“He’s dead,” he replied, a tremor in his voice. The way he looked away when he spoke revealed more than the words.
The Sheriff had killed him.
Corina felt the iron around her stomach twist and tighten.
That’s two; you’re responsible for the deaths of father and son, now.
“It’s okay,” Sheriff White said quietly, reading her thoughts. “What’s done is done.”
Corina nodded and tried to rub some feeling back into her wrists and arms. It felt good to finally be free of the chains, but at the same time, it was going to take some getting used to.
By her internal clock, she had been held captive for a week, but it could be as many as two or as few as four days.
She glanced around, her brow furrowing when she noticed the rounded, dark blue passage that surrounded her. She wasn’t surprised that the Sheriff had come for her—she knew he would—and yet she had no idea how he had gotten through all the bikers.
“Where are we?” she asked, her eyes falling on the Sheriff. He wasn’t wearing a shirt.
“In the sewers. We’re in the sewers beneath Askergan.”
Corina looked down at herself next, and realized that she was wearing an oversized Askergan PD uniform.
But only the shirt.
She wasn’t a prude, and even if she were, the Sheriff would have seen everything when she was hanging in Sabra’s room, but a chill ran up and down her spine despite the warmth of the tunnel.
Seeing her shiver, Sheriff White reached into his pack and pulled out a pair of shorts.
“Found these in your locker. Couldn’t find a shirt, so mine will have to do.”
Corina offered a wan smile, which became genuine when he showed her what else was in the pack.
“…and I thought this might come in handy, too” Paul said, handing her artificial leg over. “My back is tired; I don’t think I could carry you all the way to the street.”
He turned away, and Corina stretched her stiff quads before slipping her shorts on. She buckled her artificial leg next and then tried to pull herself to her feet.
Her legs, having gone without much use besides when she tried to choke out Donnie, failed her, and she slipped back to the wet sewer floor.
“You okay?” Sheriff White asked, his back still to her.
“A little help, please.”
He turned and she slipped an arm around his neck. An instant later, she was hoisted to her feet.
“There. That better?”
She nodded, any hint of a smile gone from her face.
“Coggins? Where’s Coggins?”
Sheriff White looked away again, and her heart skipped a beat, thinking that the deputy had suffered the same fate as Kent’s father.
It wasn’t his father. That animal wasn’t Greg Griddle. It was Donnie Wandry. Kent’s father died along with him, in the basement of the Wharfburn Estate.
“He’s still up there,” the Sheriff replied, and she drew a deep breath.
He’s still alive.
“We should get moving,” he continued and tried to guide her forward, but she resisted.
Corina leveled her eyes at his, and even though this said enough, she felt that words were necessary.
“I can’t go with you.”
Her thoughts turned to her mother and little Henrietta, probably worried sick about her.
The news outlets were probably all over the turf war in Askergan, and with the Askergan PD station deserted, it was enough to make anyone wonder. The Sheriff and his crew had done a decent job of covering up after the storm, and although he had been less successful following the cracker attack, viral videos or widespread panic had been avoided.
This, on the other hand, was bound to be statewide, if not national news.
News…
Staring into Sheriff White’s eyes, she realized that he had lost, too.
After all, Nancy Whitaker had been strung up beside her before she had been decapitated and skinned.
This time, she couldn’t control her tears.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t. I have to see this through.”
The Sheriff’s mouth twisted into a grimace, and for a moment she thought that he was going to protest. But then his shoulders relaxed. He probably knew all along that she wasn’t going to just give up, go back to her old life.
Still, she felt as if the man deserved an explanation. After all, he had risked his life to come rescue her, and for that, she was forever grateful.
“I can’t leave here, not with it up there. I have been chasing this thing ever since it took my dad and my uncle. I won’t leave until it’s dead and gone.” She shook her head. “I just won’t. And neither will Coggins. I know that now.”
Sheriff White nodded almost solemnly. She could tell what was going on in his head, that coming here had been a mistake, that after all of his efforts he was going to head back empty-handed.
She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
“Askergan needs you,” she whispered in his ear. “Thank you for all you’ve done.”
Sheriff White pulled away, tilting his head to one side. Then he pulled a pistol from a holster on his hip and checked the clip and chamber.
“I expect you know how to use this?”
Corina said she did and took it from him.
“You’re a good man, Paul. And Askergan is going to once again need good men when this is over.”
Sheriff White cleared his throat.
“Everyone keeps saying that, but I don’t have a goddamn clue why. After all, I let Dana die, let the entire County be overrun by scumbag drug dealers, let half the population be eaten by some fucked up crabs. And then—” his voice hitched. “—last but not least, Nancy… they got Nancy, Corina…”
Corina hobbled forward and embraced him, ignoring the pain in her shoulders.
To her surprise, the big man began to sob. He had to crouch down to nestle into her neck, but that’s exactly what he did.
A few deep, shuddering breaths later, he straightened himself, and regained composure.
“People have been killed, murdered, and worse. Something bad lives here in Askergan, but without people like you, things would be much, much worse. Deep down, you need to know that,” Corina said.
Sheriff Paul White nodded.
“Go fuck that thing up. End this shit once and for all.”
Corina loaded the chamber of the gun he had handed her, nodded, then started to hobble back the way she had come.
Toward the rats.
This is for you, dad. This one’s for you.
Chapter 49
The cracker flipped over and landed on its six horrible, pointed legs with a sound reminiscent of teeth gnashing together. It paused for a moment, and then seemed to burp or hiccup, followed by an abbreviated shiver, before the perforated holes on the back of its shell started to thrum.
The black eyes buried deep in the head of the beast that used to call itself Walter or the Crab, which now had hints of yellow flecks for irises, rolled in the cracker’s direction. It was a strange and disorienting sight: the eyes didn’t seem to turn the way normal eyes did, as on a fixed axis. Instead, they seemed to turn like glass marbles spinning haphazardly across a table.
The beast’s brow furrowed, or, more accurately, folded, causing more of those dark splits to form.
Yes! Go get it! Get it you fucking demented crab!
But no sooner had Coggins experienced these thoughts, did the excitement they raised leave him like a morning piss.
“Oh, Coggins,” the thing laughed, a mocking, sadistic rumble, “you thought that you could send—”
But then the cracker flushed a bright red and lowered itself on its legs, each of them cracking in sequence, and the beast paused.
Coggins wasn’t sure if it was the actions of the cracker, or the skittering sound like tiny claws, coming from the closet behind him that had caused the thing to cut off mid-sentence. Coggins couldn’t be certain, because he h
imself had no idea what was making that persistent scratching sound.
He swallowed hard, but not even the consideration of this cracker drawing others—which was possible, he had seen them do this before—could make him avert his eyes from the beast.
I should have just used the shotgun, he thought before realizing that that was still a potential option. His gaze still on the apparent showdown between the beast and the cracker, Coggins spied the shotgun in his periphery, only three or four feet out of reach.
He took a deep breathe, than scrambled toward it.
No sooner had his fingers closed on the butt, did he hear the final, ominous crack that signified the cracker becoming airborne.
Coggins cried out and swung the shotgun around, sliding his finger over the trigger at the same time. The cracker tilted, masking its angle of attack and for one brief, heart-stopping second, Coggins was certain that it was coming at him.
His finger tensed on the trigger, ready to turn the flying cracker into a smear of white fluid.
But Coggins never fired.
Instead, he leaned to one side, realizing at the same time that the cracker wasn’t coming for him.
For all of the beast’s mocking tone, his incessant laughter, his riddles and telepathic intrusions, the cracker seemed to take it by surprise.
It failed get its claws up in time.
Coggins had seen those digits move, had seen them move with amazing speed and dexterity, peeling back human skin with greater precision than an expert surgeon. And yet in this instance, the green hands brandishing those long, silver claws, only made it to chest level when the cracker made contact.
The problem was, the cracker wasn’t coming for the purple and blue marred center of its being.
Instead, it tilted backward slightly as it approached, almost as if drafting, trying to ensure that it hit its mark, and then struck the beast directly in the face.
The suction was immediate, and the cracker’s six knobby legs wrapped all the way around either side of its head, locking the creature in place. Oot’-keban staggered backward, at the same time bringing its claws upward.
The dark green appendages pulled at the cracker, the long silver talons trying to tease beneath the legs and its head, while at the same time continuing to backpedal. The tubes—for that’s what they were now, strange conduits for whatever evil was coursing through Walter’s body—across its chest grew larger and larger until Coggins thought they might burst. And that wasn’t the only change. The teeth of the cracker embedded in what was once Walter’s shoulder oscillated madly, and it too seemed to be clamping down, twisting its right shoulder at an odd angle.
The beast’s backward progress was stopped by the massive wooden desk and the cracker on its face, seeming to sense this lack of movement, hissed and seemed to contract even further.
There was an audible crunch and Coggins felt his stomach lurch. Those powerful, cartilaginous legs had squeezed so hard that they overlapped at the back now, and the diameter of Walter’s head was reduced by a third.
From somewhere behind him, the scratching sound was continuing to increase in fever pitch, but Coggins still didn’t turn.
Something told him that what happened here, what happened with the demon he knew as Oot’-keban, was the only thing that mattered. This wasn’t the first time he had felt—had known—something in this way; it had happened before, when he was behind the Wharfburn estate, moving toward the culvert.
He knew then that if he put the incubator that Tyler Wandry had become out of his misery, then all of the crackers would die.
As he knew now that if he ended Tyler’s father’s reign, if events really did come full circle, then what was happening behind him wouldn’t matter.
But sometimes even fate needed a little push.
Coggins pulled himself to his feet.
The beast was canted at the waist, its claws still grasping at the cracker, revealing the crown of its head to the deputy.
Coggins raised the shotgun, aimed at the center of its skull, and pulled the trigger.
Despite the distraction, Oot’-keban was still fast—too fast. It tilted to one side almost before the shot was fired, as if it knew it was coming the way that Coggins knew that this was the final showdown.
Most of the buckshot embedded itself in the large desk, and the bits that landed true either defected off the hard carapace of the cracker legs, or embedded in them.
“Fuck,” he cried, pumping the empty shells and loading fresh ones.
Instead of aiming for the head, this time Coggins aimed at center mass, at the network of purple lines that reminded him of some sort of nightmarish subway map.
He fired again, and this time it was a direct hit.
The beast straightened from impact, and something that might have been considered a groan, but was mostly muffled by the cracker, came from its face.
Coggins expected blood to spray from the wound, perhaps hitting him even though he was more than fifteen feet away.
But there was no blood.
He could clearly see where the buckshot had landed—there was a smattering of what looked like large peppercorns on raw chicken—but there was no blood.
None.
Even where the buckshot had struck those vessels, the fluid or paste inside was so thick that it couldn’t pump out, seeming to self-seal.
“What the fuck,” Coggins almost sighed.
But he hadn’t given up; not yet, anyway.
He grit his teeth and took a step forward, firing two more shots, one after another.
The results were the same; the beast was thrust backward from the impact, the second shell sending him almost on top of the desk, but no blood flowed.
No gore.
Nothing, save for more of those black holes.
Something crawled over his foot at the same time coarse bristles scratched his ankle.
Coggins jumped and for the first time since this nightmare began, he looked away from the beast.
Revulsion washed over him in waves.
There were rats everywhere.
Coggins instinctively hopped on one foot, only to land on and crush at least a half dozen rodents. Their bones were dry and brittle, reminding him of when his mother was still of sound mind and would make quail appetizers over the Christmas holidays.
The scampering… it was rats…
He recalled Deputy Williams mentioning about how the storm had driven the rats into the sewers, and how he had been commissioned to exterminate them.
And then like a poorly spliced movie, another vision followed, this time of the dog he had shot, the poor boxer he had put two bullets in.
Back in the storm, the call of the beast had brought more than just humans.
And evidently, Deputy Williams hadn’t cleansed either Askergan or Pekinish of vermin.
When more rats hurried by him, Coggins whipped his head around, and his revulsion became more visceral: he gagged.
There were so many rats flowing out of the closet that it looked like brown sludge from a backed up toilet.
And the damn things just kept on coming.
Short of jumping up and grabbing onto the chains dangling from the ceiling, or leaping on top of the massive oak desk, Coggins saw no way to avoid the deluge of rodents.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and stood completely still.
Coooooooooooooooooome
Rats flowed over his feet and ankles with feverish desperation. At one point, their scrambling mass was so dense that Coggins felt them just below his knees.
Then the laughing started again, and with some reluctance Coggins opened his eyes.
Oot’-keban’s claws were still at its head, but instead of trying to pry the cracker off, the long nails were buried even deeper.
And then, slowly, as the rumbling laughter continued like infinite thunder, the claws moved forward again.
Only there was no attempt to remove the cracker, at least not directly.
Instea
d, those dark green hands teased Walter’s skin off, including his hair, scalp, and face, like a warped beautician removing a thick purifying mask.
“My god,” Coggins whispered, feeling warm urine trace wet paths down the inside of his legs.
Chapter 50
Gasping, Corina pulled herself up the final rung of the ladder, and then collapsed. Feeling the effects of being strung up for a week and living off a single daily meal of pasty gruel, she breathed deeply, tasting expensive carpet forever soiled by rat urine and feces.
Her heart was pounding in her chest and her palms, each gripping a pistol, were slick with sweat.
A solitary rat climbed up her back and after briefly getting tangled in her damp her, continued into the room.
Get up, something in the back of her mind urged. Get up, Corina. You need to finish this.
With great effort, she pulled herself to her feet, flung her damp hair back, and then stepped into the room she had been held captive in for nearly a week.
Corina Lawrence had seen the crackers, had seen the way they latched onto their victims, burrowed their way beneath their flesh. She had mercifully taken the life of young Kent Griddle, and she had seen and smelled her own leg turn foul with gangrene.
She thought that this had prepared her for anything.
Corina was wrong.
Very, very wrong.
The scene that unfolded before her stole what little breath she had left like confetti in a tornado.
There was some sort of reptilian beast standing in front of Sabra’s massive desk, a hulking creature covered in smooth black scales that formed a streak over its bald head. Its eyes were large and pitch, save for vertical yellow slits. Two apostrophe-shaped holes marked a primitive nose, but it was the mouth that was perhaps most horrifying. Thin black lips spread across its entire face, clinging to a lower jaw that looked unhinged, engorged.
Hanging from its neck was a growth that to Corina resembled a plaster cast half-removed, and she recognized knobby legs clinging to it in death.
A flicker of movement between her and that thing thankfully broke the spell.
Deputy Bradley Coggins was standing with his back to her, a shotgun held out in front of him. Pooling about his feet were the rats—the rats that had climbed over her and the Sheriff in the sewer below.
Stitches (Insatiable Series Book 5) Page 21