Barlow thrashed and rolled, his screams becoming choked as the bugs also poured into his open mouth.
Ben went to charge towards him, but Jenny ran at him, shouldering him away.
“Don’t. Back off.” She grabbed up one of the sticks beside the fire and used it to scoop a lot of the embers towards Barlow. The spray of red created a barrier that kept the insects back, but it did nothing to discourage them swarming over the man.
Barlow was now impossible to make out under the blanket of bugs, and he looked like nothing more than a man-sized pile of furiously moving tiny bodies.
Jenny brought another stick down on one of the bugs, and then snatched it up. She stared hard at it for a few seconds before yelping and flinging it away.
“Modificaputis, I think. A primitive form of cockroach.” She shook her hand.
Steve held his shotgun pointed at the swarm. He looked panicked. “They’re fucking cockroaches? They’re huge, and they’re goddamn eating him alive!”
“Don’t fire that shotgun in here,” Ben yelled.
“Backup,” Jenny said. “The prehistoric version were carnivorous hunters — see the long legs?”
As they watched the mound rose up, and a low moan emanated from the centre of the pile that was once Barlow.
“Oh God.” Emma put her hands to the sides of her head. “Make it stop.”
A single gunshot rang out, and the mound collapsed. Ben spun to see Janus Bellakov pointing his rifle. The two men locked eyes momentarily, and eventually Ben nodded — it was a merciful release.
The group backed away. The fire had shrunk to a point of it being too small to be effective anymore, and as they watched, a glistening bone extended from one side of the pile, to break loose and drop onto the swarming carpet of insect bodies. It was an arm, now picked clean. Even the natural fibers in the man’s clothing were being consumed.
“Who let the fire go out?” Ben asked.
“Doesn’t matter; it’s out,” Janus said. “Now we know what your fucking ancestor meant by they come at night.”
“They’re watching,” Jenny reminded them.
“Might have helped if he spelled it out just a little more, doncha think?” Bellakov sneered. “Well, we can’t stay here.”
“He’s right,” Jenny said. “These things won’t stop until all the meat is gone.” She gritted her teeth. “That’s what the smell was — the insects giving off their pheromones, signaling to each other.”
“Now we know why there wasn’t anything living in here,” Steve observed. “You come in here, you end up like that dead dinosaur… or Barlow. Poor sap.”
“Gather your things,” Ben said and turned to Jenny. “Will they follow us?”
Jenny looked back at the swarm. “I don’t know. They would certainly be jungle foragers. Might be like army ants.” She shrugged. “We just don’t know enough about them.”
“Maybe we should stay in the water for a while,” Emma said. “They can’t follow us there.”
“Stay out of the water,” Janus said.
“Huh?” Emma said, frowning.
Steve nodded. “Yeah, trust me, we don’t want to get too close to the lake.”
They edged to the cave mouth, and Ben turned to look at the Barlow mound of insects that was rapidly diminishing in size. From the side of the heap, something round and white rolled free — it was the man’s skull, minus the jawbone or any meat inside or out.
“Not how he envisaged things were going to turn out,” Walt Koenig said softly.
“Yeah, well, thanks for nothing, Barlow, you fat fuck.” Bellakov bared his teeth.
Steve scoffed. “Remind me to have you come and say something nice at my funeral.”
Ben checked his watch. “We’ve still at least an hour until daybreak.” He had no idea if being out in the darkness was better or worse now. But they had no choice now. He turned away.
“Let’s go — silent as we can.” Ben headed out first.
“New plan?” Emma whispered.
Ben turned to her. “I was going to ask you the same thing.” He gave her a lopsided smile but doubted she could see him.
They moved quietly and quickly back the way they’d come. They were now out of food, shelter, and according to Benjamin’s notebook, they were running out of time to escape, before something occurred to make leaving impossible. Ben had no idea what that could be, but his ancestor had been right about everything so far, so he didn’t want to hang around to find out.
But the fact was, he had no idea what to do next, and no idea how to get off the plateau.
Except one.
Ben stopped, and Emma bumped into him. “We need to find that stream we came upon. I have an idea.”
“What is it — all good ideas are solid gold right now?” Steve asked.
Ben waved them on and spoke over his shoulder. “I said I had an idea; I didn’t say it was a good one.”
“Clouds are thinning.” Bellakov craned his neck. “Thought I saw a glimpse of moon before.”
Ben also looked up at the ever-present cloud cover. Hopefully, dawn was rushing upon them, but for now, it was still all in darkness… or mostly.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Looks weird. A bit like a cyclone the way it’s moving about up there, and we’re right in its eye.” He continued to stare and saw through a small opening in the dark clouds a corner of the moon begin to appear.
“What the…?”
Ben frowned; it was wrong, bigger somehow… like it was closer.
“Clouds swirling, but there’s no wind,” Bellakov observed.
“Huh?” Ben turned briefly to the man, and then when he glanced back at the sky, the clouds had closed again. “Damn.”
“I know what you’re thinking; a bit of good ole sunlight would be great. There’s just enough light and heat to turn this place into a freaking greenhouse. Just give me a few golden rays punching through.”
Ben sighed. “Yeah, I heard that.”
Bellakov walked up beside him, lowering his head and his voice. “You’re going for the plane, aren’t you?”
Ben looked at him, assessing, and then finally nodded. “Yep.”
“Mad bastard.” The mercenary snorted. “You know, even if you manage to get the engine out to lighten it for gliding, and the fuselage doesn’t just fall apart, there’s too many of us.” He watched Ben closely as he spoke.
Ben shrugged. “The Corsair Fighter has a 41-foot wingspan, and empty can take the weight.”
“The weight is one thing, but there’s too many bodies. Simply won’t all fit.” Bellakov shrugged. “I like the plan though.” He fell back a step. “I mean, what else we got?”
Emma sped up to walk beside him. “Are we going around in circles?”
“I don’t think so.” Ben turned to her. “We’re retracing our steps; we haven’t strayed too far off the trail we blazed.”
“It’s just that… um…” She grimaced and turned about. “We’ve been walking for hours. Added to that, the lake was huge, and the cave was in the side of a small mountain. I know Tepuis can be enormous, but this place is like an entire world up here.”
Ben had already thought about that, but what did it mean? he wondered.
“She’s right,” Jenny added. “The population, size, and diversity of species up here is usually only represented by a large land mass. I don’t get how these things can continue to survive, basically, on an island.”
“An island,” Ben repeated. “I don’t have an answer for that. Nothing up here is normal, or makes sense.”