by Jonathan McDermott

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Author's Note: The night before I started this, I was already considering a "sequel" to Hiwon. Naturally enough, that night I had a nightmare very much in the same "flavor" as Hiwon. I'm still not quite sure what in my subconscious comes up with this sort of thing, so please forgive me if it's rather incoherent. By the way kong ju is Chinese for "fear." Another element from the dream itself.

I awoke in the morning, the sun starting to claw it's way over the horizon and prodding me with dust-speckled rays as a single beam cut through the small safe place I had holed myself into to survive the night. Almost lazily I stretched, frowning when my arms hit the wall of the old den, barely a foot from my chest.

It was no matter. I had survived another night.

I crawled my way out, pulling my pack and bow behind me, shaking the dust off as I stood atop the barrow. The air was already growing warm, moist and rich with the promise of a humid day. The forest was quiet but for the birds chirping as they roused themselves.

I inhaled deeply, and the twittering song of a sparrow actually made me smile a little as I drank in the sheer newness of the day, looking out accross the forest. the world had gone to hell, we were all damned, but at least there were small moments such as this that one could hold on to, and say that, at least here, there was some touch of normalcy, of peace.

Then my eye fell on a birch tree. Impossible to not notice it; in a forest of brown russet trunks and verdant leaves the birch with it's bone-white bark stood out. It stood barely thirty paces west of me, still haunting the shadows of the hill, the sun not quite touching it yet.

Something about the tree entranced me for a few moments. And a I watched the green leaves began to change color. Even as the forest around it remained wreathed in vibrant summer green, the birch's leaves shimmered as they turned an even more vibrant crimson red. I took a half-step closer, curious and with growing tension that I could not put a finger on.

With a sudden start I realized that the half-step I had taken was ten paces, and the blood-red loeaves of the birch tree were turning into a baleful gold, and were beginning to fall with ever-increasing frequency from the branches. They fell in utter silence, I gave a cry of fear -- I am not too proud to admit my terror -- and scrambled backwards up the hill, my heart pounding, wondering if all the long time of vagrancy would finally catch up with me. Wondering if my final moments of struggling against that which was taking our world and lives from us would come not in the middle of the night but in the first hour of dawn.

The fall of leaves was a torrent now, as if a waterfall. Yet the branches seemed as full as ever. With horror I realized that the leaves falling from the birch in torrents was not merely a mockery of autumn: something was hidden from view by them.

I crawled my way to the top of the hill, breathing heavily and shaking, scrambling to reach the safe place again, to crawl in there and scream myself to sleep, to keep myself from being claimed by this creature. Sticks and dirt grimed my hands as I clawed the ground, pulling myself forward an upward and most of all away from the tree. And then not a handful of paces from the barrow there was a sound behind me. It was a soft rustling of leaves, the sound I remembered form when I was a child in autumn and the trees had cast down their red, yellow, and brown leaves for the coming winter, tailoring a warm-hued coat upon the ground that we as children would tromp through. But what waded through these leaves was not child, or even human, of that I was certain.

With another cry I curled up into a ball, clutching my hands over my ears and squeezing my eyes shut. We cannot fight them, we cannnot hurt them! my mind screamed at me. If we cannot see them they can't hurt us! We cannot fight them, we cannot hurt them! If we cannot see them, they can't hurt us.... I repeated this in my mind like some crazed mantra, as if it would help me. A last sane part of my mind realized that it had been too late when I had stared for too long at the birch, and as the indomitable sound of leaves being walked through came louder and closer. And it did not matter that I could not see what was approaching; it was enough that I heard it.

Then, like a lazy old man who finally stands to see what the commotion in his yard is, warmth touched my face and bright light assailed my eyelids, as the sun peeked over the barrow. The sound faded away even as I felt leaves kicked up against my feet.

Panting, shuddering, I waited, counting slowly to ten, then to a hundred, before opening my eyes slowly. I closed them just as quickly, for the sun was no less bright now than he had been when I had first awoken. The warmth refuelling what little courage I had remaining, I slowly pulled my hands away from my ears, stilling my breath as I listened. There was but the breeze dancing through the trees and the birds' songs.

One last test, then. Swallowing, I turned, tense and ready to run, if I even could. Behind me there was but the forest, with the birch-tree nowhere in sight. No golden leaves shrouded the ground. I was alone, perfectly, blessedly alone.

I fell back onto my haunches, and wept until the sun had comefully up over the forest.

Late in the afternoon, I came upon a town. I had come to appreciate towns; I felt human again when within one. This one had been around for a long time, and the townsfolk knew what needed to be done to survive the nights. When the sun descended to the horizon and the prickling of the skin told us that the world was once more no longer ours, they gathered in the communal hall, and they welcomed me to spend the evening.

Like any safe place made by human hands, the building was solid, resting on a foundation of stone and lacking any basement or enclosure. There were no windows, no odd corners, no closets. The tables and chairs were set against the wall and would not allow anything larger than a mouse to hide behind them. Even that alone was enough to make me wary, but it had stood the townsfolk in good stead for long enough.

I was also concerned with the number of people in the town, a topic which came up when the schoolteacher approached me as I sat, fidgeting, on my loaned cot.

She smiled comfortingly. (God, I hadn't realized how much I needed human contact after that morning.) "You seem antsy. I guess vagabonds aren't used to towns."

The smile I managed was, I'm sure, not entirely a whole one. "It's just being around so many people. It's... comforting, but... well, the more people...."

I cursed my halting speech, so unused to actually talking was I, but she took it in stride, patting my shoulder. "Well, I won't say we're completely safe, but... we manage." I nodded a little; that she wouldn't verbally jink herself and her town, even to comfort someone, was actually more of a relief than if she had tried to talk bravado that we both knew was false. "A few people stay up in shifts, with just enough background noise to be comforting. They know what to do if... anything happens." She pursed her lips thoughtfully, wondering if she had said too much, then offered a, slightly less brave, smile.

I tried to smile encouragingly. "Well. That's all right, then. I'll be all right, then, I think." She nodded pleasantly, and moved to help get the children settled in.

There's something comforting, as dangerous as it is in the long run, to go to sleep in a room full of a hundred people, with a crackling fire, soft conversation by the insomniac and watchful, the rustling of sheets as people moved in their sleep. I knew that the birch tree would haunt me that evening, and in that I would not be disappointed, but in my dreams, at least, I could only be terrified. None knew what would come when one was awake and not in a safe place.

I curled up under the sheets, risking a brief glance around the boxlike room. Doors were locked, and cloths and towels were jammed around the sills to block out... whatever might be outside. Images, sounds, things to make one fearful or tense. Outside the memory-thieves would be hunting, but here tonight, at least, there would be no venue for their glamer.

Was that footsteps, soft and skittering, on the roof?

The watchmen paused in their conversation, then immediately began talking quietly again. There was an edge to their words, but it was covered by a forced calmness. It was even more comforting than I could have hoped for; they all knew that there was something outside, but they also knew that it could only hurt them if they allowed themselves to give it an opening.

I pulled the covers up over my head,trying to drown out the sounds with my own breathing. It was silly thinking, I knew. Eventually, a mistake would be made, and a memory-thief or skitter or somethign else would ensnare one of them. If they were truly unfortunate, more than one of them. And then the town would disintegrate as their sense of security was eroded out from under them, bit by bit, night by night. Within a month, perhaps, there would be even less safety in the large, empty and shadow-filled hall than there was in a safe place.

But for the time being... there was warmth, and there was sanity.

I drifted off to sleep, to the familiar horrors that awaited me there, and amongst them was, of course, the birch tree, bloody and hoary and reaching for me with skeletal branches, the bleeding leaves swallowing me whole and rushing me to a mouth I could not see but only sensed as a yawning emptiness.

I awoke, jolted by a scream far off in the distance.

A few others were sitting up, looking around nervously and scared, as I cast off the sheet covering me. The shrill scream had been too far to rouse more than a handful of the lighter sleepers. The watchmen were already alert, and were quietly talking with the ones who had come awake. One of them approached me when he saw me sitting up, walking softly.

"It came from one of the farmsteads, about two miles down the way," he whispered to me.

I nodded, slowly catching my breath. "I didn't know there were outlying homes."

"There are a few, mostly farmers who need to be close to their crops. They're usually safe--" he broke off, the flickering firelight casting the lines of concern into contrast.

"You'll be sending people to check in the morning?"

"Yeah. We can't go now, of course."

"If you need my help...."

"We will. Thanks."

I returned to sleep, disquieted, and yet slumber found me easilly, and my dreams were not as haunted as before.

They never left bodies.

It could be called consolation. But mostly it made it worse, not knowing what truly happened to those who fell prety to them. They left almost nothing behind, but for the occasional scrap of clothing or personal item that heightened the loss. But they never left any bodies.

Sometimes, though, they left someone alive.

The farmstead was quiet when the party from the town arrived mid-morning the next day. All was as we expected to find it: On the outside, the house was solid if somewhat old, the once-whitewashed wood siding faded to a black-streaked grey as the years had worn upon it. The windows had been covered with plywood, but immediately we saw the open door, broken off it's hinges. The town sherriff and I exchanged looks. They did that, sometimes, but only if they had already gotten in through some other way.

While there would be no danger in the daylight hours, we -- the sherriff, myself, and two others -- still entered cautiously. It was instinct, nothing more, instinct that perhaps a child could understand better than we: the knowledge that somethign bad had happened here. We stepped carefully, the boards creaking beneath our feet, as we remained together, walking through the first floor. Finding nothing, we conferred briefly and quietly in the living room.

I would have gone crazy just living in that house. There was a cellar, closets, odd little corners and nooks.... Once upon a time, it would have been a warm and lovely home. In these days, it would be suicide of the sanity to stay there for even one night. Despite this, they had taken precautions: all the windows were boarded over with plywood and seemed quite sturdy; they would be pounded upon and railed against but the terrors that owned the nighttime hours would not get through. Likewise, the door to the cellar was inside the house, and was quite securely bolted and locked, with a thick bar accross it. There was no chimney; the house had once had one, long ago, but it had been removed, possibly even before the world became such a palce where a chimney was seen as an unlocked door. The door, apparently, had been sturdy, but as we saw it had been ripped form the hinges after they had gotten inside.

We quietly agreed -- none of us could bring our voices above hushed tones-- to check the upstairs rooms, and headed for the stairs. None of us even suggested checking the basement.

As my foot hit the bottom step, though, I heard the faint voice of a child singing upstairs.

I've always loved you,
And always, ever will....

The tiny little cadence began again, and I swallowed, trying to get a grip of myself. It was daytime, the sun rising high into the sky outside, the only terrors that existed lay within our own minds. We had not yet come accross anything that could stalk us in the daylight hours. The thought that this could be some lingering residuum of the night was too disturbing to consider reasonably. Even so, we hesitated.

The sherriff, Sanchez, recovered first, whispering, "That sounds like little Maria."

We exchanged glances, and moved up the stairs, the singing still filtering down to us. We were torn between being cautious and running up there to see what was singing that damn song; it was unbearable, hearing it sung and not truly knowing if it was human or other that was drawing us up those ancient wood steps.

As we reached the top of the steps, the singing stopped. Almost as one we were holding our breaths, tense. It was broken by the rattled whisper of one of the others who came with us. "Hey... why is it so light up here?"

We looked around. There were several doorways at the landing, all of them open. A short hallway led off from the landing, but through the doors we were at we could see that the plywood had not been perfectly seated in many of the windows, and streamers of light cut through the spaces intheuneven plywood.

"Looks like a shoddy job," the sherriff said quietly. "How'd they last this long?"

"They were allowed to," I said with a soft sigh. "The only thing I can think of."

"False sense of security?" the man who had spotted how light it was asked.

Before he could be answered, the singing came again, and we could hear it coming from down the hall. We went as one down the hall, swalowing our fear for the moment, and stood ion the doorway, looking in. A young girl, perhaps about ten years old, was sitting on the floor of the empty room, between two windows. The plywood on both windows had been torn down from within, and lay flung to the sides, letting in harsh sunlight.

We hesitated, half-expecting the girl to explode into some beast from the nethermost part of our nightmares. Instead, eyes open but not seeing us, she sang the lyric again, as she held herself.

The sherriff knelt down. "Maria?"

The singing stopped. and it took a long moment for the girl's eyes to focus on the man. "Sherriff Sanchez?" she asked in a so very tiny voice.

"Yes, Maria. It's me, Sherriff Sanchez. Are you okay, honey?"

In an instant she was accross the room, curled up in a bundle against the big man's chest. "They came!" she sobbed, her voice cracking so much it was hard to hear the splinters of words. "They took away Mommy and Daddy...."

Sanchez, understanding coming immediately, held the little girl, sighing softly. "Come on, Maria. Let's get you to town." He stood, carrying the girl.

I swallowed. "Sherriff... I think it's time I headed off."

He glanced to me, and nodded once. "Are you sure you don't want to stay? This is a good, decent town...."

I looked at him while I formulated my answer. But something in my eyes must have answered for me, something of the months -- years? -- that I had walked as a vagabond and seen what lay beyond the safe places when the sun sets. I could see him repress a shudder, and he nodded, saying nothing more as he left the room with the other two.

I hesitated, though, in that place where a girl had been scarred for what life she had left; or if not scarred, then had lost her parents to the dark between the days. Here, where the sun cast twin shafts of light on old, worn wood flooring, the frame of the home creaking faintly as the others left quickly for the emotional safety -- and, at night, what possible security there was -- of the town... here I had a brief flicker of memory. Days long past, when I was so much younger, before the night became something to truly fear and not merely reassure children about. In a room much like this, miles away and years ago....

I closed my eyes, squeezing them shut as a few tears came. One of those precious moments of happiness, of what it had been like to know a world without fear, had been stolen from me long ago by a memory-thief. All it left me was the knowledge that some part of my remembrances was diminished, that somewhere out there, some beast which stalked the winds of night had caught me unawares for a moment too loong with it's glamer, and had drawn from me a single, precious memory. Much as they had done again here.

They never left bodies. But sometimes what they left hurt more than what they took.

Beyond the windows stood the forest, green and verdant as ever a summer strand might hope to be. And shortly, I was walking through that forest again, towards where instinct said the next safe place was. I do not know why I did not stay in the town. For a short time it would at least be a place with others, to rest and recouperate. But in time, it would fall, and fear and madness would grip them. This had been but the first attack, so much more effective than scratching at the door of the town hall whilst everyone slept.

I did not want to see this town, this place fall to them. To deal with them alone was hard enough. To see them take a town of people would be torture. And with that knowledge I knew that they would know it as well.

On a hill at the north edge of the town there was a birch tree, glowing with the health and green leaves of the summer months. I still avoided it.