Free The Night Walk Men by Jason McIntyre Page A

to
know.
    In the meantime, though,
I’ll start by telling you some other necessary pieces, things
you’ll want to keep track of, things that matter in the grand
scheme. Now, don’t think I’m being morbid, but I need to say a few
things about Death.
    Death has no prejudices.
None that I’m aware of. Well, unless of course you count a
discordant bias for the elderly. Or that heaving soft spot for the
unhealthy and for the careless.
    I should tell you that
I’ve seen Death.
I’ve seen Death nearly every day. Just today, in fact, I witnessed
Death walking down McMurchy Street. In what city, I cannot recall.
And for what purpose, I cannot tell you. But at what time, that I do remember. It
was just before high noon and He was there, moving south,
determined. If you had eyes and were at my side, you’d have seen
Him too. He might have been searching for a sick child, might have
been hunting for a young fellow who didn’t look both ways before
crossing.
    A crow voiced his concern
from a still treetop. A windchime rattled to life and sang a tune.
There He was: plain as the day was blue, a whirling dervish. A
presence. A storm. Just a tall shaft of invisible breath, drawn
from nowhere, seen only by its dent in the world. There, on that
street, it was a tiny tornado, a hurricane of force the size of a
large man, or maybe two small ones going piggy-back. It grabbed
litter and dust and gravel from the gutters, hailed it like
bullets, threw it like darts in a spectacle of fury and
concentration. Around and around and around.
    Just the wind, you ask?
Just a torrent brought by nature’s fingers? Well, I looked around
and the day itself boasted of no winds, no breeze, no scented push
from the west. There was no rustle of leaves – not even at the
crow’s perch overhead. There was nothing but silence and stillness
all around. So I say no.
    The crow could feel it. So
could I. And one day you’ll feel it too.
     
     
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    In the beginning, He
rehearsed his discourse but now knows it so well he can say it
without flinching, backwards and forwards. He will not well up with
tears when He arrives to say his piece. He’s done this too many
times to let it affect his thinking.
    And what is this
discourse, this piece?
    Imagine, if you can. He
may hunker down beside you and whisper it in your ear, unseen to
you, invisible, but heard clearly. Or He may stand before you and
shout it like judgement. Or He may pass it to you in a song note on
the skin of a breeze. But the discourse is always the
same.
     
    “Someone dies,” He says.
“Every day, every minute. Every continent, every island, every
everywhere. Could be you. Could even be me. No one knows for
certain at this late hour. But I am contrary to you in every way. I
am black volcanic glass to your white palomino skin. I am Obsidion
and I am eternal. But I am not immortal. I can die. I see but am
not omniscient. I can be blind. And I am not alive but I live. I
walk at night and when the rains come. I am a foot soldier in the
ever-stretching, never-ceasing de-cade. I equate what is unequal. I
simplify what is convoluted.”
     
    What does it mean? Well,
I’ll answer all your questions soon enough. You have my word on
that.
    But in the meantime, you
should know that He tells the truth. He can’t help it. (And neither
can I.) It’s bred into him, it’s as much of who He is as what He
does.
    He is contrary to you. He is the Tall Dark Figure
to countless. He is Obsidion. That’s his given name though he’s been called a
hundred different things. By a million different men and by a
million different women. Some have called his kind the Perpetual
Guests or the Foreigners Afar. During war time, the worst stretch
for His kind, when trenches and mass graves are filled with bodies,
some began calling his kind the Night Walk Men. You should know
that he is one of
many. One of an innumerable militia.
     
     
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    Again, forgive me if this
comes across as gruesome,