A Short Horror Story: Shadow

“Marcus, Marcus,” Tina whispered shaking him. She peered at him in the darkness.

“Marcus,” she whispered louder, shaking him harder. Marcus stirred and opened his eyes alarmed at her leaning over him in the dark and said, “what, what is it?”

“Shhh, not so loud,” Tina said, “do you feel that, do you hear that? Marcus leaned up and listened. He was lying on his stomach. It was behind the entertainment system that loomed in the darkness in front of the bed. It rumbled grunted and scratched something.

Marcus turns to sit up. It bumps the bed and the both of them hops up on their knees. Tina sits still with her hands over her mouth trying to hold back a scream. Marcus takes out the knife he has under his pillow and holds it looking at the foot of the bed. Tina leans closer to Marcus as he starts towards the foot of the bed to peek over. The side of the bed is bumped on the left where Marcus sleeps. He pushes Tina back towards to the headboard and gets in front of her stretching out the knife.

Tina, bumping the lamp on the night table, clings to his nightshirt not wanting him to go near the edge of the bed. A dark giant luminescent claw reaches up quickly and presses down the whole left side of the bed in the moonlight as if something is trying to stand up. Tina gasps pulling Marcus’s shirt to her mouth. They can feel each other trembling. The claw presses for a long while, the box spring cracks under them. Then it disappears.

They hear a terrible retch and rising screams like a pack of monkeys then adults and children alike screaming. Suddenly the bed is pushed over flipping them both off onto the floor and under the mattresses. The only thing that kept them from being crushed was the wall behind them. Marcus scrambles to his knees hearing claws trying to tear its way through the bed and with terrible wretched scream. Pulling Tina, who is fighting to get out of their large comforter, he crawls as quickly as possible towards the opening of the bathroom. Once they are inside the bathroom he kicks the door shut.

Marcus and Tina sit on the bathroom floor stunned. Tina turned to look at Marcus, her hands over her mouth. He was standing, backing away slowly Not turning his eyes away from the rustling and scratching at the door. In his head he kept thinking over and over again, I just wanted a friend that’s all, I just wanted a friend. He thought this until he was saying it.

Tina saw him sit. She saw him sit with the tub behind him, knees hunched up to his chest, arms wrapped around his knees. He is sweating heavily and staring forward whispering, “ I just wanted a friend,” over and over again. He looked like an old man instead of a guy in his mid-twenties. Tina walked hesitantly over to him, looked him in the eye and said his name, he didn’t respond. She said his name again, he didn’t respond. She nearly shouted, “ hey!” He looked up dazedly and said. “ I just wanted a friend that’s all.” “I just wanted someone to play with me when I was a little boy.” I wanted a friend. We stayed out in the country, I mean, way out in the country. My dad wouldn’t have it any other way. My mom didn’t have much to say about it. She didn’t have much to say about anything actually. She didn’t bother telling anyone anything but some woman she was friends with. I never saw that woman. They would leave and go off after their argument. They always argued, they always left, like, left me all alone at the house. I didn’t do any asking, or crying, I was a good boy all the time. But I was so lonely. I was so alone and bored. I needed a friend, I needed someone to talk to and play with and love, so I decided to make up one. You know, like the storybook I had. Like, Clifford the big red dog that would be there and talk and play with kids or whatever. Only my imaginary friend would just be another boy, simple and plain as that. And I would play with a boy that had blonde hair and blue eyes and that will always want to play. We would always talk and laugh; it would be swell. I would sit on my bed and imagine him, in his checked-blue over shirt, white t-shirt, blue jeans and shiny red converse sneakers coming through my bedroom door and I would get up and say lets go out to play and he‘d say okay, lets go out to do something, not sit in this room, we‘ll be friends forever, we‘ll be friends for life.”

Marcus looked over at Tina, feeling the strains of his tumultuous past coming back all at once this night. He thought he had it locked away. He thought that some how he had ended it all a long time ago. Tina sat down by his feet, the scratching on the door had subsided, and she really wanted to get the hell out of this house. But she felt she had to listen to his story, she just had to know what that was in there because he knew. “Go on,” she said to his anxious stare.

“His name was Mikey, like my favorite story book. I read that storybook all the time. I read it every day over and over again, Mikey and Mr. Finkleberry. Mr. Finkleberry was a mechanic and by some magic he could fix anything. Belief! He could make things work like brand new because he would believe he could. Mikey was the curious kid that would help Mr. Finkleberry fix up an old neglected car that cried. I looked at the picture of that car, I just stared at it sometimes, and I would just cry because I felt just like that car, alone and ugly, nobody wanted me because I was ugly, nobody wanted me because I was a child. So, I took the idea of the boy in the book, with the checked-blue over-shirt, white t-shirt, blue pants and red shoes and dreamed that he was the mechanic and he had the power and he could fix anything. I imagined he would run through my bedroom door every morning and we would go play swing and talk all day. And for a while it was me talking to myself and me talking to an empty room, me dreaming of him and laughing to myself, then, one morning, I opened up my eyes to imagine that he would run through my bedroom door and couldn’t, instead I saw him, but didn’t actually see him. I saw him, and he didn’t walk through my bedroom door or run, like I would dream, at first I heard a ball bouncing in the hallway, and I saw a shadow across the hallway on the wall stop to the door, and then I saw bright blue eyes peek at me from the corner of the door, and I knew it was him and he was smiling. It was as if my imagination took over from there, at least, that’s what I thought. My room was huge and the bed stood very far away from the door. Although I could only see his eyes and hair, I knew he was smiling. I said, “come on in Mikey,” I was so excited, he said, “maybe I should come in when you get dressed.” I didn’t know whether it was my imagination doing this or not but I liked it and I didn’t want it to stop. He had a sly child’s voice, an all-knowing voice, like a leader. I followed and paid it no mind of course. Oh, I had said and laughed, he laughed too, I heard him laugh; I apologized and went to take a shower. I climbed, like I would usually do, into the tub and slid the glass door back beside me. I cut on the water and started to wash up. I heard the bathroom door creak open, I saw him dimly walking in through the shower glass. Walking in slowly, he walked as if he had just learned to, his converse the reddest red I had ever seen. He came in and sat on top of the stool, swinging his feet back and forth. This looked like a shadow, from time to time; he looked like a regular black shadow. “What do you eat around here,” he asked me. I usually go and make myself a sandwich and drink some water, or make some Cool-aid every time I got hungry, I told him. He said, why don’t you make yourself something much better, like some wine, like what your parents drink. The whole house is yours, their gone all the time, you should do what you want and have fun he ended cheerily! I turned to look at him and he was standing right to the glass of my shower door. I almost slipped down; it startled me. I could have sworn then I saw something else, something other, and his eyes glowing, glowing blue. He laughed and turned, walking away, you know, a child’s laugh and I laughed too! And I said, “what a kidder,” he just stopped walking and laughing, looking back at me, I stopped too, I thought maybe he was mad, but he grinned and I, without taking my eyes off of him, cut off the water and slid the door back as I saw him turn, going around the corner into my bedroom. I shouted, where are you going, you know, and I didn’t hear anything, I thought maybe he had disappeared, until I heard, “ downstairs,” I said okay, I’ll be down in a minute too!

“I played with Mikey. I played with him all the time, but it wasn’t the kind of playing you’d do with a normal child, like, I never sat with him up close. I never had a conversation with him right in my face. He would sit in my big-chair that faced the double-windows in my room, not ever face to face with me. That’s how we talked. That chair over-looked the woods, I didn’t remember ever turning it in that direction. When we played, it was always him going this way or that way in the house as we played tag. He would hit me, this he did do! Just tap, like a baby’s tap. And I’d see him run around the corner, our halls were long and our house was three stories. I’d run behind him anticipating hits around every corner, by the time I got to the end of the hall and turned the corner I’d see him run around the next corner. Huge and expensive empty lonely home. Mom didn’t decorate, mom didn’t hardly cook, and when she did we ate quietly and I would see the back of his long gold locks, red converse’s and checked blue over-shirt sometimes disappear around corners and across two rooms up the staircase. But mostly his shadow on the wall was always the strongest image of him. I never spoke to him when they were around and he would never speak back himself, he said so. He knew the relationship I had with my parents, he told me. He even told me things about myself that were private. We never played anything more than tag, except for hide and go seek, a game I hated because I could never find him, but he could always find me. He’d run up on me and I would see nothing but a silhouette of him with his mouth open with a great black hole at the bottom of two blue holes in his face. Then I would be lying on my back and he would be running away. We always played in the woods and I would always end the game because he would be running way too deep in there, and of course, it would be getting dark. I think the more I played with Mikey the stronger he became. I would make believe and ask him where he lived, he would always say, I’ll take you one day. Well the day came along and he took me, and do you know where he would take me Tina, he’d take me to the lightest parts of the house, where a shadow would cast.”

Tina stared at Marcus, she couldn’t call him bluff, and it was too real, what was on the other side of that door stirring was real.

“Tina, demons are real, Mikey is real he lives through me. I made his existence real powerful too. I believed with all my heart and soul and grievance that Mikey was real. I wanted him to be there, needed someone or something to be there. I remembered looking at my shadow, and just mimicking with it before the bouncing ball and the peeping eyes, I danced and it danced on the wall, it was fun, it seemed like there was someone to share time with. It was and became after all.

“Just as I had grown day by day to love Mikey, I started day by day to hate him and it seemed the same way with him. He would always do things to me. I would want to play with him, I would walk all around the house and outside and he would run right up on me and make me fall flat on my back. I knew he meant me harm because his face was pale and his eyes were giant ragged black holes. I could feel anger from him sometimes. Smelled horrible smells when he turned a corner also, sometimes. When I fell on my back and butte all those times, I’d look up and see his checked-blue shirt, blue jeans and red shoes running away. He’d stand beside the bed in the middle of the night while I slept. Who knows how long he stood there or what he was thinking. He’d open my door. He’d stand in the doorway and look at me. Sometimes, I’d wake up and realize that I was talking in my sleep to him. I’d be so startled I was shaking. The only thing I’d see of him was his back leaving out the bedroom door. He was notorious for slamming it waking my parents. They’d be angry and fussy of course. Once I yelled at him about this he just waited until that night to get revenge. I was sleeping with my back to the door. He flung it open, I looked behind myself and saw nothing but the bright light from the bathroom down the hallway. I turned back over. I then felt wind on my back, turned around again and he ran up to the bed displaying that horrible ghoulish face. I cried out and turned over my head buried under the covers. I stayed up all night, I was afraid to go to sleep and get up in the morning. He thought it was incredibly funny. I found the courage somewhere deep inside myself to deal with Mikey and moved on. I guess he didn’t like that courage. He made me hurt myself because of my newfound courage. I fell, and I fell in a way that I landed on my hand with the wrist bent back to my forearm when he ran up on me one day. I remember seeing him in the tree that day, I shouted, did he want to play, I asked, was he okay, he just walked around the other side of the big branches of the tree. I saw him cut his blue eyes at me as if aggravated; the tree was magnificently tall and big. It was the only tree in the yard. I didn’t want to be on his bad side, so I turned to walk away. All of a sudden he was in my face. He looked like a ghoul, like a big pale ghoul with giant arms, a hunchback and bowlegs, the works, running towards me in that one moment. And when I turned to run, he pushed me, a hard push in the back, I felt it, and I was falling fast. Thus I fell on my hand, my wrist bent back. I cried and cried and cried and looked up and he was running away. It was the worst ordeal I had ever been through. It demanded attention of my mother and father, whom was never home. I had to endure the snatching and pulling and the harsh words. Mostly from mother, I knew she hated me. She didn’t want to be bothered with me, I didn’t want her to have to be bothered with me either. I shouted at Mikey after I got back home from the hospital, then the pharmacy, and mother‘s job, I had explained to him early in our friendship my family’s relationship. I was so angry with him. I was so young and alone. I didn’t want to endure that place all alone. I dealt with the good side and the bad side of Mikey for three years. Good, because I wasn‘t alone. Being alone is what helped me love Mikey. Bad, because he would walk in the room sometimes while I was sleeping and slam the door until I awoke and shouted at him to stop. He would make sure he did it when my parents didn’t have to go to work. Then their awake and I’m being fussed at. This made me wish I could make him go away, and there were the dreams of a dead boy, face all cut up left eyes slit with blood all over him, matted in his hair. Then a man that looked just like him but older. I believe he personally choreographed my dreams to be terrifying, or I was looking at me in the future. I was looking at me dead in the future. One time he went to the library in my mom’s car with me. I picked a book. He’d pick out a book too because I never had the slightest idea how it got in there. He walked me through it, an eight year old learning to read and understand a book like this. My mother would’ve thought I was a baby genius if she cared. He never answered about what was happening, what he was saying to me most nights, when I wake up talking and can’t remember what I said. He continued to say we did it because he was my friend. He was my only friend. Mikey became much stronger and a lot of the things that happened at home, at school, and at our quiet dinners, Mikey did them, and I got blamed for it all. Even so much as fart noises, in which I didn’t even think my parents would hear. This was supposed to be all in my head, but they did hear and I was punished. Who else could they blame, they only had one son and he had no friends or playmates at home or abroad or calling.  Mikey took things, money and pictures and broke them, jewelry, who knew what he wanted with that stuff. I knew Mikey took it, who else would. He brought their hatred to an ultimate high towards me. So high that when my mother cooked, she would only cook enough for her and father. Then I would hear Mikey saying, you don’t need them anyway, sitting back in my big-chair, all we need is each other, is what he would say. He would always say that. Mikey and his nuisance behavior survived in my life until I was twelve years old. By that time, I had made no friends, I had joined no clubs or sports, Mikey was the ruler. Mikey was the cause in my life. He was like a shadow I thought to myself once, not remembering. Then one night, I was walking down our hall to go to bed, mom and dad were already in their room and I could see on the wall to the room door, a shadow. It was a giant boys shadow, as tall as me. It was hovering over the doorknob. I usually had been nearly crucified because my parents claimed I was standing to their door at night listening and peeping. But, it was a shadow; it was Mikey. I was so tired; I couldn’t rest, relax or sleep in that house. I couldn’t eat in peace or have friends. It was the alone or live with Mikey, so I ran into my room and locked the door. No sooner had I shut the door it swung open and closed. It was like he heard my heart change. I also noticed that when I was at a certain place, Mikey was too. When I went a certain distance away he had to come. It was like an invisible law. I had begun reading about evil spirits and demons, witches. I had come to the conclusion that Mikey was one of them. I wanted him gone forever. I couldn’t do anything outlandish to get rid of him, but one thing stuck with me, Binds. I knew nothing about binds though. I thought I’d try something anyway. I reached on the dresser for the storybook I used to read. I thought to myself this was where Mikey was born; this is the image that was given to him. Mikey growled at me, what the hells are you doing, it was so loud, I was surprised that my parents didn’t become alarmed and come into my room. I said, “nothing,” and put the book behind my back, trying to hide it. He snatched it from me. I felt it ripped from my hand, in a blink he was over in the big-chair looking down at something. “ What a kidder,” he said; he had his old child’s tone back. But whom was he trying to fool, he was much bigger than he used to be, his clothes were much smaller. Sometimes I didn’t even see any clothes on him, just a dark male image. He dropped the book on the floor, and left, not as loudly as he came in. I snatched up the book and said loudly, I bind Mikey to his character in this book on my lifeline over and over again. I said it with all my heart and soul, as much heart and soul that I used to believe in to create Mikey with. And so, all of a sudden I just felt this rush of despair and painful exhaustion all over my body. Then there was a rumbling in the walls, that scream like what we’ve heard Tina, and the house was rumbling. Mother and father ran into my room and snatched me up. I was so tired I couldn’t run. They ran downstairs onto the porch, dragging me; it was raining outside. We just stood there while father fumbled with the car keys, then we ran, we just ran and ran, it seemed like forever, to his beamer. I had never seen the insides of it and my mother had never ever held me. This is naturally how they would react to a tornado, that’s what they thought it was. Seeing a tornado warning on T.V. they decided to flee from the house. It felt as if I kept running my whole life. I never stopped running. I never stopped running. I never stopped Tina.”

She looked at him, vaguely understanding. Marcus was orphaned by his parents, she guess they wanted to teach him an even stricter type of independence, but who knew that was how he became to the city. This didn’t seem too far-fetched as she rubbed her hands through her hair and closed her eyes. She looked over at him and wondered what to do. She recalled the afternoon they were on their R.V. After wild and extremely good sex , she was coming back from the kitchen with a beer and she thought she saw him sitting on the bed directly in the little room at the back of it. She asked, “ what kind of brew you want baby.” His head remained cocked to the side, his body dark, not moving. “ You okay,” she asked walking a little closer, the figure dark, not saying anything. “ Marcus, Marcus,” she kept saying. It grinned and she knew it. She also knew she was terrified and started to turn around, just then the bedroom door blew almost closed and Marcus was standing there in the doorway saying what is it. He was asking what is it, what’s going on, I heard you calling.” She remembered shrugging away an argument at that moment. She remembered shrugging away all the weird appearances like that. Now, sitting there on the bathroom floor in her nightclothes she wished she had investigated it.

“I’m sorry baby,” he said to her. He couldn’t even look into her eyes. He was truly sorry she felt and hugged him. They hugged in the fluorescent lights of the bathroom hearing and knowing that creature Mikey or whatever it is waits on the other side. It wanted to get in. But what did it want. It wanted something, Tina told herself. Anyone and anything always wants something. It could have killed us while we were asleep, so it definitely wants something.

“Marcus, Tina whispered, “ you have to speak to it, you have to ask it what it wants.” He looked up in her eyes not wanting to, shaking his head, no, and glancing at the door.

“Come on, baby, you can do this,” she said with as much patience as possible. And clearly Marcus continued to shake his head, standing up backing away from her and the door. He turned to go to the window to get out. They had a teeny tiny square bathroom window, he was impatiently whispering to coerce Tina into squeezing through. There they stood in front of the tiny stylish window whispering arguing words at each other about trying to squeeze through the tiny open.

“Its no need,” Tina shouted! Marcus just stared at her for a long while then looked away, putting his hand over his mouth shaking his head. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, he went and flopped down on the side of their bathtub.

“Its no need, Marcus, if you run again, you’ll be running everyday of your life and it will follow you, she knelt down and looked him in the eyes saying, everyday of our lives,” “we have to end this now, somehow” she said. She was exhausted by their situation. She was standing on a cold marble floor in the bathroom at sometime in the morning or night fearing for Marcus‘s life, fearing for her own life. This powerful secret has come back and given them an ultimatum so far, if you come out of the bathroom, or open the door, I’ll rip you to pieces.

“I don’t know what to do Tina okay,” he said, I think we should run.”

“It wants something, lets start with that,” she spoke and looked towards the door. She saw Marcus wasn’t going to make a move to do or say anything so she did. Tina walked slowly over towards the door and put her ear to it.

“Hello,” she whispered, “what’s that,” her mind answered her, “speak, speak,” she thought to herself, “Hello,” loudly now, “ what do you want from us.” There wasn’t a sound, not even a murmur or rustle. She looked back at Marcus and he looked back at her, she realized, disgustingly so, he was clueless. He brought this on the both of them and he didn’t even have a clue about what to do to get them out of it except to run away. Tina took a deep breath and reached for the doorknob and turned it. The door creaked back and Tina peeked out into the room and saw the darkness standing, no claws, no eyes, and no sounds. Marcus sat biting his nails looking at the gaping doorway where stood Tina outside the darkness. Marcus stood. Tina turned around and looked back at Marcus questioning, with a sigh of relief she leaned in the room, thinking, hard parts over, now lets see where the hell it ran off to. Marcus stood closely but at a safe distance. Tina, out of the bathroom, the shine from the fluorescent lights making objects in the bedroom slightly visible, she walks slowly in. The bed stood as still as a boulder slanted to the wall. She walks solemnly in the room anticipating but feeling no fear at all, and all the while the giant claws of the shadow cast from the hallway of the opened bathroom doors of the room are rising. Marcus’s shadow rises, filling in space, his eyes glow blue and his mind is replaced with another, the claws grow.

“We returned to the house Tina, it waited for me, I was orphaned because of flesh,” he said standing, leaning in the bathrooms doorway. “What,” she said turning to him.

“I am alone because of flesh, human flesh and I am a prisoner because of the flesh under Mikey, under my sins.” Tina turned to see the shadow reach across the wall for her eyes and screamed in agony as they were ripped from the sockets. She screamed and screamed and screamed as the darkness engulfed her. She was ripped apart and eaten, just like all the other women Marcus shacked up with. Just like his mother and father, maybe like he will be one day.