The Nest by Kenneth Oppel Page A

receiver, but she said:
    â€œYou agreed, Steven.”
    â€œI changed my mind. I told you! How many times do I have to tell you!”
    â€œSteven, I really must insist that you open the window for us. The baby’s ready. You wouldn’t want to hurt the baby.”
    Theo. I grabbed the monitor and bolted upstairs to his room.
    â€œThere’s a good boy,” the queen said over the monitor. “It’ll all turn out right. You’ll see. And we can help you, too, just like I promised. You’ll be so much better. No more lists and prayers and hand-washing and fears.”
    Theo was sleeping peacefully in his crib. I walked to the window, raised the blind—and with a gasp let it drop. Beyond the glass was a swarm of pale wasps, as thick as mist. I could hear the faint thrum of their wings.
    â€œSteven. All you need to do is open the window now. We’re ready to bring your baby inside.”
    I wasn’t ready. My thoughts were sharp, uselesslittle shards of glass. I pulled in a breath, one more.
    I ran. From room to room upstairs, I checked every window was shut tight. I hammered downstairs and did the same thing. We’d had the air-conditioning on for a week solid, so all the windows were already shut, but wherever I could, I pushed the sashes down harder or cranked the handles tighter.
    I raced back up to the baby’s room to check on Theo. He was still sleeping soundly. Beyond the window I heard a slow scratching. Parting the blinds, I saw the windowsill and frame carpeted with wasps, their mandibles working at the wood. One little scrape after another. They were being very methodical. One would chew off a strip, then step aside so a fellow wasp could take her place and scrape away along the same gash, making it deeper and wider.
    â€œWe can chew our way in, Steven,” came the queen’s voice over the baby monitor.
    â€œIt’ll take forever,” I said. There was the window to get through, and then the mesh screen.
    â€œThere are so many of us.”
    I ran to my room and pulled on my jeans and thickest socks. I laced tight my high-top sneakers. I pulled on a sweatshirt and a hoodie. After grabbing my knapsack, I belted downstairs to the basement. My eyes flew over the cluttered, dusty shelf where we kept all our old paint and chemicals and junk. I grabbed two cans of Raid and a flyswatter. In soggy boxes and plastic bins, I found some old swimming goggles, a pair of flowered gardening gloves, and two rolls of duct tape, and I threw it all into the knapsack. From the ground-floor medicine cabinet I took my EpiPen and zipped it into my bag too. I slung the pack over both shoulders and cinched it tight.
    Outside each window I passed, I saw the pale tracery of the wasps. If I paused for even a second, the pattern would thicken into a darker mass, like wisps of storm cloud. How could there be so many? Were they just following me from window to window, or were there really millions of them, enveloping the entire house?
    I wondered if I could bundle the baby into a blanket, bolt out of the house, and go to one of the neighbors. Would the wasps follow me? I peeked out the tall skinny window beside the front door. They were already there. The moment I opened the door, they’d be all over us. They’d sting me and sting me, and then the baby—and lift it away to their nest and eat it.
    I checked the back door. Same thing.
    Running upstairs to the baby’s room. From outside the window:
    Scritch, scratch, scritch.
    The familiar hot flush of panic coursed through me. I wasn’t thinking very well. Someone would see, wouldn’t they? Outside, someone would see all these swarming wasps and call the police or something. But maybe their bodies were so pale you couldn’t see them from the street, from a passing car.
    I grabbed the hall phone, dialed 911. I got a voice menu with a lot of choices. Ambulance? Police? Fire department? I chose fire department and