by Ann Gimpel
Edge of Night
A Collection of Paranormal and Horror Short Stories
By Ann Gimpel
Copyright Page
All rights reserved.
Copyright © December 2016, Ann Gimpel
Cover Art Copyright © December 2016, Fiona Jayde
Edits by Angela Kelly
Stories were edited by various individuals along the way, although Ms. Kelly did most of them. All these short stories have been comprehensively re-worked since they first appeared in webzines, magazines, or anthologies.
Publishing histories follow each tale.
Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or people living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to printing, file sharing, e-mail, or web posting without written permission from the author.
Table of Contents
The Call
The Wolf Next Door
The Oracle
Three Into Two Won’t Go
The Benson Hut Ghost
Darkroom
Through a Glass Darkly
A Run For Her Money
Epiphany
Here’s a roadmap to Edge of Night. Welcome to an eclectic collection of nine short stories.
You’ve done time at the edge of night. Nail-biting, stomach-churning time filled with hissing snarls, menacing growls, the whoosh of unnatural wings, and the flash of hellfire. Time that lasts forever, but is over within seconds because time becomes unpredictable in places like that. You don’t want to stay, but it’s too fascinating—in a grisly, macabre, toe-curling kind of way—to turn your back on. You recognize it, though. The place just at the threshold of darkness where it’s not quite safe anymore. Evil broke its bounds at the edge of night, or maybe it always ran free and we’ve been deluding ourselves all along.
Join me for nine supernatural tales. Monsters, demons, gods—fallen and otherwise—ghosts, aliens. A touch of science fiction. More than a splash of romance. From magical lands to a chilling glance into the past, Edge of Night has something to tempt everyone. Everyone who craves danger, that is. It takes guts to read the stuff woven into nightmares.
It’s a tough job, but you’re up to it.
Welcome to my world. A world where magic holds court and the dude next door just might be a demon. Or a shifter. Or an alien.
The Call
A village west of Boston
1830
Luke ran as if the devil dogged his heels. Breath caught in his throat. His lungs burned. Running and crying weren’t a good mix, but Ma was dead and he couldn’t help himself. The thing Ma had turned into danced behind his eyes and filled his mind with terror. His foot twisted sideways into a pothole and he nearly fell. Panting, he came to an abrupt halt and sucked air hard into lungs that had forgotten how to cooperate. When the world quit spinning, he straightened and rubbed his eyes until Ma disappeared and all he saw was the rocky, pitted road, slimed with mud from the rain.
“Good thing I stopped,” he muttered. The turnoff to Aethelred’s was behind him—not by much, but any time wasted wasn’t good. Luke always avoided the town wizard with his long, white hair and penetrating dark eyes that looked right through you, but today was different.
Pa’s words rang in his mind. “Run like the wind, son. Bring Aethelred. He’s our only hope...”
Luke shoved strands of wet black hair out of his face and started up the steep hill to the school where some of the village youth studied mage craft with the wizard. Branches grabbed at his damp wool clothing almost as if the trees were alive. Shudders wracked his body. Magic made him uncomfortable. He didn’t trust what he couldn’t see.
Darkness closed as he huffed up the hill, and Luke’s heart stuttered in his chest. Was it night already? If it was, then he was too late. He twisted his head wildly about. Trees were blocking what little light the gray day provided.
Thank Christ! I still have time.
He winced and tried to take back the Christ word since he wasn’t supposed to swear. Once his Ma would’ve scolded him, but not anymore.
The hill ended abruptly. At the far side of a clearing stood an imposing stone house with smoke curling from one of its chimneys. Shutters covered the windows. The air around the house shimmered, but Luke ignored what felt like a warning to stay away. He pelted across the scrub grass and up the front steps. Before he could knock, the door creaked inward.
Aethelred eyed him shrewdly. “Well don’t just stand there with your mouth hanging open, lad. Did you finally come to your senses about your magic?” The mage quirked a brow, his black robes fluttering about him.
“Pa sent me, he...” Luke choked out, but his tongue had taken root and refused to form words. He tried again. Wizard or no, Aethelred couldn't read his mind. Or maybe he could. Luke cringed away from the uncomfortable thought and forced his next words. “Pa said you’ve got to come. There’s trouble—”
Aethelred drew his brows together into a thick, white line. “Wraiths. I see them in your head. Tell me quick, lad. Who’d they get?” He blew out an annoyed-sounding breath. “Your Pa’s a right fool to send you off so close to dark. Is he wanting to lose his only son too?”
“Ma. They took Ma.” The words burst out of him. Luke squeezed his eyes tight and bit down hard on his lip.
“Get inside.” Aethelred yanked on Luke’s arm and slammed the heavy oak door behind him. “What’d your Pa do?”
“Nothing yet. He said we had to burn her. That you’d have something to add to the fire so she’d, uh, stay dead.” In a burst of brazenness he didn’t know he possessed, Luke tugged at the wizard’s sleeve. “Come on. We’ve got to hurry.”
“You should’ve arrived earlier. They walk at night.” Aethelred shrugged Luke’s hand off. “Too late now, lad. We’d never make it back to your farm in time.”
Luke ran for the door, intent on flight. If the wizard wouldn’t help, he needed to get home, be there for his Pa and sissies. He pulled the latch, but it wouldn’t open. Aethelred’s arms closed around him from behind.
“Damn you,” Luke cried, struggling to get free. “I’ve got to warn Pa and the girls. We never had wraiths before. Pa, he didn’t know. He thought he was supposed to let Ma rest through two nights.”
To his shame and horror, great gasping sobs tore out of him, leaching the air from his lungs. Luke didn’t want to be fifteen anymore. He wanted his mother back, wanted the world to be right again, where your parents knew what to do. Where whether your family lived or died didn’t rest on a half-grown kid’s shoulders.
“It’s not fair.” Aethelred apparently read his thoughts easily, which amplified Luke’s discomfort a hundredfold. “But if you go back to your farm, your Ma will get you. You’ll end up one of them.”
“Come with me.”
“I think not.” Aethelred released him and turned away.
“But you know magic...” Luke’s voice trailed off.
A very large raven perched on a rafter squawked, “Know magic, know magic.”
Luke startled. He hadn’t noticed the bird until it spoke.
The wizard snorted. “Of course I know magic. It’s a precarious magic, though—and not within my ken—that’ll save someone from wraiths once they’ve risen.”
“I can’t abandon my family.”
Aethelred looked hard at him. Luke tried to meet his gaze, but couldn’t. It was as if the old man was sifting through his soul, hunting for something. “You have talent for magic,” the wizard said. “I’ve told you that before. I could train you,
but you must welcome the call to waken your power.” He hesitated for a long moment and then asked, “Are you willing?”
Luke shook his head. “No. The answer is still no. I’ve got to go home. Try to help.” His shoulders slumped. “I still wish you’d come.”
Aethelred sighed. “It doesn’t work that way, lad. If we go, you’ll be the first one your Ma singles out.”
“Not you?”
“Not me,” Aethelred agreed, then added, “I’m not her blood.”
“If you can protect yourself, do the same for me,” Luke demanded, anger edging out fear.
“It doesn’t work that way,” Aethelred said sadly. “You’re her blood kin. Blood calls to blood from the other side.”
Luke moved a few steps farther into the wizard’s home and paced in a restless circle, his hands clasped behind him. Mercifully, Aethelred let him be.
It didn’t take long to solidify his decision, and Luke stomped forward until he stood dead center in front of the wizard. He forced himself to meet the man’s dark gaze. Despite being taller, it was painful to hold his ground. Power fairly oozed from Aethelred until the air thickened with the feel of it.
“I’m going home,” Luke said. Terror ground at the edges of his sanity, eroding it one filament at a time. Looking at the wizard hurt his eyes, so he gave up and dropped his gaze to his boot tops. “Is there something—anything—I can do to protect myself?” Luke’s heart hammered against his ribcage. His breath came fast and hard.
The wizard blew out an annoyed-sounding grunt and muttered, “I suppose I can at least do that much for you.” He unfastened a heavy gold chain from about his neck. “Take this. When you run into trouble—and you will—grasp the stone and call for the goddess. She may help you. Other than that, light a torch. Wraiths avoid fire, unless they’ve summoned their own to hurt you.” He pursed his lips into a hard, flat line. “They have to be wraiths for a while before they learn to call upon fire of their own, so you’re likely safe on that front.”
Luke gazed at the smooth, dark stone hanging from the chain. Something warm and inviting glimmered in its center. His fingers shook so hard he had trouble with the clasp, but he finally managed to tuck both stone and chain beneath his wet top. They felt soothing against his skin. “Thank you,” he managed through suddenly chattering teeth. “I’ve got to leave now.”
Before I lose my nerve and can’t go at all.
The door behind him opened, scraping against its hinges, even though no one had touched it. Spinning sharply, Luke ran for all he was worth out the door and down the steps.
The raven’s cries of, “Fool, fool, foolish lad,” followed him until he was well into the trees.
Panting and with a stitch in his side, Luke didn’t slow until he was almost home. So much time had slipped away, it was long past full dark. He’d puked up what little was in his stomach hours before, but the taste of sickness lingered in his mouth. Leaving the road, he crept along a familiar path that led to a cave he went to when he wanted to get away from everyone. Some of the straw there might make a torch—if it wasn’t soaked through.
It had been tough to manage his fear while he’d been running. Once he slowed to wend his way under low-hanging evergreen boughs, terror threatened to paralyze him. What if his cave was some sort of channel the wraiths used to emerge from their underground lairs? What if...?
Stop that, he chided himself. I could’ve stayed with Aethelred. I didn’t.
Luke bit the inside of his mouth until he tasted blood. The coppery tang broke through his inertia and he surged forward, pulling rushes and tree limbs away from the cave’s hidden entrance. A faint, wavery light shone from within. Horror gripped him, tightening his gut, and he spun on his heel to flee.
“Pa? That you?” His sister’s thin voice surprised him. Tamra sounded terrified, as if she was barely hanging on.
Yanking more of the cover back from the cave’s entrance, Luke called, “No. It’s me.”
“Luke!” she exclaimed, followed by, “Where’s Pa?” Her seven-year-old voice shrilled with fear.
“Don’t know.”
Gotta be careful, they might’ve gotten her...
Luke paced the length of the cave. Warily, he watched his sister and the smoky fire sputtering next to her. Aethelred said wraiths avoided fire, so maybe, just maybe, Tamra really was his sister, not some undead horror in sister form.
“Luke—” She gazed up at him out of eyes the same bright blue as their mother’s. “Hold me,” she whimpered. “I’m s-scared.”
Unable to deny his littlest sister—not when she sounded like that, so anxious and so alone—he swallowed his dread and knelt next to where she huddled under a tattered blanket. The minute he was on the ground, Tamra threw herself against him, mewling with fright.
“Hush, hush,” he murmured, smoothing her hair and reassured by the all-too-human warmth of her small body. Ma had been cold as death after the wraiths took her. “Tell me what happened.”
Tamra pushed herself slightly away from him. Her wispy, blonde hair stuck out at odd angles, and her eyes shone with tears. “We—well, Pa—was waitin’ for you to get back...”
“Waiting,” he interrupted, and then he kicked himself. What earthly difference did her grammar make now?
“You been to school, I ain’t.”
He hugged her. “Go on, Tam. Sorry.”
“It was gettin’ dark.” Tamra cleared her throat. “Pa, I think he figured it’d been wrong to send you off so close to dark and all. And he was just pacin’ up and down the cabin somethin’ fierce. Then...then...” Her voice trailed off. “I can’t,” she mumbled and squirmed back against him.
“You have to. I need to know.”
Her small head nodded against his chest. The rest of her body trembled. Voice muffled against him, she went on, her words halting. “Ma, she walked into the big room just like always, even though she’d been laid out dead in the bedroom all day. She was smilin’ and she sort of sidled up to Pa and put her arms ’round him. He had this...look on his face. It was awful. He screamed at me, told me to run.
“I...” Her voice broke. She tried again. “I wanted to go to Ma. So bad. But I did what Pa said.”
He tightened his arms around her. “Where’re Lilly and Marta?”
“Pa, he sent ’em to the Waverlys’ farm so they’d be safe. I was supposed to go too, but I didn’t want to leave Ma. So I snuck back.”
My sisters. They’re all still alive. Thank the goddess I came back.
“Did you ever tell anyone about this cave?”
She shook her head. Tamra had followed him one day, tracked him without him knowing. Lilly and Marta weren’t nearly as adventurous, preferring to spend their time spinning, cooking, and sewing when they weren’t in school. Because Tamra was youngest, their mother kept her home, saying she’d be lonely if all three girls were gone. Tamra had chafed at Ma’s edict, and Luke planned to tutor her once the winter crops were in. Suddenly that felt like another world.
Was it safe to spend the night here? Maybe, if he stoked the fire... When dawn came, they could head for the Waverlys’ house, half a league away. Tamra wriggled in his arms.
“We need to build up the fire, sissy. Where’d you get something dry?”
“Didn’t. That’s why it’s smokin’.”
“What’d you light it with?”
“My flint.”
“I’ve got to get some tinder in here. Do what you can to keep it burning till I’m back.”
Tamra let go of him. “I understand,” she said, her quavering voice solemn.
Luke’s heart went out to her, and he swore he’d do whatever he had to, if it meant keeping her safe from harm.
He stayed within a few paces of the cave. Every rustle in the thick undergrowth made him jump. He longed for a torch, but darkness was his friend. As soon as he was back inside, he whittled strips of wood, paying them into the fire. Tamra wrapped herself in the ragged blanket and fell into an uneasy sleep, twi
tching and moaning.
He tried to stay awake, but the fire warmed the cave, and he caught himself dozing a time or two. When he woke again, his mother and father stood on the far side of the flames with bodies like tall, thin puffs of smoke, their eyes gleaming unnaturally bright.
“Luke,” Ma cooed, holding out her arms. “We found you. Come here so I can hold you, son of mine. I’m lonely.”
Mouth agape, Luke glanced from one to the other. Pa’s eyes were strange, tracking in opposite directions, and they weren’t blue anymore, but a muddy charcoal. Luke looked closer. Ma’s eyes were the same red-rimmed smoke shade and both his parents had long, blood-red claws where their fingers used to be. Luke’s stomach clenched. If it hadn’t been empty, he’d have vomited.
“Your Ma, she told you something,” Pa said, his voice gravelly and odd-sounding.
Out of the corner of one eye, Luke saw Tamra edge toward their parents. “No,” he cried sharply and snaked out his arm to grab hold of his sister. “You have to stay on this side of the fire.” When he pulled her close to him, she was shaking, her eyes round as small moons.
“I-I think I was knowin’ that,” she whimpered. “It’s just...”
“Hush,” he said. “I understand.”
Luke’s hand crept under his woolen tunic. He grasped the amulet and called for Danu, mother goddess of the Earth. Aethelred just said to call for the goddess. Since he hadn’t said which one, Luke hoped against hope Danu could help them.
A hissing intake of breath from the far side of the fire shocked him. “I’m your ma. You pay attention to me.” The wraith didn’t sound nearly as friendly this time. Nor anything like his mother.
Closing his eyes, Luke sought Danu again, begged for her protection—and her wisdom. He thought he felt...something from the amulet, but he could’ve imagined it.
The things that had been his parents roared their fury from the far side of the fire pit and reached out with spectral arms. Tamra made another run for Ma, and he dragged her back. Nerves on edge, frayed like old rope, he finally turned away since he couldn’t bear to look at what had become of his parents any more. Tamra tried to talk to him, but he shushed her. He didn’t want to disrupt what had become an internal litany as he pleaded with Danu for help.