Curse of the Nightfall
Chapter 3: The mystery killer.

A misty black vapor arises to hunt, as the allure of moonlight strikes on the graveyard a luminous aura of light traverse. Dogs were howling like a pack of carnivorous animals in a pre-cognition of doom smell it then participates in painting a night of horrid expectation—the death of random men. As the cacophony of thunder erupts overhead in monotonous rhythm, a misty black vapor begins to emerge from a tomb. Yes, you guess it right—from the tomb of Mrs. Chair. This is the night killer as evil and brutal without sense of compassion this black vapor becomes alive every full moon to hunt for prey—or could it be vengeance, yet in a blind way?

Unfortunately, only men must be killed.

Greg Bastion is a car mechanic in town. After his work in a car shop at a road side, where he repairs faulty and defective vehicles for a small salary, he buys some beer he intends to drink at home. He is living alone in a small trailer house somewhere within the boundary of the municipality. He drives his own Honda motorcycle. He is the fourth victim of the vapoury night killer.

Creaking footsteps of rusted metal shelves, his dilapidated and muddy leather boots bear his weight on the rusty step. He locates his keys from one of his pockets then open the door. His small house is located in a small lot with its stone fence being untidy and mossy. His neighbours are town folks, indigenous like him and this is just a small town so obviously neighbours are intimate, sometimes relatives. Greg’s small kitchen is topsy-turvy with unwashed dishes and some empty bottles of beer. He navigates through some assortments in his refrigerator and brings out sardines, and some ice cubes places it on a bucket with his purchased beers. He undresses himself half-naked and bec of weariness from work jumps in to his bed. It is already 6PM, time to watch for some primetime news but then, he sold his TV just weeks ago to sustain life in his shortcomings. He has no close friends to have some group drinking session so he does it at home. He opened one beer and guzzling at it in just few minutes. He wants to get intoxicated at once and fall to sleep. This is his life as routine bec he has no family to be concerned with. His wife left him bec of poverty and luckily, they had no children.

The window creaks. The glass panel is broken so sometimes rain drips in. It is windy outside. The rusty edges of the window have some sort of activity too, ants in their business whatsoever yet this doesn’t bother him. Too lazy to even care for himself. Fact is, he didn’t take a bath for a week.

After drinking 6 bottles of beer, he is snoring satisfied how life should be lived at care-free. He is the master of his fate, and the king of his palace—actually, a trailer house. Then disaster comes in.

At the strike of midnight as the full moon drapes the town in yellowish hue, a vapoury black mist comes out the tomb of Mrs. Chair, and hissing angrily like a wounded cobra. It slithers on the grassy surroundings like a wary snake as the shrieking sounds of an animal nearby intensifies the tempo of evil rhapsody in forms of thunder and lightning. It is a horrifying imagery of someone’s imminent doom. The black mist ascends like a dark linen yet the substance of deathly rage can be felt on it. It drifts to nowhere but to where its hate must materialize in someone else’s death.

It replaces Greg.

Exploring the vicinity, it replaces the window with broken glass panel and as the flexible and intrusive black mist enters in, the dark room stinks of piss and beer fumes. The prospect is lying on his bunk with outstretched feet beyond the bed hanging on the edge. His beer belly bulging and vibrating from his snoring pattern. Beer bottles are scattered on the floor with moist on some spare area. The poor man is never a community liability nor he is a trouble maker. He may not be a godly person yet he is quite a good person, so it baffles the police why someone has to kill him.

Mouth is gape wide open, as some frothy saliva is dripping, the black mist penetrates inside the man through his mouth and nostrils then enters toward his brain. The black mist integrates itself with his brain and sizzles to burn. As the burning process takes place it consequentially creates nightmares, and Greg is trembling now as he runs away from his stalker. In this dream, he is seeing the black mist hunting him down. He slides on the muddy slope and his heart is beating hard. Veins dilate as well as horror in the eyes. The ambience is of demonic sense yet there is no time to think. Someone he fears in grave amount is coming after him. The muddy slope has indented with every step he makes and every turn is a fearful outcome. His heart pumping adrenaline until at last he is cornered. The smell of burning intensifies as the heart is an overworked organ until the heart attack. He dies of heart attack while his brain is consumed by combustion even to his eyes. The brain is charred, and so is with the eyes.

In the room, before his death Greg is trembling and sweating hard and trying to scream yet only a hissing sound comes out, then suddenly the trembling stops. He is dead. His eyes are smouldering as fumes of dark vapours dances out of it.

‘Is your father here?’ a neighbour asks Stephen.

‘Yes, what’s the matter, Mar?’, he responded.

Yes, the news spread like bush fires. Greg, the mechanic is killed. The indicator of murder is his burnt eyes.

‘Hmmm? Another death with the same pattern—burnt eyes, chief,’,

‘Yes, bring him for autopsy but I believe it’s the same result with the first three victims.’

The autopsy result is identical. Cause of death is heart attack with internal combustion of the brain, and the outward manifestation of burnt eyes. The police are baffled.

‘Should we let NBI intervene with the investigation?’, Policeman Chair asks his chief.

‘I think, not yet. We can solve this by our investigators.’

‘What if there will be next to it?’

‘We will see by then.’