Pausing at the sharp dogleg left that led deeper into the woods and toward shore, he did a one-eighty. The air was still and glassy with that kind of brittle, mindnumbing cold that hacked flesh and made Jed long for a strong fire as he hiked on snowshoes along the cliff trail and down into the dense thicket of evergreens edging the lake. This early in the morning, the sun’s light spilled watery and weak across a powderblue sky. Now, they were into the second week of January and in Wisconsin, not Michigan. It was a miracle-Īnd it went bust the instant they staggered into the hall and saw the bodies: nurses and aides and doctors sprawled like picka-sticks.Īnd their granddaughter, Alice, placidly eating her mother’s eyes. Technically, she’d pissed her Depends, but who cared? His sweet Grace was back. The next, he woke up God knows how much later sprawled in a puddle of soupy cereal-blood dribbling from his ears, a headache drilling his brain-and there was Grace, that muzzy look gone, and she said, “Jed, honey, I think I peed my pants.” One second, he was scraping Cream of Wheat from her lower lip.

That day in early October when the world went FUBAR, he was with Grace at the assisted-living facility in Michigan, outside of Watersmeet. Just like the old movies about that twisted little doll with a maniac’s soul. These kids came at you out of nowhere just like the Viet Cong.Īnd the Chuckies were nightmares, too: monsters with a daughter’s face, or a son’s. Chucky got tossed around, probably started by a fellow vet who just couldn’t keep ’Nam from rattling around his head, but the name also rang true. Zombies were the walking dead, and these kids were the furthest thing. Some said zombies, but that wasn’t right.

Monsters ilsa j bick