by Gina Ranalli
“Doubtful,” Quirk said. “Last night Lockwood experienced the first small wave of the moths.”
“Meaning?” Collie asked.
“Meaning, in my experience, there are many more of them somewhere in the town. Almost certainly in the surrounding forest, but the cocoons, like those of any moth or butterfly, could be literally anywhere. The attic of the Sender house is a perfect example of this. The creatures in their pupa stage would set up their cocoon just . . . wherever.”
Casper held up a hand. “Excuse me. Pupa stage?”
“Of course,” Quirk said. “You don’t think they just spring up out of nothing, do you? They have a life cycle just like every other living thing on the planet.”
“So,” Casper said slowly, “they start out as . . . caterpillars? And one was in the Sender house?”
“Not a typical caterpillar, of course, but yes, essentially. And not all of them made it out of their cocoon stage either, which is lucky for your town. I’d be willing to bet there were hundreds of thousands of the pupas everywhere.”
“Wait.” Collie’s face grew pale. “Hundreds of thousands? I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Not all of them lived, is my guess,” Quirk continued, “but, in my estimation, there will still be plenty that did.”
Collie and Casper sat blinking at their guests. “How many is plenty?” Casper asked, not really wanting to know the answer.
“Definitely thousands,” Quirk told her matter-of-factly. “High thousands.”
Sheriff Collie cursed, got to his feet, and began pacing his small office. “What are we gonna do? We can’t fight that many! There’s no way.”
“The majority of them will still be in their cocooned state,” Quirk said, “which is very lucky for us. Our best hope is to find the cocoons and burn them just as you would with a normal nest of pupas. The faster the better, too, because the longer we wait, the more of them will emerge, full-grown and very sensitive to sounds and light.”
“But . . . hundreds of thousands?” Casper said. “That could take days, if not weeks.”
Quirk nodded. “Yes, that’s true. The other option would be to raze the town completely and, even then, there’s no telling if they’ve traveled beyond the town limits. In all likelihood, they already have.”
“There’s no winning then, is there?” Collie asked, stopping his pacing for a moment. “We’re screwed.”
To this, Quirk said nothing.
Hogan said, “According to your last census, Lockwood has a total of just over two thousand residents.”
“Yeah,” Collie said. “So what?”
“That’s a lot of relocations.”
“You’re not seriously suggesting that we demolish the town?” Casper said. “That would be pure insanity. There has to be another way.”
“That’s why we have to hope it doesn’t come to that,” Swanson said. “We can have special ops here in a matter of hours. They’ll scourer the town and destroy as many of the creature cocoons as they find, but they won’t find all of them and, as you already know, some have already emerged. But we’ll need to keep the residents inside and as oblivious as possible. We already have other field agents debriefing witnesses.”
Casper scowled. “What does that mean? You make them swear Scout’s Honor that they won’t repeat what they’ve seen?”
“Something like that,” Swanson said.
“They threaten them,” Collie told Casper. “Isn’t that right, Agents? Your people are out there threatening my town to keep their mouths shut or else.”
There was a long pause before Hogan said, “It’s in everyone’s best interest that this event does not make it any further than this town’s borders. Things could get very dangerous very fast if this were to get out before we have a plan in place.”
“It’s already very dangerous!” Collie shouted. “I have one of my best cops lying in the hospital right now. Twenty-five years old! He looks like he was attacked by Freddy Kruger!”
“Lower your voice, Sheriff,” Swanson said. “The fewer people that know about this, the better, and that includes the majority of your staff.”
Collie began to swear a blue streak, throwing his hands in the air in frustration.
Shivering, Casper wrapped her arms around herself and swallowed what felt like a tennis ball in her throat. She wanted nothing more than to stop listening to these people, to turn back the clock, and unknow everything she knew. She tried to imagine a worse scenario for her town and couldn’t. When she tuned back into the conversation, Collie was asking just what the devil they were expected to tell the townsfolk about what was happening, and how they would manage to gain their cooperation.
“That’s the easy part,” Hogan said, smiling and nudging his glasses up his nose. “What are most Americans afraid of these days?”
Collie stared at him blankly but Casper knew the answer. She said, “Terrorism.”
“Exactly. More specifically—bio-terrorism. And if they think those monsters were sent here to be tested on a small population before sending them on to, say, a dozen major American cities, they’ll cooperate.”
“Good old-fashioned American pride,” Swanson said. “It hasn’t failed us yet. If people think they’re keeping something quiet for the good of the country, they’ll take it to their graves.”
“Then why threaten them?” Collie demanded.
“Added insurance,” Hogan replied. “And it’s not them personally being threatened. Not exactly. It’s the entire country.”
Collie sank back into his chair and rubbed a hand across his grizzled cheek. “Okay. Just tell us what to do to get this over with.”
Hogan smiled again and Casper noted that Swanson looked somewhat relieved, but she couldn’t help but notice Dr. Quirk’s face remained grim and it was that grim face that caused her to shiver a second time, this one so violently she wondered if she’d ever feel warm again.
Chapter 20
Once the suits were gone, Dan Helpen went into his living room and didn’t so much sit on the sofa as he did collapse. Bruiser immediately leapt up beside him and nuzzled his arm.
Dan barely noticed. His mind racing nearly as fast as his pulse. Something wasn’t right. Those two guys that had come to “interview” him seemed off somehow. They’d shown him FBI badges and they’d certainly looked like feds, with their long dark coats and dark sunglasses, close-cropped hair and polished black shoes, but still. It was the things they’d told him that made him suspicious.
A matter of national security? Lay low until the whole thing passes? Don’t even dare a trip to the grocery store? Satellites tracking his every move?
Dan felt nauseous, but not because he was afraid terrorists were experimenting with his town. He felt sick because he suspected his own government was playing with Lockwood. Had to be. He wasn’t a stupid man, despite what some others might think. He knew hogwash when he heard it and he’d heard a truckload of it a couple of minutes ago. Dan absentmindedly began to scratch Bruiser behind the ears.
What did it mean? Why were they doing it? And how in the heck did they expect everyone to keep quiet about it? Hell, it was on the dang news this morning!
He glanced at his watch. Nearly noon. He got up and went to the television in his den. He grabbed the remote, clicked it on, and turned to the local news station before he sat in his recliner. There was the end of a gardening show on, which he normally enjoyed, but now he just kept checking the time, waiting for twelve o’clock to roll around.
When it finally did and the theme song of the news began to play, he increased the volume and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, anxious to hear what would be said about the supposed “terrorist attack.”
He waited the entire half-hour and was not the slightest bit surprised when there was absolutely no mention whatsoever of the previous night’s events, and certainly no mention of terrorists.
Turning the TV off, he sat back in his chair, and chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. They mo
ved fast, he had to give them that. Wasted no time at all getting their ducks in a row.
He wondered what would be next.
Maybe it would be best if he just did as he was told—kept his mouth shut and went on with his life. Never mind that he would always wonder what the truth had been. Would those secret agents, or whoever they really were, make sure that he was forever painted as a crazy old coot who either made up stories for the attention or was just genuinely off his rocker? How would that affect the way his neighbors saw him? Or his work associates? If he refused to play along, would he simply disappear, have an accident of some sort?
He suspected so.
Having smiled and nodded the whole time the agents had spoken to him, they’d probably gone away happy and convinced he was just another redneck dolt, a lonely guy eager to talk to anyone and agree to anything.
He knew the more he just sat around getting angrier and more paranoid, the more time he was wasting.
Another minute passed with him pondering his choices, but internally he knew what he had to do the moment he’d closed the door behind those spooks.
Rising from the chair, he took the stairs two at a time up to his bedroom, his dog jogging beside him. From the nightstand, he withdrew a .45 revolver he kept for home protection. Despite living in a small town and not being particularly fond of guns, Dan was no fool and knew that in this day and age, it was better to have a gun and not need it than to need one and not have it.
He opened the cylinder and checked to make sure it was loaded, though he knew it would be. He went to his dresser and removed the box of ammo he kept beneath his socks. Again, better to be prepared.
Bruiser barked at him, causing Dan to look down at his best friend. “You think I’m nuts, buddy?”
Bruiser woofed again, as if in confirmation.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he replied, tucking the weapon into his waistband at the small of his back, having never bothered to purchase a holster. He’d never expected to have to carry the weapon anywhere.
Dan suddenly felt weary right down to his bones, but he knew he had to get out while the getting was good and after stooping to pat the dog on the head, he proceeded back downstairs and into the basement, the wooden steps creaking beneath his boots.
The basement was dim and musty, junk stacked everywhere. The tool bench he hadn’t used in years sat gathering dust. A broken lawnmower was tucked in the shadows, along with an antique rocking chair that had belonged to his mother. He didn’t have the heart to get rid of it. As well as a ratty old sofa he kept meaning to reupholster, if he ever found the energy to do so.
Dan went over to the area in which he stored his camping equipment. He had an old blue nylon tent and a sleeping bag he’d bought as a much younger man. He pulled out the sleeping bag, just as soft as he remembered it, cotton with a woodsy pattern—deer and elk grazing among pines.
He took the bag and the tent with its accompanying poles back upstairs and placed them by the front door before returning to the basement and digging out a lantern, a small propane stove, and a tarp.
These items he put next to the tent and sleeping bag.
Next stop was the kitchen, where he gathered a few things from the cupboards and fridge, placing all these items in canvas shopping bags and also putting them next to the front door.
He stood thinking for a moment, while Bruiser sniffed the items with interest.
“What else?” Dan said. He snapped his fingers. “Flashlight.”
He returned to the kitchen and retrieved a Mag-Lite from a drawer by the back door. He clicked it on to test it.
Nothing.
“Dang it.” He tried tapping the light against his palm, but the batteries were dead. After rummaging around for new batteries with no luck, he cursed himself and went back to the basement once again, this time Bruiser, who was usually afraid of the stairs, trailing behind him, hopping down the steps with great caution.
Dan stood in the middle of the basement, hands on his hips, trying to remember where he’d put his old flashlight.
Bruiser walked around the basement, sniffing everything in sight and then abruptly began to furiously bark, startling him.
The dog was standing before the work bench, backing up slowly as he continued to bark.
Dan shushed him, but the dog paid him no mind. If anything, his barking increased in volume and urgency.
“What’s gotten into you, boy?” Dan asked, eying the bench.
Bruiser stared beneath it, into the darkest gloom of the entire basement.
Dan stooped to see what was upsetting the dog, squinting and wishing he’d remembered to buy fresh batteries.
It took his eyes a moment to adjust, but when they did, he nearly fell over backwards and let out a small curse of surprise.
The shape of the thing attached to the underside of his work bench made it obvious what it was. He had seen plenty of cocoons in his day, but the size of the thing was beyond shocking. It must have been five feet long and four feet thick, made of some sort of brown, fibrous material.
“It can’t be,” he whispered. But it was, and he knew it.
Beside him, Bruiser’s barks were now punctuated with snarls and an occasional whine.
Was it just his imagination or had the thing within the cocoon just moved? Something about the surface of it seemed to shift slightly and Dan was reminded of the shows he’d seen on pregnancy and the fetus slowly stirring within a womb.
“Upstairs,” Dan shouted at the dog, pointing towards the staircase. He had to shout it several more times before Bruiser finally obeyed him, but even then he stood at the top of the staircase, growling down into the basement.
Dan didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t just leave the thing there. He didn’t know what his plans were exactly but they did include him being able to return to his house at some point.
He could call the sheriff’s department, he supposed, but after last night’s events, they probably had their hands full today.
Barring that, he knew he really only had one choice: kill it now or kill it later.
Feeling the .45 against the skin of his lower back, he reached for the gun, but stopped just as his fingers grazed its grip.
In this confined area, the blast would be deafening and there was no doubt his neighbors would hear it. But did it matter?
He supposed it did. If they heard it, they would almost certainly call the sheriff’s office, and then there was the matter of the feds. In all likelihood, they would be the ones returning to his house once the neighbors placed the 911 call and he definitely didn’t want to see them again. They wouldn’t even need to ask about the camping equipment stacked by the front door. They would just know he planned to get out of Dodge, and then what would they do with him?
Dan didn’t think he wanted to know the answer to that question, so he nixed the idea of shooting at the cocoon.
He spied a rusty old shovel near the disabled lawnmower and snatched it up, hefting its weight in both hands. Satisfied, he carried it back to the work bench. He stood before it, closed his eyes and silently said a prayer.
When he opened his eyes again, he noticed his dog had fallen silent and he glanced up the stairs. Bruiser still stood at the top, staring down as though he knew what his master was planning.
“It’ll be okay, boy,” Dan told him.
He faced the bench once more, too scared to do anything. Above and behind him, Bruiser whined low in his throat. Dan took it as the dog urging him to bravery.
Licking his lips, he bent over to peer at the cocoon again.
Chapter 21
Bored out of his mind, Jason walked across his backyard towards the woods behind the house, a baseball bat slung over his shoulder.
It was the first time in years he’d touched the bat. Usually it was kept in the back of his closet with all the other crap his parents had bought him when he was younger, hoping their son would start acting more like a normal kid, interested in sports and cars and wh
atever else young boys were supposed to be into.
Of course, that never happened. Instead, he liked dark comic books and horror novels, movies and video games, and industrial metal. Things his mom called “ghoulish.”
He supposed what he was doing right now would also be considered “ghoulish.” Going to check out the cocoon he’d seen the previous night had not seemed like such a great idea this morning, but now, with the sun shining and warm on his face, the birds singing and a sweet summer breeze toying with his hair, Jason felt there would never be a better time than right now.
It was something he felt compelled to do, like he would regret it for the rest of his life if he didn’t do it today.
He had no idea why he felt this way, knowing it was irrational. He could easily wait; the cocoon probably wasn’t going anywhere.
But still . . .
What if it had been destroyed by the thing that made it? He didn’t think that would be likely, but it was as good an excuse as any to check it out. He didn’t even feel like waiting on Chuck anymore.
His parents hadn’t even noticed him slipping out the back door. Before leaving his bedroom, he’d cranked his stereo up good and loud so they would just assume he was up there tuning out the world the way he so often did. They wouldn’t bother him for a long time—hours, probably.
He moved quickly across the yard, not wasting another minute, on the off chance his mom or dad happened to enter the kitchen and glance out the backdoor. They were kind of freaked out by the news this morning, and had already told him to stay indoors until all this weirdness had passed and the sheriff got to the bottom of whatever was going on in Lockwood.
Crossing the threshold from sunlight into shadow, Jason gripped the bat with both hands. He thought of that saying, about walking softly and carrying a big stick, and it almost made him laugh out loud, but he took the advice just the same, watching his step, taking care not to snap too many twigs or crunch too many dead leaves.