DarkWalker by John Urbancik Page B

your…habitat.” Jack tapped, once, on the window, “then quit fucking around and tell me.”
    The ghost smiled. After a minute, he said, “Come back when you have time for a story.” He faded backwards, into the club.
    3.
     
    Quiet: the room, the whole apartment, the entire world. Sitting at the edge of her bed, staring out the window, Lisa Sparrow felt the thickness of silence. The depth of it.
    She couldn’t see the street, just the lake and the path around it, buildings on the other side, even the theatre. Movement, too, of people and night birds, shadows and silhouettes, merely shapes, all of them.
    She didn’t feel the scratches on her face, back, and breasts. They had burned at first, itched afterwards, but now she wouldn’t know they were there if the window didn’t reflect them—and it did a poor job of that. She, and the room behind her, looked ghostly. The glass also reflected recent memories: yellow eyes and teeth, dropping, slashing, slicing, laughing.
    It would be easier to forget Jack.
    Would he come back again? Did he feel as strongly as she suspected—as strongly as she felt? What did she feel? Better to focus on questions about Jack Harlow, wandering mystery man who had returned, than the champing teeth, the biting, the slashing.
    Midnight
approached. The Witching Hour. The beginning of tomorrow. Sleep, perchance to dream —as Hamlet had said— what dreams may come? None good for Lisa Sparrow.
    Though tired, her eyes refused to shut before Jack returned. If he failed to, she would never sleep again. That thing would haunt her dreams. Better to sit on the end of the bed and never lay down again. Stare outside until the sun rose and fell and rose again, endlessly, infinitely, until the very thought of dreams—and all visions, images, and ideas—disintegrated within her mind. She had need of none.
    Lisa inhaled deeply, held the breath. It wasn’t like her to fold up or collapse. She released the air slowly, through her mouth, expelling anxieties and tension. There, those were things she didn’t need.
    She could prepare better next time. Get pepper spray, or a gun for her purse. Take karate lessons. Pump iron. Cast spells that burned three-foot-tall teeth-baring creatures to ash. Life was simpler when she only had to worry about random drive-by shootings, terrorism, and co-workers going postal.
    Jack was out there. He had her key. He’d be back. Next to him, she could sleep. Dream of flowers and sunshine and . . .
    No, that was wrong. Not sunshine. Jack belonged to the dark. She knew it, then, as truth. Something she should have realized right from the beginning—and something he’d never be able to change. That’s why he’d left.
    But then he’d come back.
    4.
     
    The street grew darker as Jack passed the parking lot and police station. No kids got in his way this time. Still, he cast furtive glances left, right, over his shoulder. He watched the distance ahead of him. The sky above.
    The footsteps, no longer mere echoes, followed him. Or paced him. Alongside? Ahead? He saw nothing, not even the things that never hid from his eyes. No sign of movement except trees in the wind, litter on the streets, normal living people in the parking lot or at the pizza place. Nothing else. No one. Nada.
    He didn’t like it.
    Jack couldn’t shake the sensation of eyes. In the leaves, the bricks, the clouds, the street. Watching. Spying. The ghost had been right: he’d changed . How? Did the whole world feel this different because he’d found hope?
    The footsteps were human enough, not that clattering beast from Lisa’s apartment. Solid, so not a ghost—at least, no phantom he’d ever seen. Vampires were generally stealthier. Werewolves shouldn’t be out yet; the moon wasn’t quite full, and they certainly didn’t walk like normal men. That still left endless possibilities. Jack didn’t like any of them.
    Most likely, it was an echo, his imagination, the weird acoustics of a city too warm for