“What do you want?” he croaked at it.
Mr. Hand twitched—had it heard him? One of those long crablike fingers tapped the wall as if in deep thought.
What do I want, Luke? What do I want, indeed!
Mr. Hand hopped on the wall, playful little bobs. Each time it landed, there came this squitch from its fingertips.
One finger pointed straight up: Aha!
Mr. Hand leapt off the wall and advanced on Luke. He reached into his pocket and held up the scalpel in one trembling fist. Mr. Hand shivered—Oooh, so scaaary!—then flopped over like a dog playing dead.
One finger curled. That beckoning gesture again.
Follow me, follow me, said the spider to the fly…
Mr. Hand righted itself and skittered across the lab. Luke tracked it with the flashlight. The hand danced impishly along the floor, spinning balletically. Mr. Hand feinted left, back right, then flipped onto the wall. Where the hell was it going…?
The keypad to Westlake’s lab. A glowing square, each numeral outlined in a faint red square. Mr. Hand sprung up and landed on the keypad.
You always were the curious cat, weren’t you?
His mother’s voice in his head now, bitter as aspic.
Always sticking your nose in. Same as when you were a boy, wanting to get into your brother’s lab even though he told you no, no, no. You couldn’t take no for an answer, could you? You wanted to drink your greedy eyes full.
Mr. Hand punched a number. Punched another.
Curious, curious boy. You want to see what’s behind door number three, my son? Do you want to play the bonus round, where the scores can really change?
“No, Mom,” Luke croaked. “I don’t want to see. Don’t show me.”
Mr. Hand tapped another number, and another…
There are some secrets, Lucas dear, that really ought to stay secrets.
“I don’t want to see,” Luke said hoarsely. “Please. Don’t show me.”
Take your medicine, son. Bitter, yes, but it’s oooh-so-good for you.
Mr. Hand pushed the red button. The keypad went dark.
A hiss as the pressure valve on Westlake’s hatch let go. A sweet, corrupted smell hit Luke’s nostrils… the scent of rotting honeycomb, just maybe.
The hatch opened. Only a crack. The metallic squeal peeled back the nerve endings over every inch of Luke’s skin.
And after the squeal came the buzz.
17.
COME-COME-COME-COME-COME-SEE-COME-SEE-COME-SEE
The whispers were louder now. Almost as loud as the maddening drone that curled through the hatch. The whispers vacillated, the singsong call of a bird.
Come-SEE! Come-SEE! Come-SEE!
The buzz fell and rose like crazed laughter at some insectoid dinner party.
Come-SEE! Come-SEE!
Luke’s feet obeyed this command. He begged them to stop but they just went stupidly on. His brain was a horrified inmate inside his body—Rapunzel trapped in a garret.
The flashlight illuminated the edge of the hatch, coated in foul syrup. The whispers mingled with the buzz, unifying in a single voice.
A bee—one of Westlake’s bees, Luke realized with druggy horror—struggled through the syrup, its wings beating weakly. It toppled from the hatch and fell to the floor, its crooked legs waving uselessly in the air.
Luke’s foot came down on the bee. It crunched agreeably under his boot. He felt the mad buzz of its wings through the sole. He laid one hand on the hatch. His fingers sunk into the desiccated syrup, crusty as old shaving foam.
Westlake’s lab was muggy, the air perfumed with that sweet reek. The only light came from a serrated ring set an indeterminate distance away: that light was coming from the hole, it could only be.
By the hole’s light Luke saw the bees—thousands; tens of thousands—surging around him on unseen currents, as if riding zephyrs that gusted through the lab.
He could sense rather than see a structure to his left. Monolithic in scope, far larger than this room should possibly contain. The hum found its center here: sonorous, rhythmic. It wasn’t a bad sound, far from it: it was natural and clean, hitting notes that softened pleasantly into his bones.
You wanted to see, said his mother. So see, Lucas. See it all.
His hand rose, and with it the beam of his flashlight.
“My Lord…”
The hive was enormous. A carbuncled mass of wax and honeycomb that rose beyond the light. The ceiling had risen against the tremendous weight of water, becoming a great domed cathedral that could scarcely contain the colony.
It was horrible and beautiful. It was not unlike a city: parts of it were rotting and sloughing off in decayed rags, while industrious drones built new spires and whorls elsewhere. Its surface was crawling with industry. The bees were huge, some the size of sewer rats. They moved with a sluggish, almost stupid lethargy.
Uncomprehendingly, Luke traversed this staggering kingdom with the flashlight. He couldn’t get a true measure of its size. The ceiling was out of sight and the walls had been blown back and out. Everyday notions of scale dissolved.
His eyes caught something. A ribbed tube, off-white, projecting through the honeycomb. It hung like an executioner’s noose. Heavy-bodied bees trundled over that tube, pasting it to the hive with the ichor that spurted from puckered orifices on their abdomens.
Luke could see stuff moving through the tube. Slowly, like sludge through a partially blocked pipe…
Get out of here, Luke. Before you see something that ruins you.
He almost laughed. Too late for that. Too late by far.
The beam swept the hive. Lab equipment was studded through it. He saw half of a beaker. A glass pipette…
…a trio of blunt twigs projected from the comb. They looked like hardy buds sprouting from a pot of dirt. The bees busied themselves about them, tending to each bud in the manner of patient gardeners.
The sticks twitched.
The bees took flight with an aggrieved buzzing of wings before settling again.
Fingers. Those are fingers they’re fingers they’re—
Luke’s hand operated of its own accord now. He saw things. Dreadful things.
A dusky loaf suspended from the hive on a strip of organ-meat…
A glint of bone that shone a delirious sapphire-blue…
A pinkly grooved ball that twitched when the light touched it…
Other things. Some worse, none better.
You wanted to see, my son. Do you like it? Does it please you?
Finally, horribly, the light fell upon a ball crawling with bees.
It projected from the hive a few feet above Luke’s head. At first Luke had no idea what he was seeing—it could have been the bottom of a wide-bellied beaker. The bees fretted lovingly over its surface. Perhaps an exhaled breath sent them off; whatever the cause, they lifted away to attend to other labors.
I’ll kiss it better.
That was the stupid thought that zipped through Luke’s mind while his eyes drank in this most sublime horror. Abby used to say it to Zach whenever he scraped his knee or stubbed a toe. As if something so simple as a kiss could salve all hurts.
Don’t worry, Alice, I’ll kiss it better. Just a kiss and it will all be okay…