Free Nasty Little F___ers-Kindle by David McAfee Page B

before?” Colby snapped his fingers. “PCP? You’re saying these things are laced with Angel Dust?”
    “Technically, no,” Allen replied. “But something similar.”
    “That would be why Bock and Harper didn’t seem to feel any pain.” Colby reasoned.
    “Probably, yes. It would make sense. And it would help to describe their behavior, too.”
    Colby nodded. Shit, yeah it made sense. It made perfect fucking sense. He remembered those things on Bock’s chest; how they looked like they were pumping something into him. Probably injecting his body with so much of the stuff he couldn’t think straight. No wonder he’d tried to kill him. “Fuck.”
    Colby rolled up his sleeve and let Allen take some of his blood. The needle stung a bit – Allen was no nurse – but he’d had much, much worse. The small, round scars on his chest, remnants of that fatal gunfight in Kuwait, could attest to that.
    “I don’t understand something, Allen.”
    “What’s that?”
    Colby taped a square of cotton to the inside of his elbow and rolled his sleeve back down. “Lots of animal poisons are mildy narcotic, right?”
    Allen nodded. “Lots of them are neurotoxic poisons, too. What’s your point?”
    “Well, in the case of narcotic poisons, the victim falls asleep, making it easy for the predator to finish them off, right? Or, in the case of a neurotoxin, it kills the prey quick. That’s evolution in action. The poison is designed, in one way or another, to take the fight out of the victim quickly so the predator can eat.”
    “True,” Allen said. “But I still don’t—”
    “Quick. What are the effects of PCP?”
    “What does that have to do—”
    “Humor me. What are they?”
    Allen’s brow wrinkled, and he folded his arms across his chest. “Hallucinations, violent and erratic behavior, paranoia, and even the deadening of pain receptors, among other things.”
    “ So why would an animal need to instill those qualities in its prey? Why make the prey more violent, instead of less? What purpose does that chemical have for being in the grubs’ saliva?”
    Allen started to open his mouth, then closed it. His eyes widened. “That’s a damn good question, Colby.” He looked at the grub squirming in his jar on the table – the last one; it had eaten it’s way to the top, apparently – as it bit at the sides of the jar. The tiny clink it made as it bit the glass merged with the other dozen or so small noises the rest of the grubs made as they did the same.
    “What the fuck are these things?” Colby asked.
    Before Allen could reply, Janice’s scream tore through the camp.
    ***
    Colby ran outside. Clouds overhead obscured the moon, making it hard to see more than a few feet in front of him. The floodlights of the camp could only do so much against the encroaching darkness. And, he noted, several of them were out. How the hell did that happen? He looked around and noted the others emerging from their tents or portable labs and into the night, looking confused and afraid. As well they might.
    Janice screamed again. It sounded like it came from her tent. Colby sprinted across the clearing to the only tent in the camp that served a single occupant. Janice, as the only woman in the expedition, had her tent all to herself. Or she had, anyway. The shadow on the wall of the tent showed two figures inside, clearly involved in a struggle. Colby drew his .45 and ran to the flap, thumbing off the safety as he went.
    He saw the tripwire just before he hit it, but it was too late. His foot caught on a strand of heavy fishing line. It wasn’t so strong that he couldn’t break it, but it didn’t have to be. It was enough to throw him off balance and that’s all it took. He fell face first into the dirt and dried leaves that covered the floor of the clearing, landing on the hard ground with enough force to blow the air out of his lungs and send his pistol flying away.
    “Thanks, Colby,” a gruff voice said. It sounded like