“It’s Sidney,” said an unexpected voice, so close that Dale nearly screamed.
With the hammer still raised, he turned to see Isaac, looking pale and weak, standing in the doorway to the kitchen.
“It’s Sidney,” the young man said again as the door pushed open and Dale’s daughter rushed into the house.
“Sid,” Dale exclaimed, letting the hammer fall to the floor with a thud.
“Dad,” she said, throwing her arms around him.
“Where have you been?” he asked, holding her tightly. She was wet and cold and dirty, but he never wanted to let her go. “Where have you been?” he asked again, choking back tears.
Snowy bounded into the hall, barking and wagging her tail, with Sidney’s friends Rich and Cody close behind her. At least she hadn’t been alone.
“Something’s going on, Dad,” she said, pulling back from him.
He could see the fear in her eyes.
“Yeah, I know,” he said, grabbing her for another hug. “I know.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
The thing that used to be Ronald Berthold walked through the dwindling fire with little concern of being burned. It stared at the blackened wreckage of the SUV and the human remains tossed to the side of the road, although only its right eye seemed to function. It tilted its head and turned its attention to the wooded area where another vehicle lay on its back.
The other vessels gathered around him, their right eyes scanning the wreck and the woods beyond as well.
Something moved not far from the vehicle, and all eyes turned in its direction. Leaves rustled, twigs snapped, and thousands of silvery eyes watched.
A lone figure—a human male—rose from the foliage, crawling on his hands and knees, begging for help. His clothing was covered with blood, and he seemed dazed and confused.
The things by the side of the road watched the survivor as he crawled toward them. “Please, help me.”
The dog that had been owned by the former Ronald Berthold stepped from the gathering of animal life and slowly padded toward the man. He saw the dog as it came toward him and tried to flee, but he was too weak.
The dog pounced, knocking the man onto his back, and sank its teeth into the man’s neck, ripping out his throat in one savage bite.
The dog shook once, then turned and rejoined the other vessels.
As one, they began to walk away, down the center of the road.
In search of further human life to eliminate.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Sidney had to keep moving or she’d fall down.
She paced about the living room, then went to the window, pulling back the curtain to peer outside. There were things in the darkness of the storm. Things that scratched at the doors and windows. Things that wanted to get in.
“We’ve got to get you out of here,” she said, letting the curtain fall back into place as she turned to address her father.
Dale was sitting in his chair, Snowy by his side. Cody and Rich were on the loveseat, looking as though they might fall asleep, and Isaac stood just inside the doorway to the kitchen, playing with the hearing aids in his ears.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Dale began. “Isaac and I were just about to start boarding up the windows and—”
“I don’t think you understand how bad it is,” Sidney interrupted, trying to keep the intensity in her voice from climbing. “Benediction is experiencing some sort of . . .” She had to think again about how to describe what was going on. “Epidemic or something,” she finished.
“You think a disease is doing this?” Dale asked.
“Kinda sorta,” Sidney answered with a shrug. “It’s the best I’ve got right now. Something is making the animals incredibly aggressive, and they all seem to have the same shiny film over their right eyes as a symptom. Only the right eyes.” She pointed to her own. “Is it some kind of disease like rabies? A virus? I don’t know, but it seems—”
“We still don’t know why Snowy hasn’t got whatever it is,” Rich said, leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees. Snowy saw that he was looking in her direction and wagged her tail.
“Another part of the mystery,” Sidney said, not even wanting to think about what she would do if Snowy ever were to succumb.
“It’s not just animals,” her father said.
All eyes in the living room turned to him.
“I was attacked here,” he said. “By a guy . . . Berthold is his name, I think.”
“Who?” Sidney demanded. “Mr. Berthold attacked you? Are you all right? Why didn’t you say—”
“I’m fine. Isaac got here just in time.”
Sidney looked to the doorway to see that Isaac was listening.
“Thank you, Isaac,” she said, and he quickly looked away.
“I didn’t recognize him at first,” Dale explained, “but he broke in and attacked me. There was something wrong with his right eye, just like you said.”
Sidney felt a familiar chill run down her spine.
“Is this another one, Sid?” Cody asked.
“There was a weird-looking dog with him,” her father then said.
Sidney knew exactly who it was that had attacked her father—and her, not long ago.
“No,” she said, “this is the same guy. Mr. Berthold. He has a French bulldog, right?”
“Yeah,” her father said. “A French bulldog. That’s what it was.”
“Holy crap,” Rich said. “That’s the same guy that went after you back at the police station.”
“So it means that there’s still only one human that has been affected,” Sidney said.
“So far,” Cody added.
“So far,” she agreed. “I have no idea why, but it makes me feel a little better.”
Rich laughed, although there wasn’t much humor in his expression. “Seriously? Something can actually make you feel better about all this?” He spread his arms, which drew attention to the sounds outside the house.
They seemed to be getting louder.
“Hey, you take what you can get,” Sidney said, moving back to the window and reaching for the curtain. “We need to figure out how we’re getting—”
A window exploded in a shower of glass, wind, and rain.
Sidney yelped in surprise, throwing herself back against the wall as the animal that had forced itself inside raised itself up from the ground to glare at her, pieces of glass dropping off its sopping-wet body to tinkle to the floor.
The fox was large, probably the biggest she’d ever seen, and she watched with growing horror as ticks and fleas leaped from its orangey red fur to the hardwood floor and began to make their way toward her.
“Sid, get out of there!” Cody yelled, and she was torn from the nightmarish sight to see her ex-boyfriend crossing the room, pistol in hand, firing at the tensing animal.
The beast spun away from her as Cody’s first shot nicked its shoulder. He fired again as the fox rushed him, a headshot ending its progress.
“The window!” Rich screamed, already moving.
Sidney glanced over to the billowing curtain and saw movement at the ledge, furry things attempting to haul their bodies up onto the windowsill and through the opening.
Rich grabbed the wooden coffee table, lifted it from the floor, and shoved it against the broken pane, blocking the opening. “Anybody got a hammer and nails?” he yelled, the sounds of things thumping angrily at the table filling the room.
Sidney saw her father struggling to stand and ran toward him.
“I’ve got this, Dad,” she said, motioning for him to sit back down.
“In the garage there’s—”
“Got it,” she said, disappearing from the room and running down the hallway to the garage.
She knew right where to look, picking up a hammer with a box of nails and heading back into the house, nearly colliding with Isaac.
“Isaac,” she said, stepping back away from her neighbor.
The young man looked out,
twitchy, his right hand shooting up to the side of his head, and then began playing with the hearing aid in his ear.
“The bad radio,” he said, his expression pinched.
“The bad radio?” she asked, confused. “What’s that mean, Isaac?”
He looked as though he might start crying, moving his legs up and down, like he was marching in place.
“The bad radio is bad,” he said, closing his eyes as if in pain. “Inside my head, playing in the Steve ear. Very bad.”
“I don’t understand, Isaac,” she said. “What does that mean?”
“Sidney!” Rich screamed from the living room.
She started to go around Isaac to help the others.
“The bad radio wants me to do things!” Isaac screamed, slapping one of his hands against the wall. “And I won’t . . . I won’t do it . . . I won’t . . .”
Sidney was suddenly afraid of him. His hand was back up to the hearing aid, fussing with it, playing with the controls, taking it from his ear, and then putting it back.
She left him there in the hallway, his words echoing in her mind as she bounded into the living room.
“Did you have to run out to Home Depot?” Rich asked, clearly annoyed that it had taken her so long. She could hear something outside scratching at the bottom of the table.
“Sorry,” she said, grabbing a handful of nails and the hammer and beginning to nail the table to the window frame.
“We’ve been hearing stuff,” Cody said, eyes darting around. He was still holding the pistol, ready to use it if necessary. “It sounds as though it might be getting worse out there.”
With the broken window secure, Sidney stepped back.
“That should be good,” she said, staring at her work, but her thoughts were elsewhere. She was thinking of the man who had attacked her and supposedly her father: Berthold, the only human who seemed to be affected by what was going on with the animals on the island.
She slowly turned toward her friends and father and caught a glimpse of Isaac as he paced on the outskirts of the kitchen. He still looked as though he was having issues, struggling with something he was calling the bad radio.
She watched his hand go up to his head again, and he winced in pain. Obviously fighting something. Fighting the bad radio.
“Sid, you okay?” her father asked.
She didn’t answer him right away. There was something going on here—something that she wasn’t putting together.
“Yeah,” she said, walking slowly across the living room, keeping an eye on Isaac as he paced. She could hear him muttering. She knew that he was mentally handicapped, but she’d never seen him acting this way before.
Something was wrong with him, as was with the animal life on the island. . . .
Sidney looked down into the smiling face of her dog. Eye contact made, Snowy immediately sat down and wagged her tail.
Animal life except for Snowy.
“Sidney?” Cody called to her. “We should probably think about . . .”
She ignored him. There were answers here, she could feel them—see them, dancing just beyond the periphery of her sight.
“Wait,” she said, holding up the hammer.
What made Snowy different?
Isaac came farther into the room from the kitchen, his hand fixed upon his ear, fingers playing with his hearing aid.
Snowy couldn’t hear . . . Snowy was deaf.
Isaac pulled the hearing aid from his right ear and looked at it furiously before putting it back. She heard him mumbling about it again—the bad radio.
Two facts suddenly collided, igniting sparks inside her brain.
“Sidney, we really should be figuring out what we’re doing here,” Rich said.
She looked at him, a self-satisfied smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“What?” Rich asked, confused by her expression.
She ignored him as well, continuing to run through the facts in her head, picking them up, looking at them from every angle.
“What’s going on, Sid?” Cody urged. “You’re kinda starting to freak me out here.”
“Did you figure something out?” Her dad wanted to know.
“Isaac,” she said, pointing toward the doorway where the young man had been standing. “He’s having some sort of problem with his hearing.”
“Yeah, he’s been like that since he got here. I think he’s hearing things or something,” Dale offered.
“Right,” Sidney said. “He’s hard of hearing,” she presented to them, wondering if their thoughts would go where hers had. “He wears hearing aids . . . he says he hears the bad radio.”
Rich had come to stand beside Cody.
“Yeah,” Rich said. “He wears hearing aids . . . he’s picking up a radio station or something.”
Sidney pointed at him.
“Or something.”
“I’m completely lost here,” Cody said.
“Snowy,” she said. “Snowy isn’t affected by what’s going on with the animals.”
They waited expectantly for her to go on.
“She’s deaf,” she said.
“I don’t see where you’re going with—”
“Maybe she can’t hear the bad radio,” Sidney suggested, interrupting Cody.
Rich still looked confused, but she could see that Cody was on her thought path.
“You think that the reason the animals are losing it is that they might be hearing something?” Cody asked.
“Why not,” she said. “It explains why Snowy isn’t trying to eat us and what Isaac might be picking up through his hearing aids.”
It had gotten suddenly very quiet, and they all seemed to notice.
“Why don’t I think this is a good thing?” Rich asked, looking around.
“Where is he?” Sidney asked. She moved toward the kitchen doorway, Snowy springing up to be by her side. “Where’s Isaac?”
She walked from the living room down the hallway to the kitchen, looking for the youth.
“Hey, Isaac?” Sidney called out, entering the kitchen. “I want to ask you a few questions about the bad . . .”
What she saw going on in the kitchen froze her in place.
Isaac was standing in front of the sliding glass doors, the curtains that had been closed now pulled apart. There were things, lots and lots of things, moving around just behind the glass.
Pacing. Waiting to get in.
“Isaac,” she said in her calmest voice. “What are you doing?”
He was breathing incredibly hard, as if he’d been exerting himself.
“I’m trying,” he said, his voice strained with emotion.
“What are you trying to—”
“I can’t . . . I can’t do it,” he moaned, reaching for the handles on the sliding door.
“Isaac, don’t,” she said, starting across the kitchen.
“I can’t fight it anymore,” he said, his voice flat—emotionless. He undid the lock and began to slide the doors open. “Can’t fight the bad radio.”
Sidney dove across the kitchen, slamming her body into Isaac’s and knocking him away from the glass doors. Then, grabbing the door handles, she desperately tried to slide the door back, but it wouldn’t move—multiple sets of clawed limbs were jamming its track, clamoring to get into the house.
Sidney leaned into the door, using all her strength to force the heavy glass door closed. At first she didn’t think she’d be able to do it, but she remembered the experiences of the past hours and the horror that the transformed animals could heap upon them. The door was going to close—no matter what.
Screaming with exertion, Sidney managed to slide the door closed, crushing limbs, grinding bugs, and severing paws as she forced the door over its track. She peered through the glass and felt the adrenaline rush out of her as her heart sank. She’d won this battle, but judging by the growing numbers outside, it would be only a matter of time before the animals and insects had their way and forced themselves inside. She cli
cked the lock in place and pulled the heavy curtains over the scene on the deck.
The others were piling into the kitchen, demanding to know what was going on. She stood over Isaac, who now cowered on the floor, muttering things over and over again about the bad radio. She wanted to tell them what he had done, to turn their rage on him, but she knew that it wasn’t his fault.
The bad radio, she thought.
“They almost got the door opened,” she said, feeling as though she’d just run a full marathon.
Cody went at once to the curtains, sliding them open to inspect the door. He saw what she had seen, as well as the bloody parts left there.
“Jesus,” he said, stunned by the growing presence.
“Yeah,” she said.
Sidney went to Isaac and bent down beside him. “C’mon,” she said. “Let’s get you up.” She took his arm and began to pull, and he turned to look at her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, eyes filled with tears. “The bad radio . . . it was so loud . . . so loud . . .
“It’s okay,” she said as she helped him up.
“I didn’t want to listen.” His hands fluttered toward the hearing aid in his right ear. “I didn’t want to listen . . . I didn’t want to see . . .”
His last words stopped her.
“What does that mean, Isaac?” she asked. “What didn’t you want to see?”
He was rocking back and forth now, humming some unrecognizable tune.
“Isaac, please.” She gently urged him to continue. “What didn’t you want to see?”
“The bad radio puts pictures inside,” he said, placing the ends of his fingers against his skull. “It wants me to see what it’s doing.”
He looked to be in pain again, his face scrunched up.
The kitchen became filled with the sound of pounding, as if it had started to rain rocks outside. But Sidney knew better.
Snowy had begun to pace, whining pitifully as she looked about. She might have been deaf, but she could sense what was happening.
“Sid,” Rich said, eyes darting about.
“It is getting worse,” she said. “They’re getting desperate, and they’re not going to stop until they’re in.”