paul was enraged with himself. How could he have taken such a risk? The truth was, he never seriously believed the ants could hurt them. That kind of thing happened to amateurs, not award-winning scientists. Paul knew ant behavior like the back of his hand and could anticipate any situation. But this time, things were different. They were dealing with something paranormal. Again, ego had gotten him in the worst predicament of his life.

“Stay with me, honey!” Paul took her pulse. It was 140 and rising. She was slipping away. Paul was not a religious man but he found himself praying, hard. He cradled Kendra in his arms and pressed his cheek against her forehead, feeling her skin burn with fever.

Come on, baby. Don’t do this to me.

Paul was panic-stricken. There was nothing he could do if she slipped into a coma. He laid Kendra gently on the floor and stood up, tense, shaking his fists with frustration, and let out an angry grunt. He began kicking in the door with all his might. He pounded the metal with his shoes until a sharp dent cut the door and the soles of his feet burned.

Paul gave up his fight and fell to his hands and knees. Kendra’s body lay still beneath him and he turned from her swollen white face. It was over, he couldn’t believe it. This was how it ended, right here, so suddenly. Tears filled his eyes.

There was a gasp of air.

He turned to her, startled. Kendra was breathing. Not just breathing, but moving.

Paul was overwhelmed with relief as Kendra curled up in a ball, hacking on a sudden influx of oxygen. He lifted her head and reached into his bag for the inhaler, and then shot two doses of antihistamine into her lungs.

She took hungry breaths.

Paul brushed the tangled hair from her wet face. The swelling began to subside and color came to her cheeks.

“Was I… dead?” she asked.

Paul shook his head with a smile, relieved beyond words.

Kendra inhaled deeply through her nose and began to breathe normally. Paul helped her to sit up against his chest and their hands clasped tightly together. She nestled against his shoulder, suddenly freezing, teeth chattering, but his chest felt warm.

She asked, “So now what do we do?”

“We wait. I hold you and we sit here together. We wait until the drugs finish working.”

She nodded, not wanting to ask, What if they don’t?

“Let’s make a deal,” he said. “You don’t die on me and I won’t die on you.”

“Ever?”

“At least for today.”

They sat for a while, saying nothing.

“Hey,” she said at last, and plucked something off the ground. “I found my contact lens.”

Paul laughed and blew off the lens, helped put it back in her eye.

“Friggin’ ouch,” Kendra snarled, reaching behind her suit and drawing back fingers laced with blood.