Coggins shrugged and did as he was told. But unlike the sheriff, both of his hands remained at his sides.
The sheriff pressed his back against the wall adjacent the open French doors, then used his hand to open the door nearest him all the way. Coggins crept beside him and also leaned up against the wall, but his focus was once again on the plastic bag.
I’m going to have to do this on my own, Sheriff White thought, drawing his gun.
The sheriff first peeked around the corner and, seeing nothing but the empty swimming pool, he took two steps to his left and exited the house, glancing first left and then swinging his gun in a wide arc all the way across the lawn.
Satisfied that there was no danger, aside from the risk of being forever entangled in the waist-high weeds, he leaned back into the house to indicate to Coggins to join him.
“All clear,” he said.
Coggins shook his head and the expression on his face changed. The sheriff had to commend the man’s attempts to bury his demons, but the smirk that fell on his narrow face was clearly only skin deep. Nevertheless, Coggins rolled his eyes and casually joined the sheriff outside. When Paul gave him a stern look, Coggins shrugged.
“Lead the way, Miami Vice,” he said. “It’s just my first day here, after all.”
Yet despite his humorous commentary, he too pulled his gun, although he held it by his hip instead of fanning it out in front of him as the sheriff continued to do.
They followed the path through the overgrown lawn, which was mainly composed of a thicket of broken grass stalks and disturbed dandelion tops. A gnat buzzed by Coggins’ ear, and he brought his hand up to sweep it away. In doing so, he caught a glimpse of the crab-thing in the plastic bag that he still clutched.
It was hideous—its crispy, bleached limbs were so taut now that the pointed ends stretched the makeshift evidence bag to a maximum.
“What do you think about the boy’s story now?” he asked quietly, eyes still moving up and down the multi-jointed limbs.
The sheriff continued to move ahead slowly.
“Dunno,” he said after a moment of silent contemplation. “You?”
Even though he had posed the initial question, he hadn’t expected the man to immediately throw it back to him. But when he tried to recall what the Griddle boy had said, he found his mind drifting elsewhere, back to what had happened here in this very house.
Bile rose in his throat and he swallowed hard.
Memories that had long since been suppressed with the help of his best friend Johnny Walker suddenly came thudding back. It was hard, really hard, to put things in perspective, to think that what flooded his mind at this very moment was anything but his imagination. After all, on that fateful time a few days before Christmas, he had gone at least a day without eating, and on top of that it had been freezing cold. The snow didn’t help, either, its collective mass a disorienting blanket of nonsense that numbed his senses.
Back then, the Wharfburn Estate had been covered in a thick blanket of snow. Back then, he had been thin, in shape. Back then, he hadn’t been able to feel his extremities. Now he was a little pudgy from years of drinking. And it was hot, the sun beating down on them relentlessly. So very different the two times he had been here, but they were somehow the same—the same evil had drawn him here then, and it was another evil—his hand tightened on the plastic bag, wrenching it in his moist palm—that had pulled him back.
Coggins took a deep breath and wiped the sweat from his brow, making sure to use the hand that held the pistol and not the one with his bag.
His last memory of the place was watching the skins burn in the foyer, along with the abomination that Sheriff Dana Drew had become. It was there, staring at the boiling and bubbling skin of his friend, mentor, father figure, that something inside of him had broken.
Deputy Bradley Coggins started to shake, and he felt a strong urge to drink.
This is fucked—what am I doing back here?
They had thought that they had gotten it all—burned all the skins and the evil that had descended on this place, after which then they had all gone their separate ways. Burying those secrets deep, severing all connection with those who had been involved in the horrors, as familiarity would only serve to bring back memories of a time and a place that would eventually blur into oblivion.
That was their hope, anyway.
“Coggins?”
Coggins raised his head from the ground and stared at the sheriff’s face. The man’s thick black eyebrows had turned upward in the middle, his expression one of deep concern.
Coggins swallowed hard.
It was a foolish hope.
“I’m fine,” he lied, wiping away more sweat from his forehead.
The sheriff continued to stare at him.
“Look, I’m the cool guy from Miami Vice, you’re the black guy—I’m cool,” Coggins continued.
After a time, Coggins could no longer stand the sheriff’s accusatory glance, and he let his eyes drift to one side, to behind the big man.
With their stare broken, the sheriff finally spoke up.
“What happened here?” the sheriff asked, his voice low.
Coggins shrugged.
“You heard the boy.” He raised the plastic bag with the six-legged crab in front of him, but purposely avoided looking at it. “Fucking crabs, man.”
The sheriff shook his head and indicated that Coggins should lower the hideous thing.
“No, I mean before.”
The big man’s face twisted, and for a moment Coggins thought that the sheriff might shed a tear. He didn’t blame him; being back here had him tearing up too. “I mean with the sheriff.”
Coggins’ eyes went dark.
“Nothing,” he said definitively, making it clear that he meant to change the subject. The sheriff nodded slowly.
“Anything I need to know, anything that will help me with this?” He indicated the plastic bag with his chin.
Coggins thought about that for a moment. Of course they were related—somehow that fucking thing that had possessed Dana Drew had planted these eggs in the basement.
Evil.
Oot’-keban.
Of course they were related.
Coggins bit the inside of his lip so hard that he tasted blood.
Should have just burned the whole fucking place to the ground.
“Coggins?”
He hadn’t realized that he had drifted into thought again.
“Can you handle this?”
Coggins shook his head.
“Fuck no. But if I screw up, you can always revert to my twin that you hired.”
The sheriff looked confused.
“Twin?”
Coggins waited, and eventually understanding crossed the sheriff’s broad features.
“Deputy Williams?”
Coggins nodded, and a small smile broke on the sheriff’s face.
“Not your twin,” he said. “The man is a highly—”
“Face it, Paul, you missed me so much that you tried to hire someone that looks exactly like me. You cheated on me.”
The sheriff smirked and turned back to the path leading away from the house.
“Fucking hell,” the man muttered just loud enough for Coggins to hear. “Maybe Sheriff Drew’s judgement on you was way off. Maybe he was the one drinking at the Nazi biker bar when he decided to hire your sorry ass.”
Coggins smiled and fell in behind the big man.
They walked in silence for the next minute, and after about fifty paces, the path led them first into a thin forest, then to a small clearing at the mouth of a culvert. The culvert, which was about fifteen feet long, cut an opening in a hill that ran up to the road above.
The sheriff turned to Coggins and pointed to the left side of the culvert. Coggins nodded and dropped to a crouch before squirreling his way to the side of the hill. The sheriff did the same on the opposite side of the opening, both of them leaning with their backs against the hill, both
guns drawn now.
Their eyes met and the sheriff nodded.
Coggins watched as the man took a deep breath, then stepped in front of the culvert, his pistol aimed into the tunnel.
A moment later, he lowered his gun down and turned to Coggins.
“All clear,” he said again.
Coggins made a face.
“You been watching Matlock or something? What is this ‘all clear’ bullshit?” Coggins asked, once again moving in behind the sheriff.
“Protocol,” the sheriff answered simply.
Coggins looked skyward.
“Ah, yes, ye the keeper of the rules.”
The sheriff ignored him and stepped into the culvert. Coggins followed.
The shade of the tunnel offered much relief from the hot sun beating down from above, and Coggins didn’t hesitate in leaning against the back of the corrugated metal, enjoying the cooling sensation that it offered even through his police shirt. He watched as the sheriff squatted and moved a few steps into the tunnel, examining a disturbed area on the floor.
“Someone was here recently,” he said, more to himself than to Coggins.
Coggins nodded and examined the interior of the massive culvert, which was large enough that the six-foot-four sheriff could stand inside without ducking, and once again let his mind wander.
He had tried to return to the deputy lifestyle—or at least wanted to try to continue his life much the way it had been before the blizzard. But he just couldn’t do it; no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t pick up the phone and call his partner, the now Sheriff Paul White, and tell him, ‘Yeah, listen, Whitey, I’m good now—good to come back to work.’
He never made that call because he cared about the man too much to lie to him. And he couldn’t face Alice, either, even though he called often to check up on her. Her condition was always the same, and for some reason, he felt that only contributed to his complacency: No change, Mr. Coggins. Alice is still sleeping soundly.
Maybe, just maybe, if she had awoken, if she had—
Coggins shook the nonsense from his head.
It didn’t matter. He was here now, in a culvert, trying to keep cool on what must have been one of the hottest days of the year. Here, in this place, with Sheriff White.
But why?
Coggins had no idea.
“You think—?” the sheriff began, but the crackle of the radio on his hip interrupted him. The sound was loud in the culvert, and Coggins, still jumpy, forever on edge, felt his breath catch in his throat.
“Sheriff?” the static-ridden voice demanded. “Sheriff?”
In the background, Coggins thought he heard someone shout.
The sheriff, still on his haunches, turned to Coggins, his expression grim. There was a sheen on his dark face, and sweat had nearly soaked all the way through his police shirt. He unhooked the radio and barked, keeping his eyes trained on Coggins.
“Come in, Deputy Williams.”
“Yeah, Sheriff, we have a bit of a—” The deputy suddenly shouted to someone in the background, “Get behind me! And you stay away from her!”
There was a pause, followed by the sound of more commotion.
The sheriff brought the radio to his lips again.
“Andy? What the hell is going on over there?”
“Sorry, Sheriff—listen, you need to get back here quick. Mr. ugh, Mr., ugh—” There was another pause, but this time the radio clicked off for a brief moment before the deputy spoke again. “Mr. Wandry is here—the father of the missing boy Tyler—and—“
There was another pause, but this time the radio stayed on. Coggins leaned closer to the sheriff, trying to make out what was going on back at the station. He heard two female voices, one young and the other old.
The young girl’s voice: “Don’t come near me.”
The old woman’s voice: “Stay away from her.”
He recognized the older woman’s voice: it was Mrs. Drew, and she didn’t sound scared. Instead, her words sounded like a veiled threat, which didn’t surprise the sheriff. The confidence in the younger girl’s voice, on the other hand, was startling.
Stay away from us, if you know what’s good for you.
“Back up! Back up, now!”
It was the deputy this time, and the next time he spoke his voice was louder; clearly, the man had brought the radio back to his face.
“Sheriff, you need to get down here—Walter Wandry has lost his mind.”
“Ten-four,” the sheriff replied, pulling himself to his feet. “I’ll be there in thirty. Throw him in the cell until I get there.”
The sheriff clicked off the radio and headed toward Coggins, intending to leave the culvert.
“Let’s go,” he said, reaching out for Coggins’ arm.
Coggins moved a little to his left, letting Paul’s hand fall short.
“You go,” Coggins said. “You go, I have something to take care of around here.”
The sheriff’s thick eyebrows furrowed, a mask of confusion crossing his features.
“Something to take care of?” he repeated, his voice hesitant.
Coggins knew what the man was thinking—he was thinking that the something that Coggins was referring to was a drink.
And he wanted a drink, but that wasn’t the something—not this time.
“I need to—”
Coggins didn’t finish his sentence. A resounding crack erupted in the culvert from behind the two men, and it echoed off the irregular surface, making it difficult to determine where exactly it was coming from.
The sheriff acted first. Gun still drawn, he whipped his crouched body around. Coggins pushed off of the interior of the culvert with his foot and pulled his gun out of the holster, dropping the bag with the crab to the ground.
The object gliding toward them was moving too quickly to fire at it, and even if it were further away, it would have been a difficult target.
Sheriff White sidestepped just in time and swiveled his hips as the flying disc came at him. At the same time, he swung his gun around, releasing the butt and grabbing the barrel mid swing.
There was another crack, but this one was deeper, more crumpling in texture, and it lacked the popping quality of the previous sound.
The butt of the sheriff’s gun smashed the flying thing’s shell and sent it careening back the way it came with far less grace. As it tumbled through the air, Coggins noted that it had six knobby appendages and was nearly identical to the thing that the sheriff had tossed out of the basement, the thing in the plastic bag that he had dropped to the ground.
The creature smacked against the wall with a moist smack and slowly slid down the side, leaving a trail of an opaque white substance in its wake. Then it landed in a lifeless heap at the bottom of the culvert about six feet from the sheriff. Paul immediately flipped his gun around and kept it trained on the thing, and the two men waited in silence for a moment, their heavy breathing the only sound in the now hot culvert.
When the cracker didn’t move for several seconds, the sheriff finally lowered his gun.
“Jesus, Whitey, you should have been a baseball player, not a football player,” Coggins said breathlessly.
Despite his words, his mind was churning, thinking about the story that the Griddle kid had told them about how the crab-thing had affixed to his friend’s scalp.
That was fucking close.
Coggins kept his gun drawn as the sheriff turned to face him. There was no humor on his face.
“I need to get to the station,” he said curtly. “You coming back, Coggins?”
Despite the authority of his words, the man was obviously torn; they clearly had business to take care of here, but his ties to Deputy Williams and Mrs. Drew ran deep. Coggins was reminded of when Sheriff Drew had said that he was going to check out the Wharfburn Estate and had never returned, leaving those back at the station to clean up the mess. Evidently, Paul was reluctant to leave them in the same predicament.
The sheriff nodde
d slowly, more to himself than to Coggins.
“Find out what’s going on here, Coggins. Then meet me back to the station.”
Now it was Coggins’ turn to nod, and he did so enthusiastically, trying to prove to the sheriff that he was making the right decision. It was obvious that his longtime friend was still suspicious of him, and that was okay—the man had every right to be worried; Coggins’ still trembling hands were proof enough of that.
“Hey,” Coggins replied, slipping his finger off of the trigger and flipping the gun flat, pointing it at the culvert ceiling, “we’re the good boys, remember? I’ll be back… after all, you never know when I’ll need that baseball swing again.”
Coggins tried to smile, tried to convince the sheriff of some truth behind his words, but his lips failed to obey.
The truth was, he didn’t know if he would be back.
14.
Sheriff Paul White hammered the cruiser into park and jumped out of the car, drawing his gun at the same time. He yanked open the glass door to the police station and stepped inside, his eyes immediately searching the space for danger.
No one—the reception area was completely empty. He spotted a cup of coffee—still hot, judging by the steam that exited the porcelain mug—on Mrs. Drew’s desk, but she was not sitting in the chair behind it. There was a pile of papers splashed on the corner of her desk, and several more sheets on the ground.
“Hey! Williams! Mrs. Drew!”
He took two hesitant steps forward, trying to piece together an idea of what had happened here—trying to comprehend what this Mr. Wandry might have done.
There was a backpack on the row of chairs off to the left, one that he had never seen before. Other than that, the place looked pretty much the same as it had when he had left about an hour ago with Deputy Coggins.
“Deputy Williams,” he shouted, raising his considerable voice so that the baritone speech bounced off the walls of the small station.
“Back here, Sheriff!” Deputy Williams’ voice drifted up to him from down the long hallway, and the sheriff felt his heartrate slow. “Back here, boss,” the man repeated.
“Coming,” he replied.
Although he didn’t holster his gun, he did lower it to his side as he hopped over the swinging half door that separated the reception area and the back of the station where his and the other deputies’ desks were, as well as Askergan County’s only cell.
Insatiable Series Omnibus Edition (Books 1-3) Page 44
