Watchers of the Night

by Matthew Keith

Chapter 4

  Paul sat at his computer, watching out the window as the day faded. He got up, scowling as he went to the bed that was more like a prison to him than a place of rest.

  That bed—practically his enemy. The same way diabetics must feel about their syringes, he needed it. If he didn’t lie down in it before he fell asleep, he would end up sleeping somewhere that would leave him feeling cramped and sore in the morning. He already felt awful enough every day. He didn’t need to make things worse by adding stiff muscles to the mix. The fact that his bed was comfortable didn’t make him appreciate it in the slightest. It was a physical representation of his limitations, the biggest item in his room, and impossible to ignore. A constant reminder that he was different.

  Casey’s Cemetary, he thought as he climbed beneath his covers. Everyone in Hardin County knew about Casey’s Cemetary. It was on the outskirts of Elizabethtown, one town over from Radcliff. It was down a long, dead-end dirt road. Spending time in the cemetery in the middle of the night was a favorite dare for a lot of the high-school crowd. Local legend stated that Wiccan magic was practiced there, and that it was haunted by the ghost of a young man who’d hung himself from one of the trees. A lot of locals called it ‘Hell’s Gate’ or ‘the Gates of Hell’ because of two enormous iron gates that used to mark the entrance. Most of the headstones were dated from the 1800s and had been vandalized at some point in the last century. It was a truly eerie place, especially in the dead of night. Kids who took the dare frequently came back with stories of gunshots, or that they’d seen strange lights in the woods.

  Lisa couldn’t have asked him to meet her at a more dramatic place.

  Closing his eyes, Paul was lost in the familiar feeling of falling down into himself. He entered the dream, into an immediate deep sleep. He drifted down, down, down into the depths of his mind until he felt himself stop. It was like letting his body sink to the bottom of a lake. There was weightlessness combined with a feeling of falling, but because he was falling through darkness he couldn’t actually be sure he was moving at all until he reached the bottom. That was when he knew he’d gone as far as he could go. That was when he knew he was completely alone.

  The sinking feeling lasted all of a few seconds.

  Paul opened his eyes and sat up, seeing the familiar gray tinge. He got out of bed, left the house, and went into town to his bench. But this time he didn’t sit down. Tonight was going to be different, he knew it. Tonight could change the rest of his life. He stared down at his bench and made his decision. Facing south with a firm resolve, he began walking.

  It was at least twenty miles to the cemetery, but if he kept a steady pace he should be able to average a mile every fifteen minutes. It was just after seven o’clock. As long as he didn’t stop, he could make it there by midnight.