they’re still here.
They’ve moved on. But just in case, I don’t want them coming up behind
us while we’re inside.”
“Inside what? ” I walked in front of the vehicle and directed Bobby
until he stopped with the right front tire squarely atop the manhole
cover.
He switched off the engine and, with the shotgun, got out of the Jeep.
The weak onshore breeze grew a little stronger, and the clouds in the
west, which had swallowed the moon, were gradually expanding eastward,
devouring the stars.
“Inside what? ” Bobby repeated.
I pointed to the bungalow where I’d squeezed into the broom closet to
hide from the troop. “I want to see what was rotting in the kitchen.”
“Want to? ”
“Need to, ” I said, heading toward the bungalow.
“Perverse, ” he said, falling in beside me.
“The troop was fascinated.”
“We want to lower ourselves to monkey level? ”
“Maybe this is important.” He said, “My belly’s full of kibby and beer.”
“So? ”
“Just a friendly warning, bro. Right now I’ve got a low puke threshold.”
The front door of the bungalow was open, as I had left it.
The living room still smelled of dust, mildew, dry rot, and mice, in
addition, there was now a lingering odor of mangy monkey.
My flashlight, which I’d not dared to use here before, revealed a series
of three-inch-long, yellowish-white cocoons fixed in the angle where the
back wall met the ceiling, home to developing moths or butterflies, or
perhaps egg cases spun by an exceptionally fertile spider. Lighter
rectangles on the discolored walls marked where pictures had once hung.
The plaster wasn’t as fissured as you would expect in a house that was
more than six decades old and that had been abandoned for nearly two
years, but a web of fine cracks gave the walls the appearance of
eggshells beginning to give way to hatching entities.
On the floor, in a corner, was a child’s red sock. It couldn’t have
anything to do with Jimmy, because it was caked with dust and had been
here for a long time.
As we crossed to the dining-room door, Bobby said, “Got a new board
yesterday.”
“The world’s ending, you go shopping.”
“Friends at Hobie made it for me.”
“Hot? ” I asked as I led him into the dining room.
“Haven’t ridden it yet.” In one corner, at the ceiling, was a cluster of
cocoons similar to those in the previous room. They were also big, each
three to four inches long and, at the widest point, approximately the
diameter of plump frankfurters.
Outside of this bungalow, I had never seen anything quite like these
silken constructs. I moved directly under them, fixing them with the
light.
“Not uncreepy, ” Bobby said.
Within a couple of the cocoons were dark shapes, curled like question
marks, but they were so heavily swaddled in flossy filaments that I
could make out no details of them.
“See anything moving? ” I asked.
“No.”
“Me neither.”
“Might be dead.”
“Yeah, ” I said, though I wasn’t convinced. “Just some big, dead, half
made moths.”
“Moths? ”
“What else? ” I asked.
“Huge.”
“Maybe new moths. A new, bigger species. Becoming.”
“Bugs?
Becoming? ”
“If people, dogs, birds, monkeys … why not bugs? ” Frowning, Bobby
thought about that. “Probably wouldn’t be smart to buy any more wool
sweaters.” A cold quiver of nausea wound through me as I realized that
I’d been in these rooms in absolute darkness, unaware of the fat cocoons
overhead.
I’m not entirely sure why I found this thought so deeply disturbing.
After all, it wasn’t likely that I’d been in danger of being pinned to
the wall by some bug and imprisoned in a suffocating cocoon of my own.
On the other hand, this was Wyvern, so perhaps I’d been in precisely
such danger.
Partly, the nausea was caused by the stench wafting from the kitchen.
I’d forgotten how fiercely ripe it was.
Holding the shotgun in his right hand, covering his nose and mouth with
his left, Bobby said, “Tell me the stink doesn’t get worse than this.”
“It doesn’t get worse than this.”
“But it does.”