I Am the Nightmare (A Novel)

Chapter Eleven | Show Me Your Light

The snow fell over the quiet town of Sorrow's Sky, but it hadn't yet begun to stick to the streets. The moonlight, mixed with the twilight's dwindling sunlight, tried desperately to shine through the thick gray clouds above, but the thin light that penetrated the heavy haze was only visible as a subtle eerie glow. October was nearing its end and the marchers and floats for the annual All Hallows Eve parade, a tradition of the small town since 1984, would be filling up Main Street in about fourteen hours.

With Samuel riding shotgun and Miranda in the middle seat, Alex, with a healthy grip on the steering wheel, looked into the old Chevy pickup's rear-view mirror to find the taillights illuminating a rundown abandoned mechanic shop. He eased on the gas pedal, backing the truck over the bumps and dips of the building's small dirt lot.

Samuel had purchased the place a few years back and had been using it for storage. For a time, he had used the one-car garage to store a few of his classic vehicles, separately, of course, swapping them out depending on the time of year—a '71 Pontiac Firebird and his two door, '57 Chevy Bel-Air. But he sold the former to a collector in California and moved the coup to a different single-vehicle service station that he bought for a couple grand, the perk being that his baby wouldn't get water damage from a leaky roof.

"Remind me why we're not using James's hearse for this," Alex said.

Samuel kept his eyes focused on the truck's side mirror. "That thing has custom rims, decals and an Al Gore bumper sticker on the back window. The hearse gets a lot of attention and we don't need an audience."

Miranda lit up a smoke and Samuel watched James in the mirror. The young black man was standing in the truck's bed, keeping his balance by leaning on a white steel casket with chrome hardware. Even in the mirror, the pinks, reds and yellows of the sunset's remnants reflected off the vessel's shiny finish, dipping and bending the colors over its curved lid and chiseled sides. The waning sunlight glinted off the western-facing lugs, arms and handles.

The town's mortician, Donny Phelps, who was a good friend and confidant to Samuel, had donated the casket, no questions asked. The hunter had blessed the man's mortuary twice a year for the last four and took care of a nasty case of ghost sickness that Donny had contracted through his work; the doctors couldn't even diagnose it, let alone cure it. All in all, Samuel was due a favor.

James worked to give Alex direction, signaling for a left side maneuver to avoid a larger-than-average pothole. When a clump of ashes, taken by the heavy breeze, blew from his cigarette, James dusted them off his big red winter coat. The demon hunter noticed the slight distraction was enough to cause Alex to hit the brakes, sending the casket scraping across the truck bed's lime green finish and giving James a significant jolt. While Samuel tossed his hands in the air and threw out a few German expletives, his protege' behind the wheel put the truck in Park and killed the engine.

Alex exited the vehicle and walked to the back of the truck, lowered the tailgate and plopped down onto it.

The casket's lid had been sealed and locked; the gang was hoping it would never be opened again, for what lay dormant within could tear apart the world. Lord knows it had already done a number on Colorado.

As the clock tower chimed, announcing the six o'clock hour to the town's residents, Samuel looked up to see a cast of ravens sitting perched in a line, extending down the branch of a nearby American Elm tree; the quadruple floodlights mounted atop the building's garage door illuminated its creeping branches.

Seeing a raven used to be an omen, or so Samuel had heard when he was a boy. The lore stated that the presence of these birds was often a message from the divine, that they were harbingers of bad luck. However, seeing seven clustered together in the freezing cold, weeks after the breed should have migrated south, was a case open to interpretation.