"We can't all line up like this," Cameron said. "We'll scare it off."

"And that's a bad thing?" Justin asked.

"We don't have time, Justin," Szabla scowled. "In case you forgot, there's still another larva out there. We f.u.c.k around, we're gonna have two of these things on our hands."

Szabla stared at the rest of the squad. Cameron and Tank were still panting from their run. Szabla and Savage made the strongest team right now, so they'd have to handle it. She turned to Tank, Justin, and Cameron. "You three. Split." She pointed downslope. "Me and Savage'll lure this thing into the hole. Once you hear the blast, come running."

The shed atop the watchtower howled with the wind and they all jerked, but still nothing appeared.

"Go, Cam. That's an order." Szabla looked at them anxiously. "Now!"

Tank and Justin turned and ran into the darkness. Cameron took a few halting steps backward, her eyes on Szabla.

"Go! " Szabla yelled.

With a grimace, Cameron sprinted off after Tank and Justin. Szabla and Savage watched her figure fade into the night, Savage weighing the Clacker in his hand.

"How do you know it won't go after them?" Savage asked. He ran his fingers over the cut on his forearm. It had already scabbed over.

"It'll be drawn to the light," Szabla said.

"Aren't we all?" he responded dryly.

A thunderous noise nearly startled Szabla off her feet. When she looked up, Tank and Rex's GP tent floated up on the wind in the dis-tance, trailing guy lines and strainers under it like kite tails. Something had ripped the entire thing out of the ground, sending it airborne with a single strike.

Szabla could just barely see the other tents in the moonlight, large, dark blocks quivering in the wind like slumbering elephants.

The loose canvas edge no longer flapped. Szabla looked at the tent rolling on the wind across the field and realized that the mantid had thought it was alive.

She glanced at the darkness all around, her heart hammering, her chest rising and falling visibly beneath her black tank top. The shirt was tight to her body with the rain. She thought she heard a rustling sound behind her and she whirled, almost losing her balance, but there was nothing there.

She and Savage backed around the hole. The torches only illuminated a fifteen-foot circle. They looked until they felt their eyes straining but could detect no movement.

There was a screech to their left and a flash of green, and then one of the torches was lying on its side in the gra.s.s. The flame quieted to a small yellow flare, then an orange glow, and then it was gone.

"f.u.c.k," Szabla said. "f.u.c.k me."

Their eyes trained on the spot where they'd seen the blur of the man-tid, Savage and Szabla walked slowly back around the hole to stand nearer to the remaining torch. Szabla's chest was hammering up and down.

"Calm down, Szabla," Savage growled. "Enjoy this."

"Come on, you f.u.c.ker," Szabla said to the blackness. "Come on."

Something swished through the gra.s.s. Savage stared down the length of the hole, straining to make out what he could on the far side. He undid the Clacker's safety veil, thumbing the small piece of metal aside, freeing the two ends of the detonator so that they could meet. Szabla held her ground, though her legs were shaking.

An enormous triangular head moved slowly into view, floating about nine feet off the ground. It c.o.c.ked to the right, regarding Szabla intelli-gently. She stared into the quivering preoral cavity, the hole surrounded with grotesque living tools, and stifled a scream.

With elegance, the mantid pulled herself into the circle of light. Szabla grimaced when she saw the full length of the body, the six legs ending with hooked claws, the sheen of the cuticle.

The mantid moved forward to the edge of the hole and halted, fixing them with a predator's stare. Her eyes were large orbs, so dark they were shiny. Between them, her ocelli glittered like marbles.

Facing her across the length of the vesicle, Szabla murmured some-thing beneath her breath, repeating it over and over like a mantra.

The mantid ran a tibia up and across her face, her antennae bristling. Her head rotated smoothly on her slender neck as she focused on Szabla again. She glanced down at the branches covering the hole, then tested one with her lead foot.

"Come on, you motherf.u.c.ker," Szabla hissed. "Move forward now."

The mantid withdrew her foot and started to circle the hole rather than cross it.

Savage cursed, saliva flying from his mouth. Szabla tested one of the branches with her foot, then put more of her weight on it. She stepped out over the hole, wobbling on her feet to keep her balance. The branches bowed under her weight, stretched nearly to breaking point along the notches Savage had carved with his knife.

The mantid froze, watching Szabla with ravenous curiosity.

"What the f.u.c.k are you doing?" Savage growled.

"Live bait."

"What if you don't get off in time?"

"Dead bait."

Escaping air hissed from the mantid's spiracles, nearly scaring Szabla off her feet and into the hole, but she recovered her balance just in time.

"Keep calm," Savage growled. "Keep your movements smooth and slow."

One of the branches started to roll beneath Szabla's foot but she stayed with it, easing her weight down to nestle it back into place.

"Keep it together, Szabla," Savage said, "and get her up onto the trap."

Szabla waved her hands and the mantid darted forward a few steps, thrusting her head forward like a punch. Emitting a half-cry, Szabla stumbled back, almost falling between the branches. The mantid reared up, her front legs spread wide, revealing the eye markings on their insides. The upper part of her abdomen sc.r.a.ped against her underwings, screeching. Szabla swayed on her feet.

"Calm the h.e.l.l down!" Savage yelled. "She's f.u.c.king with you, testing how you move. If you go into that hole, you're finished."

"Come on!" Szabla screamed. She threw her arms wide. "Come get me!" She crouched down, snapped a twig off the branch beneath her feet, and hurled it at the mantid. The twig struck the mantid between her front legs, and she reared up again, spreading her underwings. Her wingspan nearly filled Szabla's field of vision.

Szabla wondered whether Cameron, Justin, and Tank were watching right now, somewhere in the darkness. She stepped back, stammering something to herself, and Savage tried to even her out with his voice. "It's all right. Doesn't matter how big she is if we get her in the hole. Just get her to come forward."

Her raptorial legs raised hungrily, the mantid stepped onto one of the branches veiling the hole. It creaked under her weight. She pulled another leg up, easing forward toward Szabla.

Szabla turned and looked frantically behind her, gauging how far she'd have to jump when the branches started to give. She was standing on the second-to-last branch from the end, the uncovered strip of the hole looming ominously between her and solid ground.

As she glanced back, the mantid stepped forward with one of her back legs, finding and hooking the branch expertly. Her last leg trailed it, and then the mantid was standing with her full weight on the creaking and groaning branches, facing Szabla, her razor jaws mere feet away. Her front legs weren't yet coiled to strike.

"It's gonna give!" Savage said. "Get off!"

"Not yet," Szabla whispered. "Not yet."

The mantid folded her raptorial legs to her chest, pulling them up and readying them to explode. The rows of spikes meshed perfectly, like cogs in a gear. She took another step forward, directly above the explo-sives. With a strangely peaceful expression, she started to sway.

One of the branches cracked, and the mantid sank a few inches, but it didn't give.

"It's perfect!" Savage yelled. "Get the f.u.c.k off before it goes!"

Szabla turned to jump, but the last branch rolled under her boot, and in a moment of terror, she felt herself go weightless. Her hands flew up over her head as she fell, and she saw Savage's bearded face in a blur as she dropped into the hole.

She hit the ground hard on her back, breaking one of her elbows and sending pain throbbing through her shoulders and tailbone. She bit back a cry, determined not to make a sound. The earth smelled of clay and rot. It was astoundingly dark, but she could see glimpses of the torch's light between the crisscross pattern of leaves and branches above her, narrow slivers of gold that fell across her arms and face like cuts. The red tissue wrapping of the TNT was visible a few feet away. A broken fern tickled her cheek.

In the middle of the network of branches was an immense dark blot, the underbelly of the creature. The branches started to bow beneath her weight and then one of them cracked, held barely together by bark and pulp. Dirt was pouring in on Szabla from the sides, the ends of the branches digging jagged paths down the loose rock of the walls, and then the veil gave.

With an enormous crash, the branches split, and Szabla rolled flat against the far wall of the hole with the open air above. An explosion of bark, leaves, and dirt filled the air, refusing to settle even after the branches. .h.i.t earth.

Szabla slumped against the far corner of the hole, her head bent achingly forward. With panicked hands, she wiped the dirt from her eyes and saw the mantid looming over her. The mantid had landed squarely in the vesicle on her four back legs; even so, her head was near the earth's surface. Only Savage's soldier's code stood between Szabla and death; she knew he'd never leave another soldier down.

Savage stepped to the edge of the hole, the Clacker tight in his hand. If he engaged the detonator, the blast would surely kill Szabla as well as the mantid.

In the back of her mind, Szabla could hear Savage screaming for Cameron and Tank, but she knew it wouldn't matter. She knew it was too late.

She saw a flash overhead and Savage was airborne at the thing in a dive, his body a spear ending with the tip of his blade. The mantid turned and batted him like a fly with one armored leg, striking him with the backside of her tibia. A b.l.o.o.d.y crack opened in his forehead as he flew to the wall, striking it upside down and sliding into a mound of fronds and broken branches. Unconscious, he tumbled forward, one leg sliding over the blocks of TNT.

The mantid whirled back to Szabla, her antennae erect like two reeds. She swayed once, her mouth a hole ringed with moist, sharp pieces. The legs snapped Szabla up before she had time to close her eyes, the spikes skewering her from both sides. Szabla screamed as the points tore through her ribcage, and then the mantid curled her up to her mouth and Szabla saw the cutting jaws lower out of view behind her head. She screamed again, thinking, G.o.d, oh G.o.d, what an awful way to die.

The pale faces of Cameron and Justin appeared above, and then Tank's, but she was already flailing and screaming in its grip.

The smell of the creature pungent all around her, Szabla felt the piercing jaws go to work on the back of her neck, the sharp pain of her skin being pierced like a roast. She screamed as blood spurted out on both sides of the thing gnawing on her, as the viselike jaw ripped through her bone and gristle, and then she was hanging limply in the mantid's arms as she turned her like a pig on a spit, sucking and chewing and grinding.

Szabla's arms and legs weren't obeying anymore and there was one moment of perfect silent terror as she felt, deep within her head, the vibration of the mandibles sc.r.a.ping the bone of her skull before she went out.

Tank picked up the Clacker where Savage had cast it aside before his dive, and stared at the hole helplessly. The explosives were nestled right beneath one of Savage's legs.

Justin was screaming and trying to jump into the hole on the mantid's back, but Cameron had her arms locked around his waist. He broke her grip and she slid to his legs, tripping him, clinging to an ankle and hold-ing him back.

Justin was screaming and crying, the spike tight in his fist. "Lemme go! She's my f.u.c.king partner!"

"She's gone already," Cameron yelled. "Use your head! She's fin-ished."

Justin kicked free and stood, but Tank collared him with one ma.s.sive hand and pulled him back tight against his chest, wrapping his arms around him in a bear hug until his struggles lessened.

Szabla continued to twitch. The mantid's mandibles worked on her head until she was a faceless b.l.o.o.d.y pulp above the shoulders.

Cameron lay on her stomach, her arms still outstretched from her attempt to hold back her husband. As she watched, she made no effort to rise.

The mantid paused from her nibbling to glance over at them curi-ously. She dumped Szabla's body on the ground where it convulsed twice, then she lumbered toward the north wall of the hole.

Cameron was up on her feet instantly. "Move out. Head for Frank's old camp!" she screamed.

"What about Savage?" Justin yelled.

"We can't do anything now!"

"We can't just leave him," Justin protested, running after Cameron and Tank. "We can't just leave him." He pulled to a stop.

Behind him, the mantid had already worked her way up the wall, her head drawing into view.

"We don't have a choice," Cameron said. "We don't have a f.u.c.king choice." Over his shoulder, she saw the mantid rising.

Justin started to say something, but Cameron shushed him, laying her fingers across his mouth. "We don't have a choice," she said again.

Justin looked behind him once, then followed Cameron into the dark-ness.

The mantid stared after them for a moment, then turned and headed back into the hole, regarding Szabla's body. Her bowels were spilled through her stomach next to her, the ground rank with blood and feces. One of her arms was twitching, the fingers scratching shallow grooves in the dirt.

The mantid moved past her to where Savage lay unconscious. Dip-ping her neck, she lowered her head until it was inches from his closed eyes. Blood glistened along his hairline.

She breathed his scent, waiting for a movement of any size.

CHAPTER 65.

--------------------- hat in the f.u.c.k are we gonna do?" Justin said as they stumbled into Frank's camp. "Jesus f.u.c.king f.u.c.k what the f.u.c.k are we-"

Cameron grabbed him hard around the head, her thumbs pressed firmly into his cheeks. She pulled his head down so his eyes were level with hers. "Calm, baby. Calm down. Look at me." Justin's swearing fell into mumbling. His head relaxed in her hands and his lips stopped mov-ing.

Cameron leaned back against the aluminum specimen freezer, feeling its coldness through her shirt. Pressing her hand tightly to her forehead, she tried to ease the throbbing in her head. Every time she tried to focus, an arrow of searing pain shot up from the base of her neck, disrupting her thoughts. She tapped the freezer door behind her with her knuckles, her stomach roiling. The sight of Szabla was the worst thing she'd ever seen. Thrashing around like that, still alive-alive to the very end. She shook off a shudder.

"Jesus Christ," Justin said. "Did you see Szabla?" Panic hid under his voice, waiting to erupt.

Cameron nodded solemnly, the image of Szabla's partially gnawed head still in her mind. She stepped into one of Frank's tents and started digging through the abandoned supplies to see if there was anything of use. There wasn't.

"We gotta get our hands on the explosives again," she called from the tent. "In the meantime, we have specimen hooks from the freezer, we have the spikes, we have canvas, four flares left-s.h.i.t, just three, Derek had one-we have rope."

Cameron emerged from the tent, holding a battered underwater flashlight. She paused, chewing her lip. Tank and Justin watched her intently.

"If we just had some kind of a projectile." She bolted forward, snapping her fingers. "The speargun from Diego's boat. Rex knocked it over board-it's down in the water still."

Justin nodded tentatively. "If the currents didn't take it."

"Can you find it? Do you think you could find it in the night?"

"It'd be easier in the morning," Justin said.

Cameron tore a solar cell from Tank's shoulder and snapped it into the underwater flashlight. "We might not have till morning."

She clicked the switch on the flashlight and tapped it near the lens with her palm. A dim light flickered once, then stayed on. She handed the flashlight to Justin.