Infestation
Page 24
He blinked at her, and she shot a not-so-subtle look at Rae and then Caden sitting across from her.
“Oh! I see what you mean.” He put his mug down and gave Rae and Caden a wide grin. “I suppose the two of you could use a little alone time, eh?”
“Dad,” Caden hissed. “Seriously.”
His mom sighed. “Sorry, honey. I tried to be subtle, but you know your father.” She grinned, and his dad grinned back, and then the two of them walked down the hall to the study where Ava was resting in a “restorative meditative state.”
“Sorry about that,” Caden muttered, his face red.
Rae laughed. “Your parents are cute.” It made her a little sad, remembering the way her own parents would tease each other.
“I’m actually pretty happy to see them like that. They haven’t been… well. Let’s just say they were having some relationship problems. I guess getting locked together in an underground lab for a few days is good for a marriage.”
Rae wasn’t sure about that, but she let it go. “So,” she said.
“So,” Caden agreed.
“We saved Whispering Pines again.”
Caden nodded. “For now, at least.”
“It seems to be a regular occurrence for us.” Rae paused, her heart hammering. She had a plan, something that had slowly come together in her mind in the hour since her sister had recovered. She remembered the terror she’d felt back when she’d faced Ivan in the basement of the forest cabin, and then tonight, how afraid she’d been in the alien bug nest. It was the fear of knowing that the monsters under her bed were real, and they were coming for her.
But real monsters could be dealt with more easily than the monsters that lurked in the shadows of her imagination. Especially if she had help.
“I was thinking,” she said slowly, watching Caden’s face carefully. “Maybe we should form, I don’t know, a team, or something? Like, officially?”
“You mean like your Green On! teams?” Caden frowned.
Rae bit her lip. This wasn’t quite going how she wanted. “I guess that did give me the idea a little,” she admitted. “But our team would be different.”
“How so?”
“Well, first of all, it would only have people we trust in it. No Patrick, no Green On!, no way.”
Caden smiled at that. A good sign. “Who would you suggest?”
“Aside from the two of us?” Rae tapped her mug. “Vivienne.”
“I figured. Anyone else?”
“Nate. If he ever bothers to return my calls. Social loafer.” She shook her head. “And… and Alyssa, I think.”
Caden’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?”
Rae nodded. Her arrival in Whispering Pines had driven a wedge between Vivienne and Alyssa. Maybe it was time, now, to fix that. Plus, she kept thinking of how determined Alyssa was to win the competition so she could help save Jeremy. She was smart and loyal and brave. She would be a good addition.
And maybe inviting her would help soften the blow on Monday when she found out that Rae’s team had won.
Caden rubbed his chin. “And we’d, what? Solve mysteries? Fight crime? Break the occasional school rule?”
“Something like that.” Rae pressed her hands against her mug so Caden wouldn’t be able to tell they were shaking. If he said no, this whole thing was off. She didn’t want to do it without him. She’d never admit that out loud, but she needed him. It had been a long time since she’d really needed anyone, and it was a scary feeling, as terrifying as anything else she’d dealt with tonight. But it was also kind of wonderful.
Because she had a feeling that he needed her, too.
Caden nodded. “Okay, I’ll join.”
“Really?” Rae sat up straighter. “You will?”
“On one condition.”
She waited, nervous all over again.
“I refuse to wear matching T-shirts with anyone.”
Rae grinned. “I’ll give you a uniform exception.”
“Then it’s a deal.” He held out his hand.
Rae stared at the rings glinting on his fingers and remembered how strange he had seemed on her first day in Whispering Pines. It was amazing how much had changed in the short time she had lived here.
She put her hand in Caden’s, her fingers entwining with his.
Maybe it had taken her dad’s disappearance to bring her to the place she’d belonged all along.
EPILOGUE { MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE LAB…}
Nate did not like this, not one bit. He had been shut in a very strange room—no furniture, two walls of plain concrete, and two walls of floor-to-ceiling mirrors—with the other team, all of them wearing modified hazmat suits, the material sleek and snug. They reminded Nate of high-tech space suits and looked very similar to the ones Rae and Vivienne had been given at the mouth of the tunnel. Their helmets were lined up on the ground nearby. Nate already felt too hot and wasn’t looking forward to cramming that fishbowl over his head.
No, he didn’t want to be here at all. Especially not with these kids. Matt was all right, but Becka and Alyssa kept giving him that look, the one that told him that he didn’t belong here.
Which was true. He belonged with Rae and Vivienne, who he’d abandoned below ground. For all he knew, they were being turned into bug food this very moment.
He paced, wishing he could go back in time and change things, hating how he felt about all of it. Relieved that he wasn’t in the tunnels with them, guilty that he felt relieved, and so worried about them. He didn’t have many friends. Probably because he always corrected people. Vivienne told him that was an annoying trait, and he was sure she was right, just as he was sure he couldn’t help it.
But he’d started to feel as if Vivienne and Rae and even Caden really were his friends. Like maybe once this whole thing was done, they’d still want to hang out once in a while.
Probably not now, though. Not after his betrayal.
He paced faster, angry with himself for listening to Patrick, angry with Patrick for forcing him to leave the others behind and come to the lab, angry with his mom for insisting he take on this internship in the first place. So much anger, it felt like he might explode with it.
“Hey, can you quit pacing already?” Alyssa said. “It’s incredibly irritating.”
Nate turned on her. “It’s called thinking, though I know the concept might be foreign to you.”
Matt snorted but turned it into a cough when Alyssa glared at him.
“Whoa,” Becka said, putting her hands out in a soothing gesture. “Remember, we’re a team now. We need to work together, okay?”
“Sorry, Nate,” Alyssa muttered.
“It’s okay.” Nate hesitated, then added something true. “I’m scared too.”
It earned him a small smile.
He stopped pacing and leaned against the far wall, his Green On! hazmat suit cushioning him from the hard concrete. He glanced at the mirror in the back of the room. He was pretty sure it was a one-way screen, like an interrogation room. Behind that reflective surface there were probably a whole bunch of scientists monitoring them, tracking their heart rates, their breathing, noting their interactions. How long were they planning on keeping them trapped in here?
Nate couldn’t decide if he wanted to get this over with now or if he would prefer more time to pace and worry and feel awful about everything. Scratch that, he knew what he wanted. “What are we waiting for?” he demanded.
As if in answer, the mirrors on the other side shimmered.
“Helmets, everyone,” a voice said through the speakers in the corner.
Nate’s mouth went dry. He changed his mind; he wasn’t ready to go yet. But there wasn’t any choice. Becka had already tried the door once and found that they were all locked in here. So Nate lined up with the others, putting his helmet on with trembling fingers.
He remembered what it had felt like when he’d leaped into that dark hole in the earth. At least then he’d been with people he trusted. He barely
knew these kids.
“Portal opening in one minute,” chimed a mechanical voice through his helmet speaker. “Make sure your cameras are turned on.”
Nate reached up, and with a shaky hand, clicked on the camera on the front of his helmet.
Was a scholarship really worth this?
He squeezed his hands into fists, wishing he knew how Rae and Vivienne were. Wishing he could tell them he hadn’t abandoned them on purpose. Wishing—
“Thirty seconds.”
The glass rippled like the water of a pond, and then a picture formed on its surface. It seemed a little blurry, the details concealed behind a hazy yellowish-green glow.
“Remember, this is merely a short exploratory mission,” another voice said in Nate’s helmet. A familiar voice. Patrick. “Go in, collect samples of soil, organic matter, or anything else you see. Plant the weather station somewhere a few feet from the gate so we can continue to collect readings, and then return.”
Becka picked up the so-called weather station, which looked a lot like a small satellite dish and had been devised to read temperature, rainfall, wind, and who knew what else. Originally it had been Matt’s job to take it, but on the way to the room, Matt had tripped and somehow chipped his helmet, so Green On! asked Becka to carry it instead.
“We will keep the gate open for precisely thirty minutes. Make sure to return within that time frame.”
“Can we return earlier?” Nate asked.
“Now, Mr. Cliff, you can return whenever you need to. Naturally. As long as you have collected the necessary samples.”
“Portal is now open.”
Nate really, really didn’t want to do this.
Alyssa nudged him forward, and he stumbled, putting his hands up to the place the mirrored wall should have been. Instead of cool glass, it felt like a wall of gelatin. He fell against it, barely keeping his balance as it swallowed him, sticky even through the helmet and suit.
He broke out onto the other side, the resistance abruptly gone. “Huh,” he said, turning in a slow circle. Everything still looked hazy. He turned back as Alyssa pushed her way in, followed by Becka and then Matt.
“Control,” Becka said, putting the weather station down. “We are on the other side, and it looks…” She took a breath. “What’s the technical term for ‘super creepy’?”
“Menacing?” Alyssa suggested.
“Disturbing?” said Matt.
Nate looked up at the yellow-green orb of the sun, the nearby plants with their long waving tentacles, the mist that oozed sluggishly around them. “Sinister,” he said quietly.
Becka nodded. “I think that’s the winner.” She turned, spouting out a list of other readings. Temperature, oxygen density, moisture. Nate wasn’t listening anymore, his eyes fixed on the nearest plant.
It had moved.
He rubbed at his eyes. This strange mist made it hard to see, giving everything a really bizarre shadow. But no, that plant was definitely closer. It was a deep, dark purple, like an eggplant, and stood almost as tall as he was, the tentacle-like leaves drifting toward them. It rocked a little, and its roots pulled out of the dry soil with a long sluuuuurp.
“Um, guys,” Nate said.
“Control, can you hear me?” Becka asked.
A burst of static shot through Nate’s speaker, and he yelped, instinctively trying to cover his ears. The others all did the same. It went quiet, and then more static, softer this time, like an endless whisper.
“Control? Control?”
Nate glanced over his shoulder. The portal flickered like the screen of an old television. “No!” He lunged at it just as it winked out of existence.
Nate fell, skidding across the dirt. He pushed himself up immediately, scanning the horizon.
The portal was gone completely.
He exchanged terrified looks with the others and knew the truth: they were trapped here in this alien place.
“One, two, three, four,” chanted a girlish voice. Nate whirled but didn’t see anyone. The voice seemed to float all around them, not belonging to any one thing.
A woman stepped out of the hazy yellow mist. She was tiny, under five feet, with the sweet old face of a kindly grandmother. Her long white hair hung loose down her back, and she wore a green polka-dotted dress.
“Hello?” Nate called.
As the woman shuffled closer, Nate noticed other details. Disturbing details. Her dress was made of vines, and those polka dots were really eyes, hundreds of them, all staring at him. Her bare, veiny feet made no sound as she walked toward them, yellow toenails curling into the soil.
“My, oh my. What has stumbled right onto my front doorstep?” She stopped a few feet away and put her hands on her hips. “You poor little things. You must be scared.”
“We’re not scared,” Becka said, stepping forward, her chin up. Nate was impressed with her bravery; he wanted to turn and run screaming across the sand. But if she could be brave, then so could he. After all, he couldn’t imagine either Rae or Vivienne fleeing.
“Not scared?” The woman’s wrinkled face stretched in a wide grin. She was missing all of her teeth, except for two long, sharp fangs. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. You will be.”
A nameless dread wrapped itself around Nate, weighing him down, pinning him to the spot as ghostly fingers plucked the helmet from his head and crushed it into a thousand shattered pieces. He had only a few seconds of complete terror before everything went black, as in the distance someone laughed and laughed.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Our thanks to everyone working behind the scenes at McElderry Books to make this book a success, including Justin Chanda, Karen Wojtyla, Anne Zafian, Bridget Madsen, Tiara Iandiorio, Chrissy Noh, Devin MacDonald, Karen Masnica, Cassandra Fernandez, Brian Murray, Anna Jarzab, Emily Ritter, Annika Voss, Lauren Hoffman, Lisa Morelda, Lauren Carr, Christina Pecorale and her sales team, and Michelle Leo and her education/library team. Also a huge thank-you to our cover illustrator, Xavier Collette, who drew the world’s most terrifying alien insect—we love it!
Writing a book in the middle of a pandemic was challenging. It would have been impossible without the help of these people:
Our editor, Sarah McCabe, who is a true plot wizard, always helping us find the best possible version of each story.
Our agent, Jennifer Azantian, who continually keeps us focused and inspired.
Our writing community, full of supportive, amazingly talented people, all willing to spend time beta-reading chapters and talking us through plot tangles. A special shout-out to Alan Wehrman for initial brainstorming help, and to the Kidliterati: Suzi Guina, Katie Nelson, Jennifer Camiccia, Kaitlin Hundscheid, Liz Edelbrock, Taylor Gardner, and Tara Creel, who all read and critiqued parts of this story.
Our families, including our parents and in-laws Rich, Rose, Lyn, and Bruce, and siblings Rosi, Ed, Jesse, and Ashley, who give us constant encouragement. Ember and Evelyn, who provide the ultimate motivation to keep working hard, as well as giving us excellent time management skill training. And our partners Nick and Sean, who have been a part of this journey from the beginning.
And to everyone who read and loved the first Whispering Pines book, we appreciate you more than you can know and hope you enjoy reading this next installment of Rae’s and Caden’s adventure as much as we enjoyed writing it.
More from this Series
Whispering Pines
More from the Authors
A Pinch of Phoenix
A Hint of Hydra
A Dash of Dragon
About the Authors
Photograph of authors by Portia Shao with Positive Vista Photography & Art
Heidi Lang (right) & Kati Bartkowski (left) are a writing team of two sisters. Heidi is afraid of all things that go bump in the night but watches shows like The X-Files and Stranger Things anyhow. Kati enjoys reading about serial killers and the apocalypse but secretly sleeps with a night-light. They believe that the best way to conquer fear is
to share it with as many people as possible, so between the two of them, they love creating stories full of all the things that scare them most. They are the coauthors of the Mystic Cooking Chronicles trilogy. Visit them at HeidiandKatiBooks.com
Visit us at simonandschuster.com/kids
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ALSO BY HEIDI LANG & KATI BARTKOWSKI
Whispering Pines
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A Dash of Dragon
A Hint of Hydra
A Pinch of Phoenix
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text © 2021 by Heidi Lang and Kati Bartkowski
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