Shadow Man

Shadow Man”
By
W. P. Gerace

Things you didn’t see. She suddenly remembered those words after all these years in the middle of this late August night. Waking out of a sound sleep with her boyfriend and future husband Lamar lying at her side, his dark-featured muscled body a sign of strength and peace that Amanda had waited for all her life. Finally, since childhood, she had love and peace all wrapped up in one. But why now, after all these years and nearly three thousand miles away in the desert of Phoenix, Arizona, was that crazy conversation she had with her mother as a little girl coming back?

Sweat slid down her face, her breathing rapidly as trepidation slowly crept into her serenity, with the slowness of a crook coming in the middle of the night wanting to take advantage of her. She could hear her heart clamoring in her head; each beat sounding like some runaway train that would speed off its track to a deadly end. Tremors spread through her thin body, touching her stomach, now a bit plump as she was only a few months away before their new child, whom they both decided would be called Chelsea in honor of Lamar’s late sister, who died last year from cancer. Something was not right; though Amanda knew it, she could feel it. Something amid this dark room filled with love and happiness was about to turn upside down.

Suddenly, the dark outline of her chestnut bureau along the far wall where Lamar hung their Smart TV, something moved. She saw it. She knew she did. Something of a shadow moved and then suddenly disappeared. It could not be, she realized, not after all these years. She had not seen this entity since moving from Philadelphia nearly fifteen years ago. That thing was part of the curse on that house on Elm Street. She knew it.

Princess, her best friend from college, came over one night a few months before she moved to confirm that the entity could not leave this place. Princess said he was once a powerful man, her wide almond eyes looking into Amanda’s face and grabbing her hands. Princess had the softest hands. It was like holding silk. She was a kind soul, but when she saw something pure evil, as in this case, she got right down to business. Speaking in her thick Latin Accent, she told her she needed to get out of here soon. She couldn’t see the entity but could feel him, and he had a thing for Amanda. She reminded him of his previous wife he killed in this house nearly a hundred years ago. Princess had a name for him, too. Shadow Man was cursed and left on this earth as a shadow with no spirit, no physical body, and chained to this house. Paying for his sins of killing his wife, dismembering her in thousands of pieces, and dispersing her along the murky waters of the Delaware River, he was getting restless, Princess said, and wanted her for himself.

It had been years since she left Philadelphia. Why now and how, Amanda wondered. Suddenly, out of the far-left side of the bureau was Sally the Magical Doll. Her mother sent it a few days ago, wanting to return the five-foot blonde-haired doll to its owner now that she was on her own. Sally’s porcelain blue eyes lit up a bright blue, reminding Amanda of those Neon Lights she would see in the bars advertising the latest drinks. Making a metallic sound, Sally’s teeth, which were not real, sounded like she was grinding her teeth. A chill ran up Amanda’s arms. Springing up in the darkness beside Sally, The Shadow Man appeared. Glowing in the darkness, his flaming eyes were like pits of fire about to release their incinerating effects on their entire apartment, leaving her and Lamar as charred remains. She wanted to get up, scream, reach, and grab Lamar, but Amanda finally found herself in a trance.

Frozen and trapped in her body as a silent witness to this nightmare replaying itself before her like some horror show that never seemed to have an ending, Amanda could not help but wonder why and how, after all these years, he had found her. The last words Princess said to her that scary night years ago was Leave this place for your peace of mind. Leave Philadelphia. She did that, put miles between her and mom and family to start a new life. In the desert, where she found peace and happiness in a man who truly cared and loved her, she looked back at his muscular body sleeping peacefully after working a tedious eight-hour shift at the local Walmart as a Grocery Supervisor. If only she could move her hands to wake him, touch him, let him know she would tell him her worst fears are back. The swelling of sadness and anxiety was springing up in her like some flooded river.

“Ah, my sweet little Amanda. I have found you after all these years. Now, me and you can be one flesh, one body. “Shadow Man talked his voice mechanically like one of those scary mannequins in a horror show for the first time.

“Go away. Please leave me alone. “Whispering, not wanting to wake Lamar even though deep down she wanted to, but in all reality, he probably wouldn’t even see this nightmare.

“No child, it is time. I have waited long enough. You are now mine. “

Flying on her, his darkness enveloped her defenseless body, sinking into her flesh, his hideous thoughts taking over her once peaceful ones. Wanting to fight him to do anything, she could not do much. Once again, she heard herself saying in a low whisper as she felt his coldness drain her things you didn’t see.