The Night Gods: Chapter I - Forms Without Form

Courtesy Google Artist: Ian Joyner

We've all seen them I think, shadows that dart just outside our field of vision. They live somewhere behind our eyes perhaps, both in and outside of time. They are the old ones, older than time itself, ageless, wraithlike demons drawing us into the darkness of our souls. Or is it their souls that we are drawn into...do they live in us, or we in them? They lurk there somewhere in the ether, our nightmares give them form.

The cats can see them, I'm sure... You can see it in their eyes, looks furtive and secretive. You can feel them in the woods at night, their existence a mere whisper at times, yet real and somehow overpowering. Formless, yet with form. Like the spirits of the dead, coalesced and as cold and desolate as the grave. It was in the woods just outside of Portsmouth that I first became aware of their presence.

It was on the mile or so walk along the dirt road that traversed the wood that led to the big house by the bay. The road that separated the woods from the old cemetery. The house itself was a pretty cheerless place, devoid of the usual hominess that generally pervades such places. I was staying there with my friends Jimmy and Frank. They were normal enough but their parents were austere New England folk...the last of that generation of true New Englanders.

The summer's eve felt cold and empty as I plodded along the old dirt road, lit only by the gibbous moon. I became aware of something other present, something palpable yet ethereal...known but unknown in the wood to my left. Tentacles of terror gripped me from behind the trees; gone during the daylight hours but so very real in the night. The presence came not from the cemetery as one might think, but from within the woods. My pace quickened as I peered into the trees searching for something...anything.

I tried to summon my courage, as much as available to a 16 year old, small town boy. The terror consumed me now, a cold sweat broke out and the hairs at the nape of my neck stood on end. I was running now, the house only a few hundred yards away. The trees and what was behind them became a blur as I sped toward the house. As bleak as it seemed, it was a welcome presence to me now. I could see the lights in the windows beckoning. I was safe at last...for now.

But that was then and this is now... My name is Eddie Phillips, inmate #180748. I'm doing 15 consecutive life sentences plus 100 years. They say I'm a serial killer, but I didn't kill anybody, but I remember what happened. I'll die in prison, that I'm sure of. Before I do, I have to tell what really happened.