by Paul W Papa
Night Mayer
Legend of The Skinwalker
Paul W. Papa
NIGHT MAYER
Legend of the Skinwalker
Published by HPD Publishing
Las Vegas, NV 89105
Night Mayer: Legend of the Skinwalker is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Apart from well-known historical figures and places, any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2021 by Paul W. Papa
All rights reserved. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. For permission to use material from the book—other than for review purposes—please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Published in the United States by:
HPD Publishing (A division of STACGroup llc)
PO Box 230093
Las Vegas, NV 89105
ISBN (pbk): 978-1-953482-02-0; (10-digit) 1-953482-02-3
ISBN (ebk): 978-1-953482-03-7; (10-digit) 1-953482-03-1
Cover design by Elizabeth Mackay Graphic Design
Cover Photo: Deposit Photos
Edited by Melissa Parsons
Keep up with Paul W. Papa’s books at his website.
For Mckenzie
Contents
Night Mayer
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Don’t Miss Out!
About the Author
Also by Paul W. Papa
Maximum Rossi
Chapter 1
Night Mayer
Prologue
A SHADOW CREPT steadily across the desk, covering the blueprints and obscuring the notes R. J. Hawthorne was making. “What are you doing here?” he asked with a bit of a huff. He wasn’t expecting visitors, nor did he care to have any. He stopped making notes, but didn’t look up. “You must have an appointment. You can make one tomorrow. I do not see anyone after hours. Now please leave.”
The shadow did not move.
It had been one thing after another since they announced the project. Protesters, mostly from the local tribe of Paiutes, doing everything they could to block the resort development that he and his partner, William James Pierce, had started. It was prime real estate 25 miles outside of Las Vegas in the foothills of the Spring Mountain Escarpment. A place where water was plentiful and the temperature much cooler than its desert neighbor to the east.
The partners had a vision. People coming from all over to vacation at the base of the picturesque mountains, bathed in rich reds, blues, browns, and oranges. A modern dude ranch, complete with horseback riding, herds of cattle, and nights by the campfire. Of course, this dude ranch also had a pool, a spa, and a blue-ribbon chef. Some people would come to Las Vegas to gamble. Others to escape the drudgery of their daily lives. Still others would need something a bit more lasting—a permanent escape from the ones they once loved. Nevada’s liberal divorce laws would make that possible.
He waited, not wanting to look up for fear that if he did, it would encourage the person to engage him in conversation. It was late and all he wanted was to finish his notes on the revisions, then head for a good meal and an even better nightcap. But the shadow stood its ground. He laid his pencil purposely on his desk and let out a second huff. It was clear this person was not going to leave unless he addressed him specifically. “What do you want?” he asked and looked up.
He was met with an inexplicable sight. At first he thought it was a Paiute dressed in some kind of ceremonial garb. It happened quite often. The protests turning into makeshift powwows with dancing and drums beating incessantly. But this was no Paiute. In fact, he wasn’t even sure the thing in front of him was a man at all.
Though it stood on two feet, those feet were nothing human. Thick hair cascaded downward from just below the knees to the claws protruding from beastlike toes. The hands, like the feet, were covered in thick, brownish-gray fur. Fingers, ending in sharp claws, were held at the ready. The beast loomed over him. Its head had the shape of a wolf . . . no, a coyote, grotesquely blended with that of a human—pointed ears and saliva dripping from yellow-stained fangs.
Hawthorne shoved his chair back hard and scrambled for the revolver he kept in the bottom drawer of his desk. With a trembling hand, he took hold of the .38 and pointed it at the beast. The creature made a guttural growl, but did not move.
“I’m not afraid to use this thing,” he said, as firm as he could muster.
The creature took a step closer, then another.
He pulled the trigger. The echo bounced off the walls in the small office. He’d hit the creature in the chest, but it had no effect. He fired again and again, but nothing happened; nothing stopped it from drawing closer. Its yellow, bewitching eyes—more human than creature—bored into him.
Several seconds passed before he realized the gun was clicking with each pull of the trigger. The creature glared at him, meeting his eyes with its own. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. Something compelled him, controlled him. The creature took one final step, only inches away from him now, its furious breath defiling his cheek. The putrid stench filled his nostrils and worked its way into his lungs.
He dropped the gun.
It was the eyes. They captured him, peered inside him. Deep inside. Piercing and then stripping away a hidden veil. Though the creature was still in front of him, something had changed. Something dreadful. It was now inside of him as well. It overtook his mind and controlled his limbs.
He sat back down in his chair. picked up the revolver, and laid it on his desk. Then he calmly opened the top drawer and took out a piece of blank paper. He wrote the date at the top, then wrote more. Much more. When he finished, he positioned the paper at the corner of the desk. Then he picked up the revolver, opened the cylinder, and emptied the shells. They bounced from his desk and fell to the floor. He filled the weapon with six new bullets, fresh from the same drawer where he had gotten the .38. He brought the gun to his head—his eyes wide and his mouth agape.
If anyone had been around, they would have heard the echo cascading throughout the canyons and would have come running. But there was no one to hear. No one at all. So the sound faded into the mountains and vanished.
One
“YOU READY FOR the show?” Joe Sobchik asked as he handed his friend P. M. Mayer a highball glass filled with ice and rum.
Joe was an easygoing gent. Clean-shaven with kind eyes, a bright smile, and a hairdo that might have been a pompadour if he had put more time into it. He wore a white shirt, the top button open, the sleeves doubled over, like the cuffs on his pleated trousers.
> “You mean the spectacle, don’t you?” Mayer retorted. He took the offering and settled into one of the two lawn chairs Joe had set aside on the roof in anticipation of the event, positioning his cheaters against the sun.
Joe lit a Lucky and took the blue lawn chair next to Mayer, beer in hand. “Call it what you will,” he said. “It’s good for business.”
“Shouldn’t you be working?” Mayer asked.
Joe leaned back in the lawn chair. “Even working stiffs deserve a break.”
Mayer sipped his rum and scanned the crowd. The typical collection of misfits: dancers, performers, musicians, and a guy who’d made it big when his low-budget film caught fire in the theaters at the beginning of the year. Every one of them with a drink in hand. It was early in the morning and most of those in attendance were still working on the previous day.
Mayer was just another one of those misfits who’d gathered on the roof of Atomic Liquors for an unobstructed view—suit coat slung over the back of his lawn chair, tie undone, lid tilted toward the front—waiting for the ghastly show of human ascendancy. Just as bad as the rest of the blokes.
He usually enjoyed the stillness of the new morning, washing over the town, cleansing it of all its sins. Bringing with it the hope of a better day, before it was once again sullied by the stain of night.
But this morning had none of that feeling. None of that hope. The stillness, instead of refreshing, seemed somehow stale. People stood, like mannequins in a store window, facing west on Fremont Street, their eyes pinned to the sky. Children had been brought in buses to a nearby baseball field where bleachers provided a better view. The sun had not yet peeked above the horizon to scorch the day. Yellow clouds, looking more like fire than hope, blanketed the area. The neon marquee atop the Hotel Apache was still shining bright, and Vic was still greeting guests at the New Pioneer Club with a hardy “howdy pardner” from his position high above the fray. Just as if it was a regular day. Just as if nothing dreadful were about to happen.
“You’ve got to give this town credit,” Joe said. “When faced with, well, lemons, they made margaritas and turned it into a party.”
“Only in Vegas,” Mayer added and lifted his glass in salute.
Joe was right, of course. When a trucker on his way to town saw a strange mushroom-shaped cloud and reported it to the local paper, instead of trying to fight the testing of nuclear weapons, Las Vegas transformed it into a business opportunity.
It didn’t take many brains to discover what was going on. The scientists at the test site made it easy. They stayed in the Last Frontier and every single one of them requested 2 a.m. wake-up calls. They boarded the same plane at Nellis Air Force Base and flew out to the test site at the same time. Even a politician could figure out what was going on. But the biggest clue came in the form of a bright light resulting from the blast. Hard to hide something that could be seen as far away as San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Las Vegas took to atomic testing like a lizard to a hot rock. They set up a point, called News Nob, on Spring Mountain where invited media could watch the spectacle from afar. The Chamber of Commerce produced a calendar of scheduled blasts, hotels organized viewing picnics, bakeries created mushroom cloud cupcakes, and restaurants added things like atomic burgers to their menus. Hairdressers created atomic hairdos and Las Vegas High School put a mushroom cloud on the cover of their yearbook, the Wildcat Echo. Copa Girl and blonde-haired beauty, Lee Merlin, was even crowned Miss Atomic Bomb.
American capitalism at its best.
Joe did his part, of course. He offered viewing parties, created an atomic cocktail, and even named the bar Atomic Liquors.
A female called to Joe from the opening to the roof. Mayer recognized the voice, as did his companion. It was Joe’s wife and co-manager, Stella. “No rest for the wicked,” Joe said and climbed out of his chair. He turned to Mayer. “I’ll be back,” then added, “maybe.”
Joe had no sooner left when Mayer was approached by another. “Excuse me,” a female voice said, her soft, flowery perfume lighted the stale air. “Aren’t you the one they call ‘Night Mayer?’”
He pulled off his cheaters, tilted his lid, and rubbed his eyes. The sun seemed brighter in the morning than at any other time of the day, though he knew that wasn’t really the case. “Depends on who’s askin’.”
“Name’s Cassi Reyes,” she said. “Pleased to meet you.”
She likely extended her hand, but Mayer didn’t look up to find out. He replaced his cheaters, pulled his lid down over his eyes, leaned back in his chair, and took another drink. He knew who she was. Cassi Reyes. Hank Greenspun’s newest cub reporter, hungry for a story, trying to make a name for herself on the pages of the Las Vegas Morning Sun. She had telephoned him several times seeking an interview. He never dialed her back.
She stepped in front of his chair, blocking the sun, stencil pad and pencil in hand. “You’re a hard man to get ahold of.”
“Moonlight Mist,” Mayer said.
“Excuse me?”
“Your perfume. It’s Moonlight Mist by Gourielli.”
“How did you?” She let the question fall. “I’d like to ask you about the Sloan Canyon incident.”
He took another sip and ignored her.
“Awful early to be drinking, isn’t it?” she asked.
He lifted his cheaters and took a close look at the woman. The sun from behind her created an eerie aura that framed her slender figure. She wore high-waisted brown slacks that gripped tight to her legs above the ankles, a thick belt of matching color holding them in place. The collar on her white, long-sleeve, button-down blouse was kept high, and she had on flats that matched her slacks. Her own tortoiseshell cheaters rested atop her head, blending into her short pixie-cut brown hair that was awash in highlights, or maybe the sun was hitting her just right. He wasn’t sure.
“Who let you up here?” Mayer asked and replaced his cheaters. “This is a private party.”
“One of the owners, thank you,” she said smartly.
“Frank?”
“Who’s Frank?” she asked. “Joe Sobchik let me in.”
Mayer made a mental note to speak to Joe about the impropriety. “I don’t do interviews,” he said.
It didn’t stop her. “Why do they call you Night Mayer?” she asked.
“Lack of imagination,” he stated blankly.
“I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”
“My name’s P. M. Mayer,” he said. “P. M.—night, get it?”
“Clever,” she admitted.
“Hardly,” he said, then added, “Look, if you’re here to see the show, then grab a chair and a drink and relax. Otherwise, scram.”
The newshawk did little to hide her disdain. She flipped the cover of her notebook so hard that she dropped the newspaper she was holding. Mayer bent over, picked it up, and was about to hand it back to her when the headline caught his attention.
LOCAL DEVELOPER COMMITS SUICIDE
“What’s this?” he asked.
“R. J. Hawthorne killed himself last night.”
“Why would he do that?”
“How should I know?” Cassi said and extended her hand. “Can I have my paper, please?”
It was just at that moment that a blast of light lit the morning sky. The woman dropped her cheaters over her eyes and turned toward the light. Several seconds later, as the force of the shock wave swept through the town, the ground shook and the crowd on the roof took a collective breath, then cheered as the distant cloud began to form in the morning sky. Mayer watched as the unnatural thing climbed higher and higher into the heavens, displaying its malevolent might—the abominable glory of the human race. And as it did, in a town replete with the possessed, fiendish, and soulless, Mayer wondered what a blast like that might unleash on an unsuspecting town.
Two
MAYER STOOD IN front of the mirror, feeling much older than his thirty-two years, washing his rough, stubble-filled face in the sink of Atomic Liquor’s re
stroom. He could probably use a shave, but Mayer wasn’t the kind of man who shaved regularly. In fact, it had been the better part of a week since he’d last done the chore. Shaving was for real men, with real lives, who held down real jobs. Not for people who went about skulking in the night. Not for him.
His eyes were blue this morning. They had been green yesterday, though his driver’s license claimed they were hazel. Mostly they were bloodshot. But today they matched the color of his tie. He’d picked up the tie at a secondhand store, the same place he found his suit and the trench coat he often wore. He didn’t really need the extra layer in a town like Vegas, but he saw Bogie wear one in a movie once and liked the look. Not today though. Today it would be too hot, even for him. He replaced his lid and suit coat, but didn’t bother tightening his tie. What good would it do?
Stella was tending bar when Mayer emerged from the bathroom. The spectacle had ended and most everyone had long since left. Including the nosy brunette. He took a seat at the bar.
“You gonna make it?” Stella asked.
“Jury’s still out,” Mayer said. Stella poured a club soda and slid it across the bar to him. “Who let in the newshawk?” he asked.
“She lied to Joe,” Stella said. “Said she was here to do a story on our rooftop view.”
