Free Servants of Darkness by Mark Hall Page A

there. I went to the door and peered out. The moon was a brilliant silver dollar set into a black curtain sprinkled with glittering solitaires. Outside the air was filled with frost.
    Megan came and stood beside me. “What’s wrong?” she said. “You’ve been acting weird all day.”
    “I don’t know,” I said, but it was a lie. I was trying my best not to alarm her. Something was wrong and I’d been trying to find a delicate way to tell her about it.
    “Come on, Bobby, out with it.”
    I sighed. She looked a little nervous, too, I thought, even through the Peggy Sue-Got-Buried sexy ghoul outfit that she’d chosen for the party. I tried to shrug off my anxiety, but inside, my gut was churning with tension. I’d had a strange dream the night before. I rarely dream. And when I do they’re almost never frightening or prophetic. But this dream had been both. A ghoulish-looking creature had come crawling in through our bedroom window and had sat there on the edge of my bed telling me a strange story.
    “On the eighth Halloween of the third millennium,” the ghoul had said, “three nights past the full moon, and one night before All Saints Day, the membrane between this world and the netherworld will be thinner than it has been in more than five thousand years. It will be a rare opportunity for the kindred to find a weakness and come rushing through. They have been waiting, biding their time, and they will not waste this chance.”
    I remembered lying there propped up on one elbow, watching my visitor with a strange kind of detachment, knowing that I was dreaming but feeling strangely cognizant.
    “Kindred?” I asked, barely able to contain a smile. “You’re kidding?”
    “Not in the least,” my visitor replied in a perfectly sane and rational voice.
    So, what are the kindred?”
    “A distant relative of humans. Long ago there was a terrible conflict. Neither side won. In the end it was a draw. Humans chose the light, Kindred chose the dark. They made a terrible mistake, but realized it too late. Their ace in the hole, however, was in getting humans to acknowledge the reality of a dark side, and the acceptance of an annual day to celebrate it: Halloween. That was your mistake. Each year since then, on Halloween, the membrane between this world and their world has eroded steadily, weakening by degrees, until we have come to the point where we are now.
    “Why are you telling me this?” I asked the creature.
    “Because you are the only human with a chance to defeat them.”
    “Me?” I gave a wry smile. “You’ve got to be kidding. I’m an accountant.”
    “It matters not. You have been chosen by the Realm of Powers that Guide Men.”
    I stared at the beast. “I don’t understand.”
    “You are wise and you are pragmatic. If you exercise those qualities over the course of the next few days they just might be your saving grace. Without you the human race will surely perish. But alas, nothing has been written, the future has not been cast. So be warned, my friend and take care of your own.”
    “Who are you?”
    “I am neither human nor kindred. Trying to explain would be futile. Now I must go. Please remember this meeting and the chance you have been given.”
    Well, I came up out of the bed in a cold sweat, my body shaking with sobs. Just the memory of it was raining a cold kind of terror down on me. I’d been jumpy all day and Megan had begun to pick up on it.
    “Come on,” Megan said. “What’s going on?”
    “I had a dumb dream last night, that’s all.”
    Megan stiffened and I saw terror swell in her eyes. “Tell me,” she said, her voice husky with emotion.
    I squinted curiously at her. “What’s wrong, baby?”
    “Just tell me!”
    “Okay, sure.” I began relating the story to Megan, but before I was halfway through it I could tell that she’d experienced something unusual as well. “What?” I said.
    “I woke up and saw this creature coming in through the window. I thought it