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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

The girls started to giggle, and their mother herded them behind her back. “They are embarrassed enough! I’ll tell you what those hooligans dared to do! They exposed themselves to my girls! They are out there right now in the cove by Rock Cliff stark naked!”

The old captain said dryly, “Well, the girls didn’t have to look, did they?”

The woman was taken aback. “Are you standing up for those bums?”

The man continued. “It’s a steep hike up to where you can see that cove, Hildie . . .”

Mrs. Cannon whirled on the sheriff. “You put those hoodlums in jail where they belong!”

The sheriff looked to Johnson and Scott. “Do we have an ordinance against nude bathing?”

Both village officials had to recall. Johnson said, “Don’t think we ever got around to that.”

“Never had that particular problem come up,” Scott allowed.

Amos Tarbell soothed Hilda Cannon’s ruffled feathers. “I’ll go down there and get them dressed.”

“Off this island!” she insisted, huffing out with her daughters.

5

FIVE

While Elias Johnson and Craig Soaras were startling into the woods to get Sharky’s body for burial, three nude men were taking their ease on the secluded beach they had discovered below one of Yarkie’s cliffs. The rocks formed a wall on one side, and the forest was protective on the other.

The noon sun was baking their skin and Angel Dust was baking their brains. One of the three suddenly jumped to his feet. His young naked male body was handsome though his face was puffy and slack. At eighteen, he looked thirty and more. He was gasping wildly for air and shouting, “I’m a fish! No wonder I can’t breathe! Come on, Bo! Come on, Tony!” His mouth gulped as he pounded across the sand and plunged beneath the waves before his companions could take in what was happening.

The man named Bo opened one eye. “What’s the shit, Tony?” His speech was drug-­slurred and muffled by the heavy black beard he wore.

His companion grunted out of his own fog, “Alex gone to take a piss.”

Bo smirked. “My ass. He gone to whack off.”

The two eased back into their cradle of sun, drowsiness, and sea sounds. Neither one noted that no head broke the surface where their friend had dived.

Looking down at the men from the top of the rise, Amos Tarbell found it hard to accept that the zombie-­like forms were probably of good families, with rewarding careers open to them. They were the results of modern permissiveness, he thought—at home, in school, in a world of eroded values. It had pithed their characters as surely as something evil had pithed the eyes of Elias Johnson’s dog that morning.