Waking the Moon

From distant hills and canyons her voice was thrown back—

Haiyo Othiym! haiyo haiyo haiyo…

—voices dying, dying, dying…

With a yelp Cloud bolted from the underbrush. Thorns tore at her legs, she could feel blood spurting onto her thigh but she didn’t care, she didn’t give a fuck about anything as long as she was gone. Beneath her soles stones scattered like marbles. She slipped, catching herself on a barrel cactus and crying out as the thorns pierced her hand. From the corner of her eyes she glimpsed Angelica standing above the corpse of the boy she’d killed, her face twisted with rage.

“Mellis? agevahe! Oye Mellis?!”

“Fuck you!” gasped Cloud. She leapt over a prickly pear and landed on the smooth surface of the drive. And fuck Melissa, too!

She hurtled up the driveway. Ahead of her, she could just make out the tall posts with their sagging loops of electrified wire strung between, the crossties of the weathered gate that opened out onto Fire Road S3. Her heart was like a brick slung inside her chest, her shins ached from pounding the rough ground, but it was only a few more yards, she could feel where wild grass and sedge were poking up through the loose dirt beneath her feet and all she had to do was reach the gate and she could—

“Shit!”

Pain erupted from a spot above her knee. She slapped at her leg, felt another agonizing stab at her palm. Still running, she drew her hand up, saw a glistening red spot on the fleshy part of her thumb. Blood.

She shook her hand, trying to dislodge the shining droplet. But then the drop upon her thumb moved, coalesced into a gleaming bead of crimson with black legs and two bright black beads for eyes. Its jointed antennae twitched furiously, its swollen body thrust upward so for an instant she glimpsed what protruded from its abdomen, a black splinter like another thorn. Before she could slap it away another burst of pain lanced her shoulder, her leg, her breast; then another, and another. She glanced down and screamed.

She was covered with bees: a living shroud of bees, so many she could hear the pattering of their legs as they crawled over each other, trying to find purchase on her exposed skin. Thousands of them, each with its blaze of agony like a tiny blade drawn through her flesh. She shrieked and slapped at them, lurching across the stony ground, but it was like trying to outrun the rain. Her mouth opened and one darted inside; she gagged as she felt its legs, and then a horrible bolt of pain as it stung the back of her throat. She fell to the ground, clawing at her tongue.

Her throat was swollen shut; she couldn’t see for the bodies swarming across her eyes. They were crawling into her nostrils, she could feel them burrowing into her ears, their spent stingers a pelt of soft black hairs across her tongue and cheek and lips.

A few more minutes, and you could not tell that there had ever been a person there at all. The swarm covered a mound that could have been a large stone or dead animal, vaguely human-shaped. The bees crawled atop each other, coupling, feeding, moving their abdomens in vicious thrusts, squeezing their eggs from their bodies to lie beneath the girl’s skin, before it grew too stiff. When nearly an hour had passed, they departed. In long skeins like thread spun from a spindle, they lifted and sang off into the night, their humming growing fainter and fainter until it died.

From a few yards away a figure watched, silent, unmoving. Upon her breast glowed a swollen moon. It gave forth beams of splintered light as she raised her arms and chanted in a clear strong voice.

Oye Mellis?! Haiyo Othiym, oye Thri?…
I have crowned you, Bride of the thunder:
Your breath is on all that hath life, you who float in the air
Beelike, deathlike, a wonder…

And now that the bees had gone she summoned their sisters:

Oye myrmidon, oye!

—and the ants came, the voracious red driver ants named eciton that lay waste to vast areas of the rain forest, devouring anything in their path. They were like a shadow creeping down the hillside, like a ragged hem of darkness falling across that small still form. As quickly as the bees had found Cloud, the ants foamed across the barren desert and onto her corpse. Their feet made a whispering sound as they climbed upon her, her limbs and face bloated with venom. They darkened her skin like a bruise, crept beneath her loose clothing so that the fabric moved with a soft undercurrent of sound, a rustling that grew into a sort of tearing noise, like shears being drawn through thick canvas.

The noise continued for a long time. An acrid smell filled the air, released from glands near the ants’ mandibles. As they fed, other creatures crept up from the tiled veranda to watch: a pair of soft slow tarantulas and the elfin kit fox. But when they detected that bitter smell the tarantulas raised their front legs defensively and stalked back into the darkness. The kit fox’s ears flattened against its skull as it whined, then fled into the shadows. Only the bats whistled overhead, now and then sweeping down to carry off one of the winged sentries that hovered above the corpse.

When finally they had fed, the ants moved on. Like water poured onto the desert floor, the dark cloud spread; then disappeared into countless unseen cracks and crevices. Only their scent remained, a smell like bitter melons, and a glistening assemblage of bones and skull, a torn black shirt and khaki shorts like the flag of a fallen army sunk between loops of ivory.

It was Martin who found her early the next morning, out on his dawn run. He recognized her clothes, and also the three tiny gold rings he found caught in the curve of a finger bone, alongside the shivering crystal wedge of an insect’s wing.

“Oh, my god,” he whispered, and raced back to the house.

“What is it?” demanded Angelica, as she met him at the door.

“Stay inside, just stay in here,” commanded Martin, and he dialed 911 with shaking hands.

A short while later the police and ambulance arrived, but of course there was nothing they could do. The dogs they brought, sturdy cheerful German shepherds trained in tracking lost children and hikers, sniffed at the sad array of bones and then bellied miserably onto the ground, pawing at their muzzles and whining.

“The coroner’s on his way, and Dr. Sorrell from up at Flagstaff,” the chief of police told Angelica. He was pale as he scratched a few notes onto his clipboard. By the pool Martin was comforting the hysterical Kendra, who had, despite orders from Angelica, run to the top of the ridge and seen what was there. Sunday was talking excitedly to a reporter, telling him about the puma she’d seen months before. “He says fire ants have killed folks in South Texas but that was more of an allergic reaction. This just seems like some kinda crazy freakish thing —”

“I can’t believe it, I just can’t believe it,” murmured Angelica. She shook her head and stared out the open front door. Three police cars and the coroner’s car and an ambulance were in the drive, along with the pickup trucks of two local reporters, all parked every which way, some with their doors still hanging open. As she stared a plume of yellowish dust rose from between the jaws of the wooden gate at the top of the hill. A moment later a Jeep came bouncing down the drive.

“Who’s this?” asked the chief of police.

“My son,” Angelica said softly. “He’s been driving back from college—”

The Jeep slammed to a stop. Its door flew open and a tall figure jumped out. He paused and stared at Martin and Kendra on the patio, turned to gaze in disbelief at the policemen and ambulance and the howling brace of dogs caged in a police car.

“Mom?” he yelled, running up the sidewalk. He ducked through the front door, glancing around frantically