They must have known.
Then why isn’t he going to him? Why isn’t Cody going to Gordon, when the poor man is trapped out there all alone in the snow?
Tears welled in her eyes, but she ground her teeth and forced them back.
No. I need to be strong. Gordon can’t be out there.
Gordon’s dead.
Veronica’s eyes again darted to Corina’s smooth, pale face.
I need to be strong for her—for all of the Lawrences.
“Mom?”
Veronica closed her eyes, and kept them shut for several seconds before opening them again.
“Hmm?”
“I asked if you are cold, Ma.”
Didn’t I answer that question already?
Veronica Lawrence shrugged.
He isn’t going to greet Gordon because Gordon is dead.
Whatever’s out there is not Gordon.
“No, I’m fine,” she answered, pressing her lips together tightly.
Despite her words, Veronica shivered violently.
No, whatever it is that’s out there is definitely not Gordon.
“…and I don’t want to find out what it is,” she whispered, her eyes slowly turning upward to the bathroom in the loft above.
“’Ma?’”
The word had become the question this time.
You are not Gordon. Whoever or whatever you are, you will not have me.
For what seemed like the first time since her sons had arrived, Veronica Lawrence felt as if she could stand up straight; as if whatever impossible weight had fallen on her ever since she had first heard her late husband’s voice on the wind had suddenly vanished.
And she knew how to make it stay that way—which was something that she hadn’t learned from Cody, but from Oxford.
Poor, addicted Oxford.
“Ma? You okay, Ma?”
3.
This Time, Jared Couldn’t help himself.
“Did you hear that?” he asked Oxford, turning to face his brother.
Oxford was dressed in a thick red lumberjack jacket, the snaps of which were stressed nearly to the point of breaking, the black puff of another jacket forcing its way through the spaces between. The black hood of the base layer was pulled up over a blue-and-yellow cap, and his face was covered up to his eyes with a green turtleneck that somehow squeezed up from beneath the two jackets. Oxford’s legs—what Jared could see of them, given that snow came up to his knees—were almost comically thick from the sweatpants that were stretched by the layers beneath. The duffel bag was still slung over one shoulder, the strap hooked through gloved fingers that were also stretched so that his thumb just hung ineffectually. In a word, he looked ridiculous.
“What?” Oxford said when he finally noticed that Jared had stopped inching along ahead of him.
Jared opened his mouth to repeat the question, but the wind gusted again and he was forced to shut his eyes and tuck his chin into his scarf to avoid the full brunt of the blast.
Come Come
Come Come
When the wind finally stopped, Jared pulled his face out of his scarf.
“That,” he said simply, gazing upward.
Oxford stared at him.
“That?”
Jared nodded.
After a brief pause, Oxford’s eyes went wide.
“I thought... I thought... Wait, you heard that?”
Jarrreeeeed.
Like Oxford, Jared did not answer right away. Instead, he just stared at his younger brother for a moment, trying to remember the way he had been before his addiction had taken hold. The man had always been thin, but where he had once been lean, he was now wiry and taut. His eyes, small and dark like raisins pushed deep into soft dough, had once been vibrant, but any clichéd glint had since been rubbed away. The shallow cleft in his chin, the one that all three Lawrence brothers shared, once but a mere dimple, was now like a bullet hole in the bottom of his narrow face. Before Jared’s memory become a full-fledged reverie, a vision of his brother lying on the stairs at Mama’s house took hold: lids open but slits, mouth slack, and the stink of feces filling the stairwell. And, not surprisingly, this most recent vision was more powerful and resonant.
“Yes,” he answered at long last, nodding his head as much as his own hood would allow. “At first I thought it was just the wind—someone trapped out in the snow, maybe—but…” He allowed the sentence to trail off.
The shock in Oxford’s eyes was quickly usurped by another emotion: relief.
“…but,” Jared continued, “as soon as the tree broke the window, I knew it wasn’t just the wind.”
“And—and since we left?” Oxford stammered.
Jared nodded slowly.
“It has gotten louder. But, it also seems more, I dunno—more persistent. Content, maybe, too. Is that weird?”
It was a stupid question; weird was the wrong adjective—it was bizarre, it was insane, and it was really, really fucking scary.
A large puff of fog exited Oxford’s mouth through his turtleneck, as if he had been holding his breath ever since Jared first mentioned the wind. His eyes started to water, and if there hadn’t been a barrier of snow between them, Jared would have gone to his brother then.
“Man, you don’t know—” Oxford paused, his breath hitching, eyes downcast. He cleared his throat, then looked directly at Jared. “You don’t know what I thought—”
Jared raised a gloved hand. The fact was, he thought he did know; it was obvious. For a second, he considered that maybe it had been the wind that had driven Oxford to relapse, as bizarre as that sounded. But then he was reminded of the unmistakable smell of shit.
What a sssstupid fucking name—named after a dicthhhhhionary.
Or maybe this episode wasn’t a relapse—maybe he was just back in the game.
“Jared? What the fuck is that? Is there someone out there—out there in the cold?”
As if angered by the fact that they were talking about it, the wind suddenly gusted long and hard, bombarding them with frozen snow swept from the ground. This icy blast lasted so long that Jared had to not only tuck his face into his scarf, but he was also forced to crouch and turn his back to the wind. Even then, the cold penetrated his many layers of clothing and numbed his body like an ice water epidural.
Cooooooooooooooooooooooome
Jared thought briefly of poor Corina, her leg shattered, and the six of them—Marley, Mama, Corina, Seth, Henrietta, and Cody—all sitting huddled together in the cold, dark house, trying their best to stay warm—to stay sane.
He looked back at Oxford. The man was clearly scared—scared and sick.
No, not out there, Jared felt like saying, before pointing at his head. In here.
Jarrrreeeeed.
But he couldn’t say that—he couldn’t say what he felt. He couldn’t risk Oxford breaking down—not here, not now. And besides, it just wasn’t the Lawrence way.
“I don’t know,” Jared replied honestly once the wind finally stopped. “I don’t know.”
An image of Corina’s broken leg passed through his mind.
Gangrene.
“But what I do know,” Jared said, turning away from his brother, “is that we should hurry.”
Oxford might have been thinking the same thing, as he nodded briskly and immediately trod forward, driving his knee into the thick snow.
Alright, Jared thought, we’re coming, whoever you are.
4.
“It’s Okay, Sweetie, Uncle Jared has gone to get help,” Cody soothed his eldest daughter.
Corina moaned, and this time her eyes rolled completely backward until only the whites were visible through red-rimmed lids. She was getting worse, it seemed, which was saying something considering the shape that she had been in since—well, since Oxford had nearly overdosed and shit himself on the stairs.
Cody’s lip curled at the thought of his brother.
Piece of—
“No,” he scolded himself out lou
d.
Corina needs me now.
He took a deep breath, trying to regain control of himself.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” he repeated.
Hearing the hollowness of those words, their sheer insincerity, made him cringe. Marley evidently felt the same way, as he heard her scowl.
Cody turned to face his wife of sixteen years. She looked terrible, with huge, dark circles around her eyes, the lines by the outer corners thick as if etched with a charcoal pencil. But it was her mouth that was most disturbing: her usually thick red lips were thin and pale, the corners so chapped that Cody thought that if she frowned more deeply—which, granted, was probably impossible given her extreme scowl—they might split and start to bleed.
She was staring at him.
Stop saying that, her eyes demanded.
As much as he hated the look, Cody agreed with her.
‘It’s okay’—fucking moronic thing to say, really; it was most definitely not okay. Problem was, he didn’t know what else he could say.
Fighting tears, Cody turned away, wondering when—if—they got out of this if they could somehow patch things up. He couldn’t say for certain.
“Your turn.”
Cody turned toward the voice, grateful for the distraction. He watched as Henrietta’s chubby hand slapped the last puzzle piece into place. Then she looked up at Seth with her large blue eyes. For what seemed like the first time since they had arrived, she wasn’t crying—and wasn’t just taking a break between sobs, either.
“Your turn,” she beamed.
“Okay, but I am going to need your help. This one is hard!”
Henrietta nodded eagerly, and then she and Seth tore the puzzle up and let the pieces fall back to the ground.
The wind gusted, and Cody shifted his gaze from his daughter to the crude covering near the ceiling that Oxford had used to repair the smashed window. The darkening cardboard chuffed for a brief moment, but it held. He inhaled sharply. It wasn’t the makeshift covering’s tenuous hold on the window frame that made gave pause, but there had been a voice on the wind, a thick, desperate voice, one laden with expectation.
Cooooooooome
Cody looked away and shook his head.
I’m losing it. There is no one out there—there can’t be. Not in the freezing cold.
Tears welled in his eyes again, and this time he was helpless to prevent them from spilling over and making wet track marks on his cheeks. It angered him that he was unable to control his emotions; normally he was so good at remaining calm, in control, expressing himself in his writing. But normally he had Marley there for him, for support.
Stop it.
Despite the sandpaper-like quality of his jacket sleeve, he used it wipe his face. Crying would help nothing.
“Put your gloves on, sweetie,” he said, turning his attention back to Henrietta.
The toddler whipped around, her innocent, round face questioning.
“What you say to me, Daddy?”
Cody sniffed and opened his mouth to repeat the remark, but he found himself unable speak; he knew that if he did, he would break down into full-out sobs. Thankfully, Seth’s eyes met his and he took over.
“Daddy said to put your gloves back on,” he said, grabbing her hands gently and turning her to face him.
“Oh, okay, Daddy.”
Cody breathed deeply and squeezed his eyes shut, opening them only when he felt a hand gently fall on his shoulder. His mother stood behind him, her hair and makeup immaculate. She was still wearing her dark blue dress with only the thin white sweater covering her shoulders.
Cody sniffed hard twice.
“You cold, Mama?” he asked, his voice low and nasally.
The woman acted as if she hadn’t heard him. Instead, she held out a pale fist. Confused, Cody stared at her.
“Mom?”
The woman’s eyes were oddly vacant—light-colored pools that nearly blended in with her pale skin. When she gestured toward her hand with her chin and then with a nod, Cody opened his palm and held it beneath her fist. Slowly, her fingers unfurled, and Cody was alarmed by the fact that her hand was as white as her face. He felt two small, hard discs drop into his palm, but his eyes remained trained on his mother.
She needs to put on some gloves.
He looked at her attire again and then his own.
And a jacket—at least a jacket.
With the generator empty and the cold air leaking in through the broken window, it was nearing freezing inside the house. And it was only a matter of time before the inside temperature matched the outside.
“Gordon is out there,” his mother whispered suddenly, and Cody’s breath caught in his throat. “Gordon is out there, and he wants me to join him.”
Her voice was a low whisper, barely audible.
Cody raised his eyes and looked at her, his whole body trembling now.
Dad? Dad is out there?
“Mom?”
But Mama Lawrence turned without another word and slowly made her way back to the kitchen.
Cody moved to follow, but the wind gusted again, slamming at what seemed like all sides of the house at once. This time, he resisted the urge to look at the cardboard and instead found his gaze falling on two dark shapes that trudged their way awkwardly across the front lawn: the first was a large dog of some sort, a Doberman, maybe, but it was hard to tell with all the snow. Behind the dog, following in its wake, was a large fox.
Corina coughed and Cody turned back to his daughter.
Dad? What the hell is she talking about?
“It’s okay, sweetie,” he caught himself saying again; he was helpless to prevent it.
Only then did Cody look at what his mother had dropped into his open palm, the only proof that he hadn’t just imagined the entire queer interaction: two small, innocuous white pills. They looked the same as the ibuprofen that Oxford had fed Corina after her accident, but he knew that these pills were a very different animal.
Cody closed his fist tightly over the pills.
Please hurry, he thought, conjuring an image of both of his brothers bundled in layer upon layer of clothing. For a brief moment, even his hatred for Oxford vanished.
Please, please hurry. I don’t know how long we can last.
His eyes drifted to the snowy lawn.
Come
“I don’t want to go out there,” he whispered with a shudder.
5.
Several Times Now, Deputy Bradley Coggins seriously questioned what the hell he was doing. Even though the snow had stopped falling, the wind was relentless, and the snow that hugged the terrain like some sort of sadistic blanket made moving forward nearly impossible. Even with the snowshoes—police issue, ha!—the going was difficult, and he found himself having to stop and catch his breath every sixty or so meters. He, Deputy Bradley Coggins, he of the sub-three thirty marathon time, he of but skin and sinew, was tired from walking. But it was an awkward movement: lifting your foot higher and stretching it longer than a normal stride before trying to place the saucer-like snowshoe down flat. Flat, mid-foot strike, instead of the heel-to-toe he was accustomed to.
With his first few steps, his inexperienced heel had caught in the snow on footfall and he had gone down hard. Several curses and one furious fist-filled encounter with a snowdrift later, he had gotten the hang of it. But now, less than a half hour later, his shins were burning from all the toe lifting. And to top it off, the strap of his bag, which was filled with a whole bunch of crap that he was positive was completely unnecessary, was biting into his shoulder despite being cushioned by his thick coat.
After a while, the monotony of the matte white stretching out before him caused his mind to drift. He thought first of Alice’s setback; then his mind shifted to Deputy White, sitting alone in the office, undoubtedly fielding dozens of calls all of the same theme and temperament: icy, both. A smile formed on his dry, cold lips. Despite his own ridiculous situation—fucking snowshoes!—the image of the hulking
Deputy White gripping the small telephone receiver so tightly that his fingers were as white as Coggins’ own, trying desperately to remain calm, made him thankful that the man had somehow known the answer to his trivia question.
Oh, he is going to be ripe for some teasing when I get back, Deputy Coggins thought with a chuckle. Primed and ready.
In an instant, the weather, which had eased slightly over the last ten minutes, suddenly changed. A gust of wind unexpectedly hit Deputy Coggins in the back with such force that he lurched forward, and had it not been for the wide base of his snowshoes, he would have undoubtedly taken another bite out of the snow in front of him. He heard something trailing on the wind, a voice or something of the like, but before he could offer this any contemplation, a massive crash sounded from the tree line to his left. Deputy Coggins had been a police officer for more than a decade, and a deputy for a little over a year, and although pulling Johnny the Mechanic types in for drug-related questioning were often the highlight of his week or even month, his police instincts were ingrained. And now, despite nearly being pushed face first into the snow by a mysterious, verbal wind, his instincts took over.
Deputy Coggins spun toward the sound from the woods—at least, that was what he intended to do. But his snowshoes remained rooted, and when he twisted, he fell onto his back and found himself staring at nothing but the puff of snow from a fallen branch. It must have been the cold or the snow, or maybe it was the sudden break in the monotony of the white landscape before him, but for some reason he had drawn his gun on the way down.
Jesus Christ, he thought, and was about to holster his weapon when a moist, breathy sound exploded in his right ear. In a split second, he forced his back deeper into the snow, shifted his shoulders, and fired two shots.
A spray of blood—hot and steamy, like vapor collecting on the inside of a lid of boiling water—spotted Coggins’ eyes and mouth.
There was a deep, guttural groan, and then a form collapsed a few feet from him, causing another puff of snow to rise into the air.
Oh my God.
Coggins tried to make out who or what he had just shot, but the wind gusted again, picking up the airborne snow and swirling it around his fallen body, obscuring his vision.
Insatiable Series Omnibus Edition (Books 1-3) Page 13
