Night Stalker

                                                           

                                              Night Stalker

 

 

     A Short Story

 

        by David Castanho

 

 

 

 

Today marks the ten-year anniversary of my brother’s disappearance. He’s been missing for an entire decade. I’ve come to the reality that he’s never coming back, no matter how many times I pray for him to come home. Mum knows it too, but she’ll never admit it of course. Every year, on the 10th day in August, she makes a point to come up here and lay down the whitest lilies she can find on an empty grave marked with his name.

This morning the cemetery is quiet. A ring of ancient oak trees cuddle the proximity of the graveyard, their vibrant green leaves dancing softly in the summer breeze. If you listen carefully you can hear the songs shared between the finches nestled among them. This would all seem rather peaceful if it wasn’t for the sea of eroding headstones darted among the field and the decaying bodies that slept beneath them. I don’t belong here. My place is with the living, not the dead. 

Mum leans down next to a headstone and gently places a kiss upon the top of it, the pale lilies still clutched in one hand. She doesn’t take care of herself anymore, not the way she used to. Her appearance used to be so important to her. She would take pride in doing her makeup and fixing her hair so that it stood perfectly in place. She used to say beauty was for a selected few and that I was one of those lucky few. Mum wasn’t the same person anymore. The light that once burned fiercely in her, wasn’t there anymore, smothered by a decade of sleepless nights and heartache. As I take my place next to mum, my eyes dart to the familiar words on the headstone. The words are a little worn down from the elements but are still readable: 

 

In loving memory 

of 

Alex Harrison

Beloved brother and son

You will be missed

28/03/1998 - 10/08/2013

 

My memory of Alex is relatively patchy in places. I don’t remember him as the warm protective older brother that tradition would have you believe. Instead, I remember a boy who sat on either side of the bipolar spectrum. There were days where he was a normal teenager doing normal teenage things; football, girls, late nights glued to a PlayStation. On the days outside of normality he was the worst person in existence. He’d prey on the weaker kids on their way home from school or in the park on the weekends. They’d endure all sorts of torture until Alex was bored and moved onto the next unfortunate soul. My brother was a bully who enjoyed the heart-racing thrill when it came to inflicting pain on others.  

Alex hadn’t always been this way. There was a time where he’d sit through hours of my favorite Disney movies on repeat or play along with my crazy imagination when I conjured up imaginary worlds that I swore to be true. The news that our dad had died in a motorbike accident, hit Alex hard. So hard that he became a different person, a different Alex.   

On the night it happened I saw him again, the old version of my brother. In fact, when I close my eyes at night, I can still hear the terror in his voice. That part never really goes away. 

 

#

I was ten years old when it happened. It was a scorching summer and the year was 2013. I remember that August being the hottest August on record for a long time. The sun was almost unbearable and people carried around mini battery-powered fans to keep themselves cool and wore ridiculous hats to protect themselves from the heat. That summer I had planned on spending it with a couple of kids from my street, splashing around in the dirty lake near our town, except my plans were botched when my estranged grandfather fell ill to a lifetime of cigarette consumption and alcohol abuse.  

My grandfather lived in a small disconnected town called Birch somewhere in the mountains of Scotland. The last time my grandfather made any effort to see us was when I was born. I don’t have any memories of that man ever being in our lives apart from this one. Sadly, it’s the one memory I wish I could forget. The drive to Birch was an agonizing five and a half hours. The dead heat along with little space to move in our tiny Honda, made the journey feel double that time. 

I was watching the world fly by from the backseat window when mum first mentioned it. 

“I need to tell you both something and you have to promise that you’ll listen and do what I say, alright?” 

My mother’s intense brown eyes were staring at us through the rearview mirror. I gave her a silent nod and she turned her attention onto my brother. 

“Alex?” She called.

The hum from the headset that sat mangled in his hair blocked out the sounds around him, stealing him away from this world and into another. I sometimes wonder what he was thinking about; was he even capable of thinking? 

 “Sweetie give him a poke for me.” 

I was hesitant at first, I knew you should never poke a bear whilst it slept. My brother had been cradling hell-fire ever since we left. The inevitable result of being dragged to a town you’ve never heard of until now, to see a stranger you don’t know or care for, instead of crashing at your mate’s parentless house for the entire summer. 

I gently tugged at his jacket.

“Get off!” 

Alex turned and shoved me hard against the door. 

“Mum wants you!” I protested.  

Still glaring at me with those deep auburn eyes he stole from our mother, he untangled the headset from his hair, before turning his attention towards the reflection in the rearview mirror. I remember her swallowing something before she spoke. 

“I know I’m asking a lot from you both to give up your summer to come here, but your grandpa is very sick and needs our help. It won’t be the whole summer and you’ll be back with your friends before you know it.” She paused for a moment but kept her eyes on us, “Birch is different. It’s not like most towns you know. There are rules here that you have to follow. You can’t break them.” 

I felt Alex shift in his seat, rolling his eyes at what was being said. I looked on, staring back at mum through the stained rearview mirror. 

“What I’m about to tell you is set in stone, it’s not up for negotiation. Do you hear me?” she took our silent replies as agreement and continued on, “Lights are off by nine and you go straight to bed. You don’t make a sound, you don’t turn the lights on and you don’t leave your room, not even to go to the toilet. I don’t care if you piss yourself, you stay in bed.” 

Her words had me paralyzed in my seat. I couldn’t move and I didn’t dare look away. 

“But above all else, if you hear something outside calling, do not answer back. Do you hear me? You don’t talk back to it.” 

My body felt faint and I was certain that the heavy thumping in my chest was shaking the car. I gripped the edges of my dress for some sort of comfort and held back the whimper I so badly wanted to cry. My mother’s eyes continued to stare back at me until I nodded that I understood what she was saying. 

“Alex?” She called. 

My brother didn’t take much seriously in life. He certainly wasn’t taking our mum seriously at that moment. I sometimes wonder if he had, would it be different today? 

“Worst trip ever.” He replied, tugging the headset back on and blanking out the rest of the world. 

 

 

#

Birch, from what I can remember, was as small as a town could be. There wasn’t a lot on offer. In fact, the town consisted of one grocery store, a tiny pharmacy and a Post Office. That was it. There were no tell-tale signs of children either. Not one school or activity centre in sight, not even a library. The roads were a combination of gravel and dirt that spiraled like cracks on concrete throughout the town, and stopped just below a towering mountain drenched in thick green woodland. Upon entering Birch, you were met with a strong stench of decay, the sort of smell you could imagine if you left vegetation to rot for weeks before discovering its nasty remains. The stone houses were just as bad, worn down by time and Mother Nature, they sloped at odd angles from the earth gradually giving way beneath them. 

In the heart of the town a large marble slab rose from the dirt. It was coated with a thick layer of flickering paper, beneath them sat rows of tea candles with tiny dancing flames. As we drew closer to the structure, I could see that the flickering paper was actually photographs of unknown faces. I asked what it was with intense curiosity, but mum pretended not to notice and kept her eyes on the road ahead of her. Now, when I think about it, I realize what it was; a monument for those who were still missing. 

The first couple of days in Birch were fairly uneventful. I tried to keep busy, doing chores to keep my mind from the claws of boredom. However, most of the time I was left to ponder in my own childish imagination where the floor would suddenly become lava at any moment, and I’d have to cling to whatever surfaces I could find. My brother wasn’t that much fun. He would just sit there, in one of the living room armchairs and play on that stupid Gameboy for hours, only putting it down to eat, go to the bathroom or to twist my arm behind my back until I burst out in tears. He was such an angry child. 

We didn’t see much of our grandfather. He was bed-bound and had been constrained to those four walls for weeks, rotting away in that bed waiting for death. Mum said he kept turning away nurses and that’s why we were here. I think they just couldn’t handle the man. I could sometimes hear him smashing things in his room and cursing at mum if she refused him his one true love. Whiskey. He didn’t want us there and we didn’t want to be there. 

Mum’s rules remained burnt in my brain. I followed them like a soldier on duty, and to my surprise, so did Alex. As she had said, lights were out by nine and not a single sound could be heard throughout the night. It was almost too quiet. I woke from night terrors a few times. The same dream would purge my sleep, faces pressed up against the walls in my room wearing crooked smiles and soulless eyes while I slept. My mum gave me a small crucifix to keep under my pillow. She said it would protect me. After that I never saw the faces again. 

 On the night it happened, I woke with a fierce thirst in my throat. It felt like water hadn’t touched my lips in days. The house was coated in a thick layer of mold that sat heavy in the air. I could taste its earth-like scent on the roof of my mouth. I laid there in bed for what must have been half an hour or more, before the overwhelming need to drink, forced me from the covers and out of bed. The house was blindingly dark and I used my hands to feel for some sense of direction. It was an old house that groaned in agony as I made my way downstairs and into the kitchen. 

I grabbed a glass from the cupboard, held it under the tap and downed it whole. The cold sensation washing away the drought deep in my throat. I was in the process of running myself a second cup when I heard it. 

“JJ…” 

I had many nicknames at that age, Jess, Jessy, Jay, but JJ was special to me. Only one person in my life called me that. I hadn’t heard it in so long that I almost forgot the soft warm tones in his voice.

“Daddy?” I called back. 

The kitchen sat opposite a large bay window in the living room which showed the faint yellow glow of a street light and the silhouettes of houses outside. A black mass shifted under the poorly-lit streetlight. I placed the pint glass down on the kitchen counter and took a step forward. 

“Yes JJ, it’s me, daddy.” The black mass shifted again, “Come outside sweetie, I have something I want to show you.” 

I took another step forward into the living room, hoping to get a better look at the figure outside, but at that moment it bolted up the street faster than my line of sight could follow. I knew something was off that night and if I’d just ran upstairs and woke somebody, none of this would have happened. But I couldn’t. I was drawn to that front door. It was like I had no control over my body, like my conscious thoughts had taken a back seat to something else, something more primal. 

My hand reached for the door handle and pulled. The night air brushed its way passed my naked legs. It was freezing, too cold for a summer night. I stepped outside, bare feet on rough gravel, and made my way out onto the road. 

“Daddy?” 

There was deafening silence. Every house on the street was pitch black, the moon and stars took shelter behind a thick blanket of cloud. The only light present was the low glow from streetlights. 

“Daddy, where are you? I can’t see you.” 

There was a snapping sound somewhere in the murky shadows ahead of me. I could just make out movement within them. 

“JJ, are you coming? Follow my voice.” 

I did what was asked. I moved along the street keeping my attention fixed on the something moving beyond the light. From the corner of my eyes I could see movement through curtains. I had an audience, yet no one came to my rescue. 

“You are such a good girl JJ, such a good girl.”

The last street light flickered past me. I had made it to the end of town where the path broke off into woodland and towards a jagged mountain. There was only black beyond me. I stood there for a minute or two completely motionless, but aware of something stalking the shadows around me. I must have been in a trance or something because the raw scream that tore from my brother’s throat shook me back into my senses. 

“Jessica! Get away from that thing!” 

My brother bolted up the street, taking giant steps to desperately close the distance between us. There was a rush of cold air near my face. I felt a stinging around my wrist. I looked down to find something black with scales coiled tight around it. It was long, slick and tail-like. My eyes followed the tail as it climbed up a nearby tree. Among its withered branches sat something truly monstrous. Its body bent at odd angles with elongated arms and skeletal fingers. White soulless eyes peered back at me through filthy matted hair that hung over its face. When a set of stained yellow teeth split into a grimace, I finally screamed. 

Alex was on me in a matter of seconds, prying at the grip on my wrist. The pain was unbearable. The more Alex struggled the tighter it squeezed. I cried and screamed as Alex tugged and clawed to get his fingers under its grip. 

The creature shifted in the branches, watching us as a predator would watch prey, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce and rip our throats out. My brother shoved a fist into his trouser pocket and pulled something out. He pressed it tightly against the creature’s tail. It shrieked in agony as hot steam poured from it. A crucifix. 

It released its grip. Alex clung to the crucifix, holding it up as a barrier between us and the thing lurking in the tree. 

“Jess run!” His voice broke, “Get home quick!”. 

Before I had the chance to react, Alex was struck hard at his side and sent hurtling towards the ground, the crucifix landing at my feet. I lunged for the small cross and its safety. 

“Jessica!” 

The creature’s tail now locked tight around Alex’s leg, squeezing with a vice-like grip. There was a sharp snap as his leg broke under the pressure, extreme pain knocking him unconscious. 

“Alex!” I whimpered as I choked on my own tears. 

An ear-piercing screech woke the sleeping town as lights came on and doors opened. But it was already too late. The creature lunged from the branches and made for the mountain, carrying my brother along with it. 

The crucifix still clutched in my hands.