The Dunfield Terror
Page 17
Just as I thought I could take no more, there was sudden silence, a hiss and pop in my ears, as if the pressure had suddenly been taken off them. The eggs shivered, just once, then popped, releasing a rainbow burst of color that faded as the morning light washed away the darkness that had hung over the garden.
The containment field collapsed with a last fading wail and we were left alone in the suddenly quiet garden, now knee-deep in snow again.
And that’s when we saw we weren’t quite alone. Something lay, squirming on the snow, right at the spot where the old shed would have been. Breem headed over toward it, motioning for me to follow.
Whatever was there, it was wailing pitifully, high-pitched and keening. I have never heard anything sound so lost.
As we closed in on it, I recognized the thing on the ground—it was another of those things from old Pat’s story—the same as the one that had got poor old George in the depot. It was old Pat, George and the fate of my town that I was thinking of when I brought my boot down, hard, in what passed for a face.
“Is it over?” I asked Breem.
He looked at the thing on the ground, then back at me.
“I have a journal I’m going to give you to read,” he said. “And then perhaps you can tell me the answer to that question.”
A rainbow shower of dust rose in the air from the thing at our feet, fell back to the snow, and was gone.
28
From the journal of Duncan Campbell, 25th July 1955
I woke in the dark, drifting and rocking on a quiet sea under a star-filled sky.
There was no sign of Muir, nor of any of the eggs—the Keeper of the Gate had closed the way. When I looked overboard, I saw a dim light, fading out, far beneath us, sinking into the depths. Before I turned the craft back toward Trinity, I tipped Muir’s kit overboard to send it down to join the rest of our failed experiment.
I got the engine going and left Dunfield Bay to seek out the nearest bottle of Scotch and get closely acquainted with it. I did not look back and I shall never return.
I’m sorry to say that I cannot promise the same for the fog.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William Meikle is a Scottish writer, now living in Canada, with twenty novels published in the genre press and over 300 short-story credits in thirteen countries. Previous work for DarkFuse includes The Hole, Broken Sigil, Clockwork Dolls and The Exiled. He lives in Newfoundland with whales, bald eagles and icebergs for company. When he’s not writing, he dreams of fortune and glory.
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
DarkFuse is a leading independent publisher of modern fiction in the horror, suspense and thriller genres. As an independent company, it is focused on bringing to the masses the highest quality dark fiction, published as collectible limited hardcover, paperback and eBook editions.
To discover more titles published by DarkFuse, please visit its official site at www.darkfuse.com.
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THE DUNFIELD TERROR
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