The smell here transcended mere badness. It was not a smell of mammals or even reptiles, but of an entirely different order of Creation. It was thrilling . For quite some time Jack had been breathing through his nose, but now he threw one arm over his face and sucked in air through the crook of his elbow. For the air in this, the deepest and innermost part of the hospital, was (he estimated) fifty percent insects by volume, a sort of writhing meat-cloud that continually hummed, as if he had climbed into an organ pipe. And if even one of those bugs got into a nostril and injured itself trying to struggle free of Jack’s nose-hairs, the caretakers would be sure to notice, and then Jack would be out of a job. For the same reason, he had altered his gait, and now shuffled along on bare feet, plowing carefully through the drifts and flurries of bugs on the floor, hoping there weren’t any scorpions there just now.