The practice

Suspense Stories | Mar 29, 2014 | 26 min read
16 Votes, average: 4 out of 5
The Practice
#
by R S Voříšek
#
#
– I –
Spring, 1964
They came shrouded in fog. They came to Tuckerton Falls, stayed one night and were never seen again. They came after dark and left before dawn. They came to the block that lay at the corner of Beech and Rocky Point. The came, and everyone who saw them felt the same fear; afraid of the badness they felt oozed out of these…strangers. They came and stood grouped in a line across the street, and were not just bad, but evil. Evil.
The next morning in their wake they left fearful souls; afraid in some unknown part of their brains. If you asked the few who had seem them why they felt this way, they would turn away and close their doors in your face rather than answer the question. If you did get them to speak aloud, if you asked them about seeing a devil, or a boogie-man, or a golem, still their answer would be no answer at all; their response would be empty and uncertain and silent.
Afterward, for the longest time, they would seldom go out after dark, seeking rather the security inside their homes; the light and warmth they sought and found there. They did not know exactly why they preferred to stay inside: not really. They had some unconscious feeling nudging at them, told them that something—not exactly what or exactly where, was out there; waiting. It was enough just to know that it was out there.

Beech Avenue was one of those suburban streets nestled in a flourishing tree-shaded development. Started a century before, the small city-planted oaks and maples had matured enough to produce a bounty of summer shade and autumnal splendor. From the head of the street, just where Beech connected with Rocky Point, the road dove through the overshadowing trees in a straight line for three-quarters of its length, then dog-legged to its end at Elizabeth Avenue. In all, it was just a bit over a thousand feet long. Though everyone knew everyone else on Beech Ave, those living on the Rocky Point half had little to do with those near the Elizabeth Ave half, and maybe that's why few knew, really, what occurred while it was happening.
It was April, and the trees just had that touch of green that is almost yellow, lasts a few days and gives over to full emerald green of mid-Spring. It only comes during the first weeks of the season, and is not seen again for another year. It is a special time, as all lovers know. It makes the old feel younger if not in body, then in spirit. Everyone seems to carry a smile about them and is gayer in heart. The nights retain a cool, almost frosty clarity from the recently departed Winter. The warming day and cool evening vie for dominance, but neither wins. The end result—the fog—would spread its thick and comforting blanket over all they valleys; one of which was Tuckerton falls. This was the time of year when everyone looked forward to May barbecues and June swim parties and Fourth of July parades and fireworks. Woolens are stored away for another year and the cotton drapes are put out on clotheslines to air.
All these daily Spring events happened in Tuckerton Falls, too. This was just like any other Northeastern US town, overshadowed by the long reach of New York City. These were good days. Yes.

And then on one not so particular Thursday night, as the fog covered the new green, a different sort of chill passed through the edge of Tuckerton Falls. The temperature dropped and it felt like a hard frost was come. The fog was no longer diaphanous. Under the fluted green shades, the silvery-white mercury streetlamps sent spreading rays of light down to the street, and caused more opaqueness than clarity. White sheets of mist flowed in the air between the lights and the dark strength of the trees. This dichotomy made the senses reel. It clung to flesh and bone, and hurt the teeth. It passed on, though, as quickly as it had come, moved steadily at its own pace, and brought moments of anxiety to those it touched who were unfortunate to be outside as it passed. When it left, whoever had been caught, rushed single-mindedly to the safety and comfort of their homes. All was as it had been before, and the feeling of unease dimmed.
As it reached the lower part of Beech, it was no longer merely a chill wind threatening frost. At its heart walked two lone figures. They walked forward and the air around them crackled with cold. Down the S-curve they strode, walking with an even pace and certain of their goal. By the time they broke free of the curve, there were five figures. Three had come from the mist and flanked the first two. The air chilled more, and the fog—now an opaque mist—swirled and roiled with an unnatural seething intent. As they came to the intersection at Garden Ave, halfway on the left, two more had joined their rank. The air now not only seethed about them, but too, bucked in revolt and violently cut swaths across their path. Whatever hold they possessed on the weather was expending itself all around them. When they finally walked onto Rocky Point, there were nine: four grouped around the central figure on the left, four grouped around the right.
They stood in semi-circle at the juncture of Beech and Rocky Point Lane, their backs toward Beech and the way they had come. They did nothing, stood silent and still in their semi-circle, like stone pillars that prohibited access or egress.
In all, only five houses could actually see them: the house they completely stood before, 149 Rocky Point, the two homes that flanked it, and the corner houses on Beech. Others, further away, felt something of the unease that these figures possessed, looked out their windows at the growing obscuring fog, "tsk, tsk-ed," turned up the heat another few degrees, and later insisted they saw nothing worth further investigation. It was a coldish feeling that struck them, a feeling of not being able to get warm no matter how high they cranked up the heat: but, that was all.
As they stood outside 149 Rocky Point, the owner, Whit Campion, and his wife, Rose, felt that chill and more. For eight o'clock, it seemed to be exceptionally dark out, more like midnight than early evening. Whit went to the side entrance, opened the heavy wood door, and felt the icy cold through the single pane glass and aluminum screen door. It felt like the dead of winter out there. Whit placed his hand on the glass, and it was so cold that he felt the cold burn his palm.
"Hey, Rosie, come here," he shouted over his shoulder. "Have a look at this!" She came into the kitchen shuffling along in her comfy slippers with their feather pom-poms, clutched in her heavy terry-cloth robe, trying to keep warm. "Shh! Whit. You'll wake the baby, and I just put her down and for once she fell right asleep. Pray to God you didn't wake her…" She listened with her mothers ear, as she continued into the kitchen. Whit placed his thumb hard against the glass and melted the fraction of an inch of ice that had begun to build up.
"Oh Whit! The frost on the azaleas. They won't be able to take it. And the lilacs. Oh, and the crab apples…" For a moment she was almost overwhelmed, but just before she could be, the phone rang and that started the baby howling.
She sniffed at first, and then decided, "You get that. I'll take care of Angie. Maybe I can get her back down. Again…" Rose went out of the kitchen, through the dinette, down the hall to the bedroom, and Whit answered the phone.
"Hello?…Ouch!… Rose, come here… Hello? Hello? Ouch, my ear… Rose?… Hey Rosie." He held the receiver away from his ear.
As she returned, little Angela against her breast, even as far away as the hallway by the bedroom, she could hear the crackle and whine that filtered out of the receiver in Whit's hand. Rose stopped at the edge of the dinette and watched her husband.
"Hello" Hello! Shit!" and he hung up the phone on the wall.
"Language."
"Sorry."
"Maybe it the line, and maybe not just our phone. Maybe you should go over to the Reese's, and see if their phone's out, too." She rocked the baby back to sleep, and her voice lilted as she spoke. Children were strange at Angie's age. Sometimes she would cry and cry for hours and not go back to sleep unless they bundled her into the car and the motion of the Ford and the constant dulling white-noise of the passing traffic finally lulled her to sleep, while other times, all it took was a gentle rocking or two and bam! She was out for the rest of the night. When Rose looked down at her daughter, Angie was asleep again, so she continued to rock her slowly as she walked back to the bedroom.
"Oh Rosie, you worry too much. If the phone's out, it's out. You won't get anybody to come here this late at night. If it's still off, call tomorrow from Jill's, and they'll be here when they can get around to us. I'm sure it's not just our service. And why do you think the phone rang in the first place if it was so screwy making all that hissing and popping? Whatever the reason, it's not going to do any good this time of night. You know that." He really didn't want to go out in that sudden cold tonight if he could help it, and her silence made him reasonably sure she still wanted him to go anyway, no matter, regardless.
Rose came to the kitchen pinning up her hair, with her hair twisted down and under, and her hands behind her head fumbling with the pins. She was speaking even as she walked up to him, looking all gooey, "Please Whit? I'd feel better knowing it's not just us, okay? Please?"
He knew it. He most certainly knew his wife.
"Would you feel better knowing it's not just our phone and the entire block, rather than just ours? My girl, sometimes you don't make much sense, you know that?"
"Yes, yes I know." She reached up to kiss his cheek. "Humor me please, honey?"
"But, Rosie, if our phone rang and there's static, it must be the line. If it was dead, why then it might just be ours." He really didn't want to go out. "Here, let me try to call out." He picked up the receiver from its cradle on the wall, but before he could put his finger on the dial, the noise was deafening. He hung up and looked at the traitorous instrument, bewildered.
"Please, Whit?" She was cradling herself against him, with her arm around his chest, and she shivered.
"All right, if it's going to make you that nervous. Let me get my heavy coat first. I don't like the way that cold came up so fast."
Rose moved against him, nuzzled his shoulder, and whispered, "Thanks, honey."
"Hmph." He tried to act miffed, but couldn't, so he grabbed her bottom and hugged back.
Whit went to the closet, got his heavy coat and glove for the frost—
In April?, he thought. Hell, anything's possible today! USA had already launched eight men and the Russians launched six men and women into earth orbit. Anything was possible!
At the kitchen door, he kissed his wife good-bye. "Try not to beat the kid too much. The neighbors, you know… " he said with a grin.
"Oh, you…! Men!!" She made herself smile and shove him out the door, like always, but stopped before she released him, cradled herself in his loving arms, tried to smile again, but the laugh died on her lips. Her teeth bit into her bottom lip and drew the salty taste of blood.
"He-ey! What's the matter, babe?"
"Oh, it's nothing. Just the cold, I guess. I don't know. I just want to hug my husband one more time. It that a crime now?"
"No, in the first place, the crime is you sending me out in this cold."
"Watch out, will you?"
"Sure, no sweat, doll-face," he said as he opened and quickly closed the screen door behind him. He heard the lock turn from the other side.

Whit crossed over into the Reese's yard through the hedge. The space between two of the bushes and the clay-heavy soil beneath was so well worn by now: the morning coffee-klatsches, back and forth between the wives had gouged an easy path long ago. He went behind the house, to their back door, and knocked.
The back patio light came on, and from inside, Jill peered through the steamed window.
It wasn't nearly as cold on this side of the hedge, he thought, or so it felt. Maybe he'd got used to the cold already?
"Whit! Thom, look who's here. It's Whit," she said back over her shoulder. "Come inside, you! What are you dressed up for, Whit? Halloween? A little early, isn't it?"
Both she and Thom had lived in the development longer than the Campions, and had welcomed the new couple years ago and made instant friends. Though, if you were able to get a word between Jill and Rose when they were at it, boy, you were good.
When Jill closed the door, she said, " Well, I take that back. You certainly were dressed for it. It is cold out there. It's nearly freezing." She took his coat and went to the kitchen window at the thermostat on the sill. "Why, it's dropped to thirty-four! I could'a sworn it was going to be nice tonight. That's what the weather said on the radio. Oh God, the garden…!" Thom ambled in, pulling loudly on his pipe, "What's up kiddo?"
"Oh, Rosie sent me over in this goddamn'd freeze—oh Jill, Rosie went on about her garden, too, so don't feel like you're the only one—to see if your phone's acting up like ours is. It wheezes and buzzes and Lord-knows-what-else. Yours like that?"
"Why, I wouldn't know, really," Thom hissed out beside his pipe. "Thing hasn't run once tonight, and we've had no need to call out. Sure, go on and try 'er there."
"Ours did, that's how I found— " He went into their dinette (set up almost exactly like there own), and picked up the receiver from the wall mount and dialed Clark, his neighbor on the other side. There was crackling and a bit of hiss, but he could hear it ringing.
"I'm calling Clark's— "
"Sure— "
"Clark?" Whit said loudly into the receiver, "Hello Clark?… Can you hear me? It's Whit."
"Whit? I can hardly hear you. Speak up, son. There's a ton of static on the line. Whit? Where you calling from, China?"
"What?… No, I'm at Thom's… Our phone's on the fritz… Sound's like yours is too, only not so bad as— "
"Whit?… Did you say Thom's?… much static…I can't hear any… Maybe…should come over there— "
"Fine. Fine." He hung the receiver back in it's cradle, not sure if Clark had done the same. The static had become so bad at the end. "He's gonna come over here, I think. I couldn't get too much there after a while, but I think that's what he said. I'm going back home. I don't wanna keep Rosie alone…So why don't you all come over to our house when Clark gets here. I shouldn't leave Rosie alone too long with the baby. She's acting kinda skittish tonight, and with the baby being restless and all… "
"Fine. All right, we understand," said Jill, "we'll wait for Clark and Amy if he brings her, and meet at your place, oh, say, in a half hour or so?"
"Sounds fine."
Jill went to open the door behind Whit with one hand while she handed him back his coat with the other, then clutched her housecoat tight up to her neck.
Whit struggled into the heavy coat and said, "No need. You get on back to the warm in your house. You'll catch your death. I'll see you guys later, OK?"
He hurried to open the door and close it fast behind him with a quick wave, ‘Good-bye' and off he went to the short cut.

– II –
Clark wanted to go alone, but Amy would hear nothing like that. No siree! "It's too…too…oh, something-or-other. I'm not staying here by myself. I just don't like it!" And that, quite obviously in the Bennett household, was that.
They left their house dressed for a normal April evening in a light jacket for Clark and a thin pearl-button angora sweater for Amy, both over light-ish clothes. Clark and Amy walked down their driveway, not having a hedge, or a short cut like their neighbors to the right. When they got to the end of the drive, they both saw them at the same time. Amy clutched Clark's upper arm as they stopped. Well, actually they didn't at first see them as much as feel them. What they felt/saw in the dark, were nine even darker, indefinable shapes in a half circle, standing in front of Whit's home. They felt a fist-shaped blast of icy air, and within seconds the Bennets felt frozen to the bone.
"Hon…babe, let's go back, okay?"
"Yeah…yeah, sure. What is that? Who—or what—are they?" Clark stood in his tracks shivering. He kept his teeth apart behind closed lips so they wouldn't chatter. Amy wasn't having nearly as much luck. She clenched hers and they chattered frantically.

The four nearest figures turned their heads slightly to peer in their direction, in synch as would a clockwork. They were black, not Negroes as he'd first thought, but black: blacker than night, space, death, all of it. And their bodies seemed to absorb what little light surrounded them, drawing it in to themselves. Only the spot where eyes should have been was lighter: grey and red, but not by much. At least it seemed so from this distance.

When consciousness hit them in the next moment, Clark and Amy Bennett were back in their home, having totally forgotten about meeting their neighbors. Afterward as a matter of fact, they never could remember much of that night other than the fact that they spent the remainder of the evening planning to watch rerun of "Hullabaloo," "Peyton Place" and "The Bell Telephone Hour," which, as the evening wore on, became harder and harder to see: the reception—no matter how Clark moved the rabbit-ears—deteriorated until they eventually turned off the set and went to bed, without seeing the end of "The Bell Telephone Hour." Their sleep was deeply uneasy and not only after an unsatisfying night of television, but by some vague sense of…of something dark and heavy.

At ten o'clock, Jill began to wonder where the Bennett's were. They were supposed to be there a half hour ago. And now, they couldn't call out anymore because the static on the line had got impossible, even more-so than before. Jill paced around between the living room and the kitchen.
"Oh for God's sake, Jill, stop that damned pacing. Amy's probably fixing her hair or some such nonsense. You should know by now how long it takes her to get that hair to a point where she likes it enough to walk out of the house! That God-awful mop of hers…I swear, you wom— "
"If you finish that sentence, Thomas Fitzgerald Reese," Jill gasped out, "you'll never finish another one. How could you? What a horrid thing to say. Poor dear. It's not her fault that her hair looks like it has consumption. Why, of all the— "
"And what, my dear wife, are you talking about? You were just far more cruel than I about the ‘poor dear'."
"Why, Thom, you're a horror!
"Oh, darn. Thom, I'm so sorry."
"Jill, what has got into you? What's wrong? You are acting as skittish as Rosie."
"I don't know. I just don't. It's just everything. I don't know, but I have a strange feeling, like my bones are made of ice or something. I'm just edgy. The Wilson's being so late and all… "
Jill went to the front door and looked through one of the descending rectangle panes of glass in the storm door. "Thom, look. Over at Whit's house. There's a crowd or something gathering outside. Maybe it's the Bennetts. No, there are too many. Maybe…maybe something happened over there and it's the police. Come here and look."
Thom went to the door beside his wife and looked out the glass. He, too, saw the crowd of people forming, then checked himself. They weren't forming. They weren't moving. He counted eight, no, nine grouped in a semi-circle in front of Whit's house. He saw that they were dark.
"Jill, come away from the door. Come here by me." He backed away from the window. "I didn't hear any police siren or any noise since Whit had left their house."
He was afraid, and by saying what he had the way he had, he made his wife scared, too.
"If there's something wrong over there…if something happened…we have to go see what it is. Whit and Rose and the baby. Something could be terribly wrong— "
"Stop, honey. Look out there again, but be careful. Don't let them see you looking." Jill came up beside him and peeked just the top of her head to her eyes above the glass, and saw what he had seen: that before their neighbor's house was a stationary group of strangers—blacks. "Oh, dear. What do you suppose those Negroes want here in Tuckerton Falls?"
"I don't know, but maybe— "
"You don't think it's— "
"I don't know… "
Thom thought back to the previous Fall. He didn't believe, not really, didn't believe this had anything to do with what occurred last Fall.

In the early part of September last year, one of the neighbors further up the street had noticed that the owners of one of the neighboring houses had been vacated. No one really knew them; they were an elderly, childless German couple that had mostly kept to themselves the whole time they'd lived on the block. No one really knew them well. They kept their property well groomed, but were distant from their neighbors. No one even knew what kind of Germans they were; whether they were refugee German Jews or not. They did not decorate—as far as anybody knew—for Christmas; they didn't hand out candy on Halloween (on that night they kept their lights off and the house completely dark. It was only after their next-door neighbor saw the back bedroom light on and the flickering glow of their black & white television playing on the ceiling and curtains that anyone even knew they were home). But that September, they'd moved out late one night. Even that would have gone without notice if the afternoon newspaper and the mail hadn't started building up after a few days. Almost a week to the day, a moving van pulled up and emptied the entire house in three hours. It seemed that the couple had completely packed up, left the moving to the professionals, and found some new neighborhood to move into. After the last piece of furniture was placed in the van, the foreman locked up the front door and the van drove away. No one knew where the couple had gone, but they knew one thing for certain: they were Nazis. After all, it had only been twenty years since the end of the War and they were old enough to have been young and active in that horrible movement that nearly destroyed Europe and Soviet Russia. They must have been Nazis on the run. Of course, no one knew for sure, but everyone knew all the same.
There had been a few young couples that looked at the house; after all, it was a starter home. But then one day a Real Estate Agent came by with another couple: a Negro couple. They were as young as the previous prospective buyers had been, but they were Negroes! No Negroes lived within the entire city limits of Tuckerton Falls, and none ever would. There was a meeting of the husbands—and a few of the more demonstrative wives—at Whit's home after dark one week later when it was found out by some enterprising good neighbor who the Real Estate Agent was and that the Negro couple had put a offer on the house, liking the cleanness of the house and the yard, and apparently the area in general. Well, they would not stand for their kind moving into their good neighborhood. So it was discussed and decided that everyone who could afford to would chip in as much as possible to the general fund and they would make an offer on the house to the Real Estate man—with some extra to push the deal through—and he would tell the Negroes that they'd had a higher offer. ‘So sorry for your loss.'
The day after the block had purchased the house and the Negro couple found out that they'd been outbid for what they guessed would be a new life for themselves outside of the South Bronx, the couple returned and stopped on the street right in front of the house that had been take right from under their big flat black noses. The husband got out of the car; his wife stayed inside and tried to seem as if she were a hundred miles away. He stood by the open driver's side door and turned around, slowly, and looked directly at every house within his view. It was a Saturday afternoon, so he'd known that almost everyone was home, but the few children who had been outside playing in front of their houses, were called back inside, the doors closed and locked. The street was as silent as a guilty tomb, which in fact, it was. No one wanted to be seen by the young couple.
The husband stayed there trying to look inside every house he could and stare down the people he intuitively knew had done this disgraceful thing to his wife and himself, but no one appeared. That is until Whit opened his front door and stood on his front porch; this accompanied by the loud, shrill whisper of his wife, "Whit, you get yourself back inside here right now!"
After the neighbors had seen Whit make a move, other husbands came out onto their front porches and stood looking directly at the Negro. No one said a word; not the neighbors, not the Negro. After another five minutes of this heavy silence, the husband shook his head to himself and got back into his car, started it up and drove slowly away. The people who were staring out behind their curtains could see the face of the wife as they'd driven by: she was crying into her handkerchief.
Of course everyone felt badly—after, but they had put their collective foot down in their neighborhood on this sort of new integration. No sir, not in their neighborhood! When a nice Irish couple with a newborn moved in the Real Estate Agent gave them back the cost of the house to Whit (minus his little extra for doing them such a favor), who redistributed it to those who had given of their savings. The new couple had fit in wonderfully. And their baby…

Thom never finished what he was thinking, because, like before, the five closest to them on the right, turned their united glance and stared at the Reese house, fixing Thom and Jill in place. It was then, just for that instant, that they both knew for certain that these figures before them were not Negroes.
They woke the next morning, each with a headache as though they'd been to a neighbor's for a party and drunk a little too much, remembered little of what happened the night before except that there had been a slight frost, and as the day progressed, the foreboding that the frost was the least of the trouble became realized when all the events were discovered.

— III —

Rose looked worriedly at her husband. "I wonder where everyone is, Whit. I thought you said you'd told the Reese's to bring Clark over to our house."
"I did. And they should have been here by now. Still can't use the phone to call out; I just tried. Do you think I should go over to the Bennett's and see if they've left yet?"
"Yes…no. Oh, I don't know. Yes, I guess you'd better go, but hurry. I'll start a pot of coffee to perk and warm up the leftover pie." Rose went into the kitchen and turned on the overhead cut-glass, cylindrical globe light, took out her Corning percolator, and started to fill it from the sink tap. She looked out the window as the pot filled and saw the outside thermometer halfway up the window. "Whit? Can you believe it? It's eleven degrees outside. How can it be so cold this late in the— "
"Oh my God." Rose heard the fright in her husband's voice. He was in the living room by the sound of it. She put the pot down on the counter, turned off the tap, and went to him. He was looking out the front door window. When she reached his side, his face was like chalk and he was trembling. Whit's coat was half on with one arm in its sleeve while the rest dangled down his back. Both of his palms were spread wide and tense on the wood of the heavy door.
"Whit? What is it? What's— " When she looked past him, she gasped, put her half-opened fingers to her lips, and something in her knees gave way. She would have fallen to the dark-rust shagged carpet if Whit had not pulled her to him, with an index finger to his lips and a pleading look in his that begged for her silence.
"Negroes! Oh my God, Whit. Negroes! What are they doing here? Why? Oh Whit, I'm frightened," she whispered, "Do you think it has anything to do with that couple from last fall?" She took another peek through the semi-circle of glass, then closed her eyes and buried her face into his shoulder. "Why," she spoke into his wool shirt, "why on a night like this? Everything's so mixed up. So crazy. It's too cold. The telephone won't work, and now this. Oh Whit, I'm frightened." She dug closer to him as she could and sobbed into the cleft of his neck and his collar. Her teats ran down her face, onto his skin, and under his shirt fabric.
He whispered back, through her permed hair, directly into her ear, "I don't know. I was wondering the same thing. After all we all met here in our house to talk about it, but how could anyone know that? How could they know?" Rosie didn't know if her husband was talking about the couple last year or the group of figures arc'd before their house.
He didn't have any answers for her, but he knew he had to calm his wife down before she tipped over into hysterics. "There, there," he whispered, "Go back into the kitchen and finish up with the coffee so when they get here… "
"Whit, what are you thinking now?" she pulled her head back so she could look into his face, then looked into his eyes. "You don't think they could have done anything to Thom or Jill and… "
"Don't be a ninny. Of course not." He wished he sounded more convincing than the voice he heard in his head.
Rose moved away and was between rooms, standing bewildered as if she didn't know where to go. "I can't go into the kitchen alone. I can't leave you alone. And I can't get the baby. I'm just so scared, I can't move. I can't move, Whit. What am I going to do? Whit?"
He left the door and went to his wife; again he cradled her to his side. "There there, little one, he hadn't used that affectionate term in a long time; she noticed it though, "I'll go with you to the kitchen, then go check on Angie and bring her out to the living room, then I'll come back to you and we'll all stay here together, okay?" They walked into the kitchen clutching each other like children lost in a storm. He left her with a kiss in her hair while she tried to spoon coffee grounds into the metal basket of the percolator. She spilled grounds all around the white Corning pot and placed the lid over the rod and tamped it down onto the basket.
"Be back in a sec," and then he was gone to check on their daughter.
Five minutes later, as he was walking down the hall with their daughter in his arms, all the power in their house died, and with it, the most frightened of screams from the nearly closed off throat of his wife.

They stood and were pleased. So far they had extended their collective wills and isolated the chosen. Their presence had only minimally registered with others, and would later be forgotten. That was good. So far, all had worked as planned. All that remained was the final act. They made their first move with only one turning of their timepiece. They did not move quickly for they knew what they did would require little time or effort, and in less time than they had already been here, they would be gone.

Rose screamed with her choked sound and Whit fell over the couch, shielding the baby in his arms. Amazingly, Angie remained quietly asleep.
Rose was just finishing with the coffee, and had plugged the pot into the socket, when she was thrust into complete darkness.
"Rose," Whit whisper-shouted, "are you alright? Rosie?" He left his daughter surrounded with throw pillows and went to the door for one more look out the window.
"I'm fine. Just shook up a bit, that's all. Did I do that? Did I blow a fuse when I plugged in the percolator?"
Whit left the door quickly hardly registering what he saw there, went into the kitchen, and felt for her in the dark. He gave her a comforting hug to be sure she was all right.
"No, I don't think it was you. Don't get upset. I'll get a flashlight." In the utility drawer he found the flashlight and flicked it on, with his palm over the end as he expected a bright light, but it was dead. He beat it across his hand—nothing.
"Dead. Must be old batteries. Shit, what a bad time to find out, hunh? Where are the damn'd spares?"
"Whit…language?"
"Sorry."
"Anyway, I don't know that we have any. I had it on my shopping list for next week. I replace them when I do my spring-cleaning. But, they still should be good… " She was beginning to run on, babble like a woman in terror trying to fend off the fear with words. She was failing miserably. "They have to work. They're not that old. I think I even replaced them over the Holidays. They're practically brand new. They have to work! They're new!" She was sobbing as she tore the light out of her husband's hands and beat it against her palm as Whit had done, then beat it against her thigh, sobbing all the while, until Whit grabbed it back and crushed her to him. "Shhhhhh… " Whit turned where he stood and flicked on the gas jet from the stove. Nothing; not even a hiss.
"Ohh-HH… " Her voice rose in a scream.
"Now, Rosie, take care. Let's forget all this and go into the living room where I left Angie. I'll grab one of your afghans and we'll all stay together under the wool and stay warm, You mind me now, Rosie. Are you listening? Take it easy, girl. We'll all be fine. You'll see. By morning everything will be fine. It'll all be over. You'll see, my girl. It always looks worse like this at night. You'll see… " Whit continued his droning words, hoping they would penetrate his wife's terror, as he pushed her gently into the living room.
"I have a better idea. Why don't you pick up Angie and we'll take the afghan into our bedroom and we'll all stay as far away from whatever is going on, all of us under the covers, all of us in bed together, safe and warm against the night and the dark."
Almost mindlessly, Rose picked up their daughter and followed Whit's urging, herding her really, into the farthest room away from the front door. And them. They. She had stopped sobbing the moment she picked up the child and allowed her husband to gently guide them through the freezing house. He had to get them there before, before—
When they entered the bedroom—by that time his eyes had finally adjusted to the darkness—he picked Angela from her mother's arms and let Rosie get in, then placed his daughter back into his wife's arms.
"No sense in letting us all catch our de— catch cold, right?" Rose was acting strange now, sleepy, like she'd taken a Seconal. She'd stopped her crying and her head was a wobble on her neck until it found the pillow to lay upon. He felt it, too. It filled his head: waves of exhaustion, pressing. His knees seemed to unlock by their own volition. Don't fight it. They pressed. Don't fight. Don't run. Sleep. Sleep. Don't resist. Don't fight. Sleep. Sleep…

After he'd left his daughter in a barrier of pillows on the couch after the lights had blinked out and his house was thrown into complete darkness, he'd gone to the door and seen the nine figures move. They approached together like one extended being. It was at that moment that he had realized that these figures were not Negroes, or anything quite as simple as that. No, these figures that advance toward his home were black all right, but featureless as night. He was riveted to the wooden-door window and what he saw through the glass. They weren't just dark like Negroes, they were black: Crayola black; evil black; deep, dark, space black. They weren't normal, couldn't be real. It was the lack of eyes that told him that, lighter than the rest, grey and mixed with a red swirl. Just by looking at where the eyes should have been, he knew these things were not human, and as far as he could get his family away from them, the better. If he could just get both his wife and daughter out of the house by the side door and over to the Reese's before—
And then they parted: four moving to the right where the side door was and four to the left where their bedroom was, leaving one standing in front of his house. Then the thoughts came like a nudge to the back of his brain; a slight nudge at first, but insistent. Don't fight. Sleep. Don't resist. Sleep. Sleep…
Without telling her why, he left the door and went for his wife in the kitchen, murmuring into her ear. He'd glanced out the kitchen window on his way to the living room with his wife in tow and saw the glowing numerals of the outside thermostat. What he saw there terrified him even more: it was now minus ten degrees. He mumbled a silent, "Holy Mother of God!… " and, continued whispering to his wife as he urged her out of the kitchen to get their daughter and hide under the covers in their bedroom.

When the four peeled off to the side, they went as far along the right side and stopped. The four that went to the left side went as far along that side as well, then stopped. Their minds—if they could be said to have such an individual organ as a brain—linked and their power surged around the small house. Cool air now became cold; frost became ice. The inside temperature fell. The house had not been designed to withstand such sudden change. The two houses neighboring this one built up a rime of frost, then ice, but only on the side facing the Campions' house. That is how concentrated and directed was their power. Then they lifted their arms, and eighteen featureless, whorlless palms touched the structure in front of them. There was a mighty tearing and rending and a rush of air escaping as the vacuum was released into the night.

The bedroom had suddenly become unbearably cold. Whit pulled Rose to him with a firmer grip and almost crushed the failing Angela. Their daughter was too far gone, even to cry out in distress. Frost glittered on everything in the dark —including the blanket they lay under—and was swiftly turning into a thick layer of ice. Soon, he knew, it would be over. Rest. Sleep. Don't fight. Sleep. Rose was asleep, at least he thought she was asleep; her skin was icy and seemed without life. He was slowly fading, too. Rest. Sleep. Don't fight. Don't resist. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.
Just before he'd tucked into bed, he groggily left the fading warmth of the sheets and blankets.
"Whit… "
"More blanket…With no heat…and the cold…we need more… "
He stumbled to the linen closet next to the bed and weakly pulled down blankets and comforters from the top shelf onto his head. He bent down to pick them up with sloppy fingers, but at the same time he also turned the lock in the doorknob. It was the last fully conscious act he made. He went back to the bed dragging only one wool trader's blanket.
If Rosie saw him turn the lock, she said nothing.
He threw the blanket over the bed so most of it was still dragging on the floor. Angela's sleep was deep and her little chest barely moved. His wife nodded, on the edge of giving in, and he knew he should have stopped her, but he could hardly stay awake himself. His mind was fogged with the pushing. He wasn't sure what would happen, but surely he'd done all that could be expected of him. Yes-s. Sleep.
He thought he could fight them off a little longer, whoever—whatever—they were. He should fight for his wife and child, but he couldn't think clearly. He couldn't think. All his thoughts seemed to be pushed aside, like too much cotton pushing against the containered roll in the first-aid kit. They—whoever they were—had taken control of his mind, his thoughts. Sleep. Don't fight us. Don't resist. You cannot resist. You don't want to resist. You want to sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep…an endless threnody.
Whit Campion bent over his wife's sleeping? form and brushed his open lips across her brittle hair, unable to form them into his intended kiss. He bent lower, slower and kissed little Angela in the same way. A faraway thought tried to break into his overstuffed head, that something was wrong, something was very wrong with Angela, that she was too cold, too pale, but he ignored it and sank into a blankly deep sleep. Yes.

—They no longer live.
—If they could not withstand this, such a small effort indeed, our task will be easy. Here, we have practiced but with one of the Elementals. There are still the others—earth, fire, and water!
—The fools. To think of us as fallen. Only but to rise again.
—We will have no problem when we truly begin. No problem at all.

They disengaged their mind from the house and redirected thought to the return of the mist that brought them, and the ice returned to mere fog and warmth.
Slowly they regrouped around the frozen pile that had once been the Campion home. The four and the four and the one. They were in no hurry. When the grouping had become one again they turned toward Beech, just as they had come.

Bob Thompson on the corner of Beech and Rocky Point got up in the middle of the night to close his bedroom window. He had to keep out a cool April draught.

They left as they had come, dissolving into the swirl of fog. When the single dark figure reached the end of Beech and Elizabeth, it looked to the north. There before it lay the great metropolis of New York City. Their experiment was over. They were ready. As the black thing of midnight looked with a fiery hunger at the city miles away, its face split, and the red maw of hell gaped in its silent laughter. Then, it too dissolved.

END

Tags:

  
Report This Story
Notice (8): Undefined index: User [APP/View/stories/story.ctp, line 227]
Notice (8): Trying to access array offset on value of type null [APP/View/stories/story.ctp, line 227]

Recommendations

Reviews

Velma golden Apr 6, 2014

sorry I spedread your story again,and came across only one word. Her teats ran down her face. I think you meant tears. At any rate your story meant with the greatest approval from me, if that means anything, which I doubt, but please don'tlet a small thin

Velma golden Mar 31, 2014

wow, great story, one or two words wrong letter, misspell, but what a story, can'tgive enough kudos. keep on doing the scary stuff. Love it.

Robert Seth Vorisek Apr 2, 2014

Thanks for the compliment...But, what were the wrong letters. I don'twant to send this to looking like I cannot spell?

Download the Short Story Lovers App

Read and write stories anytime, anywhere with the Short Story Lovers app