Sleepwalking: Nightmareland Volume Three (Nightmareland Chronicles Book 3) by Barnett Daniel

Author:Barnett, Daniel [Barnett, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

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Not far, as it turned out. As they exited the station, the sheriff glanced around in a manner that struck Mariah as worried, even fearful, then he nodded and said, “Come on. We'll go on foot, if you don't mind.”

“Would it matter if I did?”

“Not really,” he said. “Jeffrey has my truck.”

She hesitated, her gaze chancing on the storefront across the street: Mister Magic’s Odds and Ends. Nothing about the place seemed particularly magic, except for the sheer amount of junk squeezed on the shelves. There were old perfume bottles, shimmering glassware, Christmas ornaments, and oh so much more. But what drew Mariah’s eye was the pocket of shadow in the display pane’s bottom right corner. She could have sworn she'd seen movement there, low and furtive. She shook her head and followed the sheriff. As they walked, the wind walked with them, and ravens croaked darkly from rooftops. The birds were scarcer here than at the supermarket. Whatever had brought their kind to South Point, it was not on this side of town, where all the buildings were houses and even the mailboxes looked invitingly bright.

“Why all the lights?” Mariah asked.

The sheriff looked up from a thought, as if lost. “Oh. Yes. That. At the time we told ourselves we were keeping track of where we had and hadn’t gone—turning on the lights was our way of ticking off boxes.”

“But?”

“But mostly I think we were just trying to push away the night a little. To enjoy the comfort of electricity while it lasts. This light . . . it won't be around much longer. With no one to look after things, the circuits will blow and the grids will give and we humans will slide helplessly into the dark.”

“You sure know how to lift the spirit.”

The sheriff pointed down a long cul-de-sac. “That's where I found Jeffrey. He was walking up and down the block, ringing doorbells in a daze. You can’t see his house from here, but if you listen you can hear its wind chimes ringing.”

Yes. She could. They sounded like a child singing far away.

Like a lullaby.

“When I approached him, he told me that his mom had fallen on a knife in their kitchen and needed help. He must have been ringing those doorbells for some time, or else he would have fallen asleep like the rest of the town.”

“The weeping boy.”

“Yes. Him.” The sheriff swallowed. “It happened fast, almost as fast the night itself. I don't know if it was the same everywhere, but here in South Point, when the sun turned off, the boy was waiting for us in the dark.”

“What did you do? After finding Jeffrey, I mean.”

“I left him outside, seeing as being outside was what had saved him, then I went in with my ears plugged to check on Mrs. O’Donnell. She was dead. If she had fallen on the knife, she'd fallen on it more than once. A lot more.”

“Jeffrey stabbed her.”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“No blood on him.”

“Maybe he cleaned it off.

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