What the—?
Less than a minute later, the man was back to standing as he had been before, only now he was completely naked. Even through the sliver of light that entered the closet between the door and the frame, Jared could see that the man’s left knee was horribly mutilated, the kneecap swollen to the size of a grapefruit and jutting out from the side of his leg. He had other bruises, too, including a particularly gruesome purple line that ran from above his left shoulder and travelled across his body before disappearing behind his right hip.
Why the fuck is he naked?
For a few moments, nothing happened; the man just stood there, unmoving, fixated on a point somewhere in the depths of the house that neither Jared nor Oxford could see. But then they heard it, mixed with the sound of their own heavy breathing: they heard the voice.
Come
The word was more clear than ever before, despite the fact that there was no wind in the strange, warm, stinking house. Jared fought the urge to throw the closet door open wide and investigate, to find out who or what was summoning them. And he wanted to do just that—needed to do it—even though he knew that it was wrong, that something bad would happen to both he and his brother if he left the closet. But even knowing this, the urge to leave was almost unbearable, like trying to resist biting a hard candy after you have been sucking on it for a few minutes.
Thankfully, before Jared succumbed to this gnawing urge, he was distracted by another noise: a heavy plodding, like footsteps. He felt Oxford lean heavily against his back, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever was causing the uncomfortable pressure inside both of their heads. The extra weight pushed Jared forward into the door, and it swung open several more inches. For the briefest moment, the heavy, rhythmic steps coming from somewhere to their left paused.
Jared inhaled sharply and quickly pulled the door closed, shoving his body backward into his brother to make room for the both of them in the tiny closet.
The temperature suddenly rose in the confined space, and the pungent smell of rot intensified as the heavy steps slowly descended the stairs.
He didn’t want to see what monstrosity was heading down to greet the naked, wounded man. Seeing is believing, as they say, and nothing that had happened today was by any stretch believable. None of it was real—it just couldn’t be.
Jaaaarrrrrreeeeeeed.
Jared’s heart fluttered in his chest.
5.
“Open The Door,” Alice demanded calmly.
The pale, handsome face staring back at her did not change—didn’t even acknowledge her. She could see that not only had the man locked the door, but he had his hand on the knob keeping it from turning as well, just in case she had a key.
Why the fuck would I have a key?
“Open the door,” she repeated in the same monotone voice.
When the man still refused to move, she threw her head back in frustration, her frozen hair poking into the back of her neck.
My hair is frozen. And my nose. My ears. My fucking toes.
Alice took a deep breath and then slowly lowered her gaze, staring intently into the man’s dark black pupils.
“Open. The. Fucking. Door.”
Every word deliberate—a hard stop between each syllable.
To her utter dismay, the man still did not budge, didn’t even flutter an eyelash.
Alice took another deep breath.
“Listen,” she nearly whispered from between tight blue lips. “I’m from the sheriff’s department.”
Something flickered in the man’s eyes and she was encouraged to continue.
“The sheriff—Sheriff Dana Drew—sent me.”
Alice was hesitant, watching to see if the man would react again. And then he did. His hand slowly fell from the doorknob to his side, and Alice could have sworn that she saw his pupils constrict, even though the interior of the house had remained consistently dim. To further corroborate her story, she reached up, unzipped her jacket partway, and pointed a frigid finger at the ACPD symbol over the breast pocket of her shirt.
“He—he sent me to check up on residents up here.”
Were they really up here? Were they north of town? Alice couldn’t think straight; the cold seemed to have penetrated her brain as well as her bones.
“He sent me here to make sure everyone is all right, seeing as you have been without power for—” She glanced at the darkening sky and then at the dark lightbulb above the door. “—for a few days now.”
Something in the man’s face broke and his expression changed from pure apathy to despair almost instantly. His hand went back to the door, but this time, instead of holding the lock firmly, he turned the deadbolt.
Seizing the opportunity, wanting to make sure that this strange man didn’t suddenly change his mind, Alice grabbed the knob and pushed the door open. The speed of her movements startled him, and truth be told, it had startled her as well, and he stepped back awkwardly to avoid being struck by the opening door. Immediately after she entered, the man sprung forward, reached behind her, and closed the door quickly, trying to keep the cold—or something else—out.
To Alice’s disappointment, the interior of the house was only a couple of degrees warmer than outside; but this she probably should have guessed, given that the man was wearing what looked like two jackets, a pair of gloves, and a winter hat.
He was tall, over six feet, with a narrow face, large blue eyes, and a straight, almost Parisian nose. There was also a small cleft in his chin. But while Alice wouldn’t hesitate to call him handsome, it was hard to pin down exactly how old he was, as the desperation that clung to his features dug heavy grooves around his nose and mouth could have been permanent or simply a reflection of his situation.
As Alice watched, the man opened his mouth to say something, but then quickly closed it again. His face, which had been stark white, suddenly reddened, and Alice became acutely aware that he was ashamed and embarrassed of how he had acted.
Well, no time for grudges.
“I’m Alice,” she said abruptly, holding out a frigid hand.
The man looked down at her outstretched fingers as if she were offering him a rotting fish. Eventually, after another few awkward seconds, he grasped her hand and shook it—one appropriately frozen, abbreviated pump.
“Cody,” he said, still trying his best not to meet her eyes.
There was no time for further formalities.
“I—” She hesitated. “I, uh, I was in an accident.”
Alice brought a hand to her side to indicate the area, even though there was no chance she was going to lift her jacket to show him and expose her flesh to the cold. She performed the charade anyway, her mind still trying to work its way through the meandering maze that was the last two days.
You fucking cunt, come back with my H!
Alice winced at the flare of pain that suddenly travelled up her side. The cold had numbed her injuries to mild, chronic sensations, but now that she was inside, all of her pain started to come back like blood filling a limb that had fallen asleep.
The man looked confused, and she was grateful that she had washed the blood from the cut above her eye off with some snow before approaching the man’s house—that would have been a difficult sell.
“I thought you said—”
“I was in an accident,” Alice interrupted, “and I need your help.”
Silence.
Alice grimaced a little more obviously, partly from the pain and partly as an act to try to get this man—this Cody—moving.
“Wait—are you from the sheriff’s office or not?”
As he spoke, Cody slowly shifted to directly in front of her, blocking her path. Alice didn’t interpret this as a particularly aggressive maneuver—nothing like the man with the beard walking and stalking and stroking his way toward her. This was more defensive.
He is protecting something.
Now it was Alice’s turn to pause.
“Yes, I am. But I need your help. Som
eone else was in—”
Cody’s brow furrowed and he cut her off.
“Do you have a car? Some way to plow these roads so that we can get out?”
The pitch of his voice increased with every word.
“An ambulance? Is an ambulance on its way?”
He was almost screeching now.
Ambulance? Why does he need an ambulance?
The man suddenly reached out and grabbed her shoulders with both hands and leaned in close, his eyes finally meeting hers.
“You said you were from the sheriff’s office, that Sheriff Drew sent you.”
Alice raised an eyebrow, her numb forehead crinkling uncomfortably. As she watched, anger started to usurp some of the desperation on Cody’s face, and Alice gently pushed his hands away before the situation escalated.
“Well, I am,” Alice said, pretending to brush some snow from her pants. “Kind of.”
“Kind of? What do you mean kind of? I let you in here!” Cody threw up his hands. “I let you in here when God only knows what’s coming!”
The word coming sounded odd to her, with undue emphasis on the first syllable.
“Do you know what I’ve seen?”
As before, hysteria began to creep into his voice.
Alice tried to interject, to say, “Well, I am from the sheriff’s office,” but the man’s eyes suddenly bulged and the vehemence of his next few words caught her off guard.
“First, I see fucking wolves and bears running across my lawn! Together, for Christ’s sake! Then a fucking zombie—some guy with a limp wearing no goddamn gloves or hat—then I fucking see you!”
Again, Alice tried to say something, but the man’s roller-coaster of emotions frightened her and she hesitated. Cody suddenly reached out and grabbed her arm again and pulled her toward him—You fucking cunt, come back with my H!—while at the same time backpedaling. At first she resisted, confused, scared, but when it became clear that he was meaning to show her something, Alice allowed herself to be led. Together they passed through a small kitchen and into another room, a large, open space with couches and a TV mounted on the wall. Alice’s gaze lingered on the pile of gifts by the corner of the room—some half opened, others still wrapped—before she saw the girl, and her breath, a frigid puff of air, caught in her throat.
Lying on one of the couches was a young girl who looked like she was just entering her teenage years. Her legs were propped up on the lap of an older woman with long, dark hair. It was the young girl’s face that had caused Alice to stop short; it was so pale that it bordered on translucent, and her eyes were sunken and partly closed. With every breath, the girl’s cheek twitched in what was obvious pain.
“My daughter has a broken leg,” Cody whispered from between clenched teeth.
Then he gestured at the sleeping woman who was holding the younger girl’s legs, and Alice noticed that her eyes were closed as well.
“My wife just sleeps, and—and—and my other daughter—”
When the man’s voice hitched, Alice drew her eyes away from the stagnant scene on the couch and looked at Cody. He was crying now.
Another daughter?
“And my other daughter—”
He couldn’t finish.
Alice followed Cody’s outstretched finger and saw a toddler with a small upturned nose and bright blue eyes sitting on the floor and staring up at her. The girl was bundled in so many layers, including a purple and white snowsuit that looked two sizes too big, that in other circumstances Alice might have laughed. The toddler was trying hard to flip a puzzle piece over, her tongue poking just slightly out of the corner of her mouth, but the task was impossible with her thick mittens.
Jesus Christ, they are going to freeze to death.
“And my mother—goddamn it—where the fuck are you, Mom?”
Cody turned away from Alice and looked upstairs to the loft.
“Mom? Mom! Where the fuck are you?”
6.
Nothing Happened For A long time. So long, in fact, that if it weren’t for the bitter cold nipping at all his tips—fingers, nose, ears, and even penis—Deputy Coggins might have thought he had fallen asleep. And what happened next did nothing to confirm or deny this feeling.
What. The. Fuck.
Like in a demented dream, the man, the crooked man with the limp, the one whose back he had been staring at for the past quarter century, suddenly began to disrobe. Undress. Get naked.
It was such an absurdity that Deputy Coggins could only crouch behind Sheriff Drew’s open cruiser door and watch, mesmerized. In a matter of moments, all of the man’s clothing fell unceremoniously to the floor, and now he stood there, just five feet inside the open doorway, still as a mannequin.
As if that weren’t enough, there was something else strange about the scene, and it took Coggins a few minutes to realize exactly what was making him uncomfortable: it was the wind. The ubiquitous wind that had been hissing and blowing for what seemed like three straight days now had suddenly died down, and instead of wrapping the house in a blanket of whirling snow, Mrs. Wharfburn’s Estate was suffocating in a mysterious calm. Something strange—no, strange was too benign a word for it—something abnormal was happening here, something that transcended the naked man.
As Coggins watched, the sun slowly started to dip, and the man’s naked back, which he believed at this point he would probably be able to identify out of a lineup of about fifty, became increasingly shrouded in darkness. The maze of tree branches, sticking directly into the lawn like the bars of some tribal cage, weren’t helping, either.
Squinting against the fading light, Coggins realized that he could no longer see the man’s back. It would have been easy—logical, even—for him to assume that the shadow that had slowly been filling the doorway had finally swallowed the entire entrance, but that didn’t seem right. There was an opaqueness to the shadow that convinced Coggins otherwise; it wasn’t a shadow. It was something hulking. Something dark. Something wrong.
7.
Jared Didn’t Dare Open the door until the heavy plodding, the deep, low-frequency depressions, reached the bottom of the stairs. Although the closet was pitch black and deathly quiet—even his and Oxford’s heavy breathing seemed inaudible—he turned to his brother and brought an index finger to his lips. It was unlikely that his brother saw this gesture, but he hoped that somehow his sudden shift in position conveyed the messaged. Only then did Jared dare ease the door open just a sliver and peer down into the foyer with one wide eye.
The first thing he noticed after opening the door wasn’t visual; the first thing he noticed was the stench. Even though he had become accustomed to the general funk of Mrs. Wharfburn’s house, the sour, caustic smell of battery acid mixed with rotting meat, this new smell had an almost thick quality to it—so much so, in fact, that it seemed to coat his nose and throat, triggering the umami taste buds on the back of his tongue. A hard swallow, and he fought the urge to vomit—again.
Goddamn it.
Jared forced himself to breathe through his mouth, and when the water finally cleared from his eyes, he turned his attention back to the foyer.
At first he could only see the naked man with the twisted knee, standing naked, dumbstruck, oblivious, as he had been ever since inexplicably removing all of his clothing. Blood still trickled from the wound above his eye, but the stream was slower now, lazy and uninspired. Jared sensed that there was something behind the man, something just out of view, but he didn’t dare open the door wider to get a better look. As it was, he had to open the door more than he felt comfortable doing just to see the naked man, who was partially turned so that Jared and Oxford were stuck staring at his side and part of his back. And stared they did. For several moments, nothing happened, and when Jared felt the pressure of his brother leaning against him ease, he debated closing the door again.
Maybe I imagined it, he thought, but a cursory rub of his tongue on the roof of his mouth reaffirmed the horrible, thick taste. That, at l
east, was not imagined.
Movement suddenly caught his eye, and evidently Oxford’s as well, as he felt his brother lean against him again, trying to get a better look. There was a blur, and Jared made out the silhouette of something big—not enormous, but thick, like a muscular man covered in a layer of fat that smoothed his physique—hulking over the naked man’s back. There was something else about the figure; the thing had a heaviness that was difficult to describe, a denseness that seemed to draw Jared and Oxford toward it—Cooooooome—a tugging that took considerable effort to resist. There was another sudden blur of movement, a flash of color—dark green, maybe, or a deep blue—and Jared, mesmerized by the scene, saw what could only be described as two claws reach up and come to rest on each of the naked man’s shoulders.
How can something that large—that dense—move so quickly?
But before he could contemplate this fully, the claw on the naked man’s left shoulder curled into a fist, and Jared heard what sounded like the twisting of a dry leather belt. A thin green finger brandishing an inch-long silver nail slowly ratcheted out from the fist, accompanied by that same brittle sound. The nail first went to the top of the man’s head, pausing above the matted grey hair for a moment before inexplicably, almost gingerly, tracing a line behind his ear, following the contour of his jaw. Jared thought he saw the man shudder, an almost imperceptible tremor, but it was difficult to tell if this was real or just his imagination. Oxford’s breathing, previously inaudible, had grown tight and shallow, his heart pumping so hard that it gently rocked both their bodies.
Then, without warning, without even a hint of what was to come, there was another spark of movement and the claw traced a line down the man’s back with startling, almost impossible speed. In fact, if it weren’t for the dark red line that followed the nail and ran from the base of the man’s skull to just above his bare buttocks, Jared might have thought he imagined it. Someone or something grunted, and then Jared saw the claws, two of them this time, reach up and delicately probe the red line of what could only be blood. It wasn’t just the nails on the ends of the claws that were long and pointed, Jared realized in horror, but the fingers were as well: long, dark green digits that looked like dried seaweed. As he watched, the hands suddenly turned and the fingers spread, the silver nail at the end of each finding its own spot along the red line. That was when Jared saw the pale streaks of color on the thing’s wrists, flayed at the ends, as if the green claws had burst from soft pink flesh.
Insatiable Series Omnibus Edition (Books 1-3) Page 17
