The rat scrabbled across the hood of the truck toward her. Deacon moved like a flash, grabbing the rat by the tail and pulling it from the hood. He then smashed the thing against the truck’s metal bumper and tossed its limp body to the rooftop as he lunged for the driver’s-side door.
They climbed into the car, slamming the doors in unison—wet, cold, and afraid.
Deacon turned over the engine, putting on the truck’s wipers in the process, and gasped aloud at the sight. “May God forgive me,” he said, stepping on the gas.
The truck’s tires spun as it surged toward the patients. The men and woman did not move, attempting to grab at the vehicle as it sped at them. The sound of bodies being struck was sickening, and Delilah found herself closing her eyes with each consecutive impact.
Yet still the patients came. They did not stop, or slow their attacks—hurling their bodies at the vehicle as it drove toward the ramp that would take them out of the garage.
As they passed the cell tower, Sidney’s eyes were snagged by the nightmarish sight of the strange, horrible creatures huddled about its base, their boneless limbs wrapped around every portion of the cell tower.
The question still tormented her: What are they doing?
Deacon suddenly slammed on the brakes.
“What?” Delilah shouted.
“I may not know what those things are . . . or what they’re up to,” he grumbled, putting the truck in reverse, “but I do know it’s wrong.”
He accelerated toward the base of the tower.
“And I’d hate myself for a good long time if I didn’t at least try to do something to stop it.”
Realizing what he was doing, Delilah braced herself for impact.
The truck plowed into the midst of the monsters, their fleshy, jellylike bodies exploding as the metal of the bumper collided with them.
Deacon lurched back from the impact but still put the truck in drive, going forward before reversing again for another run at the monsters.
Delilah watched as the truck’s back end connected with the writhing bodies, listening as the tires crushed them. The truck had been going so fast this time that it continued over the monsters and hit the tower’s concrete base.
The tower vibrated with the impact—just before the fireworks began.
At first she thought it was something to do with the power source of the tower itself, a loose wire causing sparks to fly, but then she saw the strange flashes of electrical energy coming up from beneath the truck.
It was those things—the strange creatures—their bodies were somehow giving off bursts of electricity.
The tower crackled, the fleshy tentacles dropping to the floor.
“I think you did something,” she said.
Deacon looked over to her. “Yeah, I think I did.”
He put the car in drive again, the truck’s back wheels spinning out on the flattened remains of the obscene life-forms before surging forward.
The patients seemed to be in disarray, whatever harm the truck had done to the creatures seemed to affect the behavior of the poor souls that were obviously under their control.
Deacon drove around the random patients, some just standing there, frozen in place, while others spun violently in a circle, arms flailing.
“What’s wrong with them?” Delilah asked as they passed one patient who had dropped to the ground, rolling about as if having a seizure.
“I don’t know,” Deacon said. “Maybe I broke something when I backed into those things.”
He said the word “things” as if it were poison, and maybe it was.
They drove on toward the exit, heading down a slight incline into the next level of the garage. Delilah turned around to see if they were being followed but just saw the random patient wandering about.
“I think we did it,” she said, still turned in the seat. She watched while holding her breath.
“Don’t say it,” Deacon warned. He was driving very fast, his speed increasing as he crossed each of the levels, tires squealing as he made the turns onto the ramp that would eventually bring them down to the street level.
Delilah shut her mouth, feeling an anticipatory bubble growing inside her as she watched the painted signs informing drivers what level they were on go swiftly past.
LEVEL 4.
She wondered about the others and whether they had made it to their cars. She knew Phil’s fate but had no idea about the rest, hoping for the best, but deep down believing the worst.
LEVEL 3.
The truck scraped along the side of a metal barrier in an explosion of sparks, and Delilah looked over to see Deacon’s eyes wide and unblinking as he drove. She was going to warn him to slow down, but something told her that probably wouldn’t be such a great idea.
LEVEL 2.
He was bound and determined to get them away from this place, and who was she to interfere?
There were bodies on the floor of the garage, larger in number as they got close to ground level. She didn’t want to look, but her eyes found them, and she wondered who they were, wondered if she’d ever had any contact with them.
LEVEL 1.
She could actually see the exit and forced her eyes to focus entirely on that, even though she was tempted to look at the bodies that lay beside their cars, many of them torn to pieces by animal attack.
There were cars stopped sideways and crooked in the middle of the lanes. It appeared that some people had actually reached their cars, but that wasn’t good enough to get them to safety. Deacon drove around them, not being at all careful, the bumper of his truck having little difficulty pushing the vehicles out of the way. She tried not to look but could see that there were indeed people in their cars, dead behind the steering wheels, and she wondered how they had died in the supposed safety of their vehicles.
Delilah was wondering this with a growing sense of dread as Deacon accelerated, the exit coming up fast.
We’re gonna do this, she thought. They had escaped the hospital, made it out of the garage, and soon she would be home, holding her son and—
They were hit twice in rapid succession; first on her right, and then from Deacon’s side.
At first she thought it was another vehicle, something dark and moving incredibly fast, but it wasn’t a car at all. It was a living thing—no—it was lots of living things, combined together to make two powerful forces that sent the car careening first to one side and then over to the other, where it clipped the corner of the exit as they continued out into the pelting rain.
Deacon attempted to keep control but hit the top of the high curb just outside the garage, which caused the truck to tip onto two wheels as they continued down the rain-slick driveway, eventually flipping completely over onto its side as they slid another ten feet or more, hitting the cashier’s booth before coming to a stop.
Delilah dangled sideways in her seat, pressed against her friend, who lay against his door.
“Deacon,” she said groggily. She was dizzy from hitting her head on the side window and windshield as the truck had flipped. Moving her arms and legs, she was grateful that nothing seemed broken, although she was certainly bruised and bleeding.
“Deacon,” she said again, but the man remained silent. It was then that she noticed the blood on his part of the windshield. She tried to angle herself in such a way to check him out, noticing the gash in his forehead and the blood running down his face.
She was going to try to free him from the seat belt, and then herself, when she heard the sounds. At first she believed it to be the rain coming down, spattering upon their flipped-over vehicle.
But then she saw the first of the roaches, squeezing itself in through the foil of the truck’s air vent, followed by another—then another.
And then another . . . and another . . . and another . . .
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Doc Martin asked, feeling her fear and frustration getting the better of her. “Beginning of the
end?”
Isaac looked away, his eyes fixing upon the loathsome creatures attached to the cell tower.
“I’m talking to you,” she prodded when he didn’t answer. “Whoever you are . . . you’re certainly not Isaac.”
He looked at her then, and she felt a twist of revulsion in her stomach as she gazed into the silver-coated alien eyes.
“Isaac,” he said carefully. “The correct . . . configuration . . . ,” he began as he raised a hand to his ear.
“The correct configuration?” Doc Martin repeated. “Are you saying that his brain injuries made Isaac more . . . accessible?”
Isaac was silent for a moment, as if processing her words. “Accessible,” he repeated. “Yes, Isaac is . . . accessible.”
“So, why have you taken control of him?”
Isaac looked at her with that quirky, animal-like tilt of the head. “To tell . . . to explain . . . to interpret.”
“So you’re an interpreter? Is that what I should call you? Interpreter?”
“Interpreter,” Isaac said slowly. “Yes.”
“Okay then . . . Interpreter,” Doc Martin began. If she was going to die, she might as well go out knowing what in the name of all that’s holy was going on. “Why the business with the animals . . . why the attacks? Why all this violence and death?”
“The . . . beginning,” Interpreter said.
“That again,” Doc Martin said, rolling her eyes in exasperation. “But what is it all for?”
“To . . . take.” The simple declaration said much, confirming everyone’s suspicions as to why the alien species had come to the island.
“Then it is an invasion.”
Interpreter looked around with his silver eyes. “Invasion,” it repeated in that strange vibrating tone. “To take what is yours . . . and make it ours.”
That statement was even more chilling, as was Interpreter’s growing mastery of the spoken language.
“Is this how your kind does it?” Doc Martin asked. “Take control of the local wildlife and use it against the planet’s inhabitants?”
“At first,” Interpreter acknowledged.
“Yeah, well it’s going to take a lot more than some bugs and squirrels to take this planet away from us,” she said angrily.
Interpreter glanced at her with a strange, conflicted expression, before turning his attention back to the disgusting things that pulsated at the base of the cell tower. “Only the beginning,” he said. “Only the beginning.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
It was raining birds.
Crows, gulls, pigeons, sparrows and finches, and even some blue jays for color, all dropping out of the sky to smash their hollow-boned bodies against the windows of the hotel.
The children were screaming, but Sidney knew without a doubt that the birds were there for her. She was the target because she was getting closer, and although she didn’t quite understand what that meant, she understood that they didn’t care for it.
The glass was beginning to splinter and fall away with the onslaught. A crow managed to squeeze into the lobby and, as if confirming her suspicions, flew directly at her.
Instinctively Sidney grabbed a pillow from a nearby couch and whacked the bird as it spread its large black wings and reached for her with its hooked talons. It fell to the ground, fluttering its wings, momentarily stunned—long enough for her to stomp on its head with a sickening crunch.
“Screw you,” she muttered.
She looked around and saw Cody, Rich, and Snowy herding the kids down a corridor toward the function rooms. Langridge and Sayid were frantically waving for the adults to follow.
None of them seemed to notice her, and, for their sake, she used the opportunity to head down another hallway, certain they would be better off without her. She passed the pool, the smell of chlorine strong, and continued on until she reached a fire door. She was just about to push it open into the storm when she sensed she was no longer alone.
Sidney quickly turned to see Snowy standing a few feet away, watching her with curious, blue eyes.
Shit.
The shepherd trotted toward her, tail wagging furiously.
“No,” Sidney said, her expression firm and her hand outstretched.
Snowy immediately obeyed, sitting down, waiting.
Sidney looked at her, her beautiful friend, and felt her heart begin to break. It was like looking at the personification of everything she loved in her life. She remembered how upset she’d been with the idea of leaving Snowy behind when she left for college, but this was so much worse.
Because she had no idea if she was going to return. If she would ever see Snowy again.
She turned back to the door, and . . .
Snowy was there, by her side, ready to go out with her master.
“No,” Sidney said, even though Snowy could not hear.
Sidney placed her hands around the dog’s neck and forced her to sit.
“Listen to me,” Sidney said, looking into the icy blue of her dog’s eyes. “I have to go someplace, and you can’t come, okay?”
The dog leaned forward, her tongue shooting out to lick Sidney’s face.
And that was when Sidney lost it.
The tears were suddenly there, flowing down her face, and she grabbed the dog and pulled her close in a hug filled to overflowing with love.
“I’ve got to leave you, and everybody else. . . . It’s for your own good, seriously,” she said, speaking into Snowy’s thick white fur. “This thing inside my head . . . it’s bad, and it’s getting worse, but I think I can use it somehow. . . .” Sidney sniffled, trying her damnedest to compose herself, but after the last day and a half it was hard to keep all the pent-up emotions inside.
She let Snowy pull back from her as she continued to explain.
“I think . . . I know that they’re afraid of me, the invaders or whatever the hell you want to call them. I think that whatever happened to me in that cave was like nothing that ever happened before. I think my encounter with their monster . . . their transmitter . . . changed me into something that could be very dangerous to them . . . dangerous to their plans.”
She grabbed Snowy’s face and looked directly into her beautiful eyes for what just might be the last time.
“I’m going to go out there alone . . . I’m going to find the source of the problems inside my head, and I’m gonna try to stop it from doing whatever it is that it’s going to try to do. Do you understand?”
Snowy whined a little, as if she did, which was good enough for Sidney.
“Okay, I’ve got to leave,” she said to her. “So you be good, listen to Cody and Rich, and I’ll try to be back to see you as quick as I can, okay?”
The tears wanted to flow again, and she managed to stifle the most pitiful of sobs.
“You be good,” she told her best friend in the whole wide world. “And I’m gonna see what I can do about putting a stop to all this nonsense.”
She made the hand gesture for Snowy to stay put, and the dog begrudgingly behaved, nervously moving from front paw to front paw.
And Sidney pushed open the fire door, causing an alarm to sound, swiftly closing it behind so that her best friend could not follow.
* * *
“Where’s Snowy?” Cody asked, approaching Sayid and Langridge as they hustled into the room with the last of the hotel guests.
They looked around the room and then behind them down the corridor.
“Is she with Sidney?” Sayid asked.
Rich approached them. “What’s going on?”
“Think we’ve lost Snowy and Sidney,” Cody said.
And then they heard the steady barking of the dog and saw her as she appeared at the end of the corridor, ears and tail alert, watching them with eager eyes.
“There she is,” Cody said, leaving the room and motioning for her to come.
The dog ignored him, turning and running in the direction she’d come from, before coming back, stomping her feet excitedly
, and barking.
“Think she wants us to follow her,” Rich said.
“And we still don’t know where Sidney is,” Sayid said.
They all started toward the dog, who darted away when she saw that they were following.
“All right, she definitely wants us to follow,” Langridge said.
They were out in the lobby again and were surprised to see that the attack on the windows had stopped, leaving behind shattered glass stained scarlet with the blood of thousands of dive-bombing birds.
They rounded a corner and saw that Snowy was barking at a fire door at the end of the hallway, beyond the pool.
“I think Sidney has gone off on her own,” Rich said.
“What makes you say that?” Langridge wanted to know.
“Look at her,” Rich said, pointing out Snowy’s behavior. “She only acts that way when Sidney isn’t around. Sidney ditched her, and us.”
“But why?” Cody asked. “Why would she even think of going out there on her own?”
“Maybe she wasn’t doing the thinking,” Langridge suggested.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Cody asked.
“You’ve heard her,” Langridge went on. “Talking about the presence inside her head.”
“Yeah, but . . . ,” Cody began.
“Maybe it’s starting to influence her in such a way that she’s unable to control it,” Langridge went on.
“I guess it’s possible,” Sayid said.
“And that’s all I’m suggesting,” Langridge said.
“Okay,” Rich said. “I’ll bite. This thing—inside her head.” He pointed to his skull. “It’s taken her over. So where has she gone?”
Langridge and Sayid were silent.
“Do you think she’s gone alien or something?” Cody suggested with a sarcastic laugh. “She’s gone off to join the other side?”
“Elysium,” Sayid suddenly said.
“Excuse me?” Langridge asked.
“Something that Sidney mentioned back in the airport hangar,” he explained. “She said that she saw a sign that said ‘Elysium.’ Maybe that’s where she’s gone.”