Kingdom of Cages(58)

Once she was aboard, the bike took off faster than Chena could ever pedal. Wind yanked tears from her eyes and snatched her breath. Gritting her teeth and clamping onto the handlebars, Chena twisted around as far as she could. She could just see the strangers running through the clearing they had trampled, shouting and waving their arms. But she couldn’t see anything around them but waving grass.

Then a trio of biscuit-brown antelope broke through the grass screen, running blindly. They smashed against the fence. It sizzled in response and Chena smelled the stench of burning hair. The antelope wailed and reeled back, scattering left and right to run along the rail, shedding dark flakes from their coats. Birds rocketed overhead, shrieking out their own terror. Under it all, people screamed, but Chena could barely hear them anymore because of all the noise from the terrified animals.

What’s happening? Chena turned her head every which way, trying to see what caused the panic. The sky was clear. The ground…

The ground moved.

Chena blinked and looked again. No, she was right, the ground was moving. A million individual threads snaked between the stalks, glittering in the sun as they reached the cleared lane around the rail. Ignoring the fence, the sparkling threads ran over the bike rails.

They were ants.

Chena choked and her free hand flew to her mouth. Billions of tiny red-brown ants swarmed over the rail, heading for the strangers—the strangers who screamed, and whose screams receded as fast as the bike could pull her forward. Chena twisted as far as she could, but she couldn’t see any people anymore. All she saw was the moving ground, the running antelope, and the waving grass.

Then she felt a tickle under her trousers. She looked down immediately. A few red-brown specks crawled up the frame of the bicycle. Chena screamed and beat at her legs. Points of fire burned themselves into her skin. She shrieked louder and beat harder until she wobbled in the bicycle seat and she realized she might fall off onto the ground, into the path of those billions of ants. She grabbed both handlebars so tightly her knuckles hurt.

She felt them. They crawled up her legs. She whimpered but didn’t dare let go, not even when the wind blew her hat off. She could feel them tasting her skin. She knew they crawled up her back and down her scalp and into places she couldn’t even stand to think about. They were all over her. She knew it. She could feel them. Even when the bike hurled her into the shadows of the forest and she couldn’t see the ground moving anymore, she knew they were still on her. Dozens of them, maybe a hundred, under her clothes, in her hair, maybe all over her face. They were going to bite her to death. They were going to make her crazy, like the animals, or make her scream herself to death, like the strangers.

The bike pulled into the depot. Before it even stopped moving, Chena vaulted off it, forgetting her packages, forgetting everything. She barreled through the gate and up the stairs to the top catwalk, running as blindly as the antelope had.

A wall slammed into her, sending her staggering backward, but she couldn’t fall. They’d get her if she fell. She swatted frantically all over her body and arms, clawing at her face and hair.

Hands grabbed her wrists. “What happened?” demanded someone.

“Ants,” she squealed. “Ants. They’re all over me. Get them off!”

But the hands just held her tighter. “Red ants?”

“Yes!” Chena shook her head frantically. Maybe she could shake them off. They were everywhere. She could feel them.

“All right, all right.” The hands dragged her forward. Chena realized the voice came from Nan Elle. She had made it. But the ants were still there.

The light dimmed as Nan Elle propelled her inside her house, through the front room, and into a small closet.

“Strip!” ordered Nan Elle. “Get your clothes off, girl.”

Chena tried to obey. Tears blurred her vision as she tore at her clothes and kicked her shoes off. She was vaguely aware that other hands helped her. She didn’t care. Her clothes were full of ants. She had to get them off.

She was barely naked before Nan Elle gave her a push. She toppled sideways into a tub full of freezing cold water. She jerked her head up, taking a deep gasping breath, but hands pushed her under the water again. She struggled until she realized what was going on. Yes. Yes. Drown them. The water would drown them and get them off her.

When her lungs felt like they were going to burst, the hands finally released her. Chena shot up out of the water and dragged in great whooping gasps of air.

“Are they gone? Are they gone?” she cried, blinking water from her eyes and rubbing frantically at her shoulders, unable to tell whether the tickling was water running down her skin or the ants.