Still he moved forward. They were almost to the kitchen.
“Isaac!” she screamed, suddenly stopping and ripping her hand away from his. “Are you listening to your mother?”
“We have to go,” he told her, averting his gaze. He hated to see her bloody like that.
“But what if our babies are sick? We can’t just—”
Mrs. Livingstone attacked from out of nowhere, flying through the air and landing on Caroline’s shoulder. Caroline screeched as the cat sank her needle teeth into the soft flesh of her neck. She managed to grab Mrs. Livingstone by her fluffy Maine Coon cat tail and yanked. The cat came away, eerily silent, but so did a large chunk of Caroline’s neck. She flung the cat away and clamped her hand over the spurting wound, trying to stem the flow of crimson. She dropped to her knees, and Isaac could see a swarm of eager mice already heading for her.
He rushed toward her, stomping on the mice. As he did, he caught sight of Mrs. Livingstone calmly watching the scene from a nearby sewing machine cabinet. A shudder of terror passed through him. What’s the matter with her eye? he wondered.
But he had no more time for thought. His mother was covered with gray and black mice. They were in her hair and moving beneath her clothing, and she twitched and moaned pathetically as they bit her repeatedly.
“No! No! No!” he cried, grabbing handfuls of the tiny life forms, squeezing them with all his might before throwing their crushed corpses among the other refuse.
His mother’s hand was still clamped to the bite on her neck, and he could see the blood oozing from beneath her closed fingers, running down her neck, and soaking her shirt. She was trying to speak, her mouth moving strangely as her eyes bulged.
He hauled her to her feet. She was heavier now. He pulled one of her arms around his neck and placed one of his around her waist and began to drag her toward the kitchen. As they passed the sewing machine cabinet, he saw that Mrs. Livingstone was gone.
They were finally in the kitchen, and Isaac couldn’t help himself. He stopped and turned his head to see if he could see Mrs. Livingstone. His heart jumped painfully in his chest at the sight of not only Mrs. Livingstone, but Binky, Cavendish, and Nero following closely, with what could only be described as a sea of mice flowing over the clutter, heading directly for him and his mother.
Isaac fixed his sight on the back door, hauling his mother across the trash-strewn floor with renewed vigor, knocking things from the kitchen shelves as he navigated the best he could. He could hear the storm raging outside and briefly considered stopping to grab his raincoat but realized that was probably not the smartest idea.
For a moment he thought his hearing aids were acting even more strangely, as the sound of a high-pitched alarm suddenly filled the home, but then he saw the trails of smoke wafting from the living room and realized that the smoke detectors were letting him know there was a fire. He remembered the candles and how they had fallen over in the struggles.
From the corner of his eye he caught movement and instantly lashed out with his lamp club, catching Cavendish as he sprang. The overweight cat fell into a shelf above the sink, filled with decorative teacups. There was a deafening crash as shelf, teacups, and cat fell into the trash-filled sink. Isaac actually felt a twinge of sadness as Cavendish lay still in the wreckage. He had liked Cavendish best; that one had never made a mess in his room.
Caroline had fallen from his grasp and was curled in a tight ball on the kitchen floor. Isaac reached down to pick her up, never taking his eyes from the living room doorway. Mice were pouring into the room, scampering up onto the counters, and streaming across the uneven surfaces toward them. His mother was making awful sounds now, and her skin had taken on a strange grayish color. Her hand fell away from her neck, the wound continuing to bleed quite badly. Isaac thrust his arm around her waist again and managed to get her up, then balanced her weight against his hip as he opened the door to the outside.
The cats came from opposite sides, Mrs. Livingstone descending from the top of the refrigerator, and Binky from the kitchen island, both landing on Isaac’s back. Fighting through the pain, he opened the wooden screen door and pushed his mother outside, closing it tightly behind her.
Then he spun, swinging his lamp. The pain in his back was so bad that he thought he might pass out, explosions of color like fireworks blooming before his eyes as Mrs. Livingstone continued to gnaw and claw at his back, while Binky ripped at the flesh of his legs and stomach. Isaac fell to his knees, hearing the wind rattle the screen door behind him, feeling the spray of rain as it blew through the screen. He had been so very close.
So. Very. Close.
He felt the life going out of him as the cats continued to bite and scratch.
Then something exploded in a rush of fire just outside the kitchen doorway; tongues of flame reached into the kitchen to stroke the water-stained ceiling.
It was if the fire gave him life, the sight of orange flame and thickening black smoke allowing him to tap into some reserve of strength that he wasn’t aware existed.
With a surge of energy, Isaac screamed and threw himself toward the storm door, not even slowing down to unlatch it. He barreled through the woven screen and over the metal railing, where he landed in a heap beside his mother on the rain-soaked ground.
He felt Mrs. Livingstone squirm fitfully beneath him and pushed himself up from the ground to find the cat’s crushed body, her head bent at an awkward angle but still trying to snap at him.
Already soaked to the skin by the driving rain, he managed to get to his knees and crawl to his mother. She was lying on her side, facing away from him, her face pressed to the ground. Gently, he took her arm and rolled her onto her back.
A blood-covered Binky looked up from the hole he had burrowed into Caroline’s chest. Isaac gasped, falling heavily backward onto his butt. The cat glared at him, a glint of something silver over one of his bulging eyes. He seemed to consider Isaac for a moment, then continued to tear into Caroline’s still form.
Isaac was horrified. His hand found a rock in the mud beside him and he grabbed it, forcing himself to stand on shaking legs. He was about to bring the rock down on Binky’s head when movement from the corner of the yard distracted him. The undergrowth was moving, a wave of animal life—squirrels, chipmunks, snakes, bugs, and mice—flowing through the grass toward him.
A tiny voice in his head told him to run. He looked down at his mother. He didn’t want to leave her, but even he understood it was too late for her, and if he stayed, he would die too. Isaac cried out with rage as the lightning flared and the thunder crashed. He threw the rock with all his might at the swarm of life, but it was like tossing a pebble into the ocean, if the ocean was a living thing that wanted to chew the skin from his bones.
Not wanting to see what the wave would do to his mother, Isaac turned and raced across the yard into the woods.
As the storm raged on.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Sidney wanted to try something.
She stood in front of a line of insects that had made it up the stairs and through the place-mat barrier they’d shoved beneath the door. She was fascinated by the spiders, ants, centipedes, beetles, millipedes, and some bugs she had never even seen before coming toward her.
“What are you doing?” Rich asked incredulously. He was stomping on even more bugs as they came out from beneath the door while Cody attempted to reinforce their barrier with some dish towels.
“I’m curious,” she said. She took one step back and then a wide step to the right. Within seconds the bugs had changed course to follow her.
“You’re shitting me,” she said.
“What?” Cody asked. He stood up and crossed the kitchen toward her.
“Watch,” Sidney ordered. The bugs were almost upon her. She moved around toward the back of the flow.
It took only a moment for the flow of insects to follow, heading directly for her once again.
“That’s crazy,” Cody said.
“Ya think?” Rich said, coming to stand beside Cody.
Sidney tried it again a few more times, and each time the bugs changed course, coming menacingly toward her.
“They’re actually coming after me,” she said as she pushed her foot toward the front of the mass. A spider lunged forward, striking at the toe of her shoe, as a swarm of ants climbed up onto her foot. She quickly shook them off. “They’ve become incredibly aggressive.”
Rich approached, and as if sensing his presence, the flow of insects turned toward him. “But why?” he asked. He started to step on the bugs, grinding them into the floor as they continued to come at him.
Cody helped with some strays.
“I don’t know,” she said, petting Snowy’s head as she thought. “What could affect insects, as well as mammals?” She looked over to the dead raccoon.
“You said it might have something to do with the storm,” Cody offered. “That sounds as good as anything.”
There were more bangs and slams against the house, but they’d grown used to the sounds by now.
Sidney walked over to the raccoon and dropped to her knees next to it. “Maybe some sort of toxin,” she said, thinking out loud. “Maybe something in the runoff from the storm.”
Cautiously she touched the raccoon. Pushing up the loose skin around its mouth, she examined the gums for any discoloration or evidence of a toxin. At a glance everything looked relatively normal, and she moved on to the raccoon’s eyes, first checking the left and then . . .
“What the hell is this?” she muttered.
“What?” Cody asked. “Did you find something?”
“Yeah,” she said, pulling the skin wide above and below the animal’s orb. “Maybe I have.”
She studied the eye and the strange, almost reflective cataract that covered it. The shiny substance appeared to be breaking down, partially sliding off the eye. She’d never seen anything quite like it before and wondered if it might have something to do with—
A thump and crashing sounds came from upstairs.
“What now?” Rich moaned, and headed toward the stairway, peering up through the darkness to the landing.
“What is that?” Cody asked Sidney as he squatted beside her for a closer look at the raccoon.
“I don’t know,” she replied, “but I’d like to find out.”
The silvery substance was sliding across the surface of the eye and pooling at the bottom of the raccoon’s eyelid.
“Hey, Rich,” Sidney called out. “Do you have a trash bag I could put this in?”
“I think there’s a box under the sink.” Rich turned toward the kitchen, but more noise from upstairs distracted him, and instead he climbed the first few steps.
Cody stood and went to check under the sink. Sidney could hear the sounds of bugs crunching beneath his feet as he walked. He returned with a green trash bag and snapped it open.
“Do you want me to do it?” he asked.
“You’re such a gentleman.” She lifted the raccoon by the tail and dropped it into the empty bag. Cody smiled at her, and despite the strangeness of the situation, she smiled back as she took the bag from him.
“What are you planning to do with it?” he asked.
“I’d like to get it to Doc Martin,” she said. “Maybe she can run some tests and see what’s—”
Sidney was interrupted as Rich nearly fell down the stairs and rushed toward them.
“What?” Sidney asked, moving toward the foyer.
“Don’t!” Rich screamed.
There was movement in the dark at the top of the stairs, and she gasped at the sight of multiple fur-covered bodies amassing on the landing.
Squirrels. Hundreds of squirrels.
They began to descend in a wave, their tiny claws scrabbling across the wooden surface.
“Shit, we got to go, guys,” she said, backing up quickly toward her friends.
“Go? Go where?” Rich asked. “There’s a freakin’ storm out there!”
“Someplace,” she screamed, waving the trash bag. “Anyplace . . . but we can’t stay here.”
Snowy began to bark crazily as the squirrels flowed down the steps into the foyer, heading for the kitchen.
“Oh my God,” Cody said. “OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod . . .” He stood frozen, watching as the animals moved toward them, just like the flow of insects from the basement.
“Move!” Sidney shouted. She grabbed Snowy’s collar and pulled her, but the path to the back door was blocked by yet another swarm of insects from the basement. Instead, she led the shepherd into the nearby bathroom, the guys close behind her.
“What are we doing?” Rich asked, his voice loud and high pitched.
“I don’t know,” she snapped. “But at least we should be safe for a while in here. It’ll give us a chance to figure this out.”
Cody slammed the bathroom door on the wave of angry life swarming behind them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Doc Martin dragged Bear’s body across the threshold from the kennel, a wide smear of crimson on the linoleum floor marking their passing.
The animals in their cages were still throwing their bodies mercilessly against the doors, trying to escape and get at her. With a grunt she pulled the mastiff into the office and allowed the kennel door to close, muffling the sounds of the crazed animals beyond.
She leaned against the wall to catch her breath.
“You’re a big boy, aren’t you,” she said to the dead dog. She reached into the pocket of her lab coat and removed a pack of cigarettes, at that moment not really giving two craps about office rules. I’ll be sure to fine myself in the morning, she thought, popping a smoke into her mouth and lighting up.
They’d always told her that the cancer sticks would be the cause of her death, and typically she’d believed them. Now she stared at the massive dog at her feet. Never had she thought one of her own patients would do her in.
She took a long drag on the cigarette, feeling her nerves start to settle.
Then, cigarette sticking from the corner of her mouth, she bent down, took the big dog by his front paws, and pulled him to the nearby examination room. Lifting with her knees, she managed to haul the dead beast up and flop him onto the metal table.
“Holy crap,” she said breathlessly. “What the hell were they feeding you?”
She took a few more puffs on her smoke before throwing the butt into the metal sink, then she plucked two rubber gloves from the box on the counter and turned back to the mastiff.
“All right then,” she said, pulling on the gloves. “Let’s see if we can figure out what’s happened.”
She started by feeling the animal’s body, looking for any odd lumps or lesions, but other than the gaping surgical wound, she felt nothing. Next, she placed a hand against the dog’s massive head and pulled open his eyes. She shined the penlight from her lab coat pocket into the left eye and then the right.
“Well, what do we have here?” she asked aloud as the beam of light reflected off a metallic, almost spiderweb-like covering on the right eye.
The vet took a scalpel from another drawer in the supply cabinet and began to poke at the covering. At first she believed it to be some kind of cataract, but the more she examined it . . .
Holding the flesh around the eye wide, she peered even closer. From the looks of it, the cataract—or whatever the hell it was—appeared to completely encase the eye.
Doc Martin wanted an even closer look. Flipping the scalpel around and using the rounded end to wedge beneath the eyeball, she forced it upward, eventually popping it from the skull.
She held the still-attached eyeball in her rubber-gloved hand, slowly turning it. The foreign material did indeed cover the entire orb and then entwined around the optic nerve, going farther up into the skull cavity.
“Huh,” she said, letting the eye dangle against the mastiff’s face. She stepped back and removed her rubber gloves, tossing them in a nearby trash can.
D
oc Martin knew what she wanted to do next, but in order to do that she was going to need to take a look inside the dog’s skull. A slight smile formed on her face as she left the examination room, remembering how they told her she was crazy when she’d invested in the bone saw.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Dale Moore sat in the darkness, listening to the sounds of the storm raging outside.
He picked up the cell phone that rested on his thigh, looked at the time, and dialed Sidney’s number again. The call, as the twenty or more calls before it, didn’t go through.
Maybe a tower’s come down with this wind, Dale thought as he hung up and placed the phone back on his thigh.
But that didn’t explain where Sidney was.
He racked his brain trying to remember if she’d said anything to him about her plans for the day and evening. They hadn’t talked much after the business of that morning, each annoyed with the other. The only thing he knew for sure was that she was going to work. He picked up his phone again and looked at the time.
Something thumped outside, and he looked in the general direction of the sound. The wind howled like a hungry wolf, and he could hear the hissing patter of rain against the windows.
It sounded pretty bad out there, which just made him worry all the more. He figured she was probably hanging out at the animal hospital, helping Doc Martin until the storm calmed down. That’s just how she was, but still, he’d like to know for sure.
When Sid’s mother had left them, his daughter had suddenly become his focus; everything he did was somehow connected to her, her well-being, and her happiness. It had become his job to make sure that she had everything she needed to live her life in the best way possible. Dale recalled, with a twinge of guilt, the amount of time he’d spent away from his little girl, the special jobs that he’d sometimes taken on the mainland, leaving Sidney to fend for herself. But truth be told, it had all been for her. A lot of the money he’d made had gone to her college fund, to help her with her dream—with her future.
His right arm began to ache, a dull throbbing pain to remind him that it was still there. How could he forget? Too many cigarettes and stress.
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