Nocturne
A Thursday Prompt story
© 2023 by Walter Reimer

Prompt: The Prompt I was thinking of, is a brief description: Vast darkness, a lone light on a pole, and a rumbling sound. I got out of work super late at night, last week, and had a surreal moment in the parking lot, where it seemed like the night, a parking lot light in the near distance, and the sound of a freight train on the nearby tracks were the only things in existence. The cool thing about the light was you could actually see the cone of light it cast, looking almost like an oasis. I liked the impression so much, I honestly wanted to see how other authors would run with it.




One of the last things my father said to me before he lapsed into a coma was, “Be careful driving in the fog.”

That was my dad. Always offering practical advice.

Didn’t say anything about walking, though.

When I looked out my window this morning at three A.M., with the machine just starting to sing its little hymn to the Blessed Sacrament of Coffee, my father’s advice immediately threw itself off its shelf in my memory and began to wave its little arms for attention.

I petted it and it scampered back to its cubbyhole, and I regarded the diffuse glow of the streetlight across the street.

Fog.

Of course.

After celebrating the Sacrament, I got dressed for my scheduled walk. Because I would be walking near a four-lane highway and speed limits in Florida are more polite suggestions than strict guidelines, I wore a bright yellow t-shirt and made sure to have a flashlight with me. We’ll take the wallet, knife and pepper spray as read; I like to be prepared.

Yes, you may call me paranoid. I don’t mind.

When I reached the entrance to the neighborhood I noted that the streetlights were very dim in the fog, and the lights at the car dealerships less than a mile west couldn’t be seen. I squared my shoulders and set off.

Fog, clouds, no moon, and no cars on the road. My ears perked and my head on a swivel, I trudged along the side of the highway, my imagination spinning post-apocalyptic fantasies and story ideas at me. Every horror movie I’d ever seen joined my imagination, starting to toss various scenes in my direction as jump scares, and my hackles were pushing against the fabric of my shirt. A feral dog barked, and I almost jumped out of my fur as I tried to estimate direction and range and whether it was coming at me.

Nothing happened, and I walked on.

When I’m out walking at this time, in the day’s premature infancy, I don’t pay too much attention to the passage of time. It’s the distance I mark, so I know that when I reach a certain point, I turn around and head home. The pervasive darkness helped with the sense of timelessness by shutting out the moon and stars.

Two things seemed to happen simultaneously. My ears perked again as a high, drawn-out note rose to a distant scream before descending to a moan, and a dim gray cone like a comet’s broad tail came into view, its nucleus shining somewhat brighter. The train was nearly three miles away, judging from my mental map of the area; the fog, rather than muting the sound, almost appeared to amplify it.

The closer I got to the comet, the more the radiance beat back the fog to reveal a sidewalk, part of a parking lot, and the façade of the nearest car dealership.

Ah, civilization.

And my first waypoint; I had to cross the highway here, gaining the sidewalk and proceeding onward to the one-mile mark before turning about and retracing my steps.

But for now, with the train’s whistle having died away and the streetlight beckoning to me, I was no longer wholly alone in this foggy universe.



end