The War of Elevens| Book 1 of the Space Thief Chronicles

Chapter 8| Slaying Giant Wasps With the Math Teacher

It was quiet at first, barely audible before rising to an all-encompassing trill, similar to the wail of an untuned oboe. Lilly's lungs rattled violently in her chest, and she couldn't suck in air through her nose or mouth because the hair had turned thick and heavy. A terrible sense of dread descended over the entire hall, followed by an intense surge of panic.

The hairs on Lilly's arms prickled.

The noise deepened from its oboe-trill to a trombone-groan. It sounded like...like buzzing.

Lilly tightened her grip on the tomahawk and Melissa was already ushering them up the stairwell when the monster came bounding down the left side of the hall. Lilly caught a glimpse of it in her peripherals, a yellow and black beast, solid and fuzzy and very, very large. Most of its face was made up of a single giant black eyeball.

"Go," Mr. Ecscent whispered as they rushed up the flight of stairs. "Go!" 

Each floor in Eldnac had a specific theme of classes. The sub-level took up the small elementary school portion of Eldnac, with less than fifty students for each grade. The first level held the art classrooms, the auditorium, and the office. There were two gyms on the opposite side of the first level, all the way in the back of the building. The second level was composed of maths, sciences, sports medicines, and physical health classes. The third held language and humanities classes. The fourth was composed of social studies and history classes.

They entered the second level, the hall white-bright with sunshine. A clang echoed from the stairwell behind them as Lilly, Melissa, and Mr. Ecscent started down the hall. On the opposite side was a staircase that would take them right down to the main gym.

Behind them, the monster crashed into walls and steps and stone, the buzzing sound swelling to a deafening roar.

"Wait!" Melissa flung out a hand. Mr. Ecscent skidded to a halt and Lilly crashed into his arm, a strangled wheeze wrenching from her throat.

There was a large, splintering hole in the environmental science classroom to their left. The hole was the result of a smashed door and three feet of the destroyed wall spreading out from either side of the classroom's entrance.

A discordant sound came from within the classroom. Metal clanged behind them. The shhhh of furry bodies against walls was so loud, Lilly's eardrums vibrated, and the dreaded realization slammed into her gut with an army of fear: The monster was right behind them. Another one was to their left, inside the classroom.

Lilly turned around and got her first true look of this monster when it wasn't in its mist form.

It was a giant wasp.

It was as tall as any of the classroom doors, thick as oak tree trunks. Its fuzzy thorax vibrated with each rattling breath, its abdomen gleaming wicked as sunlight reflected off those razor-edged steel plates. Its poison-yellow antennae twitched, twitched, twitched, and that one single eye Lilly had seen in her peripherals was actually two huge eyes...they were so big, created of thousands upon thousands of tiny different lenses and compartments. Its wings were transparent and veined with bright orange lines.

Lilly grabbed Melissa's arm and clutched the tomahawk with her other hand. 

The second wasp came out of the environmental science classroom, its eyes reflecting three terrified people and the wasp behind them.

"They're not going to let us walk right by them, are they?" Mr. Ecscent whispered.

"Get against the wall," Melissa whispered to Lilly. "Crouch down."

Lilly didn't have the strength to argue. She backed away slowly, carefully, anxiously.

Both the wasps exploded forward in eerie synchronization. Melissa whirled towards the one that had come out of the classroom; Mr. Ecscent spun to face the one that chased them up the stairs. The low-pitched sizzle of fire mingled with angry buzzing as Mr. Ecscent thrust his fists forward and flames flew out of his skin.