I Do Not Like the Night

by L. Jordan James

  I do not like the night

  Blacheborne, England

  February 1843

  I do not like the night and it is with good reason that I limit my actions within it. The darkness gives voice and sharp teeth to that which is mute and docile during the day. I do not like the night because it constricts my movements, enfolding me in its unwelcome embrace making me feel hampered and claustrophobic. I do not like the night because during those hours before dawn, my lovely Lenore was taken from me and killed. I despise the night.

  My memory is faulty when it comes to that time because of all of the strong drink I consumed that day and all of the days and nights since. My objective is to forget as much as I can and I have succeeded though only to a point. As much as I try I cannot cross that Rubicon that leads to a permanent blissful existence and I am condemned to awaken each day and remember the horror of that moment. The only reason I can surmise that the memory cannot be totally obliterated or excised like a diseased limb is because my soul is torn between anger and sadness.

  The sadness makes me relive those last moments with my Lenore and it has left me questioning my own existence without her. I question whether I should or should not place the barrel of my gun against my temple and squeeze the trigger letting death solve the problem of reliving that horrible night over and over again. I question whether I should climb onto a table, slip my head into a noose and step out into the waiting air letting the taut rope solve my heart’s ailment. My only answer to those questions and dark yearnings is a continuous brandy stupor that keeps me from responding. The brandy lets me drunkenly walk the tightrope between life and death.

  And the anger? The anger will not let me forget nor will it let me rest. I am consumed by the fire of my anger. My response is to amass weapons and learn tactics that will avenge my wife. It is my fervent hope that my life and, very possibly, my death, will gain some measure of meaning in revenge.

  The night I lost her was our wedding night. She had looked particularly beautiful in her white gown flowing around her like a cloud supporting an angel. I exaggerate but not by much. I was in love and love tends to blur and soften the cold, hard lines of the world into rainbow colors.

  I remember surreptitiously watching her, after the wedding ceremony, while she talked to my family and I talked to hers. I watched her from across the room moving so gracefully and confidently through the crowd, smiling while taking an uncle’s or cousin’s hand and curtsying when introduced. I also remember my heart speeding up a beat and feeling a bit warm in the thought that she would be my wife forever. I stood there for several seconds cultivating that thought into children and grandchildren. I had our lives spread out before us, a grand tapestry of love and family.

  When the last brother, the last aunt, the last child left we stood facing each other and she took my hand. As I said before she was a confident woman and did things that a confident woman did. She was my wife now and displays of affection were allowed. I grew warmer still.

  But while I was warm, her hand was cold to the touch. She had been sick for the last few days but decided against putting off the wedding. In such close quarters I could see that she was pale as an alabaster statue. But she smiled at me and that let me know that she was feeling better.

  Acid fear had run through me earlier because the wedding had been scheduled for two o’clock but it did not start until after sunset. She had repeatedly denied all people access to her bedchamber citing illness until she emerged from the shadows of the room and into the candlelight even more beautiful than the first day I met her, if that were possible. It seemed as though she had something added which I could not identify. Perhaps, it was the porcelain quality of her skin but it seemed to run deeper than that. I could not discern what that added ingredient was, but it multiplied her beauty exponentially and it held me captive.

  She led the way up the stairs from the well-lit living room to the floor above which always stayed in half-shadows. Here is where my memory begins to falter. I think that I knew something was wrong as soon as we started our ascent upstairs. Maybe I did not say anything because I was enveloped and entranced by her and her perfume. Another possibility could have been the brandy I consumed or the heady mix of these things together.

  But I knew something was not entirely right as soon as we entered the bedchamber. I felt the full force of that wrongness but I did not know from whence it came. Was it a taste in the air? The coldness of my wife’s hand? The window? All three? The window was ajar but the breeze was stopped by heavy curtains. This impression of something incorrect was deeper and darker than a mere window left open. This feeling, this terror, sent a cold sharp dagger through my heart and left me trembling as if I were a child listening to stories of demons and devils.

  And then, bit by bit, I felt where the sensation emanated from—a corner where darkness lay. I knew that the candlelight should have illuminated the space but it did not and I had a feeling—a distinct feeling—that light would not be able to pierce that dark space even at the height of midday.

  Then the black started to move, to undulate, and I saw arabesque shapes within it start to appear and then dissolve as if they never existed. I stared, my mind trying to come to some agreement on what I saw or with what I didn’t see. A tentacle? A talon tipped hand? Gnashing teeth?

  I did what every just man would do in my stead. I moved Lenore behind me to put myself between her and the danger. She was my wife and I loved her more than life itself. I looked for some kind of weapon, something to defend us with.

  And that is when I felt her hand upon my shoulder. I could feel the coldness of her grasp even through my clothing. She moved me aside as though I were a child. There I stood, off balance, against the wall while I watched Lenore approach the dark and stand before it.

  A hand extended itself from the blackness and my wife made to grab hold of it. I think, I must have howled like an insane animal because she turned to me. Before I knew it I was almost there, moving to enter the darkness, ready to fight, ready for blood! But Lenore met me halfway and stopped me by placing her hand on my chest.

  “No,” she said with finality and it felt as though all of my energy for fighting, all of the anger and the desire for blood suddenly leave me. “I made this promise and I will keep it.”

  “What promise?” I asked. My voice sounded as if it belonged to a child that needed an adult to explain a simple fact. I guess that’s why she smiled and then touched my cheek to try and console me. But as her fingers caressed my face I was not comforted. If anything, her cold hand made the anxiety I felt, deepen. As she saw that her touch did not reassure me, her smile closed much like a rose’s petals closing in on itself, depriving the world of its beauty. Her hand fell away from me and she turned, neither facing the darkness nor me.

  “As we climbed the stairs, I had prayed that it had been a fevered dream but I know now it wasn’t,” she said still unable to look at me. “Two nights ago I woke up to find him standing over me, I wanted to scream but his hand covered my mouth so quickly that I didn’t have a chance. He told me that if I were to alert any others, he would kill you. And so, I was quiet while he…while he withdrew some of my…m-my blood. The next night it happened again. I awoke to find him there and he was amazed at how I could sense him. He left me in such a weakened state that I didn’t know how I would get through the ceremony.”

  I started at this. This thing stayed in my house and shared a bedchamber with my fiancée? This thing had almost killed her?

  “I extracted promises,” she continued, “from him to wait until I gathered enough strength to manage the ceremony. But he threatened to kill every man, woman and child staying here unless I agreed to leave with him. I believed—I believe he
can do it.” Here she seemed ashamed but she met my eyes and they started to brim with tears. “All of this pain because I woke up and saw his face. I know what he looks like.” She broke down for several seconds unable to speak. I approached her, meaning to place my arms around her but she stopped me and moved closer to the darkness. “Please understand, I held him at bay until I became your wife and now I must leave because he still threatens you.”

  I saw the hand again extend itself from the dark place but now its mannerism, its movement was impatient and angry but she still grasped it. It pulled my wife inside the darkness to it—to him. I do not know what to call the thing that inherited the black space. What would you call something that lives in the shadows and feeds off others?

  I made for the darkness. Damn the promises! Damn the consequences! She was my wife! But before I reached them, before I gained momentum to throw myself at the darkness a great wind started in the chamber, stopping me, pushing me off balance, making me raise my hand to shield my eyes while I tried to see where Lenore was. Before I could gain my bearings the wind extinguished all candles. I think a chamber pot was gathered up and smashed against the wall where I stood just seconds before. But then I saw her. I saw Lenore in the half-light, amidst the confusion of the wind, her dress billowing as though she were underwater, her hand reaching out to me, her hair flowing around her face. There was a light burning from within the dark spot and in those shadows I saw her shed a single tear before the dark encompassed her whole.

  I screamed her name and fought the wind to try to get to her but the fury of the gale stopped me. Then it was as if someone had closed a door and all things were motionless. All wind halted. All things gathered by the storm, froze. Everything in the gray half-light of the room was suspended in mid-step of a horrible dance before finally crashing to the ground. I called out to her but I heard nothing back. I frantically searched the debris until I found matches. I lit a candle and almost fell over the body of Lenore stretched out on the floor. My Lenore. My lovely Lenore!

  I know I cradled the husk that was my wife. I know that I wailed loud enough for my neighbors to hear. After some time had elapsed—I do not know how long—I was led away from Lenore by hands that went unacknowledged and neighbor faces that were seen through a haze of tears. I was led from the room and down the stairs. I recall someone pulling the stopper on the brandy and pouring the first and second drink. I think that I grabbed the decanter from startled hands. The hands folded, withdrew and left me in peace as if they understood and sympathized. I discarded the small snifter and took a long draught directly from the decanter. I do not remember the rest of that night nor the next day.

  * * *

  Lenore was buried two days later but I did not shed a tear. I could not cry because within me was a burning anger that I could not share. Sadness sits within the heart like a stone too large to move and too mute to reason with. And if you let that sadness grow and deepen it will leave very little room for action. But the terrain of my heart was not entirely stony. I was beyond sadness, of course, but I chose a different option where the majority of my heart was a flame of monumental proportions. I was angry and I chose action.

  My friends chided me on my quietness, my lack of emotion but I held my tongue. I wanted revenge not tears.

  I could not tell anyone of what transpired that night, especially the authorities. They surmised wrongly that I had torn the room apart in my anguish. Everyone who attended my wedding gave witness that my Lenore complained of illness before the ceremony and so I was not questioned too closely. They feared that the pressure of questioning would send me over the edge and into madness. This suited me. There would be one of two outcomes from telling them everything. The first outcome could have been for them to send me to an asylum for the rest of my days. Needless to say, I did not want this to happen. The second would have been for them to believe me and investigate and possibly capture and/or kill this thing. I did not want that outcome either. Perhaps, you’ve heard of the saying: “Revenge is dish best served cold.” I believe that it is even more satisfying if, not only served cold, but devoured alone.

  * * *

  I do not sleep well anymore. I have too many dreams of falling into a black pit where gnashing teeth rend the flesh from my bone. I have had too many dreams of a single teardrop falling on Lenore’s cheek while her hand reaches out to me. I do not think that sleep will ever come easily to me again. But a part of me understands. My body tells me that sleep is secondary to revenge because I know that he is out there, waiting, gauging my perseverance, my patience. He watches my every move. But I watch him also. Every newspaper account of sudden illness attacking a village, every outbreak of sickness of an unknown origin is a clue to his whereabouts. I think I know him now. I think I know how he moves from place to place and soon he will rue the day that he ever took Lenore from me.

  In my investigations I do not just read newspaper accounts. I visit the small hamlets and villages and I sit quietly at the local pub, listening to rumours, theories and conjecture about their kinsman’s illnesses. I listen for all of the signs of infestation. I listen to the inhabitants’ accounts and the symptoms of their loved ones’ sickness: pale countenance, weakness, an aversion to sunlight and then sudden death all over the course of three nights.

  While I listen, learn and form theories, my mind works as if in a fever and I have fantasies of having him here before me, kneeling at my feet, at my mercy. And in that fantasy I have shaped my heart into that of ball and powder and I gladly fired the shot that ended both of our existences.

  But there are other times—quieter times, drunker times—when I sit and ruminate on my failure in protecting Lenore. In those hours, time seems to slow and the sand only moves one grain at a time through the hourglass aperture. I shudder when I think of what hell she must have been subjected to in trying to protect me. And, after each time I shudder, my heart is steeled and my spine is strengthened with the knowledge that this road, this path of anger, of blood and revenge I have chosen is righteous.

  * * *

  I rose from my chair in my study where I had collapsed the day before, newspapers and brandy bottles scattering in my wake. In my previous life, my happier life, I had been a meticulous man in my living habits, my work ethic and in my health. Those days are far behind me. But I find that I can call on these qualities when it involves solving this riddle.

  I walked to my wall where a picture of Lenore hung. Next to her picture, also hanging on the wall, were a series of newspaper clippings of sickness and obituaries. Beneath the picture and articles was a map. I attached the articles to the map so that I could discern clues.

  I adored Lenore’s picture for several seconds before my eyes were drawn to the space next to it. I had to understand this puzzle. On the map were a series of red strings leading from an obituary of someone who died unexpectedly to the epicenter of the infestation—a distillery. So when I stood back and admired my work, I saw a pattern of sickness and death in the shape of circle 50 leagues wide that took more than two years to complete. I think I was starting to understand.

  Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, to which I grudgingly responded. A cold breeze greeted me as I opened the door. In the gray dark I saw a hooded male outline. A second figure stood off a ways.

  “Yes, may I help you?”

  “My carriage broke down just outside your home. May we come inside and perhaps warm ourselves by your fire while it is being repaired?”

  I hesitated though I did not know why. Maybe it was his voice or the way I could not see his shrouded face. But I nodded and moved aside for him. As he passed, my back stiffened and the hairs on my arms raised which I mistook this as a shiver from the cold. When she passed me I was left in a cloud of perfume reminiscent of my Lenore’s. I stilled the thought before it gathered momentum and grew unmanageable. There would be no children. There would be no grandchildren. Lenore is dead.

  They stopped in the hallway waiting for me. I closed the door and
took them both into the sitting room where he thrust back the hood on his cloak back and revealed a very good-looking middle-aged man. He was gray at his temples. His nose was V shaped but his chin was square. Both pointed downwards which gave him a bird-like appearance. He was so very pale as to a corpse.

  The woman standing by his side made no attempt to reveal her face and I felt it rude but I also did not care. I felt a thirst that water would not satisfy. The embrace of the brandy called and while I knew it would not fill that empty space within me left by Lenore, I knew it would ease the pain.

  Presently, we were seated around the low table in the sitting room. The brandy had been poured and I tried to restrain myself from drinking it down quickly. They sat on the couch while I sat in a wooden chair across from them. But then he stood and went over to the fire. He smiled at me while he warmed himself. The smile was nothing inviting. It was yellow and his teeth looked as though each tooth was a haphazardly placed tombstone. But most disconcerting of all was that the smile never touched his eyes. I saw all of this and chose to ignore it. My mind was on the brandy.

  “I would like to thank you again for letting us into your home,” he said after our introductions had been made. Stephâne Choiseul gave a small bow as the fire made shadows on the walls dance.

  “I welcome the company,” I said, although, it was a lie. I did not want others around. I was acutely embarrassed by being a drunk and had become a recluse because of it.

  “Eleanor, please don’t be rude,” he said to his companion, smiling. I started at the name and my attention was drawn to her. Her hands twisted and turned the gloves in her lap as though she were agonizing over something I had no knowledge of. Finally, it seemed that she arrived at a decision and she removed her hood and I saw that it was my Lenore! My Lenore that had been buried for more than a year! How could that be?

  “Hello, Guy,” she finally said with a tremor in her voice.

  I grasped the armrest of the chair in which I sat to steady myself. My heart thudded in my chest and my tongue felt thick and slow, too slow to respond to her presence; I was struck dumb.