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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

Stephen Scott bowed his head and closed his eyes in his own silent prayer. Elias was right. Let the sea take what remained of the roach-desecrated children. The tides here would carry them away from shore eastward past the “cold wall”—the waters between the Cape and the Gulf Stream—and the Stream would mercifully bury the innocents in the deep forever. Let the parents never know the truth. Let all believe no one had been able to get ashore from the wrecked Tub. Everyone knew there were perilous riptides along this shore, especially when the sea was coming in, as now, during a nor’­easter. Yarkie would be filled with lasting sorrow, but the people would suffer drowning easier than the unbearable truth.

Scott nodded to Elias Johnson. They were both sure the other witnesses with them would not disagree.

6

SIX

Amos Tarbell let his binoculars drop heavily to his chest from his big hands. He made no effort to hide his sobs. “I was in Vietnam and God knows I never saw anything as awful as this!”

Russell Homer kept his glasses to his eyes. He said in a thready voice, “I wonder how Reed is making out.”

Ben Dorset’s jaws were twitching with his effort to keep his knees from buckling. “I am praying to the good God that the fire kept Reed away before he could ever see that beach . . .”

“Amen,” the others said, as the big deputy broke into heaving tears.

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1

ONE

Craig Soaras had returned from his Chatham trip too late for his cargo of dry-­ice extinguishers to help the fire department with the High Ridge blaze. The same fierce seas that had scoured the east shore of the dead children had slowed even Stephen Scott’s yacht. By the time Craig reached the laboratory, most of the High Ridge fire was out, with volunteers standing by for possible flare-­ups.

The volunteers and the group in the lighthouse—who had come to think of themselves as a Task Force—were the only ones left on Yarkie. Even Stephen Scott had agreed that evacuation was imperative. The forest conflagration proved an invaluable reason and excuse, without requiring further explanations to either the people or the ferries hastily summoned from Chatham.

In the laboratory, the scientists were plainly into some kind of experiment with the teeming cockroaches taken from Russell Homer’s garbage retrieval. The roach removed from the sacrificed rabbit remained alone in its original flask. The jar next to it held two roaches from the dump; the next, three; then six; then scores of the insects crowded into other containers. All of this series were without food. In matching flasks on a second shelf, there were beds of garbage for the insects to eat. The idea, Peter Hubbard explained, was to learn how long the roaches would go without cannibalizing each other.