Hello. Would you like a piece of flash fiction horror for your day? Very well. May I introduce you to ‘Cobblestones Hold The Darkest Matter’. Enjoy.

February The Fifth, 1844

          Gabriel Johns followed the changing shape of the world before him. The Delaware river in the distance, vast, still, the greatest harbinger of peace he had ever known. The historic brick world of New Castle, Delaware seemed to rise up from that great body of tranquil waters, Europe in the New World. Large cobblestones paved the way from stalwart pier to grand homes tightly packed together. It reminded him of freedom, a most potent word to him, as the huff and puff of the New Castle and Frenchtown locomotive uttered her last gasp for the evening.

          She pulled into the town very late. Johns found himself, a free Black man on the move, viewing the city in the dark. Not a soul stirred. But the job was here, Delaware Iron Company had a use for him and room and board could be found here. Word said this state held the best chance for advancement. There were more freedmen here than slave.

          Perhaps, he thought, perhaps it will be different. He removed a piece of paper from his pocket. “Wilmington Street…” He counseled with a brownish map near the small station, found the destination, took up a single canvas traveling bag, and strode off to face the future.

          Click click went the heels of ankle boots on cobblestones. Johns grew nervous, for the echo and the night seemed to conspire against him. Every step loud and loud and louder still. He hoisted up the hefty collar of an old frock coat to obscure his face. Number of freedmen high or not, they’ll not take kindly to me out here under the Moon. 

          Johns increased his pace. Wilmington Street was the easternmost reach of the city. He crossed over to Delaware Street and found it to be broad, a public square. Here the county courthouse loomed, an arched entryway for carriages to its left, expansive greenery behind. He opted for the grass, to get away from the accursed stones acting like alarm bells. The night freely shared an ample chill the frock coat could not easily dispel. He found it better for his reason to visually mark off locations on the way, take his mind off the situation. Up ahead, across the yard, the beige, dormant walls enclosing the grounds of a church and cemetery. From here he made out the rising memorial obelisks, curved headstones, and preeminent crosses of stone announcing this to be a necropolis. Black iron gaslights lined the top of the wall. This gave Johns some measure of guidance. Composure.

          “Pardon,” broke the cool, short-lived nightly peace, “but does the gentleman have a match? My lungs are needing much smoke to catch.” The voice a slithery buzz, words sifted through clenched teeth.

          Johns continued to walk with purpose as he found the speaker standing beneath a dark tree shaded in winter’s torpor. A man in a top hat. Face obscured. His back to Johns. 

          Johns slowed his pace, a hand fumbling pockets for the matchbook he knew he had. If he did not offer, if he moved on, this man might arouse the locals. Make up a problem. 

          “Yes, sir, I believe I do,” he answered, walking slowly towards the tree. He moved past the opening in the wall to the cemetery, where a beautiful wrought iron lantern watched his every move. Safety. No one lurking on the other side waiting to ambush. Good eye. Some men were known to snatch bodies before they expired. He kept going. “Are, are you well?”

          As he got closer, things did not, to his eyes, add up. While this gentleman sported the fanciful top hat, his attire seemed out of place. In terms of direction. The stunted black necktie, the white shirt, black waistcoat. All of them on. Backwards.

          Johns blinked twice. No, I am seeing the back of this man’s head. His heels. He tensed. Great. A drunkard. Might get me anyway just to be funny. They treat us worse when they are inebriated.

          Nonetheless he stretched out a hand to offer the matches. For a minute he worried about this man, shivering, drooping, alone in the evening.

          “Quite so, aha! Thank ya! On such a gruesome, sinister night, I dreaded I might not get a bite. Who might you be, young nomad? A wolf or sheep, in this filched land?”

          “Gabriel Johns, sir, from Baltimore. Maryland. My mother recently passed, so, not much for me back there.” Do not share your life with strangers! “Come here for a job. A job means a better life.” Johns sniffed, held his breath. This man reeked of the sauce and other unnameable stenches.

          “Glory be to ye. A new start lets shackled dreams run free.”

          “I suppose. We shall have to wait and see. This country is–” he stopped dead. Best not to get into politics with a local. “One takes what one can.”

          “Ah! Take thee time to exhale, treat life not shoddy. For in a quick blink, the coroner bags the body.” The gentleman struck the match. But he set the flame to a stunted, hard, long retired cigar. It took considerable effort to make it light. When he did, the man did not take in the smoke but rather, exhaled. Smoke blew out into the chilly night air, circled round, only to slither up the man’s nostrils.

          Or so Johns believed. Even under the light of the match, he could not make out anything of this man’s features. He was the picture of obfuscation.

          “Do you…need help, sir? You appear, I do not mean to be rude but, should you be out here in the cold in your, condition?”

          To be on the safe side, Johns took a step back. Too many things were wrong. The match did not burn down. The man’s hand was also a shadow form. He saw no skin, no lines in the hand or fingernails glistening under the flicker. That hand also moved in an awkward fashion, flipping the match up and down in reverse as if the hand itself might be–

          “Backwards,” Johns whispered.

          “Noticed have thee, the curious nature of my being? Some cry A, B, C is fine for living, but says me Z, Y, X is best for seeing.” He began to laugh while every exhalation took in smoke when it should have been huffing it out.

          Johns heard a subtle shuffle in the grass. Looking down, he saw the man’s heels vanish as black shoes twisted round. Round. Pop went the ankles. Shoes facing behind, at Johns.

          Johns took several steps back and away. He lost his breath. Dropped the bag. Turned around and ran, unthinking, into the cemetery’s embrace.

          Gaslight reveals precious little. In a swift second, Johns was in the dark, run straight into a massive stone obelisk. This only slowed him down. He groaned, angled left, rolled over a headstone, hurt his back, but kept going. Behind him were click click click sounds of shoes on grass but that made no sense. Were others coming now, joining this backwards thing on the hunt?

          Johns saw another gaslit archway to his right, one illuminating steps out to another cobblestone street. He raced for it, jumping off the step–

          Right into the gentleman’s reversed hand. A monster’s grip took Johns by the neck, holding him up, shoetips on the stones.

          “Such a lack of courtesy to flee! What of thy matches retained by me?”

          He knew not whether this was a white man or a devil, but flight had turned into indomitable fight. Johns made fists and pounded this not-gentleman in the back of the head. Knuckles struck skull and matted white hair. Blood appeared. Blood vanished. Johns felt his mind slip into a damnable place.

          “Art thou complete? Does my cigar make thee fleet?” He let go, sending Johns flat on his bottom against patchy stones. “Freed to wander, full of teethe, of this we twin, you grow…I seethe.” the other twisted arm behind its back, the beast of a man snapped it forward, laying the traveling bag at Johns’ feet.

          “Wh–what do you want? Money? Are you a slave-catcher?”

          Crick, the gentleman’s stiffened legs went, as if they must force to bend. He squatted, hunched over, emitted smoke from a cigar now even longer in his mouth. A guttural, feral laugh erupted. “Slave…this foul world finds my countenance depraved, yet I, unlike them, am not a knave. My dear blind, mistrusting, newfound friend. When I ask for match or beer, not a soul will lend. But oh! Even fearsome life cannot dissuade thy glow. Despite the terror of mankind’s transgressions, fair Gabriel chooses the heart’s great lesson.”

          “…which is?”

          “To care, one must share.”

          Johns took a chance the thing might not abduct him this night, nor slit the throat and leave him for dead under the Moon’s bystanding gaze. He took the bag and got to his feet.

          “You’re a, a demon?”

          The gentleman looked up, face blackened as ash. No eyes. Yet under the Moon’s soft glow, the shape of teeth like tar were evident. “I ask, they laugh. I beg, they gaff. And in my smoldering coat tales, I crush necks between these squalid, perdu nails. Know this, fair Gabriel of Baltimore. Here three worlds clash forevermore. Where river meets land and death breeds nest, here the phantom veil be thinnest. On such nights, in twinkling dark, I walk, I beg, I gauge their bark.”

          At that the gentleman got up on the balls of backward feet, knees bent, and ambulated in reverse across stones he could not view. Smoke blew out from expired lungs. A fancy silken cape fluttered in light breeze at the front of the body, making it seem as if the thing might be floating, if not for the hard click of shoes on those haunted cobblestone streets of New Castle.

          Johns watched until the thing went just under a brick archway, where it stood, seeing him as he saw it. Across a wobbled, shadowed, occult lane.

          “Keep thy heart a whole and marvelous token,” said the thing, “ZYX Man yearns to leave glass men. Broken.”

          Johns shuffled off, faster and faster, for as the ZYX Man disappeared into the veil of night, he heard those infernal clicks of the rearward shoes clapping against the calamitous cobblestones.

          Moving, thank God, off in the distance.