Lightning daggered through a bank of roiling purple clouds and forked sharply into the ocean. The water lit with a mushrooming sheen as if a tiny atom bomb had gone off below the surface.
Newton said: “We have to get inside. It’s going to hit us any minute.”
“We need to take cover, but not in there,” said Kent. His face was bleach-white except for the jaundiced flushes painting his cheekbones. “I don’t want to see that man again.”
Ephraim jeered: “You wanted to see him bad enough last night, didn’t you?”
“Scoutmaster’s in there, too,” said Newton.
Kent set his body in front of the door. A trivial gesture, like having a scarecrow guard a bank vault. The wind rose to a breathless whistle that ripped around the hard angles of the cabin, making an ululating note like a bowstring drawn across a musical saw.
“They’re sick,” Kent said simply.
“Sick?” said Newton. “Kent, one of them is dead.”
“Him, then. Tim. He’s sick. The whole place is sick.”
“How about this, Kent? How about you’re sick.”
It was Shelley who spoke. The boys almost missed it: the wind tore the words out of his mouth and carried them away over the whipsawing treetops.
Newton said: “What? Who’s sick?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Shelley said, louder now. “Kent. He’s sick as a dog. Last night I saw him—”
“Shut up!” Kent almost sobbed. “You shut your dirty mouth, Shel!”
“Last night,” Shelley said, enunciating each word with utmost care, “I caught Kent eating the food. He stole the cooler and took it down to the water. By the time I got there, he’d eaten it. He—”
Shelley was opening his mouth to say something more when Kent strode forward and dealt him an openhanded slap to the face.
“You shut your lying fucking mouth. I’ll kill you, you crazy little fuck.”
Shelley just stood there. A trickle of blood ran from his split lip like heavy sap from a tapped maple tree. Did he even notice, or care? The empty vaults of his eyes filled with vaporous white, reflecting the lightning that flashed over the bluffs. They became the glass eyes of a toy clown.
“He did it,” Shelley said softly. He didn’t have to speak very loud anymore: the boys were attuned to his every word. “Yes, he did. Ate all our food. He couldn’t help himself—could you, Kent? That’s why I didn’t say anything at first—I felt sorry for you, Kent. You’re sick. You’ve got the worms.”
Kent sagged against the door. The effort it had taken to slap Shelley seemed to drain his meager power reserves.
“We’re not going… in,” he said haltingly.
“Listen, Kent.” Ephraim spoke with cold menace. A brick-hued flush was draining down his cheeks to pinken his neck. “You ate our food. Fine, whatever, it’s been done. But I’m not standing out here waiting to get crisped by lightning. So I’ll tell you what—take a quick count of the teeth in your mouth. Then get ready to kiss about half of them good-bye, because if you don’t get out of my way in about two seconds, you’re going to be picking your pearly whites off the ground.”
Without waiting for an answer, Ephraim laid his shoulder into Kent’s chest. Kent folded like a lawn chair. Ephraim barreled through into the cabin. The sickening sweetness hammered him in the face—the air inside a decayed beehive could smell much the same.
Wind screamed through the gaps in the walls—the sound of a thousand teakettles hitting the boiling point. A swath of shingles tore off the roof to reveal the angry sky above: bruised darkness lit with shutter flashes of lightning. The wind curled in through the new aperture to swirl scraps of bloody gauze around the cabin like gruesome snowflakes.
“We have to get to the cellar!” Newton said.
“What about Scoutmaster?” Max shouted back.
They all turned to Kent, who had just dragged himself up off the floor. Lightning lit the sky and seethed through every crack and slit in the cabin.
“He’s sick,” Kent said.
Ephraim said: “You’re sick, too!”
“I’m not!” Kent held out his hands—they did not make for compelling evidence of his claim. “I’m not fucking sick!”
“Max,” Ephraim said. “Is Kent sick or not?”
“I think maybe so,” said Max—not because he wanted it to be so, but because there was no other answer for what he was seeing. “I’m sorry, Kent.”
“What a fucking shock!” Kent snarled. “The Bobbsey Twins agree!”
The wind hit a momentary lull. In that dead calm, the boys heard Tim’s voice calling them from the closet.
“I am sick.”
Kent pointed at the door. An expression of smug elation was plastered on the strained canvas of his face. “You see? You see now?”
Max knelt at the closet and tore the strip of duct tape off. Who the hell had put it there? He started yanking the tea towels stoppered under the door—then stopped abruptly. What if something squiggled out from under the door? The Scoutmaster’s fingers, even, gone thin and witchy like long pointed wires?
“There’s a big storm coming,” he said to the door, to the Scoutmaster. “It’s already here.”
“I can hear it.” Tim’s voice was weird. “What you should do is get some candles and blankets and head down to the cellar.”
“What about you?”
“I think… I’ll stay right here, Max.”
The hopelessness in his voice sent a volley of cold nails into Max’s chest.
“Why?”
“You know why, Max. Are any of the other boys looking bad?”
“Yeah, I think Kent is.”
“I’m not sick!” Kent screeched pitifully.
“You shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you,” Ephraim said with calm contempt.
The wind dropped to a brief lull. Tim’s voice could be heard clearly.
“You have to be careful,” he said, sounding immensely tired. “Whatever this is, it’s catching. I don’t know how. But it can be passed around… round and round… I’m so hungry, Max.”
Thunder crashed overhead like massive two-by-fours being thwacked together. The hair at the nape of the boys’ necks stood at attention. A string of blood trailed under the closet door. The ventricles of Max’s heart ran with ice at the sight.
“You’re bleeding,” he whispered.
“Am I?” Tim did not sound surprised or alarmed. “I don’t know where it could be coming from. I don’t feel it at all. Now go on, Max. Get down to the cellar. Go, hurry.”
EVIDENCE LOG, CASE 518C
PIECE A-17 (Personal Effects)
Lab journal of Dr. Clive Edgerton [Original audio recording, pre-transcription]
Recovered from SITE A (220 Makepeace Road, Summerside, Prince Edward Island) by Officer Brian Skelly, badge #908
Test subject 13. Alpha series.
CHIMPANZEE (Marshall BioServices; breeding batch RD-489)
Age: 3 Years, 7 months. Female.
Subject’s pre-test weight: 105lbs
/Date: 09.22/
OBSERVING RESEARCHER: DR. CLIVE EDGERTON
09:00 I introduced the modified hydatid [Genetic Recombination Y8.9-0] via injection. Subject is alert and energetic. Enjoying the use of its large enclosure with swing bar, reflective steel mirror, and splash pool. Subject is evidencing no overt signs of distress or pain.
10:00 Subject state is unchanged.
11:00 Subject state is unchanged.