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“Ow, ow, ow, ow…” he muttered.
“What is it?” Ellie asked.
“Something bit my toe.”
“Bitit?” she echoed in surprise.
Adam plucked the torch from her and lowered it to take a better look at the ground. He kept his toes submerged at the edge of the water.
“There!” he announced. “Ugh.”
Ellie immediately picked out what he was looking at. It was an insect—a huge one. The bug was nearly the length of her index finger, colored a mottled gray that neatly blended with the stones.
“What is that?” She edged away from it.
“It looks like an oversized assassin bug.” Adam pushed the torch back into her hands again. “Feels like it too.”
He frowned down at his foot and shook it in the water.
Ellie didn’t immediately answer. She raised the torch higher and gazed out across the cavern. The light shifted and flickered across the ground around the stalagmites.
No, she realized with a sick lurch in her stomach. That wasn’t quite right.
“Adam?” Ellie said tentatively as she took a step closer to him in the water. “I think the floor is moving.”
“Huh?” he replied as he lifted his head—and then his eyes widened.
Adam yanked Ellie back, moving them deeper into the water. He swung his boots off his shoulder and hopped awkwardly in the shallows as he yanked them on.
“Boots,” he ordered as he snatched the torch from her.
“Shouldn’t you tie them first?”
“Boots, Ellie!” he repeated. His voice snapped with urgency.
Ellie awkwardly tugged on her shoes. The leather stuck against her wet stockings.
“Are those insects dangerous?” she demanded. She wobbled unsteadily on her left foot as she tried to wrangle her laces.
“Maybe? I don’t know!” Adam returned. “They’re usually the size of a quarter, not four damned inches long.”
Ellie managed a knot and let her booted foot splash back down into the ankle-deep water. She took another look at the shoreline—and then wished she hadn’t.
The bugs were clustering more thickly now. Glittering gray bodies streamed in from every side of the cave.
Some of them even clung to the stalactites overhead. Their gray antennae waved in the air hungrily.
“Are the normal variety of assassin bugs dangerous?” she pressed.
“They hurt like a bastard,” Adam retorted.
The insects swarmed along the edge of the water with their proboscises extending… testing...
Ellie took a step back, wading a little deeper.
“How do they hunt?” she asked as she eyed the swarm uneasily.
“They stick other bugs with some kind of venom,” Adam replied. “It paralyzes them and melts their insides.”
