The Nightmare Frontier

by Stephen Mark Rainey

  “She’s an angel. She puts up with me.”

  A door in the hallway creaked, and a moment later, Debra and Carolyn reappeared, both looking somewhat more composed. But as Carolyn sat back down next to McAllister, she said, “The wind is picking up outside. Sounds like a storm coming.”

  They said nothing for several moments, listening. At the edge of his hearing, Copeland detected a faint whisper, and something scraped lightly upon the shingles above their heads. McAllister rose, opened the fridge, and produced another beer, which he handed to Copeland. “Come out to the porch with me.”

  They went through the living room, and before stepping out, McAllister took his shotgun from its place beside the door. Outside, beyond their little island of light, the night had turned pitch black, and the wind swept down from the mountains in long, wistful sighs. In the distance, a deeper rumbling sound hinted at a powerful gale building. McAllister drew a cigarette from his shirt pocket; his lighter flame danced spastically as he lit it.

  “Storm coming, all right,” he said. “Way early in the season.”

  “Yeah. And it’s getting cold.”

  They peered into the darkness for a time, watching the silhouettes of the trees as they began to sway in the increasingly vigorous wind. Finally, McAllister said, “Do you think your Dream Frontier is affecting the weather?”

  Copeland shrugged. “Who knows? I suppose it could.”

  “How many other people know what’s going on? Have you talked to anyone?”

  He shook his head. “Far as I know, Major Martin was the only one who could have had any inkling.”

  “So no one else is in any position to figure out how to stop them.”

  “Jesus. With all that’s happened, we’ve barely gotten around to thinking about surviving.”

  McAllister clapped him on the shoulder. “I know, I’m sorry. But now that you’re here, we’ve got to figure out, number one, how to stay alive, and, number two, how to reverse what’s happening. If I understand you, Amos is really the one we have to deal with.”

  “He’s the one who opened the door.”

  “You know, poor and ignorant as they are, the Barrows have always made like they own this town and everyone in it. The idea that Granddaddy Barrow has found some unknown power is, to me, damn scary.”

  “From what Major Martin said, Amos believes he’s creating his own personal kingdom. But this thing is not entirely under his control. I think it’s liable to turn on him. By then, though, it could be too late for the rest of us.”

  “So, the sooner we get to him the better.”

  With a bleak look, Copeland said, “You know, we can’t ignore the possibility that this change is irreversible. Remember, Martin said that once this thing, this tower, has anchored itself—whatever that means—the Barrows are pretty much inconsequential.”

  “When does this happen?”

  “I have no idea.”

  In the distance—to the north—something flashed in the sky. At first, Copeland thought it was lightning, but then he saw a number of tiny, golden fireflies flitting high over their heads, painting pale yellow streaks on the heavy black backdrop. A few seconds later, the objects disappeared, but Copeland and McAllister peered long and hard into the night sky, wondering if the Dream Frontier were about to unleash some new terror upon them.

  “Those are the things we saw earlier tonight,” McAllister said.

  “A drop in the bucket compared to the ones around that tower.”

  “Un-freaking-believable.”

  The wind now howled shrilly through the trees, its chill burrowing deeply into Copeland’s bones. The beer can was frigid in his hand, but the alcohol had soothed his nerves, for he no longer felt on the edge of panic. Here, with his old friend, a spreading inner warmth nearly overcame the gale’s icy clutches.

  “You actually went into the Barrow house, eh? You’ve got some balls. That’s where you saw these things?”

  “Originally. They’ve spread all over the place now.”

  “What are the chances are of slipping back in there and putting Amos…out of commission?”

  He gave McAllister an incredulous stare. “Umm, Candle. It’s amazing we got out alive in the first place.”

  “But that jewel you referred to has to be the key, doesn’t it? Seems to me we’ve got to get hold of it.”

  “Even if we do, I wouldn’t begin to know what to do with it. Even Debra doesn’t know.”

  “Destroy it somehow. At least get it out of Amos’s reach. For all we know, he has to remain in contact with it.”

  “Or it might draw those things right down on us.”

  “You got any better ideas?”

  He sighed. “None with a happy ending.”

  “Think on it. We’ll put you up here tonight; hopefully you can get a good night’s sleep. And I propose that, tomorrow, we start actively looking for a way out of this. You’re sure we’re completely cut off from the outside?”

  “Everything I’ve seen today tells me that Major Martin knew exactly what he was talking about. You said yourself nobody has driven in from out of town.”

  McAllister gazed into the darkness in the direction of the road. “How far do you suppose one could go till he reaches the limit?”

  “I’d guess not very far. Your place is already a ways out of town.”

  “You know what? It’s tempting to go find out.”

  “But not very wise. Certainly not in the dark, with a storm coming.”

  “Yeah,” he sighed. Then he glanced questioningly at Copeland. “Hey. You didn’t know Debra before you got here, did you?”

  “I met her right before Rodney’s funeral. That seems like forever ago now.”

  “She and Carolyn—and your sister—have been friends a long time. ’Course, Debra married that Harrington fellow and moved away for a while, which was a damn shame. Hate to say it, but something told me that was never going to work. She’s always been one of the few people in this town with any class.” He smiled wryly. “Hell, I sometimes wonder what any of us are doing here.”

  “You seem to have done all right.”

  “Can’t complain. Well, not much. Anyway, I just want you to know. We’ll do our best to look out for you. You’ve both gone through hell today.”

  “Thanks, Candle.” Copeland had to raise his voice as the wind came roaring out of the darkness, its cold fingers slashing his face. “We’d better get back inside. Hell may be just beginning.”

  McAllister led them back inside, where they found Carolyn and Debra coming toward them from the kitchen.

  “Just coming to check on you,” Carolyn said. “Sounds like it’s getting bad.”

  “Big wind.” He turned to Copeland. “We’ve got a generator in case the power goes out. Sometimes in the winter, we lose it for days on end. Don’t have a whole lot of extra food and supplies, but we can get by for a while if we have to—barring any unexpected trouble.”

  A heavy gust rattled the window panes, and Copeland felt a little tremor in his gut. Maybe this was just an early storm; maybe it was not. Something clattered heavily over the roof, and his eyes automatically turned to the ceiling. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked down to find Debra sliding in close to him, her face again drawn and wan.

  “I don’t like this,” she said in a worried tone.

  McAllister gestured to them. “Come with me.”

  He led them through the kitchen to a small den at the back of the house and a dark wooden cabinet, which he opened to reveal several rifles and shotguns. He selected a hefty-looking rifle and presented it ceremoniously to Copeland.

  “This one strikes me as just right for you. Remington Model 7600, thirty-ought-six, pump action. Maybe you’ll feel more comfortable keeping that close. I don’t know what it takes to kill a Lumera, but if that doesn’t perforate one, not much will.”

  Copeland weighed the weapon in one hand, lifted it, and peered down the barrel. “Haven’t fired a rifle in years. I can still ri
de a bike, though, so I expect I can still shoot.”

  “It’s loaded. Four-round magazine.” He reached into a drawer below the cabinet, which was filled with boxes of bullets and shotgun shells; he found the appropriate ammo and handed a box to Copeland. Then he looked at Debra. “We’ve got something in your size too. A couple of these are Carolyn’s. Ruger M77 here. Two-seventy caliber. That’d be perfect for you.”

  “Whatever,” Debra said.

  “You shoot?” Copeland asked.

  “Everyone in Silver Ridge ‘shoots.’”

  “Or I’ve got a 16-gauge, if you prefer.”

  “The Ruger’s fine.”

  He was just handing the rifle to Debra when his wife’s quavering voice beckoned them. “Doug! Doug! Come here!”

  They hurried into the living room and found Carolyn peering out the front window. She glanced at them with fear-brightened eyes.

  “Something’s out there. In the yard.”

  Copeland’s hands tightened on the Remington. “What’s it look like? Is it glowing?”

  She shook her head. “No. Something dark. Moving fast.”

  “You want to grab that light there?” McAllister said, pointing to a heavy-duty six-volt flashlight on the mantle above the fireplace. She took it down, and he motioned her to the door. “Russ, come on around here. We’ll go out first. Soon as we do, Carolyn, you shine that light out in the yard. Debra, stay inside the door, and be ready with that rifle. Keep an eye on the windows. Everyone got it?”

  “Okay,” Copeland and Debra said at once. Carolyn nodded, holding her flashlight at the ready.

  McAllister reached for the doorknob with his free hand, slowly turned it, then tugged the door open fiercely. In an instant, he was pushing his way through the storm door into the frigid night with Copeland hard on his heels. The moment they set foot on the front porch, Carolyn’s flashlight beam swept across the yard, illuminating the swaying oak trees, the stunted dogwoods at the edge of the road, their Durango SUV and Major Martin’s LeSabre in the driveway. Copeland’s eyes followed the roving beam, but he saw nothing unusual—until something moved at the corner of his eye, drawing his attention to the right side of the house. A dark silhouette, moving rapidly through the yard toward the road.

  “Carolyn!” he called. “There, to the right!”

  The beam shifted to reveal a pair of huge, golden eyes gleaming back at them. For a second, Copeland’s heart stopped; endless moments later, his brain registered the fact that the eyes belonged to a huge, ten-point buck, which stood frozen in mid-stride in the circle of blinding light.

  Carolyn lowered the flashlight, and they heard the sound of hooves crunching through the underbrush as the animal fled into the woods. A grim smile spread across McAllister’s face. “Now, he would have made for some good eating.”

  The steady rush of the wind quickly drowned the sound of the deer’s passage. But then, from somewhere behind the house, another noise rose out of the deep woods:

  Click-click-clack…click-click-clack.

  The hair on the back of Copeland’s neck rose. He drew his rifle to ready position and called out, “That’s it, Candle. That’s the sound of a Lumera.”

  “That’s what we were hearing earlier,” McAllister said. “Only there were a lot more than that.”

  “That’s why the deer are running,” Carolyn said. “Those things are in the woods.”

  “And close.”

  A sudden chirping sound rang out, sharp and shrill, cutting through the wind’s roar. Copeland heard a heavy scraping sound behind him, and he turned to see a soft, golden glow washing over the eaves of the front porch. A pale, moonlike disc slowly rose into view, from which a pair of glistening, sapphire-colored globes, deep within shadowed sockets, leered at him with distinct curiosity. The thing’s gaze—so alien, yet so sentient—mesmerized him, rooted him to the spot with an almost morbid fascination. In that long moment, something inside him lurched, and a dark power seemed to grip him, drawing the deepest part of himself away from his body, toward some insanely distant, lightless world teeming with unseen, eerily wailing inhabitants, who waited devotedly for his arrival.

  The land of Amos Barrow’s dreams.

  The shotgun’s report shattered the night air, jolting him from stasis, its vivid white flash briefly dispelling the darkness. The grinning visage exploded in a shower of luminous globules, and a long, agonized howl pierced Copeland’s already ringing eardrums. The worm-like body convulsed grotesquely, then slid from the roof and fell to the ground with a moist, heavy thud. The six-foot oblong of glowing flesh lay still, thick, amber-colored fluid oozing from the wreckage of its skull-shaped head; then, after a few seconds, it began to scoot erratically forward with the aid of its scrabbling, centipede-like legs, its one remaining jewel-like eye now locking on Copeland’s with unambiguous malevolence.

  “Oh, God,” Carolyn whispered, backing away in horror. Her voice rose shrilly. “Oh, God!”

  McAllister took a few steps toward it, his gun muzzle smoking, his expression more curious than shocked. The Lumera twisted so that its eye fell on its tormentor, and the barbs on its back vibrated violently, producing sharp, whirring, clicking sounds.

  “So this is what Granddaddy Barrow dreamed up? Un…fucking…believable.”

  “Don’t get too close. Those things can burn you somehow.”

  The front door opened, and Debra stepped out, her eyes wide and focused intently on the wounded monstrosity, her rifle clutched in terror-whitened hands. At the sound of the storm door snapping shut, the ruined skull-head swiveled again, and its eye socket appeared to dilate as it caught sight of its apparent quarry. Its shattered mandible fell crookedly open, and from its gaping chasm of a mouth, a long, piercing wail issued like the cry of a wounded whippoorwill, at such intense volume that the windowpanes shivered. Copeland, McAllister, and Carolyn all stepped away, grimacing from the pain in their ears; but Debra took a few steps forward, lowered the muzzle of her rifle to the Lumera’s head, and without hesitation pulled the trigger. The blast silenced the shrieking horror forever, splashing its obscene, misshapen cranium to the four winds.

  For countless seconds they stood in tableau, gazing in awe at the monstrous corpse, hardly daring to believe the thing was truly dead.

  “Well, at least we know they’re mortal,” McAllister said at last. “That’s encouraging.”

  Then, all around them, bursting from the darkness, a chorus of chirps, wails, and clickings, rising steadily into an inhuman aria that drowned the wind and swirled toward the stars. From somewhere to the north, another chorus responded in kind, and the unearthly voices mingled in a ghostly, melancholy dirge that was at the same time terrifying and strangely beautiful.

  “That’s coming from town,” Debra said.

  “My God, they must be all over the place,” Carolyn said.

  “And I get the feeling they are on their way here,” Copeland said, as the sky behind the black tree line began to slowly brighten like a portentous sunrise.

  McAllister threw them an astounded glance and then said. “Russ, my friend, you’ve got to get out of here. Both of you. You’ve got to get out of here now.”

  Chapter 16

  Sometimes his own brother scared him.

  ’Course he did. Levi was headstrong. He was Granddaddy’s spoiled one too, but at least they got on better than most brothers did. Had to, cause they didn’t have no one else. Levi’d been angrier than a riled lynx, though, ever since he’d caught him sleeping at Granddaddy’s feet. But a man could go only so long without rest, and Joshua had gone way past that, what with Granddaddy sleeping most all the time now, and Levi saying somebody always had to watch over him. Hell, though, it wasn’t right he was always the one to be that somebody while his brother went out rambling and courting. He could oversee things as well as Levi—like mapping where the land was changing, reporting back what came out of that hellish tower, guarding against trespassers, and all that.

  Well, it wouldn�
��t be long, though, before he could do what he wanted to, where he wanted to, and when he wanted to. And Granddaddy’d only be sleeping when he felt like it, not cause he had to.

  Yeah, them Lumeras scared him a little, but Granddaddy had said all was well—that them ones were their friends, their “new neighbors.” Well, that was all right; everything ugly didn’t have to be awful. Hell, look at him. He didn’t have no illusions. And Levi wasn’t no picture of splendor, but he was well on his way to claiming old Major Martin’s little girl as his own. Now that was something to carry on about.

  Debra Harrington would for damn sure make a better woman for his brother than Malachi’s old mom. Dottie had seemed all right at first, but she’d tried to change the whole family, to get them “right” with her God, as she liked to say, and—worst of all—to turn Malachi into something he wasn’t. Not a real Barrow, but one of her people. Like “her people” weren’t the ones who pretended to be meek and proper and God-fearing, but who savored putting the knife into anyone different than they were, and sometimes into each other. Levi would never abide that; he was a Barrow, and a Barrow didn’t pretend to be nothing other than what he was. The family did what they had to do to make a place for themselves and keep the rest of the screaming herd out of their business.

  Like what Granddaddy was doing now: making a brand new place in the world, strange to the eye, maybe, but one where they were the ones that counted—where nobody’d ever look down on them again. Martin’s girl was smart as a whip, that was for sure, so she’d know better than to make trouble for them; once everything was going the family’s way, she’d fall right into line. Not to say it wouldn’t take a few whippings, and making sure her old man couldn’t get to her to mess up her mind—and getting rid of that new fellow that’d been with her. But all that would soon be took care of. The fear was already taking hold of the herd, and death was taking anybody that Granddaddy wanted gone. Like poor old Mr. Mike. Kinda sad about Mr. Mike, cause he’d always been decent enough with them. But when Granddaddy pronounced it his time, it was cause Mr. Mike’s heart had turned too far from his kin to ever come back.