The Shadow

It’s dark. Stormy. Rain drums on the pavement. You’re huddled in a doorway. Arms wrapped around yourself to keep warm. The cheap cider numbs you from the inside while the cold winter air works from the outside. The alley is strewn with bins and litter. There are street lamps but the rain is heavy and makes them inefficient.

She’s walking fast. Or at least as fast as her stiletto heels will let her. Her head is hidden from view by an umbrella held in front of her and she walks bent at the waist against the November wind. Her footsteps provide a sharp tattoo against the constant drumming of the rain. Water is sloughing off the umbrella and hitting her stocking clad legs. Her navy skirt suit is scant protection against the elements. Her hands are bare and seem almost ethereal compared to the rest of her dark form. As she passes from one orange pool of light to the next you watch. Her shadow moves from behind her to the side and then to the front. A constant predictable motion and you know her shadow means no harm.

There’s another shadow in this alley and it follows the woman. You can see it barely ten feet behind her, hugging the walls of the buildings she walks past as if someone was walking there but there’s no person other than the woman to be seen. There’s something wrong with this shadow. It seems more solid than a normal shadow yet you can see the brick work of the wall through it. It’s almost man-shaped but not quite. You try to stare to make out the shape but the more you look the less distinct it becomes.

The woman is coming closer to the doorway you’re sitting in. Soon she’ll be opposite you. She doesn’t seem to know that someone – something – is following her. In the darkness between lamps, the shadow appears darker and more alive, more solid, than anything you’ve seen before. You’re scared. Should you sit where you are and pretend not to see? You find yourself rising shakily on legs too old to run if you needed to. You grasp the plastic cider bottle in your left hand to stop the trembling as you pull the brim of your cap lower on your forehead. Wiping the rain from the whiskers on your cheek you’re gripped with indecision. Should you make your presence known? Something deep inside tells you that would not be a good idea. So you watch the woman and the shadow pass directly opposite. And when they do pass, you turn to watch, a sickening curiosity growing inside. Yow know something’s just not right.

With a momentary panic you realise that less than thirty feet ahead from the woman the streetlight is broken. The shadow appears stronger in the darkness – what will happen when the woman enters the void where the light should be? Gripping the cider bottle harder, you want to move, to make a sound, to stop her from entering the blackness and leaving the sanctuary of light. But you can’t move. The alcohol and cold are working against you as well as the ever increasing fear. There’s a strange electricity in the air now heightening your senses but the woman is oblivious to anything but getting to her destination. You realise you can no longer hear her heels on the pavement, the rain is too loud, the wind’s moaning covering any other sounds.

Four steps, three steps, two, one…....

The woman enters the void and the shadow follows. And then nothing. They should be coming into the pool of light soon but – you’re holding your breath now – there’s nothing. No visible movement. No sound. Maybe the woman is ok and you’ve been panicking for nothing. She’ll walk into the orange pool and carry on her way and you can go back to being the drunken bum you are. But still nothing. You wrap your arms around yourself trying to stop the shivering, whether from cold or fear you’re not sure. You slide down the door you’ve been leaning against and huddle against the elements, never taking your eyes from that black area between streetlights.

You can feel the electricity in the air start to build. The hair on your arms, neck, head – every hair – on your body stands on end. Something is going to happen. You start counting – you’re not sure why, you just feel like you have to do something. You get to 25 when it happens…

With a crash of thunder and a flash of lighting the alley is momentarily transformed and is so bright it hurts your eyes but stubbornly you keep them open and in that second, that one little second when you should have closed your eyes, you see the shadow with the woman in it’s embrace, the discarded umbrella and a lonely stiletto at it’s feet in a dark pool of thick liquid.

Dark night again, pools of orange light. You’re shaking your head from side to side trying to understand what you’ve just seen. There’s a warmth beneath you and you realise you’ve released your bowels yet you’re still chilled to the bone. You stand, getting ready to run like you’ve never ran in your sixty-eight years when an explosion of red comes from the void and with it the dismembered limbs of the woman in the navy suit, thudding against walls, hitting the pavement, scattering across the alley and skidding to a halt in gutters and rubbish. There’s a moaning sound like someone in distress – it’s you – and as you turn to run, you’re hit by something on the arm and looking down, see the pale face of dark haired woman staring up at you, the mouth open in a silent scream.

The world turns black…..