Still watching, his eyes glazed with panic, young Brockshaw saw he might have one chance to save himself and his sister. There was a narrow roach-­free aisle from the rocks to the trees. He grabbed Kim, who uttered another cry of protest, and bounded headlong into the forest. When Kim tugged back, he had no choice but to slap her face. She howled louder, but he plunged on until, to his despair, he found he had run directly into a seething legion of oncoming roaches.

Without conscious thought, he boosted Kim up to a tree branch, and high-­jumped after her. From the beach he could hear the earsplitting screams of the minister, but they were growing fewer and feebler. Cowering in the tree, he held on to Kim with all his strength. She was trembling as he was. He was quaking with his growing understanding. He had never heard of cockroaches attacking people. He had never heard of cockroaches as scary-­big as these. He had never seen such gore. He had never seen anything killed besides fish.

And it seemed the roaches were strong enough to kill a full-­grown man like the minister himself! The boy could understand the drownings, even accept them despite his bursting grief at the loss of his friends, because drowning was part of a world he knew. But he could not take in the roach scourge.

Shaking harder, David Brockshaw wondered whether these fearsome cockroaches could crawl up trees, could come after him and his sister.

He was answered too quickly by the terrifying sight of a file of the swollen insects marching steadily up the tree trunk toward him. He shoved Kim higher up, panting with fresh panic. Roaches were reaching his shoe. He could feel bites on his ankle. He kicked in a fury, only to see brown bodies—like funny little flying cigars!—aiming at Kim’s white face, settling on her round cheeks. Her eyes widened in terror.

“Shut your eyes!” her brother shrieked. He had seen how the roaches went for the drowned. “Cover your eyes, Kim!”

Petrified, the girl obeyed. It was as if David were now her father and her only hope in this bad dream was to do exactly what he said.

But in raising her arms to her eyes, the girl lost her grip on the tree limb, and tumbled to the ground. She landed on her head, and David heard the sickening thud, and the snap of bones. A mass of cockroaches was on the crumpled little girl in an instant. David heard Kim whimpering and knew she wasn’t dead. He leaped down from the tree, trying to scatter the roaches with his hands and feet. He stamped madly about, but there were too many to disperse.