Coming Undone: A Novel

by JD Salyers

  When he died inside.

  Does a man come back from a mistake like that? He doesn’t think so. He remembers the early morning rescue squad, showing up just as Peter did. Arlo, who had been the one to stop Landon, was trying to stop the bleeding. Landon had lain on his back, confused and in pain, trying to figure out what had just happened. Only when Arlo had crawled over and torn James’s shirt off, fighting him for it, had Landon come back to himself. Only then had he realized that he had committed the kind of atrocity that no man should ever commit on his very own son.

  His eldest.

  His pride and joy.

  He remembers the first responders, looking at him as if he was a monster, once they’d figured out the situation. They had helped him, of course they had, they were professionals. But he could see the disgust in their eyes.

  And then when he got home, sometime the next evening. Melody had come to him, but she had been hesitant, too. He saw her wet cheeks, saw her hands tremble when she reached for him. He had turned away, too ashamed, too aware that he had broken her, too. So many lives, ruined by him.

  There is no way around the fact that he has destroyed his own family, by wanting to keep them safe. He is the dangerous element. He is the threat.

  The thought makes him lean to the side and throw up in the yard. Then he gets up, wipes his mouth, and goes inside.

  When he comes back an hour later, he sits for a moment and thinks about the deer, about how they move through their surroundings so delicately. They don’t leave a mark, they don’t draw attention.

  He thinks about Alexandria, who came to the house the other day to talk. That’s what she’d said, that she needed to talk. Michael’s suicide will weigh on her heavily, for whatever amount of time she has left.

  She is angry. Angry at Michael for leaving her alone. Angry at her own body for driving her husband away from her.

  Landon doesn’t sit down in his usual spot on the steps. He keeps going, out into the yard and beyond, swinging his crutch. Into the trees behind the house. He’d always liked being out here.

  He’s going to scare the deer.

  He wonders if Melody will hate him the way Alexandria hates Michael.

  He knows it doesn’t matter.

  THE END

  Author’s note:

  Thanks so much for reading Coming Undone! The books I write tend to expose my darkest fears – that the mind is a tricky thing, and it can go on a bender whenever it chooses, with no input from us. I realize that doesn’t normally happen, but when it does, well, that’s a terrifying thought.

  My other big, bad fear is the wilderness. Or rather, what’s hidden in all those thousands of acres of forest that dot our country. Some of it is beautiful, some of it is touristy, but some of it holds the kind of secrets that we don’t like to acknowledge. Anything could be happening – right now – in the deep dark woods not far from where you’re sitting, and you might never know it.

  Anyway, happy reading!

  BOOKS BY JD SALYERS

  QUINN GALLOWAY IS SURE of three things:

  Her husband is dead.

  She’s trapped in the wilderness.

  Someone is trying to kill her.

  It was supposed to be their picture-perfect early retirement – a little land, a couple of dogs, and a happy life in the remote Appalachians, just the two of them. But when Quinn finds her husband dead on their idyllic mountain farm, she’s devastated.

  She’s completely alone, with no way off the mountain. The first big snowstorm of the season is here. The phones are out, the road is impassable, and her closest neighbor is too far away. Even worse, there is a madman on the mountain. He’s already killed once, and now he’s after her.

  Afraid and totally isolated, all Quinn has is her wits and her husband’s beloved dogs.

  A heart-pounding, riveting novel about one woman’s fight for survival in the snowbound wilderness.

  ELI GUNN DOESN'T RUN. He didn't run from his broken childhood, he didn't run from his teenaged mistakes, and he didn't run from the cops on that blazing summer night ten years ago.

  Now, faced with a backwoods religious cult that has a tendency to kill off its flock in the name of God...well, Eli's still not running, but now he wants revenge.

  BILL LANDRY IS THE master of his home and land. He’s never faced anything that he couldn’t crush beneath his wide size twelves or put down with a shot from his rifle. Nobody crosses Bill, including his wife Martha. He sees himself as a man's man, a strong provider who takes care of business. In reality, he's sliding into insanity.

  Things only get worse when a hunting accident leaves him home-bound and full of rage. He’s becoming more vicious by the day, turning on her and anyone else who ventures too close to their mountain home. She’s trapped there with him, and the more deranged he grows, the more she believes that she’ll never get out of that isolated valley alive.

  Only a small-town country doctor sees what's happening and starts working to fix it. As Bill descends into madness, young Paul Newsome and his lovely fiancée might just be the only thing standing between Martha and certain death.

  A dark, gritty look at rural life, one toxic family, and dementia's ability to tear a family apart.