Nightwalkers

by Candace Wondrak

  These two sons of bitches had snuck up quietly behind me. That was definitely a first. I’d never heard of a Nightwalker waiting for the right moment to strike. They always charged in, probably thinking ‘need food…blood…skin!’

  And, yes. Nightwalkers eat both blood and skin. Gross.

  One came up to my back, away from Gabriel’s fight, and started choking me, which caught me off guard. But that didn’t bother me, since I was beyond flexible. I did a series of kicks to the two in front of me, so fast that it lifted me parallel to the ground. I used my force to keep myself going, and flip myself to the back of the one who had, just seconds ago, its two hands around my neck. I brought both my hands down on to the base of its own neck, in a karate-chop motion, so hard that I heard a snap.

  And that snap didn’t come from my hands.

  I briefly glanced at Gabriel. He certainly had his hands full with a group of four. I looked to his feet; my sword was a few feet away, just laying on the ground, waiting to be used.

  I turned to the Nightwalker who, now, had a peculiarly weak neck, and spun into a roundhouse kick, taking the head straight off.

  And Raphael didn’t believe me when I said I could still take a Nightwalker out without a weapon.

  One down; two to go, I thought as flames consumed it.

  I was really itching to try out my sword. I looked at Gabriel some more, past the four—no, scratch that—three Nightwalkers he was fighting, and the other two who were focused on me. He saw me and, knowing what I wanted, rolled between a pair of shaky legs to reach my sword. The three pinned him back, but he already had his hands on my sword. He threw it straight up into the air.

  How the hell was I supposed to get that?

  But then I realized what he was doing. He had to throw it up to free both hands, and with a blur of simultaneous punches and kicks, he was back on his feet, catching my sword. Gabriel lifted a single eyebrow as he threw the sword to me, gladiator-style. The sword spun three complete rotations before it got within an arm’s distance; it definitely wasn’t the most aerodynamic throw, but it was very badass.

  I twisted my feet while jumping, making me swirl into the air. My hand caught my rose blade, and swiftly came down on the head of the nearest Nightwalker. While the ugly creature was momentarily stunned, I brought the sword around, through its neck.

  Two down; one to go.

  I turned to face the remaining Nightwalker. I felt a pang of pity; this one had been a middle-aged woman, probably a nice one, too. One of those people who just loved to help anyone in need, volunteer with charities, or spend all her Sundays at the church. I noticed her ring finger. She had been married. Of course. It was such a shame that now her only human characteristic was the shape of her bloody body. Her yellow eyes wrinkled to the extreme; her teeth yellow and sharp.

  She took a step.

  “I am sorry, for this,” I said, sweeping my sword through her neck.

  Three down.

  Just as I finished and was about to check on Gabriel, I remembered the group of seven that had been walking through the graveyard. I gazed at the spot where we last saw them.

  But the group was gone.

  One remained, perfectly still, holding an object that made my heart sink as I saw it. My sword dropped from my hand.

  Oh, my God. No.

  I could see the red light glimmer in its eyes, even though I was over a hundred feet away.

  It couldn’t be. That Demon was…it should have been dead.

  How could did I know such a thing? Simple. I knew that Nightwalker and its unusual red eyes. I’d seen it before.

  And I killed it.

  Three Years Ago

  This was the place. I recognized it from my visions. Gabriel was here, now, tonight. All because he followed some girl home. But it wasn’t just some girl. No, that girl wanted to feed her pets. Nightwalkers.

  Gabriel was going to get himself killed one day by acting like this, I swore to God. But lucky for him, I was here to save him. To protect him. If I hadn’t come tonight, he would have died, I knew that. My premonitions told me.

  Cursing him out loud, and also cursing myself for not telling Michael where I was going and where Gabriel was, I walked into the decaying burial chamber. By my count of the broken coffins, there should be no more than three of them here. As soon as I fully entered the crypt, the doors slammed shut behind me, a result of strong wind, but it still was freaky.

  It made me wish I had backup. But I didn’t, so I had to keep going. Gabriel’s life depended on me.

  I felt a gust of air and followed it, realizing it was coming from behind an intact coffin. It took all my might to push the heavy thing to the side, revealing a tunnel.

  Tunnels were never good.

  Inspecting the dusty pathway, I walked in.

  Well, I thought, let’s see where this damn tunnel leads, shall I?

  It took me a few minutes to reach the bottom. It lead to a great chamber that had about twenty cages, all stocked with Nightwalkers, who each had their very own shock collar. I assumed that was how she got them all back inside their cages after their feedings. Let me say now that my previous count of three was off. Way off.

  The damn girl stood high above them and was just a few feet in front of me, on a lookout area. Probably for her own self-defense, keeping her high above her undead pets. From her location, she could watch them feed.

  But where was Gabriel? Where did that bitch put him?

  Just as I began to worry that I was too late, I saw him. Gabriel was lying face down in the center of the huge underground chamber.

  Damn it. This was going to be harder than I thought.

  I saw the girl lift up a remote control with three buttons. Probably one to open the cages, one to shut them, and one to shock them.

  Oh no, she wasn’t.

  I leapt off the tunnel floor and tackled the bitch. The remote control slid away, out of her grasp before she could press any of those buttons.

  “Who the hell are you?” Her voice echoed throughout the chamber, shaking dust off the walls.

  If the place could shake on account of just one voice, imagine what would happen if I pushed over all the columns holding this place together.

  I hissed, baring my teeth, “I’m here for Gabriel.” We struggled to reach the remote first; whoever got to it last lost. As I had my hand on it, the freaking girl bit me. Yes, she bit me. What a freak!

  I recoiled from the bite, landing a hard punch in her face, but it was too late. She had the remote.

  “No!” I yelled as I took her down once more. But this time, I misjudged the direction I tackled her, for we were suddenly falling for what seemed like forever. That’s when I realized we were falling off the lookout area and into the pit of cages where Gabriel lay. That was about a thirty foot drop.

  Gabriel was beginning to stir, and it was obvious this chick had knocked him unconscious. That pissed me off even more. No one knocked him unconscious but me!

  Fortunately for me, the insane girl was the one who took the full force of the ground. It knocked her out cold and shook the ground.

  How’s that for a taste of your own medicine? I thought indignantly, gazing around. The columns were shaking with every movement. They were thin and crumbling. Those columns were like little skeletons, barely holding this place up. We, meaning me, had to take this place down, and take all the Nightwalkers with it.

  While I accessed the situation, an electric zap filled the air, and the cages unlocked.

  Shit.

  This crazy girl must have pressed the damn button while falling.

  I ran over to Gabriel, shaking him, forcing him to fully come to.

  After a few seconds of jostling, he slowly blinked his eyes open. “What—” He mumbled and ran a hand through his dusty hair, “What’s going on?” I never had seen him so exhausted.

  “Your girlfriend didn’t want to have dinner with you.” I motioned all around me, at all the cages that were opening. “She wanted y
ou to be dinner.”

  Gabriel jumped to his feet. “Wow. Okay. Um…”

  I looked around. Twenty Nightwalkers surrounding us, one of every shape and size. “We need to get them back in their cages before they kill us” I glanced at Gabriel and then the remote that lay on the opposite side of the Nightwalkers. “Then we take this place down.”

  “Uh-huh. And, um, how are we going to do that?”

  We took a step back as the group of starved Nightwalkers took a collective step towards us. This was definitely not good.

  “We need to get that remote,” I answered, pointing.

  They took another step. We looked at each other.

  “Split up?” Gabriel asked.

  I nodded.

  In a flash we were both running to the right and left of the huge group. They seemed dazed and confused. Perhaps because of the lack of proper feeding. The Demons soon comprehended that there were two happy-meals running around them, and one laying on the ground, because they suddenly split into three groups, one going after each of us.

  Too bad I was too angry to care about the ones who went after the still unconscious girl. Mostly because there was an ugly standing between me and the remote. I reached inside my coat, but it wasn’t there.

  My stake wasn’t there.

  I must have dropped it up on the lookout when I tackled that wacked-up girl.

  And I didn’t have enough time to go get it, because Gabriel was still a little sluggish. If I went up there, he might end up dying, and that I couldn’t have.

  The Nightwalker ran toward me, and its face met with my heel. Good thing I wore my hardest combat boots. More damage was done to its face than to my foot. Three came up behind me, trying to bite me like the little Nightwalkers they were. Two had contact with each of my fists, and the third with my head in a backwards head-butt.

  A headache surged through my brain, saying ’why’d you go and do that, Kass?’

  Note to self: avoid head-butts.

  I didn’t even have time to look for Gabriel amongst the chaos. There were too many surrounding the now-dead girl for me to see him.

  Hmm…maybe we could take this place down by just fighting. The columns seemed to be shaking, barely capable staying in place. One direct push could put this whole place over the edge.

  I finally saw him. Gabriel was scarcely keeping his own against a group of six. But he was by the remote.

  “Gabriel!” I yelled after roundhouse-kicking a whole hoard of them. “Try the yellow button!” A big Nightwalker wrapped his huge arms around my neck, constricting. I could barely breathe. “Now,” I gasped for air. A few more seconds with a hold like this, and I would be the unconscious (and soon dead) one.

  A shock emitted from the collar of the giant Nightwalker who had me in a death grip. I was beginning to see little white stars dancing around in my eyes. But after a few seconds of the shock, he let me go, falling to the floor.

  Not before the shock traveled through his dead body and jumped to mine, jumpstarting my heart and frizzing my hair. I stood, once I got control of my tingling muscles, holding my neck and half-smiling to Gabriel above the Nightwalkers, who had followed suit of the huge one. They were all writhing in pain.

  “Keep holding it down,” I struggled for breath. He nodded as I dragged the corpse of the girl farther in the chamber. She would turn eventually, even though less than half of her body remained, so I had to make sure she was crushed, along with the rest.

  Glancing to the far left, I noticed there was a steep pathway leading back up to the lookout point. I showed it to Gabriel, who was beginning to look better, more awake and alert.

  “Okay,” he said, still pressing the button. “But what are you doing?” His blue eyes were tired and bruised. And hurt. Understandable. His first girlfriend had tried to kill him by feeding him to her pets. I tried to tell him, to warn him, but he wouldn’t have any of it.

  I hoped this wouldn’t screw him up mentally.

  I neared the closest column, the one that was cracked about a hundred times. I pushed. I pushed hard. Slowly but surely, I felt it budging, moving. “Ahh!” I yelled as I gave it one, final, shove and watched it fall, taking out the other columns with it, like it was a game of Dominos. Honestly, I didn’t think my plan could have gone any better.

  But then I realized that I was standing underneath where the final column was going to land. Quickly, I ran up the steep rise leading to the lookout. Time wasn’t on my side. The ground shook violently beneath my feet, causing me to fall to the floor while I was running out of the tunnel. It felt like a damn earthquake.

  Gabriel and I were going to have a lot of explaining to do.

  He was waiting for me, still holding that dumb button, right outside the tunnel’s exit into the crypt.

  I smiled weakly. That was all I could muster. “You can let it go now, Gabriel.”

  “Oh, okay.” Gabriel threw the remote down on the ground with such force it broke at first contact with the dirt. We started walking through the cobwebs on our way out, trying to find the exit. “Hey,” he said without turning to look at me, “I just wanted to say, thanks—”

  A strong, tan hand hit his face, knocking him out instantly.

  Shit. We missed one?

  The Nightwalker looked down at the unresponsive boy, its face twisted in anger and hunger. Then it looked at me with a startling stare.

  I froze, a rookie mistake.

  This Nightwalker had blood red eyes. Eyes that I’d never seen on a Nightwalker before. And I’d seen more than my fair share.

  Before I could think of what to do, it grabbed my neck and slowly lifted me up in the air. My lungs felt like they were going to burst. I stretched my arms out, trying to reach for its face or something, but my damn arms were too short.

  I closed my eyes, feeling that if I didn’t they were going to pop right out.

  With insane strength, it tossed me aside, as if I weighed nothing. I landed hard on a broken coffin. Blood came into my mouth, and I coughed it out. My brain hurt. My whole body hurt. I felt like I was minutes from passing out.

  I had thought that we were out and free, but apparently not. We must have missed one. I looked up, noticing that this Nightwalker didn’t have a shock collar on. Maybe it was one of her newer pets and she hadn’t gotten around to putting a collar on it quite yet.

  Which really sucked for me right now.

  The tip of its foot collided with my stomach, then my nose. A burst of pain shot through me, in every nerve, up to my face. Blood flowed easily out of my nose; it must have broken it with a single kick.

  Something was coming up, and I couldn’t hold it down any longer. I threw up. Blood mingled with the yellow stomach acid, since that was the only thing inside me right now.

  The Nightwalker placed its foot on my back, pushing me to the floor, into the puddle of blood I had just puked out. I was too weak to struggle. It was over for me. I knew it. I was going to die. And so was Gabriel. So, basically, this whole trip was for nothing. Instead of just one death, there were going to be two.

  Shit, did I do a terrible job or what?

  With one last push to the floor, I heard a snap. Or did I feel that snap? Crap. I’m sure that snap came from inside me. Abruptly, my breathing became harder, and with each breath came an unimaginable amount of pain. A rib or two must have been broken. Fantastic.

  Wow. I’m sarcastic, right until the last minute of my life. But that revelation didn’t surprise me.

  The Nightwalker held me up with one hand, and the other moved my hair aside. Its maroon eyes were fixated on my black-and-blue neck.

  Great. I wasn’t just going to die. Nope. I was going to turn into one of the creatures that plague this earth like vermin.

  Its face was inches from my neck when I took in the fact that I didn’t want to be a Nightwalker, especially one with evil red eyes. So I ignored my earlier note-to-self and head-butted it so hard that it stumbled back, holding its own head like it was about to burst. />
  Though, in reality, it was my head that was going to explode.

  I was short of breath and had plenty of pain, but that didn’t stop me from snatching part of the broken coffin the Nightwalker had thrown me in and shoving it straight through its heart.

  Its eyes widened in realization, and it fell to the floor with an earsplitting thud.

  I stumbled over to Gabriel, who was still not awake. Could I carry him while under this much pain? No. Could I carry him under normal circumstances? No. But I could drag him. That would have to do. I wrapped one of his limp arms over my shoulders and started to make my way home, slowly and agonizingly.

  And not once did I turn back.

  It smiled at us from across the cemetery, showing its strange, sharp teeth, and I could have sworn that I heard it laugh. With a blink of its red eyes, in a flash of wind, it was gone. But there were two lumps on the ground.

  Gabriel appeared next to me, a solitary sweat bead rolling down his face, and said, “What the hell? Did it drop those on purpose?”

  He knew as much as I did, which was absolutely nothing. I shrugged as the uneasiness and worry set in. Without a word, I took off toward the blackened things the Nightwalker left us. I skidded to a halt and dropped down onto my knees. “Shit” was the one word that I was able to say.

  “What’s wrong?” Gabriel said, running up behind me, carrying both our swords.

  “This—this is what’s wrong.” I held up the two items.

  “Shit’s right,” Gabriel exclaimed as he realized what was in my hand.

  I stood up, still clutching to the two objects, and glanced at my watch. It was twelve o’clock, midnight. “Happy birthday, Gabriel.”

  “Yeah.” He gripped both swords tighter, muttering, “Happy fricking birthday.” Only he didn’t say fricking.

  For a moment, neither of us did anything. We simply remained frozen, like we were mesmerized by the two mummified things I was holding. Then we silently turned and headed back to the house, for Michael needed to see these as soon as possible.