Ants Up Your Pants
by Gerald Sheagren

   Nigel Cunningham sat on the porch of his plantation house, slumped in a wicker chair, his booted feet crossed on the railing. He inhaled on a Cuban cigar, savoring its taste, and released a near perfect ring of smoke, watching as it slowly uncoiled and dissipated in the thick, tropical air. Smoke was like life, he mused to himself; one moment it was there, strong and vibrant, then poof, it was gone. He raised a bottle of scotch and took a long gulp, wincing as the liquor hit his stomach like a flow of molten lava. Sighing, he stared off at the rain forest, three hundred or so meters away, thick and ominous, its leaves and fronds glinting like so many emeralds in the midday sun. Heat rippled the air, forming illusionary pools of water in the distance. Insects hummed like a chorus of tuning forks.

   God, he loved the solitude of the Brazilian rain forest, with its many species of birds and animals, and, because so, he had built the largest plantation in the area, stocking it with over a thousand head of beef and a few sheep. It was a paradise, a paradise far from the complexities and tribulations of the over-crowded, knee-jerking cities. It was his domain, his very own kingdom.

   He had come to rue the day when he had met Olivia, during one of his infrequent trips to Rio Branco: wining and dining her and proposing marriage a short two weeks later. She had quickly accepted, without knowing that much about him, but it was quite understandable - how could any sane woman not fall for his humorous charm and rugged good looks. And she had been a feminine version of himself; a sparkling personality, augmented by a stunning beauty and a body that could have easily graced the front page of any modeling magazine. He thought, very wrongly, that he would impress her with the plantation, but a woman of Olivia’s character could not tolerate the isolation, where the only lustful eyes were those of the poverty-stricken peons that comprised his work force. The helicopter had hardly landed when she had started her moping and groaning and whining, nearly driving him out of his mind. "Sell it!" she had demanded, "Let’s move to Rio or Buenos Aires." Hell, he would just as soon sleep with one of his cows, all duded-up in a flimsy, see-through negligee, than sell off a single parcel of his beloved land.

   As the days passed, with him away from dawn to dusk, Olivia had grown more and more hostile, raiding the liquor cabinet and treating the house staff like chattel. Before long, she was sleeping in another bedroom, hoping that deprival would bring him around to selling out. When that had failed, her anguish drove her into the arms of Julio, who was, by far, the tallest and most handsome of his laborers. She thought that Nigel hadn’t known, but he had, right from the very beginning; quickly deciphering her sudden smiles and how she buoyantly fluttered about the house. Little did she realize that Nigel Cunningham was not a man to screw with; that beneath his carefree exterior rested a heart as remorseless as a jackal.

   Then, one day, the news came over his short wave radio: colonies of driver ants - twenty million or more in strength - were in their nomadic stage and moving steadily in the direction of his plantation, at the rate of one meter per every three minutes. To most people this would cause only a shrug, but to Nigel, it raised the short hairs at the nape of his neck. Drivers were ruthless and terrible predators, their razor-sharp mandibles capable of devouring every snake, spider and scorpion in their path. They could even bring down and kill a jaguar if it was hampered by an injury! Nigel’s first concern was for the welfare of his cattle; having heard talk of how driver ants could kill a cow and have it stripped to bare bones in the course of three weeks. But even more horrifying; only after they had invaded the animal’s body through nose, mouth and ears, ravaging the brain and causing it to go totally mad, before a long and agonizing death!

   Nigel had quickly gathered three dozen of his best hands and ordered them to drive his herd to the nearest plantation, some thirty miles distant and to the northeast. The next order of business was to dig a wide trench, all the way around the main portion of his plantation, with a connection to a nearby tributary of the Amazon, in order to fill it with water. He would jerry-rig the entire trench with containers of gasoline, set every so many feet, and triggered to spill their contents at the mere tug of a rope. It was a vast and time-consuming endeavor, but he had quickly put his remaining laborers to work, boosting their efforts with two backhoes and a bulldozer that he kept on the property.

   Next, he began to put a nefarious plan into action, a plan to avenge his honor and dispose of both his philandering wife and the randy Julio. Oh, yes, indeed, no one, but no one, messed with Nigel Cunningham! Sneaking up on Julio, early one afternoon, he lobbed off his head with a machete and watched with a morbid glee as the man’s body did a jerky dance for a few feet, blood spewing from its neck. After disposing of the corpse, he then turned his attention to sweet Olivia. Following a good hour of prompting, he finally convinced her to ride into the rain forest with him in the pretence of looking at some land that he planned to clear for grazing. Land, by the way, that would be directly in the driver ants’ path, if they chose to keep a steady and predictable course.

   Once they had reached the chosen spot, he had wasted little time with subterfuge - beating Olivia bloody, stripping her of her clothes and using a thick hemp rope to secure her to a tree. Boy, he had to admit one thing: the woman sure had spunk, spitting directly in his face when he had leaned in for a last, mocking kiss! Oh my, the drivers were going to have a good time with those luscious boobs; there was enough for a feast and a few snacks afterwards! That is, if some jaguar or wild pig didn’t fail get to her first. When everything was over, he would have plenty of time to return, marvel over her ravaged remains and to arrange things to look as though she had driven off by herself and gotten lost. Hell, once he contacted the Brazilian authorities, they would probably be too lazy to venture out and investigate, the slothful idiots that they were.

   Nigel took another guzzle from his bottle, laughing heartily over the last words he had spoken to his wife: "Remember, darling, try not to get any ants up your pants." Ah, if her hands had been free, the feisty little thing would have surely clawed his eyes out. He recalled, amusedly, how she had squealed and screamed, shouting the most foul of obscenities after him as he had driven casually away. For a moment, he felt a pang of remorse, but shook it off quickly with another long drink of scotch.

   Suddenly, the birds, in all their colorful plumage, started to caw and squawk and screech, flitting excitedly from one tree top to the other. Spider monkeys scampered to greater heights, chattering and covering their eyes with their hands, as they habitually did in a time of stress. Then, right before his eyes, a jaguar streaked from the rain forest, loping clear over the breadth of his trench and heading straight for the house, only changing its course at the very last minute. One, two, three tapirs darted from the underbrush, delirious with fright, scurrying along the entire length of the trench in search of an escape route. Nigel uncoiled his long frame and leapt to his feet, just as Jose, his most trusted employee, rushed up, his dark, moon-shaped face glistening with sweat.

   "What is it, Jose; are they coming?"

   "Si, si, they come, they come!"

   "Get the others ready, pronto! Stand your ground and make certain that you’re ready when I give the signal for the gas cans."

   Jose’s eyes grew wide with alarm. "Maybe we go! Maybe we go to Rio Branco!"

   "You little shit; I said stand your ground! Andele, go!"

   The time was at hand! With a mixture of excitement and fear, Nigel walked out to the trench, his eyes prowling the rain forest. Then, he heard it – the thresher-like sound of millions upon millions of mandibles, devouring every living thing in their path. Shit, how could such little bastards make such a God-awful noise? He watched, transfixed, until the underbrush started to sway - slowly, ever so slowly, turning as black as pitch, as black as a rolling tide of crude oil! On and on the drivers came, with scores of insects rushing ahead of the tide, only to be to be dead-ended by the sheer drop of the trench: millipedes and beetles, caterpillars, even the fearsome tarantulas and snakes. Nigel watched in awe and more than a little trepidation, as the drivers overtook their prey, completely covering and shredding them in the manner of seconds!

   "Jose, Pedro, Jesus, the rest of you, make damn certain you’re ready to tip that gasoline!"

   The drivers reached the trench and scurried down its side, appointed soldiers instinctively gathering scraps of vegetation to be used for the crossing. Soon, the water was jammed with flotillas of leaves and fronds and twigs, each holding hundreds of squirming ants! It was a goddamn mini Normandy Invasion! Nigel watched in awe as the drivers came on, tiny legs paddling; a fearless army, set with a grim determination! Ah, but he was going to show them! As God was his witness, he would teach the little buggers a lesson!

   "Get ready with the gas, amigos! Me first, then you all light up the fires of hell!"

   Yanking on a rope, Nigel tilted six gas cans, spilling a portion of their contents into the trench. He watched, with a great deal of satisfaction, as the water turned a rainbow of colors – roses and blues and ambers – the gas knocking hundreds of ants from their ferry boats by the sheer volume of its smell. Taking one last puff on his cigar, he flicked it into the trench and jumped back at the whoosh, as flames leapt high into the air. There came a crackling noise, like bacon sizzling in a frying pan - the sound of thousands of ants frying to a crisp. Following his example, the others pulled on their ropes and tossed matches, and soon the entire trench was a virtual inferno.

   Jose rushed to Nigel’s side, jubilant, yet warily cautious. "They will keep coming, padrone! I have seen them before; they will keep coming!"

   "And we will keep lighting fires!"

   Jose rolled his eyes, desperate to find some logic. "But, padrone, we do not have that much gasoline!"

   Indeed, as the fires subsided, the drivers kept right on coming, undaunted and tenacious, launching hundreds of more leafy green boats onto the waters surface. The opposite bank was a squirming black mass, as millions of ants piled up, eagerly awaiting their turn to cross. Christ, thought Nigel, if the Americans and British had such fortitude and stamina, they would have won WWII in a week!

   Suddenly Nigel heard Jose cry out, looking over and following the finger that the man was pointing toward the rain forest. There, a hundred or so meters away, he caught a fleeting image - the image of ----- of a person or something, covered head-to-foot with ants! It had been there for only a split second, but he was damn sure what he had seen. It had to be an animal – a jaguar or an ocelot or a wild pig or some other such creature.

   Jose rushed over, wide-eyed with fright, fondling and kissing the religious medal that he wore about his neck. He was jabbering something in rapid Spanish, words that Nigel could not make out.

   "Hold onto your senses, man! Calm your ass down!"

   Jose looked at him, shaking his head pitifully. Then turning, he gestured to the others and they all started to beat a hasty retreat.

   "Where are you going? Get back here! Get back here this instant!"

   Nigel watched them flee, muttering and jabbering as they went, running as fast as their short little legs would carry them. What, in the name of God, had possessed them with such a fear? But they were superstitious idiots, the whole lot of them, and, at times, it didn’t take much to set them off. He might keep Jose on, when they came back pandering for their jobs, but the rest of them could go straight to hell.

   Nigel returned his attention to the trench, gasping with horror and taking a quick step back. Thousands upon thousands of the drivers had ferried across and were covering the ground like a thick black carpet! Jesus, there was no stopping them; some of the little buggers were already on his boots! Thankfully, he had the helicopter fueled and ready for take-off. He would fly to Rio Branco, with the act of worrying and fretting over his wife, and, by the time he returned, the drivers would be long gone. Perhaps he would have to shake a few stragglers from his bed sheets or check his sugar jar, but that would be only a slight inconvenience at the best.

   As he rounded the corner of the plantation house, heading for the helicopter pad, he stopped dead in his tracks, heart catching, his knees turning to jelly. He stared in horror, recognizing Olivia by her shoulder-length blonde hair and nothing much more. It was his wife for Christ-sakes; it couldn’t be, it was against all possibilities, but there she was! Her milk-white skin was hanging in shreds, stripped clear to the cheekbones, and one of her eyes was completely missing! Hundreds of ants were still upon her, frenzied, dining on flesh and invading bloody lesions! Her lipless mouth curled back in what Nigel could best describe as a hideous smile.

   "Dear Christ, this can’t be happening! You’re ----- you’re not real!"

   She unleashed a cackling laugh, so different from her once bubbling chuckle. "Nigel, Nigel, Nigel," she croaked, part of her tongue eaten away. "Did you think you could be rid of me so easily?"

   Nigel could only stare, his heart thudding so hard and fast that he thought it might burst.

   Olivia’s hand came up, dangling a clump of wires. "Were you planning on using the helicopter?"

   Goddamn, he thought; his only way to safety was to take the Jeep!

   "It’s your turn to get some ‘ants up your pants’, Nigel."

   "You’re dead! You --- you ----- you have to be dead!"

   "Indeed, but you’re not the only one who likes to settle scores."

   She started forward, in a shambling gait, and Nigel backpedaled. When he turned, desperately in search for a means of escape, he was horrified to see millions of ants moving in his direction; moving impossibly fast, much faster than nature would allow! Then, something struck him hard from behind, sending him to the ground, a star-studded, black void creeping in at the perimeters of his vision. He tried to struggle to his hands and knees, but a jolting pain stabbed at his head, sending him flat onto his stomach.

   He screamed, frantically kicking his feet, when the thick black mass was upon him: a virtual killing machine, invading his nostrils and mouth, tiny mandibles chomping, stirring his hair as they headed for the ears. His second scream turned to gagging, as they started scurrying down his throat, nibbling as they went.

 ©2004 Gerald Sheagren