Insatiable Series Omnibus Edition (Books 1-3)

by Patrick Logan

Given the humidity in the basement, the residual fluid meant that these too were fresh—had a considerable amount of time passed since the orbs had been smashed open, the fluid would have long since risen to mingle with the dust in the air.

  From somewhere far away, Coggins heard the sheriff exhale loudly before turning to face him.

  “Coggins? You okay? You’re shaking.”

  It was true, Coggins realized, staring at the beam of light from the flashlight that jumped up and down as if held by someone suffering from Parkinson’s.

  He was shaking, but he couldn’t help it.

  “Air,” he gulped. “I need air.”

  The sheriff took two quick steps toward his partner before first grabbing the flashlight from him and then wrapping his thick arm around Coggins’ narrow waist.

  A second later, Coggins felt his knees buckle, and if it weren’t for the sheriff holding him, he would have fallen down in a heap.

  “C’mon,” the sheriff grunted as he carried Coggins directly beneath the trapdoor, “let’s get you out of here.”

  Like a man migrating through Vaseline, Coggins slowly reached up and grabbed the floor above.

  “Ready?” the sheriff asked.

  He didn’t wait for an answer. The big man boosted him out of the basement with such force that Coggins skidded a few feet across the kitchen floor.

  He blinked hard, trying to clear the dust from his eyes.

  Skins. Those were skins down there…

  Coggins coughed and spat a thick wad of phlegm on the floor beside him.

  “Coggins? You all right up there?” the sheriff hollered.

  Coggins scrambled to a seated position, and after a deep breath of considerably less funky air, grumbled an affirmative. His head was starting to clear, but he still couldn’t stop his whole body from quivering.

  “You okay to hang out up there for a minute?”

  This time, Coggins didn’t answer.

  Skins—like the one that Oxford had worn, like the skin of Mrs. Wharfburn that had been peeled and discarded by—

  Coggins bit the inside of his cheek so hard that he tasted blood.

  Stop it.

  “It looks like eggs,” the sheriff grumbled from below, his voice echoing off the moist bricks and funneling up through the opening in the floor.

  Eggs…

  “Fucking dinosaur eggs. Coggins?”

  “Yeah?” he manage to croak.

  “This is fucked up… sounds just like the way the Griddle boy described it.”

  Coggins felt his heart skip a beat. This was his worst nightmare, coming back here to this godforsaken place that he wished he had completely burnt to the ground. And now this, finding—good fucking Lord—eggs?

  Coggins barely stifled a moan.

  “Coggins?” the sheriff’s voice was more serious now.

  This time, Coggins couldn’t even squeak out a ‘yes’. It didn’t matter; the big man continued anyway.

  “What happened here? I mean, before? You ever going to tell me?”

  Again Coggins remained silent, trying his best to catch his bearings and stop the world from spinning.

  A drink. I need a drink.

  Besides, it wasn’t even clear if Paul was talking to him or to himself.

  “What the fuck is this?” the sheriff grumbled from below.

  Coggins heard Paul grunt. The next time he spoke, his voice was louder and it was clear that the comment was directed at him.

  “Heads-up!”

  Something flew out of the trapdoor a second later, landing just a foot from where Coggins sat. The deputy’s eyes went wide, and sweat immediately beaded on his forehead. Using his hands to push his body, he desperately scampered away from the object that clattered loudly off the tiles. Coggins hesitated before coming completely to his feet, staring at the shape, a small, oblong object roughly the size of a miniature football, with a network of spindle-like legs folded awkwardly beneath it. The only saving grace was that it wasn’t moving: the hard white surface that looked like bleached bone was inert, silent, dead.

  His heartrate having come down a little, Coggins managed to pull himself to his feet in a somewhat organized fashion, then stretched his back and brushed some of the dust from his dark blue police pants.

  Eyes fixated on the thing, he cleared his throat again and hollered back at the sheriff, who was struggling to lift himself out of the basement.

  “What’s this? Did Nancy Whitaker give you crabs, Paul? You know you can just fucking scrub them… kerosene and a wire brush should do the trick.”

  Dirt ticked his throat, and he turned to spit again.

  The joke wasn’t funny.

  The sheriff finally managed to pull his large body out of the basement via a modified pull-up, and rolled over to look at Coggins. Like Coggins, the man’s forehead glistened with sweat. It wasn’t noon yet, but the temperature was already reaching into the high nineties.

  “Very funny,” the sheriff grumbled as he too brushed dirt from his pants.

  Paul White pulled a pen from the front pocket of his shirt and used it to flip the crab-thing over. The six legs clattered to the floor, splaying out from around its body. It wasn’t a crab, that much was clear; a crab had eight legs, and those legs definitely didn’t have so many thick, knotted joints.

  It was hideous, and Coggins shuddered. The sheriff caught the movement and looked over at him, his eyebrows once again raising up on his forehead.

  “I know one day you’ll tell me what happened here, Coggins.”

  The man’s eyes softened, and when he continued his voice had dropped an octave.

  “But even if you don’t, I know what you must have done was the right thing. We are, after all, some of the good boys—even if one of us likes to frequent hookers and drink cheap whiskey in a bar with fat Nazi bikers.

  Coggins cracked a smile despite himself.

  ”Remember that, okay? Remember what Dana Drew told us.”

  12.

  Corina brushed a lock of short, dark hair from the side of her face and placed her hands on her hips. As she leaned back and stretched her spine, the bus pulled away, revealing a small, inauspicious brick building with an illuminated white-and-blue placard on the lawn that read: Askergan County Police Department.

  It had been a long ride to Askergan, and during her time on the bus anxiety had built and manifested as a pressure behind Corina’s eyes. It had been six years since she had been to this place, but it appeared that all of her efforts in the gym to repress the memories had been for naught: seeing those words—Askergan County—brought everything flooding back like a deluge.

  Six years. Six years ago she had been here with her family, when it had still been whole; when Dad had still been alive. She had been but a child then, an obstinate pre-teen, but memories of horrible events seemed to stick with you, to defy memory convention—the scene around the kitchen table, eating Grandma’s turkey, the atmosphere festive and jovial; that scene was permanent.

  Dad; I miss you, dad.

  A single tear rolled down her round cheeks, and she quickly wiped it away with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.

  You saved Henri by leaving—sacrificed yourself in the process, but you saved us.

  And this is how it was with her, flip-flopping between being angry at her dad for leaving to revering him for saving them all. It was all just so confusing, culminating with her arrival back in Askergan.

  Corina shook her head, trying to clear her mind.

  She failed.

  A memory of lying in the hospital bed just after her surgery came to her, but unlike her vision of Christmas dinner, this one was far from lucid, clearly the byproduct of being hopped up on painkillers. Jared was with her, she remembered that. And she remembered uttering several words to him—words that didn’t make sense to her now, but words that she felt she would understand soon.

  Palil. It’s growing its palil and it’s still coming.

  Corina shuddered and self-consciously reached d
own to adjust her prosthetic leg. Her jeans had been specifically tailored—one of the Lawrence family’s very few extravagant expenditures—so that a passerby would not be able to tell that her leg beneath wasn’t real. There was a little extra room in the knee to disguise the bulky attachment and a tight taper on both legs to disguise the fact that the prosthetic leg was slightly narrower than her real leg.

  Corina shifted the knapsack to her other shoulder and took a step onto the street, eyes focused on the glass front of the police station. Her stride was smooth and natural, one that had taken several years to perfect. She kept her eyes trained on the small brown brick building as she crossed the road and then the parking lot, trying desperately to avoid looking at the sign emblazoned with the words that incited such painful, vivid memories.

  Askergan County.

  Corina shuddered.

  I can’t believe I’m back in this fucking place.

  * * *

  Corina wasn’t sure what to expect when she pulled open the glass door to the police station, but it certainly wasn’t a woman in her mid to late fifties with short grey hair pulled back in a tight bun, wearing a snug-fighting office uniform: a white-and-purple-striped blouse tucked into a knee-length black skirt.

  The woman looked up when the bell above the door chimed signifying Corina’s entrance, and Corina was immediately struck by how pretty she was, irrespective of her age: her skin was a vibrant hue of pink, her makeup subtle yet accentuating. But mostly it was her eyes; the woman’s eyes were a vibrant green that almost seemed to shimmer under the fluorescent lights. Yet despite her pleasing appearance, there was something about the way her pale red lips were slightly pressed together and the way her left hand didn’t quite lay on the plain brown desk in front of her, but pressed into it ever so slightly. These subtle gestures sent a clear message: this woman was not to be messed with.

  Corina glanced down at her own body and felt a pang of guilt. Wearing her jeans—tailored, yes, stylish, not so much—and an old VERMONT U sweatshirt, she looked more like a vagabond than a respectable member of society. And the dampness in her pits and between her thighs from sweating on the long bus ride didn’t help her cause, either.

  “May I help you?” the woman asked in a voice that was firm yet nonaggressive.

  Corina cleared her throat and stepped completely into the station, allowing the door to close behind her.

  “Yes, I—” She cleared her throat again and reached into her jean pocket. She pulled out the worn piece of paper and unfolded it, careful not to rip the seams. “Yes,” she continued, “I am looking for Deputy Bradley Coggins.”

  When Corina looked up again, the woman was staring at her with a queer expression on her face. When she didn’t answer right away, Corina looked down at the paper again, making sure that she had said the name correctly.

  Had Jared been wrong? Was there a Deputy Coggins here?

  But then the woman’s face returned to its previous demeanor.

  “He is not here right now,” she informed Corina, her eyes now suspiciously looking her up and down. “But if you need an officer, young lady, Deputy Williams is here. You can talk to him if you want.”

  Corina’s face contorted. She didn’t want—didn’t need—Deputy Williams; she needed Deputy Coggins.

  “Or,” the woman continued, more slowly this time, “or you can talk to me if you want—if you would be more comfortable talking to a woman.”

  She continued to stare at Corina, sizing her up.

  Corina shook her head slowly.

  “No, I just need to talk to Deputy Coggins.”

  “Well, I’m not sure when he’ll be back. You can come back tomorrow, if you’d like.”

  Corina shook her head again.

  “I came a long way to see Deputy Coggins. Is it all right if I just wait here?”

  The woman nodded.

  “Of course. There are some chairs over there that you can use. I can also get you a coffee and some snacks if you would like.”

  The woman indicated a row of black chairs that were bound together by their armrests in the small waiting room in which she stood.

  “Just a water would be nice, Mrs…?”

  “Mrs. Drew,” the woman answered sharply, and then added in a softer tone, “I’ll get you some water. You just go ahead and take a seat.”

  Corina did as she was asked, tossing her backpack on the seat beside her. While she waited, she looked around.

  It wasn’t much of a police station, at least not in the traditional sense. There were no lanes with glass-covered window booths at the ends manned by obstinate ladies begrudgingly taking police reports, and there were no American flags hanging every few feet along the wall. Instead, there was just the one simple desk occupied by Mrs. Drew, and a small adjacent kitchen, where the woman now went to get the glass of water that Corina had requested. Behind the desk was a small passage that led to what she assumed were other offices and the jail cells. All in all, it was more an office than a police station.

  “Here you go,” Mrs. Drew said, returning from the kitchen and handing Corina a glass of water.

  She thanked the woman and took a sip. The cool liquid felt good going down on this hot morning.

  A man suddenly made his way to the front of the station from the passageway behind Mrs. Drew’s desk. He was thin, with slicked black hair and a narrow face punctuated by two small, dark eyes. Deputy Williams, no doubt; the way he walked, with a slight swagger, was enough for Corina to conclude that he was a deputy, irrespective of her conversation with Mrs. Drew earlier. And when he spoke in a voice that didn’t quite fit his profile, as if he were putting it on, making it deeper in an attempt to seem authoritative, Corina could have closed her eyes and known that an officer of the law was speaking—she didn’t need to see the gold star on the breast of his beige shirt.

  “Heard the door open,” he said, stopping just at the side of Mrs. Drew’s desk. One hand went to his side, and Corina followed his movements to the grey butt of his gun.

  Corina rolled her eyes. She knew men like this; she had submitted dozens of them over the years in the gym.

  “Everything all right here, Mrs. Drew?”

  Mrs. Drew turned from Corina to face the man.

  “Yes, Andrew, everything is fine.”

  The deputy pushed his lips together and nodded curtly.

  Good, just checking up on you, ye hear. Making sure everything is A-OK, m’lady.

  “And you, Miss, you okay, too?” he asked, peering around Mrs. Drew.

  Corina nodded.

  “Just came—”

  Mrs. Drew interrupted her.

  “She is here to see Deputy Coggins,” she said curtly.

  The deputy’s dark eyebrows knitted on his high forehead.

  “Brad?”

  He turned to Corina.

  “You need to talk to a deputy, sweetie?”

  Corina cringed.

  Sweetie. That’s what Dad used to call me.

  She shook her head and was about to reply, but again Mrs. Drew answered for her.

  “No, not to see a deputy. To see Coggins.”

  Deputy Williams seemed confused by this, and his beady eyes darted to Corina and then Mrs. Drew and back again. Eventually they fixed on Corina.

  “I can take you to see him,” he said bluntly.

  Mrs. Drew’s posture changed.

  “I think it’s better if she waits here.”

  The deputy’s gaze went back to the woman.

  “It’s okay, he’s only out there at the Wharfburn Estate—I’ll take her to see him.”

  Corina’s entire body immediately broke out in a cold sweat and her heart began to race. Mrs. Drew said something in response, but Corina didn’t hear the words.

  Wharfburn Estate.

  Like Askergan County, these words carried so much weight that they seemed to crush her.

  Corina was suddenly flushed into a memory, of a time when she was young, maybe only five or six years old, ly
ing on her bed in her striped pajamas, listening to her father read.

  “You sure you want to hear this one?” he asked, looking over at him with his pale blue eyes.

  Corina nodded vigorously.

  “But it’s not that exciting…”

  “That’s okay, Daddy.”

  He wasn’t lying, his essays were never that exciting—but it was the way he read them. And it wasn’t just the funny voices that he used—which sometimes became a distraction when he messed up all the accents—but it was the way he read his own work. His voice exuded pride as his tongue pronounced those words, and the effect was intoxicating.

  “Read on, Daddy,” she said with a smile.

  Although Cody Lawrence attempted a neutral expression, he failed; pride tiptoed over his features.

  It took Corina a moment to realize that both Mrs. Drew and the deputy were staring at him.

  Had they asked a question?

  Heart still racing, her gaze jumped from face to face.

  The door suddenly chimed and Corina turned to face the sound just as the door slammed into the wall behind it. A man with thick black hair aggressively parted on one side and a gnarled white beard burst through the entrance, his eyes red and wild.

  “Where the fuck is my boy?” he shouted, revealing two rows of thick brown teeth clenched in a sneer. “Where the fuck is my boy?”

  13.

  The sheriff led the way through the kitchen with the deputy in tow, following the streaks of disturbed dust on the kitchen floor. When he saw both of the French doors at the back of the house flung wide, he slowed and unclicked the clip on his holster.

  Hand on the butt of his gun, he turned to face Deputy Coggins, to signify that the man should step behind him. But Coggins wasn’t paying attention—the man’s eyes were downcast, his breath coming in short bursts—and he almost bumped into the sheriff.

  What happened to you, Coggins?

  The man’s gaze was fixed on the corpse of the strange white crab-like creature in the clear plastic bag that he clutched in his hand.

  “Coggins,” Sheriff White hissed, and the man’s red-rimmed eyes looked up at him. “Stay behind me.”