BooksBarbecue
Back The Nest
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 was nearing the eastern edge of the woods now. He could see the sand dunes from which he would look down on the shore—find his children who, he was certain, would be safely on land with all the others safe and sound too.

Reed Brockshaw wanted Kim and David in his arms more than he had ever yearned for anything in his life.

No more roaches stopped the man. He burst out of the woods at just the spot he figured he would be. There was the one familiar high dune just before him. He started to climb it. The loose sand gave way under his eager feet, and he slipped back. He lunged upward, grabbing at the tall Phragmites grass that grew reed-­like on this side of the island. He pulled himself up to the top of the dune, and could see immediately the wreck of the Tub against the outer Dickens Rocks. The boat was listing badly, and visibly breaking up as the unrelenting waves pounded it against the immovable boulders.

The sight that met him when he turned his eyes to the beach drilled Reed Brockshaw’s brain and sucked out his sanity.

His first impression was that there was nothing on the beach but some kind of foreign brown seaweed washed ashore by the storm. The man’s eyes lifted again to the Tub. The kids could still be on her, but he guessed that George Kinray would have had them climb the chain of rocks to the shore. The Tub was too broken up for the minister to risk keeping his charges on board.

The group had come off, Reed Brockshaw’s churning mind told him, and they were somewhere in the woods now enjoying their picnic after all. It was smart of the minister to get the children off the beach quickly, because the tide came in so fast here. At least the man had learned that much.

The father’s eyes were drawn to the beach once more. Dazed, he felt the truth torrenting over him, like waves sweeping over a drowning man.

The children were not in the woods.

There was no picnic party.

No one was on the Tub.

Those who had not drowned and been buried by the sea, were below him, their bodies on the beach.

His mind sizzled with the terrible, incomprehensible question that was at the same time an accursed certainty.

He was not looking at seaweed. That brown spreading blanket, so dense that not a grain of sand showed, was not seaweed but a living mass of insects. It was the enemy, the cockroaches. It was a living carpet of the barbarian roaches and they were feeding.