The Fervor - Softcover

Katsu, Alma

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593328353 ISBN 13: 9780593328354

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

"Alma Katsu is the reigning queen of literary historical horror." —An NPR Book of the Year

1944: As World War II rages on, a mysterious, deadly fervor spreads across America, transforming people into monstrous aggressors, each provoked into fits of unthinkable barbarity. It's a contagion that, according to Meiko Briggs, might have dark, otherwordly underpinnings.

But Meiko and her daughter, Aiko, have been forced into an internment camp in Idaho, where the disease rapidly unfurls, and nearly invisible, demonic spiders seem to follow. More dangerous than the illness are the doctors who swarm the camps as a result, increasing their control on those captured, and their violence toward them. When Aiko suddenly escapes, Meiko must race against the clock to find her daughter and untangle the secrets behind the fervor before it catches her first.

With a keen and prescient eye, acclaimed author Alma Katsu crafts a terrifying story about the danger of demonization, a mysterious contagion, and a deep excavation of how we decide who gets to be human when being human matters most.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Alma Katsu is the award-winning author of seven novels, most recently Red Widow, The Deep, and The Hunger. She is a graduate of the master's writing program at the Johns Hopkins University and received her bachelor's degree from Brandeis University. Prior to the publication of her first novel, Katsu had a long career as a senior intelligence analyst for several U.S. agencies. She lives in West Virginia with her husband.

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1
 
Outside Bly, Oregon
 
Gearhart Mountain
 
November 19, 1944
 
"Well gosh darnit, wouldn't you just."
 
Archie Mitchell gripped the gearshift of his 1941 Nash 600 sedan, but he could feel the loose spin of his tires over mud.
 
The late autumn rains had softened Dairy Creek Road into little more than a dark rivulet woven through the dense ponderosas and junipers blanketing the mountainside. Uncertainty spun in his gut. They should have known better than to take these logging roads this time of year.
 
"The kids, Arch," Elsie warned from the passenger seat. Her blond waves, her pink lips. Hazel eyes darted to the rearview mirror. In its reflection: an assortment of brown and green plaids and corduroys, jumbled knees and slipping socks. The Patzke kids, Dick and Joan, plus three others-Jay Gifford, Edward Engen, and Sherman Shoemaker-made up the entirety of the field trip. All of them with their hair combed tidy for Sunday. Whispering and humming tunes. Dick Patzke pulled on his teen sister's ponytail in the back seat.
 
"Are we stuck?" asked Ed.
 
"Everything's going to be just fine," Elsie assured the kids. "The Lord has brought us a little trial by nature is all."
 
Trial by nature. Archie smiled. His wife was right. He ought to have watched what he said. It's no wonder she had been the star pupil at Simpson Bible College, unlike him. Somehow, despite his many failings, God saw fit to give him Elsie.
 
He hit the gas again and this time the car lurched forward, a river of putty-gray slurry slipping out beneath them as the tires regained traction.
 
"You see, then?" Elsie patted his knee. He tried to feel comforted, but the bad premonition, the nervousness that had been ratcheting through his chest all morning, wouldn't go away.
 
Which was precisely why they were here. This trip to Gearhart Mountain had been Elsie's idea. She and Archie had been cooped up indoors, him fretting over her well-being all the time; they needed a change of pace. It was too easy to go haywire without a little fresh air, and it wasn't natural for a young, happy couple in their prime. Besides which, she'd heard the Patzkes had just lost their eldest boy overseas. Surely it was the duty of their pastor to step in and offer a kindness to the family in grief. It didn't hurt that a pair of avid fishermen in the congregation had told him the trout were still biting at Leonard Creek.
 
"My ever-hopeful fisherman," Elsie had teased him later that night, when they were lying in bed together under the yellow glow of their matching bedside lamps. "Wouldn't that be a nice thing to do for the Patzke kids? A little day trip some Sunday? The Patzkes could use some time alone to grieve, don't ya think? And besides, I could use the practice if I'm to be a mama soon."
 
She was trying to draw him out of his thoughts . . . and it worked. Archie rolled over and kissed his wife's round, taut belly. Five months and counting. This time it would all go perfectly. There was no need to worry. A healthy son was on his way-Archie reassured himself of it by the glow in Elsie's cheeks.
 
He'd whispered yes into her nightdress, and now some Sunday had become today.
 
The woods thickened around them, the sky a blissful blue. Only a few wisps of cloud lingered from yesterday's storm. Still, as they drove up the ever-steepening road, Archie could feel the knot of tension in his chest coiling tighter. He rolled down his window, taking in the crisp mountain air. It was cold enough to carry the scent of winter-and for a moment, he blinked, thinking he'd just seen a snowflake. An eerie feeling moved through him, as if he was in a room in which a door had suddenly blown open. But it was just a tiny seedling, some minuscule bit of fluff held aloft on the wind.
 
The kids sang hymns again as Archie maneuvered the Nash onto an even narrower service road. It was bumpier than Dairy Creek and he watched Elsie with a worried eye. She had one hand on her belly as they bounced over ruts.
 
He braked slowly, not far from an abandoned little cabin the fishermen had told him about. "Maybe it would be better to walk the rest of the way."
 
Elsie reached for the latch. "How about if I take the kids down to the creek? Maybe you can get a little further in the car. That way you won't have to haul the picnic things as far."
 
She was right, as usual. "You sure you'll be okay?"
 
Her smile was like sunshine. It filled him with something more than love, a thing he could not name, for it would insult God to know it. How he worshipped her. How he'd lie down on the mud and let her walk across him like a bridge if she asked. How he sometimes feared God had been too generous in giving him Elsie, feared what lengths he'd be willing to take just to make her smile, just to feel her gentle hands on him in the darkness, her curious little kisses that set him on fire with shameful thoughts. With Elsie, he was powerless.
 
"Of course," she said now. "You know you must sometimes tolerate letting me outta your sight." Another smile, and then he watched as the kids scampered out of the car like baby goats let out of the pen.
 
"I'm gonna catch the biggest fish," one of the boys crowed.
 
"No, I'm going to . . ."
 
"I'm gonna catch a whale!"
 
"That's stupid. There ain't no whales in a creek," the first boy shouted back. The voices reminded Archie of when he was a boy, fishing off a bridge with his friends. Children happy to be children, let loose to play. He wasn't hardly thirty years old but he felt like an old man already.
 
"Last one down to the creek-"
 
. . . is a rotten egg, Archie finished to himself. Some things never changed.
 
They ran down the trail, goading each other to run faster. Elsie brought up the rear with the Patzke girl. Joan Patzke really was a good kid, Archie thought. Considerate. She knew enough to stay with Elsie, made sure she had company and a hand to hold.
 
If only every family in his congregation was as nice as the Patzkes . . . If all the parents in Bly could be as good as these children, everything would be all right, he thought. But still somehow, the thought failed to ease the tightness in his chest.
 
Once the baby was born, he'd be able to breathe again. The doctors all assured him that five months was well and good enough along to stop worrying-but they had said that the last time, too.
 
***
 
He parked as far off the trail as he could, but the Nash took up most of the road. There was no way around it. The trail was too narrow.
 
He opened the trunk and was enveloped in the aroma of chocolate. Elsie had decided that, if they were going on a picnic, they needed a chocolate cake. She baked the layers yesterday, setting them out on racks to cool last night. She'd made the frosting this morning, beating the butter and sugar by hand with a big wooden spoon. Elsie only baked chocolate cake once or twice a year, and the thought of it made his mouth water. He lifted the cake carrier and slung the wooden handles over one forearm, then hefted the picnic basket with the other. Inside were turkey sandwiches. A thermos of coffee for the adults and a jug of cider for the kids.
 
He put the basket on the ground and was closing the trunk when another tiny white seedling, no bigger than a snowflake, landed near his nose. He brushed it away, oddly unnerved by it. That feeling again: a wind surging right through him. He shivered and slammed the trunk.
 
A woman stood in front of him.
 
He jumped in surprise, but she remained perfectly still, observing him. She...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593328353
• ISBN 13: 9780593328354
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: G.P. Putnam's Sons; https://www.penguin.com/putnam/; ; 1745 BROADWAY Attn: Madison Forsander; NEW YORK; NY; 10019; USA
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland