“Kent?”
The boy nodded and Corina closed the folder in her hands. The drive, which she had made in under an hour by speeding most of the way, had given her ample time to come up with a plan for how she would get Kent into the car with her.
She pulled the folder close to her chest and held out her right hand authoritatively. When Kent just looked at it, she smiled.
“Corina Lawrence,” she said curtly, “from ACPD. Sheriff White has sent me to pick you up. We have a few more questions to ask about the disappearance of your friend.”
A concerned look crossed Kent’s face.
“Well my dad’s not here right now,” he said hesitantly. The boy raised his light-colored eyes and peeked behind her, spying the cop car. Then he looked at what Corina was wearing—faded jeans, a green sweatshirt—and she could see the confusion on his face.
Corina cursed herself for not changing into something a little more professional; even though her bag was nearly empty, she should have at least checked the trunk for a police jacket.
She smiled more broadly, trying to disguise her anxiety.
“That’s all right,” she continued, “you’re not in trouble. The sheriff just had some things he wanted clarified.”
The boy’s brow furrowed, and Corina moved on to stage two of her apparently ill-thought-out plan.
“They think that they know where he is, Kent.”
The boy’s eyebrows shot up.
“Tyler? They found Tyler? Is he…?”
Corina purposefully clutched the folder more tightly and held up her other hand.
“I’ve said too much,” she said, blushing. “It’s an active investigation, so I can’t say anything else. The sheriff, on the other hand…”
Hope crossed the boy’s face.
“It’s okay that your dad isn’t here,” she continued, feeling that Kent was nearing his breaking point. “You are sixteen, after all, so you can talk to us alone if you want. The decision is up to you.”
Kent’s face contorted.
“I—I dunno.”
Corina waited for more, but when nothing came, she kicked her plan up into high gear. She tilted her head slightly to one side and smirked.
“I’m not going to lie to you, Kent. I was at the station when you were there, and the sheriff asked me to keep you in the waiting room for a few more minutes while he wrapped up some paperwork.”
This was a riskiest part of her plan, as she had no idea how things had gone down with the sheriff. But she tucked her short hair behind her ear and went with it.
“But I was on my damn phone and I didn’t get to you in time. Now he’s pissed at me.”
Kent shook his head.
“But my dad…”
Corina smiled coquettishly and gestured to the police cruiser behind her.
“Truth? I’m not a cop.”
Corina shrugged and averted her gaze.
“I’m not even a clerk yet—just an intern. But I really, really want to keep my job. I borrowed Deputy Williams’—do you remember him?”
Kent nodded slowly.
“Well he let me borrow his car so that I could come get you.”
She sighed dramatically, laying it on thick.
“I would be very, very appreciative if you could come along with me back to the station. I promise I’ll have you back here before dinner time.”
Corina resisted the urge to bat her eyelashes. She felt sick to her stomach acting this way, but her mastery of Muai Thay and jiu jitsu would not help her here, she knew.
“Well, Kent, what do you say? Are you gonna help a pretty girl keep her job?”
21.
Deputy Coggins and Jared Lawrence didn’t even make it to the culvert; the second they stepped out of the back of the Lawrence house and made it into the woods behind the house, they knew something was wrong. Very wrong.
“What’s that noise?” Jared asked in a hushed voice from a feet behind Coggins.
Jared had a rifle in one hand, with another strapped over his shoulder. But despite the artillery, Coggins was not optimistic of the man’s shooting skills, judging by the way he walked crouched over like an early settler hunting Injuns.
“Cracking,” Coggins answered simply, holding his own gun—the nine millimeter police issue—out in front of him. “Sounds like the fucking crackers.”
Coggins took two more steps onto the dry vegetation at the outskirts of the small wooded area before he saw the first cracker. It was smaller than the one that had struck the window about a half hour ago; still milky white, with the same six knobby legs, but less than half the size. And it was moving toward them at an alarming speed, easily navigating the organic detritus and broken branches blanketing the forest ground.
The deputy held his hand up in a fist, the universal sign for stopping, and Jared obliged. Next, Coggins carefully lowered the gun to eye level. He had no idea if the cracker had seen or somehow sensed him and Jared, but based on what he had seen in the Lawrence home and the Kent boy’s story, he was taking no chances.
The first shot missed, and Coggins cursed himself for letting his skills fall to the wayside during his six plus years of binge drinking.
Couldn’t you have at least gone to a range once in a while?
The second bullet was on target and tore through the hard carapace of the cracker’s shell, sending fragments of it flying in all directions. When the smoke cleared, there was nothing left of the creature except for a spray of what looked like runny oatmeal splattered on the mossy grass and fallen leaves.
Jared exhaled loudly, and Coggins could feel the man’s subsequent rapid breathing on the back of his neck even at a distance of three feet. He was reminded of being deep in the closet of Mrs. Wharfburn’s house, peering wide-eyed at a slit through the door at unspeakable horrors below. He thought of poor Jared’s brother, of Oxford, and how even now, even years later, he hadn’t worked out if the man’s decision to overdose on the drugs meant for the thing—for Oot’-keban—had been a completely selfless or an utterly selfish act.
The real question is, Coggins thought as he continued to stare at the cracker’s mucousy entrails, what does it matter now?
“Look,” Jared whispered suddenly, extending his finger over Coggins’ shoulder.
Evidently the gunshots and the smearing of one of their own had not gone unnoticed. Three more crackers came toward them from deeper in the forest, their white bodies standing out against the dark green-and-brown backdrop. Unlike the first, these three came toward them with more purpose, and Coggins was positive that they were coming for them.
Coggins’ mind instantly turned to the half dozen eggs that he and Sheriff White had found smashed in the basement.
Where are all of these coming from? Is this it?
As the creatures approached, he raised his gun again and indicated for Jared to pull up beside him and do the same. Then he aimed and barked two shots at the lead cracker.
The first bullet was a direct hit and the thing exploded in a spray of white goo like its predecessor. Jared fired his rifle next, but the shot went horribly wide, taking a chunk out of the tree about twenty feet behind the crackers. Coggins instantly regretted his decision to let Jared use the shotgun—it didn’t make sense. Jared should’ve been using the handgun, and he should’ve been sporting the rifle.
“Reload,” Coggins instructed.
The crackers were coming faster now, weaving across each other’s paths, only a couple dozen feet from the two men.
Coggins fired two more shots, but both missed.
“Reload,” he said again out of the corner of his mouth.
“I am,” Jared spat back, his voice coming out from between pursed lips.
Coggins breathed deep and held his breath.
Then he fired one shot and the back two legs of the cracker closest to them—only about a dozen feet now—exploded, and the thing careened forward. It continued to crawl on its four remaining legs for a moment, leaving a train of the stick
y, milky white substance on the dirt behind it, but after another two cracking lurches, it toppled onto its shell and remained motionless.
Coggins immediately turned to the other cracker, but it weaved behind a tree and he lost sight of it.
“Where’d it go?” he shouted. “Jared, where the fuck did it go?”
The man had finally managed to reload the rifle and slowly brought it up to his shoulder again.
“I don’t know,” the man whispered back.
Coggins remained in the crouched position as his eyes scanned the area where he had last seen it.
But he saw nothing—there was no sign of the white shell.
“Coggins?” Jared whispered, his voice trembling.
Before Coggins could reply, a loud crack that reverberated off the trees exploded from their left.
Coggins whipped the gun around, but Jared was blocking his line of sight and he didn’t see the cracker flying through the air. Jared turned a split second later, but the jerky movement was so uncoordinated that the man fell to the ground, somehow pinching off a shot in the process.
A hot white fluid sprayed both Jared and Coggins, but Jared got the worst of it. The stinking liquid splashed his face and he immediately dropped the rifle and tried to clear his eyes and nose.
Coggins leaned over Jared and grabbed the bottom of his t-shirt and wiped most of it away.
“Fuck,” Jared cursed, spitting onto the grass beside them. “Fuck!”
He tried desperately to get the tacky substance off his hands, rubbing his palms aggressively on the thighs of his jeans.
Coggins also set about cleaning his own face when he heard the sound.
It was a cracking noise, to be sure, but this time it wasn’t the distinct cracking sound that the thing’s joints made when they locked into place. Instead, this time he heard a cacophony of cracks that all blended together like the chorus of a steel drum band.
Coggins stopped wiping his face with the sleeve of his ACPD shirt and stared deeper into the forest where he assumed the culvert lay.
His breath caught in his throat.
“Jared, get up,” he croaked.
Jared continued to curse with the effort of trying to clear every last ounce of the cracker’s blood or fluid or whatever the fuck it was from his face.
“Jared,” Coggins whispered again, his eyes locked on the horror that spread out before him.
When the man still didn’t answer, Coggins reached down with his free hand and grabbed the man’s collar. He missed, and instead grabbed a thatch of the man’s hair—which was probably for the better.
Jared cried out and turned to look at him.
“What the fuck, Brad?”
When he saw the look on Coggins’ face, he turned and followed the man’s gaze.
“Oh my God.”
“Get up, Jared,” Coggins said, more loudly this time.
Jared scrambled to his feet, grabbing the rifle off the ground beside him.
There were so many crackers twisting and weaving over fallen logs and moss, seamlessly navigating between the trees, that it looked like a foamy sea of white crustaceans coming toward them. Fast.
Clearly, the nest of smashed eggs back in the Wharfburn Estate was only the beginning…
Are they breeding? Where the fuck are they all coming from?
But there was no time to think—they were coming right at them.
“Run!” Coggins shouted. He grabbed Jared by the shoulder this time and squeezed the man hard. “Run!”
Together they turned and ran.
The crackers followed.
22.
Corina listened carefully to the boy’s story, but when he was finished she said nothing.
“Did you hear me?” Kent Griddle asked, his voice hoarse from all the talking.
Corina nodded slowly. She had heard him all right, but the real question was whether or not she believed him.
Crackers? Really?
“And you told this all to the sheriff?” she asked before Kent get too uncomfortable with the silence.
“I told him,” the boy replied.
There was another awkward pause before the boy spoke again.
“Did they really find Tyler? What other questions does the sheriff have for me?”
Corina, lost in thought, continued to drive as she had been for the past forty minutes when the boy had told her about the fishing trip, and then entering the Wharfburn Estate and playing Ba di bo.
“Corina? What questions?”
Corina shook her head and turned to face him.
He was cute, even though when he was wide-eyed as he was now, all of his features—his nose, his ears, and especially his eyes—looked a little too big for his small, round face.
“What?” she asked.
Corina shifted her hip and fought the urge to reach down and adjust her prosthetic leg. Even though it was her left leg that had been severed just above the knee, driving was turning out to be a pain. Her rigid prosthetic forced the foot into the floor of the cab, which strained her hip, and she found herself having to continually shift her body in order to try to get comfortable. She had even debated removing the inanimate hunk of plastic and carbon, but thought that Kent might freak out.
He was a skinny boy, and there was zero doubt in her mind that she could take him if push came to shove—even with her leg. But she didn’t want that. She liked Kent.
“What questions does the sheriff want to ask me?” he asked, his eyes wide.
Corina shook her head.
“I don’t know,” she replied.
They drove the next ten minutes in silence, both staring out the windshield lost in thought. The sun was slowly descending from its apex in the sky, taking with it some of the oppressive heat that had blanketed the county over the past week.
In a couple of hours it would be dark, and there was much to be done before that time. The last thing Corina wanted was to be alone in the Wharfburn Estate after dark. After all, that’s how this whole shit had started… first with her dad, and then with Kent and his friends. No, the Wharfburn Estate was not a dark-friendly environment.
“Hey, how much longer is it going to be, anyways?”
The question threw Corina for a loop and she hesitated.
This was a mistake, as Kent immediately picked up on it and his eyes rapidly turned forward, scanning the gravel road before them for signs of familiarity.
“Not much longer,” Corina said quickly, pushing the car a little faster.
Kent started to shake his head.
“No, no, this isn’t right—when I came here with my dad, we didn’t come this way. This is too—too urban.” He spat the last word like a curse.
When he turned to look at her again, Corina couldn’t meet his eyes.
“It won’t be too much longer,” she promised. Her tone had unintentionally grown cold.
She liked Kent, but she was still here for a reason.
As they pulled onto a small dirt road, Kent turned his gaze upward to the green street sign emblazoned with the words: Cedar Lane.
“No!”
The boy’s hand instinctively went for the door handle, but Corina quickly locked it before he could pull it open. She didn’t know if he would jump considering that they were driving forty miles an hour on the small and bumpy dirt road, but she wouldn’t risk it. She needed him—she needed him to show her what he had seen.
“Almost there,” she said, trying to calm him.
Kent was starting to hyperventilate in the passenger seat as he continued to pull madly on the door handle.
“Let me out!” he screamed. “I won’t go back! I told the sheriff I won’t go back there!”
When he turned to Corina and his hand reached for the wheel, she drove her right elbow into his ribs just below the boy’s armpit. Air gushed from his lungs and he immediately doubled over in pain, his arms wrapping protectively around his core.
“I’m sorry,” Corina whispered, pushing the car even fast
er. “I’m sorry—I just need to know.”
* * *
Kent had stopped crying and was breathing more normally now. Even when she pulled the car to a stop at the side of the road outside the Estate, the boy managed to maintain some semblance of calm. He was scheming something, Corina gathered, probably trying to figure out how he could steal the cop car and get the hell out of there.
This was a nonstarter, however, as she was confident in her ability to keep Kent from misbehaving.
“We’re here,” she announced, turning toward the boy, and he, in turn, looked at her. When their eyes met, she spoke as deliberately as she could.
“Listen, Kent, I lost my father and my uncle here—and a whole lot more.”
She reached down and pulled up the ankle of her jeans, revealing the metal prong that affixed the carbon foot to the plastic lower leg. Kent followed her gaze, and when he saw the prosthesis his eyes bulged.
“What?” he asked simply, his face a mask of confusion.
Yet despite this expression, Corina knew that he was still scheming, probably trying to figure out if he could outrun her considering her handicap.
No chance.
“Listen to me, Kent.”
The boy’s blue eyes shot up.
“I lost a lot here, and I know that you lost your friend here. I just need to know what happened, what happened to me and my family. To make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else. Do you understand?”
“Tyler?” he whimpered. “You mean they didn’t find Tyler?”
Tears welled in his eyes.
“You lied?” he whispered.
“Do you understand?” Corina asked more sternly.
When Kent refused to answer, her right arm shot out again and the boy instinctively cringed in expectation of another blow. But when she lay her hand gently on top of one of the boy’s hands, he looked up at her with a confused look on his face.
“I need your help, Kent.”
It was Corina’s turn to fight back tears.
“Please, Kent. I need your help.”
Slowly, the boy with the short red hair nodded.
Scheming, Corina thought. He’s still scheming.
Insatiable Series Omnibus Edition (Books 1-3) Page 48
