One of the creatures ventured toward the base of the tree and was quickly blown to mush by his revolver. None of the others tried that approach. They remained where they were, directly under him. Maybe their tiny brains put two and two together. Or maybe their now-deceased buddy possessed a little more intelligence than his brethren. If they all had any ounce of intelligence they would be able to swarm right up the trunk of this tree and chow down. But as it was, they merely stood on their rear legs, snapping at the air.

One of them broke from the ma.s.s and wandered toward the trunk. Roy kept the barrel of the pistol trained on it. He watched as it reached the base of the tree and began to eat its dead comrade. Some of the others joined suit. Roy kept the pistol trained on them, waiting for one of them to make a break and head up the tree. But none did.

As they ate he swiveled around the branch, taking care as to not further hurt or damage his already injured leg. It hurt like a sonofab.i.t.c.h, and throbbed with a pulsing pain. He climbed higher into the tree, ignoring the pain, feeling more comfortable the more distance he put between himself and the creatures below. He finally found a spot close to the halfway point and found a comfortable area. He rested against the main trunk, the limb he was on splayed between his thighs, and ma.s.saged his wounded leg as he thought about his predicament.

Everything that was happening was his second chance at redeeming himself. After that accident in 'Nam, when he'd been dishonorably discharged from the army after having spilled that experimental chemical that was intended for the Viet Cong village, he had come back to Phillipsport a bitter man. He'd joined the army willingly at the height of the Viet Nam war. Serving his country was his duty to G.o.d and country, contrary to what the n.i.g.g.e.rs, hippies and f.a.ggots were bellowing during that time period. He'd enlisted and made his father and the other men that hung around Sapp's General Store proud. Those boys were all Korean War and World War II vets. But the accident, innocent as it was, had been the straw that broke the camel's back. He had come back disgraced, discharged. And what added insult to injury was that no sooner had he stepped foot into U.S. soil when he found himself in the middle of a Viet Nam War protest.

He'd flown home with a slew of servicemen who had either already served their time, or who were being honorably discharged from service. Over half of them had suffered injuries during the war. A band of protesters had set up camp outside of the airstrip where a welcoming party had been formed. As the soldiers marched past amid the cheering of the crowd, a group of protesters strategically positioned themselves in the crowd along the path of the returning veterans. Just as Roy pa.s.sed the junction where the parade ended, he found himself caught in the middle of a fray as protesters rushed out and began calling them baby killers. A few of his fellow soldiers had yelled back and then all h.e.l.l broke loose.

Roy gritted his teeth against the pain and the memory. He could still remember it vividly. How a pair of long-haired punks had rushed him, knocking him to the ground. He'd fought them hard, breaking one of the commie punks' noses from the sound of it, and then a few n.i.g.g.e.rs and gooks joined them and he was being a.s.saulted by four of them, beating him with their fists and then he was knocked to the ground. His last memory was of a long-haired, bearded man drawing back to kick him and then an explosion of pain.

He woke up in a VA hospital with a fractured skull and various other injuries.

He hadn't trusted people like that since then. Especially when many of those long haired hippie commies began cutting their hair, donning suits and blending into mainstream society to poison it. Every five years or so another band of long-haired radicals would crop up to replace those, and by the dawn of the Reagan years the country was shot to h.e.l.l. Everybody was doing drugs, f.u.c.king each other in the a.s.s, p.i.s.sing on the flag, and worst of all, society began becoming more tolerant of it. What was worse was that people like himself, hard working men and women, were now getting the shaft in favor of blacks, women, c.h.i.n.ks, and Mexicans. People who possessed less intelligence, less civilized behavior. The kind of people who had beat him down upon his arrival home in the states after serving his stint in the war were now the kind of people who had taken over. And they were determined to carry on until Sheriff Conklin and his kind were eradicated from the face of the earth.

All Roy Conklin had ever wanted was to serve his country with pride and dignity. He'd wanted to uphold the law of G.o.d and Country. Make the world a better place. And what had it gotten him? A broken head and a beaten spirit.

So he'd come home to Phillipsport, enrolled in night school at the college down at Bridgton, and began working for the Sheriff's department a few years later. He had married once, but that ended in an early divorce; she couldn't take the criticisms he leveled against her brother, who was a f.a.ggot. So she'd left him and married a lawyer from Orono, one of those liberal lawyers who defended child molesters and murderers. No sooner did honest men like Roy get sc.u.m like that off the street, then men like his ex's new husband were working to get them let go so they could do it again. Where was the justice in that?

His thoughts were abruptly cut off by the rustling of branches over his head.

He turned his face up, lifting his gun as he saw a dark form climbing in the branches above. He aimed and fired. The branch exploded into splinters, sending the thing tumbling down.

It hit the branch he was sitting on and extended a claw. It gripped the branch as it came down, stopping its descent. Round, black eyes locked into his and it hissed.

Roy's eyes shifted as he drew the gun up, ready to fire again. The creature regained its grip and pulled itself on the branch and Roy chuckled, relaxing.

It was a racc.o.o.n. It gripped the limb, its black eyes locked on him, watching his every move. It hissed again and bared a mouth full of needle sharp teeth.

Roy's chuckle turned to a snicker as he lowered the gun. He regarded the racc.o.o.n the same way he regarded everything else in the world. If it didn't f.u.c.k with him, fine. If it was a bother or an inconvenience then it needed to be destroyed. If the creature came any closer to him, scratched him, he might fall and tumble out of this tree. And since those G.o.dd.a.m.n Animal Rights a.s.sholes would most likely save the racc.o.o.n before they would lift a finger to help a human being, he knew what had to be done.

He needed to save what sh.e.l.ls he had in the gun for himself, no question about that. There were other ways to deal with this critter. He kicked out with his good foot, connecting with the animal's head. The racc.o.o.n skittered back, claws digging into the bark, hissing loudly. Roy kicked it again. The animal hissed again, grasping for a tighter hold. He kicked it again harder, this time succeeding. The racc.o.o.n fell.

It landed in the middle of the pack of crustaceans at the base of the tree. They swarmed over it, arched tails stabbing downward amid squeals and howls. It sounded eerily like the sounds of a cat fight. Roy looked down, grinning as the creatures swirled amid garbling yowls and bubbling, frothing flesh.

It was dead within a minute, reduced to melted flesh.

Roy Conklin watched from his lofty vantage point. The crustaceans wasted no time in scooping the dissolved flesh into their jaws and partaking in what was theirs.

He watched the creatures clean up the remaining traces of the racc.o.o.n. They picked that puppy clean, leaving no tidbit uneaten, no morsel undigested. Once they were done they began to crawl back toward the beach. No more snapping their claws around the base of the tree, straining upwards. Guess their memory span wasn't that great. Roy's heart raced as he watched them scuttle back to the beach, digging themselves into the sand. He grinned. They'd forgotten him. The momentary diversion of the racc.o.o.n had been enough to satisfy them.

He smiled. As soon as they dug themselves in, he would quietly climb down and head back to town.

He looked out at the pounding surf and saw more of the things crawl out of the sea like so much grunion beaching themselves to sp.a.w.n. The minute they hit the beach, they burrowed in the sand. His eyes scanned the beachfront, noticing similar movement. They were digging into the sand all up and down the sh.o.r.e. His mind calculated the numbers; if you estimated a forty-mile stretch of beach that was affected, than it was going to take a lot of work to destroy them all.

Roy was just about to start his trek down the tree when he noticed that the newly arrived creatures were burrowing into the ground more frantically. Some seemed so agitated that they tried to dig into the bare rocks along the beach, tearing off their own claws. Those behind them clambered over their brethren only to repeat it, or find soft soil. Weird...

A sound broke his reverie. A moan.

He tilted his head, trying to find out where it was coming from. It came again, closer. Roy shivered, feeling suddenly cold in the rain and driving wind. His flesh goosepimpled at the sound; it was hollow, terrifying. It chilled every ounce of his being. Combined with the weather and the creatures below, it was enough to give anybody the w.i.l.l.i.e.s.

A bolt of lightning burst over the water as the moan abruptly ended.

By the time the accompanying roll of thunder died, Sheriff Roy Conklin had dropped out of the tree and began moving in a brisk, limping run toward Phillipsport.

Chapter Fifteen.

Rick's first stop after Glen Jorgensen left him off at the pier was the Sheriff's station.

He approached the darkened facade slowly, trying to formulate in his mind how he was going to broach the subject to Sheriff Roy Conklin that they needed help. The man rubbed him the wrong way, but he needed his help. Now their very lives, the very lives of the entire town, rested on everybody banding together to fight these things. Rick hoped that his fears toward the sheriff were unfounded.

He approached the front door of the sheriff's station and peered inside the windows. The interior lights were out but there was enough light outside for him to get a good glimpse. The front office was empty.

He stepped back, standing under the awning of the building, avoiding the rain that was falling. Sheriff Conklin was probably still with Rusty at the power plant trying to get a handle on whatever it was they had been called up there for. Rick turned and headed down to the pier to find Jack Ripley.

There were no signs of the creatures anywhere but that did little to ease his anxiety. He wished he had a firearm with him. Going to the scene of the confrontation without one made him feel naked, but where was he going to get one now? Besides, if he stayed in the middle of the street and kept a lookout he should be able to run away at the first sign of danger. The creatures could be outrun.

He looked out onto the pier and saw Ripper's car parked on it in front of his store. He started jogging toward the pier, heading out in the downpour. The puncture wound in his leg twinged a little and he slowed up. Even though the sting had been a dry sting, producing no venom, it still hurt like h.e.l.l and would probably leave a nasty scar. Ditto for the cuts the creature's claws had gouged into his leg. His only reminder of them now was the bandage that covered them beneath his tattered jeans.

Rick was almost to the edge of the pier when he saw Jack exit his shop, locking up. Rick raised his hand and shouted. "Hey, Jack!"

Jack looked up and smiled when he saw Rick. Rick jogged the rest of the way to the entrance of Jack's shop.

Jack nodded. "How's Bobby?"

"He'll be okay," Rick said, panting slightly. "Doc's driving him and Janice back to her place. I came back to get her car. What about you?"

Jack grinned wide. "Everything's fine. None of the little brats raided the place even though the door was wide open." They chuckled over that and Jack looked at Rick's leg. "How's the leg?"

"Hurt's like h.e.l.l," Rick said. He lifted his right leg and gave it a shake. "Doc says he won't have to amputate, so I guess I'll live. Seen any more of the crab things?"

Jack shook his head. "Nope. Can't find the sheriff, either."

Rick briefly told him of Sheriff Conklin's visit to Dr. Jorgensen's office and his sudden call to the power plant to join Rusty in some investigation. Jack nodded, stroking his chin. "That would explain the power outage. It surely isn't downed lines."

Rick looked down the deserted pier. All the other shops were vacant and dark. The black and orange Halloween decorations reminded Rick that the holiday was next week. If felt like they were living it now.

A barrage of screams mingled with clicking sounds from the south parking lot snapped their attention away from finding Janice's car. They bolted toward the sound, rounding the row of shops, stopping at the edge of the pier and looking out over the parking lot at where the sounds had come from.

A family of tourists back from an outing that had obviously been interrupted by the rain were surrounded by the creatures. Their main attention was diverted to the boy-he was in the middle of a tug-of-war by the creatures who had grabbed onto each arm with their large pincers, pulling him. His parents were screaming in fright. More of the creatures came running up the beach to join in the fracas; one approached the boy, stinger raised high, and nailed the boy in the stomach. The boy howled in pain.

Rick felt numb with shock, rooted to the spot as the fracas went on. For an instant the scene below took him back to two hours before when he and Janice had run down the pier to the sound of similar screams of pain coming from Bobby. The sound of the boy's screams intermingled with the clicking of the creature's claws created an eddy of mad cacophony in Rick's ears. Clickers, he thought. What else can we call them?

The man rushed forward to save his son only to be stung by in the stomach by a clicker. The force of the blow sent him reeling on his b.u.t.t. The man sat on the sand for a moment, eyes wide open. His hands clutched at his full belly as he moaned in pain. The creature advanced on him and popped him again, this time stinging his neck. The man shrieked as the venom inflated his neck like an inner tube and simultaneously dissolved the flesh. His stomach expanded and finally burst like a ripe melon. It looked like a balloon filled with sausages soaked in barbecue sauce exploding.

Rick watched the action as it went down in slow motion before him.

The boy's chest began expanding, the flesh bubbling as he fell to his knees. The clickers swarmed around him, stuffing pieces of his flesh in their mandibles.

The woman remained standing in the sand screaming as more clickers surrounded her and took her down. Stingered tails rose and fell and the audible clicking of pincers snapping at flesh rose in Rick's ear.

The man sat on the sand, his inner organs spilling out of his split belly, covering the creatures in a sticky, red mess. The man continued screaming and kicking out at the feasting crustaceans even as he was being eaten alive before his very eyes.

Jack bent over and vomited into the wet asphalt of the parking lot. Rick stared at him as if in a fog. This was far worse than he could have imagined. There were dozens of the things scurrying up out of the water now to get their piece of the late tourist family. There were G.o.d knew how many more farther along the coast, scurrying farther inland. He didn't want to think about what was happening to other unfortunate people the creatures came across. The clicking sounds hurt Rick's eardrums.

He grabbed Jack by the shoulder, pulling him to his feet. "We've got to get the h.e.l.l out of here and warn everybody!"

Jack focused on Rick with fear in his eyes. He looked like he was going to be sick again. The nausea seemed to pa.s.s over his face again and watching it made Rick want to throw up.

Finally Jack gained his composure. "How? The phones are out..."

Rick thought for a moment. "We'll have to go door to door...there aren't that many people in this town-"

"Not many people?" Jack panted. "There's close to a thousand..."

"Compared to Philly that's nothing," Rick said. But he knew what Ripper meant. "If we could get some help-" The clicking cut him off as it intensified. They looked toward the beach as dozens and dozens of the things came bubbling out of the surf. It looked like the entire beach was alive with the red things. It looked like there were thousands of them making their way onto the sh.o.r.e.

Rick grabbed Jack by the coat and pulled him along down the pier, leaving Janice's car forgotten. They headed back to town, toward the mall.

Chapter Sixteen.

Glen Jorgensen was sitting in the rear examining room, the one where the freezer was kept, examining the remains of the two creatures that Rick Sychek had his run-ins with.

He sighed and sat back from the desk he was working at. The severed claw and tail segment were resting on carefully placed trays, which, in turn, rested on two towels. He had stowed both samples in the freezer the moment they'd come into his possession, both to preserve them for better study later, but also because they fascinated him. And with good reason.

Glen had been born and raised in this town. Had walked its beaches at night, swam in the ocean, fished off the pier. And he'd never seen, nor heard of, anything remotely resembling the monstrosities that emerged from the ocean that caused so much fear and bodily damage. When Rick brought the claw to his office yesterday he'd racked his brain trying to come up with a plausible explanation. He'd searched through all his textbooks on crustaceans, arachnids, Atlantic sea life, Maine wildlife, everything he could find. And he'd found nothing.

And then today-the scene at the beach, Bobby's hand...

Glen Jorgensen shuddered at the thought that was skittering in his mind.

He stood up and walked out of the room toward the receptionist area. The waiting room and reception area were brightly lit against the darkness that was raging outside thanks to two battery-powered lanterns placed on the reception counter. The rain was coming down in hard torrents, the wind howling, ravaging the trees outside, making the big oak tree outside the house scratch its branches against the north side of the building. The screeching sound the branches and leaves made against the wet gla.s.s of the windows was enough to give anybody the w.i.l.l.i.e.s. Couple that with what lay in the metallic trays in the rear office, and- But no. To think about that now would be to go mad.

After dropping Rick off at the pier, Glen had trudged back to the office. Janice was already coming out of sleep and Barbara was tending to her when he arrived. Glen told her that Rick had gone to fetch her car and he would be dropping it off at the house. Janice had nodded groggily and asked if he would take her and Bobby home. Glen had given her a quick look-over, p.r.o.nounced her fit yet exhausted due to stress and prescribed a night in bed. Bobby was still pa.s.sed out. With Glen's help, Janice got out of bed and hobbled to the bathroom while Barbara helped him bundle Bobby up for the trip.

With Barbara's help he got Janice and Bobby into his car and drove them home. He carried Bobby upstairs to his room and helped Janice set things up; his favorite blanket, his X-Men comics at his bedside should he feel the urge to delve into comic book world when he awoke.

Glen had left a bottle of tranquilizers with Janice with explicit instructions not to exceed two every six hours. Janice nodded, saying she understood, she'd get some rest, she was going to take care of her little boy and thank you. Glen smiled, told her to call him at home if she needed him-she had the number-and then he and Barbara left.

After dropping Barbara off at her modest little cottage on the outskirts of town, he'd driven back to the house. He'd double locked the front and back doors of the house and shut himself up in the office where he proceeded to study the segmented tail and severed claw again.

The comparison to the claw and the tail fit. Both pieces looked to have come from an animal roughly the size of a badger; something approximately three feet long, a foot and a half to two feet wide. The stinger at the end of the tail was a good three inches long and needle-sharp with no barbs. Smooth. Like the stinger of a wasp. It could sting again and again and again.

But was it venomous?

In his opinion, it was. Every critter he had ever run across with a stinger had been venomous in one form or another. During his initial examination of Rick Sychek's right thigh, he'd looked for tell-tale signs of a venomous sting; redness around the wound, swelling, nausea, blurred vision, sweating, shortness of breath. The only symptoms present were the redness and swelling around the wound and those could have been caused by the wound itself-after all, nearly three inches of a sharp, protruding objected had been jabbed into Rick's thigh. But the other signs of a venomous sting-the nausea, dizziness, abdominal cramps, stiffness of the joints, corrosion of the flesh-never showed up. After his cursory examination of Rick, he had immobilized the leg and let him rest up in examination room number one while he turned his attention to Bobby. He waited for something to show up, but Rick had been fine.

Once Bobby was bandaged up, he asked Barbara to draw a blood sample from Rick. He would examine a sample in his lab at the office and send a smidgen of the blood to Bangor General for further a.n.a.lysis. After he sutured Bobby's fingers, he'd given Rick's blood sample a look under a microscope. In short, a healthy sample, with no trace of a foreign substance.

He'd mentioned this to Rick on the ride to the pier. He'd brought up the dry sting theory and Rick agreed. If the creatures were poisonous in some way, he was d.a.m.ned lucky. No telling what they would be up against if it had injected its venom.

Glen stood for a moment, letting these thoughts run past him. If he could only get these samples to somebody in Bangor, they might- Something rose in Glen's mind, eclipsing all thought. He turned and made a mad dash up the stairs to his private living quarters, all thoughts to the specimens downstairs in the metal trays forgotten. He ran to his study and began searching for a book, all the while his mind racing, putting together pieces of a long forgotten puzzle.

He remembered reading something about a fisherman pulling up a giant lobster like the one Rick had come across back in the 1930s. The story had made the local paper, as well as a book on local superst.i.tions. The fisherman had been casting for trout when he and the men he was with hauled a net to the ship with a giant lobster trapped in the mesh. The captain of the ship stated it had been the most gigantic lobster he'd ever seen-well over three feet long-but also unlike anything he had ever come across. It wasn't really a lobster-he didn't know what it was. His men had been dumbfounded and watched in shock as the thing clipped through the st.u.r.dy mesh and splashed into sea. They'd tried casting for the creature again, but it failed to turn up in their nets.

There hadn't been a sign of anything remotely resembling it since then.

Until now.

Glen found the volume on local folklore he was looking for and turned to the story. He scanned it quickly, confirming the events. Late fall, 1935. Ten miles off the coast of Phillipsport.

And then there was another story- He flipped through the book, excitement spurring him on.

He found it in back of the book. An artist's sketch of the creature that had attacked Bobby, Janice, and Rick.

Homarus Tyrannous had been a prehistoric crustacean that lived in the Northern Atlantic Ocean in the latter part of the Paleozoic period, but there was evidence that they survived till at least the middle of the Mesozoic Period. Not much was known about them save for the few fossilized remains that were found embedded in stone and ice in Greenland in the early 1920s when they were discovered. From what scientists had been able to surmise, they bore a strong likeness to modern day crabs and lobsters, and were most likely the linkage between those species' primitive beginnings.

They'd been extinct for over two hundred million years.

This was what sent Glen's heart racing, what sent him racing toward the shelf in search for another volume as another thought exploded in his mind. Sent his hands shaking as he found the book, a slim chapbook published by a local tourist curator shop, and began thumbing through it.

It told the story of the Lost Village...

He'd happened across this little doodad in a tourist shop on the outskirts of town. Amid trinkets of hand-carved figures carved by the local Indians, arrowheads, taxidermied animals, jewelry, postcards and T-shirts bearing the Phillipsport banner, travel brochures and local history books, Glen Jorgensen had found this booklet.

It was written by Paul Hackett, a member of the local Micmac Tribe. Hackett held a Ph.D. in American Literature and Urban Folklore from the University of Maine at Orono and was well versed in the stories handed down to him from his family elders. He was also the owner of the curio shop Glen had bought the booklet from. Glen remembered being interested enough in the booklet to inquire as to where Dr. Hackett was so he might speak to him, but the author was out of town on business. Perhaps if Dr. Jorgensen stopped in again another time? Glen had paid for the booklet anyway, making a mental note to stop in and speak to Paul Hackett himself at some point, but he never got around to it.

Now he flipped through the little booklet, scanning it rapidly.

In 1605, late in the month of October, the entire village of an early English settlement vanished without a trace. The settlers had landed in the area now known as Phillipsport that summer and settled in the area, befriending the Micmac Tribe. While they settled, the ship that had brought them set sail for England for supplies and more of their brethren.

When the ship arrived the following spring they found the village deserted and in ruins. Weather hadn't been the cause of the destruction; the village had been torn apart by something malicious. There hadn't been a trace of the settlers anywhere. Only a few sc.r.a.ps of clothing and the ramshackled structures of their modest settlement remained.