Midnight Paths: A Collection of Dark Horror

by Joe Hart

  “Please, I’m sorry, Shell. I wish you were still here with us!” As the lie left his lips, images began to flood his head with sharp colors and angles as if they were being forced into his mind from the outside. His mother walking into the house to get the phone and saying over her shoulder to watch Shelly by the pool. His sister splashing her feet in the deep end. His knee nudging her in the back of her pink-and-yellow swimsuit. The water spraying up from her flailing arms in bright silver arcs. Her brown eyes searching for help. Her mouth opening beneath the surface of the chlorinated water as she slowly begins to sink to the bottom of the pool.

  Now, her fingers were reaching around his throat, and he was being pushed back onto the ground. He couldn’t stop her, even though he knew her four-year-old body couldn’t possibly be as strong as his. She gripped with her raisin fingers, and he felt them sink deep into the soft skin of his throat. His eyes pleaded with her, and a choking squeak slipped from his mouth like air from a pinched balloon. He could see Shelly’s eyes behind the curtain of hair. They were no longer brown, but were now a deep black. So black, like midnight miles deep in an ocean. That’s where he was: underwater. And he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe.

  The dog’s mouth slipped easily over and around the paralyzed form of the redheaded teenager. Its pink lips slid over his face and then stretched obscenely wide over his shoulders. Its front incisors clicked against his belt buckle as it squirmed and dug its back feet into the cold earth to gain leverage. The teenager’s legs slid together, and the heels of his sneakers snapped against each other quietly as the lab’s jaws cinched tighter.

  Soon the sneakers disappeared into the dark mouth of the old dog, and its lower jaw snapped audibly back into place. A small white hand reached beneath the dog’s neck and unhooked the rusty chain from its collar. The dog chuffed with what could have been a thanks and turned from the now-empty yard to the street. It paused for a moment to relieve itself on the bike that stood on the sidewalk, then trotted off into the coming night.

  PALE MAN

  The three SUVs ripped down the winding valley road with purpose, like a line of beetles intent on feeding within a newly fallen corpse. The northern Idaho sun glinted off the hot windshields and reflected on the valley’s floor in blazing arcs of light. Plumes of dust from the dirt road rose up around the vehicles, and one by one they slowed to a stop on the crest of a small hill on the valley’s floor.

  The passenger door of one of the SUVs opened, and a man of medium height stepped out onto the rough brown grass that covered the valley. The grass slowly gave way to the rock of the mountain ridges that ran on either side of the valley like twin spinal cords jutting from a malnourished back. The man wore dark sunglasses that gave no hint of the deep brown eyes behind them. His build was that of a man who saw the importance of exercise, but it was expensive muscle beneath the cool gray dress shirt he wore. There was no splitting wood for him, only the cool tiled floors of three-hundred-dollar-a-month sports clubs and shining weights with cushioned handles. The black tailored dress pants he wore hung smoothly over the mirrored shine of his dark wingtips.

  He gazed over the grassland that stretched the length of the valley between the white-tipped mountain ranges on either side. Money, he thought. It was here. Silent, but here. In stacks of hundreds, too many to count, just waiting to be deposited in his bank account, the zeros lining up so orderly. Thinking of all the money buried just a few hundred feet beneath his feet nearly aroused him physically.

  Another man in pressed khakis and a loose T-shirt rounded the SUV and looked at the man in sunglasses expectantly. After a few moments, the man in the dark glasses turned and surveyed the crew that was assembling behind him. Men in work shirts and boots and a few in suits. He smiled thinly and breathed the smell of money deep into his lungs.

  “All right, this is the site. I want a full twenty-four-hour drilling team set up here by the end of the week, and I want drilling to commence no later than noon on Monday. Jones, you’ll help me oversee site production and condition.”

  The man in the khakis nodded and smiled.

  “Allenson, your team will be setting up the drill site a quarter mile down in the valley. You can start hauling in the equipment immediately, and Jones will get you the exact coordinates for the boring hole.”

  Elliot Rydon strode past the work-clothed men, who began pointing and nodding to one another as they made plans for the site that would be built later that day. When he reached the two men in suits, he stopped and gave another thin smile.

  “So, what do you gentlemen think? Does this or does this not look like the newest multibillion-dollar drill site for Emerson Industries?”

  The two suited men looked at the surrounding ranges, then past Rydon at the valley, then at each other, before the taller of the two spoke.

  “Listen, Rydon, you’ve come through before, and that’s why we followed you out here today. But we passed a sign on the way in saying this was the Nez Perce Reservation. That little fact wasn’t mentioned in the memo you sent out last week. There’s no way that we’ll be cleared to drill here. This is a sovereign nation, for Christ’s sake. We’ll be locked up in court faster than you can say Indian.”

  Elliot smiled at this, and his sunglasses glinted in the bright sunlight that shone down on the valley.

  “Don’t you gentlemen worry about the local tribe. I have a meeting with the chief this afternoon in Glaston. I have a feeling things will go our way.”

  Elliot left the two men standing beside their dark SUV and walked quickly to his own. Jones was already waiting in the driver’s seat when Elliot slammed the door and settled into the cooled leather of his own seat.

  “Where to now, boss?” Jones asked, pulling the shift lever down into drive.

  “Back into town, we have the meeting of a lifetime.”

  The meeting room was extremely chilly, almost to the point of being uncomfortably so. Rydon and Jones sat on one side of a highly polished oak table in the narrow boardroom of Elkson and Associates. The building looked out of place in the rural town of Glaston, which sat nearly a hundred miles to the north of Lewiston. It rose above the other structures like a proud king among his kneeling subjects.

  For a few moments, Rydon had felt nervous outside the looming structure. Maybe he was out of his league here. He had never dealt one-on-one with the Nez Perce before, only through mediators during negotiations. They always came back with the same result: the tribe had held strong, and no amount of money had been able to sway them to let the white men drill on their land.

  Well, this time is different, Elliot thought, and felt a small smile beginning to creep across his cleanly shaven face.

  The mahogany door on the opposite side of the room opened suddenly, revealing a dark-skinned Nez Perce man in a black suit. He was young, not out of his twenties if Elliot’s guess was right, and his eyes were dark and calculating. Elliot felt them quickly scan over him with slight disdain, before they hardened again and became emotionless. The man’s hair was tied back in a tight ponytail, and a small gold earring hung from his left earlobe. The man took two steps and then set the small briefcase on the table before extending his hand to the two white men.

  “Gentlemen, my name is Jason Elkson, and let me introduce Chief Timothy Silent Fox.”

  An older man stepped out from behind the young lawyer and surveyed them with deep-set gray eyes. His hair was long, nearly down to his waist, and it had once been pure black but was now striped with the gray and white of time. His skin was leathery and deep brown like the desert floor. He wore a loose-fitting white shirt and some sort of large necklace made from straps of tanned leather and feathers, which looked as though they had fallen from some sort of predatory bird’s tail.

  Rydon and Jones stood, both smiling politely at the older man. Elliot extended his hand as a greeting.

  “Hello, Chief Timothy, very glad to meet you,” Elliot said as he waited for the old Nez Perce to take his hand. />
  Silent Fox stood true to his name. He stared at the two men on the other side of the table as if they were no more than rocks to be studied on a hike. His hand did not extend, and after several seconds of uncomfortable silence, Elliot dropped his own and raised his eyebrows in exasperation.

  “Let’s just get started, shall we?” Elkson said as he seated himself at the table.

  Elliot and Jones both sat, and after a moment Silent Fox settled into a chair to Elkson’s left. The dark-skinned lawyer opened his small briefcase and pulled out a folder of legal documents and quickly slid it across the table toward the two men on the opposite side.

  “Well, gentlemen, I think you’ll be appeased with these. These are the rulings by Judge Reinhart marked from the laws passed statewide fifteen years ago regarding drilling for oil or any other similar refining processes on Nez Perce lands. I’m sure you’ll see that the land you’re inquiring about, although at the farthest edge of the reservation, is still on the reservation,” Elkson said.

  Elliot opened the folder and thumbed through the pages with distaste. After a few moments, he folded the back cover of the folder over the front and smiled at the young lawyer.

  Elkson stared back with no emotion. Then he said, “So, if that answers your questions, I do have other pressing business to attend to, and Chief Timothy is also needed elsewhere, so if you’ll excuse—”

  Elkson was cut off as Elliot reached down and brought out his own folder with a gold drill head emblazoned on the front, with the words Emerson Industries below it. He casually slid the folder over to the young lawyer and smiled.

  “What’s this?” Elkson asked, opening the folder’s cover. He started reading the documents inside.

  “Oh, it’s just the deed and title to the land in question, which has been recently acquired by Emerson Industries.” Elliot let the words hang over the room like an oppressive fog for a few moments before continuing. “You see, Mr. Elkson, there was actually a misrepresentation of land boundaries when the reservation documents were originally drawn up. The valley in question was thought to belong within the Nez Perce Reservation, but upon closer inspection it was discovered that there was a misreading of longitude and latitude. You see, this valley is actually perpendicular to the flats just outside of the long plains, I think they’re called, not inside as the original documents stated.”

  “That doesn’t matter, Mr. Rydon. This valley is still within the borders of the Nez Perce Reservation. You cannot legally drill on that location,” Elkson replied.

  “Well actually, Judge Reinhart himself signed the deed document last week when the contract was drawn up. Emerson Industries made an offer to the state of Idaho when these insights came to light, and the state took it.”

  Elliot’s eyes glinted in the harsh glare of the overhead fluorescents, and his smile widened to fill up his whole face. Money, he thought. Enough money and anything was possible. A few bribes to the document holders in the state archive department, one extremely skilled forgery artist that Elliot had used before, a large lump sum deposited into Judge Reinhart’s account, and the transaction had been completed. What was half a million dollars when there was over a billion flowing beneath the valley’s floor?

  Elkson’s brow furrowed with concentration at first, then with anger after several minutes of reading. He shook his head in disbelief as he shut the folder. His dark eyes stared at Elliot, trying to read him or break him.

  But Elliot had dealt with many hardened businessmen, and he now realized this young Nez Perce was no match for him. His smile remained on his face.

  “I don’t know how you did this, but I’ll find out,” Elkson said. “And when I do, I’m going to shut Emerson Industries down, do you understand me? You won’t get away with this, not on our land.”

  Elliot merely continued smiling, nodding before he stood. “Well, if there isn’t anything further, my associate and I will be going.”

  As Jones and Elliot began to round the table, there was a small sound. Both men stopped. The sound repeated itself, and Elliot realized it was the chief clearing his throat. If the old man hadn’t done so, Elliot would have forgotten that he was still in the room. Before Elliot could regain momentum and walk to the closed mahogany door, Silent Fox started speaking.

  “There was once a creature that lived many years ago in these lands. It was pale and it walked on two legs. It was strong. Too strong to fear any other animal that walked the land. It did not fear the call of the Wolf. It did not fear the Grizzly’s teeth. It did not fear the Cougar’s claws. It devoured anything that crossed its path, and its hunger was insatiable. For many years it roamed these lands, killing and eating whatever it pleased.

  “One day, when nearly all the animals of the earth were gone, clever Coyote decided that this menace must be destroyed, so he intentionally crossed paths with the creature. When the Pale Man opened its jaws to eat Coyote, Coyote dove down its throat with a sharp flint rock in his mouth and pierced the creature’s heart. It bled out on the valley floor, and Coyote divided its remains into the different peoples of the earth. The heart he saved for last, with which he created the Nez Perce.

  “The spirit of the Pale Man still roams these lands and needs only be awakened, for its hunger lingers here, waiting for fresh blood and the soft flesh of those who would cross its path.”

  The room fell silent. Elkson’s head was lowered and his eyes were closed in what seemed to be some sort of reverie. The old man stared at Elliot with dead eyes that bored into him like two drill bits.

  Elliot blinked and smiled again. “Well, what a nice story. Thanks very much, Chief Tim Tim?. I’ll be sure to tell that one to my children when I have them.” Without another glace back, Elliot walked out with Jones close behind him.

  When the elevator dinged its arrival in the lobby, Jones turned to Elliot as they stepped out onto the highly polished floors that led to the street.

  “So, you afraid of the bogeyman, boss?” Jones smiled and raised his eyebrows expectantly.

  “What a fucking old crock of shit. I’m guessing that was an actual attempt to scare us with that mumbo-jumbo bullshit of legends and whatnot. It’s almost pathetic—yeah, I actually feel bad for him.” Elliot fell silent as they stepped into the heat of the afternoon. His eyes narrowed before he started speaking again. “But I do want you to keep a close watch on this operation. I don’t want any fuckups on this one.”

  “Boss, all the jobs I run go smooth, you know that.”

  “Just do me a favor and get a few of the guys you use from time to time to be around the drill site when it’s up and running. Two or three should do. No legend is going to mess up this operation, but a few young braves with delusions of honor could. That ground is private property of Emerson now, and as such we have the right to protect it. Don’t you agree?”

  Jones smiled in a way that gave even Elliot goose bumps.

  “Don’t worry, boss, no one’s going to crash your party.”

  Joshua crouched on the overhanging cliff face on the south side of the Valley of Sun, as his people called it. His dark eyes squinted at the shapes some six hundred feet below his perch. The machinery was clearly visible, enormous earthmovers and backhoes along with several containers that looked like boxcars. There were also dozens of long rods bundled up like the expensive firewood Joshua had seen for sale outside of the gas station on the edge of the reservation. The men, working the machines and walking in the hot sun on the valley floor, were harder to make out. Their arms swung at their sides, and each wore a white helmet and gloves. Joshua could almost imagine that they were wind-up tin soldiers invading his homeland not with guns and tanks but with dump trucks and drills.

  The young man’s upper lip drew back in a snarl, and he spit off the side of the cliff, hoping that the wind would magically carry his saliva down onto the head of a worker. After a few more moments of watching the movements below, Joshua stood to his full height and bolted back over the top of the range the way he had come. His Yam
aha dirt bike lay where he had left it, and without looking back over his shoulder, he kicked the machine into life and noisily sped away down the side of the mountain.

  Silent Fox opened the door to his home with his free hand and breathed in the smells that he knew so well. There was the smell of the blueberries, which he and Joshua had picked yesterday, that were drying in the kitchen. There was the smell of dried leather from the saddle he was molding in his basement. And there were the mingling scents of too many herbs and spices to count.

  His home was just that: a home. It wasn’t something one would expect a chief of an entire sovereign nation to live in. It was a squat structure built over a full basement, where he did his crafts. The arid wind had dried and flaked some of the paint on the outside walls. He made a mental note to set a workday with Joshua to scrape the outside of the house so he could paint it when he got some free time.

  At the thought of the boy, Silent Fox paused and listened to the quiet of the house. He couldn’t hear the telltale sounds that told him his grandson was home, such as the squeak of a floorboard in the kitchen in front of the fridge or the swearing rap songs he sometimes had playing in his room. The old man nodded silently as he remembered not seeing Joshua’s bike parked in its usual spot beneath the large maple.

  He shuffled into the shadowy kitchen and set the groceries down on the counter. The beef roast he had laid out in the sink earlier that day had thawed enough to cut, and after a few minutes of arranging bowls and knives, he set to carving it. As he worked, his mind began to wander back to the meeting with the white men who had been troubling him for almost a week.

  His hands worked deftly as he cut up the vegetables for the stew, and he snorted when he saw in his mind’s eye the sneering look on the face of the man who had stolen the rights to his people’s land. Silent Fox knew he had been lying. He knew it the moment the man slid the folder across the table to Laughing Elk’s son. It was in the way his hands didn’t move in time with his eyes or speech. Silent Fox could see these things clearly; he had been able to read people this way all his life. He supposed that was one of the reasons he had become chief of his people.