Stitches (Insatiable Series Book 5)

by Patrick Logan

  “Why the fuck would Johnny steal the map? And the footsteps? Who was—is—down here?” Williams asked.

  Reggie had been so lost in thought that he hadn’t heard the question, only generic mumblings.

  “What? What’d you say?”

  Deputy Williams peered down the mouth of the tunnel in which they stood.

  “Who went this way? Who’s down here? And why?”

  Reggie grimaced.

  “Don’t know. One of the bikers? Sabra, maybe? Is it a secret escape route?”

  Williams mulled this over for a second, while Reggie just let the idea pass over him, his thoughts returning to his friend Greg Griddle.

  With everything that had happened, with Nancy’s head being delivered in the bag and the other girls kidnapped, Greg had become something of an afterthought.

  An afterthought dripping with guilt.

  “Escape route, huh?”

  Reggie ignored him, but when Williams stepped into the tunnel, he pushed himself away from the wall.

  “Sheriff White said to stand here, make sure no one comes out of the tunnel.”

  Williams nodded.

  “I know, but—” he aimed his flashlight into the darkness, “—shouldn’t we take a look? See where it goes, anyway? I mean, I’m positive that this tunnel wasn’t on the map.”

  “I think we should stay here, just as the Sheriff said.”

  There was another series of pops and then the sound of something mechanical, a drill maybe, originating from somewhere distant in the other tunnel.

  The Sheriff must have made it to the end and is about to enter into Sabra’s Estate, Reggie thought.

  Williams took another step into the tunnel.

  “Williams, I don’t—”

  The man brought a finger to his lips and hushed him.

  “You hear that?”

  Reggie shook his head.

  “It’s the—” Sheriff, he was about to stay, when he did hear something. A faint, yet distinct popping sound—only, this time it didn’t sound like gunfire. This time it was more organic, and the way the sound echoed made it sound like it was coming from inside the sewer pipe, and not from outside.

  Reggie took a step toward Williams, who had slunk even deeper into the tunnel.

  There.

  It was a sound that drove a shiver up and done his spine like an icicle.

  It sounded like the crackers when their cartilaginous joints started compressing, the synovial bubbles buried within bursting.

  But that couldn’t be right. All the crackers were dead. They died when Coggins had destroyed the hive, when he had killed Tyler in the tunnel.

  The Crab…

  All but one, anyway.

  But what if there were more? What if the basement of the Wharfburn Estate had only been the first nest?

  What if whatever had laid those frothing pink eggs was like a frog, spreading thousands of ova in different locations, trying to maximize the chance of offspring survival?

  What if there were other eggs, hiding in a damp, moist location—

  Another shiver traveled up his spine, only this time it wasn’t an icicle but more like a liquid nitrogen enema.

  “Yeah, you heard that too,” Williams whispered. He took an aggressive step forward, then another. “Well fuck it, I’m going to check it out.”

  Reggie remained frozen for a moment, remembering the way the crackers had attached themselves to Mrs. Drew as she ran from the station.

  Before Greg Griddle had fired a shot with his hand cannon and had put her out of her misery.

  “You coming?”

  It took him a few moments to realize that Deputy Williams had turned and was looking back at him, his mouth but a thin line.

  Reggie swallowed hard, and started to move toward the deputy.

  The second to last thing he wanted to do was come in contact with the crackers again.

  But the last thing he wanted in that moment was to be left alone in the foul-smelling tunnel.

  “I’m coming,” he whispered. “Fucking hell, I’m coming.”

  Chapter 35

  Dirk stumbled away from the dead biker, his right hand still wrapped around his bleeding stomach. Fueled by a caustic mixture of adrenaline and a desperate need for revenge, he started down the small embankment toward the melee below.

  The bikers who had bolted toward him when the first shots were fired were mowed down by automatic gunfire erupting from within the Tempo.

  Three men jumped out of the vehicle then, all brandishing automatic weapons, and quickly ran to the other side, keeping the car between them and the iron gates.

  The second wave of Skull Krushers were cut down like the first three, seven men in total, their vests turning from a faded denim to deep scarlet as they fell in twisted heaps on the asphalt.

  They didn’t get a chance to fire a single shot.

  The third wave wasn’t as careless as the first two; they alternated coming out of the front door of the estate and then hid behind either brick columns or behind the small guard house near the opening in the iron gates.

  Every few seconds one of them would lean out and squeeze off a few rounds.

  The Tempo, which had been slowly rolling when the three men with shaved heads and baggy white t-shirts had jumped out, thunked as it was peppered with bullets. As Dirk approached the Mexican gangbangers from behind, a round tore through the hood of the car. There was an audible pop, followed by a hiss. Thick black smoke started to curl from the seams in the hood and the rusty vehicle finally came to a halt.

  If there was anything positive to glean from the chaos was that the bikers seemed to have forgotten about him.

  Wheezing, his arm soaked in his own blood, Dirk desperately searched for Pike as he closed in on the oak tree behind at the bottom of the hill that he had seen the man hiding behind.

  “Where are you?” he hissed, blood spraying from his mouth. His heart was pounding so hard in his chest that his entire body rocked, and with each sway he felt blood gush from his wound like an old-fashioned water pump.

  Something hissed by his ear, but Dirk paid it the same respect that he gave the sound of bullets that seemed to surround him like an intricate spiderweb.

  He was almost at the bottom of the hill when he slipped and fell on his ass. When he cried out, the closest gangbanger, who was only about twenty meters away now, swiveled, his back still pressed against the closed Tempo door. His bald head and face were covered in tattoos, seemingly random swatches of blue ink, broken only by a yellow grin. The man was holding a machine gun in his hands, and when he saw Dirk sitting on the dead lawn, his eyes narrowed.

  Dirk had dropped his shotgun in the fall, and he reached for it desperately, his fingers leaving red stains on the burnt grass. It was two inches too far; perhaps if he wasn’t missing the first three fingers on his right hand he might have been able to grab it, or in the very least touch the butt, but CD had taken those from him long ago.

  The gangbanger leveled the muzzle of his automatic weapon, and Dirk stopped reaching.

  An image of his wife and son at the breakfast table telling him to shave his beard, to not leave them flashed in his mind.

  Donnie Brasco? Seriously? Lauren, I’m going undercover with a wannabe bookie, a low level thug just a step up from purse snatching.

  That was six years ago. And now this: murdered by a member of the Mexican cartel while Father Carter Duke smiled his charming smile and espoused the virtues of Christianity to a desperate crowd that hungrily swallowed his empty words.

  It wasn’t fair.

  Dirk closed his eyes, tears spilling down his cheeks.

  I’m sorry, Lauren. I’m sorry, Timmy. I’m so sorry…

  A single shot rang out, and Dirk waited for the darkness to overcome him.

  After a few moments, however, he heard additional shots and then someone grabbed the collar of his jean vest.

  Dirk opened his eyes and blinked rapidly to clear the tears.

 
“Wha—what happened?” he muttered, unable to believe that he was still alive.

  The reason why he had heard only a single shot was because the gangbanger hadn’t fired his automatic weapon. Someone else had put a bullet between his eyes, and now he lay slumped against the driver’s side door of the Tempo, while the two other gangbangers continued to shoot over the head toward the Estate.

  In the carnage, they hadn’t even realized that their companion was dead.

  “I told them no cops,” someone grumbled and Dirk felt himself being yanked across the lawn.

  He turned his attention upward and once again, his breath stuck in his throat.

  It was Pike, and the man seemed to be dragging him to safety.

  Dirk whipped his head around, trying to locate the shotgun.

  It was there, in the lawn, just a foot or so from his fingers. He grunted, ignoring the pain in his stomach that radiated upward into his chest.

  And again, he would have grabbed it; if he had a complete index finger he could have have hooked it through the trigger guard.

  But he didn’t.

  His nub brushed against the hard metal barrel, then slipped away as he was dragged another few feet.

  The pistol! His mind screamed.

  Dirk fumbled at the holster on his belt next, but there was no gun to be found. His fingers, the whole ones on his left hand, slipped into the holster, and then out the bottom where it must have torn when he had fallen.

  A deep sigh racked his body.

  “I told them not to shoot the cops,” Pike muttered. “I fucking told them.”

  ***

  Dirk was waning in and out of consciousness by the time Pike had dragged him far enough from the gunfire that it had been reduced to hollow cracks in the night air.

  “Where are you taking me?” he croaked.

  The man didn’t answer at first; instead, he seemed intent on wiping a dot of blood from the cuff of his dress shirt.

  “Hey,” Dirk managed, somehow pulling himself into a seated position. He had been dragged to what appeared to be a small park, complete with a set of red swings. Then he had been unceremoniously dumped onto the gravel. It was a park he recognized from a time long ago, situated on the outskirts of Askergan, not more than a mile from Main Street. With a huff, he pushed himself backward toward a play structure, and then finally rested his back against it.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?” he said, spitting a wad of blood on the gravel beside him. This comment drew Pike’s attention. His eyes narrowed, and the blood on his sleeve suddenly seemed a lot less interesting.

  “Should I?”

  Dirk let his head fall back against the structure and he closed his eyes.

  “I met you once, before… Peter.”

  “Wha—what? Why did you call me that?”

  Dirk opened his eyes and leveled them at the man in the suit.

  “Because that’s your name: Peter Glike is your name. You used to box; damn good at it, too, although I only ever saw one of your fights.”

  Pike’s expression soured, and he squatted on his haunches directly in front of Dirk. Their faces were only about a foot apart, and Dirk smelled the sweet scent of adrenaline on the other man’s breath.

  “How do you know that? Who are you?”

  Dirk spat again, but this time instead of a grimace, he felt a smile form on his blood-speckled lips.

  “You’re a fucking deputy… were you a cop back then? Were you at Riot 7?”

  When Dirk didn’t answer, the man reached out and grabbed him roughly by the shoulders.

  “Answer me!”

  Pike’s phone suddenly chirped and he let go of Dirk and stood, bringing it to his ear.

  “Yeah, we’ve got a problem,” he said looking at the road that led to the park. “The cartels shot a cop.”

  There was a short pause.

  “No, not the Sheriff. A Deputy. No—no. But here’s the thing, he’s—”

  Pike suddenly stood up straight and he turned his head to the East, toward Askergan. Dirk followed his gaze and saw a black Mercedes with its lights off slowly creeping toward them.

  “Yeah, I see you. I’m coming now.”

  Dirk closed his eyes again, and felt his smile grow. Even though he was fading, his life ebbing out of the bullet hole in his stomach, he knew that he would have at least one last chance to avenge his family.

  And the best part was that Carter Duke was the one who was coming to him.

  After all this time, after all these years of chasing, CD was coming to him.

  Chapter 36

  Sheriff White grabbed the drill out of the bag slung over his shoulder, but after using it on the first screw, he threw it to the ground.

  They didn’t need it.

  Like the footsteps in the slime back at the fork, someone had come this way not that long ago; the screws gleamed white amidst the rust. They were hand-tightened and two of them were missing.

  It took less than a minute for Paul to remove the screws and pull the three foot by three foot grate off. They had lucked out; it appeared that the tunnel ended in an access point directly beneath the estate.

  Using the light clipped to his pocket, Sheriff peered inside.

  The tunnel went straight up, and steel bars of a metal latter jutted from the interior. He pulled his head out of the tunnel and turned to face Coggins, who was swallowing hard, looking paler than usual.

  “This is it; has to be it,” the Sheriff whispered.

  Coggins nodded.

  “You ready?” Paul asked.

  Again, Coggins’s head bobbed.

  “Did you bring it? Is that what’s in the bag?” the deputy asked tentatively. For a second, Paul had no idea what the man was talking about.

  It? Did I bring it? What—

  But then understanding washed over him. He had forgotten that he had put the cracker the pathologist had given him in the backpack. Even when he had rooted around for the drill, he hadn’t noticed. It was as if the thing didn’t exist. And, really, it shouldn’t.

  I’ve never seen anything like it, Dr. Dex had told him. I’ve consulted all of the textbooks I can find—aquatic, terrestrial, every mollusk, crustacean, fucking snail—and I can’t find anything that looks like… like this cracker.

  It was his turn to swallow hard.

  The cracker was a last resort, in case nothing else worked.

  In case it was that, or a fate worse than that for him and Coggins.

  “Last resort,” he said quietly, adjusting his grip on the bag.

  “Then let’s go. We need to save the girls before…” Coggins let his sentence trail off.

  Sheriff White turned back to the ladder without another word. Then he gripped the first rung, squeezing the cold metal tightly in his massive palm.

  Before entering the tunnel completely, he glanced upward. Roughly twenty feet above was another grate that looked even more haphazardly attached than the one that he had just removed.

  Staring up at that grate, Sheriff White knew that if they went up there, there was a good chance that one or maybe both he and Coggins wouldn’t make it back out alive.

  He grabbed the second rung.

  But if they stayed here, then everyone would die.

  Everyone in the Estate, at the church, maybe even in all of Askergan.

  Somewhere far away, more gunfire erupted.

  “Let’s go,” he muttered to himself, and then hoisted his large frame up another rung.

  PART IV - Rats

  Chapter 37

  Dirk tried his best to keep his eyes open, but he had lost a lot of blood.

  A hell of a lot.

  His entire shirt was tacky and heavy with the viscous substance. A quick glance down showed that even the front of his jean vest was dyed a deep crimson.

  He remembered hearing somewhere that it took several hours to die from a gunshot wound to the stomach, but based on how he felt only twenty minutes since the bullet had lodged itself in his entrails, he
was doubtful.

  In fact, if it weren’t for the memory of his wife and son, he would have let his eyelids stay closed when Pike had first dragged him to the park.

  He doesn’t remember me and neither does Father Carter.

  “Can you walk?”

  Dirk tried to push himself to his feet, but collapsed back down with a grunt.

  “You have any weapons on you?”

  Dirk shook his head.

  “Okay, I’m going to pick you up, and you can lean on me. Then we’re going to walk over to Father Carter’s Mercedes over there. And then you are going to start talking.”

  Dirk blinked, and his eyes refused to open.

  No, not yet.

  Pike grabbed his chin, and when he raised it, his lids flipped back like on an antique doll.

  “Okay,” he said softly. “Okay.”

  One of Pike’s thick arms wrapped around his waist and a second later, he was hoisted to his feet.

  A low moan exited Dirk’s mouth, and with it came a dizzy spell that threatened to send them both back to the ground. He grit his teeth and focused on his footing.

  The spell passed and he somehow managed to shuffle forward a few feet. Through blurred vision, he saw the dark Mercedes looming in the shadows like some sort of sleeping panther.

  It had all come down to this.

  Years of chasing CD, vowing to avenge the death of his wife and son, and he was about to meet the man responsible in a matter of minutes.

  And then Dirk did something that he hadn’t done since he was a child.

  He prayed.

  Lord, I haven’t asked for anything in a long, long while. But I’m asking you, begging you, to give me the strength for what I need to do. Please.

  Time seemed to skip ahead as if he was drowning in some sort of fugue state, and in what felt like the span of a single breath they were standing—him bent over, gasping, clutching at his guts, Pike straight, stoic—by the rear of the car. Pike reached out and pulled the door open, then slid in first, helping Dirk once he was inside. Then he leaned over and pulled the door closed.