Nightwalk 2 Read online

  “Um, going back is not really an option for you anymore.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeeahhhh…” I walked back to stand in front of her. “You see, the getaway you masterminded back at the cell tower came with a little extra something you weren’t counting on. Do you remember how Tommy took a long time going through my pockets back there? Well the reason he took so long is what he was doing with the hand you couldn’t see. He was busy suffocating the little boy lying with me. So let’s just say you and Tommy left quite a farewell present for the Treadwells to find when they got out of the shed.”

  “Th-that’s bullshit!” She took a step back, shaking her head in denial. “I didn’t tell him to do that. I didn’t tell him to do anything like that!”

  “But he did,” I continued without relent. “And as far as the Treadwells are concerned, Ethan’s death is on you, too. You chose a ‘bodyguard’ for your little jaunt who everyone warned you could be dangerous. Hell, he had been institutionalized for God’s sake! But you thought you were smarter than everybody else and tried to play him for a pawn. And boy did that work out swell. You managed to get one kid killed and nearly yourself in the bargain. And now…”

  I paused and took a breath.

  “And now, it’s probably only fair to warn you that Allen Treadwell is seriously looking forward to having a chat with you. A rather short one. So I’ll let you in on a little secret and save you a walk. You don’t even have to go to the cell tower. He’ll be along in about five or ten minutes if you want to hang around and wait. As for me, I’ve got a lot to do and a short time to do it. Toodles!”

  Then I turned and marched out into Deer Ridge before heading west.

  I know how brutal it sounded, but the simple fact was I not only had to make a fast try at finding and dealing with whatever Tommy had used the shotgun on, but I needed to be gone and out of sight before the group from the cell tower arrived. Not to mention, Darla wouldn’t even be alive to complain if I hadn’t come along and screwed things up. But I had come along, and I had made a mess. Now I needed to finish cleaning it up, and try to stay alive in the process.

  I didn’t have time to force her, and I couldn’t see me shooting her either, so I guess that left her free to hang around back there and clean up her own messes… if she felt so inclined.

  But she didn’t do that.

  Yeah, big surprise.

  ###

  Darla fell in slightly behind me and we walked in silence.

  Deer Ridge was a red cavern in the light of the flare, with the cars and tree trunks casting thick slices of blackness on the houses behind them. The same pale vines still spilled out of the rows of mailboxes and ran along the gutter, but the glowing things moving within those vines were barely visible in the crimson glare.

  The giant starfish creature on the side of one house gave Darla pause, but I grunted it wouldn’t mess with us if we didn’t mess with it, and we hurried along. I kept moving at the fastest walk I felt safe. I wanted to be off Deer Ridge before the party from the cell tower had a chance to spot us.

  Sweat poured off me, and my lungs labored in the thick air. If I survived this I promised myself to never leave Albuquerque again.

  “Damn,” I puffed as I loosened my collar another button, “I forgot how hot and steamy it was here.”

  “Do tell,” Darla muttered.

  Crap.

  I reverted back to silence. The pair of us continued onward without speaking until we reached the well-concealed utility road leading to Woodlawn Gardens. As it turned out, we reached it just in the nick of time.

  Looking back down Deer Ridge, I saw the glow of Ed’s lantern lighting up the brush from around the corner of the foot path. They would be out on the path paralleling the street in seconds.

  And there we stood lighting up our entire end of the street.

  “Oh shit!” I hissed, and snatched the road flare from Darla’s hand. “Get in here!”

  I pulled her behind the cedars lining the utility road, where I then fought to stub the flare out against the ground. It wasn’t easy going. Those flares burn hot and are designed to work in rainy weather and adverse conditions. It sputtered and hissed against the dirt as I pushed down harder. It had never occurred to me I might have to put one out fast when I bought them.

  Fortunately, just having it rammed into the ground blocked out the light so it didn’t give us away while I struggled to extinguish it.

  I swore in frustrated relief as I finally snuffed the thing out. The next time I went gallivanting around a monster-infested neighborhood I would be sure and remember to add a bucket of water to my supply list… oh, and Molotov cocktails.

  Now with the flare stubbed out, I peeked under the limbs of a tree to make sure we hadn’t been noticed.

  We hadn’t. But I must have taken longer to put out the flare than I thought because the group from the cell tower had already spotted the goatman pinned to the tree. Now they cautiously approached the area.

  I’ll admit to having a bit of a lump in my throat at the sight of a distant Casey peering ahead while Ed limped along beside her with the lantern. She had been so brave that night, as well as competent when the situation demanded it. And Ed’s level-headed leadership had been the main reason we survived. I would have never made it if it hadn’t been for those two.

  God how I wished I could have Ed’s advice now.

  But this time I was on my own. I wouldn’t have Ed calmly thinking things through, or plucky Casey backing me up. They still had their own dangers ahead, and although they didn’t know it, they were counting on me to not make things worse for them.

  We continued to watch as the distant figures in the lantern light examined the scene they had stumbled upon. I knew things were coming to an end when I saw Ed start working the spear loose from the monster. A second later I heard Darla do a sharp inhale when the former me stepped out of the dimness at the rear of the group to take the proffered weapon.

  I looked up to see her turn away from the scene with her eyes closed. The sight seemed to have rocked her badly, although I didn’t know why. Yeah, it must have been weird, but compared to the other things she had seen tonight I was surprised it got such a reaction out of her.

  “They’ll head for the playground in a second,” I said, just for something to say. “Then I can light a flare and we’ll move on.”

  “I’m sure they will.”

  She didn’t ask why a group of people who voted to escape through the graveyard now chose to detour to the playground. Maybe she had figured it out for herself. Like I said before, whatever else she is… Darla’s not stupid.

  Or maybe she had other things on her mind.

  “So,” she gulped, then continued in a strangely breathy voice, “that was really you back there, taking the spear.”

  Oh well, I could see no point in avoiding it anymore.

  “Yeah.”

  She pressed her lips tightly together, eyes still closed, then continued on.

  “And to you, that’s something that happened before.”

  “Yeah.”

  She now opened her eyes, looked at me, and swallowed hard. The lines on her face were visible even in the dim light of my glowstick.

  “He really killed me, didn’t he.”

  Oh hell.

  “Darla…”

  “You came back from somewhere, and you changed things. But it was by mistake. The truth is, Tommy caught me… and he killed me… and I’m supposed to be dead.”

  I briefly considered lying right then and there. I really did. But the reality is I’m not the world’s best liar, and I remembered I was dealing with a woman whose whole way of life depended on her ability to read men. Besides, I had already shot off my mouth while panicking earlier so I couldn’t see the point in denying what I had already made obvious.

  “Yeah.”

  Darla closed her eyes again, then took a deep, shuddering breath. She hugged herself and shivered despite the oppressive heat. I now watc
hed her with borderline wariness. I could see her start to say something else, but her voice failed her. She swallowed hard, regrouped, and tried again.

  “What did he do to me?” she whispered.

  Aw man, no. Just no. This was the last place I wanted to go.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “What did he do to me?”

  “Darla, you don’t need to know this,” I cautioned. “There is nothing to be gained by it, and there is no point in it. Just let it go.”

  “Tell me,” she insisted, opening her eyes again, “what… he… did.”

  Shit.

  I really didn’t want to do this. Darla might not have been one of my favorite people, but she didn’t look so good at the moment. As a matter of fact, she looked damn brittle. The confirmation of her previous death at Tommy’s hands had hit her hard, and I failed to see this helping matters. But she could tell I knew the truth. And I guess if a person has a right to certain truths, one of them is the way they died.

  I took a deep breath, met her eyes with my own, and delivered it the best way I could.

  “He killed you,” I answered softly, “although I don’t know exactly how. He carried your body into the graveyard over there, and laid it on a bench. Then he mutilated it to look exactly like the last victim of Jack the Ripper. I am not going to go into details.”

  I decided that was enough. Tommy’s choices in jewelry and headwear could remain dead with him. They would just add a grisly extra personal level to an obscenity that had already been personal enough.

  Darla went still and stared at me without expression for two or three long seconds. And as she did, I swear I saw something flicker and go out in her eyes. Something vital. Then she turned to gaze back down the street.

  “I see,” she said and went silent.

  I will confess by then I had started to be in what I once thought was the impossible condition of being concerned about Darla Dower.

  But people skills aren’t my strong suit, and I had no idea what to do about it. At the moment, I would have to settle for doing my best to keep her alive, and myself in the bargain.

  I looked back down the street and saw the distant lantern disappear into the trail toward the playground. The time had come to get moving.

  Deciding to save my last short-time flare, I pulled one of the thirty-minute versions from my pack. I struck it alight and handed it over to Darla.

  She took it without comment.

  Then I remembered how the idea of going into Woodlawn Gardens had been what provoked Darla into her flight with Tommy from the cell tower in the first place. I decided I had better see where things stood and settle those matters before taking another step further.

  “Darla,” I said as calmly as I could, “I’m about to go into the graveyard now. I want you to stay behind me and a little to the side with the light. I promise you, there is nothing supernatural or ghostly in there. I’ll explain later, but that has nothing to do with what is going on tonight. What IS in there is something Tommy used the shotgun on before the rest of us arrived. But since I killed Tommy, he didn’t do that this time. So I have to do it instead before the group we just saw gets back from the playground and comes through here. The important thing to remember is Tommy killed it last time, and I’m better armed than Tommy was. So it’s going to be okay.”

  I’m not sure what response I expected, but she merely stood there holding the flare, and stared back at me with dull eyes.

  Great.

  “Just stay behind me,” I sighed, gloomily remembering how telling Casey to do that two years ago was a good way to start a fight. “Oh, and if something shows up, please don’t jump and shoot me in the back with that shotgun. If you have to use it, drop the flare on the ground, take aim, and use both hands. ”

  Then I set my jaw and headed for the back gate of Woodlawn Gardens.

  Darla fell in behind me without saying a word.

  ###

  Passing through the open back gate of the graveyard came as a pleasant surprise.

  I’m sure it was normally chained shut, but somebody must have busted the lock and left the thing open. Two years ago, we had passed through without putting much significance to it. Since then I had been kicking myself in the belief it must have been Tommy who busted the gate open, and I should have been forewarned about his impending ambush.

  Now I knew the truth. It had been the work of somebody who came through even earlier, and it felt so good to have that monkey off my back. I tossed a silent “thank you” to whoever it had been. I wished them luck, although the grim side of me suspected their bodies currently lay cooling on the overpass to the west.

  In truth, none of the roads tonight led to escape.

  But that wasn’t my problem. I hadn’t come back here to escape. As a matter of fact, I was now actively looking for trouble.

  I pulled the gun from its holster, and unhooked the thong securing the machete in its sheath on my backpack so I could draw it in an instant. I would have gone ahead and drawn the machete too, except I preferred to fire the pistol from a two-handed grip. There were guys who did it at the shooting range, but I’ve found firing a .357 one-handed quickly turns into wrist abuse.

  We moved into the rear, older section of the cemetery where the taller tombstones and personal mausoleums crowded the little asphalt road. The pale stone monuments almost glowed in the flare-light, casting a forest of sharp, black shadows behind them. This made off-road visibility worse than on the streets of the neighborhood.

  Whatever lurked in here would definitely see us coming before we saw it. Nothing I could do about that. I would settle for knowing which way it came from before it started trying to take bites out of me.

  I strained my ears for any hint of movement out in the darkness. All I heard were the occasional distant gunshots, screams, or even rarer bellows from never-before-seen monstrosities. Coventry Woods’s idea of background music tonight. Otherwise nothing but the hissing of the flare accompanied me.

  And yet…

  “Darla,” I whispered, “back off a few steps with your flare. I don’t want us too close together.”

  I braced for an argument, but it never came. She did as suggested with listless silence. Although distracted by my current quest, I noted her lack of resistance with slight puzzlement. I should have considered her new, subdued compliance a huge improvement, yet in truth it felt a little creepy.

  And just to add an extra dash of macabre, the concrete Mother Mary statue and the bench that had once held Darla’s desecrated corpse now emerged from the gloom at the T-intersection ahead. The figure looked down at the bench and spread its arms at the edge of the flare’s light, as if offering rest of the weary. I briefly wondered if the landscaper had intended just such an effect.

  I filed that for later consideration, because at the moment I had bigger fish to fry.

  Something was out there in the darkness among the graves, and I needed to find it. I needed to find it fast, too. Soon the other party would reach the duck pond and Allen Treadwell would start his doomed trek for the playground. Then disaster would strike and Casey, Ed, and I would turn and head this way. I desperately needed to get this done and get out of here before they arrived.

  The time had come to implement a new strategy.

  “Yoohoooo,” I called softly, “heeereeee monster, monster, monster…”

  Okay, I never said it was going to be a great strategy.

  But hey, it worked.

  With a slithering rattle, a ghastly form rose from behind a tombstone only fifteen feet to our left. I only needed one look at the horrid thing to tell this was exactly the type of threat Tommy would have opted to use the shotgun on.

  Take the mother of all anacondas, then reduce it to a skeleton. Then replace the head with a large, fanged, Neanderthal skull featuring wickedly curved, bull-like horns. Fill the eye sockets with two compound eyes that now glowed red in the flare’s light, and then finally stretch a stained parchment, much like a mum
my’s skin, over everything but the monster’s horns, eyes, and jaws.

  My dance card had now been officially punched.

  The monstrosity reared to a height greater than mine and gaped its fanged jaws. Then it started to flow through the tombstones toward us like fluid death. The thing’s upper body weaved in a way reminiscent of a snake-charmer’s cobra, its bobbing head making a disturbingly hard-to-track target.

  “Darla!” I hissed as I retreated a couple of steps. “Drop the flare right where you are and back up!

  Judging by the sudden lengthening of my shadow, I could only assume she did as instructed. I certainly didn’t have time to check.

  I fired at the evil-looking head and missed badly.

  Dammit!

  It was hard enough to hit this bastard without me trying to shoot while backing up. This nasty piece of work was closing in on me and the only way to stay ahead of it would be to turn tail and truly run. And running wouldn’t accomplish anything. Like it or not, I would have to stand my ground and fight. Besides, holding my position would let me brace and get off one or two more accurate shots.

  After that, things would get up close and personal.

  I stopped on the path between two mausoleums and took a shooter’s stance. The first shot took half of the creature’s right horn off.

  Better but useless.

  Realizing I would get the next shot off almost at the same time as the creature struck, I changed targets and aimed where the monster’s body arched up from the ground. It didn’t have the same odd weaving motion going on there. This time I hit and felt gratified to hear an odd whistle I hoped to be a reaction of pain.

  But then things went straight to shit.

  Aiming at its lower torso meant I had my arms extended and pointing at a downward angle, leaving them fully exposed to the head weaving above. And that’s where the monster struck. The horned skull dipped in a lightning-fast move and clamped its jaws on the forearm of my gun hand.

  I cried out as the horror bit down, causing me to pull the trigger and send another bullet screaming in a useless trajectory out into the blackness. The pain was blinding. I fumbled back over my shoulder with my other hand in a desperate search for the machete. As I did, the creature threw several hard-ribbed coils over me, making me lose my balance and sending us both to the ground.