In the meadows at the bottom of the mountain summer was underway, but up on the trail it was still early spring. Cynthia Dargendorf found the climate perfect for walking and camping, before the rigors of a summer overseeing under-graduate field work. As usual she had brought a favored graduate assistant along for the experience, the same one as the previous year, Ember Vangoss. Though, of course, this was done with utmost secrecy. It wouldn’t do to have the board know the two of them were violating the strict code of ethics it tried to enforce.
“I changed my studies for you, tailored my whole program to be with you,” said Ember. Her soft Georgian accent was tremulous. She wiped a tear from her eye and watched Cynthia continue to fold the tent away.
“Melodrama does not suit you Ember. You must have known this would come to an end. You will go off and work for some environmental company in California, while I will remain in my tenured position,” said Cynthia. Despite living in the United States for thirty-five of her forty-four year life her accent retained a precise, clipped, cadence from her Germanic background.
“But—“
“But what? You thought that because we become lovers we were soul-mates? We’re not characters in a romantic fantasy. Let’s enjoy the rest of the summer without any more histrionics. Here.”
Cynthia held out the rolled double sleeping bag and ground mat that Ember carried on her pack. Ember took it, refusing to look Cynthia in the eye. Trying to prevent tears from falling. Cynthia cupped Ember’s face with a hand, gently tilting the chin up. She wiped a tear away with a thumb.
“Smile. We still have a week together alone, and then the whole summer at the research cabins,” she said.
Ember lifted her lips, approximating a smile.
“There,” said Cynthia. “All better.”
They finished packing and headed on to the trail. Today they would climb over the snow-covered shoulder of the mountain, before descending back towards spring. The trail was a small one and seldom used. This high up it was also narrow and they walked single file. This suited Cynthia fine. She took the lead and strode on purposefully, not allowing any gaps in pace where Ember could restart her whining.
They stopped for lunch above the snow-line. The crust was hard and they dug into it a little to create a seat and a ledge for the billy stove. Below, when they started, the air had been still and warm. Here there was a breeze that blew from further into the mountain range. It gusted, chilling their fingers and cheeks.
“I love this,” said Cynthia. “You can see clear across the caldera.”
“It’s cold. I’ll be glad when we get somewhere warmer.” Ember sipped her cup of thick soup.
They crossed the ridge and started the descent. Ember hadn’t said anything further about the situation. Had said very little all day. On the way down Cynthia let her take lead. The trail was worse this side of the mountain, at times almost non-existent, and the going was tougher. They followed it down to a narrow path that led alongside a sharp drop. A sheer face of rock, below which there was a large run of scree, and then virgin forest. Ember stopped and raised her hand. Cynthia was a few metres behind and set herself to stop beside Ember. As she drew alongside Ember wheeled, caught her arm, and propelled her over the ledge. Falling backwards, arms clawing at the air, Cynthia watched Ember’s anger contorted face recede. Whatever she was shouting was lost in the rush of wind. She hit the scree and bounced like a rag doll on the uneven rock. Her body tumbled and rolled down the slope, bringing with it a small cascade of loose stone.
§
The Hornet Queen was attracted by the warmth of the Cynthia’s body and crawled into the open mouth, her feelers noting the firmness of the teeth, the soft moistness of the tongue. She burrowed up through the soft palate and began to construct her hive. The enzymes released by chewing broke the flesh down and allowed her to mould it. Instinct alone was insufficient to alert her to the fact it was not stiffening correctly, or that blood oozed into the chambers, providing foreign nutrients to the growing larvae.
The Queen burrowed further, finding a change in texture of the material she chewed. She flicked about with her antennae, reached too far and touched a new surface.
Unknown to the invader, a tiny flicker of life still rippled through Cynthia’s unconscious body. Reacting to the stimuli of pain and damage caused by the fall it had already pumped the bodies glands dry, flooded the veins with restorative blood cells; it hovered at the threshold of death. But this attack demanded fresh action. The deepest areas of unconscious nervous reaction fired with the dwindling reserves available, neurons flickered.
Interpreting the firing of synapses as an attack, the hornet struck. Arching her body in the confined space she unleashed poison into the offending mass. Instead of recoiling from the concentrated acetylcholine in the sting, Cynthia’s brain lit up. The injection of concentrated toxin a neurotransmitter powerful enough to provoke response in the fading embers of Cynthia’s life.
The Queen was overwhelmed with stimuli, information flooded through her, re-writing instructions hardwired into a million generations. She stung again, and again there was a flare, and a flood of knowledge. The Queen released pheromones calling her young brood, unaware that their early hatching was due to the effect of the host body.
They squirmed through the hole created by the Queen, wriggling into the tiny space between brain and skull. Where they touched with feet, or antennae, the brain responded with faint charges of thought. The final vestiges of life draining away from the abused host. But when they administered a sting, then the whole area jumped, and released information. Each hornet found its innate knowledge rewritten. As more hatched, the brain case became filled with a constant writhing mass, moving and stinging, and incorporating the information.
The Queen had retreated, now with a new purpose. She crawled throughout the body, creating more of her brood in the large cavern beneath the ribs. Housed in still malleable flesh, fed by blood which, though blackening, was still rich in nutrients. Instilled with a set of directions unknown to predecessors these new workers set about their tasks with the same blind devotion to duty of their forerunners. They worked their way throughout the hive-host, working into the arms, the legs, the joints.
Natural decay began to affect the now dead body. Corruption carried on the breeze, attracting carrion eaters and meat eating predators. A host of creatures large and small made their way to the scene, none of them got close. Swarms of hornets buzzed and swarmed around the remains of Cynthia Dargendorf. Crawling out of ragged tears in her clothing and taking wing. Some defenders lost their own lives, plucked out of the air by birds, or swatted aside by a bear that came near. The deaths were not in vain. Sated by a meal on the wing some birds flew of, others gave up in their attempts to get close. The bear finally decided fresh salmon from the nearby river was more suitable, and less of a nuisance. The carcasses of other smaller creatures spread in rings around the site, marking where their systems had succumbed to the attack of multiple, continuous, stings.
§
The University summer camp found a replacement for the disappeared Dr. Dargendorf at short notice. The gap until his arrival would be covered by her senior PhD student, Ember Vangoss.
Ember was repairing a sensor that had failed during the day. They needed it to collect overnight readings, and already shadows were lengthening. Normally she enjoyed working and living in the wilds. But not for the last two weeks. The impulse to throw Cynthia of the ledge had risen suddenly, a red rage which was gone with the crack of the body. The desire to vomit returned with the recollection, with the knowledge that she had killed another human being.
When the replacement arrived, Ember intended to make excuses about illness, and leave.
Working alone at the end of the long meadow where the cabins were built she concentrated on studying the wires and their connections. Something buzzed near bye, then stung her. Ember yelped, and slapped her arm. “Dammit!” She looked at the red weal raising on her bicep, pulled anti-histamine from her pocket and applied it to the sting. She wondered what had provoked the attack.
She was nearly finished when the undergrowth rustled. She looked up.
“This is impossible! You’re de…” Ember cut off the word, before continuing, “Cynthia, you must have had a hell of a time, let’s get you medical help.”
Cynthia said nothing.
“Cynthia we should ta—“
She stopped as Cynthia raised an arm, pointing towards her. The movements were jerky, spasmodic, as if the muscles were responding to individual commands instead of working together.
“You killed me.”
The voice froze Ember. Unlike Cynthia’s voice in any way, there was a disconcerting timbre to it, a backstop of sustained buzzing.
“Cynthia?”
“Murdered me. Dessstroyed me.”
Ember stepped backwards.
Cynthia lurched forward, out of shadow. The light showed the unnatural cast of her skin. It was no longer smooth, with the deep olive oil tones from her Turko-German father. Now there was a variety of colours in small striated curves. The flesh was built up in overlapping irregular layers. As she drew closer to Ember a constant buzzing grew louder.
Ember turned and ran. Cynthia’s face dissolved into a swarm of hornets. The talking stopped as the hornets which had vibrated her vocal cords followed the others in pursuit of the now the fleeing woman. The empty, repurposed cadaver of Cynthia Dergendorf folded to the ground. Hornets continued to exit the hive, driven by an imperative they could no more understand than deny: To revenge the host that had sustained them.
Already Ember Vangoss was succumbing to massive doses of venom. Hornets crawled over her, within her. Her flesh succumbed to their mandibles, her internal structures dumped blood into the cavities that were jammed with a myriad avengers.
The Queen and a coterie of drones made their way directly towards the brain.
An original story and photograph by Stuart C Turnbull.
