Chapter Sixty-Two Piper
Chapter Sixty-Two
Piper
“Mom, can we show the Cleavers our new puppy?” Caitlin asked as they pulled into the driveway.
“Sure.” She got out of the car, scooped up the puppy, and carried him toward the Cleaver house. The girls trailed behind, carrying the new dog dish, dog bed, dog leash, and many other puppy accessories they’d picked up at PetSmart on the way home.
An ear-splitting scream pierced the air as she approached Kiersten’s porch.
Adrenaline spiked through her body as she ran up the steps. If only she were carrying a gun instead of a puppy.
She turned and handed the dog to Caitlin. “Take Travis out in the backyard.” She resisted the urge to add and then go inside and lock all the doors, because it would terrify her daughter. “I think Mrs. Cleaver accidentally touched something hot,” she lied.
Caitlin took the dog. When she disappeared into the backyard with her sisters, Piper opened the front door to the Cleaver house, flattened herself against the wall between the foyer and the kitchen, and peered around the corner.
At worst, she’d expected to see a masked man making off with the television set. At best, she’d expected to see a pot of boiling water spilled on Kiersten’s shirt—or a chunk of potato, a flap of skin, and a bloody mandolin.
Instead, she found her normally calm, composed neighbor careening across the kitchen with a rolled-up Washington Post in her hand, frantically whacking the countertops while emitting little screams.
Piper crossed the room in two strides and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Kiersten. What’s wrong?”
Kiersten’s gaze ricocheted around the room. “The cockroaches. They’re everywhere.”
Piper released her shoulders and stepped backward. “Cockroaches?”
Then she went silent as her ears tuned to a soft hissing sound. “What’s that . . . noise?”
Kiersten swallowed. “It’s them.”
Dear God.
Piper grabbed a Sharper Image catalog from the pile of junk mail on the kitchen counter and rolled it into an impromptu cudgel. A giant bug skittered across the kitchen island, and she brought the magazine down with a sharp thwap.
Kiersten dropped to her knees and did the same, whacking and slapping at gigantic cockroaches as they skittered across the floor.
For a solid twenty minutes the kitchen rang out with the smack of rolled-up reading material and small shrieks as they systematically killed every cockroach they could see.
The hissing eventually faded to silence as they stared at each other with wild eyes, surrounded by the carcasses of dead insects.