Savage by Thomas E. Sniegoski Page B

the multitude steadily increased, the floor now writhing with insect life.
    Insect life that seemed to have a purpose, crawling across the kitchen floor toward where they stood.
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    â€œWhat the hell is this?” Sidney demanded. It was all so strange she was having a difficult time wrapping her brain around the moment.
    She found herself walking around the flow of insects, pushing past Rich, who was busy stomping on the bugs as they advanced, and grabbing hold of the doorknob of the cellar door.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” Cody asked from where he stood behind the kitchen island.
    She needed to see in order to begin to understand the situation. It was one of her more bothersome traits. Even after she’d been summoned to the office and told that her father had been rushed to the hospital, that they suspected that he’d had a stroke, she really hadn’t believed a word. She’d needed to see him for herself. What if they were wrong? What if it had been nothing, and he would have been fine? She would have been upset all for naught.
    It hadn’t been nothing, but what if?
    Rich had stopped stomping bugs long enough to spin around just as she started to turn the knob.
    â€œYou don’t want to—” he called out just as she pulled the door open, wide enough to peer down into the darkness.
    She needed to see if this was something.
    Sidney’s cell phone was in her hand, and she hit the button to turn on the light feature, illuminating the stairs in a harsh white glow.
    It was something.
    The stairs were invisible, every inch covered in squirming, climbing, skittering bodies, a moving carpet of insect life flowing up from the cellar’s dirt floor.
    Sidney barely had a moment to move herself from the opening as Rich’s shoulder plowed into the door, abruptly slamming it closed.
    â€œOh my God,” she managed as she stared into her friend’s frightened eyes.
    â€œYeah, oh my God,” he answered.
    Cody was coming around the island now, an excited Snowy following him.
    â€œNo!” Sidney ordered, holding out her hand to them. “Keep her over there.” Cody instantly grabbed the dog by the collar, peering around the island to see.
    The floor was covered in bodies of the living and the dead.
    â€œWhat the hell?” Cody began, but Sidney was already directing.
    â€œFind something to stick under that door,” she said, on the move, opening kitchen drawers.
    Rich continued to stomp on the bugs that squirmed their way out from beneath the door, while Cody began to help Sidney with her search.
    Snowy nudged her hand with a cold nose, and she took a moment to connect with the shepherd, making eye contact with her. “Good girl, Snowy,” Sidney said, raising her hand and making the gesture for the dog to sit and stay put. “That’s a good dog,” she praised.
    â€œHow about this?” Cody asked, holding up a green quilted place mat.
    â€œThat might do it,” Sidney said. “Are there any more?”
    â€œHey, guys, you want to step it up a little? It’s getting bad over here,” Rich cried out, and Sidney could hear the beginnings of hysteria in his voice, along with his heavy footfalls and the wet crunch of breaking bug bodies.
    Cody approached with a handful of the place mats. “I found five of them,” he said.
    Sidney grabbed them and moved toward the cellar door, Snowy beginning to follow.
    â€œKeep her back, would you, Cody?” she said as she stared at the sight of bugs as they wriggled and squirmed for their freedom from the cellar and into kitchen. It seemed to take them a moment to get their bearings—to think of what they’d come up here for—then they made their way toward Rich, and her.
    Weird didn’t even begin to describe it anymore.
    Sidney knelt down, shoving the first of the place mats underneath the space between the door’s bottom and the floor. Some of the insects that