sound of buzzing was furious, caught in the cold wind.
He screamed, an inarticulate sound, and pulled at the shed's door, which wouldn't budge.
His mind filled with roiling thoughts. He pulled and clawed and banged at the door, trying to open it.
'Jesus!' The door wouldn't move. He looked wildly around for a tool, something to pry it open with—and then spied the short handle of a spade lying close by on the grass.
He picked it up, noting faint scratches on the spade's face—this must have been how Ginny had gotten the door open originally...
'I'm coming!'
Mad with purpose, he pried the spade into the thin opening between wooden door and jamb, began to work it back.
There was a creaking sound, but the door held firm.
'Dammit!'
He hammered on the handle of the spade, driving it deeper into the opening. He angled it sideways and suddenly the wooden handle broke away, leaving him with the metal arm which had been imbedded in it, attached to the blade. He pushed at the blade, getting faint purchase but shouting with the effort.
'Dammit!' The handle slipped, slicing into his hand, but he ignored the pain, the quick line of blood, and kept pushing and banging.
The door gave a bit, but still wouldn't open.
Buzzing filled his ears, an angry sound now—he realized that when he opened the door the hornets might rush out at him but he didn't care.
He drove the thought from his mind.
The voice was growing fainter.
He shouted, and became aware that lights were going on around him—still he beat at the handle.
The door gave way another fraction; it was almost open—
'Jesus! Open, dammit!'
With supreme effort, which caused the broken metal handle of the spade to push painfully into his open wound, the door opened with a huge groaning creak and flew back on its hinges.
'Ginny!'
There was darkness within, a seething fog of flying things—and then something stumbled out into his arms, something white and alive, a human skeleton with a skin made of hornets. Writhing alive orange and black insects covered her skull, her arms, her fingers which gripped him tightly as he stumbled backwards screaming in its embrace. The thing walked with him, holding him tightly, hornets making Ginny's face, boiling alive in the empty eye sockets to make eyes, and hair, and lips on the skeletal mouth.
The mouth moved, the opening jawbone hissing with the movement of hornets. The writhing face showed something that was almost tenderness.
He screamed, pushing at the thing which would not let him go, aware suddenly that there were others nearby. He turned his head to see Detective Grant and the bee-keeper Willims standing side-by-side, rooted with horror to the spot they stood in, flashlights trained on him.
And now Peter felt the first stings as the hornets began to peel away from Ginny's skeleton, covering his own face, attacking him—
'Help me!' he screamed.
Ginny melted away in his aims, the bones collapsing to a clacking pile as Peter fell to the ground, covered in angry hornets. Through his burning eyes he saw the bee-keeper standing over him, wide-eyed, waving his arms, his flashlight beam bouncing, shouting something which Peter could no longer hear through his swollen ears, his screaming mouth filled with soft angry hornets, his throat, his body covered inside his clothing.
He gave a horrid final choking scream, and was silent.
'And that's the way you'd like the record to read?' District Attorney Morton said. He was shaking his head as he said it—but then again, he had been shaking his head since the informal inquest had begun two hours ago.
Detective Grant spoke up. 'This will be sealed, right?'
Morton laughed shortly, a not humorous sound. 'You bet your ass it will be. We're lucky nobody from the press got wind of this.' He looked sideways at the bee-keeper. 'We're not going to have any trouble from you, are we, Mr. Willims?'
The bee-keeper nearly gulped. 'Are you kidding? If Detective Grant hadn't been standing next to me, do you think the bunch of you would have believed me? I'd be in a looney bungalow at Kiliborne right now.'
Morton nodded. 'Yes, you would be. But since the two of you saw it—'
The bee-keeper gulped again, and Grant nodded curtly.
'At least I don't think he killed his wife,' Grant said. 'It looks to me like she got herself stuck in that gardening shed, and the hornets got to her.' He looked at Willims, and suddenly everyone was looking at the bee-keeper.
'You want me to tell you this all could happen? Sure, I'll tell you—but I still don't believe it. Could hornets strip a human body clean in a few days? Well, maybe. Usually hornets won't eat human flesh, but if the opportunity presents itself, I guess they might. They probably stung her to death after she got trapped in the shed. And then the body was in there with them. . . so, sure, I guess it could happen.'
'And what about the supposed...' Morton consulted the papers before him. '...mobility of the skeleton.. . ?' He let the question hang, and Grant finally spoke up.
'The damn thing looked like it stumbled out of the shed. But it could have been a trick of the light. If the skeletal remains had been propped against the door when Kerlan opened it, which would have been consistent with his wife's trying to get out of the shed until she was overcome by the hornets, then, sure, it could have tumbled out into his arms.'
He looked over at the bee keeper, who looked at his shoes. 'Yeah, I guess that's what I saw too.'
Morton addressed the bee-keeper: 'And the hornets covering Mrs. Kerlan like skin—that could have been a 'trick of the light' too?' 'Well...'
Willims looked up from his shoes to see Grant glaring at him. 'Sure, I guess so. And I guess the words we heard her say could have been in our minds—'
For a moment he looked defiant, before collapsing. 'All right. It was all in our heads.'
'Fine,' Morton said. He had gained a satisfied look. He turned to the medical examiner. 'Jim, you're okay with the cause of death in both cases as being extreme toxic reaction to hornet stings?'
The M.E. nodded once. 'Yep.'
'And there was nothing the two of you could have done to save him?' he asked Grant and Willims.
The bee-keeper said, 'By the time we got to him he'd already been stung hundreds of times. I was able to get some of them off, but it was too late. The weirdest thing is that they wouldn't respond to light, which threw me. When I shined my flashlight on them they should have flocked to it.'
'But they could have been so angry at that point that they would have ignored the light, correct?' Morton said sharply.
'I guess so. But I still say they should have attacked the light, and left Mr. Kerlan alone.'
'But you're fine with the way we wrote it up in this report?' Morton said, daring the bee-keeper to contradict him.
