Savage (34 page)

Doc Martin's breathing came in labored gasps, her heart racing a million miles a second as she realized that she'd actually survived—for now.

The windshield and side windows were spattered with blood and the life stuff of insects attempting to breach the barrier that separated them from their prey. The beasts were relentless in their attack, the car rocking with their onslaught.

She put the key in the ignition and turned the engine over, stepping on the gas and revving the engine in a roar of victory. Putting the car in reverse, she hit the gas and backed up as quickly as she could. The car bumped and rolled as her tires ran over multiple obstacles attempting to thwart her progress. Doc Martin didn't want to think of what was beneath her wheels as she stepped on the brake and put the car in drive. The car shot forward but quickly shuddered to a stop. She stepped on the gas and could feel the Subaru fighting to go forward, but something was stopping it.

Something was preventing the vehicle's tires from turning. It was almost as if she was stuck in thick mud.

“Don't do this,” she screamed, putting the car in reverse and attempting to go backward before trying to go forward again. “I beat you fair and square, you sons of bitches.”

The tires spun and whined, furiously fighting for traction. She imagined the wheel wells jammed tightly with the bodies of crushed animals. The car made it a few feet forward but was stopped again. She could actually feel them moving beneath the wagon, the bodies of multiple animal and insect life forms thumping and banging off the undercarriage.

Again she put the car in reverse, stepping on the gas, making her tires spin across the slippery surface of the parking lot, before slamming on the brakes, putting the car in drive once more, and hitting the gas. The Subaru went farther this time, but swerved to one side as the all-wheel drive became clogged, allowing only three of the wheels to turn.

“You bastards,” she hissed, putting it in reverse. “You're not going to get me—not like this.” She was practically crushing the accelerator when she noticed the first of the flying insects inside the car with her. It started with something no bigger than a gnat, and then a cloud of the annoying flying insects followed. It took her a minute to realize that they were coming in through her vents. She reached down to close the openings as quickly as she could, but it was already too late. The flies were next, and then she noticed the yellow-and-black-striped bodies of the wasps.

Doc Martin swatted crazily as the bugs came at her face, flying into her mouth, eyes, and ears. The wasps were aggressive in their savagery, sinking their stingers repeatedly into the flesh of her face and neck.

She screamed but almost immediately began to cough and gag. The gnats had found their way up into her nose, coating the back of her throat, choking her on their tiny bodies. Unable to breathe, she found her vision failing and dizziness making it impossible for her to drive.

The inside of the car was filled with the buzzing of thousands of insect wings. They were in her eyes and mouth and down the front of her clothes, and she just couldn't stand it anymore.

Knowing that it was likely her end, but not wanting to die this way—stung to death while choking on the bodies of flies—the veterinarian opened the door and threw herself out onto the ground, coughing and gagging and throwing up what little her stomach contained. Her eyes were tightly closed against the insect onslaught, but she could hear the sounds of the larger animals as they approached. The insects had gotten her out of the vehicle, and now the warm-blooded beasts would finish her off.

She was sad that she hadn't gotten away, sad that she would be unable to warn the island—the world—of the strange threat besieging them, but she believed that she'd put up a good fight.

And that was going to have to do.

She felt the rush of intense heat on the flesh of her face and opened her eyes to the hellish vision of the animals that had been closing in on her to attack being eaten up and dispersed by tongues of angry fire.

Doc Martin recoiled from the flames, throwing herself back against the side of her car.

Her eyes had swollen partially shut from the yellow-jacket stings, but she managed to force the flesh apart enough to see. She climbed up from beside her car and looked across the parking lot to see a kind of transport vehicle. It looked military. And there were men—heavily garbed men, their faces and bodies covered in protective gear—wielding flamethrowers, burning away the attacking animals.

What in the name of all that's holy is going on?
the old veterinarian wondered, feeling herself growing faint as she leaned heavily against the side of her car.

The men advanced across the lot, still firing their weapons, and she found it incredibly disturbing that even as they were burned alive, the animals—the dogs and cats and foxes—did not cry out in pain.

All they did was burn.

Doc Martin pushed off from her car, avoiding the burning animal bodies. The men with the flamethrowers turned toward her defensively, and she thought that they might burn her as well. Throwing up her hands in surrender, she stared at them through swollen eyes.

“Who are you?” she croaked.

A figure emerged from the transport vehicle and carefully approached. She noticed that he was a handsome, dark-skinned man, and he looked at the carnage with a kind of grim disbelief.

“I'm Dr. Gregory Sayid,” he said, still not looking at her, his gaze fixed on the burning animal corpses. “And we're here to help.”

Unasked questions about Dale Moore and what he had done hung in the air like a bad smell. Sidney could feel her friends' eyes glancing at her as she silently sat between them, staring through the windshield at the road ahead .

“Sid, I . . . ,” Cody began, but she didn't want to discuss it.

“Stop,” she said flatly.

“Believe me, I understand what you're . . .”

“I said stop.”

And he did, continuing to drive in silence down Benediction's small, winding streets. There were cars scattered here and there, doors open wide, their former occupants having fled, but in some cases . . .

She didn't want to look at them; she didn't want to see any more death. She just wanted to get to Doc Martin's place. Things would get better then.

At least that's what she hoped.

“Mr. Moore is dead,” Isaac suddenly announced from the backseat, his voice flat and emotionless.

Sidney felt the muscles in her neck and back tighten up as the words hit her. The pronouncement of her father's death.

“Hey, knock it off with that!” Rich yelled, turning around in the seat.

“It's all right,” she said. She felt the hot tears well up in her eyes, threatening to spill out over the edges, to cascade down her filthy face. She reached over and popped the glove box open, grabbing some napkins from inside. A flat bag slipped out and fell to the floor.

Rich bent down to get it, ready to put it back, but she was curious.

“What's that?”

“A bag,” Rich said, showing it to her.

She took it and peeked inside and began to sob as the walls around her emotions collapsed.

“Sid, what is it?” Rich asked, obviously uncomfortable with her crying. She couldn't answer him, giving the bag back to him as she brought the wrinkled paper napkin up to her face to try and stem the flow of tears.

She could see him looking into the bag and partially removing the greeting card. It was a graduation card, something her father was likely planning on giving her, but then a stroke got in the way. She cried all the harder with the thought of the effort it must have taken for him to get the card. He never remembered stuff like that, and the fact that he had just went to show her how important he thought her achievement was.

Rich slid the card out and read it before putting it back into the bag and returning it to the glove box. “It's nice,” he said as he closed the glove box with a snap.

She nodded. “He must've forgotten it was in there,” she said through her tears. And then something through the windshield caught her attention. “What is . . . ?” she started to ask, raising her hand to point at the road ahead of them.

Cody slammed on the brakes.

The surface of the street ahead moved with life, a living blanket that just lay there, writhing as if . . .

“What's it doing?” Cody asked in a whisper.

“Waiting,” Sidney replied, not knowing why she had answered in such a way, but somehow knowing that she was right.

“Waiting for what?” Rich asked.

The layer of living things suddenly surged up from the road, flowing toward the homes along the street—

Until it saw them.

The wave stopped and shifted in their direction.

Sidney could just imagine the thousands of eyes—the thousands of right eyes—fixing on their truck.

“Back it up!” Rich screamed as the wave reared up, and then threw itself toward them, flowing down the center of the road.

Cody did as he was told, putting the truck in reverse and stepping on the gas, turning and looking out the rear window as he steered the vehicle backward.

The mass of life was fast, picking up speed as it gave chase. Sidney stared through the truck's windshield, taking in all its horrific details as it flowed steadily closer. She could just about make out the individual pieces of life—dogs, rats, raccoons, cats—floating in a sea of what appeared to be insects, hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions.

The organism—there was no other thing she could think to call it—churned and moved as it propelled itself across the ground, the living bodies of animals briefly appearing before being submerged in a sea of bugs as others rose to the surface.

And then there were the bones.

At first she didn't quite understand what she was seeing. For a moment she believed that they were pieces of wood—limbs of trees picked up by the undulating mass—but when she saw the skull, its jaw hanging open in a silent scream, she understood the horror of what it was.

The remains of victims were a part of its body, flowing within the multitude that made up its mass.

It was an awful sight. She tore her gaze from the nightmare steamrolling down the street after them and quickly figured out where they were.

“Up on your right, Powell Road,” she called out.

Cody slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel roughly, spinning the car around, pointing it toward what looked to be a rough section of woods.

“What the hell are you doing?” Rich screamed.

“Powell Road,” Sidney said. “Cliffside Condominiums?”

Everyone in Benediction knew the story. Big-time real estate developer Travest Powell had bought up all kinds of land and was planning on building a deluxe condominium complex. Some of the land had already been cleared when the market went bust, and Powell had ended up losing his shirt to the bank. He'd committed suicide on his private yacht, just before the bank was about to take that from him as well.

Cody put the car in drive and aimed the truck toward the wooded area. The remains of the road were still there, but it was a bumpy mess.

“Hang on back there,” Sid said, turning to see Snowy bouncing around as Isaac clutched the door armrest, looking as though he was about to be sick.

Or was the bad radio at it again?

The truck bounced so violently that she flew up and hit her head off the roof of the cab.

“Sorry!” Cody said through gritted teeth, doing his best to avoid the larger ruts as he steered the truck over the rocky road.

“Just stay on this road and we'll end up near the cliffs,” Sidney said. She leaned backward over the seat to look out through the rear window, wondering if the mass of animals was following. Snowy enthusiastically licked her face, and she patted her dog lovingly, reassuring her.

There was some movement in the pouring rain and darkness, but it looked as though they were safe—for the moment.

Cody gunned the engine of the truck, and they bounced up out of a series of deep ruts where the dirt had been washed away by the storm's steady rainfall. Sidney placed one hand by her side on the seat and the other on the ceiling in an attempt to brace herself.

“We should come out on Pirate Road, and then we'll go around the cliffs and back onto Dobson,” she said, seeing a kind of childhood map drawn inside her head.

Cody continued to drive, his gaze on the road ahead of them intense. They passed the area where the land had been cleared of trees, rocks, and brush. One foundation had been laid before the endeavor had ended.

“Keep going straight,” she ordered, leaning forward in her seat and pointing through the windshield at the road ahead.

“I know,” Cody growled, concentrating on the rough road beneath them. Makeshift paths, really, that hadn't seen any vehicles since construction was halted.

They continued to be bounced around by rocky and uneven terrain made even worse by the heavy rainfall. Sidney heard a sudden, plaintive moaning from the back and turned to see Isaac looking even worse.

“Hold on, Isaac,” she told him. “We're almost to Pirate Road, and then things will get a little less bumpy.”

“No! No! No!” he cried out, and grabbed at his head again with both hands.

“What is it, Isaac? Is it the bad radio again?”

“Yes,” he answered, sounding as though he were in a great deal of pain.

Snowy's tail wagged nervously as she tried to lick Isaac's face. Sidney leaned over the seat, reaching out to place a comforting hand on the young man, but he was becoming more frantic.

“Hang on,” she said, her fingertips brushing his knee. “We'll be safe soon.” She tried to reassure him.

“It's loud,” Isaac screamed. “It's so loud!”

“What's happening to him?” Rich asked, on the verge of panic.

“I have no idea,” Sidney answered, watching as Isaac suddenly curled up in a tight ball on the backseat. “I think he may be hearing something that we can't.”