"There," she said, standing back to examine her work. "Hopefully it'll clot. Justin. Justin."
Justin's head lolled back, and Cameron caught it. He blinked once, lazily. "It's all right," he said. "I'm all right. You're gonna have to stick me now. I think I threw some Lactate Ringer's in my kit bag."
She retrieved the IV bag, then tied a strip of cloth around his arm as a tourniquet. Justin flexed his right fist, trying to swell his antecubital vein at the crook of his elbow. She inserted a large bore needle with his guid-ance, then spiked the IV bag. He lay back as she stood over him, squeezing the bag to push the fluids.
Twenty minutes later when the bag was drained, she removed the nee-dle. Justin tried to struggle up to a sitting position, but she pushed him back down. He grunted in pain.
"You're a liability, Justin. The minute I leave your side, the mantid will come after you, because she'll sense you're easy."
"I am not easy," Justin said. He tried to move his injured arm and cried out. Scrunching his face up, he rolled on the grass, waiting for the pain to subside.
Some blood had seeped through the cloth. Cameron pressed down on the bandage and Justin winced. "We need to get you out of the man-tid's sight. If she sees you as vulnerable prey, she might brave the sun to get you."
"Okay. I'll just hide out in the ambulance." His lips were moving less and less when he spoke. His moan sounded like a door creaking open. "What do you want to do?"
"Bury you."
She couldn't help but notice that the hole she was digging for her hus-band looked like a shallow grave. It was about ten yards behind the base camp, the remaining tents blocking it from view of the forest in case the mantid was watching. Cameron held the pain at bay while she worked, refusing to let it set in until she finished. Her arms ached so much they finally went numb.
Justin lay on his stomach, watching her work and doing his best to remain conscious. Cameron had already hydrated him as best she could. He would be going into the hole for a long time, until their 2200 pickup.
If they lived that long.
When she stepped aside, Justin rolled into the hole, lying on his back so his face was nearly level with the ground. His breath quickened as Cameron packed dirt over his legs, his stomach, his chest, obscuring them from view. Finally, only his face remained, an oval of flesh sunk in the dirt.
"You gonna be all right?" Cameron asked.
Justin nodded weakly. He glanced at the side of her shirt, moist with rotting hemolymph. "Good color for you." He closed his eyes and Cameron felt her heart quicken.
"Don't you fucking die on me."
"Please," Justin managed. "I have dry cleaning out."
Cameron leaned over her husband and kissed him tenderly on the lips, then fitted into his mouth a short length of camel bak tubing she'd found in Savage's kit bag. She smoothed dirt over his face until it was gone from view. The tubing protruded from the dirt a few inches, but aside from that, the ground above Justin was perfectly flat.
Since the gash hadn't compromised any major arteries, he would sur-vive if he didn't lose any more blood. And she'd made a point of digging deep enough so that he'd be buried in cool earth, protected from the pounding sun.
Cameron rose and stood near the overturned soil for a moment, then placed her hand near the top of the tubing, wanting to feel Justin's breath on her palm. The person whom she cherished most in the world was buried alive at her feet, and she would have to leave him there for a good long time.
Turning, she headed back to the base camp. She changed her cam-mies, rinsed with water from the canteen, and applied the last of the antibacterial gel, smearing it liberally over her cuts. She didn't want to waste time now hiking down to the beach for a more thorough washing-it would have to wait until she figured out a plan.
She ripped a blank sheet of paper from a logbook and jotted a note explaining that Justin was in fact alive, and that she'd buried him. Beneath, she scribbled a diagram showing where he was buried. She pinned the piece of paper on the front of one of the remaining tents, where it flapped conspicuously. She stood and stared at the note for a few moments before turning to find her kit bag.
She dug out her IR strobe, turning over the rounded, cigarette pack-sized unit and clicking the waterproof button on the bottom. A soft whirring indicated that it was strobing, though the infrared cover ensured it could only be seen with night vision. She set the strobe in the grass a safe distance from Justin, about midway between base camp and the air vesicle they'd used for the trap.
She returned to her kit bag, finding a bottle of multipurpose solution encased in a Ziploc bag, and cleaned and reinserted her contacts. Pressing her fingers to her temples, she ran through her options in her head, trying to come up with a plan to survive until the helo arrived.
Pulling back the top lip of her pants pocket, Cameron glanced at the small digital clock face. A couple minutes past eleven. For now, the man-tid was trapped in the forest, needing shade. Dusk would hit at about six o'clock, which gave Cameron seven hours. In seven hours, the creature could travel wherever she wanted.
Cameron couldn't swim out to the tuff cones for the night because the mantid might discover Justin's hiding place or fly off in search of food, taking the virus with her. And if Cameron couldn't find the remaining larva, which seemed quite likely, there was a good chance she'd have two of the things on her hands at nightfall.
Given Justin's vulnerability and the creature's advantage at night, Cameron would have to take the offensive. The speargun was lost, but she still had three flares, and two crates of TNT. She tried to think of different traps that she could rig, but her mind came up blank. She'd never realized how much they'd counted on Tucker for demo.
Virtually alone on an island, no gun, tracked by one of nature's most advanced predators in its own habitat. Her husband's and the island's life dependent not just on her surviving, but triumphing over the creature. Things looked bad.
Covered with blood, hemolymph, and sweat, Cameron rose and stood on unsteady legs. She needed to eat. If she had food in her stom-ach, she'd be able to think more clearly.
She staggered toward her old tent, her arms sore, cramps setting in through her legs. The insides of her thighs brushed with each step, sending waves of pain through her lower body. Her head felt close to exploding, her shoulder throbbed incessantly, and the cut on her calf from the freezer vent was deeper than she'd thought.
In all likelihood, she had seven hours to live.
She drank from the canteen until she vomited, the water tasting pure and fresh on the way back up. After that, she regulated how much she hydrated, even though the pork and rice from the MRE felt as dry as sand in her mouth. If she threw up again, she'd lose the nutrients from the meal.
Ravenously devouring the oatmeal cookie bar, she glanced out along the edge of the forest. It took her a long time to pick out the mantid from her hiding place among the foliage. With her motionless, alert stance, she protruded just barely from the last line of trees like a gar-goyle, her head swiveling ever so slightly, keeping Cameron in view.
Cameron lay back on the grass, propping her head up on the log so that she could keep an eye on the mantid. It was not long before she began to doze off, and when she snapped awake, she saw that the mantid had broken from cover, taking a few steps toward her.
With a choking gasp, Cameron jumped up, waving her arms and yelling, and the mantid scrambled back to the trees. Evidently, the man-tid would risk going out in the direct sunlight only if she was assured an easy kill. Cameron's display of liveliness had saved her-the mantid couldn't afford a chase, since her energy would drain quickly in the hot sun. She knew she could just wait until dark.