He’d thought he was going to die, to leave his little girl all alone, but then he’d gotten better—if you want to call it that—and he began to worry that it would have been better if he had died.
Sure, it would have been tough for her at first, but then she would have gone on with her life and on to to great things. Amazing things.
But with him alive—if you want to call it that—Sidney was left with the burden of his care. He remembered the days following his release from rehab and the things that his daughter had had to do for him.
Things that a daughter should never have to do for her father.
Dale felt that familiar anger again. He and it had become old friends, the anger usually rearing its ugly head when he was feeling sorry for himself. It was the kind of anger that resulted in him doing something he knew he shouldn’t. Something that both he and his daughter knew was completely stupid, like smoking cigarettes or changing the batteries in the smoke alarm or flipping the mattress on his bed.
He wondered what sort of stupid thing he would do now.
His mind raced with a number of really dumb things, but instead, he just sat on the couch and stewed, waiting for his daughter to come home.
His thoughts drifted to the near future when Sidney wouldn’t be there anymore, when she’d be living in Boston and going to college. He decided that he’d probably miss moments like this, worrying about where she was in the storm.
The house shuddered in a blast of wind, and his concern began to amplify. He grabbed his cane and maneuvered himself off the couch, slowly crossing the living room to the window that looked out at the road. Pulling the shade aside, he squinted through the glass at windswept darkness outside. It was as bad as it sounded, the rain blown sideways by the intensity of the wind. It was no surprise that they’d lost power and cell signal.
For a brief moment he considered trying to pull out the old generator in the garage and starting it up, but then he heard his daughter’s angry voice in his head and decided against it. Bitterness at being an invalid began to surge through him, but something outside caught his eye, mercifully distracting him from his rage.
At first he believed it to be debris caught up in the exceptional flow of rainwater that was running like a river past his house, but as he watched, it changed course, moving against the flow of water and heading directly for his home.
“What the hell is that?” Dale muttered. Whatever it was, it had moved out of the road and into the grass before the white picket fence. He left the window and went to another, hoping for a better angle. Through the rain he could see something moving around the fence and through the grass, coming up toward the front—
The front doorknob violently rattled, startling him.
Dale went to the hallway and stood, staring at the front door, listening.
Again the knob rattled.
It has to be Sidney, he thought, moving toward the heavy wooden door. But why would she use the front door when she always uses the back?
His brain was already formulating reasons as he moved his cane from his left hand to his weakened right and reached for the door chain. He slid the chain across and popped it from its track, then undid the lock above the doorknob before taking it firmly in hand, turning, and pulling it open.
“Where the heck have you been?” he found himself asking the man who stood on the doorstep. The man who was most definitely not his daughter.
“I’m sorry,” Dale started to apologize, about to ask if there was something he could do for the stranger, but the next words didn’t come as he noticed the odd way the man was standing, the way he swayed, and the way his head tilted weirdly to the left.
Then lightning flashed, and Dale saw the paleness of his flesh, the blood that covered his face, and the unnatural contours of his skull.
The ghoulish stranger seemed to smile as he lurched forward, wedging himself in the doorway, even as Dale attempted to close the door. Dale struggled to push the door closed, but the man pushed harder, causing Dale to lose his balance and fall backward to the floor.
The door had swung wide in the struggle and wind, and the assailant just stood there, as if waiting for something. Dale floundered upon the floor, searching for his cane. He found it and pulled it toward him, rolling onto his side and using it to push himself up onto his knees.
He heard a strange, snuffling sound from the entryway behind him and turned his head to see that an ugly bulldoglike dog had joined the stranger in the entryway.
Now Dale knew who this was. He was one of the summer folk, those who usually came out to the island at the end of May and left on Labor Day. Dale remembered because before his stroke this man had called him for a construction quote on his summer house. While at the house, Dale had had a less than pleasant encounter with this nasty bulldog.
Berthold was the name. Alfred, he believed the dog was named.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded as he fought to his feet.
The dog moved into the hallway, the man following him. The way they moved made Dale think of the walking corpses in that zombie show that was so popular on television.
He actually managed to right himself and turned toward the intruders. “Get out!”
Instead of leaving, the dog sprang at him, knocking him backward with the weight of his thrust. Dale managed to stay on his feet by angling his body in such a way that he fell against the hallway wall. He raised his cane to club the dog that crouched before him, but the man, as if responding to some inaudible command, came at him next, his hands reaching out . . .
Cold fingers wrapping around Dale’s throat . . .
And he began to squeeze.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Isaac ran through the thick underbrush that separated his family’s property from his neighbor’s, driven by the terror he had just experienced.
The ground was wet and slippery and fraught with hidden dangers. It was hard for him to see in the dark and pouring rain, and he found himself stumbling over trash covered by years of rotten leaves, sticks, and tree branches. There were rusted bike frames, rotting wooden doors, and even an old dollhouse that looked as though it had erupted up from beneath the slimy ground cover.
Something snagged his ankle, and Isaac went down on all fours, his fingers sinking into the rotting detritus. He began to panic, thinking that a snake had tripped him up, but as he pulled his foot away, he saw that it was in fact an old garden hose. Feeling relieved, and just a bit foolish, he freed his foot and pulled his hands from the sucking mud. But as lightning flashed, he saw that there were things moving on his hands; worms entwined around his fingers as earwigs traversed the muddy flesh of his hand and up his arms.
Isaac shook his hands crazily, wiping away the filth and crawling things as he again began to run. He wasn’t sure exactly where he was going, just that he had to get away from his house.
He tried to remember what this area of the yard looked like when it was light and not in the midst of a hurricane. Finally, he stopped for a moment in the hissing rain, closing his eyes to picture the backyard.
In his mind he saw her, Sidney, his neighbor and his friend. Just the thought of the girl who didn’t smile was enough to bring him some measure of solace. She had always been nice to him, even though she never seemed to be all that happy.
Isaac looked through the thick underbrush in the direction he believed Sidney’s house to be. Maybe she would help him. He could tell her about the cats and the mice.
And his mother.
Images of his mother lying dead in the backyard, a cat burrowing deeply into her chest, made him want to fall to the ground in a tight little ball.
But things rustled in the wet leaves and squirmed upon the ground, and he knew that whatever they were, they were coming for him. If he didn’t move, they would get him.
The hearing aid in his Steve ear began to make that sound again, as if picking up some frequency broadcasting nothing but fear, menace, and unspeakable violence. If he chose to list
en, he knew that he would be lost to it, falling into the embrace of the sound that was nothing but bad.
Like a bad radio station playing in his ear, wanting him to do horrible things like the cats and mice and creepy crawlers in the dirt.
Isaac’s hand shot up to his Steve ear, fiddling with the settings of the hearing device. For a brief moment he could have sworn that he heard his mother screaming his name over the sound of the howling winds, and he quickly pulled his hand away, listening carefully as he peered through the darkness.
“What are you doing here?” yelled a voice that Isaac realized wasn’t his mother but was close by. Carefully he moved closer to the sound, only to hear the voice again, angry and insistent.
“Get out!”
Lightning flashed, illuminating the angry sky as well as his surroundings, and he saw that he was standing near the back of Sidney’s house. He realized then that the voice he was hearing was coming from inside his friend’s home.
And it sounded like someone needed help.
Isaac ran across the yard, toward the sounds of struggle becoming more pronounced over the raging of the storm . . .
Over the sound of the bad radio whispering horrible things in his Steve ear.
The bad, bad radio.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Dale stared into the eyes of the man who was trying to kill him.
The eyes were wrong, one bloodshot and horribly dilated, the other covered with a silvery film.
Then things started to go black, and he felt himself begin to slip away.
He tried to fight back, using every single bit of strength he could manage, but his attacker—attackers—were too strong.
The dog had taken hold of Dale’s cane in his powerful jaws and was attempting to wrench it from his grasp. Dale held on with all his might, believing that if the cane was lost, he would most assuredly follow.
He flapped his arms wildly as his legs weakened and he began to slide down the hallway wall, the stranger’s hands still wrapped tightly about his throat. He felt the fingers on his left hand begin to loosen as the dog tugged on the cane, and panic set in. The dog temporarily released the cane to take a better grip, and Dale used the moment to lash out with his leg, kicking the bulldog square in the face and driving him back. He managed to bring his cane up and swing it into the man’s horribly pale, blood-covered face, hitting him right above the nose and opening a huge, oozing gash.
The man grunted, his hold on Dale’s throat weakening, allowing Dale to squirm free and slide to the floor, where he began to wildly swing his cane in an attempt to keep his attackers away. The bulldog suddenly emerged from the shadows, moving lightning quick to sink his nasty teeth into the meat of Dale’s left arm. Dale cried out. Reflexively, his hand opened, and he heard the sound of the cane hitting the floor. He tried to retrieve it, tried to recapture the only thing that might save his life, but the dog held tightly to his arm, dragging him away from the prize.
Berthold kicked the cane away as he lumbered closer, then dropped on Dale’s back, pinning him to the floor.
Dale tried to throw the man off, bucking and thrashing wildly, but his attacker was too heavy and the bulldog still held on to his left arm, while his useless right arm flopped pathetically against the floor. He felt the man’s cold, bloodstained hands wrap around his jaw from behind and begin to savagely pull upward. With intensifying horror Dale wondered which would snap first, his neck or his back.
Berthold continued to pull, and Dale screamed in agony, the tendons and muscles in his neck and back strained to the point where they would soon tear, and then the bones would—
“What are you doing to him?” a voice boomed from someplace close by. “What are you doing to Mr. Moore?”
Dale managed to twist his body to see the familiar form of his neighbor, Isaac Moss, standing soaking wet just inside the doorway. Dale tried to warn him away, but found that he was only capable of making a strangled, gargling sound as his neck was about to be broken.
“You let him go!” Isaac shouted, coming farther into the house.
The bulldog released Dale’s arm and moved to jump over his prone body to get to the youth. Dale reached out as the dog leaped over him and took hold of his muscular back leg.
The dog fell, then tried to spin around, jaws snapping savagely. Dale held tight, even as the dog’s razor-sharp teeth ripped the flesh from his knuckles.
Isaac rushed closer. He kicked the dog savagely, knocking him across the room.
“Get out of here, you bad dog!” he yelled. Then he grabbed hold of the man atop Dale and wrenched him back, throwing the attacker to the floor.
“And you get off Mr. Moore!”
Dale scrabbled across the floor and pushed up against the wall. He’d never realized how strong Isaac had become as he’d gotten older, still remembering the quiet youth who rarely left the house in all the years that he and Sidney had lived here.
Isaac stood, watching the man he had thrown to the floor slowly start to get back up. The bulldog was stalking in from the living room, the pair seeming to act in tandem.
“What should I do, Mr. Moore?” Isaac asked, his voice nervously high pitched.
Dale wished that he could do more to help the young man, but in his current condition he was next to useless. “We have to get them outside,” he croaked, still feeling the effects of his neck being crushed.
Berthold silently lunged at Isaac, attempting to put his hands around the teen’s throat. Isaac backed away as the man grabbed for him. Dale saw that the dog was maneuvering around behind Isaac to attack and managed to bend down and snag his cane from the floor. He hobbled as quickly as he could toward the scene unfolding before him, raised the cane with his left arm, and brought it down hard on the dog’s head before he could attack the boy. Dale found it incredibly strange that the bulldog barely made a sound as he collapsed to the floor and lay there motionless.
Isaac’s attacker paused as the dog fell.
“Throw him out, Isaac!” Dale cried. “Grab his clothes and toss him out!”
Isaac immediately reached out, grabbing the man by the back of his shirt, spinning him around, and hurling him toward the open front door and the storm that raged outside.
The man stumbled but stopped at the doorway, appearing to collect himself as he slowly turned.
Dale made it across the hall in time to club the man in the forehead, then fell to his knees. Berthold seemed stunned by the blow, falling backward onto the outside landing, where he lost his footing and tumbled down the stairs to the soaking concrete walkway.
Dale leaned on the cane and turned to where the dog still lay prone upon the floor.
“Grab its collar, Isaac!” Dale yelled. “Drag it to the door by the collar!”
With a tentative hand Isaac grabbed the dog by the chain choke collar and began to drag him across the floor toward the door. “Like this, Mr. Moore?”
“Just like that, Isaac,” Dale said. “Quickly now.”
Dale looked out to see that Berthold was recovering on the walkway.
Isaac was almost to the door when the dog began to awaken. The animal tossed his head savagely to one side at the youth’s wrist, and Isaac let out a loud squawk, letting go of the collar to avoid being bitten.
The man outside was slowly rising. They didn’t have much time.
The dog’s head was apparently still rattled from the hit. He attempted to climb to his feet but slumped back down to the floor.
“We have to get it out the door—fast!” Dale said.
“It’ll bite me,” Isaac said.
“It’ll try to kill you if it gets a chance to wake up,” Dale added, hobbling closer to the animal. Dale quickly reached down, grabbed the dog by the collar with his left hand, and tried the best he could to drag it. The dog traveled less than a foot before he was trying to bite him again.
“Damn it,” Dale hissed.
Dale looked over to see that Isaac looked very upset, one of his hands up at his e
ar where Dale could see that a hearing aid had been placed.
“Isaac?”
The young man’s hand was at the hearing aid, his eyes locked on the dog as he started to get up again.
“The bad radio,” Isaac said, his face grimacing as if he were in pain. “The bad radio is inside my head.”
Dale didn’t know what that meant but looked over toward the open door to see Berthold coming up the stairs. They had to do something right away, or things were about to get very bad once again.
The man was coming in through the doorway when Isaac lost it. The teen began to scream at the top of his lungs, going for the still-recovering dog, snatching him up from the floor, and running with him toward the doorway.
Dale barely had the chance to get out of his way, stumbling over to one side and almost hitting the floor. He watched as Isaac ran, thrusting the squat body of the dog at the man, knocking him backward, the two of them tumbling down the three brick steps to the wet sidewalk.
Isaac was wild-eyed, standing just outside the doorway panting. His hand was at the hearing aid once again, snatching at it with clawed fingers as if the device was somehow hurting him.
Dale moved as quickly as he was able, careful not to fall as he got to the door, watching as the bulldog clambered to all fours, Berthold right beside him.
“Isaac, get in!” Dale yelled.
The youth turned around slowly to look at him, and then obeyed, coming in from the landing.
Dale slammed the door closed and locked it, leaning his trembling body against it as fists pounded on the other side.
“It’s the bad radio,” Isaac said. “It’s all the bad radio’s fault.”
Dale had no idea what the young man was talking about as he leaned his aching body back against the wall, but as far as he was concerned, it sounded like as good of a reason as any.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
If it was fifteen years before Sidney saw another bug, it would still be way too soon.