Lyon fell backward, onto the Glock, and she scrambled for it and picked it up and aimed it at the zombie—by this point she was sure it was a ghost or a zombie—and racked a round into the chamber.

  The boat rocked for a few seconds, and then became still as Lyon and the thing stared at each other.

  “He likes you,” the thing said.

  “Who?”

  It smiled again, and this time Lyon was sure a bug ran out of its mouth and quickly crawled up its mottled nostril.

  “What is your name?”

  “Lyon.”

  “He likes you, Lyon. He senses you are strong. Like your name is strong.”

  “Who likes me?”

  The monster’s head bent at an odd angle, making a wet, cracking sound. Its mouth opened and a wiggling black tongue came out.

  And kept coming out.

  And kept coming out until it dangled down to its shoulder, then slurped out of its mouth and plopped onto the bottom of the boat, where it squirmed like a live bratwurst.

  Not a tongue. A leech.

  “You’re the devil,” Lyon said.

  “You believe in the devil?”

  “I used to pray to the devil. God never answered, so I begged to Satan.”

  “He prefers Beelzebub. Or just Bub. What did you beg for?”

  “I wanted to destroy my enemies.”

  “Who are your enemies, Lyon?”

  “The world.”

  The vessel smiled, and drool came out. Cloudy drool, filled with maggots.

  “He can help. Bub can help. Do you wish to accept His help?”

  Do I get to actually sell my soul to the devil?

  For the first time in my miserable life, could I actually be that lucky?

  “Yes. I want His help.”

  “Take off your clothes, Lyon.”

  Lyon didn’t hesitate. She set down the gun and carefully stripped while trying to keep the boat steady. Shoes. Socks. Shirt. Pants. Underwear. When she was naked she sat proudly, defiantly, her knees open slightly.

  “You are no stranger to pain,” the vessel said.

  “Life is pain.”

  The vessel leaned forward, its black eyes widening. “He sees Himself in you.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “One small thing. Survive the pain.”

  The sound reminded Lyon of microwave popcorn as holes in his flesh opened up like hundreds of tiny mouths.

  Flies, hornets, ants, worms, and leeches were wetly and violently birthed out of his body, and they swarmed over her bare skin, crawling and biting and stinging and wiggling, and she couldn’t stay still, she had to fight back and try to slap them and get away but there were too many and the vessel was on top of her, pinning her down, and as white hot agony spread over Lyon’s nude body, igniting every nerve, driving her past insanity with unrelenting, continuously building pain, her screaming mind completely understood the comment; “He sees Himself in you.”

  Because every hole in her body, large and small, was violated and filled to bursting with bugs.

  CHUCK

  SAME TIME…

  After the motor died, the pontoon coasted to a stop twenty meters from shore. Chuck squinted at the fire tower on the shore’s edge and guessed it had a road, or at least a trail, leading up to it. Even though the structure was abandoned by the DNR, it must have been accessible at some point.

  But if we can even get there, will we have to battle more bugs?

  There are no houses on this swampy side of the lake.

  Will we need to walk through the woods while being attacked by flies and ants? What if they’re even worse than on the lake?

  Chuck felt drained, maybe 60% of his usual self. His eye was swollen shut and throbbed with his heartbeat. With his remaining eye he examined himself, and appeared to be peppered with birdshot. He had bleeding welts everywhere, bleeding holes everywhere, some still filled with popped maggots, and they all hurt.

  Duncan fared about the same, maybe slightly worse, boasting hands that looked like he’d dunked them in strawberry jelly.

  Stu, lying on one of the seat benches, was covered in welts and pink powder. Duncan had managed to dump six packets of Celox on Stu’s leech bites without passing out. While Stu’s bleeding seemed to be slowing down, he looked like he’d been dunked in pixie sticks and grenadine.

  If our team is ‘ride or die,’ we all seem closer to the ‘die’ part of that expression.

  Shore remained ten meters away, and the damn lake still lacked a damn breeze. As if fate devised a master scheme to not give them any kind of break at all.

  The plan was to decide who would hop out and pull the boat to shore. No one was anxious to get into the water again. Stu was too weak to do it, and Chuck and Duncan hadn’t figured out who would go. They were both bleeding, and neither wanted to join Stu in the Leech Feeding Club.

  So for the moment everyone stayed put, keeping their eyes out for approaching bugs, racing to figure out their next move while waiting for a drift.

  Chuck swallowed, throat dry, and searched around the pontoon for water bottles. He found an empty one near his feet, picked it up, and let the last few hot drops coat his mouth.

  He let it drop, found another bottle, and repeated the gesture.

  Not enough to quench my thirst. But as my grandpa used to say, it wet my whistle.

  Chuck found a third empty bottle. Just as he lifted it to his lips, Stu croaked, “Stop!”

  Chuck paused.

  Should I be sharing these final drops with my boys?

  I probably should. They must be just as thirsty.

  He offered it to Stu, and Stu weakly shook his head. “The maggot that I pulled from that dead bass’s eye… I put it in one of the bottles.”

  Chuck’s stomach did a backflip. He squinted into the plastic bottle, and didn’t see a maggot.

  He quickly found the two he’d sucked dry.

  No maggots.

  That left three more empties.

  He checked one.

  No maggot.

  He checked another.

  No maggot.

  He checked the last one…

  No freaking maggot.

  “Damn it, Stu. I think I swallowed your damn bug.”

  “I chewed up and ate a bunch of flies,” Duncan offered.

  “But they were dead,” Chuck said. “Stu, was that maggot alive?”

  “The boat siren probably popped it, like it did the flies and ants,” Stu said. “Probably.”

  Chuck checked each of the water bottles once again for popped maggot guts. They all looked clean.

  He held his belly, wondering if he had a live worm in there.

  “Maybe your stomach acid will kill it,” Duncan said.

  “Stu? What do you think?”

  “Parasites can survive inside bodies. Even stomachs. And parasites can have parasites. Hyperparasitism. So a leech or parasitic wasp can have flukes, protozoa, tapeworms. And those hyperparasites can have bacteria and viruses inside of them. It’s like multiple layers of infection.”

  “You’re an asshole, Stu.”

  “Let’s forgive each other. You forgive me because you ate my maggot, I forgive you because you ate my maggot.”

  Asshole.

  Given their situation, Chuck chose to forgive and forget.

  Well, maybe not forget. Especially if I start throwing up maggots.

  But I am interested in something we haven’t discussed yet. Something Stu might know.

  “So… what’s going on with these bugs, Bug Lord?” Chuck asked. “Why are they acting like this?”

  Stu shrugged. “No idea. Maybe something to do with all the aquatic herbicide they used to control the weeds, accelerating mutation. I don’t know. Pick a topic. Global warming? Deforestation? Pollution? Someone dumping nuclear waste in the lake? Cosmic rays altering DNA?”

  “What do you think, Duncan?”

  “It’s the devil,” Duncan said.

  “The devil,” Chuck repeated.

  Duncan stared out over the water. “Our neighbors, Sun and Andy, came over once, for a BBQ. We were all drinking. They said they met the devil. That one of the devil’s minions even came to Lake Niboowin. I thought they were being funny. Or drunk and stupid.”

  “It’s not the devil, Duncan,” Chuck said. “There’s no such thing.”

  Duncan turned to face him. “Do you believe in evil, Chuck?”

  Chuck shook his head. “I sure don’t. Life is shitty. People do shitty things. But those are choices. They begin as thoughts, and then become actions. It’s selfishness. It’s harm. We can call it evil, but it’s just a description, not an actual, tangible thing.”

  “Pretty deep for a Quickie Lube mechanic,” Stu said.

  Duncan stared at his hands. “I’ve seen evil. It’s deeper than human nature. Evil has its own life. It’s own force, outside of humanity. Maybe it’s tangible. Maybe it’s real.”

  “Satan is said to be the embodiment of evil,” Stu said. “But I’m voting for cosmic rays.”

  No one laughed.

  “So do you also believe in good?” Chuck asked Duncan. “That people can embody good?”

  “I’m not sure,” Duncan said. “Maybe, when evil showed up, good left town.”

  They were all silent for a bit.

  The quiet was broken, almost predictably, by the buzz of a black fly.

  Chuck swatted it away. “We gotta get to shore, guys. Duncan, rock-paper-scissors for who goes in the lake?”

  “Naw,” Duncan said. “I’ll do it.”

  “You sure?”

  “My boat, my fault. Captain’s rules.”

  Duncan stood up, opened the vinyl seat panel, and grabbed a roll of nylon rope with the anchor attached. He also grabbed a rusty air horn can.

  After handing the can to Chuck, he said, “I’m going to swim us to shore then pull the boat in by rope. Use that if any flies get closer.”

  “Does it still work?”

  “I never tried it.”

  Chuck removed the plastic safety bit and gave the horn button a quick press. The sound trumpeted loud as an AC/DC rock concert and spread out across the mirror surface of the lake.

  “Bug Lord, watch for bugs.”

  “Aye aye, Captain.”

  “Chuck, I’m tying the rope around my waist. If I get into trouble, pull me in.”

  “Roger, Captain. Be careful.”

  “Just a quick dip in the lake.” Duncan winked. “What could go wrong?”

  Chuck’s stomach churned, and he didn’t know if it was worry for his friend or maggots breeding in his digestive system.

  Duncan buckled on his life jacket, cut the rusty old 15-pound anchor off the nylon rope, then wrapped the rope around his waist and cinched it with a bow knot. He handed the other end to Chuck, opened the gate, and folded down the port ladder. After carefully descending into the lake, letting Chuck hold the slack, Duncan began to breast stroke toward the shoreline.

  He made it five strokes, and then the screaming began.

  Duncan thrashed as if he’d been dropped into a cauldron of boiling oil, swinging his arms, kicking his legs.

  Adrenaline overtook Chuck, and he immediately and viciously yanked on the rope, pulling hand over hand, the nylon biting into his palms and knuckles, twisting and wrapping it around his wrist and leaning back, digging in and moving toward to the bow like he was gaining ground in a tug of war.

  Stu managed to get onto all fours and crawl to the stern, helping Duncan up the ladder. Duncan dropped to his knees next to the motor and began to slap his body.

  Or more precisely, the black things all over his skin, biting his body with little spurts of blood.

  Chuck stood there for a moment, transfixed, then Duncan’s next wail spurred him to action, and he held the air horn in front of him like Van Helsing warding off vampires, pressing the button and letting it blast.

  The horn made the biting things stop biting and drop away, and as Chuck moved closer some of the things even burst open. Duncan scrambled backward, undoing his life jacket, slapping his bare chest while he continued to hyperventilate. After Chuck waved the air horn all over Duncan like it was a can of bug spray (which it sort of was), he released the button and knelt next to his friend.

  Duncan’s face was a mix of pain and panic. “Shit, those things hurt like hell.”

  “What are they?” Chuck asked.

  Stu squinted at one Duncan had slapped to death. “They’re way too big, but they look like dragonfly nymphs. They have the labrum; the hinged jaws that grab prey.”

  Chuck was confused. “I thought dragonflies don’t attack humans.”

  “They don’t. They don’t have ovipositors, either. But these do.”

  Duncan moaned. “You mean they laid eggs in me?”

  “I have no idea. But if we’re going by what we’ve seen so far, it’s a good assumption. They tore into your skin with their mouth parts and then stung you in the wounds. A genetic combination of bot flies and parasitic wasps. And dragonflies, of course. Those nymphs are the babies. I’d hate to see them all grown up.”

  “Gimme the horn.” Duncan held out his hand. “Maybe that can drive them out of me.”

  Stu passed Duncan the can, and he held it to some of the new bites on his arm, which stood out from all the older stings on his arm because they were jagged lines instead of round bumps, and Duncan pressed the button.

  Sure enough, little whitish rice-sized things wiggled out of the fresh wounds and then burst.

  We’re all going to need some serious antibiotics after this.

  Chuck thought it rather than said it because the horn was too loud to talk over. Until it wasn’t.

  The trumpet became a whistle, which became a hiss, which became dead silence.

  Duncan gave it a shake and tried again. Nothing.

  “It’s empty.”

  Duncan began to laugh. Stu joined in.

  Chuck thought they were both freaking nuts.

  They eventually calmed down. Then Stu threw up blood.

  “Keeps getting better and better.” Stu wiped his mouth with the back of his arm, leaving a red streak.

  “Remember fishing this morning, when we complained nothing was biting?” Duncan asked, prompting those two morons to start another laughing fit.

  Chuck turned away, irritated, his eyes falling on one of their fishing rods.

  It’s a thirty-pound test braided line. Maybe if we could cast far enough we could hook the shore and reel the boat in? Every angler working the shoreline has accidentally cast too far and wrapped their lure around a tree. With modern line, and a quick drift, the pole would break before the tree or line did.

  I bet I could hit a leg on that fire tower with a big lure. With a slow, steady retrieve, and the drag set to max, and no wind, it should be possible to reel the pontoon to shore. And with all three of us doing it at once, going nice and easy, it would only take a few minutes to—

  “Damn, Duncan! Gross!”

  Chuck made the mistake of looking at his friends.

  Stu seemed ready to barf again. He was gaping at Duncan, who was using a trailer hook to dig into his own wounds and fish out dragonfly grubs.

  “I think I’ve cured my vasovagal syncope,” he said through a clenched jaw as he yanked a squirming grub out of a bleeding gash in his arm.

  “Jesus, dude, doesn’t that hurt?” Chuck asked.

  “Yeah it hurts. But I want to get them out before the wounds close up and the bugs start growing.”

  Chuck leaned over the gunwale to vomit, but nothing came up but dry heaves.

  Disappointing.

  Motion in his peripheral vision caught Chuck’s attention, and he turned to see a small black bird land on the motor.

  But, of course, it wasn’t actually a bird.

  “Hey, Bug Lord,” Chuck interrupted his gagging. “How many wings do dragonflies have?”

  Stu held up four fingers. “Four. Two pairs.”

  Chuck counted four translucent wings on the insect, attached to a black body as long as a hot dog.

  And its eyes…

  Big and bulgy and wet, like a bullfrog’s.

  And its mouth…

  It had its own little arm, like a crab claw.

  Chuck slowly picked up the rod and reel, raising the lure up behind his back.

  “You going fishing, buddy?” Duncan asked.

  Chuck performed a casting motion but didn’t take his finger off the spool to release any line, so the lure stayed at the end of the rod, lashing out like a barb on the tip of a whip.

  The treble hooks caught on the dragonfly, which immediately tried to shake itself free, buzzing and flailing around in an angry, frightening blur, attacking the pole.

  The trio watched, transfixed, as the insect somehow bit the first four inches of the pole off, along with the thirty-pound test line, and then flew away carrying a 5/8 oz lure with it—

  —into a hovering black mass of more giant mutant dragonflies.

  And that was enough for Chuck. There wasn’t time to cast a lure out to shore. He dropped the pole and grabbed the rope.

  We need to get the hell off this lake, right now.

  “Maybe evil exists,” Chuck said to his buddies. “But good exists too.”

  He went to the stern and tied a bowline knot around the float cleat and the other end of the rope around his waist.

  “Chuck!” Duncan warned. “You don’t want to—”

  Chuck dove into the shallow, mucky water.

  Then we swam for his life.

  At first, he made fast, painless progress, halving the distance to shore in just a few seconds.

  Then, all at once, he felt like he was swimming in a blender. The water churned around him with insect attacks, dragonfly nymphs darting from all directions and latching on with their beartrap mouthparts.

  Fighting the instinct to try and brush them off, determined to save his friends, Chuck continued to dig in, kicking hard, stroking hard until his hands began to scoop up muck on the shallow lake bottom, seeing the shore only five feet away, screaming into the filthy water, and then no longer being able to swim in the mire and reeds and instead crawling and clawing and pushing his way through it, coating his body with mud but not stopping the relentless attack of the nymphs, finally FINALLY making it to the coast and pulling up onto the shoreline and rolling through the dirt and rocks and scrub grass to shake off the biting, stinging horde trying to strip him of all his flesh.