Savage (14 page)

“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.

Still he moved forward. They were almost to the kitchen.

“Isaac!” she screamed, suddenly stopping and ripping her hand away from his. “Are you listening to your mother?”

“We have to go,” he told her, averting his gaze. He hated to see her bloody like that.

“But what if our babies are sick? We can't just—”

Mrs. Livingstone attacked from out of nowhere, flying through the air and landing on Caroline's shoulder. Caroline screeched as the cat sank her needle teeth into the soft flesh of her neck. She managed to grab Mrs. Livingstone by her fluffy Maine Coon cat tail and yanked. The cat came away, eerily silent, but so did a large chunk of Caroline's neck. She flung the cat away and clamped her hand over the spurting wound, trying to stem the flow of crimson. She dropped to her knees, and Isaac could see a swarm of eager mice already heading for her.

He rushed toward her, stomping on the mice. As he did, he caught sight of Mrs. Livingstone calmly watching the scene from a nearby sewing machine cabinet. A shudder of terror passed through him.
What's the matter with her eye?
he wondered.

But he had no more time for thought. His mother was covered with gray and black mice. They were in her hair and moving beneath her clothing, and she twitched and moaned pathetically as they bit her repeatedly.

“No! No! No!” he cried, grabbing handfuls of the tiny life forms, squeezing them with all his might before throwing their crushed corpses among the other refuse.

His mother's hand was still clamped to the bite on her neck, and he could see the blood oozing from beneath her closed fingers, running down her neck, and soaking her shirt. She was trying to speak, her mouth moving strangely as her eyes bulged.

He hauled her to her feet. She was heavier now. He pulled one of her arms around his neck and placed one of his around her waist and began to drag her toward the kitchen. As they passed the sewing machine cabinet, he saw that Mrs. Livingstone was gone.

They were finally in the kitchen, and Isaac couldn't help himself. He stopped and turned his head to see if he could see Mrs. Livingstone. His heart jumped painfully in his chest at the sight of not only Mrs. Livingstone, but Binky, Cavendish, and Nero following closely, with what could only be described as a sea of mice flowing over the clutter, heading directly for him and his mother.

Isaac fixed his sight on the back door, hauling his mother across the trash-strewn floor with renewed vigor, knocking things from the kitchen shelves as he navigated the best he could. He could hear the storm raging outside and briefly considered stopping to grab his raincoat but realized that was probably not the smartest idea.

For a moment he thought his hearing aids were acting even more strangely, as the sound of a high-pitched alarm suddenly filled the home, but then he saw the trails of smoke wafting from the living room and realized that the smoke detectors were letting him know there was a fire. He remembered the candles and how they had fallen over in the struggles.

From the corner of his eye he caught movement and instantly lashed out with his lamp club, catching Cavendish as he sprang. The overweight cat fell into a shelf above the sink, filled with decorative teacups. There was a deafening crash as shelf, teacups, and cat fell into the trash-filled sink. Isaac actually felt a twinge of sadness as Cavendish lay still in the wreckage. He had liked Cavendish best; that one had never made a mess in his room.

Caroline had fallen from his grasp and was curled in a tight ball on the kitchen floor. Isaac reached down to pick her up, never taking his eyes from the living room doorway. Mice were pouring into the room, scampering up onto the counters, and streaming across the uneven surfaces toward them. His mother was making awful sounds now, and her skin had taken on a strange grayish color. Her hand fell away from her neck, the wound continuing to bleed quite badly. Isaac thrust his arm around her waist again and managed to get her up, then balanced her weight against his hip as he opened the door to the outside.

The cats came from opposite sides, Mrs. Livingstone descending from the top of the refrigerator, and Binky from the kitchen island, both landing on Isaac's back. Fighting through the pain, he opened the wooden screen door and pushed his mother outside, closing it tightly behind her.

Then he spun, swinging his lamp. The pain in his back was so bad that he thought he might pass out, explosions of color like fireworks blooming before his eyes as Mrs. Livingstone continued to gnaw and claw at his back, while Binky ripped at the flesh of his legs and stomach. Isaac fell to his knees, hearing the wind rattle the screen door behind him, feeling the spray of rain as it blew through the screen. He had been so very close.

So. Very. Close.

He felt the life going out of him as the cats continued to bite and scratch.

Then something exploded in a rush of fire just outside the kitchen doorway; tongues of flame reached into the kitchen to stroke the water-stained ceiling.

It was if the fire gave him life, the sight of orange flame and thickening black smoke allowing him to tap into some reserve of strength that he wasn't aware existed.

With a surge of energy, Isaac screamed and threw himself toward the storm door, not even slowing down to unlatch it. He barreled through the woven screen and over the metal railing, where he landed in a heap beside his mother on the rain-soaked ground.

He felt Mrs. Livingstone squirm fitfully beneath him and pushed himself up from the ground to find the cat's crushed body, her head bent at an awkward angle but still trying to snap at him.

Already soaked to the skin by the driving rain, he managed to get to his knees and crawl to his mother. She was lying on her side, facing away from him, her face pressed to the ground. Gently, he took her arm and rolled her onto her back.

A blood-covered Binky looked up from the hole he had burrowed into Caroline's chest. Isaac gasped, falling heavily backward onto his butt. The cat glared at him, a glint of something silver over one of his bulging eyes. He seemed to consider Isaac for a moment, then continued to tear into Caroline's still form.

Isaac was horrified. His hand found a rock in the mud beside him and he grabbed it, forcing himself to stand on shaking legs. He was about to bring the rock down on Binky's head when movement from the corner of the yard distracted him. The undergrowth was moving, a wave of animal life—squirrels, chipmunks, snakes, bugs, and mice—flowing through the grass toward him.

A tiny voice in his head told him to run. He looked down at his mother. He didn't want to leave her, but even he understood it was too late for her, and if he stayed, he would die too. Isaac cried out with rage as the lightning flared and the thunder crashed. He threw the rock with all his might at the swarm of life, but it was like tossing a pebble into the ocean, if the ocean was a living thing that wanted to chew the skin from his bones.

Not wanting to see what the wave would do to his mother, Isaac turned and raced across the yard into the woods.

As the storm raged on.

Sidney wanted to try something.

She stood in front of a line of insects that had made it up the stairs and through the place-mat barrier they'd shoved beneath the door. She was fascinated by the spiders, ants, centipedes, beetles, millipedes, and some bugs she had never even seen before coming toward her.

“What are you doing?” Rich asked incredulously. He was stomping on even more bugs as they came out from beneath the door while Cody attempted to reinforce their barrier with some dish towels.

“I'm curious,” she said. She took one step back and then a wide step to the right. Within seconds the bugs had changed course to follow her.

“You're shitting me,” she said.

“What?” Cody asked. He stood up and crossed the kitchen toward her.

“Watch,” Sidney ordered. The bugs were almost upon her. She moved around toward the back of the flow.

It took only a moment for the flow of insects to follow, heading directly for her once again.

“That's crazy,” Cody said.

“Ya think?” Rich said, coming to stand beside Cody.

Sidney tried it again a few more times, and each time the bugs changed course, coming menacingly toward her.

“They're actually coming after me,” she said as she pushed her foot toward the front of the mass. A spider lunged forward, striking at the toe of her shoe, as a swarm of ants climbed up onto her foot. She quickly shook them off. “They've become incredibly aggressive.”

Rich approached, and as if sensing his presence, the flow of insects turned toward him. “But why?” he asked. He started to step on the bugs, grinding them into the floor as they continued to come at him.

Cody helped with some strays.

“I don't know,” she said, petting Snowy's head as she thought. “What could affect insects, as well as mammals?” She looked over to the dead raccoon.

“You said it might have something to do with the storm,” Cody offered. “That sounds as good as anything.”

There were more bangs and slams against the house, but they'd grown used to the sounds by now.

Sidney walked over to the raccoon and dropped to her knees next to it. “Maybe some sort of toxin,” she said, thinking out loud. “Maybe something in the runoff from the storm.”

Cautiously she touched the raccoon. Pushing up the loose skin around its mouth, she examined the gums for any discoloration or evidence of a toxin. At a glance everything looked relatively normal, and she moved on to the raccoon's eyes, first checking the left and then . . .

“What the hell is this?” she muttered.

“What?” Cody asked. “Did you find something?”

“Yeah,” she said, pulling the skin wide above and below the animal's orb. “Maybe I have.”

She studied the eye and the strange, almost reflective cataract that covered it. The shiny substance appeared to be breaking down, partially sliding off the eye. She'd never seen anything quite like it before and wondered if it might have something to do with—

A thump and crashing sounds came from upstairs.

“What now?” Rich moaned, and headed toward the stairway, peering up through the darkness to the landing.

“What is that?” Cody asked Sidney as he squatted beside her for a closer look at the raccoon.

“I don't know,” she replied, “but I'd like to find out.”

The silvery substance was sliding across the surface of the eye and pooling at the bottom of the raccoon's eyelid.

“Hey, Rich,” Sidney called out. “Do you have a trash bag I could put this in?”

“I think there's a box under the sink.” Rich turned toward the kitchen, but more noise from upstairs distracted him, and instead he climbed the first few steps.

Cody stood and went to check under the sink. Sidney could hear the sounds of bugs crunching beneath his feet as he walked. He returned with a green trash bag and snapped it open.

“Do you want me to do it?” he asked.

“You're such a gentleman.” She lifted the raccoon by the tail and dropped it into the empty bag. Cody smiled at her, and despite the strangeness of the situation, she smiled back as she took the bag from him.

“What are you planning to do with it?” he asked.

“I'd like to get it to Doc Martin,” she said. “Maybe she can run some tests and see what's—”

Sidney was interrupted as Rich nearly fell down the stairs and rushed toward them.

“What?” Sidney asked, moving toward the foyer.

“Don't!” Rich screamed.

There was movement in the dark at the top of the stairs, and she gasped at the sight of multiple fur-covered bodies amassing on the landing.

Squirrels. Hundreds of squirrels.

They began to descend in a wave, their tiny claws scrabbling across the wooden surface.

“Shit, we got to go, guys,” she said, backing up quickly toward her friends.

“Go? Go where?” Rich asked. “There's a freakin' storm out there!”

“Someplace,” she screamed, waving the trash bag. “Anyplace . . . but we can't stay here.”

Snowy began to bark crazily as the squirrels flowed down the steps into the foyer, heading for the kitchen.

“Oh my God,” Cody said. “OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod . . .” He stood frozen, watching as the animals moved toward them, just like the flow of insects from the basement.

“Move!” Sidney shouted. She grabbed Snowy's collar and pulled her, but the path to the back door was blocked by yet another swarm of insects from the basement. Instead, she led the shepherd into the nearby bathroom, the guys close behind her.

“What are we doing?” Rich asked, his voice loud and high pitched.

“I don't know,” she snapped. “But at least we should be safe for a while in here. It'll give us a chance to figure this out.”

Cody slammed the bathroom door on the wave of angry life swarming behind them.