Nightwalk

by D. Nathan Hilliard

  The utter lack of surprise from Casey’s direction told me she must have known about it for a while. I’m guessing he always carried one, and the subject had simply never come up around me before.

  “Well, I’m not much of a gun guy,” I admitted, “but I’m sure not gonna complain about having one around tonight.”

  “Yep,” he agreed, still eyeballing the house. “although it ain’t exactly my first choice for what I’d take up against a large animal in the dark.”

  “Then don’t,” I urged. “Ed, whatever is in your house is big and dangerous. And Casey and I are all you’ll have for backup in this situation.”

  “Yeah,” he conceded with obvious reluctance, “You’ve got a point.”

  “Then don’t,” I repeated.

  I watched him consider the situation for a second, and I could see him not liking it. Leaving an intruder unchallenged in his house must have gone against his every instinct. But at the same time I knew he wasn’t the type to make rash moves, so it didn’t come as too much of a surprise when I saw his shoulders slump and he fit the pistol back into his concealed holster.

  “Great,” Ed sighed. “So where does that leave us?”

  It left us standing in a gloomy circle of asphalt, surrounded by houses that remained uncomfortably silent and dark.

  “What about Mr. Franzetti?” Casey asked. “Since Mrs. Franzetti isn’t out here, I’m guessing he’s okay?”

  Ed frowned back at the Franzetti house, lifted his hat, and rubbed his head. Then he turned back to us with a solemn expression.

  “No,” he answered softly. “He’s alive…I guess. But he’s not okay.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He’s alive,” Ed repeated. “His pulse is strong, his temperature normal, and his respiration is good. He looks and sounds like he’s asleep, but he’s unresponsive. His pupils are fixed and dilated, and he has no corneal response.”

  “Oh god,” Casey gasped. “He must have had a massive stroke. That poor woman.”

  “So what exactly does that mean?” I asked…me being the mystery writer who should know all this stuff.

  “It means he’s brain dead, Mark. Or he will be soon if nothing is done. Ed, is there…?”

  “No. There’s nothing I can do, Casey. He needs a fully staffed and equipped emergency room, and we have no way to get him there. And I doubt they could do much for him either.”

  “So what about Mrs. Franzetti then?”

  “She refuses to leave the house. She says if he’s alive, she’s not going to leave him alone. I tried her car to see if maybe it would start and we could take him to the hospital. I guess you guys saw the result.”

  “So is there anything we can do for her?”

  “Not much.” He grimaced. “And now our choices come down to either going back in her house and staying with her, or risk walking to find help.”

  Exactly what I was afraid of.

  I looked around at the silent houses brooding in the darkness. I studied their black, lifeless windows and I thought of the lone rat making his late run to join the others. It knew something. Something bad. And it knew getting away from that something counted above all else, no matter where it finished in the race to escape.

  “We can’t stay here, Ed.” I took a deep breath and faced him squarely. “We need to leave, and the sooner the better.”

  Ed studied me intently for a second, then raised his gaze to sweep the line of still houses around us. So he had noticed it too. He simply hadn’t mentioned it yet for whatever reasons of his own.

  “Mrs. Franzetti won’t leave,” he reminded me. “What about her?”

  “I feel sorry for her,” I answered. “But I have considerations of my own.”

  This earned me another glare from the red-headed end of the triangle, but I had been vague enough so she couldn’t really use it as an excuse to restart the earlier argument. Besides, I think she wanted out of there as badly as I did.

  “Yeah,” Ed nodded.

  He understood.

  He had probably been having an argument between logic and his gut for a while. Now it looked like he had decided to go with his gut. And whether Stinkerbell liked it or not, I knew she would be a prime consideration in any decisions he would be making tonight as well.

  “You got a destination in mind?” he asked.

  “Not exactly. At the moment, I’m just remembering most of the animals were heading west. I say we follow their lead…at least the best we can.”

  He nodded again and looked south down the street. The fire from the crash must have burned through all the helicopter fuel and now subsisted on whatever unfortunate house it landed on. The sky over the trees to the south glowed orange, but the flames didn’t leap high enough to see anymore and it no longer cast useful light.

  The circle we stood in narrowed to a street heading in the same direction. But it disappeared into the black tunnel beneath the overarching trees ahead. If we left, that would be our path.

  But even as we strained to see into the darkness, a strange warbling cry rose in the night. It came from somewhere at least a block or more behind us, but its power caused the three of us to twist around and stare off in that direction. The call continued to rise in both scale and volume before finally breaking off in a set of diminishing hoots. It reminded me of a howler monkey, if King Kong had a howler monkey for a big brother.

  “Okay,” Casey breathed. “Somebody want to tell me what that was?”

  “That was motivation to get moving,” I answered, surprised at my own ability to be glib while terrified. “Ed, you with us on this?”

  “Yeah,” he muttered, staring in the direction of the sound. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

  “Good.”

  “Okay then,” he sighed, and seemed to gather himself, “Casey, go ahead and light this other lantern. Then I’m going to talk to Mrs. Franzetti real quick. You guys check the truck for anything we might want to take with us.”

  “What are you going to tell her, Ed?”

  “I guess I’ll tell her we’re leaving,” he said, “and there ain’t much point in her staying. I won’t go into it any further…she’ll know what I mean. Then the choice is hers.”

  “And if she stays?”

  “Then I’ll leave this lantern with her, so she won’t be sitting in the dark when her little candle goes out. After that, I guess I’ll come back and we’ll start walking. Once we get down to Culver we’ll head west. At least that’s the direction to the main entrance of the neighborhood.”

  I nodded in agreement, although not terribly enthused at the prospect of leaving one of the lanterns behind. But they were Ed’s lanterns, which made it his decision. As long as he agreed to lead us out of there, I would happily let him make the calls.

  Casey lit his lantern and Ed wasted no time in heading for the Franzetti house.

  I watched him make his way up the sidewalk, reassured to see he still moved naturally and not with the odd gait of earlier. But at the same time it occurred to me I might be asking a lot from a man of his age who only had one real leg. The neighborhood exit waited over a mile away, and that was as the crow flies. Our path would not be so direct.

  He reached the entrance, removed his hat, and knocked. After a prolonged moment the door opened and he stepped inside.

  Realizing I had my own duties to take care of, I turned and headed for the truck. It sat there, stranded in the circle like a dead mammoth in a tarpit.

  I knew it wouldn’t be much, but if Ed had a tire-iron behind the seat I fully intended on arming myself with it. Or maybe a jack handle. Casey’s hatchet made a more lethal weapon, but she gripped it in a manner suggesting it had been claimed for the evening.

  Seeing as how Casey headed for the driver’s side door, I went around to the other side. I pulled the door open to see her already digging under the front seat. I fished around under mine, feeling several odd boxes and items, then started pulling them out into the floorboard in front of the seat.<
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  “You want to put the lantern up on the seat between us so I can see what I’m doing?”

  “In a minute, I’m using it.”

  “How about now, instead?” I barked

  “How about you get stuffed.”

  Oh yeah, that did it.

  I jerked my head up, banged it on the glove box, then swore as I pulled my torso out of the cab. Then I slammed my door, and went stalking around the truck. I came around to her side to find her waiting for me, jaw set and fists clenched.

  “What the hell is your problem!?” I bellowed.

  “My problem!? I don’t have a problem, Mark! I’m just a horrible little snot and this is the way I roll!”

  “Seriously? You’ve still got your panties in a bunch over that? At a time like this? How childish can you be?”

  “Childish? Excuse me? You were the one calling names when somebody has the nerve to call you out for something, and I’m childish? That’s real adult, Mark.”

  “Fine, maybe I got a little hot over you calling me retarded when I was only trying to protect you!”

  “I didn’t call you retarded. I said you were acting retarded. There’s a difference! And for the record, you were acting retarded.”

  Don’t you love the sick feeling you sometimes get in an argument when you realize the other person might have a point? Okay, so maybe she had attacked my actions and I had attacked her instead. I can concede the possibility. But at the same time, I knew I hardly counted as the bad guy here and she definitely didn’t fit anybody’s definition of an innocent little victim.

  “Fine,” I growled. “Then allow me to amend the error and state you were acting like a horrible little snot. I’ll reserve judgment on your permanent status of snothood until later! Is that better?”

  “It’s a start,” she snapped back. “Or maybe you could try something really radical and listen once in a while. You know, say something like ‘How was what I did retarded, Casey?’ instead of flying off the handle and having a meltdown.”

  “Well then maybe you should try phrasing things a little differently than in ways calculated to piss people off. Have you ever thought of….”

  “Ahem!”

  We both started, and turned to see Ed’s dim silhouette slowly making its way down the sidewalk. It had that odd gait, telling me he favored the artificial leg like he had in his back yard.

  “Oh, good job!” Casey hissed at me. “We haven’t accomplished a thing!” Then she grabbed the lantern and hustled toward the approaching man. “Wait a second, Uncle Ed! Let me get there with the light!”

  Oh sure, now she became all sweetness and sunshine.

  I stood there seething, while at the same time starting to feel foolish over the whole confrontation. After all, I had been the one to come stomping around to her side of the truck and brought the whole scavenging mission to a halt. That ended up working out really well. Honestly, I couldn’t have done anything more stupid.

  And what had been the point of that move anyway? We both knew I would never lay a finger on her.

  First of all, I’m not the type. Second, it wouldn’t exactly be the kind of thing easy to explain to Stella. And third, by tomorrow morning Casey could have an entire line of her huge, testosterone fueled friends competing for the honor of beating me into Moron Pudding. And then one of her cop buddies would probably arrest me for assaulting them all, just to rub it in.

  So yeah, I had nearly been caught fronting…and almost made a fool out of myself. She was definitely being a horrible little snot, but I realized I couldn’t keep engaging her on this level. For one thing, she held all the cards in this particular game. For another, there remained the matter of my supposed role as the adult.

  At the same time, a small part of me wondered what in the world could be going on with her? Sure, she generally acted surly and standoffish in regards to me, but I had never known her to be outright hostile before. Could it be the stress? Or could I be missing something? I supposed I could simply explain this to her and ask for her view of the problem, but it seemed an awful lot like conceding the matter to her and I rebelled at the thought.

  Which brought me back to mad again, and that didn’t help.

  “Hey, Mark,” Ed called out in a mild voice as he drew close. “There’s a first aid kit under the passenger side seat, and then if you lean the seat forward you will find a tire iron back there. Why don’t you carry those.”

  I nodded in silent assent and headed back around the truck.

  “Casey,” he continued. “When he leans the seat forward, look behind the driver’s side and you’ll see a walking cane. I seldom use it, but I don’t know what all we’re going to end up doing tonight so let’s play it safe. That will leave you and me with one hand free, so we can take turns carrying the lantern.”

  “Sure, Uncle Ed.

  So in roughly thirty seconds he had us accomplishing what he had sent us to do five minutes ago. I didn’t say a word, and focused on doing as instructed while fighting down the sense of embarrassment roiling within.

  I needed to get a grip and start concentrating on the things that mattered…like getting the pair of us out of there alive.

  “Okay, you two,” Ed reset his Panama hat firmly on his head and looked from Casey’s expressionless face to mine, “the night ain’t getting any younger, but it damn sure might get weirder. So let’s start making tracks before it does. We’ve got a long walk ahead of us.”

  He gestured toward the black tunnel of trees, and we followed him into the darkness.

  Chapter Four: Death and the Lady of Flowers

  “Uncle Ed?”

  Casey’s voice lowered to a whisper as we moved into the blackness. It felt like entering a cave. We moved slowly, I suppose waiting for our confidence to rise. Even with our lantern for light, entering the street felt like we were a threesome of not-so-intrepid Victorian explorers taking our first steps into darkest Africa.

  “Hmm?”

  “Are we going anywhere specific, or are we just heading west?”

  “Depends, Dodger. We’re operating on the theory we can’t stay here, and what little evidence we have suggests west is the way to go. I know a couple of places we can check on the way, but our main goal is to get out of this…whatever this is.”

  Ed led the way, holding the lantern while idly carrying a walking cane in the other hand. Casey followed slightly behind and to his left, clutching her hatchet, while I walked a couple steps further back and to his right. I intended to put Casey between us, without it looking like I had put her between us. From that position I could easily get to her other side while moving up, or stay where I was and be between her and anything that came up behind us.

  And that’s when a horrific scream shattered the surrounding night.

  We practically stumbled to a halt, wildly peering into the darkness around us. Our nerves had already been on edge, and we nearly jumped out of our collective skins. The shriek came again, and this time the thrashing of limbs and leaves jerked our attentions up and to our right.

  “It’s a cat!” Casey gasped, “Holy crap! It’s just a cat!”

  It might have been “just a cat,” but it fought and screamed in a life and death struggle up there in the darkness with something I couldn’t see. Ed raised the lantern, but it only illuminated the leaves and limbs directly above us, without revealing anything beyond.

  The sounds of battle moved, and I didn’t know exactly how to interpret that. I couldn’t fathom a running fight in tree limbs without one of the participants falling. Had the cat escaped only to be caught again? Or did the thing move with the cat in its grasp while tearing at it? Judging by the sound of the cat’s screeches, it threw everything it had into the fight but must still be getting the worst end of it.

  Even as I came to that conclusion, it gave one last, plaintive wail then fell quiet. The thrashing stopped, and a few leaves drifted down into our lantern light.

  For a frozen moment we scanned the branches above, hunt
ing any clue of what just happened. Then, right when I thought we had heard the last…a soft, trilling coo came from the darkness above us. It sounded birdlike, insectile, and alien all at the same time.

  Once again, it made a noise like no animal I had ever heard before. I had absolutely nothing to base it on, but the sound gave me the mental image of something obscene cooing and stroking the corpse of the cat before feasting.

  Apparently not all the local critters had exited the area in the nick of time.

  “Okay,” Ed whispered, bringing us back to ourselves. “Show’s over. Let’s move on.”

  Nobody answered, but it didn’t seem necessary. We went back to the positions we had before and started making our slow way down the street again. But as we left the spot behind, my mind stayed on the cat.

  What the hell was going on? Could it be an invasion? That could account for whatever growled behind Ed’s door, and whatever killed all those police officers, but what kind of invading force concerned itself with a cat in a tree? If it was an invasion, it didn’t feel like the military kind…even if it came from another planet. For one thing, where were the invading troops?

  Yet at the same time something had knocked out all our power, and not only our electrical grid. All of our electronics were gone, leaving us stranded in the darkness without communication or transportation. I remembered reading about a weapon called an EMP bomb, or something similar, capable of causing such havoc. Looking at it that way made it seem like a calculated attack.

  But who the hell attacks a suburban neighborhood in north Houston?

  Of course that assumed we were the center of the attack. I had the definite impression this whole thing started at the standoff with the police parked down my street, but could I really be sure? Maybe it had been a completely unrelated coincidence and I had put apples and oranges together and come up with four. Maybe we were nowhere near the center of this.

  But then how widespread would that make this thing?

  And what about the air? How did an invasion cause this kind of change in the atmosphere? The air around us was abnormally thick, and moist to the point of interfering with the effectiveness of the lantern. It came close to being a mist. All the lights I had seen since the truck died featured a glow as if the air had grown dense to the point of visibility. Not to mention, sweat stained all three of our shirts though it had to be one o’clock in the morning.