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“Joel.”

His jaw clenched. I was a better shot. He let go of my vest.

I swiveled back to the fast approaching aggressors and swallowed. Twenty yards. The pistol felt awkward in my hand. I adjusted my grip. It was not the time to be a candy-ass.

I bared my teeth and charged. The bug nearest to me lunged. I sidestepped its claws and Joel pistol whipped it. Its head dropped back. Orbs pointed to the sky. I shoved the barrel into its chest and filled it with lead. It fell against me and slid to the ground. I resisted the chance for a double tap and blinked through the spray of bug guts plastering my face. Joel beat another aphid with dull thuds.

Double jointed legs shot out of the bloody pile before me and knocked me off my feet. Shit, I hadn’t shot its head. Joel wailed my name. I unsheathed a knife from my forearm and sunk it in the bug’s eye. It sagged to the ground.

I climbed to my knees. Met two more. Plucked the blade. Plunged it into an eye socket above me. A sticky discharge clotted my fingers. It, too, fell on me. I shrugged it off. Drew the pistol. Aimed for the eye of the other one. Fired.

It screamed. Dark matter burst from its head. Its eye socket stared, hollow and leaking.

The remaining two hovered over Joel. He dodged them with nimble Jujitsu rolls and redirected their force with a swift arm. But his jabs waned. His kicks slowed.

“Hey,” I screamed.

The aphids ignored me. Joel jumped on one’s back. It shook and knocked him free.

I holstered the pistol. Gripped a blade in each hand. Lanced my left bicep, quick and deep. Enough to lace the air. A gush of fire burned through my shoulder. The blood welled. The aphids turned.

Man must evolve for all human conflict

a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation.

The foundation of such a method is love.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The final two aphids sprinted toward me and stabbed the air with speared mouthparts. I dodged. Thrust the daggers at their eyes. Missed.

One crouched to spring when the second lost its footing in a mole hole. I whipped a knife at the crouching aphid’s head. Spun to my left. Sliced off the mandible of the stumbling second.

The second fell back and spewed a black parade of blood and fleshy bits. I finished it with the blade lodged between its eyes. I twisted around. The handle of the knife protruded from the first one’s face, mangled as it was. Its body twitched and sighed.

The strength left my legs and I fell upon my knees. Fire raged from the wound on my arm. I squeezed it to make it stop, but touching it set my teeth against each other and I bottled a scream. At least the arm slicing worked. They couldn’t resist the blood, but—fuck—the pain.

Joel dropped in front of me, his chest bare and his T-shirt in hand. He ripped it in strips and dressed my arm. His silence stung.

“It’s okay, Joel. Really. I mean…there were only a few close calls.” I smiled. Tried to make it reach my eyes. “I think I did all right.”

His voice shook. “You did better than all right. You fucking moved like them. You matched their speed. I don’t get it.” He brushed the hair from his face. “Christ, I don’t know if I want to get it.”

I leaned back, wrinkled my nose. “What do you mean?”

Eugene and Steve approached from the dock. Why hadn’t they covered us from the boat? They were both armed.

Joel glanced at a nearby pile of bodies and looked back at me. “What did you see? I can’t even track them with my eyes. They move like a blur. And you did too.”

I shoved to my feet. “What do you mean a blur? They moved…” Normal. Did he think…? “I’m not like them. I’m nothing like them.” My skin would be green. I wouldn’t be able to see in the dark. And my mouth…

He hugged me, buried his face in my neck. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

Were his words for me or himself?

I stood on my father’s deck under the weeping arms of the willow trees and waited for the rest of the house to wake. Another sip of coffee roused my senses. I leaned on the cedar railing and closed my eyes while the breeze from the lake took me through a memory.

The richness of Colorado mountain mahogany after the rain hung on my inhale. I felt the corners of my mouth tug up at the chimes of children’s laughter saturating the air. Fronds, laden with drizzle, trickled a grateful melody. A nearby stream joined in as water pushed over mountain moraine.

Joel picked through kindling. Annie and Aaron romped through tufted hairgrass and foxtail barley and rolled down a gentle swell in the forest floor, energized by their first camping trip. Beyond their playground, aspen trails snaked through far-reaching hills and valleys. I propped a branch under the tent roof and waterfalls of rain cascaded down the sides.