Do you ever wake up sore, with no explanation for the pain? How about scratches on your arms and legs with no explanation?
If so, this warning might be for you.
After my ex and I broke up, I started going for nightwalks: long, aimless strolls around town after dark. The cool night air cleared my head, putting one foot in front of the other gave me a sense of purpose, and if nothing else it filled up the hours that we used to spend together with something other than resentful remembering.
Lately, though, I’m afraid to go out after dark.
It started three nights ago. I usually turned around at the ugly 1970’s high school at the age of town, but that night the breeze was cool and fresh and I hadn’t seen a soul: it was like I had the world to myself. I decided to make a loop by cutting across the field that separated the 24-hour gas station from the suburb next door. There was a full moon, so I hoped I might even see some wildlife.
I was enjoying the fact that no one else seemed to be out…but it should have been a warning. Especially when I saw the car stopped in the middle of the empty road, its driver’s-side door wide open. At the time, I just lifted an eyebrow and moved on. It was strange, sure–but you see a lot of strange things, walking around at night.
The gas station, too, was empty. The lights were on, the country station played from the speakers–but there was no one at the register. Perhaps the night-shift guy was just in back, unloading boxes or something…but I was starting to get a little nervous. Where did everybody go?
That was when I saw the man in the field. He’d been so stiff, so still in the silvery light, that at first I’d taken him for a pole or something. He was just…standing there…like a scarecrow in pajamas, staring up at the moon. As I watched, he began to spin. He spun until he lifted right off the ground and twirled through the air like some kind of nightmarish toy top. He spun through the air with the moths and night birds and–
Oh God.
There were dozens of them, some of them people I knew–spinning wildly through the night sky. Fascinated, I crept closer through the knee-high, misty grass. More people were walking out of the black wall of forest at the edge of the field. They wore everything from business suits to nothing at all, like they’d just stopped whatever they were doing–even showering or work–to come to this field–
and spin.
I realized the helpless figures above me were moaning softly as they twirled, although whether in pain or pleasure I couldn’t tell.
On the street behind me, another car rolled silently to a stop. It’s driver climbed out the door with the wheels still rolling and walked toward the field like a sleepwalker–
But when she saw me, she froze. The moonlight in her eyes shone an eerie silver-green color as she raised her arm and pointed at me like an accusing judge.
The figures above me had stopped spinning. They hovered, arms straight out.
Staring at me.
One of them lifted through the air, gentle as a floating feather…then plunged like a swooping hawk. I recognized the face of the bald cashier from the sandwich shop a second before his clawed hand dug into my shoulder.
The force of it knocked me over onto the dewy ground, but I could see that the others were also preparing to swoop.
The woman stood like a statue with her arm outstretched between me and my path of retreat, so I charged forward across the misty field toward the suburb on the other side.
With a SLAM I felt the head of a child hit my back. An elderly woman’s teeth grazed my ribs. Floating bodies flickered around me, pursuing me like birds defending their nest.
I twisted my ankle in the soggy dirt. Cut by thorns and batted by the flying figures, I kept moving until–
A teenage girl floating above me tangled her fingers in my hair. With horror I felt myself lifting off the ground, up toward the cold, cruel face of the full moon…
I shook my head wildly, heard and felt the sickening sounds of hair ripped out of my head…but I fell, and suddenly I was through to the other side. One by one, my friends and neighbors drifted back to their positions a hundred feet in the air, spinning in the moonlight.
I went home by the darkest route I could find. I didn’t encounter a single person on the street…but occasionally I’d see a few hovering above me.
Today in the sandwich shop, the bald cashier seemed to have no recollection of what happened during the night. He just rubbed at his neck like it hurt him while he rang up my order.
I think I’m going to stick to daywalks from now on.