The Homing

by John Saul

  The first scouts arrived in advance of the body of the swarm, swirling around the car just as Ellen Filmore and Roberto Muñoz slammed the doors shut. The moment Ellen started the car, Robert picked up the cellular phone and stabbed 911 into the keypad, then hit the send button.

  “Where’s Shannon?” he demanded when the dispatcher came on the line. As the operator started to demand details of the problem, Roberto shoved the phone at Ellen, who was already speeding down Carl Henderson’s driveway. “Pull rank,” he told her.

  “This is Dr. Filmore,” Ellen shouted. “I need to know where Mark Shannon is, right now.”

  The dispatcher, recognizing Ellen’s voice and the note of emergency in it, reacted instantly. “He’s at the Owen farm,” she said. “Do you know where it is?”

  “I do,” Ellen said. “About five miles from where I am. Can you patch me?”

  “I already am,” the dispatcher replied.

  A second later Mark Shannon came on the line, only to listen numbly as Ellen Filmore tried to describe the cloud of insects still descending from the hill, making its inexorable way across the field toward Carl Henderson’s house.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said. “There are all kinds of insects, Mark.” She slowed the car as it entered the cloud, which was already engulfing the road. “I can see bees, and hornets and gnats, and there’re grasshoppers and cicadas, too. Jesus! It looks like—I don’t know—it looks like a plague.” Suddenly the car emerged from the cloud, and once more she could see the road ahead, clear now. “We’re out of it now, Mark. We’ll be there in—”

  “No!” Shannon interrupted. “If you’re out of it, stay where you are. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  Stopping the car, Ellen left the motor idling in case the mass of flying insects changed direction and started toward her. But as she watched, she caught a glimpse of four figures walking slowly across the field, in the center of the living whirlwind.

  Four figures—a girl and three boys—moving steadily toward Carl Henderson’s house.

  The place, Ellen suddenly realized, where the parasite within them had originally been spawned.

  And now she realized exactly what the swarm was doing.

  It’s homing, she thought. It’s homing, just like a flock of pigeons.

  Except that this flock was deadly.

  CHAPTER 31

  “What is it?” Karen asked Mark Shannon as he hung up the phone, her heart pounding. Was it possible that someone had found the missing children? But when Mark turned to face the little group gathered in the Owen kitchen, his face was pale, his expression hard.

  “Insects,” he said. “All kinds of them—millions of them—just like the kids said.”

  “Where?” Karen breathed.

  “What about our children?” Marge Larkin asked, her voice trembling. “Did they see them?”

  Shannon was already starting toward the back door. “They’re over near Carl Henderson’s place,” he said. “No one said anything about your kids, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there.” He flicked his radio on, speaking rapidly into the microphone. “Manny? I’ve got a report of something going on over by Henderson’s place. What’s your position?”

  The radio receiver crackled, then the second deputy’s voice came through. “I’m about a mile from there. Me and Jim Chapman and some other guys. You wouldn’t believe what’s going on! Weirdest thing I ever saw! It’s like those seventeen-year locusts! I think you better get over here!”

  “I’m on my way, Manny,” Shannon said. “Get everyone out there into cars. Those aren’t just locusts, the way I hear it. There’s enough bees, hornets, wasps, and other stuff over there to kill the whole town. I don’t want anyone doing anything till I’ve had a look.”

  “We’re going, too,” Karen said, in a tone that told Shannon she expected no argument.

  Still, he was as determined to keep as many people away from Henderson’s house as possible. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he began, but now Russell spoke, his voice every bit as determined as his wife’s.

  “Our kids might very well be out there, Mark,” he said. “You can argue until you’re blue in the face, but there’s no way you’re keeping me, or Karen, or Marge away.”

  “And we won’t leave Molly and Ben here alone, either,” Karen interjected, her expression leaving no room for discussion.

  “If you had kids of your own—” Russell began, but Mark Shannon, realizing there was no sense even trying to argue the point, held up his hands to stem the flow of words.

  “All right, enough said. But just remember who’s in charge, and stay in your car until I give the word. And make damn sure Molly and Ben don’t even think about opening a door or window.” He hesitated, then added, “There’s something I haven’t told you, but I guess you’d better know. I’ve got Carl Henderson locked up in the basement of his house.”

  Russell’s mouth dropped open in shock, and Karen, who was already on her way out of the kitchen to go upstairs and awaken Molly once again, turned to stare at the deputy, her intuition telling her what was coming.

  “Otto!” she breathed. “He was right, wasn’t he? About Carl?”

  Shannon nodded grimly. “Close enough so that Carl killed him, apparently. When I got there, he had Ellen Filmore locked up, and had turned a bunch of spiders loose on her. His ’pets’ he calls them. He’s got all kinds of insects down there—spiders and scorpions, too! God knows what. And it looks like he killed at least one girl, maybe more.”

  Karen, suddenly dizzy, reached out to steady herself against the door frame, her fingers clutching it so tightly her knuckles turned white. When Russell started toward her, though, she shook her head. “I’ll be all right,” she said. “Marge and I will get Molly and Ben, then we can go.” Russell said nothing, but Karen could see a vein in his forehead throbbing with fury. Shooting her husband a warning look, she spoke once more, this time to Mark Shannon. “He’ll stay in the car, Mark. We all will. No one will try to do anything, believe me.”

  Shannon hesitated, his eyes flicking toward Russell, but then he nodded and left the house through the back door, breaking into a trot as he headed toward his squad car.

  Five minutes later, when Karen and Marge Larkin came down the stairs, carrying their sleepy children in their arms, Russell was still standing exactly as she’d left him, his expression a mask of cold fury.

  “I’ll kill that lying son of a bitch,” he grated. “If I so much as see him, I swear I’ll kill him.”

  Carl Henderson stirred, then slowly awoke from a restless sleep.

  His body ached; every muscle felt stiff and sore, and when he moved his legs, pain shot through his hips.

  Slowly he opened one eye, and for a moment felt totally disoriented.

  At first he could see nothing, for all around him, despite the shadowless glare of a naked bulb screwed into a socket in the ceiling, there seemed to be nothing but blackness. It was as if he were lying on a cold stone slab in the midst of a massive cavern whose walls were too far away even to be faintly illuminated by the light from the glowing bulb above his head.

  Then, as his mind began to clear, an ancient memory, long forgotten, surfaced. And Carl Henderson remembered.…

  He had been only four years old that day when he made his way through the gate in the back fence—a jar holding his very first swallowtail butterfly clutched in his hands—and went into the house through the back door, intent on showing his prize to his sister.

  He could hear the television in the living room. He was sure that his sister must still be lying on the couch where she’d been when he’d gone outside an hour before.

  Maybe, if he was really nice, she’d even help him put the pretty butterfly on the pin, so he wouldn’t accidentally mess it up.

  As he went into the living room, he heard another sound, a sound like a moan, which was louder than the sound from the television.

  Still holding the mason jar, he went aroun
d the end of the couch.

  And then he saw his sister.

  She was still on the couch.

  But she didn’t have her clothes on, and the boy who lived down the street was there, too, lying on top of her.

  For a second he just stood there, looking at her, staring at her thick black hair cascading over the arm of the couch, not certain what she and the boy were doing.

  But then she caught sight of him, and he could tell right away that she was really mad at him.

  Her face turned red and her eyes opened wide, and then she started yelling: “You little creep! What are you doing in here? Didn’t I warn you to stay outside until I told you to come in?”

  His eyes widened in sudden fear, and he took a step backward. “I caught a butterfly,” he began. “I—”

  “A bug?” his sister shouted. “You came back in just because you caught a stupid bug?” Suddenly she was off the sofa, standing over him, glaring down at him. “I’ll show you,” she said. “Come on!” Knocking the jar out of his hands, she grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the living room. He struggled to pull away from her, but her fingers closed tighter on his arm, and instantly an image rose in his mind of the butterfly in the jar, which had been struggling in his own fingers only a few minutes ago.

  “Let go,” he pleaded. “I didn’t do anything—”

  But his sister didn’t seem to hear him. Half dragging him, his feet stumbling beneath him, she pulled him out of the living room and into the hall, then through the door beneath the stairs, down into the basement. Propelling him across the concrete floor, she opened a door at the far side of the basement, behind which was a large, dark room where he knew someone used to make pictures. Its blackened interior had always terrified the little boy. From the first time he saw it, he’d been certain that goblins and witches and monsters occupied its shadowed corners, and that if he ever got locked inside, they would lurch out of the darkness and kill him.

  “Stay in here if you like bugs so much,” his sister said, shoving him through the door. “Stay in here with the cockroaches until you can learn to do what you’re told!”

  She slammed the door, and a second later the little boy heard the key turn in the lock. Before he could even cry out, he heard her footsteps as she walked away from the door, then climbed back up the stairs.

  A scream rose in his throat, then died as the darkness closed around him.

  All the demons that had ever existed in his nightmares lurked in the blackness around him, floating just beyond his reach. Though he could neither see them, feel them, nor hear them, he knew they were there.

  He dropped to the floor and scuttled backward a few feet, until his back hit one of the walls. Then he inched sideways until he came to a corner and could move no farther. His back pressed into the angle of the two cold concrete walls, the little boy drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them.

  He closed his eyes, doing his best to pretend that the darkness wasn’t really there at all, that if he opened his eyes again, it would be light and he would be able to see.

  But knowing the truth, he didn’t open his eyes, certain that if he did, and saw the darkness everywhere, something would leap out at him, its claws sinking into his flesh, its teeth ripping him into shreds.

  His body shook with a sob, and he buried his face in his arms as tears began oozing out of his tightly shut eyes.

  Then he felt something.

  A tickling, as if something were creeping up his leg.

  He gasped, instinctively brushing at his leg with his right hand, and for a second the tickling stopped.

  Then it started again, but this time it was on his other leg.

  Now he began to hear something.

  The sound was very faint at first, and for a minute he didn’t know what it was.

  But then, as he held his breath, it started to sound sort of like something he’d heard before.

  Like a fly, buzzing at the window, trying to get out.

  Now the sound was getting louder, and he could feel the tickling sensation again. On both legs now, and on his arms, too.

  As if hundreds of insects were crawling all over him.

  The humming sound got louder, and he could feel a faint breeze, as if they were flying all around him—more of them than he could even imagine—their wings moving the air enough so he could actually feel it on his face.

  Then they began lighting on his face, and suddenly, as his panic built, the little boy had a vision in his mind.

  A vision of the bugs in his cigar boxes.

  The bugs he’d caught, and killed, and mounted on pins.

  The hundreds more that he’d only killed, then thrown away when they fell apart as he tried to mount them.

  Suddenly he knew what was happening.

  It wasn’t the monsters and demons from his nightmares that were in the darkness.

  It was all the insects he’d killed.

  All the tiny creatures he’d caught in his jar, and killed.

  They were coming for him now, coming at him out of the darkness.

  They were going to do to him what he had done to them.

  He felt them crawling over his skin, heard their vibrating wings humming in his ears, felt them creeping into his ears and nose.

  His howls of terror filled the darkened room, echoing off the walls to reverberate in his ears, but still the creatures crawled over him, swarming around him, the humming of their wings growing louder every second.

  He began flailing his arms, thrashing out at his invisible tormentors, then rolling across the floor, frantically trying to escape the horde of creatures.

  They were everywhere. He could feel them beneath him, almost hear their wings and shells crush as he rolled over them.

  The floor was beginning to feel slick, but no matter what he did, where he tried to go to escape them, there were always more.

  The air was thick with them now, and when he flailed his arms in the darkness, he could feel them, sense them preparing to bite and to sting.

  His howls rose louder. He scrambled to his feet and stumbled around the blacked-out darkroom, his mind starting to shatter as he tried to escape his tormentors.

  He lurched into a wall, his face striking the cold concrete, and he felt a warm gush of blood spurt from his nose.

  Shrieking in pain, he dropped back to the floor.

  Now the bugs were sticking to the blood covering his face, and he could even feel them in his mouth.

  He screamed again, but his voice choked in his throat, and he sobbed helplessly as he scrabbled across the floor in a vain effort to escape the teeming, swirling mass.

  They were going to kill him!

  He was going to die, all by himself, and no one was going to come and save him.

  “Mommy …” he sobbed. The word was barely audible. A horrible weakness coming over him, he crouched quivering on the floor, the terror within tearing at his mind.

  “Mommy …”

  Then, from somewhere far away, he thought he saw a ray of light.

  He froze, certain for a split second that he must have died and the light must be God, come to take him to Heaven.

  Then, as a brilliant glare burst over his head and the darkness surrounding him was washed away, he heard a sound.

  His sister.

  It was his sister, and she was laughing!

  He sat up, blinking in the brightness.

  Why would she be laughing?

  Then he heard her voice again.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she was asking. “It’s not even cockroaches, you little creep. It’s only termites. Termites can’t hurt you!”

  His eyes slowly adjusted to the light and began to focus.

  Finally he saw them.

  Thousands of them, swarming up from the cracks in the concrete floor, down from the timbers that supported the floor of the house.

  They swirled around his head, and he tried to duck away from them, tried once more to brush them off h
is skin.

  A shadow fell over the little boy, then he felt his sister’s hand close on his arm.

  He tried to pull away from her, sobbing loudly, the terror of the attack in the darkness still making his heart pound.

  His sister dragged him to his feet, but he struggled against her.

  “Will you stop wiggling?” he heard her say. “Just let me get us out of here!”

  As he sobbed once more, his sister’s hand lashed out, striking him across the cheek. He howled at the stinging on his flesh, but his howl only brought him another blow, and then another.

  “Shut up!” she yelled at him. “What are you crying about? It’s just a bunch of dumb termites!”

  Again he felt her hand slash across his face, and he howled all the louder.

  She kept hitting him, kept telling him to shut up, but he couldn’t, for every time her hand struck his flesh, a new howl of pain erupted from his throat.

  Then, when he was sure she was going to kill him, she released him instead, and he fell into a sobbing heap on the floor.

  “Fine,” he heard her say. “If you’re going to act like a baby, you can just get treated like one. Stay here until you die, for all I care.”

  As he sobbed, the lights went out again, and once more the darkness—the horrible darkness that hummed with the terrifying buzz of thousands of beating wings—closed around him.

  The bugs were crawling over his skin, creeping into his ears, worming up into his nose.

  And as he lay in the darkness, the insects torturing his body and his mind, a hot spark of hatred began to smolder deep within his soul

  He concentrated on the glowing ember of hatred.

  Concentrated on it, and nurtured it, and began to fan it into a raging flame.

  And as he lay on the hard concrete, waiting for someone to come and rescue him from the darkness and the insects, the hate consumed him.

  It was a hatred he would never let go of.

  He would keep feeding it until it grew so large, so strong, that it would never go away, never be satisfied.

  And always be triggered by the sight of a girl who looked like his sister.