The Lovely Shadow (7 page)

I fell asleep almost instantly; my traumatic
day having worn me out, but unfortunately didn’t stay that way for
very long. I awoke after about two hours of sleeping because my
bladder was full to the point of bursting.

I rolled over onto my back and stared up at
what would have been the ceiling, if it hadn’t been so dark that I
couldn’t see it at all.

‘Well, crap,’ I thought to myself. ‘Here’s a
problem I hadn’t considered. Just where the Hell am I supposed to
pee?’

I lay there for several minutes trying to
decide where I was going to pee, and finally decided that if I
didn’t go pee somewhere, I was going to pee wherever I was.

I had considered going to the back of the
basement to try and find an old bucket or something, but now that
the entire basement was completely dark I decided that the risk of
trolls and tentacle wielding blobs had increased significantly, and
I’d rather wet myself than face those beasts.

With the idea of searching out a bucket shot
down, I could think of no other viable alternative. I figured I was
either going to be forced to pee my pants or just pee on the floor.
I didn’t like either of those choices. I crossed my legs and kept
trying to think.

‘Well,’ I thought miserably, ‘if I wet
myself, at least I can wash my clothes in the washer.’

As soon as that thought had finished racing
through my urine soaked brain I reached up and smacked my forehead
as a symbol of my oafishness. As if to reinforce the reality of my
oafishness, I used my right hand to do it.

“Ow! Sonofa…!” I hollered out loud. My right
hand was still damned sore and did not like impacting my forehead
so violently.

In my pain I temporarily forgot the need to
pee until I realized I was starting to pee just a little bit,
though unintentionally.

“Ah crap,” I muttered as I stood and
approached the washing machine. I had to move slowly, feeling my
way, because without the faint grey bloom of light shining in from
under the door, the nebulous darkness of the basement was
treacherous and I knew there was a stool nearby, waiting to trip me
up.

I managed to stem the flow of urine as I
moved—but just barely—until I reached the washer and climbed up on
my stool. I flung open the lid of the washer (careful to use my
left hand this time) and proceeded to try desperately to get my fly
down.

As soon as my body was aware that it was
going to get to pee soon my amazing dam-like control over my
bladder seemed to weaken by an appreciable amount, and I began
losing the war against wet trousers in small squirts.

Finally managing to get myself freed from the
prison my jeans had become, I aimed to where I was pretty certain
the opening of the washer was, (at this point I really didn’t care
if my aim was off,) and let loose. The amount of relief that came
from accommodating that simple biological necessity was tantamount
to the level of pain I had endured throughout that miserable
day.

I stood there for what felt like hours, and
when I finally finished my business I kicked my shoes off and
stripped my trousers and underwear off and threw them in the washer
on top of the already thrice washed towels. I closed the lid and
felt around for the knob. It was tricky to get it set right in the
dark but I finally managed, and got the washer going.

I wasn’t about to try and go back to sleep
laying there exposed, in nothing but my socks and a tee-shirt, so I
felt my way over to the linens cupboard that stood near the washer
and found a blanket which I wrapped snugly around myself.

I had just hobbled back to my chair when I
remembered that there was an old mattress leaning up against the
wall, very near the linens cupboard. I dithered for a moment on
whether or not it was worth the effort tonight to drag it over to
where my chair was setting, but the kink that was already
developing in my neck from laying on the chair made me decide that
it was, indeed, worth the effort.

Dropping my blanket on the chair, I went and
found the mattress and dragged it over near the chair. There wasn’t
enough room for a mattress and a chair so I had to fold up the
chair and slide it out of the way; no easy task in the pitch dark,
I assure you.

With that done, I plopped the mattress down
in place of the chair and searched around a bit for my blanket.
Once I found it I plopped myself down on the mattress, snuggled as
deeply as I could into the blanket and fell promptly back to
sleep.

I slept through the rest of the night, but
was plagued by a horrible dream. I dreamt that I was running
through an endless hallway, dimly lit by wall sconces set about
five feet up from the floor on either side of the walls. All the
sconces were shaped like the Snoopy night-light in our own hallway,
only much larger. Every sconce showed Snoopy peacefully sleeping on
his doghouse and each Snoopy would have been about a foot tall if
he were standing on his hind legs.

There were doors on both sides of the stone
walls spaced at intervals of about ten feet and set directly across
from each other.

Something was chasing me. I couldn’t see it,
but I knew it was there. I could hear it making slurping and
dragging sounds behind me, leading me to believe it was the
tentacle ridden blob that I imagined beneath the boxes.

I ran as fast as I could, but it was not fast
enough. The sounds behind me kept getting louder. I stopped and
tried a couple doors—they were locked. The monstrosity was gaining
on me. I kept looking over my shoulder to see if I could see it in
the dim light, but behind me was all darkness. The Snoopy sconces
were shutting off as I ran past them, leaving nothing but a black
void behind me.

I was running out of breath, my lungs and
legs were burning, but I knew if I stopped whatever was behind me
was going to get me for certain. It was already very close. I could
hear it just behind me. I looked, but saw nothing. As I swiveled me
head forward again I had just enough time to see that the hallway
ended abruptly in a solid stone wall before I plowed into it and
fell down.

I landed flat on my back, but quickly rolled
over and sat up, and pushed my back as deep as it would go into the
stone wall behind me.

I could see nothing in the darkness but I
could hear the monster getting closer as I cowered into the wall,
trying to scream without success.

Suddenly the creature went silent. I had a
feeling it had intentionally stopped just far enough back so that
the light from the two remaining Snoopy sconces that were still lit
would not illuminate it.

Then the light changed. It didn’t get
brighter or dimmer; it just shifted. I risked diverting my eyes
from the dark depths of the hallway for a quick glance up at the
Snoopy sconce to my left and finally found enough voice to
scream.

The light had changed because Snoopy was no
longer sleeping on his doghouse. His departure from his sleeping
position caused the light to shine differently through the plastic
walls of his doghouse.

Instead of sleeping peacefully on his
doghouse, Snoopy was standing up on it staring at me with eyes that
glowed red like coals. He was shaking a paw at me like an old man
yelling at teenage kids that drive too fast up his street and his
formerly peaceful smile had transformed into a snarl.

I glanced at the sconce on my right and saw
that the Snoopy there was up and about as well, but instead of
standing there shaking his paw at me he was pacing back and forth
on top of his doghouse, evidently looking for an easy way down.

The second Snoopy looked just like the first
Snoopy with the exception of a snarl. Instead of contorting his
mouth into a snarl, he was moving his mouth as if he were trying to
speak. He made no sound.

I watched, horrified, as the second Snoopy
paced to the edge of his dog house and began to climb down from it,
hanging from the peak of the roof.

He hung there for a second and I thought he
was going to drop to the floor, but he didn’t. Instead, he started
swinging back and forth, the lower part of his body disappearing
into the entrance to his doghouse briefly on each forward swing
before swinging back out again on the back swing. Every pendulous
arc caused him to swing further and faster than the previous one,
with more of his body entering his dog house every time.

When more than half his body was entering the
doghouse on each forward swing he let go and disappeared completely
into his house. When I could no longer see Snoopy number two, I
looked frantically back to Snoopy number one and found that had
followed Snoopy two’s lead and was now mouthing silently at me
while swinging from the gable of his house.

Once Snoopy number one let go and flew into
his doghouse I glanced back to Snoopy two’s doghouse. It was still
devoid of demonic cartoon canines so I switched my focus back to
the hall again.

Staring down the hall I thought I saw a
slight motion at the very edge of vision, right where light and
shadow collided. It was just a quick shimmer, like heat rising off
the road in summer—impossible to focus on, yet visible
nonetheless.

The motion happened so fast that I wasn’t
sure I’d really seen it. I stared as hard as I could into the dark,
furrowing my eyebrows as if that would increase my vision, but saw
nothing else. Whatever was down there did not want to be
seen…Yet.

I was so focused on the darkness ahead that I
almost failed to notice the small noises I on either side of me.
The noises went on for several seconds before I finally recognized
that there was something happening that I should pay attention
to.

I looked to the left and saw that Snoopy
number one was now descending from his doghouse on a thin rope,
apparently tied off to something inside the house that hung down
out of the entrance and nearly to the floor. I glanced to my right
and saw Snoopy two doing the same thing.

I was utterly terrified. I had nowhere to go;
the wall was to my back, twelve inch tall demonic beagles were
flanking me on each side, and in front of me was the unseen
terror.

Both Snoopy’s hit the ground simultaneously
and turned towards me. They started walking towards me, slowly;
seeming to savor the incremental increase in terror that arose
within me with each step they took.

I was trying to scream, but had lost my voice
again. I was trying desperately to push myself through the wall at
my back, sitting on my butt with my back smashed against the wall,
and my feet pushing with my feet.

The Snoopy’s stopped advancing when they were
about three feet in front of me and just slightly off to either
side. They stood in front of me working their snarling mouths up
and down, glaring at me with their burning coal eyes, and pumping
their fists at me.

I sat motionless, staring at those
abominations with slack jawed terror. Then I heard the shimmering
beast from the shadows start moving again.

Slurp—drag…slurp—drag…It was coming closer.
My eyes were opened to their maximum limit, bulging out of their
sockets. My mouth dried up and I began to shake with fear.

Slurp—drag…slurp—drag…I could see the shimmer
at the edge of the shadow. Slurp—drag…slurp—drag…I could see color
inside the shimmer; white.

Slurp—drag…slurp—drag…The shimmer faded and
was replaced with an indistinct humanoid shape; more white
showed.

When the beast finally came fully out of
shadow and into the light, I screamed. For when I could see the
beast clearly I saw that it was far more terrifying than the
tentacular blob I’d envisioned earlier. It was my mother; but not
entirely so.

The torso and face of the beast belonged to
my mother. It was wearing her wedding dress, but where two legs
should have protruded at the bottom, there was, instead, a huge
tentacle. The tentacle was a sickly greenish grey color and as
thick as my mother’s waist at the point where it exited the
dress.

It did not taper much as it progressed
towards the floor, but where it met the floor it bent behind the
beast, and then tapered sharply until it ended in a point, about
five feet behind it.

The beast propelled itself forward like an
inchworm, pulling the back of its tentacle forward, arching the
middle, and then pushing itself forward.

Every time the center of the tentacle left
the floor to arch upwards, it made a slimy, sucking sound, and as
it pushed itself forward it made a dragging, scraping noise. It
left a slime trail behind it as it moved, like a slug.

Four tentacles extended from its
shoulders—two on each side taking the place of arms. They were all
the same color as the leg protrusion, and roughly the same diameter
as my mother’s arms, though much longer. Each arm tentacle was
about four feet long and clutched tightly at the end of each
tentacle was a rolled up Playboy magazine.

The mother-squid-slug-inchworm hybrid kept
moving towards me until it stood right between the two Snoopies. My
mother’s face, which sat atop the beast, was puckered into its
normal expression of hate and anger, but her mouth wasn’t puckered;
it was mouthing something silently, just like the Snoopies.

I stared all three beast’s mouths for a
moment and was finally able to pick out what they were mouthing;
“POISON”. All three of the monster’s mouths were in perfect sync,
silently chanting the word ‘poison’ over, and over.

They all stepped towards me in perfect unison
and broke their silence. “POISON,” they shouted, “POISON, POISON,
POISON, POISON.”

I began trying to push myself through the
wall again, but was still having no luck with that endeavor. After
about thirty seconds of them shouting at me audibly, they suddenly
stopped.

I quit scrabbling against the wall and looked
at the trio in front of me. They all took one more step towards me
and the beast that was half my mother spoke to me in a sweet
voice.