But there was no fire. And no sign of bees.
Mearl Streep was no fool. He knew a losing battle when he witnessed one.
"Retreat! Retreat! We're pulling back!" Streep said. "Get us the holy heck out of here!"
Hands shaking, Gordon Garret keyed the engine to life.
It was too late. Though every window was sealed, the vengeful buzz got him, too. Taking hold of his skull, he jerked out of his seat and began throwing himself around the RV's plush jungle-camouflage-motif interior.
The most awful thing about it was that something seemed to have gotten into his skull. Streep figured that from the way he deliberately banged his head into bulkheads and windows-even the microwave, which popped open.
Fumbling with the door, Garret stuck his head into the microwave oven and stabbed every button he could.
Nothing happened. The safety mechanism defeated his desperate attempt to microwave himself to death.
By the time Garret slid out, loose as a sack of cold manure, Commander Mearl Streep was cowering in back at the rear-exit door latch.
The drone was still in the air. The howling and threshing had all stopped.
Carefully, Streep turned on his haunches and reached for the exit latch. He took hold of it. Only then did he face away from the RV's green, brown and black interior.
When he turned, his blood ran cold.
For on the other side of the glass, hovering on moon-blurred wings, was a death's-head bumblebee. Its compound eyes regarded him without understanding or mercy.
"Oh, God." Streep gulped, releasing the latch.
That's when the buzzing seemed to lift from Cordon Garret's dead body and work its way toward him.
Streep's widening eyes saw nothing. But he knew with a nerve-numbing certainty that something he couldn't see-only hear-was moving toward him, seeking his life.
In desperation, he yanked on the latch and tumbled out.
That was when the killer bumblebee jumped him. Something else attacked, too. Streep could feel things in his ears and his nose. They felt like living sounds crawling into his skull, seeking his brain to quench its dark, un-American appetites.
Commander Mearl Streep died screaming as his tongue and eyeballs melted in his very head with the speed of candle wax vaporizing. The sound of his screaming grew so loud it almost rivaled that of the thing hungrily devouring the contents of his head. But not quite.
When he collapsed into a sunken heap of camouflage green, the sound ascended to the cold moon and faded in the night.
After a while, the death's-head bumblebee sought the hollow of a nearby elm tree to pass the night.
It was dawn before Dr. Helwig X. Wurmlinger dared to step out of his eccentric home. He took one look at all the eyeless, immobile corpses and said, "Goodness gracious me."
Then he went out back to check on his sick bees.
Chapter 33
Remo and Chiun found the owner of the farm in his farmhouse.
It was a pretty good-size farmhouse. At least twelve rooms. The house was rambling, its clapboard skin painted white. The barn and grain silo behind it were as red as a hot brick, however.
Remo knocked on the door and received no reply. So he knocked again.
"I hear someone inside," he told Chiun.
"Do as you will. I will not cross the threshold of the house of corn." And Chiun walked off to survey the desolation that lay seemingly in all directions.
Remo tried the door. It wasn't locked and he stepped in.
Beyond the foyer, with its lace curtains and polished staircase leading upstairs, was a spacious livingroom area.
The owner of the house was seated in a big recliner with his eyes fixed on a working television. It was a big-screen TV, tuned to the Fox twenty-four-hour news channel.
The man had the weathered look of someone who toiled in the sun. His eyes were squinted up, and the backs of his hands were red and raw as a blister. He wore bib-style coveralls over a red plaid flannel shirt, and on an end table sat a baseball cap that said Seedtec.
Remo said, "Howdy," figuring that was probably how farmers talked.
The man continued to stare.
"I'm from the USDA," he said. "The name is Remo Croy."
The man in the chair hadn't blinked from the time Remo had entered. He was going on sixty seconds of staring at the TV screen without blinking. His face had a loose, slack quality.
"Hey, did you hear me? I said I'm from the USDA. We're looking into the situation here."
The man blinked once, slowly. His mouth barely moved, but a low, toneless question issued from him.
"What's that you say?"
"I'm from the USDA. I need to ask you some questions about what happened here."
The man had his arms flopped over the sides of his recliner. The arm opposite Remo's position came up casually with a repeating shotgun. It smacked solidly into his free hand, and the farmer began twisting out of his seat in a preattack posture.
"USDA bastards! You broke my back!"
Remo moved in. It was no contest. While the farmer was still twisting around to draw a bead, Remo yanked the double-barreled shotgun out of his grasp. It came easily.
Stepping back, Remo broke the action, ejected the fat red shells and, as the farmer came out of his seat bellowing, Remo casually made the twin barrels bend in opposite directions like a candelabra.
The farmer took in this example of raw power, blinked again and sat back in mute, sagging defeat.
"Do with me what you will," he said woodenly. "You already broke my heart."
"Hey, fella," Remo said gently, "I'm not here to hurt you. We're just looking into what happened out here."
"Don't fool with me. I know you Agriculture Department people are behind it. You and your genetic experiments, tampering with Mother Nature. Don't think because we're simple people out here we can be fooled. Not for a minute. We know it was your infernal bees that ran the corn down."