The Billy Club Bastard Case Files: The Case of the Devouring Storm, Part 3 of 6

Mickey Malloy has reached his limit and chewed his way past it. Now he must figure out exactly what he is dealing with, because what he’s seen so far has been awful.

Until Only Roaches Remain is available as a Kindle ebook, in paperback, and as a DRM-free ebook.

This is Part 4 of The Case of the Devouring Storm. To avoid spoilers, check out Parts 1, 2 and 3 first.

Content warnings: Mild swearing, alcohol use, death, violence, gun violence, animal violence, gore, Nazis.

MONDAY EVENING, MAY 3, 1943
PLAINWOOD BROTHERS FLYING CO.
SABETHA, KANSAS

Mickey parked the car down the dusty road from the crop-dusting company's hangar. All the places they'd visited so far looked the same: re-purposed barns that were barely standing. He took a final drag on his cigarette and threw it out the open window. Lewison stayed silent and watched the red cherry die out in the dirt.

“Let me handle this one, kid,” Mick said. “Those last folks weren't too welcoming to you, and I've been busting wiseguys since you were wearing... whatever you folks put on babies.”

“Diapers,” Lewison sighed.

“Yeah, diapers.” Mick squinted against the reddening sun. It was about to dip directly behind the Plainwood brothers' makeshift hangar.

“There’s still folks around here holding grudges from back when the Ioway supported the freesoilers,” Lewison said with a shrug.

“The who?”

“John Brown’s people, about a hundred years back,” Lewison said.

“John Brown, you mean the abolitionist?” Mick asked.

“One and the same. You sure you want these boys?” Lewison asked him. “They might be even less responsive to a fancy, big city fed.”

“Fancy?” Mick muttered. He looked down. His white shirt was closer to eggnog yellow, his jacket was rumpled and dusty, and not just from Kansas dust. Interstate dust. There were whiskey stains on his tie, visible even though it was obsidian black. Stains on wrinkles on dirt on sweat. Mick hesitated to consider what kind of knuckleheads would find him fancy.

A closer look told him that Lewison might be on to something. The old barn looked worse than the buildings at the Lamasso ranch, even after they'd been attacked and scraped to raw wood.

“Same script as before: I’m the neighbor with a buggy field, bury the lede, look around, and get on out of there.” He looked pleased with himself. “Information extraction one-oh-one.”

“And where do I fit in?” Mick asked.

“Looks like you fit in that car seat just fine,” Lewison said. “I can handle this, old man.”

“Old man?” Mickey grinned and took a slug of bottom-shelf brown from his flask. “No, we’re going to go it Tampa-style: right up the gut, ask questions, and ask 'em hard. I don't have time to screw around.”

He pointed over his shoulder at Lewison's shotgun in the back seat.

“Grab that, hold it with purpose, and stand behind me.” Mick shoved the car door open, saying: “Nothing gets country boys off-balance quicker than badges, guns, legal-speak, and the promise of extra noses in their business.”

Mick hauled himself out, straightened his coat, and made sure he slammed the door loud enough for the Plainwood brothers to hear it. Once they saw a big man in black marching up with a gun-totting Indian in tow, they'd be sweating bullets before Mick even got to the door.

“Not a big fan of the subtle approach?” Lewison asked.

“How’s that been working out for us?” Mick asked. He offered Lewison a cigarette from his deck but he turned it down. Mickey shrugged and lit it up for himself. The two investigators walked the rest of the way to the hangar in silence, save for the gravel crunching under their feet.

The sun was grazing the horizon by the time they were spitting distance from the dilapidated barn. Mick sauntered up in front of the double doors, planted his feet, and shouted at the gnarled structure.

“Misters Plainwood!” he called. “This is Special Agent Michael Malloy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation!”

Mick looked over his shoulder and winked at Lewison. The younger man nodded and held his shotgun at ready across his chest.

“I'm here with regard to some unconventional crop dusting methods someone might have employed you to use. We have warrants for your property and subpoenas for your statements endorsed by Secretary...” Mick cursed under his breath and squinted to read the name he'd scrawled on his palm. “...by Secretary of Agriculture Wickard himself.”

The two men waited in silence. There weren't even crickets to keep them company.

“Misters Forrest and Crawford Plainwood, this is the government! Open up and answer some questions!” Mickey shouted. They got no response.

“Eyes open, kid,” Mickey hissed over his shoulder. He loosened his .38 special in its armpit holster, then tried getting the barn-burners' attention one last time.

“Boys, you don't come out, we have the legal obligation to come in,” he hollered. Still nothing. He stepped away from the closed barn doors to consult Lewison.

“Secretary of Agriculture?” Lewison whispered.

“Sounded like it could make sense,” Mick muttered. “Anywhere else they could be?”

“I’ve known these two for a while, they fly for one of my neighbors. They converted the hay loft, so they live upstairs, above the plane. Doors are closed, so the plane's here. That’s their truck, they’re here.”

Mick nodded and got down to business. It was good to have a local guide on unfamiliar ground.

“Doors are closed and no answer. I always like to assume that means a suspect has got something to hide.” Mickey pulled his snub nose revolver. He walked up to the door and peered through the wide crack between the barn doors.

“Take a look at this,” he hissed, waving Lewison over.

“Eyes not what they used to be?” the younger man whispered. He knelt and peered inside. The plane was in there, its canvas wings folded up to fit on the barn floor.

“What is it?” he asked.

“There, at the top of the ladder.”

Lewison followed the ladder up to the converted hay loft. The feed had been replaced with furniture and junk, an apartment and office for the Plainwood brothers and their business. Two pale bare feet dangled over the edge of loft, toes down and motionless.

“The plane, too,” Mickey hissed. A limp arm hung hooked over the lip of the open seat cockpit. The skin was pale and the veins dark.

“No wonder they didn't have anything to say about big government pounding on their door,” Mick said. “Let’s check this out.”

Mickey spit his cigarette onto the ground and reared back. His heavy boot collided with the doors, snapping the rusty latch. They groaned apart on squealing rollers.

Mickey gingery stepped through, surveying the hangar behind his pistol sights. Lewison took up the rear, sweeping ahead and behind with his scatter gun. Mick went straight for the biplane.

Something dry crunched under his feet. He looked down, expecting more gravel.

Instead, the floor was scattered with the desiccated remains of thousands of bugs. Every step crushed legs-up corpses, all dry and brittle, smashing them to powder under his leather soles. Mick looked back at Lewison, who shrugged.

“They are exterminators,” the younger man offered. Mickey shrugged and crunched his way to the plane.

Crawford Plainwood was slumped forward in the cockpit, his forehead cradled by the yoke. He was a middle-aged man, balding with a scraggly beard. He stared straight down with gummy, yellowed eyes, studying his shoes with morbid intensity. The corpse was sheet white, fingers and lips blue. Mick poked at Crawford's jugular with a stubby finger.

“Definitely dead. But still warm,” Mick observed aloud. “Fever warm.”

Lewison nodded. He silently cleared the corners of the barn and raised his shotgun up to cover the former hay loft.

Mick trusted Lewison to keep him covered and went back to inspecting the dead man. He shoved Crawford back in his seat. The body flopped back easily. No rigor yet.

The blue lips told Mickey that the man had been asphyxiated. Mick went down his checklist. He looked at the neck first, for bruises or rope burns. He found long scratches, going up and down Crawford's throat. There was skin under his dirty fingernails. Self-inflicted: he was fighting to breathe as his airway closed up. Mick recoiled and tied his black bandana over his nose and mouth. He'd seen the effects of chemical attacks all too well in the trenches.

“Stay back!” he shouted, waving Lewison away from the plane.

Mick fumbled through his pockets and eventually found the miniature investigation kit the Office gave to all of its inspectors. The leather pouch was the size of a shaving bag and contained all kinds of forensic tools that Mick had never used before.

He dug through its pockets until he found a glass tube with a slip of brown paper inside. He snapped the tube and waved the strip over the body. After thirty seconds he examined the paper. It had shifted hues until it was fire engine red. A trickle of sweat dripped off his lumpy nose.

Mickey pulled out a color chart and compared it to the strip's alarming hue. After a triple check, he let out a mammoth breath of relief and untied his bandana.

“We're clear,” Mick said. He dried his forehead with his bandana then stuffed it back into his pocket.

“Red is good?” Lewison asked skeptically.

“Red’s good. Blue's carbon monoxide, orange is methane, yellow is chlorine gas or phosgene, and it turns green for mustard. Nothing coming up here.” Lewison visibly relaxed after Mickey explained the test results.

Mick had neglected to mention the other chemical weapons that the Hostile Substance Battery tested for, the things he was actually scared of. If the strip had turned violet, it meant blood gas and Mickey's skin would be bubbling up with blood-filled blisters already. Black indicated crazy gas, and he'd only be able to stand it a couple minutes before he started clawing at his own face and shooting at Lewison. Gray, brown, and white were things he'd never heard of, and you didn't need a piece of paper to detect residual black smoke. The oily stains, lingering coal-dust mist, and puddles of liquified flesh would be a clear enough clue.

“What happened to him?” Lewison asked.

“Couldn't say. Looks a lot like asphyxiation,” Mick said. The other agent joined him standing over the corpse.

“But no ligature marks, no bruises, no defensive wounds, no...” Lewison leaned over the corpse and sniffed it. “No chloroform or any chemical I can smell. No foam or crust in the mouth beyond the normal dead guy gunk.”

“Just the self-inflicted scratches,” Mick said.

“Anaphylaxis?” Lewison asked.

“No hives, no swelling, no redness,” Mick replied.

“What about rigor?” Lewison asked, and he picked up Crawford's wrist before Mickey could say anything. He just about threw the dead man's hand back down once he touched it. “He's burning up! What is that?”

“That is the scientists' territory. I got no idea.” Mick replied. He looked from Crawford's corpse to Forrest's bare feet hanging over the top of the ladder.

“No idea,” Lewison agreed.

“Let's see if we can't get anything off the second body,” Mickey said. “You take the ladder first, my knees feel twenty years older than they look, and they don't look young.”

Lewison chuckled and slung his Browning across his back. He latched on to the wooden loft ladder and scuttled up it like a spider. At the top rung he leaned peered around Forrest Plainwood's feet and peered at the body, his nose level with the loft floor.

“Looks the same up here,” he called down. Mick shook his head. Unless Lewison found anything else, this was going to be a dead end for them. They’d have to let the eggheads take over from there.

“Come on down then, we'll call ‘em in and leave it for the coroner,” Mickey said. He holstered his .38 and tried to leave. His radio transponder was in the car. Once he alerted the rest of the Office, it’d only be a few hours ‘til someone who dealt with corpses showed up.

“Hold on, this guy might be...” Lewison said. He stepped up another rung.

“What is it?” Mickey said.

“I think he's breathing!” Lewison shouted. He pulled himself up one more rung and flipped Forrest onto his back. “His chest is moving, he's...”

Mickey dashed to the base of the ladder. A witness was just what he needed.

“Can he talk?” Mick called up.

“I don't think so, he's not conscious,” Lewison offered.

“Can you get him down?”

“I'll try.” Lewison climbed the rest of the way up the ladder, disappearing from Mickey's view. The old detective could hear him moving the downed pilot around.

He heard a pop.

Mickey knew that sound, though he'd never heard it in concert before. Ribs snapping, a rack of them, all at once, combined with skin shearing under pressure. Warm gore showered over the edge of the loft, splattering Mickey's shoes.

“Máñikathi mín'gre!” Lewison shouted. He scrambled down the ladder as fast as he could. His hands left red prints on every rung.

“What in the hell - !” Mick started, but Lewison bolted past, smearing gore off of his face.

“Time to go!” he shouted as he sprinted out of the hangar.

Mick took off after him, but he didn’t have the get-up-and-go that Lewison did. An alien howl overtook him in seconds. A glance over his shoulder revealed a brown cloud pouring out of the loft, writhing and ravenous.

The howl surged after him, breaking into the penetrating drone of thousands of swooping, swarming cockroaches.

Mick tripped over one of the biplane's tire blocks, landing flat on his face next to the tattered plane's cockpit. Mickey looked up to see Crawford's dangling arm flapping like a seal's flipper, smacking the fuselage. The body was spasming and swelling as the swarm approached. More bones popped and separated as Crawford's swelling torso split open, releasing a second swarm of roaches.

As a Floridian, Mickey'd had his share of close encounters with two-inch-long palmetto bugs, but these creatures were something else. These screamed as they flew, an uncountable flight of insectine Stukas wrapped in shining black exoskeletons, each the size of a thumb. They flew in tandem, zeroing in on Mickey, the closest living meal.

Mick squirmed for the door. He wasn’t fast enough. Black-shelled roaches dove onto him by the hundreds, crawling up his sleeves and pant legs. They surged over him like carnivorous liquid, spreading across his flesh on needle-sharp legs.

Mick swiped at them and rolled, crushing dozens at a time only for hundreds to replace them. He could feel them trying to bite, but their little jaws weren't strong enough to shred his leathery old skin. Instead, they continued their search for softer flesh.

Mickey could feel flowing up his body. When they reached his neck, he clamped his hands over his face, trying desperately to keep the creatures away from his eyes and mouth.

He could feel their scratching legs on his face, on his neck, through his hair and under his hat, across his ears. The bugs tried to force themselves into his ear canals, but their thoraxes were too wide. They crawled across the back of his hands and pressed in between his meaty fingers, searching for warmth and water. Mickey was a strong man, but there were thousands of them, hundreds of thousands. They were getting through.

A shotgun roared somewhere above him, its blast muffled by a hundred-thick layer of roaches around his head. Mick could hear Lewison yelling, but he couldn't make out any of his words. Warm liquid splashed against the back of Mick's neck and soaked his coat.

He knew that smell, even through the ten thousand musk-spraying bugs crawling over his face. It was aviation gas.

He shouted in shock.

As soon as his mouth opened dozens of roaches poured in. He slammed his teeth shut on them as fast as he could, grinding chitin between his molars. He thrashed his tongue against them, but the bugs wriggled around it and wrestled their way down his throat. He could feel their legs twisting and clawing inside his esophagus as they made their way to his gut.

Half-dead roaches squirmed between his teeth, chewing at his gums and spraying bitter fluids down his throat. Mickey gagged, trying to spit out the mangled exoskeletons. It was just an invitation for another wave of bugs. Dozens more shoved themselves into his mouth, half of them making it down his esophagus. Mick could feel them burrowing their way down to his stomach. He gagged again, inviting another attack.

A strong hand grabbed Mickey's collar and dragged him across the dirt floor. Mick tried to help, but every exertion gave the insects another chance to pile down his gullet.

They were crammed into his throat, bottle-necked by their swelling numbers. He choked, desperate for air.

After what felt like a mile, Mickey dropped to the ground. Millions of legs still ran over every inch of his skin. Suddenly the hands were back, peeling Mickey’s avgas-soaked coat off him. Mickey squirmed out of the garment and scooped enough bugs out of his eyes so that he could glimpse Lewison balling up his jacket.

Lewison threw it on the ground in a heap not two feet away from Mickey's left side and went to it with a match, lighting off a greasy fireball. Black smoke boiled up from the soiled fabric and roasting roaches. Lewison crouched opposite Mick and frantically fanned the flames with a flat piece of wood.

With each wave, heat and smoke rolled over Mick. Those roaches that weren't close enough to make a final run at Mickey's clamped mouth took flight on their stubby wings, heading back to the safety and easy meals they'd left in the hangar.

Mick felt the last of them lift off. He rolled out of the billowing smoke and smacked at every inch of himself he could reach, hoping to smash any stragglers.

“You all right?” Lewison asked. Mickey got up to his knees but immediately doubled back over, clutching his gut. He could only shake his head. Lewison stooped and hooked the burning jacket over his shotgun’s muzzle. “Hold on there, old timer, I have to handle this.”

Mickey didn't care. He could feel the scores of roaches that had invaded his body crawling around inside him. Their little legs scratched at the lining of his belly, little mandibles chewing away at his delicious organs. He was going to be their nest, a meaty womb their young would be born in and then eat their way out when they grew into a new swarm of demon insects.

Mick flopped backward and settled on his rear in the middle of the dirt road, trying desperately to heave. Behind him, Lewison tossed the burning coat into the barn. Hungry flames reared up when it met the settled puddle of aviation gas in the middle of the hangar floor.

The relentless fire met the biplane’s fuel tank, sending the entire barn up with a chemical howl.

Mick imagined that he could hear a million buggy screams as the flames consumed the retreated swarm, and imagined he couldn't feel the live ones crawling up his stomach walls.

“I could drink to that,” Mick muttered. He pulled his flask from his pocket and bought it to his lips but did not drink. He looked down. The bottle of emetic with still in his other pocket. He whipped it out and stared at the brown glass for a long moment.

“That old bastard,” he growled. Evenstad must have known about the roaches. That was the only way he'd know to give them the bottle. Lewison was polishing soot off his shotgun's barrel when he strolled back.

“What do you think of the kid now, old man?” he asked, his smirk bigger than ever. He sat down next to Mick and noticed the bottle in the detective's knotted mitt. “That's the emetic Doctor Evenstad gave us?”

Mick only nodded.

“So some of those things… some of those… they got in your...” Lewison couldn't even finish his sentence without dry-gagging.

Mick just nodded again. He took a sharp breath, let it out slow, then took a quick slug of the mysterious liquid. It was thick, but not as thick as syrup, closer to heavy cream. The sweet shot went down easily enough, but left a bitter aftertaste in Mickey's mouth. He made a face, then held the bottle out for Lewison.

“None for me, thanks,” he said. Mick shrugged, capped the bottle, and turned it around in his hands, attempting to figure out what it was exactly.

“Probably poisons the little shits,” Mick said, hoping he'd interpreted the batty doctor's words correctly.

“What were those things?” Lewison asked him.

“All I know is where we can find someone who could answer that question,” Mick replied.

“The doctor,” Lewison realized aloud. “How else would he know to give us the bottle?”

“Reading my mind, kid,” Mick said. “Help me up.”

Lewison jumped up and took Mickey's outstretched hand, hauling him to his feet with a grunt.

“Thanks,” Mick said. He started the hike to the car, talking as he walked. “It's pretty clear that whoever we're after doesn't leave loose ends, and they're not skittish about being dramatic about it. I'll bet you a finski that they're planning on recovering that shell.”

“They're coming after the doctor?”

“That's the bet. And they're going to do it loud, right in the middle of White Cloud, civilians be damned.”

“So what do we do?”

“Usually when I deal with perps like this I call in help,” Mick answered.

“The nearest phone is at the tribal court building,” Lewison answered.

“So right now we are the help. Ever been the cavalry before, kid?” Mick asked.

“My people never saw the cavalry coming as a good thing, old man,” Lewison answered, that smirk sneaking back onto his face.

“Well, it looks like today you...” Mick stopped suddenly, pausing mid-step as well as mid-sentence.

“Today I what?” Lewison asked, stopping with him.

“Today you...” Mick started. Beads of sweat popped up across his lumpy forehead, stinging the scratches on his eyelids, lips, and nostrils. His mouth was suddenly hot and dry.

Mickey leaned forward and opened wide. Eight shots of bottom-shelf bourbon, two fried eggs, half a ham sandwich, sixty-one squirming black roaches, and one sip of ipecac came rushing up and out of his stomach and sprayed across Lewison's cowboy boots.

FRIDAY NIGHT, APRIL 3, 1943
”THE MENAGERIE,” ZOO BASE
OAK RIDGE, TENNESSEE

“Do not make any sudden movements, Charles,” Doctor Torval Evenstad shouted above the rattling hiss of ten thousand carnivorous cockroaches. The wizened old coot whispered something to his grad student, who immediately set down his atomizer and pulled and pen and pad out of his pocket.

“Why'd he stop spraying?” Doctor Charlie Cypress squeaked from the bottom of the roach tank. It was cylindrical enclosure made of bulletproof glass, four meters across and tall. He barely had room to breathe, because the gleaming, swirling mass of flesh-stripping killers were churning like an exoskeletal tornado all around him, seething over rotting logs and bloody cattle bones.

The last wisps of Evenstad's sprayed pheromones settled on Cypress, stinking of musk and acid.

“Artyom is recording these unexpected the effects of the ecto-hormones,” Evenstad offered. He leaned on the catwalk's guard rail, looking down into the at the stranded official trapped inside.

The creepy-crawlies circled Cypress like he was a maypole, energized and mesmerized. They'd just reduced a side of beef to bones in under five minutes and they would've done the same to him if Artyom hadn't sprayed them. He wasn't out of the woods yet.

“I thought that stuff was supposed to knock them out,” he said.

“As did I, which is why we must observe,” Evenstad said. He held up a gnarled hand to silence Cypress before he could object. “Please do not introduce further variables.”

“Like what?” Cypress snapped.

“The expulsion of perspiration,” Evanstad replied. Artyom whispered something, and the professor nodded, adding: “Or any bodily fluids, frankly.”

“Yeah, right,” Cypress grunted through clenched teeth. He inched from a probing tendril of hypnotized roaches, venturing from their swarm in search of food. The cattle bones crunched under his boot, gnawed hollow. Once Evenstad's concoction wore off, he'd end up in similar straits.

For a man hanging by a thread over a meat grinder, patience was not a virtue that was easy to come by.

“Throw me a ladder down,” Cypress snapped.

“You know as well as I that, distracted or not, they would use it to escape faster than you. A swarm this size would decimate this facility and escape onto the base proper,” Evenstad said.

“Then why do we have a swarm this size?” Cypress muttered.

“What did you say?” the professor asked.

“Nothing,” Cypress grunted. He had let the entomologists have their run of their wing, not bothering them while they harvested their ultra-rich honey, spun wormline, or cultivated fireflies. He hadn't blinked when they installed a 'strategic flea reserve' or asked for bulletproof thirteen-hundred-gallon tanks for cockroaches, termites, and ticks. Maybe he should have.

“So what's our plan?” Cypress called up.

“First, we capture a specimen,” Everstad said. He leaned over the edge of the suspended catwalk and swung a butterfly net. He caught up one fluttering roach and reeled it in. He snatched it out of the net and held it up, examining it with a practiced eye.

“Okay, then what?” Cypress asked. To his eye, the circling wall of carnivorous mandibles had closed in.

“It appears that the latest brood of Nordholm roaches underwent an unexpected natural mutation,” Evenstad eventually replied, his voice oozing like cold molasses.

“Interesting,” Cypress said, humoring the old man as best he could. He knew all about how pheromones were supposed to work: he'd developed one of the first weapons to utilize the stuff. What he'd never heard of was an entire population mutating an immunity to their effects in a single generation.

“I will not be able to engineer an adjusted mixture in time,” Evenstad told him. He tossed his captive roach back into the tank where it joined its hypnotized brethren into their strange dance around Cypress.

“Professor, may I suggest other options to extricate Doctor Cypress?” Artyom asked. The lanky teacher's assistant was soft-spoken in front of his mentor.

“By all means!” Cypress grunted. The swirling roaches hissed at him but maintained their pattern.

“Perhaps an acoustic deterrent,” Artyom asked.

“The only acoustic effects reported in Eurycotis nordholmaria increase aggressiveness,” Evenstad considered, tapping his chin.

“How about poison?” Cypress asked.

“The Eurycotis genus is very resilient,” Artyom chirped like he was lecturing a child. “The amount of poison it would take to neutralize this swarm would do the same to you, whether you have a gas mask or not.”

“Electric currents, then,” Cypress suggested.

“The same result, I am afraid,” Evenstad replied.

“This was a hell of a day to replace the cameras,” Cypress muttered. He had braved the alligator, karaconcolos, mannesser, and Lizard Man cells without issue. The land eel had hardly noticed he'd entered its enclosure. Baby was as happy to see him as ever, nearly tackling him out of his room, Massimo had just needed a shot of whiskey to placate him, and Qutat...

“What about Qutat?” he asked with a start.

“Your cat's subsonic vibrations have never affected an invertebrate,” Artyom huffed.

“Yeah,” Cypress sighed. Qutat was good for a lullaby, but she'd only ever gotten birds and mammals to respond to her primordial purr. He watched the tireless swarm, his mind racing. Their endless churn was bewildering. He groaned: “Don't they sleep?”

“The ecto-hormone should have induced torpor, a sleep-like state,” Evenstad explained. “Only severe changes in atmospheric conditions could replicate that effect.”

“Severe changes, huh?” Cypress asked. “Like freezing them out?”

“Yes, the rapid onset of sub-zero temperatures would create the desired conditions,” Evenstad considered.

Cypress smirked. He knew exactly how to do that.

“Artie, did you meet Mister Silva when he got here?” he asked. Artyom stood up straight.

“I attended the demonstration he put on with his Japanese weapon,” Artyom answered.

“So you know what I'm talking about,” Cypress said. “Find him.”

The wait for Artyom to leave the Entomology Wing, exit the Secure Biological Containment Preserve's double-walled gatehouse, and jump on his bicycle for the mile-and-a-half ride to the Curie Energy Sciences Lab was excruciating.

“I got the camera into the titan owl aviary, no problem,” Cypress said to himself, trying to think about anything other than the encroaching wall of pincers.

Evenstad meandered around above him, muttering to himself in Norwegian.

Installing the observation cameras into every enclosure had been Cypress' idea. After the Lizard Man's constant escape attempts and Massimo's tendency to pick locks while drunk, it seemed like the best option. Though General Gonzales had procured the cameras for him, the bump to the facility's budget didn't include extra hands to install them. So as the man with the plan and the founder of the Menagerie, installing forty cameras in thirty enclosures fell on Charlie Cypress himself.

He'd worked around some of the most dangerous creatures ever crafted by nature or science, and it was a slick of cow blood that sent him tumbling ass over elbows into a tank full of skin-shredding bugs.

Matheus Silva appeared on the catwalk fifteen minutes later. His iron-gray curls were still wet and he looked annoyed. The lumpy purple scar on his neck stood out under the artificial lighting. He shook his head and activated the strange gauntlet encasing his left hand. Frigid fog oozed between its joints. Its segmented fingers matched his scar perfectly.

Artyom stumbled over to the professor's side, sweaty and winded.

“What is this?” Silva asked, his Brazilian accent strong, his voice rattling like his just woken up. He leaned over the open tank, noting the swarming bugs what were circling within eight inches of Cypress, who was too afraid to speak up.

“E. nordhomaria carnivorous cockroaches,” Evenstad replied.

“Yes, I see, but why?” Silva wondered. He was an official through-and-through: Evenstad's explanation has not fazed him.

“To study them,” Evenstad replied. He held out a knobby hand. Silva took it. “Doctor Torval Evenstad, chief research associate.”

“Matheus Silva, inspetor regional adjunto. What am I doing here?”

“This is Doctor Charles Cypress,” Evenstad added, pointing down. “He has found himself in a dangerous situation.”

“There is only one reason to ask for me,” Silva said. He lifted his armored hand. Frost had formed on its metal fittings.

“Yes, you assume correctly, my friend,” Evenstad replied. “If an extreme change in atmospheric - !”

Silva interrupted him with a grunt:

“I know what you have called me to do.” The muscular official took a knee above the tank and grasped its upper lip with his gauntlet. It was a Black Dragon Society invention, a kind of endothermic reaction engine. It hummed and shook as Silva adjusted it output via minute finger movements. They called it the Cold Touch, and Silva was the only official who had ever captured one. That act had nearly cost him his life.

Silva had arrived at Zoo Base two weeks before, escorting the esoteric weapon. His demonstration for the research staff included freezing objects solid in his palm, creating needle-tipped crystal blades that sprouted like seedlings from his hand, and spreading a slick sheen of ice across any surface. It was impressive, but inefficient for use as a weapon. Many more available items could accomplish the same effects, for far cheaper and requiring less training.

For spontaneously freezing something in the field, however, it was the closest and fastest method.

Silva stayed latched onto the tank wall, letting a crust of rime slowly coalesce from the gauntlet like salt crystals. He grimaced at the sensation. Frost spread from every point his fingers touched. The roaches reacted to the chill, diverting their route around it. Within a minute, the entire tank was frosted over and the bugs had slowed to a molasses crawl. Cypress felt a chill in his bones and his breath came out like fog.

“They may be attracted to your warmth,” Evenstad called out. “If you swallow any, do not panic: we have means of extricating them.”

Cypress nearly gagged at the thought. He covered his mouth with both hands and watched the spinning swarm slow and slide off the glass. They settled in a horrible, twitching pile on the ground, spilling over each other and onto his boots. He stayed as still as he could.

The roaches fell out of their whirling formation, their little wings curling up, their legs kicking. The slowest ones stuck to the glass as a layer of ice slowly flowed over them.

“They are nearly subdued,” Evenstad said.

“I estimate a forty-percent loss to E. nordholmaria population, professor,” Artyom said. Evenstad shook his head.

“Yeah, well it's better than a hundred-percent loss of me,” Cypress snapped. Artyom thought better of responding to that.

Cypress was so cold he was shivering. He felt like he was at the bottom of an ice-fishing hole. Tendrils of frost reached out for him, extending from the stilled, silent roaches. Cow bones clattered around his feet.

“Get the ladder,” he said. “The sooner I'm out, the sooner we can thaw them.”

That got Artyom moving. He lowered the ladder and Cypress hauled himself up. They pulled it out again together and sealed the top of the tank.

“Why did you do this?” Silva asked once Cypress had caught his breath.

“It was an accident,” he offered. He put out one shaking, blued hand and Silva took it.

“I am glad I could help,” Silva said. He held up the Cold Touch gauntlet to show it off. Ice crystals were sublimating into fog off its armored plates. “I am glad there is a use for this other than violence.”

Cypress could see that Silva's skin was cracked and shriveled beneath the gauntlet's cuff. He understood wanting to leave it on, and to find more uses for it.

“What is all this?” Silva asked, surveying the other tanks from the catwalk. A dozen more enclosures, as large as or larger than the roaches', filled the long warehouse. Artyom had already helped Evenstad back to the ground floor where they'd begun their rounds observing the rest of their wards.

“You're in the Menagerie,” Cypress answered. “That's what we call it, at least. The Secure Biological Containment Preserve. We house all the strange creatures officials run into all over the world.”

“I see,” Silva grunted. “Do you have a trench shark?”

“We did, but it died,” Cypress replied. Whatever chemicals the Nazis pumped into those creatures, he couldn't replicate fast enough. Eun, their marine biologist, had been very broken up about it. She'd named it Nabi and it had come in sick, wounded, and underdeveloped. There wasn't anything they could do for it.

“A shame, I have never seen one,” Silva said. “Do you have a megatério?”

“A what?”

“It is big, hairy, long claws, longer tongue, digs tunnels...” Silva explained. He saw that Cypress had no idea what he was talking about. “You do not know megatério?”

“Can't say that I do,” Cypress said.

“You must visit Brasil, my friend,” Silva said. He clapped Cypress on the shoulder, dislodging a few icy flakes from his shirt. “I could show you their tunnels in the forest that we could get lost in for weeks. Yakuza use them like hidden roads.”

“Thanks, maybe I'll take you up on that,” Cypress said.

“So you have me now,” Silva said. “Show me around, let me see what we fight.”

“Of course,” Cypress said. He ignored the skittering feeling up his back. Every inch of his skin felt like bugs were running on it. He lead Silva down the catwalk ramp. “What do you want to see first?”

“What is the most dangerous creature you have here?” Silva wondered.

“They're just animals,” Cypress said.

“Humor me, Charlie, I just saved your life. Show me your most fearsome beast.”

“Fair enough. Well, we have a few mannessers and alligators, some leftovers from the Vampires Counts like karaconcolos and owls. Oh yeah, and a sciever,” Cypress said with a shrug. Silva grabbed his arm and spun him around.

“A sciever?” he hissed, freezing in place. “Here?”

His eyes raced around the entomology wing, looking for monsters.

“I've actually never seen it,” Cypress admitted. He wasn't familiar with the thing. General Gonzales had forbidden him from accessing the sciever itself. He'd read the reports, but when it came to animals, even officials were sensationalists. No animal was as deadly, hardy, or malicious as the rumors officials spread made the sciever out to be. He chuckled and said: “It's in the vault, thirty feet down, frozen solid and wired to a bomb big enough to change Tennessee's average elevation.”

“Is it dead?” Silva whispered.

“It is frozen solid,” Cypress said again. “I should think it's dead.”

“If we had been able to kill it, everyone would know,” Silva replied. His eyes were locked on the concrete floor.

“Yeah, well, frozen solid in Pykrete,” Cypress repeated. People had such strange reactions to animals, gut feelings that even logic couldn't shake. He was used to it after studying snakes his whole life. He patted Silva on the shoulder to get him moving again. The other man jumped. His gauntlet was encrusted with long spikes like the head of a mace. Cypress asked: “So where should we start? The mannessers?”

“Actually, I am very tired. I should like to leave,” Silva said.

“Sure, okay, I'll show you out.”

Silva waved him off.

“I remember the way, you have greater duties to concern yourself with,” Silva said. He swung his spiked hand around, looking for imaginary attackers, then hurried toward the exit, his pace faster than any man who wasn't terrified would go.

Cypress watched hm go. He smiled to himself. He kept no monsters at the Menagerie, only animals. Their ways simply had to be learned. Only the arrogant and ignorant had anything to fear from them.

Hell, Cypress was more worried about what they kept in the mycology and botany wings than any of his critters.

Just minutes before, he himself had almost been done in by animals. But he wasn't afraid. Cypress understood their actions, their reactions, their drives. The fear that people held for certain creatures was older than reason, and was therefore unreasonable.

Animals were just animals. Even those warped by people, even those that made officials run in terror. Even the sciever.

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Copyright © 2024 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin. Art by Bruce Connors.