The Colony: A Novel (2 page)

Like cutting sheers, the sharp mandibles of the queen opened and closed with anxious clicks. Her brain was not capable of understanding the concept of time, but she had a keen sense of duty and purpose. As she watched the other ants move toward the target, her snaps became hurried like the fighting claws of a crab. On long, wiry legs she rose and the ants around her began to react with extreme agitation. The queen opened her large mandibles in a roar, but what she emitted from her mouth was far more powerful than any sound of alarm.

The ants rushed toward Jerrol from every direction.

“Sh-shit!”
he cried out in panic, and braced for the onslaught, crouching with arms to his face in defense.

But the ants didn’t attack. The front lines reached a few inches from his sneakers and turned at a forty-five-degree angle in unison, circling him in a ring that was nearly the size of the yard itself. Alone in a four-foot patch of grass, the terrified man was completely surrounded by a colony of 22 million insects.

Jerrol began trembling feverishly. Cold sweat ran down his back and his shirt clung to his skin. He spun quickly in circles. There was no way out of the yard and no path back to the house. A sudden, unearthly sound resonated like waves of radio static, growing louder across the yard. With a whimper, he danced on his feet and stared eagerly at the door, where he could see the comforting blue pile carpet and the open book on the coffee table. More than anything, he wanted to be back in his living room.

Instinctively, he pulled a stake from the ground and swept it like a sword across the sea of insects, hoping to create a clear path to his door. Instead, fervor broke out among the ranks. The largest soldier ants surged toward him, flanking the lines with the speed of a creature ten thousand times their size, while the smaller ones ran center like chemically guided missiles.

As the swarm reached his sneakers he stomped down hard. The insects sprang upon his legs like splatters from a mud puddle, piercing skin and clamping tight. The pain of their stingers was fierce. Jerrol’s knees buckled and he collapsed to the ground as the army attacked full force.

A hundred collective stings sent him diving headfirst into the house, where he skidded across the rug and rolled on the carpet as if on fire. He slammed the door, shrieking and hugging his ragged shins that were covered in ant bites and erupting white pustules. He bit through his lip and crawled to the bathroom, leaving a thin red trail along the blue rug.

*   *   *

Cries of agony were muted behind the clear plastic shower curtain as Jerrol sat slumped at the bottom of the tub, groaning, in wet clothes and sneakers, as heavy steam engulfed the room. The insects held tight to his legs from toe to knee. Their three-hook claws pierced his shins, stinging again and again. The venom felt like razors through his veins and carried the toxin from limbs to torso, to every muscle and organ.

The pain of mandibles biting and filling their jaws with meat was excruciating. Jerrol hunched over his knees, digging fingernails deep and scratching away layers of flesh. A few ants spun down the drain in a river of bloody water, but most were burrowing farther into the wounds. Small knobby bumps moved under the skin of his kneecap where black tunnels of ants were visible as they fed and crawled freely about.

A searing heat pulsed from the side of his left foot where a tremendous amount of blood poured into the tub. He peeled back the top flap of his sock with frantic, shaking fingers. Underneath were the tattered remains of flesh and sinew, and a hole the size of a quarter where white ankle bone protruded from the center.

He was overcome with dizziness and nausea, his face sickly and swollen like a rubber Halloween mask. Jerrol fell back into an inch of vivid red water. Shock took over, the pain began to subside and a soothing numbness came to his body.

Jerrol curled up on his side and let the hot spray rain down on him. He thought he would pass out,
wanted
to pass out—when the cry of a baby cut through the steam.

Panic roused him with a burst of energy as he imagined ants crawling over his child. He clumsily flung himself out of the tub and stumbled like a rag doll down the hallway, bouncing off walls in a crooked path to the dark nursery.

He slapped on the light switch. The baby was alone. Not even a moth. She lay screaming on a Winnie the Pooh crib sheet. Her tiny body snuggled warmly in a green blanket surrounded by two blue bunnies, an orange whale, and spit-up from breakfast.

Jerrol was relieved but his heart was failing. He could barely suck in a breath. Dark footprints followed his path from the doorway to the crib, where he stood over the child, looking like a monster splattered with blood from head to foot. He turned to the window and parted the lacy curtains with trembling fingers that left streaks of red.

Below, the entire floor of the garden moved like a graceful undulating sea. Black armor gleamed in the moonlight. Then all at once, the armies began breaking up into geometric shapes that seemed to shrivel in size. Jerrol held his breath with a last bit of emotion as the puddles seeped into the ground. Then the remaining invaders crawled off his own body and fled toward the door. The ants were leaving.

The baby wailed as her father slowly twisted to face the door. He took two wobbly steps, sweating profusely from a 110 degree temperature. Then his eyes swelled shut, his head snapped back and he coughed up a spray of blood.

Jerrol fell to his knees, and then to the floor.

CHAPTER 2

THE LAW OFFICES OF
Dugan, Weiss and Kellogg were in an old Gothic-style building a block from Wall and Broadway, right behind Trinity Church, where Alexander Hamilton is buried. The whole area smelled of money. At four o’clock in the morning the head paralegal was still poring over black folders marked
Confidential.

The firm was preparing for a big case. A drug company had recently disclosed that its fat-eating pill was also a pancreas-eating pill. She pressed her palms to her eyes in quiet meditation, when a low wolf whistle startled her nerves. In the doorway stood the most attractive and most despised lawyer in the firm.

“Still here? Lucille, you’re a goddamned paralegal,” he quipped.

“With any luck, I’ll be your boss in three years.”

“I could get you there sooner, sweetheart.”

“Don’t make me sue your ass.”

“You’d lose.”

Lucille leaned back as the lawyer sat down on the desk, trying to catch a better view down her blouse. It made her skin crawl, the way his lips pursed, a gesture he obviously thought sexy but she found effeminate.

“I heard the Central Park couple died last night.”

“The ant people?” she scoffed. “Next time don’t get naked in the middle of Sheep Meadow.”

“You know a better place?” His hands pressed against the sturdy Formica. “I’m a desk man myself.”

“Is that why they call you pencil prick?”

“First the couple in Soho, and now these two in the park. That makes four dead bodies.” He leaned in close, smelling like green Tic Tacs. “Lonely walk to the bus, babe. Bet you could use a ride home.”

“I’ll take my chances with the bugs.”

He shrugged and straightened his tie. Then he left her office with a childish grin, humming “The Ants Go Marching.”

Lucille closed the last folder and reworked her hands across her heavy lids.

Four dead bodies … Four dead bodies … Four dead—

If she hurried, she could still catch the 4:15
A.M.
bus to Brooklyn. She grabbed her vinyl briefcase and walked down the hall to the elevator, rode it twenty flights to the lobby, where the security guard was immersed in a crossword puzzle. She took the usual exit, through a side door into an alleyway, an eerie precolonial road paved in original cobblestone that narrowed under the shadows of looming black buildings.

The predawn cool air revived her senses but not her nerve; the alley was silent except for her spiky heels, which struck against the glistening black pavers.

Click, click, click.

Lucille began walking faster and a damp chill spread across her skin. The sound of her own panting quickened her pace, and she clutched the briefcase like a shield.

Four dead bodies … Four dead bodies … Four dead—

Her heel caught the edge of a stone and she stumbled onto her hands and knees. That’s when her thumb touched something wet and furry. A rat. It was nearly devoid of flesh but its round eyes glowed pink and its tiny paw twitched. Lucille stared in terror at the carcass on the shiny black pavers that seemed to come alive with fluttery movements.

She sprang to her feet, grabbing her briefcase and flailing her arms with a guttural cry. Halfway down the alley, she broke into a frantic run, heading toward the hazy light at the end of the lane.

Broadway opened up wide and bright and Lucille stopped, spilling over herself. A few early commuters emerged from the subway, men and women in dark suits toting briefcases. The lights flickered on in the Starbucks across the street and the illuminated banks on Wall Street loomed with noble grace.

Lucille dropped her shoulders with relief and continued down Broadway. The glass shelter at the bus stop was empty and her watch read 4:17, but she stood beside the bench and waited, hoping the bus was running late.

A sanitation truck was parked with its engines still running, the front doors open wide. The dome light revealed an empty cabin. Lucille stepped along the curb and gave the truck a sideways glance. A sound made her turn around, where trash was piled high against a building. Slabs of drywall leaned against the brick and garbage was scattered oddly across the sidewalk.

A faint and unfamiliar noise emanated from the heap, like the crackling of a wood fire. Lucille pulled out a canister of Mace from her briefcase, rolling it nervously in her palm. She moved under the soft yellow glow of a streetlight and in her peripheral vision, something moved.

It was a hand; large and pallid and sticking out behind a board of drywall. The hand twitched. Lucille’s heart caught in her throat.

“Hello? Are you all right?” she asked in a meek voice, and continued in measured steps until the hand was close enough to grab her ankle. There was a slight tremble to her fingers as they extended toward the drywall and gingerly touched the jagged edge.

Whooosh.
The drywell fell solidly to the ground and the woman sprang from its reach as shards of ice ripped through her veins. She muffled a cry with her fist.

Two sanitation men lay at her feet, covered head to waist with crawling ants. As light swept their bodies, the insects scurried into the collars and sleeves of their uniforms and vanished under debris. Parts of the men were eaten away, their faces swollen and pale like rising dough. Globs of coagulated blood protruded from their eyes, ears, mouths, nostrils and long jagged cracks in their skin, as if something inside their head had burst into pieces.

Lucille screamed as the number 12 bus pulled to the curb.

CHAPTER 3

IN THE BASEMENT LEVEL
of the American Museum of Natural History, a couple hundred of the world’s most brilliant minds studied biology, geology, anthropology, paleontology and every other “ology” in natural science. Along with cutting-edge equipment were mummified bodies, primitive tools, Jurassic-age insects trapped in amber, fossilized bacteria and six-ton pallets stacked to the ceiling with the oldest artifacts known to mankind.

The largest corner office was a relic itself. Under murky light, strained wooden bookshelves were packed with dusty back issues of
Entomology Today
and
Naturalist
magazines, faded reference books and journals. A mammoth desk against the back wall was littered with travel brochures of South America, old anatomy reports, draft copies of speeches and uncashed checks totaling ninety thousand dollars in speaking fees.

The office belonged to Dr. Paul O’Keefe, a tall and elegantly handsome scientist in an Armani suit, who had spent the last thirty-six hours tirelessly peering into a microscope. He had a bookish quality, thoughtful and serious, with quick brown eyes that brightened whenever they hit upon something he’d never seen before, which lately seemed to be every few minutes. Paul wiped the back of his wrist over his damp brow and peered through the lens at the absurdly oversized ant with a degree of respect that was turning into something more like terror each day. He adjusted the steel knob and his fingers shook the image.

The ant appeared to be a precise replica of the others. The head was unusually skull-shaped and twice as large as that of any other ant species, its copper face tilted up in a roar. The claws were enormous, and what the hell was this—a thumb? Paul used a dropper from a vial to dab the ant with nitric acid. Normally the body would dissolve; this insect showed zero reaction. He slid the ant around in the liquid with the tip of the scalpel. Not even the joints broke apart.

Impossible.

No matter how many times he examined them, dissected them and tested them, the impossible factor wasn’t going away. He rubbed his closely trimmed beard and wondered how the greatest moment of his career had so rapidly dissolved into the bleakest.

Two weeks ago, Mayor John Russo had come to the museum claiming ants had eaten a couple of New Yorkers. The insects delivered to Paul’s office resembled no ant species ever discovered. They were enormous and had no recognizable DNA. Their morphology wasn’t linked to any genus of Hymenoptera. The ants acted viciously in the field, yet were docile in the hand. They displayed abnormal behavior and died within hours.

Then colonies of ants started popping up all over the city, seemingly overnight.

For any entomologist, it was a dream come true.

Paul believed he was the perfect scientist for the job. Known throughout the bug world as Professor Ant, he had just come off a lecture series for his controversial book,
Insect Altruism: How an Ant Colony Can Save the Human Race.
For that he’d been awarded a Pulitzer Prize and the National Medal of Science, and there was talk of a Nobel. He’d hosted multiple nature specials on PBS, BBC and Discovery and been quoted in
National Geographic
no fewer than twenty times.