Nightwalker

by Ime Atakpa

  “No,” I say loudly, loud enough that the girl’s nightstand trembles. The lamp sitting atop it comes down with a thud. Even I’m taken aback by the sound of it. But what’s worse is that I’m not alone in my surprise.

  Silverware rattles against dishes downstairs, then stops—very suddenly. And the next thing I know, there are whispers, then footsteps. And I know that there’s nothing I can do to stop them from discovering their daughter’s corpse. No. There may still be time to save her.

  “You saw her soul leave her, boy. You snuffed it yourself.”

  I can put it back. Anything I take, I can return.

  “Too late now.” Rinaldo’s echo shrugs and fades away.

  The footsteps reach the top of the flight. A hand wraps around the knob and twists.

  It doesn’t budge.

  The girl was smart to lock herself in, more so for my sake than hers. Now I have a moment to think myself out of this room. The same way I came in? When I extend my hand, nothing happens. Can’t focus.

  The click of a metal piece threatens to unlock the door, and I finally come to my senses and remember that I am the Death Eater. My capabilities are beyond what they were before.

  I remember the feeling of passing through space into this house. I remember Alceste and the way she dissolved into ethereal dust. My body lightens and breaks apart piece by painful piece.

  The door swings open and her parents throw themselves into the room. Two distinct screams enter the beginning of what’s to be a lengthy howl just as I’ve completely escaped the room.

  I come into being at a cul-de-sac at the end of the road. Moist air deposits a clammy coating over my hands. It’s uncertain how much time has passed since my disappearance.

  “An hour,” the echo tells me. “You’ll learn to better travel.” The dead girl’s house remains visible from where I am. My eyes turn away from it.

  I should at least know her name.

  Too late. I can’t go back. I refuse to see her parents’ sadness in the wake of their daughter’s death. Even assuming they pushed her over the edge, no one deserves to bury their child. No one deserves to suffer through what my parents suffered.

  I have enough power to ward off death.

  “Even your power has limits.”

  “How many times will I have to tell you to keep your opinions to yourself?” Granted, he’s right. That’s not why I heed his words, though. I made a decision when I assumed the mantle that I’d leave people alone. They can live and die without my interference. Their sorrow won’t be my burden to bear.

  “And if the souls don’t go peacefully?”

  Then I’ll snatch them from their hiding and turn them to dust. Just like I did with the gale. Under my rule, that storm won’t return. I swear that much.

  An ambulance screams its way down the road, turning madly into the deceased’s driveway. A man and a woman exit the vehicle and go immediately to work prepping the stretcher. Even at this early moment, some of the neighbors peek out of their windows. Porch lights flicker on down the strip of road, and people step apprehensively out of their homes to see for themselves why the ambulance arrived.

  Somehow, even though I already know what’s happened there, I feel oblivious to it all. I move back to the house and stand at the end of the driveway. The ambulance flashes its lights.

  A man in his pajamas runs ahead of me with a flashlight held at the ready. “What the hell is going on?” he asks himself, running up to the ambulance.

  Police sirens blare in the distance. The commotion attracts more spectators, and soon there’s a small crowd lining the sidewalk. The girl’s father opens the door, red in the face. The paramedics haul the stretcher to the door. “Upstairs,” the girl’s father says coldly. Then all three of them disappear into the house for ten long minutes.

  I watch the world darken. That vibrant house looks dead to me, the shutters sad, and the door uninviting, except that it invites the medical team to leave. They do so rather slowly, and that’s how I know they discovered what I already knew. With confirmation of the girl’s death, the zeal of their arrival has been tarnished. They load her without fanfare into the ambulance and can’t be bothered to speed off the way they sped in. Seeing the lethargy of those who are trained to experience death, I’m shaken. Soon enough, I’ll have their experience. I’ll bear witness to more despair than happiness. Mantle in hand, I’m to make an eternity out of deliverance.

  -XI-

  An Epitaph Unread

  There will be a grave somewhere, perhaps in my parents’ backyard. They’ll erect a tombstone and surround it with my favorite flowers. They’ll decorate it with all the earthly possessions they know I held dear. And they’ll speak kind words over it as they mourn the loss of their only child. But there won’t be a coffin buried there, nor will there be a body laid in the dirt. There won’t be ashes to spread across that empty mound, or any other remnant to prove to that grave that I belong there. There will only be a headstone stamped into ordinary soil.

  The forest comes to life around me. Carrion-eaters have already done away with my flesh. Mangled strips cling weakly to discolored bones. The vague smell of blood and sewage permeates the air here. It summons the flies in buzzing clouds that eagerly suck at what little remains. In spite of this scene, the birds continue their songs overhead and the sun continues to shine on the world. Branches, full with bright leaves, still sway gently in the evening breeze. If only they could see the scene beneath them, they’d freeze at the way my corpse has turned the soil around it sour and killed the grass. Death feeds more death.

  It’s useless to think about it. Even though I can’t return home again, my heart yearns to see my parents live out the rest of their lives, Death Eater be damned. But every time I imagine a happy future for them, blood spills over the image.

  Mom sinks mangled in a bathtub overflowing with crimson water. Her arm hangs out of the tub’s side and twitches severely, like it’s reaching to turn off the water, or to stop the flow of blood. But each time, it just falls limply against the rim of the tub. Dismissing this thought only invites another to replace it. The bathroom shrinks into a tiny sphere: the knob of the alcohol cellar. It turns and opens, and Dad emerges from it. Bottle in hand, he settles into a chair at the dinner table. He sets the bottle down to join the dozens of others already there. One gulp of wine later and he ends up face-down in a pool of his own vomit. Glass from broken beer bottles decorates the hardwood floor where he tumbles and breathes his last breath.

  My mind is a dark place. I’ll have to learn—I thought this part would be easier—to leave the past where it is. There are greater things on the horizon. Beyond the thick claustrophobia of this forest, there’s a road, and along that road there are worlds waiting to be explored. Yes. There are worlds far from here, detached from the ocean where Alceste lost her life and from the house where my parents lost their son.

  I can’t escape it now, can I? The girl, bleeding in bed, flashes before me. My duty demands that I meet death halfway. I can’t run away from tragedy.

  Flies gather in greater number at the site of my death. The smell, I’m distressed to think, pleases me. As I stare down at my true burial ground, I can’t help but wonder how many more I’ll have to see just like it, gone without a word goodbye, undiscovered. They’ll be marked only by unwritten epitaphs.

  Scholars don’t need to make record of the feats I’ll have accomplished in the years to come. There are secrets left to be discovered. The Akasha. The echo. The true scope of my power. I wanted this, to live a life apart from the influence of others. That life waits for me tomorrow. For now, I must make my peace with yesterday.

  “Sleep well,” I tell my corpse and bid farewell to that young man. “Sleep well.”

  the story continues in…

  Nightwalker Book II

  Death Eater

  “Where are you, Rinaldo?”

  He doesn’t answer. These days, he rarely does. He is afraid. Because now I have power. I’m
strong enough to see through his deceptions. More than that, I’m strong enough to do the one thing he could never do.

  I can see the place he came from. I suppose that makes it his homeland or native country or whatever he would call it. His birthplace. The place where the laws of the universe are written.

  If I can make my way there, I can change everything for the better.

  “I’m waiting.”

  “So now you’re talking?”

  “No time for idle thought.”

  There certainly isn’t. I look up. It doesn’t look like anything more than the same old sky above.

  “You’re sure this will work?” I ask him once more for good measure.

  “Do it just how I explained. You’ll be fine.”

  Somehow, I still underestimated his cunning.

  Somehow he still tricked me.

  Somehow he’s still in control.

  It burns. It burns more than anything I’ve ever felt before. It burns and then everything goes quiet.

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