The Nocturnal Trumpet

By Michael Pezzano

"The Nocturnal Trumpet" is comprised of fourteen short stories in the horror/fantasy genre. In "Spirits of Evil Past," you have the wax representations of four notorious historical figures who assume human form after being entered by their original spirits. The emotionally disturbed protagonist in "Flames" commits multiple acts of arson at the behest of a netherworld fire demon. A commercially successful pulp writer becomes the target of his most popular literary character in "The Vengeance of Silverhawk." "The Dark Heart of Fear" is an unconventional haunted house story in that the house is not haunted by ghosts but by its own sinister will and its need for human fear. "Written in Stone" can almost be described as a dark fairy tale, as a lonely twelve-year-old girl becomes psychically linked with the gargoyles that sit at the top of her church. "Blood Oath" is populated by two rival nocturnal motorcycle gangs who are far more than they seem. These stories and the eight others come from a shadowy world where anything can happenand usually does. They should make the reader the least bit uneasy; they should make them stop, wonder, and look back over their shoulder, for it's the imagined terrors that are the most terrible and the hardest to dispel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514491713

Michael Pezzano

Mr. Pezzano, a native and resident of Brooklyn, New York, is a writer of speculative and fantastic fiction. He is currently working on his second novel (a dystopian epic) and his third collection of short stories.

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Copyright © 2016 by Michael Pezzano.

Library of Congress Control Number:   PENDING

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5144-9170-6

               Softcover       978-1-5144-9169-0

               eBook            978-1-5144-9171-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/04/2016

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Contents

Light The Way To Darkness

A small Vermont town is quietly overrun by a race of subterranean humanoids who use mystic black candles to simulate and multiply the darkness of their underworld domain.

Spirits Of Evil Past

The bodies of four notorious historical figures at a London wax museum gradually assume human form after they become inhabited by their original

spirits.

Flames

An emotionally vulnerable young man turns to arson when he comes under the influence of a fire demon.

The Woods are Lovely, Dark and Deep

A serial killer strikes fear into the hearts of a Kansas town when he leaves cryptic poetic verse at the scene of each murder.

The Vengeance Of Silverhawk

A pulp writer is stalked and marked for death by his most popular fictional character: a Native American hero come to life.

The Life You Give May Be Your Own

A promiscuous middle-aged woman discovers the means, in a mysterious book, to mystically dispose of her teenage daughter and win her handsome

lover for herself.

I’m Dreaming of a Black Christmas

A morbidly precocious eleven year old boy is aided and abetted by the devil himself in his attempt to ruin Christmas for his parents.

Nightriders

A convalescing NYC police officer is haunted by recurring visions of the darkened, driverless school bus that appeared on the scene the moment he was wounded, and continues to periodically reappear.

The Dark Heart of Fear

Four inmates escape from a bayou prison and into the clutches of an abandoned house at the edge of the swamp that magnifies and feeds on the fear of its occupants.

Queen Of The Cats

An artist becomes obsessed with a beautiful, enigmatic third grade teacher, until the portrait he paints of her reveals her incredible origin.

Written In Stone

In her sleep, a lonely, neglected twelve year old girl calls out to the stone gargoyles who adorn the top of her church, only to discover that she’s unknowingly appointed them her protectors and–-avengers.

Blood Oath

Two long-time rival motorcycle gangs, each with a dark, supernatural secret, prepare for a final winner-take-all confrontation in a remote desert town.

Your Time has Expired

After ten young and apparently healthy men are found dead in less than a month of heart attacks behind the wheels of their cars in local parking lots, a detective uncovers a possible link to a mysterious cult-like female rock band.

Fright

After decades of success, a legendary horror writer retires to his home town, determined, with the help of his childhood friends, to solve the mystery of the long uninhabited Winston House, which they may or may not have visited fifty years earlier.

To my mother, Angelina, without whose influence I would never have put pen to paper.

To old friend Lorenzo Hernandez, who has read everything I’ve ever written, good and bad, and who, thankfully, is always correcting my mistakes.

Lastly, to Dan Trnka, for another fine example of his evocative artwork.

Light The Way To Darkness

T here are some places in this world where things actually do go bump in the night. In the town of Bradford, Vermont, things moved about with increased stealth and subtlety after the sun vanished behind distant New England hills. A certain sinister element, newly arrived to Bradford, laid its mysterious plans during the day and executed them with an almost artistic inconspicuousness after dark. These people, if they could be classified as people, were at home on the late night byways of Bradford, slithering through streets and alleys, clinging longingly to every darkened moment of time. An archaic, unofficial, but readily accepted curfew seemed to take hold when the evening hours approached. This curfew went unobserved by the newly arrived element. When the locals became preoccupied indoors, they came out; out into the dark, dark night of a dimly lamp lit mid twentieth century town. Bradford had two very separate and distinct populations. The second was keenly aware of the sun-dwelling founders who went about their various occupations during the day. The town’s original inhabitants, on the other hand, were completely ignorant of the midnight creepers among them. It was on the continued ignorance of the townspeople that the new arrivals staked their fortunes.

Eight nimble fingers took their turns pushing the keys of a black Smith-Corona. Their owner, Scott Lucas, was hard at work on another story, compiling angry word after angry word; ripping, tearing and shredding the very fabric of the complacency he hated so much. Scott had spent almost every moment as a professional writer hurling assorted insults at those he termed the guardians of the status quo. This sacred order, he believed, was devoted almost entirely to the preservation of its authority and way of life, and instinctively opposed to most forms of social or intellectual advancement. He saw it as his life’s purpose to prevent the privileged of the world from becoming too comfortable; and at this he was very successful. Left leaning literary magazines in every major city competed for each story with the enthusiasm of bidders at an auction. He’d been urged many times to relocate to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and a dozen other cities whose like-minded social critics would welcome him into their progressive hearts. He chose to disappoint his literary friends by working from within the provincial borders of Bradford, where allies were few and his status as an outcast fed him an endless supply of inspiration.

Every once in a great while Scott would turn away from the typewriter to look out his attic window at someone casually passing his front gate down tree lined Cypress Lane. Artistic passion had to suffer occasional distraction. There were even times when the acerbic writer would hunger for brief periods of balance with his world of letters, words and ideas by accepting the invitation of Father Joseph Murphy to attend Sunday mass. He knelt with admirable solemnity when the priest held out the holy wafer and the goblet of wine. His sporadic visits to the local house of worship proved an ideal and logical counterpoint to his prolonged periods of voluntary literary seclusion. He opened himself cautiously but with great promise to the possibilities of the spiritual and in so doing, achieved a level of peace rarely attainable for a man so consumed with the heated passion of his work.

Dominus Vubiscum, pronounced Father Murphy at the benediction.

He particularly eyed Scott Lucas, a man whose veil of artistic cynicism he had promised to penetrate for years. It was a vow he didn’t take lightly. While the skeptical man of letters made what Father Murphy considered a token effort to attend services, Mayor Ben Cantwell only graced Saint Paul’s with his presence on Christmas and Easter. Though his views on the subject were never clearly articulated, it was assumed that the rotund, glad-handing mayor, a sort of political Santa Claus, without the white beard or generous nature, considered himself above matters of this kind. He did make certain, in order to avoid jeopardizing his political position through offense, to have his wife attend regularly. Marilyn Cantwell’s calculated spiritual devotion achieved the desired result by placating Bradford’s more socially conservative citizens. Her thin, quietly dignified form, the complete antithesis of the mayor’s, took its traditional place in the front pew, praying for peace, justice, brotherhood and the landslide reelection of her husband. This prayer, in its final part at least, had been answered twice in the last eight years. After power has been acquired, the primary purpose rarely seems to be its constructive application, but rather a desperate preoccupation with retaining and consolidating it. Ben Cantwell was a devout and enthusiastic practitioner of this sadly common approach to politics. It wasn’t often that he chose to dirty his plump, neatly manicured hands for the benefit of his constituents; being a political workhorse was apparently as much of an inconvenience as being a churchgoer.

Scott Lucas sat at his typewriter, staring down into the slumbering 3:00 AM darkness of Bradford. He had always been attracted to the late night hours; much of his best work had been produced during that time. This night his concentration had been broken by a vague feeling of menace that gnawed persistently at his mind, dulling his every creative impulse. There was movement in the darkness, quick, furtive and purposeful. During recent nights it had been of a slow sinuous nature, which seemed to defy easy detection. Now there was the frantic scurrying of many feet, subtle but noticeable to keenly developed senses; particularly those that might be available to a writer of scathingly incisive fiction. Scott shut his writing room light, that he might more easily distinguish the swiftly moving shapes below and observe less conspicuously. By the time his eyes became accustomed to the darkness of his room, all movement had stopped. Scott continued to look and look, but was unable to see a thing. He wasn’t sure if the lurkers had gone away or simply ceased their movements to convince any potential observers that they had retreated harmlessly into the night. He watched until dawn. When there was no longer any doubt that they had gone, he allowed himself to fall comfortably back into his chair by the window and drift off to sleep.

Scott wondered whether or not he should confide in another about what he had seen, or thought he had seen. At the moment there seemed to be too many suspicions and too few facts for him to take this all important step. He hadn’t even devoted time to formulating a theory about these visitors, about their possible origin or purpose. He was certain only of their sub-humanity. Even in the darkness of a town peacefully asleep, their alien contours were unmistakable.

I imagine you caught a glimpse of them last night, Scott, said Father Murphy casually.

The priest had intercepted him during his walk to the luncheonette and insisted on a private meeting in his room. Scott had no idea how to respond to Father Murphy’s comment or even how to admit knowledge of the bizarre late night visit. The writer’s skepticism wasn’t confined to religious, social and political matters. It influenced every aspect of his life. How can you betray knowledge of something in whose existence you refuse to believe? It was this thought that delayed his answer and had him seriously contemplating a series of carefully concocted lies. There was, of course, a lifetime of honesty and openness with the good father that had to be considered. Since they first faced one another through the screen of the confessional when Scott was eleven, truth had never been tampered with, even where pride or hurt feelings were involved.

I caught a glimpse of something, replied Scott belatedly. I’m not sure exactly what I saw. It was too dark for me to make out whose those people were.

People? asked the priest. I know how you like to work late. I saw your light from the rectory. You must have sensed their movement just as I did, and like any good writer, or theologian for that matter, you attempted to satisfy your curiosity.

Scott and Father Murphy agreed to remain silent about this mystery until an accumulation of facts could render it less mysterious. To this end, Scott hit upon the idea of finding a strategic hiding place from which he could take a closer look at their uninvited guests. Afraid that he would disapprove, Scott withheld his plan from the father. Without his friend’s knowledge or consent, he went out into the cold 3:00 AM darkness of Bradford in search of the truth. He would gather whatever details he could by observing more closely and inconspicuously; but where could he hide? From what secret vantage point could he make the necessary but potentially dangerous study of these–-people? Should he crawl under a car or perch himself on the low hanging branch of some tree? He didn’t want to be obvious, especially in light of the fact that he wasn’t yet aware of the nature of these midnight creepers; although he couldn’t imagine anyone who acted with such stealth possibly being harmless. If darkness and inconspicuousness were so essential to their plans, then maybe their plans did demand a closer look.

Scott suddenly remembered the tall iron grating that fronted the alley leading to the backyard of Mr. Rourke’s grocery store. If he could scale the eight foot barrier he would have the perfect observation post. The holes of the grating were just large enough to accommodate fingers for the purpose of climbing and were ideal to look through when facing the street. The short, dark passage behind the obstruction made the watcher’s detection almost impossible at night. While Scott looked up at the rim of the grating, calculating the difficulties involved in surmounting it, a sound of light multiple footfalls emerged from the south-west. They seemed to increase in number as they grew closer.

Dozens of feet made a peculiar scraping sound on the newly laid asphalt. It struck Scott as the kind of sound made by dragging feet, but the obvious speed of the footfalls seemed to contradict this theory. The thought of this fast approaching horde drove him to scale the grating with a speed and agility that would have been unattainable under ordinary circumstances. His landing on the other side was awkward, ungraceful, even violent. He felt that it would be preferable, in spite of the momentary traumatic tumble, to the kind of calculated violence he could suffer at the hands of the mysterious intruders. Scott clutched the heavy iron barrier tightly and began to pull himself up painfully from the ground. With his face pressed against the cool metal and his eyes looking out through the tiny holes of the grating, he could see an endless array of dark, sinister shapes rushing by. The vision his eyes received was still somewhat vague, but clear enough to confirm the suspicions he shared with the good father. At the very moment he became convinced of their sub-humanity, one of the horde, as if to persuade him even further, stopped suddenly a foot or so from the grating and began to run its hands over the cold iron.

The writer’s blood became colder than the coldest metal. It froze in his veins, no longer seeming to circulate, no longer seeming to warm his trembling body. He was stiffened with fear, paralyzed by the closeness of the unearthly creature. Scott was thankful for the presence of the iron grating in front of him and the stony passage behind him. He was fairly certain that the creature who regarded the outside of the grating with such disturbing interest was ignorant of the petrified human standing only inches away behind the concealing veil of iron. He was less certain of his avenue of escape if this errant member of the invading horde were to become aware of him. The rear door of Mr. Rourke’s grocery store would surely be locked and the wooden fences lining both sides of the backyard were high and dangerously jagged. The only positive means of escape would be to avoid discovery. Scott would have to remain very still and quiet.

After what seemed like an agonizing lifetime, the creature backed slowly away, turned to the right and rejoined the onrushing tide of invaders in their nightly excursion. Each additional foot that was put between Scott and the intruders added to his sense of relief and began to repair the severe damage that had been done to his composure. He decided that it was safe to scale the grating and run as quickly as possible back to his house a block and a half away. The creatures seemed bound for the outskirts of Bradford, if his hearing and knowledge of local geography judged correctly. What they were searching for and where they came from each night, the weary writer couldn’t even begin to guess. All he understood at the moment was his fatigue. All he wanted was to lie back in a cold, hard corner of the passage and rest his weary body. There was plenty of time to scale that terribly high grating and return home now that they were gone. Maybe he would try in twenty minutes, maybe in forty, maybe in an hour. He only needed to regain the energy that had been drained from his body like air from a balloon.

Scott’s eyes opened to a gray early morning sky. His watch face had been shattered by his desperate hurtle over the grating, but the almost complete absence of pedestrians convinced him that it was no later than 7:00 AM. Bradford was representative of small towns in its strictly enforced policy of early closing, but not at all typical in its casual attitude toward early rising. Being a night person himself, Scott was always pleased by the surprising number of people who shared his distaste for the early morning hours. He was especially pleased now. Scott had a better than average chance to scale the grating unseen and avoid any potentially embarrassing explanations.

A sudden rattling sound rang out from the direction of Rourke’s backyard. The rear door was apparently being opened, which meant the release of his German shepherd, Mack. There was little love lost between writer and canine. In addition to their mutual hostility, Mack had unusually long front teeth, very much like the fangs of a wolf. The time seemed ripe for Scott to try to duplicate his previous leap. His second attempt was as impressive as the first and the landing was much better balanced. He walked home comparing and contrasting the kinds of fear inspired by a sub-human invader and a vicious dog. He didn’t care much for either.

Scott sat at his typewriter waiting for the evening, still a good ten hours away. His thoughts were scattered, disorganized, chaotic. His bizarre and frightening experience filled his mind with nightmare visions. Fantastic shapes swirled darkly before his eyes, pushing aside every other image. He wanted to hit his keys, but any words relevant to the flow of his current story were being violently displaced. Pictures of those disturbing but indistinct creatures kept thundering through his mind. He tried to determine their exact contours and features: their eyes, ears, noses and mouths. Scott had just begun to wonder if their teeth bore any resemblance to those of a certain German Shepherd, when a sharp knock sounded at the door downstairs. He heard Father Murphy’s voice call out and immediately ran down to greet him, anxious to relate his experience, but wary of being reprimanded by the priest for the risk he had taken. Scott led his friend and would-be savior up to his attic writing room. The father rarely called on him at such an early hour, knowing of the writer’s nocturnal habits. He’d heard Scott say more than once how true artistic impulses only came alive at night. Something else seemed to follow the same course; something darker than the darkest impulse, darker and more shrouded in mystery. The priest gave Scott a knowing look, but without the slightest trace of disapproval.

So, what do they look like, Scott? asked Father Murphy, clearly intimating knowledge of the writer’s experience.

Scott had hoped to broach the topic in his own way and at his own pace, without having to contend with any preconceptions. Now he wouldn’t even be afforded the luxury of surprise. Scott didn’t even know how to begin. He was encouraged by the father’s interest, but annoyed that another secret was somehow uncovered by the priest. Father’s Murphy’s seeming omniscience was beginning to make Scott feel like a bug under a microscope.

How did you know? asked Scott angrily.

The priest smiled.

Your light was on all night, replied Father Murphy. It was still on when I woke up at six this morning. I know you’re never up at that hour and would only have left it on if you had gone out earlier, when it was much darker, when your chances of seeing our nocturnal visitors without being seen in return would have been much better.

The bug squirmed noticeably under the well-meaning scrutiny of the priest. A caustic remark was poised on the tip of his tongue at that moment. It required every bit of restraint at his command to hold it in check.

They look more or less the way you’d expect them to, responded Scott finally, still disgruntled. It was too damn dark to get a clear picture, but from what I could see, they looked like every nightmare I ever had–-and most of my relatives.

Scott told the father that they appeared to come from the south/west and seemed to head north. The night before, the visitors seemed to be scurrying eastward. It was clear that regardless of where they went each night, they generally seemed to come from the south/west. Scott and Father Murphy came to the conclusion that the only way to discover the nature and purpose of these invaders was to follow in their mysterious wake. They also decided that even though this was the only plan likely to provide any answers, it involved too great a risk to seriously consider. They would probably be killed before being able to relate what they had learned to the proper authorities.

I have the feeling, said Father Murphy to the illustrious Mayor Cantwell, that our late night friends will make themselves known soon enough. What little we’ve seen of them so far gives me the distinct impression that their actions have been largely in preparation. For what, we’ll soon find out.

Bah! replied Mayor Cantwell with customary eloquence. A priest looks out his rectory window at three in the morning and a writer of fiction spends the night in Rourke’s delivery tunnel and I’m supposed to believe it’s the end of the world!

Not the end of the world, but maybe the end of Bradford, commented Father Murphy.

Scott Lucas sat quietly in a corner of the mayor’s office, smiling as the two older men, the pious idealist and the political cynic, engaged in a spirited debate over the current mystery. Mayor Cantwell was of the opinion that the writer had been on something of a bender when, in a fit of artistic whimsy, he decided to scale Rourke’s normally impassable grating and spend an evening of passive inebriation in his delivery tunnel. As for the good father, the mayor believed that he was simply humoring Scott. He didn’t think for a minute that the priest actually believed in the presence of sub-human creatures or the like. It was just another attempt, and an outrageous one at that, to conceal the writer’s erstwhile love affair with the bottle. Even though the mayor was satisfied with his theory, it didn’t begin to explain why it was the father rather than Scott who came to him with this fantastic tale of invaders who carried out some sort of mysterious plan under a cloak of darkness. The writer seemed to have very little to say on the subject, other than how bizarre and frightening his experience had been. He remained silent whenever the mayor referred to his excessive elbow bending or the priest classified him as harmlessly misguided.

Enough! shouted Scott suddenly. I may take and occasional drink and enjoy it, and I may not haunt the pews of Saint Paul’s enough to satisfy the good father, and I may be a bit literate for my own good, but what I saw wasn’t the result of alcohol, impiety or artistic imagination. It was nothing more than 20/20 vision and a head full of clear perceptions bearing witness to a horrific reality.

Ben Cantwell refused to accept it as a reality, horrific or otherwise. To do so would be to accept the possibility that his political kingdom was being overrun, and not simply by the opposition, but by an opposing army that consisted of the unearthly and the indescribable. How does someone so studied in the art of political pragmatism bring himself to accept this kind of reality? The most convenient option is to dismiss one man as an alcoholic and an eccentric and the other as his self-appointed enabler.

Four hours and thirty-two minutes after the mayor decided to disregard what he considered to be the ravings of two of Bradford’s most colorful citizens, something extraordinary began to happen. While Marilyn Cantwell slept soundly, her husband, flush with pride and satisfaction at having had the last word in an argument with Father Murphy, laid awake, grinning smugly in the darkness of his ostentatious bedroom. The mayor continued grinning like a nauseous hyena until the roof fell in–-literally. A thick black mist had completely encircled the house, seeping into the wood, stone and metal. Every brick was reduced to a powdery red substance, every beam was rotted as though by decades of moisture, every nail, bolt and screw was rusted into uselessness. With this destructive process completed, the entire structure collapsed into ruin.

Down went the bed, mayor and all. The Cantwell’s suddenly found themselves in the wreck room of their basement, their bed covers littered with dust and light debris gathered from each foot of the frightening descent. Bradford’s first couple was the recipient of the most gruesome practical joke imaginable–-and there was so much more still to come. Less than twenty feet away three figures stood side by side within the opening of a ruined wall. Their every movement and gesture was illuminated by the bright full moon shining down on the rear of the house. When they advanced it was with a slow, sinuous menace. In appearance they were a fascinating humanoid hybrid of many different species. In spite of this broadly encompassing quality, there was an almost proud uniqueness to them. Their complexion was a deep gray; not the faded pallor of an elderly human, but the rich, robust gray of a prime member of their race.

The mayor and his wife sat up in their bed in a horrified stupor as the three creatures approached. The black eyes of the invaders merged with the darkness of the room, but the deep redness surrounding those eyes stood out like a bloody beacon. Out of obligation, Marilyn Cantwell had raised her voice to great supplicant heights while singing hymns in church. Now it was naked fear rather than calculated reverence that possessed her, and in this state there was little room for hymns or songs or even simple speech. The mayor was also dumbstruck. There seemed to be no rational way to respond to these circumstances, or to explain or escape from them. The Cantwell’s had no choice but to remain exactly where they were and call on whatever reasoning powers were available to them. It was to their benefit that fear momentarily stripped them of their ability to scream. In this way they were allowed to live to scream another day.

A voice was suddenly thrust out of the blackness, deep and resonant, filled with meaning, carrying with every syllable the unfathomable purpose of the intruders. Their voice seemed the essence of humanity, warm and familiar and yet as coldly distant as some barren world lying at the edge of the universe. The invaders spoke as one.

We come to address the chief citizen of this place, the chief skeptic, they began. You who would not believe must believe now. Stealth and concealment are no longer necessary. All preparations have been completed. We thank you as one for your refusal to accept the word of those among you who had seen. We will thank you again when our purpose in this place has been fulfilled.

Holy mother of God! cried out Mayor Cantwell instinctively.

While the mayor groped for further exclamations, the three intruders joined hands and closed their eyes. In unison they began their sacred chant. The sense of conviction that was conveyed by the invaders was almost staggering in its intensity:

"In realms below so black and deep,

We walked the hollow earth.

No rest for the legion and no sleep,

While waiting for rebirth.

On and on through lands unknown,

Till time has lost its way.

Reaping seeds of evil sown,

The night engulfs the day.

Against the forces of the light,

Have we strived for ages.

Against the virtue and the right,

Through history’s scattered pages.

Now we come into your world,

In time it shall regress.

We celebrate our code of sin,

And light the way to darkness."

For hours Bradford’s first couple sat up in bed, helpless prisoners of a monstrous recurring vision. They could only see three alien outlines, six crimson eyes and hear a single voice endlessly reciting a poem that was terrifying in its implications.

Mayor Cantwell went out to buy his usual 9:00 AM paper, only to find the newsstand closed up tight. He couldn’t find a