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Sara listened to the gravel crunching under the tires as the car groaned to a halt and the engine coughed one last time before dying. The warehouse entrance was only about a hundred feet away, but it might as well have been a hundred miles. Maybe if they had jumped out right at that moment, one or both of them could have made it, but as they sat there in a stupor, that thin opportunity vanished. She reached down and twisted the key, knowing that there was no point but needing to try anyway. The engine turned, but did not catch. She considered leaning on the horn but it was unlikely that anyone would hear it and, even if they did, it wasn’t like they could do anything about it.

Arman looked over at her, his face blankly reflecting the lack on understanding. There had to be something she could do to save them, something to get the car started again. She returned his gaze, shaking her head slowly to indicate that they had run out of ideas to try.

Outside, the swarm was already starting to form, tiny insects buzzing around the side mirrors and the windshield. They were slightly larger than gnats, tiny little jet-black specks floating lazily around the car. If she didn’t know any better, she might have taken them as harmless, but she did know better. One bite from any of those things would be enough to kill them. They wouldn’t be able to get into the car but in the end, that wouldn’t really matter since they also couldn’t get out.

“What do we do?” Arman asked. She shook her head again. A hundred feet. It was nothing. The darkest reaches of her mind was contemplating pushing him out of the car and hoping that those things out there would focus on him, giving her the opportunity to get away.

“What are we going to do?” His voice was rising, going into clear panic mode now. She turned to look at him, disgusted at his unwillingness to acknowledge the obvious.

“What can we do?” she asked, turning back to the window and placing a hand up against it. The things out there clustered on the other side of the glass, trying to burrow through to her.

She turned back and saw the entire spectrum of emotions cross his face in a matter of moments. The fear in his eyes quickly gave way to anger as he struck the dashboard several times with an open palm. He screamed until his voice started to go hoarse, until his energy began to wane. His chest heaved, trying to catch breath as he slowly calmed down, leaning against his door. Sara saw his hand fiddling around with the door handle and thought for the briefest second that he was just going to throw it open.

The hand returned to its starting position though and she breathed a little easier, even though the real situation hadn’t been resolved, just delayed.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but the bugs were now swarming the car so heavily, they could no longer see out the windows. The outside light came through in fractured cracks within the writhing blanket of insects as they crawled across this metal tomb.

“Does the battery still work?” Arman asked.

“There’s no way we could do anything to them with it, even if—” Sara started to say.

“I just thought we could listen to the radio.” His voice sounded like a child who was about to start crying. Sara turned the key in the ignition and pressed the power button on the dashboard. Music started to filter through the speakers and returned her attention to the death that awaited them on the other side of that glass. Anger flared up in her again, along with the hundredth iteration of how unfair this entire situation was. She remembered being intrigued about the new form of insect life that had been discovered in the Congo. All the way over there, it was other people’s problems. It wasn’t so intriguing now.

Arman took in a breath and she could hear it shaking as he let it out. She wasn’t sure if it was resignation, or if he was steeling himself to do something. She returned her gaze to his hand which was still resting near the door handle.

“A hundred feet. One more minute,” Arman said, coming close to repeating her internal dialog to the word.

It was pointless. Either they were going to die in here, or they were going to die out there. At least, out there, they would know when to expect it. At least out there, it would be quick. She didn’t want to just sit in here and starve to death.

One of her favorite songs was playing and she closed her eyes, letting herself be washed away in the tide of memories. High School prom, losing her virginity in college, faces and names flowing past her, and all attached to that one song, as it slowly dwindled into the silence of sputtering static and the battery also gave out.

She didn’t want to second guess herself. Sara lunged past Arman and opened his door, shoving him out with her shoulder as she did so. As he toppled back, she waited for the swarm to lift up and flock towards him before opening her door, falling out onto the ground as she did so. As soon as she hit pavement she rolled to the side, only vaguely aware of Arman screaming her name. There was no time. She sprang to her feet and began to sprint away from the car. Somehow, she had managed to get past all of them without being bitten. The door was fifty feet away now. Twenty feet. Ten feet. The sound of the swarm moved up from the car and started in her direction.

Sara felt the burning in her chest but ignored it as the elation swelled up in her heart that the door was just within reach. Just another second or two and she would be inside. She was going to make it.

The last thing she felt before her fingers brushed against the metal of the door handle was the stinging bite on the back of her ankle. Darkness bled in and enfolded her.

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