The Extinction Series , Ellis, Tara [famous ebook reader .txt] 📗

was acting depressed. It was reassuring to see him playful again.

“O’Brian’s Pub,” Eddy said, interrupting Jason’s thoughts.

He looked to where Eddy was rifling through some ancient-looking farm tools. “What?”

“On the corner of twelfth.” Eddy straightened and looked at him, an odd expression on his face. “I’m going to miss our weekly dinners there. The draft port, the homemade steak fries…and the conversations.”

Jason leaned forward, intrigued. “You’ll miss it?”

“Yes,” Eddy answered, looking like he’d made up his mind. “I found myself thinking about it earlier, when we were all saying how hungry we are. And just now, your increasing disinterest in talking reminded me of the very animated discussions we’d often have.”

Jason’s confusion deepened as Eddy went back to looking through a cabinet. “I’ll miss all that normal stuff, too, but…I didn’t think you could feel anything.”

“Ah!” Eddy hooted, holding up a coil of clear plastic tubing. He tossed it to Jason. “This should help make syphoning easier, it’s much longer than what we’ve currently got.”

When Jason caught it and continued to stare at him without moving, Eddy realized he hadn’t answered the question. “I thought I already told you that I don’t feel extreme emotions. Everything else is…tampered. I still get a sense of whether something prompts a positive or negative reaction, I just don’t feel it. I believe most of it comes down to the chemicals that are or are not released in conjunction with the emotion. It’s really quite fascinating.”

Jason rolled the hose in his hands for a moment, uncertain that he was understanding Eddy. “So, when you say you’ll miss the food and our talks, you’re referring more to a sense of loss, rather than sadness?”

Cocking his head, Eddy paused and then nodded. “Yes, I suppose that would be a satisfactory way of explaining it.”

Jason remained seated as Eddy moved on to a workbench. Everything had happened too fast, and he’d been deep in survivor mode for so many days that he hadn’t thought that much about his friend’s condition. He didn’t understand it, and there wasn’t anything he could do to help him, so it was easier to just accept that the old Eddy was gone. But Jason missed his friend, and he hated the way he’d been feeling about him.

For the first time since he’d seen him jump down from the helicopter, Jason saw a glimpse of the old Eddy. Of the guy who could pound more beers and steak fries than anyone else he knew, and still beat him at a game of darts while singing a ridiculous Irish song.

Jason had always appreciated the brilliant neurologist whose mind worked like a computer, but he loved the man who forced him to leave his apartment on the weekends and begin to live again.

As they got closer to the Libi Nati, Jason was having to face the likelihood that his daughter hadn’t survived. That Eddy was the only person he had left that was connected to the life he’d never get back. He felt ashamed. Eddy would have never given up on him so easily.

“Do you think it’s improving?” Jason asked. Eddy turned and raised an eyebrow at him. “Your emotions. Do you think it’s possible you’ve started thinking about things because some of the damage could be healing?”

“I’ve considered that,” Eddy said. “As we both know, the brain has an incredible capacity for restoring damaged neural pathways, so I would be remiss to say no. Though I don’t believe my emotions are returning, it’s possible there could eventually be some improvement. You really should take them the tubing,” he added.

Grinning, Jason felt lighter as he hopped off the bale. He didn’t care how low of odds Eddy gave his recovery; he’d take it as a positive. The reality was that nothing was a given, including his daughter. He had to believe she was still alive.

He was almost to the doors when he heard Eddy make a weird hissing noise.

“Jason!” Eddy’s voice was strained, and it had the desired effect as Jason stopped and jerked back around.

Eddy was still positioned in front of the work table, frozen with his arms out at his sides. His face was a mix of surprise and something awfully close to fear. He was looking up, so Jason followed his line-of-sight.

It wasn’t Eddy who had hissed, but a cat. A very large, black domesticated cat with orange eyes and an especially bad attitude. It was perched on the edge of the loft, its claws digging menacingly at the wood it sat on. Relaxing, Jason was about to make a joke about using cats for therapy, when he saw movement further down the loft.

His sense of being the prey blossomed again as he saw several other cats lined up along the raised platform, no more than twenty feet away. Jason would have normally laughed off such a ridiculous sensation, except there was nothing normal about the world anymore.

More than a dozen cats were watching them, their tails switching. A chorus of mewls was growing in volume, and he could see more eyes glowing in the murkiness behind them.

The rafters began to shift and coalesce with muted colors as the cats balanced along them made their presence known. Dozens more, all moving in the same manner and making a similar sound. It was almost like their actions were coordinated, like—

“Run!” Eddy shouted.

Jason was already moving, his retreat marked by the sound of hundreds of paws hitting the dirt floor behind them. As soon as he was through the doors, Jason twisted around with the intent of closing them behind Eddy. But Eddy had already caught up, and the first of the cats was close behind. Too close.

A high-pitched bark interrupted their plight, and added confusion to the scene as Marty plummeted toward them. “No!” Jason shouted, envisioning Marty buried under a pile of feral cats.

Feeling