Andre’s hair shifted, and Grant cried out in terror and pain.
Sally screamed. So did the others behind Nitsy.
The flap was open slightly, and the ladybugs didn’t react.
“Why aren’t they doing anything?” Nitsy asked.
Before she got an answer, Robbie was pulling her out of the tent by her arm.
Hal took aim and fired at Andre, shooting him through the plastic wall and hitting him in the middle of the forehead. Grant was flipping around on the ground, writhing in pain, and Hal went to work quickly. He pulled on his friend’s feet, yanking him into the tent. Then he backed away and watched. Still, the ladybugs didn’t react.
A few moved closer to his body, seeming to be interested in him, but they didn’t jump on him the way Andre seemed to think they would.
“Grant!” Sally screamed from behind.
“Shoot him, Hal!” Nitsy begged. “Put him out of his misery.”
Hal pointed at him and pulled the trigger.
31
They didn’t react. They didn’t do shit. Andre had brought them all the way up here to this building, and now they were going to be stuck here. Hal covered his ears for a second to block out the sounds of the siren and the creatures trying to burst through the door. He thought he was going to lose his mind.
We’re fucking trapped!
“It won’t work,” Nitsy said as she slid back down to her ass on the floor.
Hal didn’t want to hear any of them. Andre was dead, Grant was dead, and they were trapped.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he repeated under his breath.
“Grant,” Sally cried into Phyllis’s shoulder.
“It’s not going to work,” Nitsy repeated.
“We need to close that hatch,” Thomas, the big ol’ country boy said.
“Everybody shut up,” Hal begged. “Please, be quiet for a second.”
They didn’t get any quieter. The siren wailed, the creatures pounded and shrieked, Nitsy said things that were blatantly obvious, her boyfriend reassured her of things he couldn’t be sure of, Sally cried for a man Hal was sure she didn’t love, the caretaker’s boy kept volunteering to close the hatch when he had no business with it, and the other two whispered encouraging words to whoever would listen. Hal was going to lose his damn mind.
“Maybe the ladybugs couldn’t see them,” Robbie said. “I mean… look at them now.”
“They’re chowing down, now,” Thomas agreed.
Hal lifted his gaze and turned to stare through the tent. The boys were right. The ladybugs were practically covering Grant’s head now. Hal, who’d been sitting on the ground, slid closer to the tent flap, and stuck his head in.
He couldn’t fucking believe it.
“Do you hear that?” he asked.
Nitsy looked at him like he’d lost his mind. He wasn’t crazy. He knew what he was hearing.
“Hear what?” Nitsy asked.
“Squealing,” Hal said with a soft chuckle. “They’re fucking squealing. I think the ladybugs are eating them right off his fucking head.”
Robbie moved closer and soon after Nitsy, Phyllis, Bradley, Thomas, and Sally too. They all heard it.
“It’s because they didn’t jump,” Hal suggested. He wasn’t sure about it, but it seemed to make sense. “When Andre pulled Grant out of the tent, they didn’t see the things jump from Andre to Grant. They were already on Grant when I pulled him into the tent. So, maybe it only took the bugs a minute to sense out the little fuckers.”
“That’s not great,” Robbie said. “These things are going to come through that door any second, and when they do, we won’t have a minute for the ladybugs to sense them out as you put it.”
He was right. They’d all be dead if it took that long.
And they kept on pounding from outside. Hal stood and moved closer to the door. The frame was starting to crack. They were pushing right through the damn wall. If he had to guess, they had maybe ten minutes, tops, before these creatures shoved the door right through the frame. If that didn’t happen first, the walls would come tumbling down.
They were in a death trap. They could risk climbing up to the roof and trying to get down that way. Maybe most of the creatures were over here by the door and they could hop down on the other side. It was a tall building though and the chances of them getting hurt on the way down were high. That was if whatever had gotten to Andre wasn’t still up there waiting for them.
“We need those things to jump,” Hal said. “Or at least to be active enough for the ladybugs to see.”
“Got any ideas?” Phyllis asked.
It was clear her boyfriend, Bradley, was trying to come up with something. For a second, it seemed like he might figure this out. Then he lowered his gaze and Hal knew he’d given up.
“I’ve got one,” Hal said, “but it means I probably won’t be joining you all on the rest of this journey.”
“What?” Sally asked. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means it’s a suicide note,” Nitsy said.
Everyone was quiet.
“Look, I don’t have a whole lot to live for,” Hal told them. “When Susanna, my daughter, was taken from me, my whole life fell apart. When my wife Sheila went to be with her, I knew I needed to be close behind, but I haven’t been brave enough to do it. Maybe this is my way out.”
“Hal,” Sally said, “no, we’ll find another way.”
“There is no other way,” he insisted.
“Why don’t we burn this place to the ground?” Thomas suggested. “Fire seemed to work back at the campus.”
It wasn’t a bad idea. Hal had considered that option himself. Fire killed most things, and he was sure it would kill these too. If the U.S. Army showed up and took care of it, that might work, but he had no flame thrower to aim directly at them. If he set the building ablaze, they’d simply run off into the woods and wreak havoc someplace else. That would be a temporary fix and definitely wouldn’t save them. The second they stepped outside the fiery building they’d be surrounded again.
No, his idea was the only one he could think of that might work.
“It’s a good idea,” Hal said, “but they’d only run away.”
Pieces of the wall came down on the floor around the door. They didn’t have much time.
“Trust me,” Hal said. “I’ll do everything I can to get back to you guys, but I need to do this. We have no time. Come with me.”
They all argued with him as he ushered them to a back room that was clearly used as an office and bedroom. It didn’t surprise him that Andre slept here. It was where he’d hid since his truck crashed.
“Tell us what you’re going to do,” Nitsy demanded. “It’s kind of important. What if it fails?”
“Then you all can climb out that tiny window and take your chances,” he said as he pointed at a narrow window above Andre’s desk. “Maybe if enough of them are in here, none of them will be out there.”
Hal stepped back out into the main room and retrieved his duffle bag. When he returned to the office, he reached into his bag and handed them each a gun. “My friend Clementine gave me these guns,” he told them. “She was one hell of a lady. You take care of these. They’ll just be a precautionary measure. Now, lock this door behind me. If I start barking out orders, follow them. If you hear nothing but yelling and screaming and they come to this door, then climb out that window and run like hell.”
Thomas raised both eyebrows. “I don’t think I can fit through that window.”
“Hal, no,” Sally said as she wrapped her arms around him.
“For Grant,” he replied. “He didn’t deserve to go out like that. Neither did Andre or Clementine or any of those kids back at Stonewall.”