Nightwalk

by D. Nathan Hilliard

  But Ed was a different matter.

  He had gone out of his way to welcome me when I moved in, and I had liked the guy on first sight. I think he had been glad to see Stella getting back on her feet and willing to give any man a chance who made her happy. Over the next six months he became the one friend I had in the neighborhood. He made an excellent companion to relax on a back porch with, and even offered pointers from time to time on my trials and tribulations with Casey.

  Back to whom…

  “Naw, not really that difficult,” I allowed. “Nobody wakes up on the right side of bed after midnight anyway.”

  “So she’s being difficult then,” he chuckled.

  Oh well, why deny the obvious…

  “A princess, she ain’t,” I sighed.

  This brought a full, but quiet, laugh out of the man.

  “Of course she is. She’s just still in the process of trying to figure out what to make of the guy who invaded her kingdom.”

  “But I’m not trying to replace her father,” I insisted, “and I’ve been careful to let her know it.”

  “And I’m sure she does know it. But like it or not, you are now in the place he used to be and it’s gonna take some time for her to figure out how to be okay with that. The fact you ain’t nothing like him only makes it harder for her since it means there isn’t much in the way of common ground for you two to begin with. Don’t worry, she’ll find her way and then you two will be alright.”

  “I suppose you’re right. It’s not like we fight all the time or anything now. It’s just she always finds a way to let me know how I somehow fail to measure up in her world.”

  “You’re being measured against pretty tall competition,” Ed reminded me. “Doug was a hell of a guy, not to mention a full-blown hero, and he and Dodger were as close as a father and daughter could get. I think the time will come when she accepts you on your own merits and then it will be okay.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  And I did know all of that. Doug Stafford had rescued thirteen people from a hotel fire three years earlier. Everybody there agreed he had been incredible that day. He had ventured into the furnace-like corridors three times, and each time he returned with a group of survivors. Tragically, he plunged back into the smoke and flames again and never made it back. They didn’t find his body until nearly a day later, holding the body of a little girl he had somehow found in the roasting hallways.

  But we’d had this conversation before, which made it pretty well-travelled territory. Seeing nothing to be gained by travelling it again, I decided to change the topic to our present situation.

  “So what’s with the cell phones?”

  “Not sure.” He shrugged. “If we were out in the country I would blame the cell phone tower, but here we should be in range of three or four of them. Besides, it ain’t only the cell phones.”

  “What?”

  “I tried to use my land line first to call a buddy of mine on the PD and it’s out too.”

  “Wait, you mean all the phones are out?”

  “Seems so.”

  “I’ll be damned,” I exhaled, looking toward the front side of the yard where I could barely make out the reflection of police lights off low hanging branches. “What could cause something like that?”

  “I’m guessing the police.”

  “They can do that?” I turned back to the man looking over the fence. “Seriously?”

  “You betcha. They have jammers capable of blocking all the cell phones in an area for over a mile. And blocking the land lines would be as easy as flipping a switch at whatever relay box services the neighborhood. But you generally don’t see them employ those kinds of tactics except for hostage or terrorist situations.”

  “Oh,” I mused aloud, nonplussed. “Well, I don’t know what’s going on up there, but it definitely isn’t a ‘domestic disturbance.’ I saw eight or ten cop cars all crowded around the place. And I think there were more I couldn’t see.”

  “Really? Where at exactly?”

  “Down there on the corner of Coventry and Addison. The two story house with the little Dutch windmill out front. You know who lives there?”

  “Nope. You?”

  “Not a clue.”

  That’s just another reality of life in a suburban neighborhood. Most of us live in quiet security among rows of people we will never meet. We might know a few of the neighbors, and if we have kids then probably a few more. But the truth is we go through life, living within a few hundred yards of a thousand strangers.

  “Guess maybe we live near a real desperado,” Ed murmured in the darkness, “Who woulda thunk it.”

  “Well, I don’t think they sic the FBI on jaywalkers.”

  “There are Feds up there?” Now he truly did look surprised.

  “At least one,” I answered. “He had FBI printed on the back of his jacket anyway.”

  “That’s never good. When you see those guys walking around a house surrounded by cops, you’re generally talking private graveyards in the basement and other stuff along those lines.”

  “We don’t have basements in Houston.”

  “Back yards work in a pinch, too. You’re the detective writer, you should know.”

  “Yeah, but I mostly do noir whodunits. I haven’t graduated to real serial killers yet, although I’ve been studying them pretty in depth lately. My agent has been pushing for one, so I promised to deliver the real deal in my next book.”

  “Hmm…” He paused for a second, then looked skyward and scratched the back of his head. “Okay, that’s kinda strange.”

  “What?” I laughed. “My agent? Ha! You should hear some of the romance suggestions she makes.”

  “No,” he responded softly, and pointed up into the shadows. “I meant that.”

  I followed the direction of his gesture and squinted up into the night. It took me a second, but then motion caught my eye and I zeroed in on what he pointed at.

  A mass migration was underway above us.

  Squirrels thronged the power lines, racing along as if the devil himself chased after them. They were barely visible in the gloom, merely small shadows darting against the night sky. If my eyes hadn’t adjusted, I would have never seen the spectacle.

  And there were a lot of them. It looked like the trees had emptied their entire supply of rodents out onto the lines, and now they made an exodus of the area. The wires had come alive with the creatures. They were dim, gray ghosts fleeing over our heads and into the night behind us.

  “What the hell?” Ed wondered aloud.

  I tracked their course overhead. I never knew so many of them lived in the area.

  “I have no idea,” I replied in awe. “I’m guessing they don’t do this kind of thing every night?”

  “Not that I’ve ever noticed.”

  “Me neither. This definitely sets a new high on my weirdness scale.”

  Of course as soon as I said that, the entire world moved, all the lights went out, and every dog in Coventry Woods started to howl.

  Chapter Two: Collapse

  It felt like the universe dropped out from under us.

  For a brief second, I experienced an awful sinking feeling as if a pit as wide as eternity had opened up beneath the world and we had all started to fall in, but got caught at the last moment. I realized the sensation must have been internal, or at least so I hoped, but it still struck with such force it caused me to stumble and catch myself against the back fence.

  Vertigo overcame me, and the night seemed to swim around the pair of us. My throat clenched and my stomach started to do the same. Reality suddenly seemed to go soft in an incredibly disturbing way, and goosebumps rose over every square inch of my body. Then the universe shifted again. A blinding flash of pain exploded in my head, as if my brain had suddenly been jerked sideways in my skull. Then things seemed to do a slow slide to a stop, leaving me staggering and more disoriented than before.

  And even as I fought to regain my balance, the gloo
m descended into blackness as all the lights in the house went out, along with the streetlight two houses over.

  I had only thought it was dark before. Now the blackness surrounded me like a curtain. If I hadn’t had my cell phone out, I would have been effectively blind.

  “Holy crap,” Ed groaned behind me, “Let’s not do that again. What just happened?”

  “I have no idea,” I rubbed my temples and tried to get my bearings. “But it well and truly sucked. And did things get dark on us?”

  “Aw hell,” he said, as if now realizing it for himself, “you’re right. Just what we need…it’s a damn blackout.”

  I started to answer with a few choice profanities, but that’s when the dogs chimed in.

  It started with the Dobkins’ German Shepherd, Oscar, two houses over. A lone, anguished wail quavered through the darkness. The howl rose in both pitch and volume, causing every hair on the back of my neck to crawl. I had heard plenty of howls in my time, but I never heard a dog utter one like this before. It made a wretched sound, as if the creature mourned the end of everything it held dear.

  This was a lonesome, canine dirge for something too awful for mere human words.

  But it only cried alone for an instant…

  …for in the next second the night erupted in a mighty chorus of howls that nearly made me jump out of my skin. They came from all around us. And even as I did a slow turn in the darkness, I could hear dogs farther and farther away adding their voices to the din.

  “Sweet Christ, Ed! Am I dreaming this?”

  “If you are, then kindly leave me out of it. I’m too old for weird shit like this.”

  I could see him scanning the darkness by the light of his cell phone, his face in a frown of confusion. Mine probably looked pretty much the same, but with more jaw dropping action included.

  “Mark? You still back here?”

  Athough she yelled, Casey’s voice sounded faint against the rising tide of howls. Another dim blue patch of light appeared, this time at the back door as the girl leaned out with her own phone for illumination. She didn’t sound terribly happy at the moment, and I realized this was probably the first time she had ever actually looked for me. She must have experienced the disorientation right before the lights went out like Ed and I, because that would have unnerved anybody.

  “We’re back here at the fence, Dodger,” Ed answered first.

  “Oh cool!” Relief filled her voice. “Uncle Ed!”

  I probably could have found reason for taking offense at being slighted for a one-legged old guy when things got scary, but at the moment I didn’t really blame her. I found Ed’s company a bit of relief as well. He might not win any track meets, but the man had the steady and reassuring presence of somebody who had seen most of what life had to offer.

  I heard the screen door slam and watched her little blue light move as she started picking her way in our direction. It didn’t illuminate much so Ed and I held up our own phones to give her a better idea of how to reach us. It was the kind of gesture that only makes sense in today’s world, and it made me think how we are all victims of our own times in one way or another.

  A caveman with a simple torch would have looked at us and wondered if this kind of thing really amounted to progress or not.

  The absurdity of the thought caused me to suppress a laugh in the darkness. I guess when the world is going insane you take the humor where you find it. But in this case my humor didn’t last long.

  Casey hadn’t quite covered half the distance between us when the first shots rang out.

  Gunfire erupted somewhere down the street, causing Casey to yelp, and adding its own racket to the baying dogs.

  The volume of the noise astonished me. It sounded like World War III had come to Coventry Woods with Satan’s hounds as background singers.

  “Casey! Get over here! Hurry!”

  I had originally thought about yelling for her to get down, but realized the bulk of several houses shielded us from the shooting. Still, I felt terribly exposed with us standing in the back yard like that. Her little light moved with alacrity, and a couple of seconds later I could see her tight face by its glow as she reached the fence beside me.

  “Dodger? You okay?”

  “Yeah,” she panted. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Who kno…” I started, but right then a bullet spanged through the branches overhead and whined off into the night.

  “Yep, that does it,” Ed interrupted, while having to speak up to be heard over the racket, “What’s going on is we are getting our asses out of here. Right now. Mark give her a boost over the fence, then come over after her.”

  “But Stella…”

  “We’re all gonna pile in my truck and hit the road. You can call Stella as soon as we get clear of this interference. It shouldn’t take very long.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Mark, it’s the best way.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “I’m sure. But we need to get moving.”

  It really didn’t feel right, leaving the house with Stella due to arrive soon, but I had to admit he made sense. Stella couldn’t get home through the gun battle going on up the road, and it lay in the path she normally took. Her best bet would be for me to get out of the interference like Ed suggested and warn her off. And the sooner I moved, the better the chance I would be able to reach her in time.

  I still didn’t feel good about it though.

  “Okay,” I grunted, and cupped my hands together down by my knee. “Let’s do this then. Up you go.”

  Casey put her foot in my hands and I boosted her up. She scrambled over the top of the fence and disappeared into the darkness on the other side. Then I took a couple of steps back and made a go at it myself.

  Unfortunately the support boards for the fence sat on Ed’s side, meaning my side presented me with a smooth surface of wooden slats. I had to grab the top of the fence, then jump and push myself up so I could lean over the top and then try to swing my legs over. I managed to pull it off, but not without gouging my ribs on a pointed fence slat and then falling headfirst on the ground.

  “Ow! Shitfire!”

  I floundered for a second, trying to claw my way back to my feet in the murk while still instinctively ducking due to the gunfire. I considered myself lucky I had landed more on my shoulder than my head. Once a guy crosses the big four-oh, he doesn’t need to be taking spills off tall fences in the dark. I could tell I had ripped my shirt and could feel blood ooze from the nasty scrape underneath.

  “C’mon, Mark!”

  I started to snap at her to hold on a second, but another stray bullet whined overhead and I rethought that in a big hurry. I had other priorities here. In hindsight I’m actually surprised I heard it since the dogs howled even louder than before. But as I panted there on my hands and knees, I realized a new sound had joined the howls and gunfire…

  Now the sound of men screaming came from the same direction as the battle.

  And those screams sounded wrong as well.

  At first I thought it might be the cries of men wounded in a firefight, but these sounded nothing like I would have expected. These were different, and in a very bad way. The screams I heard out there, mixed in with the shots and the howls, sounded like the agonized shrieks of people being butchered alive.

  “What in the hell?” Ed paused in the act of turning to leave and peered back over the fence in the direction of the cacophony.

  I had no answer as I struggled to my feet beside him. The fact it registered as odd to somebody with his life experience only served to further my own forebodings. This thing seemed to evolve into something stranger and more frightening with every second that passed. And it was all happening so fast. The pair of us looked at each other in the gloom for a second, then back over the fence.

  “Guys?” Casey’s voice intruded on our reverie from behind us. “We’re supposed to be running for our lives here, remember?”

 
I could make out her silhouette in the middle of Ed’s back yard with her hands on her hips, but her tone carried anxiety as well as frustration. Her posture also suggested she had stopped on her way toward the front and now waited for us to follow.

  “Yeah,” Ed answered in a vague tone and started to back away from the fence. “Yeah, I think she’s right. It’s definitely time to get to the truck. Let’s go, Mark.”

  He turned and headed across the back yard toward the side of his house, obviously intending to go out the front gate and straight to his truck. He now had a pronounced limp to his walk, which surprised me since he usually moved naturally on his prosthetic.

  “You okay?” I fell in beside him.

  “Yup,” he grunted. “It’s dark and I can’t see the ground. And since I can’t actually feel with this foot, I’m not as automatically sure of where it is in the dark like I am the other. It’s fine…normal stuff.”

  “Need help?”

  “Nope.”

  He seemed to make good speed despite the odd gait so I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Not to mention, I already felt awkward pressing him on an issue I’m sure he preferred to leave alone. He never struck me as a testosterone junkie like many of his crowd, but he still fell into the category of guys who expected nothing but competence from themselves.

  A pale blur shot past us on the left, and I looked over in time to see a neighborhood cat had decided to join the squirrels in their exodus. It reached the front gate beside Ed’s house at about the same time as Casey and caused her to swear in surprise when it leaped over the tall fence beside her. Believe me, a cat can really jump when it has a mind to, and Fluffy definitely seemed set on getting the hell out of Dodge.

  Although I still didn’t understand the situation, I decided “Fluffy” had the right idea. I just wished I had some inkling of what the animals knew that we didn’t.