One Minute to Midnight (8 page)

sharp tooth

When hunters slaughter her mate, Sharp Tooth
will exact revenge by assembling the greatest army the forest has
ever seen.

A female Kodiak called Sharp Tooth
walked through the north woods one afternoon, taking in the fresh
air with her cubs, when she caught the scent of humans several
miles away. Man was back in the area, and hunting season had begun,
and that meant there would be casualties, increased risk of forest
fires, and danger everywhere for her and her little ones, but she
could smell only three of them from this distance. She knew they
were not to be tangled with because of their desire for killing,
with but these were her lands and the temptation to track them was
strong. She decided that she would simply keep an eye on them and
that was all. With fall approaching, both tall and small creatures
would be preparing for a harsh winter ahead, and soon she would
fatten herself to sustain long months without food once the snow
began to fall.
Sharp Tooth and her children had been walking about a mile when she
noticed Blood Maw, her companion and father to their cubs was
fishing down by the river. He was a skilled hunter, and was
currently attempting to catch a salmon. Blood Maw was spry, and she
hoped he would be aware of the human hunters as well, since he had
had numerous encounters with their kind. The men were closer now,
and she could smell the stench of their body odor and an alarm went
off in her instincts that told her all of them were in danger.
Blood Maw went about searching for fish, his senses dulled in the
hunt, and he never saw the three men on the opposite side of the
river.

Sharp Tooth grunted for her cubs to
stay put and silently pawed downward to warn Blood Maw of the
approaching danger. Sharp Tooth growled Blood Maw’s name as a loud
crack ripped through the air and startled her. Blood Maw fell over
flailing his paws around in the air as another shot echoed through
the clean air. He stopped moving, his pain-filled eyes watching
Sharp Tooth approach as the light went out of them. Shouts of glee,
and whoops of victory rang out from across the river, as Sharp
Tooth stood, helplessly watching her friend die. She saw the
corners of his mouth rise upward in a farewell smile. The current
rolled Blood Maw's body over and his face disappeared under the
water. The lump of dead bear floated lifelessly in the
water.

"Woo hoo! That damn bear’s head’s
gonna look goooood over your fireplace, Jim!" Screamed one of
them.

Sharp Tooth stopped short of crying
out for Blood Maw. Her shock was so profound; it felt as if she had
been shot too. She reeled back on her hind legs, almost toppling
over, but the men had not seen her, so she escaped with her life.
Blood Maw’s floating body was the last mental image Sharp Tooth had
now. His right paw hung limp, and as water flowed past it, making
it look like he was waving goodbye. Sharp Tooth needed to get her
cubs to safety before the men found them, but as she ran with them
through the forest; her burning desire for revenge began to kindle
like a smoldering ember just before a forest fire. She briefly
considered sneaking around behind the humans and shredding them to
pieces, but she could not jeopardize the safety of her little ones.
Sharp Tooth and the cubs ran for the rest of the afternoon until
her cubs were exhausted and she could no longer smell the men. She
found a cave for them to rest in and killed a passing deer, leaving
it for her cubs to feast on. As they ate, she lay at the mouth of
the cave and began to consider her next steps. Retribution would
have to be hard and swift. Sharp Tooth knew that other animals in
the forest had held council about the humans and their destructive
tendencies. She recalled their last meeting by the mountain
lake.

One of the wolf clan, Angry Claw,
silenced the murmuring and welcomed Rosebud beaver, Good Night
raven, Chins otter, Sharp Tooth bear, and many other
representatives of the forest tribes. Sharp Tooth sat in silence as
questions without answers passed into the afternoon air like wisps
of smoke from a pipe. The council was not truly prepared to do
anything at the time, but she listened with polite
sincerity.

“
What can we do about the
encroaching humans on our territories? Every year more of them come
and they hunt us in increasing numbers.” Gallant buck
asked.

“
There are many men, and
our people are scattered too widely throughout the forests, unable
to unite.” Angry Claw said.

“
They have terrible
weapons that make fire and we are afraid to attack them.” Rosebud
otter said.

White Paws grey wolf sat in silence
for a moment. This was his council and he had called the council
meeting. A concern had been running through the vast forest
community that a war with the humans would be inevitable. White
Paws felt that it was necessary to gather the leaders of each
species together and quell growing rumors.

"It is true, they have fire weapons,
and I believe that they don't respect our land, but we have had a
pact for millions of years to stay to ourselves and leave the
evolving humans alone. Once in a while we steal a chicken from one
of their farms, or kill a cow, but making war with the humans is
dangerous business. It is a path we may not want to go down." White
Paws said.

"I was by the home of a human one
afternoon, and I looked inside, and they had the head of my good
friend mounted on their wall!" Winter Snow deer said.

"It is true that their practice of
body desecration is egregious and we have all seen how wasteful
they can be with life. You are not wrong in your instinct to put a
stop to all of this, my friends, but you have to understand that
the humans make war for pleasure. A number of years ago, when I
spoke with Raven Claw wolf, who is long dead now, we speculated
whether we could wait until they had simply wiped themselves out.
Instead, they keep multiplying." White Paws said.
Sharp Tooth had not said much during that meeting, and now White
Paws had been dead of old age for five seasons. Leadership of the
forest was now in the paws of Kills Buffalo black bear and he had
become aloof, not holding as many council meetings as his
predecessor. In his absence, she would have to take matters into
her own hands. Sharp Tooth noticed Talons eagle flying high above
her head, so she called to him to come down for a talk while the
cubs ate.

"Brother Talons, you have known me for
many years, and my carcasses have kept you well fed, but now I need
a favor." Sharp Tooth said.

"What can I do to help?" Talons
asked.

"We lack leadership and have not had
many council meetings since White Paws’ spirit moved west many
seasons ago. Kills Buffalo is not wont to resolve these matters in
the near future, and we both know this to be true. I wish to hold a
meeting with the woodland animals immediately to discuss our mutual
problem of mankind and what we may do about them, together. I want
the insects there as well. Do you have any contacts with their
nation?"

"I have contacts everywhere, because
I'm the eye in the sky! I will take to the air and herald all who
wish to hear my call. We shall meet after the moon sets." Talons
let an echoing birdcall loose and took to the sky, soaring out of
sight in an instant.
All sorts of creatures began to appear before her the next morning
for the emergency council meeting. Deer, squirrel, muskrat,
porcupine, wild pig, roaches, centipedes, they came from miles
around to hear Sharp Tooth speak. So many birds lined the trees
that their bodies threatened to blot out the sun. Speculation about
the intent of this meeting caused a low murmur to roll through the
crowd, as birds high above chirped and squawked gossip to one
another. After the forest was sufficiently filled, Sharp Tooth
stood on her hind legs, raising a paw to silence everyone. The hush
radiated back through the crowd like a receding wave on the ocean
as they all waited for Sharp Tooth to speak.

"Blood Maw was murdered
yesterday by humans in our forest, and one of them mentioned
hanging his head over a fireplace. Now is the time to go to war
with the murderers." Sharp Tooth said, her growling voice booming
through the clearing. Rumblings arose through the audience. Sharp
Tooth continued, "Brother Red Clay and sister Fawn of the wolf
clan: Were you not hunted almost to extinction by humans who
refused to respect our territory?" She asked the wolves.
The wolves howled long and low. "Brother Talons, how many of your
feathers have been stolen by treasure seekers? How many of your kin
were shot out of the sky to become trophies?" Talons flapped his
wings and squawked with anger. "They poison us, shoot at us, and
tear down our homes so that they can put theirs in place. Well, I
say no more!" Whoops and hollers rang out. "Today is when we take
it
all
back!"

The hunters, who had been field
dressing Blood Maw at their camp several miles away, were startled
by an ear-shattering racket, as the entire wilderness came alive in
one frightening roar. The unified growl of predatory beasts and the
screeches of millions of birds filled the morning air as if the
world had split in two. And then for a single moment all became
silent. The cold hand of doom swept their spines, and suddenly the
men were very far from feeling close to the top of the food chain.
Thunder shook the ground beneath their feet, trees rattled,
boulders rolled down the mountain, and the three men who had been
vacationing for a weekend retreat and some trophy hunting were
suddenly running for their vehicle. The hunters had no chance to
escape the stampede of charging animals, and were killed as fast
and sure as Blood Maw was. Word quickly spread as all animals
everywhere passed on Sharp Tooth's message to kill the humans. Five
hundred miles away at a local radio station, Dave Clarkson was
getting a cup of coffee when his coffee maker sparked, smoked, and
quit working.

"What the...?" he said, confused and
frustrated.
He looked down to see an army of red ants marching through the
wiring of the radio station, and saw that a number of the soldiers
were sacrificing themselves inside the electrical panels. He could
see their fried little bodies lying in a pool of coffee on the
counter. Dave was on a station break while Fleetwood Mac played Go
Your Own Way, and would have to get back on the air in five
minutes, but then revulsion and panic gripped his mind as millions
of fire ants marched into the studio. They proceeded across his
soundboard, quickly disappearing beneath the surface, and wreaked
havoc. Smoke began to waft through the cracks, and in between
buttons and switches. Frightened, he turned to leave, but was
swarmed by the angry, gnashing, cutting jaws of a hundred thousand
angry ants as they rushed up his pants, tearing him apart one bite
at a time. Humanity did not yet know they were at war with nature,
but it would soon become apparent.

Similar scenarios were playing out at
radio and television stations all across the country. The smallest
insects were given the major tasks of infiltrating communication
systems, server farms; networking equipment; bank teller machines,
gas pumps, and any device designed read a credit card.

"How many more stations like this one
do we have, sir?" One ant said to his commander.
"Sharp Tooth had said to shut them all down, that's stage one.
Stage two would begin soon, but human lines of communication have
to be terminated before we can begin the real work." The commander
explained. "Now, get back to work!"

Sharp Tooth had explained all of this
to her friends and woodland family, and wherever her instructions
seemed unclear, the soldier’s orders were to use their
imaginations. It took less than a day for the animal kingdom to
plunge humanity into darkness, and an age had passed. The amount of
damage to power grids, nuclear power plants, and fuel production
centers was so vast it would have taken fifteen years to fix all of
it, had the infrastructure been in place to do so. Human
civilization collapsed like a house of cards.

While desperate people began looting
stores, and fighting one another for scraps, stage two was under
way. Monkeys in zoos everywhere swung free of their confines, and
used teamwork to race through the zoos to set their other
imprisoned comrades free. Every animal that had been stolen from
their home in faraway lands and caged was now free to trample their
captors. Chaos reigned, and the blitz was so fast and ferocious
that there was no opportunity for an effective retaliation by
humanity. Thousands of cell towers were now laying on their sides,
as free elephants, once held against their will, used leverage to
tear them down. One by one. Aerial assaults by birds and bats
crippled aircraft engines, sending them screaming to the ground.
Several strategic airstrikes were attempted by the human military,
but intentional bird strikes at engines sent pilots crashing into
the earth below. In other attacks, before pilots could leave the
ground, beetles and spiders that had been hiding in the cracks of
the cockpits swarmed in a combined effort and ravaged the
airmen.

Sharp Tooth received reports from all
fronts that the war was going well with minimal casualties. The
animals’ blitzkrieg had caught the humans off guard. Mankind had
been reduced to a Stone Age in a little over a day. Now that their
technology was destroyed, the majority of people began to starve,
having never farmed or hunted. For a week the animals continued
their campaign of swift and cold-blooded carnage, marching over
hill and mountain, through every town and city. Sharp Tooth had no
intention of wiping man off the earth, but the humans had to
remember they were not in charge.