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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

Heavy with food and their burdens, this foraging cadre returned slowly to the Nest. Arriving, the individual roaches rested sluggishly while worker roaches took the new food supplies to the storage areas. A few strays crawled home late, but the Nest was for all purposes, quiet—including the mysterious, shadowy Dome that rose in the center of the cave.

Yet night was the normal time of activity for these roaches as for others, and there was an undercurrent of pulsing energy—as if it would take only a plugging into a socket to electrify the whole community into wild action.

3

THREE

About a mile distant in the woods surrounding the Tinton house that same night, another roach family was resting. When the vibrations of Harvey Tinton’s car first reached them, a few antennae responded alertly. Others joined when the man slammed doors in the house, and still others when the man’s uneven steps outside began to disturb the quiet in the trees.

Tinton decided to go for a walk. The path through the trees was familiar, but he kept stumbling in his intoxicated state. Each unsteady bump brought more cockroach antennae fluttering. The whole group of the insect troop bristled when the man fell to the ground heavily.

Harvey Tinton lay happily where he tripped. The pine cushions and the leaves made a comfortable mattress. Half-­dozing, he heard a car driving up to the house. That would be somebody bringing Blanche home. He heard the car grind away. Good! Blanche wouldn’t find him inside, would realize he had gone for a walk. She’d come after him. But wait a minute—she would remember the warning about spray. He’d forgotten, damn it. Hope nothing poisonous is getting in my lungs, he thought dimly. He tried to stand, but his legs buckled.

The man laughed to himself as he lay back in the leaf mattress again. He’d surprise her when she came out, ambush her! Ha, she’d think she was being raped by one of those punks they had seen in town that morning. She might enjoy that—what the hell, hadn’t their sex therapist advised them to use fantasies?

Harvey Tinton fell into a drunken sleep.

The vibration stopped. Antennae lowered. The Nest signals they detected in the air were not for these roaches near the Tinton house. Other groups were active somewhere, these insects sensed, but they themselves were not being ordered to scout or forage or defend or return. So they waited, though uncertainly.

Unwittingly, Harvey Tinton aroused them to action again. The man heaved out of his sleep sick to his stomach. Cursing himself for having drunk too much, he coughed up the misery of his insides. The rum tasted bitter and foul now, coarse as sandpaper in his throat.