As Mickey and Lenny debate how to approach the house, Mickey feels an odd sensation. Almost as if he were standing on a boat and a rather large wave thrust the ground upward and then down in sharp succession. Mickey falls to the ground as Lenny, not experiencing any vertigo watches.
At the same time in the house, Manny startles awake as Jimmy rolls out of his bed. The echoes of a loud sound seem to be ringing in both men’s ears.
A ripple seems to travel through the very land itself. Lenny is the only one to bear witness to the odd experience as above the heavy pouring rain, Lenny hears the onset of insects buzzing louder than he has ever heard. The sound starts distant and then rolls toward the farm in a fury. When it breaks across the farmyard, every living creature begins to wail, bleat, scream in an agony that reverberates Lenny’s bones. Above the wild cacophony, Lenny looks over to see Mickey on his knees, his nails digging into the side of his face as he screams in torment. Lenny sees veins and tendons bulging from Mickey’s face as every fiber of his being seems in anguish.
Abruptly, the wave passes and the farm goes silent, save for the pouring rain. Mickey lies on the dirt floor of the barn, next to the gently banging door, panting.
The white hot pain recedes from Manny’s mind as he finds himself with his face against the glass of the window of his room. His breath fogging the clear pane. He looks around to see Jimmy lying, panting next to a growing circle of vomit on the floor. Jimmy’s nose is bleeding from both nostrils.
Jimmy’s eyes flutter open and he registers the vomit, masses of the food he had eaten covered in viscous bile. As Jimmy looks he sees one amorphous mass of black goo that in coming from his delirium he thinks he sees expand and contract.
The door to the men’s bedroom flies open as Malcolm Jarvey pushes in. The man is in a one piece flannel pajama. Blood streaks from his nostrils as he looks around with frightened eyes.
Everyone alright in here?
He looks at Manny and Jimmy individually until a loud scream is heard out the window.
Lenny sees through the swinging door of the barn as Old Pete stumbles out of his shack into the main yard. The man screams in a voice Lenny didn’t think would be possible from the old curmudgeon,
MOTHER!!!! MOTHER!!! I’M… COMING… the man staggers into the yard and falls to his knees amidst the pouring rain.
