The Raven Mocker by Aiden James Read Free Book Online Page A

against the wooden floor, and then using his 250 pound frame to make his own approaching footsteps sound as heavy as the footfalls moving up the stairway to meet him. To up the ante further, he smacked the steel handle of his flashlight against his palm in a steady, methodical rhythm that was a helluva lot slower than his racing heartbeat.
    The tactic seemed to work. The noises in the stairwell completely stopped. But in the heightened stillness, he heard something else...breathing. Deep and steady, it reminded him of Tyrone when he fell asleep on the couch watching television in the wee hours of the morning in their shared apartment. Only in this instance, he had a pretty good idea that whatever made the breathing sound wasn’t sleeping. It merely waited on him.
    Tony whispered a quick prayer and continued down the hallway toward the stairs, hoping that when he shined his flashlight again into the dimness he’d find a harmless four-legged critter scurrying for cover. But the breathing down in the stairwell grew even deeper—as if whatever waited there eagerly anticipated the night watchman’s approach.
    Tony flicked his flashlight on and hurried over to the stairwell. The flashlight’s beam revealed the same barren cement stairs and worn wooden banister from earlier. But the breathing had ceased. The noises must’ve been an auditory hallucination after all. He smiled nervously, prepared to turn around and head back to the desk. That’s when he saw them.
    Two shadows didn’t disappear when the harsh white glare from his flashlight passed over them. Both were human-like shapes, similar to what one might see under the noontime sun when a person’s darker twin can mimic every move. Only this dark pair had their own agenda, swiftly moving up the stairs. The shadows separated from each other, lengthening grotesquely and moving toward him on either side as if intending to prevent his escape. He now noticed dark feathers poking out through each figure’s flowing dark hair, and each one carried crimson streaked coup sticks and knives.
    “ Ah, hell , no!” he shouted. He swung his flashlight at the phantom figures, connecting with nothing but incredible coldness that passed through his hand and wrist. In desperate panic, he threw the flashlight at the closest phantom.
    Later on, all he readily recalled from the ordeal was the flashlight passing through it, along with the sound of the glass lens shattering against the wall closest to the stairwell and the steel casing tumbling down the stairs.
    The fact he somehow made it out of the building, running on wobbly legs and a bum ankle, was something he wouldn’t recall again until well after New Years. But then he’d never forget the encroaching blackness that stretched across the walls and ceiling while he stumbled toward the main entrance. Reflected within the door’s lead glass window, his eyes looked like two bulging cue balls ready to be launched from his handsome ebony face.
    He wouldn’t recall much else from that evening until long after New Years. But the fragmented images would spawn enough nightmares to force the by-then former watchman to curtail his education at the University of Tennessee. The less painful images were of him running and screaming through the densely treed lot that separated Langston Hall from the rest of the buildings on Circle Way. The race futile, the flitting wraiths dove repeated at him from his peripheral while a terrible whistling noise pursued him from the treetops.
    Johnnie Mercer and Matt Edmonds found Tony three hours later, bloodied and curled-up in a fetal position near the curb of the museum’s main parking lot. All the while he babbled, incoherent, pleading for some unseen attacker to leave him the hell alone.
     
     
     
    Chapter Seven
     
     
    The morning sunshine looked promising to Ruth Gaurni’er as she gazed out the guestroom’s window. The snow-covered landscape under a clear blue sky didn’t look like a hindrance for