Keldvulf, the “Night Wolf”, he was an evil man.  A wizard, a warlock, a shape-changer; he had the evil eye.  And that was why they killed him.  Thirty strong, the neighbors gathered together and marched up to Keldvulf’s stead.  Somehow he knew they were coming.  He met them at the door, axe in hand, and defied them.

I wish I could say it was a glorious battle.  Keldvulf had a giant’s size and a devil’s strength, but thirty men were more than enough to bring him down.  They pinned him up to a tree.  He howled.  “Look on me, you bastards!  Look in my eyes and know fear in the night!”

Rory Gunnarson, he was the best of them.  The others shied away, but he grabbed the Keldvulf’s own axe and took off his head with a single blow.  He raised it up by the hair and said, “Look at me, you bastard! Why don’t you look at me?”

And it did.

The head lolled in Rory’s grip.  The jaw gaped open, full of wolf’s teeth, and then the eyes.  But they weren’t eyes.  They were milky pits, filmed and foul, like moons staring out from a sea of filth.

“Eeeeeaaaahh!” Rory screamed like a girl and dropped the head, then stomped it to pieces.  The others laughed themselves sick until he was done, then they all went inside where they drank and drained of Keldvulf’s ale.  Only Rory had nothing. He stood by the door, brooding and peering off at the night.  Come morning he was gone.  No one blamed him.  What else could he do after losing so much face?  They wished him well.  But he never was heard from him again.

I grew up on the tales of Keldvulf’s Curse.  How he’d walk the wild shadows at night, looking to catch a victim with his evil eye.  How a light, any light, would protect you; for no ghost can stand the light of day, or even lamp or candle.  Only the moon, and the stars.  The tales we told would have curled your hair.  And I suppose I believed them, in the half-way that boys will do.  I was almost grown before I learned better.

I was up hunting with Egil Half-fist; or “Badgersbane” depending on how well you liked him.  He was “Half-fist” because he’d lost two fingers when he was a boy.  The “Badgersbane” was because he hated them.  They were why he’d lost the fingers.  He’d leaned against an old tree trunk once, not knowing there was a den beneath.  The badgers came out and savaged his hand.  Ever since then he’d dressed only in badger skins, and he’d drop anything for the chance to kill one.

The sun had set and I was digging out the lamps when it happened.  I saw it all.  Egil heard something from a hollow stump and his eyes lit up.  His thoughts were as clear as day.  “Badger!”  He pulled a knife, crept toward the stump, and plunged it down the hole.  “Hah!” Then he peered in to see what he’d caught.

 “The cheeky bastard!  He’s staring at me!”  I watched him try to pull back, but his arm plunged down instead, all the way to his shoulder.  And then he began to scream.

It was high, horrible, hideous sound.  He kicked helplessly, beating on the trunk, but he couldn’t move.  I caught hold and pulled too, but he might have been set in stone.  I’m not a small man but I couldn’t budge him.  And all the time he screamed, on and on, tearing your brain like dry old fabric.

Finally, I braced my foot and heaved again.  He flew across the field and collapsed.  I hurried over, but he was already dead.  The arm had been chewed away, the bone showing white all the way up to the shoulder.  I took a lamp and checked the tree stump.  There was nothing there.

I know what you’re thinking.  The badgers got him at last.  And then they ran off while I was looking the other way.  Maybe, but I learned to be careful anyway.  If you live out here, though, you can’t avoid the hills.  We hunt for food, not sport.

It was a few years later when I was hunting with my Uncle Owen.

You’ve got an Uncle Owen.  Everyone has an Uncle Owen.  My Uncle Owen was the man who set the world record for farts.  He could fart in time, he could fart in tune, he could fart for five minutes straight.  You’d see him there in the hall, and he’d get that strange little smile and sort of lean to the side . . . and you just up and left.  Then a few seconds later everyone else would follow and he’d be in there laughing, “Haw, haw!” and waiving his arms to spread the cloud.

It was night.  We were up at a little cabin we have, and Owen said he had to go to the privy.  You can bet that got me out of the way!  I actually said something, though.  I remember it.  “Shouldn’t you take a lamp with you?”

“Haw, haw, haw!  Any ghost in there’ll be deader n’dead ‘fore Ah’m done!”

Then he shut the door, and I heard him loose something that sounded like two bears in the heat of passion.  “Aw, that was a good’un!  Ah gotta have a look at . . . What the Hell?  There’s sumthin’ . . .”

And then he began to scream.  A high, horrible, hideous sound.  I knew that scream.

I hit that door with all I had.  I’m not a small man, but it might have been a tree for all the good I did!  I kicked it.  I hammered on it.  And all the while the screams went on, and on . . . At last I backed up and charged forward again.  The door blew off its hinges – little leather hinges –banged off the far wall, and fell on what was left of my Uncle Owen.

It had taken him from beneath.  There was a hole the size of my fist.  Thirty yards of silver gut led out, and up, and down into the hole.

I took a lamp and I looked.  There was nothing there.

So.

When you walk around these parts at night, and you hear that sound behind you?  That sound that might be an animal or might be something else?  If you’ve got a light, then go ahead and look.  There won’t be anything there.  Then you can remember that weird old guy and have your laugh at his stupid idea of a bedtime story.

But if your hands are empty when you hear it; if you feel those eyes upon you, close, right behind, like moons peering out from a sea of filth; then don’t.  You remember that weird old guy and his stupid idea of a bedtime story, and for the love of God: Just – Don’t – Look.