He began to rise.
But the monster was reaching beneath the pier. Insanely long arms, with impossible clawlike hands.
The arms reached for him and he backpedaled away. Panicky, kicking, pushing at the water, lungs burning.
Too slow. One gigantic hand closed around him.
The fingers went through.
No pain.
No contact or sensation at all.
The second claw swiped through the water. It would disembowel him.
But it passed through him.
Illusion!
With the last of his strength Quinn reached the surface. He gagged on air and vomited seawater from his stomach. The monster was gone.
Big Goof hauled him like dead weight into the boat. Quinn lay on the bottom of the boat, uncomfortable atop the oars.
“You okay?”
Quinn couldn’t answer. If he tried he knew he would retch again. His voice was not yet back. He still felt as if he were breathing through a straw. But he was alive.
And now it all fell into place. That monster. The sound it made. He knew them.
Cloverfield.
It was the monster from the movie. The exact monster, the exact sound.
He sat up and coughed.
Then he stood up in the rocking boat and saw Caine and his crew climbing aboard the two motorboats.
Caine caught sight of him and sent him a wintry, ironic smile. There was a strange girl with him. She, too, stared at him, but she did not smile. Instead, she bared crooked teeth at him in a grimace that was far more threat than smile.
An engine started, throaty and rough. Then a second.
Quinn stayed where he was. No chance he could take on Caine. Caine could kill him with a gesture.
The two motorboats chugged slowly, cautiously, away from the pier.
There came the sound of running feet. A rush of kids, some armed. Quinn recognized Lance, then Hank. Finally Zil, hanging back, letting the other two get out in front.
They reached the end of the pier. Hank stopped, aimed, and fired.
The shot hit the Zodiac. The air blew out in a sudden exhale. The boat’s motor chugged beneath the water as the stern collapsed and sank.
Quinn climbed halfway up onto the pier to see. His jaw dropped.
Caine, wet and furious, rose and levitated above the sinking Zodiac.
He yanked Hank and his gun up into the air. Hank soared, twisting, crying out in terror, helpless. Up and up and up, and all the while Caine floated as his companions foundered.
A hundred feet in the air, Hank came to a stop. And then, down he came. But not falling. Too fast to be a fall. Too fast for it to be mere gravity.
Caine hurled Hank down from the graying sky. Like a meteor. Impossibly fast, a blur.
Hank hit the water. A huge spout went up, like someone had fired off a depth charge.
Quinn knew the waters of the marina. It was no more than eight feet deep where Hank hit. The bottom was sand and shell.
There was not the slightest chance that Hank would come bobbing back up to the surface.
Caine floated as Zil looked on in helpless horror.
“Now that,” Caine shouted, “was a mistake, Zil.”
Zil and his crew turned tail and ran. Caine laughed and lowered himself into the second boat. Five of his people were still in the water, calling out and waving and then cursing and raging as the motorboat roared away.
TWENTY-SEVEN
13 HOURS, 32 MINUTES
“GET UP,” PEACE whispered. She shook Sanjit’s shoulder.
Sanjit had long been accustomed to being awakened at odd hours. That part of being the oldest kid in the Brattle-Chance family had long since lost its charm.
“Is it Bowie?” he said.
Peace shook her head. “No. I think the world is burning.”
Sanjit raised a skeptical eyebrow. “That seems kind of extreme, Peace.”
“Just come.”
Sanjit groaned and rolled out of bed. “What time is it?”
“It’s almost morning.”
“The key word being ‘almost,’” Sanjit complained. “You know what’s a better time to get up? Actual morning. Much better than ‘almost’ morning.”
But he followed her down the hall to the room she shared with Bowie and Pixie. The house had twenty-two bedrooms, but only Sanjit and Virtue had chosen to sleep by themselves.
Pixie was asleep. Bowie tossed and turned, still under attack from the fever that would not go away.
“The window,” Peace whispered.
Sanjit went to the window. It was almost floor-to-ceiling, a stunning view during the day. He stood there gazing toward the far-distant town of Perdido Beach.
“Go get Choo,” he said after a moment.
She came back with a poisonously cranky Virtue, rubbing sleep from his eyes and muttering.
“Look,” Sanjit said.
Virtue stared, just as Sanjit had done. “It’s a fire.”
“You think?” Sanjit shook his head, awestruck. “The whole town must be on fire.”
Red and orange flames were a bright dot on the horizon. In the gray predawn light he saw a massive pillar of black smoke. The scale seemed ridiculous. The bright fire was a dot, but the smoke seemed to be miles high, shaped like a twisted funnel.
“So that’s where I’m supposed to fly the helicopter?” Sanjit said.
Virtue left and returned a few moments later. He was carrying a small telescope. It wasn’t very powerful. They’d used it at times to try to see details in the town or on the wooded shore closest to the island. It had never shown much. It showed no more now, but even slightly magnified the fire looked terrifying.
Sanjit looked at Bowie, who was whimpering in his sleep.