Thicker Than Blood - The Complete Andrew Z. Thomas Trilogy

by Blake Crouch

I jumped in.

  The pain was exquisite.

  I came up gasping, freezing saltwater stinging my burns.

  Cormorants had congregated on a nearby sandbar, squawking, divebombing fish in the shallows. My howls scattered them into the waking sky.

  The pain mellowed as I swam shoreward, my left arm aching with every stroke.

  The south end of Hatteras lay before me, uninhabited, all marsh and beaches.

  Halfway to shore I crossed a shoal, rose up shivering out of the water, standing kneedeep in the cold sea.

  Something splashed behind me.

  I turned, faced the Kinnakeet.

  Violet resurfaced, legs thrashing, arms flailing, moving toward me with a gawky stroke that somehow kept her afloat.

  At last she climbed up onto the shoal with me.

  "What are you doing?" I asked through chattering teeth.

  She was shivering so hard it took her a moment to find the words.

  "They killed my husband."

  She was wet and she was crying.

  Her breath smoking in the cold.

  "What are you talking—"

  "I saw him, Andrew! Max was hanging in this terrible room!"

  She looked into my eyes with something akin to desperation, as though she were praying I would tell her a beautiful lie.

  I wrapped my arms around her, our bodies trembling in the bitter dawn.

  "I have nothing to go back to," she said.

  "You have family and friends and—"

  "None of that works without him."

  I cupped her face in my hands.

  "Tell me what you want to do, Violet."

  "I don’t know but everything’s changed. I can’t go home."

  She pulled away and glided off the shoal, beginning the last forty yards to Hatteras.

  I followed her.

  The sun lifting free of the sea, in full radiant bloom.

  My head grew light.

  My limbs cumbersome.

  The world dim.

  I slipped under, fought my way back to the surface, thinking, Next time just stay down.

  Violet had reached the shore where she stood crying in the beach grass.

  It finally registered.

  She’d been made a widow, witnessed things that, outside of war, few people ever see.

  Monsters had set her adrift in a lonely desert.

  But I’d been there.

  And I’d found a way out.

  I could show her.

  E P I L O G U E

  I would like to unlock the door,

  turn the rusty key

  and hold each fallen one in my arms

  but I cannot, I cannot.

  I can only sit here on earth

  at my place at the table.

  —Anne Sexton, "Locked Doors"

  N i n e M o n t h s L a t e r

  VIOLET awoke.

  She rubbed her eyes.

  It was morning.

  Max was cooing.

  At the kitchen table in a threadbare flannel robe, Andrew sat hunched over a pile of pages, pencil in hand, scribbling corrections on his manuscript. He’d built a small fire in the hearth that had yet to drive the nightcold from her corner of the cabin.

  The place smelled of strong coffee.

  "Morning," she said.

  Andrew looked up through a tangle of shaggy hair.

  "Morning."

  She crawled to the end of the bed, reached down into the crib, and picked up her son. As she lifted her undershirt, his little wet lips opened and glommed onto her brown nipple. Leaning back against the smooth timbers, she watched him nurse.

  The infant gazing at its mother through shiny orbs.

  Andrew got up from the table, started toward her.

  "What’s wrong?" he asked.

  Violet shook her head.

  "It’s all right. These are good tears."

  The pond was dark as black tea, steeped in tree roots, clear to the bottom, and rimmed by black spruce—a glade of water in the forest. Even in mid-August the pool carried a cold bite except at noon, in the middle, where sunlight reached all the way to the soft and silty floor. There, the sunbeams made a shaft of luminous green, warm as bathwater.

  There, Andrew surfaced. He treaded naked, basking in the direct Yukon sun, contemplating how his autobiography should end, wondering if perhaps it should conclude here, in this pond in this valley at the foot of the mountains.

  Everything had been chronicled: the desert, Orson, the Outer Banks, the Kites, the Kinnakeet. All that remained was to bow and step behind the curtain.

  Andrew waded the last few feet to shore and climbed up onto the bank. He pulled his hair into a ponytail, wrapped himself in a towel, and flopped down on a sunwarmed blanket. Violet handed him his pair of sunglasses and he slid them on and lay flat on his back and closed his eyes to the sun.

  "How was it?" she asked.

  "Amazing."

  "Think I’ll take a dip." Violet set her son on Andrew’s chest. "Don’t look at my pooch, Andy," she warned though her belly had nearly contracted back to its pre-baby girth. Violet had given birth to Max just three weeks ago after a long labor at Whitehorse General Hospital. Andrew had not left her side.

  Now he stared at the bundled and sleeping infant while Violet stripped.

  "All right, I’m going in," she said.

  "It’s warm out in the middle."

  "No peeking."

  She stepped down from the mossy bank and eased into the water, her short hair kindling in the sunlight—champagnecolored and traced with strawberry.

  Max woke, emitted a tender microscopic cry.

  Andrew shushed him.

  The baby yawned, its eyes flittering open, taking in the familiar bearded face.

  "God it feels so good in here!" Violet yelled, laughing from the middle of the pool.

  Andrew thought of the ending to his book:

  Vi’s panic attacks are fewer and farther between, though I occasionally wake up in the night, hear her crying into her pillow. Sometimes she calls for me to come down from the loft and sit with her. Sometimes she wants to cry it out alone. We rarely speak of the Outer Banks. We have no future plans. She needs very much to live in the present. As do I.

  What a strange and beautiful summer with Vi in these woods.

  I haven’t known peace like this before.

  The sky had begun to pale toward evening when they started back for the cabin—a quarter mile hike through the woods on a moose run.

  Andrew stayed out to split firewood.

  Violet went indoors.

  She laid her son down in the crib and sat at the kitchen table with a pen and paper.

  Not knowing what to say, she spent most of her words describing Max.

  She imagined Ebert and Evelyn in the North Carolina countryside, reading this letter about their grandson. It would be dusk and they’d sit out on the big wraparound porch of their white farmhouse, the pleasant stench of manure present in the mist.

  She could smell her father’s pipe, see the long view from the porch—rolling pasture, barns, the soft bluegreen horizon of lush deciduous trees that would not survive one Yukon winter. For a moment, Violet felt as homesick for those eastern woods as she did for her parents.

  I miss your trees, she wrote.

  Andrew made dinner while she rocked Max to sleep, the cabin filling with the incense of tomatoes and garlic and boiling pasta.

  They dined on the back porch, their sunburned faces lit by a solitary candle, its flame frozen on this windless night.

  Though it was after ten light dawdled in the sky.

  This far north in late summer, true darkness doesn’t come until after midnight.

  There had been a passing shower some time ago and the smell of the wet spruce was sharp and clean. Firs crowded the porch, their lowest branches draping within reach.

  Andrew set down his fork and took a sip of the excellent Chilean wine.

  "I finished the epilogue while you
were in the shower."

  Violet stared at her plate.

  "Vi?"

  When she finally looked at him across the rickety card table, he noticed her hands were shaking.

  Andrew had converted the loft into a bedroom, managing to fit a mattress where his writing desk had been.

  It was very late and dark and quiet.

  Moonlight came through the windows and bleached the floorboards.

  Violet had calmed down.

  They lay awake, Max between them, the infant snoring delicately.

  "Is it hard for you?" Violet whispered.

  "What?"

  "You know. Lying here with me…doing nothing."

  Andrew smiled.

  "Go to sleep."

  He almost said go to sleep angel.

  Her head rested in the crook of his arm.

  She rubbed her cheek against his.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Max never had a beard. I like yours. I like how it smells."

  "You gonna keep me up all night?"

  "I just might."

  10/14/03

  Haines Junction, Yukon

  Spent last night at the Raven Hotel. Pricey. Look for something more reasonable this evening. Breakfast at Bill’s Diner. Coffee. Two delicious bearclaws. C$11.56. AT came to the village again in that old CJ-5. (he went to the library) I drove out to his cabin. 5.9 miles down Borealis Road. A one-laner. Rough. Beautiful weather. Cold. Saw his driveway but didn’t turn in. Too nervous. (don’t be such a chickenshit) Think I’ll return on foot tonight and approach through woods under the cover of

  The intercom broke in: "At this time, we would like to begin boarding Flight 6346 with nonstop service to Whitehorse, Yukon."

  The tattered purple notebook closed.

  On its cover, "H. BOONE" had been neatly printed in black magic marker:

  The passenger of seat 14C slipped the notebook into a leather satchel, slung it over his shoulder, and strolled toward the gate.

  His hair is blond and short now, but if you look closely, the roots are still black.

  FOREWORD TO BREAK YOU

  This novella is why I love reading horror.

  Crouch takes you on a 20,000 word race straight into hell, and you'll love every minute of it.

  Break You is a perfect introduction into the twisted, exhilarating world of Blake Crouch.

  His characters are complex. Their motivations are terrifying. And the scenarios he dreams up are among the most creatively depraved since Thomas Harris.

  How much would you hurt the ones you loved in order to save them?

  If that question makes you flinch, DO NOT read this ebook.

  But if you like your thrillers to have some depth to go along with the evil, and you like your villains to be so genuinely creepy you won't be able to forget them, then this was written just for you.

  Fans of Thomas Harris, Stephen King, Clive Barker, Jack Ketchum, Richard Laymon, Brian Keene, and Dean Koontz will find themselves in familiar territory. Crouch's stalwart hero Andrew Z. Thomas (Desert Places, Locked Doors) thinks he's finally left the tragedy and horror of his past behind him. But the past has a way of catching up, and Andrew is pushed to the limits of human endurance to see if he does indeed break.

  The ending is a jaw-dropper. You'll never see it coming.

  J.A. Konrath, author of the Det. Jack Daniels' Series and Flee

  BREAK YOU

  * * *

  Following the events of DESERT PLACES and LOCKED DOORS, Andy Thomas and Violet King are hiding out in the wilds of northern Canada, where Violet has a four-month-old son and a burgeoning romance with Andy. On a cold, rainy night at their cabin in the woods, the promise of an idyllic life that seems just around the corner is shattered when a man from their past, a monster of pure malevolence, returns. What he has in store for them will challenge their understanding of evil and stretch the fibers of their love to the breaking point.

  They say that what you mock

  Will surely overtake you

  And you become a monster

  So the monster will not break you

  — U2, "Peace on Earth"

  Yukon, Canada

  Autumn 2004

  Andy

  EARLY October.

  A cold, midnight rain pattering against the tin roof.

  "We should be drinking whiskey," Violet said. "Something to warm our bones."

  I set another birch log on the fire and crawled back onto the bearskin rug where Vi had sprawled with her wineglass.

  "You’re already cold?" I asked.

  "I’m a southern girl. I’m always freezing."

  "Hate to say it, but that doesn’t bode well for you this winter."

  "How cold does it get here? Worst case scenario."

  "Fifty below. Sixty on a bad day."

  "I won’t even get out of bed."

  I sipped my wine, glanced at the fireshadows flickering in the rafters over the loft—what had once been my office now converted into Violet’s bedroom and her four-month-old Max’s nursery. He slept up there in bliss, the warmest spot in the cabin, where the heat of the fire gathered.

  I studied the firelight flush across Violet’s face.

  I’d shunned it, fought it, tried to ignore it, but I couldn’t deny what I felt in the pit of my stomach. I was falling...hard...for this woman.

  "What is it?" Vi said.

  "Nothing."

  "No...you have this look."

  "I don’t know what you’re talking about."

  She smirked. "Are you crushing on me, Andy?"

  I blushed through to the tips of my ears, wondering if she could see the color in the lowlight.

  "Little bit, I’m sorry."

  "No, it’s completely understandable. I’m adorable."

  I laughed, my eyes closing only for a second, and when they opened again, Violet had leaned in so close I could smell the wine on her breath.

  Her green eyes were flecked with black. This I hadn’t noticed before.

  "Violet—"

  "I want this."

  "You’re sure? Because if you have any doubt—"

  She shut me up with a kiss.

  Soft.

  Melting.

  Melding.

  I could’ve lived there.

  We came apart, the corners of my mouth electrified with the taste of her. I ran my hand over the curve of her hip, wondering how far we were going to take this.

  "I haven’t," I said. "Not in a long time."

  "Haven’t what? What are you talking about?"

  "Nothing, I just—"

  "Wait." She recoiled. "You think we’re going to sleep together?"

  "No, I just thought—"

  "I’m kidding, we are."

  "Why do you torture me?"

  "Because it’s so easy?"

  She set her wineglass on the floorboard and pulled me on top of her.

  "Tell the truth," she whispered. "How many times have you imagined this moment?"

  I smiled, feeling her thighs against my ribs.

  "You’ve been through a lot, Vi."

  "We both have."

  "It hasn’t even been a year."

  "It’s been long enough for me to know who you are. Stop trying to talk me out of this."

  So I kissed her, my hands running over her body in some kind of wonder. The fire raged behind us and the rain intensified. I had imagined this moment, many times, since the beginning of summer at least and still it didn’t feel anything like my fantasies. I loved her now, and that made everything better.

  "Do you want to move over to my bed?" I whispered in her ear.

  "Yes, please."

  And still I could barely bring myself to separate from her. Such a sweet and perfect place.

  I got onto my knees and helped her up.

  "God, you’re beautiful."

  I would’ve undressed her right there in the firelight if it hadn’t been so cold. I wished we’d done this in the summertime.

  "I’m ju
st going to run up to the loft for a second," she said. "Go get under the covers and warm it up for us."

  I stood and moved across the cold floorboards toward the nook under the loft where my bed sat in darkness.

  The wine had gone to my head, everything so pleasantly humming.

  Violet climbed the ladder toward the loft.

  My heart pounded under my sweater.

  Reaching the bed, I tugged back the covers, wondering if I should be naked waiting for her, or if maybe there wasn’t something implicitly sleazy about that.

  I crawled under the blankets and opted to play it safe, stay dressed for now.

  I could hear Violet moving around directly above me in the loft, the boards creaking, thinking how many nights had I lain here in the dark listening to her movements, hoping she felt what I did, that she might decide to creep down the ladder in the middle of the night and join me in bed. A part of me still didn’t quite believe it was about to happen.

  It was cold under the blankets, and I was drawing them up to my chin to keep in the heat when Violet shrieked.

  I bolted up.

  "Andy!" she screamed.

  I jumped out of bed, rushed over to the ladder.

  "What’s wrong?" I asked, climbing.

  "He’s gone."

  I stepped into the loft.

  Dark up here and nothing to see except where the firelight reflected off surfaces of metal and glass.

  "Who?" I asked, but I understood the moment my eyes adjusted to the darkness and I saw Vi leaning over into the crib, shuffling through the blankets.

  "Max," she said.

  "There’s no way he could have crawled out?"

  "He’s four months, Andy. He can’t even roll over."

  I turned on a lamp and moved toward her.

  "You put him down after supper, right?"

  She nodded, wild-eyed, her pupils dilated, chest billowing.

  "He went down fast. Ten minutes. Then I came down and we were talking by the fire for what? A couple hours?"

  "Yeah."

  Vi shook. "This isn’t right, Andy. This isn’t right."

  I stepped around the crib toward the only possible exit from the loft—a two-by-two square foot window just under the pitch of the roof.