Free Dominant Species Volume Two -- Edge Effects (Dominant Species Series) by David Coy Page A

thicker by the minute, and he
thought they must be attracted to his sweat or body odor. He had intended to
stay in the jungle a couple of minutes, no longer. He felt a flush of panic at
the prospect of staying out in the crawling mass of foliage all night. He felt
a sharp sting on his abdomen and smashed the hard little crawler that caused
it. Another on his neck got the same treatment. He wiped at a dark spot on his
leg and felt the place mash wetly under his fingers. He had the sudden animal
impulse to run.
    He turned left again.
    One hundred paces farther, he stopped and had to put the tool down
to swipe and whack at the bugs, large and small on his sweat-slickened skin. He
could feel some of the smaller ones stuck in the heavy sweat, squirming for
freedom. He brushed them off as best he could and dove ahead through the
foliage, using the tool to move the vines and branches. Visions of maggots and
flies with sharp probes filled his head.
    He turned and walked, stopping occasionally to swipe the crawlers
off his legs and butt. His feet and ankles were especially vulnerable and felt
as if they were covered with crawlers .
They were.
    Flustered and nearing panic, he lost count of the steps about
halfway through the last leg and guessed at the remainder.
    He slapped hard at a sting on his back. Another bite farther down
and out of reach made him use the tool as a scraper to get it off. Something
crawled in his groin, and he caught it in his fingers and felt it squirm. He
mashed it against a thick branch.
    He was dripping sweat now, and the panic was rising in him like
bile. He had to get out.
    He’d completed the first circuit, and the need to double the
distance on each of the next four legs filled him with horror. He brushed bugs
off and started out, faster this time, swatting and whacking at the branches as
he went.
    “Christ!”
    The bite on his calf made him stop and grab at it. He touched the
tough body of the thing that had attached itself and felt an acid when he
squeezed it.
    But, the goddamned thing was not going to stay on him.
    He brushed his fingers over his sweaty face one way then another
to clear the bugs off, then gritted his teeth and tore the thing off his leg
with a single yank.
    The searing pain as the tough little bastard came off made him
howl. The thick foliage and hissing, clicking din swallowed the scream.
    He crushed the thing into the soft dirt under his feet, then
pounded the spot with his hand. While he was bent over, something else
fluttered into the crack of his ass. It was hard-shelled like a beetle; he
crushed it with his fingers.
    “You mother fucker!”
    Panting from the pain in his leg, he stomped blindly on. He tried
to run but found it impossible; each step sent a jolt of pain up his leg.
    A vine snagged his foot, and he crashed through the tangle to the
ground. He struggled to his feet and felt a mass of crawling and squirming on
his torso and brushed and swiped at the spot frantically with both hands.
    He stumbled on, moving as fast as he could, sweating, and praying
now to burst out into the clearing with the next step.
    He stopped and swiped at his chest and shoulders and arms and legs
at random.
    “Gotta . . . get . . . out . . .”
    He ran through the thick tangle of vines and branches, crashing
through them, beating them out of the way with the tool, stumbling and falling.
He tried to count and prayed he was right.
    He viciously swatted the huge bugs and crawlers, smashing them
flat and leaving raised welts on his skin. He stopped and wiped his hands over
his body top to bottom, trying in vain to achieve just a brief moment of
bugless existence. He felt a sharp stinging on his butt and slapped at it
madly, turning in a tight circle, a dog chasing its own tail.
    His heart pounding, he began to swing the tool back and forth like
a bat, hacking at the infinite mass of vines and thick leaves. He staggered
forward, swinging and hacking at the jungle, trying to kill it with the