Mandibles by Jeff Strand

Author:Jeff Strand
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-06-29T22:06:47+00:00

"You'd better believe it."

"Great. Ditch that motorcycle and we'll take my jeep."

"It's not running," said Roberta, peering in the truck window at the Hispanic man slumped against the door. "It hit an ant."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You know those eight-inch ants?" asked Dustin. "They aren't the biggest ones, not by a long shot."

"No, I do _not_ know those eight-inch ants. When the hell did we get eight-inch ants? And what do you mean they aren't the biggest ones? How big are the biggest ones?"

Another ant the size of the one underneath the jeep emerged from around the corner, about a hundred feet away. If Dustin hadn't been so frightened, he would have admired its excellent sense of timing.

The ant stopped crawling and turned its head toward them. It seemed to be staring at them with its compound eyes.

"Holy Jesus," said Zachary, staring at the ant in amazement. "How ... how can they grow that big?"

"They can't," said Dustin. "I mean, they shouldn't be able to. An ant that size, its exoskeleton shouldn't be able to support its mass. It should collapse before it takes its first step."

Zachary nodded his understanding, then cupped his mouth with his hands and shouted at the ant. "Hey! Your exoskeleton shouldn't be able to support your mass! Get with the fuckin' program!"

The ant continued to watch as Zachary, Dustin, and Roberta quickly backed away.

Then it charged at them.

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*-CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO-*

It felt like an incredible waste to have scaled all the way down the side of a four-story building only to end up sitting outside on a table surrounded by ants, yet that seemed to be the state of affairs. If somebody had asked her yesterday, Moni would have said that the idea of being surrounded by ants was nowhere near as disturbing as the idea of being stuck with Jack Lacefield, but she had to admit that their conversation was actually rather pleasant.

It was pretty hot in their jackets, though, and the tape was making her ankles and wrists itch horribly, which was only slightly less bothersome than the pain in her hands.

And of course, she had to ignore the fact that Abigail's dead body was being devoured right underneath where she sat.

She wondered what was happening to Mr. Kamerman's body up there. And Trevor's, if it hadn't already been burnt down to the skeleton. Most importantly, she wondered about Phil. Was he at home, worried sick about her? Was he on his way to Lavin, Inc. to rescue her? Was he still alive?

Yes, he was still alive. He had to be.

She looked down at her hands, which were swollen to an almost cartoonish level. She certainly wouldn't be doing much typing for the foreseeable future. If they wanted any corporate accounting to get done for the next few weeks, they darn well were going to have to buy her some voice recognition software.

"That's weird," said Jack. "I think the ants are running away."

They were. The ants were scattering, thousands of them running behind the building, others moving further down the front lawn.

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