Invitation: The Call, The Haunted, The Sentinels, The Girl

by Frank Peretti

  I ran my hand over the back of her head, then scratched between her ears. My heart welled with nostalgia as tears stung my eyes. “I’ve missed you, Abs,” I whispered. “All that time away at college . . . I wish you could have been with me. Maybe I wouldn’t have been so homesick if you were there.”

  She whimpered in commiseration, then gave me another kiss.

  My throat tightened at the thought of eventually losing her. Big dogs tend to have shorter lifespans, and all the books said Labs lived an average of twelve to fourteen years. Which meant I’d only have my girl for another five or so years. . . . I had to get home more often.

  Abby pricked up her ears, pulled away from me, then jogged down the deck steps.

  “Abs! You know you’re not supposed to go down to the beach.”

  When it suited her, Abby had selective hearing. She dove into the bed of sea oats. I couldn’t see her in the thick undergrowth, but the tasseled heads of the stalks bent and trembled as she passed by.

  “You’re going to get sand spurs in your coat!”

  No answer except the rustle and crunch of dry vegetation. Then a warning bark, followed by a throaty growl.

  She had probably found a rat, but for some reason her growl lifted the hairs on my arm. I stood and walked to a better vantage point, hoping to spot her. “Abby!” I brightened my voice. “Want a treat? A cookie?”

  Another bark, and then a sharp yelp, followed by a frenzy of rustling and crunching. Then Abby began to cry in a constant whine as she retraced her steps, moving faster this time. Had she found a snake? Venomous snakes were not common on the beach, but this was Florida. . . .

  I flew down the stairs, drawn by the urgency in her tone. “Abs! Come here, honey. Come on, baby, come on out.”

  If she’d been bitten, I had only minutes to get her to a vet. My grandparents had left a car in the garage, keys on the ring by the door . . .

  Abby appeared in the pathway. She lifted her head for an instant and wriggled her nose, parsing the air for my scent. Then she ran to me, barreling into my legs and knocking me onto the sand.

  “Abs?” She was on top of me, thrashing her head while she whined, and with great difficulty I managed to catch her jowls. “Abs, honey, let me look—”

  My breath caught in my throat. Abby’s panicked breaths fluttered over my face as I stared into what had once been gentle brown eyes but were now empty, blood-encrusted caverns.

  Everything went silent within me, and I screamed.

  My grandmother’s expensive sofa had a flaw in its fabric, but I didn’t think Safta had noticed. The tiny dotted pattern wasn’t arranged in perfectly straight lines, resulting in a slight variation that must have caused a problem for the upholsterer. Then again, perhaps a machine assembled this piece, and most machines had no feelings.

  Lucky machines. Apparently the deviation in this upholstery pattern had been enough to evoke a horrific nightmare in my afternoon nap. My heart pounded for ten minutes after I woke up, then I bent down and gave Abby a huge hug, relieved to find her alive and well. But the minute I put my head back on the sofa pillow, a lingering sense of dread enveloped me.

  I released a pent-up sigh. I’d been at my grandparents’ beach house for a full twenty-four hours, but being home hadn’t helped me relax as much as I’d hoped. Being with family usually took my mind off my work, but my grandparents had taken their jet to Miami to attend a wedding, leaving me to examine patterns on the couch, watch the professor read, and suffer quiet nightmares.

  “Andi?” As if he’d overheard my thoughts, the professor lowered his book and waggled a brow. “Your grandparents have anything to snack on around here?”

  “I’m sure they do. Let’s go to the kitchen.”

  I rolled off the sofa and led the way to the ultra-modern kitchen Safta rarely used. Because she and Sabba now lived alone in this big house, they tended to eat out a lot. But my grandfather liked to snack, so the pantry was usually stocked with goodies.

  Like a hungry puppy, the professor followed me to the kitchen, then craned his neck forward as I opened the pantry door. “Almonds,” I said, reading the labels on cans and boxes. “Matzo crackers, cheese crackers, chocolate cookies, Oreos, and pretzel sticks. Yum, and these.” I reached for a bag of jalapeño chips, my personal favorite. “If you like hot and spicy—”

  “I like almonds.” The professor reached past me and grabbed a can from the shelf, then popped the top. Then he hopped on a barstool, picked up the book he’d been reading, and tossed a handful of nuts into his mouth.

  I understood why he was hanging around—just as I understood why he’d been reading in the living room instead of the guest room. We were both still recovering from a harrowing experience in Port Avalon, and neither of us wanted to be alone.

  “Nice place your grandparents have here,” the professor said, his gaze moving to the wide sliding glass door with the ocean view. “Nice of them to let us hang out here for a couple of days.”

  “I know.”

  I crossed my arms and wished I could think of some way to dispel the creepy memories of Port Avalon. When I learned that the next stop on the professor’s speaking circuit was the University of Tampa, I had invited my grandparents to come hear him, since they lived only a few miles away. They passed up the opportunity to hear the professor speak on the toxicity of believing in God in a postmodern culture, but insisted that the professor and I drive over to spend the next few days with them. Of course I’d said yes—how could I refuse the people who raised me?—but my dreams of lying in warm sand vanished when I woke up this morning and spotted the cloudy horizon. Rain began to fall shortly thereafter, and the day had been melancholy, wet, and dismal ever since.

  The professor didn’t seem to notice the weather. This morning I found him reading one of my books on chaos theory, and even though I knew he disagreed with the premise, he seemed entranced by the topic. Occasionally he snorted as he read, sometimes he laughed aloud, and more than once I watched him scribble a note in the margin. When he finished, he’d probably quiz me on the topic, asking how I could possibly believe that the laws of science and order held room for any variation or exception.

  I could answer him easily enough. All I had to do was remind him about Port Avalon, where few things had operated according to natural laws.

  I walked to the fridge and dug around in the produce drawer, hoping to find something crunchy. I came up with a single scrawny carrot, which I carried to the sink. I’d no sooner finished washing it when Abby ran to my side, sat politely, and looked at me, her eyes plaintively asking for a treat.

  Caught by the powerful undertow of memory, I had to resist a strong impulse to bend down and kiss those beautiful brown eyes.

  I looked around for the old doggie cookie jar, but Safta’s counters were now clean and bare.

  “What do you want, Abs?”

  The dog lifted a paw, politely asking for—what?

  I followed her gaze and realized she was staring at the carrot. “You want a carrot?”

  She whined.

  “Okay, then.” I pulled a knife from the cutlery drawer, chopped off the stub, and held out the rest. “Enjoy your vegetable.”

  Abby took the carrot between her teeth, then stood, wagged her tail in a polite thank-you, and trotted off to enjoy her prize.

  “Well-trained dog,” the professor remarked. “Probably heard the sound of the refrigerator drawer.”

  I shrugged. “She’s always been smart. Maybe she knew that carrots were the only decent snack in the fridge.”

  The professor cast me a reproachful glance. “You shouldn’t indulge in anthropomorphism, Andi. Assigning human qualities to animals is the stuff of children’s tales and fables.”

  “But you’re always telling me that humans are animals,” I countered. “And in your speech yesterday you pointed out that human DNA is 98 percent identical to that of a gorilla.”

  “Another proof of our evolutionary history,” the professor answered. “
But though there is very little difference between man and the primates, what little there is, is very important. Man evolved in ways the gorilla did not, in language, social and emotional development—”

  At that moment Safta entered the room, her bright orange caftan billowing behind her. “You two.” She shook her head. “Always debating something. Always reading, always learning. Your brains should get tired, but do they? No.”

  “How was Miami?” I asked. “Nice outfit, by the way.”

  “This?” She made a face. “It’s a nothing of a dress. And Miami is the same—hot, big, crowded. I could die happy never visiting again.”

  She looked at the professor, who seemed mesmerized by his view of the gray beach. “Professor,” she said, her tone more pointed. “A woman could grow old and die waiting for you to notice her.”

  Something in her tone must have registered with him, because he turned his head and blinked. “I’m so sorry. Were you speaking to me?”

  She laughed, once again the pleasant hostess. “Jacob and I are so pleased to have you in our home. We have wanted to talk to you about our Andi.”

  Alarm filled the professor’s eyes. He shifted his gaze to me, so I stepped behind Safta and mouthed humor her.

  “You know,” Safta said, oblivious to the professor’s discomfort, “we are people of the Book, so we love learning. Do you know what a Jewish dropout is? A boy who didn’t get his PhD. But the girls—ah, the girls. Surely you know some nice Jewish boy who needs a beautiful wife like my granddaughter the genius?”

  The professor’s brows rushed together. “Andi wants a husband?”

  “Not yet, I don’t.” I wrapped my fingers around my grandmother’s soft upper arm. “Safta, I think I’m going to take the professor for a walk. He ought to see the beach while he’s here.”

  Safta blinked. “Like they don’t have a beach in California?”

  “Not like ours, they don’t.” I took the can of almonds from the professor, set it on the kitchen island, and jerked my head toward the door. “Let’s go, Professor. Everyone needs to see the Gulf at least once.”

  “When you come back, we talk,” Safta said, waving us away.

  The professor hesitated only a moment, then darted toward the door. Apparently he’d realized that a walk in drizzling rain was vastly preferable to remaining in the house with my plainspoken grandmother.

  CHAPTER

  2

  The rain had let up by the time the professor and I crossed the pool deck, but the professor insisted that we grab an umbrella from the old milk can by the door. “I’m not a tourist,” he insisted. “I don’t need to experience rain and sand to appreciate their existence.”

  Though he would have denied it, I had a feeling he grabbed the umbrella because he didn’t want me to get wet. Though he was technically my employer, at times he treated me more like a daughter—making sure I got enough sleep, reminding me to eat fruits and vegetables, even offering to run background checks on the guys I dated—when I had time to date, that is. Several of my friends had lifted a brow when I told them I’d be traveling around the country with a man old enough to be my father, but within ten minutes of meeting him, they understood that our relationship was in no way romantic. He was my employer, I was his gofer/researcher. And sometimes, especially lately, a surrogate daughter.

  By the time we walked past the wide beds of sea oats that separated my grandparents’ property from the public beach, we could see a crowd near the water’s edge. I was surprised to find so many people out in such bad weather—rain usually sent tourists to the shopping malls. Yet as far as I could see, clumps of people stood at the water’s edge and stared at the sand.

  The professor squinted toward the crowd. “Did someone drown?”

  “Not likely. We’d see lifeguards and boats if they were searching.”

  When we drew nearer the water, we understood. The waterline was outlined with the narrow bodies of hundreds and hundreds of fish. Their silver bodies tumbled in the wavewash and carpeted the heaving surface of the gulf. The misty air felt heavy, permeated with foreboding.

  When we stopped, I studied the fish at my feet and was horrified to note that something—disease or parasite—had removed the fish’s eyes. Only round black holes remained.

  I covered my mouth as déjà vu sent a shudder up the ladder of my spine. No eyes. Just like Abby in my dream.

  I turned away, not wanting the professor to see the tumultuous emotions that had to be flickering across my face. I was not the sort of person who had prophetic dreams, but this could not be coincidence.

  Anxiety swelled like a balloon in my chest, making it hard to breathe.

  “Andi?” The professor touched my arm, then looked at my face. “What’s wrong?”

  How could I explain my premonition to a man who didn’t believe in them?

  “Um, I used to play on this beach as a child,” I said, insignificant words tumbling from my lips. “And I’ve never seen anything like this. Occasionally my grandparents would point out an empty turtle shell or a bird that had become entangled in fishing line, but the beach always brimmed with more life than death. I saw jellyfish and stingrays and even an occasional tiger shark, but this—this is a monumental disaster.”

  I finally met the professor’s gaze, hoping he might have a logical explanation, but in his eyes I saw a confusion that matched my own.

  I walked a few yards down the beach and approached another group of onlookers. They were talking about pollution and red tide; one man insisted this disaster was the result of global warming. I was about to ask if he had documentation to back up his assertion when from the corner of my eye I spotted a man and woman approaching. The woman wore a blazer and skirt—definitely not beach apparel—and the man carried a video camera on his shoulder.

  “This good?” The woman stopped in a deserted area and turned her back to the water. The cameraman retreated a few feet, then held up four fingers and began counting down. Three, two—

  “Michelle Tybee here, reporting for Channel 13 news,” the woman said, pulling back her windblown hair. “Residents of Indian Rocks Beach are out on the sand today, stunned and sorrowful to see evidence of a mass die-off on their pristine shores. As of yet there are no answers for this mysterious occurrence, but these Florida residents are dismayed to find themselves among the growing number of people who have stepped outside their homes and discovered hundreds, if not thousands, of dead animals on the streets and lawns of their neighborhoods. Are we witnessing the evidence of global warming? Are we unknowingly causing the deaths of the animals who share our planet? Is the government conducting secret experiments and wreaking devastation within our own borders? No one knows the answer, but the world waits for an explanation. As do these concerned beachgoers.”

  The cameraman nodded and the reporter flung back her hair again, then bent to take off her shoe and shake out the sand. In search of an answer, I hurried forward. “Hello? May I ask you something?”

  She gave me a polite smile. “I’m sorry, but we’ve finished our interviews for this piece.”

  “Um, no, I don’t want to be on camera. I just wondered if anyone official has been out to investigate. Surely someone has done a necropsy on these fish to determine the cause of death—”

  “I wouldn’t know.” The reporter shrugged. “But when someone comes up with an answer, I’m sure we’ll report it. Check the news in a couple of days.”

  I was about to ask if she knew the names of any biological scientists in the area, but was distracted by something that fell at my feet. I stepped back and saw a red-winged blackbird dead on the ground. Like the fish, it had no eyes. I blinked, unable to believe I’d just missed being hit by the bird, then I heard another soft plop a few feet away. Another dead bird. Then another hit the arm of the reporter. She shrieked, lifted her hands over her head, and gazed at the sky. “What the—”

  Like dark, oversized raindrops, a shower of dead birds fell onto the water and sand, sending us humans
scrambling for cover.

  The professor had come up with an explanation by the time we reached the beach house. “The weather.” He pointed upward. “A storm front moved in, swept up a flock of birds, and exposed them to freezing temperatures or a sudden variation in barometric pressure. I’m no zoologist or meteorologist, but I’m sure the explanation has something to do with this bit of bad weather.”

  “Really? Then why doesn’t every thunderstorm result in dead animals?” I stopped to open the sliding door, then faced him. “And what happened to their eyes?”

  He blew out his breath in weary exasperation, then dropped the umbrella back into the milk can. “Ask someone who cares.”

  I watched as he walked through the kitchen and turned toward the hallway that led to his guest room. He wanted to be alone; maybe he would sleep. Maybe the weirdness on the beach had brought back too many troubling memories.

  I, however, would not surrender to despondency. I found a note from Safta on the counter—she and Sabba had run to the grocery—then went into the living room and turned on the TV, switched to the local news, and opened my laptop. I did a Google search for “mass animal deaths,” and within a couple nanoseconds I found several pages listing dozens of mass die-offs—of crabs, birds, fish, dolphin, starfish, whales, even cattle, elk, and sheep. I read about cows who’d been struck by lightning while standing under a tree, and sheep who had blindly followed the leader off a cliff and plunged to their deaths.

  Then I read that mass animal deaths, even so-called animal suicides, had begun to increase at an alarming rate. I found a map labeled with the locations of mass deaths and saw that they were occurring all over the world, but the majority was being reported in “modern” countries. Scientists offered various explanations, of course—polluted water, algae blooms, submarine sonar experiments, global warming/climate change, or perhaps a combination of all those elements.