The lawn was overgrown and the hedges lining the front of the house had gone wild ages ago. The front porch was nearly hidden in an archway of reaching limbs from the shrubbery and as they passed through, the brambles caught on their skin, tugging at the sleeves of Scott’s uniform.
The overgrown bushes had also obscured the living room’s front picture window. The glass was stained from Buckley’s wet nose, and she could make out the impressions all along the sill and higher up, from when the dog stood on the back of the sofa. More troubling, though, was the long streak of red, and the various misshapen blobs marring the window.
“Dad?” she said, pointing.
He had seen it and simply nodded, his hand resting on the butt of his firearm holstered at his hip.
Their steps were cautious, so as to avoid making the boards of the porch squeak as they approached the front door.
Lauren jumped as Buckley slammed into the front window, inches from her face, and began barking furiously. His face pressed to the glass, he spread more gore across the pane, leaving bright red streaks as he darted along the couch, going back and forth, raising hell and staring her down.
At the sight of the dog, Lauren’s heart collapsed. Whatever was happening, not even Buckley had been spared. The dog had always been good to her and loved people, wagging his tail hard enough that he nearly shook himself right off his hind legs, even for perfect strangers.
This dog before her wasn’t Buckley. Any traces of the dog she had once known were gone, obliterated.
His thick skull smashed into the glass again with a dull, meaty thud. The warning was clear enough.
Buckley’s face was coated in grime and clumps of—well, Lauren was certain she didn’t want to know, swallowing down the rising bile. Thick trails of mucus and foam leaked from his face, his golden fur nappy and glossy with a wetness that stained him nearly black.
Scott edged his way between her and the window, trying to see past the dog and into the house. Buckley wasn’t having any of that, though, and he followed Scott’s movement with violent determination, obscuring the view with his blocky head and torso, dragging more long red marks and frothy globs of spittle across the stained glass.
“Can you see anything?”
“No,” Scott said, his voice soft. He pulled the keys to the SUV from his pocket and handed them over to his daughter. “Go wait in the car. If I’m not back in a few minutes, get out of here. Go back to the hospital and stay with Hendrix. You got it?”
Lauren nodded numbly, his words tearing open a void inside of her and she bit her lip, hoping to avoid examining her father’s threat of dying. Of being killed by Buckley. She couldn’t face that. She couldn’t lose him, not him, not on top of having lost so much already.
She knew Melisa was dead, and that Buckley had killed her. There was no other way that particular story could have ended. Suddenly, taking her father’s keys and turning tail, she felt those spiky tendrils of guilt stab at her heart and soul. She’d come out here to one-up her own mother, driven by a selfish desire to prove herself the better woman, the one standing on the peak of the moral high ground, but all she’d found was more death, more savagery. And now her father was talking about dying, telling her that he might not be coming back.
Her legs numbly carried her back to the SUV, and she looked back once to see her father watching her, making sure that she complied and folded herself into the passenger seat. Not the driver’s seat, because he was going to make it, he was going to come back, and he was going to drive them away from here.
Closing the door, she pulled on her seatbelt, more out of muscle memory and reflexive action than any conscious thought. Scott looked back at the house, at Buckley, then descended the porch steps and moved around the side of the house. He banged on the siding as he went, to lure the dog into following, she guessed—and tried not to worry about him attracting other threats in the process. She lost sight of him as he turned into the backyard, her heart knocking against her ribcage.
Moments later, she heard the loud report of a gunshot, and then an eerie stillness. After several long, agonizing moments that felt like forever, Scott reappeared, following the driveway back to his vehicle, his eyes vacant. He opened the driver’s side door and climbed in, resting his head against the headrest, eyes closed.
“Did you go inside?”
He nodded.
“Mom?”
He shook his head, then turned to look at her. The sorrow in his eyes was obvious, but she thought it was more for her sake than Melisa’s.
“And Buckley?” she asked, although she knew well enough that he wouldn’t have fired his gun if it hadn’t been to eliminate the threat of the dog.
“He won’t hurt anyone else.”
After starting the vehicle, he fiddled with the radio, cycling through the AM and FM bands but getting mostly static.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Somebody has to know something about what’s happening. I was hoping for maybe a news station or something.”
Lauren looked back toward the house. “We could try the TV in there.”
Scott paused, then shut off the radio. “I tried that already. None of the stations are coming through. It’s all dead.”
Lauren swallowed audibly, but said nothing. She merely watched as Scott turned his attention to the police radio mounted on the dash, scanning for an active frequency. Although the volume was loud enough, he still kept his head cocked, as if concentrating, listening for any kind of tell that somebody was out there and broadcasting.
The numbers grew as he turned through the dial, and then there was a squelching break in the signal, the faintest impression of a voice. He leaned in closer, nudging the dial.
“—people need to stay inside,” a voice said. “Again, this is Jeff Miller, broadcasting from the Grand Traverse University campus in Falls Breath. It appears that solar storms are causing severe magnetic disruption, making cell phones, GPS, and radio and television broadcasts impossible in our region. There have also been a number of reports of animal attacks, and I’m getting word of a plane crash downtown, so please, stay indoors. Stay in your home. Do not go outside.
“If you can hear me, I say again, do not go outside. Keep by your radio and we’ll provide updates as soon as we can. Jacob Teller, from the GTU Astronomical Association, will be joining me in a bit to give us the lowdown on what’s happening overhead, so just sit tight.”
Lauren shot up in her seat at the mention of Jacob.
Scott noticed and said, “Is that your Jacob?”
She nodded, open-mouthed. Wanting to believe, but torn between not wanting to get her hopes up.
“We have to go there. Can we go there?”
He unclipped his radio from his shoulder and raised Hendrix. “What’s happening on your end?”
“Nothing new,” she said. “I’m still at the hospital, but feeling pretty damn useless. Sarah’s looking to be a pretty low priority. There’s all kinds of injuries ahead of her, plenty of more severe cases.”
He had been worried about that, but as long as they were indoors they were safe, and that outweighed everything else. “I’m heading over to the university. I think there might be someone with some answers over there. If Dec and his girl are all situated now, I need you to get over to the mayor’s office and brief them on what’s happening. Find Tremblay first. We need support, whatever we can get.”
Scott had almost forgotten about Tremblay entirely. The sheriff had been radio silent the entire day, which was strange in and of itself. He hadn’t even tried to coordinate his officers, and there’d been no sign of backup anywhere. Scott’s patrol vehicle seemed to be the only sign of an official response on the streets at all anymore.
“I’ll radio in once I have news,” Hendrix said, a quirky pep in her voice. She must have been happy to finally be doing something, after waiting in the crowded ER.
“All right,” Scott said, pulling the shifter into Drive. “Let’s go meet this
Jacob of yours.”
10
THE LAST TIME SCOTT had set foot on the Grand Traverse University campus, it had been to break up a rowdy frat party. There had been a lot of underage drinking, which led to a fistfight between several of the boys from two rival fraternities. That had been maybe a year ago, but Scott knew the campus well from his own time there as a student many years prior.
The campus hadn’t changed much in the intervening years between student and officer, with one exception. Blood now stained broad stretches of the campus’s grounds, and a number of still bodies lay scattered in the grass, the parking lots, and on the sidewalks. It was like a scene straight out of a war movie, a total massacre that he had trouble processing. Wind jostled the open car doors, their drivers collapsed nearby, having failed to make it to the safe interior of their cars.
“Oh, god,” Lauren said, turning her face away, eyes scrunched tightly.
When Scott glanced out her window, he caught sight of what had disturbed her. Somebody had made it inside their car, but a fox had been a hair quicker. The animal stood on its hind legs and nibbled at the dead student’s face.
“Any idea where your boyfriend might be?”
“I did a campus tour last month. They showed us where the clubs are located in the University Center. It’s down there,” she said, pointing to the right. “Radio club’s on the third floor.”
He nodded, aware of the UC’s location. Not much had changed at all, and the University Center was still situated along Lake Shore Drive, right on the bay.
Wary of what might be out there, he pulled the patrol car up to the circular drive outside the main entrance, ignoring the No Parking signs placed every few feet along the curb. He doubted the bus would be pulling through here on its route to drop off anyone.
“We’re going to make a run for it,” he told Lauren, looking out the windows for signs of predators nearby. “Hurry up and get inside. Okay? On three, then.”
He did a count, and threw his door open when he hit three, then slammed it shut. Lauren was already ahead of him, nearing the automatic doors while he cleared the curb and rushed up behind her.
The doors refused to part, but there was a regular door alongside it. He reached for it, and found that the door was locked. He tugged again, uselessly, the door rattling as the deadbolt struck and rattled its frame.
“Damn it!”
From the trees lining the courtyard, he heard a low rumble and turned in time to see the branches sway. Looking back toward the car, he saw four dogs amble into view from around the side of the UC, their heads slunk low and wolf-like, their lips rising to reveal sharp, pointed teeth.
“Lauren, run.”
She darted left, and Scott followed, pulling his firearm free. The pack of dogs gave chase, and the air filled with the cacophony of their barking as their paws slapped concrete.
Scott turned to fire, leveling his weapon at the nearest dog—a yapping corgi covered in blood, with clumps of black-spotted gore glued to its tiny, disproportionate body. The bullet obliterated its head, turning its last yap into a high-pitched squeal that stopped suddenly.
From the parking lot, an Alaskan malamute scrabbled free from under the shade of a Taurus, on a direct path for Lauren. A Catahoula mix, a pit bull terrier, and a border collie were gaining on Scott.
“Get around the side,” he yelled. “Go toward the bay, there’s a rear entrance.”
Running, he leveled the gun forward, aiming on the malamute—a beautiful breed, black and white, with a big, fluffy upturned tail. The dog was enormous, and, if he had to guess, was at least eighty pounds. The dog was gorgeous and he hated to put it down, but it was the dog or his daughter, and there was simply no contest.
His finger tightened on the trigger.
And then he was falling as a thick, heavy weight slammed into him. The collie hit hard and rolled off, but the wind was knocked clear out of Scott’s lungs. The gun had fired, exploding a hole in the sidewalk a few feet in front of him.
The collie was on top of him, biting into his back, tearing at the shirt fabric.
Pain lanced through his calf as the pit bull sank its teeth into him, and he couldn’t help but scream.
Miraculously, the gun was still in hand, and he shot the pit bull point blank. The gunfire was loud enough to hurt the collie’s sensitive ears, and the dog whined and leapt away from him. He knew better than to second-guess the small opening that had been provided for him, and he leveled the gun on the collie, pulling the trigger just as the Catahoula latched onto his forearm, the same arm Hex had dug into earlier.
The collie’s right eye burst, the bullet tearing his ear and collapsing the side of its face.
The Catahoula’s teeth was tearing through the gauze, through the skin on his arm, and he coldcocked the mutt with the butt of his gun.
Lauren delivered a quick kick to the side of the animal’s head, right as the malamute leaped onto her back and tackled her.
Scott was able to raise his gun and fire at the Catahoula, his arm blazing from the reopened injuries and brand new lacerations.
Lauren’s screams sounded over the blast, and he turned toward the malamute, wishing now that he’d been able to kill the dog when he’d had the chance.
Another thick body leaped into the fray, and Scott saw a flash of wood and heard the sickening crunch of bone breaking apart. The malamute was still, and the batter kicked the dog off Lauren.
She moaned and twisted, forced herself into a sitting position.
The man, dressed in crimson-stained white pants and a white jersey, his legs covered in thick white pads, offered her an open hand, which she took.
Scott realized that the man’s weapon wasn’t a baseball bat, as he’d first thought, but the long, oar-shaped paddle of a cricket bat.
“C’mon, you need to get inside,” the sportsman said, his voice oddly familiar.
He darted ahead of them, back toward the main entrance where they’d come from only moments ago. He pulled the door open without any problem, waving them inside. Once Scott and Lauren cleared the doorway, he slammed the door shut and threw the deadbolt.
“Jeff Miller,” he said, extending his hand to Scott.
They shook, and Scott said, “The guy from the radio.”
“Yes, sir. One and the same.”
Lauren let out a noisy gasp and then brushed past him quickly. He saw her dart toward another man and fling her arms around his neck.
“And that must be Jacob,” Scott said.
After a moment, she released the red-faced man, allowing him to get some air, and turned toward her father with a proper degree of bashfulness and a look he recognized as mild humiliation. He’d never seen her so jazzed to see somebody, not even him, but he recognized the expression. She usually wore it when she was caught doing something unexpected or out of character, even though she’d really done nothing wrong. She had every right to be happy, and Jacob clearly had her under some kind of spell. Scott couldn’t help but smile, an odd feeling of levity crawling over him, as he reached toward Jacob with an open hand. Then he put his arm around his little girl and gave her a fierce hug, grateful that she was still safe and sound, and that maybe there was a chance for her to keep on having a happy life with a man she loved.
“How much do you guys know about what’s happening out there?” he asked.
Jeff and Jacob exchanged a look, silently deciding who would go first. Jeff ran a red-slicked hand through his hair, unconcerned about his mussed style or the stained strands. He absently tapped the cricket bat against the side of his padded shin guard, deciding what to say.
“Enough to know something is very, very wrong,” Jeff said. “C’mon, let’s go upstairs. If Jacob is right, this could get a bit complicated.”
Then, as if that were its cue, the building’s lights flickered and died. There was enough daylight to see by, but the loss of power was an ominous portent nonetheless.
“And it’s clearly getting worse,” Jeff said.
“What is?” Scott asked, wanting answers immediately.
“Come on,” Jeff said, tilting his head toward the stairs.
Somewhere between their entrance and the climb to the third floor, Scott noticed that Lauren and Jacob’s hands had become intertwined.
“I thought you were working at the coffee shop,” she said.
“Dr. Havish called, asked me to come down here and monitor the observatory. So, I ended up calling off for my shift and got one of the girls to cover for me.”
He gulped as the repercussion of his words sank in, hitting him hard. “Which, I guess, means I effectively killed her.”
“Don’t go down that road, son,” Scott said. “It’s not your fault, and you had no way of knowing.”
Jacob laughed, but it lacked humor and warmth. “There’s the rub, right? I guess I kind of did know. At least in a way.”
“What do you mean?”
They approached the door to the radio club and passed into the broadcast room, the door clicking shut behind them. The UC felt hollow and empty, and Scott couldn’t help but notice the complete absence of students, staff, and faculty. He supposed everyone was either hiding in their dorm rooms, or had managed to evacuate the campus safely. The parking lots outside were hardly empty, but they definitely weren’t as full as they should have been.
“Take a seat,” Jeff said, waving them to a well-worn and stained sofa.
Scott and Lauren obliged, sinking into cushions so badly used their asses nearly hit the floor.
A laptop sat open near the radio equipment, its screen black. The switchboards and radio controls were all dark, as well. The tape and digital audio recorders, cassette decks, CD players, digital clock display, and on-air warning light—all dead.
“Well, I’d hoped to give you a little audio-video demo, but that’s out the window,” Jeff said.
“I’m fine with a verbal summary,” Scott replied impatiently.
Jacob fell into a chair, sliding it closer to the couch, the wheel casters squeaking badly.
“You know about the meteor showers that have been happening over these last days?” he asked the officer.
Mass Hysteria Page 7
