Reed Brockshaw lit a match and carefully touched it to a flare. It sputtered and refused. Old in the lighthouse for years. His mind was jerking around like a fish on a line, he thought with annoyance. He needed to concentrate, but instead he was thinking how Elizabeth Carr and her friend had done such a great job of cleaning the musty old building. It reminded him of the way Doreen kept house. In the midst of the Yarkie forest, under the blowing storm, trying uselessly to light flare after stale flare, Reed Brockshaw was overtaken with a burst of love for his wife, for his way of life, for the cleanliness of his home, the orderliness of his island, his friends, the predictability of the future.

It made the intrusion of the alien cockroaches the more unbearable. He wished the damned flares would catch. He’d like to have one in his fist and see one of those damnation bugs. He’d gladly cook it to hell.

And he had his chance, all at once.

With a grunt of horror, Reed Brockshaw became aware that while he had been concentrating on matches and fuses, a file of the great roaches had emerged from the leaves only about twenty feet away, and was creeping toward him steadily now. The insects were coming on like a single machine driven by an invisible power source, almost as if they were on a conveyor belt. The roach antennae were stiff and straight, as if they were taking in their energy from an outside current. The leaves were crackling as more and more of the insects emerged out of some secret tunnel. Their hissing was like a soft whistling, a deadly harmony underneath the high pitch of the wind in the now-­twisting trees.

The roach chittering was for his blood, Reed Brockshaw knew at once. It was almost as if the insects were whetting knives. He could hear a faint clicking that must be their teeth and mandibles. They were closing the distance quickly. In seconds it would be too late for him to turn back.

And his flares were still resisting the matches. Another try, and another match was blown out by a wind gust. The motions of the cockroaches fascinated him. Had someone—Russell?—said they looked like mechanical toys, harmless windup gewgaws—plastic imitations of the small crabs he played with when he was David’s age?

But Brockshaw knew these were real, not toys. He’d better get the hell back to his car or be quick with these matches now!