Blue Twilight Read Online Free Page B

forty degrees. That gets them to hatch into tiny larvae the size of pinheads. After that, I put roughly eighty of ’em in a yogurt container, where they begin to feed. Once they start to grow, I divvy them up into groups of twenty each. The main thing to remember is not to overcrowd the larvae. Otherwise they’ll turn into nasty little cannibals. As for these overhead lights, they’re all on timers so you don’t have to worry about ’em. I’ve been doing this gig long enough to have gotten the process down to a science. The caterpillars do best with about sixteen hours of light and eight hours of darkness each day. I also maintain the room temperature and humidity to help them grow faster.”
    Aikens wasn’t fooling around when it came to rearing butterflies. He had his own mini-factory for producing “hatch ’em, feed ’em and freeze ’em” winged specimens. I peeked into one of the paint buckets and found that a hole had been cut in its bottom to accommodate a large potted plant. The resident caterpillars were voraciously gnawing away at the leaves.
    “Once the eggs hatch, you’ve gotta be with them on a regular basis for months at a time. They need constant attention,care, and feeding to keep them from getting disease. That’ll also be part of your job,” Aikens added.
    We moved on to a fourteen-by-ten-inch plastic container in which a group of mature larvae were hungrily munching away on a pile of clippings. A symphony of tiny jaws could be heard chomping up and down if I stopped and held my breath. The crunch of vegetation followed the beat, beat, beat of larvae masticating in syncopation.
    Aikens noticed that I was listening and softly chuckled. “Amazing, isn’t it? Just wait until they all begin hatching and feeding. Sometimes I can actually hear them chewing up a storm as I walk into the house. I always thought it would make a great horror flick. Caterpillars growing into giant mutants that eat people, pickups, buildings. You know, everything in sight.”
    He picked up a small paintbrush and walked over to an aquarium where a bunch of pudgy caterpillars squirmed around.
    “You’re gonna have to do this too. So, watch closely, ’cause you don’t want to hurt the little fellas.”
    Aikens meticulously cleaned inside the tank while carefully moving caterpillars out of the way. No wonder the guy needed help. This was a twenty-four-hour, around-the-clock job.
    “Okay, now look at this,” he said, pointing to one of the larger occupants. “This caterpillar’s nearly ready to go into chrysalis. That’s kinda like hibernation, or a cocoon stage. You’ll see what I mean as we proceed with what I like to call my PBS nature tour.”
    But rather than continue on, Mitch suddenly leaned forward.
    “Whoa, hold the phone. What the…Aw shit, I don’t goddamn well believe this!” He spat and angrily stomped his feet.
    “What’s the matter?” I asked, unable to spot anything wrong.
    “It’s these damn parasitic wasps! Get a load of this, will ya?” Aikens instructed, jabbing a finger at the caterpillar.
    Bending down, I placed my face close to the glass. I saw nothing unusual at first. Then my eyes opened wide in astonishment. A small wasp had somehow developed inside the caterpillar and was now gnawing its way out.
    “How did that happen?” I asked, both repulsed and mesmerized by the sight.
    “Outside, of course. Where else? I picked up this batch of larvae on San Bruno Mountain after they’d already hatched,” Aikens explained in disgust. “A lousy parasitic wasp must have landed on the back of this caterpillar and laid a bunch of eggs under its skin. The offspring have it made in the shade after that. They grow up eating their host from the inside out, kinda like noshing on a Hungry Man meal. Pretty gross, huh?”
    I didn’t respond, but continued to watch as the insect ripped through the caterpillar’s skin and slowly emerged out the side of its body. However, that wasn’t the end. The