Read Online Darkness on the Edge of Town by Brian Keene - Free Book Online

He talked to me and everything, but I know it can’t be him.”
    “I saw my grandfather.”
    “Are we going crazy?”
    “No,” I whispered, “but maybe the rest of the world is.”
    The shadows laughed with my grandfather’s voice. The echoes boomed out over us. Then the sound faded. Those familiar smells—aftershave and pipe tobacco and arthritis cream—vanished with them. I suddenly felt nauseous. I grabbed my stomach with one hand and gritted my teeth.
    There was a burst of light on the horizon, coming from the direction of town. As we watched, a pickup truck approached. Its headlights cut a swath through the murk. It must have belonged to one of the firemen, because it had emergency lights mounted on the roof of the cab. They flashed yellow and red as it approached. Somebody tooted the horn. The truck had a roll cage on the back and oversize tires. Its sides were coated with dried mud. Somebody had been off-roading with it recently. We stepped out of the way. The truck slowed as it neared us and sidled alongside. The engine ran loudand choppy. There were two men inside the cab. The driver rolled down the window and peered out at us.
    “You folks okay?”
    “We’re fine.” I nodded. “All things considered.”
    He pointed ahead of us. “You haven’t been out into that have you?”
    “No,” Russ said. “We just came out to see what we could see. Turns out that’s not much.”
    The driver grunted, grinning humorlessly. “Yeah, no shit.”
    “Are you the guys the chief is sending to the next town?” I asked.
    “That’s us.” He nodded. “Nobody else would volunteer.”
    “You might want to be careful,” I told him. “There’s something weird going on out there.”
    “Yeah, we can see that. It’s dark in the middle of the day.”
    “No.” I shook my head. “I mean, even more than we’ve seen already. Not just the darkness. There’s something else out there. Something inside the darkness. More than one, maybe. Or it could be the darkness itself.”
    “No offense, but you’re not making much sense.”
    “If you listen close, you can hear things in the darkness.”
    “You can see them, too.” Russ’s voice sounded sad and frightened. “You’ll wish you weren’t able to, but you will. Clear as day.”
    The driver shifted uncomfortably. Over his shoulder, I saw the passenger doing the same, staring at us as if we were crazy. I couldn’t say that I blamed him. I’d experienced it for myself, but I thought that we sounded crazy, too.
    “Things?” the driver asked. “What kind of things?”
    “I…well…”
    I closed my mouth, unsure how to respond. To be honest, I was sort of embarrassed—and scared.
    “What kind of things?” he asked again. “You talking about animals or something? Coyotes? Black bears?”
    “The dead,” Christy said. “The dead are out there waiting for us.”
    The driver stared at her and blinked twice. Then a sneer slowly spread across his face. He did his best to hide the expression, but I could tell that we’d just confirmed his suspicions.
    “The dead?”
    Christy nodded. “That’s right. It sounds crazy, but we saw them.”
    The passenger made a mocking, eerie howl—the kind a ghost makes on television or in the movies. The driver silenced him with an elbow to the ribs.
    “Look folks,” he said, “it’s easy to get scared in a situation like this. Lord knows that we’re scared, too. But you can’t give in to wild speculation and panic. The best thing you guys can do right now is to head back home like the chief requested and just sit tight. Everything is going to be okay. You’ll see. We’ll send back word soon as we make contact with the next town. Hopefully, they’ll have a better handle on whatever is happening. Okay?”
    I started to plead with them, to beg them not to drive across that invisible line, but the words stuck in my throat. I couldn’t handle them thinking I was crazy again. In truth, I was starting to wonder if maybe I