A gasp escaped his lips and he quickly brought a hand to his mouth, trying to force the sound back in. Oxford tensed against him, and they both waited without breathing for several moments. Only after the hands resumed their cryptic movements did the Lawrence brothers allow themselves another breath of the foul air.
Please, God, Jared nearly whimpered, catching the words in his throat at the last possible second. He could barely comprehend the scene that unfolded before him.
It was the nails; they had worked their way to roughly half their length into the line of blood. Without warning, the trance, or hold, or whatever it was that had kept the naked man so silent all this time, suddenly broke and a shrill scream filled the foyer. The sound was so loud and unexpected that Jared could not help but bring his hands to cover his ears. At the same time, he felt Oxford’s weight on his back ease as his brother retreated into the dark recesses of the closet. Jared, on the other hand, found himself unable to look away.
8.
A Scream Filled The cold, dark winter air. The high-pitched sound immediately vanquished all of his tenuous apprehension, and Deputy Coggins stood, his frozen nubs all but forgotten. As the sound droned on, he realized that it wasn’t just a scream; there was another sound intermingled with the cry, a deep, bass-like rumble that he could not quite place. Deputy Coggins’ knees, having been locked in the same crouched position for so long, protested the sudden movement, but he ignored them. He sprang to action, reaching inside the vehicle and pulling the trunk release latch. Thankfully, he had already removed his snowshoes, making his agile movements easier in the disturbed snow. A moment later, he was in the trunk pulling out Sheriff Drew’s shotgun. In one fluid movement, he loaded two shells into the chamber, shoved a few more into his coat pocket, and closed the trunk.
The scream, which had been going on for so long now that it was almost an afterthought, finally transitioned into a horrible moan. The rumbling, however, remained.
Dana, get down, Deputy Coggins thought strangely. And then he started to run—waddle, really—through the thick snow toward the open door of Mrs. Wharfburn’s Estate.
9.
The House Was So dark now that, from his vantage point, Jared could only make out the man’s back and the side of his face. And those hands—he could still see those green claws meticulously bobbing up and down, working their way deeper into the man’s back, dissecting his flesh with a practiced touch. Jared couldn’t tear his eyes away. When the fingers had worked their way just beyond the second of what might have been a half dozen knuckles, the digits tensed. A split-second later, just before the claws tensed, a ribbon of pink flesh the size of a shoelace tore and fell from the beast’s wrist, revealing a green that was softer, milkier, than the other exposed areas.
When the claws pulled, the sound that reached Jared was like nothing he had ever heard. It was a grunt of sorts, he supposed, but it was so low and guttural that it reverberated in his eardrums, and it took all of whatever willpower he had left to resist rubbing his ears until they bled. As he watched, the claws pulled backward, lifting the man’s skin at the red seam like a sheet from a tightly made bed. Then those dark green fingers pushed and the man’s screaming suddenly stopped. In an instant, the man’s naked flesh flipped forward, and like a corn kernel suddenly unfurling and popping, his sinewy under layer was exposed, red and wet. And raw—my God—the maze of striated muscle looked so raw. Blood not so much poured but seemed to bead and sweat from the entire surface of the man’s body all at once. The beads, small at first, soon merged with their neighbors until the man’s body now had a new skin: a glistening red blanket of blood.
Even though the man had stopped screaming now, his mouth, previously spread wide, now formed a lowercase ‘o’, and a quiet yet perceptible undulating moan originating somewhere from below his diaphragm escaped him. His skin hung in front of him like the last vestiges of cellophane clinging to deli meat, with only his face still attached. Thankfully, for this man and for Jared’s constitution, the horrific display only lasted another moment. One more grunt and the man’s face was completely unstuck, his skin shed and discarded like the peel of an overripe banana.
Chapter Seven
The Day After Christmas
1.
Alice Didn’t Know What to say, but she knew what she wanted to do: get the fuck out of there—get the fuck out of there as soon as possible. The toddler was crying now, wailing, and although Alice didn’t have a maternal bone in her body, her heart cried out for the little one.
Go to her. Go to her, for fuck’s sake.
But the man, this Cody, instead insisted on trying to elicit a response from his wife, who was nearly as catatonic as his eldest daughter. And the daughter, judging by the way the girl’s eyes darted back and forth beneath partially closed lids, was under the influence of some sort of opioid.
In the end, it was the two girls, the oblivious baby and the injured, drugged girl, that kept Alice from turning around and just bolting—consider it human instincts, as opposed to maternal ones.
She needed a drink. Or something stronger—it was all too much.
“I don’t know what to do,” Cody admitted, fighting back sobs. “I am helpless, just sitting here waiting for someone to come rescue us.”
The man stood and made his way to Alice, scooping up the toddler as he passed. It was clear by the way he ignored the wails so close to his ear that this was not a new occurrence—that he was used to the sound. She, on the other hand, was not.
Alice looked at him, unsure of how to respond. Clearly, the man wanted reassurance or support or something, but comforting was also a gift she lacked.
“What kind of father—what kind of man—does that; just sits around and waits?”
Alice was standing in the family room staring out into the cold darkness, watching what was left of the failing light reflect off the blowing snow. It had been a while since they had seen the last animal—an elk, Alice thought—traveling east on the snow-covered road.
Where the fuck were they all going?
Alice caught Cody’s reflection in the glass just in time to see his face contort with the onset of another sobbing bout. He reached for her then, switching the young girl to his other arm, but Alice instinctively pulled away. Cody’s pale face quickly transitioned to a deep crimson, and the urge to cry seemed to pass.
“Sorry,” he grumbled, turning his attention back to the window.
“You should leave,” Alice said suddenly, and then immediately bit her lip.
Why did I say that?
She turned to him nervously to see how her remark would be taken. To her surprise, although Cody continued to stare out the window, she thought she detected a nod—a subtle yet perceptible nod.
Am I right? Should they leave?
Maybe it had been her own feelings projecting, her own strong desire to leave this place manifested in her words. She considered the mess that the roads had been and thought that maybe leaving was the right plan. It would be days, if not a full week, before the streets were cleared enough for the plows to get out to Cedar Lane. The power might come back on sooner, but then again, maybe it wouldn’t. Sheriff Drew would probably prioritize restoring power to those within the city first, if nothing else but to ensure that the plow companies could run around the clock to get out to this house and the other rural areas.
But Sheriff Drew isn’t at the station, is he? And neither is Coggins.
Which left only Deputy White. But it didn’t matter who was holding fort at the station; the men, so very different in many respects, would nevertheless all prioritize the town over the outskirts.
Well then, what am I doing here?
Alice looked away from the window and turned her attention to Cody’s wife and injured daughter lying together on the couch.
Could they leave, even if they wanted to?
“I should leave,” the man whispered suddenly.
Alice turned to him again, confused by his choice of words. Surely
, when he had said I he had meant we.
When he spoke again, his voice was hushed and his teeth clenched.
“I’m just—I’m just scared of what’s out there.”
Alice stared at the man, but Cody just continued to look out the window, eyes wide.
“There is something out there—something wanting, begging for us to come.”
Alice blinked hard and rubbed at her temples.
He couldn’t be hearing that too, could he?
She was too tired to deal with this right now.
Fuck it. This man can do what he wants, she thought callously, but I will be leaving pronto.
In the back of her mind, Alice knew that she would likely be in a similar situation—trapped by the snow, cold and tired—once she met up with the sheriff and his deputy, but there was something to be said about being in the company of one’s family, being with the people she loved.
The young girl on the couch sighed, and Alice looked over at her. The way her face slackened and then tightened over and over again, rhythmically, suggested that the drugs were starting to wear off. Although she hadn’t asked, it was clear by the way one of her legs was propped up on the pillow, wrapped in what looked like some sort of sheet, that this was the source of her anguish. And judging by the fact that they had given her some sort of opioid—morphine, maybe?—it must have been a bad wound. Or maybe not. Good judgment seemed to be lacking in this house—for all she knew, the girl just had a twisted ankle.
“Listen,” she whispered at long last, again feeling sorry for the handsome man. “I’m just going to use the bathroom, then I’m gonna go.”
Alice tried to get a read from the man’s face as she spoke, but it had become a mask—an expressionless void reminiscent of when he had initially locked her out.
“And when I find Sheriff Drew, I will tell him about you—he will come.”
The man shuddered, and Alice immediately regretted her choice of words.
Come.
She heard it too, no matter how hard she tried to ignore it—she had been hearing it ever since the car accident. There was something out there, just like Cody had said, a deep, harrowing voice on the wind.
Come.
“Over there,” Cody finally said, and Alice nodded.
She backed away from the man and his child slowly, thinking that sudden movements might break the thin membrane of calm that shrouded this place.
It wasn’t hard to find the bathroom; her nose led her right to it. Without power, the septic tank wouldn’t flush, and the smell emanating from behind the closed door was horrendous. It was more than she could stomach.
“Cody,” she said quietly, “is there another bathroom?”
The man’s eyes remained transfixed on the window. It was as if he were expecting someone, and that scared her.
I let you in! I let you in when God only knows what’s out there!
“In the loft.”
Alice slipped away again, lost in how utterly surreal this day had been and continued to be. There had been a time when waking on a bare mattress wearing nothing but her underwear had been the worst part of her day. Boy, had that changed. Images of the filthy man with the beard started to creep into her mind as she took the stairs up to the loft, but she shook them away. That had been bad, no doubt; this was worse.
To distract herself, she looked at the pictures that hung on the wall going up the staircase, one every two steps.
The first picture was clearly a much younger version of Cody, his hair a little thicker, his face slightly more full. He had a coy smile on his lips, the kind that you made just after trying hard not to smile. The next photo was of a much skinnier version of someone who looked like Cody, with gaunt facial features, dark eyes, and, unlike Cody, a broad, beaming smile showing a row of perfectly white teeth—the man’s younger brother, no doubt.
The next two pictures were of the two girls, although the eldest lying on the couch downstairs was probably only nine or ten years old at the time of her photo while the youngest was but a baby, lying nude on a feather blanket.
Alice heard a cry from below, and turned her attention back to Cody. The younger girl, the one with the cherub-like face from the photograph, was staring up at her from her father’s arms, twisting and turning, trying to free herself. Her face was pale, a stark white, and her eyes were wide with fright.
I have to get out of here, she thought for what felt like the thousandth time, before turning back to the stairs.
The next photograph was of a couple in their late sixties, maybe even early seventies: a woman, her white hair meticulously tied up into a tight bun, dressed in a slightly outdated yet somehow appropriate blue dress with small pink flowers. Beside her was a man wearing a beige newsboy hat and a matching sport coat with a light blue shirt and red tie; he looked like an old Republican congressman. His expression was stern, unforgiving.
Mama, Alice thought, her attention focused on the smartly dressed woman.
Despite the fact that she had met Cody less than an hour ago, this stairway—this passageway—through his life somehow moved her.
I have to get to Sheriff Drew.
Two steps from the loft landing, with three empty spaces separating it from the photograph of Cody’s parents, was another picture. And it was this photograph among all the others that made Alice’s world spin.
“No,” she moaned.
2.
When Deputy Coggins Hurled himself through Mrs. Wharfburn’s open front doorway, shotgun in hand, all of his training went out the window. He was just an Askergan County deputy, not a member of the Los Angeles SWAT team, and no matter how ingrained his small-town police skills were, he was not equipped to deal with what he saw. In fact, before killing the poor dog, he had only fired his pistol once, and that time—when Mark Corning was drunk and refused to stop waving his loaded crossbow at him and Deputy White—it had only been meant as a warning shot.
The house was warm, dark, and goddamn him if it wasn’t the rankest place he had ever been. Hot and sweet, like Korean barbecue, with deep, brooding undertones of rot and decay. It was so horrible that all of his bluster and bravado, like the screaming from inside the house, evaporated into a thin mist. Only after he blinked the tears from his eyes did his vision slowly start to adjust to the darkness. And even then, standing four feet inside the doorway, it was not clear what he was looking at. There was a form before him, a large, hulking figure that appeared mostly white, but with either dark green or black vertical stripes marking the length of its body. These parts glistened even in the darkness and appeared hard, like glass or rock, but this wasn’t what was so upsetting to Coggins. No, that honor was bestowed on something else. Although Coggins was confident that he was staring at the beast’s back, he saw a silhouette of a man’s legs out in front of the hunched form, the heels of which just barely grazed the floor. It was like Penrose stairs—an impossible illusion. And if that wasn’t enough, there was something else, something that magnified the horror: he heard a strange sucking sound over the blood rushing through his ears.
What in God’s name—?
But this was not God’s work—not now, not ever.
Another wave of the horrible smell, which Coggins now realized was clearly emanating from this thing, struck him in the face like a splash of outhouse water, and it was all he could do to stop himself from vomiting. The shotgun immediately fell to his side as he protectively buried his nose and mouth into the crook of his left elbow.
Slowly, trying not to make any noise, he took two steps to his left. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Coggins knew that he was required to announce his presence—Askergan County PD!—but there was no fucking way he was going to bring attention to himself in this place.
He took another step.
As he made his way deeper into the house, his eyes slowly started to adjust to the dim light.
Two more shuffling steps.
From this new angle, the hanging legs and feet appeared red and gliste
ning.
What the fuck?
Deputy Coggins took four more crow hops to his left and then vomited. It wasn’t a full projectile puke, as he managed to squeeze his lips tightly to prevent the partially digested food from exiting his mouth, but there was enough volume that his cheeks puffed. Desperate not to draw attention to himself, he held the puke in his mouth, tasting the remnants of his paltry last meal: a muffin and a coffee. Staring at the massive form before him, he shuddered, and an odd thought passed through his mind.
No fucking way is my last meal going to be a muffin and a coffee.
It wasn’t one form that he had been seeing, but two: the hulking, striped beast was crouched over—oh my dear fucking Christ, no—another body that it seemed to be eating, consuming, devouring. Coggins took one more step and witnessed the impossible. From the side, he could see that the naked man’s head—and it most definitely was a man, judging by his wet and red exposed penis—was already inside the beast’s mouth, as was one of his shoulders. It didn’t make sense that all of this would fit inside the thing’s mouth, but as Coggins watched, the thing’s jaw stretched further—new green splits splaying laterally on the creature’s pink jowls and neck—and the other shoulder was somehow folded and maneuvered inside the horrible orifice. Coggins shuddered, but finally managed to tear his eyes away from the horrific sight—goddamn it, that suckling sound—and allowed his gaze to travel down the man’s legs. It was only then, seeing the maze of sinew and beaded blood, that Coggins realized that the limbs were so wet and raw because they were no longer covered in skin.
Insatiable Series Omnibus Edition (Books 1-3) Page 18
