Minutes to Burn

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 hit 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 bloody 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, God, oh God, 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 scraping 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 holding him back.

Justin was screaming and crying, the spike tight in his fist. "Lemme go! She's my fucking 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 massive 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 bloody 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 fucking 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.