Sleepwalker (Nightwatcher #2)(30)
This time, the line rings several times, and it’s Cora’s recorded outgoing message that greets him when it bounces into voice mail.
“Please, Cora,” he says hoarsely, “please call me right away. I’m . . . worried about you.”
Yes. He’s always worried about her, but . . .
This is different. This isn’t just casual concern.
Something is wrong.
Some instinct, some sixth sense, had told him that back at the house earlier, when he felt as though he was being watched, and now . . .
He ends the call and looks again at the lunch spread out on the table; at the food; the sandwich in particular.
It looks store-bought, well-wrapped in cellophane, with what looks like meat and cheese, lettuce, tomato, and onion layered thickly between the top and bottom halves of the roll.
Yes, it must be store-bought, because none of those ingredients were in the house when Chuck left just a few hours ago, and he can’t see Cora going out to buy meat and cheese. She’s a vegetarian. She’ll look the other way when Chuck eats meat, but she sure as hell doesn’t encourage it.
Heart pounding, he reaches out and unwraps it.
He lifts the top of the roll.
At a glance, he thinks he’s looking at some kind of mottled slice of meat oozing with ketchup.
Then he sees it.
CN2.
Surrounded by a heart.
He sees it, and he knows.
It isn’t meat. It’s skin, human flesh . . .
It isn’t ketchup. It’s blood . . .
It’s Cora, and the toxic horror washing through Chuck Nowak’s system bubbles from his lips in an unearthly howl.
PART II
To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d.
William Shakespeare
Chapter Five
Saturday, October 1, 2011
“And then we have to go buy some new colored pencils so that I can— Daddy!” In the midst of outlining her plans for the day, Hudson breaks off with a happy exclamation. “You’re up!”
Allison turns away from the cup of coffee she was about to stir and sees Mack standing in the doorway, wearing plaid boxer shorts and an old gray T-shirt.
He takes in the Saturday morning scene—Allison in her bathrobe standing at the counter, his nightgown-clad daughters with bowls of cereal at the table, J.J. in his high chair happily finger painting with goo that was once a handful of dry cereal.
Then he smiles. “Morning, guys. What’d I miss?”
Allison opens her mouth, but Hudson jumps in before she can speak.
“You missed that we’re putting on a show! I’m going to be the star and the director, and Maddy is going to be the actress, and J.J. is playing a sheep and maybe a baby. And we’re making posters to put up all over town so people will come. Right, Mommy?”
“Right,” Allison agrees, having long ago realized that when Hudson embarks on a creative project, it’s best to go along with her in the brainstorming stage and rein her in later, when—if—logistics actually come into play.
Maddy—who learned the same thing—just smiles at her father as he bends to kiss her on the head.
“How’s the Cap’n Crunch?” he asks the girls.
Maddy informs him that it’s yummy, while Hudson says wistfully, “I wish we could have it every single morning.”
She shoots a pointed look at Allison, who shrugs.
“Sugary cereal isn’t good for you. That’s why you only get it on Saturdays.”
If she had her way, they wouldn’t even keep it in the house—though if Mack had his, they’d all eat it every morning.
The once-a-week Cap’n Crunch rule is one of countless parenting compromises they’ve made over the years, many about food.
Mack has such a sweet tooth that he can’t even eat an apple without cutting it up and dredging the slices in a cinnamon-sugar mixture. He’s agreed not to do that in front of the girls, though, after unsuccessfully trying to convince Allison that fruit is fruit.
“They’ll never go back to eating plain apples if you let them taste it your way,” she said, “and you know it.”
“Because my way tastes better.”
“Your way isn’t healthy.”
“Don’t be so sure yours is.”
Mack was raised by a mother who did everything right, diet-wise—Maggie was reportedly a health food and exercise nut long before it became faddish—“And where did that get her?” Mack asks darkly whenever the subject comes up. “She died of cancer anyway. We might as well eat the way we want to eat. It doesn’t even matter in the end.”
It matters to Allison. She’s the one who was raised by a woman with a death wish who considered white toast with margarine a square meal, and she’s the one who’s responsible for feeding three kids on a daily basis, the one who’s surrounded by health-conscious mothers who wouldn’t dream of putting anything into their children’s mouths that isn’t whole grain, organic, grass-fed, all natural . . .