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“Nell!” Dr. Cato turned around in the front seat and glared at her disapprovingly. “You can’t go outside!”

Nell smiled sadly at him as she clicked on the safety and tucked the gun into her waistband. “I’m sorry, Teach. I have to.”

The elderly scientist shook his head. “It’s too dangerous!”

“Someone’s survived here,” she said.

Cato reached out a hand, squeezed her arm.

“I don’t want anyone else to die on this island,” she said fiercely.

He sighed, knowing better than to try and order her. “Neither do I!” he pleaded.

“I’ll be careful,” she promised him.

Dr. Cato closed his eyes.

Geoffrey was already opening a foil packet of sterile footwear. “Wow. Rubbers.”

“Safe socks.” Nell winked as she pulled on a plastic booty over her Adidas tennis shoe. “Coming along, Dr. Binswanger?”

He nodded. “I’m still looking for a benign species,” he reminded her.

Nell touched his knee and looked into his eyes. “Just don’t look too long, OK? What about you, Thatcher?”

“I’ll watch from the car,” the zoologist replied.

“Douse yourselves with saltwater,” Zero instructed, spraying himself with one of the Super Soakers.

“Hey, not in here!” Cane growled.

“Sorry,” Nell said, pumping spray over Geoffrey. “In here! It may not help much but it should trigger a bug to spray repellent if it lands on us.”

“The water already has bug repellent in it,” Cane told them. “It’s taken from the moat around the base.”

“That’s good,” Zero said. “You can dry-clean the upholstery later, Sergeant. Do my back, Nell.”

“Any advice on how to move out there?” Nell asked, spraying Zero down as Geoffrey soaked her with the spray gun.

Thatcher cringed, sniffing the noxious musk mixed with the smell of seawater.

“Don’t run in a straight line,” Zero answered. “Zigzag. And never stop, not even for a second.”

“Zigzag?” Cane shook his head, bewildered. “You scientists are all fucking nuts. Good luck, man. I got absolutely no responsibility over this.”

“Yes, good luck,” Thatcher said.

Cato squeezed her hand. “Be careful, young lady!”

Zero gave Nell and Geoffrey a hard look. “Ready?”

Soaking wet and armed with their saltwater rifles, Nell, Zero, and Geoffrey climbed out the door of the Hummer and over the reptilian tree trunk.

Geoffrey instantly smelled sulfur and a sweet, cadaverous reek wafting out of the vegetation below the cliff. The air was damp. The growth covering the ground was surprisingly flimsy and tore apart under his feet. The intensity of the insect noise coming from the jungle below the ledge shocked him—it was a thick sonic mat of whistles, buzzing, shrieks, and clicking.

Zero tapped on the NASA headcam over his temple as they jumped from the log onto the ledge.

Copepod dashed away, barking as he once again vanished around the curving wall.

“Keep moving,” Zero whispered.

The three men in the Humvee watched the three run full speed after Copepod. The dog darted out of sight, then reappeared as the ledge curved back into view farther ahead—then Copey disappeared into a crack in the cliff.

Watching from the Hummer, the sergeant muttered, “Don’t go in there…come on, don’t go…oh no.”

Before the gash in the cliff wall, Zero, Nell, and Geoffrey stopped in astonishment.

Ten feet inside the shadowy crack stood a skinny figure in a bright tie-dyed T-shirt. He had a black eye and his broken glasses had been crudely repaired. His blond mop of hair was dirty and tangled. “Get away! STAY BACK!” he yelled.

Stunned, Nell gaped at him with disbelief. “Oh my God!”

Zero laughed. “Hey, how the hell—”

“STAY BACK! THEY’RE COMING!” At Andy Beasley’s heel, Copepod hunkered down and growled. Andy pointed at the edge.

Zero pivoted immediately, pumping the water-rifle; but the nozzle was clogged with salt crystals. It put out a pitiful squirt.

The jungle noise roared like a hurricane as a horde of creatures poured onto the rocky, sunlit ledge from below. The flood of predators swept toward the small cave, a tsunami of leaping, flying, running, buzzing, spinning shapes and colors.

Nell, Geoffrey, and Zero ran toward Andy and squeezed into the uncertain sanctuary of the slashing fissure.

Zero turned and dropped to one knee. He banged the water-rifle’s nozzle against the rock, jarring loose the salt clumps, and pumped the trigger. Finally getting a spray, he swept it high and low through the entrance at the advancing swarm.

The wall of wasps retreated in a wave of warning pheromones, but one wasp slipped through into the cave.

It buzzed above them, bouncing off the walls, and then dropped down before Copepod. The dog grabbed it with a snapping growl, chewed it in his powerful jaws, then spit it out, barking vigorously at the remains.

Watching from the Hummer, Dr. Cato gripped the dashboard, trying to peer into the gloom of the cave on the far curve of the ledge. “They’re trapped!” he shouted.

“I knew this would happen,” Cane yelled furiously.

Thatcher watched in fascination over Cato’s shoulder.

Geoffrey and Nell sprayed their rifles over the crouching Zero’s head at the cave entrance, and a sunlit mist of water fell in the opening between them and the swarm.

Outside the spray curtain, a mass of voracious creatures continued to fly and leap over the cliff, gathering in front of the cave. The mass swirled in dizzying, constant motion, the flying bugs whirling in figure-eights and circles as they advanced and retreated. Any creature that paused too long among them was descended upon and torn to pieces. With each blast from the soakers, the swarm retreated and then re-surged.

“OK,” Geoffrey said. “I’m ready to concede there are no benign species on this island, so let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Nell merely gasped, which didn’t reassure Geoffrey.

As if coalescing from the light and mist and the jungle behind it, a spidery shape suddenly appeared, hanging in the cave entrance before them. Its thick silvery fur seemed to reflect the colors of the sky and jungle. What seemed to be a face became visible at the bottom of its body, a wide mouth slowly opening above two large oval eyes, staring at face-level at the four humans. Its cello-shaped body dangled by one slender tendril as it unfolded six long limbs to either side of the cave, trapping them inside it.

From inside the Hummer, Cane and Thatcher saw the animal suddenly shimmer into existence, hanging on the cliff face between the advancing swarm of creatures and the cave’s opening.

The sergeant cursed and reached for his rifle. “I told them not to go!”

“Wait!” Thatcher peered through the windshield at the strange animal, which seemed to fade in and out of the shadows.

“Oh my God, Nell…” Cato muttered.

“It’s a trap!” Zero hissed, crouching inside the fissure. “Andy was the bait!”

Nell fought off the fear that threatened to paralyze her as she stared at the grinning face of the creature in the cave entrance. She grabbed the Beretta and raised it.

The monster’s head emitted a loud, warbling voice: “It’s VEEE-EEE-DAAAAAAY!”

Nell, Geoffrey, and Zero were dumbstruck, uncertain if their captor had spoken or simply made sounds that resembled words.

Zero remembered the animal he had heard echoing his own voice in the jungle. He turned to Nell. “Shoot it!”

Inside the Hummer, Thatcher’s fascination turned to alarm at the piercing voice.

“Oh no, no, no…” Dr. Cato murmured.

Cane’s mouth gaped open in surprise, his grip tightening on his rifle.

The door opened and Cane and Thatcher saw the old scientist jump out of the Hummer.

“Fuck!” said the soldier.

Dr. Cato slammed the door shut and vaulted over the log.

Thatcher watched with amazement as the scientist ran around the bend of the cliff, shouting “Hey! Hey! Hey!” and waving his thin arms.

“What the hell does the old fart think he’s doing?” Cane yelled.

Nell ignored Dr. Cato’s shouts. She kept her eyes locked on the eyes of the spider-like animal that now imprisoned them in the fissure.

A second wave of beasts leaped shrieking onto the ledge from the jungle below, including two spigers the size of African lions.

Dr. Cato suddenly appeared, shouting near the edge of the cliff.

One of the spigers swung toward the scientist.

“Come on! HEY!” Cato shouted, and in a micro-second the nearest spiger stabbed a two-meter spike straight through his polo shirt and out his back.

“Noooo!” Nell screamed.

A surge of creatures swarmed the old man’s body, temporarily distracted from the humans in the cave.

Nell’s scream drew them back.

Like a wall of eyes, teeth, and claws, the stampede, led by the spigers, one of which was still swallowing Dr. Cato’s right leg, rushed the humans in the cave.

Nell pointed Cane’s Beretta with shaking hands at the dangling creature that had trapped them. Closing her eyes, she squeezed the trigger.

“No!” Andy screamed, shoving her hand, but it was too late.

The gun fired as the creature spun on its tail in a blinding motion toward the oncoming rush of animals. With six arms, it flung six dark disks through the air.

The curving disks thudded one after another into the two leaping spigers, which dropped instantly, their hindbrains severed. The dying spigers shrieked like erratic police sirens and convulsed, gouging their spiked forearms into the ground as they struggled to drag themselves forward toward their spiderlike attacker.

The entire mass of rats, badgers, wasps, and drill-worms swerved back from the cave to tear greedily into the writhing spigers.

The hanging creature dropped to the ground. It rolled from its four spidery arms onto its two multi-jointed legs as its tail coiled into a cavity under its belly. Standing nearly seven feet tall, it flung four more disks: four smaller animals went down.

Then the creature crouched, standing only five feet high as its “knees” bent like muscular grasshopper legs to either side. Walking forward on second calves that extended where a human’s ankles would have been, its “legs” ended in flat, furry hand-feet. White fur shimmered with rainbow colors over the entire creature, which Nell thought now resembled a crablike kangaroo crossed with a praying mantis.

Copepod ran to the creature’s side.

Nell darted forward to protect the dog.

But then she stopped as the dog wagged its tail.

The creature patted Copey with two left hands, swiveling its eyestalks to observe the humans in the cave. With a cupped hand, it gestured at them, then it trotted toward the Hummer on its two springing legs. Copepod stuck right by its side.

“He wants us to follow.” Andy ran forward, then turned to look
back at the others. “You need to come with him if you want to live.”

Zero looked at the others, his mouth open. Then he ran, following Andy’s lead.

Geoffrey hesitated only a second, then followed, pulling along Nell, who seemed to be in a state of shock.

Andy nodded toward the ravenous pile of creatures squirming by the cave entrance as he ran toward the waiting Humvee. “They’ll be finished feeding soon. Then they’ll multiply. You don’t want to be around the babies, believe me.” He glanced back at Nell and Geoffrey. “Move it!” he urged.

They glanced over their shoulders at the snarling riot as disk-ants began rolling in white lines over the ledge into the explosion of red and blue gore.

Sergeant Cane froze as the bewildering creature climbed nimbly over the fallen tree, the dog leaping and scrabbling at its heel. It pushed itself up with two hands on the hood of the Hummer and looked through the windshield right at Cane and Thatcher. As he lifted the radio mike, Cane could swear the damn thing smiled at him.

“This is Blue One. We found a survivor. Repeat, we found a survivor. Copy?” Cane’s voice quavered. Over the radio, he heard the others cheering at his words.

Andy appeared right behind the creature and opened the passenger door, and the creature, to Cane’s amazement, climbed inside the Hummer. Copepod and Andy jumped in behind it, as the others scrambled into the back, squeezing Thatcher against the window. Cane grabbed his gun from Nell’s hand and pointed it at the creature.

“Is the survivor OK, Blue One?”
came a voice over the radio.

Sergeant Cane, with the radio mike in one hand and his pistol in the other, could hardly breathe as he looked at the large thing
that now sat beside him and folded its multi-jointed arms and legs. Turning its long neck, it studied him with colorful, swiveling eyes and its mouth opened wide, revealing three curving teeth as wide as hatchet-blades on its upper jaw. Cane was too frightened to know whether it was grinning or snarling at him now.

“Blue One, do you copy? Is the survivor all right?”

“I’m all right, tell them!” Andy urged.

“Uh—affirmative! We… will uh…we’ll bring him back to base,” Cane managed.

Thatcher peered at the animal from the backseat, a strange chill gripping him and cold sweat breaking out on his forehead.

Rats began thudding like softballs against the sides of the Hummer. Drill-worms landed on the windows, twisting their maws into the bulletproof glass and actually leaving scratches.

“You better turn that faucet on,” Geoffrey warned from the backseat.

“That’s great news, Blue One! Great news! In that case, I’ve got a lot of scientists who want to do some specimen-collecting down here. Copy?”

Cane remained frozen as the creature began touching the roof and steering wheel with four hands while its eyes darted rapidly in different directions.

“Uh, copy that, Blue Two,” Cane muttered into the radio.

“Come on, Cane, turn the water on!” Nell said.

Confused, the sergeant set down the radio mike and opened the roof-faucet, spraying saltwater over the Hummer, keeping his gun on the creature. After a moment, the bugs scattered and the creature pointed excitedly at a drill-worm the size of a locust stuck to the windshield. The struggling worm’s three wings had popped out of the panels under its head and were pressed flat against the glass by the water’s surface tension. The writhing arthropod sprayed some kind of oily chemical from its abdomen, creating a rainbow sheen on the glass as the windshield wiper knocked it off.