Shadow Man (Part 7)

He expected that a day’s worth of medicine taken at one time would hit him hard, but he never thought it would only take minutes to feel the effects. It had only been about eight minutes and he was already getting a buzz. His head swam and for the first time since he’d gotten home he neither felt nor cared about anything. The pain from his injuries was gone, which the teen had only noticed now that he couldn’t feel it. Jesse was in his own world when he heard a loud voice from downstairs. It was his dad’s voice, although he couldn’t make out what he was saying. Although, he sounded angry. Then came the voice of his mother replying in a tone that was just as angry, but that didn’t matter to Jesse.

            Jesse felt like listening to music that complimented his high, but he noticed that his body was heavy. He closed his eyes and tried to will himself into immediate sleep. He opened his eyes once more to see the shadow man standing at his bedside, staring down at Jesse with his new grey eyes. Then, Jesse’s eyes closed, despite his sudden wish to keep them open and watch the shadow man to make sure he didn’t try to kill Jesse in his sleep. But Jesse lost the struggle quickly and was soon asleep.

            “You’re going deeper down the rabbit whole, as they say.” A voice filled the air around Jesse who was still trying to understand where he was. All he knew was that he was in the woods somewhere with a wide, unpaved trail winding its way through the woods.

            ‘All I need is a red hood,’ Jesse thought to himself.

            He looked around. Behind him, in front of him, scanning the lush foliage on either side.

            “I haven’t seen a pine tree in a long time,” said Jesse as he stood up, feeling the smooth dirt under his red converse shoes. The teenager looked down at himself. “I don’t remember getting dressed either.”

            “Um…” Jesse spun around slowly realizing he couldn’t see the person he heard talking. “Is somebody there?”

            “I am always here,” the voice responded, reminding Jesse of the trumpet sounds that he saw on the news while in the hospital. Come to think of it, he remembered hearing it the day he was hit by that truck, too. The voice sounded like a giant, off-key trumpet in the sky. There seemed to be no real origin of the sound. He was partly unnerved by it. But, he was also partly intrigued because in the sounding of the trumpet he heard a voice.

            “Who are you?” Jesse asked, looking toward the sky.

            “The owner of all things natural.”

            “Like…what, exactly?”

            “The plants that use the energy from the Sun, and the animals that need the plants for sustenance, both directly, and indirectly. Light, and the dark. Life…and death.”

            Suddenly, Jesse was feeling more uncomfortable with what the voice from the sky was saying.

            “Wow,” the boy started before muttering “Don’t do drugs, kids.”

            There was a silence that became more awkward the longer it stayed silent. Jesse didn’t like absolute silence, noticing that there were no sounds of wildlife in the forest.

            “What’s going on?” Jesse asked.

            “Future circumstances will be difficult for you to handle alone. I am here to save your life.”

            “Well, thanks. My little brother and my best friend might not be much help. Secretly, I think that they think we’re all going crazy.”

            “They will be of no use to you. They will not survive long enough to do you much good.”

            That last comment caught Jesse by surprise. He had decided to go along with his dream; after all, he knew he was experiencing a dream. But this was too much. He began to wonder if maybe the thought of his friend and brother dying at the hands of the shadow man was just him projecting his fears of being killed by him onto them, but he couldn’t imagine that being true. Those were the only two people he’d never want to die. To be honest, he’d already reconciled that everyone else was going to die, somehow. But he’d never considered the same could happen to Izzy or Olivia.

            “That’s bullshit!” Jesse yelled. “I’m high, and this is a dream! When I wake up everything’s gonna go back to normal, and I’m never going to hear from your crazy, dumb-shit-spoutin’ ass ever again!”

            There was another awkward silence. Jesse started looking for a way to wake himself up; pinching his arms, slapping himself in the face, even falling backward onto the ground. When he stood back up, the voice in the sky finally gave a response.

            “You should call Olivia.”

            Jesse’s eye snapped open. He was still feeling the effects from the Percocet, but he wasn’t about to let that stop him. The teenager threw the comforter off of his body, rolled out of bed and clumsily tried to pick up his phone, still charging on his desk. His hand were shaking a bit; because of the Percocet or the fear that something might have happened to his best friend, he wasn’t sure, nor did he care.

            “Texting might take too long,” Jesse whispered to himself as he pressed the call button next to Olivia’s name in his contacts list. The phone rang only two times, when Olivia’s mother picked up the phone.

            “Mrs. San—”

            “Jesse! Have you seen Olivia? I can’t find her anywhere!”