Chapter 361: Chapter 361: Animal Mutation 2
The farm workers all received the grain, clothes, wood, and water distributed by Officer Graham.
The grain was recently ground wheat flour. Each person received a set of clothes, and each wooden house was allotted about two tons of wood and five buckets of ice. The buckets were roughly the size of a washtub, and the water from the ice would be enough to last a month for cooking alone.
Evelyn Ford handed out the insecticide. The number of insects flying through the air was growing. She caught two to observe their mutations and discovered they weren’t ordinary bugs, but cockroaches that had begun to mutate.
"I’ve never seen cockroaches this big before."
The smallest was only as big as Dotty, while the largest was already palm-sized. The bristles on their six legs were dense, and their two antennae were extremely long and had become incredibly hard. They beat their wings at a very high frequency.
Cockroaches are the kind of insect that can survive almost anything, be it extreme cold or extreme heat. They are highly adaptable and one of the most difficult species to eradicate.
Cockroaches don’t typically attack humans, but as omnivores, they are notorious for carrying pathogens.
Evelyn Ford placed them in a glass beaker, and the cockroaches suddenly began to ram against the glass as if they’d gone mad.
"Their eyes have all turned red," Ronan Kendrick said, pointing to the nearby woodlouse and The Gilded Tortoise.
Evelyn Ford glanced over. He was right.
’So the sun poison stimulates their nerves and eyes, and that’s what triggers the mutation? Does "mutation" just mean their eyes turn red, they become frenzied, and they attack humans or kill each other?’
Evelyn Ford put all the creatures into a single glass container. At first, they were all wary of one another. After a brief period of testing the waters, the cockroaches were the first to strike, pouncing on a ground beetle. The Gilded Tortoise was relatively large, so the other creatures didn’t dare provoke it. The palm-sized cockroaches, however, showed no fear. Both cockroaches actively attacked the other creatures. The animals they bit showed no immediate changes, but a few hours later, the cockroaches themselves were dead.
"The cockroaches bit the other creatures and then died themselves. Why would that happen?"
Evelyn Ford couldn’t wrap her head around it. ’Could it have something to do with the duration and proximity of their exposure to the sun poison? The Gilded Tortoise and the woodlouse came up from underground, but the cockroaches are flying in the sky. They’re exposed to the sun poison for longer, making them more aggressive and volatile. But once they attack something, does that mean they’ve transferred the mutated pathogen to a new host? And once they do, the cockroach host is no longer needed, so it just... dies?’
Of course, this was all just Evelyn Ford’s speculation. Without proper equipment and data, any guess was ultimately pointless.
"Is it possible that only the cockroaches carry the sun poison pathogen?" Ronan Kendrick mused, staring at the dead insects. "They make other creatures mutate by attacking them. If we can just keep the cockroaches away, we should be fine."
Evelyn Ford’s brow furrowed with worry. "But there are too many of them, and they’re everywhere. They reproduce so quickly... I don’t think we can possibly kill them all."
"If we keep spraying the insecticide, it should be fine," Ronan said. "Telling everyone to stay inside was the right call. If a cockroach bites someone and transfers the pathogen, that person might also go berserk and start attacking others."
It was a bit like zombies, except the cockroaches were just vectors for a pathogen.
The root cause was still the sun poison.
The next day, sure enough, the number of cockroaches had grown. The sky was a dense, writhing mass of them. They swarmed the log cabins, slamming their bodies against the structures and gnawing at the wood.
Evelyn Ford moved the Mammoth and the horse herd into her storage space and warned everyone not to go outside or open their doors. All their daily needs—eating, drinking, everything—would have to be taken care of inside their cabins.
The houses had to be sprayed with insecticide daily. No one was to wash clothes, lest it attract more flies and insects.
The entire farm was now on high alert. The greenhouses, the livestock pens, and the warehouses were all sealed shut. Everyone remained inside their log cabins.
Back when she was in Westeria, Evelyn Ford had acquired some walkie-talkies. She handed them out, one for each cabin. They had a range of three hundred meters to five kilometers, and one unit could transmit to multiple receivers, which would make communication much more convenient.
"KSHHH... This is Evelyn Ford. Can you hear me?"
Her voice immediately crackled from Ronan Kendrick’s walkie-talkie. He picked it up, walked to the door, and keyed the mic to reply.
"This is Ronan Kendrick. I hear you loud and clear. What do you need?"
Evelyn Ford smiled. "Could you check the temperature on the gauge for me?"
"Negative two degrees."
Evelyn Ford nodded. "Alright, task complete."
With the test complete, Evelyn Ford began hailing the others.
"This is Evelyn Ford. Can everyone hear me?"
"We’ve been able to hear you for a while," Quincy complained. "And even at a time like this, you and Ronan Kendrick are still being all lovey-dovey for us to hear."
"You’re not even single," Evelyn retorted. "Anyway, let’s get back on topic. Ronan and I suspect the cockroaches are carrying the sun poison pathogen. I’m reminding everyone again: do not go outside. If you do and get bitten, treat the wound immediately with strong spirits."
"What’s it like out there? With all the doors and windows shut, we have no idea what’s going on."
Evelyn Ford pushed aside a wooden plank to look outside. She had deliberately left one window un-nailed for the express purpose of observing the situation.
"It’s just cockroaches. A solid, swarming mass of them. You can’t even see the sky. It’s worse than the plague of mosquitos we had. They’re chewing on the wood and slamming against the doors."
After Evelyn finished, cries of alarm erupted from several of the walkie-talkies.
"They’re not going to chew through the wood, are they?"
"We sprayed the wood with insecticide. Plenty of them are already dead on the ground."
"Miss Ford, when do you think the cockroaches will be gone?"
Evelyn’s brow tightened. "I don’t know. Just don’t do anything rash. Do not open your doors."
After switching off the walkie-talkie, Evelyn Ford picked up a pair of binoculars and watched the cockroaches swarming outside.
"Looks like there are more birds out there now. And Eagles. Those Eagles are huge. If they start to mutate, the damage they could cause would be massive."
Ronan Kendrick leaned in to look. "Crows and tits, too."
Evelyn Ford focused the binoculars and spotted a few small tits. They seemed agitated, however, and began to swarm the cockroaches. After a cockroach fell, a tit would flutter down to the ground and start pecking at its corpse.
Crows carry a ton of parasites and pathogens, as do bats. Evelyn Ford pushed the plank back into place and flopped onto the beanbag chair in front of the fireplace.
"I’m done thinking about it," she declared. "As long as we stay inside, they’ll disappear eventually."
Evelyn Ford pulled out a bottle of soda, twisted off the cap, and took a long drink.
"I’ve been running around like crazy these past few days. I’m exhausted."
Ronan Kendrick sat down beside her. "And who was it that told me drinking too much soda is bad for you? Something about how it’ll turn women into men and men into women?"
Evelyn Ford let out a small burp. "I never said that."
Ronan Kendrick took the half-empty bottle from her and took a slow, deliberate sip.
"This is awful," he remarked. "And it’s the color of soy sauce."
"Not soy sauce. More like grasshopper spit."
Ronan Kendrick gave Evelyn Ford a speechless look. "And how would you know that?"
