Nightwalk

  Nightwalk

  This book is dedicated to my outstanding group of proofreaders, for it is through their untiring efforts this novel includes such niceties as proper spelling, punctuation, and syntax that has a passing resemblance to modern English. They are true heroes. I would like to thank…

  April Rood

  Claire (Charlie) Paul

  Santanita Mirabal

  Stephanie Hilliard

  Jeanne Theunissen

  …and my wonderful wife, Karla, who refuses to read anything scary but makes all this possible.

  Table of Contents

  Map

  Chapter One: T-minus Nineteen Minutes

  Chapter Two: Collapse

  Chapter Three: Encounters and Strife

  Chapter Four: Death and the Lady of Flowers

  Chapter Five: Family Casualties

  Chapter Six: The Pack

  Chapter Seven: Making Acquaintances

  Chapter Eight: Conflict and Preparation

  Chapter Nine: Blood and Fire

  Chapter Ten: Altered Courses

  Chapter Eleven: The Tower

  Chapter Twelve: Fallout

  Chapter Thirteen: Decimation

  Chapter Fourteen: From Hell

  Chapter Fifteen: The Man at the Crossroads

  Epilogue

  Chapter One: T-Minus Nineteen Minutes

  “We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight.”

  -H.P. Lovecraft

  “Is Mom here yet? And what’s up with all the police lights?”

  The clock read a quarter past midnight, and I had been editing my novel to the tune of a silent house. Now I looked up from my laptop at the dining room table to see Casey standing in the hallway door, rubbing her eyes.

  She must have fallen asleep waiting for Stella to get home because her hair now resembled an enormous red mop. The poor teen fought a never ending struggle to keep it presentable…and exactly like her mother, it only took a moment’s slumber for the coppery kraken on her head to come alive and put on a chaotic display of its own.

  The fact she so strongly resembled her mom had made it a lot easier for me to warm to her after I moved in last year. Even though she had the polar opposite of Stella’s chipper personality, that untamable mass made them sisters against a common foe.

  Unfortunately, her mother’s instinctive talent with all things feminine didn’t come bundled with her hair genes. So while it only took Stella a little effort to put her own flaming locks into perfectly coiffed order, Casey often gave up and settled for tying the whole mess back with a do-rag and a surly “screw it.”

  I honestly believe she didn’t cut it short only because she would view that as an admission of defeat.

  Otherwise she came across as a committed tomboy who apparently intended to follow in her deceased father’s footsteps as a firefighter. I can’t say for sure since she certainly didn’t confide in me. But she wore his huge fire department t-shirt to bed every night, along with a pair of black sweatpants, and her gray do-rag had the silhouette of a pair of crossed fire-axes on the front of it.

  Or maybe she wore all that for my benefit—just an unspoken little reminder of my status as a tolerated interloper in her world. To tell the truth, most of the warming in our relationship had been on my part, although I held out hope.

  I saw her slip the aforementioned do-rag out of her “pajamas” pocket as I fished for my cell phone to check the time on the messages. Apparently having woken up, she had decided to wait for her mother.

  “Not yet,” I answered. “She texted twenty minutes ago to say she was half an hour out, so it could be any time now. Now, what about police lights?”

  “Nevermind,” she mumbled and shuffled toward the kitchen.

  “Casey…”

  “It’s nothing, Mark,” she grouched back, pulling the do-rag on as she reached the refrigerator. She opened the door and retrieved a carton of orange juice. “There’s a bunch of cops down the street with their lights flashing. They were reflecting off the wind chime and into my room. I’m up now, so it’s no big deal.”

  I glanced toward the entrance hallway, and saw the twinkle of red and blue lights along the beveled edges of glass in the front door window. Judging by the rapidity of flashes, there were quite a few of them.

  Interesting.

  What would require a large turnout of police, especially after midnight in a neighborhood like this?

  Coventry Woods sprawls across a fair piece of north Houston, a large middle to upper-middle class neighborhood of brick houses, emerald lawns, and tree shaded streets. It’s not so rich you find much in the way of the mini-mansions so popular in some of the newer developments, but it’s quiet and it boasts an elementary school, a large swimming pool and three different parks with playgrounds scattered throughout it. One even has a duck pond.

  It’s the kind of place I had wished I lived in as a kid, back when I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks…but close enough to look across those tracks to see how the other side lived. I used to envy the kids who raced down the tree lined streets on their bikes and had backyard campouts with their friends.

  But that was then and this is now.

  You don’t see so much of kids riding their bikes out in the streets like you did back then. They’re all indoors on their computers and game consoles these days. It’s slightly tragic how empty the park playgrounds of Coventry Woods are.

  Most of the residents out and about these days are new moms pushing strollers, middle-aged people walking their dogs, and the infrequent oldster on a ten-speed getting his laps around the block. Order and tranquility reigns here. The occasional hum of a lawnmower may drone in the background, but otherwise things are so quiet a listener would never know he actually stood in the fourth largest city of the USA.

  And that quietness covers the types of trouble less fortunate neighborhoods have to deal with. Oh, one often sees a police car cruising the streets of Coventry Woods, yet it seems like it’s almost never stopped and actually doing anything. There also might be one parked near the main entrance some mornings and afternoons at rush hour as a visible reminder to keep it slow. Those pretty well sum up the range of police activity in this little world.

  But apparently they had found reason to gather tonight.

  “What in the world?” I mused aloud, coming to my feet.

  Casey didn’t answer right away. Out of sheer force of habit she looked around the darkened kitchen to see if her mother was watching, then took a long slug of the orange juice straight from the carton before wiping her mouth and putting it back in the fridge. Her foraging apparently complete, she gave a half muffled burp, closed the door and shambled back toward the couch.

  “Probably some old person got sick on a slow night,” she yawned on the way past, “and they got nothing better to do.” Then she plopped on the sofa and picked up one of Stella’s Better Homes and Gardens magazines.

  That sounded reasonable and I almost sat back down to resume writing. But then I remembered Stella coming home any minute. Could this be something I should warn her about? At least so she could take an alternate route in?

  It certainly wouldn’t hurt to check. Besides, as a mystery writer I’m always a little curious when police cars gather.

  I walked over to the front door and tried to see through the glass. Unfortunately, the scene appeared to be happening a good distance down the street, making the angle too sharp to get a view. If I wanted to see this, I would have to step outside.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” I announced. “I’m gonna take a quick look to see what’s up.”

  I pulled the fedora I wore to conventions and book readings from the hat rack beside the door and grasped th
e doorknob. I liked to think it gave me a “Phillip Marlowe” effect.

  “They hate it when people do that, you know.” Casey’s voice floated from behind the magazine.

  I paused.

  “Do what?”

  “Gawk.”

  “I’m not gawking,” I retorted. “I’m investigating. Besides, it’s way down the street and I’ll leave the porch light off. They’ll never know I’m out there.”

  No reply.

  Apparently Better Homes and Gardens felt no further need to comment on the subject so I considered myself free to investigate.

  Leaving the porch light off, I opened the door and stepped out into the night. Being July, the warm, thick air almost stifled me after the air conditioning of the house, and little in the way of breeze disturbed the black canopy of leaves blocking much of the sky. The heavy scent of magnolias drifted through the gloom, although the flags hanging along the street in celebration of the impending Fourth didn’t stir. I saw a horned moon rising in one of the few visible patches of sky over a neighbor’s house, but otherwise the only light came from the occasional yellow street lamp glowing down through the branches…

  …and the mass of police lights flashing down the street.

  I frowned in surprise at the number of them. I had expected more than two due to the reflection of their lights in my door window, but not something like this.

  They appeared to be gathered down at the other end of the block, on the corner of my street and the main boulevard, and there must have been at least ten or twelve. Their red and blue flashers created brilliant counterpoints to the otherwise dark scene, making it hard to make out what could be going on around them. An occasional figure moved against the flickering glare, giving the definite impression there were more men down there than could be accounted for by the cars present.

  It looked like they had the house on the corner of Addison and Coventry Boulevard surrounded.

  The sudden brief illumination of the entire area down there told me a police helicopter had just passed over. It must have been flying fairly high since the sound of its rotors weren’t as loud as you would expect. Its mere presence pretty much ruled out Casey’s scenario…although I had already come to the conclusion this much of a turnout went way beyond a sick call in the middle of the night.

  Yet it surprised me how little noise accompanied the event. If it hadn’t been for the reflections of the lights disturbing Casey, I would have never known about it. I guess they really had no reason to blare their sirens, but something about the muted hush over the whole scene disturbed me.

  Somehow when you see so many police cars with their lights flashing, you simply expect more commotion.

  I stepped out from the porch and onto my front walkway to try and get a better look. All the tree trunks, mailboxes, and shrubs created black silhouettes between me and the scene. They obscured detail, making it difficult for me to get a better handle on the happenings at that end of the block. And it was probably due to my concentrating on matters down the street that I let myself get surprised like I did.

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  “Huh?” I exclaimed and whirled to locate the speaker.

  It turned out the voice came from one of two dim figures walking down the middle of the street in the dark…the one wearing the police uniform. The other sported a windbreaker, but I assumed he also wore a badge.

  “I’m going to have to ask you to go back inside your house.” The officer stopped and addressed me while his companion walked on by. He spoke softly, and with professional courtesy, but it definitely came across as an order.

  “Um…okay,” I took a hesitant step back toward my front door. “But you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  The policeman considered me a second in the gloom, then nodded toward my house in a meaningful manner.

  “It’s nothing serious,” he stated, “just a domestic disturbance.”

  “That’s a domestic disturbance?” I looked in disbelief from him to the cluster of police lights down the street.

  “Yes sir.” Then he added, “It’s probably going to be fine, but we had a report of a gun involved so we aren’t taking chances.”

  “Oh, I guess that makes sense.”

  “Yes, sir,” he replied dryly. “We like to think so. But now I really do need you to go back in your house.”

  “Right,” I agreed, albeit reluctantly.

  “Good night, sir.”

  He stood there without saying anything further, and I realized he now waited for me to comply. Our conversation had obviously reached its end.

  “Good night, officer,” I sighed and returned to the porch.

  A glance back revealed he still stood there watching, so I opened my front door and stepped though. Once inside, I turned the front hall light off and looked back through the door window to see him wait a second longer, then walk away in the direction of his companion.

  “Domestic disturbance, my ass,” I muttered as I peered out into the darkness.

  The last time I had looked in the direction of the “disturbance” my eyes had been drawn to the officer’s companion who walked ahead, and to the letters “FBI” emblazoned on the back of his jacket. His presence puzzled me. Since when did the FBI show up for domestic disturbances?

  “That didn’t take long,” Better Homes and Garden offered from the couch.

  Smartass…

  “Yeah,” I replied, “I got sent back in. The officer called it a domestic disturbance.”

  “Well, there you go then.”

  At least she managed to avoid going full “I told you so” on me, although not by much.

  I thought about mentioning the FBI man since she knew quite a few police officers and firemen through her father, but then decided it didn’t matter. Casey seemed to be in a bit of mood anyway. More importantly, I had determined it would be best for Stella to take the long way once she got into the neighborhood and avoid the fracas down the street.

  With a grimace at the girl hiding behind the magazine, I pulled out my cell phone and found Stella’s number. But this noble attempt at good husbandhood produced no satisfaction either.

  After two failed tries to call out, I belatedly noticed the absence of bars on the phone.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I growled, and moved over to stand by a window.

  Still no bars.

  The two other windows produced the same results. Apparently technology had now decided to join my stepdaughter in her campaign of disagreeability. I briefly debated asking to let me try her newer cell phone, then decided not to risk the aggravation. She wasn’t really being horrible, but I saw no reason to give her an opportunity to up her game.

  On the other hand, a broad hint never hurt.

  “Apparently my phone has decided it’s only a creature of the great outdoors,” I grumbled and walked over to the back door. “I’ll be out back trying to call your mother so she can avoid the mess down the street.”

  No answer…and no offer to let me use her cell phone either.

  Right.

  Once again, I stepped out of my house and into the darkness.

  In hindsight, that may have been the first time I noticed something odd about the night itself. It’s funny, because I honestly can’t remember. I seem to recall thinking the air was unusually warm and heavy, even for July.

  I do remember seeing a flash of what I took to be heat lightning across the sky, making silhouettes of the branches above me, and wondering for a second if there could be rain heading our way. The fact I had spotted the rising moon earlier seemed to argue against it, but weather can be a funny thing in Houston.

  Unfortunately, it appeared my cell phone still didn’t intend to cooperate outside either.

  “Aw, c’mon,” I growled in disgust at the lack of bars, “what’ve I got to do? Climb a tree?”

  If I didn’t get ahold of her soon, Stella would be driving right into the middle of the mess up the street. That left me no option but to h
ead back in and borrow Casey’s phone. Apparently this wasn’t going to be my night.

  “It ain’t just yours, Mark. They’re all out.”

  “Wha…!?”

  For the second time in ten minutes I found myself spinning around to find the source of a voice that surprised me. At least this time I recognized it before I made a complete idiot out myself.

  Ed Morgan peered over my back fence, illuminated by the lit screen of his own cell phone held aloft.

  “No bars here, either.” He waved the little device.

  “Hey, Ed,” I recovered and walked back to join him. “Well, at least it’s good to see a friendly face tonight.”

  “Oh yeah? Dodger being difficult?”

  “Dodger” was what Ed called Casey…a nickname only he and her father had ever been allowed to use. He possessed the privilege due to being her father’s friend, and having been a back-fence fixture since she had been a pup. He and Casey had always been close, and Stella once told me the girl had run to his arms to cry in at her Dad’s funeral.

  Ed was an agreeable, late middle-aged gent who sported a white mustache, a Panama hat, and an artificial leg. He had lost the leg over twenty years ago during a stint as a tow truck driver when he took a shin full of buckshot from a drunk who insisted he could park where he damn well liked. The drunk ended up doing five years, and Ed had to pretty much start over.

  Since he had been a paramedic before driving a tow truck, he had taken a job as a dispatcher for the fire department while building a new business doing boat repair at a shop about five miles down the road. Once his shop took off, he retired from his dispatch job but kept all the friends he made there. He hosted backyard barbecues and other get-togethers on a regular basis, and Casey never missed a one of them. I had a standing invitation to those parties as well, but most of the time I only showed up for a bit before finding a reason to bow out again. I think Casey kind of viewed my attendance as an intrusion. Besides, they were a great group of guys but the testosterone level in that crowd reached heights I didn’t feel entirely comfortable with.

  The sad truth is Mark Garrett…bestselling author and creator of rugged, hard-boiled detective, Mitchell Notch…may be a bit of an introvert. Not to mention, for some reason being the creator of a hyper-masculine fictional character made me a bit uncomfortable when hanging around with guys who were the real thing.