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  PROLOGUE

  PART I – Askergan County

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  PART II – Kent’s Story

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  13.

  14.

  15.

  16.

  17.

  18.

  19.

  20.

  21.

  22.

  Interlude

  PART III – A Cellar Full of Ghosts

  23.

  24.

  25.

  26.

  27.

  28.

  29.

  30.

  31.

  32.

  33.

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Flesh

  Prologue

  PART I – BUDDING

  1.

  2.

  3.

  Crackers

  Insatiable Series Book 2

  Patrick Logan

  PROLOGUE

  “Come On, Let’s Go inside.”

  Craig’s eyes were bright, too bright, given the fact that their only source of illumination was the moonlight. It seemed that all of the light seemed to focus in on them, making them glow.

  She hated when they looked this way, because she knew what it meant; it meant that he was thinking something mischievous. Devious even. And she was hardly in the mood.

  Predictably, he tugged at her arm, but she resisted.

  “Let’s just stay here,” Steff offered. To try and convince him, she pulled back, using one hand to grab the seat of his jeans, effectively driving their bodies together. Her other hand went to the back of her head and guided his head in close for a kiss.

  Closing her eyes as their lips met, she could feel his warmth between her legs now, and she shifted her hips so that her sundress hiked up further, making it so that only her thin panties and his unbuttoned jeans were barriers between their hard bodies.

  His lips left hers and went straight to her neck, first kissing her soft skin on the jaw, then behind her ear.

  A shiver wracked her.

  But just as things started to get interesting, Craig pulled back again.

  “Come on,” he said, smirking.

  He was such a little shit. Steff knew that he was doing this on purpose, that he knew she wanted—no, not wanted, needed—him now, and he was using it against her. To get her to follow along in whatever mischievous plan his hormone-ridden mind had concocted.

  Oh, how the tables have turned.

  “It will be fun—daring. Spontaneous”

  Steff rolled her eyes, but when Craig pulled a third time as he himself got to his feet, she went with him. And before she could even get a word out edgewise, they were running toward the abandoned house.

  Craig as right, it was daring.

  And exciting, too. As if there wasn’t enough of that going around.

  Only the rough sensation between her toes gave her pause. Steff craned her head around as she continued to run hand-in-hand with Craig, her eyes quickly making out the outline of her loafers in the moonlight.

  “My shoes!” she hollered, trying to get Craig to stop pulling, to slow down. But he just laughed.

  “They’ll still be there! No one is going to take them.” He yanked her arm again. “Come on!”

  And so what choice did she have?

  It was an unusually hot night, and just running the twenty or so yards to the front porch caused sweat to bead on her forehead, and a thin film of it to cover her back. For some reason, this seemed to bring things into focus to her, and with this came apprehension.

  Maybe it was the sight of the boarded up windows and doors, or maybe it was the faded police tape that was stretched across the entrance. Either way, this mixed with her arousal, and instead of dampening it, it only seemed to make it stronger. Somehow, it was almost feeding her desires, her needs.

  Craig could feel it too; a quick glance at the tight front of his jeans was enough to confirm his arousal.

  But as they made their way up the porch steps and approached the doorway, Steff began to have second thoughts.

  We shouldn’t be here.

  Of course not, dumbass. There’s police tape and the doors are boarded up.

  Something’s not right here. We shouldn’t be here.

  Yeah, but we are, so shut up.

  She forced a smile on her face when Craig turned back to face her.

  “I can get it off,” he exclaimed, after briefly inspecting some of the rusted nails.

  But should you? Should you take it off?

  Steff said nothing; all of her energy was being used to keep the smile on her face.

  Craig raised an eyebrow, ran a hand through his shoulder length hair, and followed this up with a sly grin.

  “What do you think?”

  It think we should get out of here. Go back, find my shoes and head back to our tent.

  Her lack of immediate response only seemed to fuel his amusement, and he grinned harder. Then he ran his hand through his hair agin.

  Gets me every time. I should have never told him that I think it’s so hot when he does that. What was I thinking?

  “Ok,” she relented.

  She had no choice.

  Craig’s smirk became a full-fledged smile.

  “Great.”

  He reached over and kissed her on the neck again, and then grabbed her ass.

  She closed her eyes, knowing that she shouldn’t be beholden to her hormones, to her lust. But recognizing this fact did nothing to stop her whole body from thrumming, to stop the wetness from forming between her legs.

  And so when Craig pulled the plywood back, she went first.

  It was pitch black inside the estate, and it smelled of must.

  Steff scrunched her nose and waved her arms in front of her body blindly.

  Hardly the romantic adventure she had expected.

  Still, when Craig slipped inside and wrapped his arms around her from behind, pressing his manhood against her lower back, it wasn’t so bad.

  She spun around, reaching up in the darkness to hold his face in her hands as she started kissing him on the mouth, on the cheeks, anywhere bare patch of skin that she could find.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind he realized that her breath was becoming ragged, but she didn’t care.

  What she cared about was getting Craig inside her now.

  But just when she thought that this would become a reality, Craig pulled away from her and her hands fell from his face.

  “Let’s go deeper,” he whispered.

  Even though she couldn’t see him at all in the pitch blackness, she knew that his choice of words was no accident.

  Deeper.

  Her heart skipped a beat.

  So she went, as she always did; she went where Craig pulled her.

  A bright light momentarily blinded her, and she used her free hand to shield her eyes. Squinting, she slowly caught her bearings as Craig waved the flashlight from his cellphone around the interior.

  They were in a foyer of sorts, a foyer covered in dust and grime. It was clear that nobody had been here in a long while. There were two staircases, one on either side, but before she could glance upward to see where they led, Craig started moving again.

  “Where are we going?” she whispered. But Craig offered no response.

  Based on his brisk pace, she expected that he had a place in mind, but as they stirred up dust and made their way deeper into the estate, it was clear that he had no intention of sharing it with her.

  Steff could feel her heart racing, her pulse quickening.

  It was exciting.

  They had just entered the kitchen when Craig suddenly stopped.

  “Wha—“

  But he turned to her then, and wrapped his arms tightly around her waist, drawing their bodies together. Then he started kissing her, not like before, not teasing or playful but feverish.

  Feeding off his passion, she reached down and unbuttoned his jeans, and slid her hand inside.

  A gasp escaped her, which only seemed to encourage him. When Craig leaned away from her, she thought that maybe she had misread him, that they were going to start moving again, and her smile faded. But then he grabbed her sundress from the hem and in one swift motion, he slipped it up over her head and tossed it on the floor. Then they spun, their bodies pressed together, and before she knew it she was lying on the dusty floor, her bare back prickling from the cold hardwood.

  But this didn’t matter.

  What mattered was Craig.

  She moaned gain, and he yanked at her underwear, nearly tearing them. She pushed his hands away and kicked them off herself, making sure not to rip them.

  And then his lips were on her again, travelling from her mouth, to her chin, all the way down to her bare breasts.

  “Craig,” she moaned, arching her back.

  He came up to meet her then, and when she reached down, she was surprised that his pants were at his ankl
es.

  “Enter—“

  But Steff never managed to finish her sentence. Something happened—something popped.

  That was the only way she could describe it. There was an audible ‘pop’ that resounded from somewhere below them, something that reminded Steff of a child’s old school pop-gun.

  Craig’s head shot up. He had rested the cellphone beside them, and there was just enough ambient light to illuminate his handsome face.

  He looked scared.

  “What was that?” he whispered.

  Steff opened her mouth to answer, but Craig wasn’t interested in her response.

  “Hello? Anyone there?”

  For a few seconds there was nothing, and Steff was nearly overcome by how still everything was in this abandoned house. It was surreal.

  But then there was an answer.

  Another pop.

  Craig’s eyes went wide, and he slowly removed himself from between her legs.

  Steff’s heart was racing again, but this wasn’t the good kind of racing.

  What the hell is that?

  “Don’t go,” she pleaded as Craig hiked up his jeans and began to stand. “Stay here.”

  He ignored her. His eyes were scanning the ground, looking for a doorway of sorts, something leading to a basement or crawlspace.

  Then his eyes seemed to focus in on something.

  Still on her back, Steff turned her head, to follow his gaze, but she saw nothing but the dusty floor.

  “What? What is it?”

  Craig picked up his cellphone and scampered across the floor.

  “Hey!” she hissed after him, instinctively covering her breasts with one arm. “Don’t leave me!”

  Craig waved her away and she frowned. Any sexual energy that had built up over the past fifteen or so minutes suddenly evaporated. The only thing she felt now was exposed.

  Steff looked around, trying to locate her dress on the dusty floor. But as Craig receded farther into the kitchen with his cellphone, the darkness seemed to return, swallowing her up.

  Fuck.

  “Let’s just get out of here,” she said, more loudly than she had intended.

  A noise, not the popping as before, but a creaking, like a rusty hinge, answered her.

  Immediately, she rolled onto her stomach and got to her knees. When she looked at Craig, he was smiling again.

  Her boyfriend of nearly two years—gosh, really? That long?—was crouched nearly ten paces from her, his hand holding up what looked like a trapdoor in the kitchen floor.

  He was grinning, but she wasn’t.

  Something wasn’t right here, and now that her sexual energy had fled her, she felt more than uncomfortable. She felt wrong.

  “Let’s just go, Craig. Let’s go back outside. I—I don’t like it here.”

  Craig’s smile didn’t falter, and Steff suddenly felt anger building inside her.

  What’s wrong with you? Can’t you tell that there is something seriously wrong here? That we shouldn’t be here?

  “Check it out,” he said, his voiced tinged with excitement. “We’ve got a basement here. What do you think is down there?”

  Again, he didn’t wait for her to answer. Instead, he turned and peered down into the hole and shouted.

  “Anybody doooown thereeeee?” he hollered.

  Steff never saw what struck Craig in the face—it moved too quickly.

  But something did. Before he could fully turned back to her and show her that winning smile, something flew out of the basement, hit his face and stuck to it.

  Steff gasped and brought a hand to her mouth.

  Craig’s hands immediately went to his face, his fingers trying desperately to pry whatever clung to him off. Muffled sounds were coming from his face, and Steff feared that whatever it was, it was blocking his nose and mouth.

  “Craig!” she shouted. “Craig!”

  Despite the fear that gripped her, she somehow managed the strength to stand and run toward him. Halfway to him, Craig pulled a hand away from his hand and held it up to her, his fingers spread wide.

  Stay away! Stay away!

  She could almost hear his voice inside her head.

  And then Craig slipped.

  Steff could see it happening, even as she disregarded his gesture and continued toward him. Craig’s left knee slid across the dust covered floor, first knocking into his cellphone, which careened into the open passageway.

  What happened next occurred in near complete darkness. First, Steff heard a crack as the phone landed on the basement floor, then she heard a giant whoosh of air. Craig’s muffled moans intensified and she knew without a doubt, even though she couldn’t see him, that he was falling.

  By the time she got to the trapdoor, Craig’s body had already landed in thud.

  His moaning ceased.

  There was some light in the basement, she realized, as the phone had landed face up and still shone its weak glow upward.

  Steff got on her own knees and peered over the edge of the trapdoor, gripping the sides of the opening tightly, ready to push herself away should whatever struck Craig try to grab her as well.

  Then she screamed.

  Craig was splayed out on his back, his left arm out to his side, palm up and unmoving. His right arm still grasped at whatever the white thing was that covered his face, but this motion was tired, languid.

  “No,” Steff moaned.

  There was a pool of blood around Craig’s head, a pool that continued to grow even as it was lapped up by the dirt floor. A few seconds later, his right arm fell much like his left, and then he was completely splayed out like a crucifix.

  And still. He had become so damn still.

  Then she saw it. A strange, pale crab-like creature clung to her boyfriend’s face. It was like a pasty hand, only this hand had six fingers instead of five, and they wrapped nearly around his entire face.

  As she watched, the thing suddenly clenched, and Craig’s face seemed to collapse inward a few inches.

  Oh my God!

  Steff’s eyes bulged and she grabbed her mouth tightly in an attempt to prevent a scream from coming out.

  Then the light blinked out.

  At first she thought that the phone finally died, having either run out of batteries, or succumbing to whatever damage it had suffered from the fallen.

  But the light slowly came back, first as thin tendrils then in full and she realized that neither were true.

  There was something else down there, another one of those things, and it had just crawled over the phone.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered.

  The words leaked through her fingers and the movement on Craig’s face suddenly stopped.

  No! Please, no!

  Then she heard the popping sound again, only now with the door open, it sounded more like cracking than popping.

  Steff immediately pulled her head away from the opening and scrambled to her feet .

  The dark kitchen was suddenly filled with screams.

  She turned and ran blindly back the way they had come, toward where she thought the front door was. And by some miracle she found it.

  Three of her nails tore away when she peeled back the plywood, but she didn’t notice.

  Lungs burning, she entered the warm night, only now realizing that the screaming she heard was her own.

  Steff sprinted across the lawn and less than a minute later she found herself in the forest again. Branches and sticks scraped her bare arms and legs, and before long thin tendrils of blood coated her limbs.

  But onward she ran.

  Her pace only slowed when the trees became almost too thick to navigate and the soles of her feet were so severely damaged that they were almost completely covered in a sock of blood.

  Trying to avoid the rough forest terrain, she thrust her left foot on top of a small boulder. She thought the rocky surface would provide purchase, but the surface was covered in a dark moss that she couldn’t make out in the weak shafts of moonlight that bathed the forest, and this combined with the blood on the bottom of her foot made for an incredibly slick surface.

  Steff tried to keep running as she slipped and spun in the air. Her legs even kept moving when she landed on her back, and her head cracked off the boulder.

  Her legs continued to twitch even as her vision narrowed, and blood leaked from the back of her head, slowly soaking the rock’s hard surface.

  Only after her bare chest stopped heaving and her pale lips stopped shuddering did her legs finally come to rest.

  PART I – Askergan County