"Not Dark Yet" by Sheldon Birnie
"Mitch stumbles into the pub that was attached to the motel, which doubled as the town gas station, late Friday afternoon, breathless and sweating despite the frigid cold..."
From the first half of the very first sentence, today’s story from Birnie got its hold on me. “Mitch stumbles into the pub that was attached to the motel, which doubled as the town gas station…” I love those piling up clauses, I love that I immediately feel like I both know this place and am curious about it.
And then right on it’s heels, the power of the story’s voice jumped off the page and had me under its spell.
Holy shit, boys, we’re in a fuck of a mess here, is what he says, pulling off his balaclava, gasping for air. Then he kept on talking as if his life depended on it.
For the rest of the story, I just want to live in and with that voice, be wowed and entertained and surprised by it, all while being yanked forward, wondering about the “fuck of a mess” they’re in.
This is a fun one, that I already feel like is going to become a new favorite for some of you. I’m so excited to get to share it, so excited for y’all to get to read it!
—Aaron Burch
“Not Dark Yet”
Mitch stumbles into the pub that was attached to the motel, which doubled as the town gas station, late Friday afternoon, breathless and sweating despite the frigid cold, after riding a snowmobile that wasn’t his the nearly 20 klicks in from Rose Isle.
Holy shit, boys, we’re in a fuck of a mess here, is what he says, pulling off his balaclava, gasping for air. Then he kept on talking as if his life depended on it.
We don’t have much time, he goes. Not much time at all. It’s not dark yet. Hellfire. None of you heard about last night? Fuck me.
Nobody – not Oldsy, the bartender, nor Burger, the proprietor who’d only just arrived himself, nor Bill, the barfly, who’d been there all afternoon – had heard anything and told Mitch as much.
There might be nothing left of ‘em, he whimpers, clutching the counter, his eyes desperate. Nothing left worth saving, anyhow.
Take it easy, Mitch, Oldsy says, leading him around the counter and through to a seat by the bar in the tavern. He pulls a bottle of rye off the shelf, a decent one, not that well slop. Tell us what happened, bud. From the get go.
Mitch, he shoots that gracious pour back like it was nothing, wipes his face and sits, staring at the bar for a while before he says anything. Outside, the gray December sky was growing darker, sun sinking fast towards the frozen horizon, wind howling in from the north buffing what snow it couldn’t whip up into an icy sheen across the prairie as far as the eye could see. Oldsy pours a full one, slides it across the bar, and Mitch starts in with what just went down, up the road a ways there.
Or what he says he seen, anyhow.
*****
It was about this time yesterday. Sun still shining but on its way down fast. You know how it is, this time of year. She’s up one minute, the next your shadow’s stretching towards the east like it’s on the end of a rope. I was at work, dropping the last of the kids off on my route way the hell and gone out Otter Lakes Road there, looking forward to getting home and warm and fed and into my evening stories. A couple drinks, maybe find my way back over to the curling rink for a pop later on. Who knows. Wasn’t nothing out of the ordinary, not then. But a couple kids on the route were absent. Didn’t think nothing of it, at the time. Kids get sick. Big deal, right?
By the time I get back to the garage, sun is just nipping below the horizon. I drop the bus off, bullshit a couple minutes with Shirley at the front desk before hopping in my truck and heading home. Didn’t take me long to get home. But a couple things I seen struck me kinda funny. Not enough to stop and investigate or nothing. Not even to really think about. Not until later.
Like, driving by the Gilmore house. They’re about as neat and tidy a family as you can find. But their storm door, it’s wide open, banging in the breeze. Didn’t think much of it, part from – huh, screen door never latched. Happens to us all, goddamn wind being what it is out on the prairie.
Or driving by Corey Laurence’s place, his F-150 parked half on the driveway, half on the frozen lawn. Not all that out of the ordinary, but something you’re more likely to see early Saturday or Sunday morning. Pretty early yet to be that cut. But that’s Corey for ya. Or so I figured.
Then again, I forgot about all that stuff as I heated up my Salisbury steak dinner from out the freezer. She even wasn’t half-thawed in the microwave, though, before the phone was ringing.
Hello? I go, a little gruff, a little hangry. Whaddaya want?
The sound was muffled, like someone was covering the speaking end of the phone and moving around the house with it, mumbling something that half-sounded like my name before it cut out.
Fuck sakes, I cursed, setting the phone back down and pulling my dinner out the microwave. I sat down to watch something on the tube, only to find my goddamn reception was out. I knew there was a bit of a storm coming, goddamn radio hadn’t shut up about it all dang day, but it wasn’t blowing hard then. Not yet. But then I figured, it doesn’t take much to muck up modern technology now does it? Hell no. So I turned on the radio, spun past the static to find a junior hockey game about to get going up out of the Wheat City. I settled in, ate my dinner, and forgot about the weird phone call.
Until the phone rang again.
This time there wasn’t no muffled talking. No sir. This time someone was hollering fit to beat the band straight off the hop.
Jesus, I go. Calm down. Who’s calling? What’s wrong?
But there wasn’t no answer. Just more caterwauling and then line went dead. I was standing there in the dark hall, holding the phone, my heart pounding, hair on the back of my neck standing up like a goose done walked over my grave.
I hung up the phone, then picked it up again, dialed that star-sixty-nine or whatever it is to get the number on who just called me screaming bloody murder. I’m thinking, this must be some sick joke. But I kinda knew it wasn’t, even then. The operator, or the machine or whatever it is, told me the number. Danged if it wasn’t Fred Morris’s number, from down the road. I dialed his number but it just beeped at me, busy, off the hook, or whatever.
Now, I probably should have called the RCMP, but I figured fuck it, Fred’s in trouble, or hurt, or something. I better go help him. So I hopped in my truck and drove over there.
It was snowing pretty good by that point, picking up and the wind was really getting going, too. You better believe I was grumbling, but I figured what the hell, Fred would do the same for me. Or so I hoped.
When I get to Fred’s place, everything looked hunkydory from the front. His truck was parked where it always was. No sign of anybody else. I knocked on the door once, twice, then tried the handle. Sure enough, it was open, so I stuck my head in, called for Fred. No reply. I took a step in, hollered again.
Nothing, not a peep. Every light was on in the house it seemed, but nobody was home. I went through every room. Nothing. But as I was passing the backdoor, I looked out the window. There was a light on over the door to the workshop – always is – and below it the door to his shop out back stood open wide. I poked my head outside to get a better look. Sure enough, there looked to be tracks through the snow.
Maybe Fred had cut himself mucking about with whatever project he’s got on the go back there, I figured. He coulda called from the phone he had installed out there, seeing as that’s where he spent the bulk of his time. So I walked over there.
The light above the door lit up the entryway inside, but didn’t stretch too far. Beyond that, the lights were off, all but one over the workbench off towards the back. There was piles of junk everywhere, and at first I didn’t notice nothing out of the ordinary. I called Fred’s name again, and that’s when something moved. A shadow flickered in a corner. I looked over. First thing I seen was a pair of boots sticking out from behind the workbench. Fred’s boots. Next thing, I don’t even know what it was or how to describe it, other than it seemed made of darkness and it was sitting or perched or whatever right up above where the rest of Fred’s body would have been, if those boots were any indication.
Some screeching, some high pitched whine filled my ears. Or maybe that was just my blood pressure skyrocketing. I didn’t stick around to find out what it or that shadow was. No sir. I turned and hightailed it outta there, slamming the door behind me and heading straight for my truck.
Pour me another one, wouldya Oldsy? Mitch sighs, wiping a hand across his pale, sweaty face.
What the hell, Mitch? Burger says. What the hell was that thing standing over Fred?
Oldsy slides Mitch his drink. Mitch takes a long, slow sip on the whisky, as though to give himself strength. Everybody’s waiting on an answer, while the sinking sun’s rays sliced through the dirty windows, lighting up all them dust motes floating through air like dancing bits of magic.
Fucked if I knew, Mitch says in time, wiping his mouth with the back of a still shaking hand. Fucked if I know now. But lemme tell ya, whatever the hell it was, whatever the hell they are, they’re coming this way, come dark. No doubt about it.
Bullshit, Burger goes. But his voice don’t sound so sure.
Mitch, he just shakes his head, looking Burger straight in the face, holding his eyes there. They’re coming, he goes. Then he takes a deep breath, and continues with his tale.
But lemme tell ya, whatever the hell it was, whatever the hell they are, they’re coming this way, come dark. No doubt about it.
I made it home sure enough, slipping and sliding down that road, wipers doing their darnedest to keep the snow off the windshield. I run into the house, boots and all, aiming to get to the phone and call the RCMP detachment over there in Manawaka. Took me a minute there to realize the fuckin line was dead.
There wasn’t much I could do, knowing Fred was hurt or worse back at his place. I could have drove straight over to his other neighbour there, the Millsaps. But I don’t know them too well and figured my place was just as close. How was I to know the phone would be fucked? Next closest to me was Corey Laurence’s place, and I remembered seeing his truck parked all askew there when I drove by not much more than an hour or so earlier. So I slammed the phone down and headed back out to my truck. I never thought to grab a gun, either my .22 rifle or shotgun. Never even crossed my mind. Not that things woulda turned out any different if I had.
Coming into Corey’s driveway, I nearly slid off the road into the ditch. No wonder Corey’s ride was parked all wonky, I told myself, putting her in park, road and his drive being slick as it was. I tromped through the snow up to Corey’s front door, making to pound on it something serious, in case he’d got into the booze and had his stereo up, cranking Thorogood or Seger or any that stuff he gets into when he’s drinking. But with that first hard rap, the door swung right open.
After what I seen over at Fred’s, I was nervous stepping through that door. I called out his name over the noise of the stereo, sure enough pumping some AC/DC loud. Don’t know that he would have heard me, one way or another, but I stepped in and made my way into the living room, snowy boots and all.
Straight aways, I cut over to the stereo and shut that shit off. The quiet came on quick, eerie as all get out. I called out Corey’s name again, and it echoed off the gyprock as though not only was nobody home, but there hadn’t ever been. I wanted to turn and run right then, but had to see the search through. If Corey wasn’t home, then where the hell was he at?
And if he was, was he up and at ‘em or down for the count, like Fred?
I come around the corner slow into the dining room and the kitchen. Nothing there but a couple empty cans of Bud on the table. The backdoor’s latched shut. Only other place to check is the basement. Corey? I go, wanting against anything not to have to go down them stairs into the dark basement. You down there, bud? You OK?
No answer. But I heard what sounded like scritching, or scratching, or something coming from down there. Like a family of squirrels in the walls out at the cottage after being away all winter. That kinda sound, but it didn’t seem to be coming from the walls. It seemed to be coming from that big empty rec room bar Corey kept down there.
With each step I took, my body just kept telling me to turn and go, go, go, buddy! Fuckin get gone! But I soldiered on, one step at a time, until I could see the whole rec room in the shadows cast by the light of the stairs.
The skittering, or whatever it was had stopped, for what it’s worth. And there he was, sitting there behind the old bar, in the dark, leaned back in a barstool with his shoulders against the wall.
Corey? I go, wondering why in hell he never answered me the dozen or more times I called out his name. Then I seen that while his eyes was open, he wasn’t looking at me or nothing else. They was blank, staring up at the ceiling tiles. Corey? I go again, anyway, thinking, is this motherfucker sitting dead, OD’d or some shit back there? I found the wall switch, flicked the overhead lights on. In a flash, Corey sits forward, still in the shadows behind that bar of his. His eyes don’t fix on me, but he’s staring right my way.
Then his mouth opened up, plop. Like, his jaw just dropped wide open. That skittering got going again, louder, more insistent than before. I took a step back, stumbling more like it, as a rush of what looked like a thousand dark shadow roaches come pouring out his mouth, down into the darkness behind the bar. Flowing into the same dark shadowy mass of nothing that had been hanging over Fred.
I didn’t look twice, just turned and high tailed it up them stairs and out the house, slamming the door shut behind me. This ain’t normal, I kept telling myself. This ain’t right. What I seen can’t be real. No way no fuckin how. I’m still telling myself that, boys. Fuck sakes.
Lemme get this straight, Mitch, Oldsy goes, wiping his face as though to wake his old ass up. You’re telling us some fuckin shadows attacked Corey Laurence and Freddie Morris? That’s what’s got ya flying across these snowy fields on a snowmobile that ain’t yours, acting for all the world like the sky’s falling? For real?
Neither Burger nor Bill say a thing, but they were looking at each other kinda sideways. Mitch wasn’t known as a bullshitter. But this was some tall tale he was spinning here.
Too fuckin right for real, Mitch goes, shoving his empty glass towards Oldsy for a refill. Oldsy obliges and Mitch takes a long, hard pull. Whether true or not, Mitch believed all them words he was spewing and then some.
They ain’t the only ones them shadows got to, he goes. Not by a long shot.
Neither Burger nor Bill say a thing, but they were looking at each other kinda sideways. Mitch wasn’t known as a bullshitter. But this was some tall tale he was spinning here.
Backing outta Corey’s place there, I stomped the gas with the truck in reverse, forgetting about the icy approach. Truck spun out, sliding across the road and into the far ditch with the back end down deep. I tried gunning her to get her out. No dice. For a second there, I thought maybe I could wait for help. Someone, on a regular Friday, would be by at some point. But then Corey’s face and the black shadow pouring out his mouth flashed through my mind. I was outta that truck again licketysplit, running through the snow in the road back the quarter mile home.
The whole way, I’m thinking them shadows are coming for me. How could they not, with all that dark around? But they never. Not then. Once inside, out of breath, sweating despite the chill, I shut myself up, locked and barred the front and back doors, turned all the lights on and went down in the basement. I got out the shotgun, loaded her up, and sat there, waiting.
Sure enough, after a while, I started dozing. Dreamed a little dream of them shadows crawling through the window and up into my eyeballs, my nose, mouth, whatever. Then I’d come to with a start, clutching that .12 gauge like it was a life preserver, and me all but drowning out there on the big lake some godawful windy day. I’d listen hard, past the hammering of the blood in my ears, and swear to God that scritching, that scratching was there alright, just outside the windows. Course, it coulda been the wind whipping that snow against the walls. No doubt it was a bit of both.
I had the idea, or the hope, that whatever it was out there couldn’t get in without me letting it in, like a vampire from the movies or some shit, or it finding an opening. I’d had new windows and doors put in a couple years back, tapping into them grants the government was giving out at the time. And I knew I’d locked the front and back, so unless I fucked up, I figured they couldn’t get me. But I didn’t know that, not for sure. So I stayed there, waiting, until the first lightening of the darkness there before dawn. That’s when I decided to go see whether I’d been crazy this whole time, dreaming the whole ordeal, or if there was something out there aiming to get me.
I’m not gonna sugar coat it, boys. I was shittin bricks. Or I woulda been, if my asshole wasn’t screwed up tight as a drum, just waiting on something to come swarming out of the shadows at me. I was also scared if I called out that I’d only be drawing attention to myself. So I kept my mouth shut, breathing through my nose, taking soft steps through the yard in that grey gloom of dawn and out the road towards town.
Slowly, softly, I made my way down the road past Laurence’s place. It was just as I’d left it, my truck stuck half outta the ditch. Only now, the ruts had drifted in. Sure as shit, the whole road had pretty well drifted over, as though nobody’d been on it since I’d hoofed it home in a hurry the night before. These country roads ain’t freeways. We all know that. But there’s traffic enough, especially on a Friday night. Or, there shoulda been.
I didn’t stop at Corey’s. I knew what was inside that house, waiting, or at least what I’d seen the night before. Didn’t stop at my truck, neither. She’d need a tow to get’er outta that ditch. What I figured I’d do is head on into town. If things were as bad as I feared, then I’d try and find a car or truck or something to borrow to get over here, to let you all know what was happening. What will be happening here, soon as it gets dark.
And if I was wrong? If someone called the cops on me for stomping around town with a loaded shotgun, looking deranged as all get out? Shit. That’d be fine by me, so long as whoever placed the call wasn’t full of them dark shadows that’d got hold of Corey and Fred!
I come upon the Gilmore house there first, and it looked just like I’d passed it last night, screen door open, flapping in the breeze, snow drifting up against the door. Car was in the drive, covered in snow too. I made my way past it up the walk, heart hammering to beat the band, and I pounded on that front door. Inside, the lights were off, nothing stirring. I pounded some more. Nothing. I tried the handle, but she was locked. So I kept moving.
I figured, fool I am, that if folks weren’t answering their doors, sure enough some of the businesses would be stirring on Main Street, right?
Boys, you don’t need me to tell you I was wrong. Sure as hell I was wrong. Main Street’s a goddamn ghost town at the best of times, let alone eight in the morning on a Saturday. Hardware store, lawyer’s office, and the Chinese restaurant all closed up tight. The only door out of the dozen on either side of the street that shoulda been open at that hour was the diner. But sure enough, she was closed, lights off and everything. She’s normally open there by six Saturdays, with a handful of old guys taking up booths, sucking back coffee, and a line of pickups out front. But today, there wasn’t nothing.
There was one truck, Ted Rollins’ if I’m not mistaken, parked in the middle of the street a half block down, though, door hanging wide open, snow blowing into the empty cab. The sick feeling that something was bad off everywhere had me shaking in my boots, and not from the cold, neither. I was numb to that by then. I thought about stomping off home, locking the door, and just waiting it all out, like it was nothing but a bad storm or a nightmare. But then I figured if anyone else was out there, like me, and could use a hand, I ought to at least try to give it to ‘em. I figured, I’ve come this far, I better see this through.
So I headed for the curling rink. If there was anywhere folks would have been last night, when all this weird shit started, it was the curling club. Maybe they’d been able to close themselves off, to keep the shadows out?
I made it the couple blocks over to the rink no problem. Sure enough, there were a half dozen vehicles parked out front of the rink, with the snow piling up on top of ‘em and against their tires. They’d been parked there all night.
The front door was closed, but the lights were on inside. I let myself in, calling out ahead of me. Hello? Anybody in there? My voice echoed through the empty lobby, the only sound apart from the buzzing of them old flickering fluorescents they’ve been trying to scrimp up the cash to replace for years now. Guess it don’t really matter now.
Nobody returned my calls. I let the door close behind me, crossed the empty lobby. Wasn’t nobody out on the ice, but from the looks of things at least one game had been abandoned midway through, rocks scattered throughout the house.
Still, I was telling myself maybe everyone got into it after someone threw the perfect game. Maybe it was someone’s birthday. Maybe everyone just kept drinking and laughing and carrying on they didn’t care about going home. Maybe they’re all sleeping it off in the lounge now and we’ll all have a good chuckle when I wake ‘em up carrying a shotgun, worried about the end of the world. Wouldn’t that be a story to tell?
I climbed the stairs to the lounge, calling out like I’d done when I first come in. It’s me, Mitch! What are you all doing up here? It’s Saturday morning, for Chrissakes! But there wasn’t nothing but my own voice echoing back off the wood paneling.
When I got to the top of the stairs, the lights were off. Course, the lights from the rink were still on, casting a glow through them big picture windows. But that was it. There aren’t no windows to the outside up in the lounge, so most of it was dark. The only light on in the room was the light shining through the glass doors of the old beer fridge.
Hello, I called out again, waiting on my eyes to adjust to the gloom. There were shapes in the shadows I took to be bodies slumped over tables, but I couldn’t be sure. I was hoping, praying they were just sleeping off a drunk, rather than whatever it was I’d seen up at Fred’s or Corey’s.
But then I heard some of that skittering coming from the farthest, darkest corners of the room. It was faint at first, but it put the fear into me straight quick. I was backing up outta that lounge just as quick as I could. Problem was, I was so tired, so jittery, so dang scared that I tripped.
Shotgun went off with a deafening blast as I fell on my ass. Lucky I never blew half my face off. But the buckshot just peppered the ceiling. Now my ears are ringing, can’t hear that skittering no more. But I knew them things was swarming outta the shadows, headed my way. I could almost see ‘em, like darker static against the gloom in the lounge, pouring outta the slumped forms strewn across the tables and the bar.
Scrambling, I scooched backwards like a dog with the wormiest ass you ever seen, trying to pump another round into the chamber in case them shadow gremlins or whatever they was got closer, swelling up outta the darkness. I made it to the top of the stairwell before I pulled the trigger. I don’t know if the blast did anything or not, as I turned then and hoofed her down the stairs two, three at a time. I burst out the door into the pale morning light like a bat outta hell, boys, and I didn’t stop till I made it home and locked the door behind me. Ran right past the open running truck and everything. Slipped and fell somewhere along the way, too, and lost the gun in the ditch.
Still, after an hour or two of sitting at home going stir crazy, I come upon the idea to borrow Corey’s snowmobile and see if I couldn’t light out this way and warn you all before it’s too late.
****
Hold up a second here, Mitch. Burger sets down his glass, signals for Oldsy to pour another round. You mean to tell us here you unloaded your shotgun into the curling club there, and you been on the run ever since?
Mitch, he accepted his whisky with a nod, drained it back in one gulp, then said, Yessir.
And you seen Corey Laurence and Fred Morris’s bodies, Burger adds. And you was the last you know to be in their homes?
Yep. Mitch goes, plain as that.
Should we be calling the police here, bud? Burger goes. We don’t want no trouble. And I never took you as a fella with trouble in mind. But what you’ve just told us here sounds crazy as a goddamn loon and maybe a murderer too. You know that, right?
God’s honest truth, boys. Mitch shakes his head with a dejected sigh. Shit is fucked up and about to get more fucked up soon as that sun goes down.
Supposing you’re not crazy or lying, Burger says. Why in the hell is that?
Well, see, Mitch goes. Once I was outside in the sun, running for my life, not one of those little critters come out after me. Not from the curling club. Not from Corey’s nor Fred’s. Fact is, I never seen any of them anywhere but the shadows. That’s where Fred was laying, in his shed. And Corey, down in his basement. I don’t think them things can move in the light. But sure as shit they can move in the darkness.
Nobody says anything for a long, uncomfortable moment. Outside, the sun is closing in on that western horizon. Dang near touching the fields out there, in fact. Finally, Oldsy grunts, weighing in.
I heard a lotta bullshit in my day, he goes. A lot. But this, boys, might just take the cake.
I seen what I seen, Mitch goes, slamming both fists onto the bar. Even if I can’t explain it. Now the sun, she’s setting. If you wanna call the cops on me, you best do it quick. She’s not dark yet, but she’s gonna be soon.
Oldsy looks over to Burger. Burger shrugs. Oldsy picks up the phone from under the bar, goes to dial. But then he holds the receiver from his ear, clicks the switch hooks up and down a couple times, then checks it again.
Line’s dead, Oldsy goes. Any of you boys got one of them mobiles?
Everybody shakes their head.
It’s too late, Mitch goes, laughing, but with tears pouring down his wrinkled face. Outside, the sun dips below the fields in the west, painting the underside of the scattered clouds blood red. Nice knowing ya.
Oldsy, Burger goes, not looking too sure himself no more. Pour another round, would ya? I’m gonna lock all the doors.
Read Short Story, Long’s interview with Sheldon about this story.
Oh man Aaron wasn't exaggerating. This story hooks you and takes you for a ride!