Stu, his arm straight up in the air, the Zippo blazing.

  Duncan aimed the aerosol can and sprayed, turning the bug repellent into a makeshift flamethrower.

  He waved the flame around, turning flies into burning raindrops, frying hundreds of them.

  The bugs backed away, still buzzing angrily around the boat, keeping a safe distance from the fire. Duncan took the fight to them, leaning over the gunwales, climbing onto the pontoon floats, killing as many as he could as the can got hotter and lighter.

  As the panic faded to simply terror, Duncan considered making some torches with fishing poles, rags, and gasoline. But just as the bug spray ran out, the swarm retreated, flying off to the east, the black cloud eventually dispersing into reddish sky.

  Duncan dropped the can and opened a bench seat, throwing Chuck a life jacket. He reached for it, his face gray with muck and dirty water. He appeared to be standing on the lake bottom, but Duncan acutely remembered how impossible it was to move.

  “You okay?” he asked Chuck.

  “They got me a few more times. Dude… your face.”

  Stu was staring at his arms and legs, covered with raised welts. Dozens of them. His face had at least ten more, and one eye had already swelled up.

  Duncan checked himself, seeing just as many stings on his own body. He then dared to feel all the hot bumps on his face.

  Does each one have a larva inside?

  Am I infested with maggots?

  He pushed away the thought, focusing on the course of action.

  “Stu, put on a life jacket. We’re going in the water.”

  “If we get to the shore, then what? No one lives on this side of the lake. You want to walk through the woods? How many flies are out there? In the forest there are millions of bugs per acre. Millions, Duncan.”

  “We need to swim for it, Stu.” Chuck said from the water, struggling to get into the life jacket. “We need to get to a hospital.”

  They aren’t thinking this through.

  What’s happening to us could be happening to others. Certainly on this lake. Maybe the lack of activity isn’t the air quality, it’s bugs. But maybe this is even bigger. Maybe all of Safe Haven and Spoonward is being attacked by these flies. That could mean the hospital is overrun.

  We might be on our own.

  Luckily, my parents, and their neighbors Sun and Andy, are preppers. They have safe rooms, weapons, medical supplies, and enough food and water to withstand a siege.

  We need a way to get back to the house.

  “We’re not going for the shore.” Duncan pointed. “We’re going for that guy’s boat.”

  The bass boat that had drawn them into the reeds hadn’t moved since Duncan had first spotted it.

  I can guess why. The flies got him.

  But we can use his boat to get home.

  “How about we swim to your house?” Stu asked.

  Duncan shook his head. “We’re a few kilometers away. And if the flies attack again, there’s nowhere to go. You want them laying eggs in your scalp and ears while we spend four hours doggy paddling back?”

  “Vote on it,” Chuck said. “I say go for the boat.”

  Stu’s face bunched up, and he seemed about to lose it.

  Duncan clapped him on the shoulder. “We need to stick together, Stu. But we all need to agree on this.”

  “We could stay on the pontoon,” Stu said. “Make torches out of fishing poles and towels. Wait for the wind to come back and blow us to shore.”

  “And what happens if we’re stuck here until night? You want to be stuck in the dark with those flies?”

  “Come on, Stu,” Chuck said. “Water is actually pretty nice.”

  Stu sighed. “You win, Captain. We swim for the boat.”

  They put on their life jackets, Duncan unlatched the aluminum boat ladder next to the motor, and they climbed down the four steps into the lake.

  The water was cool, instantly soothing Duncan’s many stings. He could still touch the muck bottom with his toes, so he leaned forward and began an awkward breast stroke as he bobbed, cutting through the reeds and heading for the boat.

  Swimming while wearing a life jacket and shoes wasn’t easy. Especially through bullrush and cattails jutting up through mucky water. Duncan kept getting hung up on weeds, and his toes kept catching the lake bottom and getting stuck. He also had serious concentration issues, his mind obsessing over the eggs that had been deposited in his many stings, and the paranoia of it happening again.

  Chuck managed to keep up, staying on Duncan’s heels. But Stu kept pausing to rest.

  Maybe he’s sick. From the leech bite.

  He considered calling out to him, checking on his well-being, but had no idea if insects were attracted by noise.

  As they crept closer to the stern of the bass boat, Duncan noticed that the sitting occupant was slumped forward in his captain’s chair, head down, wearing a red and black flannel shirt, completely still except for his shirt ruffling in the breeze.

  Duncan paused, holding his breath, listening for the telltale buzz of swarming flies.

  The lake was oddly silent.

  He floated closer, blinking away the dirty water in his eyes, trying to fix his vision because the boat captain’s shirt was badly out of focus. Fuzzy.

  Maybe I’m sick, too.

  That shirt is ruffling in the wind in a really weird way.

  Duncan placed his hands on the port side gunwale pulling up to look inside the boat, and with horror he realized his unforgiveable mistake.

  There is no breeze.

  The shirt isn’t blowing.

  That isn’t a shirt at all.

  The boat’s captain was completely covered with a thick layer of ants. They marched over him like an undulating wave, crawling in and out of his hollow eye sockets, his open mouth.

  And he wasn’t the only one. Another passenger was on the floor of the bass boat, ants covering him like a carpet, one skeletonized hand jutting up from the mound, completely stripped of flesh.

  A fraction of a second later, the ants were all over Duncan’s hands, pain like he’d just touched a hot stove while getting his fingers pounded with a hammer.

  Duncan yelped and pushed against the boat, rubbing the insects off of his hands, kicking to swim away from the floating abattoir, his mind screaming white hot with pain and fear.

  He backstroked, bumping into Chuck who caught him by the life jacket.

  “What’s the problem, bro?”

  Duncan raised a swollen hand and pointed a puffy finger as the ants poured over the side of the boat like liquid—

  —and then floated on the top of the lake.

  They began to spread out, a growing ant oil slick, extending past the bow and stern and blacking off the near shoreline.

  “Are those fucking ants?” Chuck asked.

  “It’s an ant raft,” Stu wheezed, paddling up behind them. “Jesus, how many are there?”

  “They filled half the boat,” Duncan said. “They ate two people. Maybe more.”

  “Be quiet, hold your breath, and paddle slowly away,” Stu said. “Insects are attracted by sound, carbon dioxide, and movement.”

  Duncan wanted to ask what didn’t attract insects, because it sounded like they were attracted to damn near everything, but he didn’t want to make any sound. The trio slowly swam away from the bass boat, toward the pontoon, trying not to splash.

  Incredibly, the ant raft continued to grow, until it was twice the length of the boat.

  And it’s stretching out in our direction.

  “Faster,” Chuck whispered. “We gotta go faster.”

  They kicked harder, and Duncan glanced behind him. The pontoon seemed impossibly far away.

  Looking back at the ants, their roundish shape floating on the water had become a triangle, with the nearest point reaching like a finger, closing in on the trio’s legs.

  A bridge. They’re making a bridge to get to us.

  And they’re only a few meters away and closing the gap.

  Noise be damned, Duncan began to paddle and kick like his life depended on it, which it did. Chuck kept up. But Stu floundered, flopping around without getting any momentum.

  “Chuck, grab one of his arms.”

  Duncan reached for Stu, aiming for his wrist, surprised how slimy his friend felt. He managed to get a firm grip and the duo tugged Stu through the water as the ant bridge stretched closer and closer.

  The flies were awful.

  But being devoured by ants would be even worse.

  Though a fraction of the size, their stings hurt Duncan just as much, if not more.

  And did they lay eggs in me? Like the flies?

  I can’t comprehend them being all over my entire body.

  It would be worse than being burned alive. Going insane with panic while in absolute agony.

  Fear-induced adrenaline gave Duncan a huge spike of energy, and he stroked and kicked so hard he was pulling both Stu and Chuck.

  The next minute whirred by, humans racing ants in a deadlock, and then finally, blessedly, they reached the pontoon. Duncan climbed the ladder first, and then Chuck pushed Stu from underneath while Duncan pulled his exhausted buddy on board.

  Stu was covered in big hunks of weeds and slime. Duncan sat him on the green carpet in the captain’s chair, then helped Chuck up.

  Chuck squinted at the lake with his one good eye. “They’re almost on us.”

  “Pull up the ladder. Maybe they’ll have trouble getting on the floats.”

  “Didn’t seem to have any trouble getting on that bass boat.”

  Good point. “Soak a beach towel in gas. Maybe we can set the ant raft on fire.”

  “Shit, look at Stu!”

  Duncan glanced back at his friend, and realized he wasn’t covered with weeds.

  He was covered with leeches.

  “I should have used the Celox,” Stu said, smiling weakly. “They were attracted to the blood.”

  Duncan felt his knees start to give out and his vision go wonky.

  Vasovagal syncope. I’m going to pass out.

  Stu met his eyes, looking desperate.

  Duncan glanced at Chuck, and saw he seemed beaten, and something else.

  Pity. He pities me.

  Duncan gave his head a big shake, forcing away the nausea.

  He gave it another shake, pushing back the weakness.

  Fuck you, vasovagal syncope. I got this.

  Duncan reached down to start pulling the leeches off of Stu, and noticed his own swollen hands. It looked like he wore a pair of bumpy red gloves. Seeing his injury made the pain even worse.

  But it’s just pain. I can handle the pain.

  I can handle the pain, and handle the blood.

  I can handle anything.

  I need to help my friend.

  Making two tight fists, squeezing specks of blood from all of his stings, Duncan again went for Stu’s leeches.

  Stu shook his head. “If you take them off, the wounds will still bleed. Plus the shock makes them vomit.”

  “I’ve got Celox.”

  “You got a pound of Celox on this boat?” Stu lifted up his arms, and they looked like crow wings.

  He had at least thirty leaches hanging on him. Probably more. Long ones, a foot long each.

  “So what do we do?” Duncan asked, feeling helpless.

  “Let them feed. Pulling them off runs the risk of them vomiting the contents of their stomach into my bloodstream. All sorts of bacteria and parasites could get inside.”

  “Why’d you pull the last one then?”

  Stu offered a sick smile. “I was showing off. I should know better, right? I’m a freaking entomologist.”

  “What if they… take too much?”

  “What’s the most they can drink? Two pints? I can survive that. Plus, there’s a bonus.”

  Duncan raised an eyebrow in question.

  “When we all get back to your house, I can get drunk a lot faster.”

  “Ants are almost here, Duncan,” Chuck told him.

  “Zippo is in my pocket, Chuck. I can’t reach in.” Duncan waggled his hotdog fingers as proof.

  Chuck took the lighter, and Duncan picked up the fish net and put the gas-soaked blanket in it.

  When the gasoline soaked his ant stings, he screamed louder than he’d ever screamed in his life. Duncan actually saw red, his vision blinded by unbearable, intolerable, unfathomable pain.

  He was vaguely aware of Chuck taking the net, setting the towel on fire, and waving it like a flag over the side of the boat, dripping fire onto the ant bridge.

  As his vision blurred back to normal, he found himself focusing on the boat’s control panel, the key dangling from the ignition. On reflex he pinched the key in his tortured fingers and turned.

  Nothing happened. The battery was dead.

  For want of a nail.

  That was an old parable Josh used to tell him.

  The kingdom fell, for want of a nail.

  He closed his eyes and remembered the first time he’d heard it. They’d been fishing, and Duncan had lost a bass because somehow the treble hook had come off his lure.

  “Bad O-ring,” Dad had told him. “One tiny thing wrong can lead to disaster. There was a soldier in medieval times, on a battlefield, and the blacksmith missed a single nail when putting on the horse’s shoe. Because of that, the horse lost the shoe. Because it lost the shoe, it threw the soldier. Because the solder fell off his horse, he was killed in battle. Because he was killed in battle, the battle was lost. Because the battle was lost, the war was lost. Because the war was lost, the country was taken over and thousands were killed and enslaved. All for want of a nail.”

  In Duncan’s case, their current predicament all came down to losing the pliers.

  If only I had another pair of pliers. Or if the pliers on my Swiss Army knife were big enough to grab the hex bolt.

  Or even if I had some duct tape. I could wrap that around the spark plug, then pull on the tape with the small pliers.

  But I don’t have duct tape. Which is why my damn pontoon railings are held together with zip ties.

  Zip ties?

  Zip ties!

  Duncan used his thumbnail to tease the plastic toothpick from its sheath in the case of the Swiss Army knife. Then, with aching shaking fingers, he went to one of the large zip ties wrapped around the aluminum boat railing and used it as a shim to release the tie. Once it was unzipped he went to the motor and looped the tie around the stubborn spark plug.

  Using the Swiss Army knife pliers he cinched it tight—

  —and then painfully pulled sideways, lefty-loosey, as if he’d wound a string around a top and was trying to let it rip—

  —and his hands felt like they’d been set on fire that was extinguished with hydrochloric acid—

  —and every fly sting on his body seemed to flare up—

  —Stu was covered with leeches and Chuck dripped flaming gas on floating killer ants—

  —and dammit he loved Katie so much and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her and there was no way that could be stopped because of a damn—

  The spark plug moved!

  Using trembling, tortured fingers, Duncan carefully unscrewed the loose plug and wiped off the soot and gunk on the threads and electrode using a beach towel and some hand sanitizer. Then he threaded it back into the motor socket, attached the cable, and went to his ignition key.

  Please, please, let the battery have just a tiny bit of power left…

  Duncan twisted the key—

  —and nothing happened.

  Son of a—

  “Doesn’t it have a manual start?” Chuck asked, still hefting the burning towel.

  Yes! How’d I forget about that?

  Duncan turned the cowl over and saw the pull-start rope in a waterproof plastic bag taped to the inside lid. He removed it, then wound the length around the motor’s flywheel assembly above the rewind starter.

  This has got to work…

  He gripped the T-handle in both hands, took a big breath, and yanked like it was his backup parachute and he was five hundred feet off the ground and coming in at terminal velocity.

  The engine caught and held, and Duncan immediately moved to the control box, keeping it in neutral but giving it some gas to make sure it didn’t die.

  It moved, sluggish, and it felt like the propeller was stuck on the lake bottom. With no battery Duncan couldn’t trim up, so he gave it a bit more gas, trying to tear through the muck.

  “Ants are on the floats!”

  Chuck began to wipe the flaming towel over the port pontoon float like he was swabbing a deck, and the smoke began to block Duncan’s vision.

  Duncan gave it more gas and aimed high, for the fire tower on the lake’s north shore.

  Chuck moved to the other float, then did a slow circle of the pontoon just as the last of the burning beach towel slipped off the net pole.

  “I think we’re clear,” Chuck announced. Then he began to laugh. “I think we’re clear!”

  Stu offered a sleepy thumbs-up and a lopsided grin.

  Duncan also became swept up in elation. The lower end was still scraping bottom, and the motor was revving at the max level, but the shore and the tower were getting closer, and it looked like they might actually make it to—

  “Flies!” Stu yelled. “Attracted by the smoke!”

  Of course they were attracted by the smoke.

  Chuck began to swat at the sky, and Duncan did too as the bugs began to swoop in and commence stinging.

  Stinging and laying eggs and bringing hell on earth, and Duncan thought about jumping in the water, but the ants were in the water, and then he had a really wild and fleeting thought of taking his Swiss Army knife and cutting his own throat because things couldn’t possibly get any worse.

  Then things got worse.

  The engine siren, warning that it was overheating, pierced the air.

  The hysterical laugh bubbled up in Duncan and he knew he shouldn’t open his mouth because the bugs would get in but he couldn’t help himself, and his peals of insane chortling mingled with the engine alarm and he waited for his mouth and tongue to get stung and swell up and cut off his air and put an end to this ridiculous, horrifying tragedy.

  Except no insects flew into his mouth.

  Instead they began to pop.