Chapter 36

Dawn came unnoticed to anyone inside the Isabella . The foot-deep layer of insects prevented even the smallest beam of sunlight from reaching a window. Still, the watches and phones and clocks of the survivors told them morning had arrived.

In the ship’s mess, Gamay and the other crewmen waited nervously, one of them tapping a foot and cracking his knuckles over and over. The sound grated on Gamay’s nerves, but she was smart enough to know the man was using the movement to process the stress, and she was strong enough not to hit him with a shoe, because that wouldn’t have helped no matter how good it would have felt.

For what seemed like the hundredth time, she wiped the sweat from her face, folded up the paper towel, and slid it along the back of her neck.

“How will we know?” the other sailor asked. “Should we go look?”

“It won’t happen instantly,” Gamay said. “The sun has to warm them up.”

“But how long will that take?”

She had no idea, and the ship’s mess had no exterior window, so the only way to know what was happening on the outside was to make their way forward to the bridge or back to the crew’s quarters.

After waiting through the night, she wasn’t about to leave the relative safety of the mess five minutes early. “Paul and Chantel have windows to look through. They’ll see it happen and they’ll come and get us. Just hang in there. It can’t be long now.”

—

In the science bay, Paul had taken a position near the door. After somehow finding it possible to sleep for a few minutes here and there, he was as anxious as any member of the crew to get out of what felt like a heated metal box.

The alarm on his phone beeped to tell him sunrise had come. He aimed the flashlight at the porthole and saw nothing but the ugly undersides of the teeming creatures.

He tapped on the window and a few of them flinched, but they were compressed by the layers of insects on top of them and seemed almost dormant.

He hit snooze on his phone and checked on Chantel. “Are you okay?”

“Been better.”

Nine minutes later the phone buzzed again. Paul stood and stretched. A muted sound like air flowing through a set of pipes could be heard. It grew louder with each passing moment. Paul hoped it was the sound of a million tiny wings beating in the morning air and moving on.

He looked out the window, noticed more movement, and decided to speed things up. Three sharp strikes with his fist shook the door. The interlocking mass of insects fell like a sheet and took to the air. The orange light of morning poured in.

Paul could see the blizzard of insects was thinning rapidly. It took several long minutes, but the hideous sound of the flying creatures eventually faded, and he opened the door to the glorious cool morning air.

Stepping outside, he found the deck littered with dead insects and a few stragglers left fluttering here and there. It reminded him of Times Square on the day after New Year’s. Empty, quiet, but with plenty of evidence left over to show that the party had been wild.

The ship’s crane and superstructure were cleared of the infestation, although the plating was discolored by a yellow residue, and everything that might have been mildly organic had been chewed through. The flags and pennants were gone, the ropes holding them in place frayed and shredded. The covers stretched over the top of the lifeboats looked like Swiss cheese, and any exposed wiring had seen the insulation chewed off it.

“Hungry little critters,” Paul said.

Chantel joined him on deck. In her opinion, the ship had aged ten years overnight. Off in the distance the cloud of insects could be seen flying to the west, continuing along the straight line of the ocean that had been stripped of life.

“Just like the cloud we saw in the distance when we got here,” Chantel said.

The cloud changed shape in a kaleidoscopic pattern as it moved away. Its millions of insects shimmering in the morning light.

“They’re not so ugly from far away,” Chantel said.

Paul was just glad they were growing more distant. “I’m going to find Gamay.”

“I’ll come with you.”

The trip to the mess hall was a short one. Paul wrapped his arms around Gamay in a tight embrace as soon as he reached her.

The next group of tasks were far more painful. They searched for the living and counted the dead, covering the victims, or what was left of them, in sheets and carrying them out onto the deck to prepare for a burial at sea.

“The next priority should be finding a radio and calling for help,” Paul suggested.

“I don’t think we’ll need to,” Gamay replied. “Look.”

She pointed to the northeast. A small ship was heading their way, perhaps no more than two miles off at that point. One of the crew grabbed a signaling mirror and began flashing over a message. A spotlight blinked on and off near the bow of the approaching ship.

“‘Coming to render assistance,’” Paul read.

“How do we explain all this?” Chantel asked.

Paul sighed. “We tell them what happened and hope they have a large can of bug spray in case these things come back.”

The two-hundred-foot craft pulled up close to the Isabella . It looked like a supply ship used to service offshore oil rigs. Its large, flat deck was piled high with equipment. A group of crewmen stood at the rail. A boat was sent over. A line was attached for towing. And the Isabella ’s survivors were transferred to the rescue ship.

The relief at being off the infested vessel was profound, at least until the men on the supply ship pulled out weapons and forced the survivors to stand up against the bulkhead.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Gamay said.

Paul counted the guns. Five pistols, two submachine guns. Enough firepower to take out the whole crew with one quick volley. That left them no chance to fight their way free. “What’s the meaning of this? We asked you for help.”

“And we have helped you,” a voice said from up above.

Paul craned his neck around to look up. A ruddy-faced man was looking over the rail and down.

“And now you’ll have a chance to help us,” he said.

“How?” Gamay asked.

The man grinned maliciously. “In a great number of ways.”