Kira pulled her bow back to a ready position. The tension was minimal while she watched through the gap in the wall. She cursed and stepped through it, pulling the bow back fully and releasing in a smooth motion. Jeremy couldn’t see her target but a shriek reassured him that her target was real and that she’d hit it.
“Go! Back through the building. I’ll pull them away and meet you at the tree!” Kira hissed even as she fitted another arrow to the bowstring. She stepped away, the muscles displayed in her legs flexing.
“Them?” Synnamon asked.
“Come on!” Jeremy said, reaching for her arm. She resisted for a moment, craning her neck to try and peer outside. A more insistent grip convinced her to turn to him so he could slide her arm around his shoulders and help her back through the base. Another animal scream hastened their progress.
Down the hall Synnamon pulled on Jeremy, slowing him. “In here!” She insisted, gesturing towards a room with an open door. It had once been the office of Taylor Warren, the legal expert assigned to the mission. What drew Dr. Rice in was the window in the outside wall.
Giving in to his own curiosity, Jeremy helped her in to the office. Outside the window they saw Kira slip her bow back over her shoulder and draw the long knife at her waist free. Three small animals lay on the ground, the last still twisting and rolling. Four others rushed at her, moving along multi-segmented legs and dragging tails behind. They were small and black, measuring no longer than a foot in length, but even from a distance they could see the mandibles on their heads.
“Insects?” Synnamon asked.
“I think so,” Jeremy said. Not enough legs, plus the addition of a tail defied the classical insect body type. Then again, nothing on Vitalis adhered to the animal kingdom as humanity knew it. A noise in the distance behind them made them both jerk. Something had fallen in the building.
“Let’s go!” Synammon whispered.
Jeremy nodded and helped her move back to the hallway. They turned towards the entrance before Jeremy thought to grab the rifle slung on his back and hold it in his free hand. A hiss from Dr. Rice brought his attention from the gun to the scene in the hallway.
Two of the creatures pulled up short from the direction of the lab. They hissed, mandibles stretched wide to reveal sharp teeth in a mouth that seemed so large it was out of proportion for the head of the bugs. Above the mouth each had four eyes spread evenly along the front and side of the head. A segmented black chitin shell covered their bodies, swelling and contracting with each breath they took.
“They’ve got lungs!” Synnamon gasped.
“That’s great, can we go now?”
“We’re trapped!”
Jeremy looked the other way and see there was another of the bugs approaching from the opening in the hallway. He raised the rifle and fired. Acrid smoke curled up from the bubbling industrial plastic of the wall beside and above the bug. He adjusted the rifle and pulled the trigger again, then ground his teeth when the gun didn’t react.
“Jeremy!”
He looked back in time to see one of the two bugs pounce, followed a second later by the other one. He fell back into the room, pulling Synnamon with him. Her twisted ankle caused her to stumble, bringing both of them down.
Jeremy pulled free of his former boss, scrambling to put more distance to the doorway. He snatched up his dropped rifle, sparing enough time to note that it was ready to fire again. He had a target a moment later when the first of the bugs leapt into the doorway. Synnamon screamed even as Jeremy yanked the trigger and watched smoke and steam hiss off the Vitallian insects back. The bug screeched, mandibles stretched wide. Over the grating noise he could still hear the juices inside the bug popping as they boiled and burst.
The next bug cleared the doorway, leaping past its dying brother at Jeremy. He thrust his gun out, batting it aside. He felt the material in the gun give, then felt as much as heard the sudden hum from inside of it as the stored energy dissipated. The insect, he noted, had landed on Synnamon’s leg. She screamed and tried to flail her legs to knock it free.
The bug held on, grabbing tight with its four legs and sinking its mandibles into her thigh. Jeremy stared, at a loss for what to do while the bug worked its grip tighter. It pulled back, tearing off a chunk of flesh and feeding it into its mouth. Blood ran down her leg freely, adding to a growing puddle beneath it. Synnamon was gasping and whimpering, her cheeks white and her eyes starting to roll back into her head.
“Jeremy!” She whimpered, reaching for him.
Jeremy had slid away from her. His back was against the wall of the office. He looked around, unaware of how rapid his breaths were coming. He was trapped! One final look above him and he saw the window. He jumped to his feet and worked the release on it, jamming his fingers twice before he coordinated the safety lock and then the actual window release.
Synnamon whimpered again, breaking his frantic need to escape for a terrible heartbeat. He stared as the other bug leapt onto her and bit into her abdomen. It tore its mandibles free in a shower of blood. She grunted and reached for Jeremy again. “Please!” She wheezed.
His mouth worked but no sound came out. He wanted to tell her he was sorry. He wanted to give her hope. He even wanted to grab her hand and pull her with him. Then the bug on her leg lifted its head and stared at him with its alien eyes. He heard himself whimper and felt the nearly overwhelming urge to urinate. Jeremy jumped and pulled himself through the window head first with no thought to what awaited him on the other side.