Ghost Shadows

by Thomas M. Malafarina

  In the distance he saw his car, the front door still standing open and the interior light illuminated. The car couldn’t have been more than thirty feet away but in his exhausted condition, the slow trudge back felt as if Chad had been walking for miles. The day’s events were definitely taking their toll and Chad could feel himself mentally and physically crashing rapidly.

  When he reached his car, he literally fell behind the wheel and it took all of his strength to fasten his seatbelt and pull the driver’s door closed. Once inside the close confines of the car Chad was immediately aware of just how rank he smelled. He started the engine and put down all of the windows. He felt as if he might start vomiting all over again. Chad hoped once he got moving and the wind began whipping through the windows it might blow the worst of the smell away.

  “Woo baby I really stink!” Chad said aloud with an unexpected chuckle as the stress finally began to leave him, quickly and surprisingly replaced by an insane sense of glee. In fact, he was so relieved that he began to feel almost giddy. “I guess it’s a good thing I’m not near Punxsutawney or else old Groundhog Phil might have seen his last shadow today.” Then he began to laugh madly as tears of relief streamed down his soiled face. That was the exact moment when he felt the first lightning bolt of pain as a tiny pair of teeth sunk deeply into the back of his neck.

  Chad tried to reach back and fight off whatever it was that was gnawing on his flesh but could not reach the thing. Then he heard a chorus of whistling which sounded less like a warning cry and more like a war cry. He then felt dozens of other sets of tiny teeth chewing away at him in various places; his face, arms, legs, and his throat. He screamed and thrashed about madly trying desperately to free himself from the bonds of his safety belt while he could feel himself being literally eaten alive. Amid his wilt convulsions of agony blood flew wildly splattering the car’s interior and windshield with gore.

  The last thing Chad ever saw were two tiny angry red eyes staring into his own eyes from the heavy, furry thing that had perched atop his head as it bent over showing him its yellowed teeth, which popped one of his eyeballs like a grape. Groundhogs might traditionally be herbivores by nature but for at least one moment in time these particular grundies had changed their ways in order to partake in a very special feast of vengeance.

  The Shutter

  To say Eddie Johnson loved craft shows would be incorrect; the truth was, at best, Eddie tolerated them. His wife, Maxine, however, adored the events. In an attempt to be a good husband, Eddie made a point of accompanying his wife to every craft show or fair she chose to attend.

  There was one obstacle Eddie had to overcome however, and that was the simple fact that he had absolutely no interest whatsoever in anything having to do with crafts. So he found a way to tolerate them, and his solution was food.

  Early on, Eddie found one similar thing about every craft-type event; they all sold some of the best junk food in the world, and it didn’t matter what time of day either. If they attended a show in the early morning, there were always plenty of vendors selling every type of unhealthy breakfast food imaginable—pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, hash brown potatoes, home fries, you name it—most of which was dripping with butter.

  If they arrived at or after noon, he would find steak sandwiches, sausage sandwiches, ice cream, funnel cakes, soft pretzels, and other such normally frowned upon delicacies. For Eddie, it was like finding an oasis in the middle of hell.

  Maxine would wander from table to table examining the various handmade items while Eddie followed in her wake dripping ice cream, slurping a soda, wiping sauce off of his shirt or powdered sugar out of his beard. As long as Maxine was happy and Eddie was fed, everything else would take care of itself.

  After several years, and many pounds later, they happened to find themselves on one particular Saturday at a new craft show about two hours from their home. It was the first time the community had scheduled the event and judging by the successful turnout of both artisans and customers, it would likely become an annual show.

  There were literally hundreds of craft stands set up with their pop up canopies, folding tables, and makeshift shelving, each holding countless treasures waiting to be purchased. Many of the vendors had handheld satellite credit card machines, allowing them to process cards on the spot. One vendor was having trouble with reception and had to stand on a chair every time he had to make a transaction, but Eddie assumed it must still be better than the old credit card imprint swiping method.

  The particular types of crafts Maxine especially liked were those made from old used wood products that had been cleaned up a bit and painted with some country design; the more rustic and primitive the better. She especially liked those types of items that could be hung on the wall rather than those that took up floor space.

  Their house was adorned with a variety of former cabinet doors, window panes, desktops, wooden ironing boards, and other such common items. These things had found new lives in the hands of the artists who had probably picked up the items for next to nothing, painted various country images and scenes on them, then slapped on a fifty or hundred dollar price tag, to be sold to people such as Maxine and Eddie. Eddie usually didn’t mind the cost and for the most part paid little attention to the items Maxine purchased, as home décor was not his forte.

  “Look, Eddie!” Maxine shouted with the boisterous giggling glee of a schoolgirl. “Isn’t it great?” she cried. “It will look perfect in the first floor hall, just outside your study.”

  Eddie looked at the item in question, doing his best to seem excited while thinking about how great an ice cream sandwich would go down right about now. “Yeah. It looks fine to me,” he replied. The fact was, it did not look fine at all. It actually looked like a worthless piece of junk to Eddie.

  The “work of art” was an old wooden window shutter, consisting of three pieces of wood perhaps six inches wide and five feet long, connected by iron cross pieces. The thing still had its rusted hinges attached, he supposed for authenticity or some such thing. It was grayed and weathered from years of exposure to the elements, and it seemed to have been scorched or burned at one time.

  The craftswoman, who created the piece—for some reason they always called the worst junk “pieces”—explained how she coated the entire shutter with many layers of shellac to seal in its original “essence” and eliminate the charred wood smells.

  Eddie found the woman rather odd and Bohemian in her appearance, but he often found many such vendors to be strange. Next the woman explained how she then painted her artwork on the shellacked surface. To Eddie, it looked like just another boring country-fied scene, consisting of a tall, elongated, brightly-colored rooster with a farm scene behind him including a rustic split rail fence, a barn, some hay, and several little chickens running about.

  Maxine was giddy with excitement. “Eddie, you won’t believe the deal I am getting,” she whispered conspiratorially. “This piece usually sells for one hundred and fifty dollars, but we can have it for half price.” Eddie thought seventy-five dollars was about seventy-three dollars more than he would have paid for it but hid his displeasure and handed over his credit card.

  After the transaction was complete, Maxine suggested, “Honey? Why don’t you take this out to the van so you don’t have to carry it around all day, and I will meet you at that booth over there.”

  All of the stands looked the same to Eddie, but then he saw a landmark he actually could recognize near the approximate area where Maxine was pointing. “You mean the one next to the caramel popcorn stand?”

  “Yes, that’s the one,” she replied. “I will meet you then after you drop off the artwork.”

  “No problemo,” Eddie said and proceeded toward the parking lot, wondering how such nonsense could be considered artwork. By the time he got all the way back to the van, the shutter had started to become quite heavy. He opened the hatch of the van and laid the shutter in the area reserved for their newfound treasures.

&nbs
p; He was busy thinking about munching on a nice bag of caramel popcorn when he causally glanced at the shutter and thought he noticed some strange image forming in the background, between two rungs of a split rail fence. It was a horrible scarred face of a man, whose eyes seemed to be wild with insanity. When he blinked, the image was gone. “What the Hell!” Eddie said and looked again at the shutter, but no matter how he cocked his head, he could not get the image to reappear.

  On his way back to meet Maxine he walked by the stand where they purchased the shutter and saw the woman watching the crowd for another potential customer. He decided to inquire a bit more about the mysterious artwork.

  “Excuse me,” Eddie asked the artist. “That shutter we just bought—”

  “Oh yes,” she replied enthusiastically. “It was one of my favorite works.”

  “Uh, yes.” He said. “That was really . . . something. I was wondering, do you know where that shutter came from? I mean . . . originally?”

  The woman seemed to be thinking for a while then said somewhat reluctantly, “You know, I am not quite certain. You see. My husband buys all of the items I paint from a variety of sources, such as yard sales, auctions, fire sales and such.”

  “It is very important to me that I learn more about the origin of the shutter,” Eddie said, noticing a strange look appear on the woman’s face. He quickly made up a lie saying, “When people come to our home and look at our wall hangings, they all want to know about the artist and how to get in touch with them. They often also ask about the origin of the piece of furniture the artist chose to paint. I suppose it gives them a better feel for the work or something. Is there any possible way your husband might recall where he bought the shutters?”

  The woman now seemed more at ease. “Why don’t I ask him when I get home, and if you are still interested, you can give me a call or email me? I will be happy to let you know what I find out.” She reached down and picked up one of her business cards, handing it to Eddie, who tucked it into his jacket pocket.

  Then he said to the woman, “Thank you very much. I will get in touch with you in a few days and see what you have found out.” Eddie had never gotten so deeply involved in Maxine’s purchases before; then again, none of her prior purchases had managed to scare the daylights out of him either.

  Once they arrived back home, Maxine began carrying each piece from room to room deciding where it would look best. After several hours of work, placing hangers on the walls with Maxine supervising to assure the locations were correct, all of the newly purchased items were in place, and Eddie was ready for dinner.

  After dinner Eddie retired to his study to work on paying some bills. Looking up from his desk he saw the shutter hanging outside in the hall. He had a direct view of the strange thing from his desk. He tried ignoring it, but the more he tried the more he seemed to want to stare at it. Frustrated, he got up, went over and closed the door to his study blocking the view.

  When he was just about finished, he thought he heard what sounded like someone laughing. It was not a happy laugh but one sounding maniacal, like the laughter of a crazy man. He got up from his desk and quickly opened the door to his study to see if he could pinpoint the source of the laughter. But as soon as the door was opened, the laughter stopped. Eddie shook his head, deciding it was time to pack it in for the day, as he was obviously exhausted.

  He went to the family room and joined Maxine for some evening television before going to bed. He no sooner sat down in his recliner than he was fast asleep. Next thing he knew, Maxine shook him out of a sound sleep appearing frightened. It took him a moment or two to get reoriented with his surroundings and asked, “What’s wrong Maxine?”

  “Eddie. Do you smell that?” she asked.

  Eddie took a moment to sniff the air then replied, “Yes, I think I smell smoke.” He jumped from his chair as Maxine followed him down the hall toward his office, which seemed to be the source of the smell. Inside, he found the contents of his trashcan ablaze. Without thinking, he opened the French doors leading out to their patio from the office, and grabbed the trashcan, throwing it out the door and landing it square in the middle of their swimming pool.

  “What happened, Eddie?” she asked. “What were you doing in here that could have caused the fire? You weren’t smoking again were you?”

  Eddie had quit smoking about ten years earlier and had, on occasion, had relapsed during that time. “Absolutely not!” Eddie insisted. “I don’t have any cigarettes anywhere in the house, and I don’t keep lighters or matches in the office either.”

  “Well, something must have started it!” Maxine said with an accusatory tone. “It certainly didn't start by itself. Just make sure everything else is secure around here, and then come to bed. I’ve had enough excitement for today.” With that, she left of the office, pulling the study door closed behind her.

  Eddie stood scratching his head. He was certain there was nothing he could have possibly done that would have caused a fire to ignite, but obviously something had caused it. He closed the French doors to the patio, watching the smoldering trashcan glowing in the night as it slowly sunk down into the pool. “Just great!” Eddie thought. “One more job for me to do tomorrow . . . clean the stupid swimming pool.”

  Then Eddie heard it again, the strange maniacal laughter coming from somewhere out in the hall. He threw the door to his study open, but the laughter immediately stopped. He looked across the hall at the shutter, certain he would once again see the hideous image emerge from the background, but it did not. Then, shaking his head to clear his mind, Eddie closed the door to his office and went to bed.

  Over the course of the next several days Eddie and Maxine continued to find strange mini-fires throughout the house. The day after the trashcan fire, Eddie had gone around the house changing the batteries in each of the smoke detectors since they had obviously failed to warn them about the office fire. Now with fresh batteries, as soon as any smoke was detected the alarms sounded.

  One day they had found a scented decorative candle knocked over on its side, which had set fire to a lace doily. That fire was blamed on the cat, Mr. Kitty, who they assumed must have overturned the candle. Another time they smelled gas and found one of the burners on their kitchen gas stove had been left turned on. That instance they blamed on a “senior moment,” being cautious not to point the finger of blame at each other. There were other such near misses throughout the week, and there were also several times when both Eddie and Maxine thought they heard strange laughter throughout the house.

  On Thursday Eddie noticed Mr. Kitty sitting in the hall outside of the study staring at the shutter hanging on the wall. The cat was growling low and deep in the back of his throat, something he rarely did. Shortly thereafter, the cat was nowhere to be found. Eddie had suspected he may have gotten outside and was roaming the neighborhood. That was, until Saturday morning when he found the cat’s charred and burned carcass lying in the bushes next to his office patio door. He disposed of the cat but never said anything to Maxine, assuming it was better if she thought the cat had run away than to know of its horrible demise.

  Eddie realized there was something about the shutter, that one particular work. All of the problems they were experiencing started happening after bringing the shutter into the house. Eddie went to the hall closet and reached into his jacket pocket, retrieving one of the business cards from the woman at the craft show.

  He walked outside and using his cell phone dialed the number. The woman answered on the second ring. He introduced himself and asked what she had found out about the shutter they had bought.

  “Yes. Well . . .” she said hesitantly, “George, my husband, luckily remembered exactly where he bought the shutter. In fact, he bought about thirty exactly like it at the same time. He was traveling through Virginia and saw a sign for a fire sale. It was a place called the Shady Rest just outside of Fredericksburg. I think it was some sort of convalescent center or something like that that had burned down during a t
ragic fire. I hope the information is helpful. And I hope everything is OK, and you are happy with the work.”

  “Ah, yes . . .” Eddie said absently. “Everything is fine. As I said, I was simply curious. Thank you very much.”

  Eddie hung up the phone and then walked to his office, being careful as he walked past the shutter to act as nonchalant as possible. He felt a bit foolish behaving this way, but there were just so many strange and dangerous events taking place during the past week, he could not take any chances.

  When he got to his office, he closed the door and immediately logged into his computer, doing an internet search using the words “Shady Rest” in quotes, followed by “Fredericksburg, Virginia,” and finally the word “fire.” Within two seconds he found exactly what he was looking for. He clicked the link and read a newspaper account of the fire.

  He learned that the Shady Rest was not exactly a rehabilitation or convalescent center but was actually a sort of insane asylum. It only permitted non-violent offenders to reside there for community safety reasons, but something had gone very wrong. One of their guests, as they referred to them, rather than inmates, had an undocumented violent past. The man’s name was Mason Tennyson.

  Mason was apparently sent to Shady Rest under court order to be analyzed to determine where best to send him for his actual treatment. Mason was a pyromaniac who had been arrested for setting numerous fires around town, which resulted in thousands of dollars worth of damage.

  The authorities were not aware of anyone being hurt in any of the fires, but of course they didn’t know about all of his other fire-related activities. For example, they did not know about the hundreds of stray cats and dogs he had burned to death or the several homeless people he had kidnapped, taken into the woods, tied to trees, and set ablaze.