The Hive: Season 4

DR. Huntington's Miraculous Hive Juice Extractor

I think I’ve already told ya’ll about my various failures over the year that the Hive ruled the Earth. I failed to save my Daddy. I failed to save my friends. I failed to save my farm. I failed and failed and failed again. That’s a lot of failure for a teenager to handle, and it wasn’t the kind of failure that didn’t mean anything, neither. These was the kinds that brought grown women to their knees. I can’t say it didn’t affect me because it did, but one of the reasons I was able to get over it wasn’t just because of Ailani and the return of the Hive and such, but because, well, even though I made my own decisions (I don’t think nobody could have stopped me from doing what I set out to do once I set out to doing it), I never felt like I was responsible for anything other than myself. There’s a comfort in that, but it’s a kid’s comfort, and if there’s one thing kids don’t never understand too good it’s responsibility. It might not affect nobody in the short run, but it resounds like a whisper in an empty well, ringing out and out and out, and those rings might take a while to reach the bottom, but when they do, they bounce back—maybe not as hard and maybe not as strong, but they do bounce back, and they roll over a body in ways nobody could never see coming.
I never was and never will be a girly girl. I blame it on Daddy. He didn’t exactly raise me like one, but he didn’t raise me like the other, neither. He raised me like he needed to raise me, for the person I was and the person I had to become. The farm didn’t run itself, and without Momma around and no other siblings to speak of, I took on pretty much every other role he needed filled. Need help fixing that cultivator? Sure, Daddy. I know a socket wrench from a riveter. Need to shoe that horse or deliver that calve? Sure, Daddy. I know a horse nipper from a calving chain. Need to sweeten up the Sheriff, make him turn a blind nose to the heady scent of them weeds you got growing out in the east fields? Sure, Daddy. I’ll rustle up Nana’s old apple pie recipe sure as starch.
I guess we were alone together for so long that I got some strange ideas in my head about men and women and fathers and daughters. No, it wasn’t like that. This ain’t that kind of story. I’m talking about Daddy and Daddy alone. I guess I always supposed it was going to be him and me and no one else. I was fine with the way things was, so why shouldn’t he be? But people get lonely, and even though Daddy had me and Blue and his pot buddies, it ain’t the same thing as having a partner, someone who you don’t just share physical affection with, but someone to talk to, keep you company, share a cup of coffee by the fire on cold winter nights, go for a walk, lean on in bad times and share victories in good times. Me and Daddy, we was close, but sitting with your daughter on the porch on a rainy Saturday morning is one thing, and sitting on that same porch on that same rainy Saturday morning with your wife or girlfriend or significant what-have-you is another.
All this is a roundabout way of saying one day Daddy came home with a woman, and that woman was not my momma. That’s not to say that I didn’t think it was her at first, my momma that is. I came downstairs one rare Saturday morning between practices (softball or basketball or soccer or field hockey) and nearly peed all over myself when I seen her standing in the kitchen. My momma was tall and skinny with long hair and skin bronzed from years of working out in the sun, and there she was again, years after she died, her hip cocked against the counter and her back to me, a cup of coffee held in one hand and her other arm wrapped around her waist. I was about to say "Momma?" when the woman turned around and the words got caught in my throat.
"Well, hello," she said. "You must be Amanda."
So, yeah, Daddy had a type.
Ya’ll met my momma before, even if technically that wasn’t her. It was a reasonable facsimile. Whoever this was was even closer to the real thing. She was as tall as Momma and as skinny as Momma, and, yeah, she had Momma’s long brown hair, but after that, all the comparisons stopped. This lady’s voice was coarse like she smoked (which she did), and she had a softer face than momma’s, too, and she wore too much makeup, and she liked to wear cowboy boots and dresses, and she had Daddy’s favorite flannel on over her clothes like it was hers and I took an immediate dislike to her and I didn’t know why.
"Who are you?" I said.
Her cheeks reddened and her smile strained, and I could tell she didn’t like to be talked to that way, but she held onto her composure as best she could.
"My name’s Elizabeth," she said. "But you can call me Lizzie."
I didn’t know what was going on. Daddy’d never brought a woman home before in his life. All I knew was I wanted to eat breakfast and settle down in front of the TV for a full morning of cartoons and stories and there was some strange woman standing in the way.
I walked past her and over to the cupboard to get out my bowl and spoon, and Daddy came down the stairs and said, "Amanda May. I raised you better’n that. Ain’t you got something to say to Lizzie?"
Raised me better? I had no idea what he was talking about. Star Trek was about to come on. I turned around from the fridge, the jug of milk in my hand.
"You want some cereal?"
Lizzie laughed.
"No thank you. I better be going, anyway." She put her coffee cup down on the counter and walked over to Daddy and planted a big old kiss right on his lips! My eyes were like about to pop out. "I’ll call you?"
Daddy’s face was redder’n a tomato, but he was smiling big and wide.
"Sure."
"I had fun."
"Me, too."
She patted him on the chest and rolled her shoulders straight and looked at me.
"Nice to meet you, Amanda. Maybe I’ll take you up on that cereal next weekend?"
Not if I can help it, I thought, watching her sashay out of the kitchen. I wish I could say I was relieved when the door clicked behind her, but then I realized that she was still wearing Daddy’s shirt.
"Daddy!" I said, but he was already heading back up to his room. And he was whistling. "Where you going?"
"I think I’ll go back to bed for a bit."
"Back to bed? But ain’t there work to do?"
"It can wait."
"But that lady stole your shirt."
"Her name’s Lizzie, ‘Manda. I’ll get it back. Maybe next weekend."

Lizzie certainly did come back the next weekend. And the weekend after that, and the weekend after that. Pretty soon, she showed up during the week, too. More people followed, her friends, I guess, men and women her age or a little younger, which is to say younger than Daddy. They came over at all hours of the day, and they stayed up late drinking and laughing and playing loud music. It was very un-Daddy like of him, and I don’t mean that he wasn’t acting like a good father. He was and always would be. I mean that, well, I’d never seen him that way before. Sure, he grew and sold marijuana, but he didn’t take advantage of it. And I never seen him drink more than a few beers, at least not around me. But now he was partying nearly every night of the week.
That wasn’t so bad, but I wasn’t sleeping very good because of it, and I guess my teachers noticed it because one of them, my AP Human Geo teacher, Mr. X (seriously, his last name was Xander, but we all called him Mr. X because it sounded cooler), asked me to stay after class one day.
"Everything okay, Amanda?"
"Yeah."
"You’ve been falling asleep in class."
"I know. I’m just tired is all."
"You look more than tired. You look exhausted."
"I’ll be okay, Mr. X. Thanks for asking."
I turned to leave, but he said, "Amanda?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you know what your grade is in my class?"
I didn’t know, but that wasn’t unusual. I always got A’s and B’s on my interims and report cards. I didn’t see why it’d be any different now. But the way Mr. X said it, I guess I wasn’t doing so hot.
"I got a C or something?"
"Worse than that, Amanda."
"I got a D?"
He shook his head. My stomach felt like someone had dropped a barrel of ice in it. He picked a crumpled up piece of paper up off his desk and walked over to me, adjusting his glasses so he could read it better. The noise of the kids out in the hall was getting softer as they all filtered into their classes.
"Mr. X, the bell—"
"That can wait. Did you see what you got on your last test?"
"Yeah. I mean, no."
"I believe it."
He handed me the crumpled up paper. It was my test. He’d written a big, fat F on it in red ink, and under that ‘Come talk to me.’
"I found this on the floor," he said, nodding at the direction of my desk. "Where you sit."
I looked at the test. It was on Language and Culture. Easy stuff. Mr. X’s notes were really clear, I did all the reading, but even though I knew when the test was and I tried to study, I didn’t. Why? Because Lizzie and Daddy and all her friends kept me up all night laughing and playing music and smoking and drinking and I got so mad that I couldn’t think so I put my headphones on and listened to my CDs all night until I fell asleep and I woke up late for school and Daddy was passed out in his room and Lizzie was there too and I had to walk to school and . . .
"Amanda?"
"I know. I know, Mr. X. I’m sorry I failed this test. I understand if you fail me. I’ll try to do better next time."
"I don’t care about the test. I’m worried about you. This isn’t like you. Is something going on?"
I looked at that dumb test and saw my stupid answers and the blank spaces where I should have answered.
"I’m just tired is all."
"You said that."
The bell rang.
"Mr. X—"
"It’s not just my class, Amanda. It’s everyone. Well, except for P.E, but . . ."
"I get it."
"Amanda—"
"I said I get it, Mr. X."
I crumpled up the test again, angry all of the sudden. I thought I was mad at Mr. X. Who did he think he was? My name was Amanda May Jett. I knew how to study. I knew how to get good grades. I was one of the best student-athletes in Spotsylvania High School. I stomped out of his room and down the hall to my next class, throwing the test on the floor on the way.
That night after field hockey practice, I went home to find the house empty. I fixed myself a turkey sandwich, hauled my backpack full of books up to my room, put my headphones on and got to studying. I had a test in Environmental Science the next day and I’d be bound and tied if I’d let myself fail that one.
I’m not sure what time I fell asleep, but it was gone midnight when I sat straight up in my desk with a gasp. My CD was over and my headphones sat askew on my head and I’d drooled all over my notes.
Music was blaring downstairs and somebody screeched and laughed.
That did it. I’d had enough. I ripped off my headphones, slammed open the door, stomped down the stairs, around the corner, and into the kitchen.
"Daddy! I’ve had it with all this—"
I stopped short.
The most beautiful creature I’d ever seen in my life was leaning against the counter next to the sink. He was tall and thin, and he had long hair and the barest hint of stubble on his chin, and even though he was wearing a flannel shirt, he didn’t wear it like any of the other boys I knew. He didn’t tuck it into his blocky, farmer’s jeans; he tied it around his waist, let it hang down over an old pair of torn up black Levis that ended in some severely distressed combat boots.
Lizzie was there, too, darn it, and she guffawed when she saw my reaction to the boy standing next to her and shot a sideways glance at Daddy, who tucked his chin and wouldn’t meet my eyes.
"Hey, Amanda," she said. "Meet my son, Steve."
Steve gave me a chin-nod.
"‘Sup."
Of course.
Of course he was her son.
Now that I looked harder, all the features were there. He had her hair and her build, and even though their noses and mouths were different, they shared the same sharp blue eyes.
"H-hi," I said. "I . . . um—"
"Flustered, Amanda?" Lizzie asked.
Daddy said, "Stop, Lizzie."
"Aw. Her cheeks are blooming!"
Ain’t nothing like a healthy scoop of hate and irritation to smack someone back into the world.
"You all need to stop bothering me. Staying up into the middle of the night drinking and smoking. I got tests to pass and you’re waking me up with this mess. It’s gone midnight!"
"Sorry, ‘Manda," Daddy said. "We’ll be more mindful of that from now on."
"Mindful, hell! Ya’ll need to stop."
Lizzie looked over at Daddy and said, "Should we tell her about it?"
"Tell me about what?"
Daddy cleared his throat.
"‘Manda, Steve’s father lives out in Seattle, and he got himself into some trouble."
"So?"
"So, well, he’s got primary custody of Steve, and . . ."
I tapped my foot and crossed my arms over my chest, waiting for him to finish, but after a few sheepish looks shared between him and Lizzie, I got the gist.
"He’s staying here with us?"
"It’s just for a little while. We got plenty of room."
"Why can’t he stay with her?"
"Her name’s Lizzie, ‘Manda."
"Why can’t he stay with Elizabeth?"
"That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about."
Oh. My. God. That witch was moving in with us.
"Seriously? I live here, too. Anybody ever think about asking how I felt about it?"
"‘Manda—"
"‘Manda nothing," I snapped, and then I stomped back up the stairs.
My head might have been aswirl with anger, and I definitely was peeved, but the presence of an exotic beauty from far away cut it down. Way down. To be honest, I was half-titillated, half-concerned. Steve might have been a sexy thing, but the Spotsylvania boys were going to have the time of their lives with him. He was a jaguar in a field of apes. Well, good, I thought. I didn’t need him rattling around in my brain, not if I wanted to play field hockey and pass my classes. A boy would just get in the way.
Like I had a choice in the matter. The truth of it all was that the damage had been done. Steve was in my head. As if to remind me of that fact, his voice floated up after me as I marched into my room.
"Nice to meet you, Amanda."
I needn’t have worried about him. Steve might have been built like a snake on stilts, but he could sure enough handle his own. Proved that the first day of school. Suffice to say, his grunge chic didn’t fit in with camouflage and dungarees, and it took all of about ten minutes after Lizzie registered him for him to get in a fight. Two football players thought they’d be smart and said something to him he didn’t like as he passed them in the hallway, and Steve didn’t even blink. He spun and punched one of them so hard it knocked him out on the spot, and when the second one tackled him, he got him in a wrestling hold and looked like he was about to choke him out before one of the APs got him in his own choke hold and pulled him off.
I was standing there when it happened, walking to English with Molly Brown.
"Who’s that?" she asked as we watched them drag Steve away.
"No clue."
"He’s cute, don’t you think?"
I didn’t answer.

Daddy wasn’t home after practice, but Steve was. He’d already got his punishment: ten days automatic suspension. I walked down the drive from the bus stop to see him sitting outside Maurice surrounded by a whole bunch of junk he’d pulled out. I was tempted. In a variety of ways. But my first instinct was to run up to my room and make sure I was out of the way when Daddy came home and saw some dumb kid messing around with his Maurice like that. Steve actually waved at me as I frog-stepped myself into the house. I think I might have given him half an elbow in return.
For those of you hoping for some kind of love story between me and him, you’re reading the wrong book. Steve might have blown my fifteen-year-old mind with his rock-n-roll hair and clothes and attitude, but anybody familiar with Daddy would know that he didn’t care much about that at all. The stunt with Maurice was only the beginning. That night when Lizzie got home from work, Daddy had already encountered Steve’s project, and while I was a little disappointed at the lack of quality yelling, he did make up for it with one of the quietest nights in over two months.
As it turned out, Steve wanted to live with his mother out on that farm about as much as I wanted to live in Seattle with his dad. He was a master in the art of screwing up, too. One thing after another. During his two weeks off, he managed to break the tractor (twice), run Daddy’s truck into a pond (twice), get caught shoplifting a pack of gum and a bag of chips from the 7-11 on Lafayette (after hitchhiking into the city), get picked up by the police after passing out from drinking Mad Dog 20/20 under the train bridge with a homeless woman (after hitchhiking into the city again), and finally, the coup de grace, steal a pound of one of Daddy’s choicest batches of weed, viciously denying it only to have Daddy rip through his room and find it tucked up under his bed.
The late night talks between Daddy and Lizzie transitioned from quiet hobnobs to out right roof-raisers. The pot thievery turned out to be the final straw as Lizzie could not believe her precious little baby would do something like that, even in the face of all the other dumb crap he was pulling, and even though Daddy himself told her what the little delinquent had done. I didn’t have to wait until the next morning for her to exit the premises. She stormed out that very night, slinky Stevie in tow, and burned two ruts in our front lawn on her way off our property and out of my life forever.
I waited a good hour before venturing out of the safety of my room to look for Daddy. I was sure he’d be mad at me for some reason, even if, for the first time in a while, I hadn’t done nothing wrong. I found him sitting out on the lawn, rocking on the glider, a customary joint burning between his fingers, and a can of his favorite beer in the other hand.
"Hey, ‘Manda," he said as I approached. "You wanna have a sit?"
I did. I knew him well enough not to press. He’d just shut me down. I had to let him get used to my being there, let him get his head on right, maybe take a few tokes and a couple of swigs. He kicked the glider and the metal creaked and the springs chimed. When I was close to sure he was ready, I said, "You okay, Daddy?"
He sighed.
"Yeah. I’m good."
"I’m sorry it ended like that."
"Thanks, ‘Manda."
"You’re welcome." The night sounds swelled up around us. The moon came out.
"He was a slick little thing, wasn’t he?" Daddy asked.
"Slicker’n snot."
"That’s gross, ‘Manda. Plus, snot ain’t slick. It’s sticky."
"Still."
"You hated Lizzie from the moment I introduced you, ain’t that right?"
"Daddy, that’s—"
"It’s okay. I never expected us to end up like the Brady Bunch."
"Okay. I didn’t like her much, but I didn’t like the late hours and the keeping me up more, to be honest."
"Fair enough."
"And it ain’t like I don’t want you to be happy."
"I know. But I bet you’re happier now, ain’t you."
"I ain’t gonna lie."
"Interesting how things work out sometimes, ain’t it?"
"How so?"
"You wanted her out. Now she’s out."
"Slick Stevie took care of that. Not me. You just said it."
"And yet the result’s still the same."
"Well, that ain’t fair."
"All I’m saying is if Stevie hadn’t come along, you would have took matters into your own hands, wouldn’t you?"
My silence was all the response he needed.
"Thought so."
"Is that what you think of me?"
"It ain’t what I think. It’s what I know."
Suddenly I was mad. Daddy brought home some skanky piece, nearly had me failing all my classes with all their partying, and when her delinquent son ruined the whole thing, I was the one to blame for it? Uh-uh. Not today. I stood up off that glider and spun around.
"I got news for you, Daddy. I wasn’t planning nothing. You’re just bitter and mean and you’re taking it out on me!"
He pointed at me with his lit joint.
"Now, look, Amanda May—"
I smacked that joint out of his hand.
"No, you look. I didn’t do nothing but lose sleep the whole time Lizzie was here. You’ve been so high for the last month that you didn’t even realize it. You haven’t even gone to one of my games yet. Did you know I scored two goals last week?"
His anger softened.
"Two goals?"
"Yeah. I’m on track to set a school record."
"Oh. That’s good."
"Uh-huh. Because unlike you, that’s all I been doing. What I should have been doing. I’m sorry your girlfriend left, but you’re right, I ain’t sorry she’s gone."
I turned around and stomped off to the house before he could say anything else.
Later on, he tapped on my door. I was sitting at my desk, reading To Kill A Mockingbird for English. I’d just finished the part when Scout and Jem got attacked by that no-good piece-of-garbage Bob Ewell and Scout realized that Boo Radley had saved her life. I ain’t a bawler, but that part had me weeping.
"What?" I said as I wiped the tears away.
"Can I come in?"
"No."
"Please? I got something I need to say to you."
I made him wait. Felt good to do it.
"It’s unlocked."
Daddy turned the knob and opened the door. He didn’t come all the way in but leaned against the frame.
"I owe you an apology, ‘Manda."
"Okay."
"You were right. I ain’t exactly been the best father these last couple weeks."
"It’s okay."
"Do you forgive me?"
"Of course I do, Daddy."
"I love you, ‘Manda May."
"I love you, too."
The tension between us evaporated, and I could breathe again.
"I’m going to grill some burgers," he said "You want one?"
"I want two."
"Two it is. You want this door shut again?"
"No. You can leave it open. Daddy?"
"Yeah."
"Did you love her?"
"I think I could have."
"I guess sometimes things don’t work out no matter how much you want them to."
"Seems that way, don’t it?"

That wasn’t the way me and Ailani and Dr. H and Timmy Carter and everybody else was going to let things happen, though. Yeah, it took all I could take not to beat Dr. H’s head in when I saw him standing in the commons like he earned it, and I can’t say I didn’t regret the decision not to beat his head in every minute for the next five months, and I didn’t know whether or not he was serious or if I should trust him, but everybody seemed to, so I guess I had to go along with it.
I’d met people like Dr. H plenty of times in my life, usually in school. My fifth-grade SCOPE teacher. My ninth grade science teacher. My tenth-grade History teacher. My eleventh-grade English teacher. Pious and condescending, he was the type of person who could never be wrong, and when he was, he found some way to gaslight or distract or digress or change the subject or do whatever he needed to do to make himself seem smarter.
But he told us outright he wanted to get rid of the Hive. Told us it was an "affront to his principals." When a pious, condescending jerk talked like that, usually he meant it.
"I am a scientist," he said. "And as such, I believe in the natural order of the universe. Not just the Earth but the Universe. It all operates on the same principals and laws, of physics, of biology, of gravity, of meteorology. The Hive is Judas. Lucifer. It seeks to bend the Universe to its will and by so doing it will unravel us all."
See what I’m talking about? That’s how he spoke to us. We were all of us sitting around a lunch table (with him at the head, of course), all of us adults except me, and he carried on like he was explaining the alphabet to a classroom filled with toddlers.
"Dr. Huntington," Ailani said. "We understand that the Hive is . . . bad. But you said you could help us kill it. Isn’t that what we just did?"
"Certainly, however—"
"Without your help."
He pressed his lips together.
"You mean to embarrass me? At a time such as this, with our world in grave danger, you take offense to my knowledge? This. This is the problem with our species."
"Nobody’s taking offense to nothing, Dr. H," I said.
"Don’t call me that, child."
"Don’t call me ‘child’."
Frankie sighed and said, just loud enough for everyone to hear, "this is going great."
"Shut up, Frankie."
"You shut up, Amanda. This whole thing could have been avoided if it wasn’t for you."
I couldn’t help it. My mouth dropped open a little bit. A stunned silence followed. Everybody except Dr. H knew what she meant.
"What is this?" he asked. Nobody responded. "To what does this young lady refer?"
"She wants me dead."
"Amanda, don’t," Ailani said.
"You heard her, Ailani. All this is my fault, right Frankie? You just said it."
"I’m just saying . . . "
"I know you’re just saying. Everybody in here knows it. Why don’t you ‘just say it’ out loud?"
"Amanda."
Frankie rolled her eyes.
"Whatever."
That uncomfortable silence fell again, and it took Dr. H’s exasperated sigh to break it.
"The world hangs in balance. Monsters threaten our very existence. And we are held hostage by the whingeing of women."
"Dr. Huntington, that’s enough," Ailani said. "You’re a guest here, but you can’t talk to my friends that way. You want to act like the president, go ahead, but you’re not in charge. We’re willing to listen to what you have to say, but unless you say it, you need to get out."
"My dear, what exactly do you think it is that I am trying to do?"
She stared at him, her jaw clenching and unclenching.
"Say what you need to say."
"Thank you. Simply put, the world is getting warmer, and it’s because of the invaders. They are releasing carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. The carbon monoxide gets trapped, and the sunlight, reflecting off the glaciers is unable to escape, thus creating an endless feedback loop."
"I’ve heard this before," I said. "Isn’t this about the ozone layer?"
Dr. H smirked.
"No, my ch . . . no. It is not about the ozone layer. It is about climate change. The Hive is recreating the Earth to suit itself and all of the creatures it employs. If we do not stop it, the invaders won’t have to kill us off. All it will have to do is merely wait until what few of us are left go extinct."
I let that information sink in. The sound of the children playing in the auxiliary gym echoed faintly in the commons.
"How long?"
"How long what?"
"How long do we have to stop it?"
"If my projections are reliable, less than a year. Six months, if we’re lucky."
"Okay," I said. "If that’s true—"
"If it is true!"
"If it is true, then how do we stop it? We’ve been killing hives and cutting down Macks for over a year and they keep coming back. And if there are hives all over the world and Macks all over the world, there’s no way we can get them all. Not in time to stop it."
"It’s the age’s old tale, Ms. Jett, yes? May I call you Ms. Jett?"
"Actually, yeah. You can call me that."
"Very good, Ms. Jett."
"So what do we do?"
"We destroy the source, Ms. Jett. Kill the head and the body will follow."
"And how do we do that?"
"With me," the Girl said. She must have read the doubt in my expression because she said "you know it’s true, Amanda. Between me and you and the others, we have power. But we need all seven of us to have enough to do what he wants us to do."
"And I’ve killed two of them."
Dr. H, in what I assume was an effort to break the tension, said, "but worry not! You are not the only one of your ilk!" He gestured at the Girl. "Madam?"
"There are more of us. People like me. And you, Amanda. People who can stop the Hive. But they’re not here."
"Fine. Where are they? Let’s go get them."
"We have to go back. Back there."
I knew what she meant. She meant the Hive world. The place where I killed my sister and my momma. Or what the aliens passed off as my sister and my Momma.
"Okay. How? That tentacle gassed me the first time. Tried to choke me to death. I don’t think I want to do that again for obvious reasons."
"We create a controlled situation," Dr. H said.
"How?"
"The gas only converts when it reacts with the oxygen in the atmosphere. It originates as a liquid deep inside the marrow of the tentacles."
"Oh, I get it," I said. "We got to collect the juice."
"Precisely, Ms. Jett."
"How do we do that?"
"That’s exactly the question I was hoping you would ask. Bertholdt! Come!"
We heard a bang and a squeal out in the chorus hall followed by squeaking sounds, and then Bertholdt pushed a cart into the commons. Sitting on top of it was a gigantic, metal syringe.
"May I introduce you to—" Bertholdt lost control of the cart and it ran into one of the concrete pillars. "Damn you, Bertholdt! Fix it! Fix it! No, don’t do that. Just . . . never mind. Shoo. Go back to . . . oh, now don’t cry. Please, you embarrass yourself. What? No, I’m not angry. Just disappointed. Yes, of course you can still have cocoa tonight. There, there." Then to us. "Please excuse Bertholdt. This whole year has been very difficult for him."
Yeah, I bet. The little demon had nestled himself under Dr. H’s arm, and his red eyes glared out at us, me in particular. He smiled with them pointy teeth.
"Now run along, Berthold," Dr. H said. "I’ll be done here in a little while."
Bertholdt scurried away, nattering in his strange language.
"So what is it?" I asked, nodding at the syringe on the cart.
"Ah, yes. This. I call this Dr. Huntington’s Miraculous Hive Juice Extractor."
"What does it do?"
"Why, Ms. Jett. It extracts the hive juice."

That’s how one gray November morning, Timmy Carter and I found ourselves squatting in the bushes on the edge of a clearing, watching a tentacle wiggle out of a hive hole. Dr. Huntington didn’t just supply us with his Miraculous Hive Juice Extractor, he also provided specialty masks, something we could use to make sure we weren’t overcome by the hive gas. He called them Dr. Huntington’s Superlative Hive Mist Multi-Valve Vapor Respirators, but to me, they looked like something he looted from a hardware store.
Timmy Carter hoisted the Hive Juice Extractor under his arm and gathered his feet beneath him. When we’d strapped the masks on tight, he nodded at me and I nodded at him and was about to make the go-head signal but before I could, a screechy battle cry came from the other side of the clearing, and Berenice and Bertholdt and all their creepy little melonhead brothers and sisters burst out of the bushes and attacked.
"So much for the plan," I muttered.
There are a lot of things I never thought I’d experience in my life. I never thought I’d see an alien. Or a polar crab. Or a kangape. As strange as all of them sound by themselves, none of them rank anywhere near the sight of a half-dozen melonhead children swarming over an alien tentacle growing out of the ground.
That tentacle was plenty angry, too. It whipped and swung and bashed with the strength of an ox. But them melonheads was tougher than pine knots, and every time that tentacle slung one off or smashed one into the dirt, she or he or it or whatever got up, shook it off, and jumped back into the fight. They did them some damage too, tearing into the rubbery skin with their teeth, bashing it with rocks and sticks. Bertholdt even brought himself one of the good doctor’s scalpels and took to slicing the dang thing up like he was carving a pumpkin.
While they were distracting it and making it weaker, Timmy Carter and I snuck up with the Extractor. Timmy Carter might have been able to carry around on his shoulders by himself, but it took the two of us to operate it, which we achieved with the skill and smoothness of an old married couple trying to move a heavy piece of furniture.
"Pick your end up higher!"
"This is as high as my arms go!"
"Slow down!"
"Speed up!"
"Watch that stump."
"What st . . . ouch!"
It was a miracle we even moved that thing the thirty or so feet from the edge of the clearing to the base of the tentacle let alone positioned it to hit the right spot. That was my job. Had to angle the needle just right or we wouldn’t hit the main vein. If I nicked it or stuck the meat, the whole tentacle exploded for some reason, coating us in green and purple goo. I’d already botched it two times out of four, and even though the melonheads thought it was funny (every. single. time), I could tell Timmy Carter was getting mighty irritated. I didn’t blame him. Nobody liked to get covered in green and purple goo, even if the green and purple goo was mostly plant matter.
"Bring it closer!" I yelled.
"You’re aiming it wrong!"
"Bring it closer!"
"Duck!"
The tentacle swung around with three of the melonhead children latched onto its side, screaming and laughing. I was already kneeling, so it was wasn’t difficult to hit the deck, but Timmy Carter was standing up, holding the other end of the extractor. He had just enough time to drop it before the tentacle hit him square in the chest and sent him flying. He hit a dead oak tree and slumped to the ground. The tree cracked and creaked, and then it fell forward.
"Aw man," I said.
It was going to fall on me if I didn’t move. The melonheads sprang off like ticks in a fire, and I rolled to the side and the tree came crashing down, crushing the tentacle, which exploded in a shower of green and purple goo.
"Dang it!" I yelled, pounding the earth. "Timmy Carter, you okay?"
He didn’t answer.
"Timmy Carter!"
Still nothing.
"Timmy—"
"I’m okay. Alive, at least. Busted a rib. Or two."
Berenice came running up.
"Missus! Missus! That was the best one yet! Did you see me ride? Did you? Did you?"
I got to my knees and tried to wipe the goo off my sleeves, but it was pointless.
"Yes, I saw—the Extractor!"
I whipped around, certain I’d find it crushed under the trunk, but it wasn’t. The fallen tree had narrowly missed it. It lay next to the base of the tentacle underneath some dead branches. I scrambled over on my hands and knees and broke the branches off, then slouched back.
"Oh, no, Missus! Oh, no!"
"What is it?" Timmy Carter asked. He’d gotten to his feet and was limping over, one hand covering his ribs.
"The tentacle juice," I said. "What little we got. The tree broke the container."
"What?"
I unscrewed the glass receptacle from its socket, what was left of it, and held it up to him.
"It’s all gone."
Timmy Carter shook his head ruefully.
"Well, if it’s any consolation," he said. "It wasn’t even a quarter full." He sat down on the dead trunk with a groan.
I rummaged around in my backpack.
"We’ve got another container. We just need to find the right vein is all."
"Maybe. Or maybe they’re all drying up. It’s too late in the fall."
"I don’t know what to tell you, Timmy Carter. The man wants his hive juice." I screwed the new container in. "The man gets his hive juice."

We tromped around the Spotsylvania woods for three more hours, looking for another tentacle. Timmy Carter’s ribs slowed him down something terrible, and I tried to carry the Extractor for him, but it was way too heavy.
"Maybe we could hold it between us," I said.
"I’m fine."
"No, you’re not. You’re wheezing like an old man."
"I am an old man."
"Not so old. Seriously, let me hold the lighter end, at least."
"It’ll just slow us down."
"No, it won’t."
"Yes, it will."
"Why’re you being so contrary?"
"I’m not."
We walked in silence, and I could tell something was bothering him.
"This about her? Because if it is, I gotta tell you, I don’t get it."
"It’s not about her."
"You know she tried to kill me, right?"
"She wasn’t . . . "
"Wasn’t what? Trying to kill me? You were there. You saw it."
"You don’t understand."
"I guess not."
"She’s not what you think."
"Okay."
"Besides. That’s not what’s bothering me."
Now I knew what he was talking about. Heck, it was bothering me, too. How could it not? That morning we awoke to a couple of people missing. Even though our ranks had been a little replenished after the massacre, we still didn’t have the numbers that we used to have. That might have made it easier to feed everyone, but it didn’t make nobody comfortable on the defense front. Maybe they’d abandoned the place. Maybe it was more sinister. Not knowing which only made it worse.
"You think they just left?"
"Maybe. It’s weird, isn’t it?"
"I think it’ll be fine. People came and left the farm all the time, remember?"
"I think this is different. I think we’ll find them strung up somewhere."
"Jeez, Timmy Carter."
"Just being honest."
"Don’t talk that way to Ailani. She might think you had something to do with it."
I didn’t think that was true, and I didn’t think Timmy Carter had anything to do with anything except protecting people and being my friend. But his dark mood was justified, I think. Death and dying was pretty much the norm these days, and people got depressed pretty easy. I ain’t judging. It happened to me. It’s harsh to say, but nature don’t care about feelings. Nature don’t care about your plans for the future, your dreams and aspirations, who you love, who you hate, nothing. Nature is what it always was, a playground for the Grim Reaper. If you couldn’t handle it, you became his toy.
"Ailani’ll deal with it," I said.
"Maybe."
"C’mon, Timmy Carter."
"Is she a cop? She have FBI training? I like her, Amanda, but that doesn’t mean she can handle a murder investigation."
"If it’s a murder investigation."
"How many of these people did you know before the Hive came? There’s bound to be a few bad actors in there somewhere. Who’s to say one of them isn’t a killer."
"Could be, I guess." Then, after a few seconds of silence. "Dang, Timmy Carter. Now you got me all worried."
"Didn’t mean to."
Berenice burst out of the brush, a dead squirrel spiked on her sharpened claws.
"Look, Missus! Look!"
"That’s . . . great, Berenice."
She skipped over, holding the squirrel like she was presenting me a trophy.
"I brings breakfast for she!"
"Oh. Thank you."
She pulled it off with a soft sucking sound, tossed it at my feet, and scurried back into the bushes, giggling. Timmy Carter took one look at me and shook his head, laughing.

By noon we were footsore and tired and we hadn’t found a goldarn thing. Timmy Carter was at least half-right about the pointlessness of our efforts. The latest round of frost had sent a lot of the tentacles back into the warm core of the earth, and many of those we found outside had blackened and rotted where they were, sometimes burrowed halfway into the ground like they realized at the last moment what was about to happen but were too late to do anything about it.
At least Berenice made the most of the day. She burst around the underbrush like a puppy, hunting for "gifts" that she brought to me every so often. She graduated from squirrels to birds to coons to skunks and finally whatever else hadn’t been snatched up by the Macks or the hives themselves. A couple of times, she brought me parts of them weird creatures I seen before, the snakes with spider legs, the eels with scorpion tales. At the eighth sceel stinger, I told her I couldn’t eat anymore. I wasn’t really eating them, of course, I was just stowing them away in my backpack, but I thought that’s what she wanted me to do.
"Oh, Missus shouldn’t eat the stingers! They venom your veins!"
"Right, I meant—"
"I must get a potion for she!"
"No, Berenice. That’s not—"
"Wait heres!"
We ate lunch while sitting on a dead branch next to a little creek: Berenice and Bertholdt and all their friends gnawing on the bones of something they caught in the woods, Timmy Carter and I chowing down on apples and corn on the cob with beans and chickpea paste. Timmy Carter wolfed down enough food for ten men but it obviously wasn’t enough. He looked mournfully at the empty newspaper we’d wrapped it all in when he was done eating.
"How many beans do you think equals a chicken?"
"A whole chicken?"
"Yeah."
"I dunno. A lot?"
"You used to farm, didn’t you?"
"Yeah, but we didn’t have any chicken to bean conversion charts."
"Why not?"
"Nobody ever asked before."
He opened his mouth to say something but paused.
Then the noise came. It sounded like a gorilla boxing a whale. Timmy Carter looked up and said, "you hear that?"
"Yeah. It’s over there."
"Where?"
I pointed into the brush.
"There."
There was a pause in the noise, an eerie pause that set my nerves tingling, and then a roar that wound up into a high-pitched squeal burst through the silence, louder than loud, and we both slid off the log into a three-point squat. If our instinct was to take cover and prepare for the worst, the melonhead kids’ was to run headlong into the scrum, which they did lickety-split, the sound of her feet pitter-pattering in the dead leaves.
"Guys!" I hissed. "No!"
"A hives, Missus!" Berenice called. "A hives!"
The next thing I heard was all their high-pitched squeals mixing in with the roars and the punching sounds. Sounded like someone put a jaguar in a wood chipper. Then the brush rustled in front of us and Berenice scrambled out covered in scratches and dirt and dragging two baby kangapes by their horns.
"I saves them, Missus!" she cried.
"Jeez Louise, Berenice!
"We go backs for more! They needs our help!"
And she dumped the things at my feet and dashed back into the fight.
Even though they was just babies, they were still about the size of a fully grown German Shepherd. They’d been beat to holy hell, I’ll tell you what. Fur ripped off in patches, horns chipped and cracked. One of them was out cold, but the other looked like it wanted to get up. Its hind paws were broken but it kept twitching its legs. I was caught between wanting to comfort the poor thing and putting it out of its misery.
"Missus!" Berenice called.
Another roar.
"Help us!"
"I think we should," Timmy Carter said.
Half a tree trunk exploded up into the air and flew over our heads. I watched it crack through the branches and thud a few feet away.
"I think they’ll do just fine on their own."
"Amanda."
"Have you seen one of them grown kangapes close up? Because I have."
"Missus! Help us!"
Timmy Carter stood up, wincing.
"Stop fooling around and help me with the Extractor."
I attended exactly one beer bash when I was in high school. Of course, I never made it to my senior year (thanks Hive), but that’s beside the point. The one beer bash I was able to attend was thrown by the son of one of Daddy’s regulars, some rich kid who lived in town in one of them mansions on Washington Avenue. This was one of the nicer places on the street, a stone-faced Victorian that his mom and her husband bought and renovated after a fire gutted it a few years before, but he and his friends treated it like their own personal alcoholic proving grounds.
I could hear the music thrumming as I walked up to the house, and when I went to knock, the front door swung open on its own accord. What greeted me was a scene from an 80’s movie. There were kids jumping on the expensive furniture, kids crashing up and down the hardwood stairs, kids throwing beer at each other. I’d only took one step into the foyer when a football player hanging from the chandelier jerked a little too hard in an effort to get it swinging and the whole thing came crashing down in front of me.
That’s a little bit like it was walking into the clearing with all the roaring and the screaming and Berenice crying for help, only with less blood and guts and body parts.
Berenice was holding onto a thick tentacle as it whipped her through in the air while a full-grown kangape bounced around the perimeter, beating its chest and roaring and every now and then thundering through the middle to grapple or head-butt something. Berenice had latched on tight, her nails digging into the tentacle’s rubbery skin, and she used her pointy teeth rip chunks of it out and spit them into the air. The tentacle finally got enough force to whip her back and forth like a carnival ride, but that didn’t bother Berenice much. She just dug her nails in harder and whooped and hollered.
"Look, Missus! Look at mes!"
She could only hold on but so long before it finally snapped hard enough to throw her off, though. She hit Timmy Carter right in the chest and knocked him straight to the ground. The kangape took her place, whuffing as the tentacle thudded into its stomach. But it was stronger and bigger than a melonhead kid, and instead of flying through the air, it dug in its heels and ground them to a halt. It beat back the other tentacles swirling around in the air like snakes and pounded on the main line with its fists. That must have tripped an emergency plunger or something because green vapor seeped out of the ground around the base, covering the kangape in an envelope, and when the vapor evaporated, the kangape was on the ground, motionless.
"That’s it!" Timmy Carter yelled.
He struggled to his feet, wincing, and tightened his mask to his face, and while the tentacle reared back to plunge into the fallen kangape’s chest, he waded in with his machete and took a sizable chunk out of its side. The tentacle lurched and listed, sending the smaller ones into a buzzing tizzy. Then it was my turn. I ran in and started slicing and dicing like I was making a salad, and between the two of us, when we were done, there wasn’t nothing left of that dang thing but green juice and rubbery skin. Timmy Carter stood up, breathing heavy.
"Think that’s enough juice for—"
The tip of the tentacle shot off the ground, aiming to knock his machete away, but Timmy Carter jumped back and cut it in two with one powerful swipe. It must have hurt as much as it looked impressive because he went down to one knee.
Berenice sat up, looking dazed herself, and Bertholdt and the rest of his friends wandered in from the woods in various states of bruises. The weird thing was how much different they didn’t look even with all them new cuts and contusions. They actually kind of looked a little better than usual.
"Missus! Missus!" Berenice said as she waddled over to the passed out kangape. "Is it going to be okay?"
"I’m sure it’s fine, Berenice."
"Can we takes it with us? Please?"
I opened my mouth to say no, but then I had an idea. Timmy Carter must have read my mind, because he said, "No way, Amanda."
"Might be useful."
"You’re crazy if you think either one of us can carry it back. It must weigh four hundred pounds."
He got up and started for it, machete still out, when another kangape burst out of the trees, roaring. It jumped at him, legs out. and hit him square in the chest (again), and he flew back and it landed in the middle of the clearing where the gas was still floating in the air and it sputtered and crashed around, finally stumbling out of the clearing toward where we were hiding before. I trotted after it, keeping a safe distance, and watched it collapse a few feet away, coming to a rest next to the two babies Berenice saved. It lay still a tic, eyes fluttering. That’s when I saw the scar on its face, a long, shiny one that ran one ear to the corner of its mouth. When it saw the babies, it tried to reach out but its arms were too weak. I crouched forward, keeping my hands out in front of me.
"Hey, hey," I said.
The kangape grunted and growled, but it didn’t have enough energy to do much more.
"It’s okay. You want your baby? He yours? Here. You can touch him."
The monster let out a pathetic attempt at an angry sound, and I saw its back legs twitching like it wanted to take a leap at me but couldn’t. Heck, it couldn’t even pick its head off the ground. I pulled the baby kangape closer as gently as I could, leaving it so the bigger one could brush its head with the back of its knuckles. The big one made eye-contact with me and then it went still and quiet, slipping off into that green-drug coma.

Dr. Huntington wasn’t none too pleased when we came back with one broken container and the other one not even an eighth full. We put them on the table where he sat, but all he did was temple his fingers and stare at them. I let Timmy Carter explain what happened. Dr. H listened to every word, tapping his fingers on his chin. When Timmy Carter was done, the doctor heaved a sigh and looked at us like we were in Kindergarten.
"Explain to me, exactly, how you were not able to mine the juice? Did the Extractor malfunction?"
"No," I said.
"Then how—"
"Didn’t you listen to a word Timmy Carter just said?"
"Amanda," Timmy Carter said. "It’s okay."
"No, it ain’t. First of all, Dr. H, don’t talk to us like we work for you."
"Oh, Ms. Jett. Make no mistake—"
"Mistake what?"
"Who has the knowledge? Who has the technology? Do you want to defeat the invaders or not?"
"Who has the muscle? Who has the legs? Do you want to defeat the invaders or not?"
He laughed.
"Tricks of rhetoric won’t solve the problem."
Timmy Carter put his hand on my shoulder.
"Amanda."
"What?"
He tilted his head and mouthed the word "stop."
My natural inclination in an argument, if you didn’t know it already, was to stand my ground and double down. If somebody wanted to jaw at me, wasn’t no reason for me not to jaw back. Timmy Carter was quiet himself, but he didn’t usually try to enforce it on me. So if he wanted me to be quiet, it must have meant something. I bit my tongue, took a breath, and sat down. Dr. Huntington put his fingers to his lips and wouldn’t look me in the eye. He picked up one of the containers and turned it in his hands.
"It would seem as though this idea is not going to work after all."
"It would seem that way."
He paused in thought, still turning the container, looking but not seeing. He started muttering to himself.
"No, that’s not certain but . . . of course, I don’t believe . . . no. No. Absolutely not."
Timmy Carter and I shared a look.
"Fine," Dr. Huntington said. "I agree. It could be fun. But . . . ." He popped out of whatever world he was in and put the container back down on the table. "Despite my most strenuous misgivings, I believe there might be another way."
"Okay," I said. "What is it?"
He fixed both of us with a mischievous glint in his eyes.
"Do you believe in ghosts?"