At first perusal the brain looked fine. Doc Martin touched the tips of her fingers on each of the cerebral hemispheres; they were squishy, spongelike, just as they were supposed to be. Carefully she reached down into the skull with both hands and gently lifted the brain so that she could see beneath it.
An icy cold finger of dread raced up her spine as she saw it.
“What is this?” she asked herself.
To the untrained eye it would have looked like just another part of the brain, but Doc Martin knew better.
It appeared to be some kind of growth. A tumor perhaps. She leaned in for a closer look, noticing the tendrils that spread out from the mass to other parts of the brain. Remembering the silvery sheen that covered Bear’s right eye, she paid special attention to the occipital lobe and saw that it was permeated with thin, capillary-like growths that appeared to weave together to form a thicker connection that disappeared into the gray matter.
Doc Martin tugged slightly on the brain, pulling it farther back from the front of the skull to observe the optic nerve. The thick, silvery tendrils were completely wrapped around the sight nerve leading to the dog’s right eye. It reminded her of an old telephone cord—before phones were cordless and could fit in your pocket.
The doctor was stumped. In her many years as a veterinarian she had never seen anything like this.
Setting the brain back down inside the skull, she turned her attention to the mastiff’s right eye, still hanging from its socket. She gently lifted the orb, holding it between forefinger and thumb, and looked directly into it.
She was shocked to see the pupil suddenly dilate beneath the shiny membrane, opening and closing, reminding her of the lens of a camera as it tried to focus.
“How is this possible?” she muttered. The dog was dead; there shouldn’t have been any activity in the eye, or any other part of the animal for that matter. Carefully she put the eye back on the table and lifted the brain for another look at the growth. It might have been a trick of the light, but she could have sworn that it had pulsed with life. She stared, and it did not move again.
She returned to the eye. It too showed no further signs of function, appearing as it should have, dead and lifeless.
But Doc Martin knew what she had seen.
The eye had focused.
Watching her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
It continued to pour as Sidney and her friends drove through the storm-wrought streets. Nightmarish scenarios, half glimpsed through the rapid passing of the wipers over the windshield, told them that all of Benediction was experiencing the same horrors.
Houses were on fire, shapes that could very easily have been bodies were lying by the sides of the road, packs of wild things—dogs, cats, raccoons, and whatever else called the island of Benediction home—were emerging from the thick of darkened woods to chase them as they drove past.
It was like a nightmare, but Sidney didn’t think she’d ever had one so terrifying.
“It’s gotta be the end of the world,” Rich said as he gazed out through the windshield.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sidney snapped, not even wanting to think about the possibility of such a thing. There had to be a logical explanation for what was happening, and once they figured it out, it would be fixed
“You don’t think that’s possible?” Rich asked. “What happened at the house, never mind what’s going on out here?”
“I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for all of it.”
“The whole freakin’ town has gone nuts, Sid.” The pitch in his voice was climbing.
“I know what it looks like,” she said, trying to be calm. “But it’s not going to do us any good to make crazy assumptions before we know all the facts.”
She saw the shape before anybody else did, a lone figure stumbling out from a swath of total black on the left and into the road.
“Cody, look out!” she cried, grabbing his arm as he pulled the wheel savagely to the right and slammed on the brakes.
The tires squealed as the truck skidded sideways across the wet road, whipping around the trailer with the sailboat. The trailer disconnected with a wrenching snap, and both trailer and sailboat flipped over, sliding several feet before coming to a stop, blocking the road.
It was silent in the truck except for the swish-thunk of the wiper blades moving across the windshield, as they waited for the next horrible thing to happen.
“Is . . . is everybody okay?” Sidney finally asked, quickly checking out Snowy, who appeared to be fine.
“Yeah, I’m good,” Rich said, looking around. “What the hell was that in the road?”
Without a word, Cody opened the driver’s-side door.
“What are you doing?” Sidney asked, grabbing his arm again. “You can’t—”
“That was a person we almost hit,” he yelled, then yanked his arm from her hand and got out of the truck.
“Be careful,” she called, already sliding across the seat to follow.
“Sid!” Rich exclaimed.
“I’ve got to make sure he’s all right,” she said, turning toward her friend, who rolled his eyes with exasperation but reached for the handle of the passenger door.
Snowy jumped down beside Sidney, who placed a hand on her back, signaling for the dog to stay by her side. She stood in the pouring rain for a moment, eyes scanning the darkness for Cody and for any animals that might be coming to attack them. She spotted him a short distance away, walking down the center of the road.
“Look at my friggin’ boat!” she heard Rich cry out. Glancing over her shoulder, she watched her friend as he approached the sailboat resting on its side, then she turned and ran after Cody, Snowy at her heels.
“Cody, wait up!” she hollered.
Up ahead, lying in the road, was a body.
“Oh my God,” Sidney said, immediately taking the phone from her pocket and dialing 911. As with the other calls that they’d attempted, it didn’t go through. Whatever was happening on the island was wreaking havoc with cell phone signals. “There’s still no signal,” she said, looking at the phone’s illuminated face.
Snowy whined as they grew closer to the figure lying so very still in the dampness of the road.
“Hello?” Cody called out. “Are you all right?”
He knelt down on the road beside the figure, a man lying on his stomach. Cautiously Cody reached out to turn him over, but something didn’t feel right to Sidney and she reacted.
“Don’t,” she ordered.
Cody’s hand stopped mere inches from the man. He looked at her, a glimmer of annoyance in his eyes.
“I just want to see if . . .”
She was about to explain herself when the figure began to move, but not in a way that was at all natural. “Cody” was all she could manage, her eyes locked on the body.
“What?” he asked, looking from her terrified expression to the man.
The man’s clothing was moving—no—something was moving under the man’s clothes.
Cody fell backward, startled by the writhing layers of cloth. Sidney grabbed him beneath the arms and tried to haul him to his feet, just as multiple rats emerged from the back of the man’s collar.
The rats paused and looked around, noses twitching as they sniffed the wet air, until their gazes fell on Sidney and Cody.
Then they opened their bloodstained mouths together and bared their nasty teeth.
* * *
Nearby, Rich stood before the wrecked sailboat and wanted to cry.
Scenes from summers past played out before the theater of his mind, followed by what was sure to be the echoing voice of his father in the not too distant future: What the hell did you do to the boat?
Yeah, this’ll be fun to explain, if I ever get the chance, he thought.
The trailer was trashed, and the sailboat was lying on its side in the middle of the road. If a car was to come along in the gloom . . . He didn’t even want to think of the repercussions.
> Rich remembered the emergency equipment in a white metal box on the deck of the boat and went to look for it. It was slippery in the driving rain, but he managed to climb over the side and up to the deck of the steeply pitched boat. He found the box, still intact, near the wheelhouse. It was held closed by clips that he quickly undid, causing the lid to drop open, spilling the contents out over the side of the deck and onto the road below. Thankfully, the green plastic lantern he was looking for was secured inside the case, and he reached in to remove it. Taking his prize, Rich clambered down awkwardly from his perch and back onto the road. His fingers searched the buttons, and he managed to first turn on the lantern and then the flashing safety beacon.
The beacon pulsed brightly in his hand as he began to walk around the wreckage of his boat to place it in the road.
Sidney’s scream cut through the wind and hissing rain like screeching brakes. Rich spun around, eyes searching through the gloom for his friends. Down past the truck he saw Sidney, Cody, and Snowy reacting to something that at first he could not see, but then he did.
Rats.
And lots of them.
Still holding on to the safety lantern, he started toward them and nearly lost his balance as his foot slid across something on the ground—a road flare that he remembered putting in the emergency box a few summers before.
And as he looked at the flare, he got an idea.
* * *
The number of rats that were flowing out from beneath the man’s clothing was obscene.
How is it even possible?
It reminded Sidney of the clown car from the circus that her dad had taken her to see in Boston when she was little. She remembered how hard she had laughed when the little doors opened on the tiny yellow car and the clowns had just kept coming and coming.
But she wasn’t laughing now as the rats kept coming and coming.
“Get back to the truck,” she found herself saying as she started to back away. Snowy was already on the move, romping forward to snatch one of the gray-furred rodents up from the ground and giving it a shake so quick and savage that its neck was broken at once.
Cody was closer to the man’s body, and a few had managed to crawl up onto his legs, even as he furiously backpedaled away. He yelled like a wild man as he reached down to tear the fat-bodied rodents off of him, throwing them into the road, where they simply rejoined the writhing mass of furry bodies that was on its way toward him.
“Cody, c’mon!” Sidney screamed, stamping down on one of the four rats that surged at her, the remaining three darting back before attempting to come at her from another angle.
The thought of how many rats had been on the poor guy made her sick to her stomach. Getting hit by Cody’s truck would have been a blessing.
Cody ran away from the body, a line of gray-bodied vermin trailing after him as if attached by some invisible wire. Snowy wanted to go after more of them, her hunter’s instinct in full view, but Sidney was afraid that even the shepherd would have become overwhelmed by the crazy number.
Mere inches from reaching them, Cody went down. He cried out in pain as he pitched forward, falling hard upon his chest. There was a cluster of rats on his legs, scurrying up his back to reach his head and neck. Sidney saw no other choice and let Snowy free, the dog instinctively reacting, bounding to Cody’s aid. The rats attempted to defend themselves against the dog, but Snowy was just too fast, savaging the rodents as they swarmed.
But the rats’ numbers were growing, now coming out from the woods on either side of the road.
Sidney helped Cody up from the ground. “All right?” she asked as she pulled him by the arm. He lurched and stumbled.
“Twisted something,” he said, face contorted in discomfort as he struggled to his feet.
Cody was standing, and while she helped him to remain upright, she looked toward her dog, signaling Snowy to come. But Snowy wasn’t looking; instead she was facing off against the continuous advance of rats, ripped and broken bodies—trophies—piled at her paws.
“Can you stand by yourself?” she asked Cody, slipping out from beneath his arm. He acknowledged that he could, and she ran to the side of the road, looking for something that she could use as a weapon. Prepared to do whatever she had to in order to ensure the safety of her friends and dog, she found a thick piece of broken tree limb and went to join her dog. Hoping to buy them some time to get back to the truck, she screamed like a maniac, throwing the piece of tree into the midst of the gathering rodents, dispersing them.
“C’mon, girl!” she yelled, grabbing hold of the dog’s collar and giving it a solid yank, but Snowy did not want to go. The dog planted her feet, ready to protect those she loved from the potential onslaught.
Sidney hadn’t even heard Rich as he ran up from behind, throwing the fiery, hissing end of a road flare into the path of the advancing rat swarm.
The heat and flame seemed to confuse them, driving them back.
But the moment was only temporary.
“The truck!” Rich screamed as he turned away from the rats and started to run.
Sidney gave Snowy’s collar a solid yank, and this time she obeyed, trotting alongside her master as they all ran back to the truck. She attempted to help Cody, but he assured her that he was fine, limping slightly in front of them to haul open the driver’s-side door.
Sidney watched with a mixture of complete fascination and horror as the rats converged upon the flare, multiple plump rat bodies swarming upon its burning end, extinguishing the fire before turning their full attention to them once again.
“Get in!” Cody urged, and she listened, allowing Snowy to hop in first, with she and Rich climbing in behind her. Cody returned to the driver’s seat, slamming the door closed just as the first wave of rats reached the truck.
They looked out through the driver’s-side window at the rats and were struck by the insanity of what they saw. The rats were all perfectly still, watching them through the truck’s windows.
“Look at their right eyes,” Rich said.
In what little light there was they could still see it—a shiny covering glistening over the right eyes of every single one of the rodents. It was just like the raccoon and the other animals that had attacked them.
“What are they waiting for?” Cody asked.
Sidney could feel their beady eyes, like bugs on her skin.
“I don’t know and I don’t want to know,” she said. “Let’s get the hell out of—”
There were noises, soft dinging sounds reminiscent of a cooling engine.
“They’re underneath the truck,” Cody suddenly announced, turning the key in the ignition and slamming the car into drive. “I know what they’re doing. They’re trying to figure out how to get inside,” he said, gunning the engine and heading down the road, leaving the swarm, and Rich’s boat, behind. “But I’m not about to give them a chance.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Doc Martin sat smoking a cigarette, surrounded by the dead.
She’d been back to the kennels four times, carefully taking potentially affected animals from their cages, euthanizing them, and cutting open their skulls, looking for a pattern.
With each case, she found the same thing: a strange growth affecting the entire brain but connecting directly to the optic nerve and seemingly altering the function of the right eye.
She brought the cigarette to her mouth and took a puff, blowing the smoke into the air above her head, wallowing in the implications of what she had found.
What could possibly be responsible for this mutation—that was what she believed it to be—and how had it affected all the animals at her hospital?
Her thoughts began to creep outside the self-contained universe of the hospital, and she felt the cold fingers of icy dread grip her heart. If what she had witnessed in here was happening out there, in the town . . .
Doc Martin dropped the cigarette to the floor and stomped out its still-burning tip as she stood. Going to the box on the cou
nter, she found herself a new syringe and retrieved the bottle of pentobarbital used for euthanasia, slipping it into the pocket of her lab coat. She grabbed the heavy towel that she’d used to remove the insanely violent animals from their cages and headed back through her office to the kennels.
She needed to be sure before she allowed herself to panic.
Doc Martin wondered how many more would need to be put down and necropsied before she was absolutely convinced of her findings.
As many as there were left in the kennel was the sad answer.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Cody took the corner leading down into the marina parking lot a little too fast, and the back end of the truck skidded across the wet surface of the road as he gunned the engine.
“Take it easy, Code,” Sidney said. “All we need is to crack up the truck. Then where would we be.”
“Yeah,” Cody responded flatly.
He drove down into the parking lot, taking a side road that went along the back of the property leading to his house. Pulling into the driveway, he then backed the truck up, putting it parallel to the steps before the front door.
“You guys stay here,” he said, putting the car in park but leaving the engine running.
“Wait a sec,” Sidney said, grabbing his arm. “We’re going with you.”
“I think it would be better if you stay here,” he reasoned. “I’m just going to run in, find him, and drag him back out.”
Rich pressed his head against the passenger-side widow, attempting to look out through the torrential rain. “What if you run into trouble?” he asked.
“Good question, Rich,” Sidney replied. She noticed that she was still holding on to Cody’s biceps and slowly released her hold on him.
“That’s why I think you should stay here,” he told them. “If there’s trouble, I’m going to need somebody to save my ass.”
She wasn’t crazy about his plan, but he reassured her.
“Seriously, I’ll be in and out,” he said, opening the door to a rush of cool, salty air. “And besides, there shouldn’t be any problem—I don’t have any pets.”
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