Minutes to Burn

With one swift motion, the mantid lashed her legs at her squirming sibling, raking it from the hook. Clenched in her spikes, the larva screeched, the sound continuing even after its head rose into the crea-ture's mouth and was severed with a single bite.

Cameron felt her stomach churning, but she continued her slow pace, careful not to disturb the occasional rock on the road. As she backed up, her heel caught on a lip of the road raised in the recent earthquake, and she went down softly on her ass.

But not softly enough.

The mantid's antennae snapped erect, and she rotated her head and front legs, peering into the night. Cameron felt her stare, felt her locate her in the darkness. The creature's head split in a gargantuan soundless scream, the pieces of her mouth flailing in the cavernous rictus. The larva's head fell from the mouth.

Panic rose like vomit through Cameron's chest and she tasted it at the back of her throat. The road dug into her chafed palms as she watched, frozen.

The mantid's legs snapped once, discharging the larva's small, limp body.

Moving to the edge of the shed, the mantid extended her slender neck, sticking her head out into the open air and fixing Cameron in her stare.

Relax, Cameron thought. You still have time. She's gotta climb down the watchtower. You can still make it past the trip wires.

The mantid stepped forward, her four back legs crowding the edge of the shed's entrance. Folding her raptorial legs to her chest, the mantid leaned forward even farther into the open air. Slowly, her enormous inner wings slid out from beneath the tegmina, fanning behind her and spreading across the expanse of the watchtower. The red light shone through them, casting a bloody glow over the road.

Cameron tried to swallow, but her throat had tightened into a ball.

The mantid tipped forward from the edge of the tower, drawing her massive wings up behind her like the sail of a hang glider. Their span was so wide it dwarfed her body. She stepped from the watchtower, her sharp front legs hanging beneath her like missiles.

She was gliding. She hurtled up the road at Cameron.

Cameron screamed and started sprinting for the forest. She had nothing by which to gauge the creature's progress, no sound of footsteps, no crunching foliage. Blindly, terrified, she ran, the trees watching solemnly over her from both sides like spectators at an execution. Her legs seemed to move in slow motion; her boots felt as if they were made of concrete. The hammering of her breath filled her entire body. Her heartbeat pounded in the tips of her fingers and the backs of her knees.

The mantid was at her back; Cameron could sense her closing in. If she could have died instantly, simply melted into the ground before the creature seized her, she would have.

The mantid screeched, sending a fresh wave of terror through Cameron. She chanced a glance behind her. The mantid was about twenty yards back, swooping down fast.

Cameron whirled back around and saw the first trip wire right in front of her. With a yell, she hurled her body in the air over it, rolled once side-ways across the road, and was up running, having barely slowed down.

The explosion should have come right behind her, but Cameron real-ized that the mantid was up too high, that she had glided right over the wire. Cameron would have to trip the last wire herself. But if she ran into it, it would slow her down, and she'd never make it off the road before the trees crushed her. If she tried to roll under the wire, the creature would be on her instantly.

She had ten walking steps until the next trip wire, that much she remembered. Her body flew forward, her mind racing. Air from the plummeting mantid blew across her shoulders. She had no time to think. The thin wire gleamed in the moonlight, mere feet away.

Reaching behind her, Cameron yanked the knife from the back of her pants, pulling it from its sheath. It slid smoothly out. She twirled it in her hand, never slowing, angling it down her forearm with the blade out, just as Savage used to do.

The blade met the wire with a click and bent it forward as she ran through it. The explosives went off with a deep roar, sending fragments of bark and tree chunks flying. A plug of pulp whistled just over her head. The blasts were blinding, flashing one after another and illuminating the road like a strobe light.

The mantid was momentarily startled, but she kept her eye on her prey below, trained on the kill.

The wire stretched to its limit against the knife and then broke with a twang, whipping off to both sides. Cameron's legs didn't stop pumping for an instant.

Above her, the mantid drew her raptorial legs up under her chin. They were coiled, ready to flash out like the talons of a hawk.