The Night Listener and Others (2 page)

On it moves, pausing more frequently than on its first visit. At the living room window on the shadow side of the house it stands for a very long time, and when I finally decide to time it I count eight hundred and thirty ticks of the mantel clock’s pendulum before it moves on, rushing past the kitchen and bathroom, and circling its way to my son’s room, where it waits outside the curtained window so long that I grow tired and sit beside the crib, my back to the wall. But I become uncomfortable facing away from it, even though thick brick and plaster lie between us. So I turn and sit Indian fashion, staring at the wall.

Then suddenly it moves with wind-swiftness around to the back of the house again, and I must spring up and run so as not to lose it. When I enter the kitchen I feel certain of its presence. It is at the back door again, and I hear the rattle of metal against metal as its cold fingers fondle the handle of the storm door and its thumb caresses the button. I know the door is locked. I locked it myself before I went to bed.

Then why does a soft click, like a disengaged latch, whisper in the kitchen’s silence? And why is there a squeak like a thin scream in the night, as the storm door slowly angles outward, letting the wind press against the wood and glass of the inner door?

I reach out and touch the doorknob. The latch is set. My hand moves up to the bolt and finds it secure. And then, before I can stop myself, I pull the curtain back and look through the window.

There is nothing. Nothing but the storm door held open by an unseen hand that now releases it to drift closed on its hydraulic spring. Then the holder of that door retreats into the night, and its sound recedes more swiftly than ever before.

It returns every night now, and I am growing weary. I cannot trust myself to descend too far into sleep for fear that I will miss its second coming, and even then how can I be sure it will not pay a third visit? I cannot help but feel that when it comes three times in one night, I shall finally see it and fight it.

Something in me thrills at that thought. It is becoming increasingly difficult not to fling the doors and windows open and attempt to fall upon it with all my strength.

But I control myself. When the conflict comes it will be of
its
making. Its intrusion upon my house, my domain, will trigger our clash. I pray that it comes soon. I thirst for it as I thirst for the deep deathlike sleep that may no longer be mine in this life.

So it comes again this night, and on its second visitation we stand, thin door between, while wind blasts against the house like a fist with uncounted knuckles that burrow into every crevice. Its smell is strong, and my ears are filled with the
sound
of it, even through the roar of rushing air. Then something new occurs.

I feel a force that passes through the door as though the wood were butter and wraps itself around my bare skin. And for the first time I know the overwhelming strength of it, and the strength of the fear it inspires, and I tremble as though I were standing outside, my nakedness exposed to the freezing winds. From beyond the door I hear a low laugh, and I realize that, as I feel its power, it tastes my fear. Then it turns and moves away over the yard to the field, and its power goes with it, melting away my fear like ice under the sun, leaving a gray puddle in my mind to mark its memory.

It will return. Now I am sure of it. There is no reason for it to wait any longer.

I go to my bedroom and check the window locks, then leave, closing the door behind me. In my son’s room I rattle the levers, making sure the screws in the window frame are tight. I cover his shoulders with the blankets, kiss him, and shut his door securely.

I think the sword will do. It hangs on the wall of the den next to the large bookcase, nailed there years ago in a moment of Gothic romanticism, and I have been half embarrassed by it ever since. But now I am grateful for my unintended foresight as my fingers wrap around the hilt in the dark and I slide it from its scabbard. It makes an abrasive noise as it leaves its longtime home, and I let my hand slip down the length of its blade. There are small rough patches I take to be rust, and the edges are so dull that I can easily rub the heel of my hand over them without pain. But the point is still sharp, and a quick firm thrust should pierce anything possessing the softness of life.

I go into the living room where I sit waiting on the sofa, the sword between my knees, my hands on the hilt, the point against the carpet. Finally I hear it, and its boldness frightens me for a moment. There is none of its previous stealth in its tread; the weeds and sticks and grass beneath it cry out at its passing where before they would only have whimpered. There is no fear in it.

The front door trembles and holds. The lock is on, and it does not break the glass. Now around to the back it comes, passing the living room and den windows with a steady imperious tread. I know that tonight it will enter.

My stomach twists as I pad into the kitchen, the blade angled weakly toward the floor, no d’Artagnan gaily swinging a beribboned rapier, but a naked primal man, guarding his cave against the beast that seeks entry.

The screen-door handle rattles, and outside I see it in its multifarious shapes—sabertooth, lamia, ghoul—the night-horror standing outside the door. Even if I die, I will finally see its face; despite the dark, despite the speed with which it may come, like a juggernaut, upon me, I will see its true face.

The storm door opens, thrown back with no thought of secretiveness, and now the thing’s hand grasps the cool roundness of the second knob. It turns a hair and stops. It is locked, as always. I have locked it. The thing pauses, and in that second I detect an unease, a thought of turning around and walking back into the darkness.

But no! No more of this! And my left hand reaches out and quietly turns the catch on the knob, unlocking the door so that even a cripple might enter.

Try again!
I think savagely
. Please, damn you, try again!

It does. The knob turns, the latch leaves the security of its hole and draws into the door itself. The way stands open for a push. I step back and ready the sword. When it comes through it will be huge, larger than man, so I lift my arm back and high. If I aim high, perhaps I may reach its heart.

The door opens. Against the outer dark I see a deeper darkness that fills the doorway. I wait only until the door is opened wide, until the rubber stop thuds against the wall, and then I thrust with all my strength, blade rocketing forward like a javelin.

It stops as though a fist has grabbed it, and at first I fear that is precisely what has happened. But as the shock of impact shivers up my arm, it is followed by a
yielding
feeling, a vulnerability that amazes me. The sword’s point is pulled downward and the hilt falls from my hand as the thing strikes the floor with a solidity that shakes the kitchen, rattles the silverware. Then comes the sound of its dying. My hand fumbles at the wall, and the light switch I have touched a thousand times seems cold and alien. I take a deep breath, flick the white plastic toggle, and light floods the room

He is a boy. He is nothing but a boy. Ectomorphically thin, he lies there, his arms protruding from the short cuffs of his jacket like fleshy sticks. A fuzz of wheat-colored beard covers his chin, though it is hard to detect because of the blood. Gloved hands grasp the sword still sticking in his throat, where the jaw waggles to and fro. But no words come, only a wet whistling that sends red froth bubbling up from the edges of the wound. His neck, the front of his jacket, the throw rug beneath him are all sodden with blood. He turns his eyes toward me, and I am struck by how young he is. His dripping gloves tap at the sword blade, and I kneel beside him and draw it out of his sundered flesh. Huge gouts of blood follow the blade, and what seems a river of the stuff runs from the ragged hole I have made. I drop the sword and grab the tired rug beneath him, pressing it over the wound. The pressure of my hands makes it ooze like a sponge, but I hold it there for what can be no more than a few seconds.

Then I look at the boy’s eyes and I stop. My hands release their grip on the impromptu bandage, and a final drowning breath whispers redly away as the eyes glaze over.

I hear someone call my name and look up to see my wife standing in the doorway. From her position she can see only me and the lower half of the child’s body, his dungarees and white sneakers with red and blue stripes. She stands there and I look at her and mumble something about a burglar, I’ve killed a burglar, and she disappears into the darkness of the house. When she returns she is carrying my bathrobe. She comes into the kitchen, where she can see the body fully and holds out the robe for me. I put it on apologetically, thinking that the blood will stain it, but she appears indifferent to that. Then I call the police and an ambulance, though it is far too late.

The police tell me that there have been several burglaries in the past few weeks, and that there should be no legal complications because of the law that permits the use of what they call deadly force to repel intruders. I learn later that the boy was sixteen. I try to apologize to his parents at the courthouse, but they will not speak to me. The father’s face is sad and stony, and his wife cries silently.

It was so wrong. Such an unfortunate coincidence that the boy came that night, that I mistook him for what I truly sought to kill. Perhaps it sent the child as a scapegoat, thinking his death would satisfy me, put me off my guard. But I am not fooled. It should know I am a wiser, more fitting adversary than that. My sleep is always light, and often I arise and walk to the windows and doors, listening for its coming. It will not find me unaware. I will be ready when it comes.

But it has been a long time now, a very long time. And I have not heard it return.

Not once, in all these long, cold nights.

Season Pass

I didn’t know what Mr. and Mrs. Younger were when I first saw them. To me they were just one more older couple who come out to Magicland for a sunny afternoon of watching the dolphin show, the stage act, and maybe taking one of the tamer rides—the carousel, or the Tunnel-of-Chills. I was sure I’d seen them before, for there was an easy familiarity about them. They looked at home, sitting on the bench near the bandshell, under the few oaks the new owners had let stand when they changed the old Rocky Grove Park into Magicland ten years before.

I wasn’t here then, at least not as a security guard. But I came as a guest that first summer, as did almost everybody for a hundred miles around, to see what had been done to the grove. Some had liked the change. I hadn’t. The park had been sanitized away, the grotesque, laughing figures in the funhouse alcoves sold to collectors, the old rides like The Whip and The Octopus prettied up with fiberglass shells and cartoon animals. The Penny Arcade became the quarter arcade, and the flip movies that had intrigued my brother and me as boys were gone, replaced by video screens and pinball machines that offered only three balls for two bits. Everything was bright and clean and shiny. I hated it.

I didn’t come back after that first visit until this spring, when I answered the ad for security guards. The office where I worked laid me off in March, and though the Magicland stint paid far less, I thought it would be a pleasant way to spend the summer while keeping my eyes open for something better. And I was hungry for something better. I used to think that hunger was a good thing, something that made us grow. Maybe open hunger, honest ambition, still is. But when hunger disguises itself as something else—kindness, maybe—it turns ugly, makes us less than human.

To look at the Youngers, you never would have imagined that hunger in them. When I first looked at them with more than casual interest, I guessed that they were in their early sixties. He was gray at the temples and near the top, but there were still dark brown patches. She too had streaks of gray-white, but the tawny hair around the whiteness made it look almost platinum in contrast. Neither was overweight, and both their complexions were healthily ruddy. The only outward signs of age were that the man limped slightly and carried a cane, and both wore thick bifocals. Their clothing was neat and clean, if a bit out of date. They looked well cared for, as one might make a suit last for years by judicious handling.

The Youngers. God, how that name suits them. So many don’t. A potential assassin named Hinckley? A successful one named Oswald? Those are the names of buzzard towns and cartoon rabbits. But
Younger
—that sums up their deeds nicely, while smacking of the outlaw family too, though I doubt a connection. What
my
Youngers have done is soft and subtle, far from gunshots and holdups.

I noticed them,
really
noticed them for the first time, giving candy to a kid. I was twenty yards behind where they were sitting on their bench, and there was one of those sudden hushes that comes to the park once in a while, and I easily heard what they said.

“Young fella?’’ The man’s voice was hearty and friendly. The boy, about ten, stopped but didn’t say anything. “Want this?” the man went on, holding out a Hershey bar.

I tensed. I kept hearing my mother and father and teachers and the state trooper who visited the school once a year saying, “
Never take candy from strangers!
‘‘ For kids, it replaced the commandment about adultery.

“We just can’t eat two,” the woman said kindly. “And it’ll melt in this hot sun. Won’t you take it?”

The kid came closer and smiled a little. He looked cautious, like he’d heard the warnings too, but shrugged and took the candy. I guess he figured there were people all around, and that’s what I figured too. “Okay. Thanks a lot,” he said, and walked away with the candy. I watched the couple a moment longer, just long enough to see them smile at each other, as if to enjoy a good deed shared. But there was something else in the look, something more than gratification at giving away a 35¢ candy bar.