by Brian Hodge
Amos struggled to a sitting position and rubbed his eyes with his bloodstained, grotesquely fat hands. He slowly turned to look at Copeland, and as he did, his face contorted into a mask of pure terror and rage, his color going from pallid to purple. He clenched his eyes shut and began to scream, shrilly, ceaselessly, his vocal cords straining almost to the point of breaking. Then, leaning forward, he began to beat the floor with his fists, sending up filthy plumes of dust from the ratty carpet, splattering blood across the room, the force of the blows shaking the wooden walls.
Jesus. He had gone stark, raving mad.
Debra stirred, sighed softly, and opened her eyes, disturbed by Amos’s violent fit. She sat up and stared at the old man, her expression betraying disgust. Slowly, she stood, and as Copeland moved to take her in his arms, he suddenly halted, realizing that something about her had changed.
They stood at arm’s length, each studying the other’s face. Copeland felt a sudden tremor in his gut, a little thrill of terror that all was still not exactly as it seemed.
Debra’s eyes had changed from deep brown to bright, emerald green.
“Russ,” she whispered, pointing to his face. “Oh, my God, your eyes. Your eyes.”
Three Days Later
Chapter 24
“There is still no official count of fatalities in Silver Ridge, West Virginia, following what authorities term only as ‘an unprecedented, unknown catastrophe,’ but the number is estimated at well over a thousand. In this community of just under 10,000 people, the loss of life is staggering, and neither scientists nor local citizens have been able to offer any explanation for the events that literally isolated this town from the rest of the world for a period of three days.”
Debra’s house felt cold and somber, enshrouded by the same deathly pall that had overtaken the town since its reversion to relative normality. Following their return from the Barrow house, Copeland had stayed with her, unable to bring himself to face the emptiness of Lynette’s home so soon after losing her. Eventually, he knew, he would need to settle her affairs, but that was the last thing on his mind while he and the rest of the world struggled to come to grips with what had happened here. There would be more affairs to settle in Silver Ridge than his mind could comprehend.
“In addition to the terrible human tragedy, property damage in Silver Ridge has been estimated in the millions. Aerial photographic surveys reveal that roughly two-thirds of the structures in the affected area have been destroyed or damaged. But what has most baffled experts is the fact that, in numerous locations, the lay of the land has been altered significantly, resulting in the destruction or dislocation of many homes and other buildings. According to geologists, these alterations are not typical of any known seismic activity, and none has been detected in the vicinity during the past ten days.”
The media had run story after story about the mysterious, impassable “chasm” that had completely encircled Silver Ridge, and while reporters, scientists, clergymen, and everyone’s little brother posed questions aplenty, not a soul had offered so much as a reasonable theory to explain the nightmarish events.
And who could? Perhaps only certain inhabitants of shadowy lands halfway around the world, none of whom would likely ever learn of the tragedy suffered by this small Appalachian town. Probably for the best, Copeland thought. And God forbid that any more devices such as those Major Glenn Martin possessed should ever see the light of day.
Amos Barrow had been found wandering some distance from his wrecked house, but no one dared approach him, for he had gone completely, violently insane; it had taken four members of the National Guard to subdue him and take him into protective custody. He died the next day without have spoken an intelligible word, so the news reports said. Some witnesses who knew him claimed that his eyes had not always been a brilliant, sapphire blue.
“Russ?” Debra’s voice drifted down from her bedroom.
He turned off the television and went to the foot of the stairs. “Yes? You all right?”
“Wanted to make sure you were still here.”
“I’m here.”
He started up the stairs. Despite how prepared she thought she had been, Debra was having a difficult time accepting the loss of her father. Having once believed him already dead, only to find him alive, she had dared to hope against hope; but this time it was not to be, for sometime during the final conflict, he had apparently suffered a fatal coronary. And no trace of Elise Martin, either living or dead, had yet been found—a sad fact Debra had already anticipated. Her personal losses, along with the shock of all that had happened to the town, to everyone she cared about, had crushed her spirit, and Copeland knew that only time would restore it—assuming the damage was not irreparable.
She was sitting in front of her dresser, gazing into the mirror. Since their return, she had spent far too much time there, staring deeply into the emerald crystals that she knew did not belong to her. She just wanted to understand, he thought, to learn how—or how deeply—her experiences had affected her. Changed her.
Unlike her, he had been avoiding mirrors as if the image they reflected might burn out his eyes and sear his brain. He averted his gaze as he came up behind her, leaned down, and gently kissed her cheek.
“You’re still planning to go back to Chicago?” she asked softly.
“I have to,” he said. “But not for long. I’ve got to take care of my own business there. Then I’ll be back.”
“That’s right. You told me.”
“I wish you’d come with me.”
She shook her head. “I can’t leave. Not after all this. I have to…help. So many people have lost so much.”
“You need to heal first. We both do. Nobody else was as close to any of this as we were.”
She nodded sullenly and continued staring at her reflection. He caught a glimpse of himself and, almost against his will, glanced at the blazing green jewels where his own gray-blue eyes ought to have been. He turned away quickly.
During the heat of his ordeal, he had erected a veritable wall of numbness, of separation from himself, just to survive and maybe stay sane. After that wall finally crumbled, his grief over Lynette’s death came rushing back, dealing him a powerful, almost debilitating blow; but as with the physical torture he had suffered, he had rebounded quickly. So far, neither he nor Debra had spoken a word to any authorities, and if he had his way, he never would. What a horror life would become if others should learn what they knew—especially the hawks at the Department of Homeland Security. At best, he and Debra would probably be spirited away to some secret facility and endlessly tested, interrogated, scrutinized. Caged.
No, he never intended to share his experiences with another living soul besides Debra.
And he wanted to be able to share them with her forever.
He had no clue what he was going to do from here. His life was in Chicago; there was nothing for him in Silver Ridge but her. And she would never be happy in the city.
He almost laughed at himself. Happy. Neither of them would ever see life with their old eyes again, literally. Happy now meant looking out the window and seeing a clear blue sky instead of a violet, shadow-filled gulf. But sometimes the sky seemed little more than a thin, fragile mask, perhaps for a monstrous, crystalline face still watching them from…somewhere.
The transformation of their irises, surely, was the merest tip of the iceberg. Debra’s hours in front of the mirror was her quest to find the heart of it. He wasn’t ready to do that—to look that deep inside.
His gravest fear—and most haunting suspicion—was that he would not need to go looking.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
“Yes. Don’t know if I can eat, though.”
“I’ll fix you something. Try.”
“Whatever.”
As he went down to the kitchen, for an instant, he thought he was on the stairs of the old Barrow house, trying to find a way out. A gust of panic almost swept over him, but it abated before it co
uld mount. Every now and then, he would have one of these moments. Probably a natural reaction to his trauma, a delayed stress reaction. It didn’t have to have anything to do with his body’s physiological change; it was just a natural aftereffect, right?
He found himself pouring a glass of scotch rather than fixing any food. But hell, that was no more a result of repressed anxiety or unresolved fear than anything else he did; on an average day he had two drinks, and he had not increased his intake since the demise of the Dream Frontier. He had taken to analyzing his every move, second-guessing any thought in his head, hesitant to trust even his most mundane action—trying to prove to himself he was completely normal, unaffected.
But he wasn’t. He knew he wasn’t. Somehow, he had to accept that he wasn’t.
He took a long swig of the scotch, felt its frigid burn in his mouth, in his throat, in his stomach, steadying him, fortifying him. He opened the refrigerator and rummaged for food, found sandwich fixings of various varieties; he sort of craved a grilled cheese.
“Russell.”
There it was again.
He thought he’d heard someone whisper his name a time or two in the last couple of days, each instance when he was alone and everything was quiet. This was the first time it had been so clear, so unmistakable.
It sounded like Lynette.
Couldn’t be Lynette. She was gone. Forever. Dead.
How did he know for certain she was dead?
Just a stirred-up memory, that was all; a pang of repressed grief that had strayed to the forefront of his consciousness. Regret, maybe, for having cared too little about her when she was alive—when caring actually meant something.
He turned on the stove, dug through the cabinets to find a fry pan, and angrily shoved the errant thoughts out of his head. He almost wanted a cigarette.
Okay, I admit it. That’s the stress talking.
There were plenty left in Lynette’s house. He could always walk next door and grab a pack.
I will not go into that house. Not now. Not yet.
Not till he had gone home, gotten his ducks in a row at the office, and then returned. By then he would be able to face the task of closing out Lynette’s life and getting on with his own. Maybe by then he would have devised some plan for a future with Debra.
He buttered the bread slices, closed the cheese between them, and dropped them into the fry pan. The aroma immediately reached inside him and tugged the nerves that signaled hunger. At least he could eat again. During the crisis, he had gone a full 48 hours without food, and afterward, even when he was almost doubled over with hunger pains, he hadn’t been able to choke anything down; not until most of another day had passed.
The sandwiches done, he flipped them onto a plate. Debra liked the flavored bottled water, so he grabbed one from the fridge, balanced his refreshed glass of scotch on the plate, and started back upstairs, this time feeling almost as if he were walking back into a normal, prosaic world, one that had never been altered, where he and the woman he wanted for his new wife could anticipate nothing but a future of hope, health, and happiness.
When he entered her room, he found her still in front of the mirror, but now standing naked, her clothes scattered haphazardly around the floor. She turned slowly to face him, and somehow, the sparkling emeralds in her eyes made her all the more beautiful. And somehow frightening. He placed the plate and drinks on the dresser as she came to him, and he took her in his arms, lowering his head to press his lips to hers. Her fingers were at the buttons of his shirt in an instant, twisting them open, and then she was leading him to her bed, where she pulled his body over hers like a warm, comforting blanket. He worked himself free of his clothes, and in another minute, he was inside her, meeting her fervently heaving body with forceful, ardent thrusts.
They both opened their eyes at the same time, and the two pairs of emerald crystals met and held each other.
Copeland felt raw power crackling between them, an electric arc that increased in intensity along with his excitement.
Then he closed his eyes again because, far in the depths of hers, he saw shifting black shadows slowly beginning to take shape.
“I’ll be back in less than a week. But I’ve got to make sure a number of cases are settled or I’m going to wish we were still facing Lumeras.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“Sorry. This is important, though. If I can get certain people exactly where I need them, then I’ll be free and clear for the foreseeable future. Then we can start making our own plans.”
“I understand. I don’t like it, but I understand.”
“Maybe,” he added, a little hesitantly, “getting my mind totally back on ordinary work is just what I need to get grounded again. Maybe then I’ll be able to deal with coming back…and handling Lynette’s affairs.”
“I just don’t look forward to being alone. Even for a short time.”
“I keep asking you to come with. We couldn’t be together all the time, but at least you’d be away from…this. There’s nothing for you here but pain.”
She shook her head. “That’s not true. This is still my home, and I love it…in its way. And I can do some good here, I know I can. I’ve been trying to do good with these kids for a long time, and they’re going to need all the help they can get. Maybe that’s what I need to do to get grounded again.”
He let out a little sigh. “I don’t like that, either, but I understand.”
“I’ll miss you. Even if it’s just for a week.”
“Yeah. It’ll be a long one. But when I get back, we’ll figure out what we have to do to make things work for us. You still want that, right?”
“Yes,” she said with a solemn nod. “That’s what I want.”
“Me too.”
He looked out the screened door at the Lexus parked in the driveway. Miraculously, or close to it, he had found his car intact, exactly where he had left it in front of the sheriff’s office. The missing, presumed dead sheriff. Steeling himself, he pushed the door open and went out into the cool, sunlit morning, which waited for him in silence, except for a few distant, melodious birdsongs. Debra came after him, her pace purposely restrained.
“What are you going to tell people who know you were here?”
He shrugged. “Not a damn thing. Maybe just that I don’t remember anything.”
“You think they’ll believe that?”
“Don’t care whether they do or don’t.”
She sighed. “You may get some tough questions. I mean, the obvious change…”
“It doesn’t matter. There’s no one I’d share any of this with. Not there.”
“I know. I know what you feel. But maybe we’ll need to someday. Maybe we won’t be able to keep it just between us.”
“We’ll worry about it when the time comes. Not before.”
She gave him a little smile. “Okay.” Then she opened her arms to him, and he took her in a long embrace. He touched his lips to her forehead, and she breathed deeply, contentedly.
“I guess I’m off,” he said. “I’ll call you when I get home.”
“You’d better. You’d better call every day, or…”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll have to keep you after school every day when you get back.”
“Yes, teacher.”
Their lips came together and parted only reluctantly a long minute later. Then he released her and checked the back seat to make sure he had his bag, which she had retrieved from Lynette’s house for him. He opened the door and slid behind the wheel.
Debra stood beside the car, and he saw her eyes glistening. He had nearly grown accustomed to the bright green.
It didn’t mean anything. It was just a color. Just a new, unusual color.
“Drive carefully.”
He nodded. “You be careful too. I don’t want to hear any bad reports about you when I get back.”
Her smile was genuine. “I promise.”
“I love you.”
“Love you too.”
He started the engine, gave her house a long last gaze, and shifted into reverse, turning to look behind him rather than watch in the mirror. As he pulled into the street and started toward town, they raised their hands to each other.
Then she was out of sight, and the cold, gray road lay ahead of him.
He drove on autopilot, his mind still with her, the scent of her home still wafting through his mind. He did not see the charred frames of devastated houses and buildings, or the rubble that still closed some of the streets, or the flashing lights and emergency crews that lingered in certain areas. It was time to start thinking of home, of what he had to do to get his company on track for an extended period without him, of the serious choices he would have to make in the not-so-distant future.
“Russell!”
It was in the car with him.
A voice from a dream…from deep in his own memory. That’s all it was.
Lynette was dead.
To his right, he saw the diminutive shack called the Chicken House; it was closed but had apparently weathered the cataclysm. Just a few days ago, it had perched on the precipice of the land beyond beyond.
His eyes briefly turned to the mirror, and he saw something.
In the back seat.
A dark, smoky shadow. Just a silhouette. But one he recognized.
“Jesus,” he whispered as his heart slammed into high gear. His foot hit the brake, and the car swerved to the side of the road, skidding to a halt just beyond the entrance to the little restaurant.
The back seat was empty now.
He sat there for a good couple of minutes, breathing heavily, trying to slow his heart’s jackhammer pounding.
What…was Lynette haunting him now?
As he turned back to face the road, something flashed brilliantly in the rearview mirror, again startling him. It took him a moment to realize it had been his own eyes, briefly reflected in the glass.
Something was happening in his head; he could feel it, had been feeling it since the day of their return. His intuition suggested that his senses were retuning themselves, adjusting to some unknown spectrum, a new wavelength, to detect things that his mundane senses could not.