Invasive Species by Joseph Wallace Page B

hole.
    She could see at once that this grub came from no tumbu fly. Those were oblong, resembling white kidney beans.
    This larva, however, was two inches long, with an opalescent white body; big eyes like pearls made of onyx; soft, half-formed legs; and curved black mandibles. Even as she stared, it twisted its body into a U shape and, seemingly unaffected by the lidocaine, bit viciously at the end of the forceps.
    Sheila felt her heart thud against her ribs. Over the years, she’d evicted her share of scorpions from various bedrooms, bathrooms, and tents, often using forceps much like this one to transport them safely. She’d always marveled at the tensile strength of the armored creatures, an inherent will to survive that she both admired and feared.
    But she’d never felt anything like the strength that seemed to course through this writhing larva. It mashed away at the forceps with its powerful mandibles, creating a vibration that Sheila could feel through her fingers and all the way up into her forearm. Without thinking, she tightened her grip on the handle.
    And then, just like that, the larva died. Some grayish goo came out of its jaws, and suddenly it was just a limp wormy thing hanging from the forceps’ metal tips. A bitter smell filled the room.
    â€œChrist,” Sheila said. “Mom, what the hell
is
this?”
    But Megan didn’t respond with words, only with a low, guttural groan.
    Alarmed, Sheila looked up, but even as she did Megan’s eyes rolled up so only the silvery whites were showing. Her mouth stretched wide.
    Sheila had barely dropped the forceps and begun to reach out when her mother toppled sideways and fell to the floor.

SEVEN
    Manhattan
    THERE WAS A big cockroach in Trey’s subway car, a water bug like the ones you see scattering from the light in the bathrooms of third-rate hotels all over the world. Not a native New Yorker—an invader of a species from the forests of Asia—but it didn’t seem to care. To a roach, one warm, dirty, food-rich environment is as good as another.
    Trey watched it scuttle over to investigate some sticky yellowish stuff, maybe spilled soda, on the orange plastic seat across the car from his. Tan in color, flat as something that had been stepped on, it looked alert, energetic, fully alive.
    And alien.
    Somewhere in our nervous system is an inherent belief that all other creatures are in some way like us, that we can relate to them, understand their thinking, get inside their heads. We make cats, dogs, parrots, even lizards human in our eyes, ascribing our emotions to our pets to justify the food, housing, and love we offer.
    But the truth is, if you got inside a cockroach’s head, you’d find plenty of nothing. No brain, no control tower for the central nervous system. In fact, if you decapitate a roach, it doesn’t die. It doesn’t even take a break from running around. True, it can’t see, but the only severe damage you’ve done is to deprive it of the ability to eat. A headless roach will live on until it starves to death.
    This is not a creature we can relate to, no matter how hard we try.
    The train pulled into the 81st Street station. As it jerked to a halt, the cockroach hustled across the seat and inserted itself into a crack that Trey doubted he could have slid a dime into. He got to his feet and saw, as he stepped out of the car, a young woman sit down right in front of where the roach was hiding.
    Most likely the bug was now going to hitch a ride home in the woman’s Coach bag or in a pocket of her North Face jacket or snuggled in the fleece lining of her Uggs.
    It was perfectly adapted to life in this big city.
    Certainly better adapted than
he
was.
    *   *   *
    â€œHEY, HAMLET,” JACK Parker said. “What are you pondering?”
    â€œCockroaches,” Trey said.
    Jack stared at him for a moment. “Well,” he said, “you’re in the right