A. Colucci - The Colony

“I had to cut the ants off your back.”

Kendra caught sight of the scalpel on the floor, smeared red with bits of flesh. She picked it up and raised a brow. “You enjoyed this, didn’t you?”

“What—playing doctor with you?” He pressed his fingers into her abdomen, looking for signs of soft tissue, and whispered, “I always have.” He sprayed the wound again with a soothing antiseptic and put on another layer of gauze and tape. “No sign of internal bleeding, but you’re not in the clear yet. Do you feel dizzy? Weak? Thirsty?”

She shook her head, squeezing her hands together to keep still. His warm breath sent chills up her neck.

“Nausea? Chills?”

“Yes. I mean no. I’m fine.”

Paul finished dressing the wound. He put several layers of surgical tape over the rip in Kendra’s suit.

She watched his hands tremble as they packed away supplies.

“That should hold.”

“You were worried.” Kendra smiled.

“Yeah,” he said and turned serious. “I thought you were gone. It’s the worst thing I ever felt in my life.”

She smiled and her fingers stroked his cheek.

“Don’t ever scare me like that.”

Kendra suddenly jumped to her feet with fluttery movements. “You know, I actually feel great. So much energy. ” Not able to keep still, she shifted on her feet like a boxer, blowing out long breaths.

“What’s the matter?” Paul asked with concern.

“Nothing,” she said, her eyes shifting wildly. “I feel great. Really, really, really great.” Her pupils were dilated and she seemed hyper-alert.

Paul was a little worried, baffled by her quick recovery. He wondered if it was the immunotherapy or the drugs he administered, or maybe some kind of miracle. He decided he didn’t care.

She slammed the door with both her fists over and over and then thrust her knuckles into the panel of buttons on the wall.

Ding. The elevator doors parted to the bright lobby, and the sound of Siafu Moto.

THE COLONY POURED DOWN the stairwell like black torrential rain. Churning rivers of ants slid down the steps and dangled in ropes between the railings. A second army shot up from the basement and joined forces at the front entrance.

Paul stumbled to his feet and slammed the button to close the door. It didn’t. He knelt down and shook the backpack, scattering supplies all over the elevator floor. The gun spun into the corner. “We’ll have to make a run for it! As fast as we can! Right over them! Out the front door,” he said in rapid fire over the noise of the ants.

Kendra zipped her hood and grabbed the bug vacuum. She looked angry, revved up, raising her chin with defiance and pointing the nozzle straight ahead. She stepped out of the elevator. “Not without a queen.”

The drugs are making her loopy, Paul thought and flipped his hood. He followed Kendra into the lobby, but then retreated, still unnerved by her accident. Realizing there was no way he could chance losing her again, Paul took a breath and stepped out of the elevator, easing up behind Kendra.

She hit a button on the bug vacuum and the nozzle elongated.

The ants suddenly surged toward them like a tsunami.

Paul prepared for the most terrifying experience imaginable. He closed his eyes and knelt down with his hands on guard, but the suspense was too great. So he turned to Kendra, who was staring wide-eyed through the plastic window, unable to believe what she was seeing.

The ants parted. They broke into regiments and formed a wide ring around the two stunned scientists. The colony began circling them in unison.

New reinforcements filled the lobby and swarmed the elevator. The room darkened as ants covered the track lighting above and two lamps on a table. They spilled across sofas and chairs and a large framed wall mirror, where Paul briefly caught his reflection before it disappeared. The wallpaper, a pattern of pink roses, became black. He squinted through the plastic window of his hood. Beads of sweat covered his face and stung his eyes as he braced for the onslaught.

Just don’t panic, he told himself, hoping he didn’t do something crazy again, like rip off his suit. “Kendra,” he said aloud, “don’t panic!”

She wasn’t listening, but was intensely focused on the only corner in the room completely undisturbed by the crazed colony. A potted dwarf palm stood under the bright beam of a single bulb. Paul followed her line of vision and saw it too.

Kendra was staring at one leaf, and on that leaf, something was staring back.

The mammoth queen stood motionless, except for the slow snapping of her mandibles. It was her enormous size that made her so conspicuous, like the tail of a rattlesnake, along with her threatening stance, as if she were standing on hind legs, like the striking position of a praying mantis. The queen stretched her abdomen and opened her mandibles in a roar, as if straining to smell her prey through their thick white shells.

“Is that—?” Kendra signaled to Paul, pointing the bug vacuum at the plant.

He blinked away the sweat in his eyes. “It can’t be.”

“But it is,” she replied. “Just hold steady. We won’t see luck like this for the rest of our lives.” Kendra stepped forward, toward the queen.

The colony surged.

The assault was so quick Paul thought the ants magically appeared on him. He had barely sucked in a breath when they covered his legs. They swarmed the body of his white suit to the zippered neck without giving him a second to react. By the time Paul let out a gasp, they blanketed the head cover. The sound rang in his ears as they raced across the window, inches from his face. Paul staggered backward, crying out to Kendra, but he could see only bits of light between flurries of a thousand legs. The weight of the ants, over eighty pounds, was unexpected and he dropped to his knees. He managed to brush the window free long enough to see a five-foot mound of ants in front of him. Then he realized it was Kendra, encased by the colony.

Kendra staggered blindly toward the potted palm. She could feel the heaviness of ants on her shoulders and held tight to the insect vacuum while one hand frantically swatted the plastic window like a windshield wiper.

The queen was still perched on the leaf, undisturbed, mandibles wide open.

Kendra could no longer brush the multitude of ants away or hear her thoughts over the buzzing. A blanket of Siafu Moto smothered the suit, four inches thick. Her neck strained at the burden of the bloated hood. Unbalanced and disoriented, she fell to her hands and knees.

The suit became stifling and Kendra sweated in darkness, as tiny vents in the material sealed shut and the air inside thinned. She attempted to stand, but 130 pounds of excess matter clung to her body. At the same time she was losing strength, a rage was building inside her.

This is not how I’m going out. Adrenaline exploded through her veins and she reached behind her neck for the zipper, tearing the hood cover from her sweaty face.

Her eyes focused. The queen was right in front of her. Ants crawled up her hair and she raised the length of the vacuum, pressing the button. Suction whirled. They scurried across her neck as she aimed the nozzle.

Kendra sucked up the queen.

Instantly, she felt a rush of cold air as the intense weight lifted from her body. Brightness stung her eyes and she knew right away what was happening. Ants were pouring off the suit and the entire colony was vanishing. They scurried off lights and furniture, headed under doorways, down stairwells and into every nook and cranny in seconds. The room brightened. The wallpaper was once again pink. Kendra saw the reflection of her glistening face in the mirror.