Apocalypse with primates.
A still larger stone struck the window. The pane cracked but didn’t
shatter.
I picked up the two spare 9-millimeter magazines on the table and
tucked one into each of my jean pockets.
Sasha slipped one hand under the rumpled napkin that concealed the
Chiefs Special.
I followed her lead and got a grip on the hidden Glock.
We looked at each other. A tide of fear washed through her eyes, and I
was sure that she saw the same dark currents in mine.
I tried to smile reassuringly, but my face felt as though it would
crack like hard plaster. “Gonna be fine. A deejay, a surf rebel, and
the Elephant Man-the perfect team to save the world.”
“If possible,” Bobby said, “don’t immediately waste the first one or
two that come in. Let a few inside. Delay as long as You can.
Let them feel confident. Sucker the little geeks. Then let me open on
them first, teach them respect. With the shotgun, I don’t even have to
aim.”
“Yes, sir, General Bob,” I said.
Two, three, four stones-about as hefty as peach pits-struck the
windows.
The second large pane cracked, and a subsidiary fisI sure opened off
that line, like lightning branching.
I was experiencing a physiological rearrangement that would have
fascinated any physician. My stomach had squeezed up through my chest
and was pressing insistently at the base of my throat, while my
pounding heart had dropped down into the space formerly occupied by my
stomach.
Half a dozen more substantial stones, whaled harder than before,
battered the two large windows, and both panes shattered inward. With
a burst of brittle music, glass rained into the stainless-steel sink,
across the granite counters, onto the floor. A few shards sprayed as
far as the dinette, and I shut my eyes briefly as sharp fragments
clinked onto the tabletop and plopped into the remaining slices of cold
pizza.
When I opened my eyes an instant later, two shrieking monkeys, each as
large as the one that Angela had described, were already at the window
again. Wary of the broken glass and of us, the pair swung inside, onto
the granite counter. Wind churned in around them, plucking at their
rain-matted fur.
One of them looked toward the broom closet, where the shotgun was
usually locked away. Since their arrival, they hadn’t seen any of us
approach that cupboard, and they couldn’t possibly spot the 12-gauge
balanced on Bobby’s knees, under the table.
Bobby glanced at them but was more interested in the window opposite
him, across the table.
Hunched and agile, the two creatures already in the room moved along
the counter in opposite directions from the sink. In the dimly lighted
kitchen, their malevolent yellow eyes were as bright as the flames
leaping on the points of the candle wicks.
The intruder to the left encountered a toaster and angrily swept it to
the floor. Sparks spurted from the wall receptacle when the plug tore
out of the socket.
I remembered Angela’s account of the rhesus bombarding her with apples
hard enough to split her lip. Bobby maintained an uncluttered kitchen,
but if these beasts opened cabinet doors and started firing glasses and
dishes at us, they could do serious damage even if we did enjoy an
advantage in firepower. A dinner plate, spinning like a Frisbee,
catching You across the bridge of the nose, might be nearly as
effective as a bullet.
Two more dire-eyed creatures sprang up from the porch floor into the
frame of the shattered window. They bared their teeth at us and
hissed.
The paper napkin over Sasha’s gun hand trembled visibly-and not because
it was caught by a draft from the window.
In spite of the shrieking-chattering-hissing of the intruders, in spite
of the bluster of the March wind at the broken windows and the rolling
thunder and the drumming rain, I thought I heard Bobby singing under
his breath. He was largely ignoring the monkeys on the far side of the
kitchen, focusing intently on the window that remained intact, across
the table from him-and his lips were moving.
Perhaps emboldened by our lack of response, perhaps believing us to be