The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  As far as anyone could tell, she’d gone off and started a new life. With Lansin Island in the Celtic Sea, fifteen miles off the Cornish coast, it would have been easy for her to get a ferry across from Amiton to Bude. If she had done that, then who knew where she would have gone from there?

  Nick sure as hell didn’t.

  All he knew was she had left with the worst possible timing. It was hard enough being a teenager as it was, but with his dad’s birthday only a couple of weeks after she disappeared, it was just too cruel.

  ‘Maybe it’s worth the risk … I’ll have to think some more.’

  Once the session was over, he headed home feeling lighter and clearheaded.

  He spent the evening watching the film Big Fish, which one of his brothers had lent him. The emotional ending moved him and he was glad to have seen it … until he realised he was a twenty-four-year-old guy snuggled up to himself, all sentimental, watching the credits roll by. So on that thought, he called it a night.

  The next morning, he quickly checked his appearance in the mirror before leaving for work. He was lucky enough to have naturally rough and stylish hair, so apart from washing it and getting it cut when necessary, little attention was needed. People had told him he was good-looking before, but he never gave weight to their words. Although he wasn’t particularly self-conscious, either. Most clothes suited him, weight wasn’t an issue, and acne had never come knocking.

  Mostly satisfied with his reflection, he left for work.

  The weather was pleasant for late October, refreshingly cool and damp. Cold and drizzly was the default on Lansin Island, but today was looking up.

  Nick parked his car outside of town and began walking towards Creaky Crystals. He wore a thin jacket over an olive-green tee-shirt. Below he had on dark jeans and his usual choice of footwear—black winklepickers.

  In the lower grounds, a red-headed girl spun circles near the fountain and fell into his path. Nick stopped, his stomach tightening. His sudden halt caused the girl to bump into him.

  He had to rationalise for a second. The girl ran over to her mother, who was setting up a stall. I’ve probably seen them here loads of times. It’s just a coincidence.

  Scanning the stores around him, he searched for one in particular. And found it. He caught the eyes of a lady rearranging her shop display. She gave a friendly nod, which Nick awkwardly reciprocated. He turned dizzy but forced himself to focus.

  Another detail came to mind. He looked to the front of Creaky Crystals.

  The seagull was there, staring at him.

  His instincts took control. He ran for the steps that led to the upper grounds and ascended them, regretting his choice of footwear. His legs ached as he reached the top. The car screeched and tried to swerve around a business stall. It failed.

  The impact flipped the car. It rolled at high speed towards the woman. The noises were deafening, but there was no time for Nick to stop and cover his ears. He grabbed the lady and spun her away from the vehicle with such force that they almost toppled over the ledge together.

  The car slammed into the low wall, inches away from them, and came to a stop. Fortunately it didn’t go over the edge. There was a man inside the upturned car. He looked unconscious, blood dripping from his head.

  The cries of police sirens drew closer.

  Nick realised how hard his grip on the woman was, and with that realisation came another. She was alive. I saved her.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, and let go of the woman. He looked at her oval face, trying to catch her eyes. They were cerulean blue. She didn’t look back at him, though. Her hair was blonde and rested on her shoulders, slightly dishevelled from the incident. She was almost as tall as him, with a slim figure … a great figure.

  ‘No, it’s fine.’ The woman let out a loud breath, seemingly startled. ‘I’ve got to go.’ She turned without another word and headed away from the scene.

  What if the police want a statement from her?

  Nick didn’t know what to do as the woman hurried out of sight. He pulled himself together and called for an ambulance. Moments later a police car pulled up, so he moved away from the crumpled vehicle against the ledge.

  Even with all the commotion, only three things were on Nick’s mind. One: The woman he’d saved was gorgeous. Two: He’d had a real premonition and saved someone’s life. And three: She didn’t even say thank you to him for saving her!

  Chapter Two

  THE CAR FLIPPED and rolled, heading straight for her. She knew in that moment there was no way out of it. Air thumped out of her chest. Pain engulfed her, almost numbing her. The impact flung her over the edge. She heard the speed of her descent, the swish on the way down. Her mind writhed in pure terror as she met the street below.

  But that didn’t happen, did it? She opened her eyes, and a dark-haired guy gripped her tightly.

  Huh? She felt herself go over the side and fall … to her death. I died … It didn’t make sense. Why was she here, alive?

  ‘Sorry,’ the man gripping her said.

  Maybe I’m disorientated or in shock? It must be that. She felt different. Altered on a deep level, as if all the cells in her body had changed, like she was zinging with a new kind of energy. She was there, but also wasn’t.

  The wrecked car lay nearby. She blankly stared at it, then glanced over the edge at the sheer drop. Her face buckled under a cringe. There was too much to take in; she wanted to get away from the confusion.

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ she said, releasing a breath she’d held prisoner. ‘I’ve got to go.’ She hurried away from the scene and the man who’d held her.

  Once out of sight, she stopped in an alley to catch her breath. Examining herself, she checked for marks and cuts, but found nothing. The man had grabbed her so hard that her arms were sore; they were surely going to bruise. She reached one hand up to her head and touched her skull. I felt myself hit the ground.

  Did the dark-haired stranger save her? She couldn’t remember. All she recalled was slamming into the grim cobbles, but then she was in his arms. It was difficult to even bring his face to mind. After shaking her head, she started walking again.

  Heading towards the bus station, she took out her mobile with an unsteady hand. Her whole body shook but she managed to search through the contacts. She found ‘Kim’ and pressed the call button.

  ‘Hey, Juliet. I’ll be in town soon. I can’t wait to see you!’ a voice on the other end squeaked.

  ‘I’m heading back to Chanton. I’m not feeling well.’

  ‘What? What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘I feel dizzy. I have a headache … I’m just not in the mood to shop anymore.’ Juliet detested lying, but she didn’t want to mention the near miss she’d just had. It all seemed blurry now anyway. And if she told her best friend that she was almost hit by a car, the conversation would go on for way too long.

  ‘I never get to see you. As if you’re just going to blow me off like this!’ Kim sounded understandably annoyed.

  ‘I’m sorry, Kim, but I’m going home. We’ll go shopping soon.’

  ‘Alright, but you owe me.’ Kim mixed up a laugh and a sigh. ‘You’re lucky, because I was running late anyway. I haven’t even left my house.’ She laughed some more. ‘Call me when you’re feeling better, then. Love you lots, bye.’

  ‘See you, love you.’ Juliet hung up. By now she was waiting for the bus back to Chanton to arrive.

  She tried to collect her thoughts. Her hands were shaking and she’d scrunched up her shoulders high and tense. Closing her eyes for a moment, she let the worry dissolve out of her body. I’m okay. The car didn’t hit me.

  She gazed about the bus station; the place had never impressed her. It looked cheap and contemporary, completely clashing with the rest of Amiton town centre, a predominantly Victorian-style town with hints of modern concrete buildings. The lower grounds were overrun by supermarkets and general stores for locals, offering nothing much for tourists, but the upper grounds were compl
etely different, with a variety of tourist shops, restaurants, typical high-street brands, and a bustling marketplace.

  Although Juliet thought the high-street stores reduced the character of Amiton, she could ignore that, because she needed somewhere to shop on the island. She loved travelling to London and Birmingham but found it a nuisance to do often. And anyway, Amiton had a few designer shops blended into the architecture, and although their range of stock wasn’t extensive, it could have been worse.

  The bus back was quieter than on the way, passing through the outskirts of the town, towards the north of the island.

  The houses on the outskirts were mostly modern builds, and only a few tiny thatched cottages, which could be found dotted across the island as primitive farmhouses. After leaving Amiton, the bus route took narrow roads through open fields and over modest hills.

  Juliet had begun to relax. Breathing steadily, she sank her posture and soaked up the autumn, looking at groups of auburn-leaved trees.

  A flicker appeared at the corner of her right eye. But nothing was there when she turned to look out the window.

  In her body, there was a feeling of disconnection she couldn’t understand. It was like she wasn’t entirely herself, but was a part of everything around her—a part of the bus, the trees, the fields, and even a part of each person who sat nearby. Was it a sense of disconnection? Or did she feel more connected all of a sudden?

  These sensations were new to her, and trying to decipher them proved frustratingly futile. She looked across to a small farmhouse the bus was passing and saw a figure in a window. A dark blur that materialised and swiftly dematerialised.

  And then she wasn’t sure if she’d even seen it at all.

  She closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to dispel the strange happenings. What she was seeing simply couldn’t be.

  It’s just stress, like from witnessing trauma, she rationalised. When the bus pulled into Chanton, Juliet walked off on shaky legs, unbalanced both mentally and physically in her state of worry. Within minutes, she was home and in bed. Sleep engulfed her instantly.

  A few hours later, she awoke. The morning was gone, wasted, so she began to pace back and forth. She dug into her mind. Hmmm, something to do, something to do …

  Her body distracted her. Something was not right. She felt like an empty bottle. Staring down, she thought her hands looked like paws, impersonal and unoccupied. This body wasn’t hers. It couldn’t be.

  With a deep breath through her nose, she observed her senses. The sense of smell was as keen as always, but it also seemed distant, not hers to own. For sight, it was like watching from afar.

  She decided to go jogging. The mix of fresh air and exercise would bring back her kinship with her physical body. As she ran and her feet connected with the ground, there was no ache and thud of exercise that she normally experienced after running a while. Instead, she felt unaffected, uninvolved.

  The air that used to caress her skin seemed to almost pass through her now, its press was so gentle. It was wrong in an unknown way. What is happening to me?

  With her return home, she decided to ignore the sensations. Her senses would return to normal of their own accord.

  She walked to the downstairs living room in search of her laptop. On the mantelshelf above the fireplace were some pictures. Two were of her mother and father together, two were shots of them separately, and in the centre was a photo of her grandmother.

  Her gran had died when Juliet was thirteen, and Juliet’s parents now lived in Marbella, Spain. Picking up the picture, she held it lovingly and imagined how her gran would have reacted to hearing about the near miss this morning. Her gran would have held her so tight and kissed her cheeks repeatedly. Juliet could almost feel her embrace.

  Juliet’s parents were all she had now. Her grandparents on her father’s side had died before she was born, and so had her grandfather on her mother’s side. She had no aunts or uncles on her mother’s branch, but on her father’s she had three uncles and one aunt. They were all distant; she never saw them. If she had cousins, she didn’t know who they were. For some reason her father wasn’t interested in them and refused to talk about it all.

  Besides her parents, the only person she had ever considered family was her gran on her mother’s side. The lady in the frame.

  She had a beautiful and genuine smile. Perfectly photogenic, and even through the picture, Juliet could see her gran the way she remembered her: a sweet, gentle, and selfless women. Closing her eyes, Juliet wished hard that her gran was alive and here today.

  After putting the photo back down, she remembered her laptop was in the upstairs living room. She jogged up to it, switched it on, and did some online shopping. Afterwards, she filled out her planner for the upcoming week, making certain to add specifics.

  Then she found herself bored.

  What to do next? She thought of the new starter at her café. Some training needed addressing.

  There was no point in dwelling on the car accident and the strange hallucinations from earlier. How would that help her achieve anything? So, impatiently, she changed her outfit and walked to her café, Chanton Hillview.

  As she stepped inside, a fusion of savoury and sweet scents welcomed her. It was like opening the door of a fridge crammed with fresh food; the smell soaked the air. The sounds rated below the fragrance—the chinking of cutlery, some muffled exchanges, and the gurgling coffee machine.

  Juliet’s senses were sharp as normal, but there was still that remote feeling. She smiled at a few regular customers, then scooted along to avoid pointless chit-chat. Her team of staff weren’t too surprised to see her and went about their work nonchalantly.

  She approached the new starter, Ashleigh, and took her to the office.

  ‘Hi, Juliet. I didn’t know you were in today. I thought you were shopping.’ Ashleigh was sixteen years old, fresh out of school, and wanted to get straight into work and earning money. Her bubbly attitude and sweet smile had secured her the job, as Juliet liked to employ positive, hard-working individuals.

  ‘My plans changed. Anyway, has Roy done your manual handling training yet?’

  The prompt change of subject seemed to unnerve Ashleigh.

  ‘No, he hasn’t.’

  ‘Okay. Well, I’ll go through it with you, and we’ll get some other training completed, too.’

  ‘Okay!’ Ashleigh replied exuberantly, as if the prospect of mandatory training excited her. She even did a little twirl on the spot. Juliet politely laughed.

  Ashleigh had recently moved to Chanton with her parents. They used to live in Cornwall but visited Lansin Island a lot over the years. As soon as Ashleigh had finished secondary school, she and her parents moved to Chanton.

  Juliet covered manual handling, food hygiene, and fire safety with her giddy new employee, before she retired to her office to do some paperwork.

  The feeling of disconnection still permeated her body. She stared at her hands, focusing intently; she saw them as buzzing particles, as if she weren’t so solid after all—as if her hands and arms were made of the same material as the desk she was sitting at.

  A quick shake of the head returned her to the present moment.

  Then, in a brief sweep, the temperature dropped. Juliet was alone. Glimmers of light shone, barely visible, throughout the room. A few streaks danced and hovered before they vanished, twitching the air.

  The desk lamp flickered on, off, on. Tension was a taste in the room, and Juliet could almost hear a string instrument playing a shrill and suspenseful note. Her skin prickled as if a spider had dashed across it.

  Refusing to believe her eyes, she closed them, her heart pounding. Sounds caught her off guard, maybe footsteps, seeming distant yet also close.

  Her eyes opened reluctantly to a woman staring directly at her. At least, Juliet thought it was a woman. The figure wasn’t fully formed. Juliet strained to see eyes and the outline of the figure, like an aura. It was more like feeling there was a woman
in the room than actually seeing her.

  Juliet was stuck to her chair, unable to move or speak. Although she couldn’t fully see it, she knew the figure was approaching. She sensed one of its arms reaching out. It touched her face.

  Horror stiffened her body, but for her life, she forced out a scream.

  The room returned to normal, the lamp stopped flickering, and the temperature rose in an instant. The figure was gone, and Juliet heaved for air, her hands over her burdened heart.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Roy, the stand-in manager, asked, knocked, and entered simultaneously. He was alert and ready for some kind of trouble.

  A breath rushed into Juliet’s lungs. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You’re fine?’ said Roy, his round face incredulous. ‘The whole café heard you scream.’

  ‘I said I’m fine,’ she reasserted. I am fine. It was only my imagination, she tried to convince herself.

  Roy relaxed his stance. ‘What should I tell the team, and our customers? It sounded like a bad scream; Ashleigh dropped somebody’s order when she heard you. She jumped right out of her skin!’ He laughed a deep grumble, but Juliet could see he was still concerned.

  ‘Anything, Roy. Make something up. Say everything’s okay and nobody needs to panic.’

  ‘I will say that Sandra and you walked around a corner at the same time and she gave you a fright. Yes? That will do.’

  ‘Thank you, Roy. I’m going to leave soon.’ She began clearing her paperwork away. ‘I shouldn’t have come in today.’ She pictured the amorphous thing, stretching its arm out to touch her face, and thought, I should have rested some more. I’m obviously in shock.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ said Roy. ‘Why did you come in?’

  ‘Shopping fell through, and you know me … I can’t just sit around.’

  ‘I think you need a hobby; you should not just work every minute of your life,’ he remarked, stepping on delicate ground.

  ‘I like to work. This is my café, and I like being here.’ It felt like a personal attack. ‘Besides, I have hobbies.’ She had her home-study course, an exercise routine, she was learning Spanish, and she volunteered at a charity shop. Do they count as hobbies?