He looked once again at the kneeling figure. Her head was round too. Her mouth was a frown. Her eyes were smaller circles, and although they were devoid of any emotion, Andy saw within them that strange mixture of hope and fear that had lived in the eyes of the real girl that day he’d taken her into his arms and screamed his Tarzan yell.
Now Andy recognized it once again within this slight Mexican girl lying beside the old man. Yet somehow it wasn’t the old man that seemed predatory. The way she clutched him was too much like a teddy bear or a kid hugging base during a game of freeze tag. No, it wasn’t the old man that Andy needed to worry about. Following her gaze to its end, he found the hungry leer of Batista. Like the King of the Jungle who found the spoor of a new animal, Andy knew this wasn’t going to end well. He thought about growling at his rummy partner, but knew that the man wouldn’t understand, just like his mother and all of the other adults of his childhood had failed to understand.
Outside the jungle, no one did.
Two days later the worms came.
Just after the last sortie of tarantula wasps was hurled back into the Rift, there came a rumbling that set off sensors all around. Twice it stopped, then resumed, strong enough so that even those in the bunkers felt the trembling of the earth.
All the mine tenders got the call to stand by. The mines were detonated remotely, by controllers using satellite and UAV imagery. But in the event the mines failed to detonate, the tenders would have to wade into battle to get to the hard-wired back-up controls. It was deadly dangerous with little chance of survival. Andy never thought he’d have to perform that specific function. At least he hoped he wouldn’t.
Andy stood in the open blast door staring into the night. The Rift was lit by sweeping spotlights. The air was clear except for lingering smoke trails from where Hellfire missiles had connected to bring down the wasps.
Two figures squeezed between him and the door. One was the Mexican girl, the other was her sister. They whispered rapidly to each other and pointed to the Rift. One of the senior sergeants pushed them back. This was no place for children.
Andy felt the heat of Batista’s gaze scorch him as it followed the girl back inside. He’d tried not to say anything, but his Tarzan vibes kept getting stronger and stronger. When he looked once again at his partner, he found Batista staring at him.
“You want a piece of her too, maricone?”
Andy shook his head and tried to look away. But Batista grabbed him and spun him back around.
“I know your kind. You like to watch.”
“I—”
“Next time we hit the bunkers I’m gonna do her. You keep look out and I’ll let you watch. I know you’ll like that.”
Andy didn’t have time to respond. Just then, a one-hundred yard-long worm broke free of the soil in their sector. Its skin was a mottle of purples and reds. Hair covered its upper half, or what Andy thought was hair. Each ten-foot strand moved individually, reminding Andy more of tentacles than anything else. Claymores immediately exploded, daisy-chained to deliver a conflagration over a broad area. Tens of thousands of ball bearings ripped into the creature, chopping it in half. Great gouts of blood and flesh flew through the air. It screamed, the sound like a train using its emergency airbrakes.
Then died.
Another worm came after.
Then another.
Then another.
But Andy hardly noticed. Instead, all he could think of was how he was going to keep the girl safe from the predator he worked with. He might have to go talk to her. He looked first at Batista, then at the girl.
Me Tarzan. You Jane.
Andy had been away from his Network for six weeks. He’d had longer assignments, but had always filed interim reports, sometimes calling every day just so his bosses knew he was doing what he’d been paid to do. Working with the Rift Battalion, he hadn’t even had the opportunity to make a phone call. He couldn’t take notes, he couldn’t record his thoughts on the recorder he’d stuffed in the bottom of his bag, he couldn’t even scratch hieroglyphics in the dirt. Absolutely everything was monitored by a special team of NSA signal interceptors.
So for all intents and purposes, he’d stepped off the face of the earth. And until his tour was up, he’d remain that way. The soonest he could expect to leave was at the six month mark when they were due to rotate out.
Yet even that was the subject of speculation. The other new guys couldn’t help but wonder if they were really going to be allowed to leave. Sure, they signed non-disclosure agreements and promised to keep the Rift and its denizens a secret, but since when was the government so trustworthy as to keep its side of any bargain?
Like the Mexicans for instance.
Andy had asked why they hadn’t been sent home. The looks he’d gotten had answered the question for him. He soon discovered the Mexicans would never be allowed to leave. They’d as easily tell the secret of the Rift to the Weekly World News as the Wall Street Journal if it meant they could enter the land of plentiful shopping malls. So they were here to stay. And if history was any reference, they’d end up being assigned to the black trailers where scientists were continually trying to breakdown the monsters’ genomes.
The knowledge brought twitches to Andy’s Tarzan vibes.
The next day came and went without as much as a monstrous whisper. As did the next and the next and the next. A full week passed without incident. It was to the point where new soldiers like Andy wondered if it was all over, if they’d won. But the old timers scoffed at the idea, and with more than a little condescension, explained the idea of gestation. They predicted two more weeks of inactivity before the Rift-shit hit the fan once again.
Just a lull before the storm.
The only one who didn’t like it was Batista. He’d had eyes for nothing but the emergency bunker and the young Mexican girl who waited inside. Until the monsters returned, he wouldn’t even be allowed to get close to her. So it was that every day when they were checking the mine controls and cabling, that he complained and griped and groaned. He’d wax graphically about what his plans were for the young girl. He’d detail the things he’d do. He’d wonder philosophically if she’d like him for what he did, perhaps even love him and beg for more.
Never once did he think that his partner thought otherwise, because Andy remained silent through it all. Andy prayed that it was all talk. In his mind, he might have been Tarzan, but intellectually he understood the difference between pretend and reality. When it came down to it, Batista was a ruthless killer and Andy only pretended to be one. If one were to believe his coworkers, then he was nothing but a coward afraid to do anything but lay huddled in a ditch, begging the universe not to kill him. If that was true, then what good would he be to the girl?
But things were looking up for Batista. Three days short of two weeks, he found his chance. A Hurricane had jumped the Baja Peninsula and was eating its way up the Sea of Cortez. In a divinely poetic set of circumstances, the storm was dubbed Hurricane Edgar.
As Batista voiced his plan, all Andy could think of was how he could get the courage to foil it. Looking at the bunkers with the wind picking up, Andy finally voiced the words that had been rattling around his mind for his whole life.
“Me Tarzan. You Jane,” he whispered.
And the words steeled him for what he’d have to do.
The UAVs were grounded. The satellites were blind. Winds were cresting at fifty miles an hour with gusts past seventy. Rain poured from a dark, hollow sky until the ground could take no more. The Hurricane had slammed ashore at 2A.M., annihilating shoreline homes, small boats and jetties in Puerto Peñasco. The storm didn’t tarry. With an angry fury, the hurricane grew legs and moved inland. Those not sane enough to stay inside found that Edgar was making life a wet, windy, miserable hell as it shuffled laconically across the land.