Savage

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  This book is for Christopher Golden.

  Thank you so much for all the knowledge, insight, and excitement that you share not only with me, but many other writers out there, and most especially, thank you for being a friend. (Cue Andrew Gold song!)

  This book is also dedicated to James Herbert, and all the other writers out there from my childhood who entertained the crap out of me with their tales of animals running amok.

  PROLOGUE

  An Island in the South Pacific

  Two Weeks Ago

  The absence of birds crying in the trees and the incessant buzzing of insects on this tropical island told the scientist it had happened again. He could hear only the gentle whispering of the breeze and the distant crashing of waves on the beach behind him, and he knew that every bird, every bug, every warm- and cold-blooded thing that had called this island retreat home was dead.

  He took a deep breath, steeling himself for what he would find, knowing it wouldn’t be pleasant, and began to follow his team toward the resort itself. Carefully he stepped over the dead birds and monkeys rotting in the newly risen sun, not wanting to disturb anything that could give him a clue as to what had happened here.

  “Sir?” a female voice called out from somewhere up ahead.

  He moved toward the sound, finding a set of wooden stairs that led up from the beach. The first human corpse, a middle-aged man, lay at the bottom of the steps on his stomach, arms reaching out, fingers dug deep into the sand as if attempting to drag himself toward the water.

  The scientist knelt to examine the body. Even at first glance he could see similarities to the previous incidents, and a numbing chill ran down the length of his spine.

  “Sir?” came the voice again, closer this time, and the scientist turned his gaze toward the woman standing at the top of the stairs.

  “Just a second,” he called up to her. “I want to check something here.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of blue rubber gloves. He tugged them on over his hands, then grasped the body by the shoulder and pushed, balancing the stiffened corpse on its side. The smell was horrible, but that wasn’t what caught his attention.

  “Jesus,” the scientist said as he caught sight of seven Polynesian rats pushed into the sand, eyes wide in death. He guessed that they had been killed when the man fell on top of them, but that didn’t explain why they were gathered at the foot of the steps.

  The scientist leaned in closer, examining the rodents’ teeth and claws.

  “Anything interesting?” the woman asked.

  He didn’t answer at first, gazing from the crushed rats to the front of the stiffened corpse. Then he gently lowered the body back to the ground.

  “I suppose you want me to see what you’ve found,” he sighed, rising to his feet.

  “Why should we be the only ones to have nightmares later?” the woman questioned sarcastically as the scientist climbed the wooden steps.

  Heaven’s Breath was an exclusive, high-end resort on one of the smaller Polynesian islands in the South Pacific. It had catered to the wealthiest of businesspeople and their families looking to escape the day-to-day pressures of their hectic existences, but the scientist doubted that this was what they had expected for their three thousand dollars a day. What had been quite beautiful before the event was now just grotesque.

  The stairs led up to a circular stone patio, in the center of which was a hot tub. A fully clothed woman’s body floated there, a tiny Yorkshire terrier still on its leash floating beside her. The water was a disturbing rust color.

  “Do we know how many?” the scientist asked, counting at least nine bodies within sight of where he stood. One in particular caught his attention and held it in a steely grip—a young girl, his daughter’s age, arms and legs splayed, a cell phone just out of reach of fingers with chipped pink nail polish. He tried to imagine what it must have been like for her and felt his pulse quicken, his eyes begin to burn.

  At the moment he wanted only to call his daughter, to hear her voice, and to tell her how much he loved her.

  “The desk register said that there were twenty-five guests.” She gestured toward the main building where other members of the team were moving about. “We’re checking the rooms now, then we’ll move on to the surrounding jungle.”

  “Anything different?” the scientist asked, noticing a shattered sliding glass door stained with drying blood.

  “Not that we can see,” she answered. “So far, it’s pretty much the same as the others. Estimated time of death for the bodies we’ve already examined coincides with the typhoon.”

  The scientist gazed at the corpses strewn about, trying to imagine the horrors that had driven them out into a raging tropical storm.

  A sudden thump from nearby was as startling as a shotgun blast.

  “What the hell was that?” the woman asked, her hand going to the firearm she wore in a holster on her hip.

  The scientist was already moving toward the sound, his body tensed, prepared for almost anything.

  “Dr. Sayid,” the woman cautioned, but he quickly raised his hand, silencing her.

  There was another sound, muffled. . . .

  His eyes quickly scanned the area, finally focusing upon a dark teak chest in front of what looked to be a maintenance shed. He glanced back at the woman and motioned for her to follow him. She did as he ordered, weapon at the ready.

  They stopped before the chest, ears straining for a sound of life amid all of this death.

  “Want me to open it?” the woman whispered, squinting down the barrel of her pistol.

  “I’ll do it,” Sayid said. He reached out and grasped the handle. “Ready?” he asked the woman, who grunted her reply, her finger now twitching on her weapon’s trigger.

  The scientist took a deep breath, then pulled open the lid. The chest was filled with supplies for the hot tub, plastic bottles of chemicals, a coiled hose, brushes, and a heavy green tarp.

  The tarp moved.

  Sayid tensed as the armed woman beside him bore down with her gun, ready to fire at the first sign of hostility.

  And then they heard the sobbing, a soft cry filled with so much fear it was almost palpable. The scientist could not help himself. He reached down into the chest, pulling aside the rough green material to reveal the source of such immeasurable sadness.

  She couldn’t have been any older than five; the My Little Pony T-shirt she wore was stained with spatters of blood. Her wide, brown eyes were filled with more fear than the scientist had ever seen.

  “It’s all right,” he said in his kindest, gentlest voice. “Everything is going to be fine . . . we’re here to help.”

  The woman had lowered her weapon and returned it to her holster. She stepped forward and reached for the child. “Let’s get you out of there,” she said.

  But the little girl began to scream, grabbing hold of the tarp and attempting to bury herself beneath it. “No!” she screamed over and over again. “You can’t! We gotta hide. . . . Mama said we gotta hide or they’ll get us!” Her eyes were frantically darting around, and then her gaze turned toward the sky. Sayid didn’t think it was possible, but she looked even more scared.

  He followed her gaze up and saw a pattern of dark clouds forming above; a low rumbling thunder from the swirling configuration implied another storm was inevitable.

&
nbsp; “What is it, honey?” Sayid asked. “What do you see? Is it the storm?”

  The child was frantic. “They’ll come again,” she wailed pathetically, her face a fiery red from emotion.

  Her fear made him again think of his own child, when she was just a little girl, and he reached down into the chest to scoop the frightened girl up in his arms, whispering assurances to her.

  “Shhhhhh, it’s going to be okay,” he said, but she fought him, arms flailing, legs kicking, her eyes fixed on the sky above.

  “They’re gonna get us,” she cried as he tried to hold her tight. She was like a wild animal fighting to escape. “They come in the storm!”

  Fighting for its life.

  “They come in the storm!”

  CHAPTER ONE

  There must be a storm coming.

  Sidney Moore opened her eyes to the morning and groaned, the beginnings of a sinus headache throbbing inside her skull.

  Great, she thought as she lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. For the briefest moment she felt a rush of panic that she might have overslept and that she was going to be late for school. But that was immediately followed by an incredible sense of relief when she remembered that school was over for the summer, never mind the fact that she had graduated. The pressures of high school were over and done, and the wonders of an unknown future were laid out before her eighteen-year-old self. But the thrill quickly soured, any potential this particular day might have in store for her dissolving as a knot of discomfort formed in her belly and she remembered the inescapable things that had lately been the source of her troubles.

  The things that haunted and distracted her from the excitement of her future.

  She rolled over with a heavy sigh and reached for her phone just as the large white head of a German shepherd loomed up from beside the bed and planted a wet kiss on her face. A kiss that smelled like the glue on an old envelope.

  Lovely.

  “Morning, Snowy girl,” she said, looking deep into the dog’s icy blue eyes. Snowy’s bushy tail began to wag wildly, and she pawed the bed for more attention.

  “All right, all right,” Sidney exclaimed. “I’ll get you some breakfast in a minute.”

  Snowy sat down, watching with eager, hungry eyes as Sidney checked her phone for messages.

  “Unngh,” she groaned, seeing that one of the dreaded things that held back her anticipation had called while she slept.

  Her boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—had left another message.

  “Cody, why can’t you just leave me alone?” she whispered sadly as she threw back the covers and climbed from bed.

  Snowy excitedly leaped to her feet.

  “Yes, yes, go on.” Sidney motioned the dog from the room with the hand that still held the phone, and Snowy bounded down the hallway toward the kitchen.

  Sidney knew what she should do—delete the message and forget that he’d even called. She would be better off, she was sure of it, although there was still a part of her that cared for him. But that was the part of her that obviously wasn’t dead set on leaving Benediction for college in Boston.

  The part she was trying her damnedest to ignore.

  The kitchen smelled deliciously of French roast, and half a pot sitting in the coffeemaker filled the air with the aroma that she’d always loved, even though she could barely stomach the taste. One of these days, she told herself as she picked up Snowy’s water dish from the place mat on the floor and proceeded to rinse it clean before filling it with fresh water. Sidney had taken to imagining herself in deep with her college studies, pulling all-nighters with cup after cup of steaming hot coffee to keep her awake. Developing a taste for the stuff was one of the many things she was going to have to do while getting used to being on her own.

  She set Snowy’s dish down and went to the strainer by the sink for her food bowl. There was a plastic container in the corner beside the fridge that held the dog’s food, and Sidney unscrewed the lid and poured a measured cup into the bowl.

  “Here ya go, girl,” Sidney said as she carried the dish across the kitchen. “Made it up fresh myself.”

  Snowy wasn’t looking, so she did not know that Sidney was speaking to her. The dog was standing in front of the sliding glass doors, looking out onto the deck where Sidney’s dad was sitting, enjoying the early morning, as well as a smoke.

  “Dammit,” Sidney cursed, bending to set Snowy’s food bowl down. Sidney stomped her foot on the floor to get the dog’s attention.

  Feeling the vibration, the white shepherd turned to look at her.

  “Here’s your chow,” Sidney said as the dog dashed to her meal. “That’s a good girl.” She patted her side lovingly, suddenly experiencing a strange wave of emotion over the idea that it wouldn’t be long before she was gone and wouldn’t be here to feed her special friend.

  “I’m gonna miss you something fierce,” she said, continuing to stroke the dog’s gorgeous white coat. The two had had a special bond from the first day her father had brought her home from the mainland as a special birthday gift, the bond only intensifying when she learned of Snowy’s unique disability.

  Her dog was deaf.

  Snowy looked up from her bowl of dry food, chewing happily but empathically sensing the shift in Sidney’s mood.

  “That’s all right,” she reassured the dog. “You keep eating.”

  The shepherd did as she was told, digging her pointed snout into the bowl for the remaining kibble.

  Sidney left the dog and went to the sliding doors, her mood shifting back to one of annoyance as she let herself out onto the deck.

  “Hey, you’re up,” her father said.

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “Watcha doing?”

  “Enjoying what’s left of the summer,” he said, reaching with his left hand for his coffee mug. There wasn’t any sign of a cigarette, which meant that he’d already disposed of the evidence. He lifted his chin and looked across the expanse of backyard to a house that could just about be seen through a section of woods. “I think the crap in the Mosses’ yard is multiplying,” he said, and chuckled.

  He was making reference to their neighbors across the way that they believed were hoarders. He knew that they always got a good chuckle talking about Caroline, her son Isaac, and the ever-increasing collection of stuff that piled up in their backyard. But she didn’t feel like chuckling at the moment.

  “Can I get you another cup of coffee?” she asked.

  He finished his sip and then offered her the cup. “That would be awesome.”

  She took the cup from him and started for the door. “Would you like another cigarette, too?” she asked, standing in the doorway from the deck into the kitchen.

  Her father didn’t answer.

  “And I’ll bring the phone out to you too so that you can call nine-one-one when you finish.”

  “When did you get to be so fresh?” her father asked. “I remember that well-behaved little girl who wouldn’t dream of disrespecting her father. Whatever happened to her?”

  “She went away when her father almost died of a stroke from too much smoking and stress.”

  “So who are you again?” he asked, trying to coax a smile from her.

  “I’m the daughter that’ll be making your funeral arrangements if you keep doing this crap.”

  “So I had a cigarette, big deal,” her father said, a touch of petulance in his tone.

  “You know that’s not good for you.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said, waving her off.

  Snowy pushed past her out onto the deck and to her father’s side.

  “There’s a good girl,” her dad said, patting the shepherd.

  Sidney watched him with a wary eye, paying extra attention to his right-hand side and how he avoided the use of it. Though he had regained some use since the stroke, it still wasn’t all that strong.

  “I should have her bite you,” Sidney said.

  “She’d never do that. Would you, girl?” he asked the dog, staring lovingly
into her focused gaze. “We’re the best of pals.”

  “I’m sure she’d be as mad as I am if I told her that you were killing yourself.”

  “I had one cigarette,” he said. “Don’t make such a big deal out of it.”

  Snowy had brought him a ball, dropping it into the right side of the chair. He squirmed a bit, trying to grasp the ball with the hand on that side, but frustration won out, and he reached across with his left. He threw the ball and smiled as the dog bounded across the deck and leaped into the yard after it.

  “You’ve only had one cigarette? Look me in the eye and tell me that.”

  “Are you going to bring me that coffee or . . . ?”

  “Thought so,” she said, going inside before she could say anything that might make the situation worse. Her mind raced as she stood at the kitchen counter. What can I do? Her father was a grown man and could do anything he wanted despite what she told him he could and couldn’t do.

  Her memory flashed back to the horrible day when he’d had the stroke, and how the world had suddenly become a lot scarier than it ever had been before, and she was forced to look at life through more adult eyes. It had always been just the two of them, her mother having walked out before she was even five, but after her dad got sick, she had no choice but to grow up.

  The doctors hadn’t been sure that he was even going to make it, but her father had surprised them, regaining his speech and most of his ability to walk. Sure he had to use a cane, but that was better than nothing. Better than being stuck in a bed.

  But it wasn’t enough for him. Her father wanted to be back to the way he was before the stroke, and that was something that couldn’t be guaranteed. His recovery after getting out of the hospital had been slow, physical therapy only doing as much as the patient was willing to put into it. She couldn’t even begin to count the number of times that they’d talked about him working harder—lots of tears and yelling, followed by promises that he’d do better, and he would . . . for a time.

  It was like he’d decided that if he couldn’t be 100 percent better, it wasn’t worth the effort. And if it was bad now, how awful was it going to get once she went off to school and couldn’t keep an eye on him? She imagined another phone call, and a ball of ice formed in her belly.