The Shadow Man (Part 11)

“Well…” Jesse began, feeling very awkward about telling someone—especially a stranger—something that would make him sound crazy. “I saw someone in the woods. Just behind the first few trees over there,” Jesse pointed towards the woods behind a house where he ran to chase after the shadow figure that hid in the cave. By this point, he wasn’t sure if he should explain everything exactly as it happened, or to leave out the part about the man he saw being a shadow.

“Okay,” Officer Perez led Jesse to continuing his story. “What happened after you saw this person?”

“I thought the might have had something to do with Olivia’s disappearance because he was staring at me in the area where I found her watch.”

Jesse had a sudden thought; if the shadow man had Olivia, then where was she when the two encountered each other? Had the shadow already hidden her in the cave? Was he waiting for Jesse to come look for her?

Officer Perez wrote down notes in her notepad about Jesse recounting of the story. When she noticed that he’d stopped, she asked him if he was okay thinking he might have a concussion.

“Do you need to sit down?” She asked.

“No, I’m fine. I was just wondering…”

“Yes?”

“If he had Olivia, where was she when he was watching me pick up her watch?”

Perez had no idea how to answer that. In fact, she was wondering the same herself. The police officer had an inkling that Jesse was trying to counteract his story by asking such a question when he realized part of his story didn’t add up, but he seemed sincere. Instead of calling him on it, Perez wanted to get his entire story down on paper before she started speculating.

“Let’s hear your entire story first, then we’ll worry about that,” she said with a smile.

“I followed the man into the woods to a cave that was on the other side. But then I started feeling dizzy. I think I was hallucinating, or something. I saw some big grey cats that looked like they were shadows, and they attacked me while the man went into the cave.”

Jesse chuckled at the last part thinking if he played it off he could tell her as much as possible without sounding too crazy. Perez stared at the young man with a bewildered expression on her face. She’d heard a lot of crazy things in her nine years as a police officer, but nothing like that.

“Cats? Shadow cats?”

“Or something…I know, it sounds crazy. I think it was just part of a dream I had when I passed out. I’ve been taking Percocet that was prescribed for pain…”

“And you think maybe they had something to do with this…dream?”

Jesse nodded. He didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t think his story was believable, so he did his best to retell it so that something that didn’t makes sense would sound normal. The only way he could think to do that was to say it was a dream and blame it on his medication. ‘What now?” Jesse thought. ‘Am I gonna get committed? For all she knows, it was a weird dream I had when I passed out.’

The young man stared at the ground feeling incredibly stupid for saying anything at all. He wondered if this feeling he had was what people who had psychotic episodes felt. Knowing no matter what they said from that point on nobody would believe them.

“Alright, I think I have everything I need,” Officer Perez said realizing for the first time that Jesse had blood dripping from the inside of his shirt in three parallel lines. She smiled again and reminded Jesse “If there’s anything else you remember let us know,” handing Jesse her card.

“Okay,” Jesse returned the officer’s smile. He looked down at the business card she’d handed him. ‘I didn’t know cops had these things. I thought they just wrote their number on a sticky note, or something.’

Jesse felt a hand on his left shoulder, causing him to jump in fright.

“Whoa, whoa, it’s just me,” Jesse’s dad laughed. “The officer told me that you used your Percocet.

“Yeah, why?”

“You think maybe the does is too high? Or…maybe, possible, you took too much?”

“What, you think I’m a drug addict now?” Jesse asked in annoyance as he stuffed the card Officer Perez gave him into his back pocket.

“Nah, buddy. It’s not that. I’m just shocked you took it when you said you didn’t want them. You feeling alright?”

Jesse thought about his answer for a few moments. “Yeah, Dad, I’m alright. I just had this weird ache on my left side. My ribs haven’t fully healed, yet, I guess.”

“Alright. But, you let me know if it gets worse, eh?”

“I will,” Jesse said, his father pulling him in for a bear hug. Jesse hugged his father back, wincing at the pain in his side.

“Where’s your brother?” Jesse’s father asked surveying the dissipating crime scene? “He usually follows you everywhere…”