Come Join Us By the Fire Season 2

By Laird Barron, Shaun Hamill, Brian Evenson and 6 more

Come Join Us by the Fire Season 2 is the second installment of Nightfire's audio-only horror anthology, featuring a wide collection of short stories from emerging voices in the horror genre as well as longtime fan favorites.

The collection showcases the breadth of talent writing in the horror genre today, with contributions from a wide range of genre luminaries including Laird Barron, Indrapramit Das, Shaun Hamill, Daniel M. Lavery, Matthew Lyons, T. Kingfisher, Seanan McGuire, Nibedita Sen, and Nightfire’s own Cassandra Khaw and Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Feb 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781250831439

Laird Barron

Laird Barron spent his early years in Alaska. He is the author of several books, including The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All, Swift to Chase, and The Wind Began to Howl. His work has also appeared in many magazines and anthologies. Barron currently resides in the Rondout Valley writing stories about the evil that men do.  

Book preview

COME JOIN US BY THE FIRE SEASON 2

LAIRD BARRON

SHAUN HAMILL

BRIAN EVENSON

INDRAPRAMIT DAS

SUNNY MORAINE

CAMILLA GRUDOVA

DANIEL M. LAVERY

CRAIG L. GIDNEY

GABINO IGLESIAS

A Tom Doherty Associates Book

New York

Begin Reading

Table of Contents

About the Authors

Copyright Page

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JŌREN FALLS

COME JOIN US BY THE FIRE SEASON 2

LAIRD BARRON

A Tom Doherty Associates Book

New York

In an homage to the countrified roots of their flown youth, Larry and Vonda Prettyman retired to a farmhouse on a big piece of property a few minutes southwest of Kingston, New York. Cornfields and blackbirds. Winding back roads and golden light reflecting from streams. Rural, yet within shouting distance of civilization.

Larry departed a career in heavy equipment sales for a Newark-based contractor. Vonda had managed a doctor’s office in Queens. He’d spent the juiciest span of his life flying international business class and riding in the back of company cars. She’d burrowed into the metro art scene, routinely hosting parties for lower-echelon literati. Between hectic careers, children, and encroaching age, they had gradually been worn to the nub.

Cashing in their 401(k)s and moving to the country was just the tonic. He’d grown up in a Norman Rockwellesque county of Western New York; she’d come of age in Ogdensburg, which was basically a woodsy suburb of Canada. To the surprise of those who never really knew them, the graying couple said their goodbyes with cool handshakes and dry pecks on the cheek, pulled up stakes overnight, and vanished into the ether.

Sunset and sunrise were as cool and soft as a bruised apple. There was a garden, a copse of sycamore and pine, distant meadows, then low, heavily wooded slopes that built to an arm of the Catskills. Orb spiders crept out of the dewy grass and spun traps in the eaves. The grand dame of them built her silken death maze in the kitchen window overlooking the garden. Vonda snapped photographs and mentioned an essay she’d read. According to scientists, the web was actually an extension of the spider’s mind.

Vonda subscribed to eight or nine periodicals. Arts and crafts; popular science; modern art; a couple on film and literature and high-class pornography. The Skeptical Inquirer and Fortean Times rounded out her collection. She carefully removed the pages with her favorite articles and photocopied them at the library in Stone Ridge. She sent the pertinent items to the kids—girls in Arizona and Alaska; two boys in Montana. The girls promptly wrote back. The boys called on Thanksgiving and Christmas, or the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas, yelling season’s greetings over a cacophony of children and barking dogs.

Larry leaned against the sink, abstractedly longing for a dog. The notion of a fluffy, warmhearted, nonjudgmental companion snoozing at his feet appealed to the peculiar loneliness gathering in his heart, as did the idea of leisurely strolls in the nearby forest and someone to woof when the express delivery guys dropped packages at the door. His parents had raised a border collie. Bought from a farmer who preferred blue heelers. He had shared many adventures with the dog. The dog’s name escaped him.

Hello, raccoon eyes. Vonda sailed in from stage left. She poured a glass of water and studied him as she sipped. I rolled over to a cold spot at 4 a.m.

Something woke me. He’d surfaced from an incoherent, yet erotic dream but wasn’t about to admit it. Guess I slept in the den. This might’ve been true.

Something? Something, as in…?

I don’t remember.

She regarded him speculatively.

Maybe it was the farmer’s dogs. He indicated the dairy farmer who lived nearby and kept a trio of blue heelers to safeguard his cows. The heelers patrolled the vast property, yodeling periodic alarms late at night.

She tapped her forehead and smiled. A dream, perhaps? Lately, you’re so … in the clouds.

Am I? He nodded blandly affable to cover his discomfort with her perception.

A breeze whipped the spiderweb. The spider clung tight.

Afternoon shadows dappled the wall. Larry peered at the computer monitor, comparing prices for Wellington boots. Bemused by the sea of choices, he contemplated visiting the hardware store yet again. Perhaps the fifth time would be the charm. Shop Local! was an admonishment blazoned on seemingly every other business window. Mud season rapidly approached; the owner promised him new stock would arrive momentarily. Larry hoped momentarily came before the driveway and his favorite walking trails devolved to muck.

His mouse cursor hovered—

Directly overhead, something moved in the attic. Larry startled, his gaze dragged to the dim eggshell paint and the stained globe light fixture. A long, portentous silence followed, then an outburst of frantic scrabbling. His heart sank. The unthinkable had finally occurred. One of Vonda’s squirrels had invaded the house. He blamed Vonda because every morning she filled the bird feeders hanging from the crabapple tree in the backyard. She also scattered unshelled peanuts for the deer. This attracted every possible variety of avian and mammalian miscreant. Local feral cats once checked the smaller wildlife population. Coyotes subsequently roved through the neighborhood and put paid to the cats. In the absence of feline assassins, birds flocked, and heaps of squirrels too.

Accessing the attic via a loose ceiling panel in the closet, he pushed aside winter coats and awkwardly scaled a stepladder and pushed his head and shoulders through the opening, keychain penlight in hand. Rich, dusty gloom, redolent with the faint odors of decay, greeted him. The attic ran the length of the house, divided by a thin partition at the halfway point, which blocked his view. Not much to see, anyhow; exposed timbers that ribbed a sharply peaked roof, shriveled puffs of fiberglass insulation, a cable attached to an industrial fan, and a low stack of boxes of junk.

One of the boxes lay toppled, spilling curios he collected during his journeys abroad. Paperweights and coffee mugs. Cheap pens. Photographs of him and his colleagues plastered, ties loosened, acting like clowns, hanging on the arms of burlesque dancers and cocktail waitresses. He’d chosen the attic as a likely spot to stash mementos. His wife wasn’t enchanted with his former rambling man persona, whom she termed the Other Larry. Though the photos were nothing more than proof that boys will be boys, he feared Vonda might get the wrong idea. When was the last time he’d visited his attic trove to indulge in nostalgia? Days? Weeks? In the early days of his retirement, he made frequent pilgrimages. The life of a salesman could be monotonous, yet he still missed the foreign nightclubs and karaoke bars, and the drunken camaraderie of fellow travelers. He thrust his arm forward and scooped the items into the box and righted it. A mildew stain on the side had congealed into a leering visage he almost recognized.

Making another sweep, his light caught the edge of rotting wooden placard that had pitched to one side, and lay partially obscured by the box. Roughly the dimensions of a license plate, it was draped with cobwebs, withered moths, and the desiccated flap of a burst cocoon. Red, flaking kanji warned against disturbing or removing anything from the waterfall site.

It took him back. He’d almost forgotten his lone tour of Jōren Falls in Izu, Japan, months prior to 9/11. Travel companions--jocular guys from advertising--egged him into swiping the sign to take home for a cool souvenir. How many martinis had they downed to uproot that homely, weathered little warning sign? He vaguely recollected sweating as he waited to clear customs the next day, hungover and mightily ruing his impulsiveness, yet embarrassed to chicken out. The advertising guys were right, though—it was indeed a cool souvenir.

Larry gingerly laid the sign inside the box and rubbed at the cobwebs that stuck to his fingers. He could’ve walked the beams and floor joists in a crouch if the spirit had moved him to investigate further. Which it did not. Observing neither the interloping squirrel nor any obvious entry point for the critter, he retreated.

Call Roger, Vonda said at dinner. She meant Roger Miller, a friend and handyman who lived not far down the road. Roger had a solid decade on the couple, who were no spring chickens themselves. Vonda referred to him as Sundance’s Hot Granddad, in honor of an ancient Robert Redford. Larry thought Redford resembled an unwrapped mummy. Admittedly, Roger had aged well.

Larry frowned at his plate. Autumn allergies were kicking in—nothing tasted right. I could have a peek—

Don’t fool around. You’ll crash through the ceiling.

As you say, dear.

He didn’t regard himself as overweight. Beefy, perhaps. He walked daily along the road where it climbed a steep hill toward the neighborhoods of historic colonial homes. He also split two cords of firewood every autumn as insurance against the not infrequent power outages caused by winter storms. Nonetheless, Roger was inarguably