In Constant Fear (13 page)

With the slow passing of the night, the temperature began to drop noticeably and I had to keep hugging and rubbing the little guy to keep him warm. I was that tired, I could've almost fallen asleep where I was. Thomas might be no weight at all normally, but for that
length of time, my limbs were really beginning to ache. I shifted him from shoulder to shoulder, occasionally looking over at the riverbank, thinking how nice it would be to lie down, but I was sure those things were still there, trying to come up with another way of . . .
of what?
I didn't know! What the hell did they want from us?

I thought I saw the first light of dawn a dozen times before it finally appeared. The moment I could clearly see the bank, I realized they'd gone, that they'd slipped away with the night. I gave this real heartfelt groan of relief and began to clumsily splash through the water, suddenly appreciating how stiff and achy I was, Thomas so deeply asleep he didn't even wake as I jolted and shook him around.

I was about to climb outta water when I realized someone had emerged from the house, hastily shutting the door behind them, like they weren't that sure if the weevils had gone or not. I peered over the bank to see Lena and Jimmy making their way across, both of them looking worried sick.

It might sound odd, but as soon as I saw them I lost all thoughts of weevils, of my aches and pains; the only thought going through my head was that I didn't have a stitch on.

“Jimmy! Get me some pants, will ya!” I shouted.

“You okay, Big Guy?” he asked.

“Fine. Get me some pants.”

He returned to the house, Lena calling to me, making her way over, soon standing on the riverbank before me.

“Take him,” I said, carefully placing Thomas in her outstretched hands, but making no attempt to get out myself.

“You sure you're okay?” she said, wrapping herself around Thomas, so relieved to have him back safe and sound.

“Yeah, we're fine. He's been asleep the last couple of hours. Finally we know what it takes.”

Lena just stood there for a moment, looking a little confused, obviously wondering what I was doing. “You getting out?”

“Yeah, yeah—soon as I get those pants.”

“Clancy! No one's going to care about that.”

Jimmy came out of the house followed by the others, and I cursed to myself, knowing he must've said something. No matter how cold I felt, I immediately squatted down so the water made me decent.

“You okay, Big Guy?” Delilah asked, as she sauntered over.

“Fine. What's everyone want?”

“Just checking you're all right,” she replied, her smirk telling a different story.

“I'm fine. Now could everyone turn their backs?”

“You gonna put your pants on underwater?” Hanna asked.

“Just go, will ya!” I shouted, being of the opinion that the only women in a man's life who should see him naked are his wife and mother.

Despite the circumstances, how tired and cold I was, damned if they didn't all start giggling.

“Clancy!” Lena said, the corners of her mouth turning up, like she wanted to start laughing, too.

“Look, it's been one helluva night; I don't need to be embarrassed on top of it.”

They kinda saw the logic of that and finally took pity on me, leaving Lena and me alone, though they kept looking back as they returned to the house, little peals of laughter erupting every now and then. I didn't know what they were saying, and I didn't want to, either.

I staggered out of the water, my lingering embarrassment helping me get my pants on in double-quick time despite numbed fingers and a wet body. It was an unexpected end to a truly harrowing night, a little light relief maybe, but what'd happened was certainly no laughing matter. What the hell did those things want? Why had they returned? Jimmy went and checked on the wheat fields, coming back with the worst possible news, that every single ear of wheat had been eaten.

I guess that should've been it, the whole episode explained, but for some reason it didn't feel that way. It was disappointing to lose the entire crop, especially after all the work we'd done plowing and
sowing, but I couldn't help but feel we had an even greater problem. I couldn't believe that had merely been the natural instinct of some lowly insect, some weird quirk of nature. Something else had been motivating those things, and the most frightening part was, whatever it'd been, it seemed to have a measure of intelligence.

I thought it was just me, that I was the only one thinking those weevils were acting way above themselves, but I wasn't. I crashed into bed the moment I got back to the house and slept all morning, but was woken up later by the kids going off down to the fields with Delilah to see if there was any wheat at all they could salvage. The situation so serious that for once they'd temporarily shelved their differences and all gone off together, Gigi and Hanna included.

I had a quick bite with Lena—Thomas's ordeal had apparently had little effect on his appetite; he was sucking away like some baby vampire—then wandered over to see Jimmy in his workshop.

I walked in to find the little guy staring into this glass jar. To my surprise, inside there were several live weevils.

“Set a couple of traps down in the field,” he explained, handing me the glass. “Just in case they came back.”

I gotta say, up close like that, just a few of them, they weren't that impressive: smaller than I imagined, black, with shiny green streaks, wiggly little antennae, and unnaturally large eyes. Their movement was kinda slow, not like the previous night, as if not wanting to waste their energy while imprisoned.

“Not so big now, are you?” I muttered at them. “Not without all your friends.”

Jimmy never said anything, just stood there, plainly heavily preoccupied.

“What's the matter?” I asked.

“I don't know what they are.”

“What d'ya mean? They're weevils.”

“You reckon?”

“Yeah . . . Don't you?” I asked, not understanding this conversation at all.

Jimmy took a deep breath and gave an even longer sigh, leading me over to his workbench. Apparently he'd caught more than just those in the jar; he'd already dissected a few and that gooey green liquid was oozing everywhere.

“Their physiology,” he said. “Weird.”

“In what way?”

“First I thought it was some kinda parasite—maybe even a GM. Makes sense: subvert the culture, teach them new tricks, stop them eating what they shouldn't—species reduction or termination, but . . . I don't think so.” Again he paused, like he'd really have preferred not to say what he was about to. “It's not cool, Big Guy.” he warned me. “It's not cool at all.”

“What isn't?”

For a moment he studied the dissected weevils on a screen, slowly bringing up the magnification. “When they were all over you . . .”

“Yeah?” I asked impatiently.

“They didn't—?”

“What?”

“Find a way in?”

“
What?
”

He enhanced the magnification that bit more. “See those hooks?” he said, indicating these barbs on the creature's body. “Weevils ain't parasites. Those are for attaching themselves to a host.”

I stared at him. “
Me?
”

“They couldn't've . . .” he stopped, making this rather apologetic face, “got inside ya?”

“No . . .” I said, but the word died in me even before it was properly uttered.

“What?” he asked, seeing the sudden expression on my face.

I sighed, not really wanting to tell him. “When I woke up, there were some in my mouth. I spat them out, all of them—I'm sure I did.”

Jimmy didn't comment, just stood there thinking it through. “Maybe I could recreate a host environment, see how they react.”

I shrugged; as ever he was starting to lose me.

“But where the hell they come from, I
do not know
,” he said, unusually for him plainly at a loss.

“GM, I'll bet,” I snorted. “Two things put together that never should be. How often have we seen that?”

But he'd already lost interest in our conversation, searching high and low for something that might aid him with the thread of a theory, no longer listening to me or even aware of my presence.

In the end, I left him to it and headed across to sit on the porch, more than a little troubled by our conversation. Why did he think those things were trying to get inside us? What the hell for—hatch out a new family? Just the thought made me shudder: thousands of them eating their way outta us? But I'd know if I'd swallowed one, wouldn't I? If I had it inside me?

I sat there turning the problem over and over, trying to get a handle on things. Where do they come from? Where do they go? Do they move on? Is each attack a different swarm or are they hiding somewhere and come out at night?

Without actually making a conscious decision, I got up and ambled over to what was left of the wheat fields, where the kids and Delilah were still searching for any surviving grain.

“You okay, Clancy?” Lile asked, sauntering over, the kids following on.

“I'm fine.”

“Only we were saying, we haven't seen much of you this afternoon,” she said, smirking away, and I realized she was teasing me again.

“Yeah—thanks, Delilah.”

“Not like we did this morning . . . Now I know why they call you ‘Big Guy.'”

“You can stop that,” I said forcefully. “There was nothing to see.”

“Oh, I wouldn't say that,” Delilah commented, the kids giggling, though more, I suspected, out of embarrassment than any other reason.

“Any wheat left?” I asked, making it pretty plain I had no time for her notions of humor.

“Not really,” Hanna answered, taking pity on me, opening her sack to show me what she'd collected, which sure as hell wasn't a lot.

“Not gonna make much flour outta that,” I commented.

“No,” she said, holding out a handful of chaff and a few seeds in her open hand. She was just about to let it fall back into her sack when suddenly she gave this startled little cry.

“What's wrong?” Gordie asked.

“It moved.”

“What?”

“One of those seeds moved . . . ! Ohhh!” she cried, dropping the sack and backing away. “That was creepy.”

“Jesus Christ!” sneered Gigi, swooping on the opportunity to project some bile Hanna's way.

“It moved, I tell you!”

Gigi turned away in disgust, but Gordie, as loyal as ever, rushed to defend Hanna, which only ramped things up further as Gigi immediately took the opportunity to turn on him, as if he was the real source of her bitterness.

Tell the truth, I couldn't be bothered; it was just the kids squabbling over stupid stuff as usual. I walked away, leaving them to it—in fact, I must've covered almost fifty yards or more before it finally hit me . . .
Jesus! Of course!

I ran back, grabbed the sack off the ground and took it over to the barn, bursting in on Jimmy, not allowing the little guy a moment to ignore me.

“I know where they come from!” I announced.

He paused for a moment and looked at me, but his thoughts were plainly miles away. “Big Guy, I'm a little busy—”

“
I know where they come from!
” I repeated. “They don't
eat
the wheat,” I announced, “they come
out
of it.”

I put my hand in Hanna's sack, pulled out the largest and liveliest-looking seed I could find and gave it to him. “Cut it open . . .
Do it!
” I said, when he looked like he was about to dismiss me.

Jimmy shrugged as if indulging an oversized madman, then dissected it—sure enough, the moment he sliced through the husk the seed started moving and there was a weevil inside.

“Whoa . . .
Whoa!
” he cried. I reckoned as much shocked by the fact that
I'd
come up with the answer as anything else.

“Maybe that
was
what happened with Nick?” I suggested. “Their fields were five or six times the size of ours. They would've been knee-deep in them.”

Jimmy sifted through the sack, found a few more likely seeds, plump and almost pulsating, and cut them open, and again there were weevils inside, one of them almost managing to scramble away before he squashed it, those familiar oily green insides squirting out everywhere.

He poked and prodded the corpse, putting it under his screen, bringing up the image again. “You
sure
you never swallowed one?”

“As sure as I can be,” I said, leveling with him.

He returned to the insect, turning up the magnification as far as it would go, going disturbingly quiet.

After a while it hit me that I was being dismissed again and I left him to it, walking slowly back to the house, looking all around me as I went, taking in the view—the mountains, the hills, the endless forest: my family and friends' home, our little piece of paradise. And yet, under that most peaceful of open skies, I swear I could hear the sound of sirens starting their shrill warning.

We didn't see Jimmy again that day. Lile took him down some food, but he never touched it, which was a really bad sign. He finally returned just as the light was starting to fade—I guessed concerned
the weevils might come again, but he didn't have a lot to say, which we concluded meant he hadn't discovered anything.

We sealed the house up really carefully. Nothing was gonna get in there, no matter how small or determined. We also imposed a watch rotation: two people to patrol from room to room and make sure there were no breaches while the others slept.

Gigi sneered when Hanna volunteered her and Gordie for first watch; saying she wouldn't feel safe with the lovebirds looking out for her, that they might get
distracted
. Jesus, I tell ya, I could've done without it—teenage love triangles threatening to erupt at any moment. I made a point of agreeing, trying to settle things down, saying how I was looking forward to a good night's sleep.

It's funny, when you first sleep with someone you wrap your arms around them all night as if it's everything that you wake up in exactly the same positions—as if to signal a commitment that nothing changed while you were sleeping. Then after a while you start sneaking off on your own a little, to what becomes known as “your side of the bed.” It don't mean nothing bad—you're not cooling off, maybe just getting more comfortable with each other. Lena and me are far more territorial these days, though I guess that space in between us is a reminder of where Thomas used to lie. But if it's a special night, if we gotta problem, maybe feeling threatened in some way, we still tend to lock our arms about each other. That night it was no surprise that we clung on until one of my arms had lost all feeling, and probably the same for her.

Not that we said a lot—well, no, that's not strictly true; we said everything, the Big Three, that harmonious trio we all believe will change the world and cure all its ills.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

I tried to give Jimmy plenty of space the following day, to maybe pretend that what he was engaged in wasn't that much of a concern, but when he didn't come back for lunch, well, that was it. I had to find out exactly what was going on.

The moment I walked in to the barn and he glanced up, I knew it wasn't good news.

“Tell me,” I said.

He gave a long sigh. “I accelerated the action of one of the weevils when introduced to a host environment, ten times real-life speed.”

“And?”

“It died.”

I stared at him; that wasn't the answer I'd been expecting. “Yeah?” I said, allowing a little hope to stray into my voice. “That's it?”

“I thought so. Last night. This morning . . .”

He gestured for me to look at his screen. There were a few scraps of what was obviously a weevil in some liquid—I didn't know what it was, some kind of human synthesis, I guessed, but like I've said many times before, this wasn't my area of expertise and my brain never did travel that well.

“It's gone,” he told me.

“I don't understand.”

Again he sighed, this time even heavier, and I felt my apprehension writhing away like a pinned worm. Normally this would be the moment when he'd start to gloat, to tell me that only someone of his intelligence
would
understand, but on this occasion he was far too preoccupied.

“When I first got out here, saw it had gone, I thought it must've dissolved somehow—that it was one of those quirks of nature where a species seeks out its own demise.” He stopped almost as if he'd unexpectedly run out of breath, and I knew we'd reach detonation point. “But it hasn't dissolved . . . it's metamorphosed.”

I stared at him, waiting for more, knowing it had to come.

“It's still doing it. Sometimes you can actually see it with the naked eye.”

I turned to the screen, watching as he brought up the magnification, but I couldn't see a thing.

“You remember what the Doc told you?” he asked. “About Nora Jagger trying to find a way of getting implants into everyone?”

“Yeah.”

He paused, like he was hoping I'd say it for him, but I couldn't bear to put into words what was going through my head.

“I think this is it: the
Big Idea
. These things get inside you, find their way to where they can do most damage, then die. What's left then metamorphoses into an implant that continues to metamorphose so it can travel around every part of your body.”

“
Jesus!
” I gasped.

“I don't know what its purpose is exactly, but you don't have to think too hard to come up with possibilities. They could be used to locate someone, keep an eye on them, maybe even exert control over them.”

For a few moments we both fell to an aching silence. All our fears, our instincts, had been right: the Bitch was closing in—but never in our most paranoid of moments, our worst nightmares, had we imagined an invasion like this.

“I've made this scanner,” Jimmy told me, pointing to the makeshift device he'd been working on when I entered. “It's real basic, but I think it'll do the job. I'm gonna have to scan everyone.”