Invasive (27 page)

competitive exclusion (n)

1. a situation in which one species competes another into extinction.

A boat leaves the Cove at midnight, sixteen hours before Will steals Captain Sullivan's craft, thirty-two hours before the Bell Relentless slams sideways into the storm-swept Pacific.

That boat is a blue-water fishing boat. It has a pair of Yamaha F350 four-stroke engines. The boat skips across the waves like a stone. It is a fast vessel.

In the back are five barrels. Plastic. Hinges not at the top but down the center. Barrels that break open like a chest sitting on its side.

The boat and its captain arrive at the southern coast of Kauai between 4:00 and 5:00
A.M.
The captain of the fishing boat leaves one barrel behind. Open. Then the motor revs and the boat continues out into the black glass night.

5:30
A.M.

Somewhere through the haze of sleep, Makani hears it—

Nalani is crying.

It's a loud, shrill cry. And then, as fast as it starts, it stops.

The monitor blinks and crackles. Nalani is still making mewling, whimpering sounds.
Maybe she had a bad dream,
Makani thinks. She wants to just stay in bed. The alarm isn't for another hour. And then it's getting the little one off to day care and a shift at the juice bar and then picking Nalani up and taking the baby to her mother's so she can do a housekeeping shift at the Poipu Sheraton and, and, and. The day doesn't end until well into the night.

Just a year ago she would have relished staying up at night. Partying on the beach till she crawled into bed and then back out of it.

But then Nalani came along. The little one changed everything in the best way possible.
Except
for the sleeping part. The kid's got a wicked yeast infection. The ointments you get at Walmart don't do it, and the doctor—a
haole
from California, set up an office near the juice joint—said it's the humidity and heat here. So now the little girl sleeps without a diaper—which means she sometimes wets the sheets in her crib—and is on a prescription med. Makani's health insurance is shit, so it costs her almost a whole weekly paycheck once a month. It's why she took the housekeeping gig. But Nalani still wakes up in the middle of the night. Because she wants to feed. Or just wants to be held.

A bitter thought:
I want to be held, too, you know.
If only Kaleo hadn't run off back to Oahu the moment he found out she had one in the oven. Stupid
poho
. And she thought
ohana
was supposed to mean something. But Kaleo just wants to surf, brah. They're
pau
—done, forget it, piss on it.

Poor her. Poor Nalani. Dumb-ass Kaleo.

Ugh, now she's awake. Makani gets up. The monitor is flashing. And a hiss of static. Louder than usual. She staggers her way out of the bedroom and down the hall of the little house. A morning breeze comes in through the hallway—two windows anchoring each end of it make the hallway the coolest part of this dinky place. Out the windows she can hear the faint sound of the ocean—that's one of the nice things about this house. Close to the beach. Close to the dock.

Nalani's room is dark. She has to keep it that way or the little one will never get to sleep—it's, like, a shade, and then these gauzy-looking curtains, and then
blackout
curtains on top of that. She's half tempted to just get the damn windows tinted like she's riding in some slick whip.

There are gurgles coming from the crib at the end of the room. But something gives Makani's mind a little push.
Something's wrong
.
That's not one of Nalani's normal sounds. And suddenly she's hurrying over to the crib, her hands planting on the wooden rail—

She hears her little girl mewling. Right there. In front of her. In the crib. And yet—

Wait.

As her eyes start to adjust, Makani sees inside the crib. The whole mattress seems to be moving—roiling, shifting, a bulging mound of shadow. Within it, a faintly human shape. Her baby.

She reaches down, and the darkness becomes suddenly real, suddenly
tangible
—a physical, present thing. It's like plunging her hands into sand or tiny pebbles. Except whatever it is, it's moving. All around her. Not just around her, but up her arms, and her spine stiffens as she realizes that something is crawling on her—not one something, but hundreds,
thousands
of somethings, and then her mind visits back to the news story she just read about how fire ants have started to take hold in the islands. Not here, not on Kauai, but maybe they're wrong, maybe it is here—

A pinch on the back of her hand.

A sting, just after.

Then dozens of them. Up her forearms. Now her biceps. Makani doesn't scream, she just starts to say the word
no,
over and over, not because the ants are on her but because they're on her daughter and she wants her daughter to live even if she cannot—
no, no, no,
as if pleading helps, as if the ants are possessed of a merciful nature spirit.

As the ants swarm over her and rob her of her skin, she is serenaded by the sound of her little one crying. Normally it's a sound that haunts her, but here, it is a sound that reminds her until her last breath:
My baby is still alive.

8:00
A.M.

“Moana,” Pono says. “Howzit?”

He knows it's a mistake to ask. His sister, she's a big flabby wet blanket. Never a nice thing to say. Everything's junk in her life.
Just junk piling up on her shoulders. And she's secretly happy to carry it all around, pointing at it again and again so you know how miserable she is having to carry it all around.

This time is no different. She stands at the sink with a cigarette. Maybe she doesn't have much to complain about so instead she complains about him: “You
lolo
. A foolish little man, bruddah. You never home. Family means something. You always out there working and working and working for that rich
shark bait
. I should bust you up. Remember our small kid days? Our parents said we had to take care of each other. Huh? Where are you? Where are you most days, Pono?”

He wants to come out swinging.
Oh, Moana, we're supposed to take care of each other, but all I do is take care of you.
He's got a job. A
good
job. He's working for Einar Geirsson. Sure, sure, Pono's just a lowly driver—and one of a half dozen here on the island—but he's part of it. And he gets paid real nice for it, too. He gives his sister his paycheck. He tries to watch his nephews and nieces. And she just gives him humbug for it every damn time.

Outside, he hears someone yelling. Then some laughing? Whatever. These apartments down here in Lihue—somebody's always yelling at somebody. Those chucklehead mainlanders with the Jeeps and the Jet Skis are noisy like birds.

“I got bills,” Moana's saying. “I got repairs. The catchment tank is leaking. My bathroom fan is buss-up.”

Outside, more yelling. Whatever that's about, it's better than this. Pono smiles, nods, holds up a finger, and tells his sister he's going to check on it. She pinches her little fat eyes at him and goes back to half-assedly washing dishes.

There, by the Jeep in the parking lot. The two chuckleheads. One of them is shirtless: a tan, bronzed supermodel type of guy, always out here kicking a soccer ball. He's juggle-stepping backward, laughing. The other one is a pudgier, paler type—got on a baggy T-shirt and board shorts. Longer hair curled around his ears because he keeps forcibly curling it there, running his fingers
along it and tucking it back even though it springs back out every thirty seconds.

Pono's dealt with them before. One of them is named Stav, short for Stavros, the other one is Kip, and Pono can't remember which one is which and he doesn't care, anyway. “Hey, keep it down, okay? It's early. People in this building are still asleep.”

But they ignore him. Tan Chucklehead keeps stepping back. The other one is laughing, and he's saying in a ghoul's voice, “They're coming to get you, Barbara.” More laughing and clapping. Like
lolo
idiots. Finally, Pudgy Chucklehead sees Pono. “Hey, man, c'mere. Look.”

Pono takes a few steps, and he doesn't believe what he sees. Ants. A trail of them, about an inch thick. They clamber over each other, moving in a singular direction like a little stream of rain runoff. When Tan Chucklehead moves, they bend their path and move toward him. Both the chuckleheads giggle like they're high on
pakalolo,
which they probably are.

Somewhere in the apartment complex, someone starts yelling. A woman.

A cop car and then a fire truck go speeding by down Hoolako Street.

“Whoa, whoa, watch out behind you,” Pudge says to Tan Chucklehead—and Tan Chucklehead wheels around too late to see that he's about to step into a second trail of ants. He plants one slippah down on bugs and instantly they start winding up his leg in a corkscrew trail. “Ow! Shit. They fuckin' bit—”

Tan Chucklehead sucks in a sharp intake of breath, then hops on one leg before losing his balance and going ass down. He starts flailing around like he's on fire.

More yelling in the distance. Pono starts to think something's wrong.

Pudge is still laughing. He hurries over and bends down, almost losing his footing as he starts to wipe the ants off his friend's legs—

They crawl onto him next. And it's only seconds before Pudge is
making a sound like a wild pig Pono once saw caught in a barbed-wire fence. The pig thrashed around so hard it only trapped itself tighter, until its legs were up off the ground kicking the air.

Tan Chucklehead starts wheezing. And gagging. He slumps over. Shuddering.

Then one of the streams of ants pulls away, starts heading toward Pono.

Pono's no dummy, despite what his sister thinks. He turns and walks briskly back to the apartments. He's not going to run from some stupid ants. But then he hears more sirens in the distance. And someone starts screaming at the same time someone else in the complex starts weeping and calling for help.

Pono runs. He grabs his sister. Tells her it's time to go. She calls him crazy, accuses him of being stupid and high and whatever else. He asks her if the kids are in school and she says no, it's Sunday, they're at the beach.

He says they need to go pick them up. Now.

Moana protests.

Until the ants start coming in under the door. Until she sees them climbing up the screen window. The ants march into the front room. Up the walls. The ceilings. Little streams of them like arteries branching.

They head out the bedroom window and run to the car.

Noon

The civil defense sirens go off across the island of Kauai.

It is a single tone. It does not change in pitch.

This is part of the emergency broadcast system in Hawaii. They test it periodically, and it goes for a minute and then stops. Nominally, it's used for tsunamis. It's a warning sign to head inland.

This goes for longer. It is not a test.

But this is not a tsunami.

This is an invasion.

6:00
P.M.

A C-130 takes Hollis Copper to Barking Sands. He was able to call in a favor and hitch a ride on the flight carrying medical supplies and a few victuals for the military base. Halfway through the flight, they call him up to the cockpit to tell him the news: Kauai had been affected by some kind of “contagion.”

Hollis asked, “What kind of contagion? What's that mean?” The two pilots looked at each other like they didn't know
how
to explain it. That's when Hollis knew. “Ants,” he said.

Their eyes went wide. One pilot—young buck with apple cheeks and pinch-slit eyes, Airman Gordo Nybouer—nodded. “Ants.”

“We even cleared to land?” Hollis asked.

“Yeah,” the other pilot—a young brother named Duke—said. “But they're talking about a quarantine. Which means if we land, we may not get to take off again. Might be grounded for some time.”

The plane lands. A hard bounce across the airstrip. On the left, Barking Sands beach and the Pacific Ocean. On his right, Hollis sees a pair of sailors striding toward the transport. Their faces are hidden behind gas-mask muzzles, their bodies clad with billowing hazmat suits.

While still on board, they give him a suit. He asks them if it's really necessary. One of them—nameless and faceless, voice muffled through the mask—says, “Have not seen any incursions of the biological entity here, sir. But just to be cautious, we recommend the suit.”

The other sailor says, “But Captain Cole isn't wearing one.”

Sailor One shoots Sailor Two some kind of look.

“I'm good,” Hollis says. “Let's just get this under way.”

6:15
P.M.

They lead him to a convertible. A cherry-red Mustang. A box-jawed man sits in the driver's seat, leaning back, one stiff arm propped
up on the steering wheel as his thumb vigorously flicks through something on his phone. His hair is long in the back, almost a heat-curled mullet coming down over his neck. Captain Cole, Hollis is guessing.

“Good,” the man says when Hollis gets in the other side. “You're not wearing that suit. Wear one of those, your balls will get swampy fast. That's how you get crotch rot.” He frowns at the phone in his lap. “God damn it, Gunderson. You pissy little kitten.” He shakes his head. “Sorry. My job here at the PMRF is to babysit a bunch of drunk, rich toddlers. We're the hottest-shit missile range in the Pacific, and I'd be all right just having to juggle dickheads from all the branches of the military and our so-called intelligence—no offense—but worse is that this base is home to executives from Boeing, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, Sandia, Palisade, Boston Dynamics, you name it. Everybody wants a piece of me and each other. Gunderson, for instance, thinks he can just hop on his jet and take off. I'm telling him there's a quarantine in effect. Dumb fuck is stuck here.”