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Back The Nest Save as PDF
Chapters (82)
  1. Cover
  2. Copyright page
  3. Introduction by Will Errickson
  4. Acknowledgements
  5. TREMORS
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. SUSPICIONS
  13. 1
  14. 2
  15. 3
  16. 4
  17. 5
  18. DREAD
  19. 1
  20. 2
  21. 3
  22. 4
  23. 5
  24. 6
  25. WITNESS
  26. 1
  27. 2
  28. 3
  29. ALERT
  30. 1
  31. 2
  32. 3
  33. 4
  34. 5
  35. ENCOUNTER
  36. 1
  37. 2
  38. 3
  39. 4
  40. 5
  41. 6
  42. HAVOC
  43. 1
  44. 2
  45. 3
  46. 4
  47. 5
  48. 6
  49. SEARCH
  50. 1
  51. 2
  52. 3
  53. 4
  54. 5
  55. CLASH
  56. 1
  57. 2
  58. 3
  59. 4
  60. 5
  61. 6
  62. 7
  63. COUNTERATTACK
  64. 1
  65. 2
  66. 3
  67. 4
  68. 5
  69. 6
  70. 7
  71. VICTORY
  72. 1
  73. 2
  74. 3
  75. 4
  76. 5
  77. 6
  78. 7
  79. 8
  80. 9
  81. EPILOGUE
  82. About the Author

Reed Brockshaw cracked. He thundered at Johnson, “The Jessica will take an hour to get around the island in this storm!” He ran to his car. “We have to use the shortcut over High Ridge!”

Amos Tarbell grabbed at his old friend. ‘“You can’t go through those woods, Reed!”

“Get your hands off of me!”

“Those roaches are out there today! I just saw them!”

Reed beat at the sheriff with hard fists. “Damn the roaches! My kids are on that boat!”

Tarbell held on to him despite the painful blows. “The roaches! They’re all over everything in the woods! You’ll never get through!”

“My KIDS!” the man kept yelling. He broke violently from the sheriff’s grasp and darted to a pile of old flares Elizabeth and Bonnie had stacked neatly in a corner of the room. Good!—These were the Roman candle type, Brockshaw knew, not the fireworks rockets. He shouted at Amos Tarbell. “I’ll use these. I’ll get through!”

The sheriff pleaded as the man grabbed the flares like kindling. “These are awful old, Reed! They won’t light!”

Tarbell desperately needed to tell Reed, tell them all, the horror he had just seen in the Laidlaw jeep. He needed to tell everyone that Yarkie was in more calamitous and gruesome danger than anyone had dreamed. He needed to set in motion the complete evacuation of High Ridge and every house anywhere near the trees. But this shipwreck emergency had to come first. He raced after Reed Brockshaw and tackled him. Brockshaw kicked out. Tarbell swung his own sea-­hardened fists. The man had to be stopped, didn’t realize the peril he was heading for.

His face bleeding from the sheriff’s blows, Reed Brock­shaw lowered his head like a football player and rammed his friend. The sheriff went sprawling. His large body struck the garbage can and knocked it over. It was only Peter Hubbard’s reflex pouncing on the cover that kept the captive cockroaches from spilling out all over the laboratory.

By the time the dust of the confusion settled, Reed Brockshaw’s car was burning rubber toward High Ridge and the shortcut he planned to take to Dickens Point.

The commotion in the laboratory kept the people from noticing how the introduction of the garbage can into the room had galvanized the roach in the glass jar. Its wings were buzzing frantically. It kept flying up against the glass cover. The lid held fast, which seemed to infuriate the insect more.

At the same time, a heavier odor seemed to be coming from the insect through the airholes in the flask. It was faint in the laboratory air, but with a definite scent of its own—vaguely caustic, intermixed with a loamy or even herbal aroma. Without realizing it, the people were taking it in with nervous exhalations of their own breath.