Doc Martin was just about to check out the other dogs to see if they, too, showed any signs of this ocular malady when there was terrific crashing sound from the end of the row of cages. All the dogs went suddenly silent as the door of the last cage in the row exploded outward, twisted and hanging on by a single hinge, followed by the huge form of a bull mastiff named Bear who had been recently operated on for an ulcerated lower intestine. The two-hundred-pound dog resembled his namesake, lumbering down the aisle toward her, picking up speed and moving far quicker than an animal that had experienced that kind of surgery should have been able to move.
Just before turning toward the door, she caught a hint of it—a silvery glint coming from the dog’s right eye. A cold chill of dread raced up her spine.
She was pulling the door open when Bear sprang, his two hundred pounds slamming her against the door and shutting it. The mastiff’s massive head came down, jaws open to bite. She could smell the stink of his breath, a rotten, meaty stench mixed with a hint of anesthesia. The veterinarian rolled onto her back, wedging her forearm beneath the behemoth’s throat, preventing his mouth from coming down. The dog was furious in his assault, pushing against Doc Martin’s arm, jaws snapping, and all the while she was fighting for her life, she couldn’t help but stare into the dog’s right eye, at the silvery film that covered the dark, and normally quite soulful, orb.
Doc Martin knew that it was only a matter of time before the powerful animal broke through her defenses and likely tore out her throat. Remembering the surgery that she had performed on the dog, the veterinarian pulled up and lashed out with her legs at the animal’s underbelly and at the fifteen-inch-long incision held closed with multiple metal staples.
Bear paused momentarily, grunting and starting to back away, before lunging at her again. This time she was able to plant one of her feet against the dog’s chest and kick him back.
The mastiff awkwardly fell to his side, twisting upon the slick linoleum floor before climbing back up to his feet. Doc Martin noticed blood on the floor, spattering down from beneath the dog. The mastiff charged again, and pushing herself back up against the door, Doc Martin used all her remaining strength to kick him in the side.
The sound that followed was nasty, tiny pops followed by a wet tearing sound just before the dog’s internal workings spilled out from the now-opened incision onto the floor.
The mastiff hesitated, swaying slightly as if attempting to discern the extent of the damage. Doc Martin tensed as the dog stood there, his muscles and limbs trembling as he started toward her again. She was ready to kick out, but there was little need. Bear took steps toward her before his front legs gave out, his huge head snowplowing along the floor, coming to a final resting stop between her legs.
Doc Martin pushed herself up along the wall, her entire body trembling. The dog twitched and moaned, his back legs kicking out, sliding him forward as if he was still attempting to come at her.
The animals inside their cages were even wilder now, as if Bear’s failure to kill her was driving them to even further madness. They threw themselves savagely at the cage doors, blood from their frantic attempts to escape spraying the floor outside their cages.
Unable to stand the sound and the sickening sight of their inexplicable insanity, Doc Martin quickly left the kennel, escaping to the safety of the office.
The kennel door now at her back, Doc Martin reached into the pocket of her lab coat for her cigarettes, taking one out and lighting up with a trembling hand.
What the hell is going on?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Cody couldn’t help it.
He started to laugh.
It was like something out of a cartoon it was so outrageous. Rich was yelling at the top of his lungs, stumbling backward as he tried to pull the attacking animal, a raccoon, from the front of his shirt, but the raccoon was holding on, snapping at Rich’s face.
It wasn’t that it was actually funny—in fact it was pretty terrifying—but the insanity of it all, bugs by the thousands swarming up from the basement, raccoons breaking through a window gave Cody only two choices: either blow off some of this awful tension by laughing or scream like a crazy person and risk never stopping.
So he laughed, but only for a second.
Because then he saw the blood.
Cody ran to the scene, his eyes fixed on the wildly digging and snapping animal on the front of Rich’s blood-spattered shirt.
“Hold still!” Cody screamed as he reached for the thing snapping, digging, and biting at Rich’s chest. He grabbed a handful of fur at the back of the creature’s neck, feeling its muscles tense as it tried to turn its head to bite him. But he just held on tighter, squeezing with all his might and pulling the raccoon away from Rich.
It was wild in his grasp, thrashing, clawing, and snapping in a desperate attempt to sink its teeth into him. It twisted its body in such a way that its back legs caught the underside of Cody’s arm, and he cried out, feeling the flesh tear. He lost his grip, and the raccoon fell to the floor, immediately turning, fixed on Cody, preparing to attack.
And there was nothing funny about that at all.
* * *
It was taking all of Sidney’s strength to hold back Snowy.
When the raccoon attacked Rich, the German shepherd had tried to make her move, but Sidney wasn’t having any part of that, practically jumping onto the dog’s back and throwing her arms tightly around her neck. She hadn’t a clue as to what was going on, but she wasn’t about to let anything happen to Snowy.
Snowy watched the struggle with the raccoon with a laser-beam focus, straining against Sidney’s arms. And when Cody dropped the raccoon, the dog lunged, pulling Sidney to the floor as she broke the girl’s grip and went for the ferocious animal just as it was about to go at Cody.
“Snowy, no!” Sidney cried, even though she knew that her dog couldn’t hear her.
Snowy pounced on the large raccoon, clamped her teeth around the maddened animal’s neck, and began to furiously shake the beast. It was never a pretty sight to watch, but it was nature, and there was very little to be done to curb the dog’s natural hunting instinct.
Blood spattered the floor and walls as Snowy savagely shook her prey, at last releasing the animal, its body flying across the room, where it actually seemed to try and get up again, but then grew very still.
The three teens simply stood there, staring at each other in shock. Then Sidney rushed to Snowy, checking her over to be sure she wasn’t hurt.
* * *
A part of Rich wished that she cared as much about his well-being, but that thought was quickly tossed aside when he heard more scrabbling at the broken window.
“What now?” Cody moaned, trying to examine the bleeding furrows in his tricep.
Rich moved toward the window and stopped just before the curtain, the sounds outside growing louder. “We’ve got to block that hole,” he said, on the verge of panic.
“Here!” Cody tossed him a small pillow he had grabbed from a nearby chair.
Rich cautiously pulled the curtain aside. Something was trying to crawl onto the edge of the broken pane of glass, but it fell backward into the darkness. He leaned closer to the window and peered out through the rain-swept glass. It was as if the shadows had somehow come alive.
Quickly he turned his attention to the broken windowpane, shoving the pillow into the square to block the opening.
* * *
“What were you thinking?” Sidney said to Snowy, checking her for injuries for the second time that day. There was blood around her mouth and on the fur of chest, but it didn’t seem to be hers. Thankfully, she appeared to be fine.
The dog was panting, her dark eyes fixed on the corpse of the raccoon lying on the floor across the room.
“Don’t you even think it,” Sidney said, holding Snowy’s head to be sure the shepherd was looking at her. “You stay right here with me.”
She looked over at Cody and Rich, who stood by the wi
ndow. The thumps and bangs upon the house continued, even as the winds howled and the rain whipped against it. “Everything all right over there?”
“Yeah,” Rich said, making sure the pillow was secure before turning away.
“No!” Cody said. “No, everything isn’t all right. What the hell is going on?”
Sidney started to answer but stopped, shaking her head.
Frustrated, Cody strode over to the corpse of the raccoon, looking at the gouges beneath his arm and then at the dead animal. He nudged it with the toe of his boot. “Maybe it’s rabies or something,” he said.
Sidney motioned for Snowy to lie down, gave her a quick pat on the head when she did, then walked over to join Cody. She squatted down for a closer look at the raccoon. It was a little mangy in appearance, but that wasn’t necessarily a sign of anything.
“Guys,” Rich called out, a tone in his voice that Sidney didn’t like.
She stood and turned to see Rich standing by the entrance to the kitchen. She and Cody quickly glanced at each other, then stepped toward Rich, only to come to a fast standstill. Insects had managed to push past the rolled-up place mats and were once again streaming up from the cellar.
“I don’t think this is rabies,” Rich said, a tremble of fear in his voice.
“No,” Sidney agreed. “I think it’s something worse.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“That isn’t right, Isaac.” Caroline’s grip was very hard on his arm. “That just isn’t right.”
Isaac had to agree.
They were standing amid the severe clutter of the living room, staring at the piles, boxes, and stacks of stuff that had created dark pockets and corridors of shadow from which the cats and mice—hundreds and hundreds of mice—now stared out at them.
“I’m scared,” his mother said, and something told Isaac that she had every right to be.
She suddenly screamed, yanking furiously on his arm. “Something bit me!”
Isaac felt it as well. Sharp, burning sensations in his ankles, as things—hundreds of things—moved about his shoes. He started to turn, to pull his mother out of there, when Cavendish sprang from his perch. Without a sound, the cat landed on Isaac’s chest, claws digging through his shirt to the tender flesh below. Isaac let out a yelp of pain, instinctively swatting the clinging cat away.
“Stop it! You’ll hurt him!” his mother screeched, pulling on his arm.
“No, Mother,” Isaac cried, somehow knowing that things were about to get even worse. “I think they want to hurt us.”
His sense of foreboding was intensified by the strange sensation he was picking up in his Steve ear. It made the flesh on the back of his neck tingle, his hair stand on end. He remembered the time he’d rubbed a red balloon on the top of his head and how his hair had stood up. This was something like that, but it wasn’t fun like the red balloon had been.
Mice were leaping from the shelves, tiny bodies dropping down upon them, hanging from their clothes. His mother was screaming hysterically, flailing her arms, knocking over towers of books, dirty plates, and magazines. He saw at least two of the candles that his mother had lit when the power went out tumble out of view and knew that wasn’t a good thing at all.
But he couldn’t help her. There were mice on his head, and they were biting him. He grabbed at the tiny attackers. They bit at his fingers, and he tried to ignore the stabbing pain as he tore them away, throwing them to the floor, where they simply began climbing up his legs. Isaac kicked out with his limbs and stamped his feet. He could see blood on his hands and on his clothes, and that just made him all the more frantic. He thought of his room—his perfectly clean and structured room. In there he could clean away the blood from his body and change his clothes.
He was preparing to make a run for his special place when his mother let out the most horrible of screams. Isaac turned to see that she had fallen sideways onto bags of old winter clothing. She’d often talked about how she was collecting them for a charity. She’d said that somebody was really going to appreciate those winter things, but nobody ever had.
Isaac rushed to help her up, ignoring the nibbling mice that were scaling his body. He gasped at the horrifying sight of her as he drew closer. The cats—Binky, Nero, Shadow, Cavendish, and Mrs. Livingstone—were all on top of her, clawing and biting as she struggled to get up, but she was unable to get her footing beneath the shifting bags of clothing.
“Get away from her!” Isaac yelled.
The cats did not seem to hear him, continuing to savagely scratch and dig at his mother as she moaned beneath their onslaught. He’d never seen them act this way toward his mother. Sure they’d fought among themselves, but they loved his mother, often all lying with her on the mattress that acted as her bed, purring loudly.
“Get away from her now!” he yelled again, reaching down to swat at the all-black cat named Shadow. His fingertips roughly brushed along the cat’s back, and it instantly spun around, jumping onto his arm, biting and clawing, back legs kicking and ripping through the fabric of his long-sleeved shirt, drawing blood.
Isaac whipped his arm back and forth, but the cat still hung on, sinking his claws and teeth into his flesh. The pain was incredible; his shirt was reduced to bloody tatters. And for the first time, Isaac began to fear for his life.
All the while, the sound in his Steve ear was growing worse, spreading to the area where the doctors had put the metal plate. He forced himself to ignore these sounds and strange feelings that made him scared and angry, and concentrated on trying to save himself and his mother.
Isaac plowed through the piles of clutter, knocking aside two card tables placed tightly together to accommodate a jigsaw puzzle of two kittens in a flower basket. He reached the huge china cabinet made from dark, heavy wood, drew back his arm, and slammed it as hard as he could into the doors, the cat, still clinging to his flesh, taking the full brunt of the hit. Isaac felt Shadow’s grip loosen then tighten again, the biting even more vicious. Again he slammed his arm into the front of the cabinet, this time shattering three of the glass panes. The cat finally lost his grip, and Isaac quickly pulled his arm back, leaving Shadow inside the cabinet, his body broken and covered with shards of glass.
Isaac’s arm burned and throbbed, but at least he was free of the cat, and he turned his attention back to his poor mother. Caroline had managed to roll onto her knees, huddled within the confines of her stuff, trying to protect her head and face from the remaining cats who tore at her back and buttocks. She cried hysterically, trying to push herself deeper into the layers of her belongings for protection.
Isaac lumbered toward her, spying a desk lamp that stuck out from the top of a box filled with items left when his sister moved out ten years before. The box had been destined for the trash but never made it there. Mother had wanted to look through it, in case his sister was throwing out something that could still be used. And for once, she was right. Isaac grabbed the lamp, pulling it from the box like Excalibur from the stone.
He didn’t want to hurt the cats, even though there were times when they would get into his room and mess things up. He knew that he could be quite strong if he wanted to be, and his mother had always taught him to control his temper. But now she was being hurt, and to make that stop he had to do something that he didn’t want to do.
Focusing on his mother’s cries, Isaac swung the square stone base of the desk lamp and connected with Binky. Without a sound, Binky soared across the room, crashing into a stack of green plastic milk crates before disappearing beneath a sea of clothing and stuffed animals.
Only for a second did Isaac think it odd that the animal didn’t cry out. Nero was now digging at his mother’s hands as she attempted to protect her neck. The cat turned his gaze on him and bared needle-sharp teeth. Isaac swung his makeshift weapon and smashed it into the cat’s face. But Nero still clung to Caroline’s back, even though his jaw hung crookedly and a stream of black, blood-tinged drool dripped from the side of his mouth. Isaac
lashed out again, this time hitting the animal so hard that his head was practically torn from his body, blood spattering nearby boxes in a crimson streak.
Mrs. Livingstone and Cavendish had darted for cover when the battle with Nero started. There were no signs of them, but the mice were swarming.
“Mother,” Isaac said, bending toward the cowering woman. “Mother, we have to go.”
She was crying hysterically, the words that were leaving her mouth unintelligible. Something about the cats, and how could they hurt their mother this way.
Isaac didn’t understand it either, but he knew that it wasn’t the time to wonder. He reached down, grabbed hold of her arm, and yanked her to her feet. Her face was a mess of blood and deep scratches. He could feel the panic starting to rise but managed to hold it together, knowing that he had to be strong for the both of them.
“We have to leave,” he said again.
She looked around, flinching as mice continued to fall from various high places around the room.
Still clutching his lamp weapon, Isaac tugged on his mother’s wrist, attempting to lead her from the living room. He didn’t look down as he walked but could feel the mice being crushed with each footfall. They were not his concern.
“Why?” Caroline was asking behind him. Isaac had only seen her drunk once in his life, and the way she sounded now reminded him of that time. She had won a bottle of champagne at a church raffle and drunk half of it one Saturday afternoon. He remembered that she had cried a lot and had said that she felt sad for him because of his injuries. That maybe it would have been better if he hadn’t lived after the car accident.
“Why would my fur babies want to hurt us?” she asked him through the tears.
He didn’t answer, just continued to drag her over the piles of material that had tipped during their struggle.
“Maybe they’re sick, Isaac,” she suggested.