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

“Jesus, damn!” Amos Tarbell yelled violently. He handed the cage with the rabbit to Dorset and raced back to Russell Homer. The man was thrashing on the ground now, realizing his danger, trying to get up and run. The front of the roach column was hissing steadily toward him. The sheriff’s one thought was that Russell wore no goggles. Impelled by the awful image of the roach eating into the rabbit’s eye, Tarbell leaped across the grove and yanked Homer to his feet. Dazed, the young man started to follow the sheriff, but in his confusion he dropped the camera. When he turned to fumble for it, hissing insects immediately lunged for his bare face. The sheriff jerked the man away just before their mandibles touched his skin. “The hell with the camera!” With a mighty shove, Tarbell sent Homer headlong up the path in Dorset’s footsteps.

In turning to help his friend, the sheriff had lost his own lead over the roaches. Now they were only feet away from him. His boots and storm clothes made it hard for Tarbell to move quickly, but his adrenalin was pumping as it had done only once before in his life, when a Mako had abruptly attacked when he was swimming off the east shore with his family. He had stayed to battle the shark then, to give his wife and children time to escape the ravening jaws. Fortunately, he had gotten his fist on the Mako’s nose from above and pounded his own fear into it. He had been lucky. It was one of those times when a shark withdrew. The Mako had probably eaten not long before.

But the cockroach sharks, as Tarbell thought of the crawling column now, were not to be turned. There was no nose to punch, no mass to fight against. The sheriff knew in his gut that these bugs were killers relentlessly coming after his eyes, his flesh, his bones. He ran for his life with every gulp of acid-­stinking air he sucked into his heaving lungs. It came to him that he was running not only for his own life, but possibly the lives of everyone on Yarkie! The scientists had to be told! They had to see the specimen roaches caught inside the dead rabbit . . .