Tunnels 05 - Spiral

body on the bed started to move as though he’d miraculously been brought back to life. But he was well and truly dead. The movement was the other larvae as they tried to gnaw their way through his jeans and worm out from his shirtsleeves.
    “The little ones are ravenous,” Alex said. “They’re our firstborn. They’re special. I think we should spoil them.”
    Vane nodded in agreement. “They deserve a special treat.” She placed her larvae back on the bed and strode across to the very corner of the warehouse. There she peered into the shadows at the group of Colonists and New Germanians. Most of them were simply stretched out on the floor, but a few were sitting up. And although they’d had their minds wiped by Dark Lights, the Limiters had taken the precaution of erecting a pen around them in case any of them still had the ability to wander off, like bewildered cattle.
    Vane opened the gate to the pen and heaved a thickset man to his feet. “Let’s be having you,” she said.
    It was the Third Officer, still in his police uniform. “Good. Nice bit of flesh on you,” Vane said, yanking him toward her. He could barely walk, his feet landing on their sides or clumsily knocking against each other. But Vane half dragged, half carried him until she was back at the bed. Alex had ripped open the clothes on the corpse so that the other larvae — as many as thirty of them — no longer had to fight their way out.
    Vane pushed the Third Officer down onto the mattress. The larvae’s teeth clicked like many pairs of castanets as they wriggled toward his living tissues. The two Styx women looked on, their hearts bursting with pride as their babies began to gorge themselves.

    Eddie and Sweeney had both come to a standstill in the long entrance passageway, but Elliott was very much on the move. She was striding toward her father, and closing in fast.
    Everyone in the dimly lit Hub had their eyes on her — Parry, Danforth, and, even though they’d just had their emotional reunion, Chester and his parents.
    Will couldn’t see Elliott’s expression, but from the way she’d talked about Eddie in the past, he thought the odds were stacked against this being a happy reconciliation between father and daughter. Quite the opposite, in fact — Elliott had taken the side of her Colonist mother and had even killed Limiters down in the Deeps. Will really didn’t want to think about how she was going to react now she was finally coming face-to-face with her father again.
    “She’s armed,” Will pointed out to Drake with some urgency.
    Chester had quickly made his way over, and Will gave him a glance to see if he was similarly troubled. “You know, she might use that rifle on him,” Will said to him. But his friend didn’t answer — he seemed to be completely preoccupied with Elliott’s progress along the passageway.
    “Well, isn’t
anyone
going to do
anything
?” Will demanded frantically, directing the question at Drake. “Just in case?”
    “Stand down,” Drake whispered. “Let her keep the rifle.”
    As Will saw the big man next to Eddie turn slightly, he realized Drake was speaking to him. Although Sweeney was some forty feet away, he had heard the directive with his incredibly acute hearing. Will watched as Sweeney gave the tiniest shrug.
    “I say again —
stand down
,” Drake whispered. “But step in if you see a blade.”
    Will thought Sweeney gave a wink in response, but he couldn’t be sure. In any case, he was too intent on Elliott — if there was going to be an incident, it was going to be now.
    Some ten feet away from her father, Elliott shouldered her rifle, aiming it squarely at him.
    Eddie stood his ground, not shifting an inch.
    “Drake . . . ,” Will said, panic creeping into his voice.
    Maybe Elliott was expecting Sweeney to intervene with his lightning-fast reactions, because she seemed to falter slightly in her step as she stole a quick glance at him. However, Sweeney showed no signs of doing anything.
    As she came closer still to Eddie, she lowered the rifle from her shoulder but made as if she was going to lash out at him with the stock. Ultimately she didn’t, lobbing the weapon at Sweeney, who caught it with ease in his enormous hands.
    Instead she stopped before Eddie. She shook her head, then slapped him across the cheek with such force that the sound carried all the way back to the Hub.
    “Ooh, bet that stung!” Chester said, cringing slightly.
    Elliott struck her