Eyes on the mirror again, he saw the buck chasing after them, but the car outpaced the deer easily enough. Once they were around the curve, the deer was out of sight entirely.
“What’s going on?” he asked again. “Do you have any idea? What is happening here?”
Instead of answering, Lauren only stared blankly ahead. Tears spilled from her puffy eyes, and the sobbing began. She hid her face in her hands and spent a long while crying.
5
HECTOR STOOD ON HIS hind legs, pawing furiously at the storm door. Whenever Dec looked toward her, the cat hissed and yelled. The cat was working itself up into such a stir that she was foaming at the mouth.
Dec’s first thought was rabies. He quickly dismissed that, though, because Hector was not an outdoor cat. In fact, Dec was fairly certain this was the first time Hector had been outside of the house at all, not counting trips to the veterinarian, but even then Hector was always put in a carrier.
How the hell could a timid, little, indoor lap cat get rabies?
Then again, Hector wasn’t all that timid anymore. And, from the looks of her, if she jumped in his lap right now it might only be to bite his face off.
“Oh, stop it, Hector!”
The cat met his stare and held it, eyes made bigger from the dilation as if she were hunting. She let out another loud peal of noise, and then began ramming her head into the door. Not headbutting it, like she would against Dec’s elbow when she wanted to be pet, but actually smashing the flat of her skull into the glass pane, over and over, trying to push her way through the solid door.
Sarah was crying in his arms and he tried to shush her, making loud, breathy whooshing noises in her ear. Sometimes that helped, mimicking the noises of the womb. His baby girl was completely distraught, though, and screamed all the louder, her face empurpled. Nothing was working—not the white noise, not her pacifier nor her favorite burp rag that she clung to as if it were a life preserver, and certainly not cuddles. Small Band-Aids covered her chubby body from where the cat’s teeth and claws had sunk into her, and she kept on roaring, pausing only to catch her breath before resuming her loud assault on her father’s eardrums.
Dec’s mind turned, again, to rabies.
“I don’t believe this,” he said.
And now I’m talking to myself.
Where the fuck is Kirsti?
Why the hell did she pick today to need a time-out?
The dull thudding noises of a cat’s head against the glass door had compelled Dec to open the primary door, and now he wished he’d never bothered. Since opening the door, the cat had only gotten more out of control and crazy. Red smears streaked the base of the glass door, clumps of hair matted in the gore. Hector’s head was wet, fur pasted down to her scalp between her reared-back ears.
THUD.
THUD.
THUD.
Sarah continued to cry in his ear, refusing to calm.
His arms were getting fatigued and jittery from lightly bouncing her while whooshing in her ear. She just kept crying, on and on and on, and the cat kept striking the door with paws and head, on and on and on.
Hector leaped off the porch and ran down the backyard a ways. Dec breathed a small sigh of relief, telling Sarah over and over, “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay.”
Then, he saw the saw fast-moving ball of fur racing toward the door, leaping up the porch steps and—
THUD!
—into the glass with enough force to split the skin across her skull. The cat fell, dazed, and he saw a flash of bone from where the flesh and fur had unzippered. Hector rose slowly, blinking and shaking her head, sending a spray of spittle into the air. A large, natty clump of fur was glued to the window by a thick, dripping splotch of blood. As Hector stared at him, Dec saw that one of the cat’s emerald eyes bulged half out of its socket, the bone around it pulverized so that side of her face slumped brokenly.
Hector paced unsteadily across the patio, staring down Dec and Sarah. Hissing at them. He could hear her growls through the door. Foam pooled around her jaws, thick white drops hitting the pink stones.
The screeching and hissing grew louder and louder.
But that wasn’t quite right, he realized.
Not louder per se, but with more depth and resonance, more volume than a single cat could produce alone. While the treble and pitch wavered, the noise itself was continuous.
A flash of movement darted from around the corner of the house, and he saw the second cat emerge. Then a third and a fourth.
Five. Six. Seven.
A dozen.
As if all of the neighborhood cats had gotten loose and converged on his home, rallying alongside Hector and vying for space at the top of the stone risers, demanding to be let in, pawing and clawing and crashing into the glass door.
“Son of a bitch!”
Dec slammed the back door shut once again, locking it, leaning against it for a breather, trying to soothe Sarah all the while. He could still hear the cats screaming and hissing, saw them rushing back and forth along the backyard patio through the dining room windows.
“This is insane,” he said. “This is so fucking stupid.”
Not in front of the kid, Kirsti’s voice mentally chided him. She worried that Sarah would adopt Dec’s potty mouth, and that her first word be of the four-letter variety rather than momma or dada.
In the kitchen, he fumbled single-handedly for his phone, yanking it free of the charging cord and finding his wife’s contact info on the favorites screen. Instead of even getting a dial tone, it skipped straight to her voicemail.
“Hey, hon, hi. It’s me. Uh, look, something’s come up here. The uh”—how in the hell do I even explain this?—“the cat, Hector, flipped out. She bit Sarah up pretty good, and I’m taking her to the doctor’s now, just in case. I don’t know what’s gotten into the cat. Rabies, maybe? I don’t know. Anyway, call me.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Why did I mention rabies? Kirsti’s going to flip the fuck out. “Shit.”
After disconnecting, just to cover all the bases, he fired her off a quick text.
TAKING SARAH TO ER. CALL ME. 911!
“Okay, sweetie, let’s go.”
He kissed Sarah’s red, tear-streaked cheek, cradling her close to his chest as he wriggled his feet into his sneakers, not bothering to lace them. Phone in his pocket, he shouldered the diaper bag, stuffed with diapers, cloths, and a spare outfit or two in case Sarah blew out her diaper or spit up or drooled enough to soak her top. He made it to the garage door before realizing he should take a bottle for her. It could be a while before she got her next feeding, and if she was upset now, he could only imagine how much worse she’d be later.
“And I need the fucking car seat,” he muttered to himself. “Stupid.”
Get a grip, dummy! Slow down and think.
After getting Sarah buckled in and trying unsuccessfully to curb her crying with another pacifier, this one attached to a small stuffed giraffe, he took stock of things, forcing his mind to clear. Car seat, diaper bag, bottles, car keys, wallet, phone.
He hurried into the garage, striking the garage door control with his free palm. His car was in the driveway, because he’d planned on mowing the yard and needed the room to get the mower out of the back of the garage.
Dec was hyper-aware of the noise of the garage door rolling upward, and he could hear the racket the cats were making. He ducked under the still-rising door, intent on getting to the car as fast as possible, and smacked his forehead against the cobwebbed lip of the door.
“Shit!”
Two steps out of the garage and he caught movement from the corner of his eye. A sleek, black cat darted toward him, rushing between his legs, nearly tripping him. The animal circled back and he kicked out at it, hearing the rushing of the other cats approaching, the pads of their paws hitting the concrete drive.
Soon, he was surrounded by them. A sea of writhing furballs heaved around his feet, biting his shins and calves, tugging at his
untied shoelaces. Claws lashed at his skin.
He stepped forward, his feet catching on another darting cat. Balance lost, he twisted and fell, his reflexes putting Sarah’s safety first. His back hit the ground, the car seat slamming into his chest, and soon enough the cats were on top of him. Sarah’s cries grew even louder, and the car seat wobbled with the shifting weight of his squirming baby and frenzied cats. Half a dozen felines were swarming over both of them, nipping and biting and clawing.
He used his free arm to swat at them, screaming at them all the while. The shoulder strap of the diaper bag caught in the crook of his elbow and he slipped his arm free, grabbing the bag’s handle and using it as a sort of shield, swiping at the cats with it.
After what felt like forever, he was able to get his feet under him. He grabbed a cat by the scruff of its neck, hauling it out of the car seat and away from his daughter, his heart breaking at the fresh scratches on her face, and threw it as hard as he could. Then he swung the diaper bag again, its wide arc giving the cats second thoughts. The animals were still circling, occasionally darting toward him and under the bag, but they were wary of his reach. The diaper bag is a game changer, he thought, somewhat proudly.
Sarah’s face was bleeding, the skin around her eyes red and puffy from pain and tears.
The sight of his wounded daughter was enough to rekindle his anger and he lashed out at the cats again, kicking, swinging the bag, screaming like a maniac.
The heel of his sneaker caught one tortoiseshell cat square in the nose, and he stomped on the back of another cat, then kicked a calico under the ribs and lifted the damn thing right off the ground.
Dec made it to the back door of the Saturn and piled in, swinging the door shut on a cat trying to storm through the opening after him.
“Jesus fuck,” he said, the car seat heavy on his lap.
Sarah was crying, more scared than ever, and blood dotted her face, his hands and arms, and stained his shirt. She cried and cried and cried.
Eventually, Dec cried as well, sobbing in the backseat with his daughter held close, her grip tight against his index finger.
“Okay,” he said to himself, several minutes later. He swiped at the wetness across his cheeks, trying to compose himself. “Okay, okay.” Deep breath, long exhale. “We can do this.”
He was so fucking scared. His brain wasn’t firing right, wasn’t working at all. Shit.
He maneuvered the car seat into the base, heard the reassuring click as it slotted into place.
Those fucking cats were still out there, crying loudly, swatting at the door.
They know we’re in here, he thought. And they wanted in badly.
Not going to happen.
He double-checked the restraint harness securing his daughter, then clambered across the center console, pulling himself between the two front seats and falling into the driver’s seat, fighting to get his leg past the wheel and into the footwell.
He was fucking exhausted, breathing heavily, his whole body fatigued and shaky, a muscle-deep ache from head to toe. He let loose a bark of laughter, which threatened to turn into uncontrollable sobbing. He covered his sweaty face with his sweaty palms, ran his hair back with his fingers, and tried to square himself. He wasn’t a fucking action hero, and he felt absolutely crazed, panicked.
He punched the remote to close the garage door. Fished the keys loose from his pocket, which nearly sent the phone tumbling out and to the floor.
The key went in the ignition, and he watched in the mirrors as the cats scrambled around his vehicle, hitting the gas pedal and making the engine roar.
“All right, you little fuckers.”
A dim part of his mind wondered if he’d truly and finally gone off the deep end.
He threw the Saturn into drive and hit the gas pedal, feeling a rewarding crunch through the frame as his rear wheels thudded over something furry. He gunned the car into reverse, backing up to the end of the drive, then threw the car back into drive and slammed the gas pedal down. The engine growled like an angry beast, the needle on the RPMs jumping high, and he aimed his two-ton missile toward the crowd of felines running toward him.
He felt the car jostle over their bodies, quickly slamming onto the brake before he crashed through the garage.
Breathing ragged, adrenaline coursing through him, white knuckles gripping the steering wheel hard. Sarah screaming her head off. He had to get control of himself. He couldn’t lose it. Not now.
In the rearview mirrors, long streaks of gore stretched down the drive. Matted fur, small bodies broken open, burst apart beneath the car’s tires. Long bloody streaks bearing his car’s tire treads left purple and whitish-blue entrails pulped along the length of the drive. Plenty more cats were still moving, though, and clearly agitated as they darted toward the car.
Just leave, he thought, but heard Kirsti’s voice in his mind. There’s nothing you can do about this. Just leave.
He fought to control his breathing, closed his eyes, and tried to calm his mind and body. Slowly, he reached down to the shifter and put the car into reverse again, rolling down the driveway with a greater sense of peace, less like a maniac.
Just leave, Kirsti said, and she was right.
“And that’s it,” Dec said to Lauren. “That’s what happened to us.”
The teenager shuddered, her eyes glistening with pooled tears. She brushed them aside with the back of her hand, blinking to clear her vision. She snorted back her runny nose, a gloopy, wet, crinkling noise.
“Son of a bitch,” she said.
Dec couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, that about says it all, doesn’t it?”
Deer, cats, and apparently chipmunks. He shook his head, trying to clear out the crazy thoughts all this shit stirred together in his mind.
“Do you have any idea what could do this?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I was thinking…a virus, maybe?”
“Like rabies? That’s what I thought, too.”
“But all this?” she said, waving out her window at the surrounding woods and the world beyond. “I don’t think rabies works like that. This is like, I don’t know, an epidemic.”
The words put a hitch in his chest and he drew a deep breath, trying to loosen the knots there. Maybe she was onto something, though. How else could the entire animal kingdom go bat-shit insane all at once like that? If it wasn’t rabies, then it was clearly something much, much worse.
He dug his phone from his pocket and woke it with a tap to the home button. No messages, no missed calls. No Kirsti. He tried calling her again, but couldn’t get through. The call jumped straight to voicemail again. Frustrated, he hung up.
“What the hell?” Dec said suddenly, sitting up straighter. Lauren leaned forward, practically pressing her face to the windshield.
US 31 bled into the heart of downtown, and ahead, through the traffic, he saw flashing lights and the source of the thick black columns of smoke.
Even with the windows up and the AC on, he could hear the screams of beachgoers and the loud pops of gunfire.
“Can you see?” he asked. “What’s happening up there?”
Lauren’s face went white and her mouth fell open. She looked at him, as if she were going to explain, then shut her mouth and undid her seat belt.
“Hey, wait!” he tried, but it was no use.
She threw the door open and darted out of the car, slamming the door shut behind her.
All Dec could do was watch her rush into the traffic jam, darting between the stilled cars and drawing the gazes of frustrated motorists stuck there with him.
“Son of a bitch,” he said, slamming an open hand against the steering wheel, as Lauren was lost in the murky haze consuming downtown.
6
DEPUTY SCOTT WAS PROPPED up against the front wheel of his patrol vehicle, gritting his teeth against the pain and watching the blood leak out of Hex, pooling on the ground and spreading. Hendrix had pulled a first aid kit from the trunk of her car and
was busy wrapping Scott’s forearm in gauze.
The air around them was thick and sticky. Whatever progress the firefighters were making was slow, ungainly.
Strands of Hendrix’s auburn hair had pulled free and hung across her forehead in a messy fashion. Her bold green eyes met his with a grimace. “You’re going to need stitches.”
Scott nodded.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again. She’d apologized profusely multiple times, but the words landed with hollow thuds.
He simply nodded, his mouth dry and eyes burning—from tears, from smoke, from loss. What the hell could he say, really? He’d just lost a member of his family, watched him gunned down in the street. Hex had gone savage, inexplicably crazed, and Shay did what she had to do. He understood that, but it didn’t make the pain any less prominent.
From where he sat, he had a clear line of sight across US 31 and to the beach across the way. What he had taken for raucous behavior from the college kids, or worse, tourists, resolved into a different scene.
He sat up straighter, leaning forward. Hendrix took it for an improper signal and leaned away, saying, “Woah there, bud,” as if he were trying for a kiss. But then he was up and shoving away from her.
“Where are you going?”
She saw it as well.
A young bikini-topped redhead on rollerblades, was jetting along the sidewalk with her mutt. A thick, muscle-bound Rottweiler who quickly turned tail, ripping his leash out of her hand and pulling her off balance. Toppled and dazed, the dog leapt atop her, savaging her bare skin as teeth and claw sank into her naked midriff, her white frayed shorts stained red. She screamed and tried to fight, distracting the dog from her mauled guts long enough for the crazed animal to sink its fangs into her throat. The Rottweiler’s head shook viciously, blood spraying from between its jaws as it tore away a thick chunk of meat. The girl fell back, dead before her skull crashed onto the pavement, and the dog returned to his original focus. Scott stared in open-mouthed shock as the Rottweiler’s muzzle disappeared into the hole of the woman’s belly.
Mass Hysteria Page 4
