The Night Walk Men

by Jason McIntyre

  The Night Walk Men

  A Novelette by

  Jason McIntyre

  <> <> <>

  Published by & Copyright © 2011 Jason McIntyre

  Smashwords Edition

  Fiction titles by Jason McIntyre:

  On The Gathering Storm

  Shed

  Thalo Blue

  Walkout

  Black Light of Day

  Learn more about the author and his work at:

  www.theFarthestReaches.com

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

  <> <> <>

  First: The Fuse Is Burning

  You want to chat about the weather first?

  Well, fine.

  We can talk about that first. If it’s important.

  Before that, though, you need to know one thing.

  This is going to be painful.

  This is going to be a bowling ball dropped from waist height on your toes. A dentist’s chair plus a drill plus small talk. This is going to be coming down from on high. Or finding your spouse in bed with another. Or murder-suicide. Or heavy metal from the neighbour at three in the morning. This is going to be the doctor telling you it’s inoperable. Or a chemical burn on flesh. Or pepper spray and a wrongful conviction. This is going to be a fire eating your life’s work. This is going to be Your First Time. Or Your Last Time. This is going to be twelve fresh body bags going under the yellow tape and into the house at the end of Sheppard Street. This is going to be malevolent eyes in the dark staring down into a crib at a screaming baby. This is going to be painful.

  But we can chat about the weather first. That’s no big deal.

  I’ll start by telling you something you didn’t know, something you’ll probably think is trivial. Something that even your local weather man likely hasn’t heard.

  More people die when it’s raining. Did you know that?

  Certainly, when it’s oppressively hot for days and days, even for weeks at a time, you’ll hear about the old and the infirm and how they just can’t make it through. How they’ll lean back in a chair, fade away and expire. That happens all the time when it’s hot. And during the holidays, that’s a big time for us too. You’ll have large numbers of folks simply switch off like bulbs in the attic. The lonely and the depressed, they’ll up and do something regrettable while they’re alone or they’ll succumb to sheer emotion – two outcomes that don’t offer an “undo” option.

  But it really is raining when the lion’s share take that last bow. There’s just something about it, something that doesn’t jive with human guts. Dollar for dollar, day for day, soul for soul, it’s the rain that finishes most life sentences with that final period. It’s the patter of water on pavement, water from sky onto road and roof, water against the clapboard siding of an old home that brings most of us out to do our Work.

  Be aware. When it’s mild, when it’s temperate, we’re there. We’re always there and that’s a promise. But when it’s raining, we’re there in droves. We’re there for keeps.

  That’s a guarantee.

  You want to chat about the weather first?

  Fine. We can definitely chat about the weather first.

  <> <> <>

  Second: The Gathering Gloom

  This is the story of a beautiful young girl named Gabriela who would live a beautiful life but take a bad step.

  And, before details of our fair young one, you want to know who I am, don’t you? You want to know who I am and what I have to do with all this – what I have to do with our dear Gabriela.

  Well. All I can say to you is: In due time.

  You’re not ready just yet.

  But I will tell you. No wink, no smile, no foolin’. I’ll tell you everything you need to know.

  In the meantime, though, I’ll start by telling you some other necessary pieces, things you’ll want to keep track of, things that matter in the grand scheme. Now, don’t think I’m being morbid, but I need to say a few things about Death.

  Death has no prejudices. None that I’m aware of. Well, unless of course you count a discordant bias for the elderly. Or that heaving soft spot for the unhealthy and for the careless.

  I should tell you that I’ve seen Death. I’ve seen Death nearly every day. Just today, in fact, I witnessed Death walking down McMurchy Street. In what city, I cannot recall. And for what purpose, I cannot tell you. But at what time, that I do remember. It was just before high noon and He was there, moving south, determined. If you had eyes and were at my side, you’d have seen Him too. He might have been searching for a sick child, might have been hunting for a young fellow who didn’t look both ways before crossing.

  A crow voiced his concern from a still treetop. A windchime rattled to life and sang a tune. There He was: plain as the day was blue, a whirling dervish. A presence. A storm. Just a tall shaft of invisible breath, drawn from nowhere, seen only by its dent in the world. There, on that street, it was a tiny tornado, a hurricane of force the size of a large man, or maybe two small ones going piggy-back. It grabbed litter and dust and gravel from the gutters, hailed it like bullets, threw it like darts in a spectacle of fury and concentration. Around and around and around.

  Just the wind, you ask? Just a torrent brought by nature’s fingers? Well, I looked around and the day itself boasted of no winds, no breeze, no scented push from the west. There was no rustle of leaves – not even at the crow’s perch overhead. There was nothing but silence and stillness all around. So I say no.

  The crow could feel it. So could I. And one day you’ll feel it too.

  <> <> <>

  In the beginning, He rehearsed his discourse but now knows it so well he can say it without flinching, backwards and forwards. He will not well up with tears when He arrives to say his piece. He’s done this too many times to let it affect his thinking.

  And what is this discourse, this piece?

  Imagine, if you can. He may hunker down beside you and whisper it in your ear, unseen to you, invisible, but heard clearly. Or He may stand before you and shout it like judgement. Or He may pass it to you in a song note on the skin of a breeze. But the discourse is always the same.

  “Someone dies,” He says. “Every day, every minute. Every continent, every island, every everywhere. Could be you. Could even be me. No one knows for certain at this late hour. But I am contrary to you in every way. I am black volcanic glass to your white palomino skin. I am Obsidion and I am eternal. But I am not immortal. I can die. I see but am not omniscient. I can be blind. And I am not alive but I live. I walk at night and when the rains come. I am a foot soldier in the ever-stretching, never-ceasing de-cade. I equate what is unequal. I simplify what is convoluted.”

  What does it mean? Well, I’ll answer all your questions soon enough. You have my word on that.

  But in the meantime, you should know that He tells the truth. He can’t help it. (And neither can I.) It’s bred into him, it’s as much of who He is as what He does.

  He is contrary to you. He is the Tall Dark Figure to countless. He is Obsidion. That’s his given name though he’s been called a hundred different things. By a million different men and by a million different women. Some have called his kind the Perpetual Guests or the Foreigners Afar. During war time, the worst stretch for His kind, when trenches and mass graves are filled with bodies, some began calling his kind the Night Walk Men. You should know that he is one o
f many. One of an innumerable militia.

  <> <> <>

  Again, forgive me if this comes across as gruesome, but you have asked so I will do my best to answer.

  Two dogs had to die in a suburban neighbourhood near Bellingham, Washington before any of these wheels (or these words) could begin turning.

  It was a Sunday afternoon in July and Obsidion was finally in search of His own understanding. He had been doing this for so long and was near his own end. He was heartsick, couldn’t seem to keep moving forward. He needed to know one simple answer: could he step out of his charge to find solace from the things he’d done, from the things he would one day do?

  You should know the dogs were a vicious pair, a Rottwieller and a Bull Mastif named Deus and Machina. They didn’t so much live as they existed, surviving from meal to meal in a neighbourhood renowned for its problems. Deus and Machina had the run of five conjoined backyards along a gravel lane, burned out dumpsters and the train tracks. Plain and simple, they were a security patrol for the owners of those five houses. A handshake among them agreed that a good loud bark and a good deep bite is better than any alarm system set to alert a sluggish police force that wasn’t allowed to draw their weapons anyway.

  Their master--their first master--was a vile woman who taught them to crave raw carcasses and praised them to snarl at passersby. If these dogs were ever to get out, to get past the chain link fence, or manage to finally leap it, the other neighbours all feared their children might be the first to get mauled. The block lived in constant fear of Deus and Machina.

  As the sun stood tall in a deep blue sky, Obsidion descended into the long shared yard. He knelt on the grass. And the dogs could smell Him, could sense Him. But could not see Him. He spoke to them, tried to clear their minds but their minds were muddled, troubled, made unreasonable by madness. They were too far gone, Obsidion decided. The two dogs were riled by Obsidion’s presence, stirred to movement and noise as if by a coming storm. They growled and bit at each other. Saliva blew outward and yellow teeth grabbed at mangy coats. Their barking--their fighting--roused the neighbours. Windows opened in back bedrooms.

  “Someone dies,” he said to the dogs, “Every day. Every minute.” And when Deus and Machina dared come close to the Tall Dark Figure, He snatched them up, each violently by their collars. He squeezed Deus until his neck broke and then He let his own teeth sink into Machina’s gullet until both dogs whimpered and fell away from Him. He knew the madness in them was not their fault so he took them as gently as he could. And then He looked up at the sky overhead.

  He expected to hear the clouds rip open and an arm of wind to reach down for Him. He’d heard stories of it happening like that. But nothing appeared. Somewhere, a bird chirped. The day stood tall as it had before. And His question had been answered.

  He left the dogs there. Their first master appeared in the yard and ran to her puppies. She began to sob. She laid down in the hot green grass with them and closed her eyes as she cried. She never saw what had silenced them.

  <> <> <>

  I can hear Him, as clearly as if he was standing beside me. Montserrat would say this to Obsidion in his plight, this to Him as He cries: Come now, o brother, come! O brother! Why does your heart fill so with tears? How now, brother?

  And Obsidion would ask why he needed to carry on, why these tasks had been thrust upon him.

  Duty o brother!, Montserrat would answer. You were borne, are borne, out of duty. With each night, passing and flailing, you are a creature of the highest obligation.

  <> <> <>

  And what of me? Like Obsidion, I suppose, but in some ways unlike Obsidion, I too am the personification of life. I am the taker of life. And, if need be, I am also its giver. We each are, in our own right. If you look at it one way, I am everything to you and your humanity. Yes, yes, you must be beleaguered--believe me that when I say I’ll answer your questions, I will. Any and all. And I’ll tell it how it is, to be sure.

  Your curiosities are fair and I will treat them that way but before we go any further, you must know this: I will answer your questions. But in due time, vice-a-verse-a, you’ll be asked to answer mine.

  <> <> <>

  Third: Obsidion

  Allow me to try and put this in terms that you may readily be familiar with. Obsidion is a Night Walk Man, an old one, an experienced one. He has been imbued with the lives of ten men, and He walks among you like a blur, unseen but often sensed or smelled like pollen in the air when you can’t see flowers -- or the tingle you get when the hairs on your neck stand up. There is no solid-core steel door that can stop Him when he is out to do His Work. If you’re walking home alone, down a desolate road and your own shadow cast by the streetlights seems to move on its own, in tandem to you but with a slightly longer gait, that’s most likely His shadow. If you hear footsteps on the parched earth behind you, or if dry autumn leaves scrape concrete with a breeze, that’s most likely Him, walking just a little ahead or just a little behind. If it’s dark and you climb into your car and for once--for no reason at all--wonder why you didn’t check the back seat for strangers, He’s mostly likely back there as you drive off.

  He is everywhere at once and nothing can stop Him. He’s Death incarnate, walking under a long robe of blacks and chasing down the winds to read from his discourse.

  <> <> <>

  Mistakes are made. Not by Obsidion, at least, not yet. But from time to time things don’t go as planned. Who makes these plans, even I cannot say. But there is a Will and from that comes the Word. And when the Word goes astray, the Night Walk Men are commissioned and must perform a less common kind of duty.

  I can tell you of one instance when a mistake needed correcting. Remember this: Night Walk Men do not only deal in death.

  <> <> <>

  Two youngsters--and I say youngsters because I too am very old--were to expect a baby girl in the springtime.

  But due to what you would call ‘complications’, some beyond any earthly control, the baby girl was stillborn. She did not live to breathe fresh air outside her mother.

  But as with all things that go to the left when they should go to the right, a Night Walk Man was summoned to put in place a repair. You see, there are certain things that should be. Simply should. And I don’t know if I can make it any plainer than that. Word of these “Should-be’s” comes down the chain from one in the line of Night Walkers to the next and to the next and so on.

  And so it came to Obsidion, for these two parents-in-waiting were part of his herd, his flock if you want to think of it that way. He accepted the duty and took his Next In Line, my brother Fallow, to begin the delicate practice of ensuring parenthood for these two youngsters.

  This man and this woman were heartsick – as you can imagine. But they still loved each other. Wealthy in dollars and in property and possessions, these two had secure futures but had banked on sharing that future with a little one. Even badly damaged for their loss, they still moved forward through each day and into each night with one another. But they were automatons now. Every evening, they each got into their bed, turned their backs, said their goodnights, and tried to sleep. Nothing was the same since their baby girl had been lost. And neither of them could find sleep until exhaustion finally claimed them and made them drift away.

  They didn’t touch anymore. They didn’t kiss anymore. Their sleep was restless and uneven. When people are this badly wounded, no bandages can heal them.

  But it was in the nearly forgotten warmth of skin against skin, that automation revolved into a different thing. It was in the movement of a finger along a wrist, or across a smooth leg. Unseen and unknown, Obsidion and his young protégé descended upon the nighttime bedroom of these two. Like wraiths in the blackness, they each maneuvered the lovers out of their fitful sleep. It was like a wakeful dream, many months after the doctors had said they could start trying again...if they wanted.

  And so, out of sleep, brought this way and that, as if possessed body and mind by a
long-dead ghost, each of them embraced and caressed the other, slowly at first, and then passionately, until, finally, they were each entirely awake. They were entwined and fully engaged, neither of them conscious of the other presences in the room.

  Morning came to the two, long after Obsidion and my brother Fallow had taken their leave. And, in time a new baby girl was born: Gabriela. And along with her, this blessed gift from above, there was a baby boy. Twins were born. And the two parents were mended.

  <> <> <>

  So who am I, then?

  Well, to begin with, I am not the Tall Dark Figure.

  My name is Sperro, thank you for asking, and I must tell you that and I am not making any of this up.

  It’s not hearsay, either. I was there. Or, for the most part, I was present in a kind of way that you would not understand.

  Fate willing, let us continue.

  You see, these aren’t really my words because I do not really exist. At least, not in a way that you would be able to comprehend. But I give them to you, these words. And now they are yours. You may do with them what you wish, you may breathe them in and live with them, you may burn them, you may forget them, you may tell them to the crows so that they will be misremembered or taken to the sky on cool winds. It’s up to you what becomes of them and up to you how they are spent and spread. Just as these are not my words, neither are they the words of that Tall Dark Figure you will one day come to know.