‘Nightwalk’ ( a short horror story )

Image courtesy of Pexels user Portrenk. https://www.pexels.com/@portrenk/

INTRODUCTION

According to my-not-very good publication notes, I wrote “Nightwalk” in 1983. I wonder if that’s true.

My recordkeeping back then was spotty. I never thought it necessary to keep track of production dates or publication credits.

Now, as you might expect, I’m scrambling to backtrack and figure it all out. If I could return to my youth, among the many things I would do differently –  among them getting a job in my teens, or taking steps in high school to prepare for college – would be to keep track of the dates I wrote stories and make a list of where (or if) they were published, and when.

I remember sitting on bleachers at the local tennis courts, shaded by oaks, planning the details of “Nightwalk.” I remember the scene – the two boys walking along the road in the dark, and the menacing shape stalking them. I remember thinking a really good writer could make this look scary.

A friend and I had spent the day in Pensacola, about 45 miles away, shopping, eating and going to movies. On the way home I began telling him the details of “Nightwalk.” When I got to the part where the boy trips over the surveyor’s wire, Steve said, “Ah, don’t do that. They always do that in horror movies – trip over something so the monster can catch up.”

Silly Steve. He didn’t understand the monster was going to catch them, tripping or not. Besides, tripping added an interesting moral dilemma – should the other boy stop and help his friend, or leave him as an offering to the monster?

In retrospect Steve was right. They always trip in horror movies. I should have taken that out.

I don’t remember much else about the story – what prompted me to write it, or how long it took to write. Back then I didn’t have the same concept of storytelling I have today.

According to my spotty records “Nightwalk” was published in the magazine After Hours in 1987. I’ll have to dig through my copies to see if I can find it. Unfortunately, they are hidden in a plastic Sterilite box at my storage unit, beneath teetering towers of other Sterilite boxes. One day, when I am rich and have money to burn, I will build a house with lots and lots of bookshelves, and all my back copies – even the copy of my high school newspaper with my letter to the editor complaining about 43-cent-per-gallon gas – will go up on those shelves, including the edition of After Hours featuring the story “Nightwalk.”

Tripping and all.

NIGHTWALK

 The screen door banged open and there was the wet slapping sound of Nikes beating frantically against the porch floorboards. Then the boys were leaping – arms pinwheeling – as they cleared the cement-block steps and thudded heavily against the grass which was already damp with the night. They were off, then, drawn pell-mell into the smoky twilight like two madly scrambling shadows; one, tall and lanky; the other shorter, the motions of his body more pronounced as he struggled to keep pace with his stronger companion. They ran until they had put the honeysuckle hedge that bordered the front yard between them and the house lights. They ran until every house on the block was behind them and only an interminable asphalt road flanked by dark woods lay ahead. That, and The House. Then the taller boy slowed, allowing the shorter one to overtake him, ad they walked with the rubber-legged gait peculiar to exhausted marathoners, speaking ragged whispers. Their hearts continued to race.

“You think this is far enough?” Demmy asked. He was trying very hard not to look tired. He sounded worn out.

Todd made no pretense that he hadn’t been winded by the sprint – but he had his size for an excuse. The air, it seemed, had grown cooler and more rarified since sundown. It burned his lungs.

“Far – far enough for what?”

Demmy snorted, sucked air. “Far enough so that if she changes her mind and comes stomping out the front door hollering like a goddamned cow about to split its udder for me to haul my ass back, I can say I didn’t hear her.” He sniffed, spat, and let out a long, pent-up exhalation of relief. Todd continued to wheeze.

“It doesn’t – doesn’t matter. As soon as we get to my house she’s gonna call your ass and make you walk all the way back – in the dark – by yourself. Past. The House.”

“Oh, eat me. She is not.”

Todd paused to collect a breath. “Fuckin’ A. She told me herself. Gave me a buck to keep my mouth shut. But since you’re my cool bud, I wouldn’t want to see you get screwed. So I guess you ought to be heading back. See ya around.”

“She really did that?” Demmy asked, incredulous. “Gimme that goddamned dollar, fuckhead!”

Todd shook his head wearily. “Oh, Christ. Don’t pout. I hate it when you can’t take a joke. OK. I was bullshitting you.”

He saw the tension ease out of Demmy’s expression. Then Demmy mumbled, “Pretty shitty joke.”

From some remote corner of the night, a dog barked. Night time is the best time for hearing, Todd thought. Sometimes, when it’s cool and dark and the wind isn’t blowing, it seems you can tune in the whole world – at least as far as The House. His mind seized on that, and he wondered what it would be like to walk past The House at night, if it would be different somehow. If Demmy would do it despite the things they had heard (and Demmy had been hearing them a lot longer), especially after summer before last, those two kids, what happened to those two kids.

“–  don’t see why spending the night with a friend is such a big deal.” Demmy was gesticulating with his hands, flipping them about like spastic marionettes. “She acts like it’s the goddamned worst thing that could happen – Christ, she never lets me do anything!”

Todd took a deep breath. The fire in his chest had cooled to embers; he felt his mind clearing, his thoughts slowly beginning to congeal. Demmy made some crack about his mother and Todd bit down on a sneer. He said, “I like your mom – ”

“Yeah, but – ”

“Yeah, but nothing. Your mom’s OK so lay off.” He looked up at Demmy, hoping find some indication that Demmy knew he was lying. But the other boy’s face was framed in shadow and unreadable.

Demmy grabbed his shoulder, stopped him (Todd’s heart fluttered and he thought, Oh shit! This big, brawny moron is gonna flatten me), and hissed, “But she smothers me, man!” and he went off on an agitated tirade.

Capillaries of a breeze snaked their way through the firs that walled-in the road, tussling Todd’s hair, twining his thoughts and leading them back through time. Demmy’s voice receded into a toneless blur, and Todd remembered Washington, where his father had carved out a niche at the Smithsonian. The city, with its color, its movement, its energy – all the important things in life. Things that had given his mother a nervous condition and had sent them packing to this godforsaken, two-horse western Massachusetts town where his father had bought a hardware store to squander their collective future.

Todd chewed over all the old arguments. Washington was it; Jesus, everything that mattered – everything important – was in Washington: the institute, the colleges, the arcades, the rinks, the malls … the people. What did this place have going for it? Frigging hardware store and wormy-ass friends like Demmy.

Demmy! Todd wondered why they still called him that. The kid was a year older and three inches taller than Todd. Todd had always been called Todd. Never Todd-O or any of those other dumb kid names. Just Todd. And his parents. They were cool. Always letting him do just about anything he wanted – almost anything. Like staying in Washington. No, they wouldn’t – couldn’t – let him do that. Sure, he was only 14. But they could’ve stayed at least until he was old enough to start college instead of dragging his ass out to this – this hole, where time ground down on rusty sprockets and old clock springs, where a stickup at the 7-Eleven made headlines on the front page of the county weekly. Christ.

“ – and then I’m gonna ask her if she’ll let me go swimmin’ – by myself – in Jefferson Hole. You think that’ll shake her up? Hey, Todd, you listenin’?”

Todd blinked away cobwebs and said uneasily, Yeah, uh, I think that would probably, uh, do it.”

The trees shook themselves and sighed as the breeze freshened. A bird twittered and then quieted. The night was alive with furtive noises, and this was the only part of Olianth Todd could abide. Nighttime in the country, with its mysteries, its secrets. There were times, like tonight, when the stars seemed so impossibly large that he thought they might come crashing down out of the sky to smash against the ground. Huge stars, hone to flawless, brilliant clarity in the smoke-free sky of the backwoods. And the quiet – God, it was oh-so quiet.

Except for little noises.

Demmy snapped his fingers. “Hey, wanna cig?”

Todd shook his head. “Hell no, I don’t want a cigarette – not unless you got some gum – and I know you don’t ’cause you never do. And what would your old lady do if she knew you smoked?”

“Fuck her,” Demmy said automatically. “And you’re right. I ain’t got no gum.”

“Well, fuck you then.” Todd’s voice slipped into a grainy falsetto, and he began speaking in clipped-off syllables. “Now Demson, I will not permit you to use that sort of language in this classroom. Is that clear?”

“Wait a second.” Demmy stopped, dug deeply into his pocket and withdrew a pack of Kools. He hooked one from the pack, inserted it into his mouth like the Marlboro Man, and let it dangle there while he opened a book of matches. He struck one and cupped it in his hands. His face flared into ethereal brilliance, framed against twilight. He drew heavily on the cigarette and a thick cloud of smoke swept about his face and vanished into the darkness. He coughed, nearly spat the cigarette, then took another drag and inhaled deeply.

Again, the falsetto. “Demson, my boy. Are you listening?”

Demmy put away the matches and said, “Lemme guess: Miss Lothario. Fourth period.”

Todd clapped his hands. “Correct, my man. You win the Samsonite luggage.”

Demmy grimaced. “I hate that bitch. Always calling me Demson. If I’ve asked her once I’ve asked her a thousand times not to call me Demson. I’m Demmy. That’s who I am.”

You sure are.

“Yeah, I know,” Todd said. “But she does have one thing going for her. She’s the sexiest goddamned teacher in school.” He growled playfully. “She’s a regular Twentieth-Century Fox. God! I could do the horizontal bop with her any time, any place, Bub.”

They were walking along the road shoulder. Chunks of asphalt crumbled beneath their feet. Ahead, the orderly line of fir trees was broken by a blank gash in the night. Hunched at the inner reaches of the pit, they could make out the vague, shadowy outline of a house. It was a massive, brooding structure that had since fallen victim to the years and passed into senility. Patches of shingles had slipped from the roof. Window panes were cracked or missing altogether. The front door had been torn free from its hinges, leaving a gaping socket of blackness in its middle. The house had been given up.

Todd elbowed Demmy in the ribs and nodded. “Why, I’d even be willing to spend the night in that old place, so long as she came along.”

Demmy wrinkled his nose. “That place gives me the creeps. The House. Wish somebody’d tear it down or something.”

“Tear it down?” Todd spoke with mock incredulity. “Nobody’s gonna tear it down. Nobody’s gonna go near that place.” Then, in a whisper, “They say something still lives there.”

“Awww, that’s bullshit.”

“Yeah. You know it’s bullshit, and I know it’s bullshit, but that’s what they say.” He wondered if Demmy would run. He almost felt like giggling..

But Demmy only snorted. Without a trace of humor. “Look, I’ve been living in Olianth a lot longer than you, and there ain’t nothing to any of that bullshit, not even what happened. …” His voice trailed away. Then he said, “So just shuddup, OK?”

“What’s the matter?” Todd leered. “Scared?”

“No, I ain’t scared – ”

“Afraid a monster’s gonna come slithering out of the dark, like OVER THERE!” Todd pointed frantically at the house. Demmy stiffened and Todd heard a tiny gasp squeak past his lips.

“Goddammit!” Demmy hissed. Todd laughed – out loud this time.

“Awww c’mon, you gutless pud. Just a joke. A little joke, that’s all.”

“Yeah. Ha ha,” Demmy answered, still whispering. “Real funny.”

Todd kicked a fractured chunk of asphalt, sent it tumbling along the road shoulder ahead of them. “Seriously though. You know Mr. Aikens?”

Yeah, Demmy knew him.

“He was in the store the other day, shootin’ the shit with my old man, and my old man mentioned something about maybe buying that place – ” Now they were directly across the road from the house “– fixing it u so he could rent it out to somebody one of those bed-and-breakfast places. As soon as he said that, Mr. Aikens starts in on that writer who used to live there – you’ve heard about him, I’d imagine.”

“Yeah,” Demmy mumbled uncertainly.

“That real famous writer way back in the late twenties or early thirties. I’m not sure; what’s his name?”

“I dunno.”

Todd scratched his chin. “He used to write all those weird stories about devils and monsters and old ruins. He wrote ‘Nightwalk’ – his novel that’s really famous – while he lived in that house. It was about this huge flying thing that only comes out after dark; I saw the movie on Creature Feature.”

“Sounds like a mental to me,” Demmy remarked gloomily.

“His name … what was it?”

“Strangelove?”

Todd sniggered. “No, dummy. That was a movie with Peter Sellers. And I know who you’re thinking about. Lovecraft. It wasn’t him.”

“Poe?”

Todd rolled his eyes. “No, not Poe for God’s sake. Somebody else – Jakes! Jakes! That’s who. Jakes. He lived in that house, way back when. At least that’s what Mr. Aikens told my dad.”

Demmy murmured in a low voice, “Yes, I think I remember somebody saying something about a famous writer staying in that house for awhile, but that was a long time ago. Didn’t he take off?”

In the distance Todd could see a patch of wan light. The porch light at his house. They were almost there. Mom had probably left it on for him before she and Dad left for Sebring.

“I dunno. Anyway, Aikens. …” and the night grew hushed, as if it too would stoop closer, bend an ear and hear the story. Todd found himself whispering, “… said that this writer guy moved into the house and for awhile, everybody here was real excited – you know – having somebody really famous living right here in town and all. People used to walk down this road just to catch a glimpse of him.”

The night pressed closer. Todd lowered his voice still further.

“But it was no dice. The guy never came out. A recluse. Spent all his time cooped up in that old place. Used to send his housekeeper into town for groceries, and she was a tight-lipped old battle ax.”

Demmy sniffed, poked his hands into his pockets.

“Anyway, after awhile, people began to think something weird was going on in there, and they started staying away. Eventually they were pretty much able to forget about him – that is until the night he left.

“Aikens said that the ‘writer fella’ had up and left without so much as a goodbye or a kiss my ass. Forgot about all his stuff and just blew right out of town like he was runnin’ scared or something. Damnedest thing he’d ever seen. One of those storage firms brought a truck in about two, three weeks later and gathered up all his stuff. And that was it. Never saw him again. And the guy never wrote another book. Strange.”

Todd cleared his throat. “Then Aikens took a long suck off his Nehi Grape and said the house had been rented out at least a dozen times since and the longest anyone had managed to stick it out was three months, and how the general consensus – that’s polite for gossip – was that maybe this writer guy, during his stay at the house, had stirred up a bunch of ‘spooks,’ seeing as how he was a horror writer.”

“I don’t think I wanna hear anymore,” Demmy whispered. The House was now to their right and behind them as they continued toward the point of light in the distance. Every few seconds, Demmy would snatch a furtive glance over his shoulder.

“What do you mean you don’t want to hear anymore?” Todd mocked. “I’m not finished.” You’ve got to hear more. I haven’t gotten to the good parts yet, the parts about why they call it “The House,” the parts about those kids, summer before last, how they were mutilated so badly that nobody could look at them without puking, how the cops thought they might have been partially eaten .. there. In front of The House. “You scared? Afraid something might reach out and grab you? Huh?”

“Shuddup!” Demmy hissed pleadingly. “I don’t give a flying fuck about no monster. But haven’t you noticed how weird it feels out here all of the sudden? It’s too quiet. Even the crickets have stopped – ”

“That’s because the monster is around somewhere,” Todd answered in a sibilant whisper. He smiled. “The monster from the writer’s novel. The one that lives in The House. The one that killed those kids.”

“It was a pree-vert who killed those kids,” Demmy snapped. But he looked genuinely alarmed.

“That’s what the cops told everyone. But that isn’t what they think,” Todd answered ominously. He jerked his head to the right. “The monster – ”

“Shuddup! Shuddup! Listen!” Demmy squealed.

“ – tore them limb from limb, chewed them up and spit them out in little pieces all over the front drive – ”

Demmy grabbed Todd’s arm, squeezed it so tightly that Todd winced and had to grit his teeth to keep from shouting. He tried to jerk away; Demmy’s grip was unyielding.

“What’s your problem anyway?”

Demmy had stopped. His eyes had gone wide and were shot with fear. “Can’t you hear it? Can’t you feel it?”

Todd paused. What was Demmy talking about? Could Demmy hear things that he couldn’t, or see things he couldn’t see? Did he have some unexplained sensitivity, some jungle instinct that had been dulled in Todd by years of city living?

“Something is out there …” Demmy said thickly. Todd snorted, laughed uneasily.

“Awww, c’mon. Bullshit. There isn’t anything out there. …” His voice trailed away when he realized how dumb that had sounded. Demmy’s grip on his arm tightened.

“Something’s out there. I can tell.”

Todd hesitated. Demmy was right. Something had changed. It was unusually quiet. Where were the night sounds, the little whisperings and rustlings that let you know the sun had gone down? Shadows slithered and roiled in the inky turbulence. The woods on either side of the road had become impenetrable black walls – walls that could hide things from anyone – two boys, for instance, walking along a deserted road at night.

“Bear … or something, maybe,” Todd whispered. The air had become supercharged with panic that had a burnt, ozone smell.

Demmy moaned, “Ohhh, Todd, let’s get outta here,” and then behind them – behind the wall of firs – Demmy gasped and whirled. A part of the night grew darker, and then tree limbs were being sheared from their trunks to the sound of bones snapping as something big moved toward them out of the darkness like a black thunderstorm.

Todd’s heart crawled into his throat. Suddenly – miraculously – the pressure on his arm was gone. He turned and watched as Demmy began running – running for the pinprick of light that now seemed impossibly far away. Panic prodded at him; his feet began to move with dreamy slowness, as if this were a nightmare where nothing moved with any urgency. From the cavern of night came a low, rumbling growl that cut a swath of chills along his spine. He felt himself staggering – then running. As he moved his mind seemed to clear so that everything came into sharper focus, and he knew suddenly that if he did not run he die here on this dark road, he would die –

Ahead, Demmy’s misty form bobbed against the light. Todd heard talons clawing at asphalt behind him. From some hidden reservoir of terror came the strength for him to scream, “DEMMY – DEMMY – WAIT! PLEEEEZE!”

Claw clicks on the pavement, drawing nearer.

“DEMMY! DEMEEEEE!”

Demmy’s form suddenly winked out of eclipse and Todd heard a whimper and a thud. In a second he was on top of the other boy, saw him lying in the wet grass on the road shoulder, his face screwed into a rictus of surprised horror. A surveyor’s wire was wrapped around his ankle.

“Todd? Todd – ”

Todd raced past him without breaking stride. Serves him right.

He reached the front yard. God, the light looks like heaven.

He took the porch steps in a single, exaggerated leap that sent him careening against the screen door. For a panicky moment he couldn’t get the damn knob in his hand. From out of the night he heard his name called. He got the door open, but hesitated before stepping inside to look. Demmy was at the corner of the yard, running stiffly, and behind him … oh, behind him, the darkness bearing down.

Todd stepped inside and slammed the door shut.

The house was black; it seemed unnaturally large in the murky twilight. Everything was hidden in sooty shadows and ear-ringing quiet. All he could hear was his thundering heart, his ragged breathing, and from outside –

“Todd! Todd!”

– distant and muffled by wood, plaster, but drawing closer now. Much closer. Pretty soon. …

“Todd! Open the d – ”

The sentence was left unfinished. The silence that followed came down like a question mark. Todd turned, pressed his cheek against the cool door facing and whispered, “Demmy?”

Nothing.

“Demmy? Then, louder, “Demmy?”

Todd frowned. “Demmy? What’re you doing? What the fuck are you doing, dammit! Demmy!”

The bones in his leg seemed to so soft. His stomach roiled queasily.

“Demmy!”

Panic was edging back into his voice – God – none of this was happening. That line he’d fed Demmy on the road back there – pure bullshit. Fiction. There couldn’t be anything out there. There couldn’t.”

“Demmy?”

It could have been a dog, or something. Couldn’t it? A bear. Did they have bears in Massachusetts? Todd didn’t think so. Probably a big dog from the sound of things – somebody’s lost pooch out roaming the woods, maybe a wild dog that wouldn’t come near the house, the light. Maybe Demmy already knew that and was hiding in the cedars by the porch, playing some stupid-shit joke, getting him back for all the shitting things he had done.

“Demmy.” Todd’s temples had begun to throb angrily. “Demmy, I know you’re out there. Goddammit! If you don’t want to spend the night in the front yard you’d better hoist your ass up here pronto!”

He was out there, hiding, playing some dumb game. Having a good laugh at the city boy’s expense. That’s what he was doing – that’s what he had to be doing. Making Todd look like an idiot so he could go around school Monday and tell everybody how he’s pulled a fast one on Mr. Bigshot City Slicker, and what a pussy Todd had been, afraid of the dark, of noises and shadows in the dark.

Todd gritted his teeth and whipped open the door. That frigging dumbass –

The porch was slicked down with something that looked oily and scorched in the porchlight’s yellow glare. And at the welcome mat lay a shredded bundle of – a –

Jesus.

Then the porch light was swatted out, and the night reached out to Todd to gather him in.

About the author:

Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”

Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.

As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.

Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .