This Time of Night

by Jon F. Merz

  But only for a little bit.

  Nine Little Demons

  I still enjoy reading this because I had such a fun time writing it. It’s reminiscent of something like “Gremlins” meets the gnome from Stephen King’s “Cat’s Eye” flick. It’s also one of those stories that came to me driving down a lonely country road one rainy night and wondering who else would be out on a night like that and why?

  Neil Standish frowned at the rain-slicked road as the wipers on his Mercedes shoved the downpour from his windshield. This was one bad Nor’easter, as bad as he’d seen in a long time. And it was only October. Storms like this usually crept into New England around late November, battering the coastline with rain and snow, shredding power lines and generally destroying a lot of trees.

  “Figures I have to be out in it tonight,” he mumbled to himself.

  But he really did not have to be. He’d chosen to stay late again at the office. A choice that was made due to an otherwise pressing engagement with his in-laws. Neil had chosen his computer screen to the annoyance of dealing with his wife’s side of the family.

  Now it was well after eleven o’clock on a Friday night. He halfway wished he’d left work earlier. Halfway.

  The headlights of the oncoming traffic blinded him momentarily and he swerved slightly, feeling the car almost hydroplane before he forced the steering wheel the other way, righting the German car.

  “That was close.”

  He punched the scan button on the radio, searching for some music that would help calm him down. At last a station came on playing soft jazz. Neil heard the strains of the alto saxophone and reached to push the scan button again to stop on this station.

  He heard the horn wail and instinctively jerked the car in one direction. Crushing metal invaded his ears as the impact slammed his head back against the headrest. Lights flooded the car before he felt the car spin wildly away from the impact site.

  And then it was over.

  Neil slowly brought his head back to level, then realized his car was at an angle to the road. Numbly, he reached for the door handle and sighed with relief as he felt his legs respond to the command to get out of the car.

  The rain punched him in the face, knocking him back for a second until he adjusted to the storm raging around him. he could make out the headlights of the other car fifty feet away and he started walking over. Maybe the other driver was hurt.

  As he approached he saw it wasn’t a car at all that he had hit, but an antique pick-up truck. Neil thought it looked like something out of the Waltons. Then he heard the voice.

  “C’mere you little devils! Get back here!”

  Neil poked his head around the truck and saw that the impact had caved the radiator grill in. Steam poured forth from the engine. Then as he continued around, he saw the man.

  He was a few years older than Neil with gray hair that had been matted by the rain. His overalls were stained and he was jumping around and bending over under the truck swearing loudly.

  “Damn it, where the hell did you all run off to. Now, come one, and get back here, will ya? Tarnation!”

  He stopped and then turned to see Neil staring at him.

  “That’s a helluva cut you got on your forehead, mister.”

  Neil reached up and brushed his fingers along his hairline. His fingers came away sticky and smelling coppery. It was blood. Neil’s blood.

  “Damn.”

  “Helluva bang-up we got ourselves, eh?”

  Neil nodded. “Yeah...yeah, I guess so.”

  “You okay, mister? Everything working all right?”

  “Uh...yeah.” Neil looked around. “Say, I guess we ought to straighten the paperwork out, huh? I mean-”

  “No time for that right now, there fellah. No time. I have to catch these little buggers ‘fore they run off. If they get too far, I’ll never find ‘em. And then, there’ll be trouble. Hoo boy’ll there be trouble then.”

  Neil stood watching him lean under the truck with a flashlight. His head was throbbing. “Anything I can do to help?”

  “You’ve done enough damage already there, boy,” said the man as he stood again. He pointed to the road. “See? Look at that mess.”

  Neil turned and looked at the road. He could make out what looked like broken fragments of clay pots scattered all over the road. There seemed to be writing on the sides of the pieces of clay. He bent down to examine one of them.

  “Don’t bother, you won’t understand it unless you’re fluent in Sumerian.”

  “Sumerian? Is that a language?”

  “Used to be,” said the man turning his flashlight on to the field next to the road. “Long time ago.” he shook his head. “Little bastards have already run.”

  “What? What are you trying to catch?”

  The man looked at him. “I don’t think you really want to hear the answer to that question.”

  “But I do,” said Neil. “I crashed into you here, obviously ruined your trip and broke all these clay pots.”

  “The clay pots weren’t really important, it’s what was inside ‘em that’s got me concerned.”

  “So tell me. Maybe I can help you find them.”

  The man looked older then. His eyes seemed to lose their focus and drift away. he sighed. “All right. But you’d better throw away all your modern-day perceptions. You might think I’m crazy as a loon when you hear what I have to say.”

  Neil frowned and looked back at his car. The hood was flung open and steam was pouring out of his Mercedes. No way he could get it going on his own. Maybe he’d help this guy find whatever he was looking for and then the guy could help him get the Merc righted so Neil could get home.

  He turned back to the man. “All right. Tell me already.”

  “Demons.”

  Neil laughed. “Demons? Yeah, right.”

  “I told you you’d think me crazy. Trust me, mister, I ain’t. I raise ‘em and package them in those clay pots you see scattered about the road here.”

  “What the hell do you raise demons for?”

  “Same reason why people raise dogs. I sell ‘em.”

  “To who?”

  The man shrugged. “Magicians mostly. The real ones, not those stage prop fakes you see. Demons bring a hefty price. Magicians use ‘em to do their bidding. I’m the sole provider for this region.”

  Neil found himself wondering what this man must have put down as his occupation on his tax returns, but chose not to voice his question.

  The man was still talking. “Problem is, see, that they keep nice and still in those clay pots, until I deliver ‘em to the buyer. Now that the pots are all broken, the little devils are running free. Can’t have that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not?” The man shook his head and sighed. “Mister, you ever seen what a flock of demons can do to a town? Or a city?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “I thought so. Otherwise you wouldn’t have asked such a dumb question.” He frowned. “Let me break it down for you like this: one demon on his own can multiply himself thirty times over. Then all those thirty demons can multiply themselves again by thirty and so on. All in the space of under a week. Say a month passes and you have a helluva lotta demons running around breeding themselves. And then they gotta eat. You know what demons eat?”

  “No.”

  “Meat.” He looked around the road again. “And not just filet mignon neither, no sir. They’ll eat any kind of meat. Horse, cow, buffalo, dog, cat, any bird, any mammal or fish, even human meat.”

  “Human meat?”

  “Uh huh. You see what I’m trying to get at here, mister? We got ourselves one helluva dilemma. And I ain’t even factored in how pissed my customers are gonna be when they find out they ain’t getting their demons. You ever seen a pissed off magi? Trust me, you don’t want to.” He turned and knelt closer to the field. “Probably turn me into some kind of fly or something.”

  Neil watched him and then found himself running back
to his own car and returning with the flashlight he kept in the trunk for emergencies. Well, hell, he thought, demons could be an emergency.

  “Aha!”

  Neil came running to the field. “What is it?”

  The man pointed at some broken stalks of wheat. “See ‘em?”

  Neil looked. “No.”

  “The tracks. See the tracks?”

  And then he did. Neil blinked twice and looked again. There in the field were all sorts of little tracks. They looked like footprints with claws on the toes. They were maybe two inches from heel to toe. Between the two footprints of each track set was a line.

  “What the line?”

  “Tail,” said the man. “You ready to believe me now?”

  “I guess so.”

  The man nodded. “Good, we have to find them then before sun-up.”

  “Why?”

  “When the sun’s out they hide. At night they run around and feed. If we don’t get to ‘em before dawn, we won’t ever find ‘em. A demon can hide in places we couldn’t even fathom.”

  “How many of them did you have?”

  “About ten.”

  “About ten? What the hell does that mean?” asked Neil. “That’s not an exact count, you know?”

  The man shrugged. “I don’t rightly remember how many I loaded in the truck. I think it was ten, though. Pretty positive about that.”

  “Wonderful,” said Neil. Here he was being asked to chase little human-eating demons around a field, that in and of itself was destroying the entire foundation of Neil’s neat little world, but now he had no idea how many he was looking for. He sighed.

  “So do you have extra clay pots?”

  “Nope. We’ll have to kill ‘em.”

  “Kill them? How?”

  “Step on ‘em. Squash ‘em. They smell real bad when they croak, but they die just as easy as anything else you could step on.”

  Neil looked down at his Gucci loafers and moaned. The man looked at him and chuckled. “Shoulda worn your boots.”

  “Yeah, well, had I know I’d be squashing demons tonight, I certainly would have.”

  “Let’s get on with it, then,” said the man. “You follow the line of tracks to your left and I’ll take the right. Remember, they’re crafty little things. Be careful or they’ll leap on you and take a bite atcha. If they get to you once, they’ll swarm ya and tear you apart.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “You see one, just nail the little bastard. Squash him quick. Watch out for the slime spray.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind.” The man shooed him away. Now get going.” He turned and took off through the field.

  Neil watched him go and then turned to his side. The flashlight picked up the tracks immediately. He moved through the wheat watching the ground. He’d gone twenty feet when he heard the hiss.

  He turned to his left and the flashlight beam came to rest on a small horned creature that looked like some of the demons Neil remembered from his comic book days.

  “I found one!” He called out over the rain.

  “Well, kill it for god’s sakes and keep going!”

  Neil turned back to the demon but it was gone.

  “Shit!” Neil stooped down and searched the wheat stalks. he turned to the right and jerked back just as the demon’s head lunged at his ear.

  “God damn!” Neil scrambled to his feet and stamped the demon into the ground. It made an awful shriek as Neil’s loafer drove through it’s tiny body, then the yellow slime squirted out, coating the underside of Neil’s shoe and the nearby stalks.

  “Christ,” said Neil when the stench hit him. He turned and vomited once all over the wet ground. He took a deep breath and kept looking.

  He heard three shrieks in a row over where the man was working. That made four. Neil found himself hoping the man would find the rest.

  He came upon another one twelve feet from the first one. It was squatting by an open hole, peering into it. Neil realized it must have been waiting for the mole or gopher to emerge so it could kill it.

  Too late, Neil brought his heel down on its head. Again, the shriek, the slime and the stench all followed. This time Neil choked back on the bile that threatened to flood his mouth.

  On his right, another demon poked through the wheat stalks and Neil jumped quickly on top of it with his feet. This time the slime shot even further from the force of impact.

  “Nasty work,” said Neil to himself. he heard three more shrieks again from the far side of the field. Then came the shout.

  “I think that’s it!”

  “That’s only nine!” said Neil.

  “I think that’s all I had with me! Come back to the road!”

  “Shit,” said Neil as he stomped his way back to the roadside. The man was already there. “You sure that’s it?”

  The man nodded. “Yeah, last night I had ten with me. Tonight was only nine. I got this system, see? Wednesdays I deliver Twelve, Thursdays eleven, Fridays ten, and Saturdays nine.” He looked at his watch. “See? Saturday. That means nine.”

  Neil’s head was throbbing again. “All right. That’s good.” He sighed. “Think you could help me get my car back on the road so I can go home? I think I need to have a doctor look at me.”

  The man nodded. “Sure thing. Least I could do for you. By the way, don’t worry about the car accident. Let’s just forget it ever happened, okay?”

  Neil nodded. “Fine.”

  In ten minutes they had the Mercedes back on the road. The man checked Neil’s engine and slammed the hood. “Good to go!”

  Neil stuck out his hand. “Well, good night. Say I never got your name.”

  The man frowned. “Better if you not know, friend. Folks’d get a little crazy if they knew John Doe was raising demons and selling them to witches and warlocks. You and me,” he said with finality, “we’re just two strangers. Bumped together by fate. Let’s leave it like that.” He turned and walked back to his truck.

  Neil watched him go and then started his engine up. The Mercedes roared to life and Neil threw it into gear. He had to get to a hospital and have his head checked out.

  “Probably a concussion,” he mumbled.

  He drove off again, passing the man in the cab of his truck. He waved to him, but the man didn’t seem to notice.

  So much for that, thought Neil. One helluva way to spend a Saturday-

  “Jesus Christ!” Neil slammed on the brakes, spinning the car around. He glanced at the clock and saw that it was one-thirty in the morning. Saturday morning.

  “It was Friday!”

  Ten demons, not nine like the man had said. Insisted. Neil slammed the pedal to the floor and shot back down the highway toward the crash site. The truck was still there.

  Neil stopped the car and threw open the door.

  “Hey! Mister!” He ran around to the cab and stopped short.

  The man’s face had been torn away. Strip[s of flesh dangled obscenely from his cheeks and eye sockets. Blood covered the interior of the cab.

  “Oh my god,” said Neil.

  Then he saw them. Demon tracks. They led down from the cab and onto the road. The rain was beginning to wash them away. Neil followed them for ten feet before the rain had obscured them beyond recognition.

  “God help us,” he said quietly. The tracks were heading back towards the city.

  It would be dawn in a few hours...

  One Way to Spice Up Your Marriage

  A great deal of what I write cannot be classified per se by the popular definition of “horror.” The stories are more of the “bizarre” type that sometimes border on horror and sometimes do not. I’d also much rather use atmosphere and situation to suggest horror than extreme violence, but I can delve into the splatter on occasion. This is the result of one such diversion. I’m not crazy about the title, but left it alone rather than change it.

  Deepening shadows like ravens on black sky made the room an ebony cavern of shifting night. Tony
paused by the lone red light bulb shining above the doorway - scared to venture further inside. His vision hadn’t yet adjusted, he couldn't see clearly. Just the vaguest of forms moving on the periphery of his vision. The tug at his elbow was real enough, though.

  “Come on, Tony.”

  The speaker’s voice - soft, feminine, pleading - felt wholly out of place with the environment. But that was the point of this whole adventure, wasn’t it? Tony frowned, remembering the conversation.

  “We’re not doing enough with our lives,” she said. “We’ve been married for only three years and it’s like we’re eighty and waiting to die.”

  And despite his assurances that everything was fine, that he felt happy, his wife Marie would not be swayed. “We’re changing our lifestyle.”

  Eventually, after trying out nightclubs and bars and museum shows and artsy events, they ended up here.

  The club sat in the middle of warehouses zoned for destruction out on the fringes of South Boston. The bricks and crumbling cement filler around the entrance were painted a deep shade of black, like a masonry black hole. Shadows didn't escape it's unyielding pull.

  Tony swallowed again. “What did you say this place was?”

  “A special club. It caters to Goths and Fakirs.”

  “What the hell’s a Goth?”

  “You know, those people who dress all in black leather and paint their faces and wear really wild make-up. And Fakirs are into body piercing.”

  Tony looked down at his outstretched arms. Suddenly the black turtleneck and jeans seemed too conservative for this outing. Marie looked better, dressed in a black dress with strategic tears exposing patches of ivory skin.

  She dragged him inside.

  The doorman, bald but for a nail Mohawk jutting from his scalp, examined their IDs.

  Tony looked at him. “That really must have hurt.”

  The man grinned. “That’s the whole point, man. Enjoy your stay with us.”

  Marie seized the opportunity to drag Tony further into the club. The music was loud, droning layers of throbbing rhythm tracks laid over high-pitched siren sounds, producing a cacophony that was as dissonant as it was compelling.