Infestation

by Frank Peretti

  © 2017 Frank Peretti

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  www.bethanyhouse.com

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2017

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  ISBN 978-1-4412-3136-9

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the authors’ imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Gearbox

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  Selected Books by Frank Peretti

  CHAPTER

  1

  The Dolphin

  The teeming waters and the chatter-filled trees of the Indian River Lagoon put his mind at ease. He belonged here, wading waist-deep through the shallows, peering through the tangled roots of the mangroves, feeling the sandy give of the sea bottom through his waders. His skiff followed close behind him, tethered by a rope around his waist. The short little box of a boat carried his camera, binoculars, notebook, and lunch. It also served as a quick resort should an alligator come too close—which so far had not been a problem. Alligators preferred the freshwater streams and culvert outlets, and those he’d seen in the lagoon were largely indifferent and safely distant.

  All in keeping with the goodness of the day: the Florida sun, the aliveness of the leaves and blooms, the constant flitter and flash of every color of bird, lizard, and fish in every direction.

  Life. He was here to record and observe it, count and preserve it, and how he loved it.

  He’d already spotted two manatee females with their calves, newborn this year, and four new pelican nests, three with eggs, one with hatchlings. Very good signs. At last, after so many mysterious deaths in this place—dolphins, manatees, pelicans—life was returning.

  A ripple offshore alerted him. He reached for the skiff, drew it close. Alligators were stealthy, and the lagoon was no place for inattention.

  But . . . no. A silvery gray dorsal fin broke the surface, a sight that made him grab his binoculars. He peered through the lenses, focused, anticipated the next breach—

  The fin broke the surface again, dipped below, then broke again, this time with a puff of air and a gray arched back that glimmered in the sun.

  A dolphin!

  He laughed in joy. How long had it been since he’d seen a dolphin in this part of the lagoon? And where there was one, there were sure to be more. He scanned the placid waters, then set the binoculars in the skiff and watched.

  The dolphin seemed to be alone, and now it was circling back, coming closer, a nice bit of luck. He might get a chance to judge the size, age, and health. Viral outbreaks among the dolphins in the past had made him and his fellow biologists careful to observe and record any anomalies—such as this particular dolphin’s behavior: not playful or vigorous, but sluggish, and oddly single-minded. It was still coming his way on a straight course.

  Cautious, he yanked the skiff in close and watched as the dolphin approached, then slowed and circled no more than ten feet away. It was an adult, average size. That it would come in so close suggested it might be habituated to humans and was either curious or expecting a handout.

  But the sheen and color of the skin and the listless behavior looked all too familiar. This dolphin was ill, probably dying. His heart sank.

  He chanced a very slow movement toward it.

  Rather than shying away, it drifted closer.

  Habituated. Had to be. No wild dolphin would act this friendly.

  Standing next to it now, he observed a greenish tint on the skin, possibly an algae. The dolphin allowed a gentle brush of his hand; a green residue clouded the water.

  He leaned close to check the eye—

  The eye was gone, nothing but an empty socket oozing green.

  “What the—!”

  The dolphin sidled closer, and he could sense the rules of the encounter changing. Now the dolphin was pressing into his space and he was the one feeling timid. He fought off the feelings, reached to examine the flank—

  His hand passed through the skin as if it were sodden newspaper. The flesh within felt like goo between his fingers. When he yanked his hand away, it was coated in green slime. A cloud of green billowed out of the dolphin’s flank, fouling the water.

  What was this? Another algae? Another plague of phytoplankton? He clambered in the skiff for a sample jar, dipped it into the green cloud . . .

  The dolphin rolled lazily onto its side. The movement drew his attention. He turned his head, looked into the wound his hand had made.

  The wound tore open, and green slime exploded into his face. All he saw was oozing, shimmering green.

  And then nothing.

  CHAPTER

  2

  A Recluse

  To be left alone.

  All I wanted was to be left alone in the quiet of my condo, my universe, the door locked, the phone turned off, safely sequestered against any more high-minded talk of adventure, especially of—oh, a plague on the notion!—saving the world. To hear such themes, to even think of them, brought a visceral twisting I feared would destroy me, and only served to remind me how futile and illusory life can be and what a fool I’d been.

  I trusted. I believed.

  So I was used and played for a fool.

  The story of my life.

  The doorbell startled me as if it were a clap of thunder. I had been enjoying an hours-long stupor, sitting in my easy chair, staring at the opposite wall. Having expended any reason I ever had to go on living or thinking, it seemed a reasonable behavior, and besides, at least I could be confident the wall was really there. I could turn away, then look again, and it would still be there. I thought I would start with that.

  But then came this, this invasion! “Go away or die!”

  “Professor! Come on, McKinney, open up!”

  Yes, I thought with a deflating sigh, now let death come. It was Brenda Barnick.

  I shattered my own stillness. “You are uninvited, unwelcome, and unliked, so be on your way!”

  “Well kiss my—!”

  I won’t repeat it, but she did say it, and having heard it, I couldn’t let it go. I bolted from my chair, crossed the room, and opened the door to the defiant tattooist. She was leaning on my doorpost, unruffled—save for her dreadlocks. They were always that way.

  “I’m sure this isn’t a social call,” I said.

  She thought a moment, then conceded, “No, I guess not.”

  “Then state your business.”

  She arched her eyebrows and asked, “Where’s Andi?”

  Andi Goldstein, my young assistant, still remained in my employ despite my exile from the world. Every other morning I would slip a grocery and errand list under the door. That evening, I would retrieve groceries, mail, laundry, whatever w
as on the list, from the front walk, and all without a word or disturbance. “At this precise time, I wouldn’t know.”

  Barnick waved some lists in my face, about a week’s worth. “And you haven’t seen her in a while, have you?”

  I took the lists from her. Had Andi missed that many days? I was getting low on milk and whole-grain bread; since most of the mail was junk I hadn’t fretted over that. The days all ran together. “No, I haven’t seen her.”

  Barnick searched the sky with wide, rolling eyes and asked, “So don’t that bother you?”

  “It most certainly does. I’ll have to have a word with her.”

  While the forsaken lists diverted my attention—yes, I’d listed dish soap and mouthwash and now, come to think of it, I’d run out—Barnick slipped past me and into my living room, waving her arms with agitation. “Man, what is up with you?”

  I stood aghast at the trespass, and had it been anyone else I suppose I would have taken action—which in itself surprised me. Of all people, I was extending grace toward Barnick? It couldn’t be for her coarse manners; perhaps it was for the reliability of her gift. “You have to ask? You’re the one who drew the picture. Remember? Cardinal Hartmann’s chair?”

  She remembered, all right. She was still carrying that drawing in her back pocket like unfinished business, and as she pulled it out and unfolded it, it still spoke the truth. She’d drawn a blue velvet armchair with peeling gold paint on the arms, but the main point of the drawing was that the chair was empty. She looked at it, then at me, and as I expected, she knew. “He was never there.”

  “Exactly.” I’d been over and over our hapless venture into the Vatican for our supposed meeting with my oldest and dearest friend, and every revisit brought the same pain, the same anger. We’d all been had. To offer my evidence, I went to my desk and brought back the note handed to me by Hartmann’s withered little assistant. “You’ve been wanting to see this.”

  She took it from my hand. Though she read silently, I could discern her reaction to each little phrase because I had it memorized: Dear Dr. McKinney: I regret that I cannot be present. You are to give the spear to my assistant. Many thanks to you and your team for a job well done. Cardinal Hartmann.

  She looked up at me, and I could see the dots connecting. “Hartmann didn’t write this.”

  “Cardinal Justus Hartmann was my mentor, my wisdom, the only man who stood by me during my personal Inquisition and the only man I ever fully trusted. I came to address him as Cardinal Justus, or Justus, he came to address me as James, and in any correspondence he ever sent me, he addressed me as James and signed it Justus.”

  “It’s a kiss-off!” she exclaimed. “Thanks, good-bye, don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

  “Which never could have happened with my old friend unless he were dead . . . and someone used my adoration for the man against me, against all of us.”

  “Oh man. Ohhh man . . .” I could see the downward spiral in her eyes, the falling of the dominoes as she sank into a chair at the table. “All that trouble we went to . . .” She evoked the sacredness of manure and looked to me for help.

  But what could I give her other than the truth? “We were talking to a holographic image projected from—where? The other universe we bought into? The skinny old assistant was from that other universe; you could tell by the shifting color of his eyes, the same as we saw with Helsa, the Girl.” Nausea took hold of me, and I sank into a chair, as well. “Which means the scroll went full circle. It was brought to us by the Girl, and of course it needed translating, as every mysterious scroll does, so haplessly, naïvely, we—that is, I—brought it to a phony Hartmann and his assistant, both from the same other universe, which means we brought it to the same people who sent it in the first place. It was a scam to rope us in. The Vatican was never expecting us. We were never invited to a real meeting with real people and had no real appointment scheduled. If I’d stopped all my blustering and listened to the receptionist, he would have been able to tell us there was no Cardinal Hartmann because Hartmann was no longer living. It’s all to my shame.”

  “So that’s why security bounced us out of there.”

  I could feel the bitterness in my soul; I could taste it in my mouth. “Because, without permission or appointment, we sneaked our way up to that meeting . . . guided entirely by young Daniel.”

  Yes, her turn of mood was expected. “Hey, now wait a minute.”

  “Daniel Petrovski, a lad with supernatural insight, who freely communicates with unseen people, be they angels or denizens of another universe . . . knew exactly where to take us—twice!—and yet, strangely enough, had no clue that the whole thing was a fraud, that we were being deceived.”

  “That is not fair!”

  “I’ve had time to think about it. Once you’ve taken the time—”

  “Daniel wouldn’t do that!”

  She was raising her voice. I determined not to raise mine, though I couldn’t help the steely tone. “Daniel was working for them.”

  She was getting too uncomfortable to remain seated. “I ain’t listening to this!”

  “The puppeteer operating that hologram already knew where the spear was: ‘The feast is in the kitchen.’ All these multi-universe charlatans needed was someone to do their dirty work. So they concocted a scroll to convince us we were a team, and now, thanks to us, they have the spear to do with as they will.”

  She glared at me, which, I suppose, was all she could do.

  I could feel the twisting of my viscera, the pain and chagrin as I made my confession. “I trusted. I believed. That was my fatal error. And that, Ms. Barnick, is ‘what’s up with me.’” I leaned back and stared at the wall. “At any rate, there, I’ve begun the process for you. With any honesty, you’ll come to the same findings as I did. We are not a team, we have no mission, and speaking for myself, whatever game these liars and impersonators are playing, I am out. Oh, and as for Daniel Petrovski, you might have a word with your young charge and find out what game he was playing. I will have a satisfactory explanation before I ever see his face again.”

  “So what about Andi?”

  “What about her?”

  “She’s in Florida.”

  My gaze shot back at her. “Florida?”

  “I got a call from her grandmother.”

  Barnick. Such a gift for irking me. “You knew this all along?”

  “That’s why I’m here. You won’t answer your phone, so she called me.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “Because I got the distinct impression that you didn’t give a rip, not about Andi, not about anybody.”

  I dodged that. “So now you’re going to tell me she’s seeing UFOs again? More dead birds and fish? Haven’t we already been through all that, and wasn’t it a waste of time like everything else?”

  “She’s had some kind of mental collapse. She’s in the hospital, confined in a behavioral health unit.”

  I stared at her.

  She held up two plane tickets. “And these came FedEx from Andi’s grandmother.”

  I had convinced myself that nothing mattered anymore—until now. “I’ll pack some things.”

  CHAPTER

  3

  Andi

  The “team” did not fly to Tampa, Florida. I flew to Tampa, Florida, and only because of Andi. Because of the plane tickets, Brenda took the same plane, and for financial reasons, we went in together on a rental car. We drove straight from the airport to the hospital, and Andi’s grandparents met us there, which was a good thing. The behavioral health unit was in a secure facility—I’ll use the word prison. Without the signed clearance Andi’s sabba and safta—alias Jacob and Sadie Goldstein—filed with Physician’s Assistant Matilda Fornby at the front desk, Fornby would not have opened the ponderous, automatic door that sealed the unit against the outside world—and vice versa.

  A Dr. Lawrence led us through the “Social Environment” in which residents could freely move about and min
gle, and through another secure door into the “Special Care Environment” where residents, for their own safety, were confined in cell-like rooms. He led us to Room 4, unlocked the door, and brought us into the darkened room. It was sparsely, safely furnished: a bed arranged atop a solid box, no frame that might be disassembled and used for a tool or weapon; a padded chair bolted to the floor; a breakaway light fixture that could not support the weight of a human trying to hang herself. The shade was drawn over the window; the light was turned off. The occupant was mostly a silhouette until we came closer.

  I was unprepared. This couldn’t be Andi, the bright, fright-wigged prodigy we’d come to appreciate and whom I regarded as irreplaceable: the red-haired, razor-minded seer of numbers, patterns, probabilities, and calculations. This was, by all appearances, a quintessential lunatic, perched in a padded chair, dressed in a hospital jumpsuit, rocking incessantly. If she was aware of our presence she gave no indication. Wild-eyed, as if seeing visions, she was having an animated conversation with someone who wasn’t there. “Oh, Atafina, that is so, that is so. It is the self . . . the self that is not . . . nor should it be . . . for to be truly one is not to be at all.”

  I rested on my knee at her eye level. “Andi?” She didn’t notice me, didn’t stop her ramblings.

  “She’s become unresponsive to human interaction,” said Dr. Lawrence. “It’s like she isn’t in this world anymore.”

  Sadie said, “When she showed up at our door she acted lost, like she didn’t know where she was, but she still knew who we were. But that was a week ago, and now . . .”

  Jacob put a comforting arm around her. “She kept getting worse until she didn’t know who we were, and then she started wandering at night. We spent all our time looking for her. She’d walk for miles with no idea where she was.”

  “And she’d do it again if she could,” said the doctor. “We have to confine her for her own safety.”

  “Why the dark room?” Brenda asked.

  The doctor, learned man that he was, only shrugged. “She prefers it that way.”

  Andi’s face brightened as she looked and reached toward the ceiling. “The orbs! Oh, hello! How lovely to see you! Orb One, Orb Two . . . How do you do!”