Illustration by Andy Paciorek
HONORABLE MENTION, Fall 2022
The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award
BY WESLEY SCHALLER
I couldn’t sleep. My wife wasn’t in bed. I got up, put on my sweatpants, went to the hall. I looked into the baby’s room. My wife sat in the chair and she held the baby and she’d fallen asleep. I took the baby from her arms and put the baby in the crib.
I stood there and watched my wife sleeping. She was silent. Her face had a stern expression, as if she were thinking hard about something.
I left her there, and I stepped outside.
The streetlight in front of our townhouse was out. I reached an arm through the front door and felt for the switch. The driveway light wouldn’t come on. So I walked down to the drive and took in some air.
I looked around. The street was empty and most of the houses were dark. I couldn’t hear the crickets.
Then I saw Craig standing in his drive, next to mine. He had his lights off and I hadn’t seen him just before.
“Craig,” I said.
Craig turned his head. I squinted to see him better. He wore dark clothes and he looked different in the night somehow.
“Phil,” he said.
My wife didn’t care too much for Craig. She talked to him only once and said she didn’t like his wrinkled shirt or the way he smelled. That’s a wife for you.
I said to Craig, “They’ve got to get these streetlights figured out. It’s practically the whole damn neighborhood.” I said, “When did ours go out?”
“Whenever it died,” Craig said.
“Did you call it in?”
He shook his head. He lit a cigarette.
“You should call it in,” I said. “I’m going to call in the morning. I’ll tell them our light’s out.”
“It’s not our light, is it?” Craig said. “I mean, if we’re not changing the bulb.”
“Well,” I said. “They ought to get them figured out.”
I saw an orange glow at Craig’s face. Smoke lifted over his head.
“Why’re you up so late?” Craig then said to me.
“The baby. My wife was asleep.”
“She asleep now?”
I put my hands in my pockets. “Oh, she’s snoring away,” I said. “You can bet on it,” I said.
“Baby asleep too?”
“The baby ought to be asleep,” I said.
“It’s a baby,” he said.
“That’s right,” I said.
I wanted the crickets to start chirping. But they wouldn’t chirp. So I asked Craig the question. I wish I hadn’t. I wish I’d gone inside.
I asked, “Why are you up?”
He took a drag on his cigarette. “Oh, you know.” He breathed out the smoke.
I looked back at my place. The light in the living room came on. Craig said, “I’m waiting for something.”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t care to hear more. But Craig said more. He did.
He said, “I’ve been watching some shit going on out here at night.”
“What shit?” I said.
Craig laughed to himself. He let his cigarette fall. He stepped on it and said, “You want to know?”
I said, “Well, what is it?”
He came over to my drive. “Your wife’s not awake?” He’d lowered his voice.
“I should get back to bed,” I said. “Got an early start in the morning.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Night,” I said.
“Not sure if I should show you anyway,” he said.
“Show me what? What is it, Craig?”
“Come here,” he said. He walked away.
“It’s late,” I said.
“Just come here.”
I stepped off my drive and onto Craig’s and then I stopped. Craig turned and looked at me.
“Good grief, Phil,” he said. “Go on to bed if you have to.”
I was closer to him now, and I could see him smirking.
“Forget it,” he said. “Go on to bed.” He kept smirking as he lit another cigarette.
“All right. What is it?” I said.
He came up next to me. He pointed across the street in front of us.
“You see those houses over there?”
“What about ‘em?” I said. He was pointing at these townhouses about eighty yards away across the street.
“Those houses are being fucked with.”
“How’s that?” I said. I checked my phone. It was almost three in the morning. Craig saw the time too, and he nodded.
“You’re about to see,” Craig said.
“See what?” I said. “What’s the deal here?”
“You wouldn’t believe me,” Craig said. “You have to see it for yourself.”
“I don’t like this vague stuff,” I said. “What’s going on here, Craig?”
“Just watch those houses.” He still had that smirk. He seemed real relaxed and it bothered me. I don’t know why, but it did.
I said, “I need to get to bed.”
“So go to bed,” Craig said. “Or wait a damn minute.”
So I waited. The minute passed. I still waited.
Craig said, “Come on. . . .”
“Sorry,” I said. “Show me some other time.” I turned to go back to my place.
“There,” Craig whispered.
“What?” I said.
Craig grabbed my shoulder and pointed.
“Look,” he said.
There was something moving in the backyard of one of the houses. First it was just the one thing. Then it was more than one. Then it was a whole row of them. It was too dark to make out what they were, but with the moonlight I could see they were about as big as dogs.
They were moving in a line to this other house.
“You see them?” Craig said.
“Kind of,” I said.
“Keep your voice down,” Craig said.
“All right,” I whispered. “I see them.”
“Keep watching,” he said.
Craig hurried to his garage. He grabbed something off his car.
“Are those stray dogs?” I said.
“They’re not dogs,” he said. “Trust me.” I saw it was a video camera he’d picked up. He aimed the camera at this house we were watching.
“Watch what they do now,” Craig said.
The dark figures moved through the yard. They looked to be crawling in a line of ten or twelve. They reached the house, and that’s when I knew how Craig knew that these things were not dogs.
All in a line, they went up the side of this house. Right on up it. They went up the house like ants.
“Craig,” I said very quietly. “What are those things?”
“They’re not fuckin’ dogs,” he whispered. “That’s for fuckin’ sure.”
“Jesus, Craig,” I said.
“Keep watching.”
“Did you report this?” I said.
“Look,” he said.
They got to the roof. They made no sound. My eyes were still adjusting to the dark, but I could see that these things, whatever they were, they had more legs than I cared for them to have. These things had plenty enough legs.
Then they stopped. They stopped there on the roof, in a line, and their bodies sort of flattened, as if hugging the roof.
“Craig, tell me you’ve called this in.”
“It’s every night. Like clockwork,” Craig said.
“Do I need to call this in?” I said.
“Calling won’t do anything.”
“You said they’re fucking with the houses,” I said.
“They’re trying to.”
“You didn’t tell the owners?”
“Tell them what?” he said. “I’m getting it on video, Phil, for crying out loud. I just bought this thing,” he said, looking into the camera.
“What good is that in the dark?”
“It’s got night vision,” he said.
“I’d better call this in,” I said and pulled out my phone.
“So do it.”
I saw one move again, then another. The things went to opposite ends of the roof and they began to go down the house. One went over to a window. I saw a long leg reach out in the dark, and it tried the window.
The window did not open.
The other one crawled around the side of the house and it was gone.
“That’s about enough,” I said. I dialed the police.
“It’s every night,” Craig said. “The windows are never unlocked. But they keep coming back. Sometimes they’ll try the other houses.”
“They ever come over here?” I said. “Yes, hello,” I said. Craig raised his hand at me when I raised my voice. “I need to report . . . something. A problem,” I said.
Craig fired up a cigarette with his free hand, camera still pointed.
I was explaining the deal to the woman on dispatch. She wasn’t taking to any of it. “I know it sounds crazy,” I told her.
The thing that’d gone past the side of the house appeared again, and it rejoined the line with the flattened ones. The one at the window came back to the roof too.
All of them lifted up and they were off again. They crawled along the roof and down to the side where the one had disappeared before. They began to go around the wall, one by one.
“That’s weird,” I heard Craig say. He watched through his camera.
“What’s weird?” I said.
“They’ve never done that,” Craig said. “They always go back down into the yard.”
The dispatch woman wanted to know my exact location. She said she had to transfer my call.
The last dark thing went around the house. They were all out of sight now.
“Can’t you send somebody?” I said to the woman. But I got no response. I heard ringing and a different woman answered.
“I wonder if. . . .” Craig said.
I stepped away from Craig so I could hear this other woman. I told her the deal. She said, “Can you confirm for me your name and location?”
We heard the scream. It sounded from across the street.
“What’s going on?” I said to Craig.
A scream followed that scream, and then we heard a whole mess of screams, and then Craig said, “That’s never happened before.”
“Jesus,” I said.
“This is something,” Craig said. He lowered the camera.
Dispatch was still asking about my name. I told the woman there were people in trouble. She told me someone was on the way. I told her they ought to hurry.
Craig set the camera on the ground. He ran to his garage and made a bunch of noise.
I began pacing the driveway. My phone beeped. It was my wife calling. I sent her one of those prewritten replies. “Can’t talk now. What’s up?” it said.
Lights came alive in the other houses. A yard light switched on. But the house where the people were screaming, that house was still dark.
“Here!” Craig said.
I turned around. He held out a rifle.
I hung up the phone.
“For God’s sake,” I said.
“You hunt, don’t you?” Craig said.
“The police are coming,” I said.
Craig shook his head. He went to the garage and came back, this time holding an axe.
“Fuckin’ take it!” he said.
The axe felt warm and sweaty in my hands.
Without another word Craig ran carrying his rifle down the driveway and across the street.
I just about let the axe drop. I just about made up my mind to go inside and see to my wife. But I didn’t drop the axe. My legs were moving.
I was following that son of a bitch.
“Craig!” I called.
He’d already reached the house and was moving up to the front.
“Craig! Hold on a minute!” I shouted.
But Craig wasn’t holding, not for a second. My phone vibrated and I stopped and looked. “Where are you?” the text said. I pocketed the phone and moved up the yard.
Now the screams became shouts and cries. I heard a man yell, “Stay in there!” and there was a loud crash and I heard something else, something inhuman. I’d only hear it once more.
I was heading toward the side of the house and turned the corner and almost ran right into Craig. “Front door’s locked!” he said. “They got in at the second floor.”
“All right, just wait a second,” I said.
He moved to the patio and tried looking through the glass. He tried pulling on the door.
“Craig,” I said.
“They’ve got all the damn lights off!” he shouted.
“Let’s wait for the police!” I said.
“You can wait!” Craig said. He switched on a flashlight but the light burned out the moment it came on.
“Fuck!” he said. He shook the flashlight. “Fuckin’ bullshit!” He threw it to the ground and put a hand on my chest. “Back away!” he said.
He raised the rifle. He drove the butt into the glass door.
“Craig!” I said.
He did it again.
“I’m telling you they’re coming!” I said.
And again.
The glass shattered.
Now Craig shouted something, but I don’t remember what. He kicked glass off the door frame and he stepped into the house and the darkness swallowed him up.
Then Craig was gone.
That’s when I heard a deep growl—from inside. I’d never heard anything like it. Never.
And so when it came time to make my own decision on the matter, I decided to stop following Craig. I wouldn’t follow him into that darkness. I got rid of the axe, and gunfire sounded out, and I ran home to my wife and baby, and I have nothing more to say.
I have a family. I’ll say that. That’s what I can say.
Wesley Schaller lives and writes horror fiction in the upper Midwest. He is currently working on his collection of short stories, and will soon begin writing a novel.His story, “What About You?” was an honorable mention in the Fall 2021 Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award contest and is still available for reading on the TGS website.