The Nightmare Frontier Read online

  “Grandaddy makin me his scout he says, to clear the way ahead and test things out and make sure everthing perfet. Got to say, its some werd shit hes bringing down but he knows what hes doing.”

  The most recent entry came from the day of Rodney’s funeral.

  “Today they buryid the techers boy what them ones killed. Some new guy, his kin, come to town, staying close to Debra, so theyll get him too. Saw lots of them today, and theyll be more tomorow. God what a site them things are.”

  At the very bottom of the page, in large letters, like the scribble of a smitten adolescent:

  “I love Debra! I love Debra! I LOVE DEBRA!”

  For an endless time, she stood there, her face blank, beyond disbelief. At last, turning away from him, she whispered, “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  Copeland closed the book and tucked it inside his shirt, no longer caring whether Levi Barrow discovered it missing. Cryptic though it might be, the journal provided a trove of information.

  So just what were “them things” that, according to Levi, now had his number?

  A low sound rose from another room—a slow, deep, reverberating groan.

  In an instant, his finger had snapped off the flashlight, but the light, if not the sound of the break-in, would have already betrayed their presence to anyone in the house. In the new, pitch black, he felt Debra’s hand clench his bicep.

  Then, as his eyes began to adjust, he discovered that the darkness was no longer complete. Beyond the door to the narrow hall, a faint, shimmering glow stained the walls like moonlight reflecting off gently flowing water. A pale, luminous blue, it slowly brightened until Copeland could make out the features of Levi Barrow’s bedroom—and Debra’s taut, terrified face. No further sound reached his ears, so on quivering legs, he crept into the tight passage, Debra’s hand tightly in his, and together they made their way toward the source of the radiance: a half-open door at the end of the hall. As they approached, a low, rhythmic rumbling sound crawled out to greet them.

  Snoring.

  Jesus! At least one of the bastards was here—and sleeping the sleep of the dead, if he hadn’t heard the glass shattering or seen the flashlight beam roving in the darkness. Copeland’s first instinct was to escape with his prize, but an irresistible curiosity compelled him to take that final step and lean into the room, to learn the identity of the sleeper and the origin of the strange light.

  He found himself facing a large chamber furnished with age-old relics, all painted a garish, shimmering blue. Bizarre ceramic figures adorned almost every surface, no doubt fashioned by the same hand that had sculpted the tower in cabinet downstairs. A huge lump of a figure occupied a once-plush easy chair at the far end of the bedroom, obviously asleep, his massive, rubbery paws encircling an oblong, sapphire-like crystal the size of a chicken egg that throbbed with electric brilliance. The man’s jack-o’-lantern-shaped head was tilted back, his gaping chasm of a mouth open and issuing an occasional grating roar with the timbre of an injured bear. One of the noisy emissions stirred a movement in a far corner of the room, and Copeland’s legs nearly collapsed, for he had not seen the other figure until it shifted. A younger, much thinner man, tucked into a ball on the floor, unfurled like a spider awakening to its prey, grumbling irritably, stretching his gnarled-looking arms with the sound of green wood breaking. Copeland slowly backed up, praying the man’s eyes would not open and turn in his direction. To his relief, the younger Barrow—Joshua, he presumed—soon shifted, tucked his limbs back into their original, compact positions, and appeared to drift off again.

  At the sight of the homely creature, an unexpected, hot surge of anger and sorrow for Lynette drove Copeland’s hand to the tire iron in his belt, and for a terrifying few seconds, he actually started to creep into the room to bash a pair of skulls; if Debra had not gently taken hold of his arm, as if anticipating his feelings, he might have then and there committed cold-blooded murder. In that moment, the personal consequences of acting on his rage meant nothing. Zero.

  But the spell passed, and he found his vision blurry with tears. It was time to get out of this place. He had acquired something important, and they had been here too long.

  No sooner had they quietly exited the room and started for the stairs than the familiar, arrhythmic rattle of a truck bruised the silence and rapidly grew louder—followed by a second, somewhat less clamorous engine. Copeland halted at the top of the stairwell, his breath catching in his throat, and Debra’s hand became a vise around his wrist. Headlights danced off the walls below, the engines went silent, and a door squealed and slammed. He glanced at Debra’s terror-brightened eyes. Could they make it to the bottom, back to the kitchen, and out the rear door without the new arrivals seeing them? He heard footsteps on the gravel outside—rapid, agitated, and purposeful. No way. All they could do now was find a place to hide.

  It was definitely Levi coming home; they couldn’t go back into his room. Treading as gingerly as he could, the pounding of his heart drowning the groan of the floorboards, he led Debra to another door halfway down the hall, desperately hoping it might offer some kind of sanctuary. He tugged it open and found himself at the bottom of another, even narrower stairwell, which presumably led to the attic, blacker than the starless sky above the house. He all but dragged Debra inside with him, pulled the protesting door closed behind him, and pressed himself against the wall, trying to slow his panicked breathing. His flashlight slipped to the floor with a heavy thunk, and the sound stole his breath. He did not move to retrieve it. His lungs had just begun to cooperate again when the downstairs door whined open to admit the newcomers and then banged shut.

  For a moment, nothing. Then footsteps on the stairs, tromping heavily upward…more than one pair of lungs heaving in the hallway…and footsteps slowing as they reached the stairwell door. Copeland found his arms around Debra, hers around him, their bodies pressed hard together, their own lungs paralyzed, one of his hands slithering toward the tire iron hanging from his belt. He resolved that, if they were discovered, he would go out swinging and sure as hell smash the life out of at least one of the enemy.

  Then the footsteps began again, this time slower, a bit more furtive. A whispering voice said, “Malachi, get to your room, boy.” A pause, and then a lighter tread on the floorboards, moving away in the hall. Then, the heavier footsteps began, obviously heading toward Amos Barrow’s chamber of blue light. Several thumps and a scuffling sound followed.

  Then the footsteps led back into the hall, and Levi Barrow’s unmistakable, gruff baritone rolled beneath the door like a muted ocean wave. “What the fuck are you doin’ sleepin’? You goddamn moron, you never let Granddaddy drift off without watchin’ over him. I should break your fuckin’ face.”

  A whimper, then a wet, gurgling noise. Finally a second voice, pleading: “Levi, stop it, stop it. I been watchin’ him, I been watchin’ him hours and hours. I jest couldn’t hold ’em open no more. You try watchin’ over him all day and night and not eatin’ or sleepin’. So fuck you.”

  Then a third, authoritative but weary-sounding voice spoke. “Levi. Let’s get this over with.”

  Debra sucked in a breath, so sharply that Copeland was sure they would hear her. Her arms crushed his ribs, but then, for a second, he thought she was going to pull away from him. He left his weapon in his belt and wrapped both arms around her again, holding her in an iron embrace, pressing his forehead against hers, willing her to understand the need for absolute silence.

  Yet he could barely keep himself from kicking open the door and confronting those on the other side, even if it meant his death.

  The third voice had belonged to Debra’s father, Glenn Martin.

  Chapter 13

  The footsteps resumed, moving in the direction of Amos Barrow’s bedroom. A door closed, and muffled voices immediately began haranguing back and forth, now unintelligible. This was their chance to escape, Copeland thought, trying to squelch his new, rising suspicion of Debra’s father. But
no; even now, behind closed doors, something momentous was happening, and they needed to learn as much as they could—for Debra’s sake, if not his. He started to open the door a crack, but then he heard a soft thump, just on the other side of the stairwell wall.

  Malachi. His room lay between the stairwell and Amos’s room.

  He didn’t dare step out there now. So he put his ear to the inch-wide gap and listened intently for any discernible bits of conversation. Beyond a few disjointed syllables, he could make out nothing—except what he thought was Debra’s name, spoken by her father. She squeezed his arm, trying to position herself where she could listen, but it was no use; neither of them could pick up anything meaningful from the muted exchange. Martin and the Barrow brothers had evidently closed themselves in a room adjacent to Amos’s, presumably to hold the volume down.

  Then another sound, low and subtle, came from above his head: something moving, sliding slowly along the attic floor. Again, Debra’s arms tightened around his body in warning, her body trembling violently. He could see nothing in the pure darkness at the top of the stairs.

  Click-click-clack.

  A sharp, almost insect-like sound. The same sound he had heard in the woods, just after Lynette had disappeared.

  Then a dim, orange glow became visible in the black space above, gradually brightening as the sound of movement drew closer. The light flickered erratically, like roiling flames—or the glowing thing they had seen in the tall grass rushing after Zack Baird the previous day. The clicking sounds came again, and Copeland finally saw a hint of something moving at the top of the stairs.

  The thing slid slowly into view around the corner of the stairwell and, without hesitating, began to crawl toward them, its body thudding heavily onto the wooden runners. The stairwell walls brightened with a warm, pulsating light, and the revolting formic acid odor Copeland had smelled at Lynette’s house now wafted to his nostrils.

  Debra gasped loudly, choking back a scream.

  It looked like a great worm, its thick, cylindrical body over a yard long, translucent and glowing eerily from within, like an oilskin bag stuffed to bursting with smoldering embers. The thing descended the stairs with a grotesque undulating motion, which stirred several clusters of long, blood-colored barbs that sprouted wickedly from its back—producing the fearsome, insect-like chattering sounds.

  But its head! The head resembled nothing so much as a human skull, pitted and bony, its deep eye sockets seemingly hollow and sightless. Now, only a few steps away, the thing paused and reared up, its head swaying cobra-like before them, and Copeland could see, far back in its dark eye cavities, small, crystalline orbs of pale blue.

  The color of the jewel Amos Barrow clasped protectively in his hands.

  Blood thundered in Copeland’s ears, and all the air in his lungs evaporated. Unable to stop himself, he staggered backward, bumping into the door and pushing it open. He and Debra spilled out into the hall, their horrified eyes locked on the unnatural monstrosity. It slid down another step, freezing them with its hypnotic gaze; then its knobbed mandible dropped open, spread incredibly wide, and issued a weird, warbling shriek, almost like the cry of a whippoorwill.

  Debra’s hands had clamped painfully around his bicep. “Oh, Jesus! What the hell is that?”

  “That’s a Lumera.”

  Their heads swiveled as young Malachi Barrow appeared in his open doorway, black, impassive eyes regarding them from beneath thick, bony brows.

  “Great-Granddaddy calls ’em Lumeras. They come from up yonder.” He pointed skyward.

  Copeland’s hand went for the tire iron and drew it from his belt. The skull-headed thing thudded to the floor at the bottom of the stairs and began to wriggle slowly toward them.

  The door beside Amos’s whipped open and Levi Barrow emerged, a dangerous scowl etched on his craggy face. Joshua followed immediately, and the brothers each took a menacing step forward.

  “Wouldn’t have expected to find you here, Miz Harrington,” Levi said, raising an eyebrow. Then he lifted a beckoning hand to her. “You better just step over here by me, so’s that thing don’t do to you what it’s gonna to do to your friend.”

  Debra shook her head and took a halting step backward, toward the stairs to the main floor. “Dad!” she called in a tremulous voice. “Dad, where are you?”

  Levi gazed at her in disappointment. “Your dad ain’t in no position to help you.”

  Copeland raised the tire iron and whispered to her, “Get down the stairs. Move it.”

  “But Dad…”

  “He’s still alive. That has to be enough for now.”

  The creature, only a yard from Copeland’s foot, trilled again, piercingly. With a last look of longing toward the far end of the hall, Debra spun and bolted like a panicked doe down the stairs. Copeland then wound up and flung his weapon—not at the creature but at Levi Barrow. It whirled through the air straight at his head, but the ugly figure deftly sidestepped, and the projectile slammed noisily into the wall behind him. But by then, Copeland was hard on Debra’s heels, and two seconds later, they had burst through the front door into the chilly night.

  Where, in spite of their pursuers, they both stopped and stared, eyes bulging incredulously, hearts leaping to their throats.

  The sky, the landscape…the world. All had gone insane.

  Overhead, hundreds of swirling and zooming globes of light had set fire to the pitch-black night. The Barrow house, which had nestled in a broad, grassy meadow, now stood amid a forest of very tall, hideously gnarled, ash-colored trees, their crooked limbs arcing over its roof like groping fingers. When Copeland looked toward the ridge off to the north, an icy thrill of terror coursed down his spine, for beyond the inexplicable trees, the alien, but now-familiar tower soared to the heavens like a mile-high arm, its fist puncturing the canopy of sky.

  The blazing globes appeared to be emerging from the protrusions at its apex, spewing into space like bees from a hive.

  A heavy, rapid thumping from inside the house jolted him back to his senses, so he grabbed Debra’s hand and started running at full speed, headed for the road, tugging her behind him as if she weighed no more than a doll.

  He wasn’t pulling her for long. Before he knew it, she was right beside him, and then in front of him, her legs pumping like pistons on the tar-black asphalt. The limbs of the new, skeletal trees intertwined above their heads, enclosing them like a tunnel, which pressed tighter upon them the farther they ran. When Copeland glanced up, he could see the brilliant, gigantic fireflies soaring to and fro just above the branches, occasionally close enough for him to hear faint whooshing sounds as they passed. He no longer had any concept of distance, how far away the car was parked—if it was even still there. Endless heartbeats later, though, a fiery glint of metal—a reflection of the airborne horrors on the hood—revealed the Lexus’s location to him.

  They fought their way through a barricade of entwined branches, which felt unnaturally warm to Copeland’s touch. He opened Debra’s door first, heaved bodily her inside, and then scrambled over the hood and in through his door, which she had already shoved opened for him.

  “Oh, God, oh, God,” she whispered, rocking back and forth in her seat. “This can’t be real! It can’t!”

  He shook his head, his mouth too dry to speak. His trembling fingers somehow managed to start the engine, and he jammed the car into gear, praying it could break through the encroaching limbs. When he floored the accelerator, the Lexus leaped obediently forward, but rocked to a halt as the web of branches greedily entrapped it. He threw the gear lever into reverse and the car roared backward, ripping loose some of the groping fingers, stopping just short of smashing into a gigantic black bole. Then, rushing forward again, the vehicle tore through the barricade and leaped onto the road, narrowly missing two running figures that suddenly appeared in the headlights. Smashing the pedal to the floor, Copeland sent the car hurtling back in the direction they had come, toward town.

 
“What are we going to do, Russ?” Debra asked in an almost-calm voice. “We’ve got to find help.”

  “That might be an issue,” he managed to quip, eyeing the rear-view mirror and catching a brief glimpse of their pursuers standing thwarted in the road. However, evading the Barrows offered not an ounce of consolation, for when he glanced up through windshield at the tangled canopy of limbs, the sky swarmed with roving fireballs, and the tower still reached longingly toward outer space. Thankfully, none of the airborne objects appeared to be following the speeding vehicle.

  “They’re doing this,” she said softly. “Somehow, they are responsible.”

  “There’s got to be more to learn from Levi’s journal,” Copeland said and reached into his shirt—only to hiss in anger when he discovered the book missing. “Damn it! It must have slipped out somewhere back there.”

  “I can’t believe Dad was with them.” Debra’s eyes had begun to brim with tears. “He can’t have anything to do with this. I know him, Russ. He would never cooperate with the Barrows. Not in a million years.”

  “They must have some kind of hold over him. It’s the only thing that makes any sense.”

  “And Mom. God, what have they done to my mom?”

  “We’ll get to the bottom of it…somehow,” he said, hoping his words rang less hollow to her than they did to him.

  He saw her eyes turn somewhere far away—or into herself—but then his attention reverted to the road, for just ahead it veered sharply to the right, and when the car screamed into the curve, he had to work the brakes expertly to keep it from pitching into a yawning black gulf where the trees suddenly ended. For an endless age, the Lexus seemed to hang suspended in midair; then it was again racing through a long, claustrophobic tunnel of foliage, menacing and seemingly sentient. Except for the path cut by the headlights, the night had turned solidly dark again. When he looked back up at the sky, he now saw only black.

  “Are they gone?” Debra asked softly, turning to peer out the rear glass. “I can’t see a thing, not a goddamned thing.”