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  So thick that soon there was nothing but the pounding of wings around her, inside her head.

  And then—nothing.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The coffee was bad and made her want a cigarette even more.

  Doc Martin’s hand shot to the pocket of her smock and stopped. She still only had the one left. Was this enough of an emergency to smoke it? Part of her said yes, while the rest of her said not yet.

  She’d been sitting in the school cafeteria, watching the activity outside through the windows. The soldiers were still on alert, patrolling the area with their big bad guns.

  Doc Martin scoffed at that. Fat lot of good an M16 would do against a swarm of wasps controlled by an alien intelligence. But she didn’t want to tell them that—why spoil their day?

  She got up and walked to the door and out into the afternoon sunshine. There was a freshness in the air, something that could only be experienced after a really bad storm. It was like a rebirth of some kind. Not good or bad, just something new.

  Burwell was loading the back of an SUV with the equipment they’d need for their little quest. Velazquez was helping him.

  Doc Martin looked around for Isaac but didn’t see him anywhere. Maybe the kid had gotten cold feet, she hoped, but knew it wasn’t likely.

  Maybe she would get cold feet.

  She grunted in response to her thoughts as she approached the soldiers. That wasn’t likely to happen either.

  Burwell placed a metal box in the back of the vehicle.

  “Doc.” He acknowledged her approach.

  “Hey,” she responded.

  “Can I help you with . . . ?”

  “I’m going with you,” she said, already regretting the words as they spilled from her mouth.

  “I don’t think that would be wise,” Burwell said, continuing to pack. “I’m already babysitting one civilian, we add another and it becomes even more complicated.”

  “I see your point, but I think I could be helpful,” she said, looking out across the school grounds.

  Burwell said nothing.

  “Isaac is a little . . . different,” she continued. “I think I can help you understand his quirks. I’ve also lived on this island for my whole life, and I know it like the back of my hand.”

  Burwell paused in his packing. “It’s still a bad idea,” he said.

  Doc Martin nodded slowly. “Truthfully? I agree, but somebody needs to keep an eye on Isaac, and that job seems to have fallen to me with Sidney gone.”

  Burwell finished loading the back and closed the hatch with loud finality.

  “Can you shoot a gun?” he then asked.

  “It’s been a while, but I’m sure it’s like riding a bike.”

  Images of the insects swarming into her car, biting and stinging her, filled her head. The only reason she could think that a gun would be useful in a situation like that would be if she decided to use it on herself.

  “We’re leaving now. Are you ready?”

  “As ready as I’m gonna be,” she said.

  Burwell looked around. “Now we just need the man of the hour. Any idea where . . .”

  Doc Martin looked around as well. “I’ll go get him, and we can get this shindig on the road.”

  * * *

  In the darkness of the closet, Isaac listened.

  The bad radio was there, fading in and out, but there was something else, too.

  It was like trying to hear a soft piece of music over the roar of the ocean. It was most definitely there, but so very faint.

  Isaac knelt among the mops and cleaning supplies, rocking back and forth, thinking about what he had agreed to do, and wondering if he should.

  He could feel the bad radio all around him, feel its pull as it tried to get inside his skull and make him do the unthinkable.

  For now, he was stronger and could resist its call, but if he was to let his guard down, the bad radio would pull him toward it.

  He had let it happen before when he’d gone to the cave in the cliff.

  The memory made him rock all the faster. It was Sidney who had saved him.

  The thought of his neighbor brought a fleeting smile to his face. He very much liked the blond-haired girl who always seemed to know what to do. The smile left him then, and he let out a sad moan as he thought of the girl going off with the others.

  Boston, he thought. They were going to Boston, where another bad radio was up to no good.

  Isaac felt the fingers of the island’s new bad radio tickle the inside of his skull.

  Something moved in the faint strip of light coming under the door, and he gasped.

  Ants. A line of ants marching directly toward him.

  He was about to jump to his feet and run from his quiet place when he realized they had stopped moving toward him and were instead walking round and round in a circle.

  And then they stopped—and then they were watching him.

  Something that might have been a greeting—a hello—came from very far away beneath the roar of the bad radio.

  “Isaac?” a voice called softly, followed by multiple raps upon the wooden closet door. “Are you in there?”

  The animal doctor, Isaac thought, startled by the noise. He remembered how she used to go to the house to give the cats their shots. She had been very kind to his mother, and to the cats.

  And to him. She was kind to him now.

  “Yes,” he said, looking back at the ants but finding they had gone, scurrying back into the dark.

  Doc Martin opened the door and stuck her head in. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” he answered as he climbed to his feet, trying not to knock anything over.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Thinking,” he said.

  “Are you having second thoughts about going out there with Burwell, because if you are, we can tell him right now that you’re not interested and—”

  “No,” Isaac told her. “I’m still going.”

  The bad radio seemed to get even louder then, and that other sound . . . the voice that he could barely make out . . .

  He could have sworn it said . . . Come.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Delilah looked at the pictures of her son on her phone.

  She wanted to hold him, to hug him tightly and kiss his usually filthy face, telling him over and over that she loved him with all her heart and soul.

  And if she couldn’t have that, to at least be able to speak to him over the phone, but that had been denied her as well.

  “Dr. Majib is going to be furious about this,” one of the Nancys said, shaking her head in disapproval. They’d found out that both the secretaries were named Nancy.

  Deacon had removed a center drawer from the heavy wooden desk and was breaking it up into pieces to make weapons, something that Dr. Majib’s secretary did not approve of in the least.

  “Dr. Majib will understand,” Deacon said as he snapped the sides of the drawer and held the piece of wood tightly in his hand and gave it shake. “We need to protect ourselves. And if that means we have to damage some of the doctor’s property, well, then that’s just the way it’s got to be.”

  Nancy did not look in the least bit pleased, glaring at Deacon, but she kept her mouth closed.

  They’d decided to make an attempt to leave the office and head for the parking garage, where they would retrieve their cars and escape.

  Delilah looked at the pictures of her son again, telling him that she would see him soon and that she loved him, before slipping the phone back into her pocket.

  Mason was going through the other desk drawers looking for things that might help them. Phil had found a letter opener and held it out before him, staring at the silver blade.

  “I guess I’ll take this,” the nurse said.

  Mallory walked over to him. “You’re going to actually stab somebody with that?” she asked. “One of our patients comes at you and you’re going to stab them, is that what you’re saying, Phil?”
r />   “I don’t know,” Phil admitted. “But I need some protection.”

  Mason laughed out loud. “He’ll use it if he has to,” he said, picking up a pair of scissors and staring at the twin blades. “If it comes down to me or somebody else? I know who I’m picking.”

  Delilah felt a sudden chill run down her spine as the realization of what they were doing truly sank in. They were planning a defense against . . . what exactly?

  It was all so crazy, and she was having a difficult time wrapping her brain around it. She glanced out the window at the view of a frightening world. It wasn’t just inside here—inside the hospital—that things were different. Out there the world looked different as well. Smoke seemed to be rising up from several nearby buildings, but she heard no sirens, no wails from fire engines.

  And there wasn’t any traffic.

  Even in the worst of weather conditions, there was always traffic in Boston.

  Delilah moved away from the window, ready to act.

  Deacon had broken up the drawer and used some Scotch tape from the desk to fasten a stapler to the end of the wood. The head of maintenance swung his makeshift club. “It needed some weight,” he said, catching Delilah’s inquisitive look. “It’ll do more damage now.”

  “May I?” she asked him, pointing to the remaining pieces of the drawer.

  “Sure.”

  She hefted the wood, and her eyes fell on Dr. Majib’s metal nameplate.

  “Can I have the tape?” she asked Deacon as she reached for the nameplate. She began to tape it to the flat piece of wood as Dr. Majib’s secretary silently shook her head.

  “So what’s the plan?” Delilah asked, making sure that the tape was tight.

  Deacon looked at the door. “Well, it ain’t much, but it’s all we have. Basically, we open the door, head out into the hall, and hope that nothing tries to kill us.”

  “And if something does?” Mallory asked.

  “Then we defend ourselves,” Deacon said firmly.

  The unit manager folded her arms defiantly. “They’re my patients. I can’t even begin to think about hurting them,” she said.

  “Not even when they’re trying to hurt you?” Deacon asked.

  “There’s something wrong with them,” she argued.

  “Yes,” Deacon agreed, nodding fiercely. “Something wrong that makes them want to kill us.” He pulled his shirt collar down to show off the bruising on the dark skin of his neck. “And I have no intention of letting them do that to me.”

  “We could lose our licenses, or worse!”

  “A license will do you no good if you’re dead,” Deacon said with a disgusted shake of his head, muttering beneath his breath as he approached the closed office door.

  Delilah realized that she was holding her breath, gripping her weapon tightly while she watched him lean his ear toward the door and listen. “Do you hear anything?” she asked, forcing herself to breathe again.

  He held up a finger, cocked his head for a moment. “I think it’s clear,” he said as softly as his deep voice would allow. “Are we ready?”

  Delilah turned to look at the others. They appeared tense but ready to move. She looked back to Deacon, locking eyes with the man and nodding slightly.

  “We’ll head out into the hallway as quietly as we can,” he started, turning the knob. “Take a right, and we’ll—”

  He pulled open the door to reveal the dog standing there.

  “Shit!” Deacon yelled, and Delilah let out a little scream as the man attempted to close the door again.

  But the dog moved in a flash, slamming its muscular body into the door, causing Deacon to stumble back, tripping over his own feet and falling to the floor.

  The dog was on him, its open jaws snapping for his throat, but the man managed to jam his forearm into the animal’s mouth, crying out as its jaws clamped down on his arm.

  Delilah resisted the urge to run, forcing back her panic as Deacon’s scream echoed through the office. The crazy part of her that she’d tried to keep under control since her teenage years surged forward, and she found herself running toward the conflict instead of away, raising her homemade club and bringing it down with all the force she could muster upon the dog’s blocky, orange-furred head.

  The weighted end connected with a sickening thunk, sliding off the furred skull, leaving a nasty bleeding gash in its wake. The dog did not make a sound; instead it released Deacon’s arm and turned its horrible gaze on her.

  The dog tensed, and she could see that it was ready to spring, the others behind her screaming for her to watch out. She was raising her weapon again when Deacon sprang up from the floor and wrapped his powerful arms around the animal’s neck, dragging it back.

  The dog struggled in the maintenance man’s grasp, and he was having a hard time holding on to the animal. One of the Nancys had started to scream, while everybody else had retreated as far behind the desk as they could. Delilah was tempted to join them, fear like a living thing attempting to take possession of her limbs.

  But she fought it down, struggling to push it aside, so she could help the man who had saved her.

  Once again she swung her club with all her might and felt the satisfying thud as it connected with the dog’s side.

  The animal didn’t make a sound—no growling, no yelping in pain. Silent.

  It was wrong on so many levels.

  “Delilah, get back with the others!” Deacon screamed as he tried to force the animal onto its side on the carpeted floor, but it continued to thrash, its clawed paws raking the man’s exposed skin.

  There was blood, quite a bit of it, but she couldn’t be sure who or what it belonged to. Delilah didn’t listen to the man as he continued to struggle, moving closer to smash the club down again and again upon the animal’s body.

  “Delilah!”

  She turned at the sound of her name and saw Phil stepping out from behind the desk. He held up the letter opener he had claimed as a weapon earlier, then tossed it toward her. It landed at her feet as he dove back behind the cover of the desk.

  Delilah snatched up the silver opener, and, holding it like a dagger, moved closer to the struggle. Deacon was tiring, losing his hold on the dog as it twisted its body for the kill.

  She couldn’t let that happen. She stomped down her fear and acted, plunging the point of the letter opener deep into the dog’s neck.

  The dog reared back, turning its attention from Deacon to her. It threw its full weight at Delilah, and she cried out in panic as she fell backward, the animal atop her. The stink of its breath was awful, and suddenly she was back at the park again—only this time the dog had caught her.

  The monster had her.

  But she wasn’t a scared little girl anymore. People depended on her now; Izzy depended on her. The sudden thought of her son spurred her to action, and she lashed out with the letter opener, plunging the blade into the dog’s neck again. The force behind her strike was powerful, driven by her fear, and the blade sank in deep.

  Delilah held on to the gore-covered blade, trying to pull herself out from beneath the animal. She focused upon the silvery white orb in its head, somehow sensing that it was the true problem, and jammed the blade into its offending center with a terrible popping sound. She was so repulsed by the act that she let out a scream but resisted the urge to remove the blade and instead pushed with all her might until . . .

  The dog went suddenly rigid, dropping its full dead weight onto her body. Thick, milky liquid tainted pink from blood oozed from its right eye socket onto her pants, and she wanted nothing more than to be far away from the weighty corpse.

  Delilah frantically struggled to push the dead dog from her body, suddenly on the verge of total panic as she realized what she’d actually done. And then she felt a strong hand on her shoulder as the weight of the dog lifted. She hadn’t realized she’d closed her eyes until she opened them to see Deacon standing above her, the animal’s corpse lying on the floor beside him

&nbs
p; “Thank you,” she said, feeling herself breaking down, her resolve cracking, ready to tumble.

  But then she saw his bloody arm, bitten in two places, and she pulled herself together.

  “Let’s take a look at that arm,” she said, climbing to her feet. She could be afraid another time.

  When somebody didn’t need her help.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Sidney was experiencing memories that were not her own.

  First there was darkness . . . thick, tactile, fluidlike ink, and then a sudden painful sense of movement.

  Movement from the black oblivion of there . . .

  To here.

  Riding the storm . . . hiding in the fury of the elements . . . coming to rest somewhere . . .

  Dark. Cold. Wet.

  Hidden.

  Beneath the thriving metropolis, it nested, growing. Soon it pulsed with purpose, reaching out, powerful emanations touching the primitive brains of the city’s vast animal ecosystem . . .

  And more.

  Sidney watched as the letters flashed before her.

  Ely . . .

  At first she had no idea what they meant . . .

  Elysi . . .

  Then suddenly she understood what it was she saw.

  Elysiu . . .

  Raised letters. Raised letters on a sign in front of a building.

  ELYSIUM.

  The sign says “Elysium,” she thought, just as a steel spike came down into her skull.

  At least that’s what it felt like.

  * * *

  Sidney awoke with a scream, sitting bolt upright with the urge to run away as fast as she could.

  Snowy was in her face, warm, wet tongue lapping eagerly at her nostrils. She gently pushed the dog’s white head away and felt beneath her nose.

  Blood.

  She felt as though the inside of her skull had been scraped with a metal brush. Quickly she looked around and realized that she was lying in the back of a van. The rear doors were open, and she cautiously slid out through them.