Real Life Series: The Night Walkers (Part 2 of 3)

By Jonny Walls

This is the second of what will eventually be a three part story. If you missed part one, go read it.  (None of this will make sense otherwise.) As always, this is a true story, although all names except my own have been changed. Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll enjoy the story of one of the most surreal nights of my life.


For a few minutes we all lie in relieved silence. The dire state of our situation is outweighed, at least for a moment, by the welcome absence of hoof prints in my temple. The matter of escape, however, remains unresolved.

"What are we going to do?" says Brandon.

"I knew we shouldn't have cut through these fields," I say.

"Hey, you came along."

"Let's just try to think of a way out," says Jacob. "We need to spook them away somehow."

"Can we throw something?" I say. "Maybe there's something in this shack." I lie flat on my stomach and peer over the edge to find that it's completely open on one side, more like a dugout than a shack. "There's not much here, just an enormous salt block."

"We could never chuck that far enough," says Brandon.

I lie back and look straight up, the startling brilliance of a billion visible stars lost in our imminent peril. "Maybe we can just wait them out," I suggest.

"No. We need to move. We'll never make it all the way there and back in time if we don't get going."

"We do have the flashlight," Jacob says.

"We can't just throw away our flashlight, I took that out of my Dad's car," says Brandon.

"What about the batteries then?"

"That's true," I say. "They're D's. Pretty heavy."

"I guess it's our only choice," Brandon says. It's unanimous, the batteries must be sacrificed to the greater cause of adventure.

Jacob turns off the flashlight, unscrews the top, dumps out two D batteries, and hands one to Brandon. "Ok, we need to make this count," he says. "We could never actually hurt a cow with one of these, but we need to make sure we spook one of them."

I sit in tense watchfulness as my comrades cradle their precious alkaline weapons, the last two grenades in a glorious final stand. It all comes down to this.

"Ok," Brandon says. "Three...two...one!"

A swoosh of fabric and they let 'em fly.

Two pathetic thuds, swallowed into obscurity by a thick layer of brush, are the only muster of our great final stand. A moment of uneventful silence confirms our failure. Not a one of the beasts flinch.

"That may have been a mistake."

Stranded, cold, and now without light, our great odyssey is dissolving right before us, doomed before it had even truly begun. In frustration Brandon slams his fist onto the metal shack. "Ssshhh, you'll wake someone up," I say.

"Let them come," he says defiantly, stomping the tin roof as that manic flash shows itself once again in his eye. People like Brandon are restless to the core, with appetites like sharks for the next wild moment. They're either swimming or sinking, never waiting.

"Wait a sec," Jacob says. He stomps his heel into the tin roof as well. A cow twitches. He stomps again, twice this time. Two or three cows fidget nervously, stepping lightly to the left and right, tossing their heads, casting around for moral support that won't come. Their nerve is breaking under the weight of unknown sounds, threatening in their volume and hint of violence. We all join in, stomping, clapping and shouting, a thunderous symphony of feigned artillery.

It works. A few skittish cows, deciding at last upon retreat rather than battle, shunt their young away from our raucous facade, and a wide gap appears in their ranks. We don't hesitate. We jump. We run (blindly) through the gap, past the cows, down the grassy hill, all the way through the enormous field.

Again I get there first. I leap over the first fence I see, this time a black wooden one, enclosing a back yard and lit house. Jacob and Brandon are close behind. The feeling of security that accompanies the other side of that fence is instantaneous. Quietly we sneak around the house and move in the general direction of the road. Once back on track, as our heartbeats return to normal and the fear of our close encounter slowly ebbs away, we realize that our desperate sprint for safety has put us directly where we had aimed in the first place, beyond the wide bend in the road.

Quickening our pace and sticking now to the safety of the asphalt, our journey continues unperturbed, save the occasional passing car, which forces us into the weedy ditch. Under an hour later we turn off of Brandon's road and onto the faster paced highway that leads south toward my neighborhood. Not risking the roads for fear of speeding traffic even at this desolate hour, we trudge through the ditches like the escaped convicts that we are, keeping good pace now to make up for lost time.

"So what are we going to do when we get there?" Jacob asks. "Should we hang around at Lainey's or try to get them to come up to your house, Walls?"

"Go up to my house I guess. I wouldn't want Lainey's dad coming down with us there. Since my mom's out of town for the weekend the empty house will be much better."

"Agreed."

"So Brandon, are you gonna keep going out with Erika?" I ask.

"I guess. I don't know."

"Well you were so gung-ho about making sure Karen will be there tonight, I wasn't sure."

"How do you know I didn't do that for you?"

"I don't know, I just severely doubt it."

"Ha. Fair enough. Yeah, I've been thinking about Karen a lot. I guess I'll just decide when I get there."

Jacob, who has been with Paula for over a year now, remains silent.

"So, if you're going to break up with Erika..."

"I said I may. I'm not sure what I wanna do yet."

A car rushes by, temporarily silencing us. The shoulder is so steep and the ditches so deep that the tires are almost level with our heads. The sound of its engine first fills the space all around us, and then disappears into the night. The conversation goes from a rumored fourth Stone Temple Pilots album to Kentucky basketball onto various other goings-on with our friends and classmates as we continue our trek. The talk is hovering somewhere around personal stories about our hilariously boisterous history teacher when we reach the edge of town. Somewhere along the way we've crossed into the city limits of my hometown, and another cowfield is all that stands between us and our quarry.

"Ok," I say, "I don't think we should have any problems here. I haven't seen any cows in this section of the field in the last few months. I think they've got them all in the next field over right now." Still, I look warily around for signs of protective cows that may be lying in wait. In all my childhood days playing in these fields I've never had problems with them, but it feels like there's something in the air tonight. The coast, fortunately, appears to be clear. A darkened dot far off at the top of the hill, my house, looms in anticipation of our arrival. Just down the road from my house, connected to this same field, we know that Lainey's house waits as well. It's over a hill, so we can't see it, but I pray the lights will still be on when we get there. It's got to be well past two o'clock now. 

Hopping the fence, we cut a diagonal line through the field, heading south and well clear of my house, toward Lainey's over the hill. The field thankfully presents nothing in the way of obstacles except more wet, tall weeds and the occasional cow dropping. Soon, we're crawling over the fence directly into Lainey's backyard.

My heart drops as we all see it: All of the lights are off. It's a cold, dark, sleepy house that waits, offering no comfort or welcome to the three weary wanderers.

"I don't believe this," Jacob says.

"I knew it," Brandon says, "I absolutely knew we would come all this way and they wouldn't even have it in them to stay awake."

"Let's not give up just yet," I say. Slowly I approach the window, unreasonable optimism fueled by a a faint glimmer of hope driving me onward. Lainey's room is upstairs, but chances are, in the event of a slumber party like tonight's, they'll be in the downstairs living room. Once again in I enter ninja assassin mode. It's become second nature over the years, the silent stealthy approach that accompanies any late night sneak-in or sneak-out. I climb onto the wooden deck and peer through the window. The condensation renders any hope of vision futile, and deciding on a whim that we've come too far to be turned away, I risk a quiet knock on the window with the tip of my index finger.

Silence. Brandon and Jacob stand a few feet back, listening intently. Nothing happens.

What drives me to take such chances when my own stake in the game is so small (bordering on non-existent) I don't know, but this time I knock a little louder, using my knuckles. A light flicks on. Instinctively, I jump back and hide behind a bush. Jacob and Brandon dart further back into the shadows of the yard. The sound of a sliding door heralds the arrival of someone, and I pray it's not Lainey's father. Cautiously, I peer over the bush and am relieved to see a small, shivering hooded figure in pajama pants.

I come out of hiding, followed by Brandon and Jacob.

"Hey," I say.

"Hey guys." Her voice is gravelly, her eyes squinting and her arms crossed tightly. Our worst fears are confirmed. Behind her on the couch and floor, numerous blanketed figures stir. I catch Erika's eyes, who looks back at us from the couch, not looking sleepy, but awake. She gives me a helpless sort of look.

"So, we came all the way from Brandon's house," Jacob says.

"I know, but we're really tired," Lainey says.

"Really, you're tired?" Brandon says.

"I can't believe you guys came all that way. But we really can't leave. And my Dad could come down at any time."

"Can I at least talk to Paula?" Jacob says.

"No, sorry guys, we've got to go back to sleep."

She closes the door. Before the light goes off Paula looks apologetically at us and shrugs her shoulders in a defeated sort of way.

"Come on, let's go up to my house," I say. It only takes a few minutes to make the trip. We settle onto the couch and I flip on the television, something to drown out the restrained frustration in the room. MTV, the one station that actually improves at night, is running music videos.

"I cannot believe this shit," Brandon says, venting openly in my parent-less house. "You'd think we hadn't just walked three and a half miles just to hang out with them."

"Seriously, I knew it," Jacob adds.  "I knew this would happen."

"Well, how long should we stay? It's only 2:30. Assuming we won't have any trouble on the way back, we don't need to go for another hour or so," I say.

"We might as well just rest for a few minutes and go," Jacob says. "No point in cutting it close."

Brandon starts to respond but is cut short by a knock on the window. Starting slightly, I look to see Paula, Karen, and Erika, shivering and smiling, outside my living room window.


To be concluded...

Check back in on Wednesday for the final (and strangest) section of this story. Thanks for reading.

By Jonny Walls