The roaches were hissing their warning closer and louder. Brockshaw was shivering with more than the storm’s cold air. This was what Amos and Ben and Russ had been trying to tell! He owed them an apology for thinking they were laying it on. Watching this crawling, hissing, feral, clicking army marching at him now, the man could not doubt they could kill Sharky, or anything else they found in their path, including him.

He backed slowly away from the sinister formation to make one more effort at lighting a flare. The vibration of his step was all the roaches needed. The column seemed to twitch and shudder balefully—just the way a larger animal would crouch to spring. Insect wings quivered in the storm gloom. Could he make it back to his car, Brockshaw wondered in a heartstopping panic. Why had he waited so long? Why hadn’t he heeded Tarbell’s warning?

The miserable flare must catch now, or he was in unspeakable peril!

Fire sputtered in fingers he could not keep from trembling. The flame died, as if the hissing of the roaches had blown it out. Flinging the match away with disgust, Reed Brockshaw pivoted to run. A fluttering body struck his nose. Christ, they were flying! Now he couldn’t get away!

With a cough of desperation, the man steadied himself. The flying roach was stinging his forehead, and he wanted to slap it away before it got to his eyes, but that would end his one last chance. Gnawing his lip, he struck another match.

The flare caught!

The hot swoosh of crimson-­orange flame burst from the stick like a great chorus singing hallelujah! The flame apparently startled the roach on his head. It loosened its grip and dropped away. Reed brushed the back of his hand to his forehead and saw blood on it. He would surely have been a goner if the flare had failed. He aimed the flame at the roach battalion, and cried out with pure joy when the column broke up in disorder, with roaches scattering into the leaves for their own lives.

Good! He wished they wouldn’t be rushing to hide, would stay and give him the chance he wanted, to burn them all to ashes. But he had other business! He headed for the shore again. But he had to stop once more; this time to stamp out little blazes his flare had started in the dry brush. He looked up. All this storm and no damn rain! It often happened that way, but those clouds were black bags swollen with a torrent. They had to let go some time, he thought angrily as he pushed on to the Point.