“Yes?” Walter hissed.
“We have Seth,” someone from the other side of the door answered.
Corina gulped.
Seth?
“Bring him in then.”
The door opened, and a biker with a machine gun slung over his shoulder stepped into view. With the barrel, he indicated for another man to enter.
It took several seconds for the waif to shuffle over the threshold, and when he did, she recognized him immediately, despite his mangled face.
No. It’s… it’s impossible.
Corina took a deep breath and tried not to lose her final grasp of reality.
It was Seth—the man who had all those years ago visited her family, the man who she had refused to sit beside to open gifts.
How petty she had been then. How childish and immature.
Corina felt herself on the verge of hyperventilating and tried her best to remain calm. The last thing she wanted to do was draw the Crab’s attention.
Then the bastard had left her and Henri and Mom and Dad to freeze to death.
It was Seth—Jared’s once boyfriend.
And now he was here. Here with Walter.
Corina wanted to think that he was here at Jared’s behest, that he was here to help her, save her even.
To atone for having once left her to die.
But something… something was different about Seth. Something was wrong.
“Close the door,” the Crab instructed. When the biker raised an eyebrow, he repeated the instruction, his eyes narrowing.
The man obliged, and Walter turned to Seth next.
“Sit.”
Seth shuffled over to the chair across the desk from Walter and with considerable effort, pulled it back before collapsing into it.
“Want a line?” the Crab asked. He tilted a small mirror for Seth to see the product.
Seth didn’t even look at it.
“No,” he replied softly.
“Suit yourself.”
The Crab pulled the mirror back and snorted another line. When he was done, he lowered his gaze and flexed his right fist.
Corina felt her stomach lurch at the sight of the purple lines, thick as rebar, pulsating in his chest. It was if the cocaine had retained its shape after snorting and was now navigating his corroded vessels like an aquatic inchworm.
“Why’d you bring the girl to me?”
Seth slowly turned, his eyes falling on Corina.
Corina’s heart sunk. There was no recognition in his features, only abject apathy.
Any thoughts of this man helping her was nonsense.
Seth’s eyes skipped to the girl hanging on Corina’s right, the one they called Alice, before turning back to the hideous creature across the desk from him.
“Where’s the other one?” he asked.
The Crab flicked his eyes upward to the skins above.
Seth followed his gaze. Again, no reaction.
“You can’t kill the girl,” he said.
Corina instinctively tensed against her bonds. She knew what happened when someone questioned the Crab, she had seen it firsthand. It started with Walter dropping into some sort of trance, and then those pale creatures would bud from his skin.
But to her astonishment, the Crab simply smiled. Maybe he was just too high to realize that Seth, this skinny, bruised and battered man, was challenging him.
“Tell me why you brought her here.”
Seth shrugged.
“The voice; the voice told me to bring the girl.”
“The voice, huh?”
Seth nodded.
“The voice.”
“Fine, I’ll keep her around for a while. But the other one—” the Crab’s eyes flicked up at Corina, who snarled, fresh spit dripping down her chin. “The other one will be next. A little feisty, that one. I like that.”
“Next?”
The Crab nodded.
“The Sheriff’s girlfriend was only the start. Until the Sheriff comes here with his deputies, and surrenders himself, castigates himself, for what he has done to me—to the Wandry family, to Tyler, to Kent—then every week I will send him a new head in a bag. When these two run out, I’ll send my men to get more. I will scour this fucking County looking for everyone and everything that the Sheriff cares about, and I’ll send them all to him in a fucking bag.”
The Crab clearly expected some sort of outward response, but when none came, he continued.
“I have been chosen, Seth, can’t you see that?”
When Seth still didn’t say anything, the Crab shifted his shoulders, allowing the silk robe that hung open at the chest to slip down.
Corina gasped at the sight of the man’s shoulder. The skin around the oscillating cracker mouth seemed dry to the point of splitting, and it had taken on a dark green hue.
In a word, it looked… reptilian.
“I’ve been chosen,” the Crab hissed. “And I’m going to make them pay. All of them will pay.”
When Seth still didn’t react, she knew that he was good as gone—wasted, a shell of a human being driven by a purpose that Corina was ignorant to.
What happened to you?
Walter pulled the robe back up, cinching it at the waist.
Every week I will send him a new head in a bag…
“What do you want me to do?” Seth asked at last.
The Crab appeared to contemplate this for a moment, then he leaned forward, a sneer splitting his white beard in half.
“I have a job for you—a very special job,” he began.
Corina leaned as far forward as the chains that held her to the ceiling would allow and listened.
To keep reading, grab your copy of STITCHES, Book 5 in the Insatiable Series RIGHT NOW!
Books by Patrick Logan
The Haunted Series
Book 1: Shallow Graves
Book 2: The Seventh Ward
Book 3: Seaforth Prison
Book 4: Scarsdale Crematorium
Book 5: Sacred Heart Orphanage
Book 6: Shores of the Marrow
Insatiable Series
Book 1: Skin
Book 2: Crackers
Book 3: Flesh
Book 4: Parasite
Book 4.5: Knuckles
Book 5: Stitches
Book 6: Bones
Family Values Trilogy
Witch
Mother
Father
Daughter (Summer 2017)
Detective Damien Drake
Butterfly Kisses
Cause of Death
Download Murder
Short Stories
System Update
Not all houses are made of brick and stone...
Robert Watts is having the worst day of his entire life: first, he's laid off, then he finds out that his wife is having an affair... with his boss no less. And that's only the beginning.
Before the month is out, Robert finds himself alone to raise his daughter with no money, no job, and a house that is minutes from being repossessed. Just when he hits rock bottom, a strange visitor arrives at the doorstep of his soon to be foreclosed house with a letter from an Aunt he didn't know existed.
The offer is simple: look after Aunt Ruth during her dying days, and in return, Robert will be bequeathed the Harlop Estate in which she currently resides. It's a no-brainer and Robert jumps at the opportunity, equally motivated by the prospect of financial security as he is for a fresh start.
Problem is, it only takes a few nights in the Harlop Estate before he begins to question Aunt Ruth's claims that they are the home's only inhabitants...
It's the scratching he hears during the night, the voices that he can barely make out over the constant rain, and then there's the girl with the rat...
With their house foreclosed and their bank accounts liquidated, Robert and his daughter Amy desperately need a place to live. But the question Robert soon finds himself struggling with is whether living in the Harlop Estate is worth it... and if
he can survive until Aunt Ruth passes to collect his inheritance.
Grab your copy today!
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents in this book are either entirely imaginary or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or of places, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright ©Patrick Logan 2017
Cover design: ©Patrick Logan 2017
Interior design: ©Patrick Logan 2017
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, cannot be reproduced, scanned, or disseminated in any print or electronic form.
Third Edition: February 2018
Knuckles Page 13
