Sweat gleamed on the back of the dirty hand as it ripped down anotherbright yellow sign with black lettering.

No Trespassing.

A jagged row of them vanished into forested obscurity. That wise-assBeeler woman thought little sheets of paper would spook a real man? If so, shewasn’t as smart as she pretended to be. Overkill like this reinforced what RandyStall had already figured from their first encounter; she was scared and alonein the trailer. Even sober he wasn’t much for counting, but add all these tothe ones he’d seen back at the service road and it was a ton of damn signs.

… a ton of useless damn signs.

Stall’s black t-shirt was damp in the early summer heat and clung tohis lean frame. White threads dangled where he’d scissored the jeans intojorts. Sunglasses and a low-brimmed cap concealed dark intentions. The knife athis belt was sheathed, for now.

A whirring sound drew his attention. At the next tree, a thick blackwasp with pale yellow stripes flew slowly back and forth, interested insomething he couldn’t see. It was as long as his middle finger. Almosthornet-sized.

His lips stretched over gaps of missing teeth as he grinned andcrumpled the paper into a ball. He drew back slowly, like the high schoolpitcher he’d once been, then threw heat. The paper ball knocked the wasp fromsight, and it let out an angry buzz.Stall laughed. “Take that, bitch!”

The wasp reappeared. It circled him twice, wings scolding loudly,threatening. Then it almost seemed to glance away as a ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-CH! rosefrom the next tree. The cicada mantra was instantly familiar and far louderthan any cricket chirp. The wasp zipped over, landed on the trunk and racedlike a tiny assault vehicle toward a groove between bark nuggets. The chitter was replaced by scraping and buzzing asthe two large flyers battled.

The wasp hooked its leg claws into the larger insect and hauled it fromthe groove, turned it so they were belly-to-belly, then arched its body to sinkthe curved stinger into its prey. The cicada fell silent and went rigid.Clutching it tightly, the wasp flew with it through the remaining woods to abrighter area … the front yard of Stall’s prey.

Though motionless, he knew thecicada wasn’t dead.  

Female Cicada Killers were bigger and stronger than the non-venomous males.The females had the stingers and toxin—but not for killing outright. They flyto the nesting site, drag their paralyzed prey into one of several chambers andlay an egg in one of its legs. The egg hatches in a couple days. The larva feeds onthe cicada, keeping it alive as long as possible, then turns into an adultwasp.

Shitty way to die, Stall thought, through a chuckle.

He was about to turn away when another wasp shot past him, then hoveredback and forth a couple feet from his face. It was fast, but a couple swipesfinally persuaded it to back off. It landed higher up on the pine, turnedhead-down and watched him with large faceted eyes.

He flipped it off and slipped through the remainder of the woods.Ankle-high work boots crunched twigs and pine cones. After a brief pause hecrept into a relative clearing where crepe myrtles bordered two sandy pathwayswith grass in the middle.

He glanced over his shoulder for a glimpse at theintersection of the driveway and State Road 334. Didn’t see anyone turning in,or driving by. The Atlantic Ocean and Cape Fear River were both within pissingdistance, and the seasonal swell of human flesh was strong and rising, yet veryfew folks deliberately trekked into this area, where the woods were thick and darkwaters sloughed into brackish creeks.

“Might want to drive up or have your man get the snail mail,” Stall hadsaid to Shannon Beeler, setting her packages on the small table of the frontporch and handing her the delivery tablet. “Heard some coyotes cryin’ in thewoods near your mailbox.”

And no hint of a dog anywhere, he added silently.  

The dusky woman signed the form, arched a brow and handed the tabletback. “Coyotes we got, all right. And the occasional wolf.”

He was cautious enough to wait a couple weekends before returning.

Now grass blades hissed beneath his strides. Small petals drifted downfrom the ornamental trees, ignored. It was strangely muted here, though. Unlikethe woods around his own trailer, there was no hint of cicada chanting.

Which made him wonder if a scream would carry through the surroundingwoods.

Nah. Too much distance and sound-snuffing trees.

Keeping to the shade of the crepe myrtles, he strode with purposetoward the orange double-wide at the end of the drive. The bushes that had beenneatly trimmed just a couple weeks back were now reaching for the top rail ofthe front porch. The grass was long enough to send up seed spires.

Maybe Beeler had gotten lazy. Whatever.

Buzzing cut the quiet.

Several dark specs darted from the sunshine and into his cloak ofdappled shade. They hovered near the grass, then up along the tree trunks andbranches. As he closed in on the trailer, he could discern the pale yellowstripes on the black bodies as long as his fingers, and the red-orange,swept-back wings as they set down. They lined up on either side until hepassed, then took new positions. Maybe it was the pills, but it was weirdanyway.  

Too many damn wasps. No wonder there were no cicadas around.

A pickup truck with a line-crossed ant silhouette on the side wasparked out front, along with a sedan that had once been silver, judging by thecurling strips of paint.

More wasps flew around Stall. He cussed again and pressed forward, handrising now and then to swat a few of the more brazen ones away. He sent acouple of them cruising to the side, where they quickly recovered. The noisewas starting to freak him out.  

The wasps circled him a moment more, then vanished. The noise fell tojust a solitary drone. Heavier. In the area, but not too close. He almostlooked around for a plane, but was too focused on his goal to get distractednow.  

He was maybe a dozen feet from the porch when the front door swungwide.

What stepped out looked more like some space alien than the woman he’dencountered a couple weeks ago. She seemed tall up on the porch. Goggles juttedover dark rimmed glasses, and a surgical face mask covered the lower portion ofher face. The lab coat was a little snug in the shoulders and bust line, anddraped over scrub pants and an old pair of clogs.

Slowly her gloved hand moved the goggles to her broad forehead andpulled the face mask down. Her temples glistened in the sunlight. She wiped theperspiration from her mocha-toned face with a cloth, then leaned forward on therail.

“Lose your truck somewhere, Mister Substitute Delivery Man?” she said,peering down at him. Her narrow brows arched over the straight black line ofthe glasses.

“And here you only saw me the one time,” Stall grinned, removed hisshades and turned his hat around as a way of mocking her movements. “Must havemade an impression!”

“Your pupils were dilated then, too, never mind the sunshine. I betyou’re flyin’ high for this little visit. Here’s your chance to live. Go awaynow and get off the drugs.”

“Uh, what?”

“Go now and live.”

Stall laughed and shook his head. “But I got a special delivery!”

“Yeah, you delivered yourself just fine.” She made a crooning sound.

“Hell you say?”

Shannon Beeler smiled as the deep and angry buzzing sounded again fromthe woods and grew louder.

Stall’s eyes narrowed. Cocky bitch. Was there a gun in the lab coatpocket?  

“Hear that?” She made a slow spherical motion with her gloved hand.

The buzzing became rapid and louder.

Stall drew his knife, took a few steps forward then paused, head cockedsideways. The buzzing was rushing toward them now. Drone? Was that why she wasso confident, she had a goddamn drone filming the place? If so, he had to gether inside, quickly. “Inside the house, bitch! Move!”

She spoke over his shoulder.“Not much meat on him, but he’ll due for now.”

“No flyin’ camera is gonna save your ass!”

As the first stair squeaked under Stall’s boot, a shadow loomed in thecorner of his eye. The sound that came with it rattled his eardrums and drummedin his chest. He started to look over his shoulder when thin hairy legsensnared him. Pain flashed as his ribs snapped. Hooks at the ends of the legspunctured his body, and spun him so violently something was ejected from hispocket.

Stall gazed into the compound eyes of a monster.

Independently moving antenna as long as his arms protruded from itshead. Above the black exoskeleton blurred red-orange wings that sent a horriddeath wind over him. Chomping and clacking mandibles completed a tapered headlarger than his own.

Shouting and cursing, he tried to strike and shove it off, but thebeast held him fast. It arched its abdomen to bring a wickedly curved stingerbetween his legs and up into his lower back. It stabbed for his spine and splitthe gap between two vertebrae. Stall howled as venom spread like a liquid firethrough vein and muscle. His struggles slowed. His cries became whimpers, andfrom there to wide-eyed silence. Satisfied, the wasp pulled him tightly to herundercarriage and lifted him into the air, arms and legs dangling listlessly.

“Thanks for the delivery,” Shannon Beeler said.

The wasp flew Stall to its underground nest where it laid an egg insidehis thigh. The next day the larvae hatched and immediately began to consume itsparalyzed food.

For over a week Stall remained alive, mouth agape with a silent scream.

                                           *         *         *

A delivery truck turned off State Road 334 and onto the white sandypathways of Shannon Beeler’s driveway. Grass grew high enough between thetrails to brush the truck axles. Crepe myrtles passed on either side of theopened cab, and tiny white blossoms like snow flurries drifted onto the broadwindshield and inside the vehicle. A moment more and dark shapes mixed with thewhite as Wes Cobb navigated the driveway’s familiar curves.

At first he thought they were dragonflies hunting in the summermorning, but then recognized the largest of the wasp family, the CicadaKillers. He’d been delivering a long time and wasn’t alarmed, even when theyflew in and out of the cab. They were pretty much harmless, which was good becausethere were several with him now, and showed little inclination to leave.    

The open doors also let in the humid air of the nearby ocean and river.The truck rocked and squeaked down the uneven sandy pathways. He cleared thecrepe myrtles and braked to a halt in front of the orange trailer with thesmall sedan and exterminator truck in front.

Shannon Beeler appeared on the front porch almost as soon as the truckhalted. She touched up her hair, pushed the glasses to her head, parted the labcoat and smoothed her t-shirt and shorts. More wasps buzzed back and fortharound her. She almost seemed to glide down the porch steps. She halted at thedriver’s side and put a hand on her hip. “Now where you been hidin’, WesleyCobb?”

He grinned. “Seen Shannon Beeler around?”

“You hittin’ the ghange? I’m right here.”

“Well, you look a little like her, but the Beeler I knew was a bit, uh,shall we say …”

Beeler cocked her head and smiled. “Mmm?”

“… fuller!” Cobb leaned on the steering wheel and laughed, stompingthe floorboards for emphasis.

She laughed, pulled back the lab coat and looked down. The t-shirt hungloosely below her bosom and the shorts didn’t pinch her skin at the waist.“Been busy. Too distracted and too tired to make big meals.”  

“Shouldn’t go an’ starve, now,” Cobb warned. “And damn, girl, it’ssummer break! Only got a couple weeks until Session Eight. Take a breathalready!”

Her smile faded a bit as she watched the wasps, eyesgrowing wide as if mesmerized. Cobb was about to clap her out of it when shefocused on him once more.  

She took off her long latex gloves and stuffed them in her lab coatpockets. “Got time for some ice tea, Mister Delivery Man?”

He shook his head. “Nah, sorry. I’m behind as usual. But I got adelivery for ya! Hang on a sec.”

“Take your time. I ain’t on a schedule today.”

Cobb had known her long enough to recognize her common speech hid asharp mind. He ducked back into the cargo hold, brought out two sizeable boxesmarked with bio-material green crosses. She held her arms out but he steppeddown from the truck and cocked his head toward the porch.

“I got ya,” Cobb said, hanging onto the boxes. “Porch good?”

“Anyplace, really.”

The wasps accompanied them as they walked. A majority of them floatedaround her alone, he saw. She slowly waved her arms and the insects eased backa bit.

“What the hell,” Cobb said. “You the wasp whisperer?”

“They like my little ranch here,” she said, as they went up the steps.

He set the boxes on the small table and held the computer pad out forher to sign. He turned at a sudden deep buzzing sound, scanned the woods forthe source, and when he looked back Shannon was shaking her head at something,then quickly recovered.

“You didn’t deliver last time,”she observed.

“Vacation,” he replied. “You knew, right?”

“Oh yeah. Like I said, been busy.”

“That new guy did my week and another for Williams and then wentmissing—believe that? Shipping crew said he was hopped up on pills half thetime.”

Shannon shrugged. “Too bad. He wasn’t as nice as you anyway.”

“Who is? Nobody, that’s who! Don’t forget me at survey time, ShannonBeeler.”  

“You still married?”

“Every day with my Brenda gal!” He noted the shadow that came acrossher face. “Hey, you’ll find yours. Just hang on a while.”

“Tools and mama’s boys. Never any middle ground.”

“Well, try the online sites. Someone’s out there for ya. They can’t allbe bad, right?”

“At least one, but he’s taken.”

Wasp wings made the only sound for a moment.

“Been reading the prep chapters for Bio 310 summer class?” Cobb asked.

“Devoured them,” she said. “You?”

“Behind, as usual.” Cobb headed down the porch steps. “We gonna be labpartners again?”

“Hell yeah. I could use one now, too.”

“Huh?”

“Take a peek at what I got out back.” She picked up the boxes, walkeddown the steps and headed to the side of the trailer.

Cobb paused at the front of the truck and swiped at a couple wasps thateasily dodged.  “Nah, I’m late already,girl. But what’s up with all the Cicada Killers?”

“Come on back and I’ll tell you. Those other deliveries can wait tenminutes, can’t they? It’s just a peek at my hobby when I’m not exterminatingbugs or in the classroom.”

“Okay, Beeler. Let’s see what you got cookin’. Hopefully it ain’tmeth!”

She smiled as he fell in step behind her.

Again he swung his arm slowly back and forth at the wasps. “Never seen‘em this thick! They’re supposed to be solitary. What are ya,doin’, breedingthe damn things?”

She laughed over her shoulder. She seemed lighter to him somehow. Andnot just physically, though she almost seemed to glide before him.  

They turned the corner of her trailer and the back yard opened wide. Itwas a grassy peninsula surrounded on three sides by woods of pine, sweet gumand live oak. At the center of the yard was a large wooden shed with doubledoors wide open, ceiling fans turning at moderate speed and overhead lightsshowering white light down upon several picnic tables. Under othercircumstances, this might serve as the outdoor kitchen and eating area. Now thetables were laden with beakers, petri dishes, bubbling graduated cylinders, flames heatingErlenmeyer flasks with rubber stoppers and clear hoses snaking from them to anetwork of other containers.

Cobb whistled. “Wow, Beeler. Quite a set up. And you’re not cookin’meth …?”

“Science is the drug, Wes.” Beeler smiled, set her boxes down on theclosest bench seat. Straightening, she held her arms out to the side. A dozenCicada wasps landed and milled about on her lab coat. The dark forms scurriedin separate directions, black chaos on a white canvas. They did not ventureinside the coat, or on her neck or head.

“Watch it, there’s females!” Cobb stepped close with his hand raised,ready to swat.

“No, no! They’re just saying hello to Momma.”

And indeed the finger-sized wasps continued to mill about on Beeler’sbody. They paused, rose a few inches with a collective buzz of red-orangewings, landed again on her arms and shoulders. They did not go for her head orface or legs.

Cobb shook his head. “Some pets you got there.”

She gently shook her arms and guided them from her chest area and theyflew off. Some vanished, some remained to dart back and forth around them.

From the surrounding woods came several deep droning sounds, just shyof chain saw level. Shannon sang something Cobb couldn’t discern. A dark shapebroke from the woods out of the corner of his eye. The volume quickly grew.Whatever it was, it was coming fast.  

Cobb leaped for a rake propped against one of the large doors. “Whatthe hell!”

“Step inside the shed a little, Wes,” she said, calmly.

The shadow appeared on the lawn first, further knotting Cobb’s stomach.Then a creature straight out of insanity dropped down and hovered, large as aGerman Shepherd. Its wickedly angular head was covered in translucent hair.Long antenna moved back and forth above huge eyes and terrible jaws. Red-orangewings were swept back from the body and blurring. The wind from them stirredthe dust from a bare spot, and dislodged dandelion seeds that drifted surreallyaway in a thin white stream as if fleeing the abomination.

A moment more and it landed. Suddenly the droning was gone. It stood onits six thin legs before Beeler and Cobb, twitching and clacking its mandibleslike wooden knockers. Then its head moved, seemingly to focus its faceted eyesfrom Beeler to Cobb. It took a quick step forward. Cobb stiffened and jabbedthe end of the rake out. Inadequate, but better than nothing.  

“No, no, no,” Shannon Beeler cooed to the beast. She held her arm outand the monster wasp’s antenna reached for her hand. It’s entire body quivered,as if in ecstacy at the contact. Its mandibles knocked softly.

“Can’t be real!” Cobb said, through a constricted throat.

“Don’t worry – she still only eats tree sap and nectar from flowers.”

“Nothing gets this big on sap and nectar!”  

“Well, mainly,” Beeler amended. “See the ingredient ratio on thesprayer?”

She gestured with her free hand toward an egg-shaped pressure sprayerwith a black wand protruding through the handle gap. Black bold lettering stoodstarkly out on white paper, secured by clear packing tape.  

80% H2O

15% PTTH

5% Boric Acid

Shannon Beeler caressed the wasp’s forehead as if she were stroking adog. She looked at Cobb. “A little bit of the acid helps dissolve the PTTH intotheir exoskeletons. Too much and they hate it, but just enough and itpenetrates to trigger the hormone for molting. They get slow and docile for awhile, then molt from their old shells into their new bigger ones. Do you wantto pet her?”

“Hell no, I don’t!”

She watched him carefully for a moment, evaluating. She turned to thebeast, as its thick exoskeleton gleamed in the sun while fine hairs were caughtin translucent display. She clapped her hands and the wings sprang to life,along with the deep droning. The creature rose a few feet in front of Shannon,then drifted toward Cobb.

“Shannonnn …?”

The droning increased to buzz-saw decibel. The thorax curled forward,and for the first time Cobb’s gaze found the wickedly curved stinger.

Beeler leaped between them, waving her arms.

“NO!”

The beast hovered as if uncertain. The antennae worked back and forthwhile the mandibles clacked a menacing tune. Finally it righted itself andvanished, droning receding behind it.  

Cobb’s pulse pounded in his throat. Given the strength to size ratio ofinsects, the thing had to be three four times as strong as it appeared. Thewind blasts had been substantial. For a long moment he could only grip the rakeand stare at Beeler. Finally he found his voice.

“God! That was real? Not a drone? It was a real goddamn wasp?”

“Oh, they’re real, all right.” She laughed, but then it died down asshe saw the fear on his face. “It’s okay, Wes. I’ve got ‘em handled. Somehow myvoice and scent become imprinted on them along with the formula … maybebecause I talk and sing a lot back here by myself. Maybe next time when youvisit I’ll be in one of them snooty mansions where I used to spray for bugs.”

Cobb wanted to shout in alarm but could only stare. He looked at thespace her aberration had occupied, then back to its creator. Finally heswallowed and formed words.  

“I don’t get how …” was all he managed.

“How trailer trash altered the growth patterns of Cicada Killers?” shesaid, a little breathlessly. “I’d like to say pure brilliance, but it was a lotof reading entomology journals, hunch and experimentation, mainly withProthoracicotropic hormone (PTTH) as an internal hormone trigger and boric acidas a delivery mechanism to get the PTTH to soften and seep through theexoskeletons. They’ll drink a little from nectarized sweet water that drawsthem in initially, but misting with just enough acid to seep into the delicatewings is effective. At first I was so happy when the first ones grew as long astwo middle fingers – ha, how precise is that?”

Cobb strained to hear the buzz of those obscene wings.  

Shannon Beeler spoke a bit longer, but later he couldn’t recall whatshe said, exactly. He watched her wide dark eyes and moving lips and then hisgaze fell upon the lab table, where his hand could wrap around the neck of an Erlenmeyer flask. Its thick base could serve as auseful blunt object. His mind went into a loop, urging him to take her outright here and now with one massive blow to the temple and then run like hellfor the truck before any more of the beasts appeared.

But she hadn’t threatened him, and he wasn’t a murderer.

He strode from the shed.

“Wes, wait …”

Back in the truck, he slammed the cab doors shut and started it. Heopened the driver’s side a little. “You need to stop with wasp shit, Shannon.It ain’t natural.”

“Is it natural to use growth hormones on cows, turkeys and chicken?”

“Barnyard animals don’t want to kill me. That wasp did. Stop this shitnow, before it goes too far!”

In the side view mirrors she watched him leave. He gripped the wheelhard to try and stave off the shudders.

At the intersection of her pathways and the state road, a dark sedanslowed and waited for Cobb to exit. Judging by the mesh barrier between thefront and back seat areas, and the laptop between the female driver and malepassenger, they were police.  

Cobb hesitated, hands shaking on the steering wheel. The cops observedhim expectantly. The driver rolled her finger for him to get moving.

Should he tell them?

They’d think he was crazy.

He eased his truck into the road and pulled alongside their vehicle. Heslid his door back. “About time,” the cop said. She shook her head and goosedthe sedan to turn onto Shannon Beeler’s driveway.  

Finally Cobb leaned out. “Hey! Hey, wait!”

But the cops rolled on, raising a cloud of white dust as they headedfor the orange trailer.

                                      *         *         *

 “We’re working a missing person case.”

Sergeant Davis held up a sheet of paper with a photo on it. OfficerTindell, her male counterpart, took the opportunity to peer inside the windowsof the trailer.

“Saw him a couple Wednesdays ago,” Shannon Beeler said.

This drew Tindell’s attention. He pulled out a small note pad out andstarted writing.

“Go on,” Davis said.

Beeler shrugged. “He delivered some lab supplies and was gone. Haven’tseen him since.”

Davis nodded. “We’re talking the last few days. His girlfriend hasreported him missing.”

Beeler was silent.

“How would you describe the encounter?”

“Brief.”

“We need you to come to the station and tell us more.”

“I suggest you leave.”

“Doesn’t work that way.”

By now the sun was high enough to illuminate the gaps between the lawnand the bushes.  

Beeler uttered a high-pitched, crooning note. In the woods, a deepbuzzing sound answered, followed by another. After a moment she uttered thesounds again.  

The buzzing rushed toward them. Two large shapes broke from thesurrounding woods and hovered behind the cops. Tindell had time to reach forhis gun as leg hooks tore into him. The mega wasp held him tightly while thecurved stinger thrust between his legs and penetrated his spine. His screamtrailed off, lost in the fading buzzing as she bore him away.

Davis started shooting with the gun barely free of its holster. The beasthardly seemed to notice. It snatched her and arched its body to bring thestinger into play.

“No you won’t!” Davis cried, bashing at the monster’s snappingmandibles with the spent gun. A radio appeared in her other hand. “Dispatch,Four Bravo Three! Ten-double zero! Officer down! Officer dow—ugh!”

The stinger pierced her back. The wasp’s thorax undulated as it pumpedvenom into the detective. Davis’ movements slowed, freezing the horror on herface. The radio fell from rigid fingers.

“Four Bravo Three, Dispatch. Please respond! All units, Ten-doublezero. Repeat, Ten double zero. Converge on Four Bravo Three’s last knowlocation of—”

The dispatcher gave Shannon Beeler’s address.  

The wasp flew off with its paralyzed prey clutched to its underside.Blonde hair waved as they vanished over the forest canopy. Dozens of smallerwasps darted around now, excited by the actions of their larger aunts. Manypaused and hovered around Beeler as she crooned. Gently she waved her arms backand moved her body from side to side. The insects followed her motions, likereef fish gliding back and forth with the waves.

Cross-chatter from the police radio on the ground.    

Shannon Beeler picked it up and pressed the side button. “Still there,Dispatch?”

“Identify yourself! Who are you?”

The arch of her brows steepened, then lowered as part of a frown.    

“Where are the detectives? Answer! Where are the detectives!”

Beeler stood frozen. The cloud of wasps drifted hypnotically aroundher. Many of the smaller ones landed on her, crawled a bit and then halted. Bydegrees her face relaxed, then sprang into crazed animation.

“Sheeeee’s watching the detectives!” Beeler laughed and sang the oldElvis Costello song into the police radio. She sang and spun slowly as she madeher way to the back yard laboratory, the wasps undulating en mass around her.Finally breathless, she halted and stared at the lab, then gazed at theweathered trailer.

“Here this, people,” Beeler said, into the police radio. “You’re notwelcome in the land of Sphecius speciosus. Queen Bee, out!”

She hurled the radio over the shed.

She sang even louder now. The insects flooded in and danced through theair.

They emerged from burrowed nests, the surrounding woods, and beneathBeeler’s trailer. The decibel level doubled and tripled as they closed in fromthe surroundings, including scores of the large ones. Gleefully Beeler sprayedthem all with her formula. Then she went inside the trailer, got the keys tothe exterminator truck and pulled it around back before the shed. She kickedoff the reservoir containers, tainted with bug poison. She replaced them withmany nests, jugs of formula, sprayers and lab equipment.

She didn’t bother packing personal items or food.

The mansion overlooking the Fear River had everything—including anunderground bunker.

The current tenants would provide fine ‘rich’ dining for wasp larvae.Even now, a swarm of the insects flew around, wings collectively thudding theair like a squadron of helicopters. Some crawled over the truck as she droveoff, but hundreds more—perhaps thousands—flew above and around it.

The first sirens started beyond the woods.

The dark cloud followed her three miles to the gated community.

The security guard slid open his glass door. He took a half-step out,the challenge dying on his lips as he registered the noise, then what wascausing it.

Shannon Beeler sat silently in the driver’s seat. On impulse sheextended her arm out the window and sliced the air. One of the large waspssuddenly hovered face-to-face with the guard. He had time enough to realize thenightmare was real, and to scream when the beast reared up, leg hooks thrustingforward. The thin legs were like iron rods. She held him in place and sank herstinger into his back, then flew off with her immobilized prize.

Beeler’s truck snapped the boom with ease.

She drove the gracefully winding avenues to the mansion she hadserviced as a pest control technician, and floored it into the iron gate. Thetruck’s grill crumpled a couple inches, headlights shattered, the hoodpuckered, and a jet of hot steam erupted, but there was enough engine to make itup the driveway, where she slammed into the back of a black Mercedes. Theroaring cloud passed over her as she got out and stood before a porch as broadas her entire trailer. She gazed at the alabaster columns and the massivestructure that beckoned behind them.

And smiled.

The wasps descended upon the dwelling. They crawled over the tieredroofs, the faux parapets, thick walls. Scores of them circled around theopulent columns to greet their queen as she strode up the porch steps and stoodwith her hands on her hips before iron double doors. Two giant wasps wrenchedthem from their hinges and dropped them, clanging, at her feet.

The insects formed a black tide and flooded inside.  

The owner and workers of the mansion became nest nutrition. As did theneighbors.

Soon the entire gated community was emptied of residents.

Passing motorists had their doors torn off and occupants plucked away.Often the car was still moving when the driver was ripped out, leaving thevehicle to crash.

Those of the township who could flee did so. If they didn’t leave fastenough, the wasps took them. Soon only one human could walk freely in the landof mansions on the Fear River.  

Shannon Beeler.

The police made raid after raid.

Most of the time Beeler waited in the underground bunker’s theater forthe gunfire to stop. One cop even had a chance to speak through a bullhornbefore he too, was taken. Eventually they had enough firepower to bring down afew of the dog-sized wasps, but then bear-sized ones took their place and toreapart every group sent against them. Mandibles cut limbs and heads from bodies.Remains that were not consumed were dropped into the broad feeder creek, wherethey made an island of human flotsam.

Bull sharks, alligators and vultures feasted.

Until they, too, were plucked up.

Police snipers were snatched from the landscape, as were entiresquadrons.

The Coast Guard cutter stationed in Wilmington was summoned. Shannon’sswarm rose from the forests and hillsides as a vengeful storm and interceptedthe ship as it sliced the river. Booming rounds went out from the 25 mm chaingun at the bow. They ripped into the cliff face and blew holes into the sidesof the mansion. Glass had no chance of remaining intact. Coasties on deck toreinto the swarm with automatic rifle fire.  

The insects closed on them in a thousand directions at once. Waspsperished under hails of automatic gunfire, but after fifteen minutes allgunfire had quieted, replaced by trailing shouts as Coasties were carried offor killed outright. Mammoth bugs blackened the hull and decks, and splatteredthem with blood and ichor. They raced in an out of the hatches. After twentyminutes they flew off. The vessel, now unmanned, ultimately rammed the sands ofa nameless river beach.

Next to try were special forces. Some made it back alive, none unscathed.The more they sent, the more powerful the swarm became.  

Politicians kept the larger military at bay. They cited the ancientRoman axiom that you don’t let an army operate en mass inside your borders,unless it’s a civil war.  

Were it permitted to do so, the Air Force could drop a bunker buster,but there were  networking tunnels now andmany houses in which to evade death. The wasp swarm could darken the skies likethe Persian arrows at the Battle of Thermopylae. The large ones had large offspring.Beeler did not necessarily have to create more, but she did anyway.

Small aircraft no longer flew low. Military drones fared no better.

Shannon Beeler made the FBI’s Most Wanted List. They cut her power butthe bunker had its own power supply, and there were generators everywhere inthis neighborhood.

Civilian activity thinned. The Fear River area in all directions becamea kill zone. The wasps spread further and further out, owning the day andremaining alert but largely hidden at night. Those that succumbed to bulletsand grenades were soon replaced.

Signposts went up along everyroad in the area. They featured a black outline of a wasp against neon yellow,over which was painted in jagged red letters:

Welcome to Shannonsland

                                       *         *         *

An army colonel and police captain stood before Wes Cobb on a narrowriver beach. The three were surrounded by a group of cops and soldiers whostood with rifles ready. With a few exceptions guarding the rear and flanks,they faced a broad creek stemming from the Fear River. Small waves lapped thesand and sides of Cobb’s kayak. A warm breeze diced the surface water, creatinga glittering path toward the beach and pock-marked cliff at the opposite shore.

Cobb grabbed his backpack tank and electric sprayer from where they haddeposited them on the sand. He hefted them into the middle of the kayak as the twocommanders spoke of tides, current and wind.

The guy holding the paddle stared at its owner with contempt.

Cobb kneeled and, using the two leaders as a screen, pretended toadjust the fit of the prosthetic leg. He wasn’t all comfortable with it yet,but had already modified it a little. He pulled at the thin blade as he stood,felt the press of steel against the inside of his forearm. “The current’s stillheaded toward Beeler’s beach, but it won’t be if you keep my ass here muchlonger.”

“Our raids were done from fast-moving boats,” the colonel said,breaking off his conversation to fix Cobb with weary stare. “You putz over inthat toothpick and the bugs’ll fly out and snatch you from the middle. Tooeasy.”

“Have you seen ‘em fly at night?” Cobb replied. “… because Ihaven’t.”  

The police captain’s face contorted in the moonlight. “Tell that to thecops and soldiers we lost on half a dozen night raids!”

“Were the boats in the water when the bugs struck, or on shore?”

Silence told Cobb he was right. “Five weeks ago they crawled into myneighborhood after dark. Busted through doors and windows like wrapping paper.One clamped onto my leg and slammed me against the wall while another … stungmy wife and crawled away with her. I lost my grip on my gun. I didn’t even geta goddamn shot in.”

“Sorry,” the top cop said, her expression softening a bit.  

“My neighbor showed up with his deer rifle while the goddamn bugslammed me back and forth,” Cobb said, sloshing through the shallows toward theguy with his paddle. “Howard put some rounds through its eyes and it finallywent down. Used his belt as a tourniquet around my thigh. Slowed the flow justas mandibles reached from behind and took his head off. I shot his rifle a fewtimes and blacked out. Evidently Howard had also called 911 ‘cause I woke up ina hospital bed three days later. Too long for my Brenda to survive a wasplarvae.”

“You did what you could do,” the police chief said.  

“No,“ Cobb said. "But I am now.”

“A properly motivated fighter can rain hell on the enemy,” the colonelsaid. “But that acid in your tank is an inferior weapon. No range, son. Even ifyou did manage to drop one, it’d just fall and pin you down.”

Cobb shook his head. “They hate this concentrated shit, and I got themelted bug bodies piled up around the house to prove it. They come flying in byday, and crawling by night. Looks like she hasn’t bred them into night flyers.”The sloshing stopped as he stood before the soldier holding his paddle. “…yet.”

The colonel grunted.  

The special forces soldier spun Cobb’s kayak paddle like an airplanepropeller. “Might be hand paddles tonight, civilian.”

A few rough laughs came from the others.

Cobb grabbed the paddle with one hand and slid his other hand low. Thepropeller halted and the men eyed one another; one in camouflage shirt andpants, muscles pressing against the material, and the other in a sleevelesst-shirt, shorts and boots and looking a little frail after rapidly droppingfifteen or twenty pounds.

     “One throat punch and Isave the bugs the trouble of ending you, gimpy,” the dude said from behindorange-tinted sunglasses.  

The moon was big and bright, but not enough for shades.

“A month ago, yeah. Not today,” Cobb said.

“Any day.”

Cobb leaned in, and the soldier rose a bit on his toes. Cobb pressedwith enough force to leave no doubt of the price of sudden movement.  

“Blade’s a good idea,” the soldier said. “Might need to slit your ownthroat when that jacked-up water gun fails.”

Cobb stared through him with lidded eyes. For a moment he saw thehorror on Brenda’s face as the stinger entered her back. He blinked the imageback and jerked the paddle away. He let the knife linger, then withdrew it. “Goteam.”

“I could still arrest you,” the cop said.  

“For kayaking at night?” Cobb said.

“Why do it? We’ll get Beeler eventually. Yeah, the bugs are fast andstrong. In the end, though, we’ll win.”

“Hasn’t happened so far. None of this shit scares her. She figuresshe’s due and it’s all Shannon’s land now.”

The boric acid sloshed in the tank as he pushed the kayak onto the darkwaters and slid in. The others fell silently away as Cobb paddled across thebroad creek. He paused beneath the overhead canopy of stars, took out acigarette pack and tapped it against the heel of his hand. Two cancer sticksflew into the river, but he pulled a third out with his lips. He exchanged thepack for a lighter.  

Tremors made the flame dance. Finally he lit the cancer stick. New,short-lived habit. Didn’t matter much without Brenda. He took several deeppulls then started again, keeping his gaze on the strip of pale beach wherecorpses of both human and insect had washed up.

With the red-tipped cigarette bobbing from the corner of his mouth,Cobb kept the kayak’s prow centered on the steep but not vertical cliffs, wellaware that each stroke brought death that much closer. You have to know wherethe killers are, and where they are likely to be.

Draw them to you and you know where they are.

Buzzing started here and there from the nest holes in the cliff sides,beyond the cris-crossed trunks of Loblolly pines fractured by bombs and .50caliber bullets. A distant voice sounded, female, crooning somethingunintelligible but mellifluous.

“Shut up, Shannon,” Cobb said.  

He took a final drag and flicked the cigarette. The white stem and redglowing tip tumbled and then struck the shallows with a hiss. He put clearsafety glasses on. Acid mist plays hell on naked eyeballs. As the prow of thekayak slid softly into the sand, he stepped out, spray rifle ready.

Only relative silence met him. No six-legged footsteps, no buzzingwings, no clicking mandibles. Just a soft breeze that whispered of Death’sarrival.

Tensed for battle and receiving none, he doused the gaps between thefallen trees for good measure. He pushed the kayak out and watched it drift awaya moment. Then he started toward the cliff trail that wound up the cliff.  

Sounds from above responded to his steps.

He negotiated the fallen trees, the wasp carcasses, human remains and fracturedrock before arriving at the start of the trail. Moonlight gleamed off the face.In the many holes in the cliff, protruding antennae slowly moved back andforth. Mandibles knocked and clicked, along with bursts of deep buzzing and thescraping of leg hooks against stone.

A broken trail of stone steps zig-zagged upward. He sprayed everythirty feet before him and shot into the nearest holes, forcing the antennae tovanish deeper inside. He climbed up, higher and higher, boric acid sloshing inthe tank on his back.  

He went down a few times, but not beneath hooked legs and snappingjaws, just trips. He wasn’t all that used to the prosthetic for climbing.Gasping for breath, he finally cleared the trail and stood in the ruins of ahuge flagstone patio; toppled stone walls, splintered columns of what had probablybeen a pergola, and what was either the remnants of a large fire pit, or thecalling card of a mortar or grenade.

He glimpsed the bugs in the shadows of the trees and the ruins of thehouse, some half exposed in the moonlight. His streams of boric acid gave riseto a mist that lingered before slowly dissipating. He’d done this enough toknow that given the numbers of bugs concentrated here, something else persuadedthem to stay beyond reach.  

“Wesley Cobb.”

She stepped from behind a broken column. The black sleevelessmini-dress clung to her reduced form and the high heels gleamed in themoonlight. Like himself, gone were ten or fifteen pounds of extra weight. Largedark eyes dominated her lean face. The perpetual dark rimmed glasses were gone.One arm was across her midsection, with the elbow of the other propped upon it,pistol aimed at night sky. “My swarm doesn’t like your formula! I don’t like iteither.”

“To hell with you and your swarm,” Cobb snarled. He squeezed a couplebursts at her and the dark forms that inched closer from the perimeter.

Beeler ducked behind the column and the bugs scurried back.

“Stop, Wes!” she cried. “Please, I don’t want to shoot you!” Her armand partial profile appeared with a flash and bang. The bullet tore into thestone tile at his feet, sending shards into his good leg and sparks off thesteel rod of his prosthetic. He groaned a bit but did not go down.  

She slowly reappeared, smoking barrel raised to the stars once again.“I didn’t want them to go after you or Brenda. I – I didn’t have to come outfor this. There’s enough moonlight for normal binoculars. I see them across theriver, and that it was you in the kayak. I had my swarm hold back so you couldget here.”

He lowered the rifle tip and took a couple steps closer. She loweredthe pistol, hammer clicking forward beneath her thumb.

“Murder agrees with you,” Cobb said, glancing at heroutfit.

“Wes, don’t … I … thought you might like this.”  

“Was it worth it?”

“Most of it, yes. But not this. Not with you.”

“It isn’t your world to burn, Shannon Beeler.”

“It’s take or get taken!”

“Which nest is Brenda’s body in?”

Her eyes welled with tears. “Wes, it’s been … too long.”

“Yeah, thanks for that.” He raised the rifle and squeezed the trigger.

“Wes, no ..!”

Her bullets tore through his acid stream. She screamed and her roundsdropped him. The bugs closed in, mandibles slicing into his body and taking hishands. Within the torrent of agony and fading consciousness, Cobb glimpsed asudden light in the night sky. It grew exponentially brighter in seconds. Therush drowned out the screams and the bugs tearing him apart. There was a briefmoment of realization, then the world exploded.

 Back on the far shore, thecolonel and police captain watched through binoculars.

“Shannon Beeler is no longer a queen bee,” said the colonel.

“We took our guy out too,” said the top cop.

“Cobb was a dead man when he left in that kayak,” the colonel said.“You saw the bugs swarm after Beeler’s rounds hit him. We did him afavor.”  

A radioman stepped forward.  

“Sir! Command wants to know about a second drone strike.”

“Why the hell not?” said the colonel. “Cobb was right. The bugs don’tfly at night. Let’s pound her headquarters and all those damn nests to themolecular level.”

As he uttered the words, loud buzzing started across the waters. Itbuilt exponentially as more and more joined from other directions. Dark shapesstreamed forth from the cliff sides, woods, and forsaken mansions and took tothe night sky.

Moonlight glowed dully upon the hard exoskeletons of thousands ofmonster Cicada Killers, and lit a cloud of semi-translucent wings. As Death’s shadowthey raced across the waters toward the fleshy humans. Shouts rang out, alongwith the click and clatter of readying weapons and bursts of gunfire.

“Retreat!” the colonel cried, firing his .45 into the swarm.

A black shape swooped. His gun splashed into the river and he was laidout on the sand with a bleeding scalp. He started to get back up when a waspthe size of a bear clamped onto him.  

The police captain drew her sidearm and fired into the beast’s eyes,then kicked it away. She stood over the fallen colonel. Flashes from her roundslit the area.

“Looks like with proper motivation they can fly at night!” the top copsnarled, an instant before a passing hooked claw severed her arm.

The gunfire faded. Screams punctuated the bass drone of powerful wings.The others were dead or dying or becoming paralyzed provisions.

Blood spurts from the police captain splattered the water. With her remaininghand she pulled a .357 revolver from her ankle holster. She fired three shotsinto the eyes of the closest beasts.

Another ended colonel’s scream as a stinger sank into his back.

The final round tore through her temple.