Walking After Midnight: Tales for Halloween: Walking After Midnight: Tales for Halloween, #1

By Evan Camby

Crisp fall nights. Wind howling through the trees. The cover of night making familiar sights foreign and strange, washed in a blanket of shadows.

 

Named one of Suspense Magazine's Best Books of 2014, Evan Camby's "Walking After Midnight: Tales for Halloween" is a collection of six short horror stories guaranteed to send chills up your spine. Read them by a bonfire on a chilly autumn night, or under a blanket by candle light. Whatever you do, don't look behind you.

"Hayride"
The Schultz family's outing to an apple orchard goes terribly awry on the hayride from Hell.

"Hat Man"
Graduate student Bernice is plagued by night terrors. As the horrible visions begin to invade her waking hours, she must fight for her sanity...and her safety.

"A Good Samaritan"
Newlyweds Jake and Rita Wechsler take a journey down winding country roads in the Hudson River Valley, where danger lurks at every turn.

"Into the Abyss" A group of young girls decide to play with a Ouija board and discover that it might be more than just a board game.

"Walking After Midnight"
When childhood friends Teddy and Joseph decide to revisit one of their old childhood haunts, the old town cemetery, they stumble upon true evil and must rely on each other to survive.

"Trick & Treat" Halloween enthusiast Shelley decorates and buys candy for the big night, hoping for lots of Trick-or-Treaters, but she quickly learns the meaning of the phrase "Be careful what you wish for."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Evan Camby
• Release date: Nov 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201246556

Book preview

Walking After Midnight: Tales For Halloween

Walking After Midnight: Tales For Halloween

EVAN CAMBY

© 2022 Evan Camby

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All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events are either a product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, events or locations is purely coincidental.

Contents

Hat Man

Hayride

A Good Samaritan

Walking After Midnight

Into The Abyss

Trick & Treat

Also by Evan Camby

Afterword

For C.W.G.

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;"

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The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe

Hat Man

The first time Bernice saw him, it was raining so hard that the drops flew in horizontal sheets against her bedroom window. She was lying in bed, wide awake, and the glowing letters on her phone told her it was just past three o’clock in the morning. The curtains were closed, but something compelled her to get up and look outside. As she did, the dull glow of a streetlamp illuminated her face.

The view was typical of an apartment complex parking lot: cars, a mailbox, and cherry blossom trees in full bloom. Bernice rubbed her eyes and looked down from the second-story window. Squinting, she could just barely make out the shape of a man partially hidden by the tree next to him.

The figure was tall, solid black, and wore a hat, which was wide-brimmed and flat on top. Startled, she closed the blinds with a gasp, looked around the dark bedroom, and dove back under her comforter. After a few breathless, trembling minutes, Bernice reached for her nightstand and flipped the light on. She walked to the window again and forced herself to peer between the blinds. The man was gone.

Exhaling loudly, she walked to the kitchen and put on the kettle for chamomile tea, to calm her nerves. And it worked.

The second time Bernice saw the man in the hat, she was sitting on a bench outside a department store, talking to her mother on her cell phone. It was a cold December evening, even by Michigan standards, but two hours of shopping in a hot, crowded mall left her seeking a respite in the cold. Christmas was two weeks away, and the snowy parking lot was packed with last-minute shoppers fighting for spots, shoving gift-wrapped boxes into their trunks.

She took one long drag on her cigarette and assured her mother she would make it home in time for Christmas Eve dinner just as she spotted a pack of women emerging from the mall. Their matching coats and boots screamed sorority life, a hunch Bernice confirmed when they packed into an expensive SUV with Greek letters slapped on the rear window. As the girl driving the car backed out of the spot, a shadow appeared in the corner of Bernice’s eye. She turned and saw the smoky black figure standing to her left outside of the automatic doors. A family exited the mall, walking through him, and he was gone. Bernice shrieked and the family’s toddler started crying.

I’m sorry, I… I thought I saw someone I know, she apologized, but the mother stared daggers back as she picked up the child to soothe him.

On the phone, her mother asked, What are you apologizing for?

Bernice assured her nothing was wrong and rushed off the phone.

The third time she saw the man, he was in her apartment. Something jarred her from a deep sleep, and she tried to get up, but realized she could not move an inch. Even her eyelids would not budge. The cotton sheets enveloping her may as well have been a block of solid ice. In her mind’s eye, she saw the man walk from the parking lot up the stairs to her front door. He glided through the front door into her living room and then down the hallway to her bedroom. Still somehow paralyzed, Bernice was helpless as he approached. The most horrifying part, the thing that scared her most, was that she knew he knew she could not move. His prey immobile, he could afford to take his time approaching, savoring her fear. The closer he got, the more she sensed his glee. Red eyes glowed from under his hat, and even though she could not see his mouth, she knew he was grinning. As much as she willed herself to move, she remained frozen in her bed, unable even to open her mouth to scream.

The man was now outside of her bedroom, mere feet away. As he approached, she won a minor battle against the paralysis and a shrill, terrified scream rose in her throat. She woke up to the loud wailing of the smoke alarm.

Bernice shot up in bed and reached to turn on the lamp. She was alone in the room. Breathing heavily, she wiped beads of sweat from her brow and brushed damp strands of hair out of her face with a trembling hand. A quick inspection of her apartment revealed no smoke or fire. She ran to the front door and found the deadlock still tight, with no signs of forced entry. Leaning with her back against the door, she slid down to the linoleum floor and held her head in her hands for a few minutes before retreating into the bedroom.

I know I didn’t dream the alarm going off, Bernice thought as she climbed back into bed. It was nearly four o’clock in the morning, and she had to be up for class in two hours. It was too early to call anyone to chat, and there was no way she could calm down enough to sleep. So, she turned on the TV and watched an infomercial