After Midnight Read online

  It’s overcast again, and cold, but it’s such beautiful country, tranquil and serene. I’ve only been up here a handful of times with Wilhelm, but never for very long, and I never went far from him in case he hurt himself or something.

  I love that old guy like a father. I owe him. I was a bum, robbing houses and riding the rails, when he pulled me out of the gutter and took me in. I’d probably be dead or in prison right now if it wasn’t for him. He found me and gave me a home, a job, a life. This was all his idea, and I just went along with it. Like I said, I owe him.

  Anyway, I found another cave, this one huge. I’m gonna go way back in it and have a fire. I think I can spoil myself a little.

  Nov. 27, 1971- I found some weird looking footprints in the snow near the cave mouth this morning. They just...start and stop out of nowhere, kinda like a ghost materialized in mid-step and then vanished again. I stood over one for a moment looking at it, trying to figure out what the hell could have made it, and was pretty damn shocked when I discerned the outline of a human foot.

  Needless to say, I was spooked, so I packed up the party and took off as fast as I could, glancing over my shoulder here and there, looking for a cop or a guardsmen. I made about two miles before my sense caught up with me and stopped me in my tracks. I saw a footprint, which meant that it would have had to have been made by a bare human foot. Now, I don't know much about police procedure, but I'm pretty sure that no cop would run around in the snow with no shoes on. And the size of the print was too small to have been left by even the tiniest pig. It looked like a woman's, or a child's.

  It's got to be an animal, I figure, and I chuckled at myself for being so stupid. Of course it was.

  Anyway, I made about six miles by late afternoon. I crossed a creek between two rising hills and got soaked to the knees, so my legs are aching with cold. I hope I don't get frostbite. That would be awful. Wilhelm would have to come looking for me, and he's not really in the best of shape. I guess if it came down to it I'd let the police find me, but that's something I don't want to even think about.

  Right now I'm hunkered down in a little lean-to against a sharp incline, nestled in a dead tangle of thin branches. A fire would probably get out of hand and roast me alive, but I can't have one anyway; too dangerous. Earlier, as I was pushing through the forest, I heard the whup-whup-whup of chopper blades. Screened behind the intertwined treetops I glimpsed a big green helicopter. Probably National Guard. Who knows who all's looking for me? The Guard. State police. F.B.I. Hell, probably even civilian search parties, yee-haw hunters with bright orange vests, plaid caps, hunting rifles, and a thirst for fame. I still haven't decided what I'll do if I come across someone on the other team. Is murder worth it?

  Maybe. They’ll probably put me away for life anyway. What do I have to lose?

  Nov. 28, 1971 - I had no idea I camped so close to the highway. Not even half a mile back, so close I could hear cars whooshing back and forth this morning. Good thing I couldn't have a fire, it would have been easily visible from the road.

  Oh, and I found more footprints. Same deal as before; looks like the tracks of a child or a small monkey. Really weird.

  Nov. 29, 1971- It’s midnight, and something's out there, screaming in the dark, wailing and fucking shrieking like a banshee or something. You might just hear it in the background. [Note by FBI: Severe winds were reported on this night.]

  I have the flashlight on, but I'm not brave enough to shine it out there. I'm afraid of what I'll see…maybe a rotted, grinning face with maggots squirming in its empty eye sockets...

  Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!

  It started about an hour ago. I was outside taking a piss when it rose sharply in the distance, quivering and breaking like insane laughter. My heart froze mid-beat and my stomach tightened. It fell away and came back again, this time sounding more like the crying of a sick infant neglected in its crib. I was so petrified I couldn't even move. I only ran back to the lean-to I built when it came a third time, now seemingly from a totally different direction...and closer. I have no idea what it is. Maybe bobcats. I saw a documentary on them with Wilhelm once, and the host made note of their "unsettling nighttime calls." If that's what's out there, then unsettling ain't the word. It sounds like a ghost out looking for its lost head or something.

  Nov. 30, 1971- I think someone's following me. Someone other than the police, that is. First there’re those footprints. I admit I'm no naturalist, but...they're too human, you know? I found some more this morning, and took one of my boots and socks off to compare: They matched exactly, except the size. (I still can't imagine who would be running around in the snow with bare feet.) And then today, around noon, I found a deer trail and was following it through a thicket. It was overcast, and the forest was in perpetual twilight. I kept hearing twigs snapping and snow crunching behind me, but I figured it was an animal...until a snowball hit me in the back of the head.

  I whipped around so fast I nearly fell over. I thought I saw something dark disappear into the underbrush, but in hindsight it was probably nothing.

  "Who’s there?" I demanded, but the only reply came from birds in flight.

  I scanned the empty path. Nothing seemed amiss, but suddenly I had that uncanny being-watched feeling.

  It couldn’t be a cop or a guardsman, I told myself; if anything, they would have shot me. I called out.

  An icy breeze swept the path.

  For a moment I stood in place, my hand on the butt of the revolver, an old wild-west sheriff wary to the danger of ambush. Who in the hell?

  I didn’t like it. No matter if it was a playful hillbilly or the county constable, it was a person, and a person means only bad things.

  I went on, and about an hour later, as I was about to stop to eat something in a little clearing, I heard what sounded like a muttered cough stifled by a considerate moviegoer. A sudden rush of fear shot through me like an electric shock, and I spun around.

  Again, I saw nothing.

  "Who’s there?" I called and didn’t like the way my voice trembled.

  Nothing.

  "I know you’re there," I shouted, pulled the gun out and took a shooter’s stance, feet wide apart, gun held out in both hands. "Show yourself!"

  A small animal crashed through the overgrowth.

  I tried to shrug it off, but I couldn’t. I know I heard a goddamn cough out there. I spent the rest of the day watching over my shoulder and listening for anything odd. I stopped around 4:30 and threw a little matchstick teepee together. I’m exhausted. I wanna go to sleep so bad, but I’m kinda afraid to. I changed the batteries in this thing, and threw away the old ones.

  It's somewhere on the wrong side of midnight, and that ghostly screaming is so damn close I swear I could see the source...if only I had the courage to look. [FBI note: strong winds again recorded this night.]

  Nov. 31, 1971- The sick fuck left me a present! I found it this morning when I went out for a piss, a fucking raccoon lying in a pool of bloodstained snow, tangled in pink intestines, its dark eyes upturned and its little teeth overhanging its lips, sneering accusingly. I nudged it with my foot, and then looked out at the forest, crooked trees rising from sun-bedazzled snowdrifts.

  "You better leave me alone!" I shouted, raising the pistol.

  My voice echoed through the vast stillness. I knew in the back of my head I was being stupid, that someone might hear me and coming running, hissing into a walkie talkie that Cooper was around flapping his thieving gums, but I didn’t care.

  I swept my gun back and forth, letting him get a good look at it. "See this? I’ll fucking use it! Don’t think I won’t!"

  I didn’t wait for him to respond. I had to get the hell out of there in case anyone heard me.

  I’ve stopped to eat something, it’s about four hours later. I’ve climbed onto this huge rock overlooking a little ice choked stream and eaten my pork and beans. Awful shit. I used to like it, but now…I can’t wait to get some real food. Maybe a nice big piz
za with hearty chucks of pepperoni, melty cheese, zesty tomato sauce, crisp green peppers…

  You know, I been thinking: Maybe I’m overreacting a little. Maybe this whole situation has me too paranoid for my own good. That "snowball" could have come off a tree, though I don’t particularly remember one overhanging the path, and that coon…well, who’s to say a possum didn’t get a hold of it? Cycle of life, right?

  Dec. 1, 1971-No, I was right; there is someone out there. I saw him earlier, just a fleeting glimpse through the underbrush, so I can't say much except that he's small and thin.

  It was nine or so, and I was following that same deer path from the other day up this little hill. I had my face straight forward, staring dead ahead. I was just about to hop over this little gully-like fissure when I caught something in the corner of my right eye. I spun around, and just missed him stepping behind a tree.

  I let out a shocked cry, my heart skipping a long beat.

  "I said leave me alone!" I finally shouted.

  A rabbit jumped across the path, startling me.

  About a mile later, I just happened to look back, and saw a blurry something dart off the trail.

  My stomach lurched and my blood turned to cold sludge. I didn’t even have the courage to yell at him this time; I got the hell out of there, watching my back more than my front.

  It's near midnight now, and I'm too scared to sleep. He's still out there, and I think he’s the one making those noises.

  Dec. 2, 1971- This time it’s a chipmunk nailed to a tree. I’m moving on as quick as I can.

  It’s four hours later and I’ve seen who it is. It's a woman. She was behind me all day like some kind of phantom, always just...standing there, watching me.

  The first time I saw her, I was moving along and just happened to glance over my shoulder, and there she was, ten feet back on this huge snow bank naked, her dirty, mottled flesh stretched tightly across her boney ribs, her eyes liquid black and her listless hair matted and tangled.

  My heart sputtered and my stomach tightened. I spun around to face her, and…just froze in place…paralyzed.

  For a long time neither of us moved, and then she gave out an awful wail, and I broke and ran. Every time I looked over my shoulder she was there, always five feet away, always standing still with her arms limp at her sides. I finally lost her, and a mile later collapsed and almost passed out.

  It might sound crazy, but I don’t think she’s alive…

  Dec. 3, 1971- It’s late afternoon and I’m in a cave. I didn’t see her today. I’m starting to wonder if I'm losing my mind.

  Dec. 4, 1971- I’m back in the cave. I rolled a huge rock in front of the entrance, and now I’m sitting here with my gun, ready to blast anything that tries to get in.

  She's real. I'm sure of that now. It's crazy, yeah, I know, but she's real, and she isn't a ghost. She touched me. She fucking touched me.

  It was half past nine, I think. I was fumbling down the path, looking over my shoulder with every other step, and just as I was passing this huge bush, she reached from the depths and grabbed my wrist, her sallow hand hard and cold like a block of stone. I screamed so loud that my vision grayed and went crazy trying to pull away. Her face, framed in dead snarls, was white and sunken, her eyes inky black and her cracked teeth yellow and brown. She tried to draw my arm to her mouth, and I hit her with the butt of the gun, shattering her nose and stunning her. Her grip loosened, and I yanked back, overbalanced, and tumbled to the ground.

  I was on my feet in a flash. Somehow, she was free of the bush and shambling toward me like a robot with outstretched arms. I pulled the trigger twice. The first bullet caught her in the throat and spun her around, the second hit her in the back of the head. She collapsed to the ground like a frozen side of beef, and I ran all the way back here. I looked over my shoulder only once: she was way back there, standing in-between two more of them, both men and both as dead as she.

  Dec. 5, 1971- One tried to claw his way in; there were maggots squirming in his left eye socket. I shot him in the forehead, and he just hissed at me, pure hatred on his face. I shot him again and again, and finally he pulled back.

  Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening. It can’t. It fucking can’t.

  D671 Six of them now, all trying to come in, snapping and gnashing, screaming, fucking wailing. I can’t hold them off much longer. They-

  FBI note: There is no forensic evidence linking the tape-recorder to the Cooper case. The possibility of an elaborate hoax by a member of the public is the most likely explanation. The bloodstains on the ground, the walls and the roof of the cave were most likely left by the hoax perpetrator. Recommendation: No action to be taken.

  Song of the Night.

  Blessed are the dead, eyes forever shut. Damned are they, as I, who ride the night and moan to the moon, cast into dense thickets far from the sphere of men. We are cold, hollow creatures banished to hardscrabble limbo, damned to haunt midnight graveyards with large mouths and eyes. We know not the bewitching allure of evil, only the hot need that drives us to drag our icy brethren from the ground. But how I yearned to be back among life, color, warmth, love and friendship. One particular night I was on the bank of a mighty river, reflecting on my damnation. My despair would always drive me to an isolated spot where I would sit for hours and weep or brood.

  I had passed several travelers on the road, and had been given a taunting glimpse back into human life. I kept my head down, and was able to hear a bit of conversation as they passed. A young man and woman would be married soon. I don’t know why overhearing this so affected me, but soon I was consumed with black melancholy, a gnawing tempest so great that I contemplated throwing myself into the water and letting it fill my lungs.

  I had just decided to go back to my horrid countrymen when my ears were tantalized by a sound that I at length recognized as the voice of a woman singing, warm, light and airy, like a summer breeze.

  I was captivated, the spirit of the song dragged me to my feet and goldenly beckoned me. I picked my way through the underbrush along the shore, my tread concealed by the soft, cold mud carpeting the riverbank.

  Soon, through the tangles, a small speck of flickering light appeared. I followed it and found myself in a clearing near the river. A lantern hung from a twisted tree hunched over the water, and in its light I beheld a young maid in a dress and kerchief, collecting water in a bucket and lowly cooing to herself:

  My love, my love, where art thee?

  My knight, my knight, where could thee be?

  Hath mine Lord set thy soul free?

  She regressed to humming and dragged the bucket over the river’s still surface.

  She stood and in the light I saw her slim, German beauty. Full pink lips, proud cheeks, and honey hair, a spill of which curled above her right eye. I watched longingly as she retrieved her lantern and started away from the shore, humming the entire time.

  “Your voice,” I was aghast to find myself rasping in a long disused voice, “it is beautiful.”

  Without a sign of shock, as if she had known I was there the whole time, the girl stopped and turned to me, holding her lantern aloft. She was too far away to cast any light upon me, but I fell back a step anyway.

  “Thank you,” she said in an even, girlish tone.

  “It is like that of an angel,” I gushed awkwardly, the words clumsy on my cold lips.

  “I’ve been singing since I was a little girl,” she said, a smile in her voice. She took a step forward. “Who are you? What is your name?”

  For a moment I believed I had forgotten. “Rudolph Goring.” The name was half-remembered, as though I had once heard it on the lips of a fleeting stranger.

  “Like the poet,” she said with something like wonder.

  “Yes,” I replied. “Have you read him?”

  “He is my favorite,” she beamed, “I own all of his works.”

  “Even Outlaw Ballards?” I asked incredulously.


  “Even, but I much prefer Spring Jubilee.”

  She moved closer. “Come into the light so that I may see you.”

  “No,” I almost gasped, a bit of fear creeping in. “I…I wish to remain in the dark.”

  “But why?” she asked innocently, and came forward yet again.

  I turned and ran then. To spare the angelic creature my putrescent sight, I fled through the woods, falling headlong over warped roots and slipping in mud, back to my despised brethren.

  Her voice, like the starry sky, followed me as I rushed back the way I had come.

  Hurt, like a bride watching her groom flee into the night, she called my name, the name of a poet long dead, the name of a monster. My words remain golden, while my body remains putrid.

  Krazy 4 Koontz

  June 17, 2014 – Is this a dream? I’ve been asking myself that all day, even though I know it’s not. The warm sunshine on my skin and the cool, salty breeze against my face is too vivid.

  This is real.

  I’m actually here. After all the years of busting my ass and saving every penny of my paltry wages, of months of trudging across the country, hitching and riding the rails, and weeks of baking in the Utah-Nevada-California badlands, I’m here. The more I think of it, the higher I get. I’ve been wandering around Newport Beach all afternoon drunk with lightheaded triumph. My feet are sore and my skin aches from all of the sun it sucked up in the Mojave, but that’s okay; I hardly even notice. Sunny Southern California is everything I dreamed it would be, everything Dean promised me it would be. No wonder so many countless pioneers flocked from the crowded, industrial east in the 1800s. This place is breathtaking. The clear blue sky, the wavering palms lining the grand avenues, the warm, sun-kissed breeze, and the sparkling blue ocean breaking on the white sandy beaches; this must be what heaven looks like.