Held mesmerized by the view enclosed in their field lenses, the girls did not observe that some frantic rats, still free of the roaches, were streaking into the trees. Their racing line of terror headed them blindly to where the two were standing.

Too late, Ruth and Rebecca heard the chittering noise of the pack. In an instant, sharp rodent mouths were gashing the girls’ feet, gulping the quick human blood. The frenzied jaws of leaping rats were tearing the white throats before the panicked girls realized what was occurring. The binoculars went flying. Without even time to scream, the Cannon girls were rolling on the ground, punching and tugging at the assaulters. Streams of blood now poured from the young faces, arms, their gnawed fingers. Chunks of flesh were ripped from their breasts, bellies, and thighs. Narrow raping snouts shoved hungrily into their genitals, in a terrible mockery of the girls’ careful innocence.

Neither the expiring Cannon daughters nor their rat attackers saw the swelling   .legions of great roaches that were advancing toward them. The roaches moved across the ground like a monstrous organism. Each roach was like a single tooth in a huge maw. In minutes, the myriad of insects had stripped the flesh of both rats and girls to bone—and then razored the skeletons to powder. Then the huge mass rested, pulsing quietly as with one communal breath, before ­disappearing en masse in a single wavelike motion beneath the heavy leaves.

Stillness and silence remained in the forest.