Hatchings

By Greg Ellis

His hometown destroyed by a swarm of ants, his girlfriend and mentor killed by a nest of centipedes, his life in tatters, Jason Carter knows only one way forward - fighting the emergence of ecological catastrophe. Recruited by a super-secret agency, he leads the fight with money, science, and talent. But will any of that be enough when those who started the hatchings come after him with guns?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greg Ellis
• Release date: May 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458141767

Greg Ellis

A native-born Californian transplanted to Ohio then back to California and currently to Oklahoma. I've been a technical writer, an administration manager, a security guard at a federal laboratory, a WalMart department manager, and am currently a technical writer again. I write science fiction and horror and have been writing since I was in grade school. I've also designed and written games, particularly the play-by-email game Fire On The Suns. I'm 55, white, single, live in Broken Arrow, OK, and like beer, dogs, good food, cheese, chocolate, fishing, and writing.

Book preview

Chapter One

The blast from a shotgun boomed across the field followed by screaming. James Carter’s head came up sharply at the sound which echoed from the southwest corner of his small farm.

What the hell? That’s near town, he thought.

The sun was just starting to come up over the horizon, the early morning mist cloaking the surrounding Kentucky hills and fields in a cool, white blanket. Jim could just barely see the rooftops of the town’s houses peeking through the mist as he stepped out of his barn to look around. The southwest corner, where the white fence marked off his field from the town’s city limits, was still hidden, but sounds continued to some from that direction.

More gunfire. Tires squealing. People yelling, screaming.

Pat. Grab my shotgun, Jim yelled toward the house where his wife would be cooking breakfast. Something’s going on over in town.

What the hell? His wife said. She came out onto the porch holding his shotgun in one hand. The screen door slammed shut behind her. Jim, don’t go over there. You don’t know what you could be getting into.

I have to, Pat. People could be in trouble and I’m a volunteer firefighter. Call the Sheriff and see if they’ll tell you what’s going on. I’m taking the pickup.

Jim listened as his wife walked down the porch steps carrying his shotgun. She walked across the yard to where he stood beside his pickup listening. The shooting and screaming coming from town was not letting up.

Jim, that’s not right. Who’d be shooting up town like that?

Jim turned to his wife and took the shotgun from her hands. Maybe somebody went nuts or maybe it’s just somebody who’s drunk and stupid. Either way, I gotta’ go see. Call the Sheriff, and grab the other shotgun. Keep it close by you and the kids. I’ll be back as soon as I can, Jim said.

You be careful, Jim. You know how the world is these days. You could run into terrorists.

Aw, Pat, what would terrorists be doin’ shooting up little ole’ Caliope? Jim yelled as he pulled open the pickup’s door.

You just can’t tell with them people. You be careful you hear me.

All right, all right.

He pulled the keys to the pickup out of his overalls and jammed the key in the ignition. The engine coughed then roared to life. Jim left gravel spraying in his driveway as he pulled out onto the two-lane road heading to town.

The early morning fog was a soup of white as he approached the city limits of Caliope, only a few hundred yards from his driveway. The fog cleared a little as Jim passed the city limits sign and he brought the truck to a screeching halt. His friend Henry Stanton’s old, blue Chevy station wagon was part way off the road, nose first into one of the drainage ditches that ran along both sides of the road. He rolled down the driver’s side window and studied Henry’s car. There was no sign of the man.

What’d he do, just run off into the fields? Jim thought. Why leave his car parked like that in the ditch?

He put the truck in gear and started out again, but stopped before he had another fifty yards. Ahead of him, blocking the intersection under the town’s only traffic signal was a cluster of vehicles. A Sheriff’s patrol car was pulled across both lanes. Its lights flashed red and blue against the lifting fog. Joe Morgan’s brand new black pickup truck was parked just beyond it, driver’s side door open. Something like wet, black plastic hung out of the side. A fire engine sat just beyond the pickup. More vehicles were parked haphazard beyond it.

Something moved on the street around the vehicles, like carpet or a piece of the pavement that had suddenly become animate. Jim put the truck in park, left it running and stepped out. More shots popped in the distance, shouts and screams came from the direction of the diner down the street. His path was blocked by a wet, black carpet of tiny animals covering the street.

Jim stepped closer, trying to see details in the seething black mass.

Insects. Thousands of them teemed and scrambled across the street. They looked like the ants from one of the South American rain forest videos that had gotten his son, Jason, so interested in entomology.

His boy was a man now, finishing college in California. Jim felt a swell of pride as he thought of his son, the doctor, even though his degree would not be in medicine.

A bug doctor, Jim thought. An entomologist, Jason calls himself. Says he’s probably going to find work with the agricultural extension or at a college teaching someplace. Maybe even with the government. Wouldn’t that be something?

He backed away from the carpet of ants covering the street. Each insect was huge, about the size of field mouse, much larger than any ant he'd ever seen or heard of before. There were thousands of them, tens of thousands. A hissing, rustling sound rose from the horde. A line of the mouse-sized animals moved in his direction.

Jason should be here. He’d know what was going on.

Jim retreated, moving faster. The only sound coming from town was that rustling hiss. He glanced back at the intersection and noticed more details. A humped shape lay beside the Sheriff’s car, swarming with the glistening black bodies. He saw several more humped shapes lying near the fire engine. Bits of white, like bone, showed through what was hanging out of the door of Joe Morgan’s pickup.

Jim jumped into his truck. The black carpet of insects closed in on him. He put the pickup in gear and turned around in the middle of the road. He doubted there was anyone who'd stop him or complain.

It can’t be ants. Ants don’t attack people. There’ve never been that many ants in the whole world.

He put his foot down on the gas pedal, slewing the truck around, burning rubber. A back wheel caught in the grass and wet earth along the side of the road, spun, dug in. He shifted lower, gunned the engine, but the wheel spun again and the truck wouldn't move.

He opened the door and and walked around the truck. The rear wheel was up to the axle in mud. He turned in the direction of his house. Hundreds, thousands of ants covered the road ahead of him. He saw Henry Stanton’s body, lying in the drainage ditch next to his car, covered in ants. Grabbing his shotgun off the front seat, Jim flipped off the safety, and walked toward the edge of the road.

Maybe I can make it through the field.

The field, too, was alive with ants. Huge, giant ants. Thousands of them, tens of thousands. He fired a shot into the carpet covering the road, killing a few, blasting them apart. Walking forward, he jacked another round into the chamber.

More ants flooded onto the road. He fired again, clearing another small space, walked forward, fired, walked forward, fired again, and again.

The shotgun clicked on empty. He threw the shotgun at the ants and trotted forward.

Have to get to the house. We can hold them off at the house.

He broke into a run as the first ant crawled up his pant leg, bit and stung him. Ants closed in from all sides, coming out of the field onto the road from all directions. He ran faster, crunching through growing numbers of the things. His footing grew slippery. His legs, arms, and back burned from stings and bites.

He couldn't hear the rustling anymore. His heart pounded in his chest, a burning sensation spreading out from it. His vision grew red. Things turned quiet except for the pounding of his heart and the steady buzz in his brain. He stumbled, fell to his knees, got up again.

A shotgun boomed ahead and Pat screamed. He slipped, fell, and felt several ants crush beneath him. He got to his feet, tried to run, slipped and fell again. His hands stung and bled and he batted at the ants clinging to them.

The shotgun boomed again, and then again. He heard Pat and the kids screaming from his house. It was only a few yards ahead now, only a few more steps. His heart raced. His skin burned. He coughed and struggled to catch his breath.

Jim Carter fell to his knees in the yard of his own house. He held his hands up in front of him. They were covered in blisters and bites, blood running freely. The screaming from inside his house had stopped. He crawled forward through the tide of ants as they swept over him.

Ants covered his porch. The front door was open. A carpet of living black reached into the house as he crawled the last few feet, collapsing to his knees at his doorstep. An ant moved over his eye. He watched in numb horror as glistening black mandibles opened and punched down. Pain seared its way to the core of his brain and his vision darkened.

With his remaining eye, he spotted a teeming mass of ants covering a shape lying in the front hallway. He smelled a strange odor, sharp and pungent. As the pain faded, Jim’s last thoughts were of his son.

Jason will know what to do. Jason will know. Damn, where were the cops when you needed them?

Chapter Two

Jason, come look at this.

Jason Carter looked up from where he had stopped and squatted down to examine a patch of grass and brush along the trail. It looked strange to him, like something had been chewing at it. He thought he recognized the markings, but there was something odd about them he couldn't place.

Sally Dixon stood on the trail just uphill from Jason. She poked at something with a stick. She knelt, outlined in the patterns of early morning sunlight and shadow.

He took a moment to admire the view.

She was almost as tall as he was. Her long blonde hair seemed almost to glow where the sun struck it. Her figure was what had first drawn Jason to her. What is it, Sally? Jason asked as he approached her. He peered down at the dark brown thing she was poking with the stick.

Something odd. I think it’s a beetle carcass, but it’s huge, Sally poked the stick into the drying remains of the carcass again.

Jason knelt beside Sally and studied the carcass closely. This can’t be. It has six legs, it's segmented, but this can’t be right.

The thing was badly torn up and Jason guessed it had probably been attacked by some larger creature. It was almost eight inches in length, dull mottled brown,and with an outer shell that looked like hard plastic. Jason reached out and took the stick from Sally. He prodded at the carcass then dropped the stick and picked the remains up in his hands. He turned it over and studied it for a few seconds.

No way. This is odd. Look here, he said indicating details with a finger. Head, thorax, clear abdominal segmentation, upper and lower body partitioning. Something tore most of the guts out of this thing, but, Jason turned the carcass over again. Clearly defined elytra, and here you can see part of the wings. He pried up a portion of the hard carapace covering the back of the remains. A flap of thin brown wing dropped away from the smoothly-curving shell and rustled in the breeze like old paper. If this is real, we’re going to be famous.

You really think so, Jason? It’s just a big, dead, bug, right? Sally looked more closely as Jason held the carcass up to the light.

If it’s real, it’s the discovery of a lifetime. Beetles don’t get this big around here. They barely get this big anywhere on the planet, Jason said. He set the remains back down on the graveled path and reached for his backpack. Rummaging for a few seconds, he pulled out a plastic bag and placed the beetle's remains into it, careful not to damage it anymore. He noted more details, a grooved line along the back, the number of segments remaining in the abdominal shell, the exceptional weight of the remains. Six partial, orange colored legs were clearly visible. The head was beaked, rather than mandibled. It was definitely a beetle. He was not sure of the species, but he knew it was a beetle. All the time spent studying had not been wasted after all.

It’s a beetle all right, but it’s not native to these parts. Something this large only occurs in South America or Africa. Maybe somebody’s playing a trick, Jason said.

He wrapped the plastic bag’s excess around the remains, taking care not to wrap it too tightly.

Jason studied the tree-lined trail as it sloped uphill, looping into the hills away from the course of the nearby creek. Nothing moved. The normal buzz of insects and the chirping of birds was gone. The woods were eerily silent. The creek babbled its constant chatter, but the wooded trail seemed strange and alien somehow. He noted that the leaves on some of the trees along the trail were chewed and the trunks were oddly grooved with part of the the bark stripped away. Tree limbs were stripped bare of leaves and the underbrush showed signs of having been grazed. The grazing had occurred too far up in the trees for it to have been deer.

Maybe we better go back, Jason said. I don’t like this.

Yeah, me neither.

Let’s go then, quickly. I want to get this into the fridge before it decays any more. It’s already starting to smell.

Jason stowed the plastic wrapped carcass in his backpack. Taking Sally by the hand, the two walked back down the trail to the parking lot and his car. Behind them, the woods remained eerily silent.

# # #

Tom, I’ve got something odd here I’d like you take a look at if you have the chance, Jason said as his graduate adviser, Dr. Thomas Martin, came into the lab.

Sure, Jason. What is it? Martin sat his coffee cup down, crossed the lab, and stood next to Jason.

It’s a beetle carcass, but it’s way too big.

Have you run it through the mass spec?

Yes, we took two samples, ran one through the gas chromatograph and the other through the mass spectrometer just to make sure. It’s definitely chitin, but it’s got some anomalies. I also started a DNA comparison from another sample, but it won’t be ready for a bit. In the meantime I've been dissecting what's left of the carcass. Something ripped the guts out of it, but there was enough left to identify it as a beetle, but I haven't keyed it out yet. Jason handed the readout from the mass spectrometer to Martin. I’d like to do a karyotype on it.

Tom Martin was sixty-five years old with gray curly white hair beginning to thin on top. He carried himself like a man confident in his own success. Tanned skin and the lines in his face also marked him as a man who had spent a long time in the field and under the sun. He habitually wore a flannel shirt, even in the summer, and worn blue jeans. Brown hiking shoes, worn and scuffed from long use, completed the montage. Like other scientists in the entomology department, Martin never wore a white lab coat unless he absolutely had to. He was famous for telling his beginning students, Science is about getting your hands dirty, especially in entomology where half your work is in the field. If you’re not willing to get your hands dirty, you don’t belong in this science.

Martin scrutinized the paper readout for a few moments then looked up at Jason.

You’re joking, right? Are you trying to trick me?

Jason saw the characteristic wry smile appear at the corner of the professor's mouth. It wouldn't be the first time one of Martin's students tried to pull the wool over his head. That’s what Sally and I thought at first too. That it was a trick of some kind, but look at this, Jason said. He pivoted the computer screen toward the professor.

Martin looked at the screen, studying the readouts. That's chitin all right, but there’s too much protein in the cuticle mix and it looks like there’s too little of a lot of different things. This stuff should be hard as hell when it dries, but then there’s all this other stuff. It almost looks like Kevlar or carbon nanofiber composites. It might be interesting to get a micrograph of a sample. Where’d you find this thing anyway?

About halfway up the Lower Jordan fire trail early this morning. Sally found it alongside the trail near the stream.

Let's see your dissection.

Yes, sir. Jason said. He led the professor to the lab bench where he had laid out and pinned the remains in an examination pan.

Martin looked at the seven-inch long specimen that Jason had begun to dissect.

The carcass was roughly handled, Jason said. I think another animal ripped the juicy bits out before we found it.

That’s always a hazard of finding field samples, especially when an animal’s been dead for awhile. Martin picked up a long-handled metal probe and delicately poked at the dissection, pulling back pieces and looking into the specimen’s interior. He prodded several sections and mumbled to himself. Finally, he looked up at Jason. "Scarabeidae, possibly Order Coleptera, maybe Macrodactylus uniformis," he said.

That’s what I thought too. The large-clawed scarab beetle, Jason replied. But at least twenty times normal size.

This thing would go about eight or nine inches in length in life and weigh upwards of, Martin trailed off as he mumbled some calculations. One-to one-and-a-half pounds or so. That’s just not possible, not around here and not in that species.

I agree. It’s got to be a trick of some kind.

"Somebody’s gone to an extreme amount of trouble to pull some kind of practical joke, if that’s what it is, but I don’t believe it. Let me think. M uniformis is normally a pest of grape vines. It’s also found in marshy areas and along streams and lakes. Was there a creek nearby where you found this?"

Yeah. I don’t know how close to the trail it was because we didn’t go into the woods, but I could hear it fairly close by.

"Woods are not uniformis’s normal habitat, but then again, this would not be a normal uniformis. Of course, as animals grow larger, their dependence on water decreases, so larger beetles would be less dependent on moist habitats such as marshy areas."

Clearly.

This is an amazing discovery. You’d better get some digital photo’s and get to work on a paper on it right away. Also, it might be fun to take a look around the area where you found it. If we were able to find a live specimen that would really be the capper.

I’ll get the camera and get to work on that paper right away. I can take you up to where we found this thing tomorrow morning.

Great, Martin said. He smiled and rubbed his hands together. Now, let’s get those photographs and get you started on that paper.

Sally stuck her head in the door and yelled across the room. Jason, you’ve got a phone call. Something about Caliope.

Thanks, I’ll get it right away. Tom I’ll be right back.

Chapter Three

Two Kentucky State Highway Patrol officers met Jason as he exited the ramp at the Louisville Airport. A man in a blue windbreaker with the letters FEMA emblazoned on the chest was with them. Fearing the worst after receiving a phone call from Kentucky state officials, he had packed quickly and caught the first possible flight from Oakland to Louisville. The airline had helped get him on a flight as quickly as possible, but it had taken three days. His anxiety heightened as the officers pulled him aside. He felt the stares coming from everyone else from the plane.

Mr. Carter, we’d like to speak with you for a few minutes before we drive you out to Caliope, one of the officers said. They led Jason away from the small crowd of people greeting each other or hurrying toward the baggage claim area.

Have they found my parents yet? Can you tell me anything about what happened? Jason asked.

I’m sorry, sir. Your questions will have to wait a bit. We’ve been told that once you see the town you might be able to help us understand what happened.

I’ll do anything I can to help, but who told you that?

We’re not at liberty to say right now, Mr. Carter. He was escorted to a small room off the main concourse, offered a paper cup of coffee, which he was glad to accept, and then left alone in the room for a few minutes.

Four bare white walls, a single folding table, a small gray plastic trash can, and three steel-and-plastic chairs were the room’s only features. Jason sat in a chair facing the table and sipped at the coffee, waiting for the cops and the official from FEMA to come back. His hands shook and he tried to force his worst fears to the back of his mind, but they kept coming back. He thought about his home town and about Berkeley. Sally and Tom had gone missing the day after he had heard about Caliope. He knew they had been planning to go up into the Berkeley hills that morning, but no one had heard from them since. The last he knew a search was being organized.

What the hell could have happened to them? What had happened to Caliope? He set the coffee cup down before he crushed it and spilled the remaining coffee on the table.

The troopers and FEMA official entered the room a few minutes later. A priest was with them.

Mr. Carter, I’m Bill Harris, this is my partner Duane Hayes, one of the state troopers said. That’s Harry Fletcher and he’s with FEMA. Harris indicated the man in the blue windbreaker. Father Williams is with the local Catholic diocese. He’s here to provide any support you might need.

I’m not Catholic, Jason said. My folks are dead, right?

We don’t know for sure, but it’s starting to look that way, Williams said. Nobody in Caliope has been seen or heard from since whatever it was that happened there. A number of bodies have been recovered, but our forensic specialists are having difficulty identifying them.

I’m not sure what this has to do with me. The news is saying Caliope was destroyed by a tornado.

That’s the official working story right now. We’ve gone with it, but the truth is we’ve pretty much ruled out a tornado at this point. The pattern of the destruction just doesn’t fit, Fletcher said.