Minutes to Burn

He'd paused just short of the doorway to the dining room before shuffling weakly forward, sucking air, his chest heaving, his face blotched crimson.

He'd seen Jacqueline standing at the head of the table like a high priestess over an altar, a ghost in the blurry movement of her night-gown. He'd seen the curtains fluffed behind her with the night breeze. He'd seen the smudge of blood across Jacqueline's cheek. He'd seen the small flaccid limb, the arch of the tiny dough-soft fingers on the lac-quered rosewood, four slivers of crescent moon. He'd felt his heart beating in his temples, his hands, his eyes. He'd looked at her, transfixed, unperceiving. He'd known what she was going to say before her mouth moved, before he'd heard the words.

"No bugs," she'd murmured.

Suddenly he was yelling and shuffling backward on the forest floor on all fours, slapping at his face, swiping at the cobwebs of the memory. He slammed into a tree before realizing where he was, within a small ring of Scalesias in the highlands of Sangre de Dios.

His breath caught in his chest when he saw the thing woven between the two trees across from him. A pupation chamber. About five feet tall, cylindrical, and horizontally striated, the cocoon was a dull beige. A sticky substance ran up along the trunk on each side, securing the cocoon to the tree. It bulged near the center, like a body bag.

It was pulsing.

Derek tried to crawl backward, again hitting the tree trunk behind him. He stood, gazing at the cocoon in horror and amazement. His lips trembled, trying to form sounds.

The cocoon seemed to float in the shadows, framed by the dark trees stretching up around it. It looked almost holy, the circle of moss, like the apse of a cathedral. Derek felt as he had as a boy when he'd stepped forth from his confirmation, surrounded by a group of relatives. Their eyes had all been on him, and for a fleeting moment, he'd felt he must have been something holy for so many adults to be staring at him in his too-tight suit.

Derek's knees jarred the ground when he fell, bringing him back to the forest. He felt wetness on his cheeks and realized he was crying, though he wasn't sure why.

A grumbling creak came from within the cocoon.

Though the sun had already slipped beyond the horizon, the sky was still lit with its distant glow-a light shade of purple. A heap of cumulus clouds drifted, barely visible through the treetops. Derek was crying so hard the world seemed to streak before his eyes-the trees, the purple sky, the light sheen of the cocoon.

He turned to his shoulder and it took him three tries to say the name so his transmitter could read it. "Cameron," he finally sputtered. "Pri-mary channel."

Cameron was in the vesicle when Derek's voice clicked through. Tank had been shoveling like a back-hoe, clearing out the excess rock at the bottom. They were all working now, using the light of the hastily made torches that Justin had stuck in the ground at the edges of the hole. "Yeah?" she said. "Derek? Derek?"

"Are you private? Get private."

Cameron threw her shovel aside and scrambled out of the hole, using a knotted rope they had tied to a spike up top. She was careful not to bring more rock tumbling down beneath her feet. She felt Szabla's angry eyes on her as she ran toward the camp, and she knew her secrecy prob-ably upset Justin as well, but she owed Derek at least that. She ran until she was clear of the others, leaning over with her hands on her knees. For a moment, she thought the transmitter had cut out, but then she realized that the wavering noise was Derek sobbing. "Derek," she said. "What's up?"

Derek wiped his eyes and stared at the cocoon. It was wiggling now, and he could see something moving beneath the surface. It was creaking as it stretched.

Cameron tried to be patient, but her voice wouldn't allow it. She heard a noise in the background, like the supports of a bridge groaning. "Derek, what's going on there?"

An image moved through him-four tiny, lifeless fingers curved on lacquered rosewood. "It was my fault, Cam," he said. "I should've known it was going to happen."

"What's there, Derek? What's going on?"

"I don't know. I think…I think she's changing."

"Is there a cocoon?" He didn't respond, so she forged ahead. "Derek, listen to me very carefully. Find a branch, a rock, anything. You have to protect yourself. You saw that thing Savage dragged back here."

Weighted with grief and exhaustion, Derek searched the area for a suitable branch. He finally found one. It was a bit thicker than he had hoped for, but he could still get his hands around it well enough to swing it with some force.

Shoving himself up to his feet, he clutched the branch tightly, searching for rage. He stepped forward, raising the tree limb above his head, but became nauseously weak. He crouched, his head bowed as if in sup-plication, his shoulders heaving with sobs.

"She's just a baby, Cam," he said. "She's just a baby."