The deputy gritted his teeth.
“I can’t get the fucking thing out of my head—I don’t think I will ever be able to get that feeling out of my head, Jared. The only way to get rid of it is to kill the motherfucker.”
And with that, Jared turned.
It was done. They would stick to the plan.
Deputy Coggins took a step backward and pulled the black case from his pocket and opened it. He crouched down on his haunches, spreading items out on the floor in front of him. When he flicked the lighter wheel, Alice made out what they were: a syringe filled with heroin, a spoon, and some alcohol swabs. Her eyes darted from the paraphernalia to Oxford in the skin suit and back again.
Of course!
She thought of the man with the beard yelling for his case, for his H, and things came into focus. Oxford had been with her that night and had left before she had awoken. But he mustn’t have remembered, or, like her, he had blacked out, because there was no recognition on his face when he looked at her. This perhaps wasn’t that surprising given that she had been half-naked, lying on her stomach, her back riddled with a rash when he’d left. But when Oxford had awoken, he was the cunt who had taken the bearded man’s case of heroin. And now that heroin was here with her. Full circle—full fucking circle.
Come
The deputy tapped the crushed pills onto the spoon and proceeded to heat the bottom. With the flame from the lighter illuminating his face, he not only looked terrible, but he looked scared. His usual sarcastic wit, evident in his features—a wry smile, tight wrinkles by the corner of his eyes even when he wasn’t laughing—was gone. His typically slicked black hair was knotted atop his head, and his eyes, usually his most striking feature—dark, but twinkling, especially when he was teasing Deputy White—were dull and sunken. The lighter flicked out, and she saw the silhouette of his hand shake and knew that the wheel had gotten too hot and he had burned himself. She had done the same thing numerous times back—ha, back!—when she was an addict.
The flame reignited, and Coggins was holding the syringe now, using one hand to pull the plunger back while his other hand held the spoon; no shakes, no quivers, no spills this time. Alice marveled at the ease with which the deputy filled the syringe with just one hand. She was impressed.
Maybe he was once an addict too.
Alice thought about that for a moment.
Everyone’s an addict—everyone is addicted to something.
The lighter flicked off again and Jared turn to face his brother.
“Good luck, Oxford. I love you.”
Jared leaned forward, intending to embrace his brother, to hold him close, but his arms fell short; even if he had the constitution to hug him, there wouldn’t have been any physical contact—the extra layer of skin made that impossible. Jared backed away.
“Oxford?” he asked.
“Yeah?”
His voice was slow—tired.
“What did Mom say to you before we left?”
There was a long pause, and Coggins lost sight of Oxford’s eyes; he didn’t know if the man had closed them, or if the skin had slipped again.
“She said, ‘Look after your brother, he needs you.’”
This floored Jared, and he took two quick steps backward. He opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out.
Coggins decided to put an end to this awkward exchange; if the flaking, peeling pink flesh on the beast below them was any indication, which he thought it was, their window of opportunity—if there had ever been one—was closing.
“Take this,” Coggins instructed, holding out the syringe.
It was enough drugs to kill an elephant, Alice saw, a murky brownish-yellow substance that filled the entire volume of the syringe. Enough to kill an elephant, but she had no idea if it would be enough to kill that thing. To kill the sheriff—to kill the closest thing she’d had to a dad in years. She started to cry.
There was another pause before Oxford’s thick, trembling hand slowly extended and took the syringe. He manipulated the plunger awkwardly, like a child trying to work a spoon, but despite his fumbling, it appeared as if he might be able to inject it even with the extra skin covering his hands.
Alice looked down at her own hand through watery eyes and was surprised to see one lonely clonazepam sitting on her palm—the deputy must have put it there without her noticing.
“Are you ready?” Coggins asked.
There was a wet, muffled sound like someone speaking through a washcloth, but Alice understood the word anyway.
“No.”
She put the pill into her mouth and swallowed.
Everyone is addicted to something.
5.
Jared Knew It Was time when he heard that singular word, the one that he had first heard more than three days ago, convinced then that it had been the wind.
Come
The affirmative glance and nod from Deputy Coggins wasn’t necessary; reassuring, yes, but required, no.
“Let’s go, Oxford,” he whispered.
Coooome
Coooooooooome
Cooooooooooooooooooooooooooome
The voice was getting anxious, and they could literally feel its excitement manifested as an electric thrum in the air. Not only was this in itself unnerving, but it was a clear sign that whatever effects the clonazepam had had on the thing had evidently passed—it had recovered quickly. Jared pushed the negative thoughts away; there was no time to change their plan now. And besides, deep down he knew that Coggins was right—if they left, they would eventually make their way back here.
Jared grabbed Oxford by the arm and, together with Coggins, guided the nearly blind man out of the room. They moved cautiously despite the lightening sky, their steps awkward shuffles, tentative and scared.
“You are at the stairs now,” Jared whispered.
A nod, a slip of the skin. Jared didn’t bother adjusting it this time; the skin wasn’t meant to confuse or disguise, but only to give Oxford more time to inject the thing while it removed it.
All the while keeping Oxford’s own skin intact.
Jared bit his lip as penance. It should have been him wearing the skin; he should have been the bait. He was the one who had skipped his father’s funeral; maybe if he had been there, they wouldn’t have come together over the holidays to mourn. Maybe the mourning, more than a year since their father had passed, would have already have been completed.
“You’ll be okay,” he said, more for his own comfort than Oxford’s.
Mama told me to look after you, he had said.
But Mama had told Oxford the same thing.
Why had she done that? How could Oxford look after me?
Something clearly wasn’t right with Mama. He longed for her then, knowing deep down that even if he made it out of this godforsaken place, he might never see her again.
“You’ll be okay,” he repeated, trying to focus.
Truth was, he doubted that any of them would be okay after this, let alone Oxford, who was fucked up to begin with. And the girl? This Alice, who somehow knew both Deputy Coggins and Oxford? He remembered her laughing at Oxford in his skin suit; well, she clearly wasn’t all there anymore, either.
Coooooooooooooooooooome
“Go,” Jared said, fighting back tears.
Oxford took one quivering step forward, his foot searching for the top stair.
Jared turned and followed Coggins quickly across the landing to the other side. Alice bounded almost merrily in front of the deputy, his hand gently guiding her at the small of her back.
No, definitely not all there.
And then they had really come full circle, huddled in the broom closet, peering out into the foyer. But this time it wasn’t him and Oxford looking down at a man with a twisted leg. It was Jared, Alice, and the deputy—fuck, it sounds like the start of a bad joke—looking down at Oxford.
Oxford in his meat suit.
Coooooooooooooooooooooooooooooome
W
e‘re here, Jared thought, licking his lips with a tacky tongue. Now it’s your time to come.
6.
They Had No Other options—not really. But for some reason, despite their desperation, Deputy Bradley Coggins thought that their plan might just work. He remembered how fully engrossed the thing had been when it was skinning the man with the busted knee, and he also remembered how it had pulled away and had so obviously, and nearly immediately, been sick after Alice had hit him with the clonazepam. It was possible that he would have enough time to race down the stairs—the thing with its fucking plugged ears probably wouldn’t hear him—and grab the shotgun and get at least one, maybe two shots off. It seemed improbable, sure, but still possible. Two parts of the plan in particular, however, made him nervous: the first was if the basket case that was Oxford Lawrence was actually able to inject the thing. And while he thought that Oxford should have the time he needed—the thing made a fucking ritual out of the last guy—it was something about the way that Oxford’s brother had been so adamant that he be the one to dress in the meat suit that made him nervous. No one should be that resolute about the prospect—the distinct possibility—of dying, and Oxford was so clearly the obvious choice that it disturbed him.
No one is going to fucking die, Coggins scolded himself.
He watched as Oxford nearly stumbled, and his heartrate increased, or at least he thought it did; it should have. But Deputy Coggins was so tired that he didn’t think any part of him, his heart or even his eyelids, could accelerate.
Keep it together, Brad—you have one more thing to do.
And the thing that made him most nervous of all was actually firing the shotgun. Not shooting the shotgun, surely, but he was nervous that it might not do any damage. When he had hit the thing in the patch of pink flesh on its shoulder with the nine millimeter, he thought it had flinched. Not much, just a faint flinch. And there had been blood, of that he was sure. There was just no way of knowing if the thing had any pink skin left or if it had all fallen away. There was no way of knowing if there was any of the sheriff left, either, an idea that left him torn.
Coggins shook his head and his hand instinctively fell to the butt of his gun. As he watched, Oxford reached the bottom of the staircase, the man’s leg hesitating before taking another step.
There was another problem, too, Coggins thought, as Oxford’s pace suddenly quickened: Oxford might just ditch the meat suit and run. The door was, after all, still open, and Coggins bet the scrawny fucker could really boot it if he wanted to. When Oxford continued past the center of the room where he was supposed to stop, Cody’s hand inadvertently squeezed the butt of his gun hard and he held his breath, thinking that Oxford might do just that: run. And the worst part was that Coggins probably—probably—wouldn’t have blamed him.
But Oxford eventually did stop at what he obviously thought was the middle of the foyer. And then he just stood there, shaking, like a piece of, well, like a piece of meat.
No, they really had no other choice.
7.
Sitting? Why The Fuck are you sitting? Stand up, you fucking nitwit, stand up!
Jared couldn’t believe it. His fucking brother couldn’t even keep it together for five minutes. But now he wasn’t just fucking up his own life, but they were all going to die.
I knew I should have gone! I fucking told Deputy Coggins I should be the one!
After making his way painfully slowly to the approximate center of the room, Oxford had stood there for a good minute or two as they had planned. But then there had been some shifting of the skin, which, granted, was not too surprising as it was likely as uncomfortable in its stench and the heat it retained as it was horrific to look at, but a moment later, his brother fell rather clumsily to his knees.
Get up, you selfish bastard! Get up!
It was so silent for the next minute that the only sound he heard was his own breathing and Deputy Coggins’ equally shallow breaths. Jared leaned on the man’s back, nearly driving him into the floor. Then he heard a deep rumble, followed by that uncomfortable pressure in his ears again; it was coming.
Jared’s breath caught in his throat.
Get up!
He felt like screaming, but plugged ears or not, Jared would not risk the thing hearing him—unlike his fucking delinquent brother, we would not put all of them in that spot.
Another depression, and then the unbelievable happened. Instead of rising back to his feet, Oxford collapsed onto his face, his arms not even reaching out in front to protect himself. There was a sick thwack like smacking a raw steak off a wooden cutting board as the skin struck the hardwood.
No!
There was another sound, too, one that seemed out of place in this world of deep, brooding noise—a tinkling, as if someone had dropped a handful of pennies.
No! I should have gone, I should have gone, I never should have—
Something grabbed his arm, and Jared felt his heart leap into his throat. Reluctantly, he pulled his eyes from his brother and looked down. Deputy Coggins had somehow managed to turn his body even with all of Jared’s weight pushing down on him, his eyes so huge that it looked as if he had been born without lids.
“I’ll go,” Coggins whispered, spit flying from his lips.
Jared shook his head violently and Coggins let go of his arm.
“I’ll go,” he repeated. “You can’t shoot.”
Jared shook his head again; the deputy had clearly misunderstood.
“You—”
“No one goes,” Jared nearly shouted. “We have one shot at this; we stay.”
“But—”
“Why do you have a baseball?” Alice suddenly asked.
They both turned to her, matching looks of surprise on their faces; they had forgotten that she was even in the closet with them. The woman’s slender hands, white with frostbite, were buried in the bag that Jared and Oxford had brought with them from Mama Lawrence’s. As they watched, one of her hands pulled out of the open bag and held up a spherical object for them all to see, and she had a queer smile on her face.
What the fuck?
Jared was about to say something when he noticed the red gas can tucked away in the back of the closet. Had Oxford brought it all the way up here? He couldn’t remember, but thought they must have.
Can we use it? Burn the thing?
Jared shook his head. They had a plan, and it was going to work, despite Oxford. Maybe after—maybe after it was all said and done, they would use what was left of the gasoline to burn the fuck out of this horrible place.
Jared heard another few heavy steps and he pulled his gaze from the gas can and the strange girl who was still holding the baseball and looked back at his brother’s fallen body. His eyes scanned the tiles around the fallen meat suit, and before long he identified what had sounded like pocket change spilling. It was the syringe, and as he had suspected, it was empty. The selfish bastard had injected the entire volume into himself. He had probably planned this all along, and it was likely the reason he had been so adamant about being the one to don the suit and head into the foyer.
Well, Jared thought, tears welling in his eyes briefly before spilling over, the thing will consume the heroin one way or another.
“We stay,” he instructed Coggins, his voice wavering.
8.
Coggins Stared Blankly At Jared. He didn’t know if the man was incredibly cruel or incredibly selfless, but his intentions were obvious: he was going to let his brother be eaten.
“We can’t—” he began, but when Jared turned to face him, tears streaming down his face, Coggins stopped.
“It’s our only chance,” Jared whispered, his voice hitching with every other word. “He dies, or we all die—he chose already.”
More tears.
There was a sound behind them, and Deputy Coggins pushed Jared off of him to get a better look. Alice, tucked away into the deepest corner of the closet, giggled.
Goddamn it, he thought, staring at Alic
e’s bemused expression. What the fuck is wrong with you?
“Why do you have a baseball?” she repeated.
Jared, still weeping, reached out and tore it from her fingers.
Fuck.
Trying to push her from his thoughts—something, undoubtedly, that he would have to deal with later if they survived—the deputy turned his focus back to Jared. The man’s torn expression said enough: the decision had been made, and despite the abruptness of it, it had clearly not been an easy one. He was reminded of when he had told Jared that his brother was going to be the bait, and how sure he had been then that it should be Oxford—and look where that got them. Maybe it was better to let Jared take over, if only for a little while.
We have one shot at this, Jared had said, and Coggins thought he knew what he meant.
They had to get the drugs into the beast somehow.
9.
Jared Watched The Beast peel off the outer skin—more amused than confused—and then the thing’s long green finger extended toward the nape of Oxford’s bare neck.
You fucking idiot! It wasn’t supposed to be like this!
For a brief second, the thing in the foyer turned its head and looked up at him, their eyes meeting even in the dim light.
“Jarrrrrreeeed.”
It was the same voice that had awoken him what seemed a fortnight ago.
“Jarrrrrrrreeed, you missed my funeral, Jared.”
It was the voice of his father.
“Jarrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeed.”
Then the claws moved again and he heard a tearing sound, like thick curtains being cut with a dull knife.
Jared buried his face in his hands, opened his mouth wide, and screamed a soundless scream until bright white spots speckled his vision.
The rumbling started then, that dull, consistent rumbling that had become oh so familiar.
Insatiable Series Omnibus Edition (Books 1-3) Page 25
