Devil’s Wake Read Online Free

your appetite. Chubbies love it. Cheaper than tummy staples, and safe as baby aspirin. Yeah, right.
    Mom’s all over the theories, already appointing herself an expert: “What if it’s both? What if this is only happening to people who take both?”
    The I-5 was belly-to-butt all the way back up to Longview. I saw two people wrestling around on the side of the road. At least… I think they were just fighting. I hope.
    We got home and locked the door. And the windows. Mom dressed Daddy’s ankle and talked about taking him to the clinic, but after what happened in Portland, I think they’re afraid to leave the house. I didn’t get bitten, but I’m tired just like Dad. All I want to do is sleep. Writing this down has helped. Some. Not enough. But some.
    I smell smoke outside. Someone is screaming and the air is filledwith sirens. Please, God. Help me. Someone help us. I’m so scared.
    Daddy says it’s time to go to the basement. He says no matter what Mom thinks, he has to go to sleep.

FIVE
    8:10 p.m.
    Camp Round Meadows Summer Camp
    Olympic Forest Area, Washington
    I t was dark by the time Terry Whittaker glimpsed the rectangular blue sign marked ROUND MEADOWS. He’d nearly driven off the dirt road a dozen times. He hadn’t thought about how handy streetlamps were until he realized there weren’t any, not a single one, in the woods. He had cramps in his ankle and fingers from his steady pressure on the accelerator and his death grip on the steering wheel.
    Jolly Molly Stoffer met them at the turnaround, her plump face bright with alarm. “Are you all right, babykins?” she said to her husband, Vern, pulling open the back door.
    “… just… really tired.” His face sagged like a melting Mr. Potato Head.
    Really tired. Total understatement. For the last hour Piranha had fought to keep Vern’s eyes open. He might have even slapped Vernonce.
    “Wish you coulda seen a doctor. You were right near the best hospitals!” Molly scolded him, but Terry wasn’t sure Vern heard her, the way his head rocked.
    “No way we wanted to stay in Seattle,” Piranha said. His real name was Charlie Cawthone, and his skill at coin matching and three-card monte had brought him to the attention of the Seattle juvenile justice system. Hacking his stepdad’s office computer had been the frosting on the cookie. Like the rest of the Round Meadows Five, he’d been sentenced to a summer of chopping nettles and herding brats. That was bad enough, but this afternoon’s chaos at Pike Place Market was just the pickle on the turd sandwich Terry currently called his life.
    Molly sighed, tugging at Vern’s eyelids to try to see his eyes. “Yeah, there was a ruckus down at the hospital in Portland, so maybe it’s for the best. Let’s get you under the light,” she said. “Take a look at that head. You hit it?”
    Vern yawned, a cavern. “No. Just that goddamn bite. Itches like hell.”
    Molly half-gasped, more shocked by his language than his condition. “Well, let’s take care of you and get you to sleep. God had nothing to do with that bite.”
    That’s for sure, Terry thought, remembering the crazed cop who had attacked Vern at the marketplace during their run to pick up fish from Vern’s cousin. At least the guy had been dressed like a cop when he started chomping everyone around him. Damn.
    Vern moved so unsteadily that Piranha and Terry each took an arm to lead him out of the van, but his eyes were only on Molly. “I’m sleepy, but…” Vern swallowed. “Not just that. I closed my eyes, and got scared. Really, really scared, Molly. Like…” He ran out of words for it.
    “You poor old bear,” she said.
    “Need help getting him inside?” Terry said. He hoped she’d say no. Terry wanted to be far away from Vern and his troubles. He wanted to start telling the story, embellishing with enough jokes to siphon some of the acid out of his veins. McGruff the crime dog says Seattle’s found a new way to take a bite out of