Winston Conrad
Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
NIGHT MARCHERS
“Just as my aunt saw the marchers coming through the door, she snatched my brother away. As they went by, he tried to catch one of the legs of a fisherman, but the night marcher lifted his leg higher and kept marching…. I myself have seen it.”
––Susanna Moore, I Myself Have Seen It: The Myth of Hawaii, 2003
... I made my way down the seaside coral trail. After a wrong turn toward the lava fields, I couldn’t see a thing. Suddenly, it seemed as if a trap door opened and I fell into a hidden cellar. I let go of my surfboard; with a loud “clang” it landed on the lava floor, and my head bashed against a rock. Dazed for a moment, I realized that I’d fallen into a lava tube. I tried to move but I felt a stinging stab in my back––sharp lava rocks piercing my flesh. I ‘d forgotten my mini flashlight, but there was an orange glow over the rim of the hole, and I crawled up the rocky precipice. Then I saw them.
Night marchers! Their torches were heading down to the sea. I knew (from the stories) not to stare directly into their dreaded eyes as they were thought to be capable of snatching souls away.
I was familiar with the book, I Myself Have Seen It, a vivid collection of various Hawaiians’ accounts of Night Marcher encounters by Susanna Moore. One Moloka’i resident saw them in 1958, and said, “… The chanting came closer and closer. The first man was tall and strong, of the chief’s class. All of them carried torches but the light did not shine on their faces, only on their bodies and legs. ‘They will go down to the beach, following a pathway in a straight line,’ I said. ‘They will not turn to the right or the left.’ And so it was….”
Holy shit. I ducked my aching head under the rim of the lava tube. “Hide” was what one book had suggested; then, the night marchers, the phantom spirits, would pass. I sang a stanza of Silent Night, which I remembered from Christmas Eve at the Hokuloa Church. “Po’la’l e, Po kama-ha’o, Ie-su I kou ha-nau a-na,” [Silent night, holy night, Jesus, lord, at thy birth.]
Not only didn’t I want my soul to be snatched and sent to hell, I hoped to be spared the wrath of the night marchers’ fiery gaze. There was already a large bump on my skull from its abrasive encounter with the lava rock. But then I thought, “What the hell, I’m probably going there anyway.” So I popped my head out and took my chances: I looked directly at the night marchers, their torches lighting up the darkness with a fiery red glow. Zombie transformation, as in science fiction movies, seemed imminent, as I stared at the flames. I crawled out of the tube, rubbed my eyes, and saw them all too clearly: dancers performing in a tourist luau at the resort.
Blood dripped from scratches on my head and lower back as I walked down the trail. Back home, never was a shower so embracing, a glass of red wine so warmly welcomed, and a dinner so appetizing. Through a gap in the flower-patterned drapes, I watched the raindrops fall into our dark garden and didn’t even try to explain to Paulette what my afternoon had been like, as being from the islands she is naturally superstitious.
I hopped into bed holding an ice pack to the side of my head. Paulette giggled, “How about a little horizontal hula?”
“No mattress surfing. I have a headache.” For once, it was the truth.