Post series: It’s Always Easier In The Dark

It’s Always Easier in the Dark

By Aristo Couvaras

 

5. Wet Ash

 

She cared not much for what her husband had to say. The talk down at the court house that day was no concern of hers; it mattered not to her that the butler of the late Atteridge family and some Italian, the husband of one of the alleged mistresses, had been taken into custody for questioning by the police, but she listened nevertheless.

“They’ll probably pin it on the wop, always seems to be them or one like them involved in such things. But they say the butler might have had a hand in it too, handing over the keys and such. So, it may well turn out, that I was not the only employee he deemed it fit to stiff in the interests of his own swollen wallet – this butler though seems to have taken it harder than I did.” Her husband paused, as if he had just heard what he said, or perhaps he had seen it in her eyes; none had taken it harder than them. None that is, except for their children.

Her husband quickly changed the topic to the next episode of gossip, wiping at his eyes before he spoke, “they say they’ll change the name from Atteridge to the next two partners’ names, something like Van Aan and Weston. It wouldn’t be so bad, either of them are better than Mr. Atteridge was.”

She looked at him with angry tears in her eyes, “good, I don’t wish to hear the name Clyde Atteridge ever again.”

“Darling, you can’t still blame him…the children would have…I thought you said you were feeling better after confession?”

“I was, only, only it’s so hard to let it all go.”

He held her and as she wept, so in turn did he.

She looked up at him, “I’m still so angry. And I know it’s not right to be, but, but when I read those stories in the paper, about him, his alleged mistresses, even his own wife and son…I was glad. I know I shouldn’t feel that way. But I do.”

He stroked her hair and kissed at her tears.

 

When her husband had gone to bed, she sat alone by a dwindling lantern with her thoughts and memories. When she was ready for the peace of sleep, what momentary pause it gave to her grief when not filled with dreams of her loss, she heard a slight knock at the door. At this time of night, she was not going to answer until she heard a whisper, a tiny voice from beyond the grave.

“The priest mother, the Father you spoke to. He’s the brother, he’s all that’s left. Either seek him out yourself or call upon my sister, find something of hers, you know the words.”

She ran to the door and when she opened it she was greeted not by the speaker, but by a lingering stench. A stench that cloyed about her heart and reminded her of the funeral parlor. There at the threshold was her rusty, notched knife, covered in dried blood and a grey slather.

 

“In the dark mother…it’s always easier in the dark…”

 

It’s Always Easier in the Dark

By Aristo Couvaras

4. The brother who was a Father

Won’t you walk on out those doors? You’ve been in there long enough haven’t you? I wonder if you know that I can’t come in there for you, that I’ve waited before and grew impatient. But now, you’re all that’s left. No matter, you’ll leave when the time is right.

When it’s dark. It’s always easier in the dark…

“Thank you, Father.” Said the mourning mother.

“There is naught to thank me for ma’am.” Replied the priest.

“And so? What should I do?” she asked from behind the confessional screen.

The priest ran his hands along his temples, there was so much of what she had told him that she wanted to hear was somehow her fault. None of it was. But the weary and desperate seek absolution and they believe it is not so easily attained.

He sighed from his side of the barrier, “do? All you should do, is continue to lay flowers on the graves of your children. Pray and return to this house when you feel you have the strength to. You should not seek penance for loss, you have not sinned. You are simply in mourning. Love and honor your husband and the Lord our God and I too will pray for you, your husband and the souls of your children.”

“But, but the picture father, the newspaper reports! Surely, I carry some blame do I not? One does not whisper the words I did and then find out that those words brought death through doors and simply, and simply chalk it up to coincidence.” She was pressing the drawing in question up against the screen again, what good it would do either of them. He could not see what she wished to show him. And he did not believe it had any bearing, much as she wished to attribute it to, the deaths she mentioned.

She wanted to make a connection, the priest knew, between the last drawing done by her deceased son and a host of grisly murders. Why wouldn’t she? Even knowing her son had incanted evil into this world left her with the sense of his actions still playing out, and her wanting to stop it, to know how to stop it, was little more than her desire for closure. Some macabre manner in which to finally bid her child farewell.

He drew in his breath, “my child, I am no demonologist, none in this parish are. But I would tell you that there is no connection between a drawing your son made and the words of an angry, distraught mother, to the actions of a murderer intent on bringing one family’s deaths and secrets to the world. God forgives us for the words we utter but don’t mean, He laments such utterances but knows we know not that which we say.” He wondered silently, God forgives us, but what Else may listen to such speech?

“If it would do you good, leave the paper in the confessionary, there is no one else here at this hour, and when I hear that you have gone I will dispose of the drawing within these hallowed walls. Will that put you at ease?”

Her answer was tears, “thank you Father.”

With his head bowed he listened to her frantic steps as she left the church. Her heels tapping against the marbled floor and then dulling as she trod on the carpet between the aisles. When he heard the doors close behind her, he got up and went to her side of the confessionary, picking up the dead child’s artwork left behind.

It was like nothing he had ever seen before, like nothing that should have been brought into this sacred space, like nothing he believed was depicted in Revelations or any grimoire on demons and the occult.

It wasn’t in the charcoal lines scrawled upon it. But, he thought of what she told him she had said; how she blamed her husband’s now dead employer for not giving him a pay rise those months ago when their children were both bed ridden. How that extra money for a better physician may have saved their young lives. How she had said what she did and pinned the drawing to a wall with a notched and rusty knife.

It was as if the picture had never been drawn by the child. By no stick of charcoal. But by the very words she had said while seeking someone to blame for the unexplained and perpetual loss.

Of everything she had confessed to him, there had been one thing he had wished to confess in return. But, how could he? How did he tell her that the man she chose to blame for the eventual demise of her children, that the man whose death she believed was linked to her words, she convinced herself to be a hex, had been his brother?

So, you have seen my picture Father. I wonder if when we meet you will believe it does me any justice. I do not think it does, I was not meant to be observed in that way, I am not meant to be seen.

I believe I look all the better ‘neath the dark. It’s always easier in the dark…

The priest felt gripped by a presence. Not a sinister one but a voice of warning, as he prepared to leave the church for the evening and lock the doors behind him. With each candle and censer he snuffed, each little dancing light he gutted, that voice grew louder.

He didn’t want to listen to the voice, or it’s words of warning, the voice he heard as also being insecure. Was it not paganism to give credence to the mourning mother’s beliefs? Were he to burn the drawing would he not be lending himself to the same superstitions that might lead to decrying her a witch and having her burnt at the stake?

He reached for the drawing he had stuffed deep in the pockets of his robes, the touch was, well, coarse. Like a hunting dog’s tongue. No, he chided himself, he of all people cannot give in to such folkloric considerations. It was simply a child’s drawing. Then why did he suddenly fear pulling it out and gazing upon the etching? Why did he fear to put out the next host of candles? It would make the church too dark.

He should burn the drawing, right then and there, he decided. Whether it was because he had made a promise to the woman or because superstition clutched at his heart, he did not wish to entertain. God forgive me this pagan weakness, he thought, this superstitious fear, for the wavering of my faith in you, but I must do this.

With one hand, he rolled the parchment up in his pocket before he withdrew it – not wanting to look upon the sinister depiction. He went to the altar and brought with him the goblet from which they drank the holy sacrament, along with a vial of holy water.

He placed the drawing in the goblet and held a candle to the paper, letting the orange tongue lick and lap at it.

What are you doing? It burns! How it burns!

It’s so bright, so bright and hot!

Never mind, when it’s over I’ll fade into the dark. I’ll go back, back to the dark from whence I came…it’s always easier in the dark…

The priest poured the holy water into the ashes and swirled the cup to the let fragments mix into a grey mulch. He knelt down and prayed for protection. When he left the church, and locked the doors behind him, he held the goblet in hand.

He poured the slop down a drainage pipe and crossed himself. He walked home that night and the moon and every lamppost seemed to shine brighter.

Right, left, went his footfalls; right, left, right, left.

It’s Always Easier in the Dark

By Aristo Couvaras

 

3. Executing the Estate

 

I’m drawing yours out. Don’t ask me why, could it be it’s all becoming rather fun?

You don’t believe the boy, you believe the doctor, that suits me. Eventually the sun will sink, it always does.

And when it does it grows so deliciously dark. It’s always easier in the dark…

 

Mrs. Atteridge, or should that be the former Mrs. Atteridge she now pondered, walked in through the large cherry doors and was greeted by Edgar.

“Ah, Ma’am you’ve returned earlier than expected. Would you care for some Earl Gray?” he offered the fine china tray up to her. Her eyes said thank you, conveyed her gratefulness, but her curt attitude and recent grief held the words fast behind her teeth.

“Yes, Edgar I would”, she said as she took a cup from the decorative tray, “things went, well things went rather well today at the executor’s office, as well as could reasonably be expected, I suppose.”

“Allow me to extend my sympathies again ma’am, to both you and the young master. What has befallen this family, well it’s a travesty.”

She waved a gloved hand in his direction as if chasing away a bothersome fly, “oh come now, it’s terribly sad for us, agreed. But it’s no travesty Edgar. People die all the time. Alistair and I are just lucky my late husband had his affairs in order. We shan’t starve or lose the roof over our head, and you shan’t lose your employ, will you?”

“Well if you would be so charitable as to keep me on Ma’am. Shall I fetch you the day’s paper, it seems the late Mr. Atteridge was not the only victim on that night.”

Mrs. Atteridge had no time or interest in other victims of madmen and a society with a decaying moral compass – besides, her liaison with the executor had told here more than she cared to know about the other victims, “No, no, that’s quite alright Edgar. We’ve dwelled enough on death in this household I don’t believe it would be healthy for Alistair to hear more about it. Where is the boy? Has the doctor been in to see him today?”

“Indeed, he has ma’am. He came to us at noon and saw to the young master.”

“And what did he say?” the widow demanded.

“That the night terrors are not abnormal ma’am. On the contrary, they’re to be expected given the unfortunate circumstances. He explained to me that given there is no face on which to pin the trauma, no accused as of yet, that it is the natural progression the lad might fantasize and invent monsters of his own accord. He seemed to have a way with the boy, if I may say so, in fact, the young master confided in me that he might even take to sleeping in his own bed again come the evening.”

She told the butler to fetch her son for her. She didn’t tell him that she would dread sleeping on her own. Not that having the bed to herself was an altogether unique experience for her, her husband had often worked exceedingly late nights. But since his passing, well, since his passing Alistair wasn’t the only one whom felt as if he shared his bedroom with…well with something else.

“Mother you’ve returned” cheered Alistair, bounding down the stairs like he wasn’t supposed to. Mrs. Atteriedge didn’t have the strength to chide him that day, and drew her son in to her arms. She instructed Edgar to begin preparing their dinner and then brushed her son’s hair from his eyes.

While the boy told her about his day and the visit from the doctor she did her best not to tear up. Behind her tired eyes, where she held fast to those tears, were the thoughts she had been plagued with since her meeting with the executor.

How was she to tell the boy, even in the distant future, though a mother knows that all futures are only but around the corner, that his father had bequeathed unto him a lovely town house near the courts. A house she had never known he’d purchased. A house in which two women had been found so brutally butchered on the same night the boy’s father had been. So much for the nearby inn or the charitable bed of neighboring friends during the nights he worked late, she thought. He had been the one charitable with his bed.

If Alistair had trouble sleeping in their house where nothing of the sort had happened, how would he take to one day owning a house in which something very horrid had. Never mind the implications of why the two women in question where there in the first place, Mrs. Atteridge knew the reason, but she didn’t know if she’d ever know how to tell Alistair.

More so, her initial reaction to the news was to tell the executor to have the house immediately auctioned. If it were left in her name she may have burnt it to the ground herself and be damned with even calling upon any recompense from insurers. But, she had thought, and still did, when Alistair came of age and was told everything, would he forgive her for selling such an item as his father left unto him?

Perhaps when he was a man himself he’d want the blasted house sold in any case. Yet, that would have to be his decision to make. Hers was only whether and when to tell him.

 

You needn’t worry about telling the boy. Why I’ll arrange it so he can take it up with his father and his whores this very night! Just as soon as the moon hangs high and you snuff out your candles, all alone in your beds.

I’ll take you to them in the dark! It’s always easier in the dark…

 

Edgar’s quarters were affixed to the kitchen, an expansion added to the sprawling abode so that were Alistair ever to need anything in the lost hours between today and tomorrow, he would be able to raise himself from slumber and attend to the boy. His quarters were in fact designed to be nearest the kitchen, where much of his duties were seen to, but also below the young master’s own chamber’s.

In his bed, during the still of the evening, a sound from above brought Edgar immediately awake. Something crawled along the wood of the ceiling, across the floor of Alistair’s room. It was akin to an unskilled chef sliding his knife along a cutting board, dragging it rather. Then, whatever the cause of the disturbance was, it began tapping. Prodding a point as if hammering a nail.

More night terrors Edgar thought. Best to go check on the boy lest he disturb his mother. He knew that the lady needed some proper rest herself. Edgar fumbled besides his bedside for a candle and matches. There was a slight hiss and a flame puckered the night air before being set to the wick. The prodding paused, as if disturbed by the actions below as Edgar was disturbed by those above.

When Edgar reached the summit of the spiraling stairwell, candle held high, he pressed his ear to the boy’s door. The young master was mumbling and moaning in his sleep, his breath haggard. And yet, Edgar heard the child speak to him from the bottom of the very steps he had just climbed.

“There’s no need to check on me Edgar. I’m quite alright. Night terrors is all they are, they’re not real. You heard the doctor say so yourself.”

The butler felt as if he had suddenly swallowed a handful of frozen cubes, and they were lodged in his throat. His hackles rose and he knew he had to turn to confront the source of the stolen voice below. However, for fear of seeing something staring up at him, he froze. His jittery hand made the sign of the cross and he did so again when he slowly turned around. Looking over the balustrades he saw a section of the dark move behind a corner.

The voice that sounded like the boy’s but wasn’t really spoke again, in a whisper, “why don’t you put the candle out Edgar. It’s so terribly difficult for me to fall asleep with its constant flickering.”

Edgar didn’t wish to speak with the entity but took one step down and held the candle even higher. The voice that next lathered the looming shadows was not Alistair’s by any stretch, “Listen butler. My business is not with you. Though it may serve you to share their fate, them both found dead and you alive, why the finger will have to be pointed at you.” The voice giggled, as if it took great pleasure in the portrayed scenario.

Edgar took another step down. Then another, carefully measured. Then a third. Some animal growled at him menacingly from below. The butler reached a candelabrum affixed to the wall and began lighting the candles settled there. The growling grew. It behooved the butler not to imagine what teeth were bared that hid from the light, what cursed lips drew back in response to his actions, what wicked tongue spoke the language of such malevolence.

There was the sound of a blade grinding against the wall before the voice next spoke, “Will you stand guard all night then? And then the next? And the one after that? I was sooo close to the boy and then you come with that blasted waxen weapon of yours. I remind you butler, your death is not in my sights, but that can be adjusted, or, you can blow those flames out, pack your belongings and be far from here before the sun ever rises. You are little more to them and your former employer than paid help.”

Edgar took the chance to speak, “and then what will happen to the madam and the boy?”

“The same thing that will happen if you stay. Those candles will wane, or perhaps a night will come where your sleep is so deep you don’t awaken until after you hear their death cries.” Whatever blade the intruder held furrowed into the wall it hid behind.

Edgar made his way down the curve of the flight and lit the next wall fixture. He stood there until his legs tired, and there he sat. Whenever he thought sleep might grip him, he held the flame near his palm or enjoyed the pain of hot dripping wax, it was a safe pain.

After perhaps an hour of silence, the shadow below hissed with disdain and then spat, “very well.”

Edgar sat, waiting, watching, a reluctant sentry. No door opened or closed to tell him the stabbing speaker was gone, but the rising bumps on his flesh eventually smoothed, and the sweat on his brow grew cold instead of the hot sticky residue it had been. Whatever it was, he believed it had gone, somehow.

The butler rose and made his way cautiously back up the stairs to check on the boy. When he put his hand on the door knob, he cast his stare down the long hallway that lead to the master bedroom. The dwindling flame he held caressed so little of the purveying gloom with its light, and the door to the master bedroom was now an ebon maw.

 

Err on the side of caution butler. I have one hand in particular you would dearly not like to force. See to the boy then, take your flickering ward to him. Best grab him and make your way to his mother before I do. There are other places the shadows stretch and open doors you cannot see.

Doors that open in the dark. It’s always easier in the dark.

 

Mrs. Atteridge turned in her sleep, tossing about from her own nightmares. In them she saw Edgar protecting Alistair from some demonic vagabond. In a dark encompassing cloak, the stranger with ill-intent had a long blade protruding from one of his sleeves.

A cloud passed over the moon and drew a dark curtain over what silver rays filtered through the large windows in the lonely master bedroom. Mrs. Atterdige heard her husband whisper to her from underneath the bed, “My sweet. I know I don’t deserve it, but let me beg your forgiveness. Those other two women, I meant to tell you, I did.”

“Oh Clyde”, she mumbled and turned over in her sleep, one ear pressed against the downy mattress so that she could better hear the wanted apology emanating from under the bed. Her dead husband spoke, “perhaps words will never do me justice, so allow me one final kiss? Would you?” Even from beneath the bed her husband’s breath reeked, vapors of some distilled spirit wafted up through the mattress and the linen; it was strong liquor, not malt or barley…something like formaldehyde?

She murmured some response her heart formed that had no words. When a coarse tongue of hair licked the side of her face and flirted with her ear, she came to from her nightmare into one unimaginably worse.

Even in the dark she could make out some semblance of the unholy features that tongue dangled from. A long blade entered her side, piercing flesh and perforating organs. She cried with unexpected pain as the blade sunk in again and again and again. She heard footsteps charging down the corridor towards her bedroom door.

When Edgar opened the door, the candle he held cast its light dimly about the room. The creature atop of her withdrew immediately from the glow but in that instant, she caught a more revealing glimpse of the thing and she was glad to die.

In her sheets, now drenched in a pool of pouring blood, she managed to give her final order to the butler, “ALISTAIR!”

But a terrible voice that was not her husband or anyone’s husband, already said with a giggling seditious glee from outside the boy’s door at the start of the hallway, “too late. He’s coming with me.”

 

It’s Always Easier in the Dark

By Aristo Couvaras

 

2. Sorting Affairs

 

How long will you wait? I see the flicker of the flame. Wont you just blow it out?

So that it’s dark. It’s always easier in the dark…

 

Ambra glanced towards the wick burning in the lamp. The dipped fuse didn’t have much left. She closed her book and set it down besides the lamp.

In bed besides her, Priscilla began to get prissy, “Oh! Where is he? How long does that man expect us to wait for him while he sits over his papers and documents?”

“Would you hush” Ambra barked, “Do you ever think that maybe his wife called upon him, or went down to the firm or the court house herself to see him?”

“Well then, why doesn’t he just bring her to join us?”

Ambra got out of the bed and began sifting through the clothes in the cabinet, careful to put on the same ones she had left in there earlier, “I don’t know why it matters to you Priscilla. We’re not whores, we don’t get paid per the act.”

“Well,” the younger women goaded, “I’m the only one that’s not. I have no wife who might call on me and no husband to slink back to in the dead of night…oh, but don’t worry, I know I’m not as fancy as you, what with your books. Besides when it comes to whores, he only paid for one of us to be here.”

“Yes, coming by sea isn’t nearly as illustrious as being bumped into in the countryside. Tell me Priscilla did he even offer you a thing before you let him bump himself into you? No, you were just a ditsy girl who was a tight fit, and now finds herself under a roof that isn’t made of hay or shared with animals.”

“Oh, just sod off back to your wop husband then and tell him you couldn’t settle his cuckold account, so you’re all going to have to spare that one olive you have left.”

Ambra, half-dressed turned around and flung her book at the upstart.

“Don’t you dare mention my family again you little cunt. You don’t know what we’ve come from and what we’ve had to do to stay here. And before you start thinking of yourself as his mistress rather than some strumpet, why don’t you take off those earrings you keep on for him. In fact, you lucky I don’t tear them from your milky little ears for my children.”

At this Priscilla rose from bed, and reached for one of her shoes on the floor.

“Chuck that at me”, Ambra threatened, “and see that I don’t throw this lamp at your pretty little face. Whether it burns you or this whole house down, he’ll never say a thing, and you can go back to finding a new ponce…provided you don’t burn too bad.” She smiled at her younger counterpart devilishly, her hand itching, inches away from the lamp.

 

Do it, but don’t do it. Put the light out but don’t burn her and this place down. You’ll spoil everything for me. I want you both to myself. Just like he did.

But in the dark. It’s always easier in the dark…

 

Priscilla dropped the shoe to the floor. The heel tapped against the wood with the sound of retreat. Then, from downstairs in the foyer they heard another heel tapping. Left, right, left. Her milky cherub’s face lit up, “Finally he’s here!”

Ambra watched her, still undressed save for pricey earrings, parade herself towards the bedroom door. The older of the two had heard those familiar steps too, but, she hadn’t heard the front door opening, nor closing. Despite her disdain for her partnered concubine, the maternal side of her wanted to grip the other’s mousy hair and hold her in the room.

She whispered with clenched teeth, “Priscilla. Wait! Did you hear the front door opening? Closing?”

Hair like hay sifted side to side as Priscilla shook her head, “So? What does that matter in any case? He’s the only other person who has a key, and only the three of us know this address. Here I thought your fancy books made you smart.” She flashed an impertinent smile towards Ambra in the sputtering light.

“Well, why hasn’t he called out to us? Or come straight up here?”

Peach lips made themselves into a wicked grin, “maybe he wants to play a game. A little late-night hiders and seekers.”

Ambra pulled her head to the side as Priscilla made to plant a kiss on her lips. At the bottom of the stairwell, the first step creaked under the pressure of a foot. Ambra thought, he always misses that step. The squeaking one, he hates the sound it makes. But Priscilla had taken off, she plunged headfirst and bare-bottomed through the door and down the dark towards their shared ‘investor’.

Ambra listened to him call out to his nubile welcoming party of one, “there you are my sweet. Dressed accordingly too, I see.” But, Ambra thought, how could he see in the pitch black? She listened as Priscilla hastily trotted down the stairs, the pads of her feet touching down on each step softly.   

Her trill voice came up to Amber’s ears, “finally, we’ve been waiting all night for you!”

“My sweet! And you’re even wearing the earrings I so adore, come here let me kiss your lobes.”

Then Ambra heard Priscilla’s scream. And that scream stretched into a shriek. She heard the sound of a slim body hitting the stairs, slipping as she hastily turned, a yelp of shocked pain, naked limbs clambering to climb back to the safety of the sparsely lit bedroom. Then she heard a thump like a boot to a face, Ambra knew that sound all too well, then the tumbling of Priscilla’s body rolling down to the foyer floor.

The voice that slithered through the darkness was no longer one Ambra recognized and she instinctively gripped the lantern, holding the hot glass close to her bare chest. “What’s wrong my sweet? Do you not fawn for my kisses any longer?” She heard Priscilla howl at the intruder, and howl to her, to anybody for help, but the stranger was not dissuaded in the least, “is my tongue not to your liking this night? Well, what about my touch?”

Ambra heard steel plunge into warm, young flesh. Again, and again and again – in the unseen darkness, pale, creamy skin had been painted over, and tainted with death. She thought not of aiding Priscilla, only surviving this ordeal for her children. She dared not put the lamp down but hurriedly searched for the bedroom key.

Cries of murder still stampeded upwards from down below, and between each desperate plea there was the rapid sound of stabbing and flaying.

She found the key and panicking, locked the door. But that wasn’t enough, she had to find a place to hide. Under the bed? Behind the curtains? In the cupboard? Ambra opened it up and crawled inside, her knees up to her ears as she hunched and balled herself up to fit in her makeshift sanctuary.

She closed the cupboard door but there was still one thing left to do, she lifted the lid of the lantern and blew the gutted flame out.

 

Ah! There it is! The light is out. How I would have preferred to enjoy you both together as he did, but alas, only the one of you was eager to run into my arms. She changed her tune ever so quickly though. Not to worry, I shan’t have to wait for the next. And neither will you.

Not now that it’s dark. It’s always easier in the dark…

 

Ambra pressed her ears to tell her more. The stabbing symphony had ended, but from within the cupboard and behind the closed bedroom door, she couldn’t be sure. Priscilla’s screaming had certainly stopped, the poor thing. Still, she persisted, listening for the creaking stair, for the borrowed steps and the stolen voice.

Nothing.

She clutched at the still warm glass. As soon as she heard the bedroom door open she would prepare to thrust and smash the lantern into her would be attacker’s face. Only the door never opened.

She heard not a sound but her own pulsating heart that she was sure telegraphed her position. And her bated breath which she couldn’t catch and hold, she tried only breathing through her mouth but was agonizingly aware of each draw and release of air.

When the voice whispered from directly behind her, hot and cloying on her ears, smelling like an open grave, Ambra let out her own howl. Her back had been against the cupboard wall, there was no space for anyone to be there, behind her.

“You didn’t think I would forget you, did you? His ripe olive. Why don’t you come with me? I’ll take you to him, the others will join us soon.”

A blade punctured the nape of her neck and grew from her throat. Her screams turned into gargled drowning sputtering’s before they ever left her.

The dreadful voice whispered, “silly me, can’t seem to keep my hand to myself tonight. Oh, and thank you for putting out that horrendous light, my eyes are rather sensitive.”

 

It’s Always Easier in the Dark

By Aristo Couvaras

 

1.Midnight March

 

It’s dark. It’s always easier in the dark…

 

The heels of Clyde’s dress shoes tipped and tapped along the walkway. Left, right, left, right. With the same steadfast pace he had always taken his steps with, well since as a toddler he had managed to master the practice of walking.

Over cobbled stone, paving, white sandy beaches and polished, gleaming wooden floors, Clyde had made a habit of being a man noticed, and known for, the decided manner in which he walked.

He had learnt it from his father, not the practiced manner of his gait, but how not to walk. Clyde never walked with shuffling feet, never had his neck lowered, let alone bent, never slouched or kept his shoulders narrow. It was, he had learnt, unbecoming to dress as his father had done but still walk like a beggar or vagrant. So, he dressed as his father did but walked his own way, his own path.

With this well-to-do fashion, he marched down the steps of the court house and along the pavement, alone. And that was the way he liked it, he reveled in it, all the more so when there was no one to watch him. It meant that they had all gone to their cushy lives while he drove forward, burning midnight oil, lighting candles at both ends.

Why just that day he had told one of his young clerks, the name escaped him, how did he ever expect to be in his position at the firm when the young buck arrived later than Clyde did, when he left hours before Clyde did. “I understand Sir”, the young man had responded while he followed Clyde through the network of passages and hallways in the courthouse, cases and briefs piled in his arms, “it’s just that, lately, the missus Sir, she’s been having trouble at home is all. You see the children they’re…”

And Clyde had walked on to the next hearing, not hearing what travesties affected the young man’s household. Clyde’s household was sorted in its affairs. He made certain of that. Even that, he firmly believed, was as a result of the man he chose to be. A man who walked in an esteemed manner. Left, right, left, right. His heels echoed the sounds of his march.

 

Closer, closer. I hear you, I will see you soon. But you will not see me. It’s too dark for you to see me.

It’s dark. It’s always easier in the dark…

 

There were no coaches on the streets, and Clyde had given his own driver express direction to leave when Clyde pursued his business endeavors late into the night. It was not enough to be hard on his office workers, and walk as he did, carry himself as he did, but he knew he also could not make those lower than his station toil the same hours as he. They would not understand, would not come to see the intrinsic value in it as he saw it, and the more different they were to him, why, the more he could laud over them, the more he could celebrate it privately with each step.

Left, right, left right, his heels tipped and tapped along the paving. With only the moon and lampposts to guide his way. Though he could make the walk blindfolded were the need to arise, so many times had he made this exodus under the cowl of night. He had a residence that was not a great deal of distance from the court house and these regimented strolls allowed him some form of exercise that his business pursuits did not. He would not be brilliant and weak, as his father had been, he would be better and stronger, fitter.

Then, from an alleyway he had passed, he heard the young clerk’s voice, “Sir, it’s just that, lately, the missus Sir, she’s been having trouble at home is all. You see the children they’re…”

Left, right, left…Clyde halted. Was that? No, it couldn’t be. But Clyde was a man who trusted his intuition, a man who walked as he did, and did what he did, very rarely doubted himself. That had been the clerk’s voice.

Far above the street, above the lampposts and the eaves and gables, the weathervanes and steeples, above the shingles on the courthouse even, a dark shroud had just stopped in front of the glowing moon as Clyde stopped near the alleyway.

 

Ah! Now you hear me too. Only you don’t know that it’s me you hear. You don’t know that it’s me in here. But you will know me soon enough. Come in, let us become acquainted. But you don’t need to see me. Besides, it too dark in here for that.

It’s dark. It’s always easier in the dark…

 

Clyde announced to the cavorting shadows between the two walls, “have you been a lush? Absconded all your earnings on a night out?” He took a step closer, a step off the pavement and into the alley. “I thought things were rather, exasperated at home, that you retired early tonight so as to attend to your wife and your children. Now am I really to find you here, inebriated, laying in the dark not ten minutes from the courthouse?”

The voice that answered grew less and less to belong to the clerk, “attend to the children? Tonight? Not me Sir. Sundays are for laying flowers at their graves.”

“I do apologize. I had no idea.” Clyde stepped deeper into the constructed abyss, “Why don’t you come with me then lad. We’ll sober you up at my residence, fortify you with some piping hot coffee and telephone your wife, tell her you’ve been busy all the night. What do you say?”

“Why don’t you come with me?” hissed the blanket of shadows. Then the voice giggled.

Now annoyed, Clyde took another step toward the voice. From right behind him, so close he smelt something unpleasant but surely not liquor – something more akin to embalming fluid – came the malevolent mirth, “it’s more interesting than where you’re going.”

Clyde spun about sternly. And then he felt it. Looking down he saw a grisly section of steel, a notched blade, its pointed edge sticking out a full six inches from his heart. He could feel his shirt quickly becoming drenched in blood.

The voice dripped with spite, behind him again, “go on. Walk in that officious way of yours. Walk right away from this. You might want to take my other hand though, where we’re going…well, you don’t know the way…”

The voice giggled and a coated tongue licked at Clyde’s cheek.