Her Silent Shadow: A Gripping Psychological Suspense Collection

by Edwin Dasso

  “Why don’t we save it for the meeting, Betty,” Ben said. “Who would like to start off with the Serenity Prayer? John, how about you? You haven’t said it yet.”

  “You know I’m terrified of speaking in public!”

  Ben stood up and handed John a pamphlet. “All you have to do is read it, John. Just pretend nobody is watching and nobody is listening. You will do just fine.”

  John stared at the pamphlet in his hands. “You really think I can do this?”

  “I think you can,” Max said.

  “OK, here goes. G -God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I c-c-cannot change, c-c-courage to ch-ch-change the things I c-can,

  and wisdom to know the difference.”

  The whole group clapped, and John stood up and took a bow.

  “Thanks, you guys are the greatest. Wow, that felt great.”

  “Thank you, John,” Ben said. “You are making great improvements. Obviously, we have a new member. Why don’t we all go around and introduce ourselves to Max and tell him why you’re here. We’ll go counterclockwise today. Let’s start with you, Frank.” Ben extended his right arm and placed the talking stick in Frank’s gloved left hand.

  “Ok, I’m Frank. I’ve been coming here for about six months. My wife died from an infection of flesh-eating bacteria. We went to Miami Beach for a January getaway from this damn Ohio ice and snow. We got a direct flight out of Akron-Canton Airport. It was a hell of a lot of money, but we figured we should splurge on ourselves. We got to our room, unpacked, and went straight to the beach. Something about the way the currents were running caused a lot of fish to die offshore, and the bacteria fed on their carcasses until there were trillions of them in the water and the currents brought them to the beach. Supposedly, if your skin was intact, you didn’t have much to worry about, but my wife had type II diabetes and had open sores on her feet. The bacteria got in there and just started feeding like a microscopic pack of hyenas driven mad by their hunger for human flesh. When she died, she was about 50 percent bacteria by body weight. Nobody wanted to embalm her, so they just sort of poured her into a vat, closed the lid tight, and put the whole mess in the crematorium. It was the safest thing to do. That’s why I wear all this protective gear. If it’s too small to see with the naked eye, I’m terrified of it. That’s all.”

  The group collectively, “Thanks for sharing, Frank.”

  John covered his mouth to stifle a giggle.

  “I saw that, John!” Frank roared through his mask.

  “Just trying not to cough, Frank.”

  “No crosstalk,” Ben said as he nodded to the next person.

  “Thanks, Ben,” Frank said. “He’s always making fun of me.” He handed the talking stick to the person to his right.

  “Hi, I’m Connie. I guess you all know what I am afraid of. Ben sort of let that cat out of the bag. A dead cat, but I can’t stay mad at him.” She covered her face with her hand to regain her composure. “I guess I have always been afraid of death. Even before I could speak, I can remember my face going into my pillow and pinching off my mouth and nose and I couldn’t breathe. It felt like something was pushing me into that pillow. I was too young to fight it and I would pass out. A little while later, I would wake up and the whole process would start over again. After I was able to talk, I remember it happened again. I screamed something and my father came running into the room. I remember he screamed at my mother as he threw her from beside my crib. He didn’t mean to hurt her, but her head struck one of the huge quartz crystals she had put in the room for my protection from evil spirits. The sharp point pierced her forehead and blood poured onto the floor like water from a spigot. My older sister, Meg, told me the ambulance came, but by then she was already in heaven. Apparently, the police believed that my mom had slipped and fallen and struck the crystal by accident. My father died shortly after in a car accident and Meg and I went to live with Aunt Helen. She was nice and fed us lots of sweets. I loved her, but she died shortly after too when a pressure cooker full of chuck roast, onions, carrots, and potatoes exploded. They said the potatoes had plugged the safety valve. I can’t emphasize it enough – clean the safety valve!”

  The group collectively, “Thanks for sharing, Connie”.

  Betty bent to her left and whispered into John’s right ear, “Or Connie could just cook her potatoes in the microwave like everybody else does.”

  John put his hand to his mouth and stifled a laugh. “Sorry, got a scratchy throat.” He coughed again into his right hand.

  “Great!” Frank said. “Now there will be germs all over the talking stick!”

  “I’ll just pass it with my left hand, OK Frank? Besides you won’t get it again anyhow. One day, I would love to see your face!”

  “Care to share what you told John, Betty,” Ben said with irritation in his voice.

  “I know John has trouble speaking. I was just wishing him well. He is next.”

  “I know I heard her say potatoes,” Connie replied. “I think John was laughing.”

  “Please calm down,” Ben pleaded. “Connie, hand John the stick and the rest of you be quiet.”

  John grabbed the stick with his left hand. “O-OK. The rest of you know me. Max, I got a bunch of phobias. Bunch of fancy names. I got agoraphobia, I got acrophobia, and I got glossophobia real bad. That’s the one Betty was wishing me well with. I-I-I got trouble speaking.” John’s left hand was shaking so badly that the talking stick threatened to fly out of it. He reached over with his right hand to steady it.

  “Stop him! Stop that mad man” Frank yelled across the group. “He’s going to defile the talking stick!”

  “Shut up, Frank!” John replied as he dropped his right arm to his side.

  “Your arm stopped shaking when you said that, John,” Betty offered. “You just need to say what you mean and mean what you say. And from me, Frank, shut the hell up! None of the rest of us give a damn about germs. You didn’t either until your wife got eaten up at the beach like a bloated whale!”

  “How dare you call my dead wife a whale! She was in the hospital hooked up to the best medical equipment in Miami when she was eaten up!”

  Ben stood up like an angry teacher in a middle school class. “What in the name of Phobias Anonymous is going on? You are acting like anything but adults. This is supposed to be a safe place. We have a guest today. You were supposed to introduce yourselves, not scare him off!”

  Max cleared his throat. “I know I don’t have the talking stick, but I just wanted to say that I have been impressed by how open the members are about their fears. And they are not afraid to show their anger. I am refreshed by it, and frankly, I don’t mind more.”

  “Thanks, Max,” Ben replied. “I just want you to know it is not always like this. One of our members died last week in a tragic fall, and I think people are still upset about it. That is why I had left the extra chair for Sharon, in case people wanted to pay their respects in group.”

  “And I’m sitting in her seat?”

  “Fraid so,” Connie said. “It’s like Wild Bill Hickock’s dead man’s chair.”

  “It was a dead man’s hand he was holding,” Frank said. “Two pair – black aces and black eights. Those cards were in his hand when he was shot in the back in Nuttal and Mann’s saloon in Deadwood.”

  “Well he was playing cards, so he must have been sitting down,” Connie retorted angrily. “So, a dead man’s chair was involved as well.”

  “Probably a dead man’s drink as well,” Betty said with a grin.

  This time John didn’t cough but laughed out loud. “I guess that’s about all I have to say about myself.”

  “But you didn’t tell us anything,” Frank replied.

  “Well, you’re just gonna have to come back next week for chapter two,” John said as he reached his left arm toward Betty and handed her the talking stick. He looked back at Frank and shot him an evil eye.”

  “Well, you know about me and numbers,” Betty said. �
�It started in grade school. I always thought the numbers should add up one way, but Mrs. Greenham was always correcting me. I finally got so I could add and subtract them right like, but then it seemed the numbers were always angry at me. Pulling tricks on me. On a test, I would think the problem was what is 7 plus 6 and I would write down 13, but when I got my test back, the problem was really 9 plus 5. It got ten times worse when we moved to multiplication and division, and once I hit algebra, I was their prisoner. I didn’t trust my eyes anymore. Then when I was older, I started watching scary movies and they talked about the numbers 13, and snake eyes, and the mark of the beast. I tried cashiering, but I couldn’t make change and I almost killed my grandmother once by giving her ten times the normal dosage of acetaminophen. That’s why I work at the factory, but numbers still terrify me. That’s all I have to say today.”

  “Thanks for sharing, Betty.” The group responded. She started to hand the talking stick to Max.

  “Max, you don’t have to share, if you feel uncomfortable,” Ben said. It took some of the members weeks before they could discuss their issue. I – we want you to feel safe here.”

  Max reached over and took the talking stick from Betty. “This isn’t my first meeting with Phobias Anonymous, just my first meeting in Canton. I travel around a lot and I always like to try new meetings and interact with new people.”

  Ben just sat and watched Detective Max Fetterman holding the talking stick. What the hell was he going to talk about. Max said he had studied acting. Just make it convincing, Ben thought.

  “So, what to talk about?” Max began. “It started for me when I was four years old. It was Thanksgiving Day and my parents and I lived downstairs in an older two-story house while my grandparents lived upstairs. It wasn’t technically a duplex as they got to their apartment by coming in our front door and climbing the staircase. But there was a second kitchen upstairs and both were in operation that Thanksgiving Day.

  My mother opened a couple of cans of cranberry sauce that had been chilling in the refrigerator. She emptied the contents into a pink glass bowl and stirred in some roasted salted pecan halves from Heggy’s Nut Shop.

  ‘Max, will you carry this upstairs?’ my mother asked. ‘We are having Thanksgiving dinner at your grandparents’ place.’

  I grabbed the bowl with both hands and headed toward the stairway. With two hands on the bowl, I obviously had no way of holding onto the bannister. I made it about four steps and my tennis shoe caught on the nose of an oak stair tread. The glass bowl flew from my hand.

  Crack! Whoosh. The bowl broke into jagged pieces and the cranberry sauce ran down the steps. My momentum carried me forward and my right hand plunged down into the redness. I was so terrified they were going to yell at me for breaking the bowl. I heard my mother’s footsteps coming from the kitchen and prepared for the worst.

  ‘Dear God!’ my mother yelled as she saw the blood squirting from my hand and mingling with the cranberry sauce. ‘John,’ she yelled to my father, ‘Max cut his hand open. We need to get him to the emergency room!’”

  “Ah,” Connie gasped. “You could have died!”

  “Please Connie,” Ben said. “Let Max finish.”

  “So, I got sewn up at the emergency room, but after that, I was terrified of blood. Like when I got a nosebleed. But the really bad stuff happened when a serial killer showed up. He got one of my friends – cut his head clean off. Billy and I wanted to go fishing and I left him at the fishing hole while I took my hatchet to cut down some bamboo for fishing rods. The green stuff is not as good as when it is dried, but it’ll do. Anyhow, I brought back the bamboo and the hatchet and went looking for some worms. The police said someone had cut his head off with my hatchet. Apparently, the person wasn’t very strong as it took many blows to sever the head. I was covered in blood when I got home.”

  “Oh my God, you poor boy!” Connie wailed. “Please don’t tell me there is more!”

  “Well, another one of my friends did get murdered, but that was much later. He was working under a car and the jack collapsed onto his chest. It looked like they had painted the garage floor red. They weren’t sure if that one was an accident, but the police never caught anybody. For some crazy reason, I was a suspect for a while, but there wasn’t any real evidence, so we got that cleared up. Anyhow, that’s why I’m so afraid of blood. That’s all I have.” Max passed the stick to Ben.

  “Thanks for sharing,” the group said.

  “Well,” Ben offered, “we have certainly had a long meeting today. I don’t know that Max wants to listen to me talk about my fears.”

  “Actually, if you don’t mind sharing, I would love to learn a bit more about the group leader.”

  “Ok, well, if I were talking last week, I would have said I was afraid of the supernatural. The rest of the group knows about a terrible experience I had with a birthday present I bought for my wife. I got her an antique ceramic mask, but when she opened the box, she thought it was the most evil thing she had ever seen. She wouldn’t even touch it! I tried to get rid of it, but I swear the damn thing just burned the building down where I threw it away. I threw it in Meyers Lake after that, and three days later, my wife was murdered horribly in the bathroom. I brought on all that tragedy.”

  “You couldn’t have known,” Connie said. “You don’t need to feel guilty.”

  “But I do, every day for the last five years.”

  “You said that is what you would have said last week,” Frank offered. “Something must have happened since then. Have anything to do with Sharon dying?”

  “No, something you don’t even know about, and I need for everyone to keep it completely quiet, OK? Remember what we say…”

  Group together, “What happens in group, stays in group.”

  “Ok,” Ben continued, “last week after group, I took the left-over pastries to the homeless shelter like I always do. I ate one here, anybody else have one last week?”

  Everybody except Max raised their hands. “They were so good, Ben,” John said. “I had about three.”

  “And everybody felt fine?” Ben looked around and everybody nodded. “Well, the guys at the homeless shelter got sick as dogs and they said it was the pastry. You all know I run a restaurant – a damn good one. But now I am paranoid that something will happen to the food there. That’s all I need. That would put me out of business!”

  “Geez, Ben,” Frank said. “That’s awful. Do they suspect foul play?”

  “I heard the police might be investigating. It’s like, I keep expecting a couple of cops to show up at the restaurant. Do you know how that would look?”

  “So, what’s this new thing called? Does it have a fancy name?” Connie asked.

  “It’s iophobia. I had to look it up. Frankly, I didn’t even think there was such a thing. But I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t sleep, I’m running traffic lights because I am spacing out. That’s all, just please don’t say anything to anybody, OK?”

  Group together,” Thanks for sharing.”

  Ben put the stick down and said, “Any other business we need to discuss?” He looked around for a few seconds, then said, “Well, let’s close with a prayer. It can be the serenity prayer or something else. You can use the word God if you like, or you can use your higher power. Connie, would you like to say the closing prayer?”

  “Thank you, Ben. I must say this has been a great meeting and it was so wonderful having Max join us. I hope you come back. Ok, here goes, Dear God, thank you for bringing us together today and protect us on our journeys home. Please help us manage our fears and always remind us that you are more powerful than any fear in the world. I know Sharon is there with you. Please let her know we are thinking of her. Amen.”

  Group together, “Amen.”

  “Anyone feel like helping with the chairs, I would appreciate it. And please, take all the donuts home with you. Apparently, the homeless shelter never wants to see me again. And Max, may I have a few moments of your time? I h
ave a few pieces of literature I would like to give you about the program. You are planning to keep coming, at least while you are in the area?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” Max replied. “I can’t believe how much I learned today.”

  “Ok, meet me in the kitchen. I have to put the coffee pot away and clean up a bit.”

  Max strode into the kitchen like an actor taking the stage. “I think I fit in pretty well, Ben. Nice group you got there. I wouldn’t pick one of them as a killer.”

  “What was that crazy stuff you were talking about?” Ben asked. “I know you said you were an actor, but that was over the top. How did you make that stuff up?”

  “Who said I made it up? Some of it is true, but I don’t want to tell you which parts. Let’s just say that my past is what convinced me to go into law enforcement.”

  “Your friends really were killed?”

  “Like I say, we all have a past. Is that what you wanted to see me about?”

  “Well, partially, but mostly I wanted to talk to you about the homeless shelter. You told me you went down there and talked with Norman after the poisoning and you got my name from him.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I talked with Norman and he said there were no ambulances and he didn’t talk with anybody from the police.”

  “He was really sick. He probably forgot.”

  “Norman has a criminal record, detective, and he would definitely remember talking with the police. And he sure as hell would remember ambulances. You want to level with me?”

  “Ok, I lied. I wasn’t there. Frankly, Ben, I wasn’t sure at first whether you were the killer I was looking for or not. I wanted to let you squirm a bit without coming out and accusing you of something. A black and white picked up one of the homeless men who was puking on a lawn over on Raff Road and he told them about the pastries coming from Angelo’s restaurant. If you thought there were ambulances involved, well, I wanted to see what you would do.”