Nighthawker

♣ I little intro to the story – I had a 1000 word limit, I guess this is an excuse for if you don’t like it : ) and another story with a Stephen! I can feel my mate Stephen getting a big head – what can I say? I like the name and the character felt like a Stephen – he chose it not me!♣


Nighthawker:

Stephen was a nighthawker and he loved it. He liked to think of himself as The Knighthawker doing his duty to uncover lost peoples lost stories. This was only to flatter himself and boost his ego. He was motivated by his love for money; he was greedy to a point of hunger. He knew nothing about history apart from its monetary value. He trespassed on farmers lands in the dead of night with his business associate; his metal detector. All the lost treasures passed into dodgy hands.


Everybody gets lucky eventually, especially if they work hard enough. And Stephen had knowledge and the virtues of hard graft on his side. His pulse racing, adrenaline pumping Stephen got lucky. A pile of late Roman coins was his prize. These were not coins that could be forgotten, they were of a high value, they were loved and put aside with dreams of a richer future. Stephen damaged crops, damaged archaeology and split before being caught. Usually the quicker the deal was done the better. But these beauties were special. Stephen was reluctant to part with them so he horded them instead.


Winter must have been approaching early as the house was getting colder. Stephen was not looking forward to the heating bill. ‘Global warming, rubbish’ he grumbled slipping on a jumper. The rest of the evening passed in peace in front of the telly drinking the odd tea or coffee in a bid to keep warm. Stephen trudged off to bed early in anticipation for the doctor’s appointment at the crack of dawn the next day. A splitting migraine had been plaguing him for some days now, the damn quacks would probably just send him home with an aspirin. With a hot water bottle he was asleep within half an hour of his head hitting the pillow. Deep in slumber till exactly 2am when he jolted up in bed heart pounding. All was quiet and dark. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have had that much caffeine’ he barked to the shadowy room as he settled back in his bed.


The next morning Stephen came back from the doctor’s with aspirin. He flung the kettle on and watched it till it boiled. Then roused himself to find a mug and make the brew. Tea bag in hand something glimmered in the corner of his eye. He turned to the object, his mouth flew wide open ‘well I’ll be damned’. There was a Roman coin and it was as pristine as the day it was made. He longed to touch it, hold it, and sell it. Transfixed he inched closer to the coin on the kitchen counter as if any sudden movement would scare it away. He had got so close he could smell money, he felt it enter his veins and coarse round his body until it entered his heart and then he could taste it. His body tensed like a puma waiting to pounce on its prey. The house phone rang. The spell broken he went to answer it, forgetting about the coin in an instant like it had never happened. He hung up in a fury as call centre workers were the scum of the earth. It took him a moment to remember he was making himself a nice cuppa. He went back into the kitchen, found the abandoned tea bag, picked it up and dropped it again. The coin. It wasn’t there. Had it ever been? Stephen slumped astonished on a kitchen chair and starred at the spot the coin had appeared and vanished until the dark came and he was forced to move to put the light on.


It had been a good few hours before Stephen had fallen asleep that night. He was uneasy as the medicines had had no affect on his migraine but was obviously having some terrifying side effects. He decided to look into homeopathic remedies instead; little good that rubbish would do him. This night his sleep was uneasy and light. 2am came and sure enough Stephen was bolt upright in bed. The world was silent yet he had an uneasy feeling the sound of galloping hooves had awoken him. This sent a chill down his spine, because although he lived surrounded by hills and countryside he was happily situated in a large town and his front door was a stone’s throw from the town centre. He didn’t get to sleep until light was peeping through his curtains.


The calendar months passed. Stephen was nighthawking no longer and was off sick from his other job as a local builder. This migraine attacks continued as did the 2am wakeup call of hounding hooves. The image of coins plagued him the most. Sometimes they appeared on the kitchen counter, never in the same spot twice, sometimes on his bedside table, sometimes he could see a coin in the bottom of his drinking glass. Once he had showered in gold coins which stung when struck him, yet escaping down the plughole was only water. Once he had bathed in coins, turning to water when he snapped back into reality when the neighbours row Crescendoed with a door slam. At his wits end Stephen was on the verge of selling his horde of coins so many times, yet he could never go through with it. He didn’t want to report them either but had no other choice. He relinquished them his only reward was the archaeological excavation that took place in that field. Near Stephen’s find was a human male skeleton with trauma to his skull consistent with a blow from a sword by a man on horseback. Stephen wasn’t interested in the rest of the dig; he had got what he wanted. He knew the attack had been about the money and he knew life would go now go back to normal. Mostly it did. Every so often he awoke at 2am or saw a coin so he could never truly forget.