Homing (42 page)

"But if he's around here, how come he doesn't come home?" Molly challenged.

Ben shrugged elaborately. "How should I know? Maybe he tripped and fell. Maybe he's lying out there with a broken leg or something!"

Following Bailey, the children were drawn down the slope toward the chicken coop. They were almost there when they saw a flash of movement, and a dark shape moved through the gate. Struck with fear, Molly froze in her tracks. But instead of dashing toward the figure, as she expected him to do, Bailey pressed Against Molly's knees, a low growl forming in his throat. Terrified, Molly felt her knees begin to shake, but then the shadowed figure turned and moonlight fell full on its face.

"K-Kevin?" Molly gasped, her eyes widening as she recognized her stepbrother in the gloom of the night. And yet, even as she recognized him, she also knew Ben had been right.

Something had happened to Kevin.

For even in the moonlight, even though she could barely see him, Molly could see the smears of blood that covered his face and soaked his shirt.

Kevin stood perfectly still, the moon shining in his eyes.

He had no real sense of time anymore, no true idea of how long it had been since he'd left the cave.

Nor was he consciously aware of where he'd been or what he'd been doing, for he was barely aware of anything at all, having almost ceased to function as a physical extension of his own mind, instead becoming merely a tool of the presence within his body.

He had hiked down out of the hills, his eyes barely focused on where he was going, his mind failing to register anything at all of his surroundings. He was following the imperative of the force within, carrying out the directions the patterns of the insect dance on the valley floor had imprinted on his mind.

Food.

He had to gather food, and bring it back to his hive.

He'd set about his task mindlessly, heading first toward the hives on the far side of the property. There, he'd opened the abandoned hives and broken as much of the honeycomb as he could carry out of the frames, stuffing it under his shirt until he could manage no more. Finally he'd turned away and moved on, foraging through the night until he came to the chicken coop, where he'd gone inside, pushed the hens from their roosts, and gone after their eggs, breaking some of them to suck the contents greedily into his mouth, putting others in his pockets to take back with him to the hive.

His pockets full, he'd turned to the chickens themselves, using his teeth to tear the heads off two of the hens.

He'd been reaching for another when he became aware of a presence behind him, though he'd neither seen nor heard anything at all. Moving instinctively toward the gate, he'd frozen as he suddenly came face-to-face with the danger.

And then, finally penetrating into the consciousness the invader had almost totally repressed, Kevin heard a single word.

His name.

It registered slowly. For a moment he didn't quite realize what it meant. But then a little more of his own consciousness reasserted itself, and he saw Molly standing in the darkness, staring at him.

"K-Kevin?" she said again. "What's wrong?" She started to take a step toward him, then changed her mind, unconsciously dropping a hand down to rest on Bailey's head. "Y-You don't look right," she said.

Kevin's fingers flexed, and the corpses of the dead fowl fell into the dirt at his feet.

Within his body the teeming entity surged into frenzied activity, the intelligence of the hive sensing a new nesting v place, a fresh site in which to colonize, and breed, and reproduce themselves.

Kevin began to move toward Molly, the black mist already gathering in his lungs, ready to spew forth on his exhaled breath as soon as he was close enough to the new host.

Molly, as if frozen where she was, gazed up at Kevin, transfixed by the strange expression on his face.

And then, just as he started to kneel down to put his face close to hers, to ready himself for the colony's transference, his own consciousness struggled to the surface and he realized what was about to happen to Molly.

"No!" he gasped, standing and backing away. "Go in the house. Just go back in the house and leave me alone!"

Gathering what few vestiges of his willpower he could still control, Kevin fought Against the invader that all but ruled his mind and body. Turning, he staggered away toward the hills.

For a long moment Molly stood where she was, staring after Kevin, though he was already lost in the darkness.

Then, from just behind her, she heard Ben's voice.

"We have to follow him," he whispered. Molly turned slowly around. Ben was gazing at her in the moonlight, his eyes glittering with excitement. "We can find them, Molly," he said. "I bet we can find all of them!"

Molly shook her head. "N-No," she stammered. "It's dark, and he's gone, and I'm scared. I want to go back in the house."

"But we can find them," Ben pleaded. "I know we can.

We'll use Bailey. I bet he could follow Kevin anywhere!"

Molly's grip tightened on the big dog. "We should go back in the house," she said again.

Ben gazed steadily at her, then shrugged. "Then go. I don't care. I'll just take Bailey and find them myself." As if he'd understood what Ben had said, Bailey moved to the little boy's side, his whole body trembling as he sniffed at the spot where Kevin had stood a moment ago. "See?"

Ben crowed. "He wants to go. So go back in the house if you want to, and me and Bailey will go find everyone."

Molly's eyes flicked toward the house, then up toward the hills. Kevin's figure emerged from the shadows for a moment, and in the glow of the moonlight she thought he beckoned to her.

But he'd told her to go back into the house, hadn't he?

But if he was sick, like Julie had been ...

Molly struggled, trying to make up her mind what to do.

If Ben was right, and Bailey could help them find Julie and Jeff, too Suddenly she pictured the look on her mother's face when they all came into the house together, and her last doubt evaporated. "Come on, Bailey," she said. "Let's find Kevin."

The big dog bounded toward the hills, Molly and Ben running to keep up with him.

Molly and Ben stood side by side on the top of the hill, looking down into the valley. Bailey crouched next to Molly, trembling, a strange sound-part growl, part whimper-rattling in his throat. All around them the air was thick with insects, and their ears were filled with the chirps of crickets, the clicks of beetles, and the rasping sounds of the june bugs.

The moon was high in the sky now, and the night had brightened. Across the stream that cut through the little valley's floor, they could see the mouth of a cave, and standing just outside the cave was a dark figure.

As they watched, the figure started toward them, moving steadily across the valley, then starting up the hill.

"J-Jeff9" Ben called, not quite able to see who was coming.

After a moment of silence the figure spoke, and the little boy recognized his brother's voice. "It's okay, Ben," Jeff Larkin said. "It's me."

Ben ran down the hill, but as he got close enough to see his brother clearly, he stopped dead in his tracks.

Jeff's head was covered with a mask of bees, a squirming, humming mass whose constantly shifting form kept folding in upon itself as some of the bees burrowed deep into the swarm while others rose to the surface.

Ben stared at the terrifying visage, his heart pounding, his breath frozen in his lungs. His eyes widened with horror as Jeff came closer and closer, finally stopping only a few feet away.

As if on command, the bees rose away from his head, disappearing instantly into the night sky, leaving Jeff's features, pale and strained, illuminated in the moonlight.

"It's all right, Ben," Jeff said. "I'm fine. And you will be, too."

Ben stood as still as a fawn caught in the bright glare of headlights while his brother moved closer. Jeff knelt, and then, just as he was reaching toward Ben, a shout split the night.

"No!" Kevin bellowed. "Run, Ben! Run!"

Galvanized by the shout from the bottom of the hill, Ben turned and fled back the way he had come. Molly followed him, racing away as fast as her legs would carry her, her stepbrother's cry echoing in her ears, the image of Jeff's gray, drawn face imprinted on her memory.

Of her sister of Julie-she had seen no sign at all.

Sandra McLaughlin moaned softly, rolled over in bed, then began thrashing out Against the damp and tangled sheets that had become twisted around her body during the few minutes in which she had fallen into a restless sleep. One of her arms finally slipping free, she frantically ripped the rest of the sheet loose, then tore her nightgown from her body as well. Gasping for breath, her lungs feeling as though they had filled up with thick phlegm, she flopped, naked, onto her back, her body heaving as she struggled to draw air into her congested chest.

Freedom from the constrictions of the sheets and nightgown gave her only momentary relief from the chaos going on in her body, though, and a few seconds later she began frantically scratching at herself, desperately trying to stop the terrible itching that had grown steadily stronger as the night wore on. Finally she left the bed and went to the window, where she stared out into the moonlit night.

Once again the hills, now silhouetted Against the night sky, beckoned to her, called out to her, something hidden deep within them summoning her with a force she could no longer resist. The urge to escape from the confines of the hospital room-to flee into the hills-bloomed into an obsession now.

Sara's fingers fumbled with the window latch until it came free. She pushed the window open and scrambled out onto the narrow strip of grass that separated the building from the parking lot. Though a cool breeze was blowing in from the ocean, it failed to ease the fever raging within her body or to soothe the chaos in her mind.

Whimpering to herself, oblivious to her nakedness, she dashed away from the building, instinctively dodging the bright pools of light cast by the lamps suspended over the parking lot. A moment later she disappeared into the shadows of a clump of scrub oaks. Threading her way through the trees, she ignored the sharp stabs of pain from the twigs and rocks upon which she trod. When her right foot began to bleed, she didn't notice it at all.

Passing through the stand of oaks, she came to a fence at the edge of the hospital property, all that separated her from the open rolling hills extending both north and east.

The fence blocked her path. She ranged back and forth in front of it, moving first one way, then the other, like a tiger pacing insanely within the confines of a cage.

Within her body, the colony turned frantic as it continued to expand and began sending forth scouts in search of a new host.

Tiny flecks, invisibly black Against the darkness of the night, emerged from Sara's mouth, nostrils, and eyes, hovered in the air for a few seconds, then quickly died when they found no new host within which to feed and breed.

And the colony infesting Sara's body, receiving no signals from its scouts, continued to expand within the confines of its host, reaching deeper and deeper into Sara's vital organs.

Then, from out of the night sky, a cloud of insects dropped down to surround Sara, and for a moment she felt calm once again.

Her eyes focused on the creatures as they buzzed around her head, and in her mind an image began to form; an image so abstract it could not have been replicated outside of her fevered mind.

Yet to Sara, and to the teeming being within her, it formed a map, a clear route to take her where she must go.

The skin of her hands ripping on the rough mesh of the fence, Sara scaled the single obstacle that kept her from the wilderness.

For Sara McLaughlin, the last fragments of her humanity were finally extinguished.

her existence.

Alice Jenkins arrived at the First Floor West nurses' station at precisely ten minutes to midnight, ready to relieve JoAnna Morton, who was just finishing the final activity reports of her shift. "Anything going on?" Alice asked.

"All quiet," JoAnna replied with a smile. "Everyone's asleep." She gathered the various items that inevitably wound up on the desk-her keys, lipstick, a paperback book, two emery boards-into her purse while Alice made her habitual round of the ward, peering briefly into each room just to make sure that, as she always put it, "JoAnna hadn't misplaced anyone."

In Room 112, where a card on the door read MCLAUGHLINs., the television was on, the bed seemed to be torn apart, and a nightgown was draped over the chair next to the bed. Of "McLaughlin, S." there was no sign at all.

Frowning, Alice pulled the door to 112 open and stepped inside. Shivering in the cool of the room, she went to the window, pulled it closed, then checked the tiny bathroom that connected 112 and 114. It was empty, and the patient in 114 was snoring peacefully.

Her frown deepening, Alice returned to the nurses' station, where JoAnna Morton was pulling on her sweater in preparation to leave for the night. "Didn't you say everyone was asleep?" she asked. JoAnna looked at her blankly, then nodded. "Well, would you mind telling me where you tucked McLaughlin. in? One-twelve is empty."

JoAnna Morton gazed at the other nurse for a moment, then turned and walked down the hall to 112. Just as Alice had said, there was no sign of Sara McLaughlin. "She was there half an hour ago," JoAnna insisted as she came back to the desk. "And I can't believe I wouldn't have either seen her or heard her if she'd gone anywhere."

Unless you were reading your romance, Alice thought, but was too tactful to say out loud. instead she headed quickly toward the far end of the hall. "I'll check the lounge and rest rooms, you call the other floors."

Ten minutes later, when they had still found no sign of Sara in the hospital, they decided they knew what must have happened, even though it made no sense at all.

Leaving not only her nightgown behind, but every stitch of clothing as well, Sara had apparently gone out the window. Once outside, the teenaged girl stark naked seemed simply to have vanished into the night.