The Whistler

It was a cold night, a freezing ache that gnawed at bone and clawed one's face. The savage wind tore across the frozen ground, plunging through clothing with razor sharp keenness. The night itself seemed cruel and unrelenting to any who dared venture out into it, driving people back to crackling fires and warm blankets. It was on such a night as this, that one soul started the long walk home.

Jordan shuddered from the depths of his fleece jacket. His breath frosted the air as he dug his gloved hands deeper into his pockets. Shuffling doggedly onward, he silently cursed the weather. Jordan had just finished the night shift at the Gulf station, which was situated a few hundred feet below the crest of Washburn's Hill. The gas station saw little business as the main highway had closed down a few years back. But the owner insisted that everyone was in need of fuel, regardless of less traveled roads. So Jordan manned the register, watching customers dwindle as the road died a slow death. Nights were a suffocating silence, broken only by a rare car that had ventured from parts unknown and heading to God knows where. "Nobody that travels in the wee hours is up to honest doings," as Jordan's grandma would often say.

It seemed to ring faintly true as he recollected grim faced men buying gas with musty bills. People with broken eyes, and hopeless looks. Bloodshot eyes, ringed with panic. But these were late night drivers, surely anybody traveling late would seem desperate or dour. The night was moonless, and the only light came from what few stars that dared shine. Jordan could just make out the white painted line that marked the road home. He told himself that he would once again buy a car with his meager savings. Damn, it's cold. Jordan thought as he buried his nose under his collar. He thought back to his grandmother, to distract himself from the chill.

Jordan's grandma was pure Romanian, and fiercely proud of it. She first stepped onto American soil as a young woman during the Cold War. Jordan wondered if it got this cold in Romania. Probably. He faintly smiled at the memory of her and shivered violently as another gust of icy wind slashed at his face. His grandmother was a chain smoker, and a bit eccentric. She believed in having a dream catcher above beds, and had a silver charm necklace to ward off the "evil eye". When Jordan was a young boy, he remembered her telling stories of horrible monsters that would prey on children. There was Vlad, a tall thin man with hands like needles, who would sew the lips of children while they slept so that they could not scream for help when he dragged them to his lair. Or Nosferatu, a bald creature that had one nostril and blood-red eyes. He would suck the blood from his victims' ears with his nostril, and leave a shriveled corpse in the bed. She delighted in frightening Jordan, and often used these stories to keep him from being naughty. Jordan attempted a smile from beneath the collar of his jacket, but the weather was too nasty to be any sort of cheerful.

The ground glistened with a slight dusting of frost, a white layer that gave the landscape a ghostly tone. Leafless trees stretched out skeletal limbs that danced in the freezing wind. Jordan looked for the decrepit house that marked the halfway point on the long road. He could almost see a vague dark outline to his right, and walked a little faster. Wouldn't do to be out here all night, now would it? Jordan mused as he shuffled along. The chill was seeping into his boots and he wiggled his toes as he walked, hoping to gain some faint warmth. The wind was fading and the trees slowly stopped their solemn dance.

Jordan felt a small twist in the pit of his stomach as he realized the air would be deadly still. He loathed quiet. The oppressing lack of sound weighed heavily on him, seeming to feed on the very fiber of his being. Jordan spent too many shifts in a silent room, where his very heartbeat seemed to reverberate off of the walls. Hours spent going nearly mad with want of noise. Noise. There was something comforting in a steady sound. A ticking clock was a companion. A beeping toy was a friend. Sound was a realization that you were not alone. But Jordan was alone for many nights. He was alone on this one.

Licking chapped lips, Jordan started to whistle a nonsense tune. No song came to his mind, so he whistled whatever bars popped into his head. It was like carrying a twig to keep yourself safe, he thought. But at least it was better than nothing. Better than silence. The dark outline in the distance slowly took form of a rotting house. It seemed to be collapsing on itself in slow motion. All floors were visible from the outside, complete with beams jutting out, doors hanging from one hinge or none, plaster covering the decaying floorboards like snow. The one window that was unbroken stared out from the basement like a watchful eye. Jordan imagined something watching from the darkness behind the glass and shivered. This time it was not solely from the cold.

He hurried on by the house, ignoring the feeling of a watchful gaze on his back. God, he hated his imagination sometimes. Possibly the cause of dear old granny. Jordan once again found himself reminiscing about her, how she always had a comment or a strange proverb on something. "Don't spin widdershins on a full moon. It'll bring bad luck to you!" He imagined her rasping while shaking her silver necklace at him. Jordan would always ask how she knew all these things, and she would clack her tongue and shake her head. "In the old country," she would always refer to her homeland as the old country, "We knew more than most foolish prost here!" His grandma would then mutter in Romanian and attend to her sewing. Jordan shook his hands to bring back some feeling in them.

He continued whistling, but his efforts grew less and less enthusiastic as the silence loomed larger and larger. Eventually Jordan was faintly hissing through his teeth, and then stopped even that. "Never whistle at night, child. It'll wake the dead." His grandma glowered at him through a plume of smoke. Jordan snorted at the memory of her squashing his happy rendition of "Yankee Doodle Dandy." He looked up at the handful of stars as he rubbed his gloved hands together. His granny had some comment about stars, but he couldn't recall the exact words. It wasn't important anyway.

Jordan continued his trek down the road, and to his delight he saw the faint lights of his town a few miles away. Spurred on by the sight, he once again burst into tune and whistled merrily as he tried not to freeze on his way home. Jordan was making good time and he estimated he was less than ten minutes away from a warm bed. He turned his head and frowned at a series of strange shapes outlined against the faint lights from the town. Some were square, some were rounded, and it was difficult to make out some other forms. Then it hit him. They were graves, he was staring at headstones.

Jordan forgot that he passed the cemetery on the way home. It's never a problem by day, but of course you have to pass it by night. He grumbled to himself. He never knew what to do passing a burial ground. Should you be respectful? Or creeped out? It was a little eerie he supposed as his tune faltered a little. Jordan half expected to see a little girl dressed in white clothes staring at him, or a decomposing corpse in a suit shambling out from behind a tree. Very amusing and scary things to imagine to one's self at this time. He once again cursed his imagination. Jordan vowed he would be the master of his mind. As he passed a row of graves, deep in the darkness, he saw something. It was a tiny little light. A white point of light. Odd.

His whistling slowly died as he regarded this sight with confusion and curiosity. Was it a flashlight? A house? Or a figment of his imagining? Jordan bit his lip, and turned his head towards the town and continued his stride. He glanced to his left again and stared at that light. A desire to know was burning inside him, but he looked away and pressed on. Jordan hugged himself and stole another peek before he could help himself. It was still there. Shining. Beckoning. He faced the town, and saw it was not even a mile away. It was fairly close, and the street lights seemed to bespeak safety and comfort. Jordan looked to the light again, and slowly turned his feet towards its faint shine. The town is nearby... I'll be fine. I just have to know. He thought to himself as he stepped off the road and onto the frozen grass of the cemetery.

The pale light shone steadily in the darkness as Jordan stumbled toward it. The air was still except for the sound of dead grass crackling beneath his steps. Tombstones stood as if macabre witnesses to his progress. A soft breeze wafted through the trees and the branches resumed their ghostly dance. A tree groaned as its boughs swayed gently in the night. Jordan walked gingerly, as if to avoid treading on an unknown grave. A faint disquiet grew in him with each headstone he passed. The burning curiosity vastly outweighed any qualms he might have, but did little to settle the squirming worry. Jordan's eyes darted to the side as he caught a movement out of the corner of his vision. Dying flowers rustling on a patch of earth, and nothing more. He resumed his focus on the faint winking light. If he stared at it, and blocked out his surroundings it wasn't so bad... A white specter fluttered across his vision. Jordan started, heart pounding until he saw it was only a rumpled sheet of paper. It rested against a grave marker, shaking slightly in the breeze. Upon closer inspection it revealed itself to be a funeral notice.

The trees scratched at the sky, trying to grasp the stars in their dead branches. The wind whispered past Jordan, bringing a fresh wave of cold. He thought he saw figures standing silently in the shadows, but as he neared they proved to be only more tombstones. How his brain delighted in playing tricks on him. He was stronger than his imagination, it would not imprison him with fear. Setting his mouth in a grim line, he watched his light grow closer ever so slowly as he approached. The graves grew closer together, and the headstones became older, more ancient the further Jordan pressed on. The darkness settled here, enshrouding his surroundings. Was that a tree stump? Or a hunched figure?

The wind picked up, howling mournfully in his ears. Something brushed his shoulder. Jordan whirled to find it was a branch. His heart pounded in his chest as he staggered on towards the light. Terror mingled with determination and he convinced himself he would not leave until he sated his curiosity. It was unclear whether this was a question of personal bravado or purely for knowledge. Jordan passed a molding teddy bear, next to a headless doll. The doll's head hung from a wooden cross by its ratty hair. As swung back and forth in front of him, the painted smile and blank eyes encouraged him to move past that point very quickly.

"Never whistle at night, child." Her words sprang to mind again. The light was close now. So close he felt he could almost touch it. Figures seemed to dart amongst the trees or were they shadows? The trees danced. Shadows loomed. The wind screamed past, "Never, child, never." Tombstones stood silently. Jordan stumbled through a thicket and then all was still.

Dread set in. A fearful dread that pulled down on his heart. He spotted the source of the light, it was a candle. It was encased in a glass jar on the steps of a weathered tomb. Two cracked pillars stood on either side of a rust encrusted metal door. The flickering candlelight revealed some faint writing on the door that might have once been legible, but no more. Markings were etched into the door and stone, symbols that Jordan had never seen before.

A sense of panic filled him and he turned to face the direction of his town. No street light or house was visible. He could not even see a single star in the night sky. Then the white candle went out. Jordan could feel the darkness, as if it was a tangible presence. His hands shaking, he slowly turned to face the tomb. He saw nothing. Then two glowing red eyes. The night was cold, but the hands that grasped him were colder still.

A blood curdling shriek broke the silence of the woods, then there was no sound at all except the faint wind.

To those few townspeople that had been awake at that hour, the wind sounded very strange that night. It seemed to whistle tonelessly, with no discernible tune.