Always I hear the stomping, crunching press of bipedal feet seeking fortune amidst the bodies of the fallen. How many days has it been since they took Carl? Four? Eight? The great blue above has passed to black more times than I can remember since I saw the first of them. And still I can hear Carl’s last gasp before he was swept away into hands both great and coarse.
We were sunning ourselves. It was just another day as the breeze was blowing and a stray rabbit hopped in the field nearby. I recall that a snail had crossed our path unfettered in its slow, meandering sojourn. We watched it go, reflecting on its stillness. On its insistence to get wherever it was going. Many days were spent like that in those long weeks of summer. We would think on life and the world around us, wondering always the nature of what it meant to be.
And then it came. The world darkened as a boulder shot quicker than thought into Benny, Carl’s cousin. The remains of innards and carapace left a streak across the grass in the form of a black ichor. The blades and leaves between my mandibles fell to the earth as I tried to process what I had just seen. What had been Benny, what had been life, was simply no longer. There was no warning, no moment of preparation. And as I lost myself in introspection, the ground began to shake.
Two massive feet, greater than the largest smooth stones, dropped themselves atop Carl. The tremor awoke something in the rest of us like the crack of a tree branch and we fled. A veil had been lifted from our conscious minds and we could suddenly taste the terror around us. But not before being forced to witness the great beast stepping off Carl’s broken legs as they twitched unnaturally and fell at odd angles. Somewhere inside me, in a place deeper than my reflections, I knew that if I didn’t run, if I didn’t move, I would become ill. And more, I knew that I would meet a similar fate.
As chance would have it, Lucy was pursued next in the maddening scatter. The swish of metal rang out in the otherwise calm and silent hillside. The darting glint of something reflected across the grass as it caught the sun’s rays, fueling my need to escape all the more.
Another crash. And another. Cries all around me from the remaining survivors did little to bolster my resolve, but urged my legs to put me as far away from the others and the creature as possible.
A picture of Carl entered my mind; intruded upon my thoughts like an infection, burning like a rash. Something in me slowed those pulsing legs and my hops finally stopped, and once more I found myself facing the carnage. From further away, I saw the monster clearly, gleaming pale in the high sun. Two alabaster appendages hung out of either side of its body, one holding a stick the color of starlight. I could see from here the bodies of five others, all still but one.
Carl.
The monster had turned toward the rabbit who promised to give better chase than our spindly legs could take us. The brute was trying its best, but the white ball of fluff continued to evade the cretin’s clumsy swings. I knew that if there was going to be a chance, it was now.
Despite everything that pulled me to stop what I was doing and run the other way, I returned to Carl as fast as I could go. I felt myself soar further than I ever had before, bounding over boulders and ledges, even a stream, until I made it back to my friend. I fought time and instinct alike and was finally greeted by the sight of my maimed companion.
Three of his legs had broken clean off and lay useless beside him, one being a hopping leg. A strange yellow goo was oozing from his underside, seeping into the dry earth beneath us. He twitched still, and when I approached his antennae worked fiercely in my direction in a pleading grope of recognition.
“Carl?” I croaked. “Carl, I...I...”
His head tilted toward me, jerking in what I guessed was pain.
“Kill me, Daniel," he croaked. "Finish me before...before it comes back.”
I stood as dumb as the day I first crawled out of my egg. Carl had seen me through everything. He had been in my clutch, the first face I saw when I clawed my way from the sack. We had embraced adulthood together. Tasted the first drop of summer dew. Carl was my everything.
“Carl. I can’t...you can make it! You just have to try, please! I’ll help you. Just crawl onto my back and we’ll get away.”
The clicking laughter was the last thing I expected to hear, sounding both satisfied and yet resigned. Carl’s body shook with it, the back end of his body dragging across the dirt with a scrape.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. He almost sounded like himself then. Almost looked it too if it weren’t for the shattered remnants of his body laying nearby. “Kill me and be done with it, Daniel. Kill me and-”
The bullet exploded into Carl’s body like a meteor from the sky. Dirt erupted from the area, forcing me and everything else around up and away in a cloud of brown that swept through the low grass.
I knew Carl was gone, and though my head and legs shook with the effects of the concussive blow, I ran. I jumped. I flew.
Days later I returned to the spot. Little remained from the massacre other than faint traces of rabbit blood and a crater in the ground where Carl breathed his last. I rose my legs to the night and sung the song of my heartbreak. I sung until the stars were born from the inky milk of twilight and on.
And now I wait. They see me skirting on the edge of their vision. Always on the edge. They think to themselves that I am merely going about my business as another member of nature. Another resource to be tapped. But next time I’ll be ready. What happened to Carl will not happen to me.
I will become the thing of nightmares. I will pledge myself against those who would stomp overhead with such disregard to life. I will be justice incarnate.
And I will not run.
