Insatiable Series Omnibus Edition (Books 1-3)

by Patrick Logan

“Marley,” Jared said slowly, staring into her wild eyes, “I don’t think—”

  Marley stepped forward, and although she was a small woman, barely more than a hundred pounds, her hands struck Jared’s narrow chest with enough force that he stumbled backward and nearly fell.

  Cody quickly stepped between them.

  What the hell is wrong with her?

  But he was acutely aware of the fact he had done nearly the same thing less than a day ago. She was losing it; they were all losing it.

  “Marley, we’re all just—”

  “It’s okay,” Jared interrupted, but it was clear that he was no longer the focus of the discussion. Probably never had been, despite the anger that she had directed toward him.

  “You should be going,” Marley said, turning to Cody. “We should all be going.”

  Cody shrugged and opened his mouth to say something, but Marley shouted again before he could speak.

  “You should be fucking going!” she repeated.

  Then, after a deep, hitching breath, she added in a much smaller voice, “We need to get out of here.”

  Somewhere in the loft—why the hell are they up there?—Henrietta, who had been playing calmly with Mama Lawrence most of that morning, started to cry again.

  Silence fell over the three of them, the little girl’s cries suddenly bringing them back, making them all acutely aware of the gravity of their situation—that it wasn’t just about them or their petty arguments anymore. Marley was right; they needed to get out of here. Something was very, very wrong, something that had nothing to do with the power going out or the cold—something to do with the wind, and that nagging sound—

  “I’ll go,” a thin voice suddenly announced from behind Jared and Cody.

  Cody turned and examined his younger brother. Oxford was pale and exhausted, his cheeks a prominent, bony white, his eyes so sunken that they were barely visible. At some point during the half hour that Jared and Cody had left him to his own devices, he had cleaned himself—which must have been difficult given that the generator had been dry for several hours—and had dressed.

  “I’ll go,” Oxford repeated.

  “You need to get out of here,” Cody said, scowling. “You need to get far away from here.”

  Oxford shrugged as if to say, That’s what I’m proposing.

  An awkward silence ensued, and Jared took this time to think. It made sense, Oxford coming with him instead of Seth. That way Oxford would be away from Cody and his family, but he wouldn’t be left to wander in the white desert by himself, either.

  I want you gone, Cody had said, and Jared knew that he meant it.

  “Okay,” Jared uttered with a slow nod. “You come with me—Seth, you stay here with Cody and Marley and help with the kids.”

  As if in response to being referenced, Corina, still lying on the couch, eyes fluttering, moaned low and slow. The sound was unnerving, like vibrating sheet metal, and Jared was surprised when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Seth’s expression lift. He didn’t blame him for not wanting to go outside, and he knew the man was no William Wallace, but he hadn’t known Seth to be a coward, either. Until now, that is.

  “You should be going,” Marley told Cody for what must have been the fifth or sixth time in the last ten minutes. But this time her voice lacked conviction.

  No, Jared felt like saying. No, he should be staying here with you, with his family.

  But when he looked over at his brother, he could see the man was torn; it was as if Cody knew he should stay, that Jared was right, but something was telling him to leave. Jared thought he understood, because he felt that same strange desire to leave this place.

  Seth left Jared’s side without a word and made his way to the couch on which Corina lay. Jared was curious to watch the man, to see what he would do given the fact that he had been unable to stomach her injury earlier, but the anger in Cody’s voice drew him back to more pressing matters.

  “So long as you don’t stay here, I don’t gave a rat—” Cody looked around briefly, and then lowered his voice. “I don’t give a rat’s ass where you go.”

  For a brief moment, Oxford’s face contorted and it looked as if he might break into tears. Jared felt bad for him then, and wished that he had been the one that Cody was directing his anger at—God knows, he deserved the wrath as well—as he would have been able to deal with it better.

  You did this to yourself, Oxford, Jared thought. Yet, despite the admonition, he found himself fighting his own tears.

  “C’mon,” he urged Oxford in a low whisper, trying hard not to let his voice waver. “Let’s get ready.”

  * * *

  Roughly fifteen minutes later, Jared and Oxford stood at the front door, bundled in so many layers of clothing that they looked like cheap airline passengers trying to avoid paying baggage fees. They stood side by side a few feet apart, each holding one strap of a large black duffel bag that hung open. Jared took one last opportunity to look inside to make sure they had everything, which was ironic, because aside from the extreme cold, they had no idea what they were preparing for.

  Inside the bag were four bottles of spring water, three granola bars, two apples, a roll of duct tape, a pair of scissors, a large knife, the baseball that the girls had given Oxford, rubber tubing, and a funnel. To Jared, the eclectic mix of food and other materials looked like they were preparing for a prolonged kidnapping. He imagined what would happen if, by some rare chance, they were stopped by the cops.

  “Well, my niece has a broken leg and is in rough shape, and my entire family and boyfriend are snowed in. We siphoned all the gas”—he would lift the gas can that they also planned to take with them after emptying most of the last third into the generator—“and are now out looking for more.”

  “And the knife?”

  “Well, officer, you aren’t going to believe this, but we saw two bears, a dozen wolves, and a smattering of deer galloping together across our lawn. So this knife? Yeah, it’s for protection.”

  “So what the hell is the signed Mariano Rivera baseball for?!”

  “You should be going,” Marley said again. Although she was staring at Cody when she said this, it was clear that she meant all of them—herself included.

  He saw Cody open his mouth to say something, but then he apparently decided better and closed it again, chewing the inside of his cheek. Jared glanced at Oxford and then back to Cody.

  We better hurry. Shit is going to hit the fan.

  Jared broke the tension by reaching out for Seth, who had since returned to his side.

  “I love you,” he said softly, and then kissed him lightly on the lips, followed by a heavy embrace.

  The gesture caught Seth off guard and the man nearly tumbled backward into Marley. They had decided that, this being the first time Seth was meeting his family, they would keep outward signs of affection to a minimum. But that was before they had lost power, the generator had run out of gas, Corina had broken her leg, and Oxford had gotten so high that he shat himself. After all that hilarity, outward signs of affection seemed the least of their worries. Besides, Dad wasn’t here anymore.

  If Dad were here, he would know what to do. He would have taken over, instead of me, who has—

  Jarrreeeeed.

  Jared shuddered, and Seth let him go. After the embrace was broken, Seth reached out and shook Oxford’s hand.

  “Good luck,” he whispered. There were tears in his eyes.

  Aye, no William Wallace, he.

  The wind suddenly gusted and the cardboard covering the smashed window flapped. Jared looked up to see the final piece of duct tape holding it to the window frame stretch—it wouldn’t hold for much longer.

  Come

  Mama Lawrence appeared next, which was surprising given the fact that not only had she not said much in the last day or so, but Jared couldn’t even remember her acknowledging the situation. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought that her age was catching up with her; that this d
ebacle, combined with the recent death of her husband, had triggered the onset of some sort of affect—or worse, dementia.

  Mama stood there for a moment, staring at her middle son with vacant eyes before passing the now whimpering Henrietta to Marley. Then she reached in and hugged him tightly, craning her neck upward at the same time and whispering into his ear. Jared’s fears of his mother having lost it vanished temporarily.

  “Look after him,” she instructed. “He needs you.”

  Jared squeezed his mother’s soft back gently to let her know that he understood.

  He needs a lot more than just me, Ma. A lot more.

  Mama Lawrence hugged Oxford next and, curiously, Jared caught her whispering something into his ear as well, but he couldn’t make out the words. He made a mental note to ask Oxford about it later.

  Jared turned to Cody and his older brother nodded at him, which, for them, was enough. It appeared that whatever disdain Cody harbored for him—You’re no angel. Where the fuck were you at Dad’s funeral?—ran deep; he didn’t blame him.

  “I’ll see you when we get back,” Jared said, returning the nod.

  Although Cody didn’t reply, Jared caught a subtle head tilt.

  And if you don’t? the tilt asked. If you don’t come back?

  Jared’s gaze fell on Corina lying on the couch, her injured leg elevated by two pillows, her breathing shallow.

  He shook his head.

  I’ll be back.

  “Goodbye, everyone,” he said, then turned, not wanting the ordeal to be drawn out. Oxford took the duffel bag from him, zipped it, and fell in behind his older brother. Then Jared pulled open the door and stepped out into the blinding white, the freezing wind blasting him in the face like ice pellets.

  Come

  Come Come

  Come Cooooooooooooooome

  I hope to God that I’ll be back.

  Chapter Five

  Meeting Mrs. Wharfburn

  1.

  At Long Last, The snow stopped falling. It was still bitterly cold and the wind continued to whip the fallen snow around like confetti, but redistribution was far better than accumulation. Which, in the very least, was something positive that Alice could hold on to.

  She glanced down at her bare arms and was surprised that the irritation from drinking was no longer visible—another positive morsel, which were few and far between. Her gaze travelled from her arms to the rest of her body, nervously glancing at the thin black t-shirt—no bra, of course—and then her jeans. Her eyes darted to the gas gauge next, and she let out a quick sigh: three-quarters full. The last thing Alice wanted was to run out of gas and be stuck in the cold. She thought about that for a moment, about being stuck out in the cold. Her jacket might be in the trunk—it was inconceivable that she could have left work without it—but it was also possible that she had left it at the bearded man’s house.

  Her eyes drifted to the windshield.

  Nope, she thought, don’t want to be stuck outside today.

  Alice shuddered and once again bit the inside of her lip in frustration.

  What the fuck was I doing there? What was I doing with that pervert?

  A blur of motion in her periphery startled her, and she readjusted her two-handed grip on the steering wheel.

  What the hell?

  She slowed a little and turned to look at what had caught her eye. To her surprise, the wind stopped blowing momentarily, as if consciously deciding to afford her a look.

  What. The. Hell.

  A whole family of deer, six in total, were galloping through the snow at the side of road; at least, they were trying to. If the situation hadn’t been so surreal, Alice might have considered it comical. The snow was so high in places that the animals couldn’t completely clear the banks with their front hoofs and instead ended up lurching forward with their necks, which, once stretched to their limit, slammed down on the snow in front of them. But this demented game of ‘whack-a-mole’, as bizarre as it was, wasn’t even the strangest part—no, that honor was bestowed on the animals’ unrelenting resolve; regardless of how hard or frequently they stumbled, they pressed onward, seemingly oblivious to their futility. As she watched, knowing that she should probably pay attention to the road but unable to pry her eyes from the scene, the lead animal—a four-hundred-plus-pound buck—ended up trudging through the snow like a plow, its torso gradually making a slow path through the thick bank. Then, as if that wasn’t strange enough, she noticed something else travelling in—within—the herd.

  Can’t be, she thought, eyes wide. It can’t be.

  Alice slumped back in confusion, and in doing so, her arms accidentally pulled the steering wheel to her left; not much, not more than an inch, but her small Camry swerved nonetheless, the back wheels swinging out in a wide arc.

  Her body shot forward in panic, and she frantically turned the wheel against the fishtail, her eyes widening to a size reminiscent of the deer’s she had just witnessed. It took nearly twenty seconds of skidding before the front tires regained enough traction to respond—and respond did they ever. Fighting the swerve, Alice had pushed the steering all the way to one side, and when the wheels caught, the vehicle suddenly lurched in the opposite direction. A gasp escaped her and the g-forces made her momentarily dizzy. She cranked the wheel in the opposite direction, and this time the tires grabbed the snow-packed road almost immediately, whipping the car back the other way. White-knuckled, Alice wrenched the steering wheel again, but this time her car didn’t respond; the violent torque had already sent the vehicle into a deadly spin and Alice screamed.

  The last thing she saw before her world went black wasn’t the blur of snow or the approaching median, but a glimpse of what she had seen running alongside and within the pack of deer: running between the bodies of their perpetual prey had been three large grey wolves.

  2.

  Please, don’t let them see me like this—please don’t let my children see me like this.

  Veronica Lawrence turned away from her two sons the moment they were engulfed by the cold.

  Come.

  Tears welled in her eyes, but she forced them away by blinking rapidly and pretending that they were just the result of irritation from the icy wind that had spilled in through the open doorway. But her tears weren’t a product of the cold, and when her vision cleared, what she saw reaffirmed her emotional state.

  The scene before her was languid, pathetic.

  Although different in so many ways, it reminded Veronica of her husband’s final days as he lay motionless, dying on the hospital bed; it was different then, but the same.

  They were all stuck in a sort of glue, waiting for Gordon to die.

  And that was what it felt like now; waiting to die.

  Her daughter-in-law had slowly made her way back to the couch and was trying to lift Corina’s head and slide back into the groove that she had formed in the cushions over the past day or so. Her eldest granddaughter, thirteen years young, had the face of a much older woman—complete with a sickly sheen on her porcelain features that reminded Veronica of some sort of creepy old doll.

  And then there was Cody and little Henrietta.

  Although she didn’t see her grandchildren that often, and even less frequently now that Gordon was gone, from all accounts the toddler had a generally joyous disposition. But ever since she had arrived, the little girl had been irate. It was as if Henrietta was the only one brave enough to voice her unease—to acknowledge that there was something out in the snow.

  And there was something out there—Veronica was positive about that. And whatever was out there in the blinding white was far more deadly than snow and ice and wind.

  There was something out there that knew about Gordon.

  Something that was Gordon.

  A bout of dizziness flashed over Veronica, a spinning that she was only capable of righting by focussing on her eldest boy.

  The look in Cody’s eyes as he watched his brothers’ leave had softened. He was
furious at Oxford, and had every right to be, but he was too scared to remain angry.

  And he had every right to be scared.

  Cody had always been her favorite son, even if having a favorite son was something that was inexcusably taboo. He was her favorite son not because she had the most in common with him—truth be told, she had more in common with Oxford than Jared or Cody—and not because she was closest with him. Rather, it was because Cody somehow made the most sense of the three of her sons. He was just a straightforward, mostly rational man. A quality that often eluded her other two sons.

  And she could read him, too; read him as easily and quickly as she completed the crosswords every Sunday morning.

  “Mother?”

  Veronica blinked again and emerged from her thoughts.

  “Hmm?”

  Cody had a queer expression on his face.

  “What did you say to them?” he asked, clearly meaning Oxford and Jared.

  Veronica could read him like a book, but she doubted that the reciprocal was true. Like Gordon, she was guarded with her own thoughts.

  “Nothing,” she replied sternly.

  Cody continued to stare at her as Henrietta finally calmed and nuzzled into his shoulder.

  “Aren’t you cold, Ma?”

  Veronica shrugged.

  Of course she was cold, but she was so tired that this usurped all other sensations. It was as if the weight of the world had descended on her when the blizzard had fallen, a weight that had compressed her spine like a Slinky.

  And now Gordon; her late husband was somehow calling to her, begging for her to join him out in the snow. Which made no sense, because—

  Come.

  The wind blew and she saw Cody’s eyes flick upward.

  He had heard it too, of course, she could see it in his face.

  Why doesn’t he say something? Doesn’t he want to see Gordon, too?

  There was no denying it, Gordon was a hardworking man that rarely his feelings. But he had loved his children, and even though he had had a difficult time showing it, Jared, Cody, and Oxford must have known that.