The Bees: The Bees Return

The Bees Return

“There’s no point running,” I said, and slowed. Stopped to ease the stitch in my side.

Behind me, a tinkle of glass. Bees filtered in. Orderly, calm even.

“They’re coming for us,” the young man said. He stopped, just ahead of me. Panic widened his eyes.

I didn’t think they were. Instead of the furious swarm descending on us, as I’d expected, the bees were purposeful. They dropped down from the hole in the glass ceiling and disappeared into the crowd. The entire scene was peaceful, it transfixed me. There was something hypnotic about the flow of insects. From this distance they looked like a black stream of water, dripping down onto the people below.

"I don’t think they’ve seen us,” I said. “Either that, or they don’t care.”

My companion moved closer, and we watched from the top of the escalators. The bees were crawling on the people, settling on wherever the flesh was bare. Once each bee had found a decent spot, it settled down, wings buzzing intermittently.

“There’s someone down there.”

“There’s about a thousand people down there,” I answered, but then I saw. A kid of about twelve, their sex indeterminable, flapping around at the periphery of the crowd. The bees were rising, gathering around the child who grew ever more frantic.

I expected the bees to swarm and start stinging. I was wrong.

An elderly man next to the kid, reached out and grabbed the flailing figure by the neck. A young Asian woman by his side pulled the hood from the child’s head. Then the child was absorbed into the crowd.

I didn’t see what happened next.

There was a scream.

Then another.

And then, silence.

A small stream of blood crept from between the feet of the mob. It ran into the cracks between the faux crazy paving design on the floor.

“Fucking hell,” the young man coughed, swallowing bile.

“I think we should leave.”

We left. Quietly creeping down the escalator, stepping out into the cold sunshine.

I had no destination in mind, wondered whether I should return home, whether I should invite the young man to join me. I turned to him, was about to ask him.

I got no further.

From within the mall, a huge roar.

 And then a stampede.

We ran.

Ran down the street. The mob behind us, without looking I knew they were there. I could hear them, still roaring, the unattached bees still buzzing. My feet on the ground, rubber slapping the paving stones. I had no idea where I was running to.

"Car!” The young man yelled.

I didn’t know what he meant. For a moment I half expected some vehicle to come careening across the pedestrianised area towards us. Nothing was moving. The only cars in sight were all parked up, doors shut, sitting in bays with meters now expired.

The young man was younger than me, fitter and faster. He reached the line of parked cars first. Yanked on the driver side door handle. Locked. So was the next. As I reached him, and with the mob only twenty feet behind me, he pulled on a third. It sprang open and he slipped inside, reaching over to the back seat and flipping that lock open. I climbed into the car. Slammed the door.

“Was this wise?” I asked. “Are the keys in it?”

“Nope,” the young man’s head bobbed down below the dashboard. “Give me a minute.”

He didn’t require a minute. A few seconds later the engine turned over and he screeched the car away from the kerb. We left the roaring mob behind and I began to breathe again. My life saved by a car thief. It wouldn’t be the first time.