The NightWalkers

The NightWalkers​

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A cut above the mortal cast,​

We have our way, and make it last.​

Deep in shadows, far from light,​

When sun has set, we walk the night.​

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-Translated Text.​

-Author Unknown.​

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Chapter 1​

Spoiler

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It rained that night.​

Heavy rain tapped against the windowsill. The splat of each droplet kept a small, ten year old girl awake as she was sprawled on her bed. Her big brown eyes remained drowsy and listless in the sight of the water crawling along the glass. Amelia hated the rain. It was the literal dark cloud on her otherwise sunny day. She was a bright child who remained optimistic in the most questionable of circumstances. Everyone said she had her mother's smile and her father's kindness. The thought of them always made her happy. The sentiment quickly faded once she began to hear the pitter-patter of water. The April showers made her depressed most of all because bad news was sure to follow whenever that first drop hit the ground.​

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It rained, the night her parents died.​

The night both her mother and father arrived at death's door came far sooner than she wanted. They always did like to be early, she thought in an attempt to find joy in their memory. On that day, she cried as long as the rain continued. She sobbed for 6 whole days until she and the sky, cried themselves dry. Since their unfortunate departure from this world, she remained living with her thirteen year old brother Nathan, and newly appointed Parental Guardian; Salem.​

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Salem was a childhood friend of her mother's and was often thought of, as an uncle by her. Though she did not favor him, she appreciated the gesture of having him look after the both of them. They had no one else but each other and were in no disposition to be rejecting help. The week that followed was equally as hard for the two. Though her brother showed no tears during their funeral, it seemed to hit him harder than Amelia. She learned at a very young age, that Nathan did not express himself well, if not at all. Knowing his parents died in a drive by shooting must have been killing him, and yet he remained his cocky, twelve year old self.​

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It had almost been one year since that time of passing, and while Amelia tried to cope, she felt Nathan did not move on. He was often pessimistic and had no ambition. His views on the sweeter in life were distorted. Just like her, his childhood was left tainted.​

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The rain had gotten worse.​

She began to hear the distinct clatter of hail now. Her eyes moved over to the clock radio on her night stand.​

2:45 am it read.​

Along with the odd nightly weather, Amelia could hear faint rustling sounds from her brother's room next door. In growing concern, she picked herself up from her bed and pressed her ear against the paper thin walls. More noise of opening and shutting drawers. As fearful possibilities raced her mind, she sprung from her mattress and quietly scurried to his room to see if her thoughts were true.​

The hardwood floors did not creak as loud, due to her light weight. Slowly turning her door handle, she shimmied out, silently closing the handle behind her. In hopes of not being compromised, she cautiously peered beyond his slightly opened door. It was only wide enough to fit one of her small fingers​

through, so her vision of the room was narrowed. The moonlight offered enough boost in lighting for her to identify what he was doing.​

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In an almost precised moment, she saw the sight that plagued her mind since their parent's death. He had bags filled with clothes on his bed and his​

school bag, which now contained some of his favorite books. Amelia nearly broke out into tears as she watched her thirteen year old brother​

packing his bags to run away.​

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For such a young girl, she took notice of many things. A mastered observation, was that of Nathan's attitude. She knew what he was feeling even when he didn't. Lately he had been feeling lost and uninspired. Amelia respected his business but now wished she has paid more attention. Her only family,​

was getting ready to leave right in front of her. She wanted to yell out and prevent him, but she didn't want to know what he would reply. What could she argue? Amelia's intelligence was well beyond her years and Nathan was simply adrift. She couldn't watch anymore. Just the sight of another loved one leaving was too much for her young eyes. Maybe if he saw her, he would reconsider?​

Anything for him to stay.​

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She became short breathed attempting to conceal her tears. Using the sleeve from her nighty, she tugged on the wrist and used it to absorb the liquid from her eyes.​

"I can hear you breathing..."​

Amelia suddenly froze.​

"How long have you been there?" The melancholic youth tied up his last piece of luggage before eying her in the doorway.​

She wanted to speak, she wanted to just rush out and hug her big brother but she had paralyzed herself from moving.​

"I was hoping you would be asleep when I left." Nathan walked up to Amelia and opened the door to find his crying sister now on her knees.​

She began to breathe in and out as slowly as she could, without bursting into tears again. She watched as each on of her teardrops hit the floor.​

"Amee, look at me..."​

Her eyes remained glued to the floorboards. Nathan sighed and dropped what he was doing to comfort her. He too, got on his knees to try to match​

her height level and tried to look at her hung down face. Both siblings now at the doorway, Nathan gave her another minute to try and compose herself.​

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"Can you take me with you?" she asked tearfully.​

Now his face was hung down.​

"Amee, I couldn't do that to you... You have a lot of opportunity ahead of you, and mom wouldn't want you to waste that by abandoning it."​

"Then stay," she cried out softly.​

He was now rubbing the back of his neck, trying to decipher a way to resolve this as painlessly as possible.​

"There's nothing for me here and I need to find me own way."​

"You're thirteen! What do you know!" she burst out. Her brown eyes now matched his, staring straight at him.​

"That's the problem," he replied calmly. "I don't know as much as you, and probably never will. I need to live my own life."​

At this point, Amelia had ceased crying and looked disappointed in her brother. She now looked more upset than sad.​

"Why are you lying to me?"​

Nathan returned the expression of puzzlement and disarray.​

"Don't you think I miss them to?" she added.​

He paused for a brief moment, unsure of what to reply.​

"If you know me so much, than you know why I need to leave.​

Amelia's face had been all whelmed up from the crying, making this far more difficult for him.​

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"I'm not strong enough to deal with this right now." he explained. Those were the only words he could find to make his point as he watched his sister in silence.​

"What can I do for you to let me go?"​

Amelia remained on the floor for a few more seconds before arriving at a consensus.​

"I'll be right back," she replied quietly. Reprising from the ground, she headed back to her room and left Nathan by himself again.​

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Back in her room, Amelia took out a pink envelope with Nathan's name on it. It was a letter she was inspired to write after the demise of their late parents. The contents inside comprised of a letter from her to him along with 3 childhood promises she made him swear to keep. She took in a deep breath, preparing to go back to his room and hand him her final words to him. God knows, she couldn't muster them up off hand.​

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Closing the dresser drawer from which she retrieved the envelope, Amelia was startled by a ringing noise. It was coming from her Clock radio. She covered her ears as the noise grew louder and louder, combining itself with the flooding rain outside. The torrent of noise fused loudly to the point where it didn't even sound like an alarm, but a horn. A loud, beeming, Car horn.​

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*****​

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HONK! HONK!​

The twenty year old woman awoke startled as sweat dripped down her face. The man beside her in the driver's seat was honking his horn at the Truck driver ahead of him.​

"The light is Green! Move!" he yelled out his window.​

Wiping the sweat from her forehead, she re-aligned herself in the passengers seat. Straightening herself out as she was now wide awake. The driver took note of her recent wake and looked from her to the road. "I woke you up again, didn't I?" he asked hesitantly.​

"No, I was just resting my eyes," she lied.​

"Ah, good," he naively replied. The man was lank, but retained decent muscle structure. His five o'clock shadow always gave him the appearance of being in his thirties despite being in his near fifties.​

"If the traffic picks up, we should be there within the next hour," he said smiling. "Did I tell you this is where your mother and I grew up?"​

Salem had told this story more times than she could count. The overbearing story of the five hour drive is what put her to sleep in the first place. Salem was the kind of man who was constantly stuck in the past. While she was appreciative of all he had done in the past ten years, certain tendencies just always got on her nerves.​

"Yes you did," she yawned.​

Amelia pressed her head against the windowsill, feeling absolutely horrid from her most recent dream. Everything felt so real, as if she was reliving the entire experience.​

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Gazing out the window, she lazily gazed at the forest life beside the dirt road. The mental images could not escape her mind though. The sense of realism was indescribable as she felt like she was that small ten year old girl again.​

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She tried to concentrate on the wildlife to her right in an attempt to get her out of her current state of mind. A small droplet of water splashed against the window, causing her to jump slightly.​

"Looks like we got rain," Salem obliviously stated.​

Amelia watched as the single drop of water traveled down to the bottom edge of the window.​

Her face was much like that window, as a small droplet of water escaped her eyes and traveled down to the bottom of her face.​

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It was starting to rain.​

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Chapter 2​

Spoiler

The final hour on the road with Salem was the longest, due to Amelia's lack of sleep. He went on about stories of his childhood that she had heard countless times before, but he never seemed to stop retelling. Many of them actually featured her mother and father since he knew them both in his youth. "I can't remember how it happened, but your parents started getting really serious around your age," he reminisced.

Amelia nodded unenthusiastically as he had said the same thing last year, and the year before that. She rarely listened to his stories except for the key details about her parents. He was very graphic in detail when it came to her mother, which made her feel especially uncomfortable. Things like the smell of her hair and perfume always managed to sneak their way into his retellings. She chose to accept these weird habits in exchange for learning more about her late mother and father. Any recollection of them from her own memory were vague and short. She remembered that they were constantly working, but on family outings, they would have so much fun. Her favorite recollection was a trip to the beach when she was seven. almost thirteen years ago, but she still had everything committed to memory up to the smell of the ocean.

She sighed at the fact that as her only other mementos of her parents' past were a few old photo albums, and the stories from the senile driver next to her.

"We're here," he said.
Amelia jumped a bit pulling her pressed face against the glass from the window. she peered outside in time to see them drive past the "Welcome to Oakville" sign. She blinked repeatedly trying to fully keep her eyes open, even slapping her face lightly to return feeling back into her face.

From what she could see through the near aquatic vision of her window, the town seemed very old. Even older than her previous suburban home that she still couldn't get out of her head. Like many things before, Amelia wished she could just forget it. A fire had burned down her home of twenty years, and with it, the most precious memories of her late loved ones. Not to mention more than half her belongings. What depressed Amelia even further, was the fact that it was the rain that put out the fire. That damned rain, she thought to herself.

"So where are we staying?" she finally spoke out.
Choosing conversation over dreary events, she looked at Salem with a gaze of interest. "An old buddy of mine managed to get me a good deal in one of his apartment complexes. It's big enough for three people, so I think we should make do," he explained pulling his old black camaro into a parking space.
"We're here already?" she asked surprised.
"Told you it was a small town."

He unfastened his seat belt pointing to a man who was standing at the base of the apartment building. From his car, he signaled with his hand for him to come over. The man responded as he quickly raced over through the rain.

Salem turned the key and took it out of the ignition. Grabbing the newspaper from in between the seats, he opened the door and quickly scurried to the back of the car to open the trunk. In a tired daze, Amelia unfastened her own belt and opened the car door to assist. Exiting the vehicle, she made her way to the rear to find Salem fiddling with his keys to find the one to his trunk. For some reason, it confused Amelia how some one had had so many keys, but only used one of them for his car. There must have been at least 10 different silver and gold keys attached to the ring.

The man approaching the car left his arms wide open embracing Salem in the pouring rain.
"Salem, it's been far too long!"
Returning the gesture, he hugged the man who he appeared to be close friends with.
"Far too long Gary," Salem replied. "Still a landlord I see."
"Still wearing that bowler hat, I see." he rebutted.
Salem smiled, tipped his hat to him.
"You should really think about a wardrobe update. You look like my grandpa from the fifties," he joked.
"How about you don't talk about the way I dress, and I won't mock the building for having seen better days," he said, still smiling.
Gary's smirk faded as there was indeed truth in Salem's words.
Amelia, only now stepping out of the vehicle, saw what he was referring to. The building was only a few stories high and had small weeds growing out of the bricks. It looked like something out of her old horror novels, had they survived the fire.

Propping the trunk open, Salem grabbed a few suitcases and headed indoors. Before she could do the same, the man held out his hand to greet her.
"You must be Amelia," the man assumed.
"Yes," she quietly said, shaking his hand.

"Wow, you know you look just like-"
"Gary, can you open the door for me?" Salem yelled out to him.
"One sec, I just can't believe how she's the spitting image of-"
"Gary. Door!" he repeated. He eyed him and nudged his head towards the door, trying to derail him from his words.

The man sighed as he shook her hand again before jogging back to assist Salem leaving Amelia looking puzzled. Salem did mention that this is where they grew up, so perhaps that man was a friend of theirs. Ignoring the subject for the time being, she focused her attention to the items stuffed in the trunk of the car. She rummaged through her belongings until she found a dark blue umbrella. Quickly taken it out, she unhinged the strap which kept it shut and opened the parasol in relief. Rain made her uneasy and she hated being it in for too long.

With her head now securely covered, she continued to search for the rest of her bagged and boxed belongings. She scanned around for items that weren't too heavy for her to carry, but unfortunately found only Salem's poorly packaged property. His clothes were merely stuffed tightly into one garbage bag to the point were it could be considered a home made punching bag.

Choosing to stray away from the mess of the trunk, she rounded the corner of the vehicle to the backseat where all her neat belongings lay. It didn't take long for her to find something lighter there, among her organized assortment of goods. Everything from her boxed books, to neatly folded clothing were compiled and untouched by his discord-like packing.

She concluded to pull out one of her wheeled suitcases and a small bag of clothes. Still holding the umbrella, she grabbed the suitcase with her free hand, and the bag with her occupied other. Using the last three fingers, she scooped up the bad and closed the door awkwardly before quickly rushing to heading inside. The constant drops of water over her head were beginning to put Amelia on edge.

Once inside the sanctity of indoors, she gently shook the water off the umbrella before closing it away into her bag of clothes. Brushing off any excess rain from her coat, she gazed around at the building's lobby. Wasn't much of a lobby as there was only the front desk and two staircases. She noticed the small cracks in the white tile floor and the chipped ends at the end of the desk. The paintings were cheap and could be found at any dollar bin in a convenience store.

It was cheap. But it was her home now.

She made her way to the front desk, which held several chips along the edge. It smelt of damp oak as she glided her hand along the rough surface. No real reason other to observe and get used to her new surroundings. She'd like to think that her mother and father stayed here once. That back then, it was in much better condition and they lived happily here in their days as a young couple. It wasn't true, but alas, she could fantasize.

In the midst of her daydream, she came across a small rack of newspapers next to a dying fern in the corner. the latest issues of current events were the only thing new in the ancient manor. She skimmed through some of the town papers and found something that caught her eye regarding her old neighborhood. She delicately pulled the small bundle and was stunned by the headline.

Salem came trotting down the stairs at this point, holding the door to prevent him from accidentally tripping over the last step. He peaked in his head left and right before eying Amelia.

"There you are kiddo, was afraid i lost you." He looked over her shoulder at the paper, which revealed a house engulfed in purple flames. The headline read "Thirty year old home engulfed in freak accident." Salem held his fingers over his mouth, unsure of what he could say to her that wouldn't seem insensitive or inappropriate. All he did was watch as her eyes became cold and expression turned blank. That was her first and only home until a week ago. The paper described the luminous flames as a result of potassium chloride, which Salem quoted as "Excess materials from his employment." This was a lie of course, but only to cover the hard-to-accept truth.

"Amelia, if you want to talk-"
"I'm going to take a nap."
Amelia left the stand and Salem behind her as she quickly fled up the two flights away from the sight of her burning home. She rushed up the stairs, hiding her face in case she broke out into tears.

Salem scratched the whiskers of his chin, with his bottom lip lowered, revealing his teeth. It was an odd habit of his, but it was more or less the way he showed that he was confused. "Glad the bed was already set at least."