Minutes to Burn

As she moved, she overturned heaps of leaves with her boot to see if they hid any lengthy branches from sight. They needed just one branch: one more branch and the trap would be ready.

A flash of lightning illuminated a small clearing ahead, and she saw a bough sprawled across the fecund ground like a knotted snake. Thickly gnarled, bowed up toward the middle, and seared by lightning at one end, it lay amongst a scattering of bark peels.

Cameron raised her hand, snapped her fingers once, and pointed. Tank swung wide, holding back to keep surveillance behind them. Out of habit, she winced as she stepped into the clearing. Years of ops had made her accustomed to sniper fire; she hated moving from cover, no matter the circumstance.

She leaned back to survey the treetops, envisioning the creature swaying upside down from the branches overhead. The trunks rose up into darkness, shadowy and dripping with ants, but free of danger.

She felt her shoulders relax as she moved farther into the clearing. She circled the branch once, her eyes picking through the trees around her, then backed up until she felt it against her heel. She stepped back so the branch was between her feet and glanced down at it quickly. With relief, she noted that it was long enough to stretch across the hole. Keeping her eyes on the forest, she crouched to grab the branch.

As if on cue, the rain stopped the instant her hand touched the bark. It didn't taper off; it ceased at once and completely. Cameron could sud-denly hear how hard she'd been breathing. She started when water splashed on her shoulder.

Her fingertips rested on the bark of the branch. With the cessation of rain, the forest seemed unnaturally quiet. She felt that the silence should have enabled some clarity of thought, but it did not. Something chirped near her, in the leaves.

She was paralyzed in her crouch. The trees surrounded her in their various sizes, some towering up through the canopy, some just beginning to spread their branches, others thin and bare like telephone poles.

With increasing conviction, she sensed that something was wrong, though what it was she could not figure out. Her breath coming in short quiet gasps, she stared at the trees around her, the dense foliage curling from the soil, even the branch beneath her fingertips, but everything seemed in order. When she rose to stand, both her knees cracked loudly at the same time.

She looked for Tank and he flashed her a dour thumbs-up when he read her expression. Things were clear behind them.

She stepped toward the far end of the clearing, wielding the spike like a saber. She stopped at the edge, resting an arm against the nearest tree trunk. The bark felt smooth against her sleeve. Her eyes tried to pierce the darkness beyond, but she couldn't make anything out. Her knees tensed as she waited for something to fly out at her.

Nervous about leaving the darkness unattended, she risked another quick glance back at Tank. He was holding firm, scanning the terrain behind them. The glint of the steel bolt in his hand calmed her a bit, but her confidence wavered when she turned back to the forest. It was breathing, the forest. It was alive-near her, on top of her, all around her. It was watching her.

She choked down the fear rising in her throat, setting her bottom jaw forward and clamping down on her upper lip. The pain brought her back from the edge. She sucked air deeply, drawing it into the far corners of her chest, and exhaled through her nose. She was fine. There was nothing out there.

Leaning back on her heels, she shoved off from the tree. Above her, the tree moved. A head swiveled around on an impossibly elongated neck. It looked at her, eyes as wide as globes, mouth a quivering mess of blades and parts.

Cameron yelled, stumbling back.

Slowly, deliberately, the mantid pivoted, her upper body leading her abdomen. Her front legs had been resting on the tree trunk next to her, holding her body almost perfectly upright on her rear legs. The mantid's abdomen resolved into view, the wings folded along her back but not protruding past the tip of the abdomen. Cameron noted the wing length, even through her terror, and realized that it was a female. Even worse.

From behind, the mantid had blended in perfectly with the trees, the hard brown-and-green-speckled cuticle passing for a trunk in the night. Cameron had rested her forearm right across the folded wings of the mantid's back. The mantid hadn't struck only because she'd been facing away, and would surely have been detected in turning around.

Backpedaling, Cameron held the spike before her, her face drained of color. The mantid lumbered forward on her four hind legs, cocking her head, her large, unblinking eyes gathering Cameron into them. The spikes lining the raptorial legs glistened, still moist with rainwater, and the mantid snapped them once.