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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

He would have a proud story to tell their parents, the minister thought, even though the day had brought disaster to the Tub—and, he considered grimly, to whatever reputation he might have hoped to earn as a good sailor in this community of seamen. He’d stick to his pulpit from now on, George Kinray decided, leaning against the wind on Dickens Beach in the ever-­increasing storm.

3

THREE

Young Brockshaw started into the woods when he noticed that his sister was not in the group huddled around the minister. He looked about frantically. The girl was back on the rocks, on her hands and knees. The boy understood at once that she must have dropped her precious doll. Under his breath he muttered a curse he had heard from his father but would never dare say aloud. Voices were calling to him impatiently from the woods. The afternoon was growing steadily darker, the winds more furious. In the forest, it would be almost too dark to see. But Kim was climbing farther out on the boulders, unaware of her danger. The ocean was pouring in faster by the minute. Already it had engulfed some of the distant ledges they had traversed. A menacing wave towered above Kim and swept her half way along before she managed, with a bird-­like cry of terror, to catch hold and save herself. She would not escape the next breaker already gathering its slashing height only yards from her.

David flung himself toward his sister without another moment’s thought. He reached her just as a torrent of ocean avalanched over them both, crashing them to the hard surface, dragging them scratched and bruised until David caught a precarious hold and strained with all his young muscles to sustain it.

Filled with anger, he grabbed Kim roughly, and started her back to the others, not caring that she was crying he was hurting her.

Except that now he could not reach the others. In the minutes he had been on the rocks with Kim, his companions had come fleeing amuck out of the forest, empty-­handed, wild-eyed pursued by an army of cockroaches.

David heard the hysterical before he saw the attackers. Totally unprepared, he did not understand what he was looking at even while he viewed the scene. The mind requires reference points, accustomed concepts; it cannot deal with something totally outside its experience, beyond its ken.

The carnage created its own experience in its incredible reality. Except at the foot of the rocks where David and Kim were standing, paralyzed with terror, the narrow beach was suddenly alive with giant cockroaches. They streamed out of the trees without stop. To David Brockshaw they looked like small tanks rumbling steadily on in their assault on the children.