A blast of heat hit the right side of his face, forcing him to move away from Reggie and his flamethrower. The sensation faded quickly, and he turned to see the arc of flame extending out from the modified garden hose sputter and then cut out.
“Shit,” Reggie swore. He reached back into the passenger seat of the car and picked up the propane tank with one hand. Although it was obvious even with the ridiculous white garbage bags covering his body that the man was in good shape, the tank lifted easily—too easily.
When Reggie raised his eyes and met the sheriff’s, his expression was grim. Sheriff White had a matching expression, one that was clear from his reflection in Reggie’s aviator glasses.
“Empty,” he replied simply, then promptly removed his glasses and tossed them on the lawn.
The sheriff swallowed hard and thumbed his final bullet into the chamber. Then he turned his eyes on the infestation.
One of the larger crackers was crouched just behind the ACPD sign, its shell lowered and tilted to the east. Taking a deep breath, the sheriff lined the center of the shell with the sight, but hesitated before blowing it away.
It seemed to be moving—rocking, even. Two puffs of air, then one, then a pause, then a long puff.
The sheriff’s finger tightened on the trigger, but he continued to refrain from shooting.
Just like the one in the cell before it, this cracker was communicating again.
“Hey,” Reggie shouted from beside him. “Hey, look! They’re leaving!”
The sheriff moved his finger from the trigger to the trigger guard and pulled his eyes from the cracker.
Reggie was right; the remaining crackers on the lawn, and dozens more that had slunk into the shadows and behind the building when the man had pulled out his flamethrower, suddenly emerged. Only now they seemed less concerned with attacking them, and instead were set on getting across the lawn and back onto the road. To head east. To head to the Wharfburn Estate—to Deputy Bradley Coggins.
Nancy shouted something, but the sheriff was distracted and didn’t make out the words. He turned toward her and saw that she was smiling, her full lips parting to reveal a row of perfectly white teeth—TV teeth, he liked to call them.
Regardless of what she had said, Sheriff Paul White couldn’t find it in him to smile back—not after what had happened.
As the crackers started to flood across the lawn, seemingly oblivious to the police station and its inhabitants now, Paul caught sight of a form on the grass not twenty paces from where Gregory Griddle had parked his Chevelle.
It was Mrs. Drew. The woman’s arms were splayed out from her sides, the back of her head a bloody mess.
The sheriff didn’t blame Gregory for shooting her; in fact, if the man hadn’t done it, the sheriff himself would have probably pulled the trigger. But now, staring at her limp body, the ACPD letters on the back of the Kevlar vest just barely visible in the dark, her exposed arms lumpy and ungainly, he started to cry again.
This is fucked.
He could bear it no longer and looked down, tears streaming down his face. When he looked up again, Reggie was staring at him, a pained expression on his face. The sheriff didn’t need the man’s glasses to know that his own face fostered the same hopeless expression.
“I’m sorry,” was all the man said.
The sheriff glanced at Mrs. Drew’s body again, and his mind wandered to what Coggins had told him about the flaming gas station and Andre Merckle’s body at the edge of town, on the corner of Highway 2 and Main Street.
His large hand instinctively went to the grenade that still hung from his belt, and one of his fingers worked its way inside the ring.
There was one more thing to do.
He eyed the Chevelle, and was glad to see that the black smoke had finally stopped leaking through the seams of the hood.
Sheriff Paul White sniffed hard and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
“Think this thing will run?” he asked quietly.
More crackers scampered across the lawn, some of them coming within a few feet of the two men without hesitating. Not fully trusting their intentions, the sheriff kept his gun with his last bullet trained on the ones that came closest to them. There were more crackers than they had ever thought—even when they had first made it upstairs from the basement—and Paul was glad that he had sent Coggins away. Detroit PD wouldn’t have had enough bullets to pick off every last one of them, let alone Askergan County’s sheriff, two deputies, and a handbag full of mixed candies.
Besides, whatever the fuck Coggins was doing out by the Estate seemed to be working. For now. He just hoped that his friend didn’t meet the same fate as Mrs. Drew… or Dana Drew, for that matter.
Sheriff White swallowed hard and turned back to Reggie.
“Let’s go, then,” he said, his voice tight. “One more thing to do.”
The man nodded, and began tearing away the white garbage bags from his body, revealing muscular, tanned arms beneath.
“Let’s fucking do this.”
41.
Gregory Griddle squeezed the trigger and the massive pistol bucked in his hand, the sound so loud that it momentarily deafening him. A cracker fleeing through the kitchen, trying to make its way through the smashed French doors at the back of the Estate, exploded, sending milky tendrils in all directions.
“Kent!” he shouted as he continued to make his way through the burnt foyer. He swung the flashlight in a wide arc across the room. “Kent!”
Jared fired off a few shots of his own, but his gun seemed woefully inadequate compared to Greg’s, and his poor aim didn’t help, either.
There were only about a dozen of the creatures inside the house, but they all seemed disinterested in Greg and Jared, and instead were intent on trying to get out of the house. For once, the damn things were running from them, and not the other way around.
“Corina!” Jared yelled, adding his voice to Greg’s. “Corina! Kent!”
There was little hope in this place of death, Greg knew. The Estate stunk like rotting flesh, and there was a stillness about it that belied any life—except, of course, for the scampering white demons.
But he wouldn’t give up. Not for his son. His champ. His fucking boy.
“Kent!”
He squeezed off another round, cognizant of the fact that he only had two bullets left and only one more magazine in his fishing vest.
This bullet ripped through the nearest cracker and embedded itself in the stove behind it.
The Wharfburn Estate was so dry that even the smallest ember from the bullet from Greg’s gun started a fire. A small flame ignited behind the stove, but this hungry fire spread with amazing speed. Before Greg could even aim his pistol at the next cracker, the wooden cabinets had started to burn. It would be but minutes until the floor ignited, but none of these facts meant anything to Greg. All he wanted was his son.
“Kent!”
Then he heard something: a faint, hoarse voice, the slightly baritone nature of which undercut the bright clicking of the cracker claws on tile and the sizzle and crackle of the burning kitchen.
“Corina!” Jared shouted, but Greg hushed him, bringing a finger to his ear to indicate that the man should listen.
There.
“You hear that?”
Jared nodded. He began scanning the kitchen, trying to echolocate where it was coming from.
Greg perked his ears and concentrated hard. It was becoming more difficult to hear now that the flames had seized and consumed the oak cabinets.
There. It sounds like… sounds like… ‘help me’!
“I’m coming, champ!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “Hang in there, I’m coming!”
Oblivious to the crackers that were moving fluidly around and between his feet, still desperately trying to exit the now burning house, Greg turned his attention to the cupboards closest to him. He flung the first one open, one that had yet to be kissed by flame, shouting his son’s name as he did.
Nothing—nothing but cleaning supplies.
He flung open the next cupboard, aware that the heat from the burning wood behind and above him was growing in intensity.
Still nothing.
“Kent!” he screamed. “Where the fuck are you?”
“Help me!” The words were still muffled and difficult to make out.
Gregory looked skyward for a second, trying to clear his mind, to block out the other sounds and pinpoint the shouting.
It was stifled, muted, nearly inaudible… it had to be coming from the cupboards. Unless…
Gregory whipped around and grabbed the fridge handle in his left hand.
It made sense, hiding in the fridge. After all, the crackers wouldn’t be able to get him in here.
He took a deep breath and yanked opened the door, prepared to embrace his son as he fell out.
Nothing.
“Fuck!” he shouted, slamming the door closed.
A blast of heat hit the right side of his face, and he immediately turned to the fire. The cupboards that he had just flung open were ablaze, the entire kitchen becoming an inferno.
The heat was so intense that Gregory was forced to raise his hand in front of his face. What a moment ago he had dismissed as an inconsequential fire was soon going to force them all from the Estate—with or without Kent or Corina.
No, Kent can’t be in the cupboards. He would have come out by now… he has to be somewhere where he can’t get out.
But where?
“Kent, where are you?” he shouted, the tears on his cheeks mixing with the beads of sweat.
“Greg!” Jared shouted. “Look!”
So consumed with finding his son, Greg had completely forgotten about Jared. At the sound of his voice, he turned immediately to face him.
Jared was crouched on the floor, his long face twisted in a grime-smeared frown. His thin fingers were looped through a small brass ring embedded in the floor.
“Open it!” Gregory shouted, running to Jared.
He crouched beside the man as Jared pulled the trapdoor open and peered inside, his heart thudding in his chest.
42.
Coggins used the darkness to slink around the side of the house unnoticed by the crackers.
He had his pistol in one hand and a flashlight in the other—but the light was turned off. Despite the sun having long since dipped below the horizon, it was still hot out, and the air had an eerie stillness to it that was disquieting.
When he turned the corner, he heard shots from inside the house, but he ignored them and pressed onward. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about Corina Lawrence or the Griddle boy—he did, especially after watching what had happened at Wellwood Elementary—but that was not his task; not now, anyway.
His task was to end this.
He fingered a grenade on his belt.
It was his task to finish this one way or another.
Deputy Bradley Coggins crept around the swimming pool, staying close to the house. As soon as he crossed from the concrete area that surrounded the pool to the grass, he immediately caught sight of the crackers, even in the darkness. Even with their six tall legs, the white creatures struggled to navigate the overgrown brush. The crackers paid him no mind, and Coggins extended them the same courtesy.
As he reached the first trees of the forest behind the house, he caught sight of even more of the white bodies, despite the fact that the light coming from the house—he was acutely aware that there was a fire of some sort—was barely bright enough to illuminate just a few feet in front of him. And as he made his way as quietly as possible through the tree line, his visibility faded to near zero.
But he heard them. He heard their disgusting joints clicking and clacking, a cacophony of popping that grew into a furious crescendo as he made his way deeper and deeper into the darkness. For whatever reason, his fear of the crackers, so acute, so tangible just an hour or so prior at the station, was gone. Perhaps it was the fact that they showed no interest in him—this was undoubtedly a contributing factor—but it was something else, too. There was something bigger here, something more important, something that took precedence over even these parasitic crustaceans.
Coggins’ breathing was slow and even, his body relaxing as he mentally began to prepare himself for… something. For Oot’-keban, maybe.
A shudder ran through him as he recalled the beast that had possessed Sheriff Dana Drew all those years ago, making him do those horrible things… skinning people, eating people.
Coggins shuddered again, not from fear this time, but from revulsion.
Another two steps and he slowed; there was something different now—something had changed.
It took him a few seconds to realize that it was the sound. Or, more specifically, it was the lack of sound. There was no wind, no rustling the leaves above, no shots from the house about a hundred feet behind him, and, most disturbing of all, no cracking.
Coggins took a deep breath and raised the flashlight.
Then he clicked on the light.
His chest seized, his heart stopped.
43.
Corina Lawrence stared up at the face that leaned into the basement.
It can’t be.
“No,” she moaned, her mind trying to retract into itself.
It’s not real, it’s not real, it can’t be real.
It was Cody, her father, leaning into the basement, leaning in to take her to another, better place.
She swooned, almost falling onto her back, but then the man above started speaking and her mind snapped back into focus.
It wasn’t her father, it was her uncle; it was Jared. He was saying something, his narrow jaw moving up and down, forming what should have been words, but she heard no sound.
Slowly, as if the air in the basement had been replaced by some sort of dense ether, she gently moved Kent’s head from her lap and placed it on the dirt floor beside her. Then she rose to her feet, or at least tried to, but failed due to her twisted prosthetic limb.
It dawned on her that the kitchen from which Jared leaned down had a strange yellow glow, illuminating his face like a campfire.
Did they somehow get the power on?
His lips continued to move as he leaned further into the hole, stretching his pale arm into the basement, reaching, longing for her.
Corina pressed herself up onto her one good leg and waited for a moment to catch her balance. She found that although the twisted foot of her prosthetic leg would be useless for walking, it could be used to prop her up. With a grimace and a grunt, she shuffled forward, moving within a few feet of the opening. Her movements were slow, languid, as if she were moving underwater. Her mind was sending the messages to her limbs, but she couldn’t feel her body. It was there, of course, but, like her mind, it was numb.
Another shuffle, another drag of her leg, and she was directly below the opening in the floor.
“Jared,” she said, but like the words coming from her uncle’s mouth, she didn’t hear these, either.
It seemed impossible that he was here. Part of her thought that she had died.
But then their fingers touched, and Corina snapped back into her body. Time sped up, like an internet connection skipping frames to bring a video back up to real time.
“Jared!” she shouted. The words were loud—too loud, in fact, as the sound echoed off the basement walls.
She heard something else, too.
Jared hadn’t managed to get the power back on—the light was coming from a fire.
The heat hit her first. This heat was different from the dank, warm air of the basement. This was an acute sensation, one that sent her invigorated body into a state of readiness—a warning, her extremities tingling, indicating that she needed to get ready to move.
Fight or flight or freeze.
Freezing was not an option.
Corina stretched as far as she could, and while her fingers again brushed against Jared’s, they couldn’t seem to lock them
together.
She released the hold and took a deep breath. The next time she reached, she put all of her weight on her good leg.
This time, she grabbed her uncle’s hand and squeezed.
Jared snaked his other hand into the hole and grabbed her wrist. He grunted and his face strained with the effort, but with her unable to jump, he only managed to raise her a few inches off the ground.
As Corina watched, her body once again becoming a starburst of energy as the heat from the fire above grew more intense, Jared turned to someone just out of view and shouted, “Help me!”
A split second later, another face appeared above her. Although she was certain she had never seen this man before, he looked familiar to her.
He had pleasant features: a small nose, eyes that bordered on beady, and perfect hair, although it was damp with sweat around his temples.
It was Kent’s father, of that she was sure.
Corina exercised all of her willpower to avoid shrinking back into the corner of the basement to wait for the fire to take her.
“Take my hand,” the man said to her as Jared let go.
Corina stared at that hand for a moment, knowing that this was her way out, her way of surviving, but not entirely sure that this was what she wanted.
After all, she had prepared to die and had reconciled with the fact. Coming back from that dark place was not a menial task.
She turned her gaze to Kent’s lifeless body on the floor of the basement, only a foot from the animal skins and ruptured eggs. It was dark down there even with the fire spreading up above, but she managed to make out his face nonetheless.
It looked like he was smiling in death.
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