by Brian Hodge
The planks beneath the ratty carpet groaned wearily with each step they took. No one could possibly be home, or someone would have come to check out the sound of the break-in—and who would willfully immerse themselves in such complete darkness as this? Once Copeland passed through the doorway into the next room, he reached for his flashlight again, and this time he let it rove freely and thoroughly along the walls and over the furniture. He wanted to know: just who was this degenerate, mysterious family whom he suspected of harboring bizarre, probably deadly secrets?
His light revealed a dingy couch with several springs popping through the cushions; a couple of end tables covered with papers, ash trays, and empty bottles of various spirits; a curio cabinet filled with framed photographs, documents, and assorted, unidentifiable objects; a couple of cobweb-laced lamps; and a precariously leaning dining table covered with cast-off clothing, several stacks of unopened mail, and even a few books. A trio of stuffed deer heads and a few cheap-looking landscape paintings adorned the walls. It was the curio cabinet that most intrigued Copeland, so he made his way toward it and shone the light in through the grimy glass. When Debra came up beside him and peered in, she gasped audibly.
Several of the framed photographs pictured a homely young man in an army uniform—some solitary, others with a group. The one that had caught Debra’s attention showed a number of men in combat fatigues standing around a tall, hawk-nosed figure with raven hair and narrow, wary-looking eyes.
“My God, it’s Dad,” she whispered. “This must be Samuel Barrow.”
“What is that?” Copeland said, pointing to a tall, ceramic object that almost resembled a crudely molded candle. Then it struck him.
“Oh, no,” Debra whispered, before he could utter a word. Do you realize what that is?”
“The tower we’ve seen. It’s that damned tower!”
He focused his light on the object, and his heart began to race again. The miniature pillar stood about 18 inches tall, its dark surface rough and faceted, like carved graphite. At its apex, several small, narrow stems sprouted toward the heavens almost like the arms of an octopus. It rested on a base shaped like a cluster of boulders, which, at actual size, would have to be gigantic. Copeland noticed a bunch of tiny, etched lines in the ceramic base, which he soon identified as the initials “AHB.”
“Amos Hosea Barrow,” Debra said. “Levi and Joshua’s father. He must have made this.”
“Well, well. A nice bit of hard evidence.”
Debra nodded and closed her eyes, as if by shutting out the sight of the thing she could deny its existence. But she pressed close to Copeland again as he started up the steep, creaking staircase to the second floor, and here, the narrow, mildewed walls and a thick, almost stomach-turning cloud of masculine body odor made him feel claustrophobic and slightly nauseous. The first door on the left hung open, and after shining his light inside to ascertain it was empty, he reluctantly stepped inside.
They stood in a small room occupied by an unmade single bed, a wooden desk covered with papers, and—of all things—many shelves of books. On closer inspection, Copeland saw that the volumes consisted of everything from high school textbooks to literature of all varieties. Several of the spines bore no titles or author names; when he pulled one from a shelf and opened it, he found it to be a handwritten journal, its pages yellowed and crumbling. On the frontispiece, he discovered the name of the author: Samuel H. Barrow.
“Not quite the illiterate bunch I would have expected,” he said softly, contemplating carrying it with him so he could study it more thoroughly.
“I’m not sure about that,” Debra said, pointing to the desk—atop which lay a number of yellow stained magazines of questionable literary merit. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more porn tucked between the covers of the classics on the shelves.”
“I wonder which of the deviants belongs to this room.”
“Levi, I believe,” Debra said. She held up a small photo in a cracked glass frame. “Here he is with Malachi’s mother. Dottie, I think she went by.”
The woman in the picture looked like a typical redneck, Copeland thought, caring little about casting aspersions on the Barrow dead. Short, a bit heavy, and definitely homely, wearing threadbare overalls and a ragged-looking checkered shirt, her thin, dark hair pulled back in an untidy bun. Her smile looked almost genuine, and for a second he found himself wondering if that poor creature had ever known a moment of real happiness in her life. He placed the photograph back on the bedside table, and it was then that he noticed something poking out from beneath the mattress on Levi’s bed.
The spine of a book.
He slipped the battered-looking, leather-bound volume from its not-so-clever hiding place and aimed his light at its pages. Another journal, this one belonging to Levi Barrow himself.
“Hard to believe the bastard actually knows how to write.” Copeland held the book so Debra could see and began to skim the entries, which Levi apparently recorded only sporadically, in an atrocious, barely legible hand. The first entry went back almost four years and recounted the brutal beating of a county taxman who had audaciously attempted to collect his due. As Copeland turned the pages, he found that fights featured prominently in Levi’s daily activities—and in none of the accounts did Levi end up for the worst. In situations where the outcome appeared questionable, Joshua generally joined in to shore up the odds. Copeland judged significant the fact that none of their exploits resulted in a run-in between the Barrows and the law.
Even Malachi occasionally bore the brunt of Levi’s wrath.
“Jesus, that poor kid,” Debra said. “It’s no wonder he’s ended up the way he is.”
Copeland nodded and skipped to the later pages. Then his heart briefly stopped.
The entry upon which his light shone, some eight months old, read:
“I seen her at the school with Malachi, and she treates him kind, not like them teachers hes had all so many years. Major Martin did himself proud with her, cause shes mighty beutiful, and must have a good heart. To see her makes me sad for my own heart, what slipped away from me so long ago its beyond hope. Malachi likes her, not knowing shes the old majors daughter. I cant think of no better mother for Malachi because the boy needs one, not like that hag piece of shit bich I made gone.”
Copeland looked at Debra’s face. Even in the warm glow of the flashlight beam, it had turned stark white.
He swallowed hard and advanced farther into the book.
“Watched her again through the windows of her class, seen her call on Malachi, obvusly he done wrong because she looked sad with him, but not angry and no kids laghed like them all used to. I reckon it sounds funy but shes like a angel.”
Another one, only a month old, read:
“I dont care what the old major done for this family, yeah, I got respect enough for someone whoed help my daddy, and even grandaddy the way he done, but I know hed try and stop me from taken his daughter like I want. Ill have her if I have to kill him, which maybe grandaddy says yes, because Major Martin is up to something but we dont know what. Grandaddy has that keen sight, and hes making it so that soon anything and everthing we want well have, and hes working on it right now. I know he woud be might pleased for me to bring Debra Harington into this family, it would just be she couldnt never know what happen to her daddy.
Itll be an ajustmet for all us when grandaddy makes the change happen, so I guest first things come first.”
From two weeks past:
“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.”
&nbs
p; 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 nothin
g—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.