The Shadow Man (Part 14)

There is no way that any family would be okay with staying in their house after a loved one was brutally killed in their bedroom. Officer Perez wasn’t surprised to hear that Jesse and his mother, who Perez had learned was named Camilla, decided to spend the next few days in a hotel room. Captain Mercer must have sympathized with them so strongly that he had the hotel room paid for by the precinct. Perez wondered if that was common, or if the Captain had finally gone soft. Jesse’s father Martin chose to stay in the house, and as the crime scene was thoroughly examined, he was cleared to do so. Officer Perez wondered if that was common, too. She had never spent the night in a house after someone she cared about was murdered in it. Maybe, Martin just couldn’t believe what happened. Or refused to…

Officer Perez was meant to be going home. However, even after her shift ended, she couldn’t stop thinking about what Jesse had told her about Olivia also seeing the “Shadow Man” Jesse referred to. Perez wondered if that had something to do with Izzy’s death. And if it did, what condition would her squad find Olivia in?

“This must be what a burglar feels like the first time they go to break into a house,” Perez said to no one in particular. She was alone, after all. She had remembered what Jesse said about the cave on the other side of the woods and felt there might be clues to Olivia’s disappearance there.

“I’ll just wait until I get past the trees to turn on my flashlight. Don’t need anyone catching me stalking through their backyard.”

Officer Perez brought her hand down to her utility belt, wrapping her hand around the textured grip of her state-issued Mag-Lite.

“A flashlight might be a better weapon against a guy made of shadows.”

This might have been true, but she brought her sidearm just in case the shadow person had more substance than she expected him to. To be entirely honest, she had yet to completely accept that what Jesse saw was, in fact, a shadow. People tend to see things differently than they appear when they are scared. It was very likely that he just saw a living person who was covered in the shade of the trees. But, Perez didn’t want to discount Jesse entirely. In her twelve years on the force, she’d seen some weird shit. This would be another of those things to add to her list of things she never thought she’d see.

Perez walked slowly through the woods, careful not to bump into any trees or trip over nothing like they do in horror movies.

“I’m far enough away…” she muttered while retrieving her Mag-Lite from her utility belt. The officer turned it on, sweeping the light from left to right and back again. Part of her was wishing a sign of Olivia, or this shadow man Jesse mentioned, would materialize in front of her; make her job easier.

“Oh, shit…!” Perez felt her heart jump in her chest. She was a bit more than halfway to the end of the forest, happy that she hadn’t walked into any spider webs, when she found a grey piece of fabric with pink and blue stars trailing down one side. Officer Perez had known what it was as soon as she saw it. The drawstrings gave it away.

“Is that a hoodie?”

Perez walked closer to the jacket draped over a bush that was low to the ground. Given what happened to Izzy she didn’t doubt there would be a trap near it. Or under it. Instead of picking it up, Officer Perez took several pictures with her cell phone. When you find a piece of evidence you’re not suppose to move it. Doing so could contaminate it with her DNA, making it more difficult to identify the real culprit.

For the first time since the investigation began Perez felt that she was on the right track. She continued on, looking for more clues as she walked.

“If this is here, then maybe Olivia left her watch on the sidewalk for Jesse to find. She’s left a trail! …Maybe. Don’t get your hopes up. This could have just been a coincidence.”

The Officer finally reached the end of the woods. She stood there for a minute, looking around cautiously. There was no man as far as she knew. But, this wouldn’t be the first time a suspect snuck up on her. Well, tried to. Actually, there was nothing there between the trees and the cave. Perez walked toward the cave, leaning against the left side of the opening as she peeked inside. There was nothing but darkness. And, the smell of iron floating out of the quiet, black hole that resided in the cave. She smelled blood.

The Shadow Man (Part 13)

Having to deal with the police twice in one day was exhausting. And, at this point, terrifying and confusing. How do you explain something to the authorities when you don’t even know what happened? Izzy was asleep in bed when everyone left the house. But, when they came back he was…gone.

Jesse sat on the couch in the living room, absentmindedly massaging his left arm. When he saw his father covered in blood Jesse jumped out of fright, smashing into the curio just outside of the kitchen door at full force. Now, the floor was covered in pieces of broken china and glass, while his arm had potentially suffered further damage. Jesse barely noticed. His mind was very far off, at the moment. He was in shock; eyes staring out of the window toward the moon, hand rubbing his arm, mind blank. Jesse might as well have been asleep.

Standing only about six feet away at the base of the stairs, Officer Perez wrote notes as she took Jesse’s father’s statement. Although, it was hard to make sense of the hysterical man was saying. No one blamed him, though. While she wrote down Martin’s recount of how he found Izzy in his closet, Perez made a note in the margin of her notepad the last time she glanced over at Jesse: Glassy eyes, refuses to talk, possibly in shock. She also made sure to write in her notes that all three of Izzy’s family members were with the police earlier in the evening when the boy was potentially killed. They all had an alibi.

‘Complicated circumstances. Good thing I like a challenge…’ Perez thought to herself. ‘But, they’re kind of an unlucky family. I feel bad for them. One kid survives getting hit by a truck and passes out on the sidewalk looking for his missing friend. Then the other son is found…like that.’ The officer had a flashback to twenty minutes earlier when she saw the young teenager sitting disemboweled in his closet with a petrified look on his face, while everyone did their best not to step in the puddle of blood surrounding Izzy. Many of the other officers called to the scene couldn’t stand being in the room, much less looking at a victim as young as Izzy who had been murdered so violently. It was all just too much.

Perez finished taking Martin’s statement and he went to sit with his wife. This time, she was the one who couldn’t stop crying. Her face was buried in her hands as she sobbed. Officer Perez and her captain glanced over at the broken family.

“You’re not supposed to bury your kids,” Captain Mercer said quietly so the family didn’t overhear something they already knew.

“Yeah, I’m guessing they’re thinking something similar, right about now.”

“It seems everything’s getting wrapped up here. The family’s going to spend a few nights in a hotel until we get the scene cleaned up. You wanna head back to the precinct and write your report so you can go home?”

“Uh, sure. Just give me a minute. I need to ask the brother a few more questions.”

Captain Mercer glanced over at the teenager sitting on the couch seemingly lost in thought. “Okay. But, I’m not sure you’ll get anything out of him while he’s in shock.”

Officer Perez and Mercer nodded at each other as the Captain walked out of the house, presumably to write his own report. After tonight, he felt the need to spend time with his own children when he left work. He’d instructed many of the other officers whom had children to go home and do the same. Perez walked over to Jesse, sitting down on the couch next to him.

“I’m sorry about your brother…” she said softly. “Losing a family member is difficult, but, it gets easier to cope with after a while.”

The officer watched Jesse, waiting for him to respond. He didn’t, and Perez was expecting that. Out of everyone, he’s been the most traumatized by everything that had happened since his return from the hospital.

“I know that you’re probably in shock, but if you can hear me…” she put a hand on Jesse’s should squeezing gently. “…you can call me if you need to talk.”

She sat there next to Jesse for a bit noticing that his eyes were still glazed over. Captain Mercer was right; there was no getting through to him in this state. However, Officer Perez had an idea about what was going through Jesse’s mind. She recalled the last time they had met, only about an hour and a half earlier. Jesse mentioned something about shadows.

“You think it was them, don’t you? The shadow…creatures?”

For the first time since he had seen his father covered in his little brother’s blood, Jesse seemed to be focused; his mind clearing of the fog that weighed almost as heavily as his brother’s passing. He looked into Officer Perez’s eyes, not sure if he heard hear correctly.

“How…did you know?” Jesse asked her. ‘What, can she read minds, now?’

“Because you told me about them, earlier,” Perez smiled at the teenager. “No, it wouldn’t make sense, but I can see why you’d think that. If these things have been bothering you for a while. Did Izzy know about them?”

Jesse wasn’t sure if he really wanted to have this conversation. But, she knew it wasn’t his fault. She also knew that in situations such as this many victims’ minds replace what really happened with something that would be much easier to comprehend or deal with: a defense mechanism.

“Yeah…he’s seen one of them, before. It creeped him out. Olivia…saw it, too.”

The Pits (12/12)

For the first time in several months, Max felt his life was getting back to normal. If you can call it that. He was going through a major transition in his life; starting college and moving out of his mother’s house. Max decided to go to a school that was two states away from home. After the events that occurred months ago that resulted in the deaths of his two closest friends and having to go to their funerals, he felt like he wouldn’t be able to move on if he stayed too close to home. A university in Michigan sounded nice. Far enough away that he could leave his past behind, but close enough to home that he could visit on longer breaks.

The new college student was more excited to leave home than he felt he should be. But, that was okay. He had always felt like he was in the way; a nuisance to his parents. This way, he wouldn’t be in their way and wouldn’t suffer the consequences for it. Who was Max kidding? He hadn’t had to deal with any of that since he was sixteen. Still, he’d never been able to get used to things being normal. Now was a good opportunity to finally feel like his life meant something.

Max and his new roommate, Ethan, had hit it off immediately upon meeting each other. The two young men found themselves in a new environment, completely alone despite being surrounded by people for most of the day. They decided to explore the campus, looking for the locations of all of their classes so that neither of them would get lost on the first day.

Ethan was a Biology major, which Max—a Chemistry major—thought was cool. He figured they could help each other since they had some of the same classes together. It would be like when he asked Simon for help back in…Max shook his head to make himself stop thinking about his friends. They were gone, and he wanted to move on, which Max found a more difficult task than forgetting people used to be.

“You alright?” Ethan asked? He’d seen Max shake his head, but a bit confused because he hadn’t asked a question.

“Huh? Yeah! I’m fine,” Max replied. “Just realized what homesickness was.”

“Yeah…I know what you mean,” Ethan said offering a small smile. “I’ve never been away from home until last night. I could barely sleep.”

“You’ve at least slept over at your friends’ houses, right?”

Ethan shook his head, “Nope. I was homeschooled, and most of the kids in my neighborhood were either a lot older or a lot younger than me. Didn’t have many friends.”

“That sucks…” Max thought for a second that maybe it was for the best. Ethan never had friends to lose in the first place. “On the bright side, you never had to leave any friends behind. That sucks, too.”

“I’ll bet,” Ethan nodded. “I’m guessing…you’ve had to do that a lot?”

“With a couple friends, recently. And all of my family accept my mom.”

“Damn…” Ethan felt bad knowing his new best friend’s life must have been more tragic than his own. However, it gave Ethan an idea. “Well, we’re nowhere near home, so we should just start over here!”

Max chuckled at how suddenly Ethan’s happiness could manifest itself. “Sure!”

The two friends were walking down a hallway that supposed to lead to a game room. Max forgot what it was called—something related to the school mascot—that was at the end of the hallway. All of the lights were out, so Ethan suggested they go downstairs to get some food from one of the many restaurants that operated on-campus. As they turned around, Max was instantly on edge, something he hadn’t felt since his escape from the Pits. Something about the janitor that was moping an area near to the intersecting hallway put Max off.

‘Where’d he come from?’

An image of Simon yelling at Max to run flashed in his mind, and he instinctively grabbed Ethan’s hand. Ethan looked at Max’s hand grasping his, thinking Max’s life had been rougher than he’d thought. To reassure Max, Ethan reciprocated, holding onto Max hand. After all, his parents had always told him to help other people when given the opportunity.

As they walked, Max could feel his heart beat faster. By the time the two were close to the janitor, he was feeling chills running down his spine almost as fast as Max wanted to run from the man cleaning the floor. The janitor’s hat concealed his face, and his coveralls covering nearly everything else. Max was afraid the janitor was lash out at him and his new friend as they walked by, but he didn’t. Max felt his heart rate decrease and he began to relax when Ethan whispered, “I thought the janitors wore jeans and a polo shirt with the school colors on it…”

Max’s heart rate increased again, and he almost ran away, with Ethan in tow, when he noticed that Ethan wasn’t walking anymore. He turned to see what was wrong with Ethan to see blood dripping from the other young man’s neck. It started at a trickle at first, but Ethan’s head began to tilt back tearing more of the skin as it did so. In seconds, the front of Ethan’s body was covered in thick, shiny, crimson blood, and he collapsed backwards onto the floor where the janitor had been mopping.

“Damn kids. I just cleaned the floor,” said a raspy, familiar voice.

Max looked up in horror, still holding onto Ethan’s hand. The Janitor took off his hat with the same hand he was holding his knife in.

“You’re shitting me…” Max muttered. He looked into the eyes of the old man who murdered his friend, Gio, and several cultists.

“I told you, if I could still see you when I finished killin’ them cult bastards, I’d be commin’ for ya,” The old man growled. “When I was done countin’, you were hangin’ upside down from a tree.”

“B-but…I wasn’t…I mean…” Max stammered. He didn’t know what to say, but that wasn’t stopping him from trying to talk.

The old man put his hat back on, raising his knife to Max’s throat. “Should’ve just dies with your friends.”

The Shadows' Empress (Part 5)

The Nitris, as the Empress called it, had finally stopped pounding the door. For the first time since Roland encountered the icy beast, it was quiet. Concerned that the horse-like creature would return if it heard any movement behind the door, Roland came out from under the heavy desk and stood slowly. For a minute or two, he stared at the door, half expecting the banging to start again. When it didn’t, he placed the map of the hotel and the blueprints on the desk he hid under to examine them.

There were so many rooms in the blueprints. Rooms that weren’t on the map. They looked as if they led to places that you couldn’t get to from any of the main rooms. In fact, the blueprints showed what looked like an entirely different building placed inside the old hotel. On one hand, there were the rooms designed to be a part of the hotel that spread outward, giving the building it’s wide structure. On the other, the secret rooms seemed to be built on their side; as if the building was vertical.

“A skyscraper….?” Roland said quietly, before quickly clamping his hands over his mouth.

There was a faint sound of a horse snorting on the other side of the door. Obviously, the horse hadn’t left, yet. Roland wasn’t sure if it was waiting for him to come out, or if it was planning on roaming the halls. Roland preferred the latter. At least then he’d be able to dash from room to room, ducking out of danger if he needed to. That idea led him to the realization that there might be more than just one Nitris.

‘Or something even worse.’

“How can they put two structures in one building?” Roland whispered to himself. “Am I even looking at this right?”

The confused boy began to look around the drawer from which the map and blueprints fell out of. There were several large pieces of paper stored in it; however, none of them were complete. Each piece of paper was marked with thin gray lines in what looked like random areas. Nothing connected. Everything seem out of order, and on a majority of the poster-sized papers there was on one line, if any at all. And then, he noticed that each page was numbered.

‘Maybe if I put them on top of each other in order…’

Roland did so, arranging the numbers so that the first page was at the top of the pile, and the eighth was at the bottom. That didn’t help the lines makes sense, so he rearranged the pages, with the first at the bottom, but still no luck.

‘They’re probably just mistakes,’ he reasoned, putting the failures back into the drawer. For now, he’d only use what he had. At least the blueprints and map made sense in a weird sort of way. ‘This is a dream, though. Nothing really has to make sense.’

“But…what if it everything I’m seeing here really means something?” Roland asked, looking down at the map. He couldn’t help but feel like the red symbols meant something. None of them look like anything particularly familiar. There were seven of them, but only three different types. Three of them looked were a circle with a small dot in the middle. Another three looked like X’s that didn’t connect in the middle. And the last one looked just like a set of French doors. Similar to the entrance, and exit, of the hotel. The only problem was that this symbol was nowhere near where Roland had come in. Instead, it was at the center of the building.

Noticing this made something click in Roland’s mind. The rooms with the symbols on them coincided with rooms that matched up on both the map and the blueprints. He put the blueprint on top of the map since the blueprints were printed on some very translucent paper. Roland looked over the map at the areas where the symbols were.

“I need to get to each of these rooms,” He said, not bothering to keep quiet any longer. He was too determined to figure out what he was looking for and leave the hotel. It occurred to him that he could possibly just pry the boards off the windows, but the Empress made this sound so important. Not to mention, he had a feeling that what he was looking for had something to do with what he’d heard his father say the night before.

‘Stop bothering my family. They’ve done nothing to you.’

Those words echoed in Roland’s mind as his eyes became glued to one room on the map that bore a symbol; one like a target with it’s small dot surrounded by a circle. When he registered that he was already in one of the rooms he’d been looking for he began to hear the song We Wish You a Merry Christmas being played from something that sounded like a music box. He looked around but couldn’t see where it was coming from. No matter where in the room he stood, it still sounded the same distance from him.

But it sounded familiar, and not just because he knew the song. The way it sounded, it reminded him of a snow globe. His favorite snow globe. His mother had given it to him for Christmas one year to add to his collection. It had a red base, lined with gold. A nutcracker soldier stood in the center, surrounded by presents. And if you turned the winding mechanism on the bottom it would play We Wish You a Merry Christmas. A memory of Roland holding it in front of him watching the snow fall in the globe played in his head, as he noticed the music he was hearing was part of the memory.

At the hospital, sitting in a chair in the waiting room. Holding the snow globe, watching the fake snow fall while listening to the music. In the background, Roland could hear crying. It was his father. Begging Clara not to leave him alone. Roland’s Grandparents were there, also crying. Holding his younger siblings who were trying to take off their heavy winter jackets.

The memory ended, and Roland felt like he’d taken a baseball bat to the head. But the physical pain didn’t bother him. Not as much as the realization that he’d been lied to his whole life. His father, Jacob, told him that his mother had died giving birth to his younger siblings. He knew that wasn’t true. However, Roland let himself believe that. His father would never lie to him. ‘Right?’

Shadow Man (Part 9)

Izzy stood next to his window, staring out at the trees in the back yard. He’d heard something that made him feel uneasy. It sounded like a muffled scream. At first, he wondered if anyone else in the house heard it. But, the faint sound of his parents who had decided to continue their argument in the living room told him that—in the very least—they didn’t. He doubted his older brother heard it, too. The last he knew, Jesse was sleeping. Izzy had been woken by a nightmare and, despite being thirteen, felt too afraid sleep alone. He went to ask if he could sleep in his brother’s room that night, but he saw the open bottle of pill on his desk and knew it wouldn’t be easy waking Jesse up, so he went back to his own bedroom, lying awake in bed. After a while, he’d managed to fall asleep, but the scream he’d heard woke him up again.

            ‘It wasn’t in the back yard,’ Izzy thought to himself. ‘It sounded too far away.’

            Taking one of the notebooks and his favorite blue pen from his backpack, Izzy began to write a note for his parents, and older brother. Given what he knew his parents were arguing about he figured one of them was going to come u to talk to him about…issues he’d been having with his Uncle. ‘Not like they can’t just ask Jesse. He dealt with it, too,’ Izzy thought before beginning to write his note.

            Only two words into writing his letter, there was a quiet bang coming from the inside of Izzy’s closet. He looked over, noticing the doors were shaking a bit. Then, there was another thump causing the doors to rattle some more.

            ‘In a horror movie, I’d die if I went to open the doors.’ Izzy thought about all the things that had happened that day, particularly the shadow man that appeared in Jesse’s window. Instead of walking up to the doors to his closet, Izzy slowly backed away from the door while moving to the right. There was a gap between the two doors through which Izzy tried to look into his closet. At first, he didn’t see anything. He stared for a few minutes, wondering if he should get a flashlight when a round white ball appeared through the gap in the doors. Izzy had no idea what the object was, until he saw the white spot disappear and then quickly reappear.

            It was an eye. Izzy turned to run for his bedroom door, but something wrapped around his mouth, and right ankle. After a few second, he felt something else encircle his torso and pull him backwards a bit. Izzy fought to reach the door, not understanding how something that barely felt real could have so much strength. He looked down to see solid black chains slowly wrapping around the rest of him, making it much more difficult to pull away.

            Izzy let out a muffled cry as he attempted to throw himself at his bedroom door, reaching out with his left hand. He didn’t make it. The chains were stronger than Izzy was, pulling him backwards. The doors to his closet flew open, and then shutting when the chains dragged him inside.

            He did what he could to force the chains to release him, but in the darkness of the closet, Izzy could feel the chains envelope his entire body several times. He struggled for a few moments before there was a snapping sound, and all was still. Izzy could no longer breathe, but he could feel a warm liquid pouring out of his stomach. He could see it, too. Through the crack between the doors, he could see red liquid oozing out and creating a large puddle on the floor just outside of his closet. And then, he felt nothing at all.

            “…up. Get up…” there was a sound that Jesse couldn’t quite place. It sounded as if he was underwater. “Jesse, get up!”

            ‘Wow. Even in death, people like to rush you…’ Jesse told himself.

            “Jesse!” The sound was clearer, now. “Oh, please wake up!”

            Taking a second to think, Jesse realized that the voice he was hearing sounded familiar, in a good way. And then he realized: he could think. His eyes snapped open when he figured out what was happening. He wasn’t dead.

            He started blinking rapidly to clear the blurriness from his eyes before looking around to see his parents and Mrs. Sandoval standing over him. In the corner of his eye, he could see red and blue flashing light getting closer. Jesse sat up.

            “What happened?” He took a second to examine his surroundings. He was lying on the sidewalk, exactly where he’d found Olivia’s watch. ‘How’d I get here? I was in the woods…wasn’t I?’

            “Are you okay?” Mrs. Sandoval asked Jesse. Looking her in the eyes, it was obvious that she had been crying for quite a while. That’s when Jesse remembered why he was outside in the first place.

            “I’m fine. Did you find Olivia?” Jesse asked, speaking quickly.

            The adults all looked at each other, then back to Jesse. His parents shook their heads. Mrs. Sandoval began to cry again.

            “No, but they’re looking,” she said as clearly as she could through her tears.

            Jesse held up the watch that he was still holding. He’d squeezed it so tight at one point that the glass on the clock face crumbled, cutting his hand.

            “Where did you find that?” Mrs. Sandoval asked.

            Jesse looked down at the ground. “Right here…”

The Pits (10/12)

With the old man incapacitated, Max dropped the sledgehammer and walked into the back room. He did so slowly as Max had a feeling that he was already too late to be any real use to his friend. At this point, Max felt he would only be able to say his goodbyes.

            It was very dimly lit in the small room. There was a fine layer of dust on every surface, and even more dust floating in the air, glittering in the single ray of moonlight shining through the boarded-up window. Max’s eyes did their best to adjust to the darkness. Before they could he heard a quiet moan coming from somewhere near the left wall a few feet ahead of him.

            “G…Gio?” Max called into the darkness; he was still having trouble seeing. He decided to try to feel his way toward his best friends, hoping he didn’t accidentally touch anything sharp on his way over.

            “Max…” Gio whispered softly. He likely wouldn’t make it much longer. Gio’s voice sounded so weak. He sounded defeated. The fighting spirit of the strong guy he was had left him, and his soul would soon follow.

 “I’m sorry…didn’t mean…to…leave…you guys…” Gio wheezed between breaths.

“Don’t apologize, bro,” Max had finally reached the edge of the bed and grabbed hid friend’s hand. “I should be the one apologizing. I dragged you guys out here. Figured it’d be a long time before we’d be able to meet up again.”

“…You said…Simon…didn’t make…it.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry about that, too.” Max’s eyes began to tear up as he realized he would soon be the only member of his friend group left alive.

“How?” Gio’s voice rasped in the darkness.

Max wasn’t sure how to tell Gio about what happened. Should he tell the truth, or let his dying friend thin he did the right thing by trying to save Simon? Max decided to go with the truth. Either way he’d have to live with it the rest of his life.

“Gio, I…I tried. I mean, I wanted to.” Max said quietly, trying not to cry. “The big guy grabbed him, and I wanted to take him back, but Simon told me to leave. And I did. He wasn’t gonna get far on his messed-up leg. They’d just catch us again. But, I didn’t wanna leave him there…”

“I know,” Gio said, turning to face Max. The old mattress springs creaked under his weight as he turned to place his right hand on Max’s.

“What?”

“I was…waiting for…you guys…to catch up. But…the cult guys…caught you. I saw the whole thing. But, I couldn’t help. I saw…what you did. It was…the right…thing.”

Despite trying his hardest not to cry, Max felt his tears rolling down his face and falling on his hand next to Gio’s. He felt a sense of relief that Gio wouldn’t die hating him. But, he also felt a bit of anger that Gio did nothing to help them. ‘He couldn’t have done anything.’ Max repeated the thought over and over, trying to convince himself that his current anger was misplaced. There was nothing Gio could have done to help Max and Simon in that moment.

‘But, he could’ve tried.’

Max looked over at Gio’s legs, and realized they were no longer attached to his body. A glance at a large bucket near the foot of the bed showed the new location of Gio’s legs. Gio watched as his friend looked at his injuries. Max knew the old man had cut his legs off, but a large part of him was hoping it was a bluff.

“Canyon Lake…” Gio whispered.

“What about it?”

“You have to go there, and ride around…in an inflatable kayak…like we always…said…we would…”

 “…Even if there are trees in the water like everyone says,” Max finished Gio’s sentence. “I will, buddy.”

“And tell my…parents…”

There was a long pause making Max think Gio had passed away, until the injured boy continued, “I’m sorry…I was a …bad son…”

Max could hear Gio expel his last breath. He couldn’t believe Gio was gone. Or Simon, for that matter. Max stayed where he was, kneeling next to his best friend’s body. He didn’t want to leave, anymore. He didn’t want to live knowing his best friends were dead in these woods. For a while, Max thought about going to the place where he and his friends had originally met the cultists and ask them to kill him. But, he realized that wasn’t what Simon and Gio would want for him.

Standing up, Max wiped the tears off of his face. He took deep breaths as he walked out of the back room, ignoring the smell of rot that permeated the air. Nothing mattered anymore, except getting home. Before he left, Max looked at the sledgehammer he dropped on the floor. He thought about bringing it in case he was attacked again but decided it would only weigh him down. Besides, the cultists had arrows. All Max could do was run. Fast.

He walked down the stairs, two at a time, trying to get the hell out of the old house. However, Max slipped when he was half-way down and tumbled to the base of the stairs. As much as it hurt, he refused to stop. He forced himself to stand up, and almost pissed himself. When he got himself into an upright position he realized he was face-to-face with Gabriel, the biggest of the cultists.

“Oh, shi--!”

“GET THE FUCK OUTTA MY HOUSE, WEIRDOS!” Yelled a raspy voice behind Max. There were loud footsteps coming down the stairs, causing Max to jump to the left and out of the way. The old man jumped off of the stairs near the bottom, swing the sledgehammer that Max left behind down on Gabriel’s head. The large man dropped to the ground, bleeding from a massive hole in his head.

The old man looked around all of the other cultists that felt it was okay to break into his house; all armed with knives and swords. Then, he looked to Max.

“If you’re still here when I get done with these fuckers, you’ll be next…”

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!”

The Pits (Part 9)

His heart once again began to beat harder. However, this time he was more angry than afraid. There was a thud, some footsteps, and then the doorknob turned slowly, clicking as the door began to open only enough for the old man to poke his head out.

Max could only see his head, but the look on the man’s face was nearly enough to make Max run for his life. The man had messy, white hair surrounding a bald center. His face was dirty like he’d gotten car oil on himself and tried to wipe some of it off. And his eyes were wide, bloodshot, and unblinking. The murderer didn’t move. He stood still, staring Max down. The two stood in their places for a few minutes in complete awkward silence.

“Meth is a hell of a drug, huh?” Max asked, not able to hold back his sarcastic joke.

“What’re you doin’ in my house?” The man responded.

“You’ve got my friend in there, and I’m not leaving without him.”

The old man’s eyes narrowed into a glare. “He’s my friend, now. You can’t have him,” he said slowly, and quietly.

Max stared at the crazy-eye murderer in bewilderment, never expecting to hear something so childish from a man nearing the age of retirement. “What are you, six?”

“Max?” came a voice from inside the room the man was leaning out of.

“Yeah, I’m here,” Max returned. “I’m gonna get you out of there!”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea…” Gio said, his voice wavering as if he was going to cry. “He…*sob*…I’m bleedin’ a lot, man. And I’m feelin’ really cold.”

“Just hang on,” Max felt relieved knowing his friend was alive; however, he felt a new wave of panic when he thought about why Gio could be bleeding so much as to feel cold. It was actually rather warm in the house, and warmer outside since it was summer.

“What did you do to him?” Max asked the old man?

The old murderer opened the door through which he was leaning a bit more, walking through it, and closing it behind him. Max heard a quiet click and knew the man locked the door. The killer’s eyes moved up to the right as if he were thinking about his answer before speaking:

“He tried to get away. Ran all the way to my neighbor’s house. Good friend of mine.”

“No way in hell you have friends,” Max muttered.

“My friend knocked him out and returned him to me,” the old man looked over to the workbench on his left where a bone saw lay, drenched in blood that had begun to coagulate. Max’s eyes followed the old man’s to the area he was looking, and Max’s heart dropped into his stomach when he put the pieces of that fucked up puzzle together in his mind.

The old man continued speaking. “Had to make sure he’d never run away again. Tied him down with rope, but the sucker got loose. Electrocuted him in the tub till he passed out,” The man motioned toward the tub full of disgusting brown water, and with a grin said, “Then took him over to the workbench and cut his legs off.”

Max had already figured that was what was happened, minus the electrocution part. But hearing the man say what he did out loud caused his stomach to churn. He felt nauseous but tried not to think about it. Instead, he focused more on his anger at the old man for torturing his friend and amputating his legs. He was also angry at the old murderer’s so-called friend for giving his Gio to the old man to be killed.

“Hey, Max?” Gio called out, sounding weaker than he had before.

“Yeah?”

“You should just go. I can’t feel anything anyway. Not anymore.”

“Don’t give up! I’m not leaving you here!”

“Max?” By this point Gio sounded just as depressed as he sounded weak.

“Yeah?” Max could sense in Gio’s voice that he wasn’t going to like what was coming next.

“…Where’s Simon?”

Not knowing what he should say, Max decided to go with the truth.

“They…got him.” Now it was Max’s turn to reveal his sadness over their friend’s loss.

Gio didn’t respond, and Max wasn’t sure if he was having a moment of silence for their dead friend, or if it was because he just couldn’t talk anymore. But the silence in the room fueled Max’s anger and seemed like the best time to strike.

Max had the sledge hammer resting on his shoulder as he took a few steps closer to the old man. He stared into the murderer’s eyes which seemed to have dimmed as his hair greyed. The two glared at each other for a few seconds. Then Max kicked the older man in the stomach as hard as he could. The old man doubled over, still trying to stand up. Max brought the hammer down on the man’s head with all the strength he had left hitting the man directly in the back of his head dropping him to the floor. Max stared at the man’s head, watching the blood pour out of his head and coat the floor around it. Then, he braced himself and walked into the back room.

Shadow Man (Part 6)

“And you brought friends?” Jesse looked down to see several shadow figures walking around at the Shadow man’s feet. There were seven of them, and they all had a distinct quality that Jesse had never seen before. Instead of the usual creatures that were composed of a uniform darkness, these looked more like smoke. Black at the bottom, lighter toward the top, as if the shadows were evaporating. The three shadows in the front that appeared to be cats of some kind were the strangest, with the likeness of oil being poured into boiling water.

One of the cats slowly walked up to Jesse, circling him and rubbing its face on his leg like a house cat before running away and passing through a wall. ‘So only the big one can break things…’ Jesse thought noticing that he didn’t feel the shadow cat touch his leg. He felt comforted by the idea that not all of the shadow figures could potentially murder him. But only just a little. For a while, Jesse had been wondering if they could somehow shift between normal shadows—or as normal as shadow figures could be—and the solid type that break desk lamps.

Jesse took a small step forward, watching how the shadow man reacted to his movements. By this point, he wasn’t even concerned with the smaller shadows, although part of him imagined one of the cats growing twice its original size and being made of fire for some reason. The shadow man made no effort to move, so Jesse took another small step forward. Still no reaction.

‘Maybe it only reacts when I’m scared?’ The idea crossed Jesse’s mind as he remembered some of the things that had happened in past encounters with the shadow man. Whenever it had taken Jesse by surprise it would move, going so far as to break things when Jesse was the most afraid. But he also noticed that when he wasn’t scared the shadow stood still. Well, the big one did. The shadow cats did their own thing just as real cats would. Then another thought ran through Jesse’s mind: ‘Why cats? I fucking hate cats.’

To test his hypothesis, Jesse walked calmly toward the shadow man, looking at in directly where he assumed its’ eye would be.

‘I’m not afraid of you. I’m not afraid of you. I’m not afraid of you.’ He thought as he came to a stop a foot away from the hulking mass of darkness. ‘But I am a little hungry.’

The two stared at each other for quite some time, Jesse staring into the shadow man’s blank slate of a face. The more they watched each other, the more Jesse noticed two grey specks on the dark figure’s face. They never became any lighter, but they did get bigger. Or were Jesse’s eyes playing a trick on him? He stared a little while longer, watching the specks become the size of a pencil’s eraser. The grew until they were the size of a human’s eyes. As he stared, Jesse couldn’t help but remember something he’d heard someone on a television show say: “The longer you stare at the lights, the longer they stare at you.” Except, in this case, the opposite was true. And it was freaking Jesse out.

“I’m gonna pretend you aren’t real for a while.” Jesse whispered to the shadow man. “I can only take so much bullshit in one day.”

With that, Jesse turned to walk into his bedroom, closing the door behind him without looking. But, just to see what the shadow man did when he wasn’t looking, Jesse opened his bedroom door a few inches to peer into the hall. The shadow man, and all his minions, were gone. Jesse closed the door again, breathing a deep sigh of relief, then stared at his bedroom door for few seconds studying the patterns in the white painted wood; his mind blank. Wanting to think, but not being able to at the moment, Jesse went over to his desk, stood his lamp back up on its base, and brushed the glass of the broken bulb into the trash can on the floor. A part of him wanted to talk to Izzy. The part of Jesse that felt like he was losing his mind. The other part didn’t want to bother his younger brother just yet, so he sat at his desk.

“I’m not even taking the Percocet anymore, and shit’s still nuts.” Jesse told himself. “And now, I’m talking to myself.” He looked down at the drawer to his right where he tossed his prescription. Because it was so full of files, and papers that Jesse never threw away the drawer never closed, the cap of the medicine bottle preventing it from doing so. Jesse pulled the bottle out of the drawer and stared at the label, reading the instructions describing how much he should take.

“Alright, fuck it.” Jesse opened the bottle with a bit more difficulty than he should have had with a safety cap and poured two pills out of the bottle into his hand. He tossed them into his mouth, trying not to think too much about what he was doing. And swallowed them, with some of the water in the water bottle he kept on his desk next to the lamp. Then he took two more pills from the bottle, and took those, too. He took the full amount of Percocet for a day in one dose. Closing the bottle and leaving it on his desk, he stripped down to his boxers and got into bed.

The Pits (Part 8)

Looking down at the stairs, Max wondered how he was going to get to the next floor without being noticed. They were made of wood, probably from the trees from the forest surrounding the house. And, seeing as how the rest of the house looked several decades old, the stairs were probably very creaky. He tried to think back to when the old man went up the stairs in the few minutes before when Max heard what sounded like Gio begging for help. Did the stairs make any noises when he went up them? In his panic upon realizing Gio was still alive, albeit apparently in a lot of pain, Max wasn’t listening to anything other than his friend’s cries.

            ‘I guess it doesn’t matter. I have to get up there one way or another. And the more I think about it the less chance Gio has of survival.’ Max lightly placed his right foot on the first step, slowly putting his weight on it. The old wood made no noise. ‘Maybe if I just climb up slowly I can surprise this bitch?’

            At that moment, there was a sound of something landing on the floor above and rolling around. Max registered that—whatever it was—it was made of some kind of metal as it made a distinctive ting upon impact. ‘Fuck it…’

            Summoning all of the courage he had Max walked up the stairs with his back along the wall to his left. The stair made creaking sounds like he expected they wood, but he no longer cared. Though, he did notice his heart being faster with every step he took. When he got to the top Max’s ears were filled with the pounding of his heart; his peripheral vision being clouded with a similar kind of static old televisions produced when they weren’t on the right channel. For a second, he thought he could even hear the static. Until he realized the sound was something heavy being dragged across the floor. The noise was coming from the room around the left corner and down the hallway from his current position. Max stared down the dark hallway, then down to the table in front of him. There was a crystal ball sitting on a small purple cushion among pictures of what looked like a younger version of the old man, and two women who may have been the murderous geezer’s sisters. ‘I wonder if they were lunatics, too, or if he killed them first.’

Max picked up the crystal ball with both hands, holding it close to his chest as he walked down the hallway to the rooms at the far end. There were two: one directly ahead with a large lock on the knob that sported a keyhole and a number pad with glowing numbers—the only obvious technology in the house, and a room to the right. The door on the right was open. It must have been a big room as the man was still dragging…whatever it was across the room, seemingly past where Max was standing in the hallway.

‘Just look in,’ Max thought to himself. ‘If it’s not Gio, go back downstairs and hide in the vent.’

Trembling, Max closed the distance between him and the open door, slowly leaning forward to peer inside. The room was only a little bit lighter than the hallway, but at least he could see more. The room was smaller than Max first imagined it to be, but there was another doorway at the other side of the room. It was closed. And, as he entered, for the first time Max realized there was a distinctive smell that seemed to emanate from that side of the room. As he got further into the room the smell intensified. ‘Please tell me this guy doesn’t eat roadkill.’ He said to himself. Max stopped, looking around the room. There were much better weapons to use against this guy hanging on the walls. Hammers, electric saws, a chainsaw in one of the corners, and a bathtub full of dirty, brown water with a car battery and jumper cables sitting on a cart next to it. ‘This guy’s gangster.’ Max admitted, although he wasn’t sure he’d like to find out how gangster the killer could be.

There was a sudden gasping sound from beyond the door to the other room followed by coughing. Coughing that sounded like someone was exhaling large amounts of water after being resuscitated from drowning. It started Max. Millions of thoughts ran through his mind; the most prominent one being ‘When did he drown Gio? I didn’t hear any water splashing.’ Remembering that his friend may have been knocked unconscious only minutes ago, Max decided Gio wasn’t awake when he was drowned, and couldn’t fight back.

‘I’m fucking DONE with this,’ Max thought. He held the crystal ball out in front of him and dropped it onto the wooden floor. He then walked over to the large sledge hammer hanging on the wall and waited.