melted into the ground before the creature seized her, she would have.
The mantid screeched, sending a fresh wave of terror through Cameron. She chanced a glance behind her. The mantid was about twenty yards back, swooping down fast.
Cameron whirled back around and saw the first trip wire right in front of her. With a yell, she hurled her body in the air over it, rolled once side-ways across the road, and was up running, having barely slowed down.
The explosion should have come right behind her, but Cameron real-ized that the mantid was up too high, that she had glided right over the wire. Cameron would have to trip the last wire herself. But if she ran into it, it would slow her down, and she'd never make it off the road before the trees crushed her. If she tried to roll under the wire, the creature would be on her instantly.
She had ten walking steps until the next trip wire, that much she remembered. Her body flew forward, her mind racing. Air from the plummeting mantid blew across her shoulders. She had no time to think. The thin wire gleamed in the moonlight, mere feet away.
Reaching behind her, Cameron yanked the knife from the back of her pants, pulling it from its sheath. It slid smoothly out. She twirled it in her hand, never slowing, angling it down her forearm with the blade out, just as Savage used to do.
The blade met the wire with a click and bent it forward as she ran through it. The explosives went off with a deep roar, sending fragments of bark and tree chunks flying. A plug of pulp whistled just over her head. The blasts were blinding, flashing one after another and illuminating the road like a strobe light.
The mantid was momentarily startled, but she kept her eye on her prey below, trained on the kill.
The wire stretched to its limit against the knife and then broke with a twang, whipping off to both sides. Cameron's legs didn't stop pumping for an instant.
Above her, the mantid drew her raptorial legs up under her chin. They were coiled, ready to flash out like the talons of a hawk.
Higher still, the balsa trees started their downward crash, sporadically lit by the explosions. The twelve blocks of TNT had been too much for the quinine trunk, blowing it straight off the stump. It went horizontal almost instantly. Heavy with branches, the top end of the tree clubbed through the air.
The mantid sped down at Cameron's back. The raptorial legs flexed, pausing a split second before the lightning-fast strike.
Cameron felt the whole island closing in on her, the falling trees blocking out the sky, the flying predator at her back, and it seemed her blood itself was adrenaline as she raced toward the end of the constricting road.
The quinine tree struck the mantid across the back, knocking air through her spiracles with a screech and sending a splattering of digestive juice across Cameron's shoulders. Knocked off balance, the mantid careened upside down, one wing crunched to a worthless flap. The momentum from the blow shot her ahead of Cameron on the ground, and Cameron leapt over her gnashing head, dodging the snap of a leg midair. The mantid rolled once and began a fast limp after Cameron.
The airborne quinine smashed the ground behind them, tripping the second wire. The road lit with another blaze of light. The air filled with flying wood, the fragments zooming overhead. The other trees crackled on their stumps as they tipped in on Cameron and the mantid from both sides.
The tree closest to the forest, right at the end of the trap, was falling ahead of the others. The TNT had blown out a huge section of the trunk, hastening its plummet.
Cameron sprinted at the shrinking space beneath the final tree, the mantid dragging herself rapidly after her. If Cameron didn't squeeze under the tree before it hit the ground, she'd either be caught by the creature or crushed by the other trees. Overhead, the air was filled with falling timber, flash-lit, so it appeared to crash down in great jerks.
Gasping, Cameron threw herself under the last tree as it closed to the ground like a guillotine. Her shoulder barely glanced off the trunk as she skimmed under, but it was enough to send her flying. Pain clawed through her back, tempered only by her relief that she hadn't been crushed. She spun in the air 180 degrees, landing flat on her stomach and chest, facing the imploding road.
Above the fallen trunk of the last tree, she could see the mantid reared up to her full nine feet, hurtling forward even with the left side of her body crushed. A tree smashed to the ground behind her, barely missing.
Oh God, Cameron thought, what if they don't hit her? What if they all miss?
The mantid leapt forward, screeching as she barely outran another falling tree, and Cameron tried to get up and run, but she was limp with fear and exhaustion. Her body had nothing left.
No images flashed before her eyes, no childhood memories, no thoughts of Justin-there was just the charging creature, the road dig-ging into her chin, her mouth full of dirt.
She had resigned herself at last to death, when the last falling tree smashed across the mantid's back, pounding her into the ground with such force that Cameron's eyes couldn't even track her movement down.
A large tree trunk blocked the creature from view, but Cameron heard her screech turn into a rasping whistle. The air filled with settling leaves and dust and a magnificent silence, broken only by an occasional rustle from the mantid, which she heard even over the ringing in her ears.
Cameron slid the knife back into the sheath behind her pants and tried to rise, but pain raked through her back and she crumpled up with a yell. Her hip was completely numb, and her leg did not respond when she tried to move it. Pulling herself forward, her fingers clawing holds in the dirt, Cameron scraped along the ground toward the fallen tree trunk that was blocking the mantid from view. The dirt felt like steel wool across her stomach, and a few sharp stones stung her through her ragged tank top.
As she neared, the rasping grew louder. She used a knot to pull herself on top of the trunk. The mantid was lying on her back, the massive trunk having crushed her abdomen nearly flat. Though her head and prothorax still extended from beneath the tree, her raptorial legs were pinned beneath it, the razor spikes smashed somewhere in the mess of tree, guts, and earth. Her head moved slightly back and forth, her mouth opening feebly.
She was dying.
Cameron tried to climb down the other side of the trunk but ended up falling. She landed on her hip and screamed, the pain watering her eyes. Her vision dotted, then cleared, and she pulled herself toward the creature.
The mantid couldn't lift the back of her head from the dirt. Her mouth gnashed at Cameron, moving as if trying to free itself and attack her on its own.
The smell of the rotting mouth rising to her, Cameron lowered her face right above the mantid's, her reflection clear in the creature's remaining eye. Glaring into the black eye, she knew, somehow, that the mantid sensed her life draining away.
The mantid struggled, trying desperately to lift her head so she could crush Cameron's face in her jaws. But she was too weak; she succeeded only in turning her head meekly from side to side. Cameron reached for the protruding spear stock, the movement causing her to lean over the mantid. Her blond hair fell in neat curves around her cheeks. Her chin was awash with saliva and blood; she inadvertently drooled a thick cord into the quivering maw. Cameron grabbed the stock of the spear with both fists. The whole head lifted when she drew back her arms. She smashed the head back against the ground, driving the spear stock deeper through the cuticle. The mantid's mouth gaped in its awful silent fashion. The spear tip continued to press through the creature's head, which yielded with a moist crackling.
The mantid shuddered beneath Cameron's hands, then convulsed, her cuticle rattling against the tree trunk that was now part of her abdomen. Her mouth still spread wide, the mantid stopped shaking and her head rolled up and to the side.
Spitting a mouthful of blood down the front of her chin and onto the ground, Cameron started to sob. She wept lying flat on her stomach, tears cutting through the dirt on her face, her fists still gripping the last protruding inches of the spear.
Cameron lowered her head, resting it on her forearm as she fought for control, pushing her lips together until they stopped quivering.
Savage's knife was lying where it had fallen in the dirt nearby. She closed her fingers around the black Micarta as if to draw strength from it. Raising her aching arm, she plunged the Death Wind into the top of the tree trunk that lay across the creature's chest. The knife rose verti-cally, like a cross from a grave.
She thought of Justin and tried to rise, but could not. A few dry sobs escaped her, shaking her shoulders. She rolled onto her back, the stars above blurring into a fantasia of pinpoints and yellow streaks.
