Insatiable Series Omnibus Edition (Books 1-3)

by Patrick Logan

  The sheriff hurried down the short hallway flanked by filing cabinets, passing the closed door of the interrogation room where he had spoken to Kent Griddle and his father, before coming upon Mrs. Drew, Deputy Williams, and two other people he had never seen before in his life. The first was a pretty young woman who looked to be in her early twenties, with short brown hair cropped and tucked behind small ears, and a round face with large green eyes and a small, upturned nose. His eyes quickly flicked to the cell, and he was accosted by a much less pleasant sight: an extremely thin man sporting only a stained white undershirt and a pair of black sweat shorts. His jet black hair was parted aggressively on one side, in stark contrast to his long, scraggly white beard. The man was holding a pockmarked hand to his nose, blood leaking slowly from between his thin fingers. Even from where he stood, at least a dozen feet from the man, the sheriff could see the track marks on the inside of the man’s elbows.

  He took two steps forward, and Deputy Williams, who, like the young girl and Mrs. Drew, had been staring at the man in the cell, turned slowly to face the sheriff.

  The man had a strange smirk on his face. He ran a hand through his slick black hair and then scratched behind one of his ears that stood out on the side of his head.

  While the sheriff did see some similarities between his two deputies, as Coggins had been keen to point out, the men were hardly twins. Williams had large white teeth jammed into a wide mouth, which were pretty much the antithesis of the overcrowded chicklets that Coggins had. And where Coggins had a red beard, Williams was always clean shaven, showing off the dimples—two in the left, one in the right—in his round cheeks.

  “What happened here?” the sheriff asked, his eyes darting from Williams to the man in the cell behind him.

  “Mr. Wandry—” Deputy Williams began.

  The man in the cell suddenly took a step forward and pulled his hand away from his face, using both bloodied hands to grab the bars.

  “It’s Walter Wandry, you fucking cunt,” he sneered, revealing a set of brown and yellow teeth.

  “Hey!” the sheriff shouted, stepping forward. He holstered his gun and raised a thick finger and pointed it at the man. “You watch your mouth.”

  Walter smiled at the sheriff, then turned his head to one side and spat a glob of blood onto the floor of his cell.

  The sheriff ignored this and turned back to the deputy.

  “Mr. Wandry.” Deputy Williams stressed the word, and the man in the cell growled. The deputy ignored him and continued, “Mr. Wandry here is Tyler’s father.”

  The sheriff raised an eyebrow and once again looked at the man in the cell. He remembered the handsome Gregory Griddle who wore reflective sunglasses and drove an obnoxiously loud Chevelle and his son with the short-cropped red hair and freckled face. Kent Griddle was hanging out with this man’s son?

  His face scrunched. It didn’t make sense.

  “Tyler is the boy who—”

  The sheriff silenced his deputy with a wave of his hand.

  “I know who Tyler is. What happened to his nose?”

  The deputy quickly glanced over at the young girl, whose gaze was still locked on the man in the cell.

  “He fell,” the deputy said, averting his eyes.

  “The fuck I fell!” Walter Wandry shouted, once again yanking at the bars. “This fucking cunt”—he pointed a bloody finger at the young girl—“elbowed me.”

  The sheriff took another two steps forward until he was within a foot of the cell.

  “I warned you already,” he said in a low voice, “use that language again and I will make sure you end up with more than a bloody nose.”

  The man in the cell opened his mouth to say something but, catching the seriousness in the sheriff’s face, decided better of it. Instead, he turned his head to the side and spat more blood onto the floor.

  When he raised his eyes to look at the sheriff again, Paul kept their eyes locked. The man’s pupils were massively dilated despite the brightness of the room. He was high as shit.

  “Who’s the girl?” he asked, keeping his eyes locked on Walter’s.

  “Came in to see Coggins, said that she has a message written by her uncle saying that she should only speak to him,” the deputy replied, his voice even.

  The mention of Coggins, just a day after he had gone to fetch him out of the abyss, was such a strange coincidence that his resolve of staring daggers at Walter was broken. He turned to face her and she stared back at him, her pretty green eyes narrowing. This girl, this girl who looked like she weighed less than one hundred pounds, had broken the nose of the junkie in the cell? But when she didn’t even falter at his stare, offered nothing—no remorse, no guilt, nothing—he knew that she was probably capable of a whole lot more.

  “What’s your name, kiddo?” the sheriff asked.

  “Corina,” she said curtly. “Corina Lawrence.”

  Lawrence.

  The word exploded in the sheriff’s skull like an atom bomb.

  Deputy Coggins, the Wharfburn Estate, and now a Lawrence.

  He shook his head and his eyes widened.

  There was no way that this was a coincidence.

  What the fuck is going on in Askergan County?

  His reaction must have been severe, as for the briefest moment, Corina’s features softened and he saw a girl behind that mask of anger and dissidence, a young girl who was scared and alone. A flicker of a moment later and this mirage was gone, the hardness returning to her features.

  “Did you know my father?” she asked, her eyes narrowing even further.

  The sheriff opened his mouth to answer, but the man in the cell behind him interrupted.

  “Where’s my boy, Sheriff?”

  Paul kept his eyes trained on Corina and raised his finger to the man in the cell indicating for him to wait his turn.

  Walter snarled.

  “Don’t raise your finger at me,” he continued, the pitch of his voice escalating with every word. “Where the fuck is my boy? I need to find his body!”

  His body?

  The sheriff turned to face Walter, and saw that the man was grinning, blood dripping from his nose into his mouth and over his teeth, and finally making a bright red streak on his pale chin.

  “You heard me: I need to find the body—how else can I get the insurance money?”

  The sheriff’s eyes narrowed and he bit his lip, fighting back a barrage of insults that were tap dancing on the tip of his tongue.

  “Wait your turn,” he ordered gruffly, before turning back to Corina.

  “I never knew your father, but—”

  “Don’t you fucking turn your back on me, you black pig!”

  Sheriff White spun back around and his hand extended into the cell so quickly that the man clutching the bars had no chance to recoil. He grabbed Walter by the throat; the man was so thin that his long fingers wrapped almost all the way around his neck.

  The man coughed once, speckling the sheriff’s shirt with a spray of blood. Then the smile returned to his narrow, pale face.

  He was enjoying this.

  Well, enjoy this, you fucking junkie.

  Sheriff Paul White’s fingers tightened around the man’s throat, and he enjoyed the way the creep’s smile slowly began to fade. When Walter’s breath started to come out of his clenched teeth in bloody bursts, someone shouted from behind him.

  “Sheriff!”

  Deputy Williams’ voice snapped him out of the moment, and the sheriff immediately let go of the man’s neck. Walter Wandry stumbled backward into the cell, immediately bringing his hands to his throat and massaging the redness there.

  He coughed again and spat more blood on the floor.

  When he raised his eyes again, the sheriff saw that choking the junkie had failed to permanently wipe the shit-eating grin off his face.

  “You’re going to pay for this, Sheriff, you’re—”

  “Shut up! You earned yourself a night in here, and if you don’t shut your
mouth, you’ll be in there for a week.”

  The man’s eyes darkened and he went quiet, his smirk finally fading.

  When he turned around again, the sheriff couldn’t bring himself to look at Mrs. Drew, who during this entire altercation hadn’t moved an inch. He felt a flushness in his cheeks—embarrassment at the way he had just acted.

  What the fuck is wrong with me?

  The sheriff cleared his throat in an attempt to regain a modicum of professionalism.

  “No, I didn’t know your father,” the sheriff repeated, again looking at Corina. “But I know about your family.”

  I know about what happened at the Wharfburn Estate, he felt like saying, but held his tongue. I know about how your uncle died, and how your dad froze on the ice trying to save your sister.

  The sheriff looked down at the speckled blood on his shirt and almost wiped it away with his bare hands, before thinking better of it; no telling what the piece of shit in the cell was infected with.

  No, what was happening in Askergan County was definitely not a coincidence. What are you doing here, Corina? And what do you want with Deputy Coggins?

  15.

  Coggins had made this walk once before, but then it had taken more than twice as long. As it was, the walk from the Wharfburn Estate to the Lawrence family home only took about a half hour, but it was an uncomfortable half hour with the heat continuing to beat down on him relentlessly. The insides of his legs chafed, and he found himself almost constantly picking the fabric of his police pants away from his skin.

  When he had woken up this morning, he had had zero intention of going to the Lawrence home, and even now after he had made the dubious decision, he doubted that he would find anything there; after the family had been decimated, it seemed unlikely—impossible, even—that they would have kept the home. But he’d never intended to return to the Wharfburn Estate, either, and yet only an hour after waking, he had found himself in the same spot where he had burned the corpse of the thing that Sheriff Dana Drew had become. And for some unknown, fucked-up reason, he had put up little resistance when he had been ushered there by his friend that he had alienated from years ago.

  Come.

  Coggins shuddered.

  Askergan County was like a drug, one that he could only stay away from for so long; it induced in him a longing, a need to return, a feeling that was oddly and frighteningly like the magnetic pull he had felt and succumbed to during the blizzard.

  No, it seemed unlikely that anyone would be at the Lawrence—or ex-Lawrence—home, but then again, he wasn’t totally surprised when he turned the corner of the small, narrow road and saw that there was a light on in one of the large windows that marked the front of the house.

  It seemed that someone else had felt the pull of Askergan—either that, or they had never left.

  He wasn’t sure which was worse.

  Coggins took a deep breath and tried to wipe some of the sweat from his palms. He couldn’t quite place the compulsion to come here, and now that he had arrived, he had no idea what he was going to say or do.

  The deputy knocked once and waited.

  Maybe it’s not even the Lawrences’ home anymore—maybe they sold it.

  Something deep down inside Coggins hoped that an old man, perhaps with an equally aged schnauzer, would answer the door.

  “Sorry, wrong address—my apologies for startling you, sir,” he would say, and then promptly leave. Go somewhere else. Anywhere else.

  But when the shuffling sound eventually made it to the door and it opened a sliver, Coggins’ heart sank.

  This was the Lawrence home, and it always would be.

  “Jared,” the deputy said, his voice suddenly hoarse.

  The man with the narrow face and dark eyes stared at him without speaking, and for a brief moment, Coggins thought that perhaps the man didn’t remember him.

  “I’m—” Coggins began, but the man cut him off.

  “I know who you are,” Jared Lawrence announced, and his voice, like the deputy’s, was dry and raspy.

  When the man failed to add anything else, Coggins shrugged as if to say, I’m here, now what?

  Jared bit the inside of his lip, as if contemplating something. Finally, he pulled the door wide and spoke.

  “Come in,” he managed. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  * * *

  The two men sat in chairs opposite each other across a dining room table. No words were shared for a long time; even when Jared had gone to get some scotch, he had simply poured Coggins a glass without asking—he didn’t need to ask. It was in his face, after all, as his six years of insobriety clung to his features like an alcoholic necklace.

  And Coggins was grateful; he had needed a drink since… well, since the moment Sheriff Paul White had shown up at the decrepit biker bar and had whisked him away with all of the pomp and circumstance of Prince Charming finally discovering Cinderella.

  Coggins took a sip of the copper-colored liquid, enjoying the way it warmed his lips despite the high temperature both inside and outside of the Lawrence home. It felt good. And, perhaps more importantly on this day of strangeness, it felt familiar.

  Coggins cleared his throat and looked up from his glass.

  “You live here alone?” he asked simply, shattering the ice.

  Jared nodded, but when he spoke, he averted his eyes, allowing his gaze to drift to the windows at the front of the house. The top window was still boarded up, Coggins noted, only now it was covered in plywood instead of by a piece of soggy cardboard.

  “Couldn’t give it up,” Jared said simply. Then he turned back to Coggins. “Too many memories.”

  Coggins didn’t know how to react to that, as his mind returned to when he and Jared had dragged Alice’s limp body through the snow to his house, and how they had found Corina, Marley, and eventually the Lawrence matriarch in various states of consciousness and sanity. Memories, sure, but horrible ones. Ones that inspired nightmares.

  “Couldn’t leave,” Jared repeated, taking a large sip of his scotch. It sounded as if he were trying to convince himself.

  When Jared offered nothing else, Coggins let his mind drift, content in letting Jared start up the conversation again if he was interested.

  Jared had taken the opposite approach to Coggins following the blizzard: Coggins had fled, burying his thoughts and feelings and memories in drink, while the thin man dressed in the flannel shirt and faded jeans across from him had decided to wallow in those memories, to submerge himself in the horrors. In a way, this was only fitting; after all, Coggins had made most of the decisions at the Wharfburn Estate all those years ago, and it only made sense that he would be the one to actively make a decision to leave. Jared, on the other hand, seemed content—no, content was not the right word, maybe complacent—to just maintain the status quo.

  “I knew you were coming,” Jared said suddenly, drawing Coggins out of his own head.

  The deputy’s eyebrows rose up on his sweat-covered forehead.

  Jared nodded briskly.

  “I knew you would come back—and I knew you would come back either today or tomorrow or the next day.”

  Coggins stared blankly at the man with the cleft in his chin and the sad eyes that seemed so very different now than when they had met.

  “I knew,” he continued, “I knew because I heard it. I knew because we didn’t kill it, Brad. Which I guess is probably one of the reasons why I stayed here over the years. Trying to keep watch, to keep guard in case it ever awoke again. Although”—his voice hitched—“although I am not qualified for this job. I… I don’t know what to do. Never did.”

  Coggins felt his throat begin to tighten as he recalled the bone white cracker in the plastic bag that Sheriff White had taken back to the station.

  We didn’t kill it, Brad.

  He shuddered.

  … in case it awoke.

  Coggins shook his head and then opened his mouth to contradict the man, to remind him of how his deci
sion to sacrifice his own brother—Oxford Lawrence—was likely the only reason that both of them were alive today. He was the right man, whether he believed it or not.

  But Jared didn’t let him speak.

  “Two nights ago, I awoke in the middle of the night.”

  Jared took another drink.

  “I awoke when I heard my name—my name was being whispered in my head—moaned, even—and I knew that it was back.”

  The man’s eyes reddened, but he fought the tears by finishing his glass of scotch in one large gulp. Jared turned to the small cabinet behind his chair and grabbed the entire bottle and put it on the table between them.

  Coggins quickly finished his own drink, and then reached out and grabbed the bottle from Jared’s trembling hand. He filled both of their glasses with hefty, three-finger pours.

  “I did nothing, of course,” Jared said quietly. “But I knew that you would come here and tell me what to do next.”

  Coggins nodded, although he wasn’t really sure why.

  All of the preceding events had been like a blur, like a Vaseline-coated dream, and this haze wasn’t conducive to thinking of what they would do if it—Oot’-keban—was actually back. It was just a bunch of kids, drinking and smoking and maybe even indulging in some hallucinogens, that were scared of getting caught, after all.

  But it was also the house and the crab-thing—the cracker, as the Griddle boy had called it—that Paul had found in the basement, and the one that he had hit with the homerun swing with the butt of his gun. No way was this all a coincidence.

  The fucking crab-things—what the fuck were they?

  Jared took another big sip and then stared up at the deputy, eyes wide.

  “Tell me—tell me what happened.”

  16.

  “Tell me what happened,” Corina demanded, her eyes narrowing.

  The sheriff’s face contorted as if he were wrestling with more internal demons—as he had obviously been when he had grabbed Walter Wandry by the throat.